“Bola, we are going for night reading"

“Shana, igi iwe, (slangs for bookish people), how was overnight for you?”

“I love reading at night, I focus better then"

“There is no time to read during the day, so I sleep a bit and read at night”

“Overnight na scam abeg, all of you just dey deceive una self"

“I am not a night reader, it messes with my sleep"

These and more are people’s varying opinions and views on reading overnight. Some view it as a lifesaver, an opportunity to cover what needs to be, others view it as a scam. It messes with their sleeping pattern, it destroys their plans for the following day, it becomes difficult to properly function after reading all through the night. At times, they feel that there is no point reading over night when sleeping all through the following day follows.

Long time no article. Hi there, it’s great to write here again. Stella is here again. As a bad belle for some observed behaviours by “overnight people", I am not here to preach the benefits of overnights or otherwise, I am simply here to break tables. If my talk hits you, accept it and hate all you want 😅😅(or not). You can also take the hit and reply, whichever works for you.

I have seen a couple of things in my “little” experience with reading overnight, and I have realized that mostly, more than half of the persons that “read” through the night gain nothing (Don’t mind my statistics, it is not based on any data). I said what I said, many people do not gain anything or as much as they should be gaining. This leads me to the six groups of overnight people I will be talking about

First, the people that dump things everywhere. Littering a public space with wraps of whatever you eat is never considered polite, but these people fail to accept that. How do you explain eating and drinking and throwing the wraps, cans and bottles on the ground? Who is expected to pick them up or sweep them?

It has become so bad that people don’t even hide this behavior anymore. I know dumping things is not limited to overnights, but this is a common behavior in overnight reading amongst some. Sometimes, these things breed mosquitoes quickly and reading becomes very hard for others around(others include me, thanks)

Photo credit: istockphoto
People talking instead of reading

The second set of people will never cease to amaze me in their ways are people that go to lecture theaters to discuss, laugh or gist and talk about someone or something. What prevents you from staying in your room with your friends and talking all you want? Do a girls or guys night for that purpose or something, anything that does not involve disturbing the peace of people that have exams or tests to read for, people that actually want to read. The worst thing is when these people laugh and giggle almost every minute. Please what’s funny? What exactly is funny? Is it the book that is funny or the exam to be written that is? Or is distracting others at the wrong time funny?

The third set of people are those that get to lecture theaters, read for some minutes, eat a heavy meal or something not very light and sleep minutes afterwards to wake up the following morning.

There is something you need to know about this set of people. They are the ones that people praise the most when they get back to their homes or hostels.

“Iwe", “Shana"(slangs for a brilliant or bookish person) are words that are never far from the mouths of their friends and acquaintances. Imagine being praised for not reading a thing or knowing that you slept too well for an overnight reading except mosquitoes here and there. Of course, very few people admit to these friends of theirs that they ended up reading very little or nothing.

There are others that play loud music or watch movies without using a earpiece, earpod or headphone.

Whyyy?

The day I first saw someone playing loud music in a lecture theater, I was shocked to my bones. It was like a movie, because it felt unreal. How are you able to disturb others so obviously and comfortably?

People that watch movies loudly through “overnight" are a set of people that don’t like being comfortable. Why will you leave the comfort of your home, come to an uncomfortable environment inside cold to watch a movie? What happened to your bed or your chair in your room? I have nothing to say to people like this because their actions are not clear to me.

The next set of people are people that come to get to know each other at reading locations.

There is no reason why people like this cannot meet at other places to get to know each other or become friends. Why a lecture or reading theatre at night? All I will say about that is that we all have different things we are thinking about at different times in our lives.

The last set of people I will talk about are the kinds of people I struggle to understand. There is strange and there is strange . I’m not saying they are strange, maybe they are just “unique”.

Excuse sir/ma, why are you coming to a lecture theater after your exams and without having any project to complete or books to read to watch people read?

I never knew something like this existed until about four months ago when I went to read and someone was telling another that he just went to watch people read and was not planning to do anything. And trust me, he was saying the truth, because I did not see a single book with him, nor did I see a laptop. Asides his mobile phone, I cannot remember seeing any other thing with him. I was shocked.

Unless you are making research on people’s behaviors while reading overnight, I see no reason to come to “watch people”. That’s my view anyways, you may see things otherwise.

Seeing these different sets of people alongside people that came to read and actually read or spend most of their time reading/discussing what they’ve read adds to the spice of life. Yes, some of these things cause distractions, but person wey know wetin e go do for overnight go face am well.

As I said earlier, I’m not here to talk about the pros and cons of overnight, that’s for you to figure out based on what works for you.

To all you that do other things in your overnight reading, decide for yourself what your next line of action will be on your next night reading. While you do what you do, please try not to disturb others. T for tenkssss

P.S: As usual, tell me how you feel about the above words and how you feel about reading overnight. If you belong to one of the categories above or have ever done any of what people in those categories do, do tell me in the comment section. I will be there waiting for you.

Don’t forget to clap as many as 50 times, because why should you do less?

Ciao, my gees