{"id":40455,"date":"2020-01-27T16:21:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T21:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=40455"},"modified":"2020-01-27T16:21:44","modified_gmt":"2020-01-27T21:21:44","slug":"how-do-i-love-friendliness-oh-let-me-count-the-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2020\/01\/27\/how-do-i-love-friendliness-oh-let-me-count-the-ways\/","title":{"rendered":"How do I love friendliness? Oh let me count the ways!"},"content":{"rendered":"As I have mentioned in my previous blog, a new thing that I\u2019m trying out this semester is proper balance. So far so good! I\u2019ve been in touch with Accessibility Services and am maintaining my two-week-in-advance schedule as well as reviewing my daily plans the night before. For instance, I decided last night that I was going to try a cycle class at Hart House today!\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve also decided that this semester I want to try and contradict the U of T stereotypes. We all know them. The whole competitive nature of the school, the isolation, and the cold shoulder from fellow students. So, every day I remind myself that it\u2019s okay to be focused, but it\u2019s okay to also be friendly.\r\n\r\nTrying to change my attitude on campus was inspired by a fellow Life at U of T blogger. Olive wrote last week about making friends at U of T in her third year and I wanted to see if I could change the way I interact with students on campus. The first thing I had to come to terms with is that friendships at U of T can be VERY different than at other schools. I\u2019ve come to learn that it\u2019s just because people\u2019s priorities are different and that\u2019s OK! A lot of students are commuters, which means that they\u2019re also students trying to balance school with lots of other things: developing deep connections on campus may not be a priority for them.\r\n\r\nI fall into a similar category. I chose U of T for its mix of high standards of education and being in the right place for me to carry out personal goals and responsibilities. While I\u2019ve been able to fulfill that, I\u2019ve also realized I have pushed against getting to know other people and creating a community for myself on campus.\r\n\r\nOkay, so how does this tie into academic success? Let me count the ways!\r\nI\u2019ve always been a pretty nervous person, and have found solace in other people\u2019s support. In university, classrooms can be very large and overwhelming so that support doesn\u2019t seem like it is there. This semester I\u2019ve tried little things to get comfortable around classmates: a smile here or there, asking them about readings or their thoughts, introducing myself, and so on. I\u2019ve found that for the most part people were equally as open to chatting as I was and the atmosphere quickly changed from tense and dull to bright and comfortable. Even these small things made it surprisingly easier to participate in class. While they may not all be deep friendships, I feel more comfortable raising my hand in front of them, or asking them for notes if I missed something. I\u2019ve also noticed that I\u2019ve been more excited to attend class because of it. I may not be able to provide people with a deep<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>commitment, but being friendly with no expectations has taken the pressure off of talking to people. Creating a safe comfortable space is vital to conducting a productive term.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\nAs I have mentioned in my previous blog, a new thing that I\u2019m trying out this semester is proper balance. So far so good! I\u2019ve been in touch with Accessibility Services and am maintaining my two-week-in-advance schedule as well as…\n<\/div>
Continue reading “How do I love friendliness? Oh let me count the ways!”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>
Continue reading “How do I love friendliness? Oh let me count the ways!”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":40600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1905,78,153,27682,9315,176,138,286,25506,441],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40455"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40618,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40455\/revisions\/40618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}