Category Archives: Academic

Any Toisan speakers out there?

This is a long shot, but I’d really like to know:

How do you say ‘sesame seed paste’ in Toisan?

Knock, knock

I know who’s there; I’ve looked through the peephole. But I don’t open the door, because I’m busy with exams and papers, and they should know that. They can hear me rattling away in here, with the occasional wail of ‘I’m so tired!’ At times like that, they leave me in peace — but they don’t go, oh no. They’re sitting right there on the doorstep of my mind, waiting for moments like these when it’s temporarily quiet within, and then the knocking begins again.

It’s not that I don’t want to let these thoughts in — I do. I want to give each and every one of them the time and attention they deserve, as a proper hostess should, but I’m afraid I haven’t got enough to spare, not for all of them at once.

I’m afraid opening the door a crack will let the whole lot in, and that’ll be the end of my GPA as I know it.

(I’d really like to know when I started caring about my GPA so much. It’s not as if it reciprocates.)

But my visitors are accumulating and I think I should let one of them in. Just one, for now. Maybe if they know that each of them will enter in time, they won’t try to ram the door?

My first guest brings with her a smile and a memory that has me smiling away, too, at least at first:

About a month ago, I was sitting in one of my classes just loving the lecture that was happening before me. I was so very pleased with myself for taking this class to begin with; it was exactly what I’ve wanted for four years.

For four years. Isn’t that a long time to wait? something whispered inside me.

And that quickly, I couldn’t let go of the thought: I could have spent the last four years doing the things I really care about.

Let me throw in a couple of caveats here to explain what I mean: my life is not one long story of doing things I don’t care about. As a general rule, my UBC experiences and my degree are in areas I love. There are plenty of things I wouldn’t change, and I think one day I’ll have to write it all out, to explain the other side of the story, of why I did what I did.

But this side of the story is the one that says why I didn’t do the things I care about. This isn’t a matter of ‘I wish I’d found this sooner’, which depends on luck, but a matter of not doing the things I knew I cared about all along. Oh, I had my reasons. We all have our reasons. Sometimes these are legitimate, like financial, y’know. When we get right down to it, though, mine were all to do with fear: with being too afraid of potential failure to dare to try.

What did I really have to lose, though? Watching my dreams crash and burn, I suppose. No one voluntarily signs up for that. Except I have now lost four years’ worth of time I could have spent working hard at what I like doing, at building up my own skills, at really changing and improving and shaping myself to be what I wanted to be. And while just trying your best doesn’t always mean that things work out, I’m now feeling the edge of the cliche (or rather, its absence), of being able to say, ‘At least I tried.’

This kind of miserable thought triggers other miserable ones, such as thinking of all the things I haven’t done in the past few years that I was so intent upon in my first eager, hopeful year:

  • I haven’t written or painted or played the piano nearly as much as I wanted to — heck, I haven’t touched a paintbrush in almost six years, even though this was one of the things that made me deeply happy once upon a time.
  • I haven’t explored Vancouver nearly as much as I wanted to, despite my best intentions.
  • I haven’t gone dancing.
  • I haven’t gone to poetry slams at Cafe Deux Soleils.
  • I’ve yet to make a trip to the UBC Farmers’ Market in the summer.
  • I haven’t walked along the beach, haven’t gone biking frequently, haven’t gone swimming, haven’t sat and read on Granville Island, just listening to the music, all summer long.
  • I haven’t read all the books accumulating on my shelves.
  • I haven’t become an amazing cook or baker; I still don’t know how to make my mother’s dumplings.
  • I haven’t been brave, haven’t taken risks or pushed myself out of my comfort zone nearly enough times to even register on my mental radar.
  • I haven’t become the person that I wanted to be by the time I’m 21. I’m not even 21 anymore.

This isn’t generally an exercise I encourage anyone to do, by the way. It makes you sad. But I really wish I had thought a little more about what I wanted to achieve while I was in university before I got here — not a detailed list to follow stubbornly, because that doesn’t allow for the change that inevitably happens, but some general articulation of what I would like.

I’ve thought about making this list for the time I hit my next milestone age of 30, but that’s a whole lot trickier… How do I plan things that I want, like a family and a career, when one is not entirely within my control and I don’t even know what I want the other to look like?

The older I get, the younger and less sure of myself I feel. All the clear-cut plans I had in first year have dissipated and I’m now evasive when asked what I want to do. I don’t know what I want to do.

I wonder what the future holds for me. It's terrifying, honestly.

Or how. How will I combine and/or balance what I want with what I need? How do I pay my rent and feed myself and buy some new clothes to replace the ones I’m always mending now, and still be happy doing what I do? Aren’t these the questions facing most graduates, anyway?

I still want to do that list of things I haven’t done, to feel a little less bad about myself a year from now, when I’ll be graduating and there really won’t be another chance to change my Vancouver story.

I also want to not be thirty years old and looking back at the last decade of my life, wishing I’d taken the risk to do the things I care about, after all.

You know it’s exam season when…

… the mundane details of life become inordinately interesting.

A cube has six sides. Translated into several little potato cubes sitting in my pan, waiting to become perfectly golden on all six sides, equalled to a 25-minute-long transformation into (admittedly delicious) home fries. Note to self, should I ever do this again: dice the potato a little larger next time. Fewer cubes to turn over FTW!

… study breaks occur for increasingly odd reasons.

Among the growing pile of papers and books and general litter of my exam season room, reminiscent of my childhood pet hamsters’ interior decorating preferences, it is possible to find me in one corner obsessively folding and tucking away plastic shopping bags for future use. I mean, I need to feel in control of some area of my life, no?

… you see students carrying desk lamps around with them.

Today is not the first day I’ve seen more than one person bring their personal lamp to a common study space with the clear intention of studying throughout the day and well into the night.

Now that, ladies and gents, is dedication.

… the prospect of going outside induces fist-shaking.

I love the sun. It’s supposed to be sunny tomorrow. I have to drop off a final assignment, pick up library books, drop off receipts for reimbursement purposes and buy groceries — all necessary, important activities that I nevertheless resent doing because they cut into my study time.

Says the girl who is blogging instead of going to bed. Oh, Hypocrisy, you sit on my right shoulder.

(Procrastination sits on the left.)

How I manage my time

Usually, I’m the type of person who can remember all the tasks she has to do by when without having to write them down. I have a list of homework and when they are due in my weekly planner which I refer to once in a while, just in case, but it’s usually not necessary.

Lately, however, this ever-growing to do list has got to the point where I can’t process it all anymore, and I’ve started to plan my weeks out using a weekly planner template taken from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Sean Covey, and put together by Ammon, the owner of the blog I originally found the PDF on.

7 Habits Weekly Planner image

Those of you who’ve read The 7 Habits will be familiar with this layout, but in case you aren’t, here is how I use it:

 
1. Identify your roles in life

Typical roles include one’s role as a spouse, parent, student, worker, etc. My roles are those of a daughter, sister, friend, student, employee, and Speakeasy team leader. Depending on the week, I fill out these roles a little differently: this week, for example, each of my classes gets its own arrow, I am a team leader, and I have an arrow for myself.

I like to colour code each of my roles to make it easier to see across the page, as well.

 
2. Identify the weekly goals you want to achieve for each role

Break down what you want to achieve in each aspect or role of your life. For example, this week my chart looks like this:

Myself: piano, art, blog, write, EndNotes conference (?)

CRWR: get notes for missed classes, study for quiz

Thesis: reread forage, analyse 1-2 poems, update supervisor, email second reader

FNLG: write script, translate script, memorise

FNSP: readings, journal entry, research paper sources

TL: get materials for year-end event, do budget before April 5

When I’m done with my list, I like to number each of them off to make it easier for the next step.

 
3. Fill out each of these goals across the week for when you want to do them

Decide when you need to do each of these goals. I like to put these in both ‘Today’s Priorities’ and at the exact time I want to do them, if possible, e.g. my priority tomorrow is to complete my journal entry for my FNSP class and I want to do that at 4 pm, after I finish work and pick up some materials for the year-end event.

I also fill out other things across my ‘Appointments/Commitments’ timetable that aren’t necessarily in my goals list in terms of my different roles, but which I need or want to do for one reason or another, such as laundry, groceries, cleaning the bathroom, etc.

The evening/notes section is usually full of reminders to myself of things I need to do at some point, e.g. pick up newspaper to clean bathroom mirror.

 
What’s this ‘Sharpen the Saw’ business?

Sharpen the Saw is a reference to Habit 7 of The 7 Habits (which I do recommend reading for its many useful and important ideas, not least on time management and interpersonal communication), which is about taking the time to maintain one’s physical, mental, spiritual and social/emotional well-being in order to be at your best.

To be honest, I’m not filling this section out at all at the moment. A need to engage in more self-care? Probably, but I am also at my limit this week in terms of what I can do for myself while completing everything else I have to do… so while it’s not ideal, self-care is taking a bit of a backseat again this week. But it’s okay, I tell myself, just one more week of pulling through and I’ll be able to breathe a little more next Sunday.

Just a little more.

 
In terms of how well this works for me

I’ll be honest, I didn’t finish everything I wrote down for last week, and there were days when I didn’t do what I needed to do and had to catch up other days in other ways (read: less sleep). But I did manage to complete three quarters of what I originally set out, which is more than I would probably have achieved had I not written it all out. So that’s something.

My biggest problem with this method is that I end up feeling very stressed at the beginning of each week as I look in despair at the schedule I’ve made for myself and calming down as I slog through the days — which may not be so much an issue with time management as it is with my stress management.

Regardless, I’d like to hear how other people manage their time, should there be something better suited to me floating around out there.

And now I am off to lose more sleep. It is sad when you can’t even catch up on sleep over the weekend.

On an unrelated note, I’m reading Mary Oliver’s ‘Wild Geese’ over and over again. It’s my mental breathing space.

Updated Student Services homepage

Taking a quick break from slogging through my checklist of to-do this week to point out that the UBC Student Services homepage has been updated with new material. I’m particularly proud of these as I spent a lot of time looking for what I hope are the most relevant links and resources for students at this time of year — let me know if they are! If you have any suggestions for some useful webpages (under the Student Services umbrella) you’d like to see for the May 1st update, leave a comment here as well.

An interesting event coming up this week (which I’m sadly not able to go): Stress-Less for Exam Success is offering free tai chi, meditation, yoga, and a goal-setting for exams workshop.

Stress-Less for Exam Success (Facebook event details)
Wednesday 6 April, 12 noon–3pm
Chapman Learning Commons, Irving K Barber Learning Centre
Official registration link