This is my last post from Ontario before I move to UBC in the morning (Totem Park what what!) It’s 3:25am, my airbus comes to take me to the airport at 5:30am, and I still am no where near finished packing. So all future 2014 UBC Students either learn from my ways or take note that you are not the only one.

Top 10 list for Future UBC students!

1 ) If you are traveling from far away, buy what you can in Vancouver and bring the money for it instead. Don’t pay for shipping or extra luggage- it’s not worth it!

2 ) There’s an Ikea trip during FirstWeek- take advantage and try their meatballs!

3 ) If you can- GET USED TEXT BOOKS. PLAN AHEAD! I really didn’t do this and I’m going to be paying the high prices for brand new text books.

4 ) Get the minimum meal plan! Avoids a silly inflated overhead charge and just add on meal dollars, it saves you money!

5 ) If you are in Arts.. invest in some dark purple clothes for Imagine Day.. because I have no idea what I’m going to wear.

6 ) Don’t move into res first thing on move in day, come later in the afternoon and avoid lines!

7 ) Bring flip flops for the showers in Vanier/Totem!

8 ) Before booking any flights to school, watch for Seat Sales. Usually they go on sale at the beginning of the week and they can get super super cheap and then just grab it! WestJet offers that if you find a lower fare within 24 hous after booking, they will refund your credit card the difference. Air Canada is a final sale airline. Just some advice for domestic students!

9 ) Totem or Vanier? Doesn’t matter! Just go with your gut feeling. Seriously, ignore all the hoopla.

10 ) UBC IS FREAKIN’ SICK!

The American Eagle Artist jean takes over Yonge & Dundas Square outside the Eaton Centre yesterday on my last trip to Toronto before I move out to Vancouver tomorrow. I just had to snap this pick on my BlackBerry showing my true AE pride.

“We’re just going to see how things go and stay together even though I’m at McGill and he’s in Edmonton.” August 13th, 2009
“Yeah…. we’re breaking up.” August 31st, 2009

Going to university is the ultimate reason for an unwanted break up or unwanted long distance relationship. Currently, myself and friends are in the middle of moving across the country (some people internationally) and are left with the question of what to do about their relationship.

What do you do when you’re going to school across the country and your boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t? Do you allow the long distance factor to break you up? Is it fair to your second half that you’re moving far away and they are just supposed to wait for you to come home? Can you have a relationship without seeing each other until Christmas? Can you ever date someone who is provinces away and make it work? What is needed for a “true” relationship? Or are we all just convinced that we have to be in the same city at the same time to date? What do you do when you meet someone you fall in love with just days before you move across the country, is geography always the deciding factor in who we love? If there truly is just one person in this entire world that is our true love, then how can we expect that this one and only person will exist within city limits? So what do we do as students when we are faced with the challenge of University. Do we all just break up with our boyfriends/girlfriends of 9 months… 2 years… FIVE years? (The 5 years one applies to me.. long story!) How can you get over someone when you don’t want to break up with them but you have to? You still have feelings for them, but society tells you that it’s not worth being together. Or, should we all try to make it work, or is “making it work” even possible? Should we be putting this much thought into a high school relationship? When our parents were our age, they were getting married at 18, 19, 20 and they already knew their true loves, why can’t we? Why do our parents say that we are too young? So in the end, what do we do? Is there a right answer to this situation?

My favorite things about this mess: The MacBook is taking a nap under my green blanket, my new red canvas shoes from Urban Outfitters, and the random Breaking Dawn book I never finished from last summer.

My favorite things about this mess: How I throw all of my shopping bags in to the corner of my room- obviously you an tell my television hardly gets used, my signature Volcom Stone backpack (you’ll see it on campus for sure), and my grade nine Gauguin painting just chillin’.

My favorite things about this mess: My inside out jeans that I wore to work yesterday, my “FIT HAPPENS” T shirt from work, and that my sandal is having a play date with my running shoe.

So a few weeks ago I wasn’t allowed to shower, use a normal bathroom, I was only given one t shirt, and all I ate was oatmeal and dehydrated beans. I was in the wild for a week with a group of nine other kids who raided Moutnain Equipment Co-Op (Member since August 2009 haha) and here are some clippings from our journal that we took with us on the trip. It was my attempt to become more BC cultured to the extreme. Want to know how to hide your food from bears? I’m single and looking.

PS- Different people from the team recorded each journal entry, I’m only one of them.

Day 1: “Step One: Pack Camp. Step One b) contravene the laws of physics and get EVERYTHING into the bag. I thought that I was done after my sleeping bag and clothes but no.. amazingly (blessedly) we finally managed it and staggered off to breakfast with 20 pound kids on our back.”
“PS, last night, we were checking out constellations in the night sky, and Katie pointed up at something. At that exact moment a HUGE shinning and in all ways incredible and fantastic star streaked across the sky and left everybody in awe. That’s all!”

Day 2: “We started the day off with a hearty breakfast of DELICIOUS oatmeal with rehydrated apples. It was a HUGE hit ;). Thankfully, Peter saved the day (again) by eating the leftovers.”
“When we finally arrived here, at our campsite for the night, everyone was ready for a swim. We all jumped into the lake for a swim. We all jumped into the lake within minutes. It’s amazing what a dip in a cold lake can do for morale! Shortly after setting up camp, the other group (coming up the trail) found us. It was great to see them! If they can hike 16 km, we can too!!!”
“PS: Mike is loosing everything from shorts to sunglasses. This morning, he couldn’t find his shorts, so he wore his boxers over white underarmour. Kept us laughing for a solid 8 hours. ”

Day 3: “The once seemingly long impossible road in front of us has transformed into a seemingly… long impossible road. Today was the longest of our journey and by far the most challenging. The day got off to a rocking start when Justine ate 10 live snails. She seems to be still alive.”

“We didn’t take ANY wrong turns at the beginning because Matt would kill us if we did. I was trying to figure what character of the Lord of the Rings franchise I am on this journey. I want to be pippen. Peter is Legolas, and Sally is Gandalf.”

“I am enjoying the hiking aspect of the trip more and more. I think we’re all waiting for hamburgers to appear in front of us. Sometimes I imagine the other campers as meat products all the time. Ellie is right beside me and I wish she was a steak.”

“PS, I want cookies.
PPS, Erica is the lone “non-thunderer.”      I will fix this.”

Day 4: “Before we could even know what hit us– we had been sent into the wilderness for our solo. There were battles with slugs, mosquittoes and our deepest thoughts. After threeish hours we returned to camp for rice bean surprise and some noodle thing Mike actually liked. Not too cheesy.”

Day-I-don’t-even-know-what-day-it-is-but-it’s-the-last-day….day.: “Before we knew it, we made it to the final crossroads. Ellie and Peter were already gone before we could process thought and were running like awkward turtles towards the finish line. Before anyone could do anything else, we all started breaking out into joy and running towards the bridge. Could you tell that we had been in the park for days? Cars could soon be heard. The sunshine grew larger and soon we saw the other team waiting for us in the parking lot. I don’t know what they thought when they saw Mike in his signature white shirt, us chanting thunder, and hearing us say “Marco Virgillio Giancarlo” over and over again, but if I was them, I would of thought the woods turned us a little crazy too.”

Move Out Day: “The crazy folks that I know as my friends and I slept under the tarp last night and were soaked by rain. Peter used his ninja moved to save us from tarp floods, Justine wanted to thunder and everyone had to crowd together for warmth. Katie used a garbage bag on her head to fight off the water. Just as a side note, Marco Virgillio Giancarlo now works for the space government.“

Okay so Blink 182 may have broken up when I was 13 or 14, but I’m still allowed to feel nostalgia when they come on stage. ‘I miss you’ was my favorite song for a long time and the first gift I ever gave to my first boyfriend was the Blink 182 greatest hits CD.. back before we illegally downloaded everything. I saw them in concert on August 23rd and my life was then complete.

They are the classic “college band.” Lil’ Wayne could never replace Blink- ever! Still, I am never tired of their music, and I identify with it. I know how to rock out in the car to a good Blink tune. That’s something I’m going to miss when I go to UBC- driving down the high way with your friends blasting music. No more Poker face (Jeez that’s over played) and no more when love knocks you down.

Everyone should do this once: Meet my friend Marco from Montreal. Then, drive around in his yellow Volkswagen Beetle and listen to some David Guetta really really loud. That man (Guetta.. not Marco) makes me want to dance. Marco, if you’re reading this, consider yourself a UBC celeb now.

By the way, I SURVIVED THE WILD. It was intense and if anyone wants to know more about my trip with Outward Bound and how I am prepared to meet a BC Lumberjack and marry him- let me know. Probably one day soon I will randomly post more details about how I lost my leg to a bear. It’s not like I needed that leg anyways…

4 Days Until I move in to Res and no, I did not actually loose a leg.

I’m calling it my attempt to become BC-cultured. Hello wild north, bring it on! I’ve bought my $80 hiking pants from MEC and my long underwear. I’m doing this thing. 10 day backpacking trip through Algonquin with Outward Bound here I come.

I’ve spent more money on supplies for this backpacking trip through Algonquin then I will on first semester books. Will I ever use the long underwear again? Maybe if I don’t purposely burn it at the end of the trip it will get a second use. I’m hoping that there are days when I arrive at UBC that I will think of how lucky I am that I already own these pieces of clothing. “Oh no all of a sudden it is freezing cold on UBC Campus. Thank God I already bought my long underwear!” or “Oh no I find these sidewalks at UBC to be very rough and hard to walk on. No fear students, join me in wearing my new backpacking boots complete with Gore-Tex! Don’t know what that is? It’s okay- I’m not really sure either!”

Maybe after I’ve finished wrestling bears, not being able to check Perez Hilton hourly (hey, it’s my guilty pleasure), and unable to Twitter about it- I will be ready to hit campus in just a couple of weeks. I’ll know every kind of sap that comes out of any kind of tree and I’ll be able to hide my food from bears which we all know is a very common skill all UBC students should know. My professors will notice the twigs in my hair and give me good grades just based on that. “Wow, Erica sure is dedicated to her studies. Spends all of her time hiking in the wilderness and she still makes time to come to my lecture? Do I smell a scholar?” Nope, you just smell bathing in lake water.

So here I go, throwing myself into the wild. Just so you know, this isn’t a normal occurrence for me. I don’t keep my Mountain Equipment Co-Op membership in my pocket ready to go at any given moment. But on a side note, if anyone reading this has a good kayak- I’m interested. I’m the kind of girl who sells you your jeans at American Eagle and hates port-o-potties. I can’t even kill a spider. Will I come out of this trip with Outward Bound a changed woman? Will Algonquin Park be tattooed across my lower back?

Like I said, bring it on wild, I’m game.