A Day in the Life

Confession: I am not a morning person. I kind of grumble like a bear at the world beyond my covers, especially the chipperness that exudes from my boyfriend Anthony, who has already been at his tasks since 5am. After consuming copious amounts of coffee over the course of two hours, I’m finally ready to start my day.

But once I’m up, I’m going!

My friends make fun of me for color-coding my day-planner for each activity and class, but it has saved me on more than one occasion. This semester has proven my craziest yet at MIIS, and I’ve been in a balancing act since day one. I’m a huge proponent of taking time to enjoy life, but this becomes tricky with a full course load and three jobs. Each weekday is vastly different for me- from work as a TA to babysitter to library GA to my courses in IEM and MPA, I have to map out my schedule in intricate detail. I’m also searching for practicum and DPMI+, making my life even more hectic.

Monday through Thursday, I start my day at 8am and don’t finish until at least 9pm, a rough but rewarding schedule. When I’m babysitting, I feel like I get a nice break from reality. The kid I watch is wise beyond his years, but young enough that nerf gun hide-and-seek is a daily occurrence. Turns out, I’m an excellent shot when it comes to nerf guns. As a TA, I help my IEM colleagues navigate the difficult world of program design and assessment. The best part of my TA job is watching students as the wheels turn, ideas click, and they jump into their work with newfound zeal. Working in the MIIS library is probably one of my favorite places, however, because I have the chance to be social and productive. I also have ridiculous fun placing our mascot gorilla in new and surprising places (watch your back!).

Secretly, I love being busy. I love the thrill of completing a challenging task and the feeling of exhaustion at the end of a long week. It makes my time off all the more rewarding, and motivates me to stay focused when I have to be. I’ve learned that my secret to productivity is having adventures planned for my downtime. In my busyness, I sometimes forget that I live in Monterey. My goal this semester has been to “live” where I live.

For example, last week, I finally went to a kickboxing class at the Sports Center. Talk about a workout! I learned kicks, punches, combos, and that I could probably handle myself in a fight. Or at least jump around a lot. A couple of weeks ago, Anthony took me climbing at the rock wall in Seaside — something I hadn’t done since I was 10. I looked like a total goober but with friends cheering you on, it’s pretty thrilling to make it up even the baby routes. Similarly, I played ultimate frisbee on the beach a couple of weeks ago. The sun was beaming, the waves were crashing, people appeared to be flying (seriously, these people can jump!), and I was yet again in awe of where I live.

I don’t know where I will end up in just a few short months, but I hope the place is as amazing and diverse as Monterey.

My day doesn’t typically start until 8 or even 9 in the morning, when I reluctantly drag myself out of bed. I’m more of a night owl so no morning workout routine for me! The one thing that makes mornings better is breakfast. I usually make myself some fried eggs with bacon or just simple oatmeal. I’m a big believer that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it’s also my favorite meal. Then if I have time to spare before my 10 am class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I walk over to the library to get some work done. When 10 o’clock strikes, I go over to Morse to attend my Practicum class with Professor Avineri. It’s a fun class where we talk about how to become better language teachers and to prepare for job interviews. Oh I forgot to mention that I’m in my last semester of TFL ( Teaching Foreign Language).

After class, I normally have a meeting or workshop to attend. As I’m on the admin team of BUILD, my teammates and I sometimes take advantage of lunch hours to discuss exciting BUILD events. Or if my “dead hours” are truly “dead” that day, I walk back home to make myself some quick lunch. One of the advantages of living so close to school (I live on Larkin Street) is that you get to be home for more meals. In the afternoon, I’m typically working one of my three jobs on campus: the Digital Learning Center, the Alumni Relations office or the Graduate Writing Center. I didn’t plan to have three jobs but when I was offered the positions, I couldn’t say no to any of them. Plus, it’s always good to have some extra income in my bank account as a poor grad student.

I usually spend my weekday evenings in the library. My favorite spot is the tall table with two desktops by the window on the second floor. There is always homework to do. This semester I have the added task of looking for a job. So I spend countless hours searching for job leads or polishing my resume and cover letter. Let’s hope my hard work will pay off soon!

Björk’s new album, Vulnicura, dropped at an extremely inconvenient time: I’ve just started working with a client in the Study Abroad Office at Santa Clara University on a semester long program design and assessment project; the three Career Fairs I’m helping organize as a Graduate Assistant in the Center for Career and Academic Services are all coming up in quick succession; the publicity sub-committee I’m a part of for the Monterey Bay Foreign Language Education Symposium (FLEDS) is in the process of  strengthening its recruitment efforts, both for paper and poster proposals, as well as for attendees; and I’m slightly nervous to give groups of local high school students German grammar lessons as part of MIIS’ International Education Day. By no means do I mean to say that I don’t enjoy all of these activities, but any new music released by my Icelandic hero requires a certain amount of concentration I simply don’t have at this point. She remains, however, the soundtrack to my days, however packed they may be. Let’s take a closer look:

Wake up and throw on “Army of Me”, an I’m-a-badass-and-I-got-this anthem if there ever was one. It inspires confidence and is a great complement to the pot of coffee I inevitably drink before feeling truly ready to leave my apartment and head out for the day. I try to keep the energy going by playing “Triumph of a Heart” or “Declare Independence” on my way to campus. Outlook is everything, so I try to bolster mine with positive vibes to start the day.

I generally arrive to campus early, set up shop in either Samson or Holland Center, and put on something from Vespertine, usually either “Aurora” or “It’s Not Up To You” while I read, write in my journal for German class, or catch up on emails. I personally am incapable of being productive in a library–as soon as I’m told not to talk, that’s all I want to do. Another advantage of working in Samson or Holland is that it’s super fun to eavesdrop on all the Translation and Interpretation students while they’re practicing their skills.

Between classes or before work I like to sit in the super comfy armchairs with matching ottomans located in the foyer of the McCone building. There is rarely someone there, so it’s a nice place to go on campus for a bit of peace. I either eat lunch or do some more reading while listening to probably my favorite track off the new album, “Stonemilker”. It’s actually a break-up song, but it has a gorgeous string arrangement that makes me melt into that armchair and let go of any stress I’m holding onto if but for a brief moment.

Most days I have some sort of meeting, whether for a group project, presentation, or planning committee. I definitely don’t listen to music during meetings, as that would be more or less sociopathic, but on my way home I tend to crank “Pluto” or “Alarm Call”. These songs keep the energy level up so when I get home I can continue to work on various assignments, tasks, or projects. I usually toss some veggies into the oven to roast, put on a Björk LP in the record player, and get as much done as possible before the witching hour of 11pm when I am no longer able to formulate coherent sentences or comprehend theories and developmental models.

To fall asleep I listen to the classic “All is Full of Love”. This song is a great reminder of why I chose to study at MIIS to begin with: my love for experiential language education and passion to facilitate transformative intercultural experiences for students. No matter how hectic things get, it’s vital for me to remember not only why I’m here, but also the many open doors that lie ahead as a result.

As with most days, morning is my time for me.  I’m up and riding my Schwinn Sierra out the door at 5:30am to go to the gym at Iron Republic in Sand City.  The ride back home is one of my favorite parts of the day: the air is cool and refreshing after working out, I get to watch the sky change colors over the water as the sun rises, and the bike path is empty, even near the Wharf (score!).  This is when I run any errands I need to, which today means stopping by the market to pick up coffee and apples. I then have enough time to go home to shower, breakfast, review any homework and maybe even watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, before walking to class at 10am.

Depending on the day, at 10am I’m going to either Non-State Armed Actors with Dr. Iyer or Human Security and Development with Don Eduardo, all standard parts of my program in IPS. Because, you know, I like to start my day off with the easy, light stuff. In all seriousness though, I love the classes I’m taking.  Not to mention that working with the same people over and over again makes classes a lot more like shared efforts and experiences than the lecture halls I had to sit through in undergrad. After my classes end, I walk across campus to the seemingly always overheated Global Majority office in the 3^rd floor of McGowan to meet with my fellow Conflict Mediation instructors.  Over lunch (although it’s rare that I actually remember to pack food to bring) we plan for our Friday morning classes, when we’ll drive out to Salinas to teach conflict mediation to the high school students at Salinas Community High School and Rancho Cielo.

I spend the rest of my afternoon and into the evening planted at either Samson or a coffee shop to do my readings and homework, but I always have to break sometime around 7pm, whether it’s to pass through the farmer’s market, call/Skype a friend, or just cook a nice dinner.  With my brain recharged, I can usually find the energy and willpower to do follow-up work for the Mindanao trip I did in J-term for the rest of the night. Usually. Other times I run over to a friend’s house, or I read: right now I’m in the middle of The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho. I like to end my day with a few minutes of yoga, just to stretch everything out and relax. A reliable indicator of whether I was able to accomplish much during the day is how fast I fall asleep: on a really productive day, I’m happily asleep pretty much as soon as my head hits the pillow, to re-energize for tomorrow.

My  day starts by slowly waking up to NPR. I then finally get out of bed after getting a good dose of news, drink water, and kiss my wife to wake her up. I wash up and then go make us banana-peanut butter-protein shakes that I can’t live without (1 banana, 1 spoon of peanut butter, half a scoop of chocolate protein, ¾ cup of milk and 7-8 ice cubes). Depending on the weather, I drive my wife to her English class at Pacific Grove’s Adult Education School while listening to NPR’s Democracy Now. Many times I have to slow down because there are deer in the road (or terrible retired drivers). On the way back home I do my best to catch a glimpse of the beautiful bay. When I get back home I do physical therapy on my shoulder and start preparing/studying for today’s classes. After a morning class, I go pick up my wife while listening to NPR (Diane Rehm Show) once again. When we get home, I stop to marvel at the beauty of the 8 hummingbirds (including a baby) that are always flying around our lemon tree. Every time I get home and see the sunshine, flowers, lemon tree and humming birds around our house (in the middle of wintertime), I take a deep breath and smile, feeling so happy to live in sunny California. I quickly have lunch with my wife, do shoulder therapy again, and rush to classes. When I arrive in class I am pleased to greet the smiling faces of my friendly IEM classmates. Evening time involves a lot of studying, body-weight exercises while listening to James Brown (wishing I could dance more often), shower, dinner and wondering about my near future practicum/job. I go to bed around 11pm. Weekends involve: teaching a guitar lesson to a friend; “renting” a free Redbox movie;  Bboying (break dancing) at DJ Dialogic’s spot; visiting the Monterey Aquarium outside deck (to whale-otter-dolphin-sea lion-seal watch); biking to Pebble Beach; listening to 88.9 FM KUSP’s “Soul Shack”; cooking; pretending to be Brazilian; and visiting a nearby park to practice photography with my wonderful new wife as my model. The weekend ends by reviewing my never-ending to do list that includes hearing back from a Hip-Hop education conference proposal, informational interviews on crisis management, deciding on an international education program design client, and wondering constantly “what will my next job look like and when will I have more time to dance?!”.​

I woke up at 6:45 today. Like most mornings, my husband is still asleep. If I had him follow me to Monterey, the least I can do is let him sleep for another hour.

I get ready and I think about my plan for the day. I have to juggle between a couple of different roles- I am a student, a work-study and a tour guide. There are also a couple of errands I have to run in the afternoon.

I get out of the car at 7:50. The air is crisp and it is a beautiful Spring morning. The fact that it is only February does make me happy that I moved from Oregon. I got here early because I have to setup the room for my group meeting- we will be Skyping with potential client for one of my International Education Management classes. The meeting was extended into an internal meeting so that we may brainstorm. I appreciate the fact that this is a project I could actually do in my career.

I had to dash out at 9:55- I work at the Office of Admissions at MIIS. The work I do there greatly complements what I learn in class. I was supposed to start at 8 but had to make room in my schedule for the group meeting. From 10AM to 1PM, I make application folders- we got 80 applications in one day for the February 1st scholarship deadline. From 1 to 2, I give a tour to a prospective student. I like showing our school to visitors and hope that she will apply to come here. I would then get to make a file for her in the future. Oh the irony of that.

I ended up staying at the office until 5PM instead of 2- along with the applications, we got a lot of Early Diagnostic Tests to process. My errands will have to wait for another day. I got home at 5:20 and get my readings done for the next day.  I head to bed at 11PM, getting prepared for another day of practical learning in the Monterey Peninsula.

A day in the life of a Translation & Localization Management (TLM) student is pretty hard to predict, but for this particular student, on this particular day, it means that breakfast is spent wrangling with my computer over a software compatibility issue before rolling into Spanish translation class for a midterm. There are just seven of us in the class, and we share a stack of specialized dictionaries stacked at the middle of the table to help us get through a summary of the history of a Mexican arbitration court.

Once time is up, I head to my lunchtime meeting with the Globe Center, a student-managed localization business. We have a project manager for each language at the meeting along with our faculty advisor, who is also the head of the TLM program.

During the meeting we test out new applications to help us manage our projects and translators (also students, from the Translation & Interpretation program), get caught up on new projects coming down the pipeline, and talk about internal projects to work on like redesigning our website and updating the current translations on MIIS.edu. The meetings are only about an hour, and it’s always fun to be working with my TLM classmates. Unlike the Translation & Interpretation program, in TLM, although we study different languages, we still have all of our localization classes together.

Some students elect to take extra business classes to hone their managerial skills before leaving school. Many of the companies that we intern and work at are quite small, and you may be expected to help with aspects of the business besides just localization or project management. But there are also students in TLM who are more interested in the translation side of things, and so they take more translation classes and may even start working on freelance work in their free time.

But we’re all together for our localization classes, like my next class, video game localization. This is where the software-wrangling comes from: there are always unexpected hurdles to deal with when you’re talking about technology, but finally every student is able to get the Unity 3D game engine up and running on their computer, and we spend class poking through sample game projects and internationalizing the code behind them. When you internationalize something, you’re basically setting it up so that it can later be painlessly localized into a new language. Once we’ve successfully implemented internationalization techniques into one of today’s sample games, our homework assignment is to localize – that is, translate and implement – the game’s text into each of the eight languages studied at MIIS. So long as we can find all of the text that needs to be translated, we should be okay – assuming, of course, that the game still works in the end! And so it looks like my day might end the same way it started…

For my night owl self, each day truly begins under the cloak of the after hours. As I lie on my bed, illuminated under plastic celestial shapes held up by blue sticky putty, I close my eyes. I silence the Peace Corps anxiety that likes to creep in just as I’m winding down. As a PCMI in my third and last semester on campus, with the potential to depart anytime from January to April 2015, not a day goes by where I don’t have even the slightest panic attack over my upcoming service. Once I bring my inner irrationalist to quiet, I mentally review my tasks for the day ahead. Satisfied with my hefty list, I allow the rhymes begging to be written seep into my subconscious and my dreams succumb to wordplay.

The morning stillness is often broken by a feel-good song on full blast. Today it’s Nelly Furtado’s “Forca” because who couldn’t use a push of strength in the morning? After a routine snooze battle with my alarm (and because I’m non-confrontational, I let my alarm win), I finally conduct my morning exercise – rolling out of bed. As I get to the sit-up that concludes my workout, I multitask and check my email and other messages on my phone as I plug into my speakers and let Matisyahu reggae-rap-hiphop-beat my day into productivity.

I forget to grab breakfast to-go as I rush out to make it to my team meeting with professor Alfredo Ortiz over Skype. It’s like an awkward family reunion as our team bunches together on a small couch in the Student Lounge (a.k.a. Makeshift Holland Room) and press against one laptop, straining to hear Alfredo’s words of wisdom with construction grinding away loudly in the background. We conclude just in time for me to make it to my 10am class. In between classes, I message back and forth to friends and family back home. Consistent communication is what keeps me tethered to this reality; it reminds me not to let grad school consume me. By the time I’m situated in my 12pm class, my stomach recalls that it was rudely awakened and not yet fed. It growls loudly in retaliation. Luckily, Sherry -my friend, classmate, and study/suffer buddy- comes to the rescue minutes before class commences and hands me half a bagel with Nutella spread graciously on top. She’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. I’m convinced that moments spent enjoying bagels epitomize everything that can be good in this world.

After class, I link up with my partner-in-thought-crimes, Jessica, and we launch into discussing our elaborate plans for the Asian Student Union, a club founded to raise awareness of Asian and Asian-American affairs, but also to serve as a support network for students. As she and I navigate spaces -as we all do- colored by our skin, but even more so by our perceptions, we want nothing more than for ASU to serve as an island of reprieve for all kinds of travelers. We traverse until I need to run off to my next group meeting, followed by another group meeting, followed by my need to regroup myself.

I feel my “Social Meter” battery nearing low as I finally leave campus for the day after 10+ elongated hours. As I trudge through my apartment door, I tiredly mumble, “Tadaima” (“I’m home”) and my roommate, Miho, replies with “Okaeri” (“Welcome home”). And in fact, it’s the weight of these routine Japanese exchanges that contribute to making our shared space feel like home. We both release exasperated sighs, sloughing off the day’s stresses. This is a mutual invitation into a conversation where we alternate being active listeners.

After catching up with Miho for a bit, it’s time to finally unpack and sit down at my desk to finish up any work. I break to shower and already I feel my battery recharging as my thoughts finally get to wander free. I like to wrap up the day by re-watching my favorite spoken word artist performances – Sarah Kay or Hieu Nguyen or Shane Koyczan. Something in their voices stick and inspire me so I jot down incoherent notes in my journal before the adhesive wears off. I’m writing as the world stills to a slow hum and the darkness tames even the wildest beasts. I feel the day beginning again.

As a TESOL/IEM student, my day begins like many others – with my phone’s alarm (Tiny Dancer by Elton John, no less). As I curse this classic song, I drag myself out of bed and jump into the shower. I cruise down to Plumes where, Sim, used to seeing my bleary eyed smile, is ready with my usual coffee and bagel sandwich. The grey mist begins to lift from downtown Monterey and, adequately caffeinated, I hop back into the car (now, perhaps with classmate and fellow coffee-addict, Cameron) and head to class.

My 8am begins and our professor, Thor, breathes life into the still drowsy students. Lucky for us, he couldn’t be more passionate about grammar, semantics, morphology, phonology; applied linguistics… the list goes on. Needless to say, having a professor get psyched about these topics at such an early hour is uncommon, extremely awesome and engaging.

As I maneuver through the rest of my classes… I take a lunch break and retreat to my favorite place on campus: the garden. People come and go, small talk is exchanged as well as the perfunctory, “What’s growing in your plot?” (Kale, carrots, lettuce and broccoli – I’ll have you know). I even get some time to Skype my friend Katie, who is off on practicum in Paris. As we reminisce about our 1st year adventures, she reminds me of why MIIS is so darn special. Everyone here has his or her heart in a different place in the world. Whether its in Paris or the Philippines, you’ll be hard pressed to find a MIIS student that doesn’t have extensive experience and passion for another country. And don’t get me started on the languages you’ll hear around campus…

Lunch is over, as is the catching-up session, and it’s back to class. Autumn is upon us and before I know it I find myself at a yoga session on Del Monte beach – led by a classmate offered to any student that finds solace in his or her mat so as to unwind from a busy day.

Life at MIIS has, oddly enough, turned into a personal quest – not a search for the best grades or the best happy hour. No, life at MIIS has become a search for balance (which is a tricky thing to encounter). As all will attest – reading, work, essays, deliverables, takeaways, and so on and so forth – are unending and even grossly overwhelming around finals time. Yet, going through a Vinyasa while watching pelicans fly overhead and a seal playing in the bay, sets an easy stage to reflect on how beautiful and privileged Monterey really is.

After the final, “Namaste”, it’s back home to scarf down a kale salad, set up the computer for some more homework – or maybe watch some Netflix – before falling asleep while listening to some very boisterous sea lions barking down at the pier. Buenas Noches.

Monterey County Fair

I don’t exactly have a typical day, but I do start my days by stretching and listening to NPR One because otherwise there is no way I would get up early (6:45 is probably not early to some of you…). Plus I start my day off by listening to the current events and interesting little stories, like how scientists recently found the largest dinosaur in Argentina and named it “Dreadnoughtus”. After I am semi-awake and have eaten breakfast I rush out the door and head over to class. Wednesdays I have Marketing and Recruitment, right now we’re already in groups working with a client (a real one!) to create a marketing and recruitment plan for their Study Abroad office. My group is working on a plan for Loyola Marymount University for first-generation college students, and it’s pretty cool because some of us are first-generation college students and have studied abroad so we can talk about what were some of the challenges we faced and how we overcame them. This Wednesday we talked in our groups about our potential competitors, the strategies they were using and what made our client stand out. I’m pretty glad we have this class in the morning because it’s very interactive and helps me get into study-mode. Then from 10-12:30 I went back to my apartment and cooked some lunch, at 1:00 I headed over to Samson to meet with another group (for my Budgeting class). For this class I’m the in Learning Resources group and this week we had to create a program proposal with a budget of its own, so we met for about 2 hours to go over our final proposal and go over our Prezi presentation. Before this, I had never taken a budgeting class; it sounded like something I would dread. However, our professor and my classmates are all great and so far it’s been going really well. Then at 4:00 we headed over to class and anxiously waited to present our proposal, our goal is to convince everyone in our class that ours is the best and the one that should get funded…but of course everyone else is trying to do the same. By the end of class I’m pretty brain dead and just want to relax, but instead I finish reading a report on citizen security and how it is measured in Latin America. Then finally the fun part: Trivia at the Mucky Duck. Around 7:45 I head over to the Mucky Duck with my roommates, ready to win the free appetizer cards they give out for the winners that night. I look forward to Wednesday nights every week, though sometimes I can’t go to Trivia because of the growing mountain of readings that wait for me on my desk, but when I have some free time you can definitely spot me at one of the tables with my friends. Sadly this week we didn’t win, but at least I got to hang out with friends, learn random facts, and unwind for a bit.