Category: Housing

Categories
Academic Housing Personal

Back just in time for the end of the term

Well, I certainly haven’t been keeping enough attention focused here.  A combination of schoolwork, a computer constantly on the verge of breaking, and some existential crises got in my way.  I learned some valuable lessons this term, but the most valuable is probably to never buy anything from Dell.

I’m sure most of you are thinking that’s a lesson I should have learned years ago.  I can only wholeheartedly agree.

Fun fact about Dell computers:  For the price of four years warranty from Dell, you could just buy another computer.  And for the price of calling Dell’s tech support line without warranty twenty times, you could buy a better computer.

To make a long story short, my computer won’t charge due to a flaw in either the power aqdapter, my motherboard or both, and as a result Windows Vista assures me that it will do everything it can to remind me every second of my writing term papers that Dell sold me a faulty product.  Their tech support company is requiring me to mail my computer somewhere so they can fix it.  The mailing time may go past my warranty and I have no guarantees they’re not going to decide to bill me for anything they do with my computer past the date of December 6th.

Unfortunate.  On the other hand, this has been a very productive term.  My first year in Coordinated Arts PPE was clearly a mistake; I have no talent for economics.  However, now that I’ve switched most of my classes to philosophy I’m enjoying myself a lot more.  I ridicule the future job prospects of being a philosophy major a lot, but the discipline really is my passion, so I have to cut it more slack.  I mean, when I first learned what philosophy was when I was way younger, I remember thinking how perfect a thing that is to do with your time.  Everything else seems kind of worthless in comparison.

Lately, though, I’ve had my frustrations with philosophy.  I think a big part of it is that I take the subject matter a lot more seriously than most students do.  Lately I’ve been stuck in constant indecision over trying to figure out why one action is preferable to another, and the lack of answers with regards to that I’m experiencing have left me a little out of  sorts over the past few weeks.  More on that in a bit.

Since both of us acknowledged we’ve been lacking in this blogging thing, me and Sam have both agreed that for the month of December we will write a post every day.  That will hopefully turn it into a habit.

As most people realize, last Friday was the end of classes and like most people I’m studying for exams as much as I can.  I’m really quite happy with the environment my new place of residence in Fairview provides for this; Totem Park never really gave me the proper  study environment, as much as it attempts to.  I guess I need to have more  of a sense of my own space.

Well, that’s all that comes to mind for now.  Assuming I keep up with my commitments, I’ll have more to say tomorrow.

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
Housing Recreation

Egads! This year has thirteen months!

New term, new year, new post.

 Okay, so it’s about a month late for that kind of talk, but the thought is still there.  A whole lot’s happened since my last post, the most important of which is my new laptop, which will permit me to update with more frequency than I had in the past.  I guess I’ll make a quick overview of notable things that may have permitted a full blog post at some point…

– For those of you who read Sam’s blog, she came to Toronto with me over the winter break.  She met my family, who loved her.  I also went to the CN tower for the first time in about ten years.  I’m not sure if it’s because I think it’s too tourist-y or because I’m deathly afraid of heights, but I really don’t like it there.  But if you’re taking someone to Toronto for the first time, I guess it’s the proper thing to do.  Also yes, I bought her a bracelet from Tiffany’s for Christmas.  This might seem like overkill if you don’t realize that Sam got me like, a million presents for Christmas and I only got her one.  I enjoyed seeing my family again, and I was reminded how much I miss them.

 -I got to shake Jack Layton’s hand a few weeks ago.  This isn’t a big deal for people who aren’t pro-NDP, but to me he’s probably the most relevant active Canadian politician there is.  One of the things I find so refreshing about BC is that there’s a lot more NDP support than I generally saw in Toronto.

-It’s almost February and we in Totem park STILL have no commonsblock.  I, like many other residents of Totem park, am becoming frustrated with the constant delays, and particularly the lack of compensation we’re being offered.  We’ve paid full fees for our residence, just like anyone from, for instance, Place Vanier, but we’ve been denied the benefits that we’re paying for.  I thought this was going to be for only half the year, but the way the delays are going (they currently say February 18th, but through any kind of inductive reasoning you can speculate they’ll probably delay it until March) we’re going to get maybe two months with a commonsblock.  I am thankful we’ve had a cafeteria for the majority of the time, but we’ve been inconvenienced in many ways.  For instance, we have no bathroom facilities where we eat.  I personally don’t consider myself hard to please, so I can cope with all this, but quite honestly it’s hard to explain to my father that he’s paying for things that I’m not getting.

-Yes. I failed econ last term.  Math isn’t my thing at all.  I did quite well in my other courses, however.  During the final exam for econ my professor came out and talked to me about how badly I did…  It made me feel kind of bad for not trying as hard as I probably could have.  UBC really has some good professors in this respect.  You can tell most of them really care about their subject and the students.  This is the general opinion Ive heard from other UBC graduates, as well.  In spite of my academic struggle in things involving mathematics and my griping about things like the commonsblock, I’m still very grateful to be here.

Okay, I’ve only had my laptop for a month and the damned enter key is already sticking.  I must attempt to remedy this now.

Categories
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 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.

Spam prevention powered by Akismet