Category Archives: First Year

What’s this??

A new beautiful longboard creation from the folks at Loaded Longboards in California? Let’s stop and ooo & aaaaw at this video, shall we?

Besides watching many longboarding videos on YouTube with a good buddy from Saskatchewan, I’m going to chill in a Starbucks far far away from campus to focus on my term paper, go to the gym, and get vaccinations for my latest trip!

My latest trip? What am I referring to? Let’s say that I’m considering going to a country in Central America all on my own after exams finish next month.

Is it weird that exams seem less stressful than all my term papers and final visual arts assignments? Yes, No? Maybe so?

Here is a little more UBC-related content to get incoming first years as stoked about this amazing university just as much as I am:
10 UBC common phrases/words.
Storm the Wall.
AMS.
Imagine Day.
Mike Duncan.
Free food.
Buchanan Tower.
VFM.
The Honour Roll.
Wreck Beach.
The 99 B-Line.

Let Steve tell you what’s up.

Music Monday & Academics

Lust for Life by Girls
Warning: They use graphic language, I counted, only twice in this song, so it’s not recommended that you watch this if you are uncool with that.

∞

Adjusting to university-level work is not easy.

This past weekend, I made a few dozen paper cranes out of my beautiful new paper, watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off three times, and learned how to save a life, again, through renewing my CPR training. The school year is coming to a close very soon (last day of class, April 15th, whuddup!) but things are still happening on campus and I love it. Storm The Wall kicked off yesterday, which is absolutely insane and amazing. If you are an incoming UBC student, you should for sure look forward to this event.

Even though things are really busy, my academic responsibilities have picked up too. Last night, I worked really hard on my term paper that is due on Thursday. I’ve found that the hardest academic adjustment for me coming into first year is term papers. Last semester, I had three of them. The first one, for my Modern Art class, I worked so hard on. I got help with writing it, even went to a research workshop and visited the subject librarian. I still got a pretty bad mark on it for not doing research “properly.” Honestly, high school wasn’t that tough on me and essays will never compare to the work of a term paper in university.

Things slightly balanced out, my English paper received a little bit better of a mark and my Political Science paper even received an A. Research still seems like a mystery to me, and I find that it’s really scary trying to figure it all out. This semester, I have a paper for my Women’s Studies Feminism course and for another English course. I can already tell that things will turn out better this semester compared to the outcomes of last, but I still want to grasp the daunting task of term paper writing and researching even better.

My recommendations for incoming first years who will have lots of term papers to write:
– Visit your subject librarian. For example, for Art History, you can go see Vanessa Kam in Irving K.
– Talk to your prof & TA. Even better, go see them during office hours and bring pieces of your term paper to discuss.
– Start your research & writing as soon as it is assigned. Unlike some high school essays, it cannot be done in one night.
– Become friends with upper year students who can peer edit and help you along the way.
– Visit the writing centre in Ponderosa or go to the drop in help inside Irving K’s Chapman Learning Commons.

And since you bothered to read my blog, enjoy some images of gorgeous male bands to compliment this week’s Music Monday post.

Civilization by Marco Brambilla

The cool thing about this piece: It is a seamless, looping, video mural of the journey between heaven and hell. It’s a permanent installation in a New York City hotel. They have it set up on high definition monitors inside of their elevators, and the video mural moves up or down with the direction that the elevator cart is moving in.

Credits

Title: Civilization (MEGAPLEX), 2008 By: Marco Brambilla
Client: The Standard Hotel, New York
Editor/Research Assistant: Beau Dickson
Assistant: Swapna Tamhane
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Representation/Images Courtesy of: Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica
Marco Brambilla Directorial Representation: The Ebeling Group
Ebeling Group U.S.A.

One Day Without Shoes

One Day Without Shoes. April 8th 2010. Toms Shoes.
Click here to learn how you can participate on April 8th.

Sup ebakes?

Epic: listening to an entire new mixtape from the Hood Internet that I didn’t have before.
Hard work: My term paper on Haisla people, residential schools, and native literature.
What I want to do: Is make tons of paper cranes out of all that origami paper I purchased.
Where I am: Sitting in bed & thinking about making Mr. Noodles.
This semester is: Easier than last, most likely because the hard transition from high school to university is slowly becoming a thing of the past. Second semester has won the coolness battle over first semester.
What I can’t get out of my head: Concepts for my final two visual arts assignments.
Barney or Marshall: It’s a hard call.. but Barney.
AUS Elections: Need more voters to turn out or else I’m running under an alias like our favorite Star Wars politicians.
New Favorite Food: Vanilla Ice Cream and Honey, but it has to be every once and a while, I’m on of those lactose kids.
Cool Things Happening This Weekend: Meetings, more meetings, and CPR training. Besides that, I have MUG Leader training for Imagine Day, which I am stoked for. Why? An “I AM UBC” purple t shirt and I get a whole group of first years for a day who have no idea what Buchanan is.

PS, in the photo, I am eating onion rings from Magda’s. So much for my attempt at a “fit” lifestyle. That lasted three days.

Music Monday!

Last week, I finally created my ultimate playlist on iTunes. I usually only play albums all as one piece, but now I’ve mashed together all my favorites which has me enjoying some long lost music and pieces I forgot about over time.

Some strong suggestions of songs to download if you are in search of new music!

Creature Fear Bon Iver
Wolf Like Me TV On The Radio
Calendar Girl Stars
Crystalized The xx
Rebellion (Lies) The Arcade Fire
Fans Kings of Leon
The Seed (2.0) The Roots
Oxford Comma Vampire Weekend
Young Americans David Bowie
Fraust Arp Radiohead

And now, a classic YouTube video choice. Here is the lovely new video for Ok Go’s This Too Shall Pass. It’s incredibly entertaining to watch, and if you click play you will figure out quickly just why that is.

Three Cool Finds & One Governor General

Cool Finds, yo.
Are you really bored? Click me.

I wish my man was on a horse like this guy. Click me.

The rumours are not true. Totem Park is not like this. Click me.

One Governor General, just chillin.

Can you tell that’s me in the right corner with the long brown hair that likes to twist and turn into many random directions?

5 reasons why it is awesome to go to the Athletes Village and chill with Michaelle Jean, Canada’s Governor General, and some athletes on a Friday afternoon.

1) You use cafeteria trays to eat lunch and chat, it isn’t a formal event. Which gives you the chance to hear about the Governor General’s trip to Haiti that she just returned from the day before.

2) Have you ever noticed how awesome her hair is?

3) You get to meet many Paralympic Athletes in the village, including the sledge hockey team, who tells you about their unlimited access to free Coca Cola with their secret Coke pay passes.

4) Sam Sullivan and youth from his foundation here about the lunch time gathering and come to hang out as well. Other West Coast (Mob)ilizers decide to tag along too. Why not? It’s wicked-awesome. We all munch on the nicest food together and talk about the most incredible things like Haiti, disability awareness and understanding, and how lucky we are to be Canadians.

5) Michaelle Jean is one inspiring lady to listen to.

Whuddup BlackBerry Photos

Return of the BlackBerry!

I forgot to tell you that over Christmas my stolen BlackBerry was replaced. Since the beginning of Term Deux, I’ve been snapping photos with it’s tiny little camera everywhere I go. It’s like having great photos for TwitPic, but you are too lazy to use TwitPic. So you upload them onto your UBC Blog instead.

Totem's 10 by 10!