Tick-tick-tick-tick.

18 years, 10 months, 6,902 days, 165,670 hours, 9,940, 251 minutes, and  596, 498, 838 seconds.

Since October 22nd, this is how many years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds have passed. Appears to be a long time.

The other day I had this thought about all the time I have.

Or about how much time I don’t have. Whichever way you choose to look at it.

I felt like I was a little box closed in by the walls of time, holding a secure control over all of your actions and movements.

I had to get my watch fixed. Quite nice not to hear it ticking, a constant reminder of the seconds, minutes and hours that are flying by, some of which are unused.

But what is wrong with usused time, time spent doing nothing?

Nothing is wrong with nothing. Yet we make it seem as if it is a waste. Hm.

I have decided to switch my Major from English and Creative Writing to Art History and Creative Writing. The thought that ran into me was the amount of time I had left, and if switching would be a waste of time.

Hold up. I just told myself that I should maybe not consider my passions, my strengths and my dreams, if they take up too much time?

That is going to be a horrendous life.

4 years you must be finished your bachelor everyone, echoes the nightmares of Health and Career classes past.

I call bologna. I am going to take my time, enjoy my time, and live continiously with the time that I am given and take as much as I need. I have realized that this rush, pressure, and finish line we have to cross at a certain TIME, should not and does not exist.

Always remember folks, 5 years > is the new four.

Take your time.

Mad Love,

Ella

http://www.howlonghaveibeenalivefor.com/

Lets start from the very beginning. A very good place to start.

Today was a beginning for most but not for me. Going into my second year, I was a wise guide to the new guppies that are entering the big sea of UBC. I promised that I didn’t bite.

What a strange nostalgia, I felt today, as if I had suddenly grown up and I was no longer allowed to feel nervous, anxious and excited for school anymore. I had to be a grown up today and know everything. Which I don’t.

As we walked around campus today, I gave the best advice I could to the newcomers whose eyes were keen and wondering, and whose brains were hungry for answers. It was honest and true, personal and experience-based. But I wondered all day, what makes me the expert?

We arrived at the pep rally, faced with a stadium filled with 8,000 students new to UBC. I remember it exactly as if it were a year ago. Actually, it was. I remember feeling nervous, scared, excited, confused, happy, sad, inspired and everything that is in between. And today, I don’t know if I felt that much different.

My first year was a year of growing, one of which I learned an abundance of things about myself and about the life I may want to live. As an Orientations leader today, I was a leader and guide, as a second year student. But I realize that I was not an expert, nor was I expected to be. Because we are all growing up, every day of our lives. Is there even such a thing as all grown up? Every experience will be new in some way or another, with another perspective that just kaleidoscopes our lives a little more. After sending off my little birds to fly to the Main Event today, I felt a little bit older and experienced I suppose. But I was treading in the little foot steps of my first year self as I made my way to 99 bus stop, which made me smile.