Emergency Button

The title of this entry basically describes the highlight of my day. Literally.

I went to see my Comp Sci 101 teacher yesterday, hoping to talk to him about what kind of ideas I could use for my term-long project. It wasn't office hour and I knew that, but he was there. However, he was talking to some other girl, so I decided to wait outside his door for him. People passed by staring at me. Weirdos.

Anyway, I waited outside for like half an hour and then I decided to leave. I went into the elevator and pressed the button to the ground floor, but the door wasn't closing or anything, so I pressed what I THOUGHT was the button to close the door. The door finally closed, and then I began hearing this dial tone and a voice saying "dialing to campus security". That was when I realized that I pressed the emergency button and started panicking. As it was dialing, I was like "oh, crap! I better get out of here fast". But neither me or the elevator was fast enough. A few seconds later on the other side of the phone, some woman was like "Campus Security" and then I had to explain to her that I pressed the wrong button.

It was kind of embarrassing... but at the same time funny. I had a good laugh on my bike ride back to Brock Hall.

Highlighting Craze

Ah... I'm finally learning to relax. I've began highlighting my books and stuff, it actually feels really weird. Remember when back in high school when we were taught not to highlight our textbooks? Well, this is not the case anymore. I feel like such a rebel. But to be honest, after beginning to highlight my books and stuff, I was able to concentrate more on what I'm reading. Probably because it helped me focus on what the important points were. For the past few weekends, I've only been breaking down because I understand what I'm reading and getting fustrated with myself. My highlighting pen is now my best friend.

A note to the university students who are not highlighting their books: seriously, begin highlighting your books. Taking notes from your textbook consumes way too much time, especially when you have other homework. And who says you're 'wreckng' your book? I understand that most of you will probably sell your books back to the bookstore after the term is over, but think about it. If you keep your book in such good condition, the bookstore is just going to give you back 50% back of how much you bought the book for. Not just that, they might sell it back out as a new book again and earn even more money off of students.

I have come to the end of my research to why UBC professors suck! Well, I guess I shouldn't say that since my computer science professors are pretty cool. However, a PhD doesn't mean a thing. The main reason why all these professors are here at UBC is because they are doing research under which ever faculty they're in and in order to get paid, they have to teach part-time. Professors do not have a Bachelor of Education like our high school teachers (God, I miss them...). They never learned how to present their ideas to their students. This is the reason why we are all suffering from the adjustment of learning from books.

I can't believe it!

I can't believe it. Just two weeks ago, I was so excited to go to university. But now, I really miss the feeling of being in high school. I missed how the teachers actually teach instead of making me learn from books.

I'm not that great at learning from books because I'm a really slow reader and sometimes when I'm reading, I doze out. It's like, I'm reading all these words, but I'm not paying attention to what they're trying to say. So then I'll have to read it over again. And the cycle continues

Yesterday, I just survived my first rainy day at UBC. Once I got to Buchanan, I was shivering. What really pisses me off is that today is all nice and bright again. Why couldn't it be like this yesterday.

Anyway, I'll have to keep this short since I have so much reading to do. See you later.

So Tiring...

So sad that I haven't posted onto MSN Space in such a long time. There's just no free time in my hands. It's kinda sad... School's been so tiring. I've had to wake up at 6:00 every morning. Not just that, I'd pass out at around 10:00 every night just because I can't keep my eyes opened. Teachers assign so much reading to do, it's not even funny.

I've been sorta bugging Hanson about having lunch together for some time already; however, he's just really busy... I can understand that since he's at WORK, WORK comes first. I bet that he's sorry that I made it into UBC, now he'll never have free time.

At first, I was having a bit of trouble with Calculus, but after reading the text book, I feel a bit more confident. Also, Computer Science is also kind of giving me a headache. Fortunately, I still remember some stuff from Computer Studies in grade 10 that could help me out (QBasic - Binary, Algorithms, etc.). They're pretty similar, I think (so far).

Anyway, since I have so much work to do, I'm going to keep this short. See you later!

Imagine UBC!

Today was the UBC First-Years' orientation! It was pretty fun. However, I ended up being the only girl in my MUG (My Undergraduate Group). Hanson warned me about this. There aren't many girls that go into Computer Science. Since computer science is a branch of the science faculty, there weren't a lot of people in total, maybe around 40-50 people? But out of those 40-50 people, there were only 3-5 girls.... Scary, huh? Well, wish me good luck.

First of all, we started out with a campus tour. The tour was almost the same as the AMS/UBC FirstStep Orientation, but a little more specified towards computer science (duh!). At least we got to go into the computer science department building. There's this giant thing made out of pipes that acts like a logo. Lynn and I couldn't figure out what it was, so she told me to tell her if I find out one day.

Afterwards, we met the dean and learned the science faculty cheer to get ready for the pep rally later on. The dean asked us to be as loud as we can and that we have to cheer so loud that we'll make the engineers bleed from their ears. Anyway, I thought that our cheer sucked. It goes:

We're skilled!

We're smart!

We're Science UBC!

Anyway, the pep rally was very fun. I don't think I've ever yelled so loud in my entire life. But no matter how loud I yelled, I couldn't hear myself because there were always people louder. I thought that the speeches that the "important people" had to make was going to be really boring, but it wasn't. Most of their speeches were very inspirational, and it gave us a good push to start our lives at UBC. I'm beginning to like this school very much. Tomorrow is our first "real" classes. I need to go to sleep early so I have enough energy to stay awake during lectures tomorrow.

T-Minus 11 Hours

In 11 hours, I will have to attend my first day of school as a university student. I am nervous and kind of excited; however, I'm very worried about the workload. I guess I shouldn't be *that* worried since I heard that UBC is a party school. So if they have so much time to party, maybe the homework load isn't SO bad afterall.

Lately, I've been waking up at like 6:00am and not being able to go back to sleep afterward. I have a feeling that it has something to do with my biological clock and Japan. I kinda hope that it will stay like this though. It probably sounds a bit crazy, but you see, if I am able to wake up so early and not need to go back to sleep, I am, therefore, "awake" and ready to go.

The reason why I'm nervous and excited is probably because of the fact that I'm going to a new school and make new friends. I hope I won't have any problems with it. Everything will be so different... and I'm totally clueless. Anyway, I think I'm gonna post again tomorrow so I can update you on my first day of school. It's actually just going to be an orientation, so there aren't really any "real" classes going on yet.

I'm Back (From Japan)!

It's so nice to be back home. Alex said that the weather was gloomy for the past few days and today is actually sunny. Even the weather is glad that I'm back to Vancouver.

On the flight back from Japan, we watched different movies than we did when we went to Japan. We watched "Monster-In-Law", "Guess Who" and part of "House of Wax" (another movie that Lynn wanted to see). I didn't like that movie - too gorey. I had to cover my eyes with my pillow throughout some parts that I watched because I was too scared. Afterwards, I lost my appetite to eat because I kept on thinking about it. I wonder when I became such a baby. I didn't mind gore before....

I decided to try and ask for the toys again this time, and she actually gave me one! She opened this case and told me to take one, so I did. I chose this JAL (Japan Airlines) plastic model. It was the coolest one there. She wasn't too impressed that I asked her for toys since I'm so old, but at least she gave it to me.

When I got home, I found out that the UBC Bookstore is filled with idiots. I signed up for FastStart, this program to buy books online. I asked them to send it to my grandparents place since I wasn't going to be home due to the family vacation, and they decided to send it to my place. Obviously nobody was going to be there when they arrived, so now I need to go pick up the books myself at the UBC Bookstore.

I'm so tired right now because I didn't sleep on the plane at all. I even called Hanson and asked to see him today right after I got home. Now I'm just sitting here waiting for him to arrive.