Author: musaku

Categories
Recreation

The Great Granville Grenouille

All weekend people have been gone and there’s only so much that I can do by myself. I had enough of studying, so I decided to go back to Granville Island. I’m not really sure if I can say I went back there since I don’t really remember much about the first time I was there, but it was much more awesome than I remember it being. Anyways, I took a trip there for Thanksgiving and I didn’t know of any good places to go, so I just wandered around.

I was amazed at the amount of shops there that were run by local artists – I haven’t seen anything like that in California (it probably exists, but just not as prominent). The one that caught my eye the most was Forge and Form which is run by a gold and silversmith who makes absolutely amazing jewelery. Even though I’m not a big jewelery person, I loved the style and how it was all handmade, but since there were no price tags on anything, I had to assume it was way too expensive for me to even contemplate buying in the next 20 years. It was really interesting just to walk through the various shops that I knew were ridiculously expensive (but also for a good reason) and see what all people were able to make.

As weird as it may sound, another amazing place was the Kid’s Market. There was so much there that reminded me of my childhood – the games, puppets, toys, etc. Also, if I was a Harry Potter fan, the best place in the world would be upstairs in the Halloween store. I only bought a hat at the store, but as a nerd I still definitely appreciate how they had wooden hand-carved wands for each of the characters in a velvet bag and a nice box.

My trip ended with a trip to La Baguette & L’Echalote (the map they gave me was in French, but the store name was similar to that if not the same), which as you may guess is a pastry shop. Since I’m the crazy science student who wants to be a pastry chef, I couldn’t resist going in and at least looking around. And that’s when I found The Great Granville Grenouille (grenouille is frog in French). There is no way I could eat this grenouille, he’s way too cute, but he reminds me why I want to be a pastry chef.

Categories
Recreation

Arm Hurting: Renaissance Style

No, the time machine that took me back to the Renaissance is not what hurt my arm. In fact, I took a bus to get there. You take the 33 at the bus loop, get off at East Blvd, get on the 16, get off at Seymour, walk down two blocks and ta-da! You’ve officially arrived in the Renaissance.

You must think I’m crazy right about now, but after hearing about Academie Duello, I insisted on taking this trip to the past. While I was still in California, I always wanted to take a sword class. I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t find anything. As I was wasting time on Facebook, while I should have been reading (no matter how much I read, I always have more), I saw an ad for this place. Facebook ads are usually terrible, boring, and usually scams (they have been in the past at least; they are getting better), so I had doubts on whether this place actually existed since it seemed that such places do not exist in the world (from my limited research). I believe that you can sign up for a free class on any day that they have classes, so the one that I chose was on Saturday and luckily it was the first Saturday of the month (that means that the class rotation schedule starts over again).

It took me over an hour to get there since I was lost and their website didn’t help much since they just moved a few days prior, but once I got there, it was amazing. Once the class started, we learned how to hold the rapier, stand properly, and other various basic things. Being the weak person that I am, that rapier is not easy to hold, so I switched sides a lot, which also confused my brain when telling me how to stand and how to lunge. By the end of the class, my rapier was mostly touching the floor since I wasn’t used to holding it yet.

The end of the class was the most interesting part though. It was a rank test day (I’m not sure if they do this when there aren’t rank tests), so they had everyone in the room stand in two lines, no matter your skill level, and practice. It was quite intimidating since I had just learned everything about 20 minutes prior, but I met a lot of interesting people who helped me with my technique and they were all very nice.

To get a better feel for it, here’s the video from the end of the class that I just mentioned. I’m towards the beginning if you look hard enough.

Categories
Residence Life

After the mob died down…

I decided it would be a good idea to clarify my last post and give a short update to my life.

Bonjour arts students and all that I have offended with my last post. I just wanted to let you know that making jokes is part of my style. I would rather read something that makes me laugh or smile than something that is hard to read, boring, and too serious. Before I came to UBC, I was a very serious person and looking back on it, if I was an arts student, I probably would have been at least slightly offended by my previous post. When I came here, I vowed to let go and become more lighthearted, since being so serious all the time was driving me crazy. The point of my last post was to give people a general understanding of my day, which would be really quite boring if it was just that, so I decided to add in the “stereotypical arts student” part to make people laugh. I’m not really sure what the “stereotypical science student” is, but I’m sure that it is a lot of what I am and a lot of what I am not, if you have any ideas on what he/she would be, let me know in the comments. Anyways, while I’m still on a serious note, I want to acknowledge the hours of hard work that all of you put into your studies, whether you’re in arts, science, or any other faculty. I’m aware that most of you are nothing like “John”, but I also know that there will always be a few people out there in every faculty that are like him. Cheers to all those who are not and are working hard to learn!

(Side note: I have been asked to moderate the comments due to rude and inappropriate ones being posted. Please be respectful.)

Anyways, when I’m not in class or doing reading that chomps away at my time, I have been getting more settled into my room. I was afraid that when I came here, it would be too gloomy for me (even though the temperature is just right), so you’ll notice that I added a lot of colour to my room through curtains, plants, and posters. Here are some pictures:

NW corner

NE corner

SE corner

SW corner

Categories
Academics

The Stereotypical Arts Student

From the perspective of a science student.

We will call him John because arts students are pretty generic and they’re everywhere. John wakes up at 10 every morning to go to his creative writing class, which starts at 12. Then, he takes a 2 hour break and goes to his music class. After that, he meets up with some friends and they go to the beach. They go downtown for dinner, come back and party until 2 AM when they go to sleep and repeat the process. There’s no need for him to read or study since his classes are so easy and they never assign anything. And he doesn’t have any extra part to his classes like labs or tutorials, maybe a discussion group where they actually just talk about what they’re thinking and half of the class thinks that your random thought is entirely brilliant.

I wish I was John and I’m sure a bunch of arts students do too.

Now for the life of a science student…from the perspective of said science student.

Continue reading “The Stereotypical Arts Student”
Categories
Academics Commuting

Rule of the day

So you’ve read 20 pages for Physics and then you have to read Medea by Monday and you have Science Frosh tomorrow and you get bored and distracted. What do you do?

It’s more like what you don’t do.

What you don’t do is decide that the week after you’re going to have to read Macbeth and you’re going to need some help with that. Then you don’t look up to see what book stores in the area have No Fear Shakespeare for it and you definitely don’t go to the Chapters at Broadway and Granville. But while you’re there, you might as well look for things you entirely don’t need, but they sell, like scented candles and “rock out with your lock out” key covers. Then don’t spend about 20 minutes looking at those and another 45 minutes looking for the Shakespeare section to find that it’s actually under the header “Large Print” near the poetry section. At least that’s a little productive, now you have something that will be useful in the future.

And then most of all, do not decide to go out to dinner “because you’re in the neighbourhood.” Because then, you get out of the neighbourhood by taking the 17 at Granville, which despite saying “17 DOWNTOWN” on the front in huge yellow letters, you still think is going towards UBC. And then you’re on the Granville Bridge. … …

So I took a nice tour downtown and eventually ended up at my destination, which I have not previously mentioned but should have, has the most AMAZING sushi ever. It’s called “The One” on Broadway, Google “The One Japanese Restaurant” and you’ll find an address. My favourite is the kiwi roll (I get it with kiwi, unagi, cucumber, and crab meat).

Anyways, the rule of the day is: If you’re totally bored with reading, dancing is a much better option than going somewhere. (But it was totally fun and worth it XD)

Categories
International Residence Life Wellness

10 ways to win my heart <3

Dear future husband,

If you wish to make me happy, this is what you can do to make me feel like I’m at home again:

1. Let me use your car – Waiting for a bus/shuttle is a pain sometimes and going up a hill on a bike is not much more fun. (If it’s a dark blue Mustang with white racing stripes, that makes it so much better.)

2. Buy me ice cream – Do you know how expensive ice cream is?! In the SUB, I got an ice cream and it was $4.19! I thought maybe he charged me for two, but it was only one. Luckily this problem has been fixed by the caf’s lower ice cream prices, but…

3. Feed me on my schedule – I’m told the caf is not open past 7 (7 is my normal dinner time), so usually I get hungry before I go to bed, which means I need to keep food in my room all the time. And it better be good food too because I’m not going all the way to the village to get food at midnight by myself XD

4. Get rid of the moths – There are moths in this building. And it is disgusting. End of story. (Especially when you find them in your shower and then on your towel after your shower, followed by them flying frantically around your head.)

5. Send me things – I open my mailbox and there’s nothing in it and it makes me sad. I don’t care if it’s junk mail or a bill, I just like getting mail :)

6. Replace my wall with pillows – The wall next to my bed is more fatal than it looks. The past few nights I’d knock my head against the cement wall, so I put a pillow there. Last night, I was rolling over while half-awake and in my circle to roll over, I slammed my head against the wall, above where the pillow was. I remember saying something like “I can’t go to class today, I have a concussion.”

7. Hold my umbrella while I’m inside – So that I don’t get it out of my backpack, put it in my lap upside-down, and have the water pour out of it so that it looks like I peed myself.

8. Let me pet your dog – I miss my dog! I miss him more than anything really since he can’t Skype as well as others can. I almost feel like I’m attacking dogs when I see them and pet them since I’m just so excited to see them.

9. Help me decorate my dorm room – My mom did a lovely job helping me, but if there’s white space, I still think there’s room for improvement! XD She put a red curtain in my room and a few plants (real and fake), which really made my room feel more homey.

10. Take care of me when I’m sick – Going to the UBC hospital with pneumonia that was supposed to be much better already within the first week or two of arriving in the country is absolutely scary. Thanks Dad for going with me!

My dog, Charlie
My dog, Charlie :)
Categories
Residence Life

Phew.

I have officially been in Vancouver for a week and today’s basically my first day off. It’s been really tough since I’m an only child and I’ve always lived in the same house, so everything has pretty much been the same for me for my entire life. Now I have a shared bathroom, everything smells weird, and there’s a bunch of people without pneumonia having a lovely time around me, which makes it a bit harder of a transition, but I’ve learned a bunch already.

Here are some of the weirder things I learned:

  • Check the washing machine’s reputation: I had an experience today where there was a bit water sitting on the inside of the washing machine, but since everything was just foreign to me, I thought it could be normal. 30 minutes later, the whole thing was filled with bubbles, so I thought I put too much soap in and I ran it again. 30 minutes after that, there were still bubbles and all of my towels were soaked and quite disgusting. It was at that point I found out that washing machine was broken XD
  • Choose the bigger shower: We have two showers to choose from, I took a shower in both and I was so cramped in one, I could barely move to do the things I needed to, the other was just a little bit bigger, but it made a big difference.
  • If you aren’t 19, bring a parent if you can: It’s difficult to get a phone and a bank account if you aren’t 19, I’m told. I had my dad with me (Thanks, Dad!) so I didn’t experience any of this, but a bunch of friends have had difficulties.
  • Go to places with international students: I’m from the States so technically I’m an “international” student, but we still have Safeways. It is amazing to see someone who has never been to a Safeway look around. You can definitely learn a lot from them.
  • Know where there is food: I walked to a bunch of different places today and nothing was open, so I’m glad I had a bunch of different options. Also, crepes are amazing. I already knew this, but in California, honestly there’s only one good crepe place that I know of and in Vancouver, every crepe place I’ve been to is outstanding.

And a list of things I’m really glad I have:

Continue reading “Phew.”
Categories
International

Arrival of the Fittest

Vancouver Day 1

Part 1: August 16th

I have officially arrived in Vancouver! Luckily, my altitude headache was taken care of as well as my boredom, so the flight was quite lovely. Customs was very nice and let me in more easily than I expected and issued me my study permit with no difficulties. The hardest part was the luggage, I have two full sized hockey bags and a backpack filled with anything I could fit…which probably won’t be a good idea, but I figured, “We’re paying for the extra weight/size so I might as well make good use out of it!” With the pneumonia, it was so exhausting (even with my dad helping) to get all of our bags through the California airport then through the Vancouver airport and finally through our hotel. And I’m going to have to do it again on Tuesday. (When I say full sized I mean that they’re about 40″x15″x18″ and 50 pounds each (I have no idea what that is in cm and kg, I’m still getting used to Celsius XD))

The most awesome part of the day was when we got our rental car. A black Mustang convertible with a white tape stripe <3 For anyone that knows me well, they know that my favourite car is a dark blue Mustang with white racing and tape stripes. So being able to be in one and ride in it in the most amazing place in the world was just beautiful.

After freaking out about the Mustang, we got to our room, went to go eat dinner at Red Robin (it’s a tradition that we go there every time we’re here), and then looked out of our huge windows and stood on the balcony to admire the sunset. It’s really amazing how beautiful it is (if you don’t believe me, look at the picture I took) and I can’t wait to see more. And now Monday awaits my visit to the bank, the Rogers store, and campus :D

Continue reading “Arrival of the Fittest”
Categories
Wellness

It’s been a week…

…since you were accepted to the Blog Squad. Where have you been?!

How’s about pneumonia? Or…well I have no other excuses, that’s been about it. Lying in bed, visiting my grandmother with my “I am feeling amazing and I am definitely not sick!” face on, going to the doctor, and watching excellent time wasting game shows has been my life since Saturday.

It’s really quite amazing how long you are entirely content with sleeping when you are feeling terrible and how easy it is to go from being “Okay, seems like I’m getting better now” content to the “OH MY GOD I THINK I HAVE SOMETHING SERIOUS!” panic mode within 10 seconds when you hear “You should go get your blood drawn and a chest x-ray. Oh, and do you need a wheelchair?” For someone who’s never had a chest x-ray or been in a wheelchair, it’s pretty frightening.

But anyways, life is returning back to normal until Sunday when I leave for Vancouver!

And I leave you with my random thought of the day: “There is a cat on my bed. She looks like she could use some pancakes. Or a sundae.”

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