Just got this email…

Dear applicant

This note is to advise you that an invitation to interview package is on the way to you in the mail. A response to our offer of interview is required by February 13th. If you have not received your package by Tuesday, February 10th, please contact me on this email.

Congratulations and we look forward to meeting you this Spring.

So this is pretty cool!

I’m pretty stoked, and really happy that the York strike doesn’t seem to have hurt me in this year’s medical school application cycle.

This was also good timing… I feel a bit more motivated to start working on my essay (yes it’s true, that has been untouched for the entire strike) and preparing for interviews.

Now time to come up with a plan for approaching this interview.

Oh, and should mention, thanks to Back to Work Legislation, it looks like I will be back at school on Monday.

It’s going to be a hectic four months, but hopefully everything works out!

For those of you who haven’t been following the strike at York University, the union held a forced ratification vote the last two days regarding York University’s latest offer. Essentially, at one point during the entire negotiation process, the university is allowed to directly send an offer to the general union members to vote on (usually the union bargaining team has to deem an offer acceptable before it can be voted on by its general members).

Well, the vote was held the past two days, and all three units of the union voted to reject York’s settlement offer (of the union members who showed up, 63% voted no overall) – in short, the strike is still on.

I’m a bit surprised, but not really. I though there was a good chance one of the units was going to vote yes, but I’m not completely surprised at the results. The executive of the union (unsurprisingly) was pushing for a rejection of York’s offer, and well, they got it.

The year isn’t lost yet, but however the situation ends, it won’t be pretty. We could lose the year, or the year could get pushed into the summer, which kind of sucks.

My brother likes to think I’m on vacation right now, and while it is most definitely a “break”, knowing you have four months off during the summer is not the same as continuously thinking you could be at school the very next week. You can’t make long term plans, and you really can’t “enjoy” the break you normally would because it could end at any moment.

I’m still hoping that no matter the result, my eligibility for medical schools isn’t compromised this year, but at this point, I can’t help but be concerned.

So I just got off the phone with the Queen’s Medical School admissions officer who emailed me yesterday, and I’m happy to say that I got some good news.

She was super nice about the whole situation, and said that Queen’s did not want to take us out from the application pool, and that this was more of a heads up.

Apparently, they were just concerned that York University students in my situation may not want to deal with the stress and finances of attending an interview, getting accepted, and eventually getting an offer rescinded because we cannot complete our credits on time – I completely understand that.

I told her that I my only choice to complete the credits on time was to stay at York University. She said that as long as I understand the risks mentioned above, then she would be happy to leave me in the applicant pool. I said definitely!

So all is good at least for the time being.

Except for the fact that the strike does not seem to be ending anytime soon…

This afternoon a friend of mine from York messaged me, asking if I got an email from Queen’s Medical School (and yes, York’s union is still on strike).

I actually hadn’t checked my normal email account today, so I hastily logged in, only to find some unsettling news.

An admissions officer sent an email to third year York University applicants basically saying that even if we are offered an interview, if we don’t make alternate arrangements to get this year’s credits completed by June 30, 2008, we will not be allowed into their medical school. The email then ends asking me to reply saying whether or not I have made alternate arrangements to complete my credits.

If you don’t know, Queen’s medical school requires at least three full years worth of course credits completed by the time you enter their program. So if I don’t have those completed this year, I wouldn’t be allowed in.

The problem with the email is that it seems to suggest either that they believe we are definitely going to lose the year at York (since it never considered the possibility that I would still be able to complete my credits this year), or that even if classes resume at York, that I wouldn’t be able to complete my credits by June 30 (which I guess is possible, depending on how long the strike goes for). So the whole thing is a bit weird but also scary.

In addition, the reality is that I simply can’t make worthwhile re-arrangements. I cannot transfer to another university and ask to complete an entire year’s worth of credits in half a year – that would never be allowed. My only shot at finishing my credits on time this year is staying at York. Which is why I’m confused I got this email in the first place.

I’m going to discuss this with my dad tonight, and come up with the best possible plan for approaching this. At this point, I think most likely scenario is I’m going to call them tomorrow to clarify the whole issue. I really don’t like replying by email for important stuff like this because getting responses for clarification is so much faster and easier via phone.

This first event also worries me because it may or may not be the first in a line of other responses from other medical schools I applied to. I would be very upset if I was automatically rejected from medical schools this year because of this instance. It’s not just the fact that I would’ve wasted several hundred dollars and hours of my time putting the application together.

I feel like I’m ready for medical school right now, and I’d be pretty upset if I am disqualified because of something random out of my control.

Hopefully I’ll have some good news to present tomorrow…

Well it’s Christmas Eve, and I want to wish everyone who reads this blog (and your friends and families) a Merry Christmas (or just happy holidays if you don’t celebrate Christmas)!

I’m usually way more excited about winter break, but considering I’ve been on break since November 6, you can’t really blame me for not being as excited. Nonetheless, it’s still my favourite holiday, so I’m going to enjoy it as much as possible anyhow =)

Because of my recent interest in learning to play, my family decided to get me a new guitar this Christmas. So yesterday my father, brother and I went to Long & McQuade to check their guitars out.

I’m going to be flat out honest here. I hate shopping. Nothing bores me more than random store browsing. I’m the kind of guy where I’ll buy something only when I need something. In addition, I’m really indifferent to the exact product I buy. If I needed to buy a couch, I would just pick anything decent I saw in the first five minutes. I just really don’t care what I use as long as the product works. I am really hoping the girl of my dreams is someone who likes to shop way more than I do or else our home will probably be very empty of furniture, or just look really awful inside.

One of the reasons I don’t like shopping is that I don’t like change, and usually, shopping for something new means replacing something old. So that’s why I don’t choose to shop unless I really absolutely have to. As an example to how lazy I am to change, I have had my mom’s old cell phone for probably four years now. My brother recently got a new cell phone and gave me his old one, which is still newer and significantly better than my current cell phone – but I’m too lazy to just transfer the SIM card over. As long as my current phone works, I really don’t care to change it.

Why am I telling you all this? Well suffice to say, my family was a bit irritated with me when we went to the music store because I honestly didn’t care what we bought. To me a guitar is a guitar, and anything newer than what we have at home (which is probably like 20 years old or something) is going to be a significant upgrade. Some people are going to think I’m an idiot or whatever, but I just personally don’t know enough about guitars (or care enough) to really “want” a specific type.

In the end, I just decided to go with a guitar that my dad seemed to like: the Epiphone John Lennon EJ-160E. It’s an electric acoustic guitar which supposedly produces a Lennon-type sound. I’ve played it a fair bit since yesterday, and like the sound a lot more than the old guitar, so I’m really happy. I’m finally able to play barre chords, since the neck seems a bit narrower and the strings are much closer to it, which is a big plus.

It doesn’t look like the strike at York University will be over by the first week of January, so I doubt I’ll be back in school till mid-January at the earliest. I’m a little bit concerned about how this will affect my medical school applications, but I’m not going to bother worrying too much unless my entire school year is canceled, which I feel is very unlikely to happen.

I’m not going anywhere particular this winter break, but in general, my family doesn’t ever travel much at this time of the year. So I’m just looking forward to continuing to have a nice and relaxing break.

Anyways, what are you doing this winter break? Let me know!

Happy Holidays! =)

Two months ago, a friend of mine and fellow TD Scholar Jasmeet Sidhu asked if she could interview me for the 2009 Winter Youth in Motion Newsletter. Youth in Motion (YIM) is a non-profit organization that runs numerous career and mentorship programs, including their renowned Top 20 Under 20 national awards program. I was a recipient of the Top 20 Under 20 award in 2005. Jasmeet herself was a recipient in 2007, and now sits on YIM’s Board of Directors.

Anyways, I stumbled across the newsletter today and thought Jasmeet did a really good job with the article. If anyone’s interested, you can read it here.

For the entire newsletter, you can check it out here.

Well, I guess there’s not much to say about the teaching assistants strike at York University, except that it’s still going. The university administration and the union have met a few times this past week, but both meetings apparently were very short, and the two sides are quite far apart in their demands/proposals. I’ve heard that the strike is expected to last at least four weeks, and other similar stories, but I don’t want to make any vacation plans, just in case =).

I have a geography assignment and philosophy essay I should really start cracking on… but, as has always been a problem of mine, I just can’t seem to do homework if there is no looming pressure of due date a few days away (actually, it usually has to be due the next day!).

I did go to the C.N. Tower two Friday’s ago, which I guess I forgot to mention. It was my friend Joyce’s birthday, and apparently she had never been to the C.N. Tower before. So myself, Joyce, and our two friends Shirley and Andrew headed up for a nice meal at the 360 Restaurant before enjoying the evening checking out the rest of the tower. All four of us went to the same high school, and we actually all go to York University (though I don’t see all of them on a regular basis, which is what made the evening kinda nice). Here’s a picture we took at the top:

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So this is the secret project I have been talking about the past week. I’ve decided to start creating some Video Series that I think you guys would find helpful.

To do this, I went to Future Shop the other day to purchase a pretty good microphone: the Logitech USB Desktop Microphone.

I heard some good things about the Camtasia Studio screen recording software, so I downloaded a free 30 day trial version of that. If I want to keep it past 30 days, it’s about $300.00, so I’m not sure if I will. But the software is simply fantastic! It makes recording powerpoints and computer screens super easy, and I didn’t even have to read a tutorial or anything.

Tonight I will be releasing my first video in a Tips for the Scholarship Application video series, where I take a look at the applications for different Canadian scholarships, and break down how I would approach them, and talk about some important things to keep in mind while filling these scholarship applications out. This first video will focus on the Queen’s Major Scholarships. Since the December 1, 2008 due date is coming up for that, I figured it would be a good one to try this format out on. My next video will be on the Millennium Excellence Awards, since that one is due December 12, 2008.

I think the video format will be much better than writing about them because it allows me to actually show you the parts of the application form, so you can go through them with me. In addition, considering that I imagine the videos to be anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour, it means that writing this type of content out instead would take both longer for me to do, and also probably longer for you to digest!

I actually made one initial version for my first video, watched it over and realized I spoke too darn fast in a few places, so I completely redid the video from scratch – not to mention the first time I redid it, I had done about 7 minutes of the video before realizing my microphone was not on! I’m really glad I redid it though, and I’m very happy with the result.

Anyways, that video on the Queen’s Major Scholarships should be up by tonight – hope you enjoy it!

Yup, so it was officially announced that the York University contract faculty, teaching assistants and graduate assistants have decided to strike for an indefinite period of time.

I actually don’t think this could’ve come at a better time for me, personally. If there’s one thing I learned this year, it’s that there’s so much about myself I still don’t know or understand. I don’t think I’m as happy as I could be, and I want to figure out why that is. I want to try and find more things that make me happy.

Writing for this blog makes me happy, that’s why I’ve really enjoyed doing this. I really enjoy answering all the emails you guys send, and it makes me happy to know that the stuff I write is really helping some of you.

Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, now that the strike is happening I have an exciting project for this blog. It’s going to be more of an experiment initially, and if it goes well, I’ll do some more of them. What is it? You’ll just have to keep checking to find out =)

I usually write about what’s on my mind, but I’m really curious about what the readers of this blog are interested in learning about.

I feel like I am a pretty honest person, and as people can probably tell, I don’t like to sugar coat things when I write.

So I’d be interested in creating a sort of Question & Answer post, where you can ask me any question you like (has to be appropriate though!), and I’ll do my best to answer them.

So got a question? Write it as a comment on this post and I’ll compile the best ones, and get to answer them this week through a new blog spot.

If there are some really interesting questions, I’ll probably have a lot to say, and many of them might end up being entire posts or articles.

Looking forward to hearing some interesting questions!