Things have calmed down a bit, and I'm enjoying my newfound freedom from the endless tests and exams, I finally have time to start exercising, something I should be doing since hey I am supposed to be promoting a healthy lifestyle! I've started with some weight training and bought a book and have been doing some variations for the basic weight training (bicep curl, rows, crunches), yes I know its a little crazy that I need a book and shouldn't I know these exercises anyway? Well..theoretically...if I was a kine + personal trainer I would...but I'm not...and we're not taught any exercises in school, so its all basically learn on our own, which is a little annoying but it is what it is. I've accepted the fact that they teach us the mostly useless theory in class, and we're supposed to figure things out on our own in practice...sigh.
So back on topic, I've lived at home for the last 6 years of my uni education and wanted to talk a bit about my experiences. For the first 4 years it was undergrad, and I didn't really mind, since the uni was close by and I was able to get there in 10min in the morning by car (ride) or 30min by bus (back). So it was convenient, and it was nice to be able to come home, to be in a familiar environment, have food ready, not have to live with roomates....of course this was all good because my workload was manageable and I only had class for about 4hours/day and not every day. This all changed in the last 2 years in my master's program....first off I don't live close, it takes me an hour each way with at 1-2 transfers, secondly my courseload was a lot crazier with classes 9-4 every day....so when you add 2-3hours of commuting each day, and you have to still study for 4hours at home something definitely suffers. For me its been usually hygiene, eating, exercise and sleep. So basically in the past month as an example, I have only taken showers once a week, scarfed down most of my meals in 5 min, not exercised at all, and have gotten a max of 5hours of sleep per day. Definitely not healthy, and I realized this after I got my eye infection which is taking a while to resolve even with antibiotics. A high stress level, little sleep and little food, definitely doesn't promote the best immunity.
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The other issues is of course that living at home means that there are a lot of distractions and chores to do, and constant nagging and worry...this also contributed to me having to study at night instead of during the day even on weekends, so my study schedule would be from 8pm-3am, conveniently when everyone else was sleeping and no distractions..again not very healthy.
The commuting not only takes time, but is also somewhat exhausting and even though I often sleep when in transit, I would come home too exhausted to actually study. It also meant that most mornings I would have 20min to wake up, eat and get dressed, no joke! Which means I would swallow my breakfast, in a hurry pack my books, and be off, no time to actually take time to look good, brush my hair, because that would involve getting even less sleep and feeling even more like a zombie.
I'm actually conflicted whether knowing what I know now, would I live on campus? If it wasn't so expensive, and I could have a place to myself and not have to share, or share with one person, I probably would do it, but that's not realistic since it would be expensive, and I'm not sure I would actually get along with the roomate. Then of course there's the issue of having to go buy food, and cook it which mostly I've been lucky since my mom does.
Keep in mind that I live relatively close (20km away), there are people in my class that commute 35km, and a few that commute for 60km each way!
I think, if money isn't an issue and the campus is far, and there aren't a lot of partying distractions and you can do well, living on campus is probably a better option, but there are benefits and drawbacks to everything.
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