Riding a bus = swimming an ocean?

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In my world – yes.

The very first song my friend taught me how to play on the ukelele was Kelsey by Metrostation. The lyrics go something like “I’d swim the ocean for you x3”. But lately I’ve been spending more time on buses than I did for months during the school year. I wonder how long it’d take me to travel the width of the ocean via bus? Let’s have a minute to ponder…

I’ve firmly established my hate/love relationship with BC Translink. But all it takes is one bus driver to change all of that. I remember doing groceries earlier in the year. (Cheapest groceries? 10 minute bus ride on the #4 to Alma @ Paul’s No Frills) I had two huge bags in my arms and saw the bus coming so I started running. It could’ve left, the bus was absolutely packed with people but instead the friendly bus driver waited for me and grinned when I stepped aboard.

The transit system is fabulous don’t get me wrong. I can’t imagine not having my UPass and thank heavens I intend on staying in school forever until I get my Ph.D which means I’ll have one for a while (assuming I stay at YOU BE by the SEA). But it’s really fabulous in Zone 3. Zone 2 gets a little iffy and by the outskirts of Zone 1. Ford help you. Guess where I am, folks? Yup, the land of no buses.

I’ve made many voyages so far, twice gotten close to the brink of tears, daily venting on how unpredictable public transport is, many apologies later for tardiness I always seem to make it so let’s hope that BC Transit don’t fail me now!

Point is, I have a new appreciation for commuter students and am so please I won’t be one of them yet! I’m quite pumped to be living at Totem again next year. Already started designing what my door decorations are going to look like. How am I going to top last year? Crossing my fingers my friends are still willing to help me decorate by rasterbate photos of themselves onto my ceiling.

In other news, I’ve been keeping busy at the museum. This week spent lots of time in the museum archives with my cute little cotton gloves on going through sepia coloured newspapers from 1950. Even though I’m looking for advertisements and clippings on agriculture my favourite snippets to read include the many many many wedding annoucements and “Dear Doris” advice columns. Sixty years ago girls still had boy troubles and wrote in. What a surprise!

Volunteered at the UBC Alumni Weekend, which was a lot of fun. I’m not Arts One alumni. When did that happen? But really cool to meet some alumni who read just as many books as I did in first year. I can also proudly annouce the opening of the Buchanan Courtyard. It’s really great what they’ve done with the space considering that during the whole year I had no idea what kind of fountain water garden they were building away. But it’s here with light-up purple seats and a river! Arts kiddies, get excited.

Speaking of getting excited… get your towels ready, it’s about to go down. Everybody hit the deck and stay on your toes because it’s game #2 tomorrow! I’ll be hitting up downtown with the other thousands of Canucks fans (or as my oblivious Ontario mother likes to call the “Chunucks”) to share in the excitement of the Stanley Cup Finals. When I shrieked during Game #5 against San Jose, that’s when I knew I was a Vancouverite. Conversion complete.

Lastly, fresh fruit, zucchini/pepper sandwiches, veggie tacos and humungous salads for breakfast, lunch and dinner are making me feel like this healthy stereotype has also caught on. Oh, British Columbia, what have you done to me?! Hockey, healthy and happy? Now I have to recall what they say about too much of a good thing…

Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts! Go Canucks go!

Don’t show up in a cerulean sweater with onion breath.

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À la Andy Sachs, in The Devil Wears Prada, one of my favourite movies. That was the thought going through my head as I stood at the bus stop at 7:05 a.m.

I’m – pause. I was about to say “one of those people” but the likely possibility that there are not many people who do this besides crazy film fanatics/ wanna-be producers/ keeners in film studies is fairly high. Nonetheless, you know when a movie you’ve seen correlates to what you’re doing in real life? Life imitating art, instead of vice versa. Does anyone else want to play the same song that’s going on in the background, because some music and sound editor has spent countless hours choosing the correct music that matches up to the tone and feel of that scene? Well the opening primping montage of this movie set to “Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall gets me pumped up every time. Just the lyrics itself kicks some self-motivation butt (as in kicks your butt out the door to go do something i.e. change the world), so ladies, if you ever wake up and need to channel some confident-hot-woman-“I can do this shiznit!”-power into your day I suggest turning up this song. Every one must have some kind of morning rush song that gets you going. No? Maybe it’s because I’m a morning person.

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Actually, during the school year I thought that I was just kind of an all-the-time person. Both night owl and morning “person”. (Conveniently, I also have day dreams that I’m WonderWoman shhhhhhh). Once I moved out last week I came to the startling revelation that – no, Nicole, these people don’t exist. If they do the sleep deprivation has not hit them yet. Because oh, boy, does it hit. Also quite conveniently, I crashed into my wall of bricks Saturday morning. Cue exhaustion sickness.

Part of me thinks this might’ve been bad Karma because my friend got sick two weeks ago when he finished exams super early. He asked me [I paraphrase] “Doesn’t that ever happen to you? When you’re going hard for so long, really pushing it, and then once you stop you get sick.” Besides the fact that my friend is prone to several That’s What She Said moments daily, I looked up at him and gave him my straight face answer – “No.” So yeah blame it on the alcohol (not), blame it on the karma, blame it on myself really.

From staying up all night on the last night of rez to watch (along with 2 billion other people) THE Royal Wedding of the century then packing afterwards, from two fire drills in a row at 3 a.m. the nights before, from mad exam studying. This was a long ways coming.

Not good. This will probably not be the last time, but I hope that future Nicole allows herself 2 days rest afterwards. Honestly, these are the moments that make the university experience what it is.

This “Suddenly I See” song pretty much sums up my life right now. It took me 8 months to come to this realization. But suddenly I see how much my parents encourage me to go after my dreams, how much I love this city, how lucky I am to live in a democratic country, how passionate I am about my interests, where I’m headed with my future, my true goals. Suddenly I see where I belong. I had my long awaited a-ha moment on the SkyTrain. I was actually on my way back to UBC and I also realized how scared I still am but how assured I knew where I was going. I’ve heard of that moment when you realize you’re here. Here being the allusive wherever. Vancouver, British Columbia, The West Coast, Canada, The Earth, cosmic sense of universal unity. Sometimes I was looking for it, in the back of my head thinking “Is this it? Is this what it feels like?”. But that moment when I felt scared, that’s when it hit me. This entire year I think I was still running on some type of adrenaline summer camp rush, but the fact that I’m not going home for the summer has made me nervous. Suddenly I see this is what, where and who I want to be.

Back to me waiting at the bus stop Wednesday morning. I got up so early just at the mere panic attack that I was going to be late. First day on the job, you want to be on time right. Well because transit in Zone 3 stinks after being on time, to getting off at the wrong stop, to walking around like a lost person with nothing but Girl Guide intuition and a terribly destroyed Translink pocket map (God bless that piece of paper that I cling on to with all my life – every student using transit MUST have one of these!) I miraculously still arrived as scheduled 28 minutes early. So I got to sit in the park and watch the elderly Chinese ladies do their Tai Chi for 20 minutes before the museum opened. Oh did I mention that part? Yes, I’m working as the a museum assistant for the summer. Yes, Nicole is one step closer to living the dream.

And for those of you wondering, I went with raisin bread and marmalade over an onion bagel.

Enormous mobs are kind of my new thing.

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If you thought Carmen San Diego was hard to track down, or thought Waldo was difficult to find then you wouldn’t think some first year blog squader would be so tricky to follow now would you?

If there’s one thing about me you should know is that I love giant crowds of people. I literally feed off of other people’s energy and I can’t get enough of other people’s excitement.

I always wondered what it would be like to dance with thousands of people. I got my first taste in this park on Granville Island with the Vancouver MOB. Then at WE Day doing the WE Day dance. But dancing with close to 1,000 UBC students. That’s pretty impressive. I got to do that at the UBC Lip Dub. Curious to find me? Try and spot the girl in the white blouse dress, gold chain necklace and olive sweater around 4:30 doing a little Irish jig. Filming the helicopter scene was totally epic and Barney Stinson legen-wait for it I hope you’re not allergic to milk-dary.

Speaking of thousands of people, have you ever tried running with 50,000 people?

Just this weekend I ran the Vancouver Sun Run for the first time with three of the coolest out of province kids around. The 10Km Club at Totem got together and signed up a few months ago. It was a gorgeous day and as I was running over the Burrard Street bridge I literally felt on top of the world. Nothing like a runner’s high. The route was beautiful, one of the best ways to see Vancouver. If I ran past any kid shorter than my elbow I had to bend over and give the a high five. My respect level is just sky high for these kids.

I made my goal which was to run the 10km in less than an hour. Originally, I would’ve loved to have “Phoebe” ran the entire course. But that takes an insane amount of energy. For those of you who are like “Um, who’s Phoebe?”. Well my F.R.I.E.N.D.S. allow me to explain…

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My running buddy stayed with every step of the way, which makes me realize how lucky I am to have such supportive friends. You know you get along, when you can sweat like a pig in front of them and still high five and non-awkwardly hug it out afterwards. The run was one of the endless cherries of this year as things are winding down. I say endless because I’ve had way too many “This is a great way to end the year” experiences.

The last month has just been a bunch of craziness from organizing my summer plans (which involved deciding between going back home, to staying out in BC, to going back home, to staying in Vancouver to… oh the suspense – exciting news TBA later!), applying for internships and jobs, writing papers, studying for finals, going to interviews.

But enough about work (Hah! Because who wants to hear about that? Durrh.) There’s been so much going on from the Tote Bowl Charity Football Tournament, Storm the Wall, Three Course Connection Dinner, Rez Spring Formal.

I promise to keep blogging over the summer. There’s four pieces of exciting news I need to share though! I got three promotions in three of the activities I’ve been involved with over the year:

1. I’m going to be on the Arts Tri-Mentoring Planning Committee next year!
2. I’m now officially part of the Anthropology Student Association executive!
3. I’m going to be an RA at Totem Park next year!

But most exciting of all…

4. I’m staying in Vancouver for the summer for a UBC Arts Internship!

Vancouver, you’ve stolen my heart. Looks like I’m here to stay.