A typical day in my life at Carolina

All these days make up what you will come to call the "Carolina Experience," something that’s indescribable, fun, adventurous, and unlike anything else!

Alright boys and girls, so I want you to get a good picture of what it’s really like up here at Carolina for a girl like me. In order to make this a useful letter, I’ve decided to tap into my (for the most part dormant) creative juices. So, here we go, my own “Choose Your Own Adventure” for a Day in the Life of Candace Lucas:

A - Start

First you have to decide what day of the week you want it to be. If you want to wake up on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday go to B. If you’d rather Tuesday or Thursday, go to C. For a Saturday, go to D, and a Sunday, go to E. You’re on your way!!

B - Monday, Wednesday, or Friday

No alarms to be found on this day. You’re free until 1:00 when you have Engl 58, a dreadful but necessary Shakespeare class…you’re so happy it’s later rather than earlier. So you get up whenever you want, usually around 11:00, depending on how late work or other things kept you up the night before. You play around on the computer for 30 minutes or so, get dressed, and head to Lenoir where you always have lunch with friends at noon on M-W-F, unless you have a meeting or need to do some last minute studying. After lunch, you have back-to-back English classes from 1-3…sounds terrible…but if you’re me, you like English, remember? All right, so if it’s a Monday or Wednesday, go to F. If it’s a Friday (woo-hoo!), go to G.

C - Tuesday or Thursday

The alarm wakes you up at 8:45, and you have Comm 22 at 9:30. You drag yourself out of bed, spend 20 minutes waking yourself up, and 10 making yourself look acceptable to the world. You grab some coffee before class if you have time, go to class at 9:30 and 11:00. The classes are longer on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but it’s not too bad because they only meet twice a week. Afterwards, you might grab lunch at Lenoir, run some errands on Franklin St., or head back to your room to eat. If you’re feeling motivated, you go work out at the Student Recreation Center. Go to H if the schedule is crammed tonight, or go to I if it’s not.

D - Saturday

What a glorious day. You wake up at around 12 or 1, and head to Lenoir to get some delicious brunch (omelets, cereal, bacon, eggs, hash browns, biscuits, bagels, hamburgers, fries, pizza…). The rest of your day will probably be pretty lazy—maybe running some errands, working out, going to a football game, or just hanging out. You might end up at the library for a bit depending on the amount of work you have due in the coming week. Later in the evening, you get ready to head out with some friends for another fun night—grab some dinner, participate in debauchery if you feel up to it, and end up in Miami Subs or Timeout at 3 AM for some late night food.

You also, of course, have the option to stay in and relax by yourself or with friends (something I like to do every once in a while) especially when you’re stressed out and know you need to be of perfect mental state on Sunday when you have to work.

E - Sunday

Eeeks. This day isn’t so great. You wake whenever you please, and perhaps go indulge yourself at Lenoir’s or Chase’s delicious brunch (see D). You will most likely spend a good deal of the day in the library or in front of your computer working. You’ll perhaps work out for a bit or watch a movie—the day is very busy or very lazy depending on your workload. Most likely it will be pretty busy as a result of a week’s worth of procrastination. You need to work on that. Anyways, you’ll end up in bed pretty early if you’ve been diligent, or pretty late otherwise. You have another great week to look forward to, so get some sleep!

F - Monday and Wednesday continued

After English, you head to your gym class (Phya 32), which is sort of like high school P.E. but much cooler. You get to lift weights, play ultimate frisbee, flag football, or dodgeball, or run the mile. Afterwards, you head to the Student Recreation Center (SRC) to participate in an aerobics or muscle building class (ABSolution, Ultimate Cardio), lift weights, or just run for a while and de-stress. If you have a busy schedule tonight, go to H, and if not, go to I.

G - Late in the day on Friday

SWEET your day is over! You go back to the dorm and decide if you feel like spending the afternoon napping, working out, or being lazy. Work can wait (unless if it’s some weird occasion and it really can’t…and those nights do happen). At around 7 or 8, you meet up with your friends and go up to Franklin St. for dinner and then let the night take you where it will. It could be to a club, to a Greek Mixer at a bar, to a friend’s apartment or dorm, to a movie…or anywhere really. Fridays are often low-key as the campus sort of calls them ‘date nights,’ but that doesn’t mean there’s a shortage of things to do. So have fun!

H - Busy night

When you get back to your room, you take a shower, change, and head right back to campus. You’ve got a Tour Guide Meeting at 5:30, an Emerging Leaders Meeting at 8:15, and a group meeting for your communications class at 9. On top of that, you’ve got about 50 pages of total reading to do, as well as make sure you’re ready if you happen to have a pop quiz tomorrow. You’ll probably grab dinner at some point with some friends, get a cup of coffee, and spend a good deal of time in the library. Afterwards, you’ll go home, talk to your roommate for a little bit, and then fall asleep while watching Late Night TV anywhere from 12 to 3 in the morning. Sleep feels good…and you’re day is done!

I - Not-so-busy night

So you don’t have a lot on your plate tonight. Your options are WIDE open. You can go home and nap for a few hours, clean up the dorm, do some laundry, get some easy work done, get ahead in some reading, or just sit around and watch TV—you’re allowed. Maybe later you’ll end up watching a movie with your great roommate or hitting the uptown scene with your friends (especially if it’s a Thursday)—you don’t mind if you’re a little tired in class tomorrow. Either way, it’s been a nice, laid-back day, and you’ll sleep well tonight.

So you may think this is sort of a silly way to portray how the days here at Carolina go, but it’s pretty accurate. Of course this was for my Fall 2003 semester; all the other ones would have been different. These days aren’t completely inclusive, as your semester will be spotted with fun events such as sporting events, dinners and outings sponsored by clubs, volunteer work, and lots more if you get yourself deeply involved with a single organization (like a sorority/fraternity or student government). Either way, you’ll have your ups and downs and be busy just like any other college—though Carolina has a pretty good balance between work and play depending on your major. All these days make up what you will come to call the ‘Carolina Experience,’ something that’s indescribable, fun, adventurous, and unlike anything else.