It has been about 7 years now since high school graduation for me. I'm 25 years old right now, (scary to think someone might be reading this s decade from now) and the high school life is far behind me. I have since spent 5 yes living in Boston attending Berklee College of Music, and some time living in Jersey City working and producing. I recently started a job working the usual 9-5 mon-fri thang, and it wasn't until this week that I realized how drastic of a change it was for me. Let me explain.
In high school, my schedule was pretty consistent. School started at 8:25am, let out at 3:05, then had band practice til 4pm. I spent my weekends and off-time either at church, or doing homework. This was actually the same routine I followed since I was 4yrs old. For twelve years this was my life until I moved to Boston. Everything changed in college.
In college, I had classes scheduled that would start at 1pm, would last 2hrs, followed by a 3hr gap until my last class at 6pm. Maybe the next day I had all my classes piled up Mondays, and was busy from 9am to 9pm. Some semesters I purposely avoided scheduling classes on Friday so as to ensure I always had a 3-day weekend. My schedule was as inconsistent as a retail employee. And on top of all this, I worked jobs to pay my expenses. My alarm in the morning was my scheduler. Some days I could sleep in, other days I could not. I had a different alarm setup for each semester.
When I graduated college, this didn't really change much. I would either schedule time to meet with an artist for production, or had to get up and work whatever day job I may've had. The worst was working at UPS. I'd get home after midnight, was in bed by 3am. I'd wake up at noon, to then spend 3 hrs doing whatever I had to do to, and then was back on the bus heading out to be at work by 4. It was horrible. It felt like living at my job. And my home sucked.
And finally, after years of schedule craziness, I can finally say I only have one alarm in my phone. Sundays church starts at 9am, as does my (current) job. This means waking up at 7:30 every morning with only Saturday as an exception. It's week 1 for me on this normal American-style rhythm. We'll see how week 2 feels.
