Light the Night

I’ve been putting this off for a really long time, because I was afraid of how I was going to get through this, but now it’s time.  I apologize in advance for my lack of eloquence. 

On May 29, 2009, my uncle Greg Lockwood started showing symptoms of and was later diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  It was scary and sad, but it was only supposed to be a minor interruption, after all Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma has an 87% percent survival rate.  Another one of my uncles had battled the same disease five years ago and is now living cancer-free, we decided to remain hopeful. 

On May 30, 2010, the morning after Greg had celebrated one year of survival, he went into the Hospital for the last time.  On June 15, 2010 Greg lost his battle to cancer. 

I don’t think that I will be able to write many details about how much his death affected me, and how painful it was in those last few weeks to see him so ill, but I will tell you that his death was the biggest personal tragedy I’ve ever experienced in my life.

I will also tell you what kind of man he was.  He was a passionate, loving, funny, nerdy man.  Greg was a video journalist for CTV news, a company he was proud to work at for over twenty years.  He was viewed by his colleagues as one of the best and loved to chase down a good story.  He was also an incredible photographer; he nurtured my growing interest in photography, and would always bring his newest gear to show me at every family gathering.  I clearly remember how he would stand in my Grandparents’ backyard, patiently waiting for a Falcon or Heron to fly into just the right position to get the best shot possible.  He would take dozens of shots, sometimes ending up with only one good picture, but it was always worth it.  He loved scuba diving, video games, action movies and Dracula. 

He was big, tall and strong.  He gave the best hugs and always knew how to put a smile on your face.  He made my aunt Nancy very, very happy.  I miss him so much.

Cancer is a frustrating disease because no matter who you are or what you do, you are at risk for getting cancer.  It doesn’t discriminate and the world has lost so many good people to this disease far too soon.  Greg wasn’t even 50 years old. 

The overwhelming feeling of helplessness is the thing that I remember most, helplessness and anger.  I just wanted to do something, but I felt like I couldn’t do anything, it got worse after he died; I just had to do something. 

Now I am. 

Saturday, October 22^nd I am walking in the Leukemia and Lymphoma society’s “Light the Night” event in Memory of Greg.  This is a 5K lantern-light walk starting in Halifax’s North Commons to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, not only to develop live-saving cancer research, but also to provide support for patients living with blood cancers and their families. 

I would appreciate it very much if you would sponsor me for this walk.  You can do so by clicking here.

Also, if you are in Halifax, I am holding a recital to raise additional funds.  It will be October 21^st, at 7:30pm at St. Andrew’s United Church on the corner of Robie and Spring Garden.  It will also feature my boyfriend Jeff on violin.  It’s going to be great, please come.

~Nice Girl

It Starts with a Girl

The world is a mess.  Seriously.  We’re killing the planet, each other and the human spirit for a lot of really dumb reasons.  Things have gotten so bad that it’s even starting to affect us here in the cushy first world and targeting the things that we hold dear. 

-Gas Prices are Higher

-Tuition prices are higher

- Food prices are higher

-The housing market is in shambles

-So is the government

-And it’s nearly impossible to get a job anymore. 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things that I complain about, or the times when I have it really bad. 

-Times when I get into a stupid fight with my boyfriend

-Or when I’m down to my last $100 dollars in my bank account and I have to call my parents and ask for money

-Or when I have to do so much homework that it keeps me up all night and I’m a zombie at my 8:30am class (if I even make it all)

-Or when I’ve spent weeks trying to get a job and have nothing to show for it. 

But even when I’m going through all of that, I still have it really good.  I’m in a loving relationship, I have parents with money to feed me, I have a right and a means to education (thanks parents with money!) and even if I didn’t have a job ( I finally found one after five months of looking) I have the opportunity to get one and make a living for myself. 

Many girls in the developing world don’t have these luxuries.  They rarely get a good education, marry young (12 years old young), have more children than they can afford to take care of and don’t often have very good family lives.  Not to mention the risk of illnesses like HIV and Malaria and the fact that they live in abject poverty.

But that isn’t the way it has to be.  All we need to do is invest in girls.  It’s called the Girl Effect

Well, not all we need to do, but it’s certainly a good way to make a big difference.

Watch this video

No, seriously.  Watch it. I’ll wait

Have you watched it yet?

That is some pretty amazing stuff.  But why only girls?

There are two reasons that girls are the key to changing the developing world.  The first is that they are living in societies where they are treated as second-class citizens and if half of your population is marginalized, things aren’t going to be very good for society or the economy.  Also, when a girl in the developing world earns an income, she will reinvest 90% of it into her family, compared to 30-40% for a man (Chris Fortson, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World,” Yale News Daily 2003.) So giving a girl an education and putting her in a position where she can earn an income is beneficial  to everyone.  Seriously, just think of the trickle effect of this thing. 

Now, I know a lot of you are going to get pretty jaded about this, question the numbers or the optimism of the movement, or whatever.  But that is no excuse.  The fact is that if you are a human being who cares just a little bit about other people, then these girls deserve your attention and your help.

Want some more information?

How about this

Or this 

Or this.

The Girl Effect.  It’s mind-blowing, world-changing stuff. 

Thegirleffect.org

It’s no big deal, just the future of humanity

If you want to read more about this, click here to see the movement of bloggers writing about The Girl Effect

Kicking the Habit: 30 Days without Facebook – Day 8

So much for blogging every day. 

BUT there is a reason for that, and that’s because I just haven’t had all that much to write about lately.  I’m adjusting to a life without Facebook pretty easily.  For most of the week I had the impulse to update my Facebook status with inane and/or funny things that I had seen or thought, but that impulse is finally dying down now.  This week I’ve realized just how stupid some of the things that I want to post are.  I’m pretty open about expressing my thoughts or the things that happen to me (anyone who reads this blog regularly knows this from experience) and I only ever share information that I feel comfortable sharing, but until I no longer had an outlet, I didn’t realize just how much I was sharing about my life, and I was a little shocked.  I wasn’t sharing anything overly personal and I never complained about my life as a rule, but I was just sharing so much useless information that no really needed to know or care about.  I think I was one of those people who tried to write witty facebook statuses in order to get the most “likes” as if that was a sign of how popular or funny I was.  This is kind of dumb, and I’m glad I can’t do it anymore. 

The times that I miss Facebook the most is when I’m bored and not really doing much.  It’s nice to have something that updates itself rather rapidly to click around on, but when I do have these feelings of boredom, I have often been finding better, non technological ways of spending my time.  I read books and am putting together a 1000 piece puzzle.  I also do things like bake granola bars and put together large batches of soups and salads so that I have something to eat when I’m on the run.  I’ve also started going on bike rides.  In short, I’m doing more interesting things off the computer now that I don’t have Facebook.  It’s pretty awesome

One of the biggest changes that I noticed is how much I was always talking to people while I had Facebook.  Even if I was working in a room where I was completely alone, if it had a wifi signal (and chances are it did) I would periodically go on Facebook and talk to someone.  Yesterday I was sitting alone in a coffee shop doing some work and I realized just how alone I was without Facebook, I didn’t have my phone with me so I couldn’t even text and so I was completely alone for the first time in a while.  It wasn’t a horrible experience or anything, but I was certainly struck by how often we are in constant contact with each other and how isolated a person could be if they weren’t on facebook. 

Because Facebook is the main way that most people my age communicate with each other, I’m worried about a few things when it comes to being off Facebook.  Firstly, I’m concerned about how out of the loop I’m going to be when it comes to events around the city.  I’m already facing this difficulty and I’m a little afraid that I will be having a very anti-social month without social media.  Another thing that I’m worried about is this blog.  I get a lot of reader traffic from Facebook and I’m expecting the number of readers to go down now that I don’t have as many friends or family who know when I’m updating. 

What I’m most worried about however, is the fact that I’m fundraising for the Light the Night walk in support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma society and since Facebook is an easy way to get information out about the event, I could get quite a few sponsors from my facebook friends.  I’ll have time after the 30 days are over in order to fundraise before the walk, but I’ll have to fundraise the old fashioned (and more personal) way for a little bit.  But more on that fundraiser later. 

One week in and my life away from Facebook is great.  Maybe I’ll go away from it for longer!

~Nice Girl

Kicking the Habit: 30 Days without Facebook – Days 1 and 2

It is very hard to leave Facebook, not because it is hard to survive without constant social contact, because Facebook makes it hard.  Obviously they don’t make the “disable account” function easy to find, that’s just bad for business, and after a trip to the Facebook help page I finally managed to find the place where I disabled my account.  When you click disable it not only has the “are you sure?” command window, but it also takes you to an exit page, asking once again if you are really, really sure that you want to leave.   The top of the page told me that my friends will miss me on Facebook,  and then found a pictures of me and some of my Facebook friends with the caption “Joe Schmoe will miss you.” As I looked at the pictures of four of my acquaintances and my boyfriend, I was fairly certain that none of them would actually miss me.  Then I had to fill out a mandatory questionnaire about why I was leaving the site.  When I thought I was finally out and free, I immediately received an email explaining how I could reactivate my account if I so wished.  It was like breaking up with a boyfriend who just wouldn’t get the hint.

But after I jumped through all of the hoops and Facebook finally left me alone, I felt so much better.  Just knowing that I would be away from all of the drama of Facebook, at least for a little bit took a load off my mind.  Not to say that it cured my depression or anything, but it stopped making it worse. 

Of course I immediately started running into complications.  I didn’t have a lot of people’s contact information which made issues around selling and buying textbooks a little more difficult, and I found out later that old friends who were trying to reconnect with me because they were coming to visit couldn’t find me.  Perhaps the biggest problem came from the fact that I was now completely out of the loop when it came to university events.  Facebook is a way that most societies communicate with their members, and now I’m completely out of the loop.  I’ve had to get my boyfriend to go on Facebook to find information on a few events, which is probably cheating, but I got off Facebook so that I could get off the computer and see people in person, I need to know event times for that.

We’ll see how things go in the next few days. 

~Nice Girl

Kicking the Habit: 30 Days without Facebook – An Introduction

Yesterday I disabled my Facebook account.  It’s something lots of my friends have done every once and a while, especially during exams but since I signed up for it at the beginning of High School, I have rarely ever been away from it for very long, besides the times when I wasn’t around a computer.  While I wouldn’t say that I’m addicted to Facebook (although what addict ever does?) it is definitely a habit.  A habit that I’ve finally decided to kick. 

I left Facebook for a few reasons; the obvious ones being that it is a huge source of my procrastination and a little bit creepy, but another reason was how using Facebook made me feel.  Social media is really wonderful in that it allows us to connect with each other in so many new and exciting ways, but almost all of these new and exciting ways are very public.  There are some really great benefits to this, but there are a lot of downsides, sometimes within the benefits.  For example, if someone invites you to a party via a Facebook event, you can discuss the party with your friends and see who else is attending the party.  However, in most cases you can see who is attending the party even if you are not invited.  It’s like elementary school all over again, when you’re the only kind who hasn’t been invited to your classmate’s party.  You can also see conversations that your friends are having, theplus side of this is that you can join conversations and have really interesting discussions.  The downside is that it can also be painfully obvious when a person is not talking to you, especially when you are trying to talk to them.  This is made even worse when your “wall-to-wall” is accessible by not only all of your friends, but all of the friends of the person you are trying to have a conversation with.  Then your rejection becomes embarrassingly public. 

I have a pretty severe anxiety disorder that sometimes leads to bouts of depression and the poor self image that comes with it.  I’m coming out of a pretty terrible summer and I’m not only feeling depressed, I'm also incredibly anxious about the coming year.  This was a perfect storm for all of these negative social consequences to really start to take its toll on me.  Every time I went on Facebook, all I saw was the events I wasn’t invited to, things I wasn’t a part of, performance opportunities that I didn’t have and friends who weren’t talking to me.  I would leave Facebook feeling friendless, untalented, and unwanted.  None of these things are true, but I that’s the way anxiety works and it was really starting to mess me up.  So I decided to get rid of the source of the problem.

I know that using Facebook won’t always make me feel this way, so I’ve only temporarily disabled it, but now the temptation is gone.  However, this is habit I’ve had for six years and I’m going through some withdrawl.  That’s why I’ve decided to blog about this.  Partly so I’ll have something to do now that I am without Facebook, but also because I want to examine how much of a hold Facebook has on us. 

I disabled my account in the middle of the afternoon, so tomorrow I will have a combined Day One and Two journal.

Wish me luck!

~Nice Girl

How to Survive High School

One of my cousins whom I haven’t seen in a really long time is going into high school in September, and for some reason, I feel it is my familial duty to pass on this list of advice to her and anyone else who is excited/nervous/apathetic about going to High School. 
 

1.       Hazing went the way of the dinosaur

When I was a kid, my father loved to tell me the stories about all the hazing he had to go through as a “niner” in High School.  There were horrifying stories of eggs being thrown, wearing gross makeup and something to do with garbage.  Part of me knew that something like that would never happen in this day and age, but as I neared my first day of High School, there was still a tiny part of me that was nervous. 

Obviously there was no hazing.  It’s been thirty years since our parents went to high school (I just made half of my readers feel old, sorry about that) and people have gotten way stricter about bullying and harassment.  So if someone tries to make you roll an egg up the stairs with your nose, tell them to get a life.

2.       Be (genuinely) nice to everybody

You know those teen movies/books/TV shows where the popular girl is the richest, prettiest, and bitchiest girl in the school?  Well in real life, that’s not the case.  In my experience, the “popular” kids are actually very likeable people.  That’s what makes them popular.  Society and the media have skewed the idea of popular to mean the most powerful person but in reality the word popular means someone that everybody likes.

So, how do you get people to like you?  There are a lot of possible answers; buying lunch for them, helping them with homework, throwing wild parties at your house while your parents are away (this is a bad idea.  Seriously.)   But all of these actions are useless if the only reason you are doing them is so that people will like you.  In fact, it will probably lead to people taking advantage of you, which never turns out well.  The best way to get people to like you is to be nice to them.  You have to do things for them without expecting a reward or something in return, you have to be nice to everybody, even weird people or people that you don’t like, and you can’t be mean behind other people’s backs. 

Sometimes you will come across “popular” people who are nice to everybody’s face, but has no problem talking about them behind their backs.  People do this to try and get ahead in life, but it’s a bad idea because nobody actually likes those people, they just pretend right back. 

One more thing, it’s hard to be nice to everyone and I don’t think anyone has ever been nice to everybody all the time but the important thing is that you try.

3.       No matter what you do, there will always be someone who doesn’t like you

Sometimes people make decisions about people based on one bad encounter or a dumb rumour or even something as stupid as what shirt you happen to be wearing the day you meet them.  It (probably) won’t be your fault, but it won’t matter to them.  You could be a saint and it wouldn’t change their minds.  The important thing to understand is that it’s just one person and you shouldn’t let their opinion of you affect your opinion of yourself.  I promise you that you are better than that. 

Unless a lot of people don’t like you, then maybe you should go back to #2 and think about how you treat other people. 

4.       Unless you want to be a doctor or an engineer, you don’t have to have your life planned out by the end of grade ten

Sometime in your high school career your guidance counsellor will hold an assembly and tell you it’s time to start planning your future.  They will talk about doors closing and admission requirements and the University Prep credits vs College Prep credits and it will make your head hurt and scare you into thinking that your life will be ruined if you make the wrong choice. 

Honestly, don’t worry too much about all of this.  University isn’t as scary as people make it out to be in high school.  Once you get into university you can change your degree as much as you want so if you don’t know exactly what you want to do by the time your start picking grade 11 and 12 courses then it’s not the end of the world.  Also, there is nothing wrong with taking summer school courses or a victory lap.  It doesn’t mean you’re dumb and it can be a great way to get ahead or upgrade a mark.

5.       Ask Questions when you’re confused and demand straight answers

This is the first time people will start to treat you like an adult (although it won’t seem that way sometimes) and you should take advantage of that.  ProTip: Acting like an adult helps.

6.       Do something other than school, it makes you a more interesting person

It’s really important to have a hobby.  It looks good on a university application, gives you something to talk about other than school work and it will prevent you from going crazy.  I don’t care how studious you are, you have time to do an extracurricular activity or two. 

7.       Have friends who don’t go to your school

It’s a well known fact that High School is a sea of hormones and everybody is dealing with body image, self acceptance, social expectations and a whole lot of other things that help you become a functioning member of society.  This means that there will be drama and you will be involved in it at one point.  Therefore it is really important that you have friends outside of all of that so that you can vent to, get advice from, and just generally spend time with when you need to get away from all of that drama. 

8.       Take courses that are interesting, not ones that will get you good marks

There is nothing worse than taking a bunch of courses that you don’t care about in order to get good marks.  Chances are you’ll stop caring and your marks will suffer anyway.  The more you’re interested in what you’re learning, the less you’ll hate school.

9.       Teachers are interesting people

Don’t be afraid to talk to them, forming good relationships with your teachers is another really good way to make school suck less. 

10.   Guidance Counsellors are better than Facebook (to complain to). 

Time for the hard truth: Except for your parents and your best friends, no one else on facebook cares if you think your life is horrible.  Guidance Counsellors however do care, and not just because they are paid to.  They are also more likely to be able to help you.  There is nothing wrong with going to a guidance counsellor, it doesn’t mean you’re crazy or a problem child and no problem is too small or too big for them.  I went to my guidance counsellor for everything from issues I was having with friends or boys to worrying about money for university, to being stressed out about school.  In fact, it was because of my guidance counsellor that I discovered I had an anxiety disorder and he helped me learn strategies to help me deal with it that I still use today.

Guidance Counsellors are trained to deal with the big issues like abuse, depression, pregnancy and suicidal thoughts better than you or friends are and there is no shame in going to them because you are worried about someone else who has a problem that is too big for you to deal with.  In fact that is often the best thing you can do for your friend.

11.   There is life after High School.

A lot of people say that High School never ends.  What they mean is that there will always be people who are two-faced, people who don’t like you for any good reason, and there will always be drama in your life.  Sorry, that’s just being human. 

What they don’t mean is that if you were picked on when you were in High School you will always be picked on.  If you were popular and successful in High School, it means nothing in the real world. At this point in your life, High School will seem like your whole world, but it isn’t.  You’d be surprised how little it matters just one year after you get out of there.  Sometimes people have a great time in High School and some people have a really hard time of it. The important thing is that you just get through it and join the rest of us in the real world. 

So Hannah (and everyone else reading this going into High School in tomorrow) good luck, and make good choices. 

*cheesy family moment over*

How to Survive First Year: FYP Edition

Today is the first day of Frosh Week at Kings, which is always an exciting time.  No one really goes into first year at Kings and knows exactly what to expect.  I’m not going to tell you what to expect, but I will tell some things that will make the Foundation Year more enjoyable and things that I wish I had known when I was doing FYP

1.       Don’t take yourself too seriously

The first thing that I am going to do is congratulate on having the balls to do FYP.  It’s a lot of fun, but it’s very intense.  But you know this already.  You also know that Kings is a pretty prestigious university and there’s a part of you that is feeling pretty self-important right now.  This is normal, but you’re going to have to get over it.  Lot of other people who didn’t do FYP are very smart, successful people and they’ve all read the same books that you have.  At the end of first year I had a very interesting five minute conversation with Yann Martel where he wanted to know about some of the fiction that I had read as part of FYP.  He was impressed with exactly one book on the list, when I mentioned some of the really cool ones that I had enjoyed reading (The Waste Land, Death in Venice) he dismissed them as books that everybody read, and the one he was impressed with was one that I hadn’t even really read (The Emigrants).  This is when I realized that FYP wasn’t as special as I thought it was.  It is still an amazing program that does something not many universities do, and it is a great way to get prepared for the rest of university, but it isn’t doing anything new and innovative.  So don’t take yourself to seriously when you talk about FYP to people who haven’t done it, because being in FYP is impressive, but not as impressive as you think it is. 

If you do end up taking yourself very seriously (sometimes it’s hard not to) don’t worry, you’ll come down from that as an upper year.

2.       Get involved with the KTS

Or the KSU, or KAFCA, or the Chapel Choir, or  SAMS, or YAS, or one of the sports teams, or the Orchestra, or the King’s Chorus, or the Watch, or the DSS, or the Swing Dance Society, or the Dance Collective, or Journalists for Human Rights one of the many other really cool societies that Kings has to offer.  There are so many and they are all really cool.  Go to the society fair during frosh week and find out all about them.  It’s really important that you do things outside of FYP.  You will make friends you don’t go to class with and it will help you be less crazy.  You have time.

3.       King’s is a fishbowl

This is something you will hear over and over again, but it doesn’t make it any less true.  Kings is a small school, it becomes even smaller when you take into account that not everybody becomes really involved in life at Kings (which is a mistake).  Things get even worse in FYP because the people you go to class with are also the same people you live with, eat with, get drunk with, and make out with.  Everybody knows everybody’s business.  There were some people who I hadn’t talked to more than once and I still knew about their sex lives, and the same thing happened with me.  You can’t escape this so keep this in mind when it comes to the decisions you make, especially when it involves hooking up and learn to care a little less about what people think of you. 

4.       Embrace the traditions

A lot of you are probably really excited that Kings is a lot like Hogwarts, but in case you aren’t, get over it.  The traditions are great! Formal Meal¸ Matriculatrion, Sherry Hour, College Christmas (the best thing ever), Big Night, the Resurrection Party, the Dante Party, the April Fools water fight, these are all wonderful things that you should take part in whole-heartedly because they are all fun, all cool and all a big part of why Kings is so much better than any other university you could go to. 

5.       You will never, ever, ever be right.  Stop trying.

Seriously.  Being right isn’t the point of FYP.  There is rarely ever one right answer in the humanities so stop trying to find one, and explore the different opinions and answers to questions rather than waste your time trying to prove why yours is right.

This will make you especially likeable in Tutorial.

6.       You will not do well on your first FYP paper

You’ve been told this at least a hundred times since you applied for Kings, but I’m going to tell you again, because no matter how many times you’re told¸ you will still probably be upset by your grade.  You’re used to getting A’s without trying, so when you think of a low mark, you’re probably thinking a B. That’s not the kind of low we’re talking about; I’m talking C-/D low. High School did not teach you how to write a paper, even if you did IB or went to a fancy private school that cost more money than the tuition you’re paying now.  The reason you write so many papers in FYP is so you learn how to write a paper.  Your mark will go up gradually and it is possible to get and A, but don’t expect to get one for a very long time. 

7.       Do at least some of the readings

No doubt you’ve heard or will hear about the FYP 2/3.  The idea is that if you attend two of the three ways you study in FYP (readings, lecture, and tutorial) then you will do well.   This is true, but try to do at least some of the reading, even if you don’t finish a book.  These are really, really great books and worth reading.  Even if you don’t read them on time (my goal is to do all of my FYP readings by the time I graduate)

8.       The Wardroom is a wonderful place.  Don’t be the one to ruin it. 

When they tell you not to drink underage in the Wardroom, they mean it.  Kings has a Wet/Dry license which means you can hang out in the Wardroom even if you’re underage, which is great because the Wardroom is so much fun.  However it also means that the liquor board people are super vigilant about making sure the liquor laws are followed and since they don’t give out that kind of license anymore, if it gets revoked all of your underage fun at the Wardroom (and possibly any fun at the wardroom at all) will be at an end forever.  And since kings is a fishbowl, everybody will know if it was you who ruined the Wardroom, and they will hate you.  So save your fake IDs for downtown.

9.       Don’t believe the hype about Dal kids

So everybody thinks Dal kids are dumb because they don’t read all the books that you do and they don’t care about class.  But remember that the first experience you will likely have with Dal classes will be a first year language or science credit and there will be lots of kids who don’t want to be there.  This is the way things are with most universities.  You’re sheltered from this because not many people do FYP unless they are interested in it, but you have to remember that Kings is not the real world.  There are lots of really great, friendly, intelligent Dal kids who don’t hate you automatically for being a Kings student and aren’t bros.  In fact I’m dating one right now, and honestly there is nothing better than dating someone who doesn’t also go to Kings (see the part about the Fishbowl, again)

10.   FYP is hard work, suck it up

Last year there was this big plagiarism scandal that rocked the school.  A bunch of kids plagiarised a paper that was due the Wednesday after the midterm and a lot of people were upset for various reasons.  I was just kind of confused because everybody makes it very clear before you start FYP that it is hard work.  If you don’t want to work hard then you shouldn’t be in FYP.  There will be days where you will be expected to read a whole book in a night and write a paper the same week you have an exam, and you will feel overwhelmed.  But everything is doable.  FYP is a picnic compared to upper years when you are taking five or six different classes with different expectations and you’ll have to hand in a paper on the same day as an exam, or two papers on the same day.  Use FYP as a chance to develop a work ethic that will help you get through the rest of your degree.  I wish I had.

11.   Be open to the wonderful things you are going to learn. 

FYP is awesome and eye opening and you will never experience anything else like it and you will never be able to look at the world in the same way after FYP.  This is a wonderful thing that you should embrace.  You won’t come out of FYP enlightened, you will come out confused, learn to love the confusion it’s not a road block, it’s an adventure. 

So enjoy Frosh, enjoy FYP and remember that you go the best university ever.