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This week in the life included a lot of:

• Midterms, quizzes and assignments (especially that English essay proposal!) due. I felt miserable at several points during the week but I try to stop myself. I must always remember how lucky I am to have the opportunity to obtain post-secondary education and learn so much from the best and be surrounded by people driven to learn. I’ve always dreamed of attending university and I’m grateful that being an university student is my present reality.
• Misaki, Veena, Kevin, Chanon for being the best this week. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Exercise. Yay for free gym!
• A bowl of rice and various snacks from home each day to save time and $$$$ because I was on campus almost everyday past 9 and campus food is overpriced. My friends giggled because I brought my rice cold in a bowl several days. Apparently, they’ve never anyone bring rice in Corning bowls before. Before you try the same thing, I must warn you that these bowls break much easier than your plastic sandwich boxes so be super careful! DO NOT make the mistake of eating all of your rice by lunch like I did on Wednesday. DO NOT DO NOT because after your meeting ends at 9, you will open your wallet to realize that you literally do not have enough money to buy yourself something to eat and you will have wished that you had more self-control earlier.
• Canadian Liver Foundation’s Coffeehouse fundraiser Friday night. Some of the performers had such beautiful voices.  My friend who is super amazing is on the leadership for CLF.
• Facetime with one of the best of the best, who listened patiently to me ramble for over a hour and a half and offered incredible advice.
• Cooked a ton of teriyaki chicken wings and siu choy and rice for me and my brother. If you’re looking for a quick to cook and easy meal, chicken wings and siu choy are a good bet.
• Everyone trying to lock Andy out of the study rooms throughout the week.

So grateful to have this one as a friend. <3

Veena and I worked more than once this week despite how insanely busy this week was. If you prioritize fitness, you can fit in workouts no matter how busy you are. We were SO sore after a workout including tons of squats and lunges that sitting down to study in the library was a little painful. I remind myself that pain today builds strength for tomorrow! Our first workout: 10-15 min running as cardio warm-up, machines to work on shoulders and chest, free weights to work on arms and legs. Second workout using Blogilates Youtube videos: 15 min on abs and a High Intensity Interval total body strength and cardio. We found a gym that is FREE on campus. We hope to work out more from now on.

I love 0.35 mm pens because they allow you to write really small. and are perfect for making review sheets.

 

As I’m working on a research proposal for my English class, I’ve read more about Greek-letter societies the last week than I’ve ever read my entire life. I literally have twenty tabs open to various academic papers addressing the impacts of Greek system affiliation on academic performance, leadership development, alcohol use, body image and a range of other college experiences and outcomes. These are really interesting to read because different studies contradict each other’s findings and there is still so much up for debate. To be honest, I was very surprised to find the amount of academic research I found conducted on sorority and fraternity involvement. I knew that sororities and fraternities are a controversial topic, especially now that the idea of banning Greek-letter societies from  all college campuses has been become a hot topic, but didn’t realize that there is a wealth of academic research on the effects of fraternity and sorority membership!

I went to the Education library  in Neville Scarfe the other day to check out some books on my topic and was a silly first year unable to locate the section that my books were located in. I went to the circulation desk with a sheepish smile and fortunately the librarian was super nice and helped me find the books. If you have no idea a section of books are in one of the many libraries on campus, don’t hesitate to ask for help!

Two books that are interesting reads are Pledged: the Secret life of sororities and Inside Greek U: Fraternities, Sororities, and the Pursuit of Pleasure, Power, and Prestige. While I don’t agree with the views expressed in the books, both will provoke questions. Alexandra Robbins, the author of Pledged, received a lot of hate for her book from sorority members and alumni because her books paints sorority life as an experience marked by substance abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, racism, violence, eating disorders and promiscuity. Alan Desantis potrays a a similar view of Greek life in Inside Greek U.

(Random interruption: Our cat is stretched out on the floor and is staring at me intently. )

Philanthropy:

This Sunday, the sisters of Alpha Omicron Pi successfully raised money for the Arthritis Society through the charity soccer tournament “Score Out Arthritis” and selling lots of baked goods. More money was raised through bake sales that we’ve been holding in the Nest, the place where lots of UBC students hang out and eat lunch.

If you want to help a good cause, specifically the BC Children’s Hospital, and love a good scare, go to Sigma Chi’s Haunted House this Thursday or Friday evening. It’ll be in Greek Village, which is close to the ice rink and the field. Admission is minimum donation of $5. I’ll be there Friday evening with some friends after our Chemistry lab. I know I really really need to study but I firmly believe that every student deserves a night off to celebrate Halloween. That said, I feel pained to stay in on Halloween night itself but I’m going to have to because I have a midterm next Monday and next Tuesday. Halloween is one of my favourite times of the year because I love wearing and seeing other people wear costumes, watching scary movies and visiting haunted houses with my friends, and handing out candy. *sigh* There’s always next year.

 Academics: 

The TAs in the Math Learning Centre were really helpful when I needed help before my math midterm. So if you need help, try dropping by in the LSK building. I didn’t do as well on my math midterm as I hoped to do and I was pretty sad. I have to figure out a better way to study math. What I’ve been doing before is not good enough. I’ll have to figure out a better way and study better for the final. If you have any tips on how to study calculus, please leave your comments below. I’d love to hear from you.

I’ve been working more on my paper but stopped now to study for my upcoming physics midterm. (eek!)

Sorority Life: 

Big-Little Reveal and Pledge Ceremony happened. I also ate dinner with my new “family” consisting of my Big, grand Big, “twin” sister, and my Big’s grand little and great grand little.  The family is hard to explain. I loved meeting the girls and felt an immediate connection because everyone is so easy-going and just totally awesome. <3

 

Have a wonderful Halloween!

Shanna

 

Artwork in the bathroom. Art is everywhere. You just need to look! Credit to Leah Schimdt.

Food

I purposely avoid buying food on campus too often to save money. I usually bring snacks or an extra meal from home but today I splurged and bought food.

An awesome girl I know works at Bubble Waffle so if you ever crave Hong Kong Style bubble waffle, bubble tea, curry fishballs or hot soup and noodles, go to Bubble Waffle!

While we’re talking about food, I shared a box of sushi from Bento Sushi (next to the Sauder building) with a friend because we wanted some food in our stomachs before the chem midterm. The sushi wasn’t the best I ever had and it was pricey. I doused  my sushi with wasabi and soy sauce. However, two of our other friends got teriyaki chicken bowls and those looked pretty good.

While we’re on the topic of food, I burned my tongue with a hot drink. Be careful with hot drinks everyone!

Academics

My first Biology and Chemistry midterms are now over! In my mind, I was expecting these midterms to be mammoth but they were actually short.

Sorority Life

I missed Pledge ceremony and Big-Little Reveal tonight. I hurried to the chapter room soaked from the rain and looking like a beautiful disheveled mess but I don’t get to find out who my Big sister is until Monday. Ahhhhhh I really want to know who she is! Something I looked forward to most is having a big sister who will be both a close friend and a  mentor. There are no girls close to my age in my family. Even ALL (seriously ALL) of my cousins are male. Although I love my cousins a lot and have them to thank for introducing me to road hockey, horror movies and R.L. Stine, cars built for speed, I really wanted to experience what it is like to have sisters!

Happy Thursday everyone!

I came out of my Bio midterm Monday morning feeling like I studied as much I possibly could have and whatever I get is representative of the hardest I could have tried. For me, knowing this is the best possible I could have done is enough. I just wrote a Physics test that felt alright too. If you’re a first year like me who feels like you’re studying so hard and have no idea when you’ve studied enough, remember: if you put in the effort, you’ll be just fine. Remember to take breaks to eat, sleep, and relax with your friends and family!

I have a chemistry midterm tomorrow night so instead of writing today, I share some pictures with you all to recap how first year has been this past while:

Don’t let midterms crush you – go crush them!

Have a lovely rest of the week,

Shanna

Hey all,

I have a massive draft of a post I want to make about the negative misconceptions people have about sororities and how wrong I learned that they are as I went through Formal Recruitment. I have a lot to say now that I saw firsthand how sweet and down-to-earth the girls who conducted all my interviews were! I want to devote time refining that draft so that that post will be meaningful. So hang tight, I’ll return to writing it after I finish some Calculus! For a sneak peek of what I want to say, check out Naoadays’s blog post on Why You shouldn’t date a Sorority Girl  (This is such a misleading title but why she makes this title so will make sense when you read it.)

Other things that happened during Week 3

• The first part of my training at the Canadian Institute for the Blind. I’m learning techniques to become a better sighted guide! This summer, I served as a sighted guide briefly and that experience had so much impact on me that I want to volunteer more and so I’m getting myself properly training. Some of the scenerios we covered included flights of stairs, washrooms, and restaurants.
• REX Orientation. REX is a program that is part of UBC Undergraduate Research Opportunities, which I am now a member of! That reminds me… I need to work on my application!
• Clubs Day! Lots and lots of clubs. I plan to go to a meeting for one of the clubs I signed up for tomorrow.

Other stuff but now I’m tired and need to get back to work.

until next time!

• Lots of love to my silly friends and so thankful that we’re in this journey together. <3 Thanks especially to Kevin and Veena for being super supportive and understanding towards me Week 2!
• Also: huge thank you to Sarena, the Undergraduate Physics Advisor, for all her help and patience.

Friday night: A low-key end to the school week.

• Physics with my friends “Potato” and “Avocado. ”  Yes those are their real life nicknames. Frequent alternation between “I DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING! LIFE IS TERRIBLE.” and “I GET IT! I GET IT! LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL!”
• When Koerner closed, we met up with some other friends in Irving.
• We were all starving so we ate pizza at Mercante.
• Silliness post-pizza and on the bus home.
• Stayed up late creating multiple blog posts for the next couple days because this is going to be a bit of a busy week. I compiled songs together in themed posts to share with you guys – hope you like these posts!
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