It's exam time! zzzzzzzzzzzzz

[tzikeh]

Those of you who are Of A Certain Age - remember pulling all-nighters in college before an exam? You had some combo of caffeine-filled-beverage and something with protein in it (my choice was Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - justifiable as protein!), and either a typewriter or a computer, a pile of notes or books or a combination of both, and a vaguely joyful feeling that you were *pulling an all-nighter* because you were a *college student* and that's what people did in college. Sure, you had to, you know, study, or write a paper, but check out your cool collegiate self pulling an all-nighter!

Yeah - not so much anymore.

*opens another can of Coke and hopes this one will be the magic can of Coke that brings back the joyful feeling and banishes the "omg I'm so old I want my bed and 14 hours of sleep'' feeling*

Comments

[destina.livejournal.com]

*snort* Oh yes, I remember it well. I remember coming back from parties at about 2 AM, and then grabbing my Philosophy book and going down the lounge to study with Jolt and No-Doz and a pillow, and WOW are those days over for me. Every so often I have to pull a graveyard shift to talk to my staff on that shift, and I get to about 3AM and my eyes start to melt in their effort to close themselves against my will. *g*

[vass]

Yes. *is pained*

My friend deathbyshinies used to sprinkle instant coffee on her cornflakes.

[jfc013.livejournal.com]

A friend once woke up in the morning at her terminal, having fallen asleep with her elbow on the keyboard. Onscreen was page after page of Zs. :)

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey. I so empathize. :-)

[arallara.livejournal.com]

Oh man, yeah, I've been honing my procrastination skills for so long that I started pulling all-nighters my freshman year of high school and continued through undergrad. Then, when I was 29, I went to grad school, and I pretty much counted on my ability to pull together those papers at the last minute in one good long night, only it was so much harder than I remembered. I thought I was going to die the first time I tried it. So, wow, I hope you made it through the night okay, and got it all done, and I really, really hope that now you're sleeping! :)

[kirbyfest.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I used to sit on the couch with a 2 liter of Diet Coke, and making it through the night wasn't such a big deal.

By grad school, I'd moved on to Vivarin. ;)

[bethcarielle.livejournal.com]

This is my last year as an undergrad but I haven't pulled an all nighter in ages. *is nolstalgic*

I'm more of the fall into bed at 9pm and get up at 3am with a pot of coffee to write the paper due at eight.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

I'm more of the fall into bed at 9pm and get up at 3am with a pot of coffee to write the paper due at eight.

I was always fond of this strategy myself, though for me it was 11pm and 5am. From 9-11, catch up on reading, make notes, then go to sleep and let the paper percolate while you sleep. Then wake up, fix coffee, git to work!

Though usually by that point I wasn't working on papers due at 8am, more at 10am, so the 2-hour timeshift works better for that.

[bethcarielle.livejournal.com]

I luckily haven't had any 8am classes for a couple of semesters. The two semesters that I did however, I did my best writing by far between 4 and 6am.

Amazing what the last minute procrastination panic can produce.

[thecomfychair.livejournal.com]

I can't handle all-nighters anymore, so this is also my procrastination method of choice. Though in my last semester as an undergrad it is getting harder and harder to convince myself to actually *wake up* at 3am for my 10am paper.

One time when I was freshman I pulled a double all-nighter because apparently I was insane. I paid for that with caffiene-shakes for days. Never again.

[bethcarielle.livejournal.com]

One time when I was freshman I pulled a double all-nighter because apparently I was insane.

Ugh, I think you were insane.

And it is hard to care about things this last semester. Can't I just graduate already?

[greywingnut.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, pulled more than a few of those in my time.

My favorite was for a paper on Stalin. I got to the RA lounge about 11 pm, roughly twelve hours before the paper was due. I had a two-liter of Mountain Dew, a box of Vivarin, pretzels, paper, pens, and the Stalin biography of which I had read maybe two chapters. Aced that paper, BTW.

Apparently the key to keeping this ability, as with most things in life, is not to let it atrophy. Kim still pulls all-nighters when she's got a proposal for satellite time due, which has been twice in the last six months. She says she pays for it the next day more than in her youth, but she's strong and alert all night long.

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

I never pulled all-nighters in college, but I did in grad school -- sometimes not because something was due the next day so much as that I had reached the point where I WOULD RATHER DIE than wake up with the fucking horrible thing hanging over my head one more time, so I'd just STAY UP UNTIL IT WAS DONE DAMMIT (I kind of didn't much like that grad school). There was a certain poignant pleasure in drinking so much coffee my hands were shaking, and in going to bed as the sun came up and the birds started singing, and knowing that I would wake up and not have to work on the goddamn thing any more.

But there is more pleasure in not pulling all-nighters at all. Here's hoping you are asleep now, with everything accomplished!

[litalex.livejournal.com]

never actually pulled an all-nighter for exams (actually took those "Your brain remembers better with a good night's sleep" lectures to heart), but yeah, I started at least half of my papers 12 hours before they were due.

(my relationship with my roommate that year was especially bad, too, so I was pulling all-nighters at my friends' apartments. man, those were the days.)

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

Coke? Please.

Comp Sci Pudding: One small can of sweeteened evaporated milk. One small jar of Tasters Choice instant coffee. 2 Packets of instant hot cocoa.

Mix and eat. Nummy.

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

PS. I hope your paper gets an A.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

Dude, NO.

I did my level best to NEVER pull an all-nighter. I think I maybe did one? Maybe none. I did a few till-3-AM things, and I did several wake-up-at-5AM things, but all-nighters always seemed so....pointless.

Maybe I am just weird. But my younger sister was the same way; she only did one all-nighter in all of college, and she was annoyed with herself, because it was her own damn fault for not studying properly beforehand.

My friends used to joke that sleep was for the weak, but I felt that sleep was CLEARLY awesome and should be taken seriously. :)

[keiko-kirin.livejournal.com]

The only all-nighter I pulled was to study for a language exam, so I wasn't writing, but memorizing. :( I have pulled far more (a scarily high number, in fact) of all-nighters to write fanfiction or vid -- without the excuse or societal acceptance of being a college kid. Not fair!

But really, this comment is just to say that the Star Wars stamps are supposed to be unveiled on March 28, and there's a Star Wars mailbox in a city nearish me (installed this morning)! The local morning news had *live coverage* of the mailbox. Dude. That was so pathetic. And yet I appreciate them for it.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Star Wars stamps! And mailbox!

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

I've had to pull very late nights at work and over 30, it's really not the same.

(Now you're reminding me of the word processor I had my first two years of college, before I got a computer. It was basically an electric typewriter with a little memory buffer and a 3 1/2-inch floppy drive. If you typed too fast, the spell check would seize up and eat the whole thing, and once you'd filled the buffer, you had to sit back and wait until the damn thing had typed out all the text with the daisy wheel and the ribbon, making a horrible racket as it went. Good times.)

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

I remember the evil daisy wheels!

I had blocked them out of my memory.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Do you know, I never once pulled an all-nighter in college? Every single one of my friends did, but I just - when I wanted to go to bed, I did. Of course, my whacked-out sleeping schedule helped a lot; I am just generally awake a lot more than most people, and certainly more than all but my most meth-abusing friends were in college.

But, you know, I've done all-nighters in my working life, getting grants in on time. Just...never for school.

I don't know what this says about me. Probably that I missed out on a seminal experience or something.

[alope-midnight.livejournal.com]

Caffeine was a foreign substance to me back in the day, so a dreadful cup or two worked for the one all-nighter I pulled.

It was for quantum mechanics, and I used a slide rule.

Thanks dearie, just wheel my chair into the sunshine now and run along.

[alope-midnight.livejournal.com]

Caffeine was a foreign substance to me back in the day, so a dreadful cup or two of instant coffee worked for the one all-nighter I pulled.

It was for quantum mechanics, and I used a slide rule.

Good luck dearie, just wheel my chair into the sunshine now and run along.

[alope-midnight.livejournal.com]

And don't let me double-post anymore no matter how weird LJ gets. Thx.