Let’s see… in all the years I’ve been at UBC, what have I done with my Reading Breaks?
2008: Participated in the UBC Learning Exchange Reading Week Project, which I highly recommend doing at least once in your time here.
2009: Jet-set across Canada to visit my UofT friends. I think we actually did study together one day of that week, so that counts as having done my reading, no?
2010, AKA the two-week Olympics break: Flew to New York for the first week to visit my friend there and came back the second week with the intention of getting all my homework done, but not doing any of it at all. I think I was watching the Olympics and just lazing about. I really should have just stayed in New York that second week as well.
2011: Went skiing for the first weekend (which doesn’t really count as Reading Week), went to work for the first half of the week, and developed mysterious food allergies in the second half of the week. My hives were horrendous, and neither the doctor nor I have any clue what could be causing them, since I haven’t done or eaten anything new. Am currently on antihistamines that are the equivalent of sleeping pills, my friends tell me. I’ve been trying valiantly to do some of my readings, but I can’t honestly tell you how effective this is.
Lesson learned (all too late)? Just take a break from school and don’t give myself the extra guilt of ‘I should be doing reading’. Old habits die hard; it’ll never happen. Clearly the hives are Nature’s way of enforcing this ban on reading upon me.
(In other news, I just started a new blog keeping track of a whole other kind of reading.)
As usual, the UBC Student Leadership Conference was a great start to the term. Drew Dudley was amazing. The Buried Life boys were cool. If there were a few pieces of advice I would give to new students, one of them would be to go to the SLC at least once during your time here. Like many things in life, you simply don’t know if you’ll like something or not until you give it a go. So give it a go.
I trust that my fellow bloggers over on the UBC Blog Squad will give a much fuller and more exciting account of their experiences on Saturday, so I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to share what I have actually been rethinking, as a result of the SLC, and also of my own thinking over the last several months:
Significance.
Let’s think of it in terms of leadership first, because that’s what the conference was about anyway. The conference which I’d faithfully attended for three years and was seriously considering not attending for a fourth.
You see, in third year the question I asked myself had changed from ‘What can I do on this campus?’ to ‘What have I done?’ I wasn’t really happy with the answers. In fourth year, the question has become even more pressing, and I felt even more dissatisfied, particularly when I compared myself to the many high-achieving students that I know and hang around — you know the kind, the ones who seem to do everything, and everything well. Many of these truly admirable, wonderful human beings were presenters and facilitators at the SLC this year — and part of me didn’t want to go because I was afraid of thinking, all the time I was there, how much they were giving and how much I was not. It took some encouragement on the part of one of the SLC Faces of Today (who didn’t know what I was thinking, bless their heart) for me to sign up, but I was still nervous about feeling lousy.
Until I got an email about opening keynote Drew Dudley, and I knew it was going to be a good conference.
His story hits home for me because it clarifies something I’ve been wanting — and struggling — to believe: that the small things matter.
As Drew so eloquently pointed out, we’ve made leadership into something bigger than us, a title that has to be given to us by other people. We think we can only be significant when we’ve made big changes, so most of us go about thinking that we’re not significant, because we’re not among the exceptional 10%. We’re so used to considering that topmost tier as the standard of excellence that we fail to acknowledge the hugely significant groundwork that’s been covered by the other 90%.
And yet what we do everyday is perhaps what leaves the greatest impact for all of us — including that top 10% — because they are so daily.
The Buried Life guys were lovely, but they didn’t affect me as much because I already have lists (e.g. Day Zero) that ask me what I want to achieve by certain set dates, rather than my death-day. It’s never a question of what I want to do before I die — because frankly, I could die at any time — but how I want to do it all. How do I want to live my life?
A couple of months ago, an old classmate from my primary through secondary schools died after a decade-long battle with cancer.
Over the winter break, one of our volunteers also passed away.
I don’t really know about their other commitments and achievements, but I do know that they were both exceptional in the lives of their families and friends. Their love and kindness mattered. They were significant in the gentlenesses they exhibited and the sincerity and enthusiasm with which they approached their lives. They were important.
For most of my life, I thought I had to do everything in order to get the upper edge on someone else in university, job or other applications. I was inspired by the sheer number of meaningful activities that the student leaders who mentored me in my first and second years here could do, and told myself I had to be like them before I could think of myself as significant. I’ve made my resumé as jam-packed and high-achieving as many other people do (particularly in my first two years here) — yet I’m not feeling any more significant than when I started at UBC. I still worry that I’m not competitive enough.
And there are an extraordinary number of people who manage to achieve extraordinary things in their limited time. It’s a little impossible to hear the sheer number of activities with which the SLC Faces of Today and the Nestor Korchinsky nominees are involved and not feel overwhelmed and admiring. They deserve to be recognised for what they do.
Not everyone can be like them, however — and the rest of us end up despairing, because we don’t know how we’re going to stand out in what sometimes feels like an ocean of exceptionality.
I’ve got a theory I’m going to test, though: be passionate.
Some people do things just to put on their resumés. They don’t really care. I can tell you that at Speakeasy, we don’t want that kind of people, and if we, a volunteer organisation, can afford to look for the people who want to be here, then it stands to reason that larger organisations which are going to pay you will ask for the same. Caring about what you do will make you significant.
I’m not saying you don’t need skills and qualifications to succeed — obviously you do. What I’m saying is to get the skills and education you need and get involved in the things that matter to you. This last clause is important, because there are plenty of people with skills, but a shortage of people with passion. Find what you like, and do it well, because when you really care, you make a difference. Passion is one of those things that is hard to fake; we can tell when someone genuinely believes in what they’re doing, because it lights them up and changes their whole being.
Doing twenty things at once is surely impressive, but doing a few things you are truly passionate about will also make you stand out.
Doing what you care about is also what will stand out to you when you look back on this period in your life. I’ve been reflecting a lot on the things I’ve been involved in, many of which I’ve enjoyed, but few with as much dedication as I devote to Speakeasy. I want more of that — more times when I feel like I’m committing myself to something I really believe in, more certainty that I am giving something back to the community.
Finally, I’ve decided to stop moping about what I haven’t achieved and focus on what I can still do in my time here. I want to be significant and do the things I care about, to have the courage to follow my dreams (the ones I hide under my bed because I’m too afraid to tell people about them).
More importantly, I want to be significant to the people around me, on a daily basis. Because I’ve decided that if I change the world in some large way yet neglect the people around me, I will feel like I’ve failed somehow. Even if I don’t change the world, however, as long as I feel like I’ve been important to the people around me everyday, I will be okay with that.
Dear Person with Many Criticisms About the World and Everyone in It,
Your breadth of knowledge is admittedly astounding, and certainly a quality to be emulated, but I’ve been wondering for a while now… What have you done to change the world you’re so critical about, and who have you helped today?
The weather forecast said it would be 20°C, so naturally, I went running out to work in a short-sleeved top and open-toe sandals, only to be greeted by a sharp, biting chill in the air I haven’t felt for months. Autumn is definitely here and our last day of summer was probably on Saturday, when the skies were blue and the air still held caresses of warmth.
Fortunately for me, I had the best ending to my summer spending it at Lonsdale Market, eating a beavertail and watching people dancing on the quayside. My friend and I ended the day with delicious Afghan food at The Afghan Horsemen by Granville Island and just having a good heart-to-heart. One of those perfect days (marred only when my sunglasses dropped into a toilet bowl that luckily had nothing else in it).
Goodbye summer, hello autumn.
Despite the fact that I’m moving stuff into res in a couple of days, it still came as a shock to me when someone said, ‘So, do you want to meet up this week or when school starts next week?’
Ohemgee. What do you mean, when school starts — ohemgee, school starts next week!
And suddenly there is a lot more to be done in a lot less time. Things must be moved, my home must be cleaned, training retreat must be attended, books acquired and read, work to be done (x2), a steady job to be found, and the list goes on.
But there are also a dozen things to look forward to on Imagine Day:
A free pancake breakfast.
Free highlighter pens and lip balm (SPF 15!).
A free barbeque lunch.
Apparently also free cacti plants, if last year is any clue to go by.
Free things, in general.
The fact that we don’t have to go to school until Wednesday. (Although apparently University of Toronto gives their students the whole first week off. Boo to us not having the same.)
If you don’t know what’s going on that day, check out the UBC Events page. One of my favourite resources, it’s the most comprehensive site of events going on at UBC at any time of the year. Currently it’s exhibiting a fantastic makeover courtesy of UBC Orientations. I am really proud of them for doing such a brilliant job last year — although I had no interest in Imagine Day besides the fact that we didn’t have to start school straight away, I loved the atmosphere far more than I expected. Result? I have every intention of signing up for as few shifts at the Speakeasy booth as possible this year, and do other equally important things, like getting cotton candy. Free cotton candy!
Also worth checking out is AMS First Week’s calendar of events. While I never get the wristband because I never have the time to go to enough events to make it worthwhile, I definitely recommend going to watch at least one UBC Improv show! Those guys are fantastic.
If you’ve got any other suggestions for things to check out and/or do during next week, let me know! Especially if there’s food involved. Free food. ♥
I admit, I was thinking of not going. After all, I’ve attended for the past two years running. I can do something else with my first weekend back. Something different. Something productive. I mean, the rest of my weekends this month are already booked up; I won’t be able to do anything for myself until February. That’s too long.
And then I thought about all that a little more. Seriously, what could I possibly do on Saturday that would be more productive than attending the SLC? And is this “to do” list in front of me a list of things I actually want to do or things I think I should do?
Yes, I’ve attended the SLC twice in the last two years — and it’s been my first big highlight of the winter term each time. Each year, it has reignited my commitment to involving myself with my community, and pulled me right out of this black hole of moping and homesickness that I inevitably wallow in at the end of every winter break. I’m pretty sure it’ll do the same for me this year, because I’m already excited and feeling a little more energetic since I finally made myself go through the pamphlet listing all the featured presenters and workshops — and what amazing, exciting ones there are! I’m only a little sorry that I didn’t register sooner, because two of the workshops I wanted to do are full.
Worth the $30 registration fee? In my honest opinion: Yes, absolutely. Of course, everyone differs on this point, but I think the only way you can find out (if you’ve never been) is to try it, just once.
This is definitely what I want to be doing with my first Saturday back.
