OxStu obsessions
You have two thousand words due at nine tomorrow morning. You have five thick books, none of which have been glanced at. Congratulations. You are about to enter the world of the all-nighter.
12 pm.
Preparation. Stack your books, sort your paper. Take five Pro-plus in the heat of enthusiasm, and feel dizzy. This is very important.
1 am.
Embrace the pain. This is also important. Go out, buttonhole your friends, stop strangers in the quad, let them know what's going on. Weep a little if it helps. On no account should you attempt such a feat without a lot of people knowing of it.
2 am.
Back in your room, prepare your third cup of coffee and open the first book. Normal people are by now in bed. Stare mistily out into the empty street. Thoreau on Waldon Pond had nothing to complain about.
3 am.
Having worked very hard for seventeen minutes, abandon computer for kebab van. This is, of course, one of the all-nighter's major compensations: Hussein's, unpalatable in a composed state of mind, now takes on the aura of a mystical paradise. Even though you know your mother would prescribe hot milk and sleep; you know that the real solution to all ills is rectangular potato pieces soaked in fat and covered with cheese.
4-5 am.
Exhausted, dazed, and now poisoned as well, return to your essay. Outside, the first notes of the dawn chorus are beginning to sound.
6 am.
Look at yourself in the mirror. Admire the psychotic glitter to your eyes, the fashionable pallor of your waxen cheek. Wonder who you are and why.
7 am.
You're not thinking straight any more, but it doesn't matter. The dark night of the soul is almost over; the boaties are already splashing upon the Isis.
8 am.
Print out. Heave sigh. Go to breakfast in Hall, exchanging wan smiles with fellow sufferers and random scientists. It's over, it really is. You've survived the all-nighter. For another week.