Sliding back into the Vancouver routine

Happy New Year to anyone who reads my blog, and I hope you have a good one.

I’ve been having a pretty lovely break at home, but now I’m getting ready to go back to Vancouver and to all the problems associated with that, namely ordering course textbooks.

You’d think it would be cheaper to go to the UBC Bookstore — they have a practically guarenteed market. But no. They are notorious for overpricing everything they sell and underpaying for everything they buy back used. Buying and selling between students is usually a better deal. There is a used bookstore down in the Village which has better prices, but which don’t necessarily have all the books you need. That said, the Bookstore isn’t a hundred-percent reliable either.

Since more than one person recommended amazon.ca to me, I’m using that. There are also many booksellers on amazon who sell for even cheaper, depending on the book. (Shipping and customs costs usually make ordering from US booksellers redundant, in my case.) My mistake, however, is to be ordering too late: I ordered them the day I left. No. Order two months ahead. I’m watching my estimated delivery date be slowly pushed from latest December 24th to latest January 16th. Really not that bad, but last time I wanted something, they pushed it back two months. Hopefully this will not be repeated.

With that rant done, there are some pretty exciting things going on this term to look forward to: volunteering for a children’s literacy programme, the Student Leadership Conference next Saturday, the Trek Learning Exchange programme (signed up just to see for now), my classes — once I sort out the Linguistics/English problem — are all ones I like, and I want to reorganise the furniture in my room. I’ve been planning how it will look so much, I’ve even had dreams about it.