The 13 Stages Of Every Maltese Architecture Student’s All-Nighter
1. You realise that you may have overestimated your cramming skills
2. You accept that you’ll probably finish, but you have to start now
But you won’t. You need to message Sarah on Facebook to ask her how much she’s done, and panic when she panics because she’s “only got like two full-blown renders”.
Right – back to my sections then.
3. You contemplating carrying the whole kettle to your room
Those 30 seconds you spend commuting to the kitchen are valuable.
“Lemme just take a quick break from this looming deadline to calculate exactly how much time I’d save and divide it by the level of productive work I’d do in that time if I jus- I’m doing it again aren’t I?”
4. Your whole life flashes before your eyes as you hatch an area that’s not enclosed
Goodbye career. Goodbye dreams of making it in the business. Hello error sign reminding you it’s been an hour since you last saved your work.
There is no greater sadness than watching your computer try to process the command you didn’t mean to give it, while knowing full well it’s not gonna make it. Not even CTRL+z can save you now.
5. You contemplate passing it off as uber-minimalist
6. You decide you’ve earned a 5 minute nap
Sections done, elevations – meh jgħaddu. You deserve this short break (that will swiftly turn into three hours. Why am I the worst?).
7. You assure yourself that next year you’ll be better
Which is probably what you said last year, but you need something to get you through photoshopping people awkwardly standing around your home.
8. All-nighter nausea kicks in
Along with hallucinations as real life becomes a series of calculated CAD lines and you mentally hit ‘enter’ every time you make a desicion IRL.
9. You somehow manage to compile all your work into one A0 board
The world’s ugliest board. Maybe your teachers will give you credit for going that extra mile to have your work laid out in the worst way possible. Call it art, I’m sure they’ll buy it.
10 But the stationer’s plotter can’t open the file and you’re left crying over a pendrive
That’s another 30 minutes driving home to rework the file when you shouldn’t even be allowed to handle a phone, let alone a vehicle.
11. You finally hang up your work, and contemplate hanging yourself as you see your peer’s renders
Only cool kids forget to label the direction of their stairs and draw the arrow in quickly while the examiners walk off for a coffee – so there…
12. You await your fate in a half-asleep limbo as your friends’ invent bullshit philosophical discussions mid-exam
You see – this is why you don’t start early. Nobody wants to hear about the emotional epiphany you had about the toilet bowl’s colour palette, Sarah.
13. You prepare to present your work and hope the bags under your eyes horrify your tutors more than your work
At least the all nighter helped put things in perspective – even if you fail, tonight you get to sleep. And there’s no greater feeling than that.
