It’s 12:12 AM, and your paper is due in 18 hours.
You’re tired, you’re hungry, and you’re up to your eyeballs in Apple Computer’s 10-K report.
You want to nap, but you know if you do, you’re finished. You’ve got 10 pages left to write, and you need a way to stay awake.
What do you do?
Ramen Noodles, baby, Ramen Noodles. 20% of your NDA for saturated fat, and 33% of your sodium.
College life doesn’t get any better than this.
Later
It’s 2:44 PM, and your paper is due in 5 hours.
You’re tired, you’re hungry, and you’re up to your eyeballs in Apple Computer’s market share analysis.
You want to nap, but you know if you do, you’re finished. You’ve got 3 pages left to write, and you need to eat lunch.
What do you do?
Panera, baby, Panera. Smoked turkey breast, smoked bacon, smoked Gouda, leaf lettuce, tomato and our signature dressing, on our Tomato Basil bread.
&*#@ paper.
Later Still
It’s 5:21 PM, and your paper is due in 3 hours.
You’re edgy, you’re desperate, and you’re staring blankly at your word processor trying to come up with a conclusion.
You want to go play in traffic, but you know if you do, you’re finished. You’ve got a freakin’ page left to write and plenty of editing to do, and you need to remember that life is still worth living.
What do you do?
Frappuccino®, baby, Frappuccino®. Coffee, chocolate and coconut flakes blended with ice, topped with whipped cream, mocha syrup and coconut flakes.
I want my life back.
Finally
Done. One bowl of Ramen Noodles, one Panera Bacon Turkey Bravo plus chips plus Coke, and one Starbucks Frappuccino® later, the paper was finished and turned in on time. For those of you who may be interested in what the fuss was all about, my paper is available here in all its 35 pages of proprietary-format, diagram-ridden, poorly-edited, bandwidth-soaking glory. You can even amuse yourself with the fact that the paper gets dumber as my deadline draws nearer.
I’ll work on exporting an HTML because I’m trying to be a good netizen and get away from Microsoft Word’s proprietary format. It sure ain’t easy, though.
Update: The HTML version is now available due to my rapid web-space consumption. Thanks to Dean Allen’s Word HTML Cleaner.
mmm.. ramen. Next you are gonna bring up mac & cheese.
My personal fav for web design at 4am was cool ranch doritos and honey brown beer. But that was in florida when i didnt have to get up early and was living the ultimate hacker lifestyle.
Whatever you do, do NOT start playing neverwinter nights until the paper is done. You probably don’t even own it (though you should) – so consider picking it up post paper as a reward.
Not sure its your cup o’ tea though. You went for LOTR, but never went for the D&D. Hmm. Maybe. Definately worth a look though, its really addictive.
It is so 3:28am and I should be in bed, but what better way to spend your night than cooking gourmet food, watching two movies, and then browsing online at editing jobs, completely intimidated by the prospect of having to go into this crazy industry a year from now, even though I technically have the best editing gig on campus right now. Good luck with your paper Ken and definitely give me a call sometime this week, I’m basically working on my own schedule now. – Tom
Jersey City Grease Fires and Grease Steaks baby… Couldn’t write a paper without ‘em… See, the grease would help me think, then, when I would get that sudden stint of writers block… the grease kicked in, giving me a much needed break (that I would never take on my own), and alot of time to think on the porcelin… If you know what I mean!
Yeah… I’m one of theirs.
2:44 pm eh? Sounds like another cause for beer and doritos. This is easy.
And in two hours, when you are down to that last bit of double spacing and margin/font size tweaking, hoping that you can avoid fluffing that conclusion up even more, i highly suggest beer and doritos.
Or at least massive amounts of soda.
Is it some kind of ego-miniacal tendancy for one to share their deadline stress with others? Why is Ken telling us he is going through H%$# while writting his paper? Shouldn’t he be doing something else?
Yeah— (this is the Tommy W. yeah)
The only reason I ask is that last week when I had a 16 pager due on Sat. I was blogging on Ken’s site on Friday night… What was I thinking?
But it did relieve my pain for a short while.
You heard it heard first “blog therapy” a sub-species of psycho-therapy’s dialogical therapy.
Baby steps Ken; Baby steps.
It’s 6 pm, and you just got home with your new baby. She is quietly sleeping, and you think, “I will eat a meal.” As you sit down for someone to bring you a plate of ziti (a favorite dish from friends), your daughter (I had a baby? you think) begins to cry.
It’s 8 pm, and she has been crying for two hours. You carry her, crying to the kitchen, wishing you could eat that cold ziti, but settle for a hot dog bun, thinking you will eat later.
11:30 p.m.-she has slept, for a few minutes, and you think, Surely, I can lay her down now, and microwave my dinner. You lay her down…and she wakes up. Your spouse looks at you, you look at your spouse, and you think, We had a baby? You go back to the rocking chair until….
1:30 am-finally, baby is so tired out (as are your neighbors) she goes to sleep. You set her in the crib, and head to the kitchen. 60 seconds later-ping!-your ziti is ready in the microwave. You sit down, eat quickly, and go to bed.
2 am-baby wakes up. Does she eat now? Is she poopy? Who knows? You feed her, and go back to the rocking chair.
5 am-baby goes to sleep, after crying off and on for the last three hours. You debate laying her down, and decide to not risk it. Even though it is very early, your stomach is hungry. So, you go to the kitchen, and eat another hot dog bun, spilling dry crumbs on the baby because the buns have gone stale after you left the bag open last night. You brush the crumbs off, and baby….wakes up.
8 am-Finally! Baby is asleep, and you gently lay her down, wondering if you might have gotten the wrong baby (and wonder WHY do the Poleys have so many??), she was so quiet in the hospital. You crawl into bed, with your stomach growling, but you don’t care. And you think,
“Top Ramen never looked so good…”
Jenny
Is it starting to sound like a Ramen comercial in here? I think it is!
Jenny, how we’ve missed your bollgin’ skills! When are you gonna write a book? I’d read it, and I don’t even read much… except kenny’s blog…
My question, though, Jai, is where would you read it? I do want to write a book some day (like, that is really going to happen!), but I worry it would end up bathroom reading….with a title like, “60 seconds with the Poley’s!”, you know, one of those bathroom books that you are supposed to read in short time periods.
But, to be honest, I know guys could read a lot longer than 60 seconds in the bathroom. Ben is the only potty trained guy in my house who doesn’t spend hours in there…..