Time sure does fly.

I can’t believe the last time I wrote on here was in September; I still feel as if school has just started, and every body is yet to recover from the crazy Freshers’ Week. Anyhow, that is obviously not the case, and it is now mid-term. In other words, most of us are busy studying for class tests or writing essays. So far, I have already had a visual test in History of Art, and will have a test in Ancient Greek a week later. Meanwhile, I’m squeezing out every ounce of my brain juice trying to pull together an impeccable philosophy essay, which is due on my birthday. No, I’m not joking when I use the word impeccable; in philosophy, that would translate into something like  “logically valid”. To be logically valid, every premise in your argument needs to follow one another without committing any logical fallacies. To a perfectionist like myself, it’s pretty much walking in a field full of landmines; one wrong step, and my argument might end up being problematic and invalid, hence the reason why I have spent a lot of time researching and thinking about it.

Despite all that stress from studying, my sister and her partner took the time to come visit me last Friday; they even took me out for an early birthday dinner! It was almost a relief to see them; I have missed my family so much, and I felt so pampered being driven around and not having to walk everywhere. (It’s a shame that they couldn’t bring their three cats to visit me as well!) We went out for Japanese food at my favorite restaurant, which I haven’t been able to afford lately, and it was a really really nice break from locking myself in my room studying.

Amazing starters (that I couldn't eat much since I'm pescetarian)

My favorite sushi: tamago nigiri

Salmon with peppercorn sauce and rice

My sister got fried udon with mixed seafood and meat.

You can totally tell how eating out can release stress by looking at those pictures. Instant food therapy.

My lovely sister is taking me to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Playhouse in Edinburgh (in two week’s time) as my birthday present , I cannot wait. I really really need a break from all this studying.

I’d better go attend to my philosophy essay now. Speak to you guys soon!

-Ruby

And here we are again!

Seasons greetings all!! No, it’s not Christmas but it is something almost as good: the start of another academic year!……….. Nah, i’m just kidding. It’s not that bad at all and I’m actually sooooo excited to be back! You really do forget just how much fun it is to be back in the flat and hanging out with your chums again.

How was your summer? I have to say, mine was frickin awesome. Unfortunately, I had to work all summer but I got meet some fantastic people and had some seriously good times so it wasn’t all bad. Also, I got to learn how to make some wicked cocktails so who’s complaining? Luckily, I did get one break towards the end as I went to see Greenday in London with my girlfriend! I was going to post up some pictures but I just saw that one of my fellow blog…..ees (?) kind of already did that. Dammit. I have to say, London is such a fun place to visit. We did all the stereotypically tourist things like Harrods, Ripleys, London Dungeon, Tower of London, Natural History Museum and my personal favourite: THE LION KING MUSICAL! I’m well aware that it may sound dire to many of you but let me tell you, if you get the chance, definitely go and see it. I swear, I was almost crying it was that good.

But that was then and this is now and here I am about to start my 3rd year and things are getting pretty serious. First off, we’re all having to make some hardcore decisions about electives and intercalated degrees and where to do them and what in etc. etc. It’s seriously intense. Moreover, we’re all going to be in hospitals pretty consistently from now on so we really have to get our acts together. Still, though it sounds like hard going, it’s been a long time since I’ve had to do any work like this so I’m actually enjoying it.

Right now I’m doing an SSC in Evolution in Health and Disease and it is awesome. It’s all about how humans evolved and how infections evolved from animal infections and things like that. It might sound like it isn’t that relative to modern medicine, but I’m starting to see how useful it is – particular if you were looking at research.

Still, that’s enough medical chit chat for now. On to more important matters. Matters like the All Bran Appreciation society, who I’ve just been told need to re-affiliate this year to keep qualifying for our £25 a year funding. Actually, I really need to go onto that….. :S. Moving swiftly on, I’ve returned to Ultimate Firsbee this year and am enjoying it so much more!! I strongly recommend it!

Well, that’s about it for now. I hope you’re all having a blast and I will update soon!

Calum

Update on Freshers’ Week

Freshers’ Week has been a blast for me, even though I am not a Fresher this year. I got to hang out with my new flatmates and get to know them before school starts. Plus, since I’m in the Choral Society and Philosophy Society, I helped promoting them at Freshers’ Fair; it was great fun! Hopefully, they will have great turn-outs this year.

On the note of Philosophy Society: although I’m the vice-president, I have never actually organized anything before, therefore it’s hard for me to pull together the limited resources that we have, and make something happen at times; I suppose we all have to start somewhere. Our first official meeting of the year will be on next Wednesday, I really hope that everything will run smoothly (Can you tell that I’m really nervous about it?)…

So, classes are back on, and I’m back to nerd mode. In case you are just starting to read my blog, and haven’t known already – I’m taking Philosophy, History of Art and Ancient Greek this semester. Philosophy and History of Art are quite easy so far, as they haven’t touched on anything new (to me) yet. However, Ancient Greek is proving to be a huge challenge for me. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the class, my classmate, my lecturer (who’s also my adviser!), the language… It’s just that I’m a perfectionist, and I hate not knowing most things in class, so it’s taking me some time to get used to learning a new language. Nevertheless, I do love challenges and I think it’s pretty cool that I can now translate Ancient Greek letters into English ones!

The last thing I want to mention is that – Studying (and getting good grades) is the reason why I am at Glasgow, but I think it’s crucial for one to strike a balance between that and having a healthy social life. People who know me personally think that my schedule is insanely packed: I have a weekend part-time job and an occasional office job,  I’m co-running the Philosophy Society, and a member (and soprano rep) of the Choral Society. I take in the weekly guest lecture at the Department of Philosophy. And on top of all that, I have tons of friends, and I’m a very determined student. With all that on my plate, I have to be very careful with my time and choices, as I wouldn’t want to get bad grades just because of my other responsibilities and social life.

The reason why I am mentioning all that is because – we often get students writing to Student Network asking about how to balance work, play and study at Uni. So to answer that briefly (after you’ve read a bit about what I’m doing): it IS possible to do all that fun stuff, while studying hard and keeping a job; I’m coping just fine, and I actually enjoy my busy life. Self-discipline is really, the key (though it might sound cheesy).

Well, I’d better go and learn some Greek vocabulary, but I will (as always) keep you guys posted about my life!

-Ruby

new academic year, new experiences, new students, new life…

Hiya J

Hope you all guys had an amazing summer! Personally, my summer was very eventful. Probably the peak was when I went to Barcelona to participate in a music contest together with “The Children of Sevlievo” vocal group – the vocal group I have been with for more than 16 years now. We had an amazing time there not only because Barcelona is completely the opposite of Glasgow, at least as far as weather is concerned, but also because our performance was very successful and we were all happy to sing for the welcoming Catalan audience.

Anyway, now it is the beginning of another challenge – at least for the freshers coming for the first time to uni. I hope that for you guys the freshers week was the most unforgettable and amazing week in your lives. I am convinced that University of Glasgow has a lot to offer, so I’d like to congratulate you with the wise choice you’ve made to come to study here. As it is now almost the end of the freshers week, most of you might be thinking about joining a society, or a sports club. I have a wonderful suggestion for you.

Probably some of you might be thinking of enhancing your chances of finding a good job after graduation. We have heard a lot about the difficult financial situation, spending cuts, recession, and all the gloom and doom especially in the job market. Thus, joining a society will definitely make you stand out from the crowd and help you dazzle the prospective employers. So, a wonderful way to spend your free time at uni /I can tell you from my personal experience that it is difficult to find such J/, and invest some effort in giving something back to society and working on a project that will have a beneficial impact on a lot of people, is joining Freshsight. Freshsight is a professional student organization that provides probono business consulting services to non-profit organizations. What all this means is that upon joining, you will be allocated in a team of 4 or 5 people. You will be working on a project related to enhancing the performance of a charity organization – most likely find efficient way to promote the organization, to attract more volunteers or donors, to facilitate the communication process between the branches of the organization, etc. Then, you will have to put your ideas into paper and present them in front of an industry panel and the charity organization managers. But don’t worry, throughout the whole process you will get support from your team leader, and every week there will be 1-hour training session in which you will be given more ideas on how to fulfill your task as a team.

Trust me, this really is a valuable experience, and after all, it is not only about the work – after a session, we always go to a have a pint J

So, if that seems to be something that you might be interested in, come along on one of our Info Sessions. They will be held on Sept 20^th at 6:30pm at the Bridie Library, GUU and on Sept 21^st at 6:30pm at Committee Room 1, QMU.

Anyway, I wish you all a very fruitful academic year, a lot of unforgettable memories, loads of fun and many many wonderful experiences!!!

Freshers’ Week

I have officially moved into my new flat! So far, everything is really nice; my neighbors are beyond amazing! I’m currently within 5 minutes from both Byres Road and the library, and I’m very much taking advantage of my prime location – by feeding my Starbucks addiction.

This week is commonly known as Freshers’ Week, during which, the GUU, QMU, and SRC organize a series of events for welcoming new students to Glasgow. I am going to be helping the Choral Society and Philosophy Society during Freshers’ Fair; apart from all that,  course enrollments are also going on, so I’d say it’s going to be an exciting week.

I shall fill you guys in on all the excitement when all that’s done with!

-Ruby

Highlight of My Summer – London

Thank God it’s August; as much as I love being with my sister and her lovely cats, I think it’s about time that school starts. Two weeks ago, my mom gave me the most awesome gift ever – she paid for a package for me to fly to London, which is definitely the highlight of my summer. (Plus, my mileage account will be expired soon, so I need to fly somewhere anyways)

Scotland is, no doubt, a breathtakingly gorgeous place. I am so grateful that people are so nice here. However, London is another story; since I’m from Hong Kong, which is a pretty big city (I’m talking about skyscrapers of 50+ floors everywhere), I miss being in a city a lot. This may sound strange, but I miss wandering around the city on my own, being in a sea of people who don’t know you, the abundance of my beloved Starbucks, the high (proper) standard of Starbucks drinks (as demanded by hard-to-please businessmen), the amazingly efficient subway system, all the designer flagship stores in one city, the vintage stores and authentic eateries in another corner, etc. I must say London comes pretty close to all that. In addition, I am obsessed with Broadway and West End musicals, so obviously I booked my tickets in advance to get the best seats possible.

So instead of TELLING you how great London was, see it for yourself:

I saw Les Miz again! (Well, this is a different production than the one I saw in Edinburgh.)

Hamley's has a movie prop section for adults! This is a Harry Potter wand!

My favorite piece of art of all times (V&A Museum); this is a obviously not authentic but I still loved looking at it.

Lion King (the musical) costumes at V&A!!!

The second musical that I saw; Wicked = my favorite musical of all times.

The safety curtain is a map of the Land of Oz! How cool is that?

OMG. It's my FAVORITE Tex-Mex burrito place in LONDON!!! This is a total surprise for me, as I've been trying to find it in the UK.

I'm one happy girl, having traditional iced tea with milk at a Hong Kong restaurant in Chinatown.

Finally seeing the pieces that I've been learning in History of art = life-changing.

Last but not least, the last musical that I got to see: Lion King!!!

So you see, London was life-changing for me, I love it so so much indeed. Best experience ever, thanks Mom!!!

- Ruby

and it smells like uni :)

Hello everybody

Long time no see I hope that you all have spent an unforgettable summer, and your are still enjoying the miracles summertime brings us

As it looks like, summer is still here, but we all have the feeling that very soon everything will be over, well – at least me. I still can’t really realize how fast this summer has passed. As it was yesterday when everybody was in the library fully immersed into conscientious studying. Just for the record, last time I was in the library, which was a week ago, I was surprised how many people were in there. I mean, you definitely can’t say that it was overcrowded, but you could see postgraduate students hectically writing the last pages of their dissertations. Of course, you could undoubtedly feel the lack of undergraduates there at that very moment

Next week most of the students will be coming back to Glasgow – some in their recently-rented flats, others – back in the uni halls. I admit that it will be very enjoyable to see all of those people here again, but this feeling also brings with it the sense of  inevitable passing of time and the approaching new semester with all of its beauties – lectures, studying, tutorials, assessments, library, and of course – the inseparable fact of student life – parties and nights out

So, hang on, Glasgow, because students are coming back!