British Student .ca

Last Wednesday was eventful, being a lecturer, using my medical cover/insurance, some geography fun, and ending the night with some chain metal dancing girls.

I’ve mentioned that in my geography GIS class we’ve been ending the year on OpenStreetMap and Neogeography. My lecturer has become aware that I’m really obsessed with OpenStreetMap and so asked me the take half of the Wednesday lecture showing my stuff. I showed how to edit OSM and why it’s cool and got a little bit of feedback on how it went. There are mixed opinions on if I was too complicated or not, but it seems it was interesting either way and hopefully my passion came out.

From about Monday night my little finger had been a bit swollen. After the lecture I took of a plaster that I slept with to at least keep it clean and it looked like it might explode with puss. So I went to the pharmacist in the village to ask what cream I should put on it. He said it had got to the point I needed to see a doctor for antibiotics. So I went above Staples stationary shop to a walk in medical clinic. I never wanted to be in medical trouble abroad, but at least I now have my (required) medical insurance paid to date I just had to show my Care Card and not worry about it. The doctor stabbed my finger and pushed the goo out. A little bit of squirming (I would have been fine doing it myself) and a plaster, then I was on my way. He didn’t even give my jip for biting my hang nails. When I got back to my room, Steph was there to be house mum and hug it better.

Later that day I was lying on my bed thinking I should go out and enjoy the sun and grass in some summery way. Oh, it was the GSA(Geography Students’ Association) last Bzzr Garden and BBQ. I went to that, the burgers were delicious, as was the beer. Chatting to folks was fun (you could call it networking practice), and OpenStreetMap is really known these days. I even spoke to someone in my class who said she did an assignment on my Living With Dragons blog, apparently it’s the top search result for GIS neogeography blog or some set of terms.

Later that evening I went downtown to The Media Club for the CD release of Scythia. They had a cage with some dancing ladies wearing (not much) chain metal, but more importantly the music was great and a good end to the day. Me and my sensitive injured finger decided to avoid the mosh pit, despite one guy repeatedly trying to get me to start it with him. I’ve done enough anger-release moshing in my younger years.

The other night I passed by a TV showing the news on CTV (has the Olympic broadcasting rights) of how Britain is really hating on Vancouver and the Winter Olympics. They zoomed in on a small quote from the Guardian “…make these Games the worst in Olympic history“, so I thought it right to find the whole Vancouver Games are a disaster article and sum up the hate points it makes.

• A commemorative coin is being made for Alexandre Bilodeau, the first Canadian to win Olympic gold at home.
• Canadian politicians may be working overtime issuing congratulatory statements about medal-winning performances by home athletes.
• Vanoc (the organising committee) is pumping out tweets of “YAAAAYY! GOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD”
• Torrential rain had washed away snow, making it impossible to build spectator viewing areas that would be safe for the snowboarding events at Cypress Mountain.
• The transportation system, which some would call sporadic and others would describe as chaotic.
• The Premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, and the chiefs of the four host First Nations to miss the singing of the Canadian anthem at Friday’s opening ceremony.
• The hydraulics used to construct the torch bowl failed at the climax of the event.
• Questions about the safety of the luge sliding track after qualifying Georgian, Nodar Kumaritashvili, died the day of the Opening ceremonies.

Of all things, I don’t know why they’re complaining about the public transportation. The good old BBC have a much more upbeat article asking if London 2012 transport can succeed like Vancouver 2010 (link via The Buzzer). I’m so impressed, it reminds me of the hussle and bussle of a normal London day, with Vancouverites who are as friendly as a walk in the countryside. The whole set up is different to a UK city though. We don’t have specific ‘downtown’ centres and we don’t drive into them as much. Vancouver was ready for this amount of traffic, there are the lanes that can be used for special traffic. What might work is how large stretches of roads (Robson and Granville) are closed of to all traffic, and I’m constantly seeing Transit information staff/volunteers. London will do well if it encourages foreigners to walk about more to get home, some of our underground stations are much closer overground than by the escalators and station hallways below the streets.

Back to the Guardian article, and the main point Lawrence Donegan makes is that the 4,000 ticket holders for the Cypress snowboarding got turned away. Yeah that sucks, but the rather good UBC student paper, The Ubyssey, reports that it is a standing space area which became unsafe due to a foot of washed away snow. It still sucks, The Ubyssey puts the emphasis on those who bought tickets through friends of scalpers, as they won’t get their money back.

I laugh at the hydraulic failure of the opening ceremony myself. But let’s be fair, the other three supports of the torch worked. The wait built up excitement as I watched it, and all the pain was on one athlete that didn’t get to help light the torch that symbolised the coming together of four people required to light up glowing hearts(Vanoc will sue me for using their trademarked motto, which quotes the national anthem). The show was still pretty cool, with all the visual light effects and projections. The floating Bear made of stars freaked me out a bit, but I’m going to say I liked it now.

Last of all, what’s wrong with Vanoc tweeting excitement? I’m tweeting similar things, and it’s great reading tweets from the venue organisers to hear what’s happening and what’s really busy (sometimes with tips to get around it). I love joining in the cheering and chanting on the streets with my adopted country for this year, CAN-A-DA, CAN-A-DA, CAN-A-DA! Sometimes we chant other countries so everyone can have fun, and I’m learning parts of the anthem (only the English version for now).

My twitter list to follow for the Olympics is currently Team_GB(tweets results and the days upcoming events, with GMT times), richmondozone(I want to go there at least once with some 19+ friends), BC_GottaBeHere(high frequency of tweets but lots of good retweets about most venues inc. Robson Square), thebuzzer(from the eyes of transit/public transport, which you know I love), and GregoryMarler(oh, that’s me). Sadly I don’t have a cool phone here so I only tweet when in my room, but you can still catch where I’m about to leave for, plus I check the #olympics and #olympicfun tags to retweet what’s cool and happening. Who needs a $1000 event ticket to enjoy the two weeks, Eh?!

I’ll now admit, I wasn’t in the highest of spirits when I blogged about the opening ceremonies. But Saturday night I went downtown with just a few people to see one of the many free concerts taking place around the city. Leaving is rarely prompt and we got down there 15mins before the start so assumed we would line up not to get in. Instead we wondered around Granville Street, Robson Street, Robson Square, and the Waterfront.

What a night it turned out to be. We saw a guy and 3 people get inside a blown up balloon [youtube]. We found a massive rave on the steps down to the free ice rink powered by about 20-30 boombox style old stereos (most had duck tape keeping them in one piece), and found out we were in the perfect spot when fireworks and a laser show started. Later we met a gaggle of people in all-body one-piece lycra morphsuits. Everybody on the streets (most of them closed to traffic) were giving high fives, hugs, or general cheers. We saw the outdoor olympic flame, from a distance. It was amazing, we all love the olympics now. Click those links for some videos I took, and view the photos (with more of the story) below.

Sorry it took so long to post this. Editing and uploading my first video to youtube took more than a day, and the photo display failed to work until I found a mistake as I was converting my captions to the old display method. I’ll try and get the rest of the videos up soon and let you know about them.

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So following my previous road trip update I went to an Irish pub in Banff (mmm how I miss bangers and mash) for my birthday. My two road companions surprised me by getting a slice of birthday cake and a cribbage board as a birthday present (ahh, that’s why they were being annoying by talking in French earlier).

On Tuesday we left Banff really early to go to Jasper. We made lots of stops on the way so the driving was’t too much for Pierre. One stop included some waterfalls that had frozen over. Near Jasper we walked down the middle of a canyon with an ice floor and lots and lots of ice everywhere.

We made it back to Vancouver on Wednesday evening, I slept at Pierre’s before place before he went snowboarding in Whistler and I moved downtown.

No free Wifi in my room, although there was a Fatport network which I should have been able to use with my UBC university login details (but I got an error). So for three nights I didn’t do much because I couldn’t research and plan anything the night before.

I moved back into my room on Sunday to find it looking rather messy (someone inspecting the rooms had knocked loads of stuff about). I waited for everyone on 6th and 5th floor to come back throughout the day, giving them a shouting welcome if I saw them arrive from my window.

Today term started again, full of fog and rain. The lectures are a bit boring to start with so I’ll probably soon be posting lots of photos of my holiday and if you want I could post some comments about the classes.

My road trip has now finished and I’m staying in a place Downtown for three nights before I can go back to Totem Park. I’m not to far from the public library, where I will be able to get wifi and send this post before 4pm which is midnight in the UK. My midnight will be at 8am UK time.

For the past three years or so my New Year’s celebration has been with a my group of friends in Sunbury. It would probably be at the Haywood’s house this year and most people’s parents would be at another house together. Since we all started going to different universities, a subset of about 6 of us started a traddition called “The Year According To… [insert name]“. In the hours before the countdown we sit together in the house and answer one thing that happened to us for each month of the last year. We take it in turns either to give our full answers or one month at a time, the later helps jog memories and get closer to finished before midnight, I don’t think we’ve ever made it to midnight.

Yes I am going to miss the time with my friends this year. I’m never good at remembering the key events of the year or on what month they took place. There is always an obvious theme with my memory and no guesses as to what big event happened this year and the months leading up to it. Here is the year according to Gregory Marler…

January Busy finishing my application, and deciding about a year abroad. Handed it in just before the 31st.
February Waited to hear about my application, Durham’s International Office delayed the result multiple times/weeks, but just after this month they said I had the place.
March I cycled from Durham, almost to York before getting the train home to London. It took most of the day and I want to retry now I’ll be better prepared, I might do another strentch, maybe York to a station near London.
April
May My plan to map Durham was going really well, with the city mapped out to Neville’s Cross and co-organising a weekend long event inviting people to help map Sunderland.
June Finished second year, at long last. I was quite pleased that my group won the prize for best in the year long Software Engineering project. We would have gone to represent Durham in a the IBM university challenge, but they cancelled it, I would have been in Canada anyway. I cycled across the width of England, including over mountains of the Lake District and Peak District, taking 3 days and leading approximatly 30 other people.
July Worked at a small company for just a few weeks doing small web development tasks that made a difference to their website.
August I was the oldest looking after Emmanuel Church youth camping at New Day in Norfolk for a week. I had great fun and I’ll be sad if I can make it this coming year.
September I flew out to Canada. Had to quickly settle in sorting out things going wrong like banks. Met many more people than I can remember, several I still see.
October Thanksgiving in Canada wasn’t as much as I expected it to be, and Halloween just seemed to be another drinking weekend (although I did “Trick or Eat” collecting for the Vancouver Food Bank).
November I blogged lots, so it seems like a busy month of working getting too much and partying to relieve it. I filled a double bedroom with balloons, ate too much at the winter formal, and saw a Christmas tree appear in the lounge.
December The final exams of my classes this semester, waiting for everyone to finish theirs, and my Alberta/Rockies road trip.

I almost forgot to upload the photoos from Sunday 6th December when I went and watched the Santa Claus Parade downtown. I didn’t see any Santa Claus, but I did see some Father Christmas looking Russians.

Twice a guy quickly walked in front of us filming the whole parade with his compact digital camera. His t-shirt told me it was ButchNews of YouTube fame, but he was too fast for me to take a photo. I focused on still images so if you want to hear the music we had, watch Butch’s view of the parade.

I took 171 photos, but managed to cut it down to 66 for you. I’ve just spent two days fixing some of the problems people had viewing photos, please let me know if there are more issues.

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On Friday classes finished and the study period for final exams started. Yes, final exams, the end to the classes I’m currently taking. Unlike in England where you have to remember everything while the class continues untill May/June exams, in Canada most classes last just one term(called semester, as the term is September to May). I’ll hopefully get round to writing about the classes I did this semester. My exams are as follows.

• Thursday 10th, 8:30am – Software Enginering (to compare it to last year)
• Monday 14th, 3:30pm – Functional and Logical Programming (Haskell, Prolog, and a dash of Scheme)
• Tuesday 15th, 12pm – Human Computer Interaction

The exam period is untill the 23rd December and then the next set of classes starts on the 4th Janurary. As that’s such a short holiday (due to the Winter Olympic reading break) it originally didn’t seem worth a flight home for a few days of Christmas and someone’s 23rd birthday. Now I know that my exams finish early I’m still going to stick to the plan of enjoying my first Christmas away from home, on my own, and in a different contient.

I dreamt about the Trans-Canada 3-day train ride to Toronto or Montreal but left it too late to organise, so maybe I’ll do that in May before leaving Canada. I’m now excited about making a trip Salt Spring Island, where Roy (on my floor) is from, it’s near Vancouver Island. He tells me doesn’t think there are salt springs, but I say we we go looking for them to be a tourist attraction.

I get kicked out of residence for the winter break (and apparently they’ll find me if I hide). So I’ll probably stay in the Gage Towers residence where I can cook for myself, or the hostel on campus. Maybe I’ll burst the campus bubble and stay in a hostel downtown, there seems to be some nice ones looking around. If I find a friend or two then we could save a bit of money on a private room. I know some friends in Haida have said they’re here over the winter break, but of course I’ve forgotten who. Hopefully they’ll leave a comment and even if we don’t stay in the same place we can meet up and do some stuff together.

I had Thursday free and amazingly the rain had run out, so despite it being cold I took my bicycle on the bus to Stanley Park. This was my first trip to Stanley Park so I kept snapping away with my camera. At first I had forgotten it was the middle of a winter weekday but that explains why it was so quiet and peaceful.

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I like sending old fashioned (aka snail) mail, mainly because it increases the chances of getting post yourself. When your away from home it’s good to send postcards, so it shows where you are and can be stuck up somewhere. But I’m fussy about choosing designs, and then I don’t like to send the same design more than twice.

My solution to this problem is a UK-started company called Moo. They do printing in a new way that allows you to order a small amount of a product but every item can use a different photo/design on one side. Most popular are their “Moo Cards” which are smaller than the usual business card but have become a techy and arty fashion icon. I have lots of fun saying “take my business card”, but even more fun saying “which of my business cards would you like?” as I hold out a few in a fan shape.

They have a base in the US, so they can deliver to me here in Vancouver! I thought it was taking forever, but 2 weeks and they’re here, just fitting in my mailbox! I kind of got a bit excited and ordered 60 (using 11 designs with photos I had taken), and I probably don’t have that many friends.

I’ll sell them to you at $1.50 a card or $7 for 5. E-mail postcards at britishstudent.ca or pop by my room if you know where I am. I don’t have stamps, but if your very nice and ask me before I make a trip to the SU post office then I might get some for you at cost. Also, feel free to comment below on your favourite design even if you don’t buy any.

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The 11th November is a date known in the UK, Remembrance Day. A minutes silence is observed at 11:11am, In British Columbia, Canada, it is a public holiday. I think all bank holidays in the UK are on Mondays, but in Canada the 11th falls on a Wendesday and so that is the day when the university and public organisations are closed. So on Tuesday evening everybody can party and not worry about waking up in the morning.

Sam, the RA (residential advisor) of the floor below me, plays drums in a band Scythia and was performing at a pub in Gastown (part of downtown). I was keen to go along and offered to take some photos for the band. After partying with my floor (who are mainly under 19 so couldn’t join me) I went to meet others at the pub. My plan to take the 44 bus was foiled by it not running past 9pm, and then the underground/subway train was disrupted due to a train being held by the police. My transit skills were not as strong as in London, but I eventually got myself to the Pub 340

I walked in and the music sounded good, plus I could see Laura and Tamara at the bar so I was ready for a good night. Mmm beer from a tap and in a glass, how I don’t see you enough. Unfortunatly Sythia had started a little earlier than expected, with a prompt finish, so I had walked in on their last song. As I walked away from the bar with my Rocky Mountain beer they finished and started packing up their gear. Oops, no photos taken then. We stayed around for another drink and left before the place closed. Now for me to get the two girls from 5th floor home safely.

We walked past the road that the N17 goes down without realising, we having that good a conversation about hobbos and alleyways. So after backtracking 2 blocks Jesus called my name from the bus stop. Ah my good Mexican friend and his friends that love my British accent. The bus ride back to campus at 2:30am was filled with very noisy singing, including attempting the hey macarena dance.