Excess Thoughts – Writings of a second year chemical engineering girl from the top of her head

“Real Change”: Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party and Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

Hi everyone!

I know I haven’t posted for a while (as usual school’s been crazy busy, but I’ve only got two more midterms to get through, so yay for that).

Today I have a post that’s a little out of the ordinary from my usual short updates and school related ramblings, but is something very important to me.

With Justin Trudeau as our newly elected Prime Minister, like me, you’ve probably also been seeing a ton of news articles going around about the future of our country. Now, I’m not sure if this is because in this federal election I was finally old enough to vote (thumbs up to everyone who made sure to exercise their right to vote!) or maybe it has to do with the fact that I’m interested in pursuing First Nations and Indigenous Studies as a part of my undergrad degree, but I’ve been following Trudeau’s Liberals really closely since their election.

Because of this interest (both academically and personally) I’m going to follow along the progression of our new Liberal government and how they are going to approach major Indigenous issues, particularly Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), and I’ll be blogging about this today and following up as we (hopefully) see some significant action taken in the near future.

Under Harper’s leadership, our previous government had a clear lack of urgency towards the topic of our missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. In an interview with CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, Harper stated that the consideration of a formal inquiry “isn’t really high on our radar, to be honest”.

I guess that statement is something that baffles me most. Since 1980, there have been 1,181 reported missing or murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. And these are only the reported numbers. So for our Prime Minister at the time to say that this “isn’t high on our radar”, it really frustrates me (which is definitely an understatement).

BUT. To shed some hope on this issue, in a press conference held on October 21^st, Prime Minister Trudeau addressed the MMIW saying “I believe that there is a need for a national public inquiry to bring justice for the victims, healing for the families, and to put an end to this tragedy”.

Trudeau on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (CBC)

The Liberal party’s Policy Resolution 110 vows to (within their first term as elected government) begin working on the issue of the MMIW, and they have resolved that they will work with Indigenous families, communities and organizations.
(http://www.liberal.ca/policy-resolutions/110-resolution-action-missing-murdered-indigenous-women/)

Even more recently, on November 5^th, Carolyn Bennett, who was sworn in as Canada’s new Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, made it clear that she will be quick to start her work on this issue, ensuring pre-consultation with families of victims to ensure prompt but not hasty action.

AND, Vancouver-Granville’s own MP, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who has been appointed as the Minister of Justice and Attorney general, is making me optimistic that Canadians will see action being taken. Why? First of all, she is a First Nations woman, not to mention she was regional chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations, and a Crown prosecutor. Jody Wilson-Raybould promises “true reconciliation” with Aboriginal peoples and I can’t see anything but sincerity in this comment.

From here on, we are looking at the Justin Trudeau’s government follow up on these statements, and what I hope for is that a national inquiry is a part of the “real change” that Trudeau has promised Canadians since his election.

And I (like many and hopefully all Canadians) want to see this change. I want to see taction taken that the Harper government was so irresponsibly complacent about, and I will be following up with these stories as they progress.

Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think about these massive governmental changes and the incredibly important issue of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

For more information on Canada’s MMIW:
http://www.amnesty.ca/blog/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-understanding-the-numbers

http://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/426243/Events-leading-up-to-the-missing-women-roundtable-discussion/

**Disclaimer: This is a personal opinion piece (as well as part of a project for FNIS 100), and does not necessarily reflect upon UBC’s values

Song Saturday (And a video?) – Let It Go by James Bay

I hope everyone is having a lovely Saturday. It’s gorgeous out and it’s waking up to this is a reminder that every day is fresh and new and full of potential.

Here I have a song that is currently on repeat for me right now.

Here’s James Bay’s song, Let It Go. I’ve linked a live version which is absolute perfection.

I may or may not have cried while listening to this. I love absolutely everything about it. It’s one of those songs that rips your heart out, but in a good way. It’s a song you can listen to when everything feels like it’s going wrong, and it reminds you that everything will be okay.

And isn’t that something we all need sometimes?

(I actually discovered it from this contemporary choreo:

.. Which also made me cry. A good contemporary piece gets me every time. I used to dance (though not particularly well), but this one really resonated with me. It felt real and raw and it was stunning )

<3 Talk to y’all soon and hope you have a fantastic weekend.

Song Saturday (Well technically a playlist…) – The Ultimate Instrumental Playlist Volume. 2

So it’s a Saturday morning, 7am, and I’m all up and showered and ready to tackle a day’s worth of homework and studying. But there’s always something I need, and that’s a good study playlist. So here’s one I’d like to share with you guys:

8tracks – The Ultimate Instrumental Playlist Volume. 2

From my previous posts, you may have noticed that I love a good modern classical/score playlist, nothing too hardcore (though there are a few songs on here that I skipped because they were a little too dramatic for my low key study vibes).

So I’m always on the look out for a good instrumental studying playlist that isn’t too intense, and I’ve found another one!

You’ll find some of my favourite artists/songs on here such as:
Dustin O’Halloran, Max Richter, Dustin Britain, Sleeping At Last etc.

Basically, if an 8tracks playlist has Dustin O’Halloran on it, it’s usually a good playlist in my books haha.

As much as I like Hans Zimmer, I feel like most of his songs have his signature heavy drama music type feel (please forgive my inability to describe music), except for a few movies he’s scored.

Have a listen!

(Customer satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back)

Happy Saturday friends 🙂

Well, it sure has been a whirlwind

So I’m absolutely terrible at updating this, but I really do enjoy blogging 😮

This’ll be a quick little update post, but I’m hoping to work on some more in depth ones tonight.

Last Thursday I got into Chemical Engineering! I’m so excited. It was a pretty wild lead up because I found out after class started, but I’m so happy to be in! 🙂
Not gonna lie, it’s really challenging. The first few days were really stressful, with all of the catching up that I had to do, but I’m working on it! It’s pretty overwhelming (especially as an anxious human being) but I’m managing, and I hope to share some of my tips with managing stress and anxiety (and life in general) with you guys.

Miscellaneous thoughts:
– Why is there never enough time in a day?
– I’ve found some solid 8tracks playlists I’d like to share with y’all
– Begin Again is an incredible movie and you should all watch it cuz it just feels good
– I feel like I’ve improved a lot of my productivity, so I’d like to write about how that’s going/what I’m doing
– I wonder how reasonable it would be to start doing youtube? I feel like that would be a better way to reach people, but I have 0 video editing skills and I’m not sure what the time commitment that would be

I’ll post sometime tonight or tomorrow 🙂

Hope you guys have a fab weekend

Mental Miscellany – It’s August?

Hi friends 🙂

Long time no talk. Well no real talk, if that makes sense. Just a lot of formal informative stuff (which is hopefully helpful and.. informative).

I figured that I’d give you guys a little update on my life.
(I’m thinking about starting to vlog.. I’m not really sure if that’s something I’ll follow through on though because I’m pretty busy, but I think it’d also be fun and more personal)

Sorry about the relatively disorganized format of this blog post, by the way. I’ll do my best to keep it as organized as possible.

So, what have I been up to lately?

I went from 0 jobs to two jobs pretty quickly. I’ve come to realize that it’s not too difficult finding a job with a good number of hours in Vancouver, which is nice. I’m splitting my time between a coffee shop and a grocery store, which I’m really enjoying. Both jobs are about a thirty minute drive from my house, but I get lots of hours and it keeps me busy. So 40 hours of work a week later, here I am 🙂 It’s busy and tiring but it’s a nice break but not really break from school, if that makes any sense.

I made the hard decision to decline the RA job next year, so I can really pour all of my focus into school. It was a super tough decision, but I really struggled in term two of first year, and I figured this coming year is my chance to have another fresh start, and give it my all again. (Another sidenote, I’ll be making another blog post about struggling in school and anxiety as well sometime very soon)
This means that next year, I’ll be living in a Marine Drive studio. On move in day, expect a few move in related posts, and some pictures, for anyone who needs photos for reference! Because let’s be real, UBC’s pictures of the different rez rooms are lacking big time and it’s mostly a surprise once you get there.

This coming year, I’ll be going into my first year of Materials engineering, which is a super small program (hopefully that’s a good thing!). It was actually my second program choice, but I’ll make a post on that sometime in the next few weeks. I’m excited to start though! I’m all registered in my courses, and not gonna lie, I’m pretty stoked to take a course called “Pyrometallurgy” (I hope I don’t get my hopes too high up though 😮 )

So somewhere in all of this, I’m finding the time to hang out with my friends (though I feel like my life has been all about working, reading and sleeping) and finding some cool new music.

Somehow, summer is already coming to an end, and next thing you know, school will be in session again. It’s a weird feeling, being so excited, but also knowing that it’ll be crunch time soon.

Hope you guys are enjoying the long weekend! I’ll make another post in a few days, probably a course chronicles.

Course Chronicles: Phys 157 (w/ Andrzej Kotlicki)

So the long awaited Course Chronicles have recommenced. (Insert apologetic spiel about absence … after this post I’ll post an update on life!)

Phys 157.. previously known as the full year course Phys 153.
UBC describes the course as follows: “Heat, thermodynamics, oscillations, waves, and sound.”
(I know, pretty descriptive isn’t it…)

Phys 157 is the “part 1” intro to physics course for first year engineering, so it’s a first term course.

My section’s class average was 67% (which is about standard for most first year engineering courses).

General thoughts on the course:

Pretty damn hard. BUT once you figured it out, it was actually pretty enjoyable. Some people definitely figured it all out before others though. Some people never really figured it out but still passed. Don’t stress too much (easier said than done..) and keep plugging away.

Thoughts on Kotlicki:

Kotlicki is this great, old, Polish prof, with a strong but understandable accent.
At first he’s quite intimidating (and let’s be honest, most profs are, especially the ones who’ve obviously been teaching for a long time), so it’s definitely easy to dislike him right off the bat.
I never really had a real chance to get to know him well (it’s tough when you’re in a massive lecture style course and you asked all of your questions in tutorial), but he’s got a funny sense of humour – he always threatened to use ‘military measures’ to make the class shut up.. I guess you could say we were a chatty group.
I found most lecturers to not be particularly helpful when it comes to actually learning. They’re more like supporting your self learning. I feel like that’s just the way it is at UBC (that’s the style..). They expect you to know the material decently beforehand. If you don’t, you’ll be pretty lost in lectures.

Course Structure + Tips for Success!:

-Weekly prereadings. Do them. Some people picked up on stuff really quickly, but I’ve come to realize that I am not one of those people (in high school I was.. but times have changed haha). Make notes, don’t just read them blindly. Focus on what they tell you to focus on. I’m gonna be honest here and tell you that sometimes you had no damn clue what was going on in the prereadings. Read them again later. Read them three times. Keep at it, and maybe something will make some sense. If you understand a fraction some weeks, you’re golden.

– Prereading quizzes every week. We were expected to read 3+ sections in the textbook and then do an online “quiz” (which total, ended up being worth ~5% of our grade), usually multiple choice. Work in groups for this, and get your ‘free’ marks! (Don’t regret not doing them..)
You’re probably also going to get a lot of ‘help’ from Facebook groups for the course as well – take advantage of it!

– Clickers every class. These were basically used for attendance marks. I think they took your top 80% of the clickers (if that makes sense?) to compensate for any miscellaneous missed classes due to illness (or skipping..).
The clicker questions were multiple choice questions, displayed on the powerpoints.

– Lecture activities. Every lecture, there were 1-2 worksheets handed out in class, to be worked on in groups of 3 or 4. Sometimes nobody in your group knew what the hell was going on, and sometimes you all did. Most of the time, you knew one classmate/friend who hopefully knew sort of what was going on. Some weeks you’d think you knew how to do it, and then realize that you were so far away from the actual answer. That’s learning for you I guess. After however much time you spend on the activity (it’s basically at the prof’s discretion), he’ll do some clickers on it, and then usually discuss the answer (sometimes in depth, sometimes not so much). As you work on the activities, you can totally ask the prof/TAs for guidance though.
It’s worth studying the activities, because they are very similar to exam questions!!

– Weekly tutorials. We had clicker questions in these too, so take advantage of getting those participation marks! The tutorials were problem solving tutorials, so we’d go through a few questions as a class (~40-50 students in each tutorial section), and we’d also have some individual time to work on them as well. Unfortunately, these were only an hour long, once a week, so really take them seriously, because they can be really helpful!!

– Assignments. The assignments were alternating every week. So they’d alternate between a hand in written assignment (usually three exam format questions), and a Mastering Physics assignment.
The written assignments were to be handed in in your tutorial (though I did hear of people getting their friends to hand theirs in in other people’s tutorials too and that worked out fine.. it’s always worth checking with your tutorial instructor though). Some weeks they were crazy difficult (this course is not easy, I hate to say it). A lot of them were similar to textbook problems though, so it’s worth getting your hands on a solution manual 😛
Work together on them! And do research on similar questions. I found that I did most of my learning by doing these problems/having people explain to me how to do these problems.
Mastering Physics.. Like most online assignment website thingies, these were probably the bane of most students (engineering, science, you name it) existence. The questions varied, from drawing graphs, free body diagrams, formula derivations, and if you’re lucky, an actual question with numbers that you could plug and chug. Unfortunately, the program itself was quite finnicky, but at least you could find a lot of the answers online. The questions weren’t usually crazy difficult though, but being able to do them well really wouldn’t be enough preparation for exams.

– Exams. Two midterms and a final. You must get at least 45% on the final to pass the course! The first midterm was pretty brutal (but you’ll find that most uni midterms are…), but the second one was much better. The final (to me) was fair, and there were a few questions that were kind of give away questions, in the sense that there were no tricks, and even if you were pretty lost in the course, you should’ve been able to get a passing mark on them.

…

I’m writing this post a fair time after I’ve taken the course (well like 7 months or so..), so I might be forgetting some things 😮 If you have any more questions, leave a comment and I’ll be sure to answer 🙂

Hope y’all are having a spectacular summer! I hope to get the rest of these course chronicles up before the beginning of school!

The Great Debate: Totem vs. Vanier (vs non traditional first year res)

Good morning (ish)!

(Sorry that the title of this is such a mouthful)

Here I am, taking a break from the relatively gruelling task that is studying for Phys 158. (Edit: It’s been about two months since I first started writing this post.. sorry about that)

A lot of incoming first years have been asking the very loaded question: Totem or Vanier (or Gage or Rits). Which is better?

(First of all, I’m going to preface this by saying that I am pretty biased towards Totem, as a current totem resident BUT I’m going to be as neutral as possible here. This also means that I know the most about Totem so I’m sorry if the details on the other residences are a little sparse)

Let’s organize things nicely in little charts!

(Sorry they’re kind of lackluster.. there are only a few major pros and cons for each)

Totem/Vanier (Traditional style first year res):

Totem and Vanier both offer single and shared units.

Fun fact: If you’re in a shared unit (ie you have a roommate), if they move out/switch rooms etc, you probably won’t get a new roommate. (Most people who move in in the middle of the year get single rooms .. I can imagine that moving into a shared unit in the middle of the year could be disruptive or just more difficult) This means that you’d be paying the shared unit price, but you get a huge room. (I’ve heard that to guarantee that nobody will move into your room, you have to pay an extra $300-$400 or so)

Rits/Gage:

In terms of Rits and Gage, you have the luxury of having your own kitchen (this could be a pro or a con).

From what I’ve heard from people living in Gage/Rits, there’s less of a house/floor community because you really don’t have to leave your unit and interact with floormates (but despite this fact, you definitely should get out and meet people!!)

Rits:
– Now considered to be a part of Totem Park (basically the same location)
– The community bus that goes to Wesbrook Village (where the Save On Foods, Liquor Store, Menchies is) is right outside (great for lazy people like me who’d rather take the bus than walk twenty minutes..)
– Rits is split into multiperson units, with a shared kitchen and living area.

Gage:
– Best location on campus, in my opinion
– As a first year, your classes will mostly be around central campus
– Close to the SUB and bus loop, as well as the Village (where you can find a bunch of restaurants and the discount bookstore)
– The Gage Towers are quite old, but the lobby is absolutely gorgeous. It feels like a hotel lobby (which makes sense since they do rent out some gage units as hotel rooms for conferences over the summer).
– 4 units per floor, and each unit has six rooms (ie 24 people per floor)
– This year was the first year first years were placed in gage (because there was a lot more interest in first year res this year), so the entire North Tower of Gage was all first year students.

NOTE: You can switch rooms once you’ve been assigned.
In August when you get your room assignments, you’ll notice people who are going to start posting their room numbers/locations looking to switch, so at the end of the day, everyone I know ended up in the residence/building that they wanted.

Hope this was helpful!!
Let me know if you have any questions at all and I’ll be sure to either respond or write another more detailed post.

Happy Saturday!

Late Song Saturday/Song Sunday..? — The Theory of Everything OST

Happy Easter weekend 🙂

Hope you’ve all been catching some nice weather (It’s been gorgeous the past few days in Vancouver), and while I wish I could say I was soaking in the sun, I’m getting my vitamin D from the sunlight through my window as I study my butt off for finals

View from my window - 7th floor living :P — View from my window – 7th floor living 😛 (My room faces west)

Soo… unfortunately, I cannot post the entire album, but if anyone’s looking for some good background/studying/you-name-it music, I suggest the original soundtrack from The Theory Of Everything.

Stunning movie in terms of cinematography, the composition of the music was incredibly touching and so significant to the film.

Here’s a link:

As usual, I hope you are all having an absolutely lovely day, and I will post again shortly

Saturday Song – Moonlight in Vermont by Stan Getz

(Another post for a Saturday because why not and smooth jazz is good)

Imagine you’re me, it’s been a long day full of events pertaining to orientations and rez life, and now it’s time to get through some of this crazy stuff we call homework. The weather is slightly dreary (but I don’t mind) and I’d really like to take a nap. It’s around dinner time

So I’m sitting here, with the Simpson’s playing on TV in the background because I like having background noise when I work, and I’m thinking, you know what’d make this a good evening? Some smooth jazz.

So this is Moonlight in Vermont by Stan Getz

It’s absolutely lovely. I think I came across it on 8tracks. I find that in the evenings, smooth jazz is probably the nicest and most soothing music to do your assignments or even just chill to.

Later days 🙂

I’M SORRY, I WILL POST MORE

So once again, I start a post with an apology for my lack of posts (smh). I have a TON of things to share with you guys (and I owe you guys completed course chronicles!!!!)

Quick rundown on my life so far:
– Phys 158 is pretty killer, not gonna lie. The first midterm had an average of ~30% and the second midterm had an average of a whopping ~50%. The scaling on the final will be interesting, but I’ll most definitely update you on that…
– Let’s be real here, school this term has been exponentially more difficult than last term. I’m not sure if that’s just me exaggerating like crazy (as I occasionally do) or if it actually is must more difficult
– This coming year I’m going to be a Residence Advisor in Totem (where I currently live) and an Imagine Day Orientations Leader. I’m looking forward to seeing all of the new, eager faces 🙂 🙂
Expect some posts about these two positions and all of the events surrounding them. Hit me up with any questions too and I’d be happy to answer/do a Q&A
– Gonna be completely honest, I’m writing this blog as a semi form of procrastination. Is it still procrastination if I’m “procrastinating” by doing something that I’m supposed to be doing?
– I’ve been pretty involved on the Facebook class of 2019 page, talking to recently admitted UBC engineering students and answering their questions, so I think I’ll compile a frequently asked questions for UBC engineering and UBC/rez life in general

Have an Andy Dwyer gif just for fun 🙂

Bye guys 🙂 I’ll talk to you shortly