In today’s episode of the 12 O’Kwok News… I should be shot for using a pun like that.

UBC LIFE, AND A SHORT EXPLANATION WHY IT’S BETTER THAN HIGH SCHOOL

Today’s little diatribe is basically about general life here–including UBC people and the campus itself.  My friends from high school send me e-mails and letters asking how I’m doing, how are classes, how’s life, how’s rez, and if I’ve made any friends (clearly they’re confident in my social skills if they’re asking whether or not I’ve made friends).  I’m here to cover that now–what is life at UBC like for a socially-awkward, Asian-Canadian, YouTube addicted, comic book reading, cartoon drawing nerd like myself? There’s no simple answer, in fact that question alone is complicated enough why would you even word it like that.

So far, I like the freedom.  I can look at the university campus and say, “I’m comfortable here”.  It’s nice, it’s big but not too big that all my classes are at opposite ends, and there always seems to be something going on, which makes me feel like the school isn’t dead or anything.
Maybe that’s not the case for others, but my high school was… well, it had its perks, but it was pretty dead.  No student clubs, bland uniforms, ridiculously snobby and pompous events, and it was geographically close to a country club that I loathe.  There was nothing near the damned school except that pretentious club–just trees and mountain slopes.  YES I LIVED ON A MOUNTAIN.  The closest mall is (a 45 minute bus ride to) Park Royal, and if you’re unfamiliar with Vancouver, let me save you time and say: DO NOT GO TO WEST VANCOUVER, THERE IS NOTHING THERE EXCEPT A WORLD OF EMPTY PROMISES.
Oh, and my house… which is also pretty empty 🙁

So being at UBC, where there’s the Vanier caf avaliable at terrific hours of the day (I no longer complain about it closing at 8PM-ish after hearing my friend at Dalhousie has dinner issues because the caf closes at 6:30PM there), a bookstore that’s overpriced and I’ll never buy anything yet I like perusing anyway WHY AM I POOR RELATIVE TO MY WANTS, a bus loop that practically screams “FREEDOM” (or synonymously, “AMERICA”, loljk), and a comic book store that’s just about a 30 minute trip there and back.  Oh and no nagging parents.  I see no downside to this >8)

…But I lie, there are of course downsides to everything.  Take, for example, my continued inability to make conversation.  It’s a life skill to be able to socialize.  Growing up, I never practiced.  My best friends were named: Neopets, FanArt Central, Newgrounds, YouTube, deviantART, Fanfiction.net, MapleStory, Nintendo, and Playstation.  Nintendo & Playstation are still good friends to me although technically they’re huge corporations trying to suck the souls out of children by mass producing time-wasting products that detract from hard-earned dollars that parents are becoming more powerless to avoid, yes I do know that thanks for always reminding me, adults although Tumblr and YouTube are practically my roommates.  So you can see, I have issues.
The people I have met are pretty awesome.  My newly found friends here are mostly all Science students, strangely enough, as I never exchanged a single word with science enthusiasts back in high school (just for your general knowledge, never mention AP Biology to me for your own good).  Yesterday I met the first Sauder kid I could relate to.  As I said, I tried to meet some business friends at BizzComm and, well…
Me: “No, I’m not in Commerce, I’m an Arts student.”
Random girl and guy: “Ohh… that’s cool.”
Me: “I dunno, I don’t feel like I mix in too well, there’s just a bunch of Sauder people here.”
Guy: “Hey don’t worry, it’s not like we’re elitist or anything.”  *laughs*
Me: *nervous laughter*
Two minutes later I’m shunned by everyone in the room.  I recently went to another BizzComm event since then, and I pretended I was in Sauder (“for the lolz”).  Lo and behold, I was spoken to.  But it’s good to know they’re not all like that (though it’s getting pretty damn close, guys).
So to first-years who were as thoroughly unimpressed by Sauder as I was on Imagine Day, don’t worry, there are obviously awesome first-year Sauder kids too.  We’re all new, it’s not fair to judge right off the bat.

That’s it from me… for now.  There’s a lot more since I’ve been posting so little but I’ll still try to keep up the pace.  If there’s anything you can take from this: I’m busy in a good way.  Time management is key, obviously.  Today’s a good example of my typical weekend: Get up, mom picks me up from rez, I go for a driving lesson, we go to Metrotown, I PREORDER BATMAN ARKHAM CITY IT’S GOING TO BE AWESOME, I go home to study Econ, study more Econ, and study… wait for it… ECON!!! 8D  Then blog and go to bed.
It’s a good life.

-Alyssa

Coming Eventually Next: Future Events/Plans

EDIT: HEY guess what my scanner is fixed! 😀  …Although it’s a scanner & printer all-in-one, and for some reason when it started scanning, it stopped printing.  I now am panicking because I need to print my work.  Short story: no picture today either until I fix this.  I will also need a new all-in-one printer.  Hewlett-Packard is the devil’s work.

Classes are now so damned easy to skip, and the temptation is infuriating.

Not to say I’ve ever skipped a class out of laziness.  I’d give you my reason for missing a class two weeks ago but knowing there are a few people out there who are dying for some new excuses, I don’t want you using my legitimate scenarios as your new common fabrications anytime soon.  Things like “The alarm clock was broken” and “The printer wasn’t working” all happen to me frequently.  But NOW when I say them, I sound like a dumbass trying to fool a fully-grown adult into believing a fairytale.

But I digress.  The main thing I’m going to discuss are my classes–courses I have chosen out of the million possibilities I could have had, for one reason or another.  My courses that are fortunate enough to be graced with my ever beautiful prescence are: Economics (Micro), Japanese, Creative Writing, and English.  I’d tell you which ones but I’m not looking to be trailed by any creepers anytime soon.
That said, I have a pretty easy semester.  In fact next term’s even better: Wednesdays with no classes! That is a blessing upon me, but I’ll get to that in a second…

ECON 101.  Let’s get something straight:
I don’t like you.
You’re interesting, and I’ll gladly go to all your lectures and dicussions, but OH how I hate you.  You’re like that optional tutorial on a Friday evening, or a newspaper sitting idly next to a rack of comic books.  You’re informative and helpful to me, but I wish I could be spending my time on anything BUT you.
I’ve tried hard as hell in this class, and I can easily say that my Prof (I think you all know who he/she is if you know ANYTHING about Econ profs who teach Micro and make IMPOSSIBLE midterms) is one of the more interesting teachers I’ve had over the years.  Lectures are interesting to listen to, the scatterings of strange Asian-related pictures in the textbook are creepily random hilarious, and the material is interesting to me, but GODDAMN that midterm was difficult.  It’s gone to the point where someone will ask me:
“How was the midterm?”
And I respond:
“What midterm? There was no midterm.”
“You know, the Econ Mid–”
“AHAHAHA Dude that’shilariousamidtermyeahright OH Look at the time can’t stand around chatting, gotta run.”

English is… English.  Creative Writing is… Creative Writing.  I’m clearly brilliant at describing things worship me.
These courses are just as I remember them in high school–a little more challenging, perhaps, in one way or another (*cough* deadlines *cough*) but otherwise, same old same old.  I love Creative Writing (which isn’t to actually say I’m doing well in it… apparently nobody likes my writing so my plans for a Creative Writing major aren’t looking to good ahahah I’m totally not traumatized by this realization) but I’d say my favourite course right now is Japanese.

Let me get something straight first: I love anime.  But I am not a weeaboo.  If you don’t know what a weeaboo is what the hell have you been doing with the Internet until now?! go to 4Chan Urban Dictionary and check it out.  Basically, I’m learning Japanese not just because I like anime, but because I might consider Japan in the future and I’m actually interested in having another language in my current linguistic repertiore.  Currently I have crap French, crap Spanish, crap Cantonese, crap German, and beginner Japanese.  Oh and English if you haven’t notifced by now… derp.  Maybe even one day, working in Japan would be great.  I honestly couldn’t imagine going to UBC right now and not taking Japanese.  I love the class, and I’m surprised how much I’m actually learning.  We certainly went MUCH slower in my Spanish courses back at high school and now I’m damned well happy to be in a classroom where other people are eager to learn, the teacher moves at a pace I’m comfortable with, and the homework isn’t heavy.
But I do have a midterm for it next week.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF—

…Yes.  Those are my classes.  I understand other people have much heavier schedules (don’t get me started on Engineers, I have a first-year Engineering friend who’s kind of drowning in work right now) but I planned my first semester to be easier to kind of slowly get used to this new place.  It doesn’t work for everyone, but my parents and I figured it helps.  I get teased a lot for being an Arts student and having the stereotypically small number of classes I do now, but I don’t mind.  I think it’s good to take what you’re comfortable with, don’t underestimate yourself because you’re secretly lazy, but don’t overestimate yourself and put too much pressure if you can’t handle it.  Plus now I have time for other things outside classes since work isn’t too heavy.  Like the bajillion clubs I have under my belt, going to the comic book shop every week, and that really hipster memoirs & poetry reading last night… Yeah…
It was at a cafe.  But it was pretty obscure, you’ve probably never heard of it.

-Alyssa

Coming Eventually Next: Current & Past Experiences On-Campus

EDIT: I realize some people who don’t know about ‘hipsters’ may not realize I made a hipster joke at the end of this post.  If you think I just insulted you for your ignorance on obscure cafes, I totally wasn’t–go Google hipster jokes.  And after you will probably look at a lot of Arts students you know in a totally different light.  Your welcome.

EDIT 2: STILL NO PICTURE.  Me so sorry.  I’m afraid scanners just aren’t cooperating with me, it’s as if they’re intent on sabotaging my blog.

Two weeks of silence on your blog apparently doesn’t go unnoticed…

I felt terrible not updating this blog but as luck would have it, just when I had wanted to: MIDTERMS.  I had failed to realize that putting off my blog post for one week would lead me into a midterm week, which was even more impossible.  So I recieved a friendly reminder in my e-mail inbox that I was, well, shying away from my duties as a Blog Squad member.  BUT NO MORE.  (That line always sounds epic no matter what context it’s in…).

SO.  As I haven’t been updating, I’ll post more regularly now, I sincerely promise.  One post daily until I catch up to all the things I need to say, then back to every couple days so I don’t do overkill because, honestly, how many of you would actually want to listen to me rant everyday? Everyone totally should though.

Today’s Topic: CLUBS

So on Club Days at the SUB I basically did what I’d done on Imagine Day–raid booths.  I now have, like, a billion pens and 4 fake moustaches, but I digress.  I joined a bunch of clubs, maybe too many, but I’m told that first years generally do that before realizing they’ve joined to many and stop going to all of them, especially when there are midterms.  If you’re curious, here are the clubs I’ve joined, maybe give me a holler if you see a quiet, mousy, short-haired girl in red converse sneakers in the corner: Japan Association, Video Game Developers Association, Hong Kong Student Association, Anime Club, Business Communications (Bizzcomm), Business Technology (Biztech), Swing Kids, and the Ubyssey (though it’s not a club, I did join it on Club Days).

Since I’m here mainly out of interest to become a Creative Writing major (if the idea of being homeless with a stereotypically useless BFA degree doesn’t scare me off first), I was hoping to spot a Creative Writing club.  Turns out there is one, though I didn’t see their booth (if they even had a booth)–they’re a Creative Writing Group that meets, ironically, at the exact hours I have my Creative Writing classes.  Well how the hell am I supposed to show up now?
That aside, I realized I wouldn’t be able to make it to everything.  Which is the first thing I’d like to point out: Don’t just join a billion things, think about what you have time for.  It costs money to join almost all the clubs, and as great as it is to meet people and get involved, don’t put too much on your plate–remember, there are still classes to keep up with.  Yeah, remember those? Apparently you’re paying like $5,000+ for those this year.  Wow.

Currently, I’m astonished by how many opportunities we have here! UBC’s just filled with possibilities, and I’m not just saying that cheesy line to please the UBC crowd–honestly, I’ve never been surrounded by so many chances to try new things at one time.
I never danced before, so I tried out Latin Dance Passion, ballroom dancing, and Swing Kids.  I never wrote for a school newspaper before, so I signed up to help the Features, News, and Culture sections at the Ubyssey (and thinking about drawing comics for them as well once I’ve built up enough courage or stopped procrastinating).  I was even stopped by the Aviation club who told me you’d get a chance to flying a friggin’ plane.  What the hell.  That’s both random and awesome.  I didn’t join because of my convenient fear of planes (yeah, like that will never bite me in the ass later when I want to travel) but it’s still amazing to think there’s an opportunity out there at the cost of just a membership fee.
I’ve been to an anime club icebreaker, and it was fun (although intense in a very nerdy way.  Picture a room filled with anime-savvy people screaming at each other during a hardcore trivia game.  Now picture me cringing in a seat feeling inadequate during all this).  I went to a Bizzcomm meeting as well (which I will try to respectfully say was nice, although it was quite obvious what Sauder kids thought of Arts students like me SHUNNED), and had a jolly good time at Swing Kids.  I also helped out at the Video Game Developer’s Booth on Club Days and apparently get a free T-Shirt later.  Awesome.  Not just that I made a friend (in my case that’s like an achievement, laugh it up), so you never know what you’ll get when you do something…

There’s a lot out there, though I’m already noticing I can’t make it for everything because there’s so much.  Hell, there are Blog Squad events that so far I haven’t been able to attend because EVERYTHING is happening at once.  For someone as innately shy as me I’m surprised by how much I’m doing outside of just studying or being a dork in my dorm and drawing cartoons all day.  And listening to Strauss.  Because… that’s what normal people do.
There should be an obscure hipster club.  And if it doesn’t form itself, I’ll make one and gather all the UBC hipsters together.  We can listen to indie music and watch The Room.  Classic.

-Alyssa

Coming Eventually Tomorrow: Classes (Sometimes you forget that classes are the main reason you’re here…)

EDIT: Scanner’s still broken, delayed this like 3 more days than I would have liked so the picture I drew for this one will be up… eventually.  That just seems to be my signature words right now, huh.

Hey, audience.  It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I apologize for the long intermission/commercial break between posts (apparently I’m supposed to stick to at least one post a week), but seeing as the shock of everything at UBC has put me under a rather tight & busy schedule (i.e. homework, more homework, and actually having a social life for a change), I can only hope this belated post still serves a purpose despite its tardiness.  Wait where did all the readers go?  Oh right, to bloggers who actually update…

Also, as a marketing gimmick stupid twist to match the title of this blog, each blog post will include me retelling an experience/story (of course), drawing a sketch/illustration to further illustrate each post, and for no reason beyond liking his music, I’ll be typing as I listen to Strauss.  On a record player, no less.

I wasn't kidding.

The Joys of Hauling Your Boxes of Crap Up Three Flights of Stairs

In simple English: moving.  Now I know I can’t complain too much since I started out easy–I live in Vancouver, so it made sense to only bring a portion of my things with me for the first move, and then every weekend I bring some more junk into my dorm (a highly recommended strategy for Vancouverites.  Trust me, it’s worth the wait to delay the home decorating and space out the moving process).  I was really glad I had people help me unload so quickly and efficiently because God knows I’d be whining about it for ages if I did it alone.  Of course finding my house was hard, as I didn’t find the signs or anything really helpful in getting here, and directions were unclear (UBC, if you could somehow make your maps easier to read, please do so, they’re pretty messy–it’s like asking Picasso to draw you directions).
Unpacking went by in a blur for me, as it did for some of my other friends in rez–truth be told, I was so excited about my dorm room I didn’t care if it looked bland.  If you ask me how my room looked on moving day, September 3rd, I’d say either: “an old concrete prison” or “BOXES.  BOXES EVERYWHERE.”
Box bigotry aside, my room’s better now (I like how I make it sound as if it was sick or something).  I’ve added some personal touches, I put up a poster I bought at the Imaginus Poster Sale at the SUB last week (12th-16th), and I have… a giant flag.  If anyone can tell me how to hold a flag up on the wall without damaging either the wall or the flag, I am in desperate need of this advice.  Before you ask, it’s not a Canadian flag.  I’ll leave you to guess (the answer is actually on this page, staring you in the face).

Imagine All The People… Screaming

My Sketch: Click picture for FULL view

Wow.  School spirit has never been so loud! …And so obviously short-lived.

Alright, let me back up a bit here.  Imagine Day, our orientation day at UBC, was great because we got to miss a whole day of classes! of its rather friendly attempt to ease you into university.  I won’t lie, I had butterflies in my stomach, I was too nervous to make friends with barely anyone in my MUG group, and university had already intimated me even though I hadn’t even done anything yet.  Maybe some of you felt that way too–if so, I’m right there with you.  But eventually I did feel better–the fact that everyone was packed together in this new place full of people we’d never met before made you feel a little less alienated–because you were all aliens to this place.  For example, at high school, once you realize the cliques have been formed, you know there’s no breaking borders (I could make a Mean Girls reference but…).  Here, no one knew each other, and frankly the old medieval system of cliques seemed like something from grade school–I was pleasantly surprised to see how friendly everyone was, and how everyone was open and ready to make friends or just talk–you could jump into a conversation and no one would mind.
Best of all, the pep rally… screaming for Arts pride has never been more exciting and yet annoying.  Although it’s fun to get in the spirit of things, I realized (as an Arts student) that we’re not made to yell in syncronization.  Unsurprisingly, our cheer was way off.  And it sounded pretty lame, too–the Kineseology kids were so coordinated that it made me want to switch faculties not really.  They were so in sync with their cheer and their movements… well, they are kineseology students after all…
And of course the Sauder kids… well, there was a brief note about their disruptive behaviour in one of the recent issues of the Ubyssey, so I won’t say anything in fear of repeating what’s already been said.

Lastly, club booths.  Glad I checked those out early and signed for mailing lists, though I was terrified of going up to people (as previously pointed out in my last post, I’m a bit anti-social).  At some booths, people were friendly and others were eyeing me as if I was just there to take the free pens (*cough cough*).  Now I have a fairly accurate idea what I’m going to join, but I’ll describe that in more detail when I talk about clubs later.  I encourage everyone to go to Club Days! Many of you probably already know about their time & location, but you’d be surprised, I spoke to someone today who had no idea there were Club Days!

So what is the point of this diatribe? HAVE FUN AT IMAGINE DAY.  It’s the only time that you really all come together like that and cheer obnoxiously–I’m pretty sure it’s also the only time school spirit is so blantantly loud.  I’m by nature a quiet person but I lost my voice by the end of the day.  It’s mostly because I refuse to be out-cheered by engineering… they have such cool frosh shirts…
That’s all for this post.  I’ll have more… much more to update later because you’re just dying to hear my opinion on everything right?.  Right.

-Alyssa

Coming Up Eventually Next: Classes, Clubs, My Experience Thus Far, and Future Events…

I’ve been sitting here thinking for nearly 10 minutes on how to create a very witty, cleverly written introduction that will stand the test of time and charm the socks off of you.  But I couldn’t come up with anything.

So my name is Alyssa.  I am 18 years old.  I write for the UBC First Year Blog Squad.
Hello.

No, that’s not all, I’m just being mysterious (which is a euphemism for ‘bland & uncreative’).  Anyways, I’m an Arts student and an aspiring writer (this would be a good time to say that I will be scattering typos and grammatical errors in this post just to be ironic… but I would be lying).  I’ve come to UBC mainly because of their Creative Writing program, and also because of Vancouver itself–I’ve lived in West Vancouver my whole life, and although I’m insanely happy to leave high school (don’t ask, those memories are best left forgotten in Pandora’s Box or something), I love the city too much to move away… for now.

I’ve never enjoyed an independent life.  Well, to be more precise, I’ve never taken the initiative to put myself out there–to try and toughen up my weaknesses or learn more about living alone.  For one thing, I still don’t know how to do laundry.  I’ve only taken Vancouver public transit alone once in my whole life (yes, 18 years in the same city and only one trip on the bus alone), I’m afraid to order at restaurants or ask for directions, and my idea of socializing is typing “LOL” on pointless Facebook wall posts at midnight.  But I digress.  The main point is: I’m excited to start this year off to change myself.  I’ve got way too many bad habits and I’m scared by nearly everything–fears that are usually accompanied by rather radical reactions (for example, while typing the middle of the last sentence, a moth flew in, and I dashed out of the deskchair, tripped over the garbage can, staggered towards the closet and smacked my face into the mirror.  If you’re living in residence and you have a similar room layout as me, you’ll probably find that relatively amusing).
I hope that at UBC I’ll meet new friends, get to know a lot of people with different stories and points of view, get as much out of classes as I can, and start a new chapter in my life.  You could say I’m dying to ‘turn a new leaf’.   It’s probably going to take work and struggling… and lots of it.

So that’s my story.  It’s one among thousands here at UBC, but it’s my own unique journey and I hope to see it take shape in a positive way over the next few months.  I may madly rant say a lot in the coming posts, but the point is, I hope my story is inspiring, if not at least good for a chuckle or two.
I sometimes wonder if there are other people out there as scared as I am when I look at the fresh faces at residence or at frosh.  Everyone seems to be so cheerful, ready, and confident, and I feel a little like I’ve shrunken back to hide in some sort of invisible shell (namely, the Internet.  Or Skype.).  But I’ve been told: “everyone is just as nervous as you are”.  As untrue as it seems on the surface, I know I can’t be alone–and I’m ready to do what it takes to get out there.  Because God knows I’ll be sick and tired of making these blog posts sound interesting if I have nothing to blog about in the first place!

Coming up eventually next: moving in to res, frAUSh, and Imagine Day.