It's been one of those weeks. You know, the kind where your professors secretly get together and decide to assign all the major papers and exams for that one week, the kind of week that puts the true procrastinators to the test.

This week was one of those weeks. But in my four-plus years at this university, I've learned a few things - namely, that if you have papers due Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of the same week, you don't wait until the night before to start your research. The night before is for writing your papers, not researching them.

Planning ahead, I headed to the library and started my research weeks before my papers were due. Then I lugged the books home to my room, where they sat collecting dust while I did my end-of-research-phase celebration. (This celebration sometimes takes months, in which time the books become so overdue that I either have to return them or give the library my first born.)

Once the celebration was over, I started my paper. Even though the due date for my longest paper, an eight-pager, was still almost a whopping two days away, I decided to get as much out of the way as I could. So I prepared myself for the classic college event: the all-nighter.

It reminded me of the first all-nighter I pulled. It was at the end of my freshman year, and I had a huge math final on the last day of exams, at 8 a.m. I went to the library to study, where, at about 4 a.m., I watched a man with perhaps the most forlorn look I have ever seen shut his book, stumble over to a couch and lie down. When he started snoring, I decided it was time to leave.

When I got back home, one of my roommates was still up watching TV. Since I was sick of studying, and since sleep was pretty much out of the question, I asked my roommate if he wanted to play some basketball. At 5 in the morning, playing basketball seemed like a logical thing to do.

It wasn't. After about five minutes, I was sapped of energy. When we got back home, I took an hour nap, ruining me even more, because then I was exhausted. The low point came at about 9 a.m., when, about halfway through the exam, I think I fell asleep.

But this all-nighter would be different, I vowed. That's because instead of doing everything the night before, I was doing it two nights before. What follows is a short synopsis of the night's highlights.

9 p.m. I turn on my computer. To get me in the mood of using my computer, I check my e-mail.

9:30 p.m. I have a lot of e-mail. OK, no more procrastinating, I tell myself. It was time to get to work ... after I got something to eat.

10 p.m. I discover we have nothing to eat. I call the pizza place to order a pizza, but instead of having the guy deliver it, I tell him I'll pick it up, because then I don't have to tip him.

10:30 p.m. After "working" for a half hour, I go pick up the pizza. Unfortunately, I drive. I am reminded that my car is making this strange knocking noise. I envision my wheel just spinning off into oblivion, free from the constraints of my axel. "I've got three more where you came from!" I imagine telling the wheel.

I feel delirious with hunger.

11 p.m. The pizza devoured, I decide to get to work. But there's a moth in my room, and I just can't work with moths in my room.

11:30 p.m. The moth is dead. My roommate, who is working on a 10-page paper, comes into my room to ask what the hell I've been doing for the past 30 minutes. "Trying to kill a moth," I tell her. This, of course, leads to a conversation about relationships.

12:30 a.m. I get to work.

5:30 a.m. I wake up. My paper is 1,037 pages long, but that's because my head has been lying on the "enter" key for the past five hours.

OK, I fell asleep, so it wasn't a true all-nighter. But with my procrastinating out of the way, I was able to start writing my paper earlier than expected, a full 24 hours before it was due.

But first, I had to get something to eat.

Monty Phan is editor in chief of the Arizona Daily Wildcat.