Working 9 'til 5

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So as some of you have pointed out (in one case repeatedly; thanks), I haven’t actually written that much since welcome week. The reason for this is simple; not that much has happened. I am living in a country where students actually work. Where people will choose homework over going out. Where pretty much everyone goes home for the weekend. Coming from a country where procrastination is considered both a sport and an art form, and where getting out of your home is the main reason people go to university, this is a bit of a culture shock for me. It has also meant I haven’t been doing as much with my free time as I thought I would have done. The fact that you can’t walk into the town, and reports that it is “sketchy after about 4pm” have also contributed to this. But there are other reasons as to why I seem to have done very little since I’ve been here. The main ones are listed below:

Family Guy

No matter what time of the day you turn on the TV, you will find at least one channel out of 75 is showing Family Guy. And this thought is always in the back of your mind. Consequently, if get just the smallest bit bored with revision, the tiniest bit fed up with making notes from the text book, even if you just stop writing for a split second to try and figure out how to end a sentence, you will somehow wake up an hour later and realise you just watched 2 episodes and not remember how you got there. Even if you’re not that big a fan of the show, even if you’ve seen every episode in existence at least 3 times, even if you hate the show so much you start screaming “no no no!” repeatedly any time you hear the first 3 notes of the theme tune, you will at some point find yourself sitting on the couch, laughing at a joke that wasn’t actually funny the first time you heard it let alone the 20th, and thinking I really should be doing some work.

Seinfeld

No matter what time of the day you turn on the TV, you will find at least one channel out of 75 is showing Seinfeld…

Lack of Clubbing Culture

The only shops where you can buy alcohol in Ontario are LCBO and The Barn, two government owned off-licences. You can’t just nip to the corner shop or pick it up at the supermarket. And the closest LCBO to us is about 2miles away. Even if you get the bus that’s still over an hours travelling time in total. Equally, most of the clubs and bars are a taxi ride away and drinks are relatively expensive (especially if you have to tip) so a night out is usually saved for special occasions e.g. the day after your student loan comes through. There is also the factor of the weather. At the moment it isn’t too bad and so I have a couple of times found the time and energy to go all the way to the LCBO. However, I highly doubt this will be the case when the temperature drops below freezing and I have to put on about 5 layers of clothing to go outside.

If this scheme of moving alcohol to one specific and very cold place, an hour away from all chavs and universities was implemented in England, binge drinking levels would drop dramatically as no one would be bothered to go to all that trouble (although I hear the UK’s going through a bit of a recession at the moment so you might want to wait a while before removing something that generates so much tax).

Workload

However, the number one reason why I have not had many adventures since being here is that I simply haven’t had the time. In one of my classes I have a test every week; in 3 of my classes I am set an assignment every fortnight; and in all my classes I have exams both in the middle of the semester (mid-terms) and before Christmas. Add on to this the fact that not all the work gets covered in lectures and so you actually have to read the textbook, (something I managed to avoid doing at all last year) and you have yourself a very busy week. I have 18 hours of scheduled lectures and labs a week plus 2 hours of online lectures I have to watch. Then I have to spend about 4 hours a week on my assignments and then more if I get set other assessed work (especially the one which involves physics) and have to make notes on 2 textbook chapters plus revision. This means some weeks I can spend over 30hours working. And that’s just to get a pass. Heaven forbid I actually want to do well.

So, all in all I’m left with very little to time to do anything other than eat, sleep, and study. Everything is so far away from each other, and all the shops and malls here are so big that you need several hours to do the simplest of stuff, and the workload makes it practically impossible to do this except on the odd weekend very month or so. In fact I must get back to it. I have wasted far too much time writing this, especially as I have two mid-terms this week. Although I did spend all today and Friday studying for them. And I have tomorrow off. Hmmmm, I wonder if Family Guy’s on…

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