2011 was a fantastic year for me and this term will be the perfect way to end it. The Christmas holidays will be spent in San Francisco with Leslie & Mike, and then maybe/maybe not I'll go to Singapore.
First of all, I absolutely love my courses. One of them is FRST 270 Community Forestry. It used to be taught by Ron Trosper, but now he left and we have a PhD candidate, Reem, and she's just amazing. We are learning what community forestry really entails by analyzing different viewpoints, and through case studies we explore how the broad concept of community forest is applied so many different ways all around the world. What is power? Who determines who gets power over the land? Is there a difference between access and property? How can success be defined in the realm of resource management? We explore questions like these ones through readings, class discussions, guest lectures and assignements. Plus we are 11 students, smallest class I've had at UBC!
Other two I really love are CONS 210 (Visualizing climate change) with Sarah Burch and Stephen Sheppard, and FRST 415 (Sustainable Forest Policy) with George Hoberg. We've had very interesting and inspiring lectures for both of these too. For example, we had Valerie Langer from ForestEthics come talk about the success in the Great Bear Rainforest - learning about environmental activism firsthand from and environmental activist was awesome. I have also been introduced to two things I hadn't used before: iClicker and PeerWise. iClickers are like remote controls for answering multiple choice questions and the Prof gets instant feedback as to whether the students are getting the material or not, and it also sparks interesting class discussion. PeerWise is an online tool designed for students to write questions, and then answer, rate and comment other students' questions - great question pool for studying for exams!
My living arrangement is also great. My house is made for someone on a wheelchair, so the corridors are huge and the bathroom is made for dancing with a wheelchair judging by its dimensions. It's first floor, and at first I hated this because I can't leave my windows open when I leave, but I've gotten used to this and my friends come visit my window all the time, which is fun. The residence, Ritsumeikan, is very quiet and organized. We have a tatami room and I was really excited but then Maki my Japanese roomie said she hates to sit there because she gets splinters all over, so I shouldn't wear shorts when I go to the tatami room...
Fun stuff that has been going on:
- I went to Seattle with Sharon for a outlet-shopping-spree (I don't understand brands like Juicy Couture... felt sweat pants with GLAMOUR written on them with gold and Swarovski crystals...really??) and had my first Taco Bell meal
-I went paddleboarding with a bunch of friends to Jericho Beach. Oscar and I decided it would be a good idea to share a paddleboard and stand on it at the same time, so we tried that for quite some time, until I fell on top of some hidden aquatic rocks and scraped my leg.
- We went to the FarmAde at the UBC Farm and watched people square-dancing to the beat and following the instructions coming from the speakers
- I completed one of the unofficial graduation requirements - Day of the Longboat! We were the Shockers and we painted our faces like Kiss, with black and white. So I think every occasion is a good occasion to paint faces, and I especially love it when people let me do their faces! It was a team with random members but we had so much fun and we came fourth, which was good as we were eight instead of ten people. I need an arm and neck massage now, though.
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| Jason my Longboat Shocker friend looking awesome |
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