Searching for Shortcuts

The other day I took it into my head to get off at the UBC Hospital and see if it was a shorter route to Swing Space than the bus loop.

When I alighted, I decided to purposefully follow the Science students in front of me and look like I, too, knew where I was going. Of course, when they entered Woodward, I had to keep walking in a different direction as though that was what I’d intended all along.

It’s amazing what you come across when you walk a different way.

Did you know, for example, that we actually have a building called Rusty Hut? Don’t worry; I didn’t. Nor had I ever come across the Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratories

I also threaded through the Civil Engineering building (feeling like a complete fraud all the while I was walking through it — do you think there’s something wrong if I feel guilty just walking in another part of campus?).

Now anyone with a sense of campus geography will probably be able to tell at this point that I was not really going in a very direct route to Swing. I arrived five minutes later than I would have if I’d taken my usual route, but you know… those were a pretty cool additional five minutes for what I saw.

Today

I watched a bird hop around my garden.

What is your today?

Zen’s Guide to Living

Midterms season — or, depending on who you are, the break in between midterms. For me, I haven’t got any "crunches", only a few things to do every week. It never ends. Following a mini-emotional crisis last night, I decided it’s time to write this advice out, as much for myself as for anyone else who may find it useful.

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First Snow

QPR/CPR Training

QPR training is a workshop designed to help you, as a regular person, reach out and help those within your circle of contact, with the goal of preventing suicide. Much like CPR, the purpose is not to “save” a person entirely, but to administer help and support until they can access professional help.

The format is basically: Question (ask: “Are you thinking of killing yourself?”), Persuade (get them to agree to get help), and Refer (take them to or give them the means of getting professional help).

I recommend the training. No one wants to be in the situation where their family, friends or acquaintances are considering suicide, but much less do people want to be in the situation where their close ones complete it. No one really wants to be at the scene of an accident just to flex their first-aid training, but the point is: these things happen. It is good to have some way of proactively helping and dealing with the situation than feeling helpless and wishing you could do something. We are not perfect people and we are not expected to rescue anyone on our own, but we are people, and as such, we are connected to one another and are one another’s support network by our simple existence.

I got my CPR training from UBC’s Red Cross on campus last year, and I daresay they are running the training again this year.