7:20 a.m.: Awakened by my sisters crawling out of the twin bunk bed above me.

7:30 a.m.: Breakfast–strawberry smoothie that my mom makes every morning.

7:40 a.m.: Achieng Agutu (‘18) sends me a funny picture of our directors to brighten my morning.

7:45 a.m.: Tell my family goodbye, hoping, as I do every day, that they don’t notice I don’t conjugate verbs.

8:00 a.m.: Leave for class with John Shrock-Shenk (‘18), my neighbor. Try to keep up because John always walks very fast, and I generally do not.

8:10 a.m.: Catch my breath at the bus stop.

8:12 a.m.: Opt to wait for next bus, hoping there will be less people.

8:15 a.m.: Realize all buses will be full, and I will be late if I don’t just pick one. Cram onto bus.

8:17 a.m.: Get slammed into someone/something on the bus as it rapidly stops.

8:18 a.m.: Someone/something slams into me as the bus rapidly takes off.

8:40 a.m.: Get to the bus stop. Pray someone else is getting off at same stop and can yell for me so I don’t have to yell “BAJA!!”

8:45 a.m.: Get to Starbucks.

8:46 a.m.: Feel guilty about going to Starbucks on SST.

8:47 a.m.: Realize Riley Mills (‘18), Brad Stoltzfus (‘18), Lane McDonald (‘18) and Alex Yoder (‘19) are all in line in front of me too.

8:48 a.m.: Get over feeling guilty and order my latte for “Angelica.”

8:49 a.m.: Laugh at Brad for being consistently known as “Bran” at Starbucks.

8:59 a.m.: Ask Maddie Delp (‘17) to translate something for us.

9:00 a.m.: Class! SST is actually an academic semester.

9:05 a.m.: Walk to the park with our professor and get ice cream as part of our academic semester.

9:10 a.m.: A.J. Delgadillo (‘18) asks an existential question no one can answer.

10:30 a.m.: Break. Beg Doug for cookies and ignore Rachel Yoder (‘19) who has hiccups for the fourth time today.

11:30 a.m.: Ask Maddie to translate something for us.

12 p.m.: Class over. Go get lunch. Avoid telling Maria that Emily Evans (‘18) and I actually went to McDonalds instead of eating something Peruvian.

1 p.m.: Return to church. Try to avoid reminding Doug about the reading quiz for this afternoon.

1:05 p.m.: Start the reading assignment for the quiz this afternoon.

1:10 p.m.: Ask Maddie to translate something for us.

2:15 p.m.: Lecture. Try to stay awake.

2:20, 2:25, 2:30, 2:40, 2:50 p.m.: Wake up Tim Litweiller (‘18).

4:00 p.m.: Doug announces reading quiz.

4:08 p.m.: Doug tells Brad and Lane to stop saying “Dirty” and shaking their heads as they read the quiz questions.

4:10 p.m.: Take reading quiz again as a group because Doug pities us and our bad scores.

4:30 p.m.: Josh Bustos (‘18) announces he’s going on a “short run” after class. (We find out later it was actually the distance of a half marathon.)

5-10 p.m.: Head home and hang out with my wonderful host family, eat home-cooked Peruvian food, talk to my sisters, do an occasional assignment and sleep.