How Incredibly Keen We All Are

Follow-up on Textbooks

One of the disadvantages of getting second-hand textbooks is that they sometimes do not have the glossy, colourful pages of the newer ones, hence causing frustration to their readers.

Observe page 47 of my Econ book: “The blue arrows in the upper half of Figure 2.9 indicate the flow of labour… the red outer arrows represent [blah blah blah]” Great, my Figure 2.9 is black and white and filled with grey arrows of different shades *sulks*.

In other news, the $12 book I ordered from Powellbooks.com got here in one piece. This hardcover on a Civil War battle looks like it has began to turn yellow from sitting in the warehouse for too long – what an exciting item to receive the first time I buy something online! (That’s sarcasm, by the way).

Lyryx Labs

Speaking of Econ 101, Lyryx labs are slowly becoming the bane of my existence! We get unlimited tries on these online quizzes, and Lyryx just records and sends in our highest score. It took me 5 tries and 3 hours to get 64/64 on the first lab (okay, maybe I should’ve read the chapter BEFORE attempting the question, lesson learned). From the data Prof. Lemche showed us, an upward of 800 students took the quiz, with an average of 96%+ on most questions. The average attempt number was four.

Can you imagine the scores for a quiz like this (worth 1% of final mark) in high school? No doubt most students would’ve been happy with an 80% and wouldn’t even bother retrying. It’s a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that as much as my peers announce how we should skip lectures, we are all secretly working our butts off trying to get a high mark.  Academia is an awesome thing. Almost makes my daily two hours pole-dancing-on-the-bus commute to UBC worth it!

VIDEO LA LA LA

On a completely unrelated note, here’s a short video. It’ll make you smile, I promise (if not just watch it again). TURN ON SPEAKERS.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRH3iTQPrk[/youtube]

Cheers.

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The Vultures Descend

Currently: burning the midnight oil in my bedroom, with five articles open on the New York Times.

Meltdown Monday

Blame it on the timing, or the economic downturn. Whatever the reason, the sale of Merrill Lynch for $50 billion to Bank of America and the collapse of Lehman Brothers caused Wall Street to experience the worst losses this Monday since 9/11. With all the drama surrounding the sell of the brokerage firm and the bankruptcy of the 4th largest investment bank in the US, I have to wonder, what does this any of this have to do with me?

I have to first admit that much of what I read on the topic are corporate mumbo-jumbo to my ears. “Subprime mortgages”? “Repo market”? Oh my! I have lots to learn, guess I’m right the right faculty, or am I?

New York Stock Exchange

The future isn’t looking bright for commerce students, to put it bluntly. And the party just started (tea and crumpets with AIG anyone?). These hotshot Wall Street firms are where many of us anticipate Sauder grads aspire to work in ten, twenty years’ time.  They are supposed to be the fast tracks to success, and along with it, wealth, power, 80 hour work weeks, and high blood pressure.

Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy, leaving with boxes

Seeing photos of suits leaving the office is ironic, and somewhat amusing. A few days ago they were ruthlessly playing the field with millions of dollars at stake for the clients, now they’re just like the rest of us – carrying belongings home in cardboard boxes. That white picket fenced house in Suburbia. The cottage in the Hamptons. What’s to become of them?

What’s to become of us?

I could be just getting absorbed into the O!M!G! HYPE!! … but look at the effect of the Dot-com bubble on the entire generation before ours. Even if we don’t go into careers in financial services, the lawyers, real estate agents, publishers, and accountants of our generation is nevertheless affected in this chain reaction.

We can’t ignore the present.

Related Readings

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Selling: One (1) Kidney for Textbook Money

Currently: blogging in D. Lam (to avoid reading the OB chapters) and craving a honey cruller donut from Tim Hortons.

I stopped by the bookstore in the summer armed with a booklist and a debit card, ready to breeze through the rumored “painful process”. Little did I know that I would soon be considering advertising kidney sales on my blog. I’m a pretty thrifty person so the price tags there were devastating to my soul. Instead of taking the easy way out and reserving my books, I decided to experiment a little and see how much I can save by buying my UBC textbooks elsewere (online mainly), despite not having ANY experience in textbook hunting (all you seasoned pros out there, feel free to send over more tips!)

Class Book UBC $ I paid $ Bought from
ECON 101 Princi. of Microecon 96.00 35.00 Facebook Marketplace
ECON 101 Lyryx card Incl. – Bookstore, tbd ($35)
COMM 292 Org. Behavior 116.00 50.00 Craigslist.com
CPSC 111 Big Java 90.00 30.00 Saveonbook, prev ed.
HIST 237 Thomas Jefferson 20.00 0.00 Borrowing from library
HIST 237 Portia 23.00 0.00 Found free copy online
HIST 237 Sovereignty etc. 15.00 5.00 Facebook Marketplace
HIST 237 Frederick Douglass 7.00 0.00 Found free copy online
HIST 237 March to the Sea 33.00 12.00 Powellbooks.com
TOTALS (w/ tax) 400.00 132.00

That’s a saving of over $250 (Mmm…shoes!) In addition to the above list, I did end up buying two costly textbooks from the Bookstore, so my total spendings were just under $400 (as compared to the $640 I would’ve spent).

List of resources I used and/or recommend

  1. Facebook Marketplace – great for local searches as it first displays results from your networks. Private message ensures privacy. Lots of haggling room available. Be sure to ask for notes for free.
  2. Saveonbook.com – UBC student’s “secret” tool. Pretty convenient since most people have their cellphone numbers on there. Another local resource and notes are usually thrown in. Lots of texts available!
  3. Craigslist – The somewhat “sketchy” corner of the internet… the search is a bit more difficult as a lot of SFU and BCIT books are mixed in.
  4. Bookfinder – This gives you a rough idea of how much the books are being sold online. Just enter the ISBN numbers and it’ll search the corners of the internet for you
  5. Amazon – A bit pricy than the local alternatives ($2 book, $15 shipping, grr!), but they usually have the right editions here. Used books option also available.
  6. Bookmeat UBC – Very minimalistic and organized website, no search option but browsing through courses is easy. Not TOO comprehensive. People who want to sell it go there and list their asking price, save % (GREAT feature), book condition, and contact info.
  7. UBC AMS Sub – “In the basement there is a massive wall filled with for sale textbooks!” (Thanks Andre!)
  8. Bigwords.com – “Bigwords compares all the best textbook stores at once finding the sweetest, cheapest textbook deals on the planet” (Thanks Brian!)
  9. Friends/Family/Coworkers – seriously, ask EVERYONE if they have taken/know someone who have taken the courses you have. Turns out one of my coworkers had a few Econ books to give away from his BCIT days!

Hope this helps you on your book hunt, for next year least!

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Commerce Frosh 2008

Currently: listening to Beautiful Day by U2, blogging from the Tim Hortons at DLAM.

For the past few days I’ve been thinking of ways to describe Frosh so that words do those two nights and three days justice. This the best I came up with.

Whatever rumours you have heard, or have yet to hear, about Frosh is TRUE. Whatever images you have running through your head right now is probably also TRUE. Yes it was that crazy. Yes you totally missed out if you didn’t go. Yes you absolutely HAVE to go if you’re coming to Sauder next year (not sure about the other faculties, heard they’re … average… average… so [beeping] average XD)

Now that I have seen 80% of the freshman in my faculty without their tops on, shouted til I lost both my voice and hearing, threw things at the crowd that should’ve been kept in the bedroom, and experienced too many wet/dry humps to count, I can quiet down and get the R-O-W-D-Y out of my system.

Btw anyone else have cheers stuck in their heads? Y! O-U-N-G AT UBC WE LIKE THEM YOUNG! WHEEE.

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What Not To Do Before UBC Starts

Let me begin by explaining that when it comes to life in general, I am a very organized person. When summer struck however, it brought along spontaneity, oversea trips, and organizational nightmares. Hence, my UBC experience begins with a rather large list of what NOT to do’s.

Mix up timezones and register half a week late – okay, I blame the distracting shopping experience known as Full-Day-Sprees-in-Cheap-Meccas/Markets-in-Asia. Shame on me. Not surprisingly, POLISCI 100 filled up in the blink of an eye, but at least I got FREN 122 – French Literature – that’s always a popular choice, right? RIGHT?!

Have freakouts on MSN after finding out everyone else got their UBC ID cards already – Hopefully AMS gives me a nice agenda before my life descends into a chaotic abyss of missed deadlines and DOOM. For those who haven’t gotten their UBC ID Card yet, GO TO THE BOOKSTORE NOW. It takes literally two minutes as I found out this morning (I didn’t want to appear completely scatter-brained on my blog you see). All you need is a Photo ID, your student number, and some expensive Belgian chocolates to bribe the guy with the camera so he photoshops all your facial blemishes away, not that you had any to start off with.

Become an on-the-run fugitive from the UBC Library – It was a stormy winter evening in 2007, two days before my EE was due (EE = acronym for a monstrous IB thesis paper known as the Extended Essay, but I think it actually stands for EEEEEEK, the dying squeak of an overworked and over-caffeinated student). In the last-minute due-date frenzy, I forgot to renew the 89345793847 books I took out from Koerner with a Community Card and got slapped with an overdue fine that could feed a small South American country for a week (like Paraguay, for example, which I’ve always been fond of). The moral of the story? Don’t do IB. PAY YOUR FINES!

Plan a Let’s-Watch-Half-Blood-Prince! Get Together on the UBC Facebook Group – Why not? Because Warner Bros WILL break our hearts, WILL postpone the coveted 6th Harry Potter movie to July 17th, 2009, and WILL choose money over the happiness of millions of Muggles around the world. Tear tear. Hopefully the Quidditch Tournament at AMS Firstweek will brighten things up.

Don’t you feel better about yourself now that unfortunate things have happened to someone else? Until next time dear readers, cheers.

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