Tag Archives: UBC

A Triumphant Return!

Posted on January 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

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.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in AMS, Holidays, Involvement/Leadership, Recreation

Tagged , , , ,

Anything and Everything: A Review of My First Semester Adventure

Posted on December 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

A full semester of UBC. A full semester of equal parts haste, equal parts precision. It showed me that intuition and intellect go nowhere without hard work, much like the papers to prove said intellect. It was fun though. I felt like an high school exchange student in a foreign nation, recognizing key concepts and learning patterns but reveling in this newfound form of tweaked education. Also, I can see the difference between high school and university now. At high school you’re part of the mass, trying to shine just a bit brighter than that guy or that girl. But at university, you’re a shining individual (that’s why you were accepted!), making up the shining mass. I like to think of university as a league of superheroes, because I’m amazed by what people are doing around me, intellectually and socially.

The clubs we have are amazing. I had the opportunity to be in a UBCimprov workshop, and it was my social highlight of the semester. There’s a beautifully ridiculous aura you gain when telling a story about a goat’s estranged mother, a balloon party for lumberjacks, an amusement park in a swamp, anything you want to say. That’s what improv is. It’s those niches we crave which give us the experiences we treasure. How many 100-level courses will we vividly remember? A couple, I’d say. And only the ones that truly touched us. But that crazy and monumental Colour Wars, that chaotic yet fulfilling Totem One Acts, that quaint Lord of the Rings marathon in rez, those are my vivid memories. That’s my niche.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Academics, Holidays, Monumental Moments, Recreation, Residence Life, Seasonal

Tagged , , , , , ,

Nothing But Smooth Sailing

Posted on December 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Last exam today. Yes, I’m the sucker who has an exam on the 20th, but I’m feeling less stress and more a feeling of,

“Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday! One day left for DECEMBER EXAM MADNESS!”

That needed to be read in a monster truck rally voice. Otherwise, I just sound like a crazy lunatic with caps lock, which is now mostly for angry people on the internet.

The storm is over for me, its rough waves of sleep-deprivation countered with caffeine overdose a thing of the past. I feel smug eating an apple now, content that I have the time to enjoy a juicy piece of fruit, not crouched over my laptop, much like a troll would, separating my candy stockpile into sour and sweet, the sole organization I’d use for nights of sporadic cramming with the occasional maniacal epiphany that doesn’t make much sense in a rational morning. I’ve lost the “exam posture” too, that hunched stance on a leaned-back chair, paired with a scowl saying, “none of this makes sense and I have to prove it does in two days.”

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Academics, Holidays, Seasonal, Wellness

Tagged , , , , ,

The Eye of the Storm

Posted on December 8, 2011 | 1 comment

You know that feeling at a restaurant when you see your food leave the kitchen and there’s that gap in time before it gets to your table? It’s an odd feeling, right? All you can think of is,

“That’s my food! That’s it! I SHALL BE EATING THAT!”

But your brain has to correct itself and go,

“Woah there cowboy. It’s not here yet. Just sit tight and act cool. Pretend to look at the martini collection or something.”

So you end up just sitting there looking anywhere but the server’s eyes, waiting for the last second to turn and be startled with joy at the arrived meal, as if eye contact would ruin the taste.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Academics, Food, Holidays, Seasonal, Spirituality, Wellness

Tagged , , , ,

Sitting in at CiTR

Posted on November 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

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.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in AMS, Involvement/Leadership, Recreation

Tagged , , , ,

Dan Mangan in Vancouver

Posted on November 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

One of my favourite parts of Vancouver is its rich musical roots. Only a city with a diversified pool of talent like ours could produce Michael Bublé and Bryan Adams, Sarah McLachlan and Mark Donnelly. And if you don’t know who Mark Donnelly is, watch a Canucks game. His voice will take your mind off the fact that we’ve never won a cup. So it was a huge treat when I discovered Dan Mangan, a nestled Canadian treasure hidden in the troves of Vancouver humbleness. Dan and his album “Nice, Nice, Very Nice” changed my perception of Vancouver music. He was at the musical stage of producing brilliant music, minus the mainstream, stadium-frequenting presence. He had the perfect setting for an indie, hipster musician with a dab of arrogance, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Dan was your friend who made it big. Dan was the guy who loved words, guitar and the tickled feeling in his throat when he sang just that much harder. In four words, Dan was a delight.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Monumental Moments, Recreation, Spirituality, Wellness

Tagged , , , , ,

My Thoughts on the Shia LaBeouf Occurrence

Posted on November 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

Woah, so a whole bunch of stuff happened. Shia LaBeouf, Halloween, Midterms. Only one of those is truly scary though. Shia, obviously. Have you seen Disturbia? Fits the title.  This week was jam-packed with events like a hipster’s iTunes is with obscure band names, like “Howling Pasta Orchestra” or “Totalitarian Amphibian.”

But I’ve got to give my attention to what overtook the campus conscious, the big talk at UBC being that “SHIA LABEOUF WAS LIKE FOUR FEET FROM ME!!! HE WAS JUST SITTING DOWN AND HE TOOK A BITE OF A SANDWICH AND I LOVE HIM!!!!!” or so I saw on Facebook. That was in the morning, when the stages of celebrity spotting were in the works. First was the flurry of urgent information:

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , ,

To Be Sick At University

Posted on October 18, 2011 | 3 comments

I was sick last week, in the middle of personal midterm hysteria and the deceivingly challenging quest to craft a university paper. Imagine a knight set out to defeat the fierce dragon of responsibility, using the often-nonexistent sword of productivity. Now imagine that knight is sick. Totally changes the story, doesn’t it? Frodo wasn’t sick. Luke Skywalker wasn’t sick. Yet, I was. And it’s a total change to be sick in university.

In high school, people missed days. They commit to the day when they make the decision to go to school. They confide to the story of it all, because that’s what high school is, a story. The cliques, the clubs, the grade hierarchy. It was one big plotline. It’s the reason no one wanted to go in when they missed their morning classes. It would be like starting Lost in season 4. It just wouldn’t make sense.

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Academics, Residence Life, Wellness

Tagged , , , , ,

What I Am Thankful For

Posted on October 10, 2011 | 1 comment

And as Thanksgiving officially comes to a close, the glorious statutory holiday spent mostly digesting, I find myself looking back and forwards, side to side at my life. What am I thankful for? Who has gotten me here? And what was in that cranberry sauce? Seriously, 4 cups crushed cranberries shouldn’t taste like the love of Will and Rose, Forrest and Jenny, even the yellow fish from Finding Nemo and his bubbles. It was that delicious. But as the edible love of Sunday breezed into the bloated orangutan-like aura of Monday, I feel thoughts more of reflection than glazed ham, a rare occurrence for me. And I’m thinking of UBC, my life, and how everything has changed. So with that in mind, please enjoy what I’m thankful for:

I’m thankful for my room. Nothing beats a hard night of studying like the unkempt bed I strive to keep cluttered. Residence life gives people the right to be messy, and I love it. Owning a mess is a liberating feeling.

I’m thankful for the dining hall. Nowhere else could I have lamb, apple pie, soft-serve ice cream and a spicy chicken burger all in one meal. Also, nowhere else do lines go so quickly. I love swiping my UBCcard. I feel like Bill Gates buying a yacht, just putting another transaction on the card of destiny, the one card to rule them all.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Academics, Food, Holidays, Residence Life, Seasonal, Spirituality, Wellness

Tagged , , , , ,

So something awkward happened to me today…

Posted on September 29, 2011 | 3 comments

A good friend reentered my life recently and that good friend’s name is Awkwardness. We go far back. It was a normal Wednesday night, as Wednesday nights usually are. I was in my room, arranging the pins on my bulletin board into various infantile, yet hilarious, images. It began simply enough. Lying diagonally on my bed beneath the board, I reached up and grabbed six pins. Two for eyes. Four for the mouth. Smiley face. You know, beginner push-pin art. But then I got creative. With charming curves I chiseled a banana. With crispy colours I cleaved out a rainbow bridge. And to top it all off, my masterpiece was a dragon. Well, it was half a dragon. I ran out of push-pins. But I swear, that half a dragon was pretty half awesome. It was at that moment my hunger overrode my childish imagination.

“Yo Evan!” my hypothalamus rapped. “It’s time for some food.”

And I agreed. My brain, which apparently sounds like a ‘80s hip-hop group, was right. I was pretty hungry, but had eaten a hearty soup just a couple hours before, leaving me in a weird food purgatory. To eat more or not to eat more? That was the question. I decided that since I usually skip breakfast, a king’s feast at night might serve the future of my stomach well, giving it some backup when it’s forced to face the trials and tribulations of a bagel-less morning, a croissant-free sunrise.

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Food, Residence Life

Tagged , , , ,