Over the course of this semester, I pulled two all-nighters. The first one consisted of me staying up for 38 hours straight and the second one was 25 hours of pure torture.

This is not a mark of pride, but it is a mark of how school has made my health decline.

Now, I know some people will say, "why didn't you do your work earlier? You wouldn't have been in this boat if you could manage your time" And yes, I get that logic, but I honestly am never just sitting around doing nothing. I am always doing work. When a person has five papers and four exams over the course of seven days, no amount of planning can compensate for that workload.

Pulling an all-nighter is not fun! It isn't like how it is in the movies where people stay up all night and look fine the next day. No. I looked like death, I felt like I was going to pass out, I had a huge headache, and my eyes were so dry that they felt like raisins. I honestly just wanted to fall to the ground on my way to classes and sleep in the dirt next to the squirrels.

The scary part of my journey of torture was when I was finishing up my paper, and I started to read it out loud to make sure that it sounded fine. While reading aloud I realized that I was slurring my speech. I had no idea what I was even saying. When I finished the paper, I was finally able to get up for a few minutes and actually get ready for sleep, but I was stumbling around in my room like I had way too many glasses of wine. I was acting like a drunk person even though I was 100% sober. It was not fun nor was it healthy in the slightest.

This is all just a reminder to not let school dictate your life and your health. Don't let it become so overwhelming that you don't get sleep for days and are only surviving off of granola bars and mints. Don't let it go that far.