By Kaitlyn Smith, A&E Editor
Anyone who’s anyone can relate to the insane amount of pressure and responsibilities that come with leaving your childhood behind and growing into a responsible adult. And, it sucks.
The other day while I was taking a quick “nap” in between reading my homework and waiting for bowling practice, my mind began to wander on how many hours there are in my week. I came to the realization that there are not enough hours in a week and, at this place in my life, there never will be.
Let’s break it down.
With 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, 24 x 7 is 168.
Last week I worked 38 hours. 168 - 38 hours is 130 hours.
I figured that I’m in bed maybe 10 hours a night - not sleeping mind you, just in bed. This usually consists of a mix of procrastination, watching TV or on my phone, reading the many books for homework that all professors act like I have time for, actually sleeping, or contemplating whether I should pull myself out of bed in the mornings and join the living or not.
10 x 7 is 70. So about 70 hours of my week is spent either sleeping or in bed doing homework.
130 - 70 hours leaves 60 hours.
As an athlete, my practices take up a total of eight hours a week. Three days of practicing, driving 15 minutes there and back to West Acres twice a week adds up to one hour. Thirty minutes to Northrock and back on Fridays is another hour. Driving to practice in a week can take up to two hours. You don’t even want to know what a tournament week looks like - yikes!
Down to 50 hours.
I take classes Monday through Friday. Classes on Monday and Friday last one hour. Class on Wednesday takes up two hours and class on Tuesdays and Thursdays take up around three and a half hours = 11 hours a week.
Down to 39 hours.
Breaks between classes can add up too. While I should be doing homework like a good college student, I usually spend the time running to grab breakfast or a quick snack or catching up with friends = 7 hours a week.
Down to 32 hours.
As an editor for The Vantage, I spend my Tuesday and Wednesday evenings working on layouts, proofreading, and edits. Three hours Tuesday night and three to four hours Wednesday nights = 6.5 hours a week.
Down to 25.5 hours.
On top of all these things you have the basic time consumers that come with living and being a decent human. For me these include, personal hygiene like showers (three showers a week at 30 minutes each = 1.5 hours) and bathroom breaks (8 breaks at 2 minutes each = 1.8 hours a week), eating meals (3 meals a day ranging from five minutes for breakfast to 30 minutes for dinner = 5.8 hours a week), driving to and from school (30 minutes to and from = 2.5 hours a week), work (1 hour a week), practice, anything really, grocery shopping and cooking some of said meals (two hours a week), dentist, doctor, or work appointments and meetings (anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours a week), babysitting for family members (two hours a week), interviewing people for The Vantage (anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour a week), replying to emails and text messages, keeping up with friends and family via phone calls, time wasted on social media, friend and boyfriend time, which almost always includes some form of multitasking, and last of all homework.
At the end of the week, I would say I have a total of negative 13 hours to do what I need to in a week. Everytime I think I’ve got free time, I’ve come to realize that I’ve got somewhere else to run or something else to do.
I don’t know how I, along with everyone else, are able to function from the day to day. I don’t know when my weeks began to blur together. I’ve lost my sense of time, every day feels like the next, and every week is the same.
Keeping up with personal relationships has fallen to the bottom of my weekly list, along with having time for myself.
Moral of the story: Growing up sucks. College sucks. Adulting sucks. Avoid it at all costs.
