Monthly Archives: September 2012

32 things i did at ubc that you can totally do too : thing #1

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Here marks the beginning of a thing I’m trying, in that I’m going to try to pick out something I’ve done each week (and I have 32 left before the end of exam period in April) and talk about how brilliant it was. Very probably this will showcase how lame I am, but that’s okay. I live for other people to laugh at. I have come to terms with that.

So, without further ado:

THING #1: WATCHING THE SUNSET AT WRECK BEACH

Wreck Beach at sunset.

If you don’t know, Wreck Beach is right at the west edge of campus. Follow University Boulevard all the way down (if at any point you hit the Village, you’re going the wrong way; turn around and start again) until you hit Marine Drive. Then turn right and you should see the top of the stairs down to the beach. You’re there! And we have just discovered that I should never give directions! Hooray for learning new things!

So, yes, it is a nudist beach. Yes, that meant there were bits out in the open that, regressing to school kid age, I kind of wanted to laugh at. But, whatever, you know why it’s a nudist beach? Probably it’s got something to do with the cliff you have to climb down (via stairs, but that’s not as much help as you’d hope) that keeps the naughty nude people away from the innocent eyes of the students who live up top. But, also, more importantly, Wreck Beach is genuinely a place of beauty in that actually breathtaking way that seems to happen a lot more often around Vancouver than I, deprived traveler that I am, am used to. It’s inspiring. It inspired the group of friends I was with to whip out a ukulele and sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Likewise, it inspires a lot of other people to take their clothes off. Each to his own.

Wreck Beach, post-sunset.

Wreck Beach is a beautiful place to be, and, if you can handle the stairs back up, watching the sunset down there, maybe singing a little, and, maybe, if you’re really brave or stupid, going for a quick swim, is the loveliest way to chill out after a packed day of classes. It was warm, the sky was clear, and the sun took its sweet time setting. It totally cured me of homesickness for that day, too. Go try it.

(A note on the stairs: I thought I was going to die. It was so horrible, and there is a reason the UBC Fun Run Club holds a Wreck Beach stairs challenge. Don’t think you are better than the stairs. You aren’t, and they will beat you. Bring water and someone to collapse on who you can dramatically grip by the collar and make promise to carry your body and last words back to civilisation. When you get to the top, have a sit down. Grab an ice cream. Celebrate having survived.)

entering the deep unknown

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I have just finished my first (half) week of classes. And wow. I have a lot of work to do.

That’s the part of moving out here for my exchange year that, thus far, I have managed to ignore. The ignoring it part has been pretty easy. You know the feeling; it’s the same one that you get at the end of every summer as you return to school, when you pick up your pen and think, wait, how do I use this thing again? It’s the brain turning slowly to reality TV mush feeling. That one. In the midst of that feeling, I’d managed to almost totally ignore what it means that I have to actually… work this year.

Ugh, work… I’m taking five classes this semester where I’m used to just three, though the reading per class is significantly less. I still feel like… how can I begin to keep up with this? It’s a lot. There is a lot to do.

On the other side of things, a week in, I feel like I’m getting the hang of living on campus. When I’m walking around I mostly know where I am now (and, okay, I still check a map before I set off anywhere, but that’s just me bowing to the very real fact of my awful navigational skills and seeking the help I need). I’ve been to the Village four or five times, and I’ve clocked where the libraries are and how to get things photocopied (though printing still eludes me, but I’ll get there). It’s a slow-going slide into familiarity and there are still ten things a day that jar me from thinking okay, I’ve got this into thinking wait what just like that, but the days are busy and I feel good about keeping them that way.

Before I came out here, people kept asking if I was nervous and I kept saying no. I wasn’t lying; it honestly didn’t occur to me to be nervous. In my imagination, this was only ever an amazing opportunity in my life, and being nervous would have suggested that it wasn’t a great thing I was planning to do. I couldn’t, and still can’t, see where the bad aspects of this exchange year are. Not that I don’t think parts of it won’t be hard. I’m sure parts will be very hard. Some parts already are, like my courseload and the fact that I have to remember to say ‘zucchini’ instead of ‘courgette’ (not particularly hard, right? But I’m an actual idiot).

But, in the scheme of things, what’s to be nervous about? If things are hard, I’ll deal with it then. Hopefully I’ll learn something from it. I’m not going to be nervous about something I can only imagine as wonderful and exciting and all of those good things that unreal futures are. So, I’ll keep going. Tomorrow I will learn the printing-on-campus ropes, and I might even figure out the banks out here. And maybe I’ll learn something.

i’ll be spelling realize with an s

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UBC Campus.

Let’s skip the introductions and go straight into talking about how absolutely beautiful British Columbia is, shall we? Because it is beautiful. I’ve been here for a week, and so far not a day has passed where I haven’t been knocked breathless and stunned by beauty. You Canadians ain’t so bad, either. *cheezy wink*. (I mean that in a spiritual sense. Mostly.)

You may have gathered that I am not from around these parts. Perhaps, for some of you, the stunning beauty of Vancouver is something you barely notice anymore, but I know some of you’ll be like me; new to this area and feeling a little overwhelmed by the picture-perfect-ness of it all. I come from a very picturesque part of the world, as it happens, but dang, Canada. Woah.

View from Comox, Vancouver Island, across to the mainland.

I’ve moved here for just the year on exchange from the UK and being here for just the year is already feeling like not enough time. How do I go back to Norwich (famous for precisely nothing, though maybe you’ll know who Stephen Fry is – he’s a national treasure to us Brits) after a year at UBC? Amongst the most beautiful sights you could wish for, in one of the most exciting and interesting universities in the world?

Fountain opposite Irving K Barber Learning Centre, UBC Campus.

I am a worrier, and this is a genuine worry for me. But, okay, I’m going to try to do the grown up thing and ignore that for now. I’m going to try to do all those things you get in annoying motivational emails like live for the moment and seize the day. I will endeavour to suspend my British cynicism and leap before I look a little. Not too much. I’ll be the one flailing in mid-air and screaming. It will not be graceful.

I come from a tiny little place in the north of England and I go to uni in a city that is, when compared to Vancouver, minuscule. Suddenly, I’m half way across the world. Time zones are the worst thing – when I wake up it’s already evening meal time at home, and my friends are waking up for class or work as I’m heading for bed. But I’m in Vancouver. I’m at UBC. I’m mid-way into spending my first night in res and this exchange thing is something I’ve been talking about doing since 2010.

I’m finally here. That feels amazing. You can throw anything you like at me, UBC. I’m in it for the experience – for the free-fall after opening out my parachute. And I promise to wave to you all – Queen-style – on the way down. Because this is going to be a fantastic year.

Sunset from Canada Place, downtown Vancouver.

(Note: Incidentally, I have no plans to parachute off of a very high thing this year. Partly because I’m terrified of heights.  Also because metaphors are awful and deplorable things and I am not going to encourage myself to use more by realising any of them. Everything I actually do, I’ll blog about.)