Win 7 crashing all the time. Help!

Ugh why does this have to happen on the weekend right before finals?

Alright so my laptop is running 7 Home Premium 64x and crashing a lot. If I right click anywhere on the desktop I get explorer.exe has stopped responding. Tried opening up task manager and no services taking up to much ram. Taskbar still works however I notice immediately on start up that my battery meter is frozen at 0% and says plugged in even when it is not.

Yesterday I attempted to restore in safe-mode. Helped for 30 hours now it is back. Now it will freeze up in safe-mode.

Also notable (related?) problems is that Windows will not shutdown or restart. It will hang on the "shutting down" screen forever and eventually a hard power down is required.

Additionally, when I close the lid to put it to sleep, it will not power down. When I open the screen again the screen will not power on.

Please help. This will be an academic nightmare if I am not up and running soon.