The Wall.

And then it hits you like a bad, overused literary metaphor. 

You stay up one night,  just one night (you say to yourself, as you're grading 68 freshman quizzes, talking to your friend about Charismatic Gifts on Facebook chat and watching the finale of America's Got Talent ((which was totally rigged, in my humble opinion)),), (Side note: I don't think I organized that last sentence very well... please forgive me.  Moving on.)

You stay up one night too late.  One night--the homework was just too much and the distractions were tempting, and you find yourself awake at 2:30 a.m., hitting your second wind.  You start calculating how much sleep you'll be getting (and, if you're me, you justify staying up late due to the scientific powers of sleeping in threes.  I have never reserached this, but one random man sitting across from me on a metaphorical bus once looked over his newspaper, caught my eye, and told me that our body sleeps in cycles of three hours.  So getting three hours is technically better than getting four.  If you sleep for four hours, you'll be waking up mid-cycle and be much more tired than if you had only slept for three.  Once again, moving on.) 

You go to bed at a pre-justified time and set your alarm for what you currently think will be a perfect time to wake up.  It's three-o-clock now, so if I wake up by six I'll have two hours in the morning to get ready and finish my assignments AND it will not have broken the magical sleeping cycle that I'm certain is true...

Then you wake up the next morning and your body is lead.  Your arms have been cut open and filled with sand, and your brain is rambling expletives at the cheerfully chiming alarm clock.
Who the @#$(  came up with the @#$(!#@ idea of sleeping in threes, I don't believe a !@#$ word of it, #@$(!#@$.... your brain drunkenly screams at you, as you find yourself resetting your alarm clock, giving you another hour of intoxicated slumber.

You roll over and three minutes later the alarm is wailing away once more.  This time you pep-talk yourself into making it out the bedroom door and into the shower.  Okay.  Come on, now.  If you don't get up now, you'll be half asleep in class and you'll smell because you won't have time to take a shower and think of the dress you could wear today, wouldn't that be nice?
To which your half-asleep conscience replies: !@#$.