Tyler’s Twitter Digest for 2013-01-03

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Tyler’s Twitter Digest for 2013-01-02

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Counselling Services

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Today I’d like to share something with you that I’m a little bit shy to share. However, it’s a topic that I feel should be more okay to discuss, so here I go.

January marks the beginning of rehearsals for the opera UBC will be putting on at the beginning of February (Dialogues des Carmelites, Poulenc, 1953-55).  Since I got my part before winter break, I’ve been stressing out like crazy about it. Ensembles stress me out in general; although my part is not particularly challenging, I don’t have a lot of confidence in my ability to move with a conductor, and I’m worried I’ll count the rests wrong and come in at the wrong place. Heaven forbid I should play a wrong note!  Although it’s doubtful that anyone would say anything to me, and most of the orchestra would probably not even notice, when I make a mistake, I feel as though I’ve committed some horrible crime.  The root of it is I feel ashamed of myself when I judge that I’ve played badly.

However, I didn’t really grasp just how terrified I was to play, just in a rehearsal.

I had been dreading coming back to school, and I felt quite down since I got back last night.  I sat outside the room where gamelan ensemble rehearses before class started, and a masters student who would also be playing in the opera started talking to me about the opera. Basically, she confirmed my fears that following the conductor is a lot harder than in regular orchestra, you rarely get cues, and it’s very easy to get lost.

I tried to keep talking and stay calm, but I could feel tears coming up behind my eyes. I excused myself to the washroom to try to compose myself. I thought I succeeded after a few jerky breaths and wiped up tears. I headed back to the rehearsal room and thought I was fine, but after a few minutes I had to rush off to the bathroom again because I just couldn’t shake that anxious feeling. Cue more crying and hyperventilating. At this point I didn’t know if I could get through the class, but I thought once we started playing I’d get distracted. Nope. Nope nope nope.  Crying in public is so embarrassing! When it became very clear that I wasn’t going to be able to stop any time soon, I told my instructor I was feeling unwell and he let me leave. (Thank you thank you thank you!!)

I gathered my things, trying not to feel the stares of my classmates as I left the room. I headed back to the washroom and cried even harder. My breath came too fast, in shallow gasps, and attempts to slow it down failed. I said to myself, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”  All I felt was fear and panic and anxiety. Well hello there, first ever panic attack. Once I calmed down enough to breathe properly, I decided I’d go to Counselling Services. If this stress is enough to cause me to leave class, it’s time to do something about it.

Counselling Services are available Monday to Friday 9:30 am to 3:30 pm. You can just drop in for your first appointment, although you’ll probably be waiting at least an hour for your 20-minute appointment, maybe more. They get you to fill out a bunch of paperwork and then when it’s your turn they invite you in with what I’m sure is a very practiced soothing voice and talk to you about your situation. I’m sorry that I sound cynical, but I think that because it’s so easy to feel defensive about needing counselling, so you deceive yourself into thinking that others are patronizing you. But in actuality, the soothing voice actually did calm me down a lot without me realizing it.

Generally speaking, I’m mentally very healthy, I like myself and my life, and usually I’m pretty healthy, but I don’t deal with stress very well and I’ve got it, it messes me up and gets me down. So I was referred to a group stress class that meets on Wednesday evenings. I’m told that it isn’t a “everyone share your feelings” AA-style support group, it’s a sort of meeting where counsellors will talk with you and give you some tools to help deal with your stress or anxiety. I’ll be sure to report back and let you know how that goes.

Honestly, I felt a bit self-conscious walking through the frosted glass doors in Brock Hall. I even felt nervous before my  appointment came up. I felt a bit embarrassed when once again I couldn’t hold my tears in when I started talking to my counsellor. But the thing is, no one there is going to judge you. They didn’t judge me. You can be sure they’ve seen all kinds of problems, and they’re there to help you deal with yours.

Needing help with your mental health often comes with a stigma; people don’t want to talk about it or let anyone know they need it. But maybe if we talked about it more, more people would feel comfortable enough to get the help they need and live a happier life. That’s why I’ve shared my story with you.

 

 

Read the post on the stress management class HERE.

Semester 1 Review

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Hey Everyone, Hope you all had a great break.  I never did a review of courses I took last sen so here: :)

Stats 200

Probably my favourite course this semester, and I was expecting it to be the worse.  I had Yew Lim, and I really liked him as a prof.  Even though it seemed like he went fast he explained things really clearly to me.  I went to about 95% of lectures and for a 9AM class I didn’t think that’d be possible for me.  The labs were straight forward too, and between clickers, lab, and online quizzes there are a lot of free points.  The first midterm was hard, it was in the morning so I pulled an allnighter (smh) but I got an A so it was worth it.  The only thing thats annoying is that the other section has a midterm different than ours, and much easier, our class average was like 64, and the other class average was 78.  Apparently they scale our class up and the other class would get scaled down.  All I know is that with my final mark in the class I didn’t see any scaling…makes me wish I stayed in the later section that I was in initially, but then again I liked the teaching style of Professor Lim better.  All in all a good class, I tend to get sidetracked midway and the online quizzes forced you to keep up.

 

Phyl 301

This course is supposed to be really interesting but I haven’t been interested during any lectures.  During the first 4 weeks I was really into everything, and keeping up, and then I kind of just fell off the material if that makes sense.  I think its the fact that theres no midterm, no quizzes (no that one 2.5% quiz doesn’t count really..), no clickers.  I didn’t realize there was solo much memorization until the final, and I was pretty behind.  A lot of people spent the full 5 days after the last day of classes and the Phyl Final to study, but I didn’t.  I used the last week of classes to study Phyl, and then started studying for Stats since it was my first final.  I regret this because I know Stats, and worst case scenario I can BS and still do well because its math at the end of the day.  Spent so much time making a cheat sheet for Stats that I didn’t use on the final.  So anyways I was done Stats and used the day to review Phyl, but the stuff I’d reviewed the week before (Neurophysio mostly) was all gone, it was pretty bad.  I’m glad its a year long course otherwise I’d be really sad about my grade.  Especially since the final was really easy, just had no time.  As of this semester it is my first priority course, going to do a study group thing to help keep up.

 

Micb 302

This course I found really interesting, and its a lot of memorization, but its interesting so it sticks easier.  My favourite part of the course was the material, since I work at a hospital a lot of the case studies were things I’d seen so it was cool to see the relevance of what I’m studying in real life.  Now heres what I didn’t like..  So I feel like this course is a third year level course, but that its desperately trying to be a weeder course.  If I keep up with a course and study like crazy and don’t do phenomenal on a midterm i don’t give up but i do start slacking a bit.  The first midterm grading I was like wow they are grading really harsh, damn.  Like I answered all the questions confidently, but the smallest things you lose marks.  I feel like this class is part memorization/learning and part luck.  Your lucky if you wrote what they wanted, your unlucky if you answered differently.  My first midterm went way better than my second, which I expected since I didn’t keep up as much.  Regardless this is the type of stuff that just isn’t right, Micb 302 needs to be multiple choice, even if its tricky multiple choice I prefer that to writing everything I know and losing marks over random irrelevant stuff like this

eg.

aren’t organs made of tissues though….  like I said I would have loved this course if it was multiple choice, or even mc and short answer alternating.

Regardless of the technical issues, in terms of material I liked it wayyyyyy better than Phyl 301, and would actually recommend it, go to the tutorials, keep up, and go to class, the clickers are 10%!  So there are some free marks to get.

 

Germ 100

Actually this was my true favourite class.  It’s my first time taking a language since French in high school, and I was nervous because of the kids in the class who knew more than Beginners German.  Regardless the pace of the class was really good, I actually learned from the teacher more than the textbook [this has never happened at UBC for me…], and it’s also fun to know a language.  I already planned on taking it till the 300 level, and I definitely will after this class.  There are  a lot of free marks to get from German if you try: attendance, quizzes, online quizzes.  I really loved our teacher too her name is Eszter Lazlo, she was really good and fair.  The practice midterms were literally another form of the real midterm.  It wasn’t a million times easier than the real midterm [unlike some other courses eg. stats 200, micb302, the list goes on]  It was my highest grade at UBC ever, safe to say I don’t think I’ll ever see another A+ on my transcript till I graduate, unless Germ 110 goes well, fingers crossed!

And what am I taking next semester?  Germ 110, Phyl 301, Anat 391, Fnh 250, Isci 350

ALSO I get a lot of emails from people to send them practice midterms, finals, etc.  I got a new laptop this year so all that stuff is in my old laptop thats turned to crap.  It’ll take me a while to get all the files out but I will have a post with everything I have on there.

ALSO  I am selling my Stats 200 textbook if anyone is interested, bought it last semester.  And I am interested in buying FNH 250 if anyone has it. :)

 

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Tyler’s Twitter Digest for 2012-12-31

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  • Heading out early from a New Years Party. Great to catch up with Jordan, Alex, Tim, and @luami2lu , and to meet everyone else! 20:46:55, 2012-12-31
  • some other mommy cat. Either way, it's cute within ten seconds of being yours." -Oatmeal's How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you 11:14:52, 2012-12-31
  • "Having a Baby. Comes shrieking out of a vagina like some kind of jam-covered goblin. Having a Cat. Comes from a pet store or … 11:14:32, 2012-12-31
  • Sometimes I really want to rant about something, but too much time has passed, making it seem, to me, inappropriate… http://t.co/sbyRgiZX 08:50:39, 2012-12-31
  • "A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." -Charles Darwin 08:15:47, 2012-12-31
  • "Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried." -Henry David Thoreau 07:25:28, 2012-12-31

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Tyler’s Twitter Digest for 2012-12-30

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Infographic on Social Media and Productivity

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Another infographic I was asked to share, this time on social media and its impacts on productivity. Although I personally believe that social media does often severely impact productivity (hence my recent quitting of Facebook), I don’t feel this infographic does a good job of making such a point. (eg. the time people are now spending on social media… …did it used to be allocated to studying? Or other things?) But perhaps I’m wrong. What do you think?

Social Media At Work
Created by: LearnStuff.com

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