Category — Residence Life

I would like to dedicate this post to the best ladybug to ever semi-fly this earth: Herman Mayer.

Only in second floor Okanagan would someone find a ladybug, and name him Herman. He was a beautiful, amazing ladybug. Until he decided to fly free in my room. And then I found him in pieces on my nice beige rug. I’m so sorry Herman, I hope you enjoyed your funeral. We love you, Okanagan 2nd.

The past four days have been the most hectic and rewarding of my life:

Thursday, 4:30pm: Storm Rogers Arena (a.k.a GM Place) with 279 other crowd pumpers for We Day. Practice the We Day dance multiple times and stare in awe at an empty bowl that would be filled with about 18 000 cheering students in less than 18 hours.

11pm: Paint my nails with glow-in-the-dark nail polish so that I’m fully ready to rock We Day.

Friday, 4:00am: My alarm goes off after only three hours of sleep (I was that stoked). I ended up hitting the snooze button until 4:30, and raced around (as quietly as possible) to get ready. I left Vanier decked out in spandex and headed toward the bus loop. After 15 minutes, I am joined by a crazy amount of other spandex-clad crowd pumpers. We dominated that bus.

6:30am: Arrive at Rogers Arena, jittery and ready to be as crazy, and enthusiastic as possible.

9:30am: I probably scared a couple dozen people with my excitement as We Day begins. What can I say? I take my job seriously.

10am – 2:30pm: A fantastic blur of inspiring speakers and performers. From Craig and Marc Kielburger, to Martin Sheen, Rick Hansen and Jesse Jackson. And of course, singing along at the top of my lungs while Barenaked Ladies perform “If I Had a Million Dollars”.

3:30pm: Two other crowd pumpers and I head to Pacific Centre in search of pants. A very long story, but in the end, pants were found. We raced back to Rogers Arena just in time to take our seats as the stage audience for the taping of Shameless Idealists.

5:30ish-9:20ish: Craig interviews Al Gore, Martin Sheen and Jesse Jackson. I nearly pee my pants from excitement. Some where in there, I get to shake Martin Sheen’s hand.

9:30ish: Reverend Jesse Jackson gives me the biggest hug of life. No big deal, just the best day of my life. I pretty much died on the inside like a crazy, idealistic fangirl. I called my mother in Ontario (bad idea, it was past midnight) to share my news. She was pretty stoked, even though I woke her up.  (Thanks, Madre for putting up with me.)

11:30pm -4am: Make it back to rez, chill with my floor, share my We Day good vibes, and stay up for 24 hours. The first, and the last time I will ever do so.

Saturday, 1:30pm: I finally wake up. Grab breakfast and bum around, totally not doing my essay due on Monday. Around 6:30pm, I decide to go to Mongolian Grill off of Broadway and Cambie. Good eats and good times, but no homework was done that day.

Sunday, 10:30am-11:30pm: I re-watch We Day clips of Jesse Jackson and Martin Sheen. I do finally get around to doing homework, I’m not that much of a bad student. I holed myself up in a friend’s room and didn’t come out until our “campfire” with our sister house (whaddup Caribou!). I went back to edit my essay and as a celebration of finally being done, I lurked people on Facebook with my floormates. It was awesome.

And that my dear friends, was the best weekend of my life. Hands down. I hope all y’all had amazing weekends too, and continue to have a stellar week. I’m sending you good vibes, always!

I should be attempting to do my Arts One readings and but I’m failing miserably.

Hello friends! My inability to actually understand anything that I’m reading and the nice doom and gloom feeling outside is not a good combination. I can’t concentrate, but I also don’t wanna go outside to go concentrate in the IBLC Harry Potter room (which I’ve heard is pretty darn cool). I’ve been at UBC for a week officially, and it’s starting to feel like home. I’m not quite feeling the back-to-actual-work vibe, but I think I’ll get around to it eventually.

Despite the unfamiliarity of so much rain (I kinda knew what I was getting into though), I don’t even feel that far away from Ontario. I don’t know if it just hasn’t hit me yet, or if the crazyness of my first week has numbed my feelings. Either way, I’m really liking it here. I was worried back in my first post that the excitement I felt pre-UBC would dwindle or that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. Quite the opposite, in fact. I couldn’t feel like I belonged anymore than I do right now: sitting in my room, about to make some tea and attempt to make sense of dear old Immanuel Kant.

UBC is the place for me (I totally didn’t mean to awkwardly rhyme like Professor Stephen Toope and AMS Prez Bijan Ahmadian’s Imagine day speech). There is no other sentence that sums up my feelings like that one. Everything from move-in day at Vanier, rez activities, the school/faculty pride and spirit at Imagine day, going to horribly awkward frat parties (note to self: never again) or just having supa cool hallway-candy parties with the awesome girls on my floor. I’m just hoping that the feelings I have right now will either stay the same or evolve into even better ones.

Well, lovelies, it seems the Conjectural Beginning of Human History is calling my name. Later!

Sorry guys! I’ve been working on this post for a while but I had a weird bout of writer’s block. It’s all gone and I’m much better now. Anyway, I thought I’d just talk about my experience in rez so far for all those wondering what living in rez is like. Well, let me tell you the obvious: living in rez is definitely not like living at home. The bathroom isn’t nice and cozy with a spacious bathtub/shower. The rooms aren’t too big and the carpet could use some remodelling…but I wouldn’t trade it for anything right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I will totally miss my big bed and my squishy carpet, but my house in Ontario doesn’t come with about 19 awesome floormates. The pros outweight the cons, for sure. It’s been a crazy ride so far. What seems like weeks has actually only been three days. Time is on this weird schedule right now, it’s moving at a funky pace. The days kind of run together, and there isn’t much of a routine, but I’m having the time of my life. Of course, there is the inevitably sadness: teary goodbyes from mama and papa Valentine and time-zone dependent BBM convos with my best friends back home.

However, amongst all the semi-homesickness, the past two days have been stellar. So far I’ve: made a picture-heart (figure 1), re-arranged my furniture into an L-shape like my room at home, been down to Wreck Beach, twice (stay tuned for deets. Figure 2), been on countless trips downtown with my family, trying to enjoy their very limited presence and met the coolest people (shout out to second floor Okanagan!).

Figure 1

Wreck Beach

Now my Wreck Beach adventure was pretty hilarious. Walking down the stairs isn’t too bad, and once you get down the view is amazing! And of course Wreck is littered with people taking advantage of the clothing-optional aspect. It’s definitely a new experience and there isn’t really anything like it. The view is definitely worth the killer trek back up all those stairs. I’m not the most in shape person in the world, and my thighs were burning. And of course I decided to go back that night with some of the kids in my house. Twice in one day was almost enough to kill me. My calves are still feeling the burn. I figure though, that if I walk those stairs everyday, I’ll be so fit that no one will recognize me in December. I should definitely make that my goal.

Well, I should get some sleep. The infamous Imagine day awaits in just 7 hours and I need every moment of precious rest. I have a feeling tomorrow will be yet another adventure.