1) They are easily excitable when recognizable literary references pop up.
Example:
English Major: (to other English major friend) So then he was like, “Hey, girl, whatchoo doin’ tonight?” and I was like, “Whatever, call me Ishmael.”
Engineer: OMG THAT’S FROM THAT BOOK WITH THE WHALE.
Engineer 2: LOL YA THE OLD GUY AND THE SEA.
English Majors: *side eye*
Engineers: *high fives*
2) They complain about ‘essays’.
Example:
Engineer: Ugh, did you finish that writing assignment?
Engineer 2: Writing! Which one, bro? They’re all terrible.
Engineer: The long one? She made us write, like, three pages.
Engineer 2: And you DID it? What are you, some kind of English major?
3) Their condescension to your humanties-based major takes the form of similar interests.
Seriously. I can’t tell you how often engineers tell me they ‘like to read’ when I admit to my English major. Yeah, okay. And I like to count. Let’s be friends.
Example
Engineer: Yeah, I’m an engineer. What’s your major?
Other person: English/PoliSci/Theatre/Women’s Studies
Engineer: *quickly masking disappointment* No way! I love reading/voting/Wicked/boobs!
4) They will have jobs.
Ultimately, we have to be nice to them.
Example:
Barista/Former English Major: Did you want skim or whole milk with that latte?
Google Programmer/Former Engineer: …Aziza? Is that you?
Today’s (Tonight’s) Lesson: How to Pull an All-Nighter to Catch Up on Your Slacker Weekend
Good evening, and welcome to chapter two of Aziza’s Guidebook, ‘Pulling an All-Nighter’! In this special, slightly disjointed, less-than-linear, likely-to-deteriorate-as-time-passes blog/guide, we’ll be posting consistent updates, either until the chapter is finished, or the author is incoherent! For background on this post, please refer here.
Happy reading, and remember to check back regularly for more tips on how to perfect your all-nighter!
Start Time: 12:49 am, EST
End Time: 10:10 am, EST
Step One: Location, Location, Location
Obviously, where you spend your all-nighter can either make or break your plans. Trying, for example, to spend an all-nighter in your bed, unless you’re studying your own sleeping habits, is a bad, bad, bad idea. Sit up. Be uncomfortable, perhaps cold or sore.
The amount of foot traffic any given place receives will become increasingly more irrelevant as time passes. Gauge for yourself how much you need to be distracted. Are you the type of person to drift off in a space of utter silence? Situate yourself in a common room or student union center. Can you absolutely not concentrate without complete silence? Stock up on Red Bull and French fries and lock yourself into a library study room.
A large building with several outlets, various seating arrangements, and ideally a 24-hour McDonalds or similar eating establishment is prime real estate in these situations. They provide for multiple changes of scenery with minimal judgment–anyone in the student center after 3 AM has no right to judge. So what if you’ve been wearing the same sweatpants for 48 hours? Furthermore, when breakfast time rolls around, or it’s 4 AM and you find yourself nodding off, you can take a brief stroll for some coffee without having to step into the bitter cold of night. On the plus side, if you find a window, you can watch the sun rise.
Step Two: Prepare.
This can be most efficiently accomplished by Googling ‘how to pull an all-nighter’. Look through the many results–read each one carefully. While your at it, check your e-mail, call your mother, and text that kid you once dated in elementary school. This may seem counter productive, but really, it’s not. It’s stimulating your mind, and also qualifies as social enrichment. Or whatever.
Step Three: Focus.
Alternatively, write a blog post. Or watch this video. Or both.
Step Four: Take a Break.
Watch UP. Be sure to turn your screen either towards or away from your fellow all-nighters. How harshly and by whom do you want to be judged?
Step 4.5: Cry
Make your fellow slackers feel real uncomfortable. Insist you’re watching a sad movie, but infer that it’s something more. It’s late, and you’re tired, and, seriously, have you seen this movie? Dang.
Step Five: Study
No, really. It helps.
Step Six: Succumb to Exhaustion and ______ Distraction
Be interrupted by an insomniac friend on gchat. Jump on the chance to procrastinateconsole. Scroll through webcomics during and after this period of indiscriminate non-product. Forget or misuse words. Mipsell things.
Step Seven: Reflect on Your Slacker-Weekend
Recall why you got no work done; recall in general.
Step Eight: Stop Reflecting
Immediately.
Step Nine: Cuddle
Snuggle your roommate’s new ‘rapicorn’ (a portmanteau word combining ‘unicorn’ and…it’s favorite activity) in a way both pathetic and desperate. Take a picture to add pizazz to your lowly blog. Make sure your hair is doing something weird. Chuckle that your browser’s spell check called you out on ‘pizazz’.
Note the plea in the eyes. His, not mine.
Step Ten: Shake Uncontrollably.
Debate whether this is a side effect of the building going to sleep–and losing it’s heating–around you, or just your body’s way of saying, “Enough with the caffeine.” Decide it is the former and make a decision to look sketchy–pull up your hood. Accept this is the best you will look for the rest of the day.
Step Eleven: Rejoice!
You’ve dragged the friend from step six into your pit of sleepless oblivion. Understand this bodes well for none of your mutual friends.
Step Twelve: Greet
Pay your respects to the morning cleaning crew–they have a better understanding of this strange place and time than you do. Try not to recoil in shock when they say ‘good morning’.
Step Fourteen: Be Supersticious
Your lack of sleep and the eeriness of the empty building will aide in this endeavor.
Step Fifteen: Move
Aside from getting up and walking around, going to purchase that fourth cup of coffee, and finding something else to throw away in the farthest trashcan possible, be coerced into moving into a well-cushioned chair you have previously used for midday naps.
Step Sixteen: Don’t Fall Asleep.
Don’t.
Step Seventeen: PANIC.
Realize that in eight hours you have not yet finished 1000 words and probably retained less than half of the information you need to report on. Recognize that despite your all-nighter efforts you are still way, way behind, and neither relieved nor relaxed. Feel upwards of five cups of coffee in your hands as you type and mistype words you can no longer remember how to spell. Become absurdly jittery–jump when your friend tries to speak to you. Scream when someone enters the bathroom. Note your elevated heart rate. Blog while trying to maintain a facade of normalcy to avoid freaking out the other six people in the student union of your choosing. Forget how to breathe. Don’t fall asleep. Hope to return to some of the pre-3AM joviality. Listen to this song on repeat (not part of the panicking):
Step Eighteen: Forget What You Were Going to Say
Oops.
Step Nineteen: Oh, yeah.
Gag next time you try to drink your coffee. Go for a Coke instead.
Step Twenty: Go Outside
Behold! The day. Be glad you picked up these new pajamas from Target last week; simultaneously wish they were warmer.
Step Twenty-One: Feel
You are hungry, but too nauseated and jittery as a side effect of the caffeine to eat. You no longer feel sleepy, just cold. You are not as relieved (or as caught up) as you thought you would be, but it doesn’t matter. Sleep is a mere fourteen hours away.
Step Twenty-Two: Learn
…how to spell ‘caffeine’ without spell check: c-a-f-f-e-i-n-e.
Step Twenty-Three: Really Learn
Try and retain the novel amount of stuff you’ve read in the last ten hours. Mentally prepare for the forthcoming Facebook backlash. Explain what you mean by this at a future venue when you have full capacity of your vocabulary.
Step Twenty-Four: Strive for Perfection and Perfect Squares
Make up an extra step so you end on a good number. Wish you could come up with a more clever (cleverer? I feel like that’s only okay in Wonderland) way to say as much.
Step Twenty-Five: SUCCESS
Finish, edit, and turn in your paper. Complete your readings. Summarize your movie. Schedule a meeting. Be less far away from being caught up than you were before. Feel sun. Decide to take a half hour off and shower. Change out of your pajamas. Send your roommate for Lupe Fiasco tickets. Know that sleep is just twelve hours away.
Thank folks for putting up with an impossibly long blog. Promise a shorter, less desperate blog in the future. Hope they enjoyed it at least a little bit.
Today’s Lesson: What to Do in Case of a Basketball Player Sighting
Greetings. As you may or may not know, Duke University, located in the humble North Carolinian city of Durham (aka, Bull City, aka the Dirty D), currently holds the National Collegiate Athletic Association title for men’s basketball (and lacrosse, but that’s another blog) for 2010. As such, our basketball players (BBPs) are oft revered, both on and off campus, as heroes and demigods. Imagine, if you will, rushing one early morning to your polisci class, when–behold!–*insert celebrity of choice* crosses your path. What do you do?
Do you:
A) Scream and run away
B) Scream and run toward said celebrity
C) Scream, and continue toward your class
D) Continue casually toward your class as though said celebrity is of little or no importance to you. Once seated in class, pull out notebook, pen, and laptop, and then scream.
The correct answer is, of course, E–none of the above. But since most of you either got that wrong or cheated, I’ve decided to publish this helpful guide on what to do if you see a celebrity (read, Duke basketball player) while on campus.
Step One: Remain Calm
This step is of the utmost importance. Sudden paralysis, muteness, inability to breathe, and/or fainting is highly undesirable to most people, basketball players included. It is helpful to pretend the player in question is an average student, or, in severe cases, the creepy guy who sits behind you in stats. If the glory of said BBP prevents you from pretending anything, you may also pull out your phone and call your mother, send a text or take a picture (of the chapel, the library, a squirrel, anything but the athlete in question) or, engage in suddenly fascinating conversation.
Example:
Person 1: *upon sighting Kyle Singler* OH MY GOD.
Person 2: What?
Person 1: The BC e-print is down again.
Step Two: Assess the Situation
Without breaking your stride (see step one), determine whether your situation warrants further interest. Are you sure the person is a basketball player (see below for helpful hints on BBP identification)? If so, are they immediately identifiable by their visage, or do you have to check their backpack tags? If the latter is true, skip to step five. However, if the former is true (i.e., Nolan Smith, Seth Curry, Andre Dawkins), the BBP in question allows for a moment of reverence–continue to step three.
Step Three: Don’t Shit Yourself
Self explanatory. Step three may be taken separately, or as a corollary to step one.
Step Four: Stare
Once you have completed steps one through three, make sure you are blocking neither the path of said BBP, nor anyone else’s who may be around you. Stare at said BBP for no longer than three seconds–the same recommended amount of time spent at a stop sign in California Driver’s Ed.This is very important. Any longer will make you look like either a freshman, a tourist, or a creeper. All three defines an unholytrinity which has been known to invoke the wrath of Coach K himself. Okay, not really, but people will judge you. Harshly.
NOTE: Sometimes, if you have been touched by the hand of God, or if you are on the narrow strip of cement between the residential quad and the BC plaza, and the basketball player you have encountered cannot get around you, the BBP will make eye contact. THIS IS A VERY SPECIAL CASE. Proceed IMMEDIATELY to step 4.5 with the utmost caution.
Step Four and a Half: React
NOTE: To be read ONLY if you have made eye contact with a Duke Basketball Player. Not one of the ones who sits on the bench the whole time, either (unless, of course, said player is Kyrie Irving. He gets his own blog post).
If you have been blessed enough to receive even the briefest moment of recognition from a Duke BBP, rejoice! But not right away. First, decide what kind of eye contact is being made. Is it ‘why is this kid staring at me’ eye contact? If so, please refer back to step four. Is it ‘get out of my way’ eye contact? Quickly–but not so quickly as to invoke rage or a sense of being snubbed–lower your eyes and move out of the way at all costs. Is it ‘uh…hey’ eye contact? Smile and nod politely, then move on. DO NOT look back, and DO NOT squeal with giddy (or masculine) euphoria until you are absolutely out of earshot. Is it ‘hey, good looking!’ eye contact? No. It’s not. Don’t flatter yourself.
Step Five: Move Along
This step, while final, is possibly the most important step of the process. Failure to proceed according to instruction could result in embarrassment or worse. Regardless of whether eye contact was made or not, be sure to place yourself well out of walking range of the BBP encountered, then continue as per usual. Do not look back. Do not jump up and down. Do not text your friends UNTIL you have reached your destination. The only celebration permitted is a passing glance to either your travel companion or an equally thrilled passer by. Eye contact is necessarily minimal–no more than one second–to avoid looking like an asshole. High fives may be given ONLY in the sanctity of one’s own abode. Please close your blinds–no one wants to see that.
Helpful Tips for Spotting and Identifying Basketball Players
If you are a tourist or a freshman, fear not! Here are a series of questions to ask yourself when scouting for BBPs.
Are they tall? Like…obscenely tall? Can you see them before you see the Chapel?
If so, are they wearing sweats?
Do these sweats say ‘Duke Basketball’ on them?
Are they traveling alone? Duke athletes–basketball players in particular–tend to travel in crowds, often garbed in matching blue, gray and black gym-wear, like a herd of Adidas giraffes. It is rare to see a BBP on his own.
Are they wearing their numbers–1, 2, 20, etc–anywhere on their person?
No, really–are they tall? Do you feel dwarfed even when standing several feet away? Can you imagine an algebraic formula for solving for right triangles centered around them (i.e., a 7’10” man stands in the sun casting a 12′ shadow...)
Feel free to peruse the following pictures at your leisure, or type them up and use them as flashcards. Or go here.
Kyrie Irving, #1
Nolan Smith, #2
Dre, #20
I hope you find this guide both accessible and useful. Come back next time for lesson two: How to Remember What You Were Gonna Write for Number Six on Your Midterm Before Kyrie Irving Strolled in Twenty Minutes Late and You Were Distracted by his Awesome.
don't call me sweetie 