I JUST joined blogUT! In fact, I JUST joined the community of U of T, like many of you! This post will be an introduction of me, to everyone on blogUT, I think.

At this moment, I am still a random dude to you, so let me tell YOU a little bit about MYSELF. I am 18 years old, I immigrated from Shanghai, China to Toronto when I was Grade 4. I am in University College, and I hope to do a double major in either Urban Studies, Psychology or Film Studies – any two of the three, I like them all, I think. And I commute from Markham.

I don’t know if whether I am introverted or extroverted, both I guess — it takes me some time to settle myself in a new environment, before I am comfortable to run and yell and do whatever I want. I sing (:D) and draw and observe and socialize and appreciate all kinds of ideas and cultures. It’s a real pleasure to be in U of T, since it’s so very multicultural and friendly - much much friendlier than my high school, which is a place where I didn’t have many friends over the four years.

Like everybody else, I am trying to get used to the new atmosphere., pushing myself to do this thing called studying harder than usual, and attempting to make friends with all kinds of students and people.

Speaking of making friends, here is my MSN email address: apricot_3817y [at] hotmail [dot] com and my UTOR email address: jam.zhou [at] utoronto [dot] ca. Add me and we can try to be friends, I think.

This is a photo of the tower near University College, I always see it sticking out of other buildings, so here's a picture, taken during my amazing Frosh Week. Enjoy.

Readings are very elusive things, but probably only to first-year students like me who only have two or three days’ worth of experience at university.

Of all three of the lectures I’ve been to, none of the professors have told me (or rather, the whole class of several hundred or even a thousand students) to read pages X, Y, and Z. Nope, they didn’t mention readings at all before, during, or after their lecture.

If this were high school, we’d all be cheering, “Yay, no homework!” at this point. Heck, it might even turn into some crappy remake of (the already-mediocre) High School Musical.

That was how I was feeling for the past couple of days. I mean, I knew I had readings… I just didn’t take it very seriously yet. I thought, I can read fairly speedy. I have the weekend to read. I can handle this.

Today, since my ECO prof. cancelled today’s lecture, I visited my high school. And one of my teachers said ominously (when I admitted that I hadn’t purchased all my textbooks yet), “Oh, you better get started soon then, or it’ll be very hard to catch up.”

With that word of warning in mind, I finally cracked open my new PSY textbook this evening, and started reading. And what do you think surprised me most? No, it wasn’t the interestingly easy and understandable way they wrote it, nor was it the fact that my highlighter didn’t soak through the pages. What surprised me most was: “Why is the reading so, so, SO very LONG?!”

Maybe it’s just me and my note-taking, but I’ve only gotten slightly less than half of the way through the required chapter. At least I still have until Tuesday to finish reading it, which is probably manageable.

But after Tuesday’s lecture comes Thursday’s lecture, and that means reading (and comprehending) one chapter in two days. I just hope I won’t be done in by that…on the second week of school.

Disclaimer: No offense intended towards High School Musical, Disney, or Zac Efron fans out there. You like what you like. That’s fine with me.

I like it.

The three words that pretty much sum up my feelings today, being an undergrad student here at U of T.

As with any brand-new student, there’ll always be that time of transition and change. Nothing can change that – it’s a part of life. However, I have to say that it’s not as scary as I thought.

Then again, I’m taking the Music program. Which everybody dislikes. For some odd reason.

Wait, wait, wait, don’t click the Back button – I know that reading a rant about an undergrad at Music might seem extremely boring, but please hear me out.

Let me introduce myself first (more…)