Back in my college days, I occasionally pulled all-nighters. I'm sure students still do that, but I doubt it's the same.
Basically, whenever a research paper was due, it was a sure bet that I'd be up all night just to get it finished. It's not that I hadn't done any work. I had. I just hadn't finished. So there I'd be, sitting at the table with my pen and paper in front of me, going through a whole lot of books I needed as sources. Yes, that's right. Pen and paper. This was back when hand-written papers were still accepted.
I was always careful but sometimes I'd mess up pretty badly and have to start that page over. Sometimes my pen would run out of ink, which is why it was always a good idea to have two or three of the same kind handy. My hand always hurt long before I finished writing.
When I had to study for a major test, things got a bit more complicated. If it was a final, sometimes I'd just go to cafeteria at the student union and study there. Otherwise, I'd stay in my dorm room or apartment. After staying up all night, I'd think, "I know this material. At least, I know it well enough. Maybe I should just go ahead and take a short nap."
Sure enough, I'd either:
1. Get up late and just barely make it to the exam.
2. Be unable to get to sleep because I was worried I wouldn't get up on time.
Fortunately, I didn't pull all-nighters for every paper or test--just the big ones.
Friday, April 1, 2011
All-Nighters
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4 comments:
I remember all-nighters... it was mainly for assignments. It also didn't help that I was one of the only people on campus with a printer and when (not if) the printers went down the night before an assignment was due, I would end up with half the class in the room using it... what fun those days were.
I've always love sleep too much to prioritise anything over it :)
I'd be the opposite, deciding to everything but study the night before. I was almost late for an exam because that morning I decided my dogs needed haircuts that could not possibly wait until the afternoon. We like to sabotage ourselves sometimes, I think it amuses our subconscious.
Wagging Tales - Blog for Writers
I was famous for waiting until the last minute and having to pull an all-nighter. Glad that's over!
I was always more the sort of "sleep late cause I stayed up playing video games, get to class only just on time, or not go at all... bomb the test if I couldn't read the answer off of the kid next to me, and just see how things go" person.
Worked great through High School.
College... not so much.
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