A {Busy} Day in the Life

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Happy Wednesday! I have a paper due Monday, so while I don’t have classes today, I’ll probably be working on that. That said, nothing too exciting will probably happen today. However, Tuesdays are my busiest days, and I thought it’d be fun to show you what I did yesterday and when I did it. Miiight get a little lengthy, but here is a {busy} day in my life.

6:30 am

I wake up naturally after a surprising good eight hours of sleep and talk myself into a quick workout, since I know I’ll get antsy sitting around all day. I get dressed in the dark, since my roommate is still asleep and jog down to the athletic center.

6:45 am

Arrive at the gym, do a quick workout, and I’m done by 7:01. Not a long workout, but it feels good to move and helps me wake up a little bit.

7:07 am

Get back to the dorm, greet the front desk ladies, and gather up my stuff before I hit the shower. Perks of showering this early: I get the big shower, since I’m the only one there.

8:09 am

Head down to breakfast. Not many other people there, but oh well.

{Repeat picture… imagine oatmeal instead of a pancake and you have yesterday’s breakfast}

8:26 am

I go back up to my room to gather my stuff. I also realize that I really don’t have snack time between my morning classes and grab a Luna bar and a Quest bar for the walk to my first class.

8:34 am

Leave for my humanities class. I know I’ll be early, but I like that (I hate rushing around). I eat the two bars on my way.

8:40 am

Arrive at class, get my notebook and books out and then go fill up my water bottle. Come back and chat with the other early-arrivers. Class starts at 9:00.

10:20 am

Class is over and I hurry to calc, since its location changed. I think this will be a problem, but it actually works out beautifully and I arrive at 10:25. New location is actually easier to get to from my humanities class. Awesome.

11:50 am

Calc ends and I walk a couple blocks over to the Institute of Politics. Before I knew how busy my Tuesdays were, I signed up to go to a series of “off-the-record” lectures by Megan McArdle. I don’t want to bail just because I am busy, especially knowing how many days a week I have almost nothing going on, so I decide to see how feasible it is to go there and then head to my afternoon econ class.

11:56 am

Arrive at IoP and demolish a pack of Krave jerky since I don’t have time to stop for lunch between calc and the seminar, which starts at noon.

1:05 pm

Duck out of the seminar a couple minutes early, since I have a phone call I want to return before econ starts.

1:11 pm

Make plans to chat with my mom after my econ lecture, which starts at 1:30.

2:09 pm

{Sugar hit}

As part of an exercise in supply and demand curves, our professor gave us cupcakes. Yes, please.

4:17 pm

The lecture ends a couple minutes early and I step outside after about three hours to the most gorgeous day.

{So pretty}

4:22 pm

I call my mom and we talk as I purposely take a long route back to my dorm. I’ve been sitting all day and it feels amazing to stretch a little.

5:51 pm

I head down to dinner and hang out there for a while, just talking to the other people at the house table. I don’t have anything that needs to be done tonight, so I decide to just sit and talk about classes and sugary cereal and the difficulties of eating grapefruit and other totally normal things.

6:34 pm

I sit down to work on this for a bit and snack on a KIND bar and a Tootsie Pop. I proceed to kind of zone out and catch up on social media and email while eating a bagel and some too much chocolate.

{Part of dessert}

7:45 pm

Leave to go to a Smart Woman Securities session that starts at 8:00.

9:08 pm

The session, a pretty interesting one on personal finance and investing, ran over a few minutes. Walk back to the dorm with a couple of girls from my house I met up with at SWS. Talk about how pretty the night is… and how we’ll never want to leave our dorm in the winter, when the weather is much less pleasant.

9:25 pm

Talk to housemates dressed to play Humans vs. Zombies (week-long game on campus) as I walk through the house lounge.

9:32 pm

Sit down to finish this up with a snack (another bagel… and more chocolate).

10:16 pm

Crash in bed, pretty exhausted. Early for a college student. Normal for me.

How was your day?

Working on My Workaholic Ways

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{Source}

I fully believe that quote up there, but three days into college, I told my parents I was pretty sure I’m a workaholic. My dad responded, “There are worse -aholics to be.”

Well, Daddy, that is certainly true.

However, being a workaholic, while not entirely a bad thing, has its drawbacks. For one thing, if I have any work to do, whether it’s due in a two days or a week, I feel like it has to be done - now. This makes me seem incredibly efficient and responsible, but it’s really just a compulsion. Also, it makes me feel like… not a lot of fun.

After a series of scheduling issues I spent the first week of classes trying to resolve, it worked out that I have no classes on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. It sounds like I have a dream schedule (and I’m really very happy with my classes), but for someone with a tendency toward overworking myself, it feels a little less than ideal.

While I’m sure I won’t be hurting for schoolwork to fill my time, I need to make sure I take some breaks and have some fun - and that’s actually kind of tough for me. When there’s work to do, my mode of operation is just to do it.

That said, if I have reading due in a week and someone wants to go grab dinner, I probably need to say yes, because the reading can wait but the memories really won’t. If I really want to bake something for my new friends, I should probably put my calc homework away for an hour or two and head to the kitchen. Sometimes, I might need to realize that it’s okay to stay out late and sleep in a lot the next day if it means taking the opportunity to wear myself out at a party or explore the city.

{Source}

Basically, I am generally excellent at doing the responsible thing. But sometimes the technically responsible thing isn’t the absolute best thing. School is important to me and naturally at the top of my priority list, but I’m recognizing that sometimes I need to shift those priorities a little in favor of building relationships, creating memories, and having pure fun.

I’m not so great at letting go and going with the flow, but that’s what I am working on.

{Source}

No questions, just your thoughts

Simple Pleasures Sunday #3

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Hey there! Happy Sunday! Ahhh it’s been a great weekend. The weather is starting to turn a little chillier, but all in all, it’s been beautiful here, and I got to enjoy some time outside yesterday. I’ve been really productive in my downtime, but also managed to have some fun. So now let’s enjoy a little positivity as we head into the busy week by noticing some simple pleasures.

  • Beautiful nights

{Little bit blurry}

{I go to school with castles. No big deal.}

The sun is definitely setting earlier and earlier. Generally, this makes me feel extra sleepy. However, it is pretty fun to be able to see all the cool lighting and colors that come with the shift. And walking back to my dorm on a chilly night is much more pleasant when it’s this gorgeous.

  • Having schoolwork

Okay, I admit, I’m a little weird. I really enjoy having things to do and the process of doing them and the satisfaction of them being done. That’s a really long way of saying I like to be productive. School lets me be productive. Bonus: I get to learn things! I love learning and feeling my mind engage.

  • Apples

{County Line Orchard}

I really love apples. They’re pretty much my favorite fruit. I love them with nut butter and with turkey and greek yogurt and by themselves and baked into delicious desserts. I love apples. Anyway, a bunch of my housemates and I went apple-picking in Indiana yesterday. It was honestly a really gross, damp, chilly day, but we found some pretty fantastic apples and fed ourselves pretty well. And I think the extras go toward a giant house apple crisp, so that makes it all better.

{My haul}

{Free caramel apple}

{Freshly-fried donut. Um… it’s an apple-cinnamon donut.}

  • Sleep (whenever I can fit it in)

I would say the first few weeks of college have been exhausting, but if I’m being honest, my sleepiness isn’t just a college thing. I am kind of always tired. Lately, I’ve been making more of an effort to go back to sleep if I wake up way earlier than I need to for classes and to squeeze in quick naps whenever I feel overwhelmingly tired. I won’t say it’s made a huge difference in the way I feel overall, but sometimes that little bit of rest is enough to make getting through a given day easier.

  • Fortune cookie fortunes

{Positivity}

First, I’d like to start by saying that I really like fortune cookies. I think they’re sweet and tasty and kind of perfect. Some friends and I went out to dinner on Saturday, since our dining halls are closed on Saturday nights and the restaurant we ate at was serving chocolate fortune cookies, which are basically a step up from regular fortune cookies and are therefore pretty awesome.

But while delicious, I also like fortune cookies for the little messages inside. A lot of the time, they aren’t really fortunes, but they still feel kind of special. I keep them all and I like what they say (I don’t care that the messages are super generic and could apply to anyone). They’re cute and they make me happy.

And that’s about it for me today. I’ll probably try to get some reading done later and maybe wander around to find a grocery store around here somewhere. My snack supply is shrinking. I hope you have a lovely end to this first weekend in October!

What’s your favorite way to eat an apple?

Fortune cookies: yum or yuck?

Any simple pleasures in your life lately?

Thinking Out Loud #2: First Week Thoughts

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Happy Thursday! Ohhh there are a lot of thoughts going through my head as I write this. So many. And now, thanks to Amanda, you get to see them.

1.) I really, really think I like my classes. I love learning, so that’s part of it, but I’m taking classes that I feel engaged in and interested in for the first time in a while. I’m pretty exhausted, but I really generally enjoy my readings and homework. Ask me how I feel in a couple weeks, but for now I feel okay.

2.) I say I feel okay, but I’m the first to admit I kind of melted down on my second night of classes. I had been starving all day, no matter what I ate, and I have long days of class on Tuesdays and I was still feeling pretty sick. I was trying to write a simple three-paragraph response and I panicked and froze and then ate an entire carton of Cookie Dough Oreos. Delicious, but I’m sure there are better coping mechanisms.

{Shouldn’t, but I’m probably going to try to find more}

So that happened. I also got a million sweet texts from my family and high school friends while I was stressing and I don’t know how I’d do this without them.

3.) I’m the first to admit that the residential “house” system at UChicago might be a little cheesy. It’s kind of right out of a Harry Potter book. BUT I love it. I actually feel like I have a family here, too. At any meal, I can sit at the house table next to whoever happens to be there, and have a nice cheery conversation about our days and our plans for later and what we’re dealing with and also sometimes philosophy. Love.

Also, we do fun things together. This weekend, we’re going apple-picking!

4.) The morning after my little meltdown was nice and relaxing and productive. It made me feel like I can probably “do college” after all. I didn’t have a class until mid afternoon, so I got in a good work out, finished a bunch of reading, ran some errands, and had time to just sit quietly and catch up with friends and enjoy my $1 milkshake.

{Every. Single. Week.}

Okay, so it was actually a lot more like ice cream. Creamy mint ice cream with really good dark chocolate chips and, uh, more Oreos. Overkill?

5.) Fall is so pretty. It’s breezy and the trees are golden and the sky is the perfect blue. This is where you imagine what it looks like to be surrounded by castle-like buildings in perfect weather because my picture got deleted. Sorry. It was beautiful.

6.) I have a philosophy discussion and a calc class today, and then I’m meeting with my adviser because my Spanish class got canceled. It’s my only class three days a week, so… I’d really like to have something on those three days…

7.) My roommate and I are both sick now. When we’re sitting in our room studying, it’s like a symphony of sniffing and coughing. Can’t wait till that’s over. I’m writing this on Wednesday night, and I have class in the morning, so I’m going to wrap this up and call it an early night. Maybe that’ll help me heal up faster?

Share your random thoughts with me. I’d love to hear them

Before It Really Begins

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Before school really begins, we had O-Week, which was followed by O-Weekend. Today, classes start, and since the next few days might be a little busy, I thought we could go through a massive photo dump. So, here is my O-Weekend. Mostly pictures, some words, lots of fun. This is what we did before the stress and work and academic learning we came here for.

{Stuffing ourselves after a day of community service}

{Spicy veggie chili and delicious bread at the Med}

{We got to take over the Museum of Science and Industry for an evening}

{Sweet globe at MSI}

{Because I can’t ride a bike}

{Model of Chicago}

{Model of Chicago}

{Model of Chicago}

{U-505}

 

{You hang out in planes like this, too, right?}

{Awkward mirror selfie before a day at Wicker Park}

{BEST tacos ever at Antique Taco}

{Shrimp + purple onion + black beans + corn + Parmesan + cilantro + avocado}

{Vintage hats}

{Vintage hats}

{Reception at the top of the John Hancock Center}

{View from the top}

{View from the top}

{View from the top}

{View from the top}

{Red velvet brownie bite + caramel cake + raspberry cheesecake bite}

And school starts today to jolt us back to reality. This week has been amazing and actually kind of surreal. I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of the quarter brings. Talk to you soon!

Did you have a good weekend?

What are you looking forward to?

Simple Pleasures Sunday #2

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Happy Sunday! This last weekend before classes has been super busy and fun and full of more great memories that I’ll be sure to recap later. Until then, let’s talk about some of the simple pleasures I’ve been noticing during my first week away from home.

  • Being unpacked

When we piled all my stuff and all my roommate’s stuff into the room, there was hardly any space to move and I may have been panicking a little. But now, everything has a place and I’m actually kinda loving it. It’s great. It’s a little small and my bed is a little high, but I’ve seen a lot of dorm rooms and it could be so much worse.

  • Beautiful views everywhere

This campus is gorgeous, and this city is gorgeous, and the weather is gorgeous (for now). I’ve loved just wandering around and familiarizing myself with the area. Perrrrrfection.

  • New friends and acquaintances and just people

Everybody I’ve met has been so open and friendly. The upperclassmen serving as orientation aides and RAs are helpful, enthusiastic, and encouraging. The other first-years are interesting and fun. Our advisers and counselors are genuine and thoughtful. I pretty much love them all. That’s such an overwhelming, amazing feeling, to be comfortable with all these new people.

  • Snacks!!! (and Graze)

I’ve been walking all over the place and the sudden activity increase definitely boosted my already-endless appetite. I put 4-5 snacks in my bag every day and they’re always gone. My usual rotation includes Quest bars, Luna Fiber bars (discontinued - sad!), apples, Emerald nuts, jerky (Krave and Perky Jerky), and Graze punnets. I love snacks.

  • Knowing my schedule for the quarter

I hate uncertainty. And now I know (and pretty much like) my class schedule! So excited for classes to start. Nerd alert?

  • Family and old friends

Like I said the other day, I haven’t been too homesick, but I still really love texting and chatting with my high school friends and my parents. It’s nice to have instant communication with people I love who are far away. Technology is the greatest. Also, care packages are pretty great.

Everything I need to get over a cold and start studying.

And that’s a wrap. I’ll be back with a weekend recap… soon. I don’t know when. Sorry! I love you all anyway. Promise. Okay, bye. Time for sleep.

Favorite snacks?

What are your simple pleasures of late?

 

 

Recapping O-Week

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Honestly, this past week has been kind of a blur. The mandatory meetings made the days feel long and the nighttime fun made the days actually long. I am 100% sure that no pictures and no words that I come up with will fully capture the experience of acclimating to living in a dorm, away from home, full-time. Before I attempt to explain that experience, though, I want to say that I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I can’t share all the details with everyone I know. (Though I am getting to know all sorts of new, amazing people.) Yes, I’ve missed home some, and I’ve missed “my” food and routines and cooking and all that. But what I’ve really missed is having people who really know me around to see what’s happening in my world and relate to it and understand it - and get to experience it, too.

Anyway, enough semi-depressing talk. Let’s talk about the time post- parental departure.

They kept us busy for Monday night and Tuesday. Busybusybusy. After ushering us through Hull Gate, away from our parents, we were cheered on and welcomed by tons of upperclassmen and shuffled into the shape of an “18” for our class picture. After that, we met with our residential houses, had dinner, and headed off for an evening of activities. My house? We went to The Second City!

I don’t tend to think of myself as really enjoying sketch comedy, but the sketches and the improv were absolutely hilarious. By the time we trekked downtown, watched the three-hour show, and headed back, I was completely exhausted, but it was a wonderful first night.

Tuesday, we had more meetings to learn about registration for classes and campus life. Admittedly, they weren’t that interesting and we were all tired, but it got me started really thinking about (read: getting excited for) my classes. After all our meetings and listening to the Aims of Education address, given every year by a UChicago alum, my house walked to Promontory Point. The night and view were beautiful, though the picture doesn’t do it justice at all.

{Chicago skyline in the distance}

We hung out at the Point for a while and made s’mores and ate leftover graham crackers before heading back to the dorms.

Wednesday was when everything started to die down a little. We had little we had to do, so we got to relax and explore a little more. I took a quick jog around campus in the morning to sort of orient myself and SERIOUSLY. The views. Beautiful.

{Kind of dark, but the SKY is so pretty}

{Joe and Rika Mansueto Library}

After that, we hung out in the library while looking over schedule stuff and then headed to some open houses to look at extracurricular opportunities. Nothing too exciting, until… free shake day!

Ugh. So delicious. UChicago has the tradition of $1 milkshakes on Wednesdays, but for the first-years, our first ones were free. And delicious. Chooooocolate. <3

The evening honestly wasn’t too exciting for me. I was starting to get kind of a bad cold, and so I called it a night pretty early (This will be a theme. What a great time to get sick.)

Thursday was another free day, and the most noteworthy thing was this beauty I found in the dining hall.

Birthday cake ice cream so wonderful I can’t even explain it.

In the evening we had a scavenger hunt through our dorms followed by a party with the best chocolate and butterscotch fondues and all the fruit and marshmallows and pretzels you could ask for. It was lovely. Aaaand I went to sleep early. Lame.

FRIDAY. Last day of O-Week, and the day I got my schedule. I got the classes I wanted (one at a different time, though), so I’m super excited, and my schedule actually might work out better than the one I planned originally. Whaddya know. I ran some errands on campus, picked up my books, and then hung out and played cards and relaxed and tried to recuperate from the gross cold overtaking my system.

And that’s my week, minus descriptions of the wonderful people I’ve met and such. It’s been a great week and I’m excited to start classes after a seriously long summer!

Wish me luck!

 

Simple Pleasures Sunday #1

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Hey, there! Happy Sunday! Today is my move-in day, so I’ll be pretty busy. Also, this week is Orientation Week (O-Week), so I might be a little occupied. I’ll try to pop in once or twice for sure, but I’m definitely going to take in as much of this experience as possible. There will be a ton of pictures, though. And probably an end-of-week photo dump? I’m figuring all this out at once.

So maybe jumping into the whole blogging thing right before college wasn’t perfectly timed. Whoops. But I’m trying and I hope you’ll stick with me because it will be fun, right? Right. Moving on…

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the little things in life that just make me happy. I’ve been making an effort to recognize and really appreciate these things, and I thought it would be fun to share them. And really, isn’t it nice to end the weekend on a positive note instead of dreading Monday? Yes.

So, without further ado, I introduce Simple Pleasures Sunday. Here are some little things that have been making me smile this week.

  • Pedicures with my mom

{OPI Get Cherried Away}

This is a before-school tradition and I love it. I love having nice soft feet and shiny toes. Looking at them just makes me happy. And it’s a nice fall color. Side note: I think I bought half the new OPI Coca-Cola collection… I have a total Diet Coke addiction, so maybe that’s why they spoke to me? Am I speaking English?

  • Pumpkin

{Plain Chobani, pumpkin, Kashi GoLean, cinnamon}

I know it’s annoying and typical this time of year, but I really love pumpkin everything and I love that it’s everywhere. I went through one of those 29 oz. cans in three days all by myself and I packed another one for my dorm room. Yep.

  • Not-so-homemade comfort food

I’ve had some really good Chipotle bowls, Panera bagels (Asiago cheese all the way), and Papa John’s pizza lately. I did a lot of cooking and baking, too, but when we were rushing around and packing at the end, I definitely relied on takeout and all the options totally delivered. Sometimes, takeout is so-so and you wish you’d just made something easy at home. Not these times.

  • Perfectly runny yolks

My last dinner request before leaving home? My dad’s egg sandwiches. Somehow, the man always perfectly fries the eggs. Always. The drippy yolk soaks the bread and salty seared ham and… ugh, it’s just so perfect. That might be my request for Thanksgiving dinner this year, since it’s the first time I’ll be back home. I kinda doubt that’ll fly

  • Stuffed animals… and ice cream?

Simply put, I love this puppy. He’s soft and cuddly and I made him at Build-a-Bear. He’s also more acceptable-looking than my “Bobby”, which is a bunny I’ve had since I was a baby. He’s not in such good shape. He’s actually not really a stuffed animal anymore, since he’s lost so much stuffing and doesn’t really resemble an animal. Oops.

The frosty was really delicious, too. Perfect way to begin my journey to Chicago

  • Finishing the packing process

{Bottom pic courtesy of my mom}

Our guest room has been full of my clothes and snacks and dorm supplies for weeks. Everything has felt so chaotic. Now, it’s all ready to be moved in. There will most definitely be pictures of the finished product. Most definitely. I can’t wait to share!

What are some simple pleasures you’ve noticed lately?

Do you tend to get the end-of-the-weekend blues?

Thinking Out Loud #1: Pre-College Preparation

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Today, I’m linking up to Amanda’s Thinking Out Loud Thursday with a whole bunch of (mostly college-related) thoughts. Perfect for my current packing-crazed state of mind.

1.) Every time I cross something off my list of things to do before I leave for Chicago on Saturday, I swear I add three more. I feel like I’m constantly doing things, but still like I’m so unproductive.

{The ever-growing list}

2.) I was able to avoid just hanging out on my class’s Facebook page for so long, but now I feel like I check it every 10 minutes just to see what everyone is up to. And mostly, they’re all just packing and waiting - just like me!

3.) In an introduction to my housemates on Facebook, I mentioned that I love to bake (I do!) and that I might make some cookies and such to force on them give them on move-in day. Today, I’m making snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, frosted sugar cookies, and brownies. Good way to make friends?

4.) Whenever I’m not sleeping properly, it’s because of nerves. All last December when I was waiting for admissions decisions? Four hours a night for about two weeks. The same has been true of the last five days. So tired. So nervous. So excited.

{Source}

5.) I compiled a short list of restaurants I wanted to try around home before I leave, as well as other fun things I want to do to break up the packing monotony. Last night we conquered the last restaurant on the list, Dirty Frank’s. I really, really like hot dogs and these were perfect. I got the Chicago dog - seemed festive! It was crazy messy, but so fantastic. I felt like I could’ve eaten five.

{Dying because delicious.}

6.) Wish me luck! The plan is to have the car all packed up tonight so I can enjoy my last full day at home without worrying about rushing around doing errands and shoving all sorts of storage bins into the trunk. Who knows exactly what tomorrow will include, but pedicures are definitely on the agenda.

What’s keeping you busy this week?

Any college/packing advice?

Introduction

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Hi, there!

My name is Ellen, and I’ve been toying with the idea of blogging for a long time. I adore reading about other people’s lives and sometimes feel like I’d like to write about my own.

{Senior photo courtesy of my mom}

While I have no idea how this will work or if anyone will actually read what I write, I’m actually really excited about this. I like projects and adventures and this space is a fun combination.

Anyway, now I’ll talk a little bit about who I am.

I’m about to start my first year at the University of Chicago. I am so, so nervous (but also extremely excited) for all that I’ll experience over the next four years. I’m leaving parents I am very close to and a town I’ve lived in all my life, but I’m doing it to grow as much as I can and become more independent. Part of the reason I’m starting this blog is to chronicle my college journey. I tentatively plan to study economics, but I’m very well aware that a lot of people change their minds. I am just looking forward to learning as much as I possibly can.

On that note, I have a crazy passion for learning. Love it. Even if I dislike what I’m reading about or do not agree with it, I just want to know more. College sounds like a dream. Aside from that, I really love food. I enjoy cooking and baking and eating and really basically just everything to do with food.

I don’t know exactly what to say to expect from this blog, because it’ll probably be a little bit of everything. I’ll share my college experiences whenever I have time, some of the delicious food I’m (hopefully) eating and making, and some thoughts on life in general. I hope that stuff turns out to be interesting, and I hope to see you around here again! Figuratively, of course. I can’t actually see you.