Author Archives: AJung

Plant a Tree!: International Day of Forests

Meet Douglas.

My new PhD companion.

Yes, it’s true. It’s a tree (apparently, it is a douglas fir tree).
And yes, that’s my planter at home and I named it something that makes it super easy for me to remember what kind of tree it is — because, I almost forgot within the matter of three minutes.

Douglas came home with me today, because I participated in ‘plant a tree’ activity to celebrate the International Day of Forests.

I actually didn’t know about today being the International Day of Forests until I was handed this precious and beautiful baby tree. Apparently, this day was set up by the UN General Assembly, and

[o]n each International Day of Forests, countries are encouraged to undertake local, national and international efforts to organize activities involving forests and trees, such as tree planting campaigns.[1]

So I figured I’d do my portion of raising awareness of the special day by talking about it.

As usual, I woke up bright and early this morning, and got ready for my morning teleconference meetings starting at 8am. I have lots of interesting roboethics things going on lately, so my mornings have been filled with roboethics for the past couple of weeks.

After the meetings, I head out the door and started walking along the usual path I take to the lab — through the Forestry building.

That’s when I saw it.

There was a booth set up inside the forestry building where a group of students from the Forestry Graduate Student Society were wrapping small little evergreen trees.
While certainly being aware that I’m walking through the forestry building — lots to do with tree there — I was curious why these little trees were being wrapped up.

As I cautiously approached them, being highly hesitant what to do, one girl came up to me saying “Would you like a tree?” and handed me Douglas.

Are you kidding? Would I like a tree? Of course, I’d like a tree.

I actually have a thing for trees. My favourite word in the world is tree in Korean. In a sort of warm and nature-loving way, I think trees are awesome. To me, they are like these mystical creatures that symbolize slow yet continual growth, perseverance, strength, and something friendly and happy in general.

But as though being handed a puppy to raise in my residence, my first reaction was a mixture of “yay~!”, “what do I do now?”, and “how big is it gonna get?”.
I asked the lady where I should plant it, and she simply said “anywhere!” with a big and confident smile. I’m sure she’s studying Forestry, so I assume that she knows what she’s doing in handing me the baby tree to take care of with such simple instruction as ‘plant it anywhere’.

So I did. I am sure the idea is to build, protect, and foster forests, and my planting of the tree at home probably isn’t very helpful.
But maybe, if I can take a good care of it for the rest of my PhD career, Douglas will grow to be a strong little tree with a sense of character and healthy attitude (yes, I am anthropomorphizing lots here). Then I will find a good spot to plant it, and make it a part of beautiful forests of BC.

Maybe, as Douglas grows to be taller and stronger, I will grow to be a taller and stronger (not in the literal sense) researcher as well.

Anyways, I am glad that the graduate student society is actively participating in their portion of the UN’s initiative.

Happy International Day of Forests everyone. I am not sure how long the booth will be there, but I hope you get the chance to drop by the Forestry building today and spend a few minutes planting a tree.

A Korean-Canadian Transition

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March 15th, 2013! (Picture from http://illinoispsm.blogspot.ca)

Tomorrow, March 15th, 2013, marks an important day for me.

Looking back to only a couple of weeks ago, I have a lot to say about the psychology of a Ph.D. student faced with the monster called the General Knowledge Exam (a.k.a., comprehensive exam). Through the ups and (mostly) downs of the GKE process, I have accumulated a few pages of venting in my diary and random post-it notes. But all of that is over, and I had my happy ending — for now (there’s the research proposal defense coming up soon).

But today I am going to look a little further back than just a couple of weeks.

Like… Way~ back.

Picture from: http://tricofoundation.ca

Tomorrow, March 15th, 2013, would mark the 13th anniversary of me and my family’s very first day in Canada as landed immigrants.

I didn’t think much of it at first. Every March 15th, I’d smile, thinking back the first day we landed in Canada. Some years, I think I forgot about it.

But this year, I realized for the first time (or at least it feels like the first time) that I have spent almost as much time in Canada as I have in Korea — 14 years in Korea, 13 years in Canada. This realization just kind of hit me with a bit of a mixed feeling.

For a while now, I have accepted myself as a person who is very much Canadianized (some people would equate this to the term “white washed” but Canada has very colourful demographics). I go back to Korea once in a while, and by that I mean once in three years or so, and I have less than a handful of Korean friends here. But now that I feel super comfortable living in Canada (and have been for a while), I feel this sudden urge to look for the next challenge. The next continent/country to live in. It feels as though I need to move around and immerse myself in a completely new and different environment every decade or so, just to keep me challenged and not settled in an overly comfortable state.

At some point, there was definitely a transition where, when someone asks me “where are you from?” I used to answer “I am from Korea,” and then started to say “I’m from Ontario” or “I’m from Canada.” When did this transition take place? I am not so sure.

I can still remember the night my family landed at the Toronto Pearson Airport. During the 12+ hours of flight from Seoul to Toronto, the flight attendants of the Korean Air we flew with were super nice to us, listened to my parents’ story of ‘en route to the mysterious and giant land of Canada’ and gave us a deck of playing cards with Korean Air marked on it.

Holding onto pretty coloured sheets of paper with the Government of Canada imprinted on it, my family waited by a special customs area with lots of other coloured people I had never seen in my life. We must’ve picked up a few Welcome to Canada brochures that was meant to be a super short version of a survivor’s guide to Canada. But despite its length, they were all written in English so I didn’t understand anything other than the word Canada — easy to pronounce, easy to spell.

Wendy’s burger combo reminds me of my very first night in Canada 13 years ago. Picture from http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com

We had landed in the evening time. By the time we passed through the customs/immigration and found my father’s former colleague who welcomed us to the country, it was all dark and the entire family super hungry. So we made a quick stop at a Wendy’s on highway 401 on our way to my father’s colleagues’ house in London, Ontario.

It was perhaps the very best burger combo my sister and I had ever tasted in our lives. The fries were super fat and long (I swear they were bigger back then than they are now) and the burgers were giant compared to what I think I was used to from Korean fast food restaurants.

When I took my first bite of the burger, I thought to myself that Canada and I could get along just fine.

Contrary to my hopes and dreams that night, the first handful of years of my life in Canada wasn’t as beautiful and delicious like the first bites of the magically tasty burgers. Many immigrant families and international students will probably tell you the same. I mean, I think I have more embarrassing, depressing, and humiliating stories to tell than I can actually remember. And I think I lived as though I was always on my toes, because I felt that something ‘tragic’ (as tragic as a 14 year old girl’s life can be) could come hit me from whenever and wherever, and I always felt the need be ready for it.

But because of all the downs of moving to a new country, the little wins from day to day brought with them epic joy and a sense of victory.

Being able to speak in English comfortably used to be considered one of my biggest victories of life. People commenting that I don’t have an accent used to make me feel victorious. But when I realized I had spent enough time in Canada, both victories were to be taken for granted. Now that I think about it, having published papers (although co-authored) as the first author of a handful of papers could seem like a great life’s achievement looking back at where I came from. But then again, I’m in academia and been in Canada for over a decade… what do you expect, right?…

Anywho, I now have this weird unsettling feeling sitting in my tummy. I am really comfortable here now. I feel too comfortable. Is that a good thing?

I guess deep down, I’ve always associated myself as more of a Korean than a Canadian — I don’t have my Canadian citizenship yet anyway, although I could get it any time. It somehow feels as though my Korean roots would be threatened if I end up spending more time of my life in Canada than in Korea. I am not sure if I understand myself fully. But that’s not that important I guess. At the end of the day, I grew up, came this far from where I was, and Canada is definitely a happy part of my life now. For that, I am very thankful. And that makes the anniversary something to be celebrated.

In a way, I am envious of my younger self. I feel like the past me was more brave and stronger in facing various ups and downs of life compared to my present self. Perhaps it was more difficult of a transition than if my family had settled down in Toronto or Vancouver (rather than Barrie), where more Korean community could have supported us. But I am glad that I went through that process precisely because, when challenging time comes, I have my own experience from the past to refer back to and help shake things off my shoulders.

Mind you, a lot of my courage came from the fact that my family was always with me. We went through the same struggles together as a unit. And now, my family has changed quite a lot, but still as a unit.

Demographics in Vancouver is quite skewed, and is very different from that of the city of Barrie 13 years ago. Today’s technologies make the transition easier in a sense as well. But I understand that life’s struggles of being new in a place (perhaps as an international student) is very much difficult and different from person to person.

For those of you trying to “become comfortable” in Canada and going through the ups and downs of the process, cudos to you. I hope your journey is as funny, meaningful, and full of good stories as mine, but with less tears and more hugs.

Housing: Thunderbird vs. Marine Drive, and how much $ for furnishing a studio?

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Happy New Year everyone!

That’s right. This is the first post I am writing this year, although it’s already February.

As you might have guessed, I recently finished writing my comprehensive exam (a.k.a. comps). You have no idea how happy I am to be typing away on my laptop rather than squeezing my colourful pens trying to write equations in tiniest legible form possible on my cheat sheet.

Some of you may have expected my first iMech post of the year to be filled with complaints about the exam. Don’t worry. That’s on my list of upcoming posts, and will be posted probably after I get my results back (fingers crossed!!).

Anyways, small talks aside, I actually got a question from a prospective grad student regarding UBC residences.

Now, last year I wrote a post dedicated to UBC housing, but the question from the student made me realize that the post isn’t really helpful when you’re trying to figure out how much you should budget when thinking of moving to campus (in to a studio or a one-bedroom unit where you have the freedom to furnish your own place). I can’t speak for other students, because everyone has different standard of living, and budget in mind. But if you’re thinking about budgeting in the first place, that probably means you have reasons to worry about your finances and belong to the group of most of the grad students I know. If that’s the case, then maybe my story will help — and you might be surprised to find how cheap it is to furnish a place if you just take the time to chill and look around.

So here it is Student J. This post is for you.

When I was looking into housing for coming to UBC, I had no idea I was supposed to apply for residences way in advance (like now). So I started looking into it around June or July I think, which meant that I’d be put on the waiting list along with thousands of other students who are also on the list (and ahead of me). I decided that it’s not worth waiting for thousands of rooms to free up so quickly, and resorted to a more convenient route. A family friend of mine who was living in downtown Vancouver was moving back to Toronto and wasn’t too keen on taking all her furniture with her. So I conveniently took over her lease and had all the necessities (bed, table, microwave etc) all set up for me when I arrived in the city.

That wasn’t the most affordable solution in terms of rent, mind you. But it was definitely affordable in terms of furnishing the place since I didn’t have to furnish it. When I moved out of the place, of course, I sold the furniture for her so that she didn’t have to fly back to take care of her stuff etc. So it kinda worked out for both of us I think.

I had applied for Thunderbird residences back then and was put on the waiting list for about half a year to a full year before I got an offer. And of course, as soon as the offer came in, I moved in to the campus housing.

Thunderbird VS. Marine Drive

The reason why I had applied for Thunderbird, and not keen on Marine Drive (MD) was that I wanted to live in a studio unit. I’m a really independent person with an interesting daily schedule. So I didn’t want to deal with the whole roommate issue when I take showers at 6am in the morning etc. If you look at the monthly rent for studio units, Thunderbird gives you the most affordable option with larger square feet per unit. While MD studio units may be located at a place overlooking the ocean and comes furnished, it costs a lot more ($965.13/mth for a smaller unit, $1,043.97/mth for larger unit) than Thunderbird studios that don’t come furnished ($855 – $924/mth depending on type of studio you get). Mind you, these rents go up every year, so be sure to check the official website for the latest info (http://www.housing.ubc.ca/residence-fees).

Had I wanted to have roommates, Marine Drive’s 4 bedroom units ($~800/mth/person) would’ve been my first choice. Thunderbird residence’s 4 bedroom units ($670/mth/person) tend to be less well maintained, in my opinion, and the residence community seems to be much less lively than that of MD. It’s to the level that the amount of money you pay extra to be at MD is kinda worth it. Unless you have a few people you’d like to be roommates with, I’d say go for MD if you’re thinking about having strangers as roommates. That’s totally my opinion based on my visit to friends’ places etc.

The Cost of Furnishing an Empty Student House

Now, since Thunderbird’s studio and one-bedroom units do not come furnished. So I practically moved in to an empty house. Luckily, again, one of my labmates at the time was finishing up and was looking for someone to take over his furniture. He had sold a lot of his furniture already, so I got what was left over for free (yes, $0) — an IKEA desk, a chair, a bed frame, and a couple of side tables.

But you can probably imagine that that’s not enough to make a cozy ‘get-away from the lab’ environment necessary for grad students.

The best thing is though, that once you have a place, it doesn’t really matter if you have it furnished right away. As long as you have your blankets and cooking supplies with you, you can live in an empty house for quite an extended period of time.

Luckily — again — one of my supervisor was keeping an eye out for me since he knew that I had just moved in and was looking to furnish my place. After perhaps a few days or weeks (I can’t remember) of living in a barely furnished one-bedroom residence, my supervisor found out that his neighbour was practically throwing away furniture because the elder lady who owned the house had passed away and the house was being torn up for renovation. So, with his help, I brought a couple of my labmates over to the place and got a pull-out bed type couch, two loveseats, a chair, a mattress, and other stuff I can’t remember.

I moved out of the one-bedroom place to a Thunderbird studio unit ever since, but most of the furniture I have is from the previous neighbour of my supervisor and my labmate. I think the only additions I have from then is a desk drawer I got from another grad student for $5, another chair I got for free from a friend, an IKEA coffee table I spent maybe $30-60 on (’cause it’s the only thing I bought brand new), a $20 kitchen table, and the bench I purchased last Fall.

So, I pretty much furnished my place with essentials without costing me anything — I could’ve just gotten a coffee table from someone for $5 instead if I wanted as well.

Now, you are probably thinking, it’s a new city and you don’t really know anyone here. So who’s going to be looking an eye out for you to help you get free furniture?

Even if you don’t know many people here, I don’t think it’d really cost you much money to furnish your place. It’s more of a hassle to furnish it, than it is a drain on your bank account. That’s because most students don’t have a car, and hence think they can’t pick up that free furniture someone is giving away. But if you sign up for Zipcar or other car co-op, and have a valid license, then you can rent out trucks by the hour (about $12/hr or something usually) and can make it work.

The key is to not worry about furnishing your place all at once. Get what you can, when you can. And monitor Craigslist and Kijiji often. Because there’s always someone in Vancouver who is giving away all their furniture for free or for a couple of hundred $ but those deals go quickly. When you go to these people’s places and buy out their furniture, they’re more than happy to throw in a side table, a lamp, a whole rack of dishes and cups. These people really want to get rid of them asap than to make money off of them. Students often move from places to places as well and most of them would hate to have to throw the furniture out on the curb of a road. They’d rather someone take it off their hands for free. This makes furniture easy and cheap to find. One key ingredient for student furnishing is to have good set of friends though. Be good friends with your labmates or roomates or residence mates. Because when you’re trying to get that free couch out of a stranger’s place, there’s nothing like a couple of extra hands to help you out.

If you can afford to spend more money than just a couple of hundred bucks to furnish your entire place, then IKEA is a student’s friend. But IKEA is actually kind of hard to get to without a car, nevermind the fact that you’d have to carry huge load of stuff back with you or pay for delivery. If you are keen on furnishing your place with IKEA furniture, but not necessarily looking to get brand new furniture, then I’d say walk around campus a bit whenever you have time. Because the boards and elevators and laundry rooms are full of flyers that say “all must go by Tuesday” or “$100 for everything” etc.

Alright, time for me to catch up with some real work. But let me know if anyone has more questions or in need of an insider’s guide to coming to UBC. And good luck with your grad school applications! 😀