Category Archives: Residence Life

The small things in uni life

Posted on 18 November 2007 | 3 comments

I’m going to sound obsessed, but I was walking under a covered route to the commonsblock when I heard a rustling in the trees near me. Remembering my raccoons, I wondered how they were doing, when I realized there was one standing by where I’d just passed. If I’d walked sideways, I’d have bumped into its nose. Fortunately, I wasn’t walking in zig-zags like when I am incredibly tired.

So now not only have I seen a raccoon, I also managed to get really close to one without it going berserk on me.

Another thing that I really appreciate is my tuition for next term: the figure is a whopping $3.78 in total. It’s the biggest waste of a bank transfer ever, but I love it so much. Most of my tuition was paid off by a scholarship, and because I dropped a course I paid for this term, I think the fee got moved over to pay for next term or something.

Sadly, there are so few continuing scholarships so I won’t be able to enjoy this next year. A President’s Entrance Scholarship goes up to $4000 if you get 36 points on the IB or a 96% average in a B.C. high school, I think. You have to be in the top 5% of your faculty or school to qualify for a continuing scholarship, though, and I think that maximum is something like $1500. Every little bit helps, of course, but it really feels so little — personally, I think it’s much harder to be in the top 5% of your faculty or school (many of whom have also got scholarships as well) than to get a President’s Entrance Scholarship. It should be recognised as such.

Comparing UBC to Queen’s or UofT, both of which I applied to as well, it really isn’t very impressive on the scholarship front. Both those universities offered extensive — and I mean in the few-thousand figures — scholarships in the first year and in the following years, provided that I maintained an 80-something % average. Personally, I think it’s also easier to maintain an 80-something % average than to be in the top 5% of the Faculty of Arts here. Consider how many people there are and what the top 5% average must be — my guess is closer to 90-something % than 80. Although I don’t remember the figures for Queen’s, Toronto offered something like $4000 for my first year, and the college I applied to also offered $4000, bringing it to $8000 or so. Now that is an extremely attractive package and I wish UBC came a little closer in matching up.

3 Comments

Posted in Academic, Residence Life

Vanier Wildlife

Posted on 14 November 2007 | 4 comments

I was hurrying along outside Vanier yesterday evening when I saw what I thought at first was a dog-sized squirrel in the middle of the pavement. A split-second thought reminded me that squirrels are not that big, so perhaps it really was a stray dog — and then I saw its stripy tail.

Raccoon.

It was turning around in circles on the pavement and I couldn’t walk around it. Having never seen a raccoon in person before, I side-stepped behind a giant rock and watched it from a short distance. I didn’t want to provoke it by accident. (One of the scenarios we got during first-aid training this weekend was, funnily enough, a raccoon bite.) From the safety of my rock, it was very easy to admire the raccoon — and then another one emerged from the bushes beside it. Two raccoons! I didn’t know there was a nest of raccoons right here on Vanier.

A car passed by, they hid inside the bushes again and I continued to walk on. Unless you knew, you would think that rustling was just another squirrel (or a rat — I’ve seen one of those at Vanier too), or even the wind. But no one else saw them. I never knew they could be so big.

4 Comments

Posted in Residence Life

A life in a day

Posted on 31 October 2007 | 5 comments

So we’re now a quarter of the way into the academic year, with three more to go. It’s also application season for high school senior students, so I thought it would be a good idea to write about what a typical day is like for me.

My day actually began yesterday. I stayed up until 1:30 am to write an essay that is, ironically, due on Friday. Academic staff recommend students to write their essays ahead of time so there is time to revise and make a good job of them. I don’t think they meant for us to lose sleep over them ahead of time as well, though… However, I really enjoyed writing it and couldn’t stop once I got started. It’s so much more fun to choose your own titles on a subject you actually care about.

It’s quite hard to sleep early when living in rez. There is always something going on — tonight is obviously Hallowe’en. I went to the Haunted House at Hamber with some friends, and had a great time. I’m impressed by how much they managed to do in such a small space. I wish I’d screamed, but I was laughing too hard. It’s the first time in ages since I’ve got out of my room properly. Even though I’m exhausted tonight, I’m still not going to be able to go to bed for another hour. I hope we don’t have a fire alarm tonight — we had one two Fridays ago, and we all had to troop out to the commonsblock at two in the morning. The alarms here are piercingly high and painful, so you have to get out just to save your eardrums, even if you don’t want to leave your bed. Unfortunately, the alarm at the commonsblock went off too, so we got chucked out into the field, and then it began to drizzle while the firemen sauntered around. We all went back twenty to thirty minutes later, but not before one of the RAs yelled, “Who was watching porn on the big screen?” Our new big screen TV in the house lounge has obviously been put to use…

These many late nights, coupled with the later sunrises, mean that I get up late as well and don’t have time to eat breakfast before I go to class. I almost wish that someone would take my milk from our floor’s fridge, just so it won’t be wasted. (I buy giant jugs of them each time.) Our floor is pretty good about not taking other people’s food. But I don’t really wish it. In fact, I’d be pretty peeved if anyone took my milk, so please don’t take it. It’s mine. Hiss.

My meals have been rather atypical today. Some friends told me that there is a caf in Buchanan A. I was astounded. We have food in Buchanan? And I didn’t know about this? What is the world coming to? I’ve been hunting out feeding-grounds to satisfy my appetite, which has been increasing exponentially ever since I came to UBC and had to start walking around. Oh, for hyper-convenient public transport again! Vancouver’s transport system isn’t actually too bad, and Translink is a great trip planner for the newcomer — it did, however, once get me stranded in the middle of nowhere, so I don’t entirely trust it anymore. The best part of it all, of course, is that we have our UPasses, transport tickets that basically give us free reign of the public transport system, covered for in our school fees. Yay, free transport! Especially wonderful for commuters.

Returning to the topic of food, though, Vanier’s caf food is not too bad. Totem tent people might say something different about theirs. I actually still quite like the food here — everything except the Asian food. Those are just all wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. (People tell me the quesadillas here are fake and disgusting, but I’ve never known otherwise, so I’m able to continue eating them in perfect bliss.) And there are other yummy places to get food — Suga Sushi down in the Village is my best suggestion for sushi on campus, if you insist on it. I’m heartbroken that Cafe Crepe isn’t open anymore, though. I love their crepes beyond anything else containing an egg.

For someone who almost fell asleep swing dancing — I feel so sorry for my partners for my completely slow reactions; I can’t even remember how to do that new dance we learned today, and that was basically just walking in a straight line — I am horrendously verbose. Actually, that is probably why I am rambling away in the first place.

Goodnight!

5 Comments

Posted in Academic, Commuting, Orientation, Residence Life, Wellness

Getting Involved

Posted on 30 October 2007 | 5 comments

The ultimate piece of advice that everyone seems to give me is: Get involved! Find — or carve, if you have to — your niche at UBC.

It’s not as easy as you think, though.

In the first quarter of the semester, I was hardly in residence because I was running around to my many club meetings. I missed out on a lot of residence activities like Graffiti Night and the Vanier Hallowe’en party because I didn’t buy a ticket on time for one, and had to study for a mid-term for the second. That is the second reason why I’ve been missing out a lot: I’ve been studying for the second quarter of the semester. I think I’ve only participated in Vanier Olympics-related events so far, and I’m really glad I did — I had a lot of fun!

This is why I am so excited to be taking part in Sock Wars. What is it? Everybody in the house gets the name of someone else who has signed up. Your job is to throw a clean, empty sock at them when they are not in the safe zones and when they are not holding the safe item of the day. You don’t know who is socking you. You might not even know who your own target is. So I’m really looking forward to that, and I’ll just shout out in advance to whoever is socking me:

Please give me at least three days of fun before you sock me. I don’t want to be out of the game so quickly; goodness knows when I’ll be able to do another residence event.

So I must be really busy with my clubs, you’d think. I joined nine of them, after all.

Unfortunately, the only two I go to with any semblance of regularity are the Dance Club (ballroom) and Swing Kids (swing dancing). I’ve plugged both of them before so I won’t bother to do it again. And the only reason I go to those regularly is because I paid for my lessons — at least there are lessons, otherwise they would just be a waste of time.  (I’m really enjoying them, by the way. Plug plug plug.)

Other clubs are either too disorganised for my taste, or they clash with my schedule, or some other equally valid but irritating reason. I’ve been searching for some kind of volunteer work to do, and by that I mean hands-on, interactive volunteering. I’m not as fond of writing petitions as going out and talking to people, preferably children. Each to their own. Unfortunately a lot of of volunteer activities, both on- and off-campus, require people to be at least 19. I’m not 19 until March. Boo.

When I realised that UBC clubs depend almost completely on the vision and activity of their presidents, I searched around for more ways of getting involved. Sadly, it’s a bit late now to apply to Trek Learning Exchange. Sigh. Oh well. Next year! I’ve applied for the UBC VP Students Emerging Leaders Program in the meantime.

Right now I’m trying to go after a child literacy program and another volunteer position at a hospital. I’m skeptical about how well these will work out, but it’s try, try again, isn’t it?

This finding my niche thing is really turning into a stab and try again approach.

5 Comments

Posted in Involvement / Leadership, Residence Life