British Student .ca

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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PREV

The Totem Football League (TFL) is a 5-a-side American Football tournament between floors in the residence that choose to sign up. On Saturday I woke up and went to breakfast just about the time they were kicking off (1pm). I ate on the balcony so I could watch over Totem’s back lawn and see them play. I think this might be their last game of the season. Despite being a great team (including massive football players Ben and Justice who were at the Thunderbird Homecoming Game), I don’t think it’s been going too well. The first game or two were forefitted as Haida 6 were hungover or asleep, the last game they had 4 people constantly playing but won.

This time we made it to the game against a Shuswap team. I cheered my floor-mates on from the balcony as I ate some beef stew with mash potatoe and carrots. I got into the cheering a bit so went down to the field to help cheer them on. H-A -I-D-A, Haida’s gonna win today! Go Haida, Go Haida!

I really got into taking photos of the game, so there are a lot here though most people probably won’t be interested. Remember to click the first thumbnail then click (or press right on the keyboard) through all the photos and read the captions. I managed to survive the whole game without really knowing the rules of “football”. Feet are occasionaly used and I think we won in the end, or our cheer said we did just to be silly. I’m sure someone will comment below on the actual score and our tounament standing, or at least comment on their love of Ben’s cheerleading!

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Happy Thanksgiving Weekend to you! Just to confuse you Canadian thanksgiving is a different date to America, it’s the 2nd Monday in October which is a public holiday. Thanksgiving is totally foreign to me so I had little idea what would take place. The 3 day weekend prompted most people to go home or to relatives, making my residence very quiet. Those that were left managed to make just as much noise on Friday/Saturday and drink lots to keep the can collection growing.

On Sunday morning I went to church. It was announced that someone couldn’t make it at the last moment so I don’t know if that spurred a change of plan or if the service was different due to thanksgiving. It started with worship and the lead pastor on guitar. Then we had communion together which is a weekly occurance in the Canadian churches I’ve been to (it’s not so frequent in the UK) by dipping the bread in the wine (rather than taking a sip of wine after eating the bread). Usually next would be a sermon but instead a few large rolls of paper had been pinned to the walls with the writing “I’m thankful to God for…“. We could write or draw our responses (the children had made some interesting drawings throughout the service). There was some more worship and then the service finished.

On Sunday evening my building, Haida House, had a semi-formal dinner in the ground floor study lounge. I dug out the one collared shirt I brought here and went down. It was an enjoyable time, actually sitting down and talking to the people I live with. A resonable turn out of roughly 25 (including some from our neighbours Salish House) from the 180 or so who should be living there. After the dinner everybody was to tired to have much of a party, well after a rest the party started up just after midnight.

Side-tracking as I do, along one of the main campus roads sits a large white cain (6ft tall) painted with a red E on all three sides, to quote wikipedia “exists not because it was installed in accordance with UBC’s planning and building process, but because the engineering students simply put it there.“. It is commonly the target of repainting by other faculty’s students to have their letter and colour. On Thanksgiving Sunday night the Haida pranksters were out and painted it fully in our colour of the night, then super glued on coloured featers and a beak to turn the cairn into a turkey.

I made full use of the Monday off and slept in to 1:30pm. In the evening (5pm because they eat so early here) I walked over to Acadia Park, the family houses on the other side of campus. A couple even newer to Point Grey Communtiy Church had invited me to dinner with them and their extended family. In so long I haven’t been in a family house where you can take a second helping without swiping your dinner card, and kids run around fighting and tickling each other.

It’s been a busy weekend and I’m sure to have missed out some blog-worthy stories, but now I need another sleep until my 12:30pm class Tuesday class.

On my floor we decided to collect our beer cans in a big box, to create some big prank like throwing them all at Vanier Place residence, or filling the elevator. Then we learnt how beer cans, soda(pop/fizz) cans, glass and plastic bottles are worth a resonable bit if you return them for recycling. The collection grew, with the aid of all the visitors our famous party floor gets. This was a lot easier work than the homeless people that walk around campus and town, removing bottles/cans from litter bins (most have a large ledge or rack to aid them) and from rubbish bins. We just had to party, let other people party and enjoy the work.

In a month the collection grew to about seven rubbish bags full. The smell was bad, it took up space in the floor lounge, and the cleaners started to get angry. So all we had to do was get about four of us to walk 15 minutes to the BC government liquor store. We discussed what the money could go towards: a new large TV to replace the historic broken CRT one that was lugged up here last year; a present for the residential advisor on our floor who is the best RA in Totem; or something like table football. Whatever we did with the money, we had to get rid of them this weekend, it stank.

I’m going to side-track for a bit. When I was young I was taught a story you may know, it’s called The Little Red Hen and it goes roughly along these lines…

• Hen: Who will help be gather up the cans into double bags (so they don’t leak or rip)?
• Not I said the cat who was busy sleeping. Not I said the mouse who was busy doing homework. Not I said the pig who had, erm, a class to go to.
• Hen: Who will help me carry the cans to the store?
• Not I said the cat. Not I said the mouse. Not I said the pig.
• Hen: Who will help me figure out what everyone agrees to buy so nobody argues the money has been spent unfairly?
• Not I said the cat. Not I said the mouse. Not I said the pig.
• Hen: Who will help me look after the money, spend it, and eat a cake?
• In unison everyone said “I will”.

I don’t remember what the little red hen did with the cake she baked all by her self. I looked up the story on the student’s authoritive source, wikipedia, who gives me an interesting ending. I got $16.27 (about £9.84) for what turned out to be 40 minutes taking 3 bags in the direction I was going anyway. I’m sure I could find something I’d like for that much, for now I will hold onto the money and see what everybody suggests in the comments.

And now, the photos of my exciting day and how to recycle for money in Canada.

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In the Totem Park residence on UBC each of the 6 houses has it’s own colour. Yesterday (Saturday) we had the first colour war of the year. This means we all dress up in our house colour and play some games against the other houses for a couple of hours, with a lot of chanting in that time. Then I went to Homecoming of the UBC Thunderbirds. More chanting took place, but in a stadium with bam bams.

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