A Day in the Life: Qinyi

Hi, here is a sneak peek at my Wednesday :)

8:30 AM First alarm clock goes off... Hmmm no I need to go back to sleep.

8:40 AM Second alarm clock goes off... Nope.

8:50 AM Third alarm clock goes off... Okay I need to make some efforts to wake myself up. Starting to play some loud music.

Waking up to this every single morning :)

9:00 AM Finally getting up! It's a beautiful morning in LA again. I usually don't have time to make myself breakfast, so I just grab a small box of orange juice from the fridge and take a piece of bread.

It's always a sleepy ride to school.

9:10-9:50 AM I commute to school every day by taking the Culver City bus. There is always a lot of traffic during this time of the day, but on Wednesdays I will always catch the 9:10 bus that will take me to school on time. Every day on the morning bus, I listen to the daily mix playlist that Spotify makes for me (and keep myself awake).

In Chem today, we are learning about ionization.

10:00-11:50 AM Classes! I like taking most of my classes in the morning so that I won't sleep till noon :p . On Wednesdays I have chemistry and coding classes, and for me these are good breaks from mathematics.

12:00-1:00 PM Lunch at bomb shelter. Yoshinoya is always a quick and good place to go. I also get my first coffee of the day.

1:00-2:00 PM Research group meeting. This is usually the most intense part of the day. I've been working with my PI and several graduate students on a mathematics research project for the past year. During group meetings we present our latest work, and talk about the difficulties that we each run into. We also make plans for research in the near future. Free food and cookies are often provided (which is one of the best parts:) ).

2:00-2:50PM Take the bus back. My day at UCLA is especially short today, as there are no other meetings scheduled. The traffic gets a bit worse in the afternoon, but I still make it home within an hour. I'd stop by Starbucks to get my second coffee of the day (or a Frappuccino if I feel like it).

Coffee is really flowing in my veins.

My math homework! --- It could look intimidating but it's actually pretty fun (most of the time).

3:00-5:00PM I do math homework. They usually take forever so I'd be glad if I can even solve one problem within these two hours. (Sadly I usually get stuck.)

5:00-7:00 PM Time for some food. At home I usually cook for myself, and while I don't know anything about cooking when I first moved out, my cooking skills are getting better and better. I usually make Chinese food since they make me feel at home, and I especially enjoy making noodle soups. If my roommates are back, sometimes we'd make and eat dinner together. Cooking has been a great way to relax and chill for all of us.

Food at my apartment always look really tasty. (My roommate gets most of the credits haha)

7:00-10:00 PM Continue to do homework. I'm usually writing code or solving math problems. Sometimes I write essays too. When there is no pressing deadline, I also find time to do research and read papers.

10:00 PM Make myself some tea. Or go eat a yogurt. (Need some energy before doing more work!!!)

10:00 PM - 12:00 AM Keep studying/working! My brain starts to slow down, but my schedule is pretty packed for Thursday so I hope to get as much done as possible when I have the time. I also play louder music to stay focused.

A snapshot of the code that I've been writing lately. My research and some of my classes are all coding-heavy.

12:00 AM - 12:15 AM FaceTime my parents. Now is around 4pm in Shanghai and my dad sometimes get home around this time. We'd briefly chat about life, and he'd hear me complain about homework. Talking to my parents also keep me awake.

12:15 - 1:20 AM Wrapping up work. I'm not exactly a night owl, but I also realize that I work more efficiently when I'm alone in my room at night, with music in headphones. I can't really do math or do readings any more after 12 AM, but miraculously I can still code pretty well and efficiently. Now is a usually a good time to clean up my algorithms and put everything in the right folder.

1:20 - 1:30 AM Finally going to bed! I usually check out Instagram and Facebook feeds in bed (as did everyone else). Woohoo, today is such a long day but I've been sort of productive too. Hopefully one day I'll go to bed without anything left on my to-do list (though this seems highly unlikely since the number of things is always exponentially growing.) Night night ~