Monthly Archives: September 2012

Driving to UBC

Today was a special day for three reasons.

  • I had my first ever 3-hour-long chemistry lab.  It was incredibly confusing, and I made a whole bunch of silly mistakes.
  • I finally met my fellow Blog Squad bloggers.  They are a cool bunch 🙂  We had breakfast together and it was lovely.
  • AND I DROVE TO SCHOOL!

Yes, it was exciting.  For the past two weeks, I’ve been taking public transit to and from school.  There’s a reason for that! And it’s not because I’m scared of driving.  Although I do get a a little nervous on the big streets…

A pretty-close-to-accurate depiction of myself. In a car. Behind the front wheel.

No, the reason why I don’t drive to school usually is because there is no cheap parking left after 8:30am. I kid you not.  The $6 flat-rate parking lots were 2/3 filled up by 7:45am this morning.  I think it’s kind of insane.

So if you have classes after 9am (like me) you really have no chance of getting those coveted parking spots. But there’s a bonus for you 8am class-takers!

Anyways, even though parking’s expensive, I like driving to UBC.  It definitely takes less time than taking transit, even if you consider all the traffic lights you skip when you’re on the skytrain.  You can blast music and not bother other people.  You can bring as much stuff to school as you like.  And there’s something nice about taking in the city view(sort of.  Some parts are nice, some parts are meh), as opposed to staring at the broken zipper of someone else’s backpack whilst desperately clinging on to the bus rails.

Example: did anyone else taking the 99 bus notice the CVC (Chinese Varsity Club) picket signs along University Boulevard?  The bright yellow paint, the dancing bananas, the boards that said “OPPA GANGNAM STYLE”?  Yeah, me neither.

But would I recommend driving to all commuters? No.  It really is too expensive to do all the time, especially since you’re already paying for the U-Pass.  And if you don’t have an 8am class, it’s close to impossible to get (relatively) cheap parking.  So I’m just going to keep taking the bus to school and getting excited every time I have to go to school early. 😀

Finally, freebies!

Today, I picked up some free Kin swag.  It was pretty awesome, because all I had to do was fill out a couple of surveys and huzzah! free t-shirt and beer mug.

Although it would’ve been nice if the mug didn’t have “Class of 2011” etched on it.  But borrowers can’t choosers!

NO LONGER SHALL I COMPLAIN ABOUT THE LACK OF FREE STUFF.  KIN IS THE BEST.

I’m going to wear this to Day of the Longboat.

Huzzah for love songs!

Here’s one of my favourites, “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson 🙂

Clown hugs and kisses if you know which commercial this song was featured in!

Happy Monday everybody!

Time to hit the books!

Whew! The weekend’s over.  I’ve had time to sleep, eat, paint my nails, soak up sun, catch up with family and old high school friends, and did I mention sleep?

I am now ready to finally start studying for tomorrow’s anatomy lecture in my Kin 190 class! Wait a minute, I thought I had that class on Friday…

It feels a bit strange to have the same class for what feels like the second time in a row.  At my high school (Burnaby North, in case you were wondering), we had a weird system where we had 4 classes a day, and every other day we had a different set of classes.  So we’d have classes A, B, C, and D on days 1 and 3, and classes E, F, G, and H on days 2 and 4.  To make it even more confusing, each day had a mixed up order of classes, and Wednesdays classes were shortened because we had a tutorial period.  Those administrators were definitely trying to mess with our heads.

My point is, I’m not quite used to having a set weekly schedule.  Routines are downright unfamiliar to me, especially in when I’m in my denying-that-summer-is-over phase! The beautiful weather isn’t helping.  But I’ve got to get over that, because it has come to my attention that midterms will be upon us in a month.  And that is a scary thought.

I’m very good at procrastinating, indeed.

Here I come, bone structure!

Quidditch!

YES, IT’S TRUE. For all those Harry Potter fans out there, real-life quidditch does exist! And it’s at UBC in the form of both a club and a team.  Wahoo!

I went to an open session of quidditch on Tuesday.  It was held on McInnis field, by the bus loop. Oh boy, it’s more intense than I thought it would be.  To an outsider, it seems like a cross between American football, dodgeball, and basketball, all with a broom between your legs. If you’re an avid Harry Potter fan (like me!) you’d realize that it’s actually quite similar to what was described in the book.

But how does the snitch work? There’s actually a person who gets dressed up in bright yellow, and runs around campus (yes, the entire UBC campus) with a tennis ball in a long sock hung from a belt around his or her waist.  The seekers have to grab the tennis ball sock from the snitch; however, the snitch can fend off the seekers easily because the snitch has no broom to contend with.  There’s a lot of potential for the snitch to be a scumbag  interfere.

And did you know there’s quidditch at other universities? I saw a transfer from the University of Ottawa playing, and my friend who goes to Berkeley said that the Berkeley quidditch team trains super intensely.  I’m sure that the UBC team/club isn’t quite so aggressive, but they did mention that they play against UVic.

Personally, I enjoyed playing the game, but I’m not sure if I want to join the club.  Their games and practices run rather late in the evening; being a commuter, I can’t really afford to stay on campus for that long.  I’d have to get dinner on my own, and I’d lose precious study and sleep time. On the other hand, the fangirl inside me is insisting that this is absolutely something I should do (Harry Potter, squeal!).  Also, quidditch appears to be quite the workout.  But I’m just going to wait until Clubs Day and see if there are other clubs or groups I want to join.

Anyone else have a similar dilemma?