Typical Day
At 5:30AM, Mari's alarm clock begins playing her favorite song. As Pharrel's smooth baritone jives with some French electronica, Mari slinks out of bed and into her workout clothes. She finds the best way to start the morning is with exercise, a healthy breakfast, and a fast, cheerful song.
After a run, followed by some yoga, she heads into the kitchen for some granola mixed into Greek yogurt and a glass of cranberry juice.
This morning routine helps Mari stay focused on the most important task of the day: working as part of a research team at a cancer research center. The average day can be long and tedious, with lots of big words and few actual discoveries. As she heads out the front door at 7:15AM, she hesitates a moment as she looks longingly at her PlayStation under the TV. Maybe later.
Mari arrives at work at about 8:00AM. Her office building looks a lot like a school, which is good, because it is school―a prestigious university, to be more specific. Since most of her life was spent in school, it makes sense that once Mari was out in the "real world," a school would be the best place for her to make a living.
Even though this isn't her alma mater, just being surrounded by scurrying undergrads does give her daily bouts of nostalgia. Of course, the downtown condo she has right now is a massive improvement over the five-person dorm room she had to deal with as a freshman.
Mari checks her emails as her colleagues roll in one by one. Everyone is present by 9:30AM, so the team can meet to discuss current research goals and accomplishments. The daily update is good to bring all their minds together, especially since they'll mostly be on their own today. Some of these egos work best when they're at shouting range.
Back in the office by 10:45AM, she sees the envelope on her desk. Inside will be some answers that will likely create more questions. Mari is spending the first part of the day in her office so she can look over the analyses of some samples she sent out to an oncologist for further testing. It's like getting a gift in the mail, only she can't really re-gift cancer research.
After a small lunch and some light reading in the cafeteria, Mari heads down to the molecular imaging center at 2:30PM to examine some pictures of cancerous cells. Due to the university's vast resources, she and her team have access to some of the best equipment built by human hands.
This includes the 3D imaging hardware, which is going to allow her to examine the basic cellular make-up of her subjects in a full-scale rendered environment. It's not as much fun as the Oculus Rift she tried recently, but it's probably a better use of the technology.
At 6:30PM, Mari calls it a day. Some of the technicians are heading out for dinner, but Mari's too tired. If there's one thing she knows people talk about outside of work, it's work. Also, she hasn't caught up on all her TV shows and she just knows Dr. Edwards will spoil them.
She's home by 7:15PM, at which time she promptly switches into her pjs and cooks a ready-made pasta dinner. She then spends the next three hours doing exactly what she wants: kicking some pixelated booty. Mari has simple needs, one of which is to completely dominate the competition. That may be what makes her such a great cancer biologist―"quit" isn't in her vocabulary.
Victory completed, Mari gets ready for bed at 10:30PM. She slides under her comforter and switches off the light, making sure the alarm is set for tomorrow. She'll allow herself to sleep in late, so she sets it for 5:45AM.
Mari's a rebel like that.