So I feel bad that I kind of neglect blog posts during the week and only update it on the weekend when I do super cool fun things like traveling ::). Really, though, my weekday life is pretty chill and normal and probably similar to that of most students.
Just to give you a little snapshot of 'a day in the life of Kirsten'.
((Since I'm sure everyone is dying to know what I do on a daily basis))
-Roll out of bed somewhere between 6:15 and 7:30 - the earliest I ever have class is at 11:00, and thats just on Thursdays. So I've gotten pretty spoiled with never having to set an alarm. But, being the morning person I am, I have yet to 'sleep in" past 8 am. Life is goooodd. :)
-Mix myself up a blender bottle full of Yoli passion. This stuff is the reason I get out of bed in the morning. I'm in love with it. Natural energy, does it get much better?
-Walk down to the lake (if its not raining), do some morning stretching, watch people fly by on their bikes, watch other people run, wish I liked running, watch the swans and ducks, wait for the sun to rise over the mountains.
-By this point, STARVING! I walk back to my apartment to make breakfast, time myself running up my 5 flights of stairs, trying to beat my previous record.
-Breakfast time is the best time. It's been eggs and sweet potatoes for about the last week. This week I had a wild idea to throw half of a chopped up apple into the pan and fry it a little. It was SO delicious! Literally, this breakfast tasted like fall. It's going to be really hard to go back to eating servery food after this semester. I love cooking for myself.
-After breakfast I usually catch up on all the social media, emails, and news that happened back in the US. Or look up the cheapest EasyJet tickets and see if I can travel anywhere else for absolutely dirt cheap. The 8 hour time difference is really a weird thing to get used to. When I'm going to bed everyone back home is awake, talking, and doing things. When I wake up everyone back home is in bed. I just can't win. haha
-Make sure I have all my homework done and get ready so I can head to school around 11 ish. The commute usually takes about an hour. Last Tuesday I had a lot of extra time (the cleaning lady comes on Tuesday mornings so we have to be gone by 8:30), so I walked all the way from my apartment to school, which is in Carouge. It took close to 2 hours to walk the whole distance. Of course, I got side tracked a few times and ended up gawking in a store window at an $800 pair of shoes, but whatever.
-Usually I walk to the main train station, I then sit on the tram for a good 30 minutes and play the 'logo quiz game' if you love marketing or advertising, download it. It's addicting and maybe even educational. The game shows you partial logos of cars, clothing lines, technology companies, anything and everything. You have to guess the brand. I got to like level 16 and then was stuck and couldn't unlock the last two levels, so I looked up cheats online, back in the game! :)
I hope I haven't totally bored you all with my rambling yet. :/
It's a really pretty walk up to the school.
Classes here are really great so far. I was a little worried about signing up for "leading yourself" class, but it's actually turned out to be one of my favorites. It can be pretty over the top sometimes, and that means like 15 pages worth of soul searching, writing down your feelings type of homework. Which is good for me, because I'm really not that great at that type of stuff. Everyone can always improve, right? Right.
Anyways. The first week of class we were assigned to choose a self leadership project that will last the whole semester and really improve our self leadership skills. It had to be something that we really care about, wanted to be successful with and can benefit from.
Professor had to 'approve' our challenges. A bagillion people chose reduce or quit smoking, a handful chose lose weight, some wanted to improve their time management skills or relationships with parents. The usuals.
I've been seeing a bunch of gratitude challenges on the internet, so I thought that would be perfect. Write down two or three things i'm grateful for every day. I sent in an email....anndd...rejected. His question to me was "is this really a challenge for you, are you one of those people who looks at the dark side of everything?" So i'm thinking,dang, well, no, I'm hardly ever like that. He kept saying, "dig deeper, what would make you really uncomfortable to change, something that negatively affects you enough that it bothers you." I'm thinking, okay this is kind of freaking me out right now. My biggest issues are eating too much peanut butter and not being able to control myself around carbohydrates. Yes, i'm extremely blessed.
I eventually convinced him that changing my habits would be enough of a challenge and I will become a better person from it. So, here we go, whole food 30 day challenge. It's basically paleo eating and I'm totally excited for it. High protein and veggies, limited fruit, no bread, sugar, alcohol. Pretty simple.
I'm going to do my best to stick to the plan exacty. But, in the case that I'm traveling and a plate of famous Amsterdam french fries falls in front of me, I will eat them, or a pancake in Amsterdam, i'll eat that too. But, day to day there is no reason I can't do this. So, here we go! Now that everyone knows about it, I can't cheat.
Made this awesome salad to eat tomorrow. So easy and delicious looking! Then I proceeded to have a little chocolate treat for supper.
I really like this quote I stole from the whole30 website:
It is not hard. Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Birthing a baby is hard. Losing a parent is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard. You’ve done harder things than this, and you have no excuse not to complete the program as written. It’s only thirty days, and it’s for the most important health cause on earth – the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime. - See more at: http://whole30.com/whole30-program-rules/#sthash.lVph2rnF.dpuf
Well, if that's not motivation, I'm not sure what is. wow.
Now that everyone knows about all of the extremely important tasks I complete everyday and also what I eat, I think this rambling post is sufficiently long. Have a good Monday! :) and goodnight from Switzerland!