Tomorrow?

Top-Ten Tuesday

I stayed up late last night, and am feeling the effects today. I am a professional procrastinator, so I have put in plenty of late nights in my days. I thought (hoped) it might end once I graduated, but of course I was wrong.

Top Ten: Memorable All-Nighters I Have Pulled
(in Chronological order and not even close to being an all-inclusive list)

1. Elementary School: I was up late making some sort of model or diorama. The details are sketchy now, as was my sculpturing ability, I am sure.
2. Fifth Grade: An all-nighter trying to finish reading Where the Red Fern Grows. I didn't quite finish it, which made for a very disappointing spoiler the next day in class.
   
3. Seventh Grade: Stayed up writing my entire Cow Book--what was supposed to be a semester-long project, describing each history unit we had studied through the eyes of an animal.
   
4. Eighth Grade: Spent all night creating a Family History Poster. I had the bright idea of illustrating my family history by cutting out individual trees for each family (4 generations), with little monkeys representing the parents, and bananas on the trees for the children. I remember having the Disney classic, Robin Hood playing in the background, so I wouldn't get too scared working in the dark basement with the big windows. I rewound and watched the movie no less than 6 times.
   
5. High School: Courtney and I stayed up writing a song. We had to write a melodramatic ballad for an English assignment. Ours was a duet to the tune of "Both Sides Now." It chronicled the story of two love-sick girls who through the course of the song found out they were being wooed by the same man. It was full of words like alas, methought, and even "saucy, rump-fed waggish wench," which of course rhymed with, "methought on him I smelled your stench." It took us all night to write, and we were exhausted the next day, but still managed to perform it for our class, with guitar accompaniment. We even won the class vote for the best ballad!
   
6. High School Senior Year: I stayed up typing my College Applications on a typewriter!! Of course I put that off until the night before they had to be postmarked. Thank goodness for online applications nowadays.
   
7. College Freshman Year: I stayed up all night studying for a music history test, including listening to classical music clips, trying to memorize the style, sound and movements--all in one night. Even after all the years I had spent honing and fine-tuning my cramming skills, I was not up to this challenge. I bombed the test the next morning, but that wasn't even the worst part. After that test I had an oral exam for my French class. I did ok on that, but by the time my teacher was telling me my grade, the exhaustion and stress had taken over, and I started crying. My poor teacher tried to reassure me that a B- wasn't that bad. I attempted to explain to him that it wasn't just that, but of course talking just made me cry even more. That poor man.
   
8. First Week of Parenthood: Chris and I stayed up watching a newborn Tommy sleep under his Bili-light (for jaundice), one of the first nights we had him home. We were worried that the mask he had to wear would cover up his nostrils, so we refused to sleep. The next night we stayed up again, but this time we had friends over, rented movies, and took turns.
9. Last day of my college-career: I stayed up all night compiling my student teaching portfolio--the last assignment I ever turned in (oh, except for that Independent Study class I put off until the week before the graduation deadline).
   
10. Earlier this year (2007): I pulled yet another all-nighter, preparing registration materials for Girls Camp, since I have still not kicked my procrastinating habits, and had waited until the day before I needed to distribute all of these materials.

The worst part about nearly every one of these all-nighters was that whenever I finally started working on a project--the night before it was due--I would always realize that it was actually fun to work on, and I would start getting all sorts of good ideas. Of course, it was always too late to implement my ideas, so I would vow to put an end to my terrible habits--which of course I still haven't done. Oh well, maybe next time.

P.S. Don't procrastinate voting on our latest debate . It's a close call, and the poll closes tonight(See the sidebar). Tomorrow will be too late!