In the summer of 2009, before first year, I was at a party with my friends.   We were young and hopeful and talking about what we were going to be up to for the next 4 years.  We went around the circle and when it got to me some friends immediately told me about how business, especially Sauder, changes people.  People change everyday, but Sauder was going to change me into a cold blooded money and status hungry jerk of some sort.  I was told horror stories of fake smiles and false friendships that are made to screw you over.

I’m not saying that Sauder doesn’t do these things, but I’m not saying that they do either.  Like everything, it just depends.  (Don’t you hate that answer?)  Honesty, because I am a business student myself it’s hard to tell.  Every faculty has their stereotype.  Engineers are supposed to be nerds that hang VWs on bridges, Arts are probably on a Mac in a Cafe dressed in skinny jeans, Science is in the library so I don’t know what they look like and Sauderites go to class in suits (actually this point is true.) Everyone else?  Actually, I can’t think of any good ones, let me know if you have any.

Once I bumped into a friend that I hadn’t seen in 6 years at UBC and she asked me what faculty I was in.  I said business and she immediately made a face and then a smirk.  “Oh… you’re in Sauder…”

But I make that face right along with her.

I can’t figure out why.  There is just a bad aura floating around Sauder.  For one, we separated ourselves from the UBC community with our own name, but that is just how business schools roll these days (ie. Rotman.)  I am whole-heartedly thankful for this Mr. Sauder who is making my education possible and he does deserve his name on it, but you can’t deny that it builds a little wall.

I believe I am “doomed” to be changed by my faculty.  Just hanging out with friends in other faculties feel different.  Especially after those days where school, work, home and study is life, suddenly talking to someone who isn’t going through the only things you are exposed to feels extremely foreign.  Actually, it can be quite refreshing too though.  However I do worry if I have “changed” in a bad way.  Stereotypes do come from somewhere…

Fun thing: If you are ever on Granville Island and are passing by Emily Carr, try to find a student in their library on anything that is not a Mac! Good luck!

I must admit, Sauder is helpful in making sure we won't embarrass ourselves in the wrong washroom though =)

There’s some nasty virus going around that is leading to fevers, chills and headaches.  Strangely there are no runny noses or coughs.  I dealt with mine with a lot of rest, water, vitamin C pills and this weird Chinese point massage stuff my parents did for me.

If you’re going through it: I realize you might feel like you’re dying… but it will be over.  Eventually.

Being sick had one upside though.  I gained a new and sincere appreciation for my parents and for living at home.  Someday, I will grow up, be moved out and then one day I will be sick in bed with only enough energy to text one good friend about my miseries.  That day will be a grim one.

Actually, who am I kidding, I’d give up the loving attention for an extended curfew any day! Really though, I am thankful.  Thank you mom and dad.  I hope everyone has someone there, be it their roommate or sibling to care when they’re sick in bed.

I don’t know how I would deal with being sick and living on campus.  Good luck to those that are going through that! I can’t cook, but if you really want it, I offer to bring you a cup of hot water.

I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to live as an everyday person in another country and not as tourist.  It was honestly one of my major motivations for not only choosing UBC but going to university (although I probably would’ve regardless…)

The deadline is January 19 or January 21 for those who are wondering.

I’m stuck.

I can’t decide where to go, I just want to go.

You get to pick your top 3 and rank them and so far I have two stirring in my fantasies.  Keio University in Tokyo, Japan and University of Manchester in… well, Manchester, England.

Why Keio?  I’ve been studying Japanese since grade 9 and I really want to be put in the environment and see how it goes.  Japanese vending machines and convenience stores.  Selection of courses I would never get the chance to take here.  And to be honest, because I am Asian.  I’m all for stepping outside of my comfort zone but compared to going to, for example,  Norway, where I don’t speak the language and obviously look like I’m from far away, in an Asian country I would have a nice balance between comfort zone and non-comfort zone.  I think.

Why Manchester?  They speak English.  It’s in Europe, a continent I’ve never been to!  I like bands from the UK.  More than my love for the Arctic Monkeys, I love European architecture.  This is my chance to really experience what it is like as a local because I get to take exactly what the students there would take. (Where at Keio, I would be taking classes made for English speaking international students.)

The main dilemma though:

Going to Keio would be like missing out on term 2 and summer semester.  Graduation would definitely be delayed and co-op would be hard to apply for.  Going to Manchester would be like not missing anything at all, but I will miss out on the chance to take unique cultural based courses…

I think I need one of those pros/cons charts.

There is also something lingering in my mind that makes me not really want to apply at all:

I don’t want to stay away from my friends and family for too long.

“WEAK SAUCE!” says all the international students.  Haha.

“Spectator sport”

is like the buzz word (well, phrase) of my 1st two days of class this term.  Among my professors anyway.  4/5 classes had mentioned this.

What kind of sports are spectator sports anyway?  How is that even a sport?

Just curious.  I agree though.  Life itself is not a spectator sport, but sometimes it feels like it.  Especially when I don’t get enough sleep.

A new “academic” term I heard that I was so intrigued by:

“Double clicking”

It is when you help someone else click their iClicker.

Do you like iClickers?  This is my first time using one so it has a nice “oo something new” excitement.  I’m sure it will die off soon.

I wish the bookstore would rent out iClickers for $5 a semester.

After my final exam on Monday morning I simply couldn’t stop smiling to myself on the bus.  I must’ve looked like a fool.  A very happy fool.  That sense of accomplis- WHO CARES IT’S THE HOLIDAYS WOO.

ABC, why would you do that, how do I choose which The Grinch to watch?

I love holiday movies, just so feel-good and reminds me of being a kid.  Especially when Vancouver usually has undesirable weather at this time and I’m stuck inside.

My favorite:

Another favorite:

Another that comes to mind:

Any recommendations?

Hope everyone is enjoying their break… though this year it feels so extremely short!

Finals that is.

One surprisingly major difference I am noticing between 1st year and 2nd year, despite the content being substantially harder to understand, I’m not studying nearly as hard as I did last year. Last year, during the finals weeks, I practically lived at the public library. 9 am out the door, 7 pm return home, a 1 hour break in the middle for food. I don’t even work that hard during school time…

This year though, I haven’t hit the library. I’ve been studying but I’ve spent a lot of time not studying. Other than the disturbing feeling in my gut telling me “GO STUDY, YOU’RE GOING TO FAIL!!!!” In some ways I already feel like I’m already on break. Looking at it now, what exactly was I doing at the library last year? Practice questions? Note writing? What- what the heck?  I feel like I have nothing to do but read and write the same notes over and over this time around.  Last year I grasped at every second like they were drifting lifesavers in the middle of a stormy ocean. Compared to last year, this year it’s like I’m floating on my back, sure I’m thrashing around the night before exams but otherwise I haven’t become the stressed out mess I was last year.

Am I learning from experience?

I definitely was not more on top of things in terms of keeping up with reading compared to last year.

Maybe I’m just reading faster.

Maybe I’ve stopped caring?

Maybe I did horrible on my exams!!

To the first years: was it more stressful than you thought it would be?

To the non first years:  do you find yourself studying less intensely in your second year?

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life, and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.” – Henry David Thoreau

Did anyone else only know this quote because of the movie Dead Poets Society?  Haha.  English 11 ftw.

I’ve been trying to get involved with things at UBC.  Just for the fact that when I graduate, I probably won’t get the chance anymore.  There are two major things I want to do at UBC to suck the marrow: exchange and co-op. (Ok and maybe some good young adult partying in between…) Perhaps some getting seriously involved in a club on the way… Oh yeah and… the list keeps going as I think.

Anyway, the most recent attempt to suck some marrow was a case competition! (KPMG Crack the Case)  Going into it, all I knew about case competitions was that it was something Sauder students talk about a lot.  I didn’t want to embarrass myself with my ignorance so I tried to do some research on what I was getting myself into.  Honestly, the best thing I could find was Phoebe’s post on it when she did it two years ago and she summed up the experience well and I had pretty much the same experience.

So what is a case competition?  There is essentially a “case,” like a story, that tells you about a company.  There are some graphs, a lot of qualitative information and a very general question.  Our was “What should Starbucks do?”  The tricky part is what do you do with this?  It’s just you and your team, and you just read a story.  It’s essentially what high school English classes make you do.  Reflect, analyse, respond.  Find the problem, solutions, how the implement the solutions.  Then back it up with PROOF!  The major difference between this and in class literature circles is that there is no one to guide you to the right answer.  In fact, there is no right answer.

Here is what I learned about case competitions:
– What’s the point of knowing something if you can’t tell anyone? Presentation skills are key.

– Every group comes to more or less the same conclusions, so to an extent, it’s about standing out (refer back to point above)

– Time is so precious, plan it, use it well. 3 hours in a little glass room passes by so fast.  I have a 3 hour break on Fridays, I thought it was going to be dreadfully long when I put it in my schedule but how often do I really get things done?  Rarely…

– Go big or go home. Our team didn’t win or anything, so I could be wrong, but it felt like because there was so little time, once you get an idea, you should just run with it.  Don’t worry about the implications. That doesn’t mean ignore them, just acknowledge them, but don’t let them get in the way of your ideas. (Unless it was one of those ideas where, the moment it left your mouth, you are already thinking “wtf was I thinking?”)

– Just do it. If you’re interested, just go in there, even if you don’t know what is going on, get your hands dirty, and then you’ll understand.

– Recruit a Powerpoint whiz on your team =)

– Oh yeah… using the internet is against the rules… I seriously thought “Whatever happens, I can take it.  Google can save me!” Nope.

There were two teams of 1st year students who did it this year.  I seriously applaud them.  Their presentations were tight and really showed some genuine intelligence.  I’m jealous.

“…I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

You could probably finish a midterm faster if you wrote smaller.

(assuming you can still read your writing)

That is all.

Back to studying.

My hell week is almost over =)

Life hacks.  Read it.  Live it.   Haha.

Unfortunately, in these hard midterm times, finding out why pirates wore eye patches was the highlight of my day. See image for the answer =)

(click for non-squished version)

Source: http://www.geekologie.com/image.php?path=/2010/08/27/life-hacks-full.jpg

Good luck with the studies everyone.