Thursday, March 27, 2014

Coffee Shop Serenade

This is where I get really pretentious and actually start blogging about coffee.

My coffee this morning was amazing. Lately I've been drinking Starbucks' Pike Place roast, with approximately one cream (half-and-half, though I think I should switch to soy) and two sugars. I don't know what it was, but this morning the taste of the coffee itself really shone through. I think it was the most flavourful cup of coffee I've had yet; it wasn't held back by the cream or sugar, but it wasn't strong enough to be overpowering. All in all a very full flavour, mellowed to perfection by the cream and sugar. It certainly brightened an otherwise miserable morning.

So I'm sitting in a Starbucks now. I have another Pike Place in front of me, and it's still a bit too hot so I haven't had a proper taste. I do miss the daily vanilla lattes from Second Cup of yestersemester, but I regret it more. Daily lattes are not a financially sound decision, especially on minimum hours at minimum wage.

I think soon I'll start going through the bean selection at Planet Bean, the local free trade coffee company that's all the rage with the hipsters of the town, but unfortunately I haven't yet had the motivation to get out there. Soon though; I really admire their business model and I would love to give them my support. I do know that they make an amazing mocha, especially at the downtown branch, so I'm looking forward to finding my favourite blend.

Until next time; may your coffee stay warm and bring music to your taste buds.

A New Beginning

First of all, I'd like to thank Cassi for the perfect blog title. I certainly couldn't have come up with anything better.

So this blog has been lying abandoned for about three years now, and as I've been reminded of its existence - to quote myself from earlier, "I have a blog?!" - I've given this thing a bit of an overhaul and I'm determined to write something on it every once in a while. I'm keeping my three original posts both because Cassi and Veronika begged me to, and as a kind of reminder of where I used to be.

The rest of this post is going to be about university, and how you shouldn't expect the image everyone tries to sell you. Not in a bad way, necessarily; it's just been something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and this is as good an outlet as any.

When I started university, I had a life path in mind: four years of undergrad, med school, residency, maybe a specialisation, then work. I had myself in a pretty firmly pre-med route, but even by the end of first year I started to consider law school. It wasn't until third-year Human Physiology that I realised how much I would hate being a doctor - the course is known for being what you can basically expect in med school, and I derived no real enjoyment from it. At least, not to the degree that I enjoyed Population Ecology.

Had anyone told me after first year that I would be enjoying ecology so much come second-year Intro to Ecology, I might have laughed in their face. And yet despite dreading having to take the course for my major, I ended up loving it! I couldn't get enough, so I took Population Ecology, which I loved even more. In second semester of third year, I've now dropped any illusions of med school and am focusing on ecology, with the hopes of going to law school for environmental law.

But even now, my plans are changing. I've decided to take a fifth year so I can spread out my course load a bit, and take more time for work and extra-curriculars. I've started thinking about doing a master's between my bachelor's and law school; the School of Environmental Science here offers a course-only Master's of Environmental Science. With a year and eight courses, I'd have another degree - one that would definitely give me a leg up if I continue toward my current goal of environmental law.

Basically, the moral of the story is that plans change. People like to give you this idea that university is very one-track, when in reality it's a very flexible system. Sure, some will follow along the track exactly how you're intended to, but it isn't mandatory. You're allowed to take your own pace, and honestly? The most important tool you can bring with you to university is an open mind.