The long dark exam time of the engineering soul

I have a paper tomorrow (actually, today) at 1600 hrs. It's 0230 hrs and I'm still trying to get my concepts about the subject cleared. I've already referred three textbooks (or "reference" books) and haven't found a proper explanation. The only guy who could probably explain it all to me is mostly fast asleep. Hence I'm online, rummaging through IEEE papers (thank you dear college for providing us with this facility) trying to find the answer. Maybe I'll find the answer somewhere.
But one thing is for sure. t < 24 hours before the exam is not exactly the best time to get your concepts cleared. This has to be done well in advance. For which, the textbook has to be opened well in advance. Which I never do and I don't think I ever will.
Aniket, my son, when will you learn?

(P.S: The hot topic for tonight's search is a certain compression algorithm called the Lempel Ziv algorithm. If you are reading this and its not yet 1600 hrs and you know something about it, call me up for God's sake!)