A Man's *Office* Is His Castle

This morning I was emailed by a guy I met a few weeks ago at a beer garden. He's seen my website before and told me he had something to post. He attached several photos and explained a little story, so I've decided to post the photos he sent me and paraphrase his email. He requested that I not name him, and that's a good thing cuz I only know his nickname anyways! :-D He has blacked himself and his friend out in a couple of photos, for obvious reasons.

Essentially, some people went to the UBC Alma Mater Society (Student Government) President's Office in the SUB and decided to have a bit of fun with the incoming president. The old president, Spencer Keys, was to hand over power to the president-elect, Kevin Keystone, on Monday.




Apparently there is a tradition of welcoming new presidents to the office, and this year was no different. Someone decided to build a castle in the president's office, and so a castle was built out of bricks and mortar.




The foundation was laid and row upon row of bricks were stacked with mortar to hold them together. It seems they didn't do as good a job as a trained bricklayer, but from these pics it's still fairly impressive. The middle stack - a buttress if I dare call it that - is quite interesting.




What really makes the buttress stand out, I think, is the sailor that has been mortared onto the top. Quite a nice touch.




When the castle had been built, the individuals involved proceeded to paint a large black hand and a small red E on the castle. The small red E symolizes the Engineering Faculty, which seems to have been involved in this endeavour. The symbolism of a black hand, however, is unknown.




Here's a pic of the sailor from close up.




The masons left this message-on-a-brick for the incoming president, which explains some things a bit:




The black hand reference is still rather mystifying - is it one UBC's clubs? Possibly the bricklaying or pottery club's nickname?

I also received this photo, spliced together it seems, from two photos. It shows the perspective from the president's desk. Sort of a fisheye effect, nifty.




I must say I'm impressed. In the photos, judging by the height of the corner towers (turrets?) in relation to the ceiling, I would guess their height to be a bit over 6 feet or so. The buttress with sailor is definitely my favourite feature. It must have taken quite some coordination and effort to carry this prank out.

The one real question I have, however, is: what does Kevin Keystone, the new UBC AMS President, think of his new office?

Impersonations

I nearly forgot about this post. I planned to put these photos up a long time ago, but because I was so busy it slipped my mind. I only remembered because I'm working on a policy paper worth 50% of my grade. As such, I am bound by the laws of procrastination to remember absolutely every single thing that needs to be done, other than the task at hand. So, without further ado, I give you Impersonations and Other Poses, starring Ron Boaz in his second feature modelling show, with guest star Holly Brattberg.

The Busy Life

Sunday morning Jos and I woke up bright and early at 6am to go downtown to Wall Centre to volunteer with the BC Lung Association's "Climb for Clean Air" fundraiser. We helped set up and then run a water station on the 15th floor of the 48 floor stair climb.




It was fun, though tiring, and the other volunteers were really nice. It was really funny watching 50 firefighters do the climb in full gear at different times of the morning. They were competing against each other from all over the province... Vancouver, Salmon Arm, Salt Spring Island... all over. Each one of them sounded like Darth Vader because they had to have their oxygen tanks hooked up. With all that gear, they had to walk, but some of them definitely walked very fast.




Today I had two of four exams. Tomorrow I have the other two. Today's exams were in International Relations of South Asia and Domestic Politics of South Asia, both taught by Dr Haider Nizamani, a cool guy who teaches well in my opinion. (For an interesting article he wrote a few years ago regarding the Taleban and Pakistan, see http://www.ssrc.org/gsc/newsletter3/nizamani2.htm)

Tomorrow I have a French in-class essay - the equivalent of a midterm - and a Canadian Foreign Policy midterm exam in Dr Allen Sens's class. Hopefully I'll survive :-)

In other news, I've been applying for summer jobs lately through the UBC co-op program - so far I've applied to be a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer at the Vancouver Airport, the Program Coordinator for GALA International Students Orientation at UBC, and a co-op student position with Foreign Affairs Canada in the South Asia division in Ottawa. I've been shortlisted to write the placement exam with the CBSA, and if I do well on that, I'll have an interview. So far I haven't heard back from the other two - I reeeeeally want to get the Foreign Affairs job, as it's right in my field of study and I'm certain I'd be good for the position. I'll update on the job search once I find out more...

UPDATE: Foreign Affairs hired someone not from UBC. I thought it was strange that no one from UBC was given an interview - usually several students get interviews, as the co-op program at UBC is quite well designed. Chances are, someone knew the right people - that tends to be the main way of getting a job in the civil service these days unfortunately. Oh well - I'll keep on trying to find a good summer job, and more likely than not I'll stay in Vancouver for once.

In the News

I read some good news online today for a change. It's tiring sometimes to read only of the car crashes and murders. Click on one of the three links below to read the short articles.

--> The company producing a new AIDS drug is allowing generic (more affordable) versions to be made in India and South Africa, something some companies have tried to refuse doing <--

--> A little heart-warming story about the little changes that are so important in slowly bringing India and Pakistan closer together <--

--> India and Pakistan restore rail link cut in 1965 Second Kashmir War <--

As my Politics of Mass Media prof once mentioned, the news usually reports the strange things that happen, the events that break the normal rules of life. When someone crosses the street safely, it isn't news. It becomes news when he or she is hit by a car.

Sometimes, though, there are positive news events and it's good to keep those in mind to avoid thinking the world is falling apart. It may be falling apart, but at the moment the sheer volume of information that would be needed to carry out empirical research to prove it is simply too great.

Toroa House

One year to this day, just before midnight NZ time (which is right now in Vancouver) I walked into the flat that would be my home for the next 9 months in Dunedin, New Zealand.



Time passes pretty quickly sometimes - for a while I thought my time in New Zealand would stretch on forever, then suddenly, as with all good things, it came to an abrupt end and I was back on a plane bound for Asia once more.

The problem with physics is that particles, behaving like waves, can exist in two places at the same time. Unfortunately, people cannot.