I lived on residence for my first three years at U of T and now that I’m living off-campus I face a real nutritional challenge. I used to pop into my residence repeatedly throughout the day, which gave me the chance to make some food and sit down to eat. Needless to say, these days that’s not exactly feasible.
It’s been a learning curve, but I’ve managed to identify some strategies for success when it comes to feeding myself as a new commuter student. I was doing a terrible job of it initially and learned my lesson the hard way when I fell ill and enjoyed a throbbing headache for three whole days. If you take anything away from this post, try to remember that while it can be challenging, time-consuming and expensive to stay on top of healthy eating sometimes – it’s worth the work. You might save an hour or two by cutting corners or cutting meals but you’ll lose much more than that when you’re feeling unwell later on.
Source: natural-healing-retreats.com
I'm think I am an introvert, I probably always have been. I try not to shy away from it anymore because I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Also, I think a lot of people misunderstand what introversion means. It can mean "a shy person" but I like to think that the psychological definition of introversion is much more relevant:
"a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings"
This makes a lot more sense to me; I'm not a quite person because I have nothing to say or I'm scared to say it but more so because I'm taking everyone's inputs in and assessing my own thoughts first. I'm the kind of person who doesn't need to have other people around in order to feel happy, energized or active. I'm perfectly content spending a weekend with myself, just going about daily life and reading a book or two (or 10). I like listening to my music and staring into space (or simply staring into space).
Chilling in the Sid Smith Lounge and "people-watching" (a fancy term for staring into space)
This summer, I was enrolled in full-time classes. I would be on campus several days a week from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.. As a commuter, unwilling to burden myself with more heavy things to carry, I bought pasta every day for lunch. By September, I had twelve dollars left in my bank account.
It hadn't taken me long into first-year to realize that I often had to choose between healthy eating and cheap eating. Loaded with extracurriculars, my days spanned twelve hours; I would subsist off snacks, water, or cave in and buy a sandwich or pasta. When I first discovered food trucks, I had been delighted -- finally, a filling meal for under five dollars! But I soon realized that each poutine -- however cheap, hearty, and delicious -- made my body feel bloated and uncomfortable for hours afterwards.
Between classes, Orientation week, and illness, I hadn't gotten a chance to hang out with my best friend Julie for weeks. Our lunch dates kept getting postponed, so I was pleasantly surprised when I mentioned going to the $5 Hart House lunch yesterday and her schedule lined up.
We met outside the Great Hall just after 1 p.m., and although the lunch was set to end at 2 p.m., there was still a large line-up of students and plenty of food. Both of us took the vegetarian option -- Greek salad, pita, rice, and a wonderful main of baked eggplant and lentils -- although the lemon-oregano chicken sounded delicious as well. The three-course meal felt so refreshing, particularly since healthy inexpensive food is so difficult to find on campus. It left me full, but not at all bloated or uncomfortable as food truck lunches usually do.
When I got back on campus at the end of Orientation, the first thing I did was visit Caffiends, Victoria College's student-run fair-trade café, located on the first floor of Old Vic, the college's castle-like building. As always, stepping into the cozy room felt like going home in a way that no other place on campus quite managed to rival.
September brings out all sorts of feels in the student body. If you’re like me, just the anticipation of the first week of September takes out way more energy than when I’m actually living it. The only thing that can take my mind off of the anxiety/excitement is trying to enjoy my last week of freedom.
Ah, August. You’re the Sunday night of summer; I hate that you’re here but at least I can use you to do the fun, summer things I promised myself I would do this time around. Let’s take a look at how I spent my last full week of August, shall we?
One Love! One Heart! Let's get together and feel all right…what up Bob Marley reference!?
What do you get when you combine the magical power of a rainbow with a 100,000 square foot crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum?
If you have been down Augusta Ave. recently, you may have come across a flashy marquée that reads “Wrestlers” and wondered, “Hmm…what is that?”. No, it is not an underground fight club I assure you!
Oh, the excitement of our first discovery at the Drawsko site in Poland! Credit: Danielle Donnelly
Hey there! My name is Meimei and I’m excited to join this AWESOME group of Life @ U of T bloggers for the upcoming school year. I am SUPER EXCITED to blog about our awesome university and events that take place on-campus! And of course share my experiences at U of T with you! Yay! As this is my first blog post of the year, a brief introduction is in order! You can learn more about me and my fellow bloggers if you click on the Crew tab – go ahead, you won’t regret it!
Just kidding. I mean top ten. Can you imagine 189???
Happy birthday week to UofT! 189 is a ripe old age and our academic institution has seen lots of growth and development over the duration of its existence. Danielle’s recent posts on major historical moments at UofT give a great outline of what we’ve been through to arrive at this point. The present-day lifestyle of a UofT student is rather different than what it used to be, on account of there being significantly more glass buildings, less trees, a lot more online presence, and a lot more hashtags.
In celebration of our university’s 189th birthday, I took the liberty of perusing through the ever-so-reliable information forum popular amongst us millennials (Instagram) to bring you the top ten types of Insta posts that use the #UofT hashtag, to see whether this is indicative of a current student’s UofT experience. One takeaway from this week’s blog: UofT students are AMAZING photographers.
