I spent 24 hours in the library just to fill my empty life

I’m a first year English student, I have hardly any work, so I’m spending 24 hours in the library today. No breaks at all. Why? more like WHY NOT amirite.

14:00 – I enter the library for the first time in weeks. People seem to be stressed. Weird.

15:00 – Have seen and talked to more friends than I have in ages. So this is where everyone hangs, this is the social hub, the peak of human existence. I had been wondering where everyone was.

16:00 – I could read Coriolanus for my essay due in 2 days. Nah. Decided instead to distract a few more friends. Some apparently don’t want to include me in their Banter x.

16:30 – My friends have left to have tea and cake. It’s ok, I have Friends on Netflix.

17:00 – Have been sending more friends HILARIOUS messages and laughing at myself. People look over and seem pissed off. Underappreciated in my own time – a sign of true talent. Have read 3 lines of Shakespeare in 3 hours.

18:00 – 4 lines. Friends and strangers leave for dinner. Sad. I have chocolate though. And a plain ol bagel.

19:00 – News has spread of my epic adventure! People come bearing gifts: sweets and BANTER. Thank you, friends.

How are people ever productive here? There is too much fun to be had, too much life to be lived. Also some people generate too much sexual tension and are making the atmo hard to handle. Reign it in please.

10 lines into Coriolanus!

20:00 – ‘Teletubbies best ever remix’ is one of the greatest clips on youtube.

Charitable friend brings over 4 shots of espresso. Coffee is love, coffee is life.

21:00 – Sun sets over Emma library. So many busy bees sit here unaware of life’s joys outside this book-lined cuboid. I don’t think even one of them has lifted their gaze from their laptops and papers to look at the pink-tinged sky. Sad. They are missing out on life’s simple pleasures.

My friends tell me I sound a bit delirious. My interactions with others on social media is getting increasingly more ‘weird’, they say.

But am I weird, or is everyone else just boring?
Am I weird, or am I just enlightened?
Am I weird, or is the world weird, making me just normal?

Profound.

Have given up on reading books, am now reading people/staring at them to creep them out.

22:00 – My eduroam is being shit. Fuck this.

I think people hate me for unashamedly watching Netflix and being in the lib for the lols when they are forced to be here. Ah well, don’t hate me cos you ain’t me I guess.

23:00 – Lib is still as full as it was at 14:00. Alas, the perils of exam term.

Players in this crazy game that is Library Life show no signs of tiring.

00:00 – Have moved rooms to a more comfortable space. People around my previous abode may think I’m leaving for good. Ha. Ha.

How have I still done no work? Not that I need to. I do what I want! NO ONE tells ME what to do, BITCH. I also don’t have any work. Still, would be useful to do this essay, maybe…probably…definitely. It would definitely be useful to do this essay.

01:00 – Everyone is leaving. Only one library friend remains.

Currently on Skype with a friend. Had to beg for ages before she agreed to skype me. Awh. Said friend is just 50 metres away in the comfort of her college room. What difference those 50 metres make! She says she is worried about me.

02:00 – HALFWAY

This really is not bad at all. Library is basically empty of people, but filled instead with my SIK tunes. Tunes = club + lib = CLIB? Am I ok?

03:00 – Faint murmurs of distant swearing from Spoons. Wish I were at Spoons, swearing.

03:30 – It is very very dark. The automatic lights keep switching off. Just watched an episode of American Horror Story. Definitely not a good idea. Anything could emerge from behind those shelves. Also I’ve told so many people I was doing this…how could I be so stupid? Any me-haters have the PERFECT opportunity for an effortless murder – they could easily creep up along the isles and stab me. No one would hear my cries as I am that tree alone in the forest who even if felled would not be heard hence would not have fallen? Does that mean if I am killed now I won’t actually be dead? And if I cannot be killed do I even exist? Is it even me that sits here alone? Am I me? Me?

04:00 – It’s beginning to get light. Birds chirping etc etc. Morning has broken beautiful morning praise it sing it polka dot it etc etc. Am definitely delirious.

I want my bed. Ate more bagels. Their empty O is like my empty bed, missing me. I miss you too, bed.

05:00 – Decidedly mediocre sunrise.

I thought I was going to get so much work done alone in the library. Shows that after 19 years I still don’t know myself.

I still have 9 hours left. Misery.

Ok I WILL read Coriolanus.

06:00 – I’m bored. This is boring. By ‘This’ I could mean the play, this day, the library, this article, this website, the internet, human relations, life? It’s all boring. I am legitimately considering giving up on it all.

07:00 – Stirring of activity all around the lib – was quite enjoying being alone, but now ‘The noise of life begins again’. No point in sleeping now. Might as well stay awake until 2pm.

08:00 – Am very tired.

09:00 – Slept.

10:00 – Did some reading. Slept.

11:00 – Slept more.

12:00 – This is actually just not fun. I feel gross.

Just made a very weird high-pitched noise as I woke up from a nap. Everyone looks over at me warily.

Eating cheesestrings as lunch.

13:00 – So. Close. Bags under eyes are now deep caverns of doom.

14:00 –  Never again.

The day after, post-13 hour sleep – Possibly the most pointless thing I have ever done. Shows how boring my life is that I’ve just spent 24 hours in the library for ‘fun.’ Also, my friend now tells me I was snoring in the main room of the library during my nap yesterday morning. She didn’t wake me because she loved that I was embarrassing myself.

I now have no reason to go back to the library for the rest of the year, while everyone still with exams has NO CHOICE. Look who’s laughing now. I’m not actually laughing. I’m too tired for laughter.

But against the odds, I definitely gained something from the experience. I learnt that the library is not an enjoyable place to be. It’s suffocating. So don’t spend 24 hours in there. I tried it, and while it spawned many a philosophical/delirious musing – I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from the experience.

P.s. In case you were wondering, I’m yet to finish Coriolanus.