A Current Student’s Blog - UW Residences

Yet another term has just gone by.

It feels like it just started, but I only have a week before I start my next term. (My co-op work starts a bit earlier than most people) Although it seems like it has gone by too quickly, a lot has happened during the last four months.

Maybe it’s because it was the summer, or maybe that’s just my excuse, but academically, this term wasn’t so great. I guess I still have a lot to work on in terms of balancing my life. Well, at least I learend my lesson.

Nonetheless, all the other aspects this term have been just great! All the good people I met, great times I had, the walks I had in the nice weather, many new experiences, and much more.

As I already mentioned in my post before, this was my very first summer in Waterloo, and it was simply amazing. Because of the nice weather, I was able to explore Waterloo more. Whoever said Waterloo is boring, has either never been to Waterloo, or not explored the city enough. Or they just have too high of an expectation for a city to be exciting. Waterloo has lots of parks, one of which is Waterloo Park, right behind the UWP buildings. I’ve been to Waterloo park several times this term actually, and taking a walk both at night and during the day there was so nice! The nice weather of the summer has helped me to walk a lot, and walking really makes you feel good, and you get to do some exercise, as well! Other than the parks, there’s also uptown Waterloo, with many different restaurants for you to explore. The area near Charles terminal was nice too, and walking down the street, you can see some really nice-looking stores, like coffee shops and bakeries. Of course, I didn’t have the chance to try all of them, but I do plan on trying out more of them the next time I’m @ Waterloo. Also, this term I spent more time south of the school, so next time, I hope to explore the other side of the school as well.

Well, I guess this is it. This will be my last blog post!

I know, you are all sad, and you don’t want to admit the fact, but life still goes on. I hope you had fun reading my posts, and for those people who still have exams tomorrow, good luck!! To the prospective students, welcome to UW, and enjoy your time here! I sure am enjoying it myself.

Au revoir!

This term, I am realizing more and more the importance of time management. Yes, people say it all the time, that time management is important once you get into university, and that you should never procrastinate. It is, of course, easier said than done. Also, the truth is, university isn’t all that impossible. It definitely is more challenging than high school, but really, you can without much difficulty pass a course even if you’re not studying 24/7. You might not get the high marks you did in high school, but you can still pass a course by procrastinating.

So, why is it not a good idea to leave things til the last minute?

Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I personally am not someone who could study 24/7, even when it comes to exam time. I love hanging out with people, and it would be hard for me to pass up the chance to get together with my friends. However, this term alone, I had so many last minute calls for getting together. So, if I had left things til the last minute, going out to these unexpected getogethers would not be so much of a trouble.

You might have to make tradeoffs between studying and going out once in a while, but in my opinion, these tradeoffs can be avoided most of the times. University really is full of stuffs to do, both academically and socially. Why give up any of those, when you can, with proper time management skills, get the best out of both of them?

So, last weekend, I went to a beach! The Korean Catholic club organized this trip to Grand Bend for two days, Friday and Saturday. I didn’t know of the place before this, but now everyone seems to be going there. The week before, the residence planned a bus trip there, and this coming weekend SciSoc is having one as well. Well, I guess it is the spring term. We rented a cottage, and about 20 people went, so it was lots of fun.The beach was really nice too, and it didn’t really rain while we were there! (Although, I do like the rain )

Oh, also, I was invited to the staff appreciation BBQ for housing yesterday. It was held in V1 Great Hall, so I decided to drop by after class. I haven’t gone that way for a while, probably for the first time since I did the residence tour. It was really nice there, with good food as well =). Also, the two ladies dressed as clowns were making balloon animals! I haven’t seen those for ages, so after some deep thoughts in which shape to get, I asked for a puppy dog. I just LOVE balloons! I always bring the balloons home after information sessions.

Anyway, there now is less than one week left of classes, and I still have 4 assignments to hand in. I guess this weekend will be fully devoted to assignments. So I guess my plans to study for the finals way ahead of time isn’t working out this term either. But then, I guess I had enough fun away from school already, so I shall now prepare myself for the upcoming days of fun-filled(?) exam studying! Good luck everyone =D.

I can’t believe we only have 2 weeks left of classes! All of the professors seem to be mentioning this, too. It seems like the term has just started..

So, yesterday was actually the last day of my squash lessons for this term. I have been taking lessons since the beginning of my university career, and this term (or maybe last term, but I wouldn’t know because I was on co-op then) they changed things aroun a bit. It used to be that we have 10 lessons, but now they have 9 lessons, but have a tournament at the end instead. This was really nice, because I got to play against different people, some of which I’ve never played against before.

My inability to serve properly has made a couple of the games quite long, since my opponent and I just kept on serving back and forth. I had four matches in total, and by the end of the fourth one, I was starving, and my arm was numb. My whole body aches now, but it still feels good, because the source of aching is from exercising!

On another note, the prospective students got their results for residence this week, and this week’s the course enrollment appointment week for them, as well! I was actually helping out with a couple of pre-frosh decide on courses, and it reminded me of my own pre-frosh. I started enrolling in courses as soon as my appointment began, but I was still unable to enroll in one course I wanted to, because all the non-reserved spaces were already taken by the upper years. I did end up taking that course in 2A, though =). Also, I remember back then, I actually got my last choice of residence, but later it turned out to be a great experience nonetheless! So now I have experiences in both the traditional style and the suite style residences. Which one do I prefer? Well, I guess traditional style was more on the convenient side, since you don’t have to clean the washroom, you don’t have to take out the garbage yourself, you just go down and eat in your cafeteria without having to worry about what to cook for dinner, and etc. However, since I need to get out of this laziness of mine, I guess suite style sort of helps in that manner.

Oh, this just reminded me, we had another BBQ day on Monday! I believe it was for residences in Wilmot Court, and funny enough, I saw almost everyone I know who lives in Wilmot Court at the BBQ. Surely, we all love free food =).

This Monday, UWP Wilmot Court had this Learn to Make Sushi event!

Being a sushi lover, (well, come to think of it, what food am I not a lover of?) I decided to check it out. Lots of people gathered in the lounge for this, so the dons had to go and make more rice several times.

So we basically put some rice on the seaweed, then place whatever we want on the rice, and then roll it, and there we have our sushi! =) For a first try, it wasn’t bad. The salmon tasted so good! Thanks to the dons for organizing this! I’ve been meaning to try making one on my own, but I have been too busy and too lazy to buy all the necessary stuffs. Maybe next time.

More happy news, I’m finally done all my midterms! Yes, now final’s on its way, but I will worry about that once I get some rest this weekend.

Happy Canada Day everyone!! This year, Canada day fell on a Tuesday, but UW was nice to let us have the Monday off as well =). So I went home for the weekend, but came back in time for UW Canada Day Celebrations!

My first shift, at around 2p.m., was volunteering at the Face Painting station! When I got there, there were already lots of volunteers working there, and the line-up was long, too. So I began my first ever face painting. At first, I was actually worried that I won’t be able to do the job right. Luckily, most people asked for simple ones, such as the maple leaf or the Canadian flag.

Little kids were really hard to do, because they wouldn’t stop moving around, and some of them seemed to be scared of the brush. One of them, once I got my brush on her skin, stopped looking scared. Some others, though, I had to let go unpainted, because even the parents couldn’t keep them still.

Nonetheless, face painting was indeed a fun thing to do. I did it for 4 hours, and after that, my neck and shoulders started hurting, from bending over. Although there were a few adults who also wanted face painting done on them, most of our “customers” were little kids, so I had to do a lot of bending over.

After face painting, I went over to mathSoc booth to help out with the children’s activities. It was really nice to see that everyone was having fun =). Then after another 4 hours, it was time for the closing ceremony - and the fireworks!

The fireworks were really pretty. I’m glad I decided to stay for it, because I was debating whether or not I should go home early to do my cs assignment. There were lots of people during the day for the celebration, but still more people came for the fireworks.

So, this was a really nice day. The weather was nice, too! And for me, this brought yet another valuable memory. I really think volunteering is great. You get to appreciate things more. When you are just a participant in an event, you just want to have fun, and so most of the times you don’t really care about how this event was brought up and who helped make the event possible. When you volunteer for an event, though, you can look at things from a different perspective. You start to see all the great efforts that get put into planning, organizing and running an event, and you appreciate them, instead of taking them for granted. Volunteering is also a great way to meet new people. I guess these are parts of the reasons why people volunteer. We may not get paid, but we earn something that is more valuable than money.

I’m employed for the fall term!

After going through so many interviews this term, I was so relieved when I found out that I had an offer. And guess what? I’m going to California this fall! =D Going abroad, there are lots of things to be done, like applying for visa, looking for housing, and etc., but it certainly is going to be an amazing experience! It seems like there are bunch of others going there in the fall as well, so it’ll be fun.

Oh, also, this week’s preenrollment week for the winter term for the current students. I had to get an override form, becuase 1) quest complained that I didn’t have the prereqs for a course when I actually did, and 2) I wanted to add a 6th course again. Yes, I’m suffering with the 6 courses I have this term, but it’s easier to drop a course than to add one, so might as well put it there for now. So for the winter I have :

CS350 [Operating System], CS341 [Algorithms], CS365 [Models of Computation], MATH237 [Calculus 3], BIOL301 [Human Anatomy], PSYCH207 [Cognitive Processes].

I hope everything works out for me, i.e. no conflicts. It should be okay unless the schedule for one or more of the courses changes. Although, I think that term is going to be another tough one. Oh, and if anyone’s planning on taking any of these courses in the winter, please let me know! It’s always good to have a company

So, only a couple more days till the long weekend! I hope everyone has a kick-ass long weekend. We get the Monday off, too, which is really nice. Also, come out for the UW Canada Day Celebrations!

So, I’m pretty much doomed right now.

I’ve got a midterm in CS246 tomorrow, and I also have a couple of assignments due tomorrow, both of which I haven’t even started yet. Then I also got three unexpected interviews today, two of which I was informed today.

So I felt a bit overwhelmed with all of these earlier today. Then I also had to go to Grand River Hospital for a brief training for volunteering during the summer. When I went, though, the lady who gave me the training was so nice! She introduced me to other hospital personnels we met there, and they all seemed really friendly. I’m really looking forward to starting my volunteering here!

After the training, I took the bus and got off at King and University. Since the training ended earlier than I expected it to, I had a bit of a time between then and the next interview. So I decided to walk back to rez from King. Although it isn’t that long of a walk, I thought I would get at least a bit of exercise. Now I’m so glad that I did that. Walking while listening to my iPod, feeling the cool breeze, felt extremely good. I must have looked funny, because I was dressed in suit for interviews. Nonetheless, I learned a very important lesson today: when you’re overwhelmed with work, take a step back and take a short but nice break. Surely you can spare few minutes for that. That brief moment of freedom really helped me regain my energy, despite the fact that I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.

Speaking of taking a break, if you are looking for something to entertain you to get away from all these midterms and assignments for just a few minutes, check out UW housing’s new application, resiDance! I remember doing something similar to this several years ago for Christmas. You can also have your roommate dancing with you!

Wow!

Last week’s been a truly crazy week for me. Interviews, a midterm, a test, a couple of assignments.. Good thing I don’t have any midterms this week, so that I can focus more on my interviews. Because I worked at the same company twice, this is only my second time going through the whole Jobmine process. So this term, I really didn’t know what to expect for the first few interviews, and I did a bad job answering the technical questions I was asked. It’s not all that bad, though, because the more I do, the better I get at them. Or at least I hope I do.

By the way, the final exam schedule for this term is out now! I just barely started on my midterms, but I already need to worry about the final. Oh, and guess what? I have an amazing final schedule! I have one on the 8th, and then 4 exams in 3 days…. Oh joy. Let’s hope that I’m still here after all that.

A good news, though! I have a room for the Winter term, and it’s the same building I’m living in right now, except it’s on the floor right below mine. People living in residence this term got to apply for residence first, so that was pretty nice. This time I applied with a friend of mine, so I think Winter term’s going to be a lot of fun, too! Speaking of Winter term, pre-enrollment is in less than 2 weeks now. I think I pretty much know what I want to take, and as of now none of these courses conflict, so I’ll just hope it doesn’t change.

‘Twas You @ Waterloo day last Saturday!

Wanting to see the prospective students, I signed up to be a residence tour guide for the day. Although I’m living in UWP this term, I signed up for REV, since REV doesn’t have any students living there right now. I actually lived in REV in my first year, so it was really nice going back there after a year. For the most part it hasn’t changed that much, but there were some minor things that did change since I left. It was weird to see REV so empty though, since I’m so used to seeing it full of people during Fall and Winter terms.

For the actual tour, lots of people came, with most people coming around lunch time, starting just before 11, and going on til just a bit after 3. The weather was really nice, too! During the tour, I tried my best to show people as much as possible, and give them a good impression, so I hope I did my job right! I hope I can see those people again at Student Life 101! The job itself was so much fun, though. I really really want to do this again. It was such a rewarding experience.

Good job to all the other tour guides! =)

Meanwhile… I have my first midterm this Friday! It feels like this term just barely started.. I shall try to get things done early, or else all the assignments, midterms, and interviews will come after me all at once.