I hope everyone has been doing well in this gloomy weather! This week’s post is about commuting to work and about how I cope with these commutes. From my house all the way to the front door of my work place takes about an hour and ten minutes depending on the traffic of the bus since the Skytrain is usually the same travel length. It consist of ride to Park and Ride, bus, skytrain and walking. This means that the weather plays a huge factor, especially since if it snows or rains, the traffic slows down and I have to walk or wait in the rain or freezing weather. (My commute to BCIT is slightly better with 45 to 50 minutes depending on the traffic with the buses.)
So what do I do on my commutes? I usually listen to music to block out the noise from the commuters. Every morning I do my daily crosswords (both to school or to work). I have been doing that since my SFU days. I try my best to grab one every morning but sometimes I don’t when I am running for the bus. Luckily, there’s always someone handing it out at the Skytrain stations so I’ll grab one there. With the crosswords, I always manage to fill in most of them but I end up missing a few words in the end. I don’t like to guess and write anything down, so it rarely gets completed.
I also started reading again since I don’t have to read for school. So far I’ve completed 3 books. Sadly, I can only read on the Skytrain since I can’t read on buses or else I’d get carsick (or I can get carsick from the buses in general). I have a few more books borrowed already from the library. Right now it’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’ve only started with it so I’m at chapter two. It is quite a long book. Have any of you read it before? I want to finish it before I watched both the movies. (I try to watch TV shows on the phone on my commutes but I get lazy to drift off because it requires so much of my attention span. And that I have to transfer the shows onto my phone and I get lazy with that too. I just sound really lazy now.) Sometimes I listen to educational podcasts too. Right now I’m listening to a professor talk about history and civilization – currently about South Asia and China in the 1500 BCE. Before that it was about the Egyptians and Mesopotamians earlier in the history. Fascinating stuff.
What does everyone do on their commute? How long is your usual commute to school or work? Any strange sightings on transit? I encountered one today that was very interesting…
My commute is usually around 20 mins so I don’t really have to time whip out school stuff because it takes me awhile to get productive. I really like to people watch .
I’m jealous. I don’t think I’ve ever had a 20 minute other than Grade 3 – 12. I guess you still have time to last minute cram before tests ;)
During my commutes, I used to play Nintendo DS Mario Cart quite a lot. I found that the motion of the bus or skytrain actually made the game feel more realistic and I also didn’t get carsick. lol
I burnt out my DS after I used it so much back in my university / part-time day. I had it as my mp3/video player. It doesn’t hold that much charge anymore. I don’t even know what games are fun in that area anymore. I remember playing mario kart linked with my friend on the buses. That was quite fun!
Car sick is the worst when it comes to commute. It ruins the rest of your day.
My commute to school is 1 hour, 40 minutes. To get home from school it is over 2 hours. I take the same route and none of my alternate options are any quicker. 3 buses and 1 skytrain :)
On my first bus, I typically listen to music and close my eyes. The 2nd bus I typically read over course work/assignments via paper or iPad or just stare outside and think.
Skytrain and 3rd bus are too crowded to do any of that and they are both little 10 min jaunts.
I shouldn’t complain with my commute then! As long as I get a seat, I don’t mind as much. I can’t stand still on a train or on the bus so I keep shuffling around. But sometimes it’s just great to have the music and zone out while looking out the window. :D