The Life of a Boarder
I start my week early in the morning. When others are still asleep I am heading to the fitness centre for a morning rowing practice. The experienced rowers in our team are privileged to attend this practise which is in my opinion the best of all practices. I just like it to spend time with people and be active.
At the end of our workout I head to Brown Hall, which is the place we eat every meal in, to eat breakfast. Usually we have scrambled eggs, pancakes, hash browns and bacon for breakfast. After that I head to my dorm to have a shower and get ready for school. The school day consists of chapel/assembly/homeroom/councils, 4 different classes and a lunch break.
After school ends at 3:25 I hurry back to my room to get ready for rowing. We only go on the water in spring because it is a 15 min school bus drive from school to the bay. In the evening we return to school and I have dinner with other boarders. Every student has to do prep from 7-9 pm which is the only time where you do your homework or study for a test. I usually have many things to work on at the same time. But there are some days where you just read a book for English class because you don't have anything to do.
The time of the day where you spend time with your friends from boarding is the time after prep. You either visit another house’s common room or play basketball or soccer in the gym. Everybody needs to be back at 10 pm to check in. Lights out is at 10:30 and the WiFi turns off at 10:00 anyway so there is no reason to stay up late.
The daily schedule repeats itself like this until Friday where you spend some time with day students after school, go downtown and shopping or just to a restaurant for dinner with friends. Every Saturday you sign up for a Saturday activity. They range from whale watching over banana bread baking to virtual reality. But most of the Saturday is your time to relax, catch up with school or hang out with friends. Near our school there is a shopping mall. On the weekends we spend a lot of time eating and shopping. We have another rowing practice on Sunday morning. It connects me with other people I could not see during the weekend. Sundays are mostly free time except quiet hour from 8-9pm. That is a standard week at SMUS but even that variates a lot through assessment weeks, expeditions and other boarders’ activities.