11.4.21 (photo from a hike in the Catskill Region Sunday, 10.24)

So, as promised, I was feeling motivated to write down what I do during the day. In part because I feel highly unproductive and I need to remind myself that I’m not, and also just to share my story and educate future academics! I know that this was something that would have helped me just a couple months ago.

7:00 – My alarm goes off. Usually I snooze at least twice, but today I was feeling particularly motivated. I laid in bed scrolling on my phone until about 7:10, then dragged myself out of bed. Sometimes I am indecisive about what I’m going to wear, but today I already had picked out a pair of pants. I was still undecided about a shirt, so I threw on an undershirt to layer with some sort of collared shirt later.

7:25 – I don’t really need the caffeine, but I’ve gotten into a routine of making myself a cup of coffee and eating breakfast. I sat on the couch watching the sun attempt to rise through the grey clouds.

7:55 – Now it’s time to catch the bus. I live about 3 miles from campus and I have a car, but Albany drivers are not the best, and I prefer to take the bus most days when I don’t have to run any errands or get home quickly.

8:25 – I arrive to campus, and get to my building. I normally would head to the library, but it’s not open until 9am, so I make myself comfortable on a couch. I’m working on a research proposal due next week, so I put my headphones in to tune out the world. But before I do that, I check my email and finish up some grading for one of my professors.

9:00 – After procrastinating (and writing an earlier blog post here), I start my research proposal. I have written a solid draft, I just need to find more sources, so I spend the next hour pouring through some sources I had already collected but not yet read through.

10:00 – My AppleWatch reminds me that it’s time to move, and so it is. I think about going to the library, but instead I head to the third floor, where I have a joint office space with other first-years in my department. Unsurprisingly, I am alone; rarely is anyone ever there before noon. I keep plugging along at my proposal and research.

11:00ish – I have class at 11:40 on Mondays, so it’s time for me to eat an early lunch. I get out my lunchbox and heat up a homemade burrito. I was worried about having to pack my lunch everyday, but it’s formed part of my nightly routine where I do lunch prep at the same time that I am cooking dinner.

11:30 – I head off to my first class, Gender & Sexuality. It’s a graduate seminar filled with sociology students as well as women’s and gender studies students.

1:00 – Break time! We get a break halfway through the seminar course, as it’s almost three hours long. I am not hungry but instead decide to take a walk around campus, as I am feeling ancy.

2:30 – Class dismissed. I head back to the department office to grab my lunchbox and drop off some books at my desk, and then I walk to the bus stop. I have a class that I TA for at 4:30, so there’s a bit of an awkward break. I usually decide to go home because it is on Zoom.

3:00 – I get home and my mother calls me. We don’t talk often, but today we FaceTime for almost an hour.

4:00 – Some down time before the meeting at 4:30. I use this time to get a snack, check emails, and get dressed for a workout after class.

4:30 – Discussion hour for the class that I TA for. It usually doesn’t last for a full hour, and today it ends a little after 5.

5:15 – I decide to stretch my legs and go for a run. I’ve been dealing with some knee pain recently, and I went on a gentle 6-mile hike yesterday in my new running shoes. Today I pushed the limits even more and went on a tempo run, doing a 3 miler in about 25 minutes. I end my workout sesh with some pullups and bodyweight exercises on the local outdoor playground.

6:00 – I hop in the shower and begin prepping dinner. Tonight I am feeling lazy, so I make a pot of Annie’s mac & cheese, adding in some fresh broccoli for some green, heat up some leftover chicken, and pair it with a side Caesar salad. I swear I have a hole in my leg, so it’s no wonder I like to make my food to skimp on food bills from eating out!

7:00 – I chow down on dinner and watch an episode of Good Mythical Morning 🙂

7:45 – Time to get back to work. I finish reading for my one class, Research Methods, tomorrow afternoon, so that I can spend the day tomorrow working on my proposal and doing other readings.

9:00 – I finish reading and taking notes, and decide to start writing this 🙂

10:00 – It’s time for a bedtime snack. Usually I munch aimlessly when I am bored (a bad habit, but it gives me endorphins – enough said)

10:30 – At this point, I’m usually feeling tired and head to my bedroom. I scroll through my phone aimlessly again, before falling asleep sometime before midnight.

10.25.21

I think this is… Week 8? Week 9? We’re at the point of the semester when time seems to blur together.

At any rate, unsurprisingly, I have been struggling with (yet I would argue, doing well at) managing my time. Going from having 6 courses per semester, two jobs, playing a varsity sport and being involved in tons of clubs and student orgs to “just” taking 3 classes and serving as a TA for two was definitely an adjustment. But there are a few things that I have learned that have helped me get past the midpoint of the semester still standing:

1. I am much, much more productive before 2 pm. Almost all of my motivation and thinking power comes in the morning, which is unfortunate for me as almost all my classes start after 3pm. This may be a conditioned thing, too, because the majority of my courses in undergrad were before 2:30 for sports. I am also productive after around 8pm, but I try to reserve that for less rigorous tasks.
2. I hate grading; no matter how little time it takes me, it’s monotonous and bores me. I try to front-load my grading at the beginning of a due date, and then grade the stragglers at some point…later.
3. Being physically active is really important. For someone who doesn’t use a planner or really have a calendar of events, I find that dragging myself to campus to do work is quite beneficial for my sense of productivity. I am very grateful that we are in person (*fingers crossed*) this semester, because I do not think I would have done as well virtually. It is important for me to move from classroom to classroom, to actually physically move myself to the library to study, etc. I also need to get my daily and weekly workouts in – I’ve reserved Sunday to be almost entirely free of work, with the exception of prepping for the coming week in the evening. Besides that, it is my day for long hikes and drives, and this helps me reset and refresh for the week.

With that said, I am procrastinating some readings right now, so I think I’ll leave it at this right now. Originally I was motivated to share a “day in the life”, but that will be in a coming post!

9.21.21

I’m not sure who will read this, but just to be safe, I’ll keep it purposefully vague. The past couple of days in the department have been a whirlwind of emotions, as one of the long-tenured faculty members passed away unexpectedly.

While I am only just beginning my tenure here, it is already under unusual circumstances during Covid, and now this. I find myself not so much grieving as I am experiencing an all-too-common existential crisis about living and the meaning of life. I took time yesterday to call my elderly relatives, including my father, and I also am unpacking what it means to be a graduate student.

Do I really want to challenge academia? Can I be successful and more happy in another industry, or elsewhere?

These are some of the questions I find myself considering just weeks into my PhD program. One of the biggest challenges for me has been having too much “extra time” on my hands. I was a varsity athlete during my undergraduate career, but now I live off-campus, and only really have to be on campus for a couple hours per day. Coupled with some ADHD and we’ve got ourselves a recipe for unproductivity. Yet I remind myself that productivity is not everything; although I am settled into a routine, I think about the fact that assignments, and busy times during the semester, ebb and flow. There is no pressure for me to be at my best self 110% of the time, yet I feel this internal pressure to do well. Perhaps trying to accelerate my comps may be one way for me to feel more productive. We’ll see.

9.16.21

(image from Labor Day Weekend 2021)

Feeling motivated to write tonight as I lie in bed thinking about all of the reading that I could be doing instead. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned so far in this journey, it’s that there is always something that I should be doing instead of what I’m actually doing. This includes but is not limited to: eating, sleeping, reading, exercising, or doing something fun.

While many of my cohort-mates thus far are knee deep in projects and readings, I am trying to remain optimistic that my strategy of “work hard, play hard” continues to pay off. And so, I drag myself out of bed every day by 8:00 am, and try to be in the office by 9. It’s work, read, and write until I cannot anymore or I have morning class, lunch, nap, repeat. For not being a morning or a night person, I am much more productive before 3pm; perhaps the product of being a student-athlete. I’ve learned to capitalize on this and get all of my heavy lifting done before I leave campus.

What is really strange to me, though, is having class in the late afternoon. They’re not truly night classes, but three days per week I have class between 3-5:50. It’s just at that perfect, awkward time, where my brain energy levels are dwindling and I want to be outside running around. It has definitely taken some getting used to, as during undergrad, I was usually done by 2:25 or 2:50 at the latest (and I thought that was late!).

I recognize that there will be hard days ahead, but for the moment, I am loving being back in school. Even with all of the flaws and deeply-rooted inequalities within academia, it also provides me with the faintest glimmer of hope and encourages me to keep moving forward, one day at a time. Just happy to be here.

8.30.21

It seems like just yesterday I was starting up this blog, yet the past year went by in the blink of an eye. I just finished up my first week as a graduate student, and I hope to get into the habit of blogging my journey in grad school.

Some thoughts and highlights from my first week:

• I didn’t get lost on my first day of class
• …But I spent a good 30 minutes searching for my car on the second day
• Reading is hard and I’m much more productive when I’m physically active – it’s hard to go from a college athlete to a sedentary lifestyle
• A half-eaten piece of pizza appeared on my car on Sunday morning
• I’m determined to make it a priority to do a proper workout at least 3x / week

Anyway, we’ll see how long this lasts, but I will be interested to see if I can keep it up throughout my studies 🙂

8.23.20

Well, I guess the first sign that I’m getting older is that I managed to delete an entire section of this blog (hopefully I can find this later – the internet works in mysterious ways)! Anyway, I am now twenty-one years old, and find myself caught in an interesting mix of youth and adult responsibilities.

While I’m looking forward to getting older and getting out of this odd mix of “adult but not adult enough,” I look around and sometimes I wish life would slow down. Young adults aged eighteen to twenty-two are put in such an interesting position in United States’ society: some are still almost entirely dependent on their parents, and others have already moved out, are working to scrape by, and have partners and children.

At any rate, this is my first year in the past sixteen years I have not been enrolled full-time in school, and it’s certainly a weird feeling. I’m looking forward to getting back to school in the future, and I will tackle the GREs, no matter what it takes!