Hello everyone! Today I am going to tell you a little bit more about me and how my day a day life is here at Saint Michael's College. As an athlete, you divide your academic year in two time periods: On-season and Off-season.
On-season is usually a time period of 3 months. For me. those three months go from the middle of August (Yes, I have to come to school 2 weeks earlier) to the beginning of November. On a normal day of school I usually wake up at 8 a.m and I go to breakfast around 8:30.I go to my class that day (all morning classes so they don't interfere with practice) until 1 p.m. the latest. I eat my lunch for around half an hour, and then is when the day gets busy. After lunch, on a normal day, we have an hour to go to the trainers if we have any injuries, get change, and be ready for practice in the media room. In the media room we spend about another hour going through videos of rival games, tactics, set pieces, or any valuable idea that we will try in the next practice. Around 4 we finally go to the field and start practice. Soccer practices, for people who are not familiar with it, are around 2 hours longs. At 6, we go back to our locker rooms and take a well-deserved shower. After getting changed and ready to become a normal student again it is time for a bug dinner, more like the last supper for us, we eat everything we see in front of us. Finally, around 8 you have your time to do homework or, if you are lucky, socialize with your friends. This might sound tough and difficult; but, trust me, it is worth it and I wouldn't change it for nothing in the world. Plus, at the end of the day, you are able to appreciate days off or weekends when you have a little bit more freedom.
"La Familia"
On the other hand, we have what we call Off-Season. Don't let the word trick you, it doesn't mean we are off or that we don't have practice, we wished. Off season is just a term to talk about when we are not playing league games. On a normal year, Off-season goes from December to beginning of May. A normal Off-season day consist on waking up at 5:35 in the morning to work out or have practice as a team at 6 a.m. When practice is over, around 8, we then go eat breakfast. After breakfast people are a little more free in terms of choosing the classes, the range of classes can go from 9.45 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sometimes, we have double sessions and we practice both in the morning and in the afternoon. If classes and practices conflict with each other then you are told you have to go to class, priorities first. At the end of the day you are exhausted and ready to go to bed by 9:30 p.m., if you want to have an 8-hour sleep cycle. Usually, this doesn't happen that way because of homework or because you, once again, want to spend the little free time you have with your friends enjoying an kind of leisure activity. Weekends are probably the highlight of a college-athlete. A moment when you can relax and enjoy your free time doing whatever you want. Sometimes it can be hard, nobody said the path was going to be easy. But trust me, any athlete will tell you that when you look back at what you have done for the last couple of years, all the emotions, laughs, learning experiences, and friends that you can consider family, it is completely worth it!
