Life as a university student does not give you much free time. From going to class, attending floor meetings, going to work, and catching up on the endless readings and assignments I have found my devotion life happens less and less often. I have always felt as if it was a chore. When I take a step back I feel ashamed for putting God last in my life. Going to a Christian school and attending all the ‘spiritual activities’ does not count devotional life.
When I first stepped into Ambrose on the first day of classes, I was really worried whether I could meet people. I am quite introverted and not assertive to start off! When I attended the classes that I was enrolled in, I was surprised with the number of students. There were a couple of classes with only 5-15 students. Through that, I was able to meet friends! It was a lot easier to get to know people. I did not only meet friends, but also had the chance to build relationships with my professors. They knew my name and who I was! I did not only get to know people in the class, but also through the program itself; intercultural studies.
A lot of future commuter students that I’ve talked to are nervous because they’re not going to be part of the ‘Res’ community. And while it’s true that when you live on campus, you are forced to build community pretty quickly, it’s not true that it’s super hard to build that same community as a commuter student.
With the start of a new semester students across the globe dedicate themselves to staying organized once and for all. Fresh out of the previous semester’s exams, which had them scrambling to gather notes and read all the material they only pretended to read beforehand, they vow to be more determined, more disciplined, more prepared.
Now I’m sure that when you saw the title of this blog-post, you all thought that I was going to be talking about coming from some extremely far off place in Timbuktu and would be coming from a completely different culture than Canada’s. Well joke's on you!
On residence move-in day my first year, I was the keener who showed up at 9:00 a.m sharp. This was more out of fear than excitement. You see, I had been calling for weeks: