Hey guys! So almost two weeks of school have already passed and it’s been interesting getting settled into fresh courses, new professors, and being a commuter. Living off campus opposed to on campus has probably been the biggest change for me this year. I live around 35 minutes away from the campus, and I’m glad that at this point I am well accustomed to the transportation so there’s no way I’m going to be late to a midterm or something. The first week I felt very secluded living on campus, especially by myself not at home, but now I really like it. I am naturally very independent so I feel like I can really focus living by myself. And atleast I am not getting ripped off with UPASS! Last year I hardly left the campus, hardly used the C20, so the UPASS was really a waste, I am definitely putting it to use this year 😉

Now onto Academics. I think it’s been clear that I really wanted to make big changes academically. First of all, I know my ultimate goal, and I know my grades from first year don’t cut it. So I really wanted to work vigorously to change that. First of all Chem 233, a premed course, also known as a weeder course (but there seem to be a few changes that happened last summer to change that..the average for the summer session was 70!) was going to be my biggest obstacle I felt. I am thorough learner, I like to go into the details, practice, practice, and go into the details some more. I wanted time to ease into the topics because Ochem just didn’t sink in when I was in Chem 123. I think I did like 100 resonance problems over the summer and like 1000 mechanisms (overexaggerating that one, but resonance sounds right haha). And even now, some resonance problems still stump me! All I can do is practice and do my best at this point. I CAN say that my Ochem professor teaches at the speed of light, and if I didn’t learn as much as I did this summer I’d be discouraged and clueless..and a lot of people appeared to be when I was in class. Did I do as much academic wise this summer as I wanted? No, not really, but the amount I did has really helped me get accustomed to difficult concepts in a less stressful setting(my own time at home without stress about grades). I really advise people to do this. The courses that I am actually taking this semester are

Biol 200
Biol 204
Chem 233
Clst 301
Chem 235

This is probably the BEST workload I have ever had at UBC, and I don’t want to waste it! I swear, I better beast this workload because if I can’t then I don’t know how second semester will go with Micb201(eew). I actually structured it this way on purpose, yeah hard work matters to do well, but sometimes timing and trivial things like that contribute as well. I wanted to ease into the school year, so I have one elective and one lab course, overall I’m still taking 32 credits this year but I’m really happy that I’m starting off easier. After I’m done all my first midterms which will be late October I’ll blog about how I feel about each course.. because feelings always tend to change after midterms, here is how I feel about them right now.

Biol 200
Nice notes, WISH the professor would put up the slides the night before or even the like early morning before. I just bought printer ink and printer paper, and its annoying to go to copy right and have to pay for printouts… The course however so far feels like Biol 112 2.0 ..maybe even 0.5 haha. The textbook seems alot more simplified than the Biol 112 textbook did. Then again, I might be saying that because its all review right now. I have a paranoid way of studying where I read the textbook, re-read it a few more times, then take notes on the textbook, and then objectives….yada yada its a process! Well I could not for the life of me take notes because everything I read felt too much like review. I hope this doesn’t hurt me later -__- I’m sure we will stop with the review material soon, but now we are going into nucleic acids, proteins, so I don’t know when it’ll end. What a weird thing to complain about. There has also been a few problems with some of the clicker questions/answers where they seem to completely go against what I learned in Biol 112. I have to just shutup and accept what this new professor says. I got a clicker question wrong, asked her about it, didn’t understand it but chose to accept it, and someone brought it up in class the next day, and she pretty much changed her answer. I don’t really like those kind of things, Biology can be so ambiguous sometimes.

Chem 233
So far review of stuff I did this summer, so I am just reviewing the book and doing massive amounts of problems to keep up. The professor goes too fast though, I notice this happens with new/younger professors a lot. It’s like their so excited to teach or something, which is GOOD, but I need to finish writing! 😉 I have a feeling..just a small one that this will be my best grade, then again I thought that last year too after the midterm and it was my worst.

Biol 204
There is only one section for this class. The professor is german and has a thick accent, but that is not the problem, half my family has a thick accent I’m use to it. The course just seems to lack structure, and direction. He told us the book is difficult, and there didn’t seem to be objectives, a student asked him and he said he was unsure… lol. And I read the book and literally was more confused about the course than ever. The first lecture I literally didn’t understand a THING the entire lecture! The book didn’t help because its filled with so much non-important stuff you have to read this book to understand what I mean. The weekend following I looked up the course, and saw somewhere that lecture slides were important. *what a bright idea* lol, but I don’t know why I ignored the lecture notes, they are soo detailed they might as well be the book. It’s filled with so much terminology not in the book, that I sought other resources to understand the lecture slides..SMH. By the end of it though, I actually understood the next lecture, and the course so that’s good! He added references to the book to the lecture slides because there aren’t actual readings for this course, so that will definitely save me some time.

Chem 235
I am pretty horrible at chem labs. I don’t know why things always go wrong for me. I will prepare, know every step, but I lack confidence in my skills, and when it comes to chem labs I am as awkward as they come, it should literally be a show to watch me in a chem lab, its a mess, I always leave with a good grade, don’t know how. But now theres a “technique” mark so I’m worried, my first lab was today (noticed everyone from last year, I think WE ALL choose Thurs/Friday for reason…) and though I was so prepared, things were still chaotic. My tap was on too high and my tube came off my West Condenser and water went everywhere. And my hot gravity filtration was a mess, i poured the solution into the funnel and it literally froze before it could even filter, my TA told me that was the first time he has ever seen that happen. -__________-

Clst 301
So far its suppose to be my GPA boosting course, no textbook, pretty much a memorization course which is my specialty. I want to lie to myself that its difficult though because when you start forgetting a course, you start failing it.

Ok mini rant time. Yes I’m going on a mini rant. WHYY do people come to class 20 minutes early? WHy? Why? Why? Why? The place is full when I am there 10 minutes early, and I once walked past my Biol 204 class when heading to the Bookstore for a snack to see a huge crowd at the front..I cut that bookstore trip short so I could get a decent seat. I expected it for the first couple days, but even today it continues. That is UBC Science for you. 😉

And on a last note, I loved this analogy in my chem 233 class. You may not get this if you haven’t taken chem college level. But our professor showed a picture of Michael Cera as a resonance contributor, and a picture of Andy Samberg as a resonance contributor. And then a picture of “who’s real, or that actual structure” of Jesse Eisenberg. SMH it was funny in class, not so funny writing it, but probably the highlight this week for me.

  <—-Resonance Contributors–>

actual structure:

 

Deuces.