{"id":24,"date":"2009-08-23T21:55:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-24T04:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/?p=24"},"modified":"2009-08-23T22:05:13","modified_gmt":"2009-08-24T05:05:13","slug":"phew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/2009\/08\/23\/phew\/","title":{"rendered":"Phew."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have officially been in Vancouver for a week and today&#8217;s basically my first day off. It&#8217;s been really tough since I&#8217;m an only child and I&#8217;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&#8217;s a bunch of people without pneumonia having a lovely time around me, which makes it a bit harder of a transition, but I&#8217;ve learned a bunch already.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the weirder things I learned:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Check the washing machine&#8217;s reputation: <\/strong>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<\/li>\n<li><strong>Choose the bigger shower:<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n<li><strong>If you aren&#8217;t 19, bring a parent if you can: <\/strong>It&#8217;s difficult to get a phone and a bank account if you aren&#8217;t 19, I&#8217;m told. I had my dad with me (Thanks, Dad!) so I didn&#8217;t experience any of this, but a bunch of friends have had difficulties.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Go to places with international students: <\/strong>I&#8217;m from the States so technically I&#8217;m an &#8220;international&#8221; 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.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Know where there is food: <\/strong>I walked to a bunch of different places today and nothing was open, so I&#8217;m glad I had a bunch of different options. Also, crepes are amazing. I already knew this, but in California, honestly there&#8217;s only one good crepe place that I know of and in Vancouver, every crepe place I&#8217;ve been to is outstanding.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And a list of things I&#8217;m really glad I have:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A laptop:<\/strong> There have been a bunch of people without one and it&#8217;s been really useful in staying connected with people and being in the same routine (getting up in the morning and checking Facebook and other various sites). Even if you don&#8217;t get internet in your room for some reason (mine is currently broken), there are other places to get it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A cell phone: <\/strong>This really made my life a lot easier by not having to buy calling cards\/figure out pay phones\/have a private conversation in a not so private place. Since I only have to call back to the US, there&#8217;s a plan for that, so I feel more connected, especially since it&#8217;s an iPhone. Also, if you can get tethering on your phone, I would recommend it (A few months ago I would have entirely ignored that). My internet has been broken and the only way to get internet in my room is through tethering.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Flip flops\/thongs: <\/strong>I don&#8217;t know what you call them, but I call them flip flops and they are amazing for showers. I&#8217;m one of those people that doesn&#8217;t like to touch\/use other people&#8217;s things, so having my feet not touch the floor is just wonderful.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A fan: <\/strong>It&#8217;s Vancouver, and it&#8217;s supposed to get cold, but if you&#8217;re one of the people who came here because it&#8217;s going to be cold, you&#8217;ll still want a fan just to make sure you&#8217;re cool enough :)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bowl\/utensils:<\/strong> Again, I don&#8217;t like to use other people&#8217;s things, so having my own bowl and whatnot is lovely.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Water: <\/strong>I get randomly thirsty, so having water within arm&#8217;s reach is useful.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Personal items: <\/strong>This really goes by the person, but I brought my pillow and stuffed animal, which always makes me feel more at home and I also brought the kind of shampoo\/soap that I use. Even though it&#8217;s a new adventure, that doesn&#8217;t mean that you need to buy too many new things, you&#8217;ll feel more foreign.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Planner: <\/strong>Good for organization\/remembering people&#8217;s birthdays\/knowing when to do laundry :3<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tissues: <\/strong>They&#8217;re like paper towels, but softer :D You can use them for a bunch of things (cleaning something up, blowing your nose, crying, making a place mat for your food, leaving notes on) and they&#8217;re not that expensive.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Canadian currency: <\/strong>I brought $200 in American with me to convert and I opened up a bank account, so I won&#8217;t have to deal with trying to find someone that takes American dollars (and looking like an idiot in the process) or entirely run out of money since I didn&#8217;t bring enough to convert.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Knowledge of where things are at UBC: <\/strong>I felt like I really didn&#8217;t know many places, but the places that I did know were the most useful ones, so I ended up helping a bunch of people find things even though I&#8217;m new too. Some good places to know the location of: your residence, your friends&#8217; residences, SUB, the village, IKBLC, the bookstore, and the bus loop.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Anyone have any tips to share?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have officially been in Vancouver for a week and today&#8217;s basically my first day off. It&#8217;s been really tough since I&#8217;m an only child and I&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-residence-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}