The morning after

So you've pulled an all-nighter. Written your paper, done your reading, finished that problem set and learned very well why everyone in Princeton's L's are so F'd. The sun is up again (you learned on your walk back from the library), and it's time for class. You've changed clothes, brushed your teeth and pumped yourself full of enough caffeine to make it through the day. (I'm a big fan of drinking Diet Coke until I can feel my stomach start corroding).

You get to class. God willing, it's a lecture, and you can eat your snack, put your fingers in a convincing position on the keyboard and enjoy a 50-minute nap. But say it's a smaller class. A seminar, maybe, where you happen to sit directly in front of your professor. First of all, that was a stupid move. You really should have known better.

But you're here now, holding your head up with the palm of one hand as it bobs in uncontrollable spurts of almost-sleep. In your brief moments of cognizance, you take a few notes, but if you ever happen to look at them again, they're not exactly what you expected. These are all-nighter notes, a special breed that may actually decrease your understanding of the material if you glance over them before an exam. A brief guide:

The Redundant

Student only catches half of what was said between bouts of on-and-off sleeping. Decides that writing it twice is better than not writing anything.

Real-life example: "It's not possible for us to take the story of Jonah literally because it's literally impossible."

Solution: Earn brownie points with the professor by explaining you just accidentally created the English/religion/classics favorite - chiasmus - in which clauses are inversely structured to convey a bigger idea. In this case, the bigger idea was, "I'm tired and daydreaming about my grade school musical version of Jonah's story, in which I played one-eighth of the whale."

The Indecipherable

Student is too tired to distinguish any proper nouns or important information in the lecture. Relies mainly on conjunctions, pronouns and prepositions, hoping to fill in the other stuff later.

Real-life example: " (name?) says it is so ___ and such. She likes ___." (Titus Andronicus)

Solution: These notes are beyond fixing, even if you look back at the book they're based on. But all is not lost, because vague descriptions plus missing words equals perfect hand-made Mad Libs! Go crazy! An example: "Lady Gaga says it is so avuncular and such. She likes glockenspiels." (Titus Andronicus)

The Creative

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Student stops writing lecture notes verbatim, using them instead as guidelines for some inside jokes, illustrated with doodles. Upon further review, student realizes said jokes are not funny.

Real-life example: "In ancient times, ‘gospel' was both a verb and a noun. For example, you just got gospeled!" [Doodle of an angry disciple]

Solution: Share your amusing drawings with friends. Keep the sub-par wordplay to yourself. Unless, of course, you wind up writing a course-related buddy-cop movie in need of a snappy catchphrase. Then you're golden.

The Narcoleptic

Student literally falls asleep mid-sentence and ideally mid-word. Possible dangers include: hitting one's head on a desk or keyboard, accidentally nuzzling that classmate who annoys everyone in precept, wildly gesturing into the aisle in a last-ditch effort to regain balance.

Real-life example: He sab y6

Solution: It's possible people saw that. Play it cool. Post it on PrincetonFML so that students everywhere have some entertainment for their own all-nighters.