Front campus, in all its glory
It was my first day of classes at the University of Toronto, and I stepped onto the trampled turf of front campus with a pair of juvenile—and, admittedly, cliché—Converse and a backpack-sized collection of goals for the incoming year. I was brimming with a plethora of productive emotions, such as anxiousness, homesickness, and—probably the most helpful one—fear.
Luckily, I made it out first year alive, and with zero regrets. Zero regrets, that is, except for one.
*Employer in Adele voice* Hello. It’s me. I was wondering if after all these emails you sent to me, can I call you, before you come in?
(Did you try to sing that in tune with the song? I did about 10 times)
Spending my hard earned cash.
Since the age of fifteen I have always been employed. Going through high school, it allowed me to have the freedom to spend my hard earned cash on things that I wanted and not have to rely on having to convince my parents to give me money or buy me certain things. Fast forward to my university years, being employed has become even more important. The money that I earn from being employed not only allows me to experience things that Toronto offers, but also helps tremendously in covering the cost of being in school.
Hi there!
This is my good friend Conor. We met at Trinity College Orientation Week 2014 and have been buddies since. Among other things, Conor and I share a passion for physical activity and education, and we share teaching responsibilities for a Bootcamp class at UofT.
My buddy Conor is one of the most intelligent and honest people I know, and he is always able to provide the best advice!
This week I sat down with Conor to discuss the four pillars of the HealthyU mandate (MoveU, SafeU, HappyU and FuelU). I am always eager to hear Conor’s perspective on important issues, because his life experiences include being a full-time student, a fitness instructor, and Military Maritime Surface Officer with the Royal Canadian Navy.
Mostly, I was interested to know how Conor applies some of the techniques and teachings he has received from the military in his life as a student. I learned a bunch of new military jargon; concepts that have considerable applicability to student life too. Here I’ve pieced together our conversation:
Sing it, Riri.Like Rihanna, I also work (work, work, work, work). I find a simple pleasure in putting in my time, effort and creativity into a job and in turn seeing real results. You can take a wild guess at what those results are, but I will save you the time and confirm that they come on a bi-weekly basis into my bank account. I have had many jobs over my years of working. Some of which include:
“Expert” pizza-maker extraordinaire
Marketing Assistant/person who designs a plethora of advertising
Bakery "Counter-person" (who also does all the other bakery jobs)
Barista who makes thebest cappuccinos @ about 4 different cafes
Server (who, to be honest, really hated serving)
Front Desk Porter, A.K.A that person in residence who talks to you enough to know your entire class schedule but still has to ask to see your keycard upon entering the building
This year I have managed to hold down two part-time jobs while also being a full time student. Both of my jobs are on campus, and are positions that are directly affiliated with the university. One of them, (surprise, surprise) is to write entertaining and relevant material for the Life at U of T student blog. The other, is a relatively new job which involves doing admissions for a residence on campus.
If ever we had to designate a time of the year that made people feel the most "BLAH," it would be around now. The dreary weather and post-holiday lull make for a very uninspiring landscape that certainly do not help to foster creativity. I too fall prey to the monotony that is the mid-winter blues. (Is it even mid-winter? Realistically, has it even been a true winter this year? Are we feeling the ramifications of global warming? All good questions). Feeling like a sad, deflated, grey-tinged marshmallow, I can get really unmotivated to deal with work and school - which can be quite problematic at the start of a new semester. However, I have a few tricks to try and inspire creativity and productivity:
Like most U of T students, I’m proud to be one. People like to call us pretentious and I like to argue there’s a big difference between being pretentious and being justifiably proud. We boast top 20 spots on lists of the world’s best universities and I’m “sorry I’m not sorry” that gives me the warm fuzzies.
While we excel as an institution overall, according to UniversityHub.ca (contributor to the Huffington Post), our sports and recreation programs are less well known.
Clearly something’s wrong here. We have a wealth of sport and recreational facilities, services, activities — there’s a lot going on here! We have FOUR athletic centres (if you count Varsity Centre), FOURTY-FOUR men’s and women’s varsity teams, the ONLY Olympic-sized pool in the city, a wide variety of registered and free classes, drop-in recreation, a FANTASTIC, SUPER-AFFORDABLE sports clinic open to students, more playing fields than I’m aware of and SO, SO MUCH MORE.
Hi all!
Sometimes, it can feel as if being a student is a barrier to living a healthy lifestyle. It's easy to get caught up in a mindset that eating instant ramen daily, experiencing irregular sleep patterns, and becoming caffeine-dependent are inevitable consequences of being a proper university student (sometimes I think these things myself). But, really, with all the resources we have at the St. George campus to better our health, is it possible that this mentality is simply an illusion? I have a sneaking suspicion that the student gig does not necessarily need to include attending random clubs’ AGMs for the free pizza.
In preparation for this week’s Design For Change conference, I decided to brainstorm a list of ways that UofT is a Healthy Campus in line with some of the themes of the roundtable discussions at the event. On Thursday, student and staff will get together at Hart House to discuss designing a shared vision for a healthier University at the first annual Design for Change conference, and we (students) are all invited! That sounds pretty super to me.
It's a New Year!
A fun fact about me: I am a fitness instructor on campus.
No, but seriously. I love being a fitness instructor:
I find group fitness motivating. It keeps me active, because I know that at least once a week I have to smile while I'm working out. That takes training. In our industry, we are often reminded that when we are instructing, our focus is on the participants getting a great workout. So I try to attend multiple group fitness classes a week to get a good workout myself.
No, but seriously. I love being a fitness instructor:
No, but seriously. I love being a fitness instructor: