by 
First off, some advice…
Semester 1:
1. Study a bit every day. Don’t be an idiot (like me) and assume you can get away with doing all the homework and studying for the tests. There will be people who study even less than you do, and you’re going to want to justify any study habits with their behavior. In fact, you probably will. It’s human nature, we don’t learn from advice like this very well… you just have to do badly in a few classes and you’ll learn your lesson. Those people who studied even less than I did are having to deal with course failures now, which is an extreme pain in the ass. More importantly, pick yourself back up quickly if you do poorly your first semester. Studying for a few hours a day isn’t that bad anyway… hopefully… going to find out next semester.
2. Having trouble finding people that match your personality? (this is a nice way of asking if you’re hopeless at finding friends) Join a community service! It’s what saved me. I was led to the McGill Computer Task Force, which has been pretty awesome. It would also be why I’m used to being the token white guy, as most of us are Asian, very much most of us. And I love it! It also, conveniently, made me closer to my neighbor, to the point where people look in the other person’s room first if they can’t find one of us.I don’t believe in finding friends while drunk at parties (partly because I don’t drink, of course). It doesn’t seem to work very well for those who do, but it still has ended up being the default method for finding new people in university. Please resist the urge and decrease your neighbor’s noisy neighbor problem.
3. If you’re not in a friend group you like, getting out quickly isn’t difficult. You might think that too many people’s feeling would be stepped on, but you’d be surprised how much people really don’t care. One of my 2 favorite teachers of all time (can’t decide between these two) told me in 7th grade, perhaps the only thing I remember from 7th grade properly, “You would be comforted to no end if you realized how little most people thought of you.” The girl he said it to did not understand. I’m not actually sure how it takes to process such advice ,but it’s truly comforting how much people in general don’t care. Especially if you’re taking the metro as a guy in a ponytail carrying a large screen, a pink laptop bag, a remote control car, and a plant, and you’re thinking to yourself how odd you must look to the general public. Fortunately, the general public doesn’t really give a damn. The same tends to apply to friends at the beginning of the school year. I simply dropped out of the friend group, and I don’t see them much anymore. I hear them occasionally, since they can make a real ruckus, and I hear some of the things they say about me, but in truth, I’m pretty sure they don’t care. So are you in a group you’re not enjoying? Just drop out… they probably don’t care. In my case, I managed to get rid of most of the people who play the social games.
Social games! I generally despise social games. And relationship games. They’re drawn out affairs in which I don’t want a part. I understand them well enough… until I become involved. Something about having to add yourself into an equation makes things incredibly difficult. I wish I could convince everyone to stop playing these games, but there is a fair argument against stopping. The games are fun, right? Yeah, people get stomped in them occasionally, but overall they’re interesting. They give people something to be amused about. In an age where the youth are starting to become disenchanted with television and videogames (though I have a very strong belief in the positive power of both and hope they continue to develop), social games may become increasingly important so that people don’t get bored. In high school, it’s jocks and cheerleaders and nerds. In university, it’s arts students, science students, and engineering students (or at least that’s how it is in McGill). Somewhat superficial divisions, but at least they’re a little more reasonable than high school divisions.
Unlike videogames and most games in general, social games and evolutionary games RUIN MY PIECE OF MIND! I’m actually not going to specify any social games I’ve been in lately in this post, this is framework for next post, that actually gets into gnitty gritty, but I do now urge you to try to achieve some measure of ‘grace’ when dealing with social situations. I have a personal code and a general wish to achieve some level of grace in social situations, and it’s gotten me fairly far. The hardest part for me is knowing when to lose… I’m not a competitive person in sports or anything, but if you get in a verbal disagreement with me about something I’m interested in, I’m winning that damned disagreement! So that’s the hardest part for me.
Leaving the other friend group felt like losing in many ways. Looking back, it was important to leave them. Through doing so, I achieved some measure of peace again. I also managed (just over winter break) to get my peace back in my love life by finding a conclusion with the girl I like.
And I’ll be talking about what actually happened and why they’re decent examples next post. Getting to McGill was hard for me, maintaining my sanity amongst a group of generally socially vicious, academically competitive, and overwhelmingly gaming students has been even harder.
