Happy Friday! To round out our Day in the Life series featuring our new Full-Time Program, we have a special post from one of our students, Olivia Yeung. Our post today gives us a sneak peek into what a home day on campus looks like from an 8th-grade perspective! We hope you enjoy it.
7:00 am
I wake up to the blasting Hotel Transylvania music of my (very loud) alarm. Usually, I set it at this volume because one time I slept past my alarm, and I didn’t want it to happen again, so blaring loud it is. After that, I groggily walk over to the bathroom to get ready.
8:20 am
Mom pulls up our car to the front of SLOCA. I pull my bags out and say goodbye to her, then head to the lunch tables, where the Full-Time program usually meets. And, as usual, the LMS and UMS students are messing around. After a few seconds, Mr. Philipp and Ms. Martinez arrive and greet us.
8:45 am
The LMS kids and Ms. Martinez went up to the high school while the UMS students and Mr. Philipp stayed in the Full Time room. However, I go up to the high school with the fifth and sixth graders. I like to stay up at the high school and do my work there for the whole day. While I would say that I stay up at the high school because the UMS students are rowdy, the LMS students, however, are way too loud and more rowdy, so I don’t really have a reason why I like going up to the high school. (I could say that I like going up to the high school because when I’m there, I can take over Mr. McCullough’s desk…)
The Athens house is where the LMS kids and I do our homework, though some of them often work outside. I stay inside, trying to block out all the kids’ interruptions as I work silently. I don’t really have a specific order on what I should do first, but I could say I start with harder assignments first. So I start off the day with some Algebra, which is usually the first thing I do.
9:45 am
Around this time, I’m making a comic on Science. It’s supposed to be about how a sonic boom occurs, but I wasn’t sure what I should put into the comic in the first place, because I don’t make comics anymore. But when I finished making the comic, I had to admit to myself that my comic was pretty good, and I did the best I could. Now thinking about it, I might want to make another one now…
10:15 am
Ms. Martinez, the kids, and I head down to the lower campus for recess. The very first thing I do is go to the Den, thinking I should get a snack. The next thing that happens is that I’m inside the Den, making hot cocoa or a cup of noodles and restocking the snacks as people show up to buy them. I end up staying there until recess is over. Ms. Michelle, who works at the Den, sometimes tells people I’m like her unpaid intern.
10:25 am
The LMS students and I go back to the high school, accompanied by Ms. Hovis. I continue to do some homework. Usually, on Tuesdays, my Algebra teacher Mr. Sinclair, who also teaches at SLOCA High, would come into the classroom for math help. However, it is Thursday, the day where he doesn’t come in. If he were here right now, I’d really use some help on my Algebra work.
11:30 pm
I finish my History homework and move on to translating Latin. The story is “remedium astrologi,” which is about a master trying to be healed from a spear wound. There were very… unique methods of curing the master, from spiderwebs to a cut-up black mouse. But this was thousands of years ago, and the people had beliefs about what could heal people from wounds or sicknesses back then.
12:10 pm
Lunchtime. Everybody (except me) rolls their bags down to the lower campus. I’ll stop by at the Den again to actually buy a snack (and I make sure that I do it) before I walk to the end of the hallway to enjoy it. Usually, my friend Hadassah would be there, at the end of the hallway, but she was absent that week. So instead, I chatted with my friend Jake.
12:50 pm
After lunch, the LMS students, Ms. Martinez, and Ms. Hovis stayed down while the UMS students, Mr. Philipp, and I headed up to the high school. Because I was stuck with some Algebra problems, Mr. Philipp, who is really good at Algebra, helps me with them.
1:45 pm
With all of my work done, I find something productive to do, like read, write, or listen to music. In front of me are a couple of eighth-graders goofing off, as usual. They’re too loud, so I try to raise the volume of the song I was listening to drown their voices out.
2:20 pm
With school almost over, everybody, including me, return to the lower campus for one final time. Once we arrive there, I put my bags down at a table outside in the Den area, as my friend Jake usually stays there after school, so I’ll have someone to talk to while I wait (for a very long time) for my mom to come. Then, I’ll pop into the Den for one final time to get some tea, and ask Ms. Michelle if I could take down the umbrellas. (I take down the umbrellas as one of my “jobs” as an unpaid intern). Her answer, almost always, is a yes.
2:45 pm
School’s over, Jake’s here, and Ms. Martinez arrives to play some rounds of Uno! (And, like every time we play, Jake always wins. It’s like the gods of Uno favor him.)
3:30 pm
I see my mom’s car show up, so I grab my stuff and say goodbye to Jake.
And that’s what a typical Thursday in the Full-Time program is for me. Oh, before I forget, there was a rainbow halo around the sun that day. Let’s end this off with a picture of that halo, shall we? And here’s a link to what makes a halo around the sun.
Thank you Olivia for giving us a peek into one of your home days! For more on our Full-Time Program series, please see:
Do you have any Day in the Life’s that you would like to see next year? Please include any suggestions in the comments below!
1 thought on “A Day in the Life – Olivia Yeung”
Great job, Olivia! I really enjoyed reading your post! 🙂