Category Archives: Off-Campus Life

Commuting Life

Posted on 4 September 2008 | 6 comments

Today marks the third official day of my new commuting life, and I am pretty tired. I am also in an almost-permanent state of hunger but this is due less to commuting and more to my currently undesirable cooking. Rest assured, I’ve been told that through sheer practice I will improve by next term.

In the meantime, I just eat a lot of fruit. At least that’s good for my health.

I see why people often say it can really suck to live off-campus in your first year. I already know people from last year so finding someone to eat lunch with me is simply a matter of calling them. Quite different to not knowing anyone at all.

Which is why everyone should think carefully about what kinds of activities they want to get involved in and then join at least one of those, and then maybe another club you’d never thought of, just for the heck of it. Clubs Day should be coming up pretty soon, and while I have learned my lesson from last year (do not pay to join 9 clubs because you will not go to all, if any, of them), I’m still excited at the prospect of doing something new. I’m also interested in checking out some things at the REC Centre next week, which happens to be their Shopping Week simply bursting with free classes.

In the meantime, though, turn around to the person sitting next to you and introduce yourself. I’ve found more than one lunch companion that way, and at least one really amazing friend who goes beyond just lunch. But it’s a great start. (And really not so scary after you do it a billion times. Trust the introvert.)

And if you’re lucky enough to live in rez, make the most of it. I miss being able to just walk over to someone’s door and go, “Hi!” and then talk for half an hour.

I did, by the way, get offered Vanier residence over the summer; I was originally waitlisted at 1132, so there is always hope! But I turned it down because I wanted self-catering facilities; while I pigged out at the Vanier caf this lunchtime, I don’t miss it nearly enough to eat there everyday. You see, my rice cooker makes good rice.

That would be #1 on my list of things I like about living off-campus.

#2 would probably be my rule to not study when I go home. I force myself to be on campus from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm everyday and just study. This can absolutely suck after three hours, but it’s a wonderfully liberating feeling to arrive home and not need to do anything school-related anymore. All the time after 5 is time for me to do other things I’m interested in, which didn’t really work out so well when I lived in dorms.

#3. I have salsa and crackers for when I am really hungry. How many people in this world really have ready access to salsa? It helps me to keep things in perspective.

But the thing I like most which I least expected is my bus ride. While I’ve discovered that I need to leave rather early if I want to have a seat (and being the lazy type, I do), the view I get going to UBC is worth it. For one thing, we pass through Pacific Spirit Park. How many people get to see a regional park everyday? But better than this, if I scan carefully on one particular stretch of the road, I can see glimpses of the sea. And this is what I was most loathe to give up — I love being able to see mountains and ocean everyday.

Which is another reason why I like taking a window seat. I never feel quite complete without it.

6 Comments

Posted in Commuting, Off-Campus Life

Woodlice

Posted on 23 August 2008 | 3 comments

I’ve just spent part of my afternoon hosing stuff down and getting grossed out by certain bugs that look like a cross between cockroaches and slugs (or what I imagine slugs to be, since I have never actually seen one in person). These are apparently woodlice and I’ve spent another part of the afternoon studying them online and trying to let myself be convinced that they are utterly harmless. Now I feel like quite the murderer, after trying to drown a flock of them that emerged from under the garbage can outside, and also stepping on a few (not that I liked stepping on them at all).

I feel like I’m going through a cultural clash, except instead of being between East and West, it’s between concrete-and-steel and green wildlife. I promise you, one gets the heebie-jeebies when one encounters bugs that one has never seen before.

And I am sadly too put off by them now to harvest the strawberries since they are living under the strawberry plants as well.

3 Comments

Posted in Off-Campus Life

Jet-Lagged & Heartbroken

Posted on 17 August 2008 | 1 comment

To my shocked disbelief, I awoke at 2:30 this morning and could not get back to sleep, no matter how much I wanted to. I had to give up by 5:00 am as I was getting hungry with the effort. I cannot remember ever being this jet-lagged before; usually I’m marvellously good at adjusting when I come back to Vancouver. Ah well, I’m trying to last until 9:00 tonight and hoping that I’ll sleep soundly until some saner time, like 6:00. (Which is not that sane for summertime, I guess, but it’ll do!)

Otherwise the UBC Bookstore (and Genevieve) will encounter a bleary-eyed and thus liable-to-blubber child. Am currently mildly heartbroken with the Bookstore for introducing the iclicker (which doesn’t quite trigger the same emotional response as an iPod does with me) without some earlier warning. If I’d known, I’d have sold my PRS clicker off at the end of term one rather than save it because I think I’ll need it again this year. Now it’s just redundant and I’m left feeling that the only connection the Bookstore wants to have with me is not the deep emotional one that I crave, but a purely financial and materialistic one. Oh the wish that it would care about my welfare, being in such a position to create undying loyalty. Sad face.

1 Comment

Posted in Academic, Off-Campus Life

In and Out of Rez and Canada

Posted on 2 May 2008 | Comments Off on In and Out of Rez and Canada

Last Sunday saw my departure from Tec de Monterrey and into my new home off-campus. To my incredulity, my brother’s friend (who kindly came along with my brother to help me move) said that I didn’t have a lot of stuff. I beg to differ: for such a tiny person, you wouldn’t think I’d fill up two cars with suitcases and moving boxes. I didn’t sleep very much on Saturday night since I was busy packing.

When I think about that statement, however — that tiny people shouldn’t have as much stuff — there isn’t really a good reason to think so. Small people wear as many clothes as tall people, though tall people’s shirts and trousers may be longer… Vacuum cleaners, ironing boards and drying racks don’t come in different sizes for different heights: it’s all the same. So the amount of stuff people have has absolutely nothing to do with height. I should stop being heightist against myself. Yet I look at other people my size and wonder why I have so much stuff anyway.

My neighbour is a very nice lady who dropped by to leave a pot of lavender and a card to welcome us to the neighbourhood. We weren’t home at the time and when I went to pay back the visit, she wasn’t home, so I left a thank-you note. It’s so touching to be welcomed into a new place! I’ve put my lavender plant and Celestia (my orange flowers that don’t smell) outside in the garden in their respective plastic pots while I’m away. Hopefully they will not die but the rain is the only watering they’ll get in the next six weeks.

Because I’m here in the UK! Most people have gone off to the pub so I need to run and grab a shower before they come back. I arrived in the early afternoon and it was a two-and-a-half hour bus ride from Heathrow to Herstmonceux, but here I am, and the castle looks just like it does in the pictures, no Photoshop required. I’m not living in it — I live in the residence a few minutes’ walk down the road — but I do take meals in the Great Hall (which does not, unfortunately, look like Harry Potter because the tables are round or short and square instead of long and rectangular wooden ones) and I will have my classes there. Did you know that this was where the original Chronicles of Narnia was filmed? I bet you didn’t. I didn’t.

To top it off, I applied for a single room (with the possibility of having extra charge) but lucked out and now have a double room to myself at no extra cost. How exciting! I’m hoping very much to visit friends and/or be visited, but it’s hard to tell.

Class schedules are from Monday to Thursday. My classes begin at 10 am earliest and finish 10:30 pm latest. Kind of ruins my beautiful plan to sleep at 9:30 pm but I guess I’ll just push back waking time. At least, I hope I can, because my body is obnoxious and insists on waking at 7 am most days. Fridays are free because of planned field trips and so on over the weekends. Whenever I don’t have a trip, I want to be travelling or exploring the surrounding area. Not that there seems to be much — we are pretty much in the middle of nowhere and there are many fat ducks who aren’t scared of us at all, and many many rabbits!

And with all that ramble, I’ll end with two brand-new tags. I should also make a note of the time of writing as I don’t know how to change my settings for timing here just yet: 9:32 PM.

Comments Off on In and Out of Rez and Canada

Posted in Go Global, Off-Campus Life