Mid-Term Crisis/Pulling an All-Nighter

The Problem, and The Night Ahead

It had been on my mind since English. The project was due tomorrow and I was behind by a lot. It was coming down to the wire and the only way to solve a problem like this at the last minute is to pull an all-nighter.

I had filled a cooler with Arnold Palmer cans and had brought it up to my room. It now lay next to the chair in which I would be sitting in for most of the night. One can of Arnold Palmer sat on my desk opened and half drunk. The thought that crossed my mind repeatedly throughout the night was.

"All of this could have been avoided if I had just prioritized my work!"

The words of my teachers were barking at the walls of determination within my head. But by the end of the night there would be far more than just words trying to break the walls.

                 Priority had been a problem of mine since the school year had begun. And now it was all falling apart. But I thought I could handle this downward spiral by pulling an all-nighter. 

It was 3:10 pm now, I had been getting ready for about five minutes, but now I was finally situated. I had to finish reading Jane Eyre as well as complete fifteen well-written journal entries on what I had read in it. Another downward winding spiral that I was going to have to put an end to tonight was, I had to read two chapters of The Count of Monte Cristo and fill out my job worksheet which I had to contribute to tomorrow's class discussion. Nevertheless, I was still determined to finish all of it. Although I would be losing nine or ten hours of sleep it would be better than having to listen to my teachers bicker on and on about how I "didn't prioritize".

                 On my desk next to my open Arnold Palmer can was my laptop, five journal entries, a pencil, The Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Eyre. 

At the beginning, it seemed like I was exaggerating how long it was going to take, I mean, I can read pretty fast, and as for recording what I read and maybe a connection here or there was a piece of cake. But Jane Eyre and The Count of Monte Cristo weren't necessarily easy reads.

 On my laptop I had Microsoft Word, FaceBook and YouTube window tabs open for breaks, which I would be taking occasionally because when I work I don't power through it like other people do, I take breaks every now and again to refresh myself. 

I opened Jane Eyre and continued reading from where I had stopped before. The reason why I chose to read Jane Eyre was because; when I read books I prefer not to re-read them. As in reading it once outside of school and, again, when it turns out that the class reading book would be it the following year. So as an insurance policy, as so to speak, I printed out the list of all of the possible High School books I could be reading, for class in the next four years of High School. I saw this book on the honors list; I knew my teacher was not going to put me in an honors class, because she hated me, so I decided to choose Jane Eyre because it was on the honors class reading list. 

It's not that the book was challenging for me to read, which it wasn't, it was the boringness of it that slowed my reading pace. 

At 3:15 I began to read.