The All-Nighter

I was going to post a review of The Book Thief today, but I’m trying to correct my sleeping patterns. They’ve gotten progressively worse as I’ve stayed up later and later without any 9am classes to wake up for. Yesterday I had the bright idea to just stay up all night until 9pm, but then I fell asleep at noon and woke up at 7:30pm.

On the plus side, I saw both the sunrise and sunset yesterday and they were beautiful. On the downside, I’m officially nocturnal. So today I’m determined to be awake until 9pm this time.

With this probably unhealthy sleep deprivation, I’m not sure how well I can give a well-thought out review of Markus Zusak’s bestseller. Although who knows? Maybe I could.

The first time I pulled an all-nighter here at uni, it was because I was alerted that the essay I thought was due in two weeks, was actually due at 3pm that day. I learned this at 8pm. So without any planning or intense formal research, I booked it to my dorm and did my essay overnight. I winged it completely.

When you hand in an assignment late, the highest you can score is the lowest passing grade, a 40%, which is a D- for those not familiar with the UK grading system. That’s what I got on my essay, but my teacher had written “Shame it was late. Would have been a 68%” which is a B+. To be honest, I had been expecting a dead zero, so despite everything, I was relieved. Not to worry, my other assignment for that course, worth 60% of my grade, got 72% which is an A. Not only did it make up for my grade, but I later found out grades in the first year don’t even count in the UK. Whew!

Of course, managing an essay worth 68% overnight is a fluke. I wouldn’t recommend trying it.

Anyway, I think I might order food or something. Don’t forget to vote for a theme here!