The Art of the All Nighter

I don't know about your college experience (that was pretty obvious, unless you think I am some sort of transcendental stalker). But as for mine, and once again maybe it is purely the nature of engineering, is filled with many long nights of studying. A lot of these (exam weeks and mid term papers come to mind), are true all nighters. You know.. the sort where you have just consumed your eighth cup of [caffeinated beverage goes here], are sitting at 9 pages with a 12 page minimum and have just realized that the noises outside are.. holy shit.. birds.. wtf. It can't be.. (Stares at clock).. 6:30!!! [Colloquialisms not fit for a family friendly blog]!!!

But more often than not, Engineering is really about the semi all nighter and the semi all nighter series. Those stretches of days at a time where you nap for 4 hours a night (so as not to have pulled an all nighter). To some people the idea of sleeping only 16 hours in a seven day period is crazy and undoable. If you ask the average Engineer around exam weeks or mid terms, they'll tell you you're doing pretty good and have their own sob story about how they haven't left the library except to smoke a cig in about three days. No kidding, I actually know of some people (acquaintences) who sleep in the library four nights a week. Not because they do not have accomadation but because it wouldn't make sense to trapse back home. I mean.. the gym does have showers (anyone who has ever seen Carmichael's male locker room should be snickering about now).

Recently I've kind of made up my mind that I'd like to go to graduate school, probably for Law or Business (yes, UVA, I may give you one more shot to let me in). I am some what excited about the prospect, except when I am confronted with the stark reality that I may have as much as four more years of education... Five more years of this.. I'm not sure I'll survive.

But in any case. Tonight, even before I decided to stay up the extra couple minutes and write this (I had been studying at the library for about 4 to 5 hours previously), I was in somewhat of an all nighter mode. In other words.. the guy bouncing up and down to the beat of his iPod at 1:30 in the morning who seems to be writing up (on the white boards) strange equations with no numbers and figures that look like they may have been drawn by cave men.. the one who is probably looking very perplexed and may have a wolf pack mocha on the table next to him.. yea.. thats me.

The usual routine for all nighters goes like this though:
Step 1: Brew a pot of tea
Step 2: Consume pot of tea while doing research (in the case of a paper)
Step 3: Put in iPod buds, probably to something along the lines of Yann Tiersen or Sufjan
Step 4: Type.. Type.. Type
Step 5: Type more
Step 6: Notice the birds are beginning to chirp.. accelerate typing (more like keyboard bashing at this point)
Step 7: Print out draft.. thank God
Step 8: Shower and prepare breakfast (walk to dining hall for breakfast if that indeed was an option)
Step 9: Edit the paper while comsuming food and another pot of tea
Step 10: Finalize edits and print out final copy...
Step 11: CRASH onto bed.... zzzz...

Step 11 sounds pretty good about now. I think I may....