January 2, 2013 · 10:28 pm

Counselling Services

Today I’d like to share something with you that I’m a little bit shy to share. However, it’s a topic that I feel should be more okay to discuss, so here I go.

January marks the beginning of rehearsals for the opera UBC will be putting on at the beginning of February (Dialogues des Carmelites, Poulenc, 1953-55).  Since I got my part before winter break, I’ve been stressing out like crazy about it. Ensembles stress me out in general; although my part is not particularly challenging, I don’t have a lot of confidence in my ability to move with a conductor, and I’m worried I’ll count the rests wrong and come in at the wrong place. Heaven forbid I should play a wrong note!  Although it’s doubtful that anyone would say anything to me, and most of the orchestra would probably not even notice, when I make a mistake, I feel as though I’ve committed some horrible crime.  The root of it is I feel ashamed of myself when I judge that I’ve played badly.

However, I didn’t really grasp just how terrified I was to play, just in a rehearsal.

I had been dreading coming back to school, and I felt quite down since I got back last night.  I sat outside the room where gamelan ensemble rehearses before class started, and a masters student who would also be playing in the opera started talking to me about the opera. Basically, she confirmed my fears that following the conductor is a lot harder than in regular orchestra, you rarely get cues, and it’s very easy to get lost.

I tried to keep talking and stay calm, but I could feel tears coming up behind my eyes. I excused myself to the washroom to try to compose myself. I thought I succeeded after a few jerky breaths and wiped up tears. I headed back to the rehearsal room and thought I was fine, but after a few minutes I had to rush off to the bathroom again because I just couldn’t shake that anxious feeling. Cue more crying and hyperventilating. At this point I didn’t know if I could get through the class, but I thought once we started playing I’d get distracted. Nope. Nope nope nope.  Crying in public is so embarrassing! When it became very clear that I wasn’t going to be able to stop any time soon, I told my instructor I was feeling unwell and he let me leave. (Thank you thank you thank you!!)

I gathered my things, trying not to feel the stares of my classmates as I left the room. I headed back to the washroom and cried even harder. My breath came too fast, in shallow gasps, and attempts to slow it down failed. I said to myself, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”  All I felt was fear and panic and anxiety. Well hello there, first ever panic attack. Once I calmed down enough to breathe properly, I decided I’d go to Counselling Services. If this stress is enough to cause me to leave class, it’s time to do something about it.

Counselling Services are available Monday to Friday 9:30 am to 3:30 pm. You can just drop in for your first appointment, although you’ll probably be waiting at least an hour for your 20-minute appointment, maybe more. They get you to fill out a bunch of paperwork and then when it’s your turn they invite you in with what I’m sure is a very practiced soothing voice and talk to you about your situation. I’m sorry that I sound cynical, but I think that because it’s so easy to feel defensive about needing counselling, so you deceive yourself into thinking that others are patronizing you. But in actuality, the soothing voice actually did calm me down a lot without me realizing it.

Generally speaking, I’m mentally very healthy, I like myself and my life, and usually I’m pretty healthy, but I don’t deal with stress very well and I’ve got it, it messes me up and gets me down. So I was referred to a group stress class that meets on Wednesday evenings. I’m told that it isn’t a “everyone share your feelings” AA-style support group, it’s a sort of meeting where counsellors will talk with you and give you some tools to help deal with your stress or anxiety. I’ll be sure to report back and let you know how that goes.

Honestly, I felt a bit self-conscious walking through the frosted glass doors in Brock Hall. I even felt nervous before my  appointment came up. I felt a bit embarrassed when once again I couldn’t hold my tears in when I started talking to my counsellor. But the thing is, no one there is going to judge you. They didn’t judge me. You can be sure they’ve seen all kinds of problems, and they’re there to help you deal with yours.

Needing help with your mental health often comes with a stigma; people don’t want to talk about it or let anyone know they need it. But maybe if we talked about it more, more people would feel comfortable enough to get the help they need and live a happier life. That’s why I’ve shared my story with you.

 

 

Read the post on the stress management class HERE.

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December 15, 2012 · 11:17 pm

Stress.

As university students, we all experience stress in some way. Sometimes it is ignorable, sometimes it is  totally manageable, and at times it can feel utterly debilitating. Time management and relaxation strategies can work wonders with the first two scenarios, but for the last one, sometimes they just don’t cut it.

When I get this “intense stress” as I will call it, it feels like no matter how I organize myself, there are just not enough hours in the day to do everything I have to do. Because I have so. Much. Stuff. To. Do.  There is just so much I need to accomplish it’s overwhelming and I seriously doubt my ability to do it. And taking time for myself, meditating, exercising, and “relaxing” activities can’t take my brain off of everything I should be doing at that moment and worrying I won’t be able to do it all and that I won’t be able to do it well enough.

When I get intense stress, I tend to:

  1.  Tell myself I can handle it and micromanage my time; this often involves not giving myself enough time to relax and have fun, and also staying up later and getting up earlier to try to cram more stuff in a day. Less sleep and less brain-off time is the perfect breeding ground for intense stress.
  2. Focus poorly. When my brain is in ten million places at once, I can’t focus properly on the task at hand.
  3. Get frustrated. I can’t focus, and I’m running on a fried brain.  Do you think I’m getting good results from my labor? No.
  4. Push harder. I’m frustrated with my lack of progress, so I push myself harder to try to get them. Hello even more tired brain.  I tell myself I should stop (this usually goes for practicing for me), but I haven’t accomplished what I wanted to yet so I keep saying “Just a little longer” for what turns into a lot longer, resulting in even less progress and possibly injury (in the case of my hands).
  5. Cry. I break. I lie on the floor for a while.  I question my abilities and also the fairness of the universe.
  6. Check in with reality. Okay, clearly what I’m doing is not working, made obvious by my breakdown. I need to take a break. I need to breathe. I need to remember that even in the worst case scenario, I will still be alive, and there will still be people who love me. And those, above all, are the most important things. What I have to do isn’t going to be easy; it might not be fun.  But there is a pretty good chance things are going to be okay.  However, letting your stress possess you isn’t the way to get there.

What am I going to do now? Well, honestly, I’m not sure. I’m going to take it a day at a time. I’m going to take more me time, sleep more, not pack my days so full. Not get mad at myself if things don’t go the way I want. I’m going to do my best, and if it isn’t good enough, well. I’m just going to try to get through this degree, and then live my life at a pace I like.

Also I’m maybe going to look into stress management classes.

 

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December 1, 2012 · 10:01 pm

“I Don’t Belong Here” Syndrome

Diagnosis: “I Don’t Belong Here” Syndrome

Symptoms: Feelings of low self-esteem and confidence, worthlessness, anxiety, stress, depression, doubt. Wondering if one really has what it takes to be a UBC student.

Unfortunately, it is all too common this time of year for students to develop “I Don’t Belong Here” Syndrome.  With finals looming, you look at your midterm marks which maybe as high as you were hoping, and if you’re in first year, probably not as high as your high school marks, and you wonder if you’re really smart enough to be at UBC.  Your previous marks disappointed you, and your brain is tired now and you wonder if you can muster the strength to finish that final 100 metre stretch of the race.

It happens to me too.  Since I can’t practice much because of my hands, the pieces I’m working on aren’t in the kind of shape I’d like them to be in, and all of my peers seem to be miles ahead of me. In my harp quartet jury (like a test-performance which you get graded on), I didn’t perform nearly as well as I wanted to, and I started getting in a funk.  Throughout the year, I feel less than confident about my abilities, and although my teacher frequently tells me that I’m doing well and that I’m talented, I can’t help but feel like I’m just not good enough.

But the truth is, I’m doing fine. I’m just psyching myself out. And if the above symptoms sound like you, that’s what you’re doing too.  If I was no good at harp, I wouldn’t have been admitted.  Everyone who gets into UBC is smart.  So if you were smart enough to get in, you’re smart enough to stay in.

Your courses are designed to be challenging and push you to your limits.  If you feel like you need help, that’s nothing to be ashamed of; that’s why UBC has tons of academic resources for you to take advantage of.

You do belong here! Try not to get discouraged. UBC chose you, after all, and they weren’t wrong about i!

 

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November 16, 2012 · 6:40 pm

Free Hankies – Nothing to Sneeze At

You know what’s gross? How much we dispose of unnecessarily every day. According to the Ubyssey, the SUB produces 40 bags of trash every day, just out of the bathrooms. Picture that. Picture your bedroom, full to the ceiling of barely used paper towels. Now imagine that happening every day. I mean, really?

A student project has been created with the intent of reducing the amount of paper towel waste UBC students produce (Ubyssey article here).  They’ve set up a booth in the SUB handing out handkerchiefs in exchange for a donation to the Ancient Forest Alliance (you can also pay five dollars for a prettier hanky, which will help make the project more sustainable in the future).

I picked up mine today, and I think it’s time for a behavioural change.  Yes, it’s a bit easier just to take the available paper towel and throw it out after and not have to worry about washing your hankie or how to dry it after use.  But in a lot of ways, doing things that harm the environment are born out of laziness and convenience. Taking just the little bit of effort here by using that little towel could result in hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds of paper towels not being used. And in turn, less trees would need to be cut down. And more living trees = healthier planet!

A few other ways you can cut out needless disposables out of your life: bring a reusable travel mug for your morning mocha and keep your own chopsticks handy for when you’re craving sushi.  In the kitchen, opt for a rag instead of paper towels and tupperware instead of plastic wrap.

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November 14, 2012 · 6:20 pm

To Go Alone

Doing something alone can be scary and sometimes not terribly fun (or so we think), and often times it can discourage us from doing something at all. This past weekend, I had my heart set on going to Victoria but none of my friends wanted to go with me. I hummed and hawed for nearly two weeks prior: to go or not to go, that was the question!

In the end, I decided to go by myself. After all, I’m only here for four years and I’m going to make the most of that time and see the surrounding areas and explore! And man, am I ever glad I went. It was definitely an exciting adventure: I took a ferry and booked a hotel by myself for the very first time. I feel like a grown up. (I’m pretty proud of myself.)

My hands don’t want me to type much more, so here’s a video of my trip from the video blog I do with my friends:

Don’t be scared to do what you want just because no one else is going with you!

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November 6, 2012 · 6:46 pm

The Value of Involvement

This afternoon I had the pleasure of being part of a workshop brainstorming ideas about how UBC should organize its approach to getting more students involved on campus. A lot of great discussion was had, and I really want to comment here on how different kinds of involvement are valued.

First of all, I think it’s important to broaden what we define as “involvement.” Yes, starting your own club or heading a committee is an involvement, a huge one, but sometimes it can feel like if you aren’t doing a BIG thing, it doesn’t count.  Something like going to one of the gardens on campus, seeing a play, attending an event, or just showing up for a recreational club meeting (you don’t have to be on the exec!) all count, in my books.  There is a broad spectrum of depth of involvement, ie. how much time and commitment an activity takes, but all should be counted and valued equally.  For example, someone commuting and taking six courses is probably not going to have the same amount of time to spend doing extracurriculars as someone taking three courses and living on campus. If the six-course commuter gets involved by attending the occasional AMS event or club meeting, there is nothing “less” about that in any way than the three-course rezzie being an SLC co-chair. They’re just different experiences, and both are important.

Secondly, the type of activity one is involved with can sometimes vary in value.  I am going to use myself as an example this time: personally, committees tend to drive me nuts, and while I commend those who love charity work, it’s just not for me. My life can be a hell sometimes, and I want involvement to be an escape from that, just to be fun. To be a place where I make/be with friends. I want to help myself. If that’s selfish, well, quite frankly I think that’s a rude label because all human beings are selfish at some time, so excuse me for being selfish. So I joined knitting club. Now personally, I don’t think that joining a recreational club should be any “less” than say, joining a club that fundraises for cancer research, or being a residence advisor (also not my thing).  Wanting to get involved for the sake of finding your “people” or your “home”, or just purely to have fun, does not make you a worse person, or a less important person, than someone getting involved to give back to the community or hone a skill set.

The main thing I’d like to see more of, I suppose, is all involvement in its myriad forms to be recognized equally.

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October 28, 2012 · 10:27 pm

Meeting People vs. Making Friends

I’m assuming that by now everyone has heard of whatweshouldcallubc.tumblr.com; I discovered it last week and went through the whole thing. Something that stuck out to me was a post about how people are “dying of loneliness”, and there was at least one other consisting of upper year students also saying how they’d only just found their place or still haven’t.

It made me think about how 1) it’s very common to not find your niche immediately as some people feel they should, and 2) how it’s very common for various organizations on campus to shove lots of ways to meet people down your throat and saying “Yes making friends is so easy here, you’ll have a group in no time.” Because seriously, meeting people and making friends with people are two very different things.

Some good ways of meeting people include:

  • Introducing yourself to the people you sit near in your classes.
  • Attending residence/AMS events.
  • Hanging around in common areas, if you’re in residence.
  • Joining an intramural team, or participating in other UBC REC events.
  • Joining a club.
  • Chatting up random people in line for Starbucks or at the bus stop.
  • Wearing a nerdy t-shirt. It’s amazing how many nerds who love the same stuff you can attract.

It’s true, the above list is slightly skewed towards on-campus students. It’s an unfortunate fact, but if you want to meet people as a commuter, you have to put in effort. It evens out in the end though, because here’s the thing about making friends: it takes effort. Except for a few exceptionally outgoing individuals who are certainly not me, meeting someone does not equal being friends with them.

Some good ways of making friends with people (a skill that I am always trying to improve upon):

  • Initiate conversation. I know you want them to start talking to you, that you want to feel like they like you, but realistically they’re probably sitting there thinking the same thing. And if you don’t speak up, no one will. And friendships generally aren’t born out of silence. (Not good at speaking to other humans? Start with, “Hey, how are you?” And ask questions. Ask them about their weekend, any exciting plans coming up, ask them about themselves, their preferences. Don’t give up, it takes practice.)
  • Arrange a time to meet up where you can have some solid get-to-know you time. The five minutes before class starts does not count. Go for coffee, have a movie marathon in your dorm room, explore downtown, see a concert you’re both interested in, a one-on-one study session. Or it could be a group thing, too.
  • Get their number and text them. Don’t be creepy or obsessive, but some casual banter can keep you on their radar and if you’re scared to ask them to hang out it can take some pressure off.
  • Do/say nice things. People like people who make them feel good. Again, don’t paint their name on the side of the clock tower, but compliments and remembering their birthday or saving them a seat can go a long way.
  • Meeting people and making friends go together best when you meet people in a place where you’re doing something you’re interested in; lots of the time they have the same mindset as you and you’ll have something to talk about and do together.

It kind of sounds like I’m giving dating advice here, but honestly, a good friendship takes nearly as much effort as a romantic relationship.  If you don’t go out looking, most of the time, it isn’t going to land in your lap. Lots of people I know have made friends through their classes, and I met most of my friends through residence and knitting club.  It’s not guaranteed that you’ll click with every person you make an effort to talk to, but if you never try, then you’ll never know.  Just keep trying, because your kindred spirit is out there, looking for you too.

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October 17, 2012 · 10:51 pm

How to Not Cram the Night Before: Samantha’s Approach to Midterms

Time and time again I’ll be reading some poor student’s blog or twitter feed and what I see is basically this: “OMG my exam is tomorrow gotta study all night omg omg I’m so freaked out my brain is exploding!”

More or less, anyway.

Now, I am not a crammer.  I’ve never done it, and I very nearly always walk into my exams feeling confident and relatively anxiety-free, at least when I compare myself to those around me.  And, most importantly, my marks turn out just like I want to, as evidenced by the scholarships UBC keeps offering me.

What’s my secret? Easy: start studying a week before your test. (At least.)  That’s really all there is to it, besides figuring out how you study best.  What I do is do about an hour or so of reading for about three days starting a week before the test, so the material is all fresh in my mind. You can’t start memorizing if you can’t even remember what you’ve covered in the last month.  After those three days, you do some hard core studying in the next three days (preferably on a weekend). Condensing your notes, guessing and practicing answering questions you think will be on the test, testing yourself.  Then, the night before, you get to breathe. Relax. Read over the study notes you made, test yourself a little bit more. What you should find is that as you read over those notes, your brain goes, yes yes, I know this stuff already. And you know why? Digesting information over a longer period of time is going to make it stick way better than if you stuff it all in your head the night before when you’re all stressed out.  And, you’ve accomplished what the course is actually about: learning, as opposed to memorizing for one test and then promptly forgetting everything after it’s over.

If you have several midterms a week, it can be easy to focus on one subject and forget about the other tests, and just study for each test as they come. But, if you do an hour or half an hour of studying each day for each subject a week before the exam, you’ll know your stuff better, and have less work overall the night before each test.

A bonus for using this method: now you have great study notes for when finals come around! Not to mention, you’ll remember more of the material from your midterm when it comes time to write that final exam.

I hope this helps you through your time of midterms!

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October 12, 2012 · 4:26 pm

UBC Bands: British Favourites

I meant to post this a few days ago, but the UBC Bands are putting on a concert tonight, at 8 pm in the Chan Centre. The Symphonic Wind Ensemble (the one I’m playing in) played a preview concert yesterday at noon, which went pretty well! Finally I was able to play my part without being overly nervous :P

Anyway, if anyone ends up seeing this before it’s too late, try to come to the concert! It’s gonna be a good one.

Works by Holst, Hesketh, Grainger, Sparke.

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October 9, 2012 · 4:27 pm

When You Get Injured

Those who have followed my blog since the beginning will remember that about this time last year I managed to get myself a case of tendinitis. Since then, I got a little better then plateaued, saw another physiotherapist who told me the problem was in my shoulders (would have been nice to know that eight months earlier!), saw a massage therapist, thought I was finally better, got worse again, saw ANOTHER massage therapist who gave me more exercises for my shoulders, and at this point my shoulders are feeling pretty darn good but my hands are feeling about the same as they were in January. That is to say, sore and easily tired.

Clearly, I am no expert in preventing injury, and all of this is based on my own experience.  My best advice would be to talk to your teacher as soon as you enter university (or preferably, before then) to make sure your technique is ergonomically correct and your posture is good. Posture is key, as my too-rounded shoulders have shown me.  And when you get into university, don’t go from playing a half hour every day (just admit it, you didn’t practice all that much) to four hours every day. Your body can’t keep up! And then it will break down. And breaking down is not a fun road.

If you start to hurt, pay attention to it. When my arms first started aching, I brushed it off as muscles forming. Two weeks later when my hands were throbbing even when I was away from the harp, I wished I had paid attention.

So, let’s say you do get injured. It happens to an overwhelming amount of people, so take heart in this: you are not alone. You are not the only one suffering this. And secondly: do not panic. Your career in music is not over, you will manage this. Plenty of people who have gotten injured and then gotten better and returned to playing.  Read a book on musicians’ injuries such as Playing (Less) Hurt by Janet Horvath: it’s a great resource and place to start, and it can be found in the Music Library.

Following not panicking, tell your teacher.  It’s important to get them on your side; not only will they have valuable input on how to get better, they’re usually very understanding and won’t pile tons of crazy repertory on you that’s going to wreck your body even more.

In fact, the first thing you should do is take some time off. Some people say you should totally stop playing until your injury is better, but most often the problem is muscles tat weren’t strong enough to handle the load, so if you just let your muscles get weaker and weaker, you’re going to have the same problem when you start playing again. What I did was take two weeks off playing entirely, and then begin playing in very small quantities: five minutes the first couple days, then two sessions of five minutes for a few days, then three sessions… Then I’d start at one session of ten minutes, and build up those sessions. By March I was able to play for an hour at a time, even though I was only doing one hour per day, maybe two now and then.

However, I did not get to that point by myself: I went to see a therapist.  I saw a physiotherapist, and he gave me exercises to do for my hands, as well as massage the sore muscles, and give them other therapies like using warm wax and electricity stuff. (I don’t really know what it was.) It definitely helped, but starting around March, going in for physio didn’t seem to help anymore. When I felt no improvement by June, I went to see my second physiotherapist – who told me the problem was in my shoulders, and upon seeing him I felt immediate improvement in my hands. So, get help, but make sure you get two opinions. Sometimes things can be overlooked, or some therapists may have more experience with musicians than others.

My final word of advice: Be patient.  I’ve been injured for nearly a year now, and although I’m starting to plateau in progress again, I am confident I will fully recover. I’ve certainly come a long way from where I was last year.  And keep in mind, many injuries take a long time to heal – my harp teacher was out for two years with tendinitis, but is now playing in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as usual. I find that doctors and therapists tend to say things like, “You’re young, you’ll be fine in no time,” but the truth is that most of these injuries aren’t a simple quick fix (unless you can catch it way before it gets bad).

Just stay optimistic. Take it one day at a time. You aren’t the only one that has to go through this, and you will get better.

 

Note: I just want to reinforce again that I am not an expert in this field, and this post is solely based on my experience. If you are injured, go see a professional.

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