Welcome to part three of my Week in the Life! Parts one and two can be found here and here, respectively.
SATURDAY
10 am: prepare lunch ahead of time
11 am: JSA board meeting
- As a board member of the Japanese Student Organization on campus, I help prepare for and host weekly board meetings where we plan events for our members and manage communication between our organization and other student organizations, the Oberlin administration, etc.
12 pm: head back home for lunch
12:30 pm: head to Conservatory to warm up with my chamber trio
1:15 pm: perform in an Admissions Concert with my trio
- During audition weekends, Oberlin’s Conservatory Admissions hosts small concerts for current students to perform for prospective students who are visiting the campus for auditions and interviews. My chamber trio will be performing in a concert today, and another one on Sunday.
- Our performance today is in Clonick Hall, which is a much smaller venue than Warner Concert Hall, where we had performed the night before. Because of this, today’s concert feels a lot more intimate because we are performing much closer to our audience.
2 pm: head to Con Library
- I try to take a nap in hopes that I will feel energized enough to do a bit of work. I try to get some work done, but I realize I’m feeling a little too tired to focus, so I decide to head back home. But first, a trip to Brown Bag Co-op to grab some food!
4:45 pm: BBC run to restock on ingredients
5 pm: make dinner and meal prep for next week
- I prepare dinner for myself, and then set several hours aside to meal prep for the rest of the evening.
9:30 pm: finally done!
- Cleaning up takes a while, especially because I’m not used to cooking so much food at once! Since I only cook for myself most days, it felt strange to cook multiple portions of food in one go, but now I’ll have food stocked and ready to go in my fridge and freezer for when I need it.
SUNDAY
11:15 am: brunch with trio
- I meet up with my chamber trio for brunch at Main Street Grille, which is a diner in downtown Oberlin that serves breakfast and lunch. We had to wait a little while to get seated because it was quite busy (it’s Sunday brunch after all!), so we are all quite hungry by the time we get to sit down, and very excited to eat when the food arrives.
- The menu offers a variety of classic brunch options for us to choose from. I end up ordering a cup of fruit and a vegetable skillet, which comes with a side of toast. The food is quite filling, and reasonably priced!
12:30 pm: head to Conservatory
- After brunch, we head over to the Conservatory to get ready and warm up for our third and final performance of the week.
1:15 pm: Admissions Concert #2 (the same deal as our performance on Saturday!)
2:15 pm: get some work done at the Con Library
4:45 pm: head back to apartment
6:30 pm: heat up leftovers for a quick dinner
7 pm: go to Super Bowl watch party at friends’ house
- This is my first time watching the Super Bowl — can you tell I’m not a football person?
- I go to the watch party mainly to see my friends. I’m not particularly interested in the Super Bowl happenings so I end up mostly catching up with one of my friends there and getting some work done together.
10:30 pm: head back home
- It’s been a long day and a long first week of classes. I’m very much looking forward to unwinding and sleeping tonight.
11:30 pm: bedtime
- What a week!!! I hope next week will be less hectic and tiring.
Thoughts to wrap up...
→ Something I noticed throughout the week:
This past week, when I tried to wind down and go to sleep each night, it was difficult to stop my mind from racing. It felt like I couldn’t turn my mind “off” after it being “on” and working at full speed the rest of the day, which was something I was able to do during Winter Break and Winter Term, when my days were less fast-paced. With so much to do throughout the school week, I would often find myself feeling physically tense, almost as if if I allowed myself to relax a little, I would lose the momentum to keep going (this is starting to sound like a journal entry now…).
I want to find ways to help myself relax throughout the day, to let go and to let everything melt away for a bit. I think that hour or so I spent doing pottery earlier in the week, for example, was quite meditative and calming for me, so I hope to find some go-to avenues of relaxation like this as the semester progresses. I’m excited for the weather to warm up a little so that I can spend more time outdoors, which typically helps me feel better.
→ What I’m looking forward to in the upcoming week:
I am going to be teaching my very first secondary piano lesson! I’m excited to formally explore the teaching side of music.
I will also have my first BBC crew & unpacking shifts, where I think I will get a better sense of what it’s like to be a part of a dining co-op. I also think that joining BBC this semester will turn out to be a good decision for me, because it will help me transition from being a college student to being more of a “real” adult who has to cook most of their meals (and probably won’t have a meal plan to rely on — I miss its convenience already).
I think I will have a better handle on meal prepping next week, which I hope will make my semester less hectic moving forward. I’m excited to try out new recipes and work with a variety of ingredients.
→ Goals for the semester:
Blogging more frequently. Since I’m graduating soon, I think it will be a good way for me to document my memories of and experiences at Oberlin. I am also excited to be able to share everything I can with prospective Obies through my blog posts. Writing more might also help me be more reflective and present with the things that I do in my day-to-day life.
I also want to strike a balance between embracing the present while also planning for the future.
I think I’m starting to fully appreciate what it is to be a college student, now more than ever, knowing that life will probably look very different in the second half of this year than it has looked for the past five (!) years… :’)
That’s it for my Week in the Life miniseries. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for following along. Until next time!!
