Cambridge: Typical Day
A typical day here in Cambridge starts with setting four alarms so I can wake up by 7am. I’m sure that’s not necessary for everyone, but I’m notoriously bad at waking up. My parents bought me an extra loud alarm clock for one of my birthday’s when I was in high school and living at home. Breakfast is from 8am to 10am, but I have class every day at 8:45am, so if I don’t make it to breakfast by 8am to wait in line, I don’t get to eat. My success rate has been…not so great…I’d say I’ve missed breakfast maybe 50% of the time. Maybe because I’m a little lazy.
After breakfast, I head to my first class. What that class is varies by day. Sometimes it’s a lecture, but other times it’s a seminar (something between recitation and office hours). After my first class, I head back to my accommodation or the library to do a bit of reading or work before going to lunch around 1pm. My attendance rate for lunch has been much higher! After lunch, I typically have an afternoon class around 1:45pm. Again, what that class is varies. This means I’m usually done around 3pm. Dinner isn’t until 6pm so I use those 3 hours to do some more reading or work.
After dinner, there are often organized events or semi-organized events. For example, most of the clubs in Cambridge offer students free entry, a free shot, then discounted (one pound fifty) drinks; so, they become gathering places despite not being formally organized. The club deals are great, especially coming from how expensive Boston is. But, they have them almost every Monday and Wednesday which aren’t the best days to go out (but of course we still do it – it’s summer after all!). On days when there aren’t organized events
On days when there aren’t organized events, I often go with some friends for gelato. We probably go too often, at least 3 times a week. Sometimes we’ll just walk around the city or go “punting” (a boat that we can take out on the river Cam and see the town from the water). There are also less “party” places to go for a drink like The Eagle, the pub where Watson and Crick announced that they had discovered the double helix structure of DNA (even though it was actually Rosalind Franklin who first informed them of it, but she didn’t get the Nobel…).
