Tip of the Post:
Stick to your commitments. As a university student, it is vital to stay on top of your work. From personal experience – first semester, anybody? – I’ve come to realize that it absolutely sucks to be buried in a pile of textbooks for two weeks whilst living on zucchini loaf and coffee from the cafeteria. But I digress. The main point is to always strive to complete what you resolve to complete. Whether studies, exercise or blog updates, follow Nike’s famous phrase: Just Do It.
It is also advisable to always practice what you preach. I will now take this moment to tug nervously at my collar and avoid all hypothetical eye contact. Ahem.
Anyways, I won’t beat around the bush on this one: it has been an inexcusable amount of time since I last told you all what I’ve been up to. If you’ve missed me, I apologize. If not… well. Don’t let me know.
SO. It’s been a busy 42 days. Since we last chatted, I have: commited Friendcest, travelled to Florida, spazzed out and received the second worst mark of my life, and landed my dream summer job. Of course, school and residence life also plays into that. Those subjects just aren’t as juicy though. Rest assured that I am doing well (enough) and am prepared to once again buckle down and demolish my exams.
Now. Prepare yourself for an onslaught of information.
1) Friendcest. You may be wondering what this means. If you chose to visit the link I provided (to a blog written by my good friend Sasha), you are now aware of this process and its complications. Essentially, Friendcest is when two individuals meet and become friends and later (or not so much later) realize they would like to be more than just friends. Urban Dictionary defines Friendcest as the following:
* “One of the great phrases to describe the f***-upity-ness of cross-boundary inter-friendship ‘relating'”
* “Dating friends, dating your friends’ friends. You already like them, your friends already like them. So why not f*** it all up?”
* “The phenomena of inter group dating and/or relating in social groupings. Especially relevant to university and post university friend bases.”
However, I would like to fill you in on the often overlooked, positive parts of Friendcest. Like participating in it. I’ve managed to meet and snag a really wonderful boy through our group of mutual friends. His name is David. You would like him – I certainly do. In any case, I’ve definitely looked down on Friendcest before. But I realize now that as long as you at least try to be considerate of your other friends, it can work out. Afterall, sharing friends and being friends with your special someone is a great thing – it irons out awkward ‘getting to know eachother’ issues and gives some security as to whether or not your personalities are compatible.
Friendcest: it’s not as bad as you think.
2) Florida. How I adore thee. Shuffleboard, bocce ball, mini-golf, alternate elderly activities… the fun never ends! And I’m not even being sarcastic. Every Spring Break, my family visits my Papa at his home in the beautiful Sunshine State. This year was a bit different though… since it was reading break, I actually attempted work and reading while I was there. It became a slight damper on the festivities but I was grateful for the time to catch up in my work. I even got to see a banjo concert. In one song, the main lyrics were: “A rinky-dink rink, a kink, a rinky-dink…”.
Okay, I’ll admit. That wasn’t my favorite part of the trip… but my Papa loved it. And I love him. So it made me happy.
As a random aside, my Papa’s name is Vladimir. But everyone calls him Val. Isn’t that weird? When I was really little, I thought his full name was Valentine because of that. He’s pretty lovable though – a really fantastic man who has lived an admirable life and continues to do so. Not to get all mushy on you or anything, but ‘Valentine’ is fairly apt.
At least that’s how I’ll defend my childhood misnomer.
3) I’ve complained about Chemistry before. Remember the poem? But apparently that explosion of frustration wasn’t enough to remove me from my slump in the subject. After reading break and its hours of mindnumbingyetstillfairlyproductive chemistry study, I managed to pull a complete blank on the midterm. I mentioned earlier that this particular occasion earned my second worst mark. My worst mark ever was also this year: calculus, with a smashing 49.5%. Yup. The class ran up a 22% average, though. I guess that makes me feel a little better.
You now know that I at least managed to pass with my second worst mark ever. And, as far as I’m concerned, that’s all you need to know. Sadly, the rest of my peers completely showed me up on this one with an average of 81%.
Sigh.
4) I realized I lied when I said this coming summer offers my dream job. Working at the Deeley Research Centre easily tops it. However, I’m still quite excited. I managed to snag a job working as a camp counsellor with Science Venture – a UVic-based, non-profit day camp for youth – for the entire summer. I’ll be working with the younger age groups between grades 1 and 4.
Kids + Science + Good Pay. I’m totally stoked.
Incidentally, if you’re in high school right now and live in (or around) Victoria, I would suggest volunteering for their Junior Counsellor program. It’s tons of fun and gives you the volunteer experience you need to graduate as well as a better chance of securing a paid job with them in later years. Thought I would throw that out there.
Anyways, that’s about all I’ve got for now. The housing situation is still entirely up in the air, but it’s looking like chances are pretty big for a shared house with my close friends next year. We shall see!
Sorry again for my laziness. I’ll try harder from now on to follow my own advice and stick to my resolutions.
Love!
Lindsay
PS. I have some pretty interesting postings that I never quite finished saved in my drafts folder… I’ll spruce those up soon for you and finally get them up.
