Tag Archives: Happiness

Adventure Time!

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A key part of succeeding in university is taking the time to de-stress! The best part about living in Vancouver and being on-campus at UBC are all of the opportunities available for you to do this in so many different ways.  There really are activities on and off campus that can cater to many different interests. As for me, I consider myself an explorer! I love to be handed a map and just learn my way around so I did just that this past weekend and had a great time! Myself and two of my friends ventured to the Robson Street area down town and just went exploring – learning street names, finding shops and restaurants we’ve never heard of, and just fell in love with the great diversity of our surroundings.

After venturing about, my friends and I visited a local piercing shop called NEXT! on Granville Street. I highly recommend this place if you’re looking to get anything pierced – All of the staff are super friendly, approachable, and detailed when answering any questions you may have. They were very reassuring and sure to inform my friends and I all about the safety measures and precautions they take when they do piercings and they gave thorough instructions on aftercare. It was a little painful, but I got my tragus and my cartilage pierced that day and I’m very satisfied with the results. I’ve been to this same piercing shop before to get my nose pierced as well and the service has consistently been great and safe. After getting our piercings and doing some more exploring, my friends and I decided to have brunch at a Café Crepe restaurant. IT WAS SO DELICIOUS! Anything with nutella is pretty delicious and I’d recommend a lot of the menu items since my friends and I chose different items and shared all of our different selections. After lunch we did manage to get lost, only briefly, but found our way to the Cineplex Odeon which is a theater in a Mall. After some shopping and enjoying some pretty good sushi from the food court we saw Wreck It Ralph. Who says university students can’t see kid’s movies?! Laugh all you want, it was a really great movie with lots of jokes even us “older kids” can enjoy.

After a long day out and about, my friends and I decided we’d had enough exploring for the day. But, every adventure wouldn’t be an adventure without a mishap! In case you haven’t ventured down town yet or anywhere where there’s a busy road, you should know that there are a lot of pedestrians and road safety is CRITICAL. It sounds juvenile, but make sure you’re are very careful when crossing the street. It pays to be extra cautious because even though my friends and I were obeying the traffic light which was indicating it was safe for us to cross the street; my friend was hit by a car attempting to turn right at a red light. Thankfully, there was no serious damage and the driver was extremely apologetic, but it’s obvious it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.

Thankfully most of us made it home after our adventure bruise free. So, lessons for the day:

  1. Take time to do what makes you happy and clear your mind! De-stressing is critical in such a hectic time like university. You’ve worked your butt off to get here and to stay here, so reward yourself once in a while!
  2. Traffic safety is critical! Look both ways before you cross the street and obey traffic signs and lights – only walk across when it’s safe!

So, I hope you have a great week and maybe give yourself something to look forward to by planning something you know you’ll enjoy for the weekend. Best of luck in your studies! Feel free to share some of your awesome adventure/exploring places.

Tangled: Unraveling Day to Day University Frustrations

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Rushing frantically, doing a mental checklist in my mind, throwing random things (and hopefully the right things) in my black hole of a bag – Typical Monday morning. It seems I’ve fulfilled every cliché found in those cheesy early morning scenes where the bustling teenager sprints everywhere through the family house before school with just enough time to grab a burnt bagel from Mom.  Eventually, and somewhat magically, I make it out the door to my bike after what felt like an eternity of just getting myself together. I manage to make time to glance at the time and realize I’m actually on time! Like I do every day, I rummage around in the abyss I call my back pack in search of my iPod. A bike ride to class just isn’t the same without background music blaring in your ears. I manage to grab a hold of the iPod after some serious rummaging only to find a not so pleasant labyrinth looking headphones attached. Ugh.

We’ve all dealt with this awful frustration. A knot here, a kink there, and then due to all of the sudden pent up anger you’ve recently acquired for your headphones, you throw in a nice strong yank on them in public and everyone assumes you’re crazy. Yep, been there. As if more couldn’t have slowed me down this morning, I run in to yet another obstacle. So, like everyone in my generation – I NEED my music to survive! I take the time to unravel the headphones, throwing in that crazy yank here and there to raise some eyebrows of the innocent passerby. FINALLY I’ve conquered the beast that is my headphones. All ready to go, I just need to plug in my headphones to my iPod and get to class. Before hopping on my bike I put my headphones in, press play and the screen briefly shows a picture of a battery. My iPod screen instantly goes black. NO BATTERY. Double ugh.

On my all too quiet bike ride to class, I begin to notice the world around me isn’t so quiet. I actually take the time to observe my surroundings as I bike by. Since when was there an upside down tree in between Irving and the Chem building? Has that always been there? Whoa, one of my floor mates takes the exact same route to class as I do? When did that happen? There’s an all organic produce stand in front of Irving today? Double whoa. I was amazed by how much I took in just by turning my music off. Ironically, the same day my global politics professor discussed how my generation is in way too deep with our technology. I couldn’t agree more. Lesson learned: Unplug yourself from your technology once in a while. Take the time to actually take in the beautiful surroundings you’re lucky enough to call home. After coming to this realization, I actually found more order in my life. Tangled headphones aside, I actually had time to think and take in my surroundings not just on my bike ride, but my walks to class and other places. I always assumed that since my weekly schedule looked like this:

that I could get away from all my frustrations and To-Do’s by turning my music up. In actuality, the silence allowed me to get my thoughts together and unravel the day that was ahead of me. Now, I’m not saying music or technology is bad. Just take in to consideration that maybe what you think you’re avoiding by turning your iPod up to full blast is actually an opportunity to talk with a new person, a missed chance to realize the awesome things going on around you, or an idea lost to the din of your music. So, my personal suggestion of the week: Unplug, unwind, and enjoy. Besides, untangling headphones is no fun anyway.