A Week in My Life
Wednesday 10/13 7:30am
I wake up and feel exceedingly neutral. I practice Mandarin on my phone in bed before actually getting up around 8. I make coffee and do some journaling and then read for twenty minutes. Currently working on finishing “Billion Dollar Whale”. I log on to my work computer just before 9am to get through emails and update my planner. I have my first client call at 9:30am and it’s off to the races.
I make myself a breakfast of avocado toast (come at me, I love it) in between calls. The later part of the morning and early afternoon is filled with trainings and internal panels for a company event going on this week. I joined a couple of the sessions and they were actually quite interesting. I have another customer meeting at 1:30pm for a project that is the most interesting to me but on the smaller side. I eat a quick lunch of leftover chicken and white bean soup. The next couple hours are just internal team calls. After my last call ends, I update my planner, notes, and to-dos for the next day and then go for a workout.
I skipped leg day last week so I feel obligated to do it this week. I do a variety of deadlifts, split squats, and butt exercises, come back to my apartment, stretch, and shower.
After my workout, I do my language flashcards. I have a system set up to review new Greek and Mandarin vocab every day. I then work on my blog post for the week which is going to be late. I barely had any time to put a draft together earlier in the week so I’m finishing one up now and setting it up to be posted tomorrow.
I’m trying a meal prep kit this week so I make an apricot jam marinated pork filet with rice and broccoli for dinner and put in a load of laundry to run while everything cooks. I am winding down with a little bit of Succession - I’m finally watching it in an effort to catch up to watch Season 3 with my boyfriend - when he calls me around 9:00 pm and says he was getting drinks in the area and is close to me if I want him to stop by. I do, so he comes up to my apartment and we hang out for a couple hours before he goes home around 11pm.
Thursday 10/14 5:40am
On Thursdays I have my Greek lesson at 6 am. My tutor is based in Greece so earlier in the morning is better for her. I get up a little bit beforehand to do some language practice on my phone, water my plants, and make coffee. Because Greek is my best language, the majority of the lesson is just us catching up and she’ll help me with any unknown vocab along the way. In fact, I feel like she knows more about my life than most of my friends since we talk so regularly! In the last ten minutes of the lesson, we’ll do some sort of grammar exercise, and then that’s it. I take any new words from the lesson and make note of them for addition to my flashcards. I do my reading and journaling after the lesson and then log on to my computer to do some prep before my morning meetings again. I have a big meeting gap after those morning ones so I make breakfast (avocado toast again), and do some training for an internal certification I’m pursuing.
I take a little work break to do my language flashcards and finish up my blog draft from last night to post.
Around noon I make myself lunch (leftover pork from last night) and have some internal calls with my engineers for two of my projects. I get a slack message about being put on a high-priority project starting the next day and the afternoon becomes a whirlwind of little calls to try and get up to speed on what is going on with this one. I squeeze in a quick cardio circuit on the treadmill around 3pm and then the rest of the afternoon is calls and prep for that new project.
I end around 5 pm, then make my next meal in the kit - butternut squash chili - before catching an uber to go meet my friend for this hideandseek pop-up in Chicago. We take tons of photos there and then go get ice cream. I head home around 9 pm, watch an episode of succession and go to bed around 10:30 pm.
Friday 10/15 7:00am
It’s Friday! I get up around 7:30 after doing some language practice on my phone again. I do my reading and journaling and then start work around 8:30. There’s a lot of project admin that has to happen on Friday’s and I get a lot of it out of the way before my first meeting at 9:30am. I go for a workout after my morning calls - around 10:30am. I decide to do a full-body circuit today so I do a wide variety of compound exercises trying to hit every muscle I can. I come back to my apartment, stretch, and shower before having a call with a program lead at my company to help me go through strategies for an at risk project I’m working on. I have a one on one with another colleague later to align on the status of my projects and any action items for him.
I eat leftover butternut squash chili for lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon completing admin for my projects, continuing my training for internal certifications, and studying up on this new project that came across the day before. Around 5pm I finally log off, do my language flashcards real quick, and text my boyfriend since we were due to meet up to go rock climbing this evening. He’s running a little later and I walk to meet him around 6pm. We go to his place so he can change before climbing but we’re both kinda wiped and end up staying in.
We make an easy dinner of noodles and dumplings and just hang out and talk until going to bed around 11pm.
Saturday 10/16 8:00am
I had stayed at my boyfriend’s place so we got up around 8:30 and made breakfast together. We made tomato, egg, and basil toast and had some coffee before getting ready to go climb. We get to the climbing gym just before 10 am and it was a bit rough. My muscles and skin just felt so tired so I only did a few climbs before we left around 11:45 am. I had a lunch at 12:30 so I got ready at his place and then walked to meet one of my oldest friends and her new puppy! We shared chicken and waffles and steak and eggs and then went back to my boyfriend’s place so she could meet my boyfriend for the first time. I think it went pretty well and her puppy definitely liked him!
My boyfriend and I took a quick nap and later went to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for our dinner that night. We were going to make ratatouille! We take everything back to my place since I have more kitchen tools and get cooking! The recipe takes a little bit so while it was in the oven we drank wine and played a couple games of backgammon. I taught him how to play last week and he’s been kicking my ass ever since.
We made fresh pasta to go with the ratatouille and the whole dinner was delicious! We ended the evening by watching Alien 3 (we’ve been on an Alien kick) and making cinnamon sugar apples with whipped cream for dessert around 9pm. We go to bed just after midnight.
Sunday 10/17 8:30 am
We slept in a little bit this morning but when we got up we made shakshouka for breakfast. I had never made it from scratch before but it turned out amazingly good. We were supposed to climb but I wasn’t really feeling it so we talked for a while and then he went to climb around 12 while I stayed at my apartment and just hung out. I did some yoga, went for a walk, and just relaxed. I think it had been a while since I just had some aimless time to myself.
He meets me back at my place around 4pm since we had made plans to go bowling. We walk to the bowling place and have a couple beers while we bowl. I won our tiebreaker game and we ride bikes back to my place to get our stuff before heading to his area. We drop our stuff off at his apartment and then go to dinner near him. We go to this swanky little cocktail bar with super interesting drinks and food. We have a fun conversation about why we haven’t had many fights, hang out there for a bit, and then make our way back.
We stop by the grocery store so I can pick up some things I need for the week before returning and then end the evening with some tea and another episode of Succession. We go to sleep around 11pm after watching some Tiktok and reviewing the weekend in bed together.
Monday 10/18 7:15am
The final alarm goes off and we get out of bed by 7:30. My boyfriend makes us both his signature oatmeal and coffee for breakfast and I leave his around 8am. I bike back to my place and do my language review, reading, and journaling when I get back before my first meeting at 9:30.
After those meetings, I do some project admin work, my language flashcards and some writing. I have some leftover butternut squash chili and avocado for lunch. I have more meetings in the early afternoon until about 2pm - all of which go well. The weather looks too spectacular so I decided to do a spur of the moment run. I do five miles near the lakefront, come back and stretch by 3pm.
My boyfriend texts me that his business trip got cancelled and he’ll be around this evening if I wanted to climb. I tell him my evening is a little hectic but if we go early I can make it! I finish up my work for the day and meet him at the climbing gym at 4:30. We do a solid hour and a half of climbing and then I leave just after 6pm to make it back home for my Mandarin lesson which I do every Monday evening.
My lesson goes from 6:30pm to 7:15pm and I immediately text my friend afterwards since we had plans to FaceTime. We talk until just after 8:30 pm and then I made my dinner of leftover ratatouille and some fresh pasta while watching a single episode of Succession (still catching up). My boyfriend calls me just before 10pm to work out some logistics for upcoming trips we are planning, I go to bed around 11pm.
Tuesday 10/19 7:00am
I feel wide awake this morning and do my language practice in bed. I get up and make myself a breakfast of apple cinnamon oats, and do a lot of reading and some journaling before logging on just before 9 am. I do some project prep and then have my morning calls. I do some planning for one of my projects that is spinning up and then spend some time working on this blog post. I go for a workout around lunchtime - focusing on an upper-body circuit today. Then I come back, eat some lunch of leftover shakshouka, and prep for a call regarding my new project.
That call produces a ton of action items for me so I work on those through the afternoon until I have a later call with an architect on my project to work through some process improvements. My last call of the day is with my internal mentor and we go through some discussions about what I can do to continue my personal growth given where I am today. I feel super invigorated by our talk and I make a ton of notes of things to follow up on.
I update my planner and then do my language flashcards for the day around 5:30 pm. I have almost thirty new vocab words to add to my Mandarin deck from my lesson yesterday so it takes a while. I go check the package room since my boyfriend’s anniversary gift arrived today and then I make myself a dinner of salmon, rice, and green beans. Around 7 pm, I have a call for planning my friend’s bachelorette party. We make great progress and I book my flights for the trip immediately after. I finish cleaning up my dishes and watch succession until my eyes burn out of my head - finally going to bed at around 11:30 pm.
Me at the HideandSeek exhibit - PC: Joy Lee