Category Archives: Involvement/Leadership

An End To A Beginning

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.

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So Much Done. So Much To Do.

I’ve been off the grid for a while. I’d like to say I was chosen as the new 007 agent and had to recover a priceless diamond/nuclear launch codes/world leader from utter catastrophe, but this, sadly, is not the case. The truth is much less explosive, much less dangerous, much more stirred than shaken. I was simply, in simple terms, referring to my simple actions, busy. I can easily look to the end of classes as validation, and I will. Papers and papers and papers. Seven pages about fascism. Ten pages about the Taliban. Nine pages about my trip to New York. Now, that last one does seem like the odd one out. It even sounds fun to some. But, what if I told you *flashlight under chin, said in spooky voice* THAT IT WAS WRITTEN IN FRENCH!

Yes, French, the bane of my education. Many call it the language of love. I call it the language of required credits. I’ll one day appreciate its beauty, its flow, its bravado (ironically, a Spanish word), but today’s not the day. Neither will the next thousand. This is one of those cases where my education won’t come from school, where it won’t come from a teacher. That reminds me, French teachers always had the best disapproving glares. Beat out Science teachers for sure. English teachers never seemed to glare. Probably because of their love of poetry and happy endings. But that’s beside the point.

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A Ubyssey Adventure

One of my big goals this term was to volunteer at The Ubyssey. And it wasn’t just a goal. It was a spin-o-rama, behind the back, bicycle kick kind of goal. Very important to me and very awesome, a fulfilling experience for the news junkie I’ve become. I thought my time at Blog Squad gave me the experience to tackle a real-life story, albeit one that doesn’t include my awkward experience purchasing an ice cream cookie sandwich or my goal to one day gain the ability to fly (still working on that). No disrespect to those tour de force pieces, but I wanted to tackle one of the institutional facets of writing, journalism.

Now I wasn’t expecting people in tweed suits and “Press” hats to be yelling, “Come ‘ere, see. Yeah, see” with that abstract and strangely exciting 1960’s attitude…okay, well I was expecting that, but more in that unique state of unrealistic optimism that improves your day, regardless of the logical fallacies attached. It’s like that glimmer of hope that you’ll one day open the paper and see, “Beatles Back On Tour!” Just our little fantasies. Our impractical, sanguine daydreams.

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A Triumphant Return!

After a much-needed break, full of sleep, healthy food and other such luxuries, it’s good to be back for a clean slate in familiar territory. One thing I vowed to change for second semester was to get more involved early on. Going into first semester felt like a deer in headlights situation. There was this overwhelming horde of club VP’s and event coordinators hollering ,

“COME CHECK OUT OUR THING!”

“THIS AS WELL!”

“YOU SHOULD DO THIS!”

I was busy settling into my drastic new lifestyle, let alone finding my niche. So by the time I got seriously interested in clubs and volunteer work, papers and exams were taking up the precious time I would’ve committed.

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Sitting in at CiTR

On Wednesday, I got the sweet chance to sit in on a CiTR show, UBC’s campus radio. Just walking into the CiTR clubroom is an adventure. The aura is one of a medieval pub, of which every person has a unique story. One of which a dragon was slain with the toenail shavings of several yaks. Another of which an evil wizard and a noble gladiator had a lute-off, ending in the establishment of Lute-apalooza. It was a pretty special vibe.

The hallway walls are decked with newspaper comics, everything from Calvin and Hobbes (the apex of smart humour) to Cathy (the other end of the spectrum). Long hair and jovial faces line the halls, a Christmas-like sensation of music, ghosts of Christmas Lennon, Cobain and Hendrix, always apparent. I ventured through the station to Val, the host of Folk Oasis, the show I’d be sitting in on. She was talking to Matt Masters, a country singer from Calgary who had come in to play on the air. He was such a swell guy, embodying the fun-loving country attitude of a well-off cattle rancher albeit brandishing a sharp comedian’s wit. I sat in the studio, about the size of a rez room, amazed at the computerized function of what we hear on the air. It’d be like drilling to the centre of the earth, fighting off the hellish layers of magma and molten metals, to get to a small control room where a guy in an Urban Outfitters shirt and slurpie in hand was deciding the fate of humanity.

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Imagine All The People

As you’ve heard from the hordes of UBC-goers, Imagine Day came and went, inspiring thousands of healthy minds to create their innovative futures full of love and joy. But hey, us students just like to yell in stadiums.

Let me break it down for you.

My Undergraduate Group, cutely named MUG, was supposed to meet at the disappointing and sigh-worthy time of 8:15 am, outside the Frederic Wood Theatre. I woke up at 7:30 am, which rang in my first “People wake up at this time?” feeling of the academic year. I know some of you think 7:30 is easy but when you cross-reference that with my regular summer rise-and-shine hours, the discrepancies are quite noticeable. Strange how the hottest season is the one that feels the most like heaven in the morning. Being more experienced and dominant, my “Let’s go back to sleep” area of the brain easily overpowered the part where my dreams, desires and potential are. I mean, the pillow’s right there beside me. A healthy career, love and success, is not. Good decisions are not made with pillows near.

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