Now that GALA is over it’s time to get ready for Imagine.
As a MUG Leader, the thing I’ll be looking forward the most (after meeting my mugees, of course) is the rally. GO ARTS !! We’ll be LOUD and PROUD and PURPLE !!
In fact, I just wanted to remind all of you to wear purple !!
:)
If you’re an international student you’re probably already here. Isn’t it great?
You’ve probably noticed the hundreds of students wearing “I am UBC” shirt: all volunteers. And all here to make this orientation an amazing experience for you.
A few suggestions:
– don’t miss the opening ceremonies, it will have great speakers!
– meet your GALA group (especially if you are in Chilco yeeey !!)
– go to the i.med pancake breakfast, they are reallyyyy good and FREE !!
– have fun !
This summer I went backpacking in Uruguay and Argentina with my sister. It was an amazing trip, especially because we used CouchSurfing.
(hahaha that sounds like an I-lost-50-pounds add)
We met incredible people and visited places that were just spectacular.
Photo credits: Ile Ricca
the one that thinks is the one that looses
I have spent four months back in reality.
I had seen Lisandro’s show a few times. It was a representation of a Kakchiquel traditional/religious dance. He, in his less than 30 years, was the leader of a dance group that taught us all another side of Mayan tradition; not the one that sells but the one that is consciously and respectfully reconstructed to connect ourselves with our ancestors.
Lisandro had “revolutionary” ideas. Equality and respect for his ethnic group.
I didn’t know him well, but it was known all around that he was one of those that had a clear sense of right and wrong, and stood up for it. All his work was focused on keeping alive the Kakchiquel tradition amongst the new generations… encouraging people to respect themselves and their origins.
This was his way of resisting the current social structure, where your ability to succeed depends on the color of your skin, the clothes you wear and the way in which you speak/don’t speak Spanish.
He was killed. Today.
His body was found tied to a tree. Broken.
One of his good friends said something that stuck… “el que piensa es el que pierde”
“the one that thinks is the one that looses”
I think it is imperative for us, as a community of thinkers (if that is what we really are), to question ourselves everyday, every time we act, every time we speak, every time we think…
What are we working towards? What are we here for?
and, most importantly… What are we willing to give up for it?
How fair is it that we are so lucky while others, like Lisandro, have to give their lives in the struggle for rights that we consider basic?
♥
– – – –
Apart from being Forlanland, Uruguay is also cow heaven.
Someone told me that there are 4 cows for every person and looking at the amount of meat that they eat I have to say I believe it. I think I´m the first vegetarian that many of the people we´ve met have ever seen. At restaurants when I ask if they have anything at all that´s vegetarian they just look at me, and I know that they´re trying to understand my joke or why I would ask something so strange.
Why are there so many cows? I think it´s because of the land. It´s flat. When I told one of them about Guatemala´s volcanoes he said ¨volcaaaanooooeeessss wooooooowwwww.¨ Honestly, there aren´t even mountains, it´s sooo different for me since I have always been around mountains and volcanoes and lakes.
The people here are really nice and they´re all so excited about Uruguay in the World Cup that it´s been a party. In a few days I´ll leave the freezing beaches behind and start visiting the interior. We´ll see how it goes :)
This weekend Guatemala was hit by tropical storm Agatha. You can read about it in the news.
I’ll copy some of my notes to give you an idea of what it was like… Keep in mind that my town was one of the least affected…
29/05/2010
In our backpacks we had passports, cash, a set of dry clothes and a few cans of food. That’s it. We hid our valuable stuff in between the dirty clothes in the bathroom basket, locked the door and left right before dark, under the rain and up the mountain. We headed to the only place that we considered safe from the mudslides in this valley.
Up here we sit y the candlelight, playing cards, waiting and pretending that we don’t hear the storm-like sounds that the river makes as it carries thousands of rocks and boulders downstream.
This reminds us all too much of five years ago, when tropical storm Stan buried villages, schools, houses. We wait and we wait and we wait.
30/05/2010
Today we spent all morning up the valley in a friend’s house. The river was slowly eating the earth beneath its walls. So we got ourselves wet and moved rocks to change the course of the river, so that it wouldn’t crash directly into the earth under the house and damage it more. It was hard work (my hands hurt so much!) but I’m sure it’s better now. If it doesn’t rain it will last until we think of a better solution.
Let’s hope it doesn’t keep raining…
I read in the news that there are 70000+ people that had to be evacuated and that everywhere bridges and roads were blocked or destroyed. And the airport is still closed because of the volcano! How can this be happening now? It’s only MAY!!
Still… I’m so lucky. I have my house and my family, food, water and enough wood to dry my clothes by the chimney :).
Great! You made the right choice.
When I was calling Arts prospective students the most common question I got was “what’s your favorite thing about UBC?”
Well… it’s the size, and all the opportunities that you get because of it. If you come to UBC and decide to make a new friend every day you’ll be busy for approximately 125 years (hopefully you won’t take that long to get your degree!). Obviously making friends is not an issue here.
Also, how cool is it to walk for half an hour during the last week of your first year and discover a whole set of buildings that you didn’t even know exited? For all I know I’m in 1491 and I still have to “discover” the Americas of UBC.
And when you have to make your schedule of course you’ll spend hours without knowing what to do. Not because they all look boring but because there’s too many that sound amazing.
In the end it’s your choice to make, all I can say is that it was my choice too at one point and I couldn’t have chosen better.
Good luck!
I’m done with my first year!!!
It was an amazing year, but I’ll write more about that after packing and enjoying the last few days of Vancouver :D
How many people can say that they chose who was going to build the SUB?
YOU can!
Vote for the firm that will construct our new SUB…
Check out this awesome coverage of the candidates by Crystal.
Also, if it’s something that you really care about, look at these videos.
Voting starts today in Web Vote on the SSC — don’t miss out on choosing who will make the new Student Building! :)
But not just any houses. These houses are the houses to which slum dwellers and homeless people in South African World Cup cities are being reallocated.
Or, better put, reallocated by force.
In a country with the history of South Africa, the forceful reallocation of homeless people and slum dwellers to “Tin Cities” feels like a step back into apartheid.
And the games continue…
