Author: Coby Thurmeier

This summer’s ES Wellness Afternoon will take place on Wednesday, August 18.

Please watch for a save-the-date invite coming from the es.hrle@ubc.ca inbox, which is the new email address to use if you need to contact Ashley and Coby together, or Manpreet Virdi.

Share your ideas or volunteer to host a session

Like last year, we will be holding a joint UBC O & V event that will take place virtually. We are looking to you for new and encore session ideas.

If you would like to host a session, or have an idea, please get in touch with us. Formal planning will get underway in June, so get your ideas in soon!

What is ES Wellness Afternoon?

Is this your first year in ES? If so, you are probably wondering what ES Wellness Afternoon is all about. Use the search box on this blog and type in Wellness Afternoon. You’ll find lots of photos and descriptions of the activities we’ve planned over the past seven years. Or, ask ask a seasoned veteran colleague, and they can tell you all about it!

We have exciting news to share!

We have received, $2500 in funding from the HR Healthy Workplace Initiative Program to hold a second Wellness Afternoon event in late fall. That event will have a focus on supporting mental health and our transition back to working on campus. More details will be shared in the fall, but in the meantime, if you have any ideas for that event, send them our way.

Posted on behalf of Manjinder Sidhu, Manager, Admissions, Undergraduate Admissions

We were bees you fed annually
with pastries from Montreal
often sweetened under the weight of your
carry-on. Our memories are sticky
fingers coated with honey and time.
Sometimes it was a Tupperware container
in the freezer, a single piece saved
waiting to be served at room temperature.
In the year where everything
changed, the taste of your baklava
remains. After all, food shared
amongst friends is a
forever love letter
that has no end.

–   Manjinder Sidhu

Posted on behalf of Narcena Wong, Admissions Support Coordinator, Undergraduate Admissions

Posted on behalf of Terry Chui, Associate Admissions Advisor, Undergraduate Admissions

When COVID ends, what is the first thing on your mind that you’d like to do? Travel the world again with your family? Dinner with 6 or more of your friends? How about just an old fashioned handshake with a stranger?

Recently I went looking for a car on Craigslist. As I pulled up to the driveway, I knew I found my next car. However, my budget and his asking price were miles apart. After days of haggling, we both realized he was just as eager to sell, as I was to buy. As I made my final signature to complete the paperwork, the moment of buying a new car felt incomplete. As I drove off, I realized the moment felt incomplete for me because I couldn’t show my appreciation through an old fashioned handshake to finalize the deal.

When COVID ends, many of us will revive our main relationships through a big trip or an intimate gathering. For me, it is learning to appreciate the unintended interactions I have with a random stranger while waiting in line for a coffee, because often those are the moments that bring a smile to my face.

From this experience, I realized the human interactions that I am most looking forward to when COVID ends are not necessarily the big moments that define one’s life, but rather the little encounters, which fill the gap between those big moments that define one’s day.