Staying Up All Night... Worth it?
I stayed up all night last night. I was coding for my computer science class. It was an assignment that I put off until the last minute. I stayed up doing that with a few breaks to play with my new SATA hard drive (which I got all installed and running). I decided, though, that staying up all night is not good. I felt like it would be too dangerous if I drove to class in the morning, so I didn't go to school. I'm thinking that it probably is never worth it. Sleep is more important than getting assignments done sometimes. Anyone have any up all night experiences to share? Was it worth it?
Sleep is highly overrated. The last time I did an all nighter was for my Operating Systems class. Our final project was assigned a couple weeks before the end of the term (mainly because some guy kept coming to class, sitting on the FRONT ROW, and falling asleep within the first five mintues...often times snoring loudly and he kept doing the head bobbing thing. It was really distracting and annoying to all of us. But I digress). We had to write a program that used several storage and communication techniques found in many operation systems (but we were doing it for Linux), benchmark our results, and write a 5 - 10 page report discussing our findings, evaluating which techniques for me efficient, all followed by graphs of our results. And it was worth about 20% (don't remember actual figure, but 20 sounds good) of the final grade. I was in Old Main until midnight, when they kicked me out, and then continued the project at home SSHed over VPN in VMWare (really annoying). I pretty much stayed up all night, submitted the homework, got two hours of sleep, went to class, found out I had done the report wrong (which was 50% of the assignment grade - so about 10% of my final grade). I had to re-write the report, and submit it late. So in this case, staying up all night was not worth it at all because I ended up turning the assignement in late anyway.
ReplyDeleteWow. And this post turned out way longer than I expected. I suppose that's how my grandpa must feel after he tells stories. I guess now I'll tell you about the Great English Paper of '01. Back when I was a young lad, we would go out every morning for corn biscuits, and purple gelatin-based imitation fruit preserves, which in those days was called grape jelly. We had to walk up hill all three ways, and a nickle would buy you a bushel's worth of black licorace and half the state of New Orleans. Kids used to have a lot more respect for their elders because we'd beat 'em with a switch of willow. Ms. Branbury was the town's only laundress for kilometers around, which used be known as miles, and taught 2nd grade. If we ever acted up, she'd grind our knuckles on the rinsing board. Every Thursday afternoon, we would practice the three R's: Reading, Riting and Rithmetic, during which, we all had to rithmetize compound fractional verbs using whole numbers. (Spelling was rarely practiced back then as 138% of the population was illiterate). But then, with the power of my slide rule, I sent those unparticipled pronouns back to the Kaiser himself. And that's how I saved Christmas...
Wow...Tangential, Longwinded Insomniac, I think that must be the record for the longest comment on this site yet! In fact, I don't think that I have a single post that is as long as your comment! Thanks for the story. I liked it. I'm glad that there are some people who contribute very well to this site. Thanks for your support!
ReplyDeleteThe last time I stayed up all night was this past Christmas...My wife and I must have eaten too much pizza or something--we decided to drive all night to the in-laws (we were already in bed when we came to the crazy conclusion. We started out at 11:30 p.m. and drove about 12 hours straight to central Washington. Was it worth it?...NO. Come on, these are In-Laws we are talking about! Never doing that again! However, I'm not against an all-night LAN party!
ReplyDeleteI don't have any in-laws (unless you count the faimiles of my brothers-in-law). But I think I'm going to have to say "Well Stated, Stephen". (And stay up all night for LAN parties is pretty much always worth it).
ReplyDeleteI have to say, whether staying up late is worth it depends mostly on whether it's your own choice. Staying up all night to write a paper is not fun, as I can personally attest to this week, and I do not reccomend it. On the other hand, staying up because you can, when you have nothing the next day, can be fun. I once started watching Pride and Prejudice at 1:30 in the morning with my roommates- the A&E version, which for you ignorant males out there, is about six hours long. Didn't quite get through it. But I'd say it was worth it. Haven't had the time or energy to do that for a while though. Oh, to be young and irresponsible again...says the twenty year old unemployed college student who spends too much time browsing her cousin's website. ;-)
ReplyDeleteSome of the best and worst times in my life have happened over night while I was awake and not sleeping. The first reall good date that I had with my wife happened at an all night party. I think that is where I hit if off good enough to start the beginning of the end! But on the other hand staying awake all night at work sucks. Especially when you can't stay awake to drive home. One day I had to drive home in the middle of the winter with the windows down and the stereo up. One hand on the steering wheel, the other proping an eyelid open. And I never went over 30 mph. I couldn't physicaly or mentaly control the car. Was it worth hooking up with my wife? Yes! Was it worth almost killing myself? NO!
ReplyDeleteBut, now that I am old and married, my version of an all nighter is with my wife, in bed, fast asleep.
But I think that is quickly coming to and end!