I'm Leo, a neurodivergent international student from India, and I'm in my third year of Bachelor of Psychology at Monash Clayton. I work part-time as a cook at Wholefoods, lead the Effective Altruism Monash University chapter, and teach yoga classes through the Monash Student Association (MSA). I've burnt more food than I'd like to admit (you'll find out why). My life is far from 'ideal', but it's authentically mine: ADHD golden retriever energy, judgy food critic instincts and all. These snippets of my day show what it's like to juggle mental health and student life while quietly defying difficulties to come out stronger and more resilient.

8:00am: Kitchen chronicles at Wholefoods

My day starts at 7:00am when I throw on whatever's on top of my clothes pile. Living just off-campus in a tiny sharehouse means I pedal to campus on my bicycle – which doubles as my primary cardio.

By 8:00am, I'm in the Wholefoods kitchen, our student-run, not-for-profit vegetarian restaurant in Campus Centre. It's warm and smells like spices and cinnamon scrolls. There's always someone insisting on instrumentals to match the drama of chopping onions while others ladle stock into ragu – pure joyful chaos.

I speed dice celery stalks and check in with co-workers and volunteers. We ease into our rhythm: prepping, coordinating, dancing, laughing, and making endless trips to the storeroom for ingredients I keep adding to my improvised dishes. My favourite recipes? Sweet and sour tofu and a basil pesto pasta with tofu and mushrooms. My nemesis? Daal – it burns every time. I blame the strange pot dimensions.

Crisis moment: One day, we realised mid-shift that we had no vegetables for a large catering order. After two minutes of stunned silence and some choice words, we sprinted to the shops. While stressful, it was satisfying to problem-solve without panicking – transferable skills from years of looking after my sibling!

Working at Wholefoods isn't just about cooking; it's a beautiful community where personalities collide like a D&D alignment chart come to life. Our first end-of-semester party this year was themed "Enchanted Fantasy Forest" and was one of my proudest moments. We transformed our space into a magical fairytale scene with vines, fairy lights, and endless flower arrangements. I'll never forget watching a patron walk in, softly gasp, and whisper "Oh wow."

12:30pm: Studying psychology at secret study spots

After scrubbing my hands clean, I grab lunch and head to my secret study spots in Menzies or Learning and Teaching Building – the ones where sunlight hits just right and no one breathes loudly. When weather permits, I take my notes and blanket to a grassy patch near the duck pond.

I genuinely love my psychology classes. Cognitive and perception psychology scratches the same itch as good fantasy fiction. Counselling psychology makes me feel like I might actually do something useful someday. I love how these subjects embrace the digital age and harness it for meaningful progress. The subjects aren't just academic for me – I live what I'm learning. As someone with ADHD, these concepts learnt in classes explain how I experience every hour, from making it to class on time to remembering that I've put rice on the stove.

Despite the chaos, I maintain a well above-average academic record using ADHD support apps, post-it notes, and daily to-do lists. My browser tabs are never closed, my desk never spotless, but work gets done before deadlines. Although sometimes, I just panic.

4:00pm: Head to extracurriculars

I switch gears to extracurriculars as president of Effective Altruism Monash University. We run lightning talks and the Scholars Programme, attend conferences, and make philosophy feel less like homework and more like an unmissable conversation. One day we're debating longtermism; the next, we're giggling about forgetting to book the projector room. These kind, smart, peculiar, and deeply passionate people are truly my people.

On quieter afternoons, I lie on the grass with friends, snacking on homemade crisps and using cue card prompts for deeper conversations. With my partner, I study Anki cards, race to identify organic molecules, and plan to binge niche science YouTube channels together.

After 6pm: Yoga, cooking and hobbies

My evenings start slowly. If I had exercise plans, they've probably evaporated (kitchen work is exhausting). I often teach evening yoga classes through MSA, helping other students breathe through their overwhelm while working through my own. My current guilty hyperfixation? Crocheting.

Suppertime is an ordeal. I cook for a living, so at home I rely on fallback options: frozen vegetables, pickled and fermented foods, rice, and hope. Sometimes I manage something stunning; sometimes it's just calories. I don't romanticise it anymore – that's just life – adapting and making the best of what you've got.

Cooking for others is different though – there's something electric about feeding hungry people and soaking in the praise that follows. Some people have words of affirmation as their love language; mine is food.

11:00pm: Closing the day gently

By 11:00pm, I want to journal, sip tea, brush my teeth, and moisturise before bed. But often I just crash. My partner and I talk until we drift off or fall asleep watching unhinged TierZoo clips – rituals that make our draughty room feel like home.

On bad days when it all gets too much, I use my mental health rescue kit and self-regulation techniques from How to ADHD YouTube videos. Some days I cry. Some days I laugh until my sides ache. Some days I feel like a browser with too many tabs open, but if there's anything I've learnt, it's that you don't have to minimise yourself to belong.

The Beautiful Mess

My Monash experience is a tapestry of tiny, sacred moments: daal that won't stop burning, picnics under shady trees, vulnerable conversations on grassy patches, group chats full of memes and existential dread. It's chaotic good energy – impulsive, thoughtful, iterative, and wildly human.

It's not clean and aesthetic. It's messy, reliant, and real – just like me. As I near the end of this first leg of my university odyssey, I realise I wouldn't trade any of it for all the moons and stars in the universe.