State of the Gateman Address

Posted on 23 September 2008 | 4 comments

I went along to the Gateman Goes Global lecture yesterday evening, in part because I wanted to see the famed Gateman (half of which the UBC student population seems to have had for an Econ prof), and the other part because I was interested to hear about what kind of work he does in Kenya.

I’m not sure if it’s the flu/overexhaustion/whatever illness I’m currently suffering that is speaking, but I was a bit disappointed.

Let’s split it into a one-part good and two-parts not-so-good evening.

Message-wise, I thought that what Professor Gateman was trying to say — to do business with compassion — was important. The concept of a social business is one I ran into when I started reading Muhammad Yunus’s book A World Without Poverty (and which I have to finish) so it wasn’t all over my head. But I don’t know… I found myself disagreeing with a lot of what was being said, the whole thing was clearly addressed to just business students (with some economics ones thrown in) so there was nothing about what anyone who’s not a businessperson can do, and I wish he’d spoken more about what he’d actually been doing personally, but I suppose the message is a start.

Organisation-wise, well, clearly the marketing was excellent given the number of people who turned up (well into the hundreds). Starting the actual event was quite another issue: a girl told me the doors would be opened at 6:15 (since the event was starting at 6:30), but we didn’t get to go inside until 6:50, which was somewhat ridiculous. If the event had started on time, I suppose I wouldn’t have been so cross about the 20 further minutes of promotion that the International Business Club and Economics Students Association were obliged to give.

But oh, the crossest part of the night was probably with my fellow students. When Professor Gateman paused his lecture and handed the mic over to a UBC alumni to talk about her experiences in Africa and with social businesses, a fair number of students started to get up and leave, and they kept leaving all the while she was talking. I absolutely could not believe how rude people can be. If you must leave because of an emergency or other plans or whatever, leave during an interval, not in the middle of someone’s speech. I can’t imagine how discouraging it must be to see so many people walk out while you’re trying your best to say something you feel is really important.

All in all, I am rather disgruntled with my fellow UBC students. And my sore throat is clamouring for my attention now.

4 Comments

Posted in Academic, Recreation

AMS Clubs & Speakeasy

Posted on 18 September 2008 | 2 comments

Last year, I spent a lot of money joining 9 clubs and then dropping all of them by the end of the first term for one reason or another.

This year, to better save my money, I’ve been signing up for mailing lists with the intention of paying only for those clubs I end up going to regularly. (Though I’ve found out that Youth Outreach doesn’t require membership fees at all, which I think is cool.)

Such as the Thai club. While I have not yet paid my membership fee for that, I trust my Thai friend will chase me up on it.

Hearing that I joined the Thai club, I also got recruited by a Taiwanese club and the Vietnamese club, neither of which I have any heritage with whatsoever or have paid my fees for either. But the promise of food is very enticing.

(The Thai club is offering a one-off 10% per table discount at an authentic Thai restaurant, so take advantage of it!)

So far I have successfully managed to avoid joining any Chinese clubs, though I foresee myself giving in to peer pressure and joining for the sake of an umbrella, two folders and a possible discount on a ski trip. While there seem to be many times more exec positions than regular membership positions, I’m not interested in going after one, even if it would be good on my resumé. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll regret this attitude.

I’ll tell you what I have done, though.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking and working on my application for AMS Speakeasy, the peer counselling service. I had my interview yesterday and got the position today. Training is this weekend all weekend, and while I’m as tired as ever, I’m really happy and relieved to join the team. I’ve been wanting to get involved with this for a long while now.

I did a lot of soul-searching last term and discovered a number of things that have me targeting a lot more specifically now. Namely, I don’t know enough about anything to know what I want to be doing with my life; my experiences thus far are mostly confined to entertaining young children. My aim this year is to get a variety of new and different experiences — not just any random experience, but in things I care about.

What do I care about?

I care about English lit. I care about creative writing. I care about being able to help another person face-to-face.

So I’m working with that for now. The academics side takes care of itself, thanks to school. I mean to see what can be done about the writing/editing/publishing side of things with the English Students’ Society, which is the only one I know thus far that has any kind of English literary publication. And now I’m volunteering with Speakeasy.

I also joined a dance class at the REC, I’m applying for co-op, and a few other things I’m sure to talk about as well as time goes on. But the point is, I hope I’m doing okay even if I am not a club exec of any sort.

I’m open to trying completely new things in the hopes of stumbling across something I would never imagine adoring if I hadn’t given it a go.

Guess that’s where the Thai and Taiwanese clubs come in, eh?

2 Comments

Posted in Academic, AMS, Involvement / Leadership, Recreation

This is why life is beautiful

Posted on 11 September 2008 | 4 comments

The sun is shining and I just received the last installment to my most well-loved book series.

4 Comments

Posted in Recreation

Science Textbook Woes

Posted on 9 September 2008 | 8 comments

The first part of the story is really my fault.

I signed up for Biology 111 because I never received credit for IB Bio, having only done Standard Level. I only recently understood that when they say “not for students who have credit for Biol 12”, it means, “not for students who have done Biol 12″. I thought there was supposed to be some kind of special advanced credit for that. So I dropped the course and have since signed up for an Earth and Ocean Sciences distance education course, but not before I’d bought my biology textbook and started writing on a couple of pages.

Alas, alas, this is what I get for engaging with my texts. After being advised time and time again to highlight important points and summarise the body of the paragraph in the margins, highlighting five sentences and writing two of my own are what has ruined me — I can’t refund my textbooks anymore.

As for Textbook Buybacks, I suspect that their motto to “Milk it for all it’s worth!” is really more applicable for them than for students — I bought my textbook for $133.65, tax not included, and they are only offering to buy it back for $20. $20. For a textbook that if I had not taken the packaging off (and furthermore, not written on it, though I don’t believe I even mentioned that point), would be a perfectly brand-new textbook.

I’m losing hope in this venture but if anyone is interested in buying an almost completely new textbook, with beautiful clean pages (apart from maybe 3 which have a few words nicely highlighted in a non-aggressive, peaceful green colour, and with a couple of lines written in a lovely script on the side margins that helps you with your studying), for Biology 111, please tell me so. I’m selling it for $80. (Any less and that’s just ripping me off too much.)

It is truly not worth buying science textbooks.

8 Comments

Posted in Academic

Commuting Life

Posted on 4 September 2008 | 6 comments

Today marks the third official day of my new commuting life, and I am pretty tired. I am also in an almost-permanent state of hunger but this is due less to commuting and more to my currently undesirable cooking. Rest assured, I’ve been told that through sheer practice I will improve by next term.

In the meantime, I just eat a lot of fruit. At least that’s good for my health.

I see why people often say it can really suck to live off-campus in your first year. I already know people from last year so finding someone to eat lunch with me is simply a matter of calling them. Quite different to not knowing anyone at all.

Which is why everyone should think carefully about what kinds of activities they want to get involved in and then join at least one of those, and then maybe another club you’d never thought of, just for the heck of it. Clubs Day should be coming up pretty soon, and while I have learned my lesson from last year (do not pay to join 9 clubs because you will not go to all, if any, of them), I’m still excited at the prospect of doing something new. I’m also interested in checking out some things at the REC Centre next week, which happens to be their Shopping Week simply bursting with free classes.

In the meantime, though, turn around to the person sitting next to you and introduce yourself. I’ve found more than one lunch companion that way, and at least one really amazing friend who goes beyond just lunch. But it’s a great start. (And really not so scary after you do it a billion times. Trust the introvert.)

And if you’re lucky enough to live in rez, make the most of it. I miss being able to just walk over to someone’s door and go, “Hi!” and then talk for half an hour.

I did, by the way, get offered Vanier residence over the summer; I was originally waitlisted at 1132, so there is always hope! But I turned it down because I wanted self-catering facilities; while I pigged out at the Vanier caf this lunchtime, I don’t miss it nearly enough to eat there everyday. You see, my rice cooker makes good rice.

That would be #1 on my list of things I like about living off-campus.

#2 would probably be my rule to not study when I go home. I force myself to be on campus from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm everyday and just study. This can absolutely suck after three hours, but it’s a wonderfully liberating feeling to arrive home and not need to do anything school-related anymore. All the time after 5 is time for me to do other things I’m interested in, which didn’t really work out so well when I lived in dorms.

#3. I have salsa and crackers for when I am really hungry. How many people in this world really have ready access to salsa? It helps me to keep things in perspective.

But the thing I like most which I least expected is my bus ride. While I’ve discovered that I need to leave rather early if I want to have a seat (and being the lazy type, I do), the view I get going to UBC is worth it. For one thing, we pass through Pacific Spirit Park. How many people get to see a regional park everyday? But better than this, if I scan carefully on one particular stretch of the road, I can see glimpses of the sea. And this is what I was most loathe to give up — I love being able to see mountains and ocean everyday.

Which is another reason why I like taking a window seat. I never feel quite complete without it.

6 Comments

Posted in Commuting, Off-Campus Life