From the obsessive galore of sparkly and fuzzy stickers, to running around chucking a chicken I’m sure the level of maturity of me and my fellow Residence Advisors is highly questionable.

I just arrived back in Vancouver yesterday after having spent five wonderful glorious days at UBC-Okanagan campus for UBC Residence Advisor Training. The last time I was in Kelowna was about the fifth grade on a family road trip but I truly forgot how absolutely beautiful the place is. Besides the 35 degree heat, which many Vancouverites would fine overwhelmningly sweltering, I found it, while indeed hot, just a great vacation with a taste of what it would have been like if I had stayed in Ontario for the summer.

Our days were full of many workshops, team time and general Rez Life family bonding. But one thing was for sure: I got thrusted back into “summer camp syndrome”. I define this as the feeling as if you are summer holidays, specifically a young child a camp. Your meals are planned out for you, you have designated ‘Rec Time’ and you don’t have to worry about “real life” stuff like homework, work, money, security etc. You are just there to learn what you can, make new friends and have fun.

Not only does this justify all behaviour that resembles that of a six year old at summer camp i.e. running around like a goof, spontaneously bursting into (camp) songs, screaming for stickers of Justin Bieber role model stickers, or eating an insane amount of catered food. It probably makes people outside of the Rez Life community seriously question our qualifications for managing other students as an RA.

Many people might say, “Nicole, you’ve been sucked into the cult.” And while I would agree with them, all I ask is for anyone reading this to try and understand balance. This may be the toughest year ahead of me with so much stuff to do I know it’s going to be hard to time manage and balance everything.

The point is, in light of the name of this blog, life is constantly changing and we have to deal with all of those changes. So my goal for the year is to try and be aware of all the changes my friends and residents are going through. Not to get mad when they can’t hang out, not to be frustrated our schedules conflict. Just try and understand that everyone has their own agendas, priorities and we all have to do what we gotta do.

For any nearly-there-oh-mah-gawd-there’s-just-four-more-days-left-future residents, you should know an incredibly passionate good looking team of RA’s await you across UBC. After meeting everyone, part of me actually did start to wonder how everyone was so physically attractive, whether it was a secret requirement or something and then more importantly – how the heck did I make the cut?

Of course I can’t wait ’til move-in on Saturday because we’re basically going back to the basics of kindergarten (at least for the first week or two). Have fun and make friends. Check and check.