All-Nighter

I rarely pull all-nighters. I dislike them. I much prefer to go to bed at a decent (*ehem* sometime around 1 am) hour so I can arise without too deep a set of purple circles under my eyes. Sometimes, however, all-nighters are unavoidable. Tonight, like the first time this semester, I am finishing a project for my Bibliography and Research class––the supposed hell of English and Creative Writing majors alike. People drop their majors because of this class. Right now, at least four people are failing, one of them for the second time. I think I'm a masochist. I love this class. But then, I have an A. I only hate this when I have a paper due the next morning. I only work on the projects the night before. Do I sound like I'm boasting? Probably. But I'm not. I can only work in sustained bursts of many hours. Five, at least, usually, so any attempt of finishing ahead of time is doomed before it starts.

When I pull an all-nighter, oh so rare, I––wait, this is the first time I'm doing it this way. Regardless, I am pulling a "Jill" tonight (you do not know this mysterious "Jill", but she is awesome. And one of my best friends. She has mastered the all-nighter. She is more bat than Batman). This means I have brewed my ramen soup and drank my diet pepsi, and then plunged into a flood of information about the Victorian era and anything and everything Dickens and Great Expectations. I shall finish this infernal paper, but hopefully before 5:30 am, like last time's project. This is the fourth and final paper for this 8 am class. I like the ideas and occasional moments in the class, but I really do not like writing the damn papers. The research I do not mind. I do that on my spare time for fun. The history on my laptop is so nerdy: Doctor Who, Sherlock, interesting music, and random historical searchings.

Why do I like this class? Sometimes I wonder about my sanity, but then I remember I never want to leave the Ivory Tower of Academia, among my dusty books and charts. I will foray out occasionally, if I ever become an archaeologist and take part in a dig in some hotly contested area in the Middle East (my fingers are itching now to get some dirt under them) or if I fulfill my second dream of becoming a vagrant hobo in Europe with no name but a cozy cardboard box on the corner of two famous streets.

My far future is uncertain, but for the next few hours, I know exactly what I will be doing. It is 3:31 right now, and I'm not finished this dang paper. Whatever.