Blog – Page 4 – Shanna Yeung

Volunteer with what you’re passionate about

Pride Parade 2016 — Volunteering with VocalEye at the Pride Parade!

Volunteer because you think you can make a meaningful contribution

Volunteer because you’re interested in immersing yourself into a community

Volunteer because you think you’ll learn from the people around you and the situations you’ll encounter

Volunteer because you think you’ll have fun. Volunteering shouldn’t be painful. Enjoy the time you put in!

I volunteered with people that are blind and visually impaired for my very first time with VocalEye. My experience with VocalEye spun my life in a new direction by inspiring in me a deep passion for vision health and providing service to those with visual impairments. VocalEye helped opened my eyes to the community of the people of the visually impaired. My prior misconceptions as a sighted person were left in the dust as I met individuals that were brilliant, driven and hilariously witty. Being visually impaired was just a difference in physical body. This physical difference had some things hard to do such as watch a parade. The first event I volunteered at the first parade described by VocalEye, the Vancouver Pride Parade. On the way to the event, the patron I was with was excited. She’d never been to a parade before. Why? She said parades are no fun when you’re blind because you can’t see what’s going on. These little things in life I’ve been taking for granted from watching the colours and glittery costumes of the Pride Parade, the jaw dropping beauty of the fireworks, watching the characters of play grimace and smile are things that losing your vision can make difficult to enjoy. Enjoying the beauty of fireworks is not essential to everyday life but don’t you think that everyone deserves the chance to enjoy the little things in life that make life beautiful. This is what VocalEye does by providing audio description of live theatre, arts and cultural events to make them more accessible for individuals of all ages who are blind and partially sighted. I see people smile and laugh from the sometimes humorous audio descriptions. I heard some patrons say some very touching thanks that the service VocalEye provides gives them a chance to experience what they can’t see. The people that make VocalEye run are incredible and fun and devoted to their mission. The lessons that the others involved in VocalEye have taught me are something small can make a big difference, everyone deserves equal respect and equal opportunity, and care deeply that all your patrons are having a good time. What VocalEye does is truly special. VocalEye works towards a meaningful mission and makes a difference in peoples’ lives. It would be valuable to support VocalEye to continue making a positive impact. VocalEye’s mission is one that I wish to continue to volunteering my time to for as long as possible!

VocalEye spun my life in a new direction. The first time I volunteered with VocalEye, I would not have guessed that I would be volunteering again for the same event that I started with (the Pride Parade) after spending the morning planning the budget and planning awareness-boosting events for the club I started called Vision Health Volunteers, and after the Pride parade, watching a friend practice goalball (a sport designed for individuals that are visually impaired)? A friend whose team I played blind hockey with the day before and that I was a camp counselor with at a camp for children that are blind or visually impaired the week before. The volunteer coordinator that I met at camp was also on that blind hockey team and came for audio description at the Pride Parade. A girl I met at blind hockey also came for audio description at the parade and met me again later at goalball. A community that was once so foreign to me has become smaller. I wouldn’t have predicted that vision health would be something that would become so important to me. Supporting the effort to make arts and cultural events accessible was what I thought was a nice goal before, is an inkling of the ambition I’ve grown the more I’ve volunteered with VocalEye and got involved with other organizations such as the CNIB and Blind Beginnings. One of our big projects in the works with the Vision Health Volunteers club aims to break some misconceptions towards those with visual impairments and to spread the message that anyone has the capability to achieve and succeed regardless of visual ability. Did I know that volunteering would inspire a deep passion in me for vision health and allow me to meet such incredible and fun people? No, but I’m very grateful that it did.

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself out and involved in the world around you!

Shanna

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UBC Second Year Courses for Pharmacology, physiology and how to study

First term

CHEM 233 – Organic Chemistry
CHEM 235 – Organic Chemistry Lab
BIOL 200 – Cell Biology
PCTH 201 – Drugs and Society
STAT 200 – Statistics
(Note: You should take CHEM 211 here if you’re a Honours Physiology or Pharmacology major. )

Second term

SOCI 102- Sociology
PHYS 118 – Electricity and Magnetism
BIOC 202 – Medical Biochemistry
CHEM 205 – Physical Chemistry
PSYC Introduction to Psychology

These classes were really useful for the MCAT

BIOC 202
BIOL 200
PHYS 118
SOCI 102
PSYC 101

CHEM 233 Organic Chemistry

I had Dr. Jackie Stewart as my professor and she’s great. Super enthusiastic about what she teaches and willing to help us if we don’t understand.
Don’t take 8 AM Ochem though. You will regret signing for 8 am class every morning until the end of the term. You’ve been warned.

CHEM 235 Organic Chemistry Lab

Very useful class.
Your TA and your benchmates are your saviours. Love them, be nice to them, help them. You all are part of a team.

PCTH 201 Drugs and Society

I highly recommend this elective. It inspired me to major in Pharmacology and Neuroscience!
Dr. Horne is awesome. Enough said. Take this class.
If you put in the effort, you will do well in this class.

STAT 200 Statistics

highly recommend this elective too. Very useful if you do research.
The midterm was really challenging so our professor changed the grading scheme so that more weight was on the final.
I went to office hours so often that my professor, Dr. Lang, started to anticipate that I would be back the next week haha. Use office hours!

BIOL 200 Cell Biology

The material was really cool but the exams are difficult to do well in.
The problem sets have no answers and this will anger you while you study. You don’t understand me now but you will later. Going to office hours for answers helps only mildly.
You will want to tear out your hair writing your press release because you don’t fully understand the article you’re supposed to be advertising.
To be honest, if you don’t need this class and are not taking it for interest, avoid this class. It’s a lot of work and the exams and assignments are frustrating.

Term 2:

BIOC 202 Medical Biochemistry

Dr. Williams will play biochemistry songs. He’s cool.
I found this class pretty interesting! You will too probably if you’re interested in medicine, pharmacy, nursing, etc because there are many examples related to medications and medical conditions.
the exams were tough even with tons and tons of studying
Study tip: Study with friends before exams! It helps to explain your answers and quiz each other on details and draw out pathways on whiteboards.

CHEM 205 Physical Chemistry

Our professor provided us with tons of practice exams and problem sets – such a blessing.
Class attendance is optional – just a FYI for all you self-learners out there.
I can’t say I found the material particularly interesting but the material is useful for the MCAT and understanding biochemistry.

PHYS 118 Electricity and Magnetism

Useful class, interesting class, easy midterms but the final was difficult because it covered everything from the beginning to the end of the semester.
There are clicker questions every class so be prepared.
Tutorial is optional but I highly recommend attending to get guidance from the TAs.

SOCI 102 Sociology

I was super excited to attend class!
Dr. Neil Armitage is the man you want for your professor.
The written assignments are difficult to do well on though
My TA was really helpful for tips and feedback if you’re struggling with writing.

PSYC 101 Psychology

After I took this class, I decided to change my major to Neuroscience and Pharmacology so you can guess how much I loved this class.
Easy to do well in if you attend class and study a reasonable amount. I’m not sure why this class is notorious for being alarmingly difficult. My guess is that it might be difficult if you take this first semester of first year when you’re not used to the workload of university yet.
Dr. Luke Clark is super cool and a good professor.

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More clinical time please?

This morning, I was given a free morning instead of clinical. BAM I realized that I would rather volunteer in the clinic or shadow one of the fabulous nurses than have a day off. I’d rather be in clinic over chilling at home, over extra sleep, even over enjoying the beautiful sunshine outside. More clinical time please?

I love the flow of new faces and learning bits of clients’ lives: people sharing snippets of their lives that make them happiest (often regarding their children and/or grandchildren) or snippets of the challenges they’ve overcome. Something that I’ve learned about myself is that I like variety in my work. What I liked about the eye clinic was that clients have a wide range in age and conditions. I also know that I enjoy constant interaction with people, as long I’m not selling a product to them which I’ve learned that I did NOT enjoy doing in the past. In other words, I like the interactions and relationships built in the healthcare provider- client context.

What was specific to this clinic that I thought was fun was that you get to see the same clients more than once, and in some cases, you get to work with members of the same family so you get to tell the grandma that you saw her granddaughter yesterday.

The more I learn, the more questions I have. I’m so curious about the science behind the exams that are done. After a while, I noticed patterns such as if particular tools are used, the Dr likely detected a cataract, but have absolutely no clue how he knew. That’s what years of schooling and years and year of experience on the job are for.

My preceptor yesterday asked me if I could see myself in this environment doing his job for the rest of my life. I don’t know if I’d want to do exactly his job because I’m hesitant about the constant travel away from family. But yes, I do know that I really love being in clinic and want to spend more in clinic. I’d like to doing a job that allows me to constantly interact with people.

Tips?

Wear comfortable shoes if you know that you’ll be standing for hours.
Bring a lunch that can be eaten very quickly.
But when you’re busy, you likely won’t feel hungry and will only realize that you should probably eat when someone else asks if you’ve eaten and points out how late past normal mealtime it is.
I generally try to avoid caffeine but I succumbed to having half a cup of free coffee.

SPPH 408

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Cedar processing and weaving

What I learned about myself today: I really like working with my hands to do fine detailed book.

Today, the other girls and I worked with Don to process cedar bark to weave cedar braids. I love working with the knife to strive towards long smooth strokes, deep but not too deep, finding the balance between putting down enough pressure but not so much that you’ll split the inner bark prematurely, finding that perfect angle. I liked being really cautious to the fine detailed work of cutting off the last bit of outer bark. I also enjoy weaving the cedars strips into braids. So overall, I loved all the work (more fun than work) we did with our hands today.

So as I’ve thinking about possible future careers lately, I’m applying what I’m learning about what I like and don’t like to think about what I’d like my future career to involve. I do enjoy talking to people but I’d like my job to involve at least some procedures. I definitely like to take an active role rather than just watch.

Don complimented my patience working with the knife and said that I would do well tanning hides. I’ve never tanned hides before but I would love to try! Maybe next week.

This morning, we hiked up to and around Hicks Lake. We ate different varieties of wild berries and Don taught about us about plants that can used medicinally or eaten.

SPPH 408

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When an exam leaves you frazzled and sad

You may have studied well in advance, hiding out in your room/the library/etc, foregoing the temptations of the beautiful weather outside, turning down invites from friends and family, for the sake of this exam that is worth 85% of your mark. 85% someone asked you. Are there really final exams worth 85% of your mark? Well you just wrote that 85% of your mark final 15 minutes ago. The massive cramp in your right forearm tells you that you haven’t been dreaming. I heard a quote that was something like “You try really hard. Do the best you can. And still fail” because that’s life. Ok, sit down. You’re not going to fail. You knew how to answer the questions. You just feel frazzled because you were writing non-stop for 3 hours straight. You felt rushed for time AGAIN. Note to self: Go seek help from SPAC or PAC for advice on how to be efficient with time when writing written answer/long essay style exams. These written answer exams are clearly not your forte since you love to write on and on and never know when to stop until you run out of time. You live and learn.

You’re in an awful mood still. Hey, don’t get yourself down because you’re able to be happy and cheery all the time as you would like to be . At least, you realize how lucky you are to have great friends that are there for you in the midst of your mood storm when you text your despair and they reply with encouragement. At least, at the peak of this, you run into one of your best buds who demonstrated strength and perseverance. Rach is about to write her third exam in a row. She is a superstar. 🙂

In the big picture, exams are absolutely NOTHING compared to the challenges that some people face in their everyday lives. But hey, if you feel down, it’s okay. It’s okay to feel weak sometimes.

Go take a break. Yes, take a break even though you have another massive 60% of your mark exam tomorrow. You deserve a little reward. Spend that food giftcard you can’t remember which volunteering/work gig you got it from and buy yourself something warm to eat instead of the cold salad you’ve been having for the last few weeks. Go something you enjoy. I’m writing this blog post but do whatever interests you and makes you happy: cook, go for a run, go see your boyfriend/girlfriend, play tennis as long as you like it and it’s relatively short. Sorry it has to be short because you’re going to return back to working hard. You chose this life because you wanted an education. You have a destination to get to so start hustling.

Good luck with your exams!

Shanna

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After last day of classes of first year

Friday:

Spend half a hour chilling out with Kevin, Veena and Kelsey soaking in the realization that we’ve finished our last class of first year!
Kickstart studying for finals. Spent a couple hours with Kevin coming up with analysis ideas on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. We mostly hovered around ideas related to the fear of deviation from conventional gender roles/expectations of Victorian society, fear of reverse colonization.
Wait for Valerie at the Nest. Kevin and I spend half a hour talking about retroviruses, antiviral drugs. Towards the end, Kevin had a lot of thoughts and began a though-provoking conversation.
This provoking conversation continued on the bus after Valerie meets us.
Alyssa’s birthday party at her house:
- play games: basketball, fooseball, mini billiards. Feel like a kid in a toy store thanks to all the games that Alyssa has
- “How well do you know Alyssa” quiz
- Karaoke. Kevin and Kelsey made a deal that they would rap if Veena and I sang. Veena and I sang. It was worth it to see those two rap, well rap for 10 seconds before bursting into laughter.

Saturday:

Late start to the day and I took a long time to get going today.
Pomodoro technique has helped me this morning. Pomodoro was recommended to me by both Jeffrey and Susanna and I thought it would fun to try something new this exam season.
Successfully did an overview of ALL the virology topics in the course notes before completing the quiz. Honestly, I could have done more but hey, I feel accomplished!
Had a lot of fun catching up with Laura, Shanae, Louise, Jamie and Chanon at Laura’s birthday dinner at Heart Stock, a trendy pho place on 2nd and Fir Street. Walked down to Granville Island. It’s so nice to do something as simple as talk when you’re spending time with some of the girls that were an integral part of your time in high school.
- Underrated tip: I think it’s important to have friends in other faculties. It’s fun to talk to someone about classes that you have not taken and likely never will, and learn about the interesting things that they’ve learned. It broadens your range of your knowledge. For example, most of the other girls are in Arts except Laura and I. Louise and Shanae took a visual arts courses that taught how to use Photoshop and other technology to create art. Shanae and Jamie talked about learning about using political correct language. Laura, who is in the faculty of business, studied some interesting HR stuff. Louise and I talked about leptin and ghrelin. You get to have such a diverse conversation if you have friends with different interests and fields of study.
Write blog post.
Now I’m going to review Bacterial Diseases. Don’t worry. I am good at refraining myself from talking about what I’ve learned about food-borne diseases when my friends are enjoying their meals 😉

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone!

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Allow your old glasses to improve the sight of others! April 5-8

What: Own glasses that you’ve outgrown or no longer match your prescription? Drop off your old glasses to save another’s sight! Collected eyeglasses will be donated to people in need. Accepting prescription glasses, reading glasses, and sunglasses. Children’s glasses are especially needed so feel free to contribute your glasses from way back or your younger sibling or child’s glasses. Thank you for contributing to this mission of saving the sight of others!!

When: Tuesday April 5 – Friday April 8 Collection bin will be there all day. Club representatives to answer your questions Tues/Thurs 11 am – 2 pm . MWF 11am – 1pm and 2-4 pm.

Where: Our booth in the Nest. Anyone interested in donating that doesn’t attend UBC: feel free to pass your glasses donations through someone else who goes to UBC or email me at shannyeung@gmail.com and I can try to arrange a pick-up from you. Thank you for contributing to this mission of saving the sight of others!!

Who: Vision Health Volunteers! Come hang out and ask any questions about where the glasses are going to, about our club or about the volunteer opportunities.

What else: While you stop by, pick up Vision Health Volunteer’s pamphlet containing a compilation of available summer volunteer opportunities. When you have a lot of free time, give back to your community through LOTS of other meaningful and fun volunteer opportunities!!! Some examples:
– APRIL Foundation Fighting Bliness Comic Vision
– JUNE Foundation Fighting Bliness Cycle for Sight
– JULY Blind Beginnings summer camp for children with visual impairments, fundraising committee, newsletter design, and social media
– JUNE/JULY Assisting with VocalEye at the Celebrations of light, Bard on the Beach, the Pride Parade and more.
– SUMMER/NEXT FALL many opportunities with the Canadian National Institute of Blindness

For details, pick up our pamphlet for what each role involves and how to volunteer with us.

Your pamphlet will be made by the fabulous Alyssa. Poster made by the fabulous Misaki.

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Our research conference prize!

My partner Michelle and I won the 3rd place Poster presentation competition at UBC 2016 Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference. We didn’t expect to win anything so our prize was a surprise bonus. Personally, the best part of the conference was getting insightful questions that led us consider interesting other things we tweak with our project, the great suggestions on how to improve our project and learning about the research that other people do. Oh, and even one of the judges gave us his contact information because he wanted to refer us to the group that he does research with (cool!).

I’m so grateful to our mentor, Dr. Matthias Gorges, for all his guidance and for inspiring Michelle and I to get really interested in this! proud. I’m glad we made him proud. He said “This is a great accomplishment (think of it being in the top 1.5% of MURC posters) – well done!”. I’m really really thankful to my partner Michelle. We worked really well together because we supported each other where the other was weaker. While we were presenting, we also filled in any bits of information that the other left out. Overall, my experience working with Matthias and Michelle involved a lot of learning, and enjoying research as both fun and collaborative! I definitely recommend trying out the Research Experience mentorship to learn about a field of research that you’re unfamilar with, meet a great mentor, and have fun making friends with other students interested in research.

This week, I been more focused on my extracurriculars: preparing for the research conference this week, working with a very friendly and insightful theatre group representative on my play from last year, and just today: reaching out to different blindness and vision impairment related charities, planning and booking a philanthropy event for next week for the club I’ve recently started with my friends called Vision Health Volunteers, as well as spending the evening at our event at Dark Table today! Even though yesterday was hectic, I just become more efficient when there are more demands on my time. As long as you strongly believe in what you’re doing it and you can find enjoyment in doing it, keep doing what you’re doing!

To be honest, our event tonight had some unforeseen mishaps. Though I definitely felt a flare of “Oh no!!” when each time a new problem was added, I surprised myself by how I was able to force myself to detach emotions/fear/anxiety in order to think through solutions carefully and stay humorous! We’re stronger and better at handling problems than we may think! Thank you to Valerie, Veena and Winston today. After the club event, it was fun to go de-stress with these three afterwards on an little adventure. You all know how much I’m glad to have Veen as a friends so today new friend feature: Valerie says the funniest things so she instantly lifts the mood of people around her. Always a pleasure to be around.

I want to shape this blog to incorporate more content that you readers want to hear about. Let me know in the comments or email me at shannayeung@gmail.com what you want to hear about: general topics such as UBC, university, dealing with school/stress/whatever (if I don’t know, I’ll try to find someone more qualified to answer your question), living in Vancouver or specific topics personal to my experience that I’ve mentioned on this blog. Please indicate whether you’d like to be credited for your questions/suggestions or if you would rather remain anonymous.

Enjoy the beautiful weather everyone!

Shanna

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What’s on your reading list?

I’m a reading addict. I literally just got a new book today and finished it in one sitting. ( I’m going to try out David Larson’s techniques and maybe make a post reviewing whether I think they work for undergrads!)

Books I want to read:

Mountains beyond Mountains – By Paul Farmer founder of the medical humanitarian organization Partners in Health, human rights activist and Harvard medical school professor. He began a public health non-profit while in medical school. He is the epitome of “let’s put saving lives and making a difference to the world first”. #idol #goals

When Breath Becomes Air – a new father/young neurosurgeon faces cancer and questions what is the meaning of life. (and he passed away while writing this book 🙁 )

Go back to the library to retrieve Oliver Sack’s “The Mind’s Eye” that I never finished!

ALL the Atul Gawande – I liked both Complications and the Checklist Manifesto.

Try a Abraham Verghese.

Re-read Basho’s haikus.

That book of Chinese poetry that’s been sitting on my shelf for a while now…

Russian literature? I’m going to see the play Onegin on Sunday and realized that I haven’t read much Russian literature. I tried Anna Kareina in the past but put it down. Time to try again?

EMMA – Why haven’t I read Emma yet??

What’s on your reading list?

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Messing up an interview

I was estatic to receive an interview invite from a program I think is such an amazing learning opportunitiy and cultural experience. The program allows you to live and learn in an Aboriginal community in BC for a month to be fully immersed in that community and work in an interprofessional team on health promotion projects and job shadow and participate in cultural activities. The combination of healthcare and cultural learning sounds to me like a dream experience.

Alas I was so nervous that I think I gave some rambling answers and likely gave off an impression that I wasn’t calm, cool and collected enough to do a good job. (Really, I said some dumb things) I am disappointed at myself but upon honest analysis, I don’t believe I’m qualified enough yet and other applicants would be much better at serving these communities. Good luck to everyone else 🙂

I’m still super interested in Aboriginal Health so I’ll apply again in future!

Any tips on how to succeed at interviews?

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