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First Week of College…Check!
Posted by: Jennifer Ayala | September 6, 2008 | 6 Comments
Today marks my 7th day officially on my own, and it is GREAT! Mind you I’ve been so busy that it wasn’t really until today that it dawned on me that I hadn’t blogged here since BEFORE I left the U.S., but I’m here now!
Right now I’m just chillin my room, taking a break from practically nonstop action 7 days in a row. The weather is absolutely gorgeous (still what I consider winter weather though), and because my roommate has a small obsession with incense and oils, this room always smells like various incensy-things.
I promised myself that I would stay in for a couple of hours and catch up on some reading (can you believe it, I’m already behind!), but about 10 minutes into my online philosophy class I found myself on Facebook and AIM. I’m praying my laziness and short attention span today is a one-time thing, otherwise by next week I’ll be failing my linguistics class or something. NOT something I want to be doing!
I find it hard to organize my thoughts into anything other than lists since before I left for UBC, so I guess I’ll make more sets of lists to describe the inner workings of my mind. To make it easier though, I’ll separate everything into categories, so if you don’t want to hear about my First Week experience with academics, you can skip ahead to the section on parties.
MY FIRST WEEK AT UBC: CATEGORIZED
DORM LIFE
-My roommate and I get along incredibly well. Before we moved in we had talked on Facebook a couple of times, and officially declared each other “not crazy”, so even then things went well. Now that we’re all moved in, the shared living space operates almost seamlessly. We only really have one ground rule: respect. Oh and we’re both free to use each others stuff: she’s free to use my coffee pot and Brita filter, I can use her kettle, we can both use each others movie collection, etc etc.
-Concerning the rest of the floor, I’m a bit surprised at how well we all get along. We tend to hang out in giant herds, and most of us feel no inhibitions about walking into an open room and saying hi. It’s sort of become a habit to walk up and down the halls before meals, knocking on people’s doors and asking if they want to come with.
-Despite previous fears, so far I have NOT had to wait for a toilet, shower, or sink to be free.
-Caf food is pretty good. Mind you, it’s not glorious food sent from the gods or anything, but considering the horror stories I’ve heard about other schools’ caf food, Totem’s is pretty good. I haven’t tried Vanier’s yet though, so I have yet to pass judgment on their food.
ACADEMICS
-It’s only the first week of school, but so far all of my classes have been just like high school classes. You get the syllabus the first day of class, prof explains his/her expectations and grading policies, then if the class is long enough you go into the first lecture. I quite like my English teacher, my French teacher is alright I guess, my linguistics teacher seems funny, and I am SO excited about my class on natural disasters. That one is supposed to be taught by five teachers, each an expert in their field, so that’s pretty cool!
-I do have another class though: an online philosophy class entitled “Symbolic Logic.” What. Is. That?!?! I just started reading the material today, and while I can understand the introductory material (which is, hello, always geared for 10-year-olds), I know that in a couple of weeks I’ll be sitting underneath my bed with my laptop in front of me, crying about how I wish I had just taken a calculus class or something.
-So much homework and reading. Blech. I’ll probably end up reading into the wee hours of the morning this coming week, because so far I’ve read like 10 pages altogether.
FASHION
-I’m a girl, couldn’t help myself.
-Maybe it’s just because it’s the first week, but altogether people dress nicer than I expected them to. I mean I’m no exception, I can’t bear to go out in public looking anything less than presentable, but so far I haven’t seen any people going to class in pajamas. The only exception is the caf on the weekends, but that’s comparable to going to your kitchen at home in your pajamas, so it’s fine.
-I’ve noticed myself slowly but surely adjusting to the weather, so now I’m talking around in thin jeans and a tube top in like 60 degree weather (that’s in farenheit, I refuse to convert to Celsius just yet).
-Thank God I brought good shoes..I swear you have to go uphill both ways to go from Point A to Point B and back again anywhere in UBC.
MONEY
-I’m still not used to Canadian money yet. The lack of one dollar bills CONFUSES THE HECK OUT OF ME, because I’ll just lump them in with the rest of my change, so I’ll be like “Oh darnit I only have 5 bucks with me, but in reality I’ll have like 20 with all the toonies and loonies and goonies or whatever. But I think the different bill colors are pretty!
-I’m so glad I found an ATM that accepts my Bank of America card! I went around almost the entire SUB and the Totem Commons Block, but it wasn’t until I was walking back from my natural disasters class that I found it. If I recall correctly, it’s just off of Agriculture as soon as you get to that street that leads to Flag Pole Plaza. Main Mall?
PARTIES
-THANK GOD I chose Totem Park! And maybe I’m just biased, but Kwakiutl is THE BEST house! GO KWAK! Oh yeah and I gotta rep the best floor in Kwak too. GO 6TH KWAK: LADIES ON TOP!!
-As you can probably tell, Totem is the place to be for parties. Last night a bunch of us were walking out of Kwak to check out Haida (another house in Totem), and like 50 Vanier (pronounced van-yay, who knew?!) kids were just standing there looking for a party. Then after we had gone around the other houses looking for a party, we realized that OUR house was the one with parties going on. lol!
-I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about stuff like this on this blog..but I will say that when people party at UBC, they PARTY. That’s all I’m gonna say. Yup. *cough read between the lines cough*
I think that covers most of my UBC-related thoughts this past week or so, because I doubt you want to read about how I’m in desperate need of new flip-flops or how I really want to continue reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown but I just have no time. You definitely don’t want to hear about how I NEED to do laundry but just haven’t done it yet, and no way will you care about how I have a small obsession with keeping my Brita filter always full with water. Oh and NO ONE will care about how it’s almost not worth going to Wreck Beach because of the trek back up, or how my roommate and I are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our mini-fridge. Yeah, no one would care about that kind of stuff so I’m not even going to bother writing about it. 😉
Tomorrow I’m basically busy all day with a Blog Squad meeting, studying, and Roommate Boot Camp. Concerning the Blog Squad meeting, I totally wish it were in the afternoon or something. I keep trying not to think about the ungodly hour, but I have to meet some other Totem people in front of my house at like 8:30 tomorrow morning, and it’s like..I went to bed at 4 AM this morning..gah. I also haven’t yet figured out how I’m going to incorporate going to church tomorrow, which uh, sucks.
Anyway, I’ll stop here. Later days!
PS: Getting books from the UBC Bookstore takes forever. :*(
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