Home
About me
About my mentor
Research
Reflections on DMP
Weekly journal
A Day in the Life...
Final report

A Typical Day as a DMP Mentee:


Being a creature of habit, it's possible for me to describe what exactly I do up here in Milwaukee!  Of course, Prof. McRoy has given us a lot of flexibility to schedule work around other activities.  Basically we work about 35 hours a week, so that divides naturally into 5 7-hour days.  But, if we want a long weekend to do some traveling or want to leave early one day for some event, we can just work a little longer another day to make up for it.  But, here's a typical day with nothing special going on:

8:00 Alarm goes off.

8:15 Decide to get out of bed, pack lunch, eat breakfast, shower, etc.

8:45 Head off for the EMS (Engineering and Mathematical Sciences) Building across campus.  Some days I stop
         at the student union to get a cup of coffee.

9:00 At work: quickly check e-mail and take care of miscellaneous business, then start on the project for the day, or
        pick up where I left off yesterday.  I pretty much work seven hours straight, both sitting at the computer and on the
        conveniently located green lab couch when I have some reading to do.  I eat my lunch as snacks throughout the day,
        mainly because I just can't wait until noon when I know I have some really good pretzels in that bag.  The pretzels or
        crackers are usually gone by 11:00, the sandwich by noon, the vegetable by 1:00, and the apple and cookies
        sometime in the afternoon.  I take little breaks throughout the day to go up to the eighth floor to use the restroom,
        down the hall to get a drink, or just talk with Catherine a bit.
        Sometimes Prof. McRoy will stop by to see if we need anything, and I have a regularly scheduled meeting with her
        on Thursdays at 3:00 in her office, but much of our communication occurs through e-mail.



4:00 Log out of my computer, turn off the radio, turn off the lights, and walk back to my room.

5:00 Go to the Klotsche Center to work out.  I've been really proud of myself this summer, and it feels good to move
        after sitting for seven hours.  I try and swim three days a week and lift weights four days a week (two days upper
        body and two days lower body).  Of course I skip one or two days each week, but I still feel good about
        excercising!

6:00 Make dinner, eat.  Sometimes this takes longer than others.  I often cook a big pot of something on Monday then
        have left-overs throughout the week.  Luckily I love left-overs.

7:00 Chat on-line, write personal e-mails, read (I am gulping down 500-1000 pages a week!), work on various projects
        like cutting quilt blocks, organizing my photo albums, writing letters, writing some family history documents.

9:00 (or there-abouts) Use up some of those evening-weekend minutes on the cell phone!

11:00 Do any dishes that may be hanging around, quickly pick up stuff in the room, then brush my teeth and crawl into
          bed and read for a while before falling asleep!

So that is the typical weekday.  I try to do something special each weekend, like visiting one of Milwaukee's many festivals, finding a theater performance or concert, or being a tourist (and proud of it!).  Of course weekends are also the time for sleeping in, going grocery shopping, cleaning, and other necessary chores.