Happy New Year, U of T! When New Year's comes around, I've never been one to make New Year's resolutions. I couldn't see the point, especially when I knew that I would inevitably give up after a week (at most).…
Taking stock of the semester: what is there to celebrate?
If you’re as prone to self-deprecation as I am, the end of the term may inspire some troublesome realizations and painfully remind you of all the goals you set in September. As the year winds down but exams wind way, way up, it’s hard not to take stock of the past few months – if only to procrastinate.
It’s really easy to identify the goals we didn’t realize and the plans we didn’t follow through with, and the associated negativity is not something any of us needs right now. So, I’m looking back and while I can’t ignore my “areas for improvement” I am sandwiching my criticisms of myself with silent celebrations of all the things I did well and accomplished.
Maintaining Structure Without Classes
A trap I often fall into this time of year is thinking that I'll have some more time to study during the exam period because I'm relieved of my lecture-attending duties. What actually ends up happening is that I waste more…
Hello September: Play Day and early goal setting
Welcome back everyone! It’s hard to believe it’s September again.
My name is Annette and I’m excited to be a returning contributor to the Life@UofT blog this year. I’ll be continuing to cover all things physical activity and fitness with a weekly post you can expect to be published every Friday.
If you’re new to the blog, hello and welcome! If you like what you find, you can check out the archive to catch up on all the fun we had last year.
A bit about me: I’m a fourth-year student double majoring in Physiology and Biochemistry and minoring in German Studies. I’m absolutely wired right now on account of impending doom (read as: LSAT), but I’m doing my best to be excited about all that will follow for the rest of the year. I’m a peculiar person – half of the time I’m a bit of a grandma who likes to go to sleep early and sleep lots, drink tea under a fuzzy blanket – that sort of thing. The other half of the time, however, I’m curtain climbing and training to be a ninja – I just don’t know an in between.
September is a big month, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. Between moving in and out of apartments/residences, shopping for textbooks, starting classes and trying to override a very “Hakuna Matata” lifestyle and/or sleep pattern, there’s a LOT going on. You should see my calendar, it’s absolutely BONKERS.
#GOALS
Like a new year (hello 2016!!), a new semester never fails to get me in the mood to reflect on my goals. Goals forgotten, goals achieved, #goals that I aspire to move from the murky depths of my Pinterest board to real life and goals that are relevant to what I hope the new semester might hold for me.
At the beginning of last semester, I spent one particularly quiet night shift at work outlining the academic hopes and dreams that I would ‘surely’ have no trouble fulfilling — the steps that would have me on the road to university success in no time. However, upon revisiting said list, I can now safely say that my list was pretty unauthentic and maybe even impractical. My goal for this semester? Setting realistic goals.
Tackling the Big Bad Reading
Why did my professor do this to me? Why is she making me read this overly dense, buzzword-ridden, thinly veiled torture device of a book? We are repeatedly told never to make our essays too “wordy.” We’re told to keep…
The Mellow Multitasker
When I think of multitasking, I usually don’t equate it with being mellow. In fact, to me, multitasking looks a bit like this: I kid, I’m not actually a busy octopus—I actually just draw that badly—but multitasking feels like that…
Progress
From last September until now, I’ve made progress. I acknowledged my penchant for lying around, and I made solid goals to get myself moving. I also reached these goals and am currently in the process of reaching others. I completed…
Adventures with NSSE, the Student Engagement Survey
So, NSSE . . . Oh, you mean Nessie, the giant, Scottish lake monster. Um, well, sort of . . . Here, let me explain! If you’re in first or fourth year, you may have received an email from the President…
in which we discuss the pressure to perform
As an English student, essay season always finds me suffering from stomach discomfort. There is the sinking panic right before I hand in an essay, and the queasy nausea right before I get back an essay. I’m pretty sure we all know…