Before last night, I had never stayed up past 1 AM doing homework. Weekend revelry, perhaps, but not homework. I was so proud of myself. Most other CS majors will have already pulled several all-nighters by the end of the first week of freshman year.
I started math homework around 3 PM. The plan was to work until dinner around 5, relax a bit, finish around 7 and then move on to algorithms. Math took until 9, but that was after I got distracted by visitors and video games. "No big deal," I thought to myself, "I'll work on algorithms until midnight. It can't take much longer than that." Midnight passed, and I had yet to finish the first problem. Not only that, but I had already thrown out three pages of dead ends and was staring at a blank sheet of notebook paper. I was beginning to feel that distinct feeling of dread that accompanies tests one has forgotten to study for and trips to the principal's office.
Hours passed, and by 4 AM I finally had something written down for each of the four questions. I felt ok about some of it and very bad about the rest, but at least I had answers. With four hours until I had to get up to turn in the assignment, I fell into bed, relieved to be finished.
That assignment ranks among the worst I have ever had. Luckily, from listening to my classmates through the fog of too little sleep, I wasn't the only one who had struggled.