Bored Stiff

The very first thing I learned about University is that is can be very boring. I'm not talking about the classes themselves, which can actually be quite interesting, but instead the endless amount of time between classes. It's' the time that keeps you from doing anything interesting or productive. You can't always work on assignments because if you start working on a tough problem you may miss you're next class. You can't do anything fun because there is never enough time.

The worst is when you have only and hour before class. You can't walk back to rez because it's 10 minutes there, and ten minutes back. When you add in the fact that you want to be 10 or 20 minutes early to some classes so that you get a seat, there is really no point to going back to rez. Instead you just have to hang around by you're next class and find some way to kill an hour.

Evenings aren't much better. You are either not working on assignments and board because everyone else is busy, or you are working on assignments and board because you are working on assignments. It's really a lose-lose situation. Still being board at home can be fought of with games and sports activities.

The boredom before class can sometimes be fought off with the use of a laptop, chatting with friends, surfing the net, especially if you use you're laptop for you're next class. This, however, assumes that you're friends are not in class or away from their computer. And even if you do use you're laptop, you run the risk that you're battery might run out in class, or rather that you're computer might start beeping to let you know that you have a low battery. All in all it's still not that good of a situation.

The break between classes can also be used to get important tasks done such as returning text books or buying supplies. This only works for the first couple of days though, because you end up finishing everything you need to do and then you can just sit.

Probably the most logical thing to do is to bring an assignment with you so that you can work on it outside of you're next class. People going into the classroom near you should be you`re signal that the class is about to start, and by working on you`re assignments, you do something productive. At least if you are struggling with an assignment the time might pass a little quicker.

Anyways, remember that when you`re going to university, prepared to be bored.

Note: All this is written after having attended each of my classes only one or to times

Double Note: The word class can also be substituted with the word lecture or the word tutorial

Triple note: The statement that the classes themselves are interesting does not mean that you will not be bored IN you're class

Quadruple note: This is the last one, I swear. The use of a laptop between classes assumes that you have wireless internet access in the buildings.

Thursday Update

So we are well into frosh week now. The highlight of Tuesday's math faculty activities was the tie ceremony where we got our Pink Ties, as well as our frosh kits. The frosh kits were filled with lots of cool things like cups and key chain flashlights, but the best thing of all had to be the Pink Tie.

Legend has it that one of the Profs who worked here when the faculty was newly opened would always where crazy ties to work. The favourite tie of the staff and students was the proffessor's Pink Tie. When the Prof retired, a giant pinnk tie was found on the side of the math building. Ever since, the faculty has adopted the pink tie as it's mascot/symbol. The origional pink tie was apparently stolen by someone and made it's way around other universities. When it became apparent that the tie was not coming back, the faculty got a new pink tie. That tie however was destroyed with paintballs by some egineering students. That was when the tie guard was established to guard the new pink tie during frosh week and since than nothing has happened to it.

Just a legend of course. The tie guard does more than just guard the tie. They also no where every group from every faculty is at any time during orientation week so that they can point first years in the right direction in case they get lost. Probably because the giant pink tie is easy to spot from nearly everywhere on campus. However, the main duty is to guard the tie.

Yesterday we went on a tour of the campus. It was pretty much useless because I will never remember those places anyways. After the tour we went and played games against other math teams. There were games like EarthBall and Soccer Frisby (playing soccer and frisby at the same time with two frisbies and two soccer balls). My team was undefeated in the activities but since we were also scored on enthousiasm and such, we did not win. The prize wasn't so good since it was just that you were allowed to stay overnight at the Tie Guard, and earn you're tie guard wings, supposedly an honor within the math faculty. In the evening we went to a mixer with the faculties of Math and Art. There were lots of things to do like a movie and board games center and a crazy record breakers activities for things like stacking golf balls. I met an engineer called RA in the games corner and watched part of a James Bond Movie.

Today I got to sleep in because this morning was the International Orientation. In the afternoon I will be writing the ELPE which you have to pass in order to continue in you're program.

Thursday Update

So here we are well into Frosh week. The higlight of Tuesdays Math faculty activities was the Tie ceremony. We all recieved our Pink Ties, as well as our frosh kits. Our frosh kits were kind of interesting with the cups and the key chain light and the condoms, but the hightlight really was the pink ties.

Legend has it that one of the

Hello from University

After all this bitching and chatting it's finally over with. I've moved into residence and met my two new room mates. I've bet some people from my floor and the floor Don. It wasn't as hard as I thought to fit everything in except I think I might need a new power bar. More later after I get back from the floor meeting.

Later: So I am back from all the activities that accompany the first day of frosh weeik. We started off with an icebreaker activity where we all wrote something weird or interesting about ourselves on a piece of paper. We than stuck the piece of paper inside a blown up balloon and stuck the balloon in the middle of the circle. People than had to pop a balloon and than had to find the person who wrote the thing on your paper. Except some of the balloons popped by themselves so I didn`t have to pop one. We than ate pizza and drank water.

Afterwards we met up with the rest of our residence and went down to the green where we participated in a number of different icebreaking activities such as grouping the entire freshman population plus the senior assistants according to the month they were born in. I met so many new people in such a short period of time, it`s hard to remeber everyone.

After the group activities were over, we went back to our residence for the Rez Orientation opening ceremonies. We got to watch all the dons do a crazy dance and we heard a speach made by the guy the residence was named after. Afterwards we all went back to our Quads and ate ice cream in the courtyard.