Author Archives: Olivia

two more weeks

Posted on by under Academics

Soooo, it’s been nearly a month since my last blog post. Whoops. I promise one of my New Year’s resolutions for 2013 will be to post more frequently.

Speaking of New Year’s, this semester has completely flown by. Tomorrow is the last day of classes, finals (shudder) start in mere days and in just two more weeks – two more weeks – I’ll be at YVR, ready to fly home. As much as I love my new life here (well, not so much the work…and the exams) I can’t wait to get back to Hong Kong to see my family and my friends again, and eat home cooked food and watch Disney movies in sweatpants. Except that last part is pretty much what rezlife is anyway.

I’m absolutely dreading finals. I have five exams in the space of one week, two of which are on the same day; clearly, I have the best luck when it comes to exam schedules. I hope everyone else’s schedules are marginally better than mine.

Good luck to everyone on their finals, and (in case I forget to post for another month) happy holidays everyone! :)

Don’t forget to be awesome,

Olivia

 

TUNES:

Ne Me Quitte Pas – Regina Spektor
Tired – Adele
Come On! Feel The Illinoise! – Sufjan Stevens
Make You Happy – MIKA
Angels – The xx
Toxic – Britney

 

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midterms: round two

Posted on by under Academics, Tips

As usual, it’s been a while since my last post. Since then, a lot of things have happened: a President has been re-elected for a second term, Vanier had its second open mic night/coffee house, and those dreaded midterms are coming back for a second round.

Luckily, I actually did relatively well on my first few midterms, especially considering I had three on the same day. Therefore I’m obviously perfectly qualified to give out some useful, albeit somewhat belated, study tips. Right? Right.

Before the exam:

1. DO study well beforehand; DON’T cram it all an hour before your exam starts.Chances are you’ll remember the material better because you’re actually learning it in the long term and committing it to memory (which could be useful for finals).

2. DO study in a well-lit area – poor lighting hurts your eyes and probably your concentration too :c

3. DO try to study without distractions; DON’T listen to music if you know you’re going to just end up singing/dancing along. If you’re surrounded by distractions, like music, friends or that brand new bottle of nail polish sitting on your desk, begging to be used, force yourself to go somewhere else where you can actually focus. Some people can only focus when there’s music playing in the background, but try to study in an environment similar to the one you’ll be sitting your exam in.

4. DO get a reasonable amount of sleep; DON’T pull an all nighter – sleep helps commit the things you’ve studied to long term memory, so make sure you sleep enough, or at least take a nap at some point, instead of relying on that venti gingerbread latte.

 

During the exam:

1. DO pay attention to the time; DON’T waste time on questions you can’t answer – time management is always an issue in exams. Usually your professor will explicitly state how many marks each question is worth so you can roughly gauge how long to spend on it – make sure you follow these guidelines so you don’t end up wasting half an hour on a question worth only 10% of the mark.

2. DO move on from questions you’re not sure about; DON’T panic – after you move on, you can focus on other questions – but your brain is still working on that question you passed.

 

Remember, everyone has different ways of studying, so take these suggestions with a grain of salt – but hopefully they help! Anyway, those are enough tips for now (since when did this become an advice blog amirite) – in my next post I’ll tell you all about my adventures :)

Don’t forget to be awesome,

Olivia

 

TUNES:

I Wonder – Kanye West
Basic Space – The xx
You – Tally Hall
Lorelai – Fleet Foxes

 

 

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click your heels together three times

Posted on by under rezlife

I’ve been away from home for nearly two whole months now, and it’s finally hitting me: I’m incredibly homesick.

 

It’s strange, because I love UBC and it feels like my second home (well, third; Disneyland is second) but I can’t help but miss Hong Kong. I miss my parents, even my mum’s endless nagging; I miss the home-cooked food, I miss my crazy friends, I miss my bed, I miss McDonalds delivery – can you believe most places here don’t deliver, at least not for free? – and sometimes I even miss the ridiculous heat and humidity. Sometimes.  And it doesn’t help that a few days ago, Disneyland sent me an email inviting me to spend my 18th birthday there. What, adulthood? What is that, some kind of weird disease?

Luckily, despite my debilitating homesickness, I feel like I’ve found a new home here. I’m so grateful that I live on res and have found a super awesome group of friends who feel like family. Living on res is extremely fun (shoutout to the nunnery aka Kootenay) even if it does mean you probably don’t get to see your family as much. Somehow, all the spooning, the jam sessions with Titch, the 2am walks to Mcdonalds – on a Monday night – and the nightly Chubbard’s runs are all cures for homesickness.

The key to curing homesickness is to get involved. You only get as much as you put in – so if you’re feeling homesick, don’t just spend all your time Skyping or calling your family and friends who live 6000 miles away, as tempting as that may seem. Vanier and Totem provide lots of opportunities for involvement, like the ongoing Sock Wars, floor/house dinners and sports like Ultimate. If you treat UBC like your new home, with your new friends who feel like your new family, it’s hard to be homesick – because you’re already home. :)

пока! (That’s Russian for see you later, or so my friend tells me!)

Olivia

P.S. I felt like giving some music recommendations this week (notice the optimistic assumption that I’m going to make a post every week) so here they are

TUNES: 

From Finner – Of Monsters and Men
Adulthood – Jukebox the Ghost
Helplessness Blues – Fleet Foxes
Mercy – Yeezy
93 Million Miles – Jason Mraz
Chicago – Sufjan Stevens

 

 

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It’s October 3rd.

Posted on by under Uncategorized

This blog is just one giant Mean Girls reference. 

In other news,  it’s now been exactly a month since my first blog post. A month. I feel incredibly guilty for not posting about everything that’s been going on this first month. Unfortunately this blog is staying dead for a while (guess who’s procrastinating studying for her three midterms on Friday!!!) but I promise I’ll resurrect if before the next month rolls along. Maybe. Hopefully.

 

Don’t forget to be awesome,

Olivia

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frosh love!

Posted on by under Sauder

Hi, I’m Olivia!

…is a sentence I’ve said around a hundred times in the past three days.

This is my first post for the UBC Blogsquad so if you’re reading this (and obviously you are) here’s a little bit more about me:

  • I’m a first year student at UBC Sauder aka the best faculty in UBC if not the world
  • I’m from Hong Kong
  • Disneyland is my home away from home
  • I play piano and ukulele, albeit very poorly
  • I’m living in Vanier so come say hi if you see me!
  • I had an amazing time over the weekend at Sauder Frosh 2012.

The three crazy days and two even crazier nights of frosh 2012 are impossible to (coherently) describe. They say what happens at frosh, stays at frosh, so as a new member to the Sauder family with a fairly public blog, I’m not going to give much away – but the one most important thing I took away from frosh is that Sauder is a synonym for spirit. I probably learned 20 cheers in the first day alone, and when Sauderites cheer, we cheer hard. On top of that, each team had its own cheers and costumes (although obviously Team Batman was the best team – HOT DAMN IT’S BATMAN!)

Frosh was an insane blur of incredible energy, ridiculous/fun games and challenges, epic dance parties by day at the field and even more epic dance parties by night, a couple of keynote speakers who were truly the meanest (that’s a compliment), mobbing every single executive/volunteer while chanting “FROSH LOVE!”, and dancing to Gangnam Style, the official unofficial anthem of frosh 2012.

Basically, frosh is a total whirlwind. You get to meet so many people from all over the world and although you might end up losing your voice (or your memory) and it’s something that every student coming into Sauder should experience.

Although be warned: Sauder cheers are extremely catchy and will probably get stuck in your head for hours. (Sauder is hot to go, H-O-T-T-O-G-O!)

Don’t forget to be awesome,

Olivia

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