My whole life all I ever wanted was to be a college athlete. I never wanted to be a professional athlete for some reason. College was always the goal and I just wanted to use my skills to help pay for my tuition. I have now done five years of college and am currently in my sixth year. Some would say that it is really cool that I was able to get my masters while also playing baseball in college for six years. But it is a lot less cool when you find out that I still haven’t gotten my bachelors degree. It has been a long journey filled with success, failure, injury, and adversity. On another day I can tell you about what that journey looked like, but for now I want to tell you what a day as a college athlete in Hawaii looks like.
It is Tuesday morning which means I woke up at 5:10 in the morning for a 6:00 AM lift. I woke up to “Space Song” by Beach house, which if you have heard it you would know it is one of the most peaceful and beautiful songs to wake up to. The problem is that it has been my alarm for the past three years so now it is no longer peaceful and beautiful to me. In fact, it went from one of my favorite songs ever to a song that just reminds me of the agony of waking up at 5:00 AM to go to a lift. I will never forgive myself for doing that to myself. Anyways, I am getting off topic. I get out of bed at 5:13 AM and brush my teeth and throw some water on my face to wake me up a little bit(that never works, but they do it in the movies and it looks cool). I grab a protein bar and fill up my Stanley Cup before leaving at 5:25 AM. I get to the lift at 5:45 AM and start to stretch, roll out, and do whatever I can to get my body ready to get through the morning lift. In an earlier stage of my career I was going all out for the lifts and pushing my body to the limits without thinking about the next day. Now with five years under my belt I know how to carefully navigate the lifts while still getting stronger and better but not suffering the consequences of waking up in agony. I have come to terms that I will never be the strongest in the weight room but I know how to compete and I know my body and physical strength does not always correlate with being good at baseball. After the lift, I get home at 7:20 AM and make four eggs with some Mexican style shredded cheese and salsa verde and drink a fairlife chocolate protein shake. The worst part of my day happens next. I battle the conundrum of going back to sleep until practice or be productive and get my homework done for the week. I know that if I do my homework then I can spend time later in the week going to the beach or going out with my friends. But my bed always looks so comfortable and I heard something somewhere at some point in my life that A human needs about eight hours of sleep per night and I only got five last night. I make it sound like this is an actual problem that I take time to think about but it really is a five second decision and it really is not difficult. I choose to sleep. I always choose to sleep. Homework is Sunday’s problem. I wake up at 11:30 in a state of confusion. It takes me a little too long to get out of bed. But my bladder is always on time and makes the decision for me to get out of bed and start my day… again. I make lunch at Noon, which usually consists of rotisserie chicken from Costco, potatoes, and if I’m feeling dangerous, Tabasco sauce. I then spend the next 40 minutes watching Major League Baseball highlights. Again, a better version of me would do homework while I waste time watching yesterday’s games, but like I said before; homework is Sunday’s problem. I leave for practice at 12:55 PM and show up to the field at 1:15. I begin to go through my routines which consist of rolling out, stretching, hitting in the batting cage, doing some weird drills that I saw on twitter(it doesn’t work), and drinking two Stanley cups worth of water. Then practice begins at 2:30 PM. I used to dread going to practice in my early years of college but now I truly enjoy it. Besides my jersey sticking to my body because of the unhealthy amount of sweat that my body is producing, the best part of my day is practice. The competitor inside me enjoys the grit and suffering of finding a way to get better. Practice gets done at around 5:00 PM. I get home around 6:00 PM because of the brutal Honolulu traffic during rush hour. But it is not terrible because listening to the Hamilton soundtrack makes time go by pretty fast. I am not ashamed that I can recite any song word for word but I am also not proud of it. And for some reason I thought that it would be a cool party trick to just break out and recite any song from Hamilton word for word but people do not seem to think that it is that cool. After I get home, I make a quick meal(I grab an PB&J uncrustable from the fridge) and get on my moped and drive to Makalei Beach. I bring this book that is called “Atomic Habits” which I highly recommend. I haven’t read a page of it but it was highly recommended to me and I feel like it is a cool thing to recommend books to other people. I sit on the sand and watch the beautiful Hawaiin sunset while pretending to read “Atomic Habits”. It is easy to be grateful when you are living in Hawaii, but I will forever be grateful for Hawaii sunsets, sitting on the beach, and being able to get in the water and not die of hypothermia. I truly live in the greatest place on Earth. The sun goes down and there is no more light for me to pretend to read so I get back on my moped and drive to get food at Zippys. The Korean Fried Chicken is simply perfect. High in Protein, fills you up, and is reasonably priced, which can be hard to find in Honolulu. I have the day off tomorrow which means I don’t have to go to bed super early so as soon as I get home I can sit back and relax and watch Netflix. Knowing in the back of my brain that future Daniel is going to struggle hard on Sunday when he has to do a week’s worth of homework in one day. But that’s his problem, not mine. I go to bed at 11:00 PM and turn off all the alarms on my phone.
