A day in the life of Esther

Hi everyone!

I am so excited to be taking part in this incredible journey with, as we’ve seen with each of their blog posts, four other incredibly inspiring and motivating ambassadors!

To start off with a breif introduction: my name is Esther and I’m finishing up my third year at McGill, in Cognitive Science (Psychology and Neuroscience) with a minor in International Development. Outside of studies I’m in various extracurriculars, and also row for McGill and as part of Quebec. My life as a rower means that when the water is accessible (i.e. spring, summer and fall) I get up every day at 4:30am to 5:30am (depending on the season) and get to regularly witness a stunning sunrise with calm early morning waters. I love absolutely everything about water, which explains my interest in the sport. Winter on the other hand, pushes my entire day forward by about five hours, and wakeup typically lands closer to 10am, with a bedtime of 2am instead of 8pm. It’s like seasonally induced jetlag, if you can imagine loving jetlag.

Onto my day-to-day routine! I was luckily rigourously questioned in this department by both of my Grandmothers over the Christmas holidays, so have the concise version down pat!

Basically what fills my 16 hours is essentially the same throughout the year, just shifted, and the percentage of time spent outside varies (drastically).  My day is usually something like the following:

1. Wakeup: My alarm goes off typically welllll before I actually have to get up, and I spend twenty minutes serenading my dreams with horrible buzzing while my brain transitions into conciousness, and then I push snooze a couple times. When I finally feel alive enough to face the light of day, I get out of bed and make coffee, eat a small breakfast, and read the news. (Breakfast is optional, coffee is not).
2. Training #1: Then I head to the gym/ river/ basin for my morning training. This is usually two or more hours of some type of cardio work (on the water or cross-training), and then stretching and brunch.
3. Class: Following training #1 I have a day of class and/or labs with a series of breaks in between.
4. Extracurriculars: My breaks will be filled with either napping (I have been caught napping in most of the student lounges around campus), studying, working in the McGill Language and Memory Lab as a research assistant, helping with rowing exec as Past-President, going to physio, or going to random conferences or lectures. If I don’t have too many impending deadlines, I also like to volunteer in awareness campaigns, most recently being a campaign for brain research awareness. Lunch also happens at some point in there, followed by Linner later on. (Yes, my morning and afternoon snacks are big enough that they have their own meal titles).
5. Training #2: After classes are done I head back to the gym for another couple hours of training: either weights or intervals and a core workout. When I’m finished it is anywhere between 6 and 9pm, at which point I head home to eat the (entire?) contents of my refrigerator. I really love cooking, but never have the ingredients I need, so every night is experiment night.
6. Studying/Social Life: After dinner I’ll usually attempt to study, but if I’m feeling particularly unable to concentrate, I will either hang out with my roommates, or go over to a friend’s to watch some Grey’s Anatomy.
7. Sleep: Then finally, I snuggle under my blankets, waste some time on social media, and then head to sleep!

Et voila! That’s my day, and I’m so happy that i2P is now a part of it!