This Year

This Skin

Kindness to this skin I live in has been an overarching thought this year. I’ve drifted beyond the question of popping the whitehead or not (spoiler alert: I usually pop it), and asked deeper questions: are the words I am saying sinking deeper beneath this skin? am I the best version of myself with the skin-covered beings that surrounds me? Am I hydrated? (if so, what by?) Could I have gone to bed three hours earlier last night?

How many milligrams of caffeine have I had today? Do I realistically have the stamina or the recovery time needed to pull an all-nighter? Am I reflecting on areas of possible growth without dwelling on my shortcoming?

Am I truly living in the present, or am I living in spite of my past?

I had an anxiety attack on Christmas that left me in a limbo of crying and shaking for hours. I don’t understand my body sometimes, but anxiety is an unpaved freeway I am still learning to negotiate. It’s okay to cry, to have a reaction to everything around you. It’s okay for the holidays to not be as joyous as the media has depicted them in holiday classics.

Kindness to this skin looks like mapping my anxiety and possible areas of crisis. Setting an alarm for when I need to get ready for bed, planning out meals, hydration, assignments, and giving time for the weather, the attractions, the friends, the foes along the way. (There’s really nothing like a text from your ex the night before a major term paper is due, which you just started.) I’ve learned that third year feels a lot like driving at night, in the heavy rain; knowing your destination but never knowing the roads that will lead there.

This Voice

Still with me? (This is a question more for me than you, honestly.)

I’m learning to be more intentional with my vocabulary, but with that comes a lighter tread in my voice sometimes. I have grown more conscious of the space that my voice takes up in certain spaces (white privilege, male privilege, settler privilege, socio-economic status based privilege, able-bodied privilege et cetera.) I am on a continuing learning journey of when to hold my tongue; when my voice does more harm to the conversation than good.

With that I find a certain passiveness has formed within myself, where it has now become easier to not say anything at all in most situations where perhaps I really should participate. The result: I am somewhat resentful at myself for what has become my overarching silence.

This voice struggles to articulate thoughts, metaphors, creativity. I think a lot of it stems from a pattern of self-deprecation as a certain style of writing that I ascribed to for a while (see: “How to Be a Hot Mess”). While satisfying and easy to play off as a sort of satire, I find that this particular path became a sort of manifest destiny above anything else.

Ultimately, I am my worst critic in all of this and I think the fear of judgment, of saying the wrong thing, of not reaching anyone and feeling alienated scares me as a writer, and living in that zone finds me producing nothing.

This Year

This year found me starting a relationship with myself: my health, my body, my pain, my tendencies, my wrongdoings. It’s a hard shell to crack, and the majority of the time I didn’t like what I saw within. For so long I had focused on the exterior; how I came off, how well I was liked/admired/respected, what my wardrobe choices said about me, what my resting face said about me, if I was pleasing to prospective romantic conquests. The interior is a whole other galaxy of planets, comets, meteors, lifeforms. It is the grey inside of a Lucky Charms rainbow marshmallow that I am learning to paint vivid colours this year.

Course Selection Season A.K.A Ultraviolence

Much like the beautiful and tragic new Lana Del Rey album, we are greeted by something also equally beautiful and tragic: Course Selection Season.

It’s the thing that keeps you up at night, wondering if you’ve been good enough all year to not get a schedule full of coal. You can’t sleep the night before. You hold your stuffed alligator or what have you close to you at night, and let out a childish wimper, as this is something even your respective parent can’t fix for you.

Here’s some tips for making it through it:

1. Food

Rule #1 to any conflict in my life always revolves around food.

For course selection, might I suggest a handful of trail mix, or some camomile tea. Let’s aim for something calming. We all know that your Sociology discussion is probably going to fill up about fifteen minutes before your scheduled registration time, and spilt tea is a lot easier to clean up then like a two-six of Dr. Pepper.

2. Multiple Worklists

I’m going to say it again for everyone’s benefit: MULTIPLE

Keep a sheet of what courses you really need. The key is to register as fast as possible. I’m not saying course selection is like a race, but I’m also not, not saying that. You feel me?

3. The Worklist May NOT Match Your Registered Courses

Remember that if you don’t get everything on your worklist, and you end up frantically adding something else, it will only pop-up on your “registered courses” and not your worklist.

Make sure you make a final worklist of your registered courses, as to save yourself some confusion in the future. Seriously, trust me. I’m freaked out too many times when I thought that two courses were overlapping in term two.

4. Advising is Always (ok, almost always) There for You

Call your faculty’s advising line, or shoot them an email if you run into something major.

If you don’t know who to go to, talk to your Enrolment Services Professional (ESP. They know what’s up, and who to holler at. (Shoutout to Cara Low for being an awesome ESP!!!)

5. Profs are USUALLY Pretty Cool

What I mean by this is they are like usually really approachable over e-mail or something. Sometimes not, sometimes they don’t email you back, but like this is one of those YOLO moments. Sometimes they even let you into their class even though it’s technically full. (Thanks, Dr. Oh!)

6. Waitlists Happen

Don’t be scared off by the waitlist! Go sign up for it if you REALLY want that course.

7. Check the SSC a BUNCH during first week

People drop out of a lot of courses during first week. If you STILL want that course, go check for it during first week. It could save a whole lot of paperwork for you and your faculty’s advising department!

8. Go Online (At Least) An Hour Before

See if any of your courses are already full, and shift your schedule around a little bit earlier. This will save you a ton of stress, hopefully.

—

And finally…

Learning

hallo.

welcome back to the possibility wasteland. holla.

—

whoa i finished first year.. ssssssssssshhhhoooooooooooooot

Seriously, that’s basically me… ^^

Transit + Other Drugs

It’s been a crazy year, yo. Like, I can still remember my first days on campus, being woken up on the bus by some other student. And like, now I can basically wake myself up on the bus. T A L E N T.

um. what else. i don’t recommend catching the 4 late at night. take the 99 because it comes more often, and then take the skytrain because the broadway-city hall station is really close to a Whole Foods open ’till 10PM and a Save-on-Foods open ’till 11PM. seriously, late night snacking ftw. ALSO MCDONALDS OPEN 24HRS there.

personal tip is try to get to school before like the huge rush (8:30-9AM??) cause then like you can get Starbz in the SUB or something without a grande line-up.

erm what else idk. learn to sleep on buses, but don’t fall asleep on other people because then people write things about students that aren’t very cooool.

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Food

seriously i spent hella money on food this year and like pro-tip would be to bring it from home, or find someone that you kinda sorta look like and steal their meal plan, (pref. varsity plan) no srsly. kidding.

stealing is bad, tho.

but like there’s no such thing as a bad sandwich. (mhm. dont quote me on that. perhaps my sandwich game is just really stong.)

also:

-subway is mreh. dont go expecting anything amazing. they are not made with love.

-the salad bar is pretty overpriced.

-the deli knows what’s up

-the burger bar is pre sketch. like sometimes they don’t cook the chicken all the way. i saw it. the fries are aiight.

-bernoulli’s is what dreams are made of. cinnamon cream cheese on a chocochoco chip bagel. WORD.

-Vanier’s has rlly good pasta and like the wraps are good, albeit, overpriced. don’t be afraid to go and check it out, even if you’re a commuter or don’t even go to ubc. we know who you are.

-venturing into the village never killed anyone, and like that place down the stairs, by the McD’s has some really stellar options for cheap Chinese food after like 5PM.

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Bookz

the bookstore hates you and does not have your best interests at heart.

might i suggest doing some research before hand and trying to buy it off a student a la UBC Textbooks for Sale – Facebook Group??

Maybe buy it off Amazon?

Maybe go to that place in the village that claims to be cheaper idk.

BUT LIKE MAYBE ALSO DO YOUR RESEARCH SO THAT YOU BUY THE RIGHT ONE IF U TAKE MEASURES INTO YOUR OWN HANDS.

AND THEN YOU WONT BE OUT 30$ BECAUSE SOME CHICK SCAMS YOU FOR HER GERMAN 100 BOOK WHICH IS ACTUALLY NOT EVEN GOOD FOR REALLY ANYTHING. (im not bitter at all.)

Sanity and Goals and Self-Worth

YEAAAAAAAAH idk.

All I can really say on this topic is try to prioritize, and time manage as best you can, and get all your assignments in on time.

Pro tip # deux is surround yourself with cool people who motivate you, and think you’re hot apple pie, because there are days when you will feel like you are leftover fruit loops in the box, outside the bag, that someone forgot about.

you cannot do this alone.

try to get involved, and get outside, and get a reasonable amount of sleep, and dont drink too much coffee.

i know i sound like a really concerned parent raining on a parade of college freedom, but seriously your mental health is gonna take a really bad turn if you go on some sort of no sleep, full-sugar bender.

self-worth: find something you love and hold on tight to it, because there is going to be so much other stuff flying at you during the year, you may lose sight of it. whatever happens, don’t forget to look down at what you decided to hold on to for yourself.

goals: pfft those are for second year. pFFFFFFFFT.
no seriously, set realistic goals, and be prepared to make sacrifices.

Concluding Statements:

first year was pretty rad for me, but i certainly had some tough times.

i’d like to thank my family, and my social circle for providing food, and emotion support. y’all are like a river rock and you catch me when i’ve gone down the creek a little too far.

title for this blog was inspired by this:

more to come on first year advice. i got some stories, yo.

shoutout to all the peeps who got admitted to ubc, and all the peeps that start summer courses this week (me, holla). it’s gonna be CRAAAAAAAY. RAISE THE ROOF. FLASH THE PEOPLE DOING CONSTRUCTI– ok never mind, that was a tangent. this isn’t freakin’ Spring Breakers.

k byeee~

Move to Trash

~Shoutout to Wreck Beach for keeping me sane~

This blog would not exist if I wasn’t honest with what’s happening, and what’s not happening.

This month has really been a trying time for me. Real talks.

I’ve attempted to put this whole month into a blog post, like four times, already, and I’ve just ended up clicking the ‘move to trash’ button.

That’s the thing. It’s really easy to throw everything away, but starting over is a daunting feat.

—

I did something recently. It was kind of an impulse decision, but I still did it. I quit my job.

It’s something that I’ve been doing for just over three years, and sadly it grew extremely banal for me recently. That, and to be honest, my academic progress is rather lacking, to put it lightly.

I’m not putting the time I should be into school work, because frankly I find most of the stuff we’re doing to be trivial.

-pause for a moment, as I hover over the ‘move to trash’ button, yet again-

Nope, nope. I’m still here.

—

Here’s the thing: I’m lost.

I’m feel really lost, right now. In all of this stuff. It’s like swimming in the middle of the ocean, and I don’t see any islands or ships, and all I taste is sea water, which I liked to begin with, but now I’m just dehydrated, and burnt out.

I’ve been dealing with this feeling for like the last two weeks, and it’s heavy. It’s not something I wish on anyone; to carry this burden around of not feeling like you’re in the correct place.

Like, you’re some sort of visitor to your own life, and you have to wear the ‘Visitor’ lanyard, which sticks out a lot, and everyone knows that you’re not a regular.

—

I had all these plans for next year. They all seemed so grand, and everything. I said, “I’m not going to get attached to them. I don’t want to get my hopes or anything.” But I totally did. I attached myself to them, because it seemed like an upgrade to be in a different place.

And, now in this place that I didn’t really plan for, and I feel like I’m a warden of the State or something.

—

Starting over is something I hate.

But, it’s exactly what I need to do right now to get myself out of what I’ve landed in.

Perhaps, in the coming week, I will not eat an ENTIRE jar of Nutella. (pause of LOLs…) I mean seriously, I was just MAOWing.

Maybe, I’ll actually do some real editing of the stuff I need to turn-in.

Possibly, I’ll stop staying in bed for an hour, after I wake up.

HAAAAAAAAA..

—

I will find myself somewhere in the mountain of clothes on my bed, in the spilled wax on my chest of drawers, in the empty mugs on my desk, in the old to-do list, in not noticing cars when I decide to go for a run, in every mediocre grade.

Something good will come of this.

You know why?

Because everyone loves a comeback story.

Happy(?) Holidays

Greetings, and welcome to back to The Wasteland.

Today, I will attempt to articulate more of the things that actually go on inside of my head.

So, cool, since like we’re all saying it and stuff, I’ll like give into peer pressure, and acknowledge the fact that I had to ~~throw away~~ recycle my 2013 page-a-day calendar.

This of course means that like the holidays are now officially over and that we are supposed to move on with our lives and start something new, and deal with the repercussions of the holiday season, which no one really acknowledges.

I mean, they’re supposed to be filled with joy and cheer and all that, but what if they’re not?

Well, folks, then you are proclaimed as a grinch, and everyone forever just writes you off for the season. But, like there are some serious happenings:

a. ca$hMoney$wag

Not gonna lie, I kinda spent the panettone amount of money, on my wonder bread budget. I mean, I was just really behind on my shopping after a certain point and things got out of hand.

Not like it’s serious, don’t worry y’all, it would just be nice to not have to go into the New Year being super frugal.

It’s cool. Walmart does have Mr. Noodles, though. And I hear those jazz sticks mix well with bologna. also side of ranch with that. hey girl.

b. Food

It’s the time of the year to “indulge” and “treat yourself.” Stuffing your face full of Stovetop is completely acceptable.

–Flash-forward some time and you’re now expected to work out every single day and become some new person, with some great new bawdy laik wow omg.

But, real talks, I have a box of Himalayan pink salt caramels that aren’t going to eat themselves.

c. Persona

You’re totally expected to be this new person, who is super optimistic and positive, after the holidays. With all these goals, and new healthy activities. And then if you don’t do them you’re like a failure or something. I don’t understand.

I mean, yes, it’s the first of January, but be your own person or something, and don’t let a calendar dictate to you which days you want to bring change into your life.

You’re not going to dramatically change overnight.

UNLESS:

– you buy a month’s supply of Proactiv. sponsored by Justin Bieber, Jessica Simpson, Adam Levine, or everyone else who doesn’t actually understand what severe acne is.

-Or, like cut off three and half fingers…

so transforms. much change.

d. Drama

So much family time is bound to end in some skeletons coming out of the closet, right?

Same goes with your friends too.

Let’s not forget about “holidayting” a person: only dating for the holidays, because of loneliness.

But, like on the bright side, who needs cable with all of the drama happening in your life? I mean cancel your Netflix too, and save yourself $8 a month, and go buy some bags of ice for all the burns your friends dealt out.

And, like that fancy grade popcorn, none of that microwavable stuff. You earned the bag of white cheddar stuff for all of the cheesy, romantic nonsense that discharged from the mouths’ of the “holidaters.”

the struggle is real…

—

So holla. The holidays are a weird time.

I’m just gonna go eat soup and take some selfies until school starts.

How to Be a Hot Mess…

Hello, and welcome back to the Possibility Wasteland.

I am not dead, contrary to popular belief.

I was just busy being a really disorganized university student trying to manage: my work schedule, my social life, my final projects, my sanity, my food intake, and my dryer’s amount of lint discharge. Y’know, trying to make the basics, seem not so basic.

Did I succeed? Well, more or less. I mean, I made it through term one, and didn’t get Mad Cow Disease. I did, however, end up getting bronchitis about two weeks before the end of term, which was really fun times. [laughs to keep from crying]

It was all in the name of being a hot mess, though, which turns out to be what I succeeded in.

How did I do that, you ask?

Well, you too, can achieve “hot mess” status by doing these things:

1. Don’t start any of your papers until the night before they are due! Bonus points if you don’t start it until 2AM, on the morning that it’s due. The extra stress, combined with your lack of consciousness for spelling and grammar errors is sure to get you the highest mark in the class, and probably a spot on the Dean’s List.

2. Break up your meal schedule. It’s a really great idea to have breakfast at 6AM, followed by lunch at 3PM. This ensures optimum clarity in all of your classes. I mean, whoever brings water, or energy bars, to class is clearly doing something wrong. Up the ante by disregarding dinner on the night before your term paper is due (which is obviously haven’t started) and by having a three-part nervous breakdown between the bulk-food section at save-on-foods (I was talking to the bin of dino sours), your bathroom floor (after throwing your phone across the room), and your kitchen floor (after you receive text messages that you will read too much into). Of course, a heavy penne dinner at 10:30PM will solve all problems, and not sit in your stomach for hours on end, or anything.

3. Pull an unhealthy amount of all-nighters, in combination with a semi-full time work schedule. Please make sure to pull an all-nighter during take-home exams, and then say YES to overnight shifts at work. Because sleep is for keeners who actually get As in their classes. I mean who needs a relatively above-average GPA. Pssshh. Those are so overrated.

4. Catch up on your sleep during lecture! I mean, if you’re actually putting your notebook on the lap desk, and not your head, you’re doing something wrong. Bonus points if you fall asleep in the front row in your class of only 25. This will ensure that your prof will appreciate your iconic sleep-swaying all the more! (shout-out to Dr. Mauro. happy holidays. xo) Of course, you’re only hardcore if you’ve fallen asleep in every single class, AT LEAST ONCE.

5. Always show up 5-15mins late with Starbucks. This really screams that you care about the class enough to show up on time. Profs will really value your presence.

6. Don’t even budget. LAWL spending like crazy is a really great idea, and like the fact that you might have to dip into tuition to pay off your credit card bill, is totally fine, and won’t cause you panic attacks. I mean only Greece has to budget.

7. Always keep what’s in your mind ’till later. I mean that point that you had regarding neoliberalism will truly be as valuable during dinnertime discourse, as it would have been in your sociology 100A class, right? It will totally earn you participation marks. Bonus points if this carries over to your social life, and you end up exploding at people a month after the actual issue. Yes, very smart, poised, and sexy.

8. Obsess over small things. You see that zit on your forehead that you wanna pop like a molly at a rave? Yes, you should pick at it until it bleeds like Gatsby’s heart. Then you should loathe your own existence for not having any self-control over things like that. Yes, that is very healthy. Also, obsessing over what anchor iPhone case you will get off Etsy should be a really deep source of stress in your life, or you are clearly doing something wrong.

9. Dwell in the past. I mean living in the now is so cliché. Who does that? You should always live in your mistakes, and your short-comings, and failed voyages. That will really get you where you aspire to be, and truly make you seem present in social situations with people who might be there to change your life or something, idk.

10. Own the title. You clearly earned “hot mess” status all by yourself, why not brag about what a massive screw-up you are all the time? Yes, this will earn you respect in the company of your peers.

So, there you have it. And, if you follow these steps, you will indeed become just like be! (Bronchitis not included)

[disclaimer: please don’t do any of this, I seriously warn you. Bad things will happen. Your overall well-being is at stake, and this was only written in an attempt to evoke change. xo]

Day-Old Moonshine

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