The 2016/2017 academic year-my first in university-is winding down, and so now’s a prime time for reflecting on the past eight months. In August, I had several predictions about what I believed would be my first year experience.
Luckily and unluckily, though, those predictions were destroyed the way all our old notes will be after exams.
1. EXPECTATION: I had to be at class at 9:00AM and even sometimes 7:00AM (#bandkidlife) in high school, so getting up for a 10:00 class will be easy!
REALITY: Dragging myself out of my bed any earlier than 10:30 can only be described as the Eighth Deadly Sin. My number one skill is sleeping through alarms.
This right here is the pinnacle of all human achievement and I WON’T LEAVE IT WITHOUT A FIGHT!
2. EXPECTATION: Attending one financial workshop is a mark of my mature and responsible personality, and it will help me avoid superfluous spending. I’m using big words because I’m a capable, workshop-attending adult.
REALITY: my bank account has been hemorrhaging since September. It is a wounded animal, and every single cent I spend is another stab in its side. Basically, attending one workshop didn’t actually change me at all. Who knew.
How’d this candid photo of me get here?
3. EXPECTATION: I live in residence, so most of my food will be residence food. The meal plan-makers know this, so probably the food will be delicious and nutritious!
REALITY: …nah.
4. EXPECTATION: it’ll rain, of course – it’s Vancouver. But my handy-dandy umbrella and rain boots will protect me until the sun comes back!
REALITY: ‘until the sun comes back’ is a mantra the locals mutter about a deity they no longer believe exists. Amoral as the storms themselves, umbrella-thieves scan the lecture halls for their next target. My rain boot gets a hole in its top, leaving me clad in porous runners instead. In October, it rained 28 out of 31 days; I almost rebuilt Noah’s Ark just for travel convenience. Apparently one can drown in things other than coursework.
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD “”FEELING THE RAIN”” AND GETTING WET ARE THE SAME!!!! THING!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. EXPECTATION: Ten minutes to get from class to class? Don’t patronize me, UBC scheduling system. Ten minutes is a geological age. I’ll have enough time for a fifteen-minute nap in-between.
REALITY: No matter how early I leave, I always seem to arrive later than expected. The constant construction does not help, either. Why is UBC always under construction? What’s being built other than an excuse for my tardiness???
Another candid photo of me, how embarrassing!
6. EXPECTATION: doing my laundry is gonna suck.
REALITY: doing laundry itself isn’t so bad, actually. What is bad is going up and down four flights of stairs (my residence has no elevator) several times because I’ve procrastinated on doing laundry for two weeks and relearning with every ascent the sad, sad level of my fitness (0) and having to pay twenty dollars for the privilege of using “dryers” that don’t even deserve the name because they are USELESS. I make light of this because if I don’t laugh about The Laundry Experience™ I might just cry. And then have to wash the tears out of my shirt…by doing laundry.
It’s called ‘Gain’ but all I can think about is how much time I lost getting the lighting just right for this photo.
7. EXPECTATION: Having never lived away from my family before, I’ll be homesick.
REALITY: Turns out, UBC became a second home.
8. EXPECTATION: My drinking habits won’t change much at university. Not drastically, anyway.
REALITY: I drink at least three cups of tea daily now – it wakes me up!
9. EXPECTATION: to be honest, squirrels didn’t factor much into any of my first-year UBC expectations.
REALITY: UBC’s squirrels are social media-savvy and therefore only a small squirrel-step away from ruling the campus.
AND they ride bikes (source)
Hope y’all could relate to this list, HCUBC cuties! Good luck on exams!