Archived comment by Arlene:
Candigyrl,
Ack! I am full of admiration (you know, the Gunga Din type). Hope that you managed lots of sleep.

Archived comment by Saint:
Sleep well.

In college I had quite a thing for the nose candy. One time my dealer dropped out of sight for about a month. After about three weeks of eating and sleeping regularly, I simply could not believe how good I felt, and how full of energy I was. Ironically, I was in such a good mood, people began to suspect I was taking drugs. Sleep is absolutely better than any drug, legal or not.

Archived comment by candigyrl:
At this point I haven't slept since the day after Halloween. I go to school full time, work full time, and I'm a full time (single) mother. Add to that the fact that I'm taking three foreign languages- all of which require INTENSE, IMMENSE amounts of studying-and an English class that requires a seven page paper every other week, and that equals no sleep. I have a babysitter for tonight and tomorrow, though, and I'm actually caught up in most classes, so I'm sleeping from about five minutes from now up until Monday morning-unless I die, in which case I, too will feel better. n'Abend

Archived comment by Ouijibug:
No no, Matt, it was freezing cold poison - though possibly we were listening to different versions. I was actually playing it at the time (I haven't actually memorised that speech. Quite).

There may be more than one rendition, tho'.

Archived comment by umrguy:
Well, bored maybe, enough time, no. And to be honest, I just ran a google search and copy and pasted the lyrics right in.

Archived comment by Arlene:
Exactly, nightfever. Mind you, I am impressed. Which says something about me, too.

Archived comment by nightfever:
I think she was asking if you were bored/had lots of time on your hands to be typing all those lyrics...
:)

Archived comment by umrguy:
Arlene, I have no clue what you were asking there...

Archived comment by Matt:
Oops. Never done that before.

As I was saying, sulfuric acid, not cold poison.

Good one, umrguy. I still have my 13 year-old cassette of the "Even Worse" album. Great stuff. I particularly like "These Are The Good Old Days."

Archived comment by Matt:
Close enough, Oujibug. SULFURIC ACID

Archived comment by Arlene:
Time much, umrguy?

Archived comment by umrguy:
Let me tell you sonny... let me tell you straight
You kids today ain't never had it tough
Always had everything handed to you on a silver plate
You lazy brats think nothing's good enough

Well, nobody ever drove me to school when it was ninety degrees below
We had to walk buck naked through forty miles of snow
Worked in the coal mines twenty two hours a day for just half a cent
Had to sell my internal organs just to pay the rent

When I was your age. When I was your age
When I was your age. When I was your age

Let me tell you something, you whiny little snot
There's something wrong with all you kids today
You just don't appreciate all the things you've got
We were hungry, broke and miserable and we liked it fine that way

There were seventy three of us living in a cardboard box
All I got for Christmas was a lousy bag of rocks
Every night for dinner, we had a big 'ol chunk of dirt
If we were really good, we didn't get dessert

When I was your age. When I was your age
When I was your age. When I was your age

Didn't have no telephone, didn't have no FAX machine
All we had was a couple cans and a crummy piece of string
Didn't have no swimming pool when I was just a lad
Our neighbor's septic tank was the closest thing we had
Didn't have no dental floss, had to use old rusty nails
Didn't have Nintendo, we just poured salt on snails
Didn't have no water bed, had to sleep on broken glass
Didn't have no lawnmower, we used our teeth to cut the grass

What's the matter now, sonny, you say you don't believe this junk?
You think my story's wearin' kinda thin?
I tell you one thing, I never was such a disrespectful punk
Back in my time, we had a thing called discipline

Dad would whoop us every night till a quarter after twelve
Then he'd get too tired and he'd make us whoop ourselves
Then he'd chop me into pieces and play frisbee with my brain
And let me tell ya, Junior, you never heard me complain

When I was your age. When I was your age
When I was your age. When I was your age

-- Weird Al, "When I Was Your Age"

Archived comment by Ouijibug:
Importantly, of course, Matt, it lets someone else chuck the climactic one back at you.

The final line probably isn't worth cool points - lukewarm points, maybe. Not really very cool but still points.

Archived comment by Ouijibug:
Well of course, we had it tough.

I used to get up in the morning at half past ten at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of FREEZING COLD poison, work twenty-eight hours a day at mill AND pay mill-owner to let us work there, and when I got home our dad used to murder us in cold blood each night and dance about on our graves each night singing 'Hallelujah!'.

Archived comment by Matt:
"We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up every morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill, and when we got home, our mother and father would slash into with bread knives." Or something. I figure, why choose the climactic one when I can choose a good one?

Archived comment by Yuri:
Four and a half hours? Pure luxury!

Actually, despite my status as a bleary-eyed graduate student, I can't complain too much about my sleep habits (or lack thereof). The worst week I've had so far saw me getting by on four or five hours of sleep each day. That was a far cry from a finals week endured my junior year, in which I miraculously wrote three papers in one night.

Archived comment by Matt:
I too love being part of the workforce and the free time it gives me, even though the stress level tends to be higher for me, since I seem to spend every other day dealing with some human-relations problem I may or may not have caused.

Be that as it may, I'm very much planning on going to graduate school (hoping to get a Masters in 20th Century American Literature) next fall, where I get to go through the whole thing over again, but at a higher level. I may like my job fairly well, but there's little or no room for advancement when you sell stuff. Please don't call me a Salesman. I try really, really hard not to be slimy or deceptive like Salesmen.

I had a semester in college where I was working 35 hours a week (including 8 hour shifts Saturday and Sunday), going to school full-time, and rowing in the morning five days a week. I had to get up at 5:30 Monday through Friday and the ultra-indulgent 7:00 on weekends. Wednesdays were the worst; I'd wake up at 5:30, go row until I almost passed out, go to school from 10:00 until 3:00, leave for work at 6:00, and work until midnight, sometimes until 1:00. Then I'd get up at 5:30 (that's 4 1/2 hours sleep, kiddos), and go row again. Repeat for 15 weeks. Fun stuff.

Archived comment by Evil Gingerbread Man:
I must be some sort of freak university student, because I go to bed at 11:00 every weeknight, regardless of what studying or homework I could be doing. On weekends, I can usually find something to keep myself occupied until 12:00 or so. I don't have any problem waking up at about 6:30 AM or so, except on Saturdays, when I get up at 8:30 for cartoons, and Sundays, when I sleep in until 9:00. I've never been up twenty-four hours in a row, let alone an entire week, and I hope I never will have been.

Archived comment by Alex Andra:
Well I'm glad he feels better, dying will do that to a person.

Archived comment by susanne:
Oh, here's a psychotic schedule for you guys. . . 32 hours of rehearsal a week, plus six classes (that's another 18 hours), plus working 14 hours a week.. . plus, oh yeah, homework. I say you only need sleep when you let yourself need sleep. and since the whole college experience is supposed to be about all-nighters/caffeine binges, what else am i supposed to do? Mmmmm, diet coke. . .

Archived comment by umrguy:
Well, I'm anticipating a sleepless night tonight, as I endeavor to finish a homework that was due Monday, as well as come up with a project report that's due tomorrow.

And was the second guy kind of like the dead friend in An American Werewolf in London?

Archived comment by May:
I do the whole no-sleep thing for absolutely no reason, but maybe it'll get me a head start for college.

At the summer breaks, I usually cut down my sleep immensly, but then take a day to just sleep the whole thing off. So it's 3hrs, 4hrs, 2hrs, 3hrs and then 15hrs sleep. Very very healthy.

Archived comment by Shadow:
I'm right there with Nightfever, and am so GLAD I don't have to take exams, or do homework or anything like that...and I get paid on a regular and hefty basis. ah...being part of the workforce, is great.

Just wanted to rub it in :P

Good luck all of you who are taking tests, etc.

Archived comment by Ouijibug:
nightfever, I hate you. In the nicest possible way.

Phase II of sleep deprivation. Steadily worsening aphasia.

Archived comment by nightfever:
Ah, the unbelieveable lack of stress when you don't have to do exams anymore...
*sighs contentedly*

Anyways, just wanted to give my $0.02 on the all-night gaming...we tried that once, and ended up each of the 3 of us drinking about 6 litres of coke each and one bowl of VERY strong hot chocolate...
The game got distinctly strange and we only stopped it because we were giggling so much at what was going on (it's not funny when you're sober) that we couldn't say sentences anymore, so we watched Eric the Viking (fantastic film!!) and nearly died laughing at that before suddenly all falling asleep.

That was when I nearly gave up alcohol in favour of caffiene.

Now I reckon caffiene to be worse for you than alcohol!

Archived comment by Ouijibug:
I'm just about to start one of those binges. Exams start in one week, and I've been severely ill for the last couple of weeks and had my life falling apart before that - now we head into the home stretch for the year and I'm stressed out about it, so I kiss sweet sleep goodbye until the 20th...

Archived comment by some guy:
The cool things about sleep deprivation in this context:

1) The typical college student can take this kind of abuse.
2) Years later, that college student will remember this insanity as the best time of his/her life. I don't know if this is an artifact of being sleep deprived, or if it's just that you're at an age when you know that you're f*cking indestructable. Either way, enjoy it while you can.

Archived comment by Jeremiah:
I stayed up for a week straight once in high school. I was taking summer school, and that lasted from 8 or so until non or so, and then I'd go home and play Diablo on battle.net until I had to go to school the next morning, taking breaks now and then for food and hygeine.

I think that's part of the reason I'm insane now.

Archived comment by Chris:
Okay, I am at 38 hours now and still going strong! I have a test tomorrow at 8 AM too, yippee!

Archived comment by Ouijibug:
For me, sleeping in lectures is the odd bit. This is something I don't normally do, because if I'm that tired I usually just skip the lecture and sleep on a couch in one of the student clubrooms I hang out in. But once or twice I have fallen asleep in lectures.

I dream the lectures. Even while I'm asleep, I am listening to every word the lecturer says - just the visual elements get distinctly odd.

Come to think of it, I usually remember those lectures more vividly. Maybe I should sleep through all my classes...

Archived comment by guy:
i notice my dreams are always the most interesting when im sleep deprived and trying my best to stay awake but happen to nod off for a second or 2.

on such dream was i was walking around some large urban area that i didnt recognize, and some guy came at me from a dark alley with a gun and demanded my money. to this i decided to use WinRar to rar his gun so he wouldnt be able to use it on me. he tryed to shoot me after i Rared his gun, but he was unable to use it because i had compressed it already.

at this moment i awoke, very, very confused.

Archived comment by Marla:
Last year I got insomnia. Badly. Right in the last month of term which was great cause I got all my assignments done with time to spare cause I was up till 3am doing them then awake again by 6am. I think I averaged 3 hours of broken sleep a night for a month at a time over an 18 month period. Like one month insomnia, one week normal sleep for that time.

The one week normal sleep was always preceeded by a day when I didn't make much sense apparently. My friends would first dose me with coffee and then when they realised that was no good they'd send me home. I say apparently because I can't remember those days!

This ideal student lifestyle ended however, a few months back when I got glandular fever. 10-12 hours of sleep a night now otherwise I'm non functional.

*sob*!

M:)

Archived comment by dave:
I can relate to that obscurity of all night gaming sessions. I have a distinct memory of nodding off during a gaming session and as I snapped back awake I shouted. I kill the bridge! It was at that point that I realised I had lost the will to be awake.

And ...

Sleep is simply a totally inadequate substitute for caffeine.

Archived comment by Noyock:
That's kind of funny; when I know I'm planning on an all-nighter, I'll get really tired around midnight, and then I'll be fine by 2 or so. When I don't intend to stay up all night and just end up doing so, I don't get really brain-dead tired until 4 or 5. I think it's mostly psychological, really.

Midterms just finished! Woohoo! Of course, if I let myself fall asleep at a decent time tonight, I'll probably sleep till the weekend...

Archived comment by Bryan:
Just reread Matt's post, 3-4 am is the worse time for me. Seeing the sun rise or pre-dawn is actually invigorating for me.

Archived comment by Bryan:
Once I get past 3 am on an all nighter, I'm fine as long as I have some caffeine about 5 or 6

Archived comment by Suplexia:
All nighters during finals week sucked at the time, but the payoff was going back home for Winter Break and doing nothing but sleeping and eating for a week and a half.

It used to worry the hell out of my mother, but hey, that's what mothers are for.

Archived comment by Matt:
I've long wondered why it is that all-nighters are hardest around that 5 a.m./pre-dawn time? I've talked to other people about it, and we've all agreed that that's when the nausea's at its worst and the brain sends out its strongest signals of, "Sleep now, idiot! I command you to sleep!" But do we listen? Rarely. And if we do, it usually means a lot of lost productivity since the body tries to go for a good five or six hours of sleep, ignorning most alarms.

I'm surprised I could ever do it. This morning I got seven hours and now I feel like crap.

Archived comment by Arlene:
Personally, I have problems staying up past 10pm.

With marathon gaming sessions interesting things happen as the gm gets, um, disoriented.

Example: this one group decided to literally play D&D* all weekend. They started Friday afternoon & would end Sunday evening. The players would occasionally crash, take a nap & resume play, but the gm just kept going. About 8pm on Saturday one of the players said that he was going to cast Detect Magic. The gm said, "Wait a minute, I think that you've already cast that three times today. Heeeey, aren't you playing a fighter**!?"

* for those who may not know, D&D is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, published by TSR
** in D&D, most fighters cannot cast spells (exceptions being certain fighter subclasses like Rangers & Paladins & those fighters who are multi-classed, ie. Fighter/cleric)

Archived comment by Karin:
That may be so, but whenever we started rpg-ing I always fell asleep around 2 or 3 and the guys would just keep on playing.

Archived comment by Arlene:
A button commonly seen among rpg'ers "Sleep is for the weak, gaming is for the weekends"

Archived comment by Yuri:
Jeremy -

Be happy with what you're getting,
There's a guy who's been awake since the second World War.

:)

Archived comment by Ben:
&ltaccent=bavarian+thick&gt
You are getting vary sleeepy. I hav you een my control! MuHahahahaha!
&lt/accent=bavarian+thick&gt

Archived comment by debi:
My freshman year, my neighbor had a sign in her room that said "Sleep is for the weak. You can sleep all you want when you're dead."

Archived comment by Jeremy:
Who needs sleep?
Tell me, what's that for?

Never gonna get it.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Archived comment by Chris:
Woo-hoo! First post! And I haven't slept in 23 hours! It will be at least 36 before I get to go to sleep.... This week is gonna be tough.