Tuesday, June 7, 2011

A Day in the Life

SO the Blog Hub Group over at Ravelry is doing a look at a day in their life.  Everyone was planing to post their typical day blog on June 6th.  I was out of town from the 1st until the evening of the 6th so I didn't get my post done on time (although I should have been organized enough to do it in advance but no I am not that organized!)  So here I am a bit late...

My typical day begins when my alarm goes off at 5:30am.  I crawl out of bed (I am not a snooze button kind of girl) and putter around for awhile.  I will check out what's happened on facebook and Rav overnight and will see if I got any emails overnight.  I also check up on a few forums and blogs that I follow.  I have my shower (I am a morning shower person - not nighttime) and some breakfast.  My breakfast almost always consists of a fried egg with a slice of cheese on an english muffin or a bagel or a wrap. 


This is what I had for breakfast today!

This is the view from my kitchen window as I sit and eat my breakfast.  If you look closely you can see some blue above the fence through the trees - that is the river that runs right past our apartment.  In the summer our view is blocked by the trees but in the winter we have a nice view of the water (and the bridge that crosses the river right near us)
 I also take my vitamins and drink a bottle of water.  Then I am off to work.  I am usually out the door about 7am.  I am definitely a morning person!  Here are a couple pictures of my commute:
Blast off time 7:04am
This is the view of the river I cross each day (and our apartment looks out on this river)
The one and only traffic light I come across during my commute (notice it is red for me...)
Arrival time at work 7:08am.  It is a very short commute! I actually only live about 1.5 miles from my office.  I am lazy and really should walk more often...

I am an Economics professor and my typical routine changes somewhat depending on what time of the year it is.  During the academic year most of my days are spend divided between teaching classes (usually two per semester or six hours of lecture time), grading, prepping for classes, and research.  In the summer my time is entirely devotes to research and writing.  Part of the job for most faculty positions involves getting articles written and published in professional journals.  This involves a lot of reading, thinking, writing, and revising (and usually lots of rejection letters)  Most journals only accept about 5-10% of all the articles that are sent to them so rejection letters are common.  Here are a few pictures from work:
My office building (my office is in the back of the building on the second floor...)
My office - nice and sunny and bright (and hot in the summer without air conditioning) And also a bit messy - I always seem to have piles of papers all over.  In the academic part of the year the piles grow as I will also have stacks of grading on the desk too...
Two of my three full book shelves :)
I love my dual monitors!!!  This shows some of the typical stuff that is on my computer screen - an econometric program open doing some sort of data analysis and a Word document on the other monitor to write the paper.

My three wise owls!  They were graduation gifts to commemorate each of my graduations - Bachelors in 1999, Masters in 2000 and PhD in 2006.  Notice I seem to be getting wilder and woollier looking with each degree!!

I usually head home between 3 and 4pm.  The evening is spent relaxing.  Sometimes hubby and I go fishing in the river right by our apartment (catch and release only as there are too many pulp and paper mills in the area and the mercury levels are too high for my liking to eat anything caught there - and the fish are usually too darn small to make a meal anyway...), sometimes I watch some TV, and always I find time to knit or crochet for a little while each evening.  By 9pm I am almost ready to get to sleep.  5:30am was a long time ago!! 

2 comments:

  1. Lovely post thanks. It looks to be a nice quiet peaceful area.

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  2. I wonder if you are near the twin cities (you know, the other ones not in Minnesota). :)

    I thought your desk looked pretty good. I absolutely appreciate the marking piles of papers.

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