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Halloween 10.2: the dormitory adventures
Tony Rogers
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Story
TONY ROGERS/THE ARBITER A nice fall day at the Boise State dorms
I have little trouble doing homework in college. Granted, I graduated from a preparatory school that didn’t exactly believe that teenagers should have social lives, (or, for that matter, be able to eat. I think some students actually stopped doing that around finals week). But, with only one of my six classes giving me homework on a routine basis, I started living at my own pace. Every night comprised me getting back to my dorm to play some sort of online game, and a nice five hour stroll through the wondrous and magical pages of Youtube.
Hello procrastination, it’s been a while.
Fast forward to the end of October, and everything changed. By Halloween day, I noticed that the nice, plump little 4.0 GPA that I was so fondly ignoring decided to go anorexic and drop a few pounds. By that Saturday, I was staring at a skinny 3.2 that created an expression on my face that could probably only be replicated by an angry Chihuahua. I was missing a total of three weeks of math assignments, and those happy days of me cavorting through the happy fields of Youtube had suddenly met an apocalyptic and somewhat ironic demise. Thankfully, the math program I take lets you improve your score on the homework that you miss, so I seized the moment. I had to finish those assignments, and only one thing seemed like a logical explanation: I had to pull an all nighter.
When people found out what I was doing, the reaction was unanimous. As a matter of fact, most people started out by asking me if I was high. Just the thought of me spending Halloween night in my room doing computational problems made every normal person’s head spin.
Of course, I was used to doing all-nighters all week if I had to, thanks to that preparatory school that seemed to hate little children. I had one too many 20 page papers that just didn’t complete themselves at five o’clock in the morning. Living in Nampa, 20 minutes from Boise and arguably the most bullet-ridden city in the northwest, made all-nighters almost something to look forward to. Of course, I always regretted it the next morning. Yes, my 20 page monstrosity would get turned in, but I always had some sort of pop quiz in pre-cal, or a lovely 30 slide presentation due the following day in Micro-economics.
However, with the college all-nighter, and with everything that I have experienced in my classes, I wasn’t expecting much to happen, especially since all I have to worry about on Sundays are my staff meetings at the Arbiter Building. An all-nighter on the weekend isn’t THAT weird is it? Apparently I was in for more fun than I thought. Starting at sun down, I immediately started working on my homework, and all was going fine, however, the events of that night could very well be more than I bargained for.
8:00 PM: Well, I better get started on that homework. As much as I’d love to keep partying with Keyboard Cat and Charlie the Unicorn, this isn’t going to complete itself. At the same time though, I can hear iTunes beckoning me closer to the computer screen. I WILL NOT SUCCUMB!
8:10 PM: I think that the Sweeny Todd Movie Soundtrack, compliments of my iTunes account, sounds wonderful on a night like tonight. I can’t help but wonder what’s going on outside though. I’m fairly certain I just heard a combination of an air horn and salsa music.
9:24 PM: Its been more than an hour since I started working on this, and I’ve been able to smash eight problems into the mysterious beyond. I think I have somewhere around 100 more problems I need to do.
9:45 PM: So apparently I forgot to plug in my laptop when I started doing this, and in the midst of an absolute value problem, it decided to regurgitate the battery. Looks like I’m moving to the desktop. And I smell smoke. Lovely. Not sure if that’s my seven year old laptop or it’s that fuse in my head slowly winding down.
9:52 PM: Now my light bulb has gone out, and I still haven’t even come close to finishing this lesson. On the flip side, I think some of my suitemates have left, as I don’t hear sounds of illegal activities pervading the air anymore. And I still smell smoke. Lovely.
10:04 PM: finally ditched the iTunes. I’m not sure how much more Johnny Depp I can take before I say screw it and jump into my own little fantasy land. You know that when you’re one step away from saying that the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” remake was actually good, you need to stop. Did I mention I smell smoke?
10:38 PM: Finally got tired of all that smoke and went to the window to see what was going on. Apparently in college, halloween night is best enjoyed by running around half naked in the street with a flaming stick while screaming obscenities.
10:54 PM: Finally finished my lesson, and the next one is easy! Thank you dear Lord! Here, I’ll make a deal with you. Move the drunk, half naked pyros to another neighborhood, and I swear I’ll become a priest.
10:58 PM: Apparently God doesn’t need any priests right now, as the people outside have sat down, and started a campfire near the bus stop. It looks to me like they’re roasting big marshmallows. Boy, I could really use a s’more right now.
11:18 PM: I FINISHED A CHAPTER! It only took me what, 3 hours!?! OMG, I swear, next time it’s going to take a lot more than just a fail blog video to get me off task! I’m a third of the way done, and apparently the fun is only beginning outside, as I’m starting to smell bacon wafting through my window. I don’t want to know.
11:36 PM: The campfire group left, but I think it was only because of the sirens echoing throughout downtown. At least they were kind enough to put out their fire before they hightailed it out of there. Now if only I could concentrate on the math instead of visualizing the square root and equal signs as strips of bacon.
12:09 AM: Just finished another chapter. I’m starting to like this online math program thing. When it’s the middle of the night and your on your last wit, it’s wonderful to know that the math example will pretty much give you the answer without much effort on your part.
12:14 AM: Just heard a sound outside that I really hope was a car backfiring. Being used to living in Nampa, half of me says it really is a car, while the other half wants to grab the non-existent “load the shotgun” lever. In a way, I blame my math homework for making me so paranoid. I just know that whenever I go to sleep, I’m going to dream of being chased by a quadratic formula down the street, with a drunk, half naked pyromaniac following close behind.
1:46 AM: Stuck halfway through my last chapter, and my brain is mush. All is not lost though, since I just realized that it’s November 1st! That means that there are only like five more weeks of school left! I suddenly have will power to decimate this math monstrosity.
1:56 AM: Finally figured out what the question was asking me to do. Sometimes I just wish that it would just say what you need to do step by step, instead of assuming you know what to do, because every time they skip over something, ITS WHAT I DON’T KNOW! That, and I do not speak fluent math, therefore I think the examples need to be written in English.
1:04 AM: forgot about daylight savings time ending. If anyone just heard a bang just now, it was my head exploding.
2:14 AM: I’m like ten problems from finishing my homework! YES! I am officially taking a small break from all this brain work and relaxing for like 15 minutes. On another note, I think people are coming back into the street, as loud noises are coming from the greenbelt. I think they’re speaking some form of German. Oh, never mind, they’re just drunk.
2:20 AM: Sounds like a fight is about to happen outside my window. It doesn’t look like they’re the same people with the flaming tree limbs from earlier, but I cant help thinking that one of them looks like Taylor Swift from behind. I need some sleep NOW.
2:40 AM: starting to wonder whether or not I should break out the popcorn, as the group outside has started dancing with the light pole. I haven’t laughed this hard since I watched all those Whose Line is it Anyway episodes on Youtube.
2:45 AM: Well, that was fun! I think they ended up going into the river, because I’m hearing a lot more splashing than should be coming out of the river on the first of November. Oh well, sucks for them. Back to my math homework. I WILL FINISH…after some hot cocoa.
3:12 AM: Well, turns out the last ten problems were all review. I think it’s the Math departments way of saying “you need a life”. At least now I can go to bed, and hopefully forget about everything that happened tonight. I need some SLEEP. Watch, I’ll wake up and this will all be a dream.
Well, it wasn’t a dream, and in fact, you can still find some burnt leaves down by the bus stop near the dorms. As a freshman, you can only have so many experiences that you can really add to your book, and even though this wasn’t really an “all-nighter” when you think about it, I don’t think any story is coming close to this one for a while.
And what’s the morals of our story kids? Tony’s five things to remember
- Drinking + fire = Bacon
- Johnny Depp should be classified as an Hallucinogen
- Light poles were made to be danced with
- Hot Cocoa is like cigarettes: fun at first, but incredibly addicting, and too much will kill you!
- Math homework was made to be beaten.