Category: Academic

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Academic Clubs Wellness

So, here I am in Fairview.  Me and Sam spent quite a few weeks moving in, and now everything’s totally set up.

Actually, we were done a few weeks ago, but for some reason my blog kept glitching and I never wrote about it.  But yeah.  First month of school is almost over, and I must say I’m feeling a lot better about this year than I did about last year.  Honestly, I’m not sure I could reccomend the PPE program to any new students.  While I met some interesting people and I liked most of my professors, I horribly failed at all of my economics classes.  I’ve found a lot of students had  similar problems in that the students who enjoyed economics hated the philosophy aspect.  The thing is, philosophy, political science and economics all are connected, because the latter two owe their existence to philosophy, but they don’t go together that well anymore.

However, this year I’m not on a standardized timetable and I find I greatly prefer what I’m doing now.  I don’t have any classes I dread going to or  fail to understand.  Even though I see my future in mostly analytic philosophy, I think my favorite class right now is Existentialism.  I’d actually reccomend it to people who hate philosophy as well as people who like it.  It’s just an all-around enjoyable class no matter what your background is, and the professor has a really good energy to his lectures.

If you’ve been reading Sam’s blog, you know we both joined seven clubs last week.  My favorite of these is the Freethinkers.  It’s a fairly new club at UBC, I think less than a year old, but I’m really glad they’re here now.  They’re affiliated with the Center for Inquiry, which doesn’t have a large presence in Vancouver currently, but hopefully that will change over time.

All in all, the most depressing thing in my life is reading Kierkegaard.  Which, to be fair, is really depressing, but as a whole that says good things about my situation.

Categories
Academic Food Housing Personal Pre UBC Recreation Restaurants

Titles acknowledging that they are titles are postmodern and hip.

I hate imaginary numbers.  They ruined math for me forever.

I mean, honestly.  It’s not that I hate math.  I love math.  The logic of all of it is just so beautiful.  I remember when I was first taught trigonometry, how astounding it was to me that you could calculate the length of a triangles other sides if you knew their angles even if they were composed of line segments longer than the entire planet’s circumference.  When I was first taught that, it put a smile on my face all day.  Sure, I hated all the memorization and formulae, but it was almost worth it when you arrived at a conclusion and knew it couldn’t be any different.  Then imaginary numbers came along, and my entire world collapsed.

It was just like “Hey, you know all that stuff we told you to memorize and take to heart because we insisted that it would be easier than doing all the trial-and-error research that the ancient Greeks and Mesopotamians did?  Well now that stuff doesn’t work out for us, so here’s a number that doesn’t really exist.  Use it.”

And the gods of math did weep, for yet another eleventh grader had slipped through the perfectly symmetrical cracks of their divine fingers.

I just wrote all that because I had no idea how to write an appropriate introduction.  Introductions are just always awkward, whether they’re in speech or writing, because you always have to pretend you have both something interesting to say as well as a reason for saying it, when often you have neither, and all you really have is a desire to get a conversation going.

In any case, I’m Max Marks.  Some of you might remember me from last year’s first year blog squad, which is why I now carry the title of second year blog squad.  Isn’t the passage of time an amazing thing?  I guess a lot has happened last year, though I didn’t do a  very good job of documenting it.  I’ll try to correct that a bit more this year.

If you read the admittedly better blogging of my lovely ladyfriend, Samantha, you already know I was originally going to room with her in Marine Drive’s tower 6, which required us to stay in subletted apartments for two weeks before MD6 actually opened, but as a result of UBC housing being really awesome we’re now staying in Fairview starting tomorrow morning.  This is like a dream come true for the both of us.  My only real complaint is one of our landlords doesn’t seem to want to give us our deposit back because we canceled before we moved in.

There weren’t exactly a lot of events leading up to this, but we had more than a bit of time to kill, as flights to Vancouver from Toronto were pretty hard to get (I’ll let you come up with your own joke about Vancouver being better than Toronto if this information provokes one to you) so my dad had to book a flight arriving on the 23rd.

There’s not a whole lot to do in Vancouver when you’re a broke college student with a week before studies, especially since the apartment we’re staying in has limited access to both television and internet, to the point that I’m writing this in a bagel shop.  However, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do at all.  For example, yesterday I went to get the rest of my books before the September 1st rush cleared them all out.  It was at this point that I made an amazing discovery:  The UBC bookstore hates philosophy students!

Seriously, for every book I went to get, it wasn’t on the shelf for the philosophy section.  However, the books were in the store.  There were dozens of them, in fact.  They were just all given to the shelves for history and literature.  Come to think of it, this could also just mean that there are a lot more philosophy students at UBC than literature and history students, but since pretending to be victimized is more entertaining, I’ll go with my previous statement.

I was also very surprised when me and Sam went for lunch at what I consider to be UBC’s best Japanese restaurant, Suga Sushi, to find that their owner, Ken Sugahara, was no longer the owner at all.  I was flabbergasted to discover this.  I mean, you can’t spell “Suga” without “Sugahara”  A lot of you who frequent the University Village will remember Suga Sushi always had a banner above it announcing its “Grand Opening” which was apparently perpetually happening for upwards of three of four years.  I always found that funny and charming.  However, now the banner merely informs us that it serves both Japanese and Korean cuisine.  Granted, that’s much more informative, not to mention consistent with reality, but I feel like I lost an old friend.

You leave town for four months and find out things have already changed.  But I guess change is a good thing, so we shouldn’t complain about how fast it works.

Categories
Academic Recreation

IKB… Easy as 123…

So as of today, my PPE classes have been officially moved to the Irving K. Barber learning center.  There’s been a lot of excitement over the place being finally opened, and I’ve got to say, even though it’s not entirely finished, it looks really sleek.  The lecture hall we’re in is way bigger and much more comfortable than the one we had in Buchanan.  I mean, it’s nice to have a big table instead of tiny little desk-like things.  Also, it’s got a pretty neat tech setup.  it’s got these built-in overhead projectors that  project a digital image of what the professor puts under it, so he doesn’t have to get transparent sheets or anything.  On the other hand, both of my professors in that lecture hall seem to have a preference for smaller rooms and chalkboards because both of them like their lectures to be more of a dialogue between students.  I suppose it’s harder to  have a dialogue with students when you’re in a massive lecture hall.

 Back to the fancy equipment…  There was some AV guy in the room all day to instruct the profs on how the equipment was used, and for some reason he got really touchy whenever students went near the panel that controlled it, as if we were going to break something.  Actually, when I got to class a little early I heard a pretty offensive conversation between the AV guy and someone from campus security…  Apparently at Irving K. Barber they have really big problems with food and drink in the lecture halls.  I never thought of it as a big deal, I mean there are vending machines everywhere in the buildings, it seems kind of natural to assume they don’t mind if we bring them into the lectures.  I can understand that it can be annoying when students leave their wrappers or cans or whatever in the rooms (it’s wrong anywhere; lecture halls aren’t special) but the sheer venom I heard this security officer talk about students’ behaviour was just upsetting.

Actually, a lot of the way I’ve seen some of the administration handling IKB is upsetting me a bit.  I mean, a lot of the aspirations I’ve heard about the place say that they intended it to be a hub for students… Like, a place they could gather and talk and meet after class.  But every time I’ve been there it’s been treated just like another library.  If you speak above a whisper you get glares.  I just never feel welcome there as a student.  I understand that the place hasn’t quite been finished yet, but I really hope it won’t always be like this, because the feeling it gives me when I’m there falls far short of how it was intended.

On a happier note, me and Sam are rapidly approaching our bi-anniversary (An anniversary is a celebration of one year.  I stay away from terms like “six-month anniversary”) which will be very nice.  I don’t think anyone expected us to last this long, but I feel quite good about it.  When I think about it, the school year is almost over.  There are only three more days left in February, and then another two months.  I’m surprised at how fast it’s gone.

Oh god…  I just realized I’m turning twenty in April.  There’s a whole mess of stuff to think about now.

Categories
Academic Recreation

I have been coerced!

Yes, so it’s one day short of a month since I updated.  This is due to a few factors, one of which being midterms, and another being the fact that I’m not able to update from  any place except this computer.  I just realized today that this is probably because I need to sign out.

On what’s happened in the past few weeks, well…  Me and Sam went to California for a weekend, which was good in practice(seeing as we got out before the Wildfires could catch up with us), but the trip home was quite troublesome.  First, they lost my luggage.  Second, my room keys were in them.  Third, it took me a day before I was informed the front desk gives out temporary keys if necessary.

Vital information for new students at any university:  If something goes wrong, don’t expect the bureaucracy to slap you in the face.  This school has had so many students come in and out, the likelihood of there not being some kind of person or program in place to help you with your problems is highly unlikely.

On the Academic front, I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail microeconomics.  I’m not giving up, but that’s the way it looks right now.  It’s kind of what I expected, since I’m terrible with numbers.   I just hope this isn’t going to make it difficult for PPE.  I’ve been asking around about how failing one course in relation to the rest works in coordinated arts, but there doesn’t seem to be any set rule.

I can’t quite remember exactly what’s been happening outside of that.  I’m not sure if I haven’t been blogging because I can’t keep track of my life or vice versa.  Oh well.

Categories
Academic Careers Clubs Recreation

Everybody Wing Chun tonight!

So, on the subject of clubs week, I’ll say which clubs I joined. Or rather, which one I officially joined and which one I plan on joining. I joined the Anime Club. I don’t care if that makes me a gigantic nerd. I like anime. You never quite see TV shows or cartoons getting so epic and high fantasy or, in the case of comedy, so damned weird when you watch the stuff that’s just made in North America.

Also, I went to the open house for UBC’s Wing Chun club, as I mentioned interest in previously. When I went to the booth at clubs week, it seemed kind of intimidating and off-putting, as did the first little bits of the class, but Dr. Khoe, the head instructor there, was pretty friendly, and was anything but intimidating or off-putting, so as the class started it got a lot easier. What’s surprising is how fast the class goes by, considering that their classes go for three full hours. So I’m joining them on Monday.

If anyone’s curious or interested and has no idea what Wing Chun is, it’s a Kung Fu style that’s considered one of the more “street effective” self defense styles, but unlike ones like it that I’ve tried, such as Muay Thai and boxing, it doesn’t stress power at all (Actually, in my first class they kept telling me not to do all the things I did in boxing to generate power) so it’s highly recommended to people who aren’t very big or women who want to learn self defense. Wing Chun is also the original Kung Fu style of Bruce Lee, and one of the really interesting things about it is that unlike most martial arts, it was revealed to the public fairly recently by a guy named Yip Man. As a result of this, you can check the credibility of any Wing Chun Master by asking him to trace his Lineage to Yip Man. This isn’t as hard as it sounds. For instance, Dr. Khoe trained under a man named Wong Kiu, who was one of Yip Man’s original students.

In any case, I’d highly recommend it to anyone who’s interested and doesn’t mind sore forearms (you’ll understand once you see it) they meet at the International House on Mondays and Wednesdays, and they have a website here

Though, it hasn’t really been updated in awhile, so I’m not sure how informative it is.

Also, I went to the gym the other day. Did I mention I hate gyms? I love weight lifting, but gyms bother me so much. I hate all the waiting around for other people to finish and worrying about bumping into people. It’s not a good environment for exercise. This isn’t necessarily me trashing the BirdCoop, which is a fully functional gym for all intents and purposes (though, I do think it’s a little small for a gym that’s supposed to be used by a University as big as UBC) but I think the design of the modern gymnasium is fundamentally flawed.

I think this is about as much as I should write for now. I’ll try to be more frequent next week. Writing stuff about the career fair (anyone else noticed that the career fair is sponsored entirely by spies and accountants? Scary.) and Day of the Longboat (I hate water and boats, but Sam made me join her team. Expect much unpleasantness from me on this front) so I should be less of an update slacker.

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Academic Housing

A good title is like a good woman: They’re hard to find, and most of them are already taken.

Wow.  It’s been almost a week since my last post.  Time here has been passing so quickly and so slowly at the same time.  It’s a strange feeling.  I don’t feel homesick or anything like that.  I just kind of feel like I’ve always been here.

One of the reasons I haven’t posted too frequently is me and Sam (As in, Sam from this very blog squad) are…  Well, I’d hesitate to describe us as “dating” because dating implies that you set up dates and times to meet and do activities together.  With us we pretty much spend all our time together except for classes, so that would be wholly inaccurate.  As a result, most of our activities are the same, and some questions are raised as to who posts what when and where.  It’s all quite confusing.  As a result, virtually none of the time we spend together (about 90% of the day) tends to be acknowledged here.

Here at Totem, we don’t have a cafeteria because we don’t have a commonsblock yet.  To remedy this, there’s a film catering company working at a tent, which serves as a makeshift cafeteria.  It’s cheaper, but it comes with more than a few problems:  First, we don’t have a convenience store for after hours, so if you’re hungry after 7:00, you’re pretty well screwed unless you feel like walking up to Place Vanier.  Furthermore, the workers there are kind of mean spirited.  For instance, they make you put away your bags and purses before entering the tent because they think we’ll steal milk and juice from the buffet area.  I may have mentioned that both my parents are in film, and I’ve got more than a little experience with this eating situation.  I don’t particularly care for the food, mostly because my dad always refuses to eat it and has convinced me of its poor quality, but also because it’s my belief that any kind of “All-you-can-eat” food situation guarantees that the food will be of poor quality.  This is because if it tastes good, people will eat too much of it and they’ll lose money (something they’re clearly concerned with, since they get so enraged over the idea of a handful of starving college students stealing $2.50 worth of orange juice) and also there are only so many kinds of food that lend themselves well to the buffet style.   The catering people are usually a lot more courteous, though.  I think they treat us differently because we’re college students and not film crew.

Anyway, as a result I tend to eat at the Place Vanier cafeteria, which I prefer quite a bit.  The staff is friendlier and the food has more variety.  I’ll be happy when Totem has one similar to it in the next month or so.  Though I eat a little too much.  Like, yesterday my dinner consisted of a hamburger with bacon, swiss and cheddar, a plate of chicken strips, and an omelette with ham, bacon bits and cheese.  Then I had some fries.  In other words, if I don’t finish my Economics homework for tomorrow, it’s because I had a massive heart attack.

I really need to make use of the gym soon or my eating habits will begin to show.  Also, my father will be enraged if he finds out he shelled out $250 for facilities I’m not even using.

Categories
Academic

I am your TA! Fear my leather carrying case!

So it’s been awhile since I updated.  I was meaning to for awhile, but I didn’t.  First classes were to be my subject.  It’s kind of too late for that now, seeing as I’ve had several classes since then.

However, there’s one thing I would like to state which several of my fellow bloggers have made apparent: Faststart is lousy.  I apparently got pretty good results from them, but they still didn’t give me my reading package for Poli Sci.  This is a pain, because that’s all my Prof is using right now.  Also, the bookstore is really bad about getting them.  Some of my classmates said more were supposed to arrive yesterday, but when I went there and looked into it, there were none there.  When I asked the people there, they told me that there were four in stock, but I’d have to look around for them if they weren’t where they were supposed to be.  then they told me there were no others available for order.  I fixed that.  I ordered about ten or so more, since I figured I wouldn’t be the only one who’d need the package.

Actually, it’s not a major issue.  The readings thus far have been from Plato’s Republic and Machiavelli’s “The Prince” both of which I have read previously, and both of which are available online anyway.  However, the situation had potential to get frustrating fast, so I’m glad the package will be available by Monday.

So, let me make this clear, as others have: Unless you feel lucky, avoid faststart!  You may think you’re saving yourself some hassle, but you could very well be causing much more trouble for yourself at a later date.

My professors are pretty cool, though.  The whole experience is very different from High school, which I loathed.   Economics is the only one I have a little bit of trouble with, but not for the reasons I thought.  It’s actually very interesting.  It’s just that I have it at 9:30 in the morning, and the professor talks in kind of monotone, so it’s difficult not to be lulled to sleep, which saddens me because I really am interested by what he has to say.

In Philosophy, someone thought I was a T.A. because I dress so formally and I use a leather carrying case instead of a backpack (Though I haven’t dressed that way lately.  All my clothes reek of mildew due to a Totem Park Laundry Room related drying accident) ironically, the T.A. for my Philosophy class is also named Max.  It got confusing in the discussion group today when at the end of the class someone shouted “Max!” and I turned my head.

So that’s my first experience with the academics here.  I’m actually looking forward to more classes.

Categories
Academic Housing

Apparently, I have come to suck your blood.

Well, I’m all moved in to Totem.

Okay, so that happened three days ago. I think I’m fairly settled now. I flew in on the 1st with my dad, and he helped me move all my stuff. I don’t have a laptop, so I had the distinct honor of hauling a rubbermaid containing a desktop computer onto a plane and then bringing it into rez. Following my move, many people commented on my clothing. Apparently I dress like some kind of vampire or other form of undead. Maybe it’s Vancouver. Everyone here dresses all in bright colors, since there’s such a strong hippie influence here (While I have some objections to hippies, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it certainly contributes heavily to both the natural beauty on campus and the environmentally friendly nature of the entire university) so my tendency to dress in black coats, black jeans, white dress shirts and motorcycle boots must come a bit out of the left field for some people.

Anyway, I went to IMAGINE today. It’s not really my thing… Well, I liked the lectures (though I was tired, so I had to keep myself from nodding off once or twice) but the whole thing otherwise reminded me of summer camp. Let me state now that I bear an extreme hatred for summer camp. People in summer camps, especially the counselors, have a habit of getting ridiculously excited about everything. Like, a level of excitement I simply cannot begin to comprehend. This was especially evident at the pep rally. I mean, J.D. Salinger could show up at my dorm right now and say he wants to invite me over to his home for a chat and a read of his new book, and I still wouldn’t even begin to show a fraction of the excitement that I saw from more than 3,000 students today over the simple matter of what faculty they were in.

Fun fact: The sciences faculty, when they passed me, chanted “3.14195” when everyone knows that pi to the 5th decimal is 3.14159. Take that. And that’s from an arts student. Some scientists you turned out to be. See? I can show pride in my faculty. Just not by yelling and screaming and chanting.

Speaking of yelling and screaming and chanting, if any of you heard someone yell “McGill Sucks!” at the Chan Centre, that was me. And I think I owe McGill a partial apology. While I stand steadfast in my position that UBC is a superior university for my purposes, UBC’s development in its early history actually owes a lot to McGill. So McGill: You do not, in fact, suck. I’m sorry if I hurt your fragile, personified conceptual feelings.

I didn’t really stay long after the pep rally, but I took a look at some of the clubs. Since before I actually arrived here in Vancouver I’ve been intrigued by UBC’s Wing Chun Kung Fu club. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a booth or anything today. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to approach it through other means.

As a first year, I was exempt from classes today. However, tomorrow my summer truly ends. My father also left to go back to Toronto today. This is where both my independent living and my academic experience really begins. No, I’m not scared. No, I’m not excited. No, I’m not sad. I’m just ready. That’s all.

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