Today's Nostalgia: School-Centric All Nighters

Listening to a cute little vocaloid song and feeling nostalgic about staying up all night to do homework, somehow.

There was a point somewhere around 4 or maybe AM where it felt cosy. In college, I would always do all nighters outside of my bedroom, so I wouldn't bother my roommates. I would hide in various dorm computer labs and nod at the occasional security officer. I would pace, listen to fan mixes on 8tracks, and stare out at the darkening, then suddenly lightening sidewalks bisecting swatches of grass.

I liked hiding unnoticed in academic buildings the most. One time I managed to get temporarily locked in the library. Though that time I was actually hiding in the basement media room watching the library's Buffy DVDs.

I usually ended up in a computer lab in a building mostly dedicated to social work. It was a shared space with the computer science students. Since 80% of my roommates and most of my friends were CS majors, I'd heard of this great hideaway. I was so distracted switching between typing up my papers (it really was typing as I worked from word to word, hoping to reach an idea by piling up sentences) and scrolling through Danny Phantom blogs on tumblr, I didn't notice the door crack open. I felt like everything was a death sentence then so I was a bit scared of the guard who politely asked me to return to the dorms.

I would sprint back from the academic campus to the dorms. I was so scared back then. I felt like I was the hapless dumbass wandering through the night in a Buffy cold open. The scent of the grass burned my lungs as I ran home. I got scared of the same tree-with-arms-art installation over and over.

Those nights were terrifying, not just because of the not-so-death-defying runs through the quad. Failure was not an option. I was stressed out, I was exhausted. I was terrified I'd lose my grants because I couldn't stop procrastinating!

Still, it's a nostalgic time for me. There was something about the surreal feeling walking back from Star Market in the early morning light, sipping a cola because I was too nervous to drink coffee. Something about those darkened rooms, with the air conditioning spreading goosebumps down my arms. I can't say I remember the papers, videos, and art projects quite as well as the carpets I paced during my breaks.

There's nothing romantic about overwork but I will always miss those surreal nights.