Mondays are by far my busiest day of the week, so I thought I’d take you along for the ride with me. Sit back and try to relax because we’re going to all my classes today. I haven’t technically declared my major yet, but I plan to double major in English and Psychology, so my classes are mostly focused in those areas.
I started my day by waking up at 7, but I almost always wake up five minutes before my alarm, which I love, so I don’t wake up my roommate. I slowly woke up and scrolled through my phone before finally rising out of bed to start my day. I grabbed the outfit that I picked out last night (my drawers are too squeaky to open in the morning) and my toothbrush and headed to the bathroom to get ready. Once I was back in my room I put on my jewelry and gathered all my stuff together, then I tiptoed out of the room at around 7:30 to go grab breakfast.
I’m not really a morning person, but if I don’t eat breakfast before my 8:30 am class I won’t be able to function at all, so I’ve forced myself into this routine, and waking up early makes me feel very productive. I found a corner booth to quickly eat in, today I had oatmeal and some fruit, as always, with a cup of tea.
My first class of the day was psychopathology, so I shivered over to Reese from Blanch. Today we were discussing depression, specifically its etiology, and an introduction to Bipolar Disorder. This class was super interesting, so I took pretty thorough notes which will be helpful for our open-note quiz next week!
Psychopathology ends at 9:45 am, and immediately after this, I walk over to Shattuck for my 10 am creative writing class. Shattuck is my favorite building to have class in because the light always seems to be shining in so warmly (compared to the sad coldness I feel in Cleveland) and the view from my classroom is pretty as the foliage falls. Today in groups we peer-reviewed each other’s short fiction stories. First, in my group, we gave feedback to another girl. Her story was really interesting and I was mostly just complimenting her work. Then it was my turn to get critiqued, and everyone was super nice and definitely boosted my confidence. I’m starting to think that the critiques might not be too helpful, as everyone is too nice and gives mostly compliments instead of critiques, but I’ll take it because we got out of class half an hour early.
This was actually perfect because it gave me time to sit in Blanch and create a playlist for my friend Shelby and I’s radio hour at 11, which we forgot to do over the weekend, as we were preoccupied with Halloweekend. Our radio hour is 11-12 and we both have class until 11:15, so usually we get there late, but today I got there on time and started our show. The playlist was what I considered to be Fall vibes, so Phoebe Bridgers, early Harry Styles, The 1975, and The Neighborhood, for example. Once Shelby got there it was basically just us doing karaoke to the radio for an hour and yapping into the microphone pretending we were official announcers.
Then we didn’t feel like dealing with the lunch rush, so we went to Blanch Grab-and-Go and got some mac and cheese and an orange I was somewhat wary about. The mac and cheese was okay, and once I won the fight wrestling the orange, it was pretty good. Now we’re gonna skip ahead an hour and a half because that was just Shelby and I debriefing and trying to plan out our classes for next semester.
Then I popped my air pods in and walked over to Cleveland where I have geology climate change from 1:45-3:00. Since I’m being completely honest with you guys, I wasn’t completely focused in that class. I was still stressing about what classes I needed to take and how many people I was going to have to fight for one of the 18 spots. Also, I started writing this article! I still got some notes down and I always leave that class with more existential dread for our planet’s future than I go in with.
Next, I speed walked over to the Ham parking lot (tell me how 1837 and Gorse lot were both full) to get in my 2003 red Ford Ranger truck and gas it over to Umass. I luckily secured a spot and was perfectly on time for my 4-5:15 intro to journalism class. No hate for Mount Holyoke, but my journalism UMass professor is my favorite ever. He’s so goofy and makes every class super entertaining which is why I make the trek even though attendance is mandatory and there’s a zoom option.
Once I secured a spot at UMass I walked to class and set up shop in the back row. Let me tell you, after Halloweekend, the class was cleared out. Compared to the usual 100+ students, I’d say there were about 30, but the class was still super fun and engaging. We got into groups and did mock interviews with each other to practice journalistic etiquette, so I didn’t grill this girl about Taylor Swift, but I basically did.
Now at 5:15, my classes are officially over for the day and my head is empty. I was on autopilot on the way home until I looked at my gas tank and saw the arrow was pointing almost on the red line (that means empty), so I started panicking, as anyone rightfully would, but luckily there was a gas station on the way home that I was right near. So I pulled in and of course, my wallet wasn’t in my backpack. I fearfully started the rest of the drive home wishing with everything in me to make it back when I realized I had put my wallet in my center console the other day, so I trekked past MHC to the nearest station and rest assured I got the gas I needed.
You can’t have a Monday with some amount of dread and panic, so after that fiasco, I threw on some sweatpants and headed to the gym to finish my day off productively. I stretched and did some yoga (my favorite part) before doing some different exercises and then got on the Stairmaster. I don’t know if anyone’s seen Hailey Fernandez on TikTok, but this girl does at least 45 minutes on the stairmaster a day which is insane, but she’s motivated me to be on my grind. I only did 30 minutes, but still pretty good and I got through most of an episode on Yellowjackets while I was trekking away.
At this point, it’s like 8 pm, and nothing very exciting happens the rest of my Monday. I get back and shower and do my whole skincare routine, then I’m feeling far too lazy to go to dinner so I have an orange, some pistachios, and a granola bar and settle into bed. I do some of my journalism homework and a psych reading before calling it a night on locking in. I watch some episodes of Yellowjackets and scroll on TikTok for a while before heading to bed at around 11.
Basically, that’s how my Monday went! I hope this was very informative and I know everyone was dying to know what I do step by step on a Monday, so I thought I’d give the people what they want.