Sensorial’Org

It’s been a long time since I did any painting. I’m sooo rusty, and my tablet has been literally collecting dust on my desktop. But exams will be over in a few days, so hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the routine of a painting a day while working.

The end of exams also means that I can catch up on my backlog of entertainment, and any resulting fanart!

• Sanji (?) from One Piece: It started out as a sketch of Sanji, although it’s turning out a lot like Zoro…
• Lockon from Gundam 00: Only Gundam series I ever watched, and despite my initial reluctance of mecha series, this turned out to be pretty good.

To be done:

• Piece for SM Fanswap
• Kakashi from Naruto
• Roy from Fullmetal Alchemist

The University of Toronto launched its First-year Learning Communities (FLC) program four years ago. It’s a program that is meant to help first-year students adjust to the university lifestyle by providing them with a close-knit community which meets on a biweekly basis. Each community is made up of two mentors (upper year students), a staff/faculty advisor, and up to 24 first-year students all within a specific area of study (e.g. commerce, life science, philosophy, economics, and of course, computer science). Each meeting is an hour and half during which they engage in a mixture of academic and social activities.

I was one of the assistant mentors for the computer science FLC this year, having been in the program when I was in first year myself. Our last meeting was on Thursday; it has been an amazing year. We had a variety of developmental sessions including the academic integrity, time management, resumes and cover letters, better health for a better GPA, and scholarship and research opportunities workshops; however, the social sessions are the ones that I’ll remember most and also the ones that I think are most important. We played board games and video games, we played dodgeball and we went skating. We played pool, and we carved pumpkins. We talked about Pokemon and made masks with googly eyes and feathers. We poked fun at each other over lunch and ruined each other’s chess games after dinner.

I strongly believe that to succeed in university, you have to immerse yourself in the community. That means surrounding yourself with a group of friends that motivate and support you, getting to know your professors outside of the lecture halls, and learning about the opportunities around campus and getting involved in them. The social sessions in FLC reinforces these ideals, and I hope I was able to get that message across to my students.

Last year I did baskets with Chinese takeout boxes filled chocolate eggs, angel food cake, and mini chocolate banana muffins. This year, I didn’t have the desire nor the time to bake. I didn’t even have an idea.

When I went to the crafts store (read: dollar store), I found this year’s Easter merchandise to be lacking. The material was cheap (granted, you get what you pay for but still), the colours were tired, the bunnies were scary, the cliches were old, the bags were ugly, et cetera, et cetera. I gave up and went down the scrapbooking aisle when I found these mini-buckets and decided that I could work with them.