Paper work

    When you realize that you have the opportunity to go travelling you may think excellent! great! awesome! or any of the other readily available adjectives at your disposal. You will likely believe these things until you realize that unlike the happy endings in romantic comedies you cannot simply run up to an airport gate and buy a ticket to a foreign country and live happily ever after with someone you seemingly just met. Unlike these romantic ideals, travelling is not that easy. In fact, it requires a lot of paper work. This became readily apparent as I applied for my student visa, a process that you'll likely find goes something like this:

    You'll visit the UK Border Agency website and spend a multitude of hours reading pages about visas and following links that just go in circles back to the home page. You'll get frustrated and send some e-mails to your exchange advisor, but they won't tell you anything because they don't want to be liable if their wrong. You'll curse them like this, "Curse you!". Then you'll go back to the website where you finally figure out you need to apply for something called a student visitor visa. If you're anything like me you'll end up making a long list of supporting documents you need to successfully apply. There is no greater satisfaction than crossing an item off a To Do list, except maybe a really good book, the end of the school year, sex, finding money in a pair of jeans, chocolate, or leftover beer in your fridge from a house party the night before. Still, it easily makes the top 10. Next, you'll gather all the things on your list; bank statements, passport pictures, transcripts, proof of employment etc. It will take a little while, so you'll be glad you started early. Then you'll fill out an application online, this also takes awhile and is filled with questions you never think you'd have to answer, like "can you describe all your visits outside of the country in the last 10 years?" You'll think, where was I when I was 11?

    When you're about halfway through your application you'll realize you started filling out the wrong one and have to start all over again. You'll look for the right student option this time, it won't be listed under student though, that would be too easy. It will be under a special option, under visitor, under 6 months or less, then under student. The reverse of everything it should be. You'll finish the proper one this time and then you'll book an appointment downtown to process your application. When you go downtown you'll meet with a woman who is pretty weird and may or may not have a conspiracy theory about grocery shopping on Main st., but she likes book and hates the transit system so you'll get along fine. She'll ask you for your photo, which you'll realize you left at home but she'll process your application anyway as long as you go get your picture taken at London Drugs. You have clearly bonded over the whole transit thing. You'll say thank you and go to London Drugs where the man in front of you will start swearing and yelling at the lady who is trying to help him print out an enlargement photo of his dog. You'll get your picture taken and finally mail everything to New York where they approve it.

    Overall, you'll realize that government websites suck, no one likes to give you a straight answer, despite your best efforts you have a terrible memory, and any hope of running away to a foreign country at a split second notice with someone should be buried deep down along with your obsession for 90s sitcoms like Boy Meets World. What kind of a name is Topanga?

My new Home

Beginning

    When I hear someone has started writing a blog my immediate reaction is one of disdain and scrutiny. You pretentious little know it all, I think, what gives you the right to assume that somebody else would actually want to read what you think. And then, of course, I go read what you think. So I guess it works. 

The whole concept of putting your private thoughts, ideas and opinions on the internet for the vast majority to see is terrifying. Immediately it conjures images of being the last chosen for gym class or being caught picking your nose while driving by the car next to you. But when these social anxieties climax to the point where I can’t imagine posting something personal, I like to think that whoever may read this will do so in the late hours of the night while eating Mini-Wheats in sweatpants and in between watching YouTube clips of cats. That fact fills me with immediate comfort, because at the very least, I have better cereal.

   
My inspiration for starting this cyber blogging adventure was twofold. First, I read a delightfully funny montage of thoughts by a former UVIC peer at champsblog.tumblr.com and I thought, people should be able to read my complaints and moderately amusing thoughts about life too. Secondly, I am going on exchange to England in January and wanted a way to document some of what I may do and the often amusing pitfalls that accompany travelling. “My seat didn’t recline at all”, “They lost my luggage”, “I ended up in jail because I thought the sign said pubic beach not public”. That sort of thing.

   
The desire to travel to England for my (hopefully) last semester of school spawned forth like a demon seed child from the womb of realization that I no longer cared. But what does that mean? How could you not care? Please tell me more about your mundane life you say? Well since your imaginary feigned enthusiasm insists, I will tell you this realization occurred during final exams of last year. When staring into the daunting face of a scantron sheet for Psychology 250: Child Development, a class which taught me nothing and only confirmed my suspicions that the plot of Baby Geniuses could never happen, I discovered I did not have a pencil. Pen after pen after pen with not an HB in sight I began to get nervous. Instead of simply asking the person next to me if I could borrow one from her, because that would involve unnecessary social contact, I dug deeper into my backpack. My hand weeded through receipts, my Chuck Klosterman book, empty travel mugs and a mildly rotting apple until finally I found a pencil.

   
Not just any pencil though, a large red pencil with a dull rubber eraser and flattened tip. The kind you used in kindergarten to practice your ABC’s and that couldn’t fit into regular sharpeners. It was at this point, as I looked between my post secondary institutionalized exam and my elementary adolescent pencil that I thought, I couldn’t care less. I had resorted to writing a test worth 40% of my grade with something 5 year olds could use. Something needed to change, I needed to reinstate my desire to learn and to grow. I needed motivation and purpose, at least enough so that it equated to more than an oversized pencil found in the bottom of my bag.

                     
What better way to do that then studying abroad and starting a blog?