The start of a dream; the start of a new beginning.

So, Totem’s Dene is participating in the epic game of sock wars, or “assasins” as called in Ontario.

Essentially, the name of the game is to get socked. At the beginning of the game, everyone participating is assigned a target. This could be anyone in the building. There are also safety items. If you have this item on you, and your target sees you, he/she can’t sock you.

So rules of the game are as follows;

1)      You must sock your target when he/she doesn’t have his/her safety item on them.

2)      Your room is a safety zone unless you invite the person who has YOU in.

3)      Bathrooms of the same sex are safety zones.

4)      You must report that you hit your target within 24 hours to the house president, otherwise the hit is void.

So the past week, everyone has been on edge. Our safety item were a pair of sunglasses. Doesn’t sound like much right? Wrong. It’s kinda stupid when you’re wearing sunglasses on your head at the birdcoop or in class when it’s a rainy day! I got some weird looks. But whatever, its all part of the fun. I’ve been forced to condition myself to always have those glasses on me.

Thursday, 1:34 AM. Fire alarm goes off in Dene and Nootka. I’m groggy. I’m annoyed. I reach for my regular glasses, and completely forget about my sunglasses. We all walk outside to the commons block, and the second I walk out of Dene, I realize how vulnerable I am. I start freaking out, my heart skips beats. I’m desperately trying to find sunglasses. We all walk into the commons block, and I see the person that has me as a target, on her tippy toes, searching and scoping me out.

I’m not sure how you guys feel right after waking up, but stuff doesn’t make much sense to me. For the longest time I hid behind my friend while my assassin searched for me. Next thing I know, she’s sprinting at me, sock in hand. Instead of running to the guys bathroom, which was 2 steps away, I ran to the other side of the commons, screaming bloody murder and making a commotion. Mark ended up in the girls bathroom. Inevitably, I got socked. So so bitter.

Now everyone around me gets to wear their next safety item for a week straight, which I can happily say would go against my hygienic code. Those still in have to walk around in their Dene house shirts. Sucks, because you cant wash it without being scoped out, and almost nothing goes well with orange.

That`s my rant.

On a side note. I hope everyone voted. Its kind of a big deal!

Ok that’s going a bit far, but my life has been a ridiculous abyss where everything is lost everywhere. Before I’d misplace the occasional item, get upset about it, and then get over it. But, this problem seems to be getting worse.

For example, I misplaced my rez keys 6 times since I’ve been here. That’s a $95 dollar surcharge because they have to completely replace the lock if its lost.

Next is my wallet. That was a borderline nightmare. Scratch that. That WAS a nightmare. It happened right before the Christmas break, and I almost didn’t get to fly home because I had NO identification. Luckily though the Translink Lost and Found centre downtown had it. Getting there is a whole other story, haha.

And the icing on the cake is the helmet and goggles that are somewhere in Whistler now. This past weekend, I was double checking for my phone, wallet, and keys every 20 minutes. No word of a lie. As I was walking out of the change room, guess who forgets to check for the helmet! Ces’t la vie. I get to use my spare goggles and go helmetless and be stupid until I get a new one.

So for those of you like me, here are three key rules I’m going to start following to avoid losing and misplacing things:

1. Organization: Your things must have a special place. Never leave your things wherever you are. Go put each thing in its specific place so that you’ll be able to find everything automatically, even if your room is messy.
2. Verification: Always verify if you are bringing with you everything you need when you are leaving the home of another place. Always check to see if your keys, wallet, cellular phone, umbrella, etc., are with you. Verify even if you are sure they are with you. This way you can make this verification an automatic reaction that will help you prevent future problems.
3. Attention: Since you know you have this problem: you are always forgetting and losing something, pay attention to everything and don’t be indifferent to this characteristic of your personality, because it will make you suffer.

I really hope these rules help. By the way, anyone going up to Whistler any upcoming weekends? Give me a shout! Maybe we can shred together !

Kinda obvious what I want to do. I didn’t see Ebakes there, but I was over on the right hand side of the room, laughing at the fact that the RA alumni were practically all married to eachother, so to speak. One of the guys mentioned he had 4 UBC RAs in his family? Makes sense.

Being an RA has been an interest of mine for a solid few months now, and it all started with befriending the advisors themselves. I went to the “Make Your Mark” presentation and I came out with an even cooler outlook on the job. Not only do you get to meet tons of cool new people, you also learn tons of life skills that look really good on a resume. Who knows, maybe I’ll even meet Mrs. Right and join the society of married advisors, haha.

Watch out future first years, Mark is about to do his rounds.

Yesterday I went to the coop since like…start of exams? And let me say that I’m slightly disgruntled. My body has gotten so used to not working out, that it basically went to crap and shut down on me. I was lifting 10 – 20 pounds less on certain exercises then I was before. Kind of a let down. So basically, Mark is kicking it back into high gear.

When I first signed up for the coop, my goal “plan sexy by December” was to look so different that people back home wouldn’t recognize me. Majority of the people couldn’t. This had to do with my drastic hair change (hair-apy after thinking I failed my first midterm), and me filling out 17 pounds. Yet, I didn’t get the results I wanted!

So the new years resolutions is to work out 4 times a week, an hour and a half each. Only trouble is, sometimes its hard to group certain body sections per day; I tend to jumble workouts.

I’m taking the same supplements as before, only this time I’m trying to not forget about them. There were days where they were just not taken due to oversleeping and leaving in a rush, hah.

I’m taking:

Whey Protein Supplement, low calorie (NOT a weight gainer)

Genuine Health products, including Lean+ and Abs+, these both contain natural ingredients such as green tea extract, and tonalin CLA which supports faster fat loss, and increased production of muscle fibres.

So in any case, I’m hoping, the new revised “plan sexy by birthday (april)” will be a bigger success then the first.

What are YOUR resolutions guys? Best of luck!

P.S. I noticed a huge increase of people at the gym, which could only mean that many others have the same goal in mind.

P.P.S. My pecks hurt today, whooo! Yesterdays workout must be new and more intense muscle tears. Stoked!

Here I am, back in Vancouver reminiscing on my time back home. It seemed so short, filled with so many amazing memories, seeing old friends, catching up on stories, and celebrating the holidays with family. I’m so utterly content with everything that’s happened. And to think, I got so caught up in it all that the Blog Squad actually disappeared from my memory for a time period! It wasn’t until Ebakes blog like facebook video to her friends made me realize how much I’m failing at doing my part.

So basically, majority of the time spent was with friends. About 30% was family time, regretfully admitted. More or less, I had repeated visits to local resteraunts, starbucks, movies, and splitzville; a newly renovated bowling alley/bar that didn’t card, bahah. Then there were the Christmas parties, and probably the most epic new years party I’ve yet to experience. I found myself wishing I had more time back in the hammer, but truthfully, there was a need for normality as well. In the past 4 months, the constant reading, 3 AM shinanygins, and exploring campus, has all become part of the norm routine. Not to mention all the friends that have been made; UBC is nothing without them. I kinda call Vancouver home now.

So a list of things to do in the near/immediate future;

–          Get settled into rez, unpack appropriately (note to self, don’t forget keys)

–          Go over distance education tutorials for EOSC course

–          Update resume and fill out application for Residential Advisory next year

–          Housing application for first year, keep forgetting!! (anyone else worrying about lottery?)

–          Figure out my New Years resolutions

That’s all I can think of atm. More to come soon! I’m thinking one New Years resolution can be updating the blog more often? That’s a good start :).