With the return of home-cooked meals and the promise of summer approaching, my first year is over. Exams are finished, residences are empty, and I now have no place to get curly fries at 10:30. I’ll think about getting a deep fryer. But it’s truly over. I still remember being stuck in the ramblings of exam crazy brain, with a (not so) healthy dose of bulk juice bottles and cheese-flavoured everything. I still remember a lot of stuff. It’s probably because (and this competes for the most famous cliché) it all went so fast. So without further ado, I present to you my thoughts on first year. Bon appétit.
It was exhilarating, dynamic, and other such words you’d find in eyeliner ads. It was definitely an experience. I began as a Radiohead-obsessed plaid-wearing hipster. But I’ve changed. I’ve gone through a transformation. I’m now a Bon Iver-obsessed plaid-wearing hipster. I know, quite the change. But I don’t feel my first year was about that momentous change everyone thinks of when they look to university. It was more about the fine-tuning. I feel like, going into university, I was an empty house, with walls set up and a roof over my head, but with little in the rooms. Sure, there’ll be some high school passions I’ve retained, but this year was about discovery, about what I’d fill my rooms with, who I am and what I love to do. So let’s get to the fun details.
I owe my first year to UBCimprov. In short, laughter became my life, creating and receiving it, workshopping and performing it. There’s poetry in the idea of a bunch of kids getting together in a rented lecture hall and making people laugh. And it’s even better when they’re collectively weird, which I say as a compliment. UBCimprov showed me a serial killer getting his nails done, a Staples-OfficeMax gang fight, and a particularly fantastic reenactment of “Big Miracle”, that Drew Barrymore whale movie. So, without further cheesiness (and if we’re talking about cheese, how good is smoked gouda, right?), thank you UBCimprov. Special thanks to Noah and Techno Church for the awesome year.
CiTR was my home. While the spirit and the energy of UBCimprov was my freshman highlight, CiTR provided the welcoming landing pad for my contained enthusiasm, a consistent and always comforting area of musical expertise and belonging. Plus, the diversity of music there is crazy. Only there could I be exposed to (and I swear that this stuff could exist) indie fuzz-folk electro-soul rock or neo-pop industrial punk R&B. But I kid, CiTR, I kid.
And I send my gratitude to The Ubyssey. Giving me the opportunity to be published, along with the enjoyable façade of having power over professors in interviews, was fantastic. The Ubyssey taught me to be more assertive, stricter with deadlines, and how everything I write sucks as a first draft.
All in all, I can thank those three UBC institutions for a successful year. So here’s to you, UBCimprov, CiTR, and The Ubyssey. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I’ll cap it all off with a personal favourite performance of mine. Here is Bon Iver on The Colbert Report singing “Skinny Love”. Cheers, and thanks for reading.