Live to be live

Hiya. It’s been a while since I last blogged and I think I can only blame my poor time management skills. I was faced with a horrifying combination of deadlines and back to back midterms but thankfully it’s all over now. The well-deserved reading break is here and all the tough times traversed only makes me feel that much better. Well after a month and a half since the beginning of 2012, I can safely say that engineering second term is definitely more difficult than the first. Even if I were to balance my workload evenly through the two terms, there would just be more to do in second term with the two physics and math courses. (If you’re a potential first year engineer reading this, then do yourself a favor and stack your first term. This way you can laugh at your friends when they’re studying for two back-back midterms and working on an English 112 assignment worth 15% of their grade.) The midterms themselves went fine, but this was achieved at the cost of my involvement and checking-out-new-events time. Anyway, studies are really really the last thing I want to talk about at the moment. Six more days of reading break left and there isn’t a lack of things to do. I can actually feel my fire of motivation starting to sizzle up again and I’m getting positive vibes about the next couple months. Let’s see where things end up. Time to catch up on all the Linsanity I’ve been missing out on.

-Miracle

It’s February and we’re a month into second term. We had our first major assessment this week in the form of the first APSC 150 quiz. (If you by any chance are reading this because you’re stressed for the quiz, trust me, you’re way overstressing by leaps and bounds.) APSC 150 is a mandatory engineering course at UBC covering general engineering principles from four different sections; Things I wish I knew as a student, Chemical Reaction Car, Mining and the Environment, Advanced Materials for Commercial for Aircraft Structures. Each case has a final quiz consisting of 20 multiple choice questions and account for 10% of our total grade.

I was really treating the quiz as a midterm of sorts because of its large grade weight, but really the “quiz” was hardly even qualified to be called that. It was a complete joke! The quiz was an exact copy of the practice quiz posted up online!! The couple hours I spent memorizing procedures, like the Life Cycle Assessment and the Stakeholder Analysis, turned out to be completely unnecessary. There was instead even a question on why we shouldn’t talk during lectures. Really, this is the first time in all my life that I finished a quiz for which we were allotted an hour in under five minutes. I appreciated the easiness but I think even actually felt a bit annoyed at how overly easy the quiz. It caught me off-guard. Anyway, I’m just hoping that the rest of the midterms can be even a fifth as easy as the APSC 150 quiz.

Here’s to a great second term!

-Raf

Okay, we’re three weeks into second term already and judging from the amount of work, I think it is safe to say university “life” has resumed. I realize that I haven’t had time to rant about my daunting course load this term and so now’s a good time as any. I had a really slack first term with only 12 credits worth of courses which is really, an engineering fantasy. Anyway now that I have six courses for a grand total of 20 credits this term, I think I’m starting to slowly phase back into reality.

You might be thinking at this point that six courses aren’t all that bad and if you are, I fully agree with you. After all, a lot of people take more than six courses. However, there are hidden aspects such as the nature of the courses that remain concealed when a workload is defined in terms of a number of courses. When someone tells you that they have six credits, do you learn about the fact that all six courses assign a heck load of homework? Do you perhaps learn that four of the six courses have labs or tutorials designated to them, or that three of the six courses have multiple midterms? I mean if you are a genius with the deductive power of Sherlock Holmes you may have been able to guess, but these aspects aren’t conveyed when someone explains their course load as “six courses”. This term looks heavy and I have classes starting at 8 (ugh) or 9 and ending at around 2 or 3. I also believe morning classes bring out the worst in me and lately, my sleep debt has been starting to mount again. D: I do think I need to start planning my day out better and resume work on developing an optimistic viewpoint of life! I’m probably going to need it more and more, as I slowly worm my way through the progressively hardening block of cheese which represents the bachelor of engineering.

May the year of the Dragon bring prosperity to all!

-Mir

Event: The 10^th Anniversary of the annual UBC Student Leadership Conference (SLC)

Introduction: I woke up at 5:00 AM drowsy and quivering in anticipation. January 14, the day I had been waiting for over a month, was finally here and the SLC was set to start in three hours and thirty minutes.  I groomed myself and stepped out into the snowy morning. I wanted to make the UBC Blogsquad breakfast in time and start the day off well. I made it in time and though the breakfast wasn’t actually a part of the Student Leadership Cost, I feel compelled to mention it here to do justice to the warm, moist pancakes.

Event Background: The Student Leadership Conference, “UBC’s largest student-led conference”, has been running annually since its inception in 2003. The goal of the conference is to motivate people and to help develop the leaders of tomorrow. This is done through the variety of keynote speakers, feature presentations, and workshops organized. The cost to attend for SLC varies from year to year, and I believe it was around $40 for UBC students this year.

Since 2010, student leaders at UBC who has shown outstanding initiatives have been recognized as “The Faces of Today”. The Nestor Korchinsky Student Leadership Award is also presented during the SLC. 1250 delegates signed up for this year’s conference.

Overview: I really do believe that the 2012 SLC was a great experience. I may not have become a student leader over a day but I definitely feel more motivated. Prior to the beginning of the conference we received warm regards from Stephen Toope, the UBC president, and hearty laughs from Jeremy Mcelroy, the UBC Alma Mater Society (AMS) president. The conference officially started with the appearance of this year’s opening keynote speaker, Sarah Kay. A young woman with a gift for slam poetry, a vision to share it with the world, and the ability to start student conferences amazingly well. She had her entire audience completely mesmerized and I already felt as if the early morning rise was worth it.

Sarah mentioned how she was following her passions and this was a theme reinforced throughout the rest of the day. My feature presenter was Shobha Sharma, and what this woman accomplished was truly inspiring as well. She is the director of Free the Children and she mentioned how 9 years ago the SLC had changed her and influenced her life. She mentioned how she had found her passion and how her life now revolves around helping the poor and the needy. I could actually feel the strong, passionate aura of positivity and aura that surrounded her. Her aura alone was motivational. I realized by the end that I too want to learn more about the life that I could possibly have, were I not born where I am.

To be honest, it was really rather a great thing that I was inspired already by this point, because lunch and the two workshops which followed were rather mediocre. The workshops covered very basic information and wasn’t terribly interactive. I suppose that the day was starting to lengthen as well and the reason I didn’t like my workshops could very well be attributed to my somewhat sleep-deprived state.

Thankfully, the day was revived by Neil Pasricha, the closing keynote speaker. He is the author of the best-selling book “The Book of Awesome” and the blogger behind “1000 Awesome Things”. I hadn’t read his blog prior to the conference but it should suffice to say that his presentation has left me a fan and a subscriber. Neil carried a good sense of humor and I could really relate to the message he got across. He mentioned how his life cycles through ups and downs as well and how we should learn to appreciate the little awesome things that happen every day. Little things such as hitting a few green traffic lights in a row, or catching an object while it falls can leave us feeling satisfied. And after thinking about this, I realized that I couldn’t agree more. Life is always throwing things at us and sometimes it can be depressing aiming high. Smaller successes are still successes. The day ended on a great note.

Verdict: FOC Event Rating

F – un-factor: 7/10

O – rganization: 9.5/10

C – reativity: 8/10

Overall rating: 8.5/10

The presentation speakers were great but the workshops I attended could be better. The SLC lasted for more than 8 hours and I had lost track of time in between. Despite the fact that the day felt as if it was dragging on at times, this is always a good sign as it means I must have been enjoying myself.

Recommendation: I think this event is worth going to at least once and that there was something in it for everyone to take home. I’m probably going again next year.

And here we are! It’s the dreaded last day of winter break (yay) and the gloomy skies very accurately represent my mood. Darn, this day is pretty much the only reason for which I hate breaks. It even appears to me that having more fun during the break, causes this day to come around quicker. It is a royal pain in the back but I guess it can’t be helped.

Well, winter, as a whole, was kinda fun. My cousin came over from the States and I experienced some good quality family time (maybe perhaps even a bit too much). I watched all the movies that I had been planning to watch and I did end up learning some Java. It was all good and yet, I keep getting the annoying feeling that I didn’t spend my winter as well as I could have (I hate it when this happens). I wish I could learn how to stop crying over spilt milk already.

Anyway, 2012 is here and a new year is always a good time to start anew. Second term for me looks horribly scary. I have two more courses than I did in my first term. My elder brother, by fanning the flames of my terror, isn’t exactly helping either. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that he is just overplaying the work load, it is still unsettling. Well, anyway and before I forget I wish all my readers, you, a happy new year and the best of luck dealing with your future ordeals. (Wish me luck as well! I’m going to need everything I can get.) To 2012, a year to be remembered!

-Raf

Winter break is halfway in. All the grades are out and first term is officially over. I did pretty decently on all my courses and I guess I’m one eight done my journey. Some of them could have been better, but there’s still plenty of time left to improve. Right now, I’m just wondering how I’m going to pan out the rest of winter break.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means out of stuff to do. The problem instead is rather that there’s more to do than I have time. I was planning to draw, preview my courses, and learn some Java but I haven’t gotten round to any of these activities yet. The days are going by pretty fast and I’m spending most of my time chilling. When I do have extra time, I feel too lazy or demotivated to do anything. Aah, what a dilemma! I think I may just be burnt out from all the first-term studying. This makes me kind of sad but yet, I’m just glad my lazy period is occurring after the end of my exams.

Hmm, maybe I guess I do need to slow down a little and take things easy. Well, I still have a week of winter left and I should get started on my new year’s resolution soon. 2011 was interesting. Five days to 2012.

- Raf

FIRST TERM OF FIRST YEAR IS FINALLY FINISHED! That fateful day four months ago when I had attended my first lecture feels like it was just a few days ago. I was unsure of what to expect as I sat patiently waiting in one of the side tables at Hebb Theatre. Waiting for it all to start. That day, September 7, marked the beginning of a new epoch. My whole life would depend on my decisions over the next four years. It was imperative that I got off to a good start. I had a fire in my eyes fueled by motivation and dedication. Where would I be four years from now?

I’m still uncertain to be honest, but what I do know now is where I am four months from that day. I’ve already received my taste test of university and I know what to expect. I know what I have to do and I know that in university, you have to fight your own battles. The high-school teachers guiding me through every step, like a father training his child to walk, are just fading memories. It is time for me to walk on my own and get to the finish before anyone else.  It is time to venture out to uncharted territory while making sure that I don’t get lost. I can sense the slope of the path increasing, but I must push on. (Haha, no engineering pun intended)

Anyway, I still can’t quite comprehend how fast first term blazed by. I look forward to an awesome winter break, and I sincerely wish you one as well!

(A late apology for all the cheesiness)

-Raf

It’s final exam time and almost all of my daily activities have been replaced with studying. I had my first exam already and before I could even snatch a breather, here I am, studying again. I am really grateful that all my exams decided to not pile on on the same day and yet, I wish they would all end soon. The repetitive schedule of devouring problems doesn’t really reflect me but I have to do what I have to do. This must be the favorite time of the year for the books (They get so much attention)!

It’s absurd how now that all I do is study, I even miss activities which I didn’t usually engage in. I feel a sudden urge to chow down fast food, go for a long walk in the park, or contemplate the mysteries of life. It’s like I am a completely different person even though I know that once my exams are over, I will probably suddenly transform back. I certainly hope I do as well, as apparently I am already pensive enough. I wonder if my brain probably just wants to escape from studying and is, as a result, resorting to unorthodox methods. My willpower is beginning to weaken a bit and I must..not..give…in. Well, if I have, by some miracle, managed to retain your attention so far wish me good luck! I’m going to return to my books before I lose myself completely (This was most certainly a refreshing break).

- Miracle

Hey you, if you are heating up your food in styrofoam containers, or are using a water flask with a resin identification number of 1 or 7, STOP NOW! Heating styrofoam containers causes them to release harmful toxins, and eating from one is basically like creating a freeway for toxins to our body. Secondly, for those of you who are wondering what a resin identification number is, it is the number in a plastic bottle or flask surrounded by the “recycle triangle”. Most flasks and plastics have one, and it refers to the type of material with which the object is made. Both #1 and #7 plastics shouldn’t be reused as they may leach Bisphenol A, an estrogenic compound, into its contents.

Of course, if you have been to the UBC Sustainibility Workshop coordinated by the UBC Dollar Project on November 23. 2011, then you should already know these (I take this opportunity to apologize if this was indeed the case). The Sustainibility Workshop was free to attend, only two hours long, and yet filled with a plethora of interactive activities geared towards raising sustainability awareness. We measured our ecological footprints (I would really rather not mention mine here), brainstormed sustainable ideas as a group, played hoop with recyclable plastics, and finally summarized everything in a competitive group of jeopardy. The winning group even won plants (M y group didn’t win D:, although I did end up acquiring a plant somehow). The event also featured free cookies and free pizza! Always appreciated and a +1 for any event.

My F.O.C. event rating:
Fun – 7/10
Organization – 8/10
Content – 8/10

Verdict: Pretty awesome and a good balance of everything.

Nov. 19. 2011

Yay, this weekend marks the first in a month and a half that is not going to be spent preparing for a midterm. Prior to this point it had just been bang and bang, midterm after midterm. However, its all over now with the last Wednesday’s physics midterm marking my last of 2011! I was starting to get a bit spent, and I know the motivated spirit with which I begun the year has been dwindling.

It’s really kind of weird how that works. All my student life I have begun each year aiming for the stars. And yet my initial fueling dedication has to outlive the end of a semester. In general, I believe I have probably always studied more during the first month of school than I have during the last. It’s a bit of a lazy syndrome I have been trying to eliminate for a while now. Although I hope to triumph this year, even right now I can already sense the inner demons at work. A lot of me has changed for the better in university, and I hope that my study patterns can follow suit as well. I just have to push a little harder…

Only 18 more days left until my first university final…