A Day in the Life of a Commuter

05:30 a.m. - I wake up to the sound of my iPhone alarm and immediately hit the snooze button. I have an 8 a.m. class, but in order to beat bridge traffic and get to Marist on time, I have to start my day now. But, I decide to fall into the vicious cycle known as hitting snooze. 

06:00 a.m. - If I don’t get up now, I’m not going to be able to shower and I have a presentation today. I really have to ask myself, do I care enough about my physical appearance? Or do I want to get an extra five minutes of sleep? My mom always comes down to wake me up if I sleep late, just like she did in high school. Some things just don’t change. 

06:15 a.m. - Now that I’ve finally risen from that literal snooze fest, it’s time to rush through my shower.

06:45 a.m. - Because I wasn’t able to get up when I intended to, I have to decide what’s more important: eating breakfast or drying my hair so I don’t catch pneumonia in this crisp October morning air? I decide that breakfast can wait. I get dressed and dry my hair. I’ve been up for  nearly two hours and I’ve only prepared for my day. This is gonna be a long one, folks. But hey, at least I’m saving thousands of dollars from room and board, right?

07:09 a.m. - I snag some Little Bites and a pack of peanut butter crackers from my pantry, that’s basically my breakfast  and lunch. I pull out of my driveway in my 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee, only to realize my gas tank is on empty. But I just put $15 in yesterday? That’s what happens when your car is a gas guzzler and you live 25 minutes from your campus.Time to stop at Speedway. 

07:21 a.m. - I arrive at the gas station, realizing I don’t have my card on me. So I have to go inside and wait in line. This Speedway has a lot of heavy traffic in the morning, mostly grown adults going to their full time jobs. Then there’s me, for some reason I chose to commute to college. It basically is a full time job in itself.

Anyway, I walk into Speedway and of course out of the two registers, one is broken and there’s a line of seven people, four of them with coffee and a bagel in their hands. I’m so jealous they had time to eat. 

07:29 a.m. - Finally, I hand the cashier my $8 I scraped up and rush outside to pump my gas. I haven’t even crossed the bridge yet. I pump the gas and hop back into my gas guzzler. 

07:33 a.m. - I approach the tolls of the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Traffic is heavy, but I have an E-Z Pass so I should zoom through the booths and not have to wait. There are three E-Z Pass lanes open, and I choose the one on the left. There are five cars ahead of me, the first four get through with ease, and then the car in front of me can’t get through. Their E-Z Pass is empty. There are countless cars behind me, I can’t back up. The toll booth worker has to come over and manually do it, which takes a couple minutes. I keep checking the clock and I’m beginning to get ancy. My 8 a.m. professor doesn’t play games when it comes to attendance. 

07:40 a.m. - Finally I get onto the bridge. The traffic is steady, but it could be a lot worse.  The traffic gets really heavy around 8:15 a.m. so I only have to worry about that when I have 9:30’s. The sunrise while driving on the bridge is beautiful. The bright orange sky forms a silhouette of the bridge’s infamous arches. I wish I had more time to take in the beauty. 

07:52 a.m. - Finally, I pull into Beck Place and find a parking spot parallel to that man’s house who owns the German Shepards. I say good morning to one of the dogs as I speed walk past the house, down the stairs, through the tunnel, and up to Lowell Thomas: my second home.

07:59 a.m. - I set my backpack down and sit in one of the rolly chairs in LT 229, and my morning has finally begun. 

08:52 a.m. - My professor let us out early. I’m excited and all, but now my gap is even longer. My next class isn’t until 2:00 p.m. I wish I could just go to sleep in my bed. But my bed is a 25 minute drive away. Ever since freshman year, I’ve sat on this one couch in the upstairs of Lowell Thomas. I call it “my couch” because it basically is. When I graduate, I believe I should take the couch with me. I’ve slept on it, done homework on it, cried of stress on it. We’ve been through a lot together. I consider that couch my non-official dorm at Marist. 

09:15 a.m. - Three of my commuter friends get out of class,  Victoria, Kayla, and Sharika. We all commute from Highland, which most students at Marist have never even heard of. Victoria has an 11:00 a.m, then Kayla, Sharika and I have only 2:00 p.m classes. The four of us don’t have dining plans, there’s no point. We decide to go across the street to Starbucks to pass the time. But, none of us want to lose our parking spot. Beck Place on a Tuesday morning? Good luck finding a spot in that mess. 

09:33 a.m. - We get to Starbucks carrying all of our belongings, because we don’t have dorms to leave our stuff in, and we get our Pumpkin Cold Brews and sit at the table. “How long is your gap today? I forget,” Kayla asked me. “Only till 2. I’ve had longer ones last semester,” I replied. All of my required classes are so far apart throughout the day, and there aren’t any times that are close to one another. That’s my sort of luck. Whatever, at least I have my Pumpkin Cold Brew.

10:30 a.m. - We decide to head back across Route 9 to walk Victoria to her class. After walking her to Dyson, what is there to do now? There’s still three hours with absolutely nothing to do. I decide to go back to my safe place, The Couch. I observe the upstairs lounge, as it’s 10:50 and Marist students are sitting on the chairs and couches around me, waiting for their 11:00 a.m. while people are also filing out of their 09:30’s still. The place is bustling. By 11:05 a.m, complete silence. Everyone has gone to their 11’s or back to their dorm, they have no reason to be sitting in the lounge at this time. But I have nowhere to go, so there I sit, alone. 

01:01 p.m. - One of my very few residential friends, Claudia, just got out of her 11. She sees me sitting on the couch. “Are you ever not sitting on this couch?,” she says jokingly. She invites me over to her room to hang out, because we have our 2:00 p.m. together. She lives in one of the new suite-like dorms at the North end of campus. 

01:11 p.m. - In the elevator to go up to her room, there’s a poster advertising Bingo night in The Cabaret. It isn’t until like 08:30 p.m. It’s a shame that it’s so late, I’m long gone by then or else I would go. 

1:42 p.m. - After sitting in her apartment, watching her clean, admiring her room and daydreaming about how I would decorate my dorm if I had one, it’s finally time for my last class of the day. We head back down the elevator. 

3:11 p.m. - Now that I’m done with my two classes, my 8 hour day is finally over. Many people would think I had a full day of classes, but I actually spent more time sitting on The Couch than actually being productive in the classroom. I begin walking to my car, back through the tunnel, up the stairs, past the house, “I’ll see you two tomorrow,”  I say to the German Shepards through the fence of the man’s backyard. I notice that there’s somebody over my shoulder following me to my car, so they could get my parking spot.
3:18 p.m. - I pull out of Beck, drive south on Route 9, and say goodbye to Marist as I cross the Hudson River to go back home, as I get ready to repeat it all tomorrow.