A day in the life

I've been tempted lately. Tempted to think my life is normal.

When I first got to Ann Arbor, I had a pretty good idea of what normal life looked like. I'd been teaching for three years, and I had a routine down that included a shave every morning and the evening news every night.

I kept this up for a while when I got here, but eventually my routine started growing its own legs and hair, becoming more organic, fitting itself more to the work and less to the times that people see on the wall clock like 9, noon, and 5. Bedtime went from midnight to 2 am to 4 am and back to 2 am again. Meals were taken sporadically. TV shows became impossible to follow from week to week because I was never reliably home during prime-time.

Now that I'm nearing the end of grad school, I hope I've reached some kind of equilibrium, but I'm not sure I'd call my days normal yet. Feel free to register an opinion after reading these select highlights from my day yesterday:

8 am: Woke up, worked on PowerPoint presentation for lab meeting

12:30 pm: Biked to the lab

1 pm: Gave presentation at lab meeting

2:30 pm: Met with advisors, talked about presentation

3 pm: Had multiple cups of coffee, worked on laptop

7 pm: Discussed future post-doc positions with labmate JR

10 pm: Bought groceries at Hiller's (cold cuts, soup, cereal, yogurt), talked to friend BH on the phone

11 pm: Stopped by Silvio's for pizza, chatted with Silvio, worked on laptop

12 midnight: Had an espresso at Rendezvous Cafe, worked on laptop

1 am: Worked out at the gym (rowing machine, 30 minutes)

2:30 am: Got home, listened to podcast of the news, fell asleep