{"id":427,"date":"2013-03-25T20:25:03","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T03:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/samanthasays\/?p=425"},"modified":"2013-03-25T20:25:03","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T03:25:03","slug":"a-face-in-the-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/2013\/03\/25\/a-face-in-the-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"A Face in the Crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the last couple of days, I&#8217;ve been thinking. (I know, an abnormal occurrence at a university.) On Saturday I attended the March Welcome Event for MUG Leaders, and there were two things that happened that made me reflect on how I&#8217;ve been spending my time at UBC. The first was when one of the coordinators said: &#8220;Think back to August before you came to UBC. What were you excited about? What were you afraid of?&#8221; The second one was re-watching old Imagine Day pep rally videos.<\/p>\n<p>These things reminded me of when I entered UBC: inspired and wanting to pack each day as full as I could with new experiences so I could really make this amazing campus mine, and so that I would be someone who was a\u00a0<em>part<\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em>of UBC, not just a face in the crowd. I think I did a pretty good job of that last year; I attended lots of events, got pretty involved, met lots of people, did lots of exploring, and really delved into my studies. It was easier then, though; I lived on campus and everything was right outside my bedroom door.<\/p>\n<p>Now, in my second year, though I practically am still living on campus, not living in residence can make it more of a challenge to be involved and become part of a community on campus. The beginning of the year was new and exciting, with new courses, and living in a new situation and responsibilities to learn to navigate. However, this year I feel like I settled in after a while. I didn&#8217;t go to as many events, and though I am involved in a couple of clubs and am continuing to blog, I didn&#8217;t take on anything really new and I&#8217;ve spent way less time exploring campus. I&#8217;ve become a little bit of a commuter student who wants to get home as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<p>I recognize that I am an introverted person and that being the next chair of the SLC is not something that I would enjoy, but next year I resolve to try at least one new thing. Whether it&#8217;s a volunteering position or a new club (sailing sounds interesting?) or a work-study position, I want to do something more to be part of my university. After all, I&#8217;ve only got two more years left!<\/p>\n<p>I realize that it&#8217;s a bit late for me to do much this year, but I have taken the step of running for (and winning) the position of treasurer of the Knitting and Sewing Club. It&#8217;s a fairly small club so I don&#8217;t think it should take so much time that I can&#8217;t get involved in other activities, but it&#8217;ll be one more thing I&#8217;m actively involved in.<\/p>\n<p>For the remaining month or so before summer, I&#8217;ll be heading over to our campus&#8217;s lovely gardens &#8211; the Nitobe and Botanical Gardens! I&#8217;m particularly excited for the Botanical Garden &#8211; the rhododendrons are blooming and they&#8217;re my favourite flower \ud83d\ude42 And maybe in between exams I&#8217;ll find some time to explore Vancouver, as well. I still haven&#8217;t done the Grouse Grind or the Capilano Suspension Bridge! Samantha, time to get your butt in gear!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the last couple of days, I&rsquo;ve been thinking. (I know, an abnormal occurrence at a university.) On Saturday I attended the March Welcome Event for MUG Leaders, and there were two things that happened that made me reflect on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/samanthasays\/2013\/03\/25\/a-face-in-the-crowd\/\">Continue reading <span>&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/2013\/03\/25\/a-face-in-the-crowd\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6588,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2413,1957,261,664781,862],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activities","category-campus-life","category-involvement","category-missing-out","category-residence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}