Student Blog: Figuring It Out One Day at a Time

This semester has been a lot. Between classes during the day, rehearsals at night, homework squeezed in anywhere it fits, and simply trying to remember that sleep and food are, in fact, non-negotiable human requirements! Things have definitely been a lot… And with finals week creeping closer, everything feels like it’s happening all at once.

As a double major in Theatre Arts and English Education, my coursework is all over the place, in the best, most chaotic way possible. What’s funny is how much overlap I keep finding. I gave a persuasive speech on why college students should take a movement/dance class while literally taking a movement class. I quoted concepts from the warm-ups I had just had the day before. Or in acting, I’ll learn something about character work and suddenly find myself using it while writing an essay. It all connects in this weird interdisciplinary mesh that somehow makes me feel like I’m actually learning something real.

Now that my first college production, Oklahoma!, has wrapped (bless you, Oklahoma!, you will never be forgotten), I finally have a little breathing room to shift focus to other parts of college life. But theatre doesn’t exactly “slow down,” it just changes shape. I’m currently in rehearsals for a children’s tour that will travel to local elementary schools next semester. I get to play the devious, flamboyant, and effortlessly suave Monsieur De La Crème in Detective Cosmo Jones, Intergalactic Private Eye and the Googly Gang: The Case of the Crystal Bingleberry, an original musical written, composed, and directed by MFA students here at Minnesota State University, Mankato. It’s campy, colorful, dramatic, and exactly the kind of thing that makes me remember why I love performing. It’s chaotic. It’s exhausting. It’s creatively fueling. And somehow, with the right tools and a lot of passion, it all gets done.

Now, when I say “tools,” let me be honest: I am not the person who has a bullet journal with color-coded tabs and beautiful drawings in the margins. I don’t have a “system.” I don’t have a productivity routine with fancy calligraphy and highlighters. Truly, most days I’m usually just hoping I remembered to charge my phone and maybe eat something that isn’t a mac & cheese cup.

But I do have a few real, actually-used tools that keep me afloat.

The biggest one? My phone’s reminders app/Google calendar. It is basically my external brain at this point. If a thought enters my head, “email professor,” “memorize this monologue,” “eat dinner later,” “bring your script,” “print that paper”, it immediately gets thrown into a reminder. If I don’t, it will vanish into the abyss. It’s not aesthetic, but it’s reliable, AND it keeps me from accidentally forgetting something important.

Another thing that works for me is using micro-moments. I rarely have big open stretches of time, so I survive off the little pockets: ten minutes between classes, a lull before rehearsal starts, the brief time I have in my dorm room, or those random bursts of energy after rehearsal where my brain goes “let’s be productive for 15 minutes before shutting down.” It’s not traditional studying, but it fits my life and keeps things manageable.

And honestly? My biggest tool is my energy cycle. Some days I’m on top of everything. Some days I get nothing done. And I’ve learned not to treat that like a failure. If I need to nap, I nap. If I need to zone out with TikTok for twenty minutes, that’s what my brain needs. Burnout doesn’t make better art or better essays, so I’ve learned to give myself grace when I’m tired.

The last, and probably most important “tool,” is that I genuinely care about what I’m doing. I love my majors. I love rehearsing. I love learning about teaching. I love performing. When everything gets overwhelming, remembering why I’m doing all of this, the excitement, the creativity, the connection, is what pushes me forward. That kind of built-in motivation is honestly what keeps me upright on the days when I feel like I might fall asleep standing up.

So overall, my tools aren’t fancy or aesthetic or Pinterest-worthy. They’re simple: frantic little reminders, tiny pockets of time, listening to my own energy, and letting passion carry the weight when everything gets hectic. Somehow, through all of that, it works. Everything gets done, not perfectly, not gracefully, but honestly and wholeheartedly. And in a semester like this one, that’s more than enough.