Lust for Life by Girls
Warning: They use graphic language, I counted, only twice in this song, so it’s not recommended that you watch this if you are uncool with that.

∞

Adjusting to university-level work is not easy.

This past weekend, I made a few dozen paper cranes out of my beautiful new paper, watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off three times, and learned how to save a life, again, through renewing my CPR training. The school year is coming to a close very soon (last day of class, April 15th, whuddup!) but things are still happening on campus and I love it. Storm The Wall kicked off yesterday, which is absolutely insane and amazing. If you are an incoming UBC student, you should for sure look forward to this event.

Even though things are really busy, my academic responsibilities have picked up too. Last night, I worked really hard on my term paper that is due on Thursday. I’ve found that the hardest academic adjustment for me coming into first year is term papers. Last semester, I had three of them. The first one, for my Modern Art class, I worked so hard on. I got help with writing it, even went to a research workshop and visited the subject librarian. I still got a pretty bad mark on it for not doing research “properly.” Honestly, high school wasn’t that tough on me and essays will never compare to the work of a term paper in university.

Things slightly balanced out, my English paper received a little bit better of a mark and my Political Science paper even received an A. Research still seems like a mystery to me, and I find that it’s really scary trying to figure it all out. This semester, I have a paper for my Women’s Studies Feminism course and for another English course. I can already tell that things will turn out better this semester compared to the outcomes of last, but I still want to grasp the daunting task of term paper writing and researching even better.

My recommendations for incoming first years who will have lots of term papers to write:
– Visit your subject librarian. For example, for Art History, you can go see Vanessa Kam in Irving K.
– Talk to your prof & TA. Even better, go see them during office hours and bring pieces of your term paper to discuss.
– Start your research & writing as soon as it is assigned. Unlike some high school essays, it cannot be done in one night.
– Become friends with upper year students who can peer edit and help you along the way.
– Visit the writing centre in Ponderosa or go to the drop in help inside Irving K’s Chapman Learning Commons.

And since you bothered to read my blog, enjoy some images of gorgeous male bands to compliment this week’s Music Monday post.