Making the best of it…what I like here

Yay reading! Photo credit: Flickr/vasta (licence: CC BY-NC-SA)

It’s Reading Week. No classes, and in fact, the university is closed. The bookstore is still open, but the cafeteria is running on reduced hours, and in fact the Rez Cafe is closed until Monday. It’s quiet, almost everyone has left for their hometown, or to see other cities in Canada (for international students anyways).

It’s boring. Actually, the whole time I’ve been here, 8 weeks now, it’s been boring. There may be things to do, in fact there may be lots to do (in terms of homework and studying), but it’s still boring. Boredom is defined as the emotional state experienced by an individual when they take no interest in their surroundings. (The other meaning is to describe an individual without anything to do, but that doesn’t apply here.)

As my boss (and a few other people) have told me: “You’re there already, so make the best of it.” Despite my attitude towards my decision to attend university, here are 5 things that I really enjoy here:

1. Transportation

OCTranspo at Pleasant Park (Photo credit: Cria-cow/Flickr, licence: CC: BY-NC)

From reading my other blog posts, this was a bit obvious. I love public transportation. The system here is excellent, better than other cities anyways. There are still some flaws though, but at least proactive steps are being taken to fix it. The issue of overcrowding on certain routes is the most concerning issue I would think, in fact I just read in today’s Metro newspaper that some guy passed out but didn’t fall down because the density of people, and no one noticed. Scary. Nonetheless I feel safer on buses here than I do in Montreal though. The Transitway is patrolled frequently by “special constables” and they seem to have better safety features here.

2. Freedom

Bracelet from Frosh Week. 18 years, not quite old enough to drink in Ontario, even if I wanted to

The law’s the limit (that and your Housing agreement, if you’re living in residence or an apartment). And if you’re one of those people whom think you’re above the law, then I guess the sky’s the limit. You aren’t living with your parents anymore. Stay out as late as you want. Most of you are of age in some province or territory in Canada, so go to a bar if you want. Watch porn. Buy lottery tickets. Play Mature 17+ rated video games (not that teenagers don’t already do that or anything).
Just remember, with freedom comes responsibility. Get wasted every night and you’ll get sick. Spending too much on lottery tickets will land you in great financial difficulty (don’t most of you have student loans by the way?) Playing too many violent video games may or may not make you a more violent person, but it will desensitize you to violence. Staying up until 3 when you have a class at 8:30 might not be the best idea…. Moderation is key.

3. Food

Lots of people may disagree with me on this one. But that’s ok, cause it’s just another positive thing I find here. In university, I finally get away from home cooked meals! I’m free of that. I said this before I left and my bosses and coworkers said I would change my mind after a month, so far it’s been two months and I haven’t looked back. I don’t know about the food services of other universities, but Food Services uOttawa offers a huge variety of choices. Pizza, spicy ethnic foods, soup, sushi, subs, sandwiches, salads, burgers/fries/poutine, various bakery goods, and on and on.
Granted though, food is slightly expensive, even with the tax-exempt status by using the uOttawa food plan. If I feel like it I can go to a grocery store (I prefer the Loblaws by Algonquin College, it’s a bit far, but fairly fast via OC Transpo 95) and buy myself canned soup and cookies or whatever is on sale. Sadly there is no McDonalds on campus so I can’t use my uOttawa food plan for Big Macs or McFlurries, in fact I’ve only been to McDonalds once ever since classes started, and that was to buy a McFlurry.

P.S. If you go to Loblaws or nofrills to buy groceries, I would suggest having a PC no-fee bank account or a PC Mastercard, so you can earn PC points for free groceries.

4. Faster Internet

LOL. I do spend quite a bit of time on the Internet, whether it be doing homework assignments online, writing a post on this blog, watching a video on YouTube, skyping or playing games on Kongregate. A reliable, speedy Internet connection is critical. University internet connections are one of the fastest in the world. On Speedtest.net, I am clocking in an average of 14.4 Mb/s download and 7.4 Mb/s upload (no more waiting forever to upload photos to Facebook). Keep in mind though it is reading week, and the building is a lot emptier so there is less traffic on the network right now, it’s usually a bit slower. Also, there is wireless Internet across campus in all buildings except for the residential units.
On my phone, the speed of Rogers 3G network isn’t bad at all. I only have Facebook and Twitter, so I wouldn’t know if it’s fast for watching a YouTube video, but it’s good enough for Facebook!

5. It’s less of a rollercoaster ride…

I’m going to explain this point in the “weirdest” way ever, so if you don’t understand it then that’s fine.

• I’m not the greatest mathematician, in fact I’m a below-average to average first-year university student, so I might make a mistake in my math here.
• Let function h(t) represent the magnitude of enjoyment of life.
• For simplicity’s sake, let t=0 for the beginning of high school and t=4 for the end. Let t=4.15 represent right now, as in the date that I wrote this.
• Let function h(t) be a piecewise defined function, since shit happens and life changes.

• h(t) = -|a| sin(kx) ∀t, a ∈ℝ | 0 ≤ t ≤ 4, a > 0. k is proportional to the number of periods of the function. a is the magnitude of enjoyment.
• h(t) = |a|(2^(4-x)/k - 1) ∀a, k, t ∈ℝ | 4 ≤ t ≤ 4.15, a ≠ 0, k > 0. The shittier things are, the bigger a is. The faster shit happens, the smaller k is. Remember transformations from grade 11 math?

After writing this article, I can safely conclude: in any shitty situation, you’ll be stuck there forever if you stop moving and lose hope. I might not see things to be better yet, but I believe that it will….someday.

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