7:00 AM          Wake up energized

7:15AM           Go to the gym yay fitness

8:00AM           Head back to the dorm and get ready for the day

8:45AM           Breakfast time!!!

9:15AM           Go to GGE

12:00PM         Eat yummy lunch

6:00PM            Time to go home

7:00PM            Cook dinner and eat

8:00PM            Do Moxie Readings

9:30PM            Hang out with friends

11:00PM          Get ready for bed

This looks like a pretty productive day right? Work out in the morning. Check. cook all three meals. Check. Work on interesting projects at work. Check. Finish Moxie readings early. Check. I mean my mom would be impressed considering I spent the last two weeks watching TV and eating out back home. If you believed that this is how my first week of Moxie went, then you have been fooled. My day actually turned out like this…

8:20AM           Wake up tired and never made it to the gym

8:25AM           Get ready for work slowly

8:50AM           Munch on cereal

9:15AM           Rush out the door to go to work

12:00PM         Eat salad because I was too tired to cook the previous night

3:00PM            Tired… tired… tired…

6:00PM            En route to head back to the dorm

7:00PM            Too tired to cook so snacking on frozen mangos

8:00PM            Too exhausted to socialize

9:00PM            Get in bed

Adjusting to a ten to six schedule while recovering from a 12-hour jetlag, I’ve never felt this tired before. I come to realize real life is so much harder than college. There are no midday naps, no food points to eat in dining halls, and no work out sessions in the middle of the day. After a 40-minute commute home from work, I have to cook my own dinner, clean up, and run other errands.

Despite how tired I felt all week, I am so grateful and excited to work at GGE this summer! Even though I’ve only been at GGE for a week, I witnessed the impact GGE has on the lives of young women of color. At the graduation of Sisters in Strength–a two-year program that provides 15 young women of color education sessions on gender-based violence while equipping them with the skills to confront individual and institutional discrimination–I saw a roomful of confident, intelligent young women with big dreams. The love and support they have for each other filled up the space.

So, while living in New York might be harder than I anticipated, I love the city and the work I’m doing. I can’t wait to see what comes next!