All-nighters are hell

I was literally up all night last March 2, 2009. I hated the experience. The only reason I didn’t feel a deeper negative emotion to the whole experience was that I wasn’t the only one suffering. Doms, Arvin, Doms’s poor old computer, and I worked through our energy stores to complete a crappy documentary that was due on February 27, 2009, friday of the week before. The documentary was fortunate enough to be a group project, it would never have seen the light of day had it been left up to me to create it - especially with the deadline over.

Anyway, trying to figure out how to use video editing programs, throwing away almost 80% of the whole footage of the interviews taken, panicking when the computer couldn’t read the movie clips, converting the unreadable files, waiting for hours for the files to be converted, making scripts for the documentary while files were being converted, narrating the scripts into a voice recorder, narrating to the voice recorder again after stuttering, or getting tongue-tied, or suddenly forgetting how to read, arranging video clips in a semi-sensible order when they were finally converted, having creative bursts of ideas on how we would present the whole thing, being frustrated at the difficulty of implementing idea gained from creative burst, still being up when the rest of the household was getting on with their respective going-to-school routines, staring at a computer screen for hours (working), going to school without taking a bath or at least brushing one’s teeth (EEW), missing class, taking an exam with a stressed and frazzled mind, feeling very grouchy and weak all day, made me remember why I love loafing around so much.

After the whole dreadful experience I was looking forward to dropping my stressed carcass on my dusty, used clothing cluttered, unmade, bed and sleeping the whole day, but I still had an afternoon class to go to and a tutoring job to do. I went home to get at least an hour’s worth of sleep to get some energy to at least survive the rest of the day. I survived. But then my stupid body had a wicked surprise for me when I could finally get some much-needed sleep. It’s 9:30, earlier than my usual bedtime, I’m super tired, my whole body was weary, but I could. Not. Get. To. Sleep. I was lying in bed for about an hour and I wasn’t automatically going to slumberland. There was something wrong. My mind was screaming for Hypnos and Morpheus to take me to their wonderful land but the damn gods of sleep and dreaming wouldn’t let me. It was a frustrating experience. It must have been the weird grain tea I had at the koreans’ house, or the two pieces of chicken I had for dinner, or the one-hour nap I had earlier, or some weird masochistic impulse, but I could not get to sleep. I was curled up on my bed, feeling sorry and angry at myself, when I finally had an idea. I nuked a glass of milk in our microwave, had a happy moment of relaxation, and went to bed. I expected a one-shot-kill effect but I was still twisting around the bed, looking for just the right position, thinking that my milk idea was crap. The next thing I knew, it was noon the next day. Happiness.