The Everyday through Bria’s lens

Charting my Everyday Life

Introduction

As I was finishing up with this assignment I was surprised at how much it revealed about myself that I’ve never considered. Nothing I learned was a revelation necessarily, but more like a reminder of who I am, what I’ve become and what I’m working towards. At this stage of our lives we are reminded over and over again how crucial time is. We are reminded by our professors, parents, and peers that every second counts. Moreover we’re told that what we do now will determine how our lives end up a decade from now, that nothing is more important than how we prepare for the future now. Considering that it’s hard for most of us to stop and think about the mundane routine activities we do everyday. We’re so busy worrying about the next movement/moment that thinking about what were doing now will only slow us down more. But when doing this assignment I realized how significant it was to stop and think about what you do in your everyday life. What you do day in a day out determines your current goals, values, and morals with your life. More importantly it’s shows you what you’re working towards accomplishing and ultimately where you’re going with your life.

Day 1: The Many uses of the ‘bed’ (besides sleeping)

One of the most important aspects of my everyday life is my bed, ironically for everything but sleeping. I’m sure most of my peers can agree that as a college student sleep is one of the few things we truly look forward to but rarely get. So instead of focusing on sleep (or the lack-thereof) I decided to focus on the other activities I use my bed for. When I come home from a long day the first thing I do is throw all of my crap I’ve been carrying throughout the day on my bed, my purse, books, wallet, keys, laptop, and coat get scattered across my bed. Next I change my clothes, throw on some sweats and make something to eat. After I finish making my food I walk straight past the dining room table and go back to my bed to eat & watch tv. If I’m lucky I can sneak an hour nap before I have to leave again to attend all my meetings but usually that’s not the case so I sit on my bed and troll on my many social networks before I have to throw all my clothes back on and rush out the door. Once I finally return to my room for good I repeat those same steps and add doing my hw to the list. Finally around midnight I cannot fight the urge to lay on my many colorful pillows any longer so I take a shower & finally use my bed for what it is actually intended for.

Day 2: ‘Walking’ through my apartment hallway

As trivial as it may sound, walking down the long hallway to my apartment building is one of the most annoying things in the world to me. After a long day of being surrounded by humans, noise and this cripplingly freezing weather, the only thing stopping me from my warm bed & HBOGO is this mockingly long hallway! It’s kinda funny when I think about it because I’ve never actually stopped to think about how something so small can be so manipulating and mundane when there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. But my spirits were lifted one day when I was walking in the hallway and saw his very strange booth-thing set up in front of a random neighbors room. It was so weird and unexpected bumping into this little station that I laughed (more at myself than the candy booth) all the way back to my apartment. I don’t really get as annoyed anymore when I walk down that hallway, because I always pass by that random persons room and think “it’s crunch time” LOL.. at least one person still cares about humanity.

Day 3: At what point exactly does your ‘work’ become play?

One of the first “jobs” I received when I came to UMD was interning at the on-campus radio station WMUC 88.1fm. I began working for this show called TheBlender, a live radio show that blends old and contemporary hip-hop with EDM, R&B, and the list can go on. Moreover this is one of the only elements of my college career that has not changed since my freshman year. No matter what was going on, what I was going through, this small, graffitied room was the one place where I was allowed to escape. Nothing mattered when I was here, failing a midterm, arguing with a boyfriend, feeling forgotten, lost, nothing mattered here but the music. It really made me the person that I am today and gave me the bravery to follow my dreams and turn it into a career rather than finding a career that supports my dream. I know my parents have always looked at this “job” as a simple hobby (because I don’t get paid) but it is way more than that. Thanks so this internship these djays allowed me to attend shows like J. Cole, A$AP Rocky, Odd Future, Childish Gambino, Danny Brown, and a few more, I’ve been able to go backstage of these shows and photograph, interview, write album reviews and concert reviews all for  these prominent artists. It gave me the confidence to be able to approach these artists calmly and professionally and it solidified my career choice because for once I actually felt that I belonged somewhere.

Day 4: ‘Thirsty’ Thursdays

Probably one aspect of college life that I feel most students (unnecessarily) shy away from highlighting is the night life. We’re all adults here, and unless someones underaged there’s no reason to hide it. So for this “everyday life moment” I want to highlight is college night life, particularly my favorite time of the day, Happy Hour. I was never really a drinker, since alcoholism sort of runs in my family, I’ve always kind of shy’d away from drinking. Especially after seeing all the crazy mistakes my friends have made because they were “sooooo drunk” I’m almost glad I’ve been so low-key about it. But since I’ve turned 21 I’ve definitely pushed myself more when it comes to going out. This semester was the first time since I’ve entered college that I’ve gone out on a Thursday and I’ve never had as much fun. I guess since I’ve never been a drinker I never understood why it’s so glorified in our society. But there’s something about going to the bar after a long crappy day, getting drunk with your friends and dancing like a complete idiot. I finally understood that it’s not necessarily about the drinking but it’s about the interactions between friends and complete strangers that drinking makes so much easier to engage in. It almost makes the stress of college worth it, almost.

Day 5: College’s definition of ‘sleep’

As I expressed before one thing us college students really seem to lack is a necessary & appropriate sleeping cycle. Since originally I revealed the many things I do with my bed other than sleeping, for this day I decided to focus on sleeping in all the places you’re not supposed to. Basically in every building I enter I will always see at least one person completely passed out in front of the entire public. Whether they fall asleep in class, or while studying in McKeldin, or my personal favorite, getting completely obliterated and falling asleep literally everywhere & anywhere. I guess since it’s so normal in this environment to see someone passed out on top of all their books or passed out on the quad, we really don’t think about how dangerous this really is. We’ve all heard the stories of people getting jumped and robbed on this campus all the time! But yet it still hasn’t effected the amount of people who fall asleep right next to their thousand dollar macbook or the amount of people who get so drunk on the weekends that they become completely immobile, like my dear friend Jorge pictured above. It really brought me to think about how comfortable certain environments can make us even if we’re surrounded by complete strangers.. For anyone who wondered why drinking was never my thing, just ask  Jorge and the 50+ likes this picture got on instagram.

Day 6: My “blended” ‘family’

One of the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make since entering college was getting used to not seeing my family everyday. Family is very important to me and before I came to college I’ve never been separated from my family for more than a few days. Especially since I am the eldest of four, I’m very protective over my them and have always felt it was sort-of my responsibility to hold everyone together. But recently I realized that I do have a family that I see everyday, it’s just not the particular family I grew up with. I used to be so worried about my family, that I was missing out on so many moments or that I was loosing my connection with them, but while I was out with my friends we began talking about all of our issues, problems and fears. Whether it had to deal with school, relationships, graduation, etc we supported each other and gave each other advice. It made me realize that this is my “new” family, my own set of people outside of my immediate family but just as thick in blood. It brought it to realize that losing some relationships and gaining others it apart of growing up and every day life.

Day 7: ‘College’ Life

Last but not least on my last day I wanted to focus on was the most important but probably the most routine aspects of everyday life, being a student. As I attended one of the, and probably my last, UMD basketball games with my friends it really made reminisce on my last four years at The University of Maryland. I remember going to my first basketball game and being so excited about all that I was going to accomplish. I was (still) excited about going to all of my classes and the people I would meet, but like every other daily routine it becomes second nature. You get so busy living life that you fail  to realize some things that you are experiencing now, won’t be there tomorrow. You never realize it until you go to sleep a college freshman and wake up with two months away from graduation. It’s scary thinking about how we wake up and live everyday fully knowing that something in your life is going to change or disappear, yet we still continue to navigate through our everyday lives like it is a trivial thing, when it certainty is not.