Category Archives: Summer 2010

G(irls) 20: We choose the hard road

Currently, I am attending the G(irls) 20 Summit in Toronto as a part of the Free The Children delegation. G(irls) 20 brings together one delegate from each of the G20 countries who is between the ages of 18 and 20 to discuss the Millennium Development Goals and issues facing girls and woman in the world today. For more, please visit girlsandwomen.com. I’ll be providing coverage from the summit and posting it to this blog. Also, check out my Twitter for photos and more. Enjoy, Thunderbirds.


At nineteen years of age, Kartika Nurhayati, the delegte from Indonesia at the G(irls) 20 Summit recognizes the struggles of overcoming cultural norms to obtain an education in her country. Nurhayati believes strongly that education will forever change the future of a young girl for the better but identifies that most parents do not see the value in education or how it will change their children’s future.

Through her personal testimony at the summit, she stated that parents believe that all girls will marry at a young age and become a housewife under their husbands’ power. That is the cultural norm in Indonesia but Nurhayati sees the fight to change those opinions and to let all young girls be in control of their future.

Nurhayati brought up a strong point that education adds to a girls ability to be a mother, to support their family, to provide additional income and doesn’t want cultural norms to stop such an opportunity. Katherine Blake of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) believes that education is crucial to making issues against women the past.

“School is not easy, but we choose the hard road because we know what we want to become,” says Blake who works towards addressing human rights on a national and international level with LEAF. It is not easy to tackle such large issues like access to education and humans rights but Blake takes her strength from Joe Opatowski, Free The Children and Me to We facilitator and motivational speaker who killed in a car accident on his way home from a speech in New York in 2004. He was only 21 years old.

Blake’s son, David, was friends with Opatowski. Blake recals Opatowski eating breakfast in her kitchen one morning while telling him that there were so many big problems in the world and asking him if his actions to change the world seemed like it was one discouraging drop in a big bucket. Opstowski told her that yes it is just a small drop in a big bucket but that’s what it is all about. One drop at a time.

Music Monday!

My life is crazy busy. I can’t even blog about the sudden disappearance of UBC Life. Who would of ever thought I would have more time with a full course load over a summer job?

Btw, Friday, I ended up at an Arcade Fire secret show in Toronto. Heard about it around 5pm and dashed out of the building to make it to the venue to get tickets. Can I say, amazing? Probably one of the best musical experiences of my life.

Ready for muzic? Special thanks to Jobin again for this weeks music suggestion. It showed up in my inbox without asking. It’s actually sooo legit. I’m in love.

Here we go with The Foals and their song that is splendidly called Spanish Sahara. Spanish Sahara, you are just so romantic and superb that I’d rather have you in my life than most boys. You complete me.

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UBC Life’s Statement

“Wow! What an incredible response. Since its launch approximately 24 hours ago, there have been 208 new users on the UBC Life discussion forums, in which 57 topics and 346 posts were created. Thank you! We appreciate your support and hope to address some of your concerns in this letter.

Before we introduce the team behind this project, we would like to assure you that we live by the principle of doing no harm. Before proceeding with the project, we held meetings and consulted with various parties on the potential risks and benefits of our actions. We ensured that the benefits to students and the community, through sharing ideas and offering support to one another, outweigh potential harms.

Who are we? UBC Life is a student-driven, university-supported initiative. The idea was first discussed in late 2008, when three UBC students — Sheryl, Elisabeth, and Mike — noticed that an online, centralized platform for sharing thoughts, messages, and ideas did not exist for the university community. Something had to be done. The trio’s dreams came true when two staff members came forward and collaborated with the team. Their expertise allowed a sample of the campus community to become aware of UBC Life in an effective, sustainable, and paper-free manner. Furthermore, their relationships with various on-campus organizations enabled us to acquire the three grand prizes, which gives all active users an equal chance to become a winner.

Again, we appreciate your enthusiasm, support, feedback, curiosity, and genuine concern. We would like reassure you that the UBC Life discussion forums are very serious about the well-being and privacy of the community.

Sincerely,

The UBC Life Team”

Follow this link (http://ubclife.com/topic/about-us) to read the thread of students discussing how they obtained all of our emails, sent out a mass email, and who is behind the new website.

Update: check out the wiki to learn more about UBC Life. http://wiki.ubc.ca/UBClife thanks, gossipguy 😉

WOAH. Fresh off the press. UBC LIFE!

ubclife.com better be your new favorite website. Myself and AJ from 11Eleven are already on there posting. This could possibly be the new place that I creep more than facebook. Good job UBC.

Update: Alright, so UBC Life is not offic? But they got a broadcast email sent out? And I hear talk about it being a drama banana? I need to do some more creeping…

Alright, here’s my degree story thus far.

What’s up my dears?

It’s coming. Starting in a few weeks, UBC opens up course registration. I kind of feel like it’s Christmas morning for me when July 13th hits and I’m able to register in the courses I want. I love course registration, is that weird?

I often check out the UBC Prospective Students facebook page and I see that some of you guys (who I like to call prospecteeves but now are new to UBC students) are kind of freaking out. Don’t fret, listen to my story of being a first year and learn that it’s all gonna be okay (and that selecting courses is AWESOME).

September: I’m in the Faculty of Arts geared towards a BFA in Visual Arts. Fresh out of a high school in Ontario. No AP or IB credits under my belt. I took almost only all visual arts courses in grade twelve. I’ve got five of my courses for first year picked as pre-req’s for my degree in visual arts. It’s rockin’.

October: The thoughts going through my head are like this, “I am not doing well in my studio course for visual arts, I never wanted to do a life sized portrait of myself anyways, now that I think about that it is kind of creepy, and I’m unsure if visual arts is for me anymore. Also at the same time, I’m really loving political science 101. I think I want a poli sci degree. All my extra circulars centre around poli sci and not visual arts, so why am I trying to get in to the visual arts program? Why not switch gears?”

December: I tell all the important people in my life that I think I might drop my visual arts intentions and go for poli sci. They tell me to give visual arts one more semester. I listen, and I continue on taking more studio courses.

February: It’s now second semester. My grades in visual arts picked up, I learned VISA 183 is WAY better than VISA 182 (my personal opinion) and that I’m glad I stuck it out.

April: It’s the end of the school year. I’m still conflicted because all of my time is spent working on The MOB for Free The Children/Me To We, I’ve been in many different political positions and I fell in love with many new subject areas. Is visual arts really for me? I don’t feel it. On top of Political Science 101 (which was all about Canadian politics) I fell in love with Women’s and Gender Studies 102 (which was all about feminism) and all of my english courses were centered around First Nations issues. If I love it all, how do I have it all?

May: I bring out the SSC. Bring it on. I figure out that if I continue with getting a BFA in Visual Arts that I would have no room for a minor unless I packed on an extra year which is not currently in my game plan. I also know that I will not be happy if I only do visual arts. I figure it out that somewhere around grade 10 my greatest passion became issues/politics and visual arts too a step back- I just never noticed.

I check out the Faculty of Arts advising website. I check out the different types of degrees. Women and Gender Studies.. would love that but doesn’t fit with the courses I want to take… Political Science involves tougher courses… freaked out by that… then I find First Nations Studies. WICKED IDEA.

I check out the department website. I get hands on experience in fourth year with an organization that also comes with credits. Love it. I get to have a degree that is based around an issues. Love that too. I can go on to something mastering in education or law. Love it more. Even better, I’ll major in it and minor in visual arts. By minoring in visual arts, I only have to focus on two mediums instead of four. There was only two I wanted to take to begin with which was photography and print media. Love that all the way to the moon.

Here are a few key things that new to UBC students might want to know. I’m not falling behind in my 4 year goal of receiving my degree by shifting my focus. In fact, many people shift their focus and find out they like something else. University is all about discovering what you like and who you are anyways. I’ve been told that I’m completely different (in a good way) than who I was when I left high school. University does that. It’s totally fine to enter the first two weeks and drop out of a class and take another one instead. It’s also okay to change faculties, a lot of my friends have already done it. It’s also rockin’ if you are open to new things. I never took a feminism in high school or a First Nations class. Now I’m going to try to major in First Nations after having all of my english courses in university focus on it. It’s something you just got to be open to.

Okay world. Come July 13th, Erica is going to register for courses gearing towards a degree in First Nations Studies and a minor in Visual Arts. That’s where I’m at. I’m liking my new decision, I feel good about it, and I encourage everyone to go after their wildest dreams.

Peace, love & west-coast trees,

Erica

Music Monday

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Bon Iver’s For Emma (Forever Ago) performed a cappella spontaneously in a hallway in Paris before a house show. Cut from a La Blogotheque podcast.

3 things to know about Erica. 1) I love Bon Iver to death. 2) I love The xx to death. 3) See numbers one and two.