New Beginnings, New Opportunities

What a crazy, intense week it’s been for me! An emotional roller coaster ride, if I ever had one! Over the past couple months, I’d started to really want to be a Res Life Advisor for a floor in one of the first year residences. The more I saw how awesome my RA’s had been for encouraging growth, friendship and fun, the more I wanted to be just like them; I could already see myself in their shoes, thinking about what I would do, how I would act. I had my entire second year of university planned out. All I’d heard from all the RA’s I knew, and all my friends was how I was definitely going to get the job, and be a fantastic RA the coming year. I was pretty sure of that too, but I knew the hardest challenge would be getting past the resume– once they saw me in an interview, I was pretty sure I would get the job.

But, I didn’t get that far. To be honest, I really have no idea what went wrong here (warning, vent time): I was a leader of two retreats, I taught English to refugees in an inner-city school, directed a Totem One Act this fall, editor of my high school newspaper, and spent the entire application giving a very heartfelt (and very truthful) account of why I wanted to RA. It’s really hard to comprehend that I didn’t get past that, and it really shocked me– all everyone ever told me was how I was definitely going to get in. Now I was, for lack of a better term, stranded; the lack of an RA position also meant I would have to devise all new ways for living near  campus, since on campus housing is probably too expensive for me the coming year. I gotta say, it hurt, a lot, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to come back to UBC.

After a day of sleeping on it, I was hired by an amazing RA in my building to do a reading of a poem of mine, after she heard me perform at a previous event, for Night of a 1000 Drawings, an aids awareness night who’s theme was Second Chances. Second Chances, I like that. It seemed to fit that it was only a day after I found out about the rejected application, and I really took heart in the theme.

I am one of those annoying optimists that believes “everything happens for a reason”. This is definitely one of those times: something happens that’s so random and unexpected to me, so out of the blue, it couldn’t have just been a random chance. Now I’m obsessed with trying to find a meaning for this setback– a path I can take now that, in retrospect, will make me happy I didn’t get that RA position for second year. There’s already a couple opportunities: people are telling me I should start a poetry club (nice thought, already been done), and working on my writing will be a big thing for me in 2012; I can now apply to be a MUG Leader, since I know I will have time to do it with RA-ing not filling up my time, and I can really get involved in Campus-life that’s not tied down to ResLife. ResLIfe, after all, has a tendency to be somewhat insular: you can join other things, but it’s easiest to stay within Res. Now, I’ll be gladly forced to look at a bigger, University-Wide, picture. The Student Leadership Conference really inspired me, to make a difference. Back then, I thought it was to be an RA. And hey, maybe I’ll re-apply for 3rd year, and maybe I’ll actually get in, but maybe I’ll find a path now that actually will make me thank ResLife for turning down the application. It’s crazy, but hey, I’m an optimist.

Second chances, new beginnings, new opportunities. It’s scary, but, like on the first day of UBC in September, quite exhilarating.

8 thoughts on “New Beginnings, New Opportunities

  1. Maybe you should apply to UBC REC! It is pretty much the only program on campus that connects people from different years, backgrounds, and majors. + there are alot of RAs also working for REC! Applications are coming out soon!

  2. Have you considered applying to be part of the SLC team for next year’s conference? I believe they’re accepting applications now!

    REC is a great suggestion from Jill — and your post reminded me of all of UBC’s several Peer Programs. If helping other students is your thing, you might want to check some of those out.

    Good luck! I’m absolutely positive that you’ll find something new that you’ll really enjoy next year. That’s the challenge, isn’t it — to make every year at UBC a new and exciting one. 🙂

  3. I applied to be an RA as well and was sure I would at least get an interview. I applied with of my other friends, one of which I was sure would get an interview as well. The other, we weren’t quite sure because she didn’t have very many extracurriculars or any other jobs. To our surprise, the one we all thought wouldn’t get the interview did. Me and my other friend, while extremely happy, were left a little confused. However, we kind of think it is because of our grades. Not that mine & the other friends grades are poor (70-78) but the friend that got selected was really high (~88). She had no other extracurriculars/jobs/experiences so I really think that Reslife people are looking for great grades to make sure you will stay on top of things when you are an RA… but that was just our conclusions. Apply next year, you never know! Good Luck and its not the end of the world!

    • yeah, I mean that’s another thing; I had a 90 avg by the end of first term. But yeah, it really isn’t the end of the world, there are so many different ways of getting involved

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