A Day in the Life of an Obie Senior

During my sophomore year, I wrote a blog post about a day in my life as an Oberlin student. It was so fun to write, so I thought I’d do it again! From morning to night, this is what I did on February 26, 2019, a chilly Tuesday in my last semester as a student at Oberlin.

7:45am: Wake up in my bedroom in my off-campus house and groan. Though I had hoped to get up early to do some homework, I snooze the alarm until 9:00am. I have to take advantage of my free mornings and sleep in as much as I can before I get a job next year!

9:00am: Toast a bagel from Trader Joe’s and eat it while doing readings for my afternoon class. Send Bitmojis back and forth with my sister, who’s a first-year at a college outside of Boston.

10:25am: Drive to the Apollo Theatre for a meeting with my professor. Though it’s only about a ten-minute walk from my house, I drive when it’s really cold out. I spent three full winters walking everywhere, so I think it’s fine to use my car now that I have it!

10:30am: Head to the Cinema Studies Center on the second floor of the Apollo Theatre. We have an incredible editing lab, a shooting studio, a sound studio, and animation stations. I spend a lot of my time here taking production classes and working on my films. Today, I meet one-on-one with my professor Rian Brown (she’s amazing!) as part of the Advanced Filmmaking Projects class. A small group of Cinema Studies seniors are taking this course in which we all produce independent film projects. I’m working on a personal narrative film that loosely connects to my past Comparative American Studies research about sexuality and non-binary identity. It’s so fulfilling to do a project that combines my two majors.  

11:15am: Drink a cup of tea at Slow Train, a super popular Oberlin coffee shop. I sit next to the window as I cross some items off my to-do list. First, I work on a visual analysis paper for my Media Ethnography class. I’m analyzing a piece by photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero, who creates incredible work about fatness, cyberbullying, and public space. After finishing the paper, I do a few readings and submit a film I made to a film festival in Columbus. The film, The Day After, which I made with three other students in a Cinema Studies production class last spring, is premiering at its first film festival this weekend!

1:00pm: Go home and eat some leftovers for lunch.

1:40pm: Print out my essay at Terrell Library (which I still call Mudd, out of habit) and wave hello to a few friends studying there.

2:00pm: DJ my first WOBC radio show of the semester! I had a storytelling show called Tell Me A Story last semester and absolutely loved it. My new show is called Post-Grad. It’s all about confronting the unknown and stepping into the wild next part of life after Oberlin! I’ll be interviewing college seniors, professors, and community members about their experiences in or hopes for post-grad life, as well as their advice for staying present and doing things that bring joy. Today, as an introduction to the show, I simply play music that corresponds to that theme. I love sitting in the station, introducing the songs, and listening to my playlist. It makes me feel so peaceful!

3:00pm: Go to my Media Ethnography class in King. It’s cross-listed in Anthropology and Rhetoric, two of my favorite departments outside of my majors. Professor Lyndsey Beutin is such a passionate and dynamic teacher, so I always look forward to this class. It feels right to be taking it in my final semester, since it brings together several elements of my education here. We look at media representations critically and, in everything we discuss, pay attention to systems of power and oppression. Today, we talk about how the study of media by anthropologists has changed over the past twenty-five years. Every session of this class affirms my desire to work in journalism and documentary filmmaking! I never get tired of thinking about these topics!

4:15pm: Hang out with my partner. Even on our busiest days, we try to carve out a few minutes to say hello and check in!

4:30pm: Go home to eat a snack and read the latest issue of The Grape, one of Oberlin’s student newspapers. I always look forward to it coming out.

5:30pm: Try out a completely new experience: a spinning class! I’ve known about Oberlin’s new YeoFit drop-in exercises classes for a while, but haven’t tried one… until today. To beat the winter blues and lack of motivation I’ve been feeling lately, I’ve decided to exercise every day. So I head over to the gym. The only bike left is in the very front row (ugh), but I sit down anyway, feeling excited. Then the class starts… and it’s SO hard. I’m sweating almost immediately, and my body is moving in ways that I didn’t know were possible! About eight minutes into the forty-five minute class, the teacher announces that this is the week’s “challenge ride” and that it’ll be tough, but we’ll get through it. My mouth hangs open. What?! I’m not ready for a challenge ride! But I’m in the front, so I can’t really leave, and I did want to try it out, so I persevere. When there’s only one minute left, I can’t help but break out into a huge smile. I did it! Afterwards, I make a goofy Instagram story about the experience.

7:00pm: FaceTime with one of my donor siblings, who lives in New York. I laugh a lot and feel refreshed and happy afterwards.

8:00pm: Make dinner with my housemate and BFF Hanne. She has some yummy potatoes and I eat rice and veggies. Cooking is always more fun with Hanne, who encourages me to go with my instincts instead of rigidly following recipes! As always, our conversation spans silly moments from our days, climate change, the Freeform show Good Trouble, and our hopes and dreams for life after college.

9:45pm: Sit on my bed and call my moms. We talk most nights. They help me feel grounded when I get overwhelmed and are just really fun to talk to.

11:00pm: Do a little homework, listen to music, and scroll on Instagram. It’s nice to chill out after a busy day.

12:30am: Go to sleep and hope I don’t wake up too sore from spin class tomorrow!