view of campus

The Price of Being a Commuter Student: Locker Troubles and Finding Study Space

In mid-September I went to campus to attend my in-person classes for the first time. I looked around me and asked myself: Are there more people on campus now than in my orientation week three years ago?  I couldn’t believe…

Commuting Thoughts

Motion-blurred road
It's a metaphor. Picture via Pixabay
I always seem to have epiphanies about my life and my career when I’m doing mundane things. When I’m in the shower, washing dishes, or cooking, my thoughts start wandering, and I end up coming up with all sorts of ideas. Most of them are terrible, or weird, but sometimes, they actually lead to relevant insights.

Fueling my commuter student day

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.
Veggies are shown with a text overlay which reads "Those who think they have no time for healthy eating, will sooner or later have to find time for illness."
Source: natural-healing-retreats.com

In which commuting isn’t as terrible as it seems

A view from a subway corridor. This is probably the only thing spooky about commuting.
A view from a subway corridor. This is probably the only thing spooky about commuting.
The other day, I was talking with my future roommates in our Facebook group chat about when we would move into the apartment for September. The chat was a mix of finalizing plans and cracking jokes, but it also signalled to me that my summertime commuting for work, volunteer commitments, and social plans was coming to an end. You would think that this realization would immediately bring relief (I mean, commuting wastes so many hours in a day), but strangely, I have mixed feelings about living downtown again.