1) You need to vote.
2) Find out how and when to vote, here.
3) My RA, Alyssa Koehn, is running for a Student Senate Member-at -Large position. She seriously would be amazing for this, and I know this from getting to live on her floor for the last 5 months and viewing her leadership abilities. She’s also hilarious and cares about this university. Check out her amazing tumblr page, here.
Alyssa Koehn, one wicked-awesome individual you should vote for.
I love leading the Mob.
Things are really blossoming this semster when it comes to my level of invovlement in the UBC community. Last semester I still belonged to clubs, blogged, supported Magda’s with my candy addiction, attended events, and did as much as I could to be involved in campus life. I’m less than 2 weeks into Term Deux and already I’ve attended SLC, joined a teaching prize selection committee as the Arts undergrad rep, became an art history rep at AUS meetings, met exciting new people who want me to join their cause (which I will), I joined my floor’s WTFL flag football team and my friend’s Rec soccer team. That’s just a little sliver of the entire cake!
I’ve never been so pumped about everything that I get to be a part of. UBC is so big that everyday I learn of something that is out there that I had no idea about. Like today for example, I was sitting in the Sub Art Gallery while I was volunteering for AHSA & VASA and I met a super awesome individual who runs a campus publication about women in politics! That’s right up my alley! That’s something I love about UBC. 1) It’s so big that it can offer over a million different things to the student body. 2) You’re always learning something new and it never feels dull.
As I blogged about over the winter break, I have a new toy- my iPod Nano. It’s my new tool to blog to you guys with videos of UBC and residence life. Here is my first video where I’m testing out the technology & showing you residence life here in Totem Park.
Secondly, here is a clip I shot from the very front row of SLC of the opening part of Romeo Dallaire’s keynote address.
Thirdly, please donate to help those in Haiti. My high school has sponsored a school in Haiti that was hit so hard by the hurricane that happened last year that the children couldn’t go to school for months. The worst part is that school is where they get their food for the day. Without school they don’t eat. Haiti still had not recovered from the hurricane so imagine what it is like now after the earthquake. As a Vancouver Mob-Lead, here is a link to Free The Children to donate to help Haiti.
That’s all for today. Hopefully I see some blog readers tomorrow in the Norm Theatre inside the SUB for the town hall meeting with Michael Ignatieff. It’s at 3pm & It’s going to be a blast.
Today, I went to the Residence Advisor Alumni Night in Marine Drive Residence. In this photo, alumni of UBC who were also Residence Advisors put together a panel to talk about their experiences. Matt Corker was there too, because he is everywhere at UBC. I just noticed the other day that he’s the guy from one of the “Youbc” pre-admissions site videos that I watched before I accepted my offer of admission last year. I should have guessed that he was an RA. You might be able to see his fo-hawk in the front row. Hey Matt!
Just to let you know, I’d absolutely love the chance to be a RA and mentor a whole floor of first years. I applied and we’ll see what the universe has planned out for me. If not, I’ve got my sights set on being a part of the lovely TPRA next year. Woo endless amounts of student involvement!
Today I bought an almost nude UBC Men’s Rugby Team calender when they conveniently showed up at my dorm room door. It’s pretty hilarious and I’ll admit they are pretty good looking. You know how it is, I’m supporting UBC Varsity Athletics, I’ll do whatever it takes even if it means buying photos of good looking men or having them autograph their month in the calendar. It’s tough stuff supporting UBC Athletics but someone needs to do it.
Also, this week the VASA/AHSA (the cool kids club that I’m a part of) has the “Im/Perfect Bodies” art exhibit in the Sub Gallery. Go check it out! I’ll be volunteering there during the week for Arts Week. It’s wicked cool because there is art from non-visual arts students and photos of Ski and Board Club guys kicking each other in their manly areas. Go!
Now for some music. I wasn’t sure what to choose for this. Lately, It’s been Tegan and Sara, Phoenix, Jack Johnson and the Hood Internet. That’s my diet. School already is super busy, super cool, and super nuts all at the same time. It’s only the second week and I can feel the pressure building. I need to study some French vocab tonight, read some poetry for English Lit, and my “To Do’s” in my dorm room reads, “buy Katie a kitten or puppy!” So I better get on that.
Here is Don’t Haunt This Place by The Rural Alberta Advantage. Kyle R is jumping up and down as he reads his RSS and finds out that I’m posting music he introduced me to. Guess who has tickets to see them and City and Colour during the Olympics, Kyle?
In 2 quick days I’ll be starting my 2nd semester of first year. After watching both seasons of Dorm Life in my short time that I’ve been home, it inspired me to show you what my first semester in Totem Park looked like. Dorm Life follows the lives of a floor in residence as they go through their first year of university and each season covers an one semester. If it wasn’t for living in residence, I wouldn’t have had all these memories to post from the last few months. If Dorm Life was following the lives of those who lived on 2nd Nootka, viewers wouldn’t be disappointed. I’m a firm believer in the university residence experience and I wouldn’t want to be living anywhere else. Here are photos of my friends and I from Totem Park & some of the memories we’ll always have.
AMS Annual Welcome Back BBQ with Thinderheist & Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head
First Week Under The Stars Dance with Totem ladies
The Thunderbirds Homecoming Football Game
We still have no idea who the girl on the left is who jumped into our photo
Nootka at Totem Colour Wars!
The front of our shirts say, “Where da gold at???”
Apparently it’s a YouTube video that I’m yet to see
2nd Nootka on our way to the legendary Glow Dance
We climbed the “E” outside of the engineering buildings on Main Mall
Quote: “We’re like Sex and the City but younger.. and hotter.. and we live in Totem.”
A bunch of us from our floor went to Fright Nights at the PNE, for a lot of us our first time. We loved this actor. She slid on knee pads towards unsuspecting people, rock on.
My Thanksgiving weekend trip to the Okanagan with Lindsey and Elia from Dene
We took a hike up a mountain for an awesome view
Having our American Thanksgiving dinner that we made in Marine Drive Res
Mmmm… homemade Marine Drive apple pie!
18th birthday dinner with the girls from 2nd Nootka
(We went to Enigma on W 10th, really good!)
Totem Winter Formal
The dining hall had AMAZING stuffing, not gonna lie!
Totem Gets Classy Dance after our Winter Formal dinner
Flying like Mary Poppins with my extremely broken umbrella outside the SUB on Megan’s birthday
We’re missing a few important things that come out of this whole AMS/UN/BLAKE & TIM affair. No, it’s no that the AMS can’t function as a whole or that this is a lesson on communications and less about the complaint to the UN. There are a few things we can learn from all the dramazz and I haven’t heard anyone mention these ones yet. So, here they are. One positive and one con that I’ve learned from sitting back and watching it all unfold.
Positive: The UBC student body is actually paying attention to what the AMS is doing and what is happening on campus. It’s exciting for me when the front page of the Ubyssey says in vibrant red writing, “We received over 47 letters on the AMS/UN debacle. Read a random selection on page 9 or read them all at ubyssey.ca/ideas.” On Totem Park Formal night I tuned into the Live Blog of the emergency council meeting. I was so into it that I didn’t want to go to the formal and I wished I was in Hebb Theatre to hear students express their thoughts. I even got a few laughs from others in the Live Blog when they were serving pizza in Hebb before the meeting started and I commented “pizza = the last supper.”
I would forever be pleased if a large number of students beyond the members of the AMS continued to be engaged in campus politics and always question the actions of the AMS. After all the Twitter trending topics like #amscouncil and #amsUNfail, don’t you think that all of this has been exiting and interesting to follow? If I had one #decemberwish it would be that UBC students continue to be engaged in what the AMS does and stays interested. Maybe with growing interest we’ll breed even better student leaders and create a better sense of awareness of what is happening on campus. A few weeks ago the Ubyssey had a short news brief that TransLink is going to start charging us for the Canada Line $2.50 and our U-PASS will not cover the charge. I was shocked when I didn’t see it blow up into a big news story!
I met Blake, AMS President, for the first time a week before this whole UN debacle, as the Ubyseey calls it. This was around the time that I first read about the $2.50 charge on top of our U-PASS that comes into affect on January 1st, 2010. I asked him if the AMS was doing anything about it. He said that our contract for the U-PASS says that it covers everything that is TransLink. But, the reason that Canada Line is thinking that it can charge us is because it was built under a third party. Blake said that the AMS is looking into this- which pleased me a lot. I really do not think TransLink should be charging us $2.50 plus our U-PASS every time we want to travel on the Canada Line between Bridgeport and Templeton Station. I’ve been asking people I know if they were aware of what we will be charged when we fly into YVR for January 4th classes. They had no idea. I think that most UBC students will be in for a shock when they come back for Term 2. I wish there was more discussion from students on this issue now instead of in January when the “Add Fare” has already came into affect.
Con: I am ashamed to be a member of the student body after finding content online of students personally attacking Blake about things unrelated to his actions. I’m ashamed of the images I found of Blake photoshopped with a Communist symbol added to the image. I’m ashamed that students would go to such lows and take this as an opportunity to take a hit at someone who had the guts to run for AMS President because I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who could never put themselves out there like that in fear of being targeted. In reality, those people who are scared of being targeted are the same people who are targeting Blake. Writing hateful comments is not the way to create change on campus. Plain and simple. We learned how to act like adults in elementary school. We’re university students.
Are you aware of what is currently going down? UN Complaint? Dramazz? Resignations? Tuition increases? Emergency AMS Council meetings on a Saturday?
Check out the entire story here from the UBC Insiders so you are no longer going “wtf?”
Check out the most recent update from the Ubyssey about the newest dramazz of the President and VP External being asked to resign tomorrow. Read it here.
The Ubyssey is hosting a live blog during tomorrow’s emergency AMS Meeting at 5pm PST. Check it out here.
Check out the agenda for the Saturday AMS meeting here. Which, is full of dramazz asking Blake Frederick to resign.
Submit your thoughts as a student here on all the dramazz.
On Saturday night, after the SEE Conference, the Vancouver Me to We Mobilizers hosted their Break the Silence concert event. Break the Silence was held just as the Vow of Silence ended, to celebrate our achievements of being silent for 24 hours and to talk about our experiences from participating in the Vow. For more fabulous info on just why, click here or here.
The night was a huge success. Scott and Kelly, Mobilizers from the island, took the ferry over to be with us and others came from Surrey by SkyTrain. Steph and Angie from the Free the Children office came by and shared some FTC videos with everyone at the cafe. I also had a chance to see my Co-Mob Lead, Tes, once again! Tes lives in Surrey so we don’t have time to see each other often. Since I co-lead the west coast Mob, I had the opportunity to say “wicked-awesome” and “cool beans” into the microphone a lot while introducing speakers. Made my day.
We took over Our Town Cafe on E Broadway (btw the cafe is wicked-awesome, check it out for a cool study space) for Break the Silence and had a really awesome band called The Left play for us. They were absolutely hilarious and at one point they shouted out, “this will be our last song for the evening. Thank you for coming out and we’ll see you at the after party at Erica’s house. If you weren’t invited… …we’re sorry.” Right away they began playing as loud as they could before I could even think about the joke I just heard. Funny and amazing guys. So here I am, sharing one of their songs with you. In this video I can’t help but laugh and understand why they were talking about coffee beer bongs before they played it on Saturday.
Here it is. The Left- Drinking About You. Oh yeah, Hi Meg!
Yesterday I attended the Social Entrepreneurship Conference hosted by Enterprise Canada at the Museum of Vancouver. It was an awesome experience because I’ve never been to the museum, it was right by the water (like everything in Vancouver), and I got to learn about the history of White Spot! haha. I’m sure you’ll see photos from the event by Rabi, fellow Blog Squader, who was there too! I also developed a business plan for an “Art Hub” in Vancouver that would offset the major arts budget cuts that are currently happening in BC. Some speakers told me a few cool things like employee appraisals will not make an employee work better for you and that 22 people touch your coffee before you get it!
Did I mention I got a few compliments on my outfit? I stood out at this business casual event with my “90s” inspired colour palette. It helps a woman stand out from the black and grey of business clothing! Something you can’t see in the photos below are the awesome cream peek toe shoes complete with a wood heel. Very nicely done, H&M, on the shoes.
High wasted pink skirt, white pocket t shirt, and green/teal heathered cardigan.
My awesome necklace that is a real pocket watch!
Now I’ve got my trusty glasses on and I’m ready to go learn about the business world!
Update: Check out Rabi’s photos of SEE, they are now posted! Click here!
