Dear ES Colleagues,

Welcome to the June ES Connected newsletter. This month’s issue is written by Student Financial Management.

It has been over three months since March 16th when we all started working from home. Is the following the real you in front and behind the web camera during Zoom meetings?

Our theme for this month is “Wellness during COVID-19”.

First and foremost, I would like to send my heartfelt thanks to my SFM team, for what you have contributed to weather this crisis during the past three months. Your commitment and dedication have made a huge difference in providing support to all the students and to our stakeholders within UBC.  You are awesome!

I would also like to thank all of you in Enrolment Services of both campuses as well. Our financial world has normally been bounded by polices, rules, system limitations and decisions of various fees owners. No changes can be made easily and rapidly without considerations and deep thoughts. Sometimes it generated conflicts and ambiguity to adapt to ad hoc changes or workaround solutions. Thank you for your understanding, cooperation and patience during this challenging time for us. Without any doubt it has been and continues to be our priority to support UBC students in this important endeavor.

For those of us living in British Columbia, things are gradually returning to normality. However, many countries in the world remain in lockdown, and yet thousands of people all over the world have still been infected. During this pandemic, most of our worlds have been turned upside down. Our normal work routines, processes, practices, and even our personal lives have been affected. It has caused stress and anxiety to a lot of us.

During such a challenging period, it is important to not only consider our physical health, but also pay attention to our mental health.

For those of you who have joined the ES Leadership Retreat last year, you would recall the importance of “mindfulness” – bring your mind into the present, rather than thinking about the past or future.
There are many ways to maintain your wellbeing. Although they may not take away your stress or anxiety completely, these may help us to manage our wellbeing during this challenging time when things are slowly recovering:

  • Maintain a healthy routine – eat nutritious food and sleep well
  • Look after your physical health – this can be done by meditation, doing some physical exercise, or going for a walk
  • Take deep breathing and mindfulness exercises to help to relax
  • Listening to music – choose music (e.g. jazz, classical) or songs that you enjoy to listen
  • Connect with others – talk to someone you trust and spend time connecting with family and friends
  • Manage overwhelming feelings of anxiety – by recognizing and acknowledging your emotions regularly, rather than avoiding them

In addition to introducing our team and our responsibilities, we have also shared a cooking recipe and hiking trails with you and Jenny wrote a beautiful tribute to Enrolment Services.  (Kudos to Jeff, Julia, Cheryl and Jenny!) I share a piece of piano music which I have been playing recently. It was a famous pop song in Hong Kong called “Love in Autumn”.

Happy reading (and listening) everyone!

– Teresa Tsang, Director of Finance