And I thought I was alone…Every time I talk about the college all-nighters with someone outside of my immediate circle of college friends, they look at me like I’m crazy. I had a bad habit of slacking off for the entire quarter (every quarter) and trying to make up for it the night before the mid-term/final. I’m not sure how many I’ve had, but it was probably at least 5-6 per quarter (never did summer quarter) for 4 years (= between 60 and 72-yikes!). The most memorable college all-nighter was during my junior year winter quarter finals. I had dislocated my knee a few weeks earlier, so I was on crutches at the time. I was studying for an International Finance class, and as was my style, I had blown off the classes/reading/non-mandatory problem sets/etc. As was also my style with the hard classes, I would flirt hard the week before the exam until I got the notes from a girl in the class. (It’s amazing how low you’ll drop your standards when your ass is on the line) Anyway, I got the notes and was pouring through them. Two a.m. rolled around and I headed over to the Student Center with a couple friends for the $2 breakfast. Rather than crutch the half-mile in the cold, we drove my friends old beat-up car. The breakfasts are great, because they give you a nice break, fuel you up and let you clear your brain. Anyway, we left the student center and got into the car. The car wouldn’t start. It felt like I was in a joke. It’s freaking 2:30 in the morning. I have a 9 am exam and about 4 more weeks worth of material to go. It’s cold. I’m on crutches and I have no way to get back. After yelling at fate for a few minutes, I decided to suck it up and crutch it to get home. Then my friend proceeds to tell us if he leaves his car there, he’ll get another ticket, which will mean he gets a boot (an extra $200). So, the three of us (really 2 and a half since I only had one leg) had to push his car all the way back home. My stupid school had some artificial hills built on campus to make it scenic. God, I hated those hills. Somehow we managed to do it and needless to say we were all exhausted afterwards. I ended up finishing everything but the last 1 week worth of material, took the final and ended up with an A- in the class. I got home mid afternoon that day, collapsed for a few hours and woke up for the next exam all nighter. I decided to skip the breakfast that night. The best/worst work all nighter story was pretty recent. I was putting together a package to get some equity financing for a company that was in all sorts of loan defaults and on the verge of running out of cash. Needless to say it was urgent and we had a compressed timeframe. I was probably about two and half days away from being done. My boss lined up an investor group, but they required a meeting the next day. So, I was running around all day working like a dog. I was between meetings with the Company’s management and I had to make some copies so I was running to the machine and turned my ankle. I have bad ankles (and knees), so I was used to minor sprains. For some reason, though this hurt a lot more. I just rubbed it for a few seconds and limped over to the machine. Made the copies, went to the meeting and when I got up half an hour later, I could barely walk. My manager saw me limping, and I pulled up my pant leg to look at it. The ankle above my shoe had ballooned up from about 9-10 inches to about 15. I was horrified when I actually looked at it. I took off my shoe and it had the weirdest shades of purple and blue that I have ever seen. It was about 5 p.m. and my manager and the Company left to meet the investor group for dinner. I continued to work to fill up the many remaining holes. In order to get to the meeting by 7 a.m., I knew I’d have to leave the office by 5:45. I looked at my watch and it was 5 a.m. At that point, I gave up on the open items and started gliding around the office in a wheeled chair between the printers and the copy machines At about 6 I had all the info packages ready to go, got into the car and started to drive. That was the most excrutiating pain I had ever felt. Stop and go LA morning traffic with a screwed up ankle. Anyway, I got to the hotel just before 7, ran to the lobby bathroom, pulled out my suit, washed my face, shaved, brushed, etc, etc. and limped into the meeting about 10 minutes late. It was obvious to everyone that I was in extreme pain and was completely exhausted, so they let it slide. We went through the meeting and it was somehow successful. We wrapped up around 3 and I got on a flight back home. The pain of driving with a bad ankle is nothing compared to flying with one (imagine the air pressure issues). By the time we landed, there was no way for me to walk out to the taxi stand with my bags, so I had to get a stewardess to wheelchair me out to that motorized golf cart they use for old people in the aiports. He took me to a cab. Took the cab straight to the ER where they popped me full of pain killers. Don’t remember much after the pills, but somehow I got home. When the swelling finally subsided, I went to the orthopedic to learn I had a partial tear in three of the ligaments around the ankle. See school really does prepare you for the real world! ------------------ **
Well, I just woke up from sleeping . . . it was good! So now I'm sitting here writing this, and reading your replies instead of working on my papers. Isabel -- you're story reminds me so much of my experiences, it's uncanny. Here's my best story: After my first year here, I stayed and took summer school. I took two classes during the first half of summer-- Theology 1 from 7:45 to 9:30 every day and Accounting 1. Accounting was a summer night class -- we met twice a week for four hours each time. Now if you've taken accounting, you'll know how much work it is -- each class had 4 to 8 hours of homework with it, and that was if you worked quickly. The class started out with 10 people, and by the next one we had been cut down to 2. Our professor said at the beginning of the first session that this class was going to be so hard, we'll be lucky to pass. She said she was going to make it even harder than usual, so that we don't let up and think that we can slack off. We lost one person in the first ten minutes. In addition to this, I was part of the "Summer Service Program" where I worked at the Animal Defense League for 20 hours per week. The drive up there and back was horrible. I had a black Mercury Cougar with no air conditioning, during the SUMMER FROM HELL. I'd have to drive almost 30 minutes to get there, and about 50 to get home. To top this off, I was trying to stay with my disfunctional girlfriend, which just made the situation more difficult. This became a recipe for all-nighters every night. By the end, I was sleeping 20 minutes per night, and then taking little 3 to 5 minute naps in random places. I got to the point where sleeping 10 minutes was like sleeping an entire night. The whole thing was bad from the get-go, but one specific weekend was particularly horrid. It was the end of the first semester. We had rearranged the Accounting Schedule and had 3 classes in 3 days, then the final. Needless to say, during that time I didn't sleep hardly a wink. The day after the final, I had a paper due in Theology. It was a 10 to 12 page paper on the book we were supposed to read as our textbook. The professor told us to start the first day of class -- read it 2 or 3 times because it's very intense. Well, I hadn't purchased the book until about a week before this. The sheet describing the assignment had flown out of my car on loop 410. I was in a terrible position. Did I mention this paper was worth 60% of the grade? Well, after the accounting final (on which I got an A!!!), what did I do? I had a GIANT paper, I hadn't slept in days, so what should I do? Start on the paper? Sleep? NO!!! I WENT TO GO PLAY GOLF!!! WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!??? I got back to the room at around 8 pm, and started on the paper. Realize that I don't know what the assignment really is, because I lost the sheet. I'm just guessing based on what he'd said in class. So, I start typing and reading the book at the same time, summarizing what I read. I kept that up at a frantic pace all through the night. I had class at 7:45 and the paper was due by noon. When I went to class, I was only 5 pages into it. At 9:30, I ran to the upstairs library and started typing. I just typed and typed and typed until 12:00. To this day I have NO IDEA what I wrote . . . I was falling asleep the whole time, and trying to come up with something mildly coherent over a book I was skimming for the first time. Well, I finished and went to turn it in. I met a girl from our class up there and we talked about the paper. She started discussing what she'd written about and I just think to myself "I didn't write about any of this!!" I turned in the paper and slept for a whole day. Comatose. I ended up getting an A in accounting and an A- in theology -- that A- blew my 4.0! Alrighty then, back to work. ------------------ "Up and down, inside out, outside in, some you lose some you win" -- DMB -> "Sweet Up and Down"
I think engineering has the most, but I might be wrong about that. I know we also have a strong architect school and music school. I am English/Anth major. I know there is a business school, the Jones School of Management or something, but I think it is mostly graduate stuff. [This message has been edited by Ali Cat (edited April 24, 2001).]
I'm a junior at MIT and the saying here goes, "social life, academics, sleep: pick two." Usually sleep suffers. Any way, freshman year, I never once had to pull an allnighter until after finals were over. After my last final, I had to pack up my entire room before leaving the next morning. As many of you know, you really can pile up a bunch of crap over a year at school. I remember watching the sun rise with my roommate. My first all-nighter had nothing to do with classes. Since then, I have managed quite a few more. The most memorable would have to be last term when I was in a class software engineering lab. For the last six weeks of the class you work in groups of four and design a piece of software from scratch. Anyway, from Thanksgiving to finals time, I spent more than half my time in the computer lab (including sleep time). I would regularly come home around 10am, sleep until 1 and then head back to the lab. As a group, we weren't very good at weeding out ideas, so any features we thought of went into the program. The last 80 hours before the project was due I got 3 hours of sleep. It took me an entire month to get my sleep pattern back to normal. Was it worth it? Probably not, but we had the most feature packed, user extendable software package. ------------------
All-nighters were a very common occurrence for me in school. Being a theater major, I can't count the number pulled painting and building sets for shows. I also put myself through my last two years of school working as a night auditor at the University Hotel. It was the graveyard shift (11pm-7am). Myself and another friend would alternate weeks; one week I would work 3 nights and he would take the other four and the next week we would alternate with me taking the four nights. Actually that was pretty cool since it only took me about three hours to do the books and the rest of the night I had to watch the front desk. So I got some serious quality study time. But between that job, classes during the day, rehearsals in the early evening and the required partying, it was a wonder I didn't kill myself. No way I could do that now! ------------------ Everything you do, effects everything that is.
I remember a couple years ago I had a paper due the next day that I hadn't started on, so I was prepared for going all night--I bought some vivarin. At about 1 I was starting to feel sluggish, so I popped one...but it only worked for an hour or so, so I popped another, and then another, and then finally one more. I finished the paper at about 5, went back to the dorm and I was still dead tired...took a shower then went to bed, still really tired, vivarin and all. But, a few minutes later it seemed like it all kicked in at once...I started sweating and shaking and my stomach was in knots...it was like that the whole next day, and I still had trouble getting to bed the night after. Now, whenever I pull an all-nighter, I never use those damn pills, but I still get that hyper/nauseating feeling in my stomach once morning comes...must be some psychological after-effect or something...so vengeance, stay away from those things...coffee you can at least wee out of your system. ------------------ P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
AHHHHH, the memories. It seems like yesterday, I was at the SFASU library at 4 am, studying and/or staring at an attractive female study......*sigh* Man, that was 6 years ago. I pulled so many all nighters for many reasons. Most of them were not spent studying, but some were. The best were our (me and a group of friends) monthly Lake Nacogdoches Midnight BBQ's. Good times, good stories, good friends, good food.....great memories! ------------------ HEAD KNIGHT: We are now... no longer the Knights Who Say 'Ni'. KNIGHTS OF NI: Ni! Shh! HEAD KNIGHT: Shh! We are now the Knights Who Say 'Ecky- ecky- ecky- ecky- pikang- zoop- boing- goodem- zoo- owli- zhiv'.
forget vivarin, anybody remember black Mollys! Oh my! ------------------ Everything you do, effects everything that is.
I've had moments where I wasn't motivated and I flat-out didn't want to write a paper. But, one time, like at 1 AM, I said what the heck and wrote a paper, made up the sources, and got an A. This week has been hell. I just finished a project at 2 AM and I have another due tomorrow and one due Thursday. I still have finals and other tests. bleh.. ------------------ "norm, would you like to buy an indian scalp ? This deal isn't gonna make or break me Norm, so don't jerk me around." Harry Carey "Norm, if I had a mohawk scalp, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you."
Well, that's two all-nighters in one week . . . but at least I'm almost done!! ------------------ "Up and down, inside out, outside in, some you lose some you win" -- DMB -> "Sweet Up and Down"
Scratch that . . . make that THREE All-nighters in six days! ------------------ "Up and down, inside out, outside in, some you lose some you win" -- DMB -> "Sweet Up and Down"
I'm about to pull an all-nighter tonight...moving. ------------------ www.swirve.com "Pre-born, you're fine, pre-school, you're f*****."-George Carlin
<a href="http://bbs.clutchcity.net/ubb/Forum7/HTML/003705.html">Moving Sucks</a> ------------------ "Up and down, inside out, outside in, some you lose some you win" -- DMB -> "Sweet Up and Down"
