Freshman year of college: the time I quite almost killed myself over a final project

I've told this story to many people in the past - staying up for nearly 3 days straight to work on a final project that I'd badly procrastinated.  But due to the lack of sleep at the time, and the years that have passed since, I tend to get the details wrong when I retell the story.  Lo and behold, I wrote about it the day after it all happened!  I've decided to type it up for all to read.  Friends who are parents, please feel free to use this as educational material as your kids grow up and start thinking it's okay to pull all-nighters for school.  I've added some annotation for clarification in pink.

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30 April, 2010
Freshman year of college
Right before finals week

Oh my god.  This week was so hard.  I procrastinated my art history project WAY too much, like holy butt. [yes, it actually says holy butt.]  After TV night with Steph on Monday, I tried to stay up all night to work on the story.  I fell asleep around 4:30, woke up at 10ish. [I likely still made it to my 10:20 German class, because skipping class is bad m'kay?] Okay, that's kind of enough sleep.  Tuesday I got off work shortly after 1 (am, I worked the closing shift in the caf, so technically this was Wednesday morning) and continued working on the story.  I watched the sun rise (so pretty!) and fell asleep around 7:30 or 8... Woke up at 10:30.  Got breakfast at Hubbard and decided to have some coffee. with lots of cream & sugar.  Went to IAH (my afternoon class), then to CVS for some Vitamin Water and an energy drink because I knew I'd be up all night again.  By the time I went to lunch at Akers I was pretty hyper, so I had another cup of coffee. [a completely logical decision.]  Then, despite how pretty it was outside, I sat inside and drew. And drew. And drew.  I think I ate dinner in there somewhere.  Around 1 or maybe 2 (am, mind you) I chugged down most of a can of Amp before realizing that 1 can = 2 servings. then I started going insane...

I started posting random stuff on Facebook.  I worked right through sunrise and around 7:45 decided it was time for breakfast. took a shower. got back to work.  Realized that my heart was beating too quickly and I sometimes felt out of breath just sitting there drawing.  By this time, my writer's callous and right arm were getting sore, but I still had lots of work to do.  So I kept on working until 12:30, when I had to go to bio.  I was pretty freaking out because holy crap, I still had 2 drawings to do and I had to attach the book and shit I had like an hour after bio to do it.  I was so tired, too.  I started falling asleep and I'm pretty sure I hallucinated a little.  I thought a picture of a rain cloud was moving and raining, and that a bunny was breathing and twitching its head. [the prof never used animations in his slides, only still images.] Then I thought I saw... I don't know, water or something spurting out of the wall.  After class I picked up some food from Sparty's and went back to my dorm.  Then I really started freaking out.  I was straight up out of breath but just sitting there, and even though I knew I had everything under control I started crying.  I was like "no, you're wrong. Everything is fine.  Stop being illogical." but I kept crying anyway. [I'm pretty confident that this is the first and only panic attack I have ever experienced.] So I ate my food and watched my favorite videos on YouTube and felt better.  I finished up one of the empty pages, attached everything, and went to class where I threw up a poopless poop angel (complete with confused flies) onto the blank page.  Turned the little SOB in and mostly fell asleep through class.  By this time I was basically a zombie.  But the sun had come back out after clouds leading up to like a 5 minute rain, and I had the story off my damn chest, so I was feeling a little better. 

I happily turned in the books I'd used [for the research] and then bought some new earphones at the International Center.  I called Ben and YAY, he's coming to MSU on Saturday! <3 When I got home I did some German homework and went to bed.  At 7:45.  Then I woke up at 8:55... today. Oh my god. I wish I could sleep that deeply and blissfully every night.  So yeah, I would rate this experience about a 10 on the crazy scale.  Never, ever, ever drinking coffee again.  Or procrastinating so horribly. Ever.  I am so sorry for what I did to my body.  [closing about how my hand was cramping and I wanted to go outside]

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I'd like to point out that I would have had an extra two hours to work on the project and probably not have a panic attack had I decided to skip bio the day the project was due.  But nooo, I had to be in class!!!!!  Compare this to my senior year when I was like "I'm behind on work in Lisa's class, so I'm going to skip Lisa's class today and work on the projects."  I certainly did change a lot in a few semesters.

And just for the record: my body still can't handle caffeine.  I don't know if I would always have been caffeine-sensitive, or if I broke the receptors in my brain that week or something.  But if I drink anything stronger than a black tea (or two black teas in a row), I get very shaky and breathing gets uncomfortable.  I don't get the energy boost and then I crash hard and pretty much can't function unless I take a nap.