VP Emerging Leaders Program

Posted on 29 November 2007 | 2 comments

After attending Commencement, I have thought up some reasons for why the VP Emerging Leaders Program is cool:

1) There are some pretty exciting components to this, like:

  • attending conferences, such as the UBC Student Leadership Conference (and if you are in Arts, they pay for you to go!),
  • community service over Reading Week, or the Learning Exchange Trek program, and
  • attending speaker series like the Terry Speakers Series — I went to the 100-Mile Diet last Friday and that was a.ma.zing. I was going to go to all of them anyway, but now this is an additional excuse to enjoy the Terry Speakers!

2) You get to meet some really passionate and outstanding students, including some really inspiring peer leaders. I am overwhelmed by the amount of things that others seem to be able to do at once. I want to be like that.

3) There is free food involved, like pizza at Commencement, and even more delicious, a dessert bar hosted by the Vanier leadership committee this Tuesday. I’m not sure if Totem has anything like that, but we definitely had a cake to die for.

Lastly, but definitely not least important, it stops me complaining so often about my lack of involvement, which I’m sure everyone will be grateful for!

If there’s anything I’m learning, it’s that you have to keep going out there to make things happen. I joined a bunch of clubs but most of them didn’t work out for me because of time clashes or a loss of interest. (This is another tip: don’t pay the membership fee until you are quite sure you want to be in this club. Sometimes it takes a couple of meetings to judge whether it’s something you really want to be doing.) Just being in a club isn’t enough: you have to be doing things.

I’ve also been indecisive about what I want to be involved in because there are so many things I am interested in. I didn’t want to miss out on something I might enjoy even more because of prior commitments. But now I realise I should just get involved in something — anything — that I like. It probably won’t be my lifelong passion and it might not work out, in which case, move on. But it’s the doing that matters.

2 Comments

Posted in Involvement / Leadership

Winter wonder

Posted on 27 November 2007 | 3 comments

I’m just taking a scheduled break from my own blog plans to say how much I love this weather we’re having. (After writing my last post, I also realised I didn’t know what order the other posts should be, so this is a great excuse to put that off.)

It was raining hard around two yesterday afternoon, as I’m sure everyone who had to go out knew. It was wonderful. For once the rain was pouring down in torrents instead of that indecisive drizzle we’ve been having for so long. I like a sky that can make up its mind. Dribbles are not my thing.

Then while we were discussing Frankenstein in English, the rain turned into what looked like torn-up pieces of paper, and that was my first snow.

It disappeared by the time I came out of class but icy flakes were falling again around dinner-time and splattering all over my hoodie, before melting away a few minutes after I stepped inside a warmer building. By the time I came out from dinner, there were tiny piles of soggy ice on the ground. At first I hadn’t a clue what it was, and as I said to my friend, I was wondering why there were suddenly so many dead leaves lying around.

So I danced my way through the slush, or whatever it is (I don’t know snow lingo), to get to the SUB (Student Union Building) for my ballroom class. My feet were frozen and my shoes wet through and through from jumping from dry spot to dry spot or just wading right through the pools and pools of wet, and the most delightful part of it all is when you get to go home and take a steaming hot shower to warm yourself right up.

And today the sun is shining like there’s no tomorrow and the sky is a blue blue cloudless blue, so everyone can be happy now (and not just me!).

I will hate it if there is a power outage like the one people say they had last year. No hot water and electricity? Sad face.

Lastly, there is a little tree next to the main entrance of my house that is growing furry little buds. I don’t know what it is called — I remember reading a children’s tale about kittens’ tails for the name of this particular tree. But the buds are grey and if you touch them, they are fuzzy!

3 Comments

Posted in Residence Life

Robots

Posted on 25 November 2007 | Comments Off on Robots

This post was originally going to be the result of a culmination of recent events, but then I realised that it would be so long I wouldn’t sleep tonight (and no one would read it either). So I’m going to split this up over the next few days.

The first thing that happened to me in this chain of events was a robotics lecture I had last Wednesday in my Comp Sci class. One of the TAs was guest-speaking on her research; she’s developing an affordable semi-autonomous wheelchair for aged adults with cognitive difficulties (such as Alzheimer’s) in nursing homes. This is a very worthwhile project, but this isn’t what niggled me.

She told us about other kinds of robots that I’d never heard of, such as the Roomba. The Roomba is basically an automatic vacuum-machine that vacuums set rooms at set times without vacuuming the same spot over and over again. Some can also return to charge themselves at the end of a session. And then there’s this robot that’s being developed that can take a can of beer from the fridge and send it to you, sitting on your couch in front of the TV, without you ever having to get up.

Then there are very human-looking androids programmed to respond in certain ways to what you say to them. Personally, I find human-looking robots frightening (and I’m not the only one — apparently, there are studies on how the more human a robot looks, the more creeped out people get).

Or the military shooting robots strangely reminiscent of Gundam or other anime-type of giant robots with people sitting in them. I hadn’t even thought that anyone would develop these in reality, but I’m clearly not very imaginative.

And I really don’t know how I feel about all this. Technology can be such a marvellous thing — I have a deep appreciation for my hot water, electricity, and iPod — but I’m afraid of what people can do with it. We are so very good at destroying things and hurting each other. Things like the Roomba — or something more familiar, like washing-machines and driers — are wonderful time-saving inventions. But so is the beer-retrieving robot, and I have a much more intense dislike for that one. Where should one draw the line? I suppose it goes to show just how lazy we can get in our search to “save time” by getting technology to do the essentials for us. Sure, we save a lot of time, but what we do from then on? It’s very easy to just do nothing at all when there is very little left to do.

Imagine what a power outage would do on a society so heavily dependent on technology. Imagine not knowing how to use a broom and sweep because you always grew up with a Roomba. It’s not like we are very good at coping right now when there is a power outage — the more dependent we become on electricity, the more vulnerable we are as well. This is kind of a scary thought since we are not going to have electricity forever — possibly not even within our lifetime — if we gobble our resources at the rate we’re doing now. And then what? I don’t have basic survival skills; I wouldn’t know what to do if you dropped me in the middle of the woods right now.

This will sound strange, but I think I’ll teach myself and my kids basic things, like washing clothes by hand, or sweeping the floor with a broom. Just in case, you know, there is a power outage fifty years from now.

Comments Off on Robots

Posted in Academic, Sustainability

Lost: A Golden Puppy

Posted on 19 November 2007 | 1 comment

There was a golden dog spotted running to and fro outside the commonsblock near the main lawn of Vanier at around twenty to two this afternoon. It took me a few moments to realize that it wasn’t with anyone; it kept running back and forth looking for its owner, disappearing one way and then coming back. I saw it disappear in the direction of KU and the main road beyond, but it didn’t reappear. I went that way and hunted for it for a while, but had to go to class. I mentioned it at the front desk, but I don’t know if anything has been done about it, especially if it might never have come back

It was a very young dog, I think. I don’t really know that much about dogs, but it looked more like a puppy than a grown dog. It had tags around its neck and no leash, although it had some kind of harness strapped around it. It was just about knee-high, I think, and perhaps a metre or so in length. It was golden, and its name is Goldie. I couldn’t find a number before it ran away again.

If anyone sees a stray golden puppy around, please look for a number and see if you can give the owner a call! The dog looked so well-loved and cared-for, I think the owner must be very distressed about it being gone. The dog seemed so lost and scared, looking for its owner too.

1 Comment

Posted in Residence Life

The small things in uni life

Posted on 18 November 2007 | 3 comments

I’m going to sound obsessed, but I was walking under a covered route to the commonsblock when I heard a rustling in the trees near me. Remembering my raccoons, I wondered how they were doing, when I realized there was one standing by where I’d just passed. If I’d walked sideways, I’d have bumped into its nose. Fortunately, I wasn’t walking in zig-zags like when I am incredibly tired.

So now not only have I seen a raccoon, I also managed to get really close to one without it going berserk on me.

Another thing that I really appreciate is my tuition for next term: the figure is a whopping $3.78 in total. It’s the biggest waste of a bank transfer ever, but I love it so much. Most of my tuition was paid off by a scholarship, and because I dropped a course I paid for this term, I think the fee got moved over to pay for next term or something.

Sadly, there are so few continuing scholarships so I won’t be able to enjoy this next year. A President’s Entrance Scholarship goes up to $4000 if you get 36 points on the IB or a 96% average in a B.C. high school, I think. You have to be in the top 5% of your faculty or school to qualify for a continuing scholarship, though, and I think that maximum is something like $1500. Every little bit helps, of course, but it really feels so little — personally, I think it’s much harder to be in the top 5% of your faculty or school (many of whom have also got scholarships as well) than to get a President’s Entrance Scholarship. It should be recognised as such.

Comparing UBC to Queen’s or UofT, both of which I applied to as well, it really isn’t very impressive on the scholarship front. Both those universities offered extensive — and I mean in the few-thousand figures — scholarships in the first year and in the following years, provided that I maintained an 80-something % average. Personally, I think it’s also easier to maintain an 80-something % average than to be in the top 5% of the Faculty of Arts here. Consider how many people there are and what the top 5% average must be — my guess is closer to 90-something % than 80. Although I don’t remember the figures for Queen’s, Toronto offered something like $4000 for my first year, and the college I applied to also offered $4000, bringing it to $8000 or so. Now that is an extremely attractive package and I wish UBC came a little closer in matching up.

3 Comments

Posted in Academic, Residence Life