Working on this beauty for the Me to We (Mob)ilizers to gaze at with wonder. Check it. Summer internships rock, especially working for Free The Children/Me to We. Loving it completely.
Something that’s being adapted at the office
Gotta love working at FTC/M2W.
There’s another MOB out there…
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
Are you ready for the World Cup?
Music Monday
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.
Watch This!
Look what UVic did recently that got them noticed enough that they made it onto Perez Hilton. This video is so much fun! UBC should be doing more things like this next year. Brain Sullivan, you’ll be hearing from me soon.
Music Monday
Here’s what’s up. Here is today’s lunch at the office. It’s a beef patty with peameal bacon, caramelized onions, tomato, lettuce and hot sauce. It’s kind of a big deal.
Greetings from an endless summer of sunshine in Toronto, right as we are on the brink of the fresh month of June. First off, a huge congrats to everyone at UBC who is graduating this past week and this upcoming week. There are three people (one of which has already graduated but now done their education fully after this year) that I wanna give a little shout out to.
Alex Lougheed, thanks for giving me insights into your own political scandals and how UBC politics works. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t know about the war against fun, or the problems with private and student housing on campus, and I wouldn’t have been placed in so many cool opportunities in these last few months. It’s all because of you, and I’ve enjoyed having the extreme pleasure of being a small part of the UBC Insiders world through interviewing graduates at TeleStudios and getting random emails with hearts attached. Thank you & I’m stoked to see what small part of the world you dominate next.
Kevin Byers, when I lost my passport 2 business days before I left for Guatemala and it was 1am during exams, you invited me to play Mario Party in your room with you. Did I accept this offer? Yes. Do I regret it? No. I also don’t regret the chicken flavored pork chops that turned out to be a tasty mix of disastrous spices. Thank you for being an amazing friend, for listening to my boy drama, always being on facebook chat in the middle of the night without fail, having great music taste, and for having the biggest heart a person could possibly contain. You may not be at UBC anymore, but I look forward to cooking adventures at your new place, representing you through RezLife and continuing to become a future little blogging hack. Thank you for being you.
Kyla Brophy, without you, I would of been completely lost. I came into first year with a huge weight of scholarship pressures and you let me know what the real deal was and how to manage. You gave me your own personal stories, you treated me as if I was one of your closest friends that you’ve known for years, and you exemplified who I want to be in my fourth year, even if that means staying up all night trying to figure out my thesis. You have my kind of attitude of making a search for ice cream in the IFL your number one priority over being to a workshop on time. Seriously my friend, you forever will be Momma Loran and I love you for it. You are the funniest, sweetest, and busiest person out there who will still find time for others. Thank you, truly, thank you.
That’s it. I just wanted to give a shout out to those people who have helped me along the way into becoming who is now Erica at the end of her first year. I still haven’t grown any taller, but I hold myself in a different way than before and these people had a role in that.
Now for Music Monday.
Here’s my Music Monday choice for today, passed on by Mr. Jobin Sam here at MOB baseCamp. The song is called Fake Empire, by The National.
That’s the deal for today. I’m off to do another photo shoot for the MOB, this time at Yonge & Dundas (the heart of Toronto). Tomorrow I’ve got a benefit concert in Lindsay, Ontario and hopefully I’ll have some laundry done before then. The situation is getting pretty bad when it comes to clean clothes choices.
West coast trees, laser tag and warm hearts,
Erica