Every stage you’ve been through if you’ve done an essay in a night

As the queen of all things last minute I am particularly well informed when it comes to staying up all night to do an essay I have actively avoided doing for the past week. “It’s fine”, you tell yourself, “everyone does this!” But do they? Do they really? Do they submit themselves to the 12 hours of consecutive torment, self hatred, and ‘why-am-I-even-bothering-it’s-four-in-the-fucking-morning-and-this-essay-genuinely-doesn’t-make-sense-and-I-do-really-need-this-degree-well-no-I-probably-don’t’? For the brave hearted who accept this way of life, these are the natural thought processes that one goes through at various stages of the night.

11pm

RIGHT should probably get started. First thing to do is obviously not start the essay or make some sort of plan, but instead arrange all of your stuff so everything looks ultra-organised as a reflection of how seriously together your life is. People won’t judge you if your pens are symmetrical to your laptop. It’s a fact of life.

Also, you should probably have some sort of hot beverage beside you, partly because you need the caffeine but more so because you’re a mature adult that drinks cappuccinos on the reg and if people know this they will take you more seriously.

Peng layout x

Taking 10-20 minutes to decide on a banging Spotify playlist is also essential.

It’s then really important to document this high level organisation via Snapchat, preferably with a picture of everything lined up nicely with the standard caption “It’s gunna be a long night” with some yawning/stressed looking Emojis.

11.30pm

This stage is dedicated to getting to know your surroundings. It’s a particularly crucial activity as you have to know what you’re working with and that you’re operating within maximum levels of comfort. How far your chair can lean back? How far you can stretch your feet without touching someone else’s? Does anyone else look like they’re on the brink of a mental breakdown? Is anyone else aimlessly scrolling through Facebook? Search for things to make you feel better (or worse).

12am

It’s officially deadline day and an acceptable time to get started. You’re going to be doing some solid research so you should probably open about 100 tabs of various things that might be useful to you: Moodle’s always a decent option, maybe ambitiously bang the essay title into Google, find a load of online articles that you’re almost definitely not going to read but it’s reassuring to have them there. It’s important to also include social media sites here because you’re working mega hard so you need to reward yourself with some ‘you time’ every 10 minutes.

The struggle is so real

2am

‘Research’ is going really well and you’ve absorbed about 0 bits of information. Should probably keep up the hard work. You’ve also moved on from coffee to cheap energy drinks because nowhere on campus is open but the dodgy corner shops are, so now’s a good time to neck about 3 of those

2.30am

The caffeine hits. You start convincing yourself that actually you work much better at night because you feel the pressure a lot more and this means you’re brimming with adrenaline and potential. Spotify is playing some absolute tunes and you’re feeling really fucking fantastic. This sudden burst of caffeinated-self confidence turns into LET’S START THIS PIECE OF SHIT and you bang out a solid introduction which is definitely triple the length it’s supposed to be but you don’t care because you’re an actual creative genius and if anyone can bullshit their way through an essay it’s you.

4am

The caffeine comedown. The feeling of drowsiness looms over you and the words on your screen don’t make sense. You try to do what you were doing before but you’re weak and your eyes hurt and you want your bed and maybe even your mum. It’s a sad moment, as you’ve watched the number of people around you gradually decrease one by one. You start to sob into your shitty essay and question why you always seem to do this. Heights of self-loathing occur here.

Quick nap

6am

You’re so tired you can fully appreciate why Leonardo took a nap in that dead horse carcass. Time to critically evaluate your further options, with sleep as the motive:

Option A) stay in the library to finish. You accept your essay’s going to be shit because you’re so tired that your sentences definitely don’t conform to basic English, but if you get it done then you can sleep forever

Option B) power nap in the library to your best ability, feel revived, and use your new found energy to meet the deadline (while bearing in mind there’s a very high chance you won’t wake up at all)

Option C) it’s wank anyway: go home, sleep and accept failure

6.30am

You’ve settled for Option A, knowing unlimited sleep is awaiting you on the other side, and spend the next 2 hours dragging out very vague ideas that you’re almost definitely making up. You opt for the classic technique of turning one very insignificant point into a huge deal and forming irrelevant and incoherent arguments out of this. You repeat yourself an average of 4899291 times to bulk up the word count, while you convince yourself you’re doing this for the right reasons. Pages of utter lies sit before you. Nearly there.

Love life 🙂 xx

8am

You panic a bit because you don’t have much time left and use this as a justification to start an absurdly lengthy irrelevant conclusion. Around this time, small numbers of strange early risers start arriving at the library. They look at you in horror, since you resemble Gollum with an added crack addiction, but you use their judgemental glares as one final motivation to get this essay out of your life.

9am

You exit the library with absolutely no intention of ever finding out what you wrote. Confused by the energy of the now many people around you, you’re slightly surprised that you’re still actually alive and functioning. “I’m never ever doing that again,” you lie to yourself, and make your way back to your dead horse carcass/comfy bed to take your well deserved nap.

Yaaaaaas 2 sleep