There should be some kind of warning sign for this

Posted on 8 October 2007 | 5 comments

So I was clicking around the SSC randomly because what I really want is to find out if the FNSC building is the Food, Nutrition and Health building for a club meeting tomorrow (because SC stands for Health, of course), but the courses section isn’t working —

when I decide to click around the examinations area and find that, ta-da! —

exam dates are out, and why did no one mention it before? There should be some kind of warning: Oh yes, by the way, exam dates are out so you can mentally prepare yourself for December. What if I never checked until November? That would be bad planning on my part. How long have they been out? I have no idea; no one has even mentioned the subject so far.

So my exam schedule looks like this:
Thursday 6 December: Chinese 211 (8:30-11:00)
Saturday 8 December: Anthropology 103 (12:00-2:30) [my first non-music-related exam on a Saturday!]
Tuesday 18 December: English 220 (8:30-11:00), and Computer Science 101 (3:30-6:00)

Alas, two exams in one day. That does not count as an exam hardship (which would have to be three exams or more within twenty-four hours). Oh well, it’s not so bad. In fact, it could be a lot worse.

And now I am plotting to see if I can leave for HK a day earlier and make it in time for my secondary school’s end-of-term Christmas parody.

Now to find out about that FNSC building…

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Posted in Academic

Missing-people-sickness

Posted on 6 October 2007 | Comments Off on Missing-people-sickness

Almost everyone who has to move away to come here will feel homesick at one point or another. Some people are lucky and surf right over it.

There is very little that makes me miss my family and friends more than being sick. I’m very lucky that I don’t particularly miss Hong Kong as such — I like the place more than I used to give it credit for, but as a rule, Vancouver feels more like home than anywhere else now. Still, sometimes I want my parents very much.

Vanier is eerily quiet for a weekend; almost everyone who can has gone home for the long Thanksgiving weekend. This would probably have made me feel more wistful for my own family if I hadn’t had dinner with my brother last night and if my parents weren’t coming to visit us soon. They’re going to be here in less than two weeks. I’ve marked the date with a big sign on the academic calendar I bought from the Bookshop that is now hanging on my door. (P.S. Go to UBC Bound! events prior to coming to UBC. They give 10% discount Bookshop coupons. These are very good and useful.)

I miss my old friends more than usual when I’m ill. I miss having people who’ve known me anywhere from the last three to thirteen years, people who have seen me at my absolute worst and still love me anyway. It’s hard not to feel lonely occasionally when there isn’t anyone who knows just how often you get sick or what you are saying when you begin to make whining noises.

But my new friends are lovely too. One came over from Totem to give me medicine, which I love her very much for. Another has been tolerating my worrying — I worry at small, specific things like a bulldog at a bone — and my tears last week when I was particularly miserable and unwell. Others have been checking up on me regularly, and things don’t seem so bad after all.

Keeping in contact with family and old friends is my biggest key to staying okay while making the transition to my new life here. Facebook and emails are my main device for keeping in touch with most secondary school friends. Vox long-distance calling cards are excellent for phone calls — a call is usually less than two cents a minute, so use these if Skype isn’t an option! I like Skype too, but I do a lot of my calling when I’m walking around campus.

Still, what with everyone else going home, I’m keener than ever to see my parents and to go back to HK for Christmas.

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Posted in Wellness

Going global

Posted on 5 October 2007 | Comments Off on Going global

Before I came to UBC, I was quite keen on doing some exchange programmes. That was actually one of the things I was considering when applying to the UK as well, but then I remembered that there are only three years and it would be kind of pointless to be traipsing about elsewhere if I wanted to do a straight English degree. Only now that I’m here, I’ve decided that I’m not going to go on exchange during the academic year.

Thanks to the IB, I have a lot of transfer credit. This makes me eligible to apply for third-year English at the end of this year, and as English is what I want to do more than anything else, I want to stick around and study as much as I can as fast as I can. I also want to do Creative Writing, which is essentially only open to second-year students. (Which reminds me, I need to check whether being a second-year student doing third-year English makes me eligible for Creative Writing. It would be too cruel if I wasn’t eligible next year, wouldn’t it? Because I couldn’t enter second-year English this year until I got my IB results, which were well after registration dates, so I wasn’t eligible when everything became full either.) I might still think about going to Glasgow for third year, but then again, I’m also thinking of doing co-op, so it’s one or the other. I’ve also noticed a lot of the partner universities only offer lower-level courses, which I am personally no longer interested in.

Despite this, I still plan on going abroad. I sincerely believe that going to different countries opens you up to so many new experiences, opportunities and challenges. After talking with some secondary school friends who went to places they’d never been to before to pursue their tertiary education, I have to say I am envious of their courage and the rewards they are reaping because of it. I am learning the hard way that great rewards only come with great risks. I wish I took bigger risks.

And so I am going to apply for summer school — or more specifically, the Spring Term (May to mid-June) at Queen’s International Research Centre in Herstmonceux for 2008. Credit transfers very easily from there; you do three courses there, equivalent to nine credits at UBC. My parents are very supportive of this idea (more so than the idea of me staying on at UBC for summer school).

I also have dreams of volunteering abroad one summer. I’m not sure where that would fit into my schedule… I need serious help planning out my degree with all the stuff I want to do.

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Posted in Academic, International

Sleep is good for you in so many ways

Posted on 2 October 2007 | 5 comments

I was planning to go to the UBC Careers Fair tomorrow and Thursday, but I am so exhausted that I don’t think I can make it, so you go for me!

I went to the doctor today mainly so my mother won’t worry as much far on the other side of the world, and there isn’t anything majorly wrong with me that more sleep and rest won’t cure, so I’m following doctor’s orders. My sore throat which started a couple of days ago is mostly gone, although my nose is stuffy and I’m running a fever again.

P.S. To international students on the iMED or domestic students on the Global Campus Health Plan, both offered by David Cummings Insurance Company, go to the University Village Medical Clinic above Staples. The clinic does direct billing to the company so you don’t need to deal with claim forms on your own, something I know I don’t feel like learning when I am sick. I didn’t have insurance thingymabobs to deal with in Hong Kong, so this is an entirely new concept to handle.

I’d just like to add a few words about sleep: It is good for you. I need about eight hours of sleep a day to function happily (it’s an improvement from my nine-and-a-half minimum requirement during secondary school, but apparently that is the average time needed for teenagers — adults need eight). I used to sacrifice my sleep to catch up on schoolwork and then I’d get sick because I was too tired and miss school, meaning I’d have to catch up on homework and schoolwork again, leading to me not sleep — it was a vicious circle. During the IB, I insisted on my having adequate sleep so I wouldn’t miss school as much. This sleep regiment of mine meant I couldn’t really procrastinate as I needed to get everything done in time for bed. Funnily enough, or not really, sleeping more meant that I was well-rested and processed everything quicker, so I could do better in school and finish homework faster than if I stayed up all night.

Mmmmmm, bed.

5 Comments

Posted in Careers / Work, International, Wellness

Touching on taboos

Posted on 30 September 2007 | 3 comments

So I woke up this morning with an infected throat. I slept too late for two nights in a row and this is the consequence. To those of you who, like me, cannot stay up all night, here is a tip: Don’t.

Now I’m just rather miserable (but the sickness might explain why I was feeling miserable earlier on this week). I hesitate to write the rest of this, but in my current frame of mind, I am not particularly happy about being here at UBC. Now I feel like I just broke a taboo. People are so happy and proud to be here. I was happy and I want to be happy, but I’m not.

Quite frankly, I’m going through the phase of questioning whether I made the right decision in coming here and whether UBC is really the place most suitable for me. Most people don’t talk about it, but I don’t believe that I’m the only one who’s ever asked herself those questions. And not just whether I made the right choice in coming, but whether I’m making the right choice in staying. I’ve been worrying a lot to my secondary school friends lately because it hasn’t turned out the way I wanted it to be. My classes — even my second-year ones — are not very challenging and this is frustrating me immensely. I expected things to be harder, to push myself beyond my current limits, but it’s not really happening. There is plenty of material to learn and a lot of work, but not extremely hard work. And I find I love brain-fry.

People say come October/November, with mid-terms and what-not, everything will get harder. But that seems to be more a time management issue than the academics getting much harder. I’ve also had varied responses as to whether third-year gets very much more intense in terms of material; some say yes, some say no, I really don’t know.

Of course I should be waiting to see what mark I got on my first essay before I say that things are easy because I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. I wish that’s the case.

This negativity of mine could all just be part of a cultural transition. Though I don’t think so — I never expected or wanted to stay in Hong Kong for university.

Plus I think I’m about to get homesick. And it’s still raining.

Now to go hunt for my laundry. Sundays are very busy days for the laundry rooms.

3 Comments

Posted in Academic, Wellness