The sun is shining and I just received the last installment to my most well-loved book series.
Search
Recent Comments
Featured Posts
Categories
Archives
UBC Blog Squad
Blogged 2007-2012
Category Archives: Recreation
Summertime
Oh lazy days. The lack of activity on this blog is a perfect indication of what I am not doing now: work, school, anything mildly productive…
Yup, I’m now back in HK and just bumming the rest of my summer away. At first I was bored out of my wits, but I’m beginning to appreciate the pleasure of doing absolutely nothing at all.
Apart from studying Chinese. And reading books — for pleasure. (By the way, I didn’t really enjoy All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (15th Anniversary Edition) by Robert Fulghum or the Tales of the Otori trilogy by Lian Hearn. The first book of the trilogy started out quite well, but it just deteriorated from there. Which makes me sad.) And I suppose I should be studying for my driving test too. It’s only the written test which everyone tells me is so easy it’s embarrassing to fail. Which is why I don’t want to fail.
In between playing the piano and meeting up with high school friends, I’m going to write a post someday explaining why I think the fees for Herstmonceux are completely worth it, and highly recommend people to go if they have the opportunity.
Someday.
Posted in Recreation
Learning in University
My mother read me this Chinese joke which I thought was actually quite apt:
In your first year of university, you don’t know that you don’t know anything.
In your second year, you know that you don’t know.
In your third year, you don’t know that you know.
In your fourth year, you know that you know.
Well, so far I’m on track with that, but I really question getting to the third stage.
Posted in Recreation
Rejected!
Because I only think it’s fair for me to be scrupulously honest about both my failures and my successes, the title is the result of my Creative Writing application.
What to say about it? Well, I’m not particularly devastated about this as I would’ve been about English. I’m not even very disappointed as I will be if I don’t get into co-op next term. I’m actually somewhat relieved that I don’t have to choose between an additional Creative Writing major or co-op, because I can’t have both and English on top of that within five years at uni. So I’d feel quite bad if anyone tries to console me, and I’m not saying this in that irritating way that people sometimes do when they won’t admit that they cared about or really wanted something and failed to get it because they don’t want to look like failures — I mean it quite sincerely.
Maybe I shouldn’t have applied if I didn’t care enough, but I wasn’t sure and I figured it’s better to try than to regret not trying. Anyway, I cared enough to put together a 58-page portfolio.
Speaking of which, I’ve seen that portfolio and my opinion coincides with the department’s opinion: it’s not good enough. Most of it is old, old stuff, certainly not very good for a 19-year-old. I’m sorry to say that I’m not even slightly discouraged — as far as I’m concerned, it just means I need to keep practising. Obviously I want to improve, but most of the time I’m just doing it for myself in the same way the only person who hears me play the piano is me. I do it anyway, which is perhaps the key reason why I’m not miserable. Nothing’s changed.
Posted in Academic, Recreation
Recommended Reading
Now that school is officially over, I’ve compiled a list of texts I enjoyed reading for my English classes this term. If you feel bored at any point over the summer, I encourage taking one of these up:
- “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray (poem)
- A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (essay)
- “Little Red-Cap” by Carol Ann Duffy (poem)
- Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (play)
- A Short History of Indians in Canada by Thomas King (collection of short stories)
- “Vancouver Lights” by Earle Birney (poem)
- “El Greco: Espolio” by Earle Birney (poem — based on painting of that same name by El Greco)
- “To a Sad Daughter” by Michael Ondaatje (poem)
- “Bearhug” by Michael Ondaatje (poem)
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (novel)
Posted in Recreation