I pulled an all-nighter for no real reason. All I had today was Calculus at 9am anyway. I went and hoped I'd be awake enough.
I couldn't concentrate on what was on the board. When I tried to, I'd find myself rippling awake from almost falling face down on the desk or falling back with my mouth agape. Neither actually happened as far as I know, but I wondered how obvious it was--I was sitting in the front row and once or twice as I twitched I heard some people on the other side of the room laughing. Calculus isn't that funny.
After a while of the agonizing pattern of watching the teacher and dozing and jerking awake and analyzing the clock anxiously, I decided then to gather down notes instead. It was just copying from my notebook to another piece of paper.
sin2(x) = ½(1+... no, that wasn't right. It was minus. I erased the plus. There is no peace. I like peace. Peace is good but peace isn't war. This one was war. I woke.
sin2(x) = ½(1- war )
It didn't even look like my handwriting... I stared at it for a few seconds, then erased it. I carefully copied down the correct equation, and went along.
I kept... falling asleep though... the clock... slow
I looked at the teacher's face (were my eyes even open?) and watched his chalk movements as well as I could. I considered walking out of the room and chilling in the halls or bathroom for a while, but the pressure against getting up in the middle of class kept me in my seat.
More notes. I had to look busy. I trained myself to make my jolty waking-up moments look sort of natural by easing it into a motion of stretching. Notes. Teacher. Clock. My pencil.
I woke. The teacher was now at the left side of the room, my side of the room. I looked at him and he was looking at me, I think. I didn't know how long I was looking at him or if I even had my eyes open, if I was even awake, but I heard him say, "..that's enough for one day, Friday test moving on, practice, next class handout copy down hah can your own really practice only way quick 50 minutes" was I sleeping?
I don't know.
I did get some notes down though.