TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE...

So if you know me, you know that I like to stay busy. You also know that I like to complain. Well, for this blog, I thought I would give you a look into two days of my life and how I get busy and why I complain so much about being tired (and yes, I already know that it's my fault)

The days I used were Monday, April 9th and Tuesday, April 10th.

Monday, April 9th
8:00am: My cell phone alarm goes off. As usual, I regret even setting an alarm. Though my first class isn't until 9am, I always need an hour of being awake before I can have contact with people. I'm just not a morning person...actually just downright cranky. Anyways, the first thing I do once the alarm is turned off is check the e-mail to see if my first class is cancelled. No such luck today. Time to hop in the shower, get dressed, and a small bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.
9:00am: First class of the day: Jogging. Yea, it's a pass/fail class but sometimes, running in the morning isn't easy. On this particular day, it's no more than 40 degrees and the wind chill is lower. Yet, we run...and run farther than we have yet. It's easily a 3 mile run...something I haven't done since a 5k in high school. I jog the first mile and a half but do the whole walk/jog when I want. By the end, I'm spent and wishing for more than just 15 min to towel off the sweat and stretch
10:10am: Lights, Camera, Action! Intro to Acting class begins and as usual, I'm still somewhat sweaty. After the name game (for the fifth time now), we start talking about some freeze tag acting. In other words, walk around a bit, freeze, and start a scene from there. Mine involve crocodile hunting and going through the playpen tubes. I know, fun stuff
12:15pm: From acting to the pool. Swimming class begins and for the first time in two weeks, I am not nervous because the douchebag that had been helping out the real teacher has been asked not to help anymore. The guy treated the class like his personal swim team, making us do laps all the time and threatening us with penalties if we take a break. Fuck off man. Anyways, the entire class loves the new guy, much more low-key and actually helping us with the stroke instead of trying to kill us. Class runs short, but I stay an extra 5 minutes to do a couple laps of breaststroke
1:30pm: Quick lunch in Grover Center between classes. Read the paper and listen to some tunes on the IPod. Not exciting but my first true rest of the day.
2:10pm: Ultimate Frisbee class in the freezing cold. It is actually colder now than it was for jogging. By now, my legs are shot but for 30 minutes, it's all about quick sprints and accurate throws. Too bad I don't care.
3:00pm: Since Ultimate class gets done early, I head to WOUB to start working on my sports cast. I am the sports anchor for the news show that airs at 6:30pm. Once I set my rundown (the stories I want to use), I think about writing but then, to give myself an easy day, I have an up and coming sophomore handle the writing duties instead. While he writes my stories, I walk to my apt. building to bring my car closer to the station (you'll find out why later) and start getting my video together. I forget when I walk to my apartment to set up the video to tape Falcon Beach on ABC Family but am relieved to remember it can be found online. Bad enough I missed it live, watching with my buds from the summer. While I'm editing some video, I get a call from my tour guide bosses and they ask if I can give a tour tomorrow and Thursday. As usual, I say yes because I have problems saying no. They also wonder why I missed the meeting during the day. I don't even bother to explain.
6:52pm: The cast goes well, even though it took longer than usual to finish because I let someone else write it. No worries though, my day isn't over yet.
7:15pm: As soon as I can, I get in my car and drive over to Ping for the Indoor Soccer Officials Clinic. Since I am the Student Director of Officials, it is sort of a requirement that I be there. Once I show up though, I notice something wrong: There are only four officials at the clinic. Immediately, I wonder why. And what do ya know, I told people two different times. Some people heard 7pm, others heard 9pm. In other words, I screwed up. Even with the mix-up, I sit through the indoor soccer clinic, wishing and hoping for a nap (Chlorine tires anyone after about 3-4 hours). At 8:45, after helping an official fill out the payroll paperwork, I jet outta Ping and head to...
9:00pm: the Intramural Fields. It's now time for the 4-on-4 Flag Football Officials Clinic. By now, I'm not only tired and hungry (I had an apple at 8:55pm), but wearing thin on patience. No time to let that be shown though as for two hours, I help explain the rules and mechanics of flag football. Explaining these rules for now the fourth time gets old. Even worse though, I begin to start mixing up rules. Softball season just began, Indoor Soccer and 4-on-4 is beginning, and basketball won't go away just yet as the National Tournament is this weekend and I'll be there. The clinic goes well though and the crop seems promising. Time for bed right?
11:00pm: Nope, not yet. It's softball time...PC2K7 style. The Pre-College softball team is ready to play our first game...or are we? Instead of demolishing our first opponent, we forfeit the game due to lack of females. I'm easily not happy because now I've lost 30 bucks, encountered my first no-show forfeit ever in my IM history and am lacking energy. Yet, our team gets together in the cold and plays a mock scrimmage and find out our many weaknesses and few strengths. By the end, I can see our potential...if we don't forfeit again.
1:30am: Bedtime. In between the end of our scrimmage and bedtime, I just did nothing important. Watched Barack Obama on Letterman, an old Fresh Prince episode, and Jimmy Kimmel's monologue. Once he finishes the funnies, I hit the sack for good.

Tuesday, April 10th

6:40am: My cell phone alarm goes off. WAY TOO EARLY to be getting up but such is life. I throw on some clothes quickly and get to my car
7:00am: Time for an Intramural Supervisor Meeting. Every Tuesday, I have a 7am Intramural meeting so I'm used to it now. What I will never get used to though is being really awake within an hour of waking up. So of course, I talk like an idiot, I spill orange juice on donuts and don't even bother to scrape my car before I leave, so I can't even see when I drive the 3 minutes to the rec center. The meeting goes very fast this week. Thank God
7:30am: Back home, but no time to fall back asleep. Just enough time to start my normal routine of shower, breakfast, and putting on clothes for the day.
8:30am: Athens Midday begins. For those who don't know, this is the TV show we do every day at noon. I only have it Tuesday and Thursday so Athens County doesn't get to see me everyday unfortunately. Anyways, today, I am the main anchor which means I get to do my favorite thing: news. Yea, that's sarcasm. News is depressing, boring, lifeless and downright a drag to do. I mean, my stories range from a man dying at a Youngstown airport, a truck driver getting charged for running over an exchange student and brush fires in Florida. BLAH
9:05am: Quick sidenote. While I am searching for stories for the day's newscast, I find out my mom is one of 7 finalists to be appointed to Columbus City Council. Big deal in my book, especially since my mom doesn't even call me. I have to find out on the internet.
11:15am: I head over to the Front Room to grab some food and say hello to a friend. I like to do this during MidDay because it gets me away from the classroom just for a little while. My friend and I head over just to head back empty-handed. We really weren't hungry.
Noon: Showtime! Turns out to be a pretty good show. I didn't screw up a name and my pink shirt looks amazing on TV. We had our usual glitches and mistakes by personalities but all in all, it was a solid show.
12:55pm: After our critique of the show, it's off to the the Student Center to pick up a tour group. When I get there though, I notice that there are only 10 people and a tour guide already waiting. I ask her if she can take them all and just like that, I pick up a little time to get some grub.
1:15pm: I sit in the IM Office and eat. Could I have eaten at the Student Center? Of course...but it's more fun to sit in the IM Office and bother the people in there. After eating, I actually start doing a little bit of work during my official office hours of 2-3pm. Normally, I work out from 1-2 but due to the tour situation, I didn't bring working out clothes. Not to mention by body is sore as hell from Monday's physical classes.
3:10pm: Sportswriting class. Always enjoyable. Today's discussions are all about covering teams and what is acceptable for a sports reporter to cover. It turns out to be a very good discussion and I learn a few things as well. Because our teacher is a young gun and taking classes of his own, we get out early so he can study for stuff he has.
4:15pm: Back to the TV station. This time, I get to be the AP or assistant producer. That means I get to edit all the video to what the anchor writes. For the third straight week, I have a freshman shadowing me so I make him do all the work as I look over his shoulder. It was a fairly easy day in terms of editing video though so he got off easy. I even get the chance to help another freshman who brought back game highlights to learn how to do it himself. The bets part though is when the one freshman is with me in the newsroom gets the final score of the softball game that he covered. I then call the other freshman who is upstairs in the control room watching the cast that is going on simultaneously. I give him the score and relays it to the anchor, all within 30 seconds (and 15 seconds before the story came on air). Gotta love live TV...and being a good mentor.
7:10pm: After feeling like I did my part to make the world a better place, I head to my scholarship meeting, or roundtable discussion. This week's discussion focuses on the word Latino/a and the word America. I hate these meetings normally because they run long, are boring, and we literally talk about the dumbest things. But this week, the presenter was very interesting and I learned a lot of stuff about words we use all the time such as hispanic, latino, and yes, even America.
8:40pm: I love the presentation so much that I almost risk being late for work to stay until the end but because I know work is also important, I leave while she is talking (I hate doing that to guests) and head to the rec center
9:00pm: Indoor Soccer training continues in the rec center. This time, we hit the court and go over more rules, signals and mechanics. I take a backseat as the soccer experts explain things. I do my best to just stay awake as my day just keeps rolling along. The two hours seem to crawl by, especially the last 30 minutes but we get thru it and put together a damn good training.
11:15pm: After that training, I head to the library to search for a play that includes a monologue. I am going to need it for Acting class tomorrow. Of course, the library is closing at midnight so I search like crazy looking for the plays and dramas. Unfortunately, I haven't even been to the the 7th floor of the library before so I walk around aimlessly, hoping to just stumble upon them. I never do and end up empty-handed when the clock strikes midnight. Not to mention, my IPod decided to freeze up at the time I need it most...in a quiet, spooky library
12:30am: I head to my apartment for the first time since 8:30am. To perk me up, I grab a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and go to abcfamily.com and watch the Falcon Beach episode I missed and let me tell ya, that show just keeps gettin better. After watching the episode, I get my stuff together ready for tomorrow's classes.
2:00am: After Jimmy Kimmel and a Cosby show rerun, I go to sleep. Before that though, I pray that the rain that is projected to come will come fast enough so that jogging class is cancelled because my legs are still hurtin.

And just like that, you have seen two days in the life of Matt Barnes. Is this typical? The answer is yes. I like to stay busy. Downtime for me is wasted time. That's why I stack my schedule with so much. It can be a lot at times but for now, it's goin well. There are many days I yearn for a nap. There are other days I just wanna flip out on someone. But most of the time, I make it through my day just by remembering one thing: Hakuna Matata. No worries...it'll all get done.