Category Archives: totem park

Tips for when you get sick on campus: DON’T

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I have been back on campus for a week now (a WEEK, man, why does UBC start this early?) and yet I have not posted. Why, do I hear you cry? Because I got sick and it was debilitating and I survived and now here I am. Blogging.

It wasn’t really that bad, just a fever/cold/cough/ache/thing, but it sucked because nothing sucks more than getting sick on campus. And I really love a moan, so let me just moan for a second about how the Totem caff’s food is truly unappetising when you’re sick, you can’t focus on the readings for all the classes you’re supposed to be going to, and no one is there to tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get to class already.

But I am trying to think of positives to being sick, for this post would otherwise be a pointless one, so here are three things that got me through the sickness:

  1. Magda’s – if you’re a Totem Park resident, you and Magda will already be firm friends, and for anyone who doesn’t know what Magda’s is, it’s the 5:30-11:30pm grill and mini-market in the Totem Park commonsblock. But while I was sick I didn’t exactly fancy chicken strips – Magda’s do, however, stock a small but relatively comprehensive range of medicines for your every cold/flu/cough/stomach bug related need. Wunderbar.
  2. Netflix – the wonders of a ruined attention span because of a fever don’t matter when you have a whole catalogue of movies and shows to watch. And it’ll even keep your place for later if you decide (like I did) that The Hour is just too high-brow watching for your brain right now and switch to Clueless! Netflix doesn’t sponsor me – I wish – but if it did, I couldn’t love it more than I already do.
  3. Warm things – endless blankets, pajamas, insane amounts of tea (and, not a warm thing, but the amount of orange juice I have drunk in the last few days must be record breaking. Be boosted, my immune system! Boosted!), soup, sweaters (or jumpers to little old British me), and the heating turned up for the first time since I got here. Warm things, guys. They make the world go around and they make lives better.

(If you promise not to tell anyone I will reveal to you secret no. 4: that boyband I have to pretend not to like because I am too old to be their target audience brought out a video this week, and it is, at once, insane, ridiculous, and delightful. We will speak no more of it.) (One Direction are a plague on my existence. You think I’m not serious. I am deadly serious.)

avoiding the curse of study irritation and exam-time fallouts

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I have vanished from here because studying (all the studying – all of it in the world) has swallowed me whole. I had three final papers due this last week and, wow, third and fourth year literature courses at UBC are not for the faint of heart (or people who like to slack off and procrastinate on tumblr, like me).

Still, I am done with the papers and on to the exams. Which is no less stressful, but does give me a little more free time. Not that that’s a good sign of a work ethic.

Exam period is always an awful time, but I had forgotten how stressful it gets living with people who are also stressed out at this time of year. It can be really not fun, and it’s getting to the stage where everyone just wants to go home for a few days to chill out.

There are a couple of things that have been working for me when I’m trying to keep my ‘irritation at life’ levels lower than ‘oh my gosh I am going to have to kill someone’, so I thought I’d give sharing a bit of a go.

#1. Napping.

There have been studies that show that people who nap are happier than other people. You can bet Scrooge wasn’t a fan of napping. I found a handy tool that shows you when it’s the best time for you to nap through the day, and it’s helping me to stay level headed. There’s no better break from studying than getting to go to sleep. (Warning: double the irritation may occur if the people you live with do not respect your nap time. Pretty sure it’s grounds for homicide in BC, though, so you’re good.)

#2. Spending time with people other than those you live with.

Res Life can get pretty close-nit, and you might know everyone on your floor, maybe even a fair few people in your building or in the whole of your Res complex, but if you’re anything like me then you probably find yourself spending more time than is healthy hanging out with the same people. All the time. And that’s great, best friends are best for a reason (sorry, that was awful), but I’m beginning to get to the stage where even the most endearing traits are starting to annoy me. The fact that they annoy me is starting to annoy me. And with no classes and all that studying, I’m finding that I don’t get out much.

So spending time with other people, fresh faces, people whose stories you still don’t know yet, or even Skyping a friend or family member from back home, can really recharge you, friendship-wise. Even spending time with that person you don’t really like so much might not be the worst idea ever – maybe they have hidden depths (personally, I am the worst judge of character ever – some of my best friends are people I hated the first few times I met them), or else maybe they’re just as awful as you always thought, and it reminds you why you like the people you spend all your time with after all.

#3. Laughing at something, anything.

There have been lots of studies about how good laughing is for your health. I’m not going to track them down, because they’re in the news every other month (and I have procrastinated from studying long enough already). But: laughing is very good for you, and if you get to that stage in studying where it’s laugh or cry, I know which I’d rather be doing. If you need something to set you off, I’d recommend a good comedy. Romcom, sitcom, dramedy, whatever. I have lots of specific recommendations for all, but that’s maybe for another day when we aren’t all procrastinating (and I assume that’s what you’re doing, being on the internet during finals, but I can hardly judge).

Studying is hard, and looking after yourself is hard, and being stressed while being surrounded by other stressed people is hard. But, hey, it’ll all be over in a couple of weeks, and then we all get time off to recharge. Things and people and (if you’re in Totem or Vanier) caff food won’t be so irritating on the other side of the New Year, I promise (and I hope).

Finally, another handy little tool I’ve been using to stop myself from Procrastinating (with a capital P), is a thing called Self Control. It allows you to set up a blacklist of websites that you don’t want to access – say Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, You Tube, your email – and a time that you don’t want to access them for, and then it blocks those sites for the duration of that time. It means you can still use the internet but you can prevent yourself from using it for anything other than your studies. It only works for Mac, but there’s a rough PC equivalent called Anti-Social, too.

Happy studying!

nanowrimo: writing a novel in thirty days

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National Novel Writing Month

November is a month for a lot of different challenges. There’s Movember, Goalvember, and the challenge of getting through the last four weeks of term. It’s a mad month. I already feel all over the place.

So guess what I did? I signed up for NaNoWriMo! Because I am in possession of a rational mind and I thought that would be a great idea in the (second) hardest month of the accademic year! You know what, though? I am gonna win this thing.

For everyone who hasn’t heard of it, NaNoWriMo stands for the National Novel Writing Month, which is a worldwide challenge held over the web by a charitable organisation called the Office of Letters and Light. The idea is to write a 50000 word novel in thirty days. It’s not easy. That amounts to about 1667 words per day, and that is every single day for the month of November. It is not for the faint of heart. (Says me, as though I’m doing some epic quest.)

In my experience, though, once you’ve tried it, it’s not something you give up trying until you win. This year will be my fourth attempt at it, and I’m hoping to last out the first week this time. But there are lots of reasons why someone might chose to put themselves through this. Maybe they want to cross writing a novel off their bucket list, or maybe they want to learn how to write without having time to second guess themselves. Maybe they want to finish a creative project for the first time. Maybe they’ve been doing it for so many years that a November is no longer a real month to them without writing an odd 50k.

In Totem we’ve got a group, run by the Totem Times, who are participating in NaNo. You’ll be able to see our weekly tallies in the commons block, too. And if you want to join in, well, you’re only a day behind! Why not try it? (I am currently a day behind, too, and I promise that it is possible to catch up.)

If you’re interested and you want more info, I’d recomend having a poke around the NaNo website. And, if you decide to participate, or you already are, there’s a special section of the site just for student NaNo participants and our very special issues.

So, wish me luck!

32 things i did at ubc that you can totally do too : thing #4

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THING #4: SAW THE SUN RISE FROM THE WRONG SIDE OF NIGHT

Sunrise from my window.

Let me preface this by saying that all-nighters are evil. Sometimes they’re a necessary evil, but evil. All-nighters leave you feeling awful the next day. They are not worth being able to say you’ve pulled one. It’s really not that great.

However, this was not an all-nighter. Not a studying so hard you don’t sleep all-nighter, anyway, and it was pretty brilliant. It being a Sunday when I went to sleep helped.

The night started with drinks in the floor lounge with floormates. I was supposed to be going out, but we made a large sort-of bed with all the couches in the room and I was way too comfy, so I got left behind and ended up crashing a movie night instead! Best decision I think I’ve ever made? Why trek across Vancouver to stand in a line, and then pay $20 to then wait half an hour, to spend another $7 on a drink, when you can laze around with friends and watch a really great movie? (I did say this’d show how lame I can be, didn’t I? I have definitely said that before.)

“I saved Latin, what did you ever do?” – Jason Schwartzman in Wes Anderson’s ‘Rushmore’, 1998.

We watched Rushmore, which is a fantastic movie. Would recommend. Then – and it was about 1am at this point – we heard a rumour of a movie marathon in one of the other Totem houses. We crashed it. It was a Harry Potter marathon. Another best decision ever.

After watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, we headed back to the floor lounge and hung out with the guys who had just got back from Downtown Van. There was pizza and weirdly philosophical meandering talk, and three of us stayed up until five. None of us were tired, and we just talked a load of rubbish (sorry: trash – but, wait, does that even have the same meaning here? Still working on my Canadianisms…) and it was really great.

Then watched the sun rise from my bedroom window before finally sleeping. Sometimes all-nighters are worth it all.