A Day in the Life as a Science PhD Student

Morning everybody, today's blogger event is organized by the lovely Trish from Love, Laughter and (a touch of) Insanity. As a community, book bloggers are as varied as they come and she gives all amazing reasons to participate, so here I am, telling you about my "normal" week day. So let's start!

Morning view

6h30: The alarm rings. First thing I see is Hoppi (our cat) snuggled with us. Usually A and I woke up around the same time, but ever since he started working (he finished his PhD, just waiting to defend) sometimes he has to go on business trips, and so leaves around 5h30! But if it is a regular day, I will be the first one in the shower (get in around 6h45, it takes me awhile to get out of bed, for real) while he stars breakfast. But today, is one of those days that he is gone, so it's easier to get out of bed..sort of.

Yum!

7h00: Out of the shower. I start the coffee, and in the mean time get dressed, and make the bed. When the coffee is ready, I finish making my breakfast. Always coffee and orange juice, but the rest will vary according to the day. Today I went with toast, tomato, bocconcini and basil, drizzled with a bit of olive oil. Yum!.  As I eat, and since I'm alone I will check e-mail, Twitter, the news. If A was here we would be discussing our respective days, and then he goes to take his shower. 

7h45: Clean up, brush my teeth, do my makeup, set the dishwasher if necessary, take out whatever meat we are having for dinner, preparing my lunch box. We usually prepare double the portions for dinner, and that way lunch is ready for the next day!. Finally, get ready mentally to go out...it's winter, so this step takes a while, just putting my boots alone!

It was -16C (3.2F) that morning!

8h15: Finally out of the door! later than I wanted, but oh well. Made it right on time for the metro, and the bus I have to take to go to the Institute was boarding! (score) so I made it to the lab a couple of minutes before 9. We only have one car, so sometimes I have it, in that case I can leave the house around 8h30ish. I don't like driving, even though it takes less time to get to work, but I am getting used to it. 

My desk at the student room

9h-17h: Lab. My work will revolve around my cells, and my experiments, but I am also in charge of certain tasks around the lab, such as passing orders for anything we need. This I hate, mostly because a lot of the people in the lab will wait until last minute to tell me (if they tell me) that we need to order stuff, and then is running to get quotes, orders, etc. At least I am now training another student to help me with this, but it's so time consuming.

12h: Lunch! I do my best to have time for lunch with friends, but sometimes my experiments take over. In that case I end up eating my lunch in my desk and in that case I will be browsing around as I do so. Not ideal, but sometimes it's the only way. Either way I try to at least take a 15 min break of experiments, otherwise I feel burnt down at the end of the day.

17h05: Commuting again to go home. I actually like this time, since I can read a bit more!.

18h: I'm finally home. First some cuddles with Hoppi. When Alex is home by this time we will sit for a while in the office and talk about our days. Today he won't be home until dinner time :/. If I don't have anything else to do outside the house, I will change to workout clothes and wash my face. It feels so good!.

Playing Exercising with our WiiFit

18h30: Usually at home A will take care of food and I will take care of other chores, depending on the day. If one of us is out late, then the other one will take over both tasks :). So today I have to start some laundry and prepare dinner...but not before my work out, that way for sure I will be "free" when he gets home. You see, we use to study together and so we grew accustomed to spending almost all of our days together. Now that he is working and I am still at the Institute, we try to take every opportunity we have to get some extra time with each other. 

19h:My workout varies a lot: I sometimes will do some routines with our WiiFit, sometimes I check Blogilates, but either way I try to at least do them 4-5 times a week, specially in winter when I become way sedentary. After exercising and finishing house chores, A is finally home, so we have dinner and talk about our day. We watch a bit of TV (most of the time reruns, unless is Tuesday when he will watch SHIELD with me reading next to him)

20h: We move to the office, where we both work a bit more. E-mails, blog for me. Then a bit more leisure. I sometimes do some cross stitching, but not right now. The other thing we end up doing often is playing on World of Warcraft.

22h: Time to get ready for bed. Brush our teeth, feed the cat. Then we get into bed and we read for about 1 more hour, unless we are very tired (like this time) and start nodding over our books 15min later.

That's pretty much it!  What about your day?