Category Archives: Residence Life

M-M-M-Music Monday.

RA Alumni Night

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?

YouTube Preview Image

The Spender in Me

Christmas time means gifts, new things, boxing day sales, and time off from classes to go shopping! It’s a terrible idea, but I’m in the mood to spend a sliver of savings this holiday season on new things for me. After all, I did promise myself a new longboard if I passed my Modern Art 227 midterm and indeed I did more than pass and I didn’t follow through on my promise to myself. Here is my collection of the cool new things I’m bringing back with me to Totem in a few days or that I hope to buy really soon! There’s also links for you to follow to find cool stuff for yourself too.

TOMS Shoes– a personal favorite. Click Here to learn more about the One for One movement where they give a pair of shoes for a child in need for every pair of shoes you buy from them. They even offer vegan styles or styles that feature enough glitter to make you sparkle. I want to add this sleek black pair to my collection for a everyday and for a conference in Toronto this February so I can look professional while creating social change at the same time! They’ll be arriving in the mail by the time I get back into residence this week.

Landyactz Bamboo Totem 41″ Longboard– something I’ve wanted for a long time. Click Here to visit the site of a longboard company based out of BC and started by two kids growing up on the North Shore. It offers everything I want out of a board and I feel like the purchase is well deserved after pulling off a great mark in Modern Art 227- and that wasn’t easy. I can’t wait to ride it around campus when it isn’t raining. This purchase is going to wait under tuition and res fees are due.. I’m also still interested in buying a Loaded Pintail instead and I can’t decide.

Product (Red) 5G iPod Nano– After my house was broken into last spring, I’ve been living life without an iPod and surprisingly it has been hard. This little baby is my birthday gift from my mom. Not only will it make those long walks from Totem to Buchanan a little less painful and that it is Product (Red) to fight Aids in Africa, it was ordered from apple.ca which means free engraving! Click Here to visit Product (Red)’s website. On the back of my iPod it says, “In the beginning there was nothing. Just the water.” It’s a quote from Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King.

The New Kings of Nonfiction by Ira Glass. To start, anything by Ira Glass is worth a read. Glass, who you might recognize as the host of This American Life, picks out 14 of his favorite journalistic features from writers who share incredible stories. It’s like This American Life in a book. If you have never heard of This American Life, you should Click Here and subscribe to the free podcast on iTunes and I promise you that you will be forever changed and become more intellectual because of it. Right now it’s still only a dream to order this baby from amazon.ca!

Cool Gifts for a Student in Residence, Thanks Mom

A little dust-buster vacuum that can be tucked away in a drawer so I no longer need to try to find the brother & sister floor shared vacuum when my room looks a little dirty.

An alarm clock that continually gets louder until you turn it off so I can wake up in time for my 9am classes. The alarm on my cell phone just isn’t doing it anymore.

Finally, a mini electric kettle for my late night Magda’s runs to get some Mr. Noodles.

The Best of Semester One

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

Goodbye 2009 Music Monday!

Photo 57

Photo 58

Photo 60

Here is my ultimate Music Monday filled with internet goodies and music to end the year in the proper fashion. Currently, I’m at home in Niagara Falls with my two kitties Digger and Sandy and some good old Marble Slab to eat during my Dorm Life Season 2 marathon.

The best things about being home is..
trying to drive in snowy conditions,
going to Sobeys, the awesome 24 hour grocery store, with your friends in the middle of the night when you are hungry,
watching home town hockey,
turkey soup,
and finding old clothes in your closet that you forgot about that feel new again that you’ll bring back to school in January.

As I mentioned, I’m on a Dorm Life marathon. If you haven’t watched it yet, it’s probably because my RA hasn’t met you yet and hasn’t preached the good word of Dorm Life to you on a regular basis. I didn’t hear about it until I met her when I moved into res and ran into all of her promotional posters in the halls telling our floor to watch it. It took me until now to give it a serious chance and I’m addicted. It’s actually very true to residence life and follows the same kind of comedy as the office. If you watch it from the beginning, you’ll get a lot of the inside jokes.

Below is one of my favourite episodes where some of the floormates go to a Frat party which is a regular thing first-years do at UBC. The floormates who don’t go get high in the RA’s room while he’s gone, which isn’t a regular thing first-year things do at UBC. Less than regular.. more like never. Check out the episode below!

YouTube Preview Image

Now for some music. This video is worth watching, it’s a wrap up of the Top 25 hits of 2009 by DJ Earworm called Blame It On The Pop. It’s actually pretty amazing.

YouTube Preview Image

Some lessons in music, do not get the iTunes fever and start downloading everything that you find that sounds good. Happened to me for the first time this Winter Break, not good for the credit card.

For a new song, check out Phoenix, iTunes listed their song 1901 as one of the top songs of the year.

Their best & stuck in my head & the anthem to my winter break:

1901 by Phoenix
YouTube Preview Image

Lisztomania by Phoenix
YouTube Preview Image

And as a little treat for you, check out the really creepy giant poster I have of myself in my room back at home next to my luggage. Happy Hew Years! Vancouver 2010!

Photo 66

Music Monday & the end of the term.

Here we are. The last few glorious and most stressful few days of the term. Where every major assignment is due and you spent your weekend partying. Things have been interesting this weekend. From emergency AMS meetings to making American Thanksgiving dinner in Marine Drive Residence to the UN taking over the knoll (which I visited the next day and with much disappointment I found that the flag was no longer there) and all the way to the annual Totem Park Winter Formal. I can say that I will not be sleeping until Thursday thanks to my exciting weekend as I have pretty heavy homework load. I can promise you that Thursday I will be in bed all day and you won’t see me until dinner time, if that.

Since it is the end of the term, it’s time for an end of the term resolution. Kind of like new years, but cooler.

Here it is: For Term 2 I will never have another sleepless night and I will plan better for all of my midterms, term papers and exams.

Here is Passion Pit‘s song called Sleepyhead for your listening and stress-crying pleasure. I know all I want to do is sleep and never endure another sleepless night after this term.

YouTube Preview Image

I’m Almost Done 1st Term!

I’m feeling like I really want to share some music.

YouTube Preview Image

Cazals- Somebody Somewhere

I can’t believe next week is the last week of classes. No more 9ams all week long. I’m also bummed that the winter break marks the half way point for the year. That means I’m halfway through my stay in Totem and I never want to leave.

I’m enjoying Vancouver a lot. I’ve noticed that the city loves to have as many restaurants as possible and everyone wants to dine out all of the time. Vancouver is also really big on marshmallow brownies and very sugary cupcake stores. It’s true- all it does is rain. It’s almost December and whenever I step outside I never feel cold but I’m always a victim of buckets of rain. One of the weirdest things I don’t understand is the glowing green sky that I saw to the south of campus last night, it was super strange. I wish I still had a BlackBerry so I could of taken a photo to show you. Can anyone explain why the sky would be glowing green?

Hey Joshua Jackson,

Hey Joshua Jackson,

It’s good to know you are on campus filming Fringe. I’ve missed you since TBS disappeared and I haven’t watched Dawson’s Creek in a really long time. Besides getting to know that your pretty face is hanging around UBC for the next little while, all the TV show cop cars that are parked at Buchanan Tower really make my day. I didn’t know that there was a ‘555’ number that I could use to reach the local police. You learn something new everyday. Just like I didn’t even know vehicles were allowed to park next to Buchanan Tower in the middle of a walkway. I’m glad I didn’t accidently scratch your cars with all my text books. I’m pretty clumsy at times.

I feel like no one has formally welcomed you to UBC. Well, welcome Joshy. Come by Totem Park sometime and I’ll feed you Lychee juice boxes and fill your pockets with Pocky. It’s only the right way to welcome you to campus. If you have some free time tonight, I’d appreciate some term paper help as well. I don’t know, you just look like that swell kind of guy who wants to help and you seem to enjoy Buchanan just as much as any other Arts student. Oh and if you happen to know whoever the guy is who chose Buchanan Tower as the place for the bad guys to hang out in for the X-Men Origins Wolverine movie, let me know. I wanna talk to him because that’s just wild.

And since you are in town, I was wondering if you knew that the Cullens were selling their home in West Van. Wanna buy it for me?

k thanks Pacey for the $3.3 million for the house, Erica. 🙂