Woo, university!

Guess what? I am a full-time student at the educational facility situated on the University Endowment lands in Vancouver, namely the University of British Columbia, commonly called UBC. In fact, apparently "I am UBC." Because that makes so very much sense- I don't go there, I PERSONIFY IT. Anyways, except for that clever line, UBC is pretty awesome. And this is why.

A) It's university. Which means I'm taking the classes I like, get to choose when to have them, the classes are generally pretty good, I'm not forced to attend them, and I'm generally given more responsibility. Which isn't something that's going to faze me. And suprisingly I don't have much work. I'd actually be willing to have more if bio and physics were more interesting, as so far it's been review in both, but I figure the work will come eventually.

B) I live in residence. Which means I don't have to cook for myself (a mixed blessing, as often I'd like to,) there's a whole bunch of really nice people around, and classes are like 5-10 minutes away. And I get to sleep during my breaks, which I love.

C) It's beautiful. The campus itself is very nice- there's lots of tall trees, there's a Japanese garden, a botanical garden, a rose garden, and a forest pretty near by. But even better is the fact that I can see the ocean from my house, and it's a short (but steep) walk down to the beach. Granted, it's a nudist beach, but I could really care less. I don't have to declothe myself. There are also mountains like an hour away. Ocean + mountains + forest = amazing.

So yeah. I'm pretty happy. I still miss the friends I had in Vienna, but things are pretty cool here too.

(A shiny new laptop helps :D)

Darfur, Fasting, and Confusion

On October 5th, 2006, I ate nothing. Drank some water, took a vitamin, and felt kinda miserable near the end, and went for 24 hours without food. As sane people who believe I'm fairly sane as well, you're probably wondering why that is. So I'll explain. STAND, which is an acronym for Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, organized a day called Darfur Fast, to show solidarity with the people of Darfur. It's currently Ramadan, but while usually the people of Darfur would be fasting during the day and eating at home after sunset, they have been displaced, murdered, and starved. The reason I took part is not that I feel the people of Darfur appreciate the gesture (as much as they'd appreciate basic necessities) but that I have never gone a day without eating and that this is an issue that I feel strongly about, and I wanted to make a statement.

I'm not entirely sure what effect I had as I didn't shout my action from the rooftops, but I did mention it to some people (and even told one guy about what's going on, as he had never heard of it. For shame, media, do what you're supposed to do. By which I don't mean sensationalise the issue for a week, but investigate and educate the people about all issues, not just the Issue of the Week.) As part of my statement, I wanted to tell you guys all about it, but as you'll see later I had more trouble writing about the issue than I thought.

So what is the issue? Well, Sudan is primarily Muslim, but they are divided into the primarily Arabic Central and Eastern Sudan, and the predominately black people of Darfur. The Sudanese government wants Sudan to be an Arabic state, and thus marginalized the people of Darfur, who rebelled in protest. This started around 2003, when the government was already engaged in a civil war in the south, and so rather than diverting its military to combat the problem, it created and supplied militias, known as the janjaweed, who then started to terrorize and murder the population. The Sudanese government has also refused to allow humanitarian aid into Darfur, and the janjaweed have poisoned crops and wells. This is a systematic effort to drive out or murder the non-Arab people of Darfur, it is genocide, and it is overwhelmingly horrible. I literally can't imagine it, and it is one of the few issues that I am genuinely passionate about.

So what can you do? Well, I'm not sure. That's why I didn't write this earlier. I cannot think of any conflict of the previous century that was actually resolved through humanitarian intervention. Rwanda is stable because a rebel force took over the government and stopped the killing (well, and France intervened, but on the side of the government that was perpetrating the genocide.) The UN is still in Kosovo and I don't see how they're going to get out, while the UN didn't intervene at all during the ethnic cleansing in the other Balkan states. I don't know much about Somalia other than that the intervention there was pretty catastrophic, and don't get me started on Iraq. On the whole, genocide seems to generally run its course, and I don't know whether interventions actually help. On Monday STAND is having a meeting to discuss concrete solutions, which I'm quite tempted to attend, so maybe they'll correct my views on the subject.

The world makes me depressed. Only that fact that I want to change it keeps me from staying depressed. I will be writing a post about the issues I feel threaten us the most soon, and I honestly hope to influence you guys to do something, because fasting and thinking has led me to the conclusion that I can no longer sit around and occasionally be disgusted by the world.

Blasphemous heresy

Over the past two years, I've occasionally found time to seriously contemplate faith. In case you hadn't heard me sharing my religious views, which I did probably more often than anyone except the people who wore religious shirts at school, I view God as a possible but impersonal and undetectable being that may be behind the creation of the universe and may subtly influence the mechanics behind the facade of reality. That being said, I do not believe God has a specific message for us, that God's male or that he listens to us, or that any historical figure has been anything but human.

I recently read a book that demands we reject faith outright. It is called the End of Faith, and it outlines the damage religion has caused before, the dangers we face now on account of religion, the lunacy (according to him) of believing anything about the world strictly by faith, without evidence, and the advantage of approaching spirituality seriously and scientifically with reason and evidence. I don't agree with everything he says- I don't think believing in the Bible is lunacy, just misguided, just as you may or may not believe that I'm misguided, but I do believe that religion can cause great harm, and probably will in future. (Think about fundamentalism, especially Islamism.)

But as Yann Martel put it, "To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." I'm pretty sure he meant this as an attack on agnosticism, believing it to be wishy-washy, but I disagree. Because, doubt is not my philosophy of life, and God certainly isn't either. My philosophy is that we should minimise the harm that we cause others, and here's why.

The majority of humanity consists of sentient beings with their own emotions, beliefs, mind, and loves and is loved in return. They may be dumb schmucks, they may be assholes, and they may be criminals, but they are still humans nonetheless and therefore are worthy of our compassion. (Psychopaths are an exception to the rule, and we should attempt to understand murderers, but we should not forgive them.)

So how can we have compassion for others, how can we love our neighbours as Jesus wished us to, and still pursue policies that cause others to suffer? How can we not have compassion for others as humans? So how can we excuse the exploitation of the third world, the invasion of countries on false grounds, or the growing inequality between the rich and the poor? How can anyone believe that the majority of the world is destined to go to hell? What sort of God is that?

But we cannot eliminate suffering from the world. People will always be selfish because every selfless act has some ulterior motive, even if that motive is simply being proud of your selflessness. Therefore I feel that we should at least try to minimize the harm we cause others, and that is the philosophy I intend to live by.

Is that a bat? (Warning: bat pictures.)

Nik had invited some friends over for a last dinner for his friend and roommate, Rob, for the past few weeks who flies to Paris tomorrow for a few days and then on to West Africa. After dinner we were all sitting around sipping beers when Nik sits up, looks at the kitchen and says "Is that a bat?" So we stand up and walk towards it and sure enough, holy crap, it's a fucking bat. I say a "fucking bat" because I was so surprised to have a bat IN OUR KITCHEN that that's what I kept saying. I thought it was super-cool. I grabbed Nik's camera to take a photo, only he (she? It's adventurous and stubborn, it's a he,) had gotten a grip on the blinds of the backdoor and wasn't moving. Nik goes to open that door in the hopes that he'll fly out, I get into position to take a photo, and the result is this:

(Scrolled down in order to not have to fix formatting, and sideways because Nik's computer has no editing software. And it's 1 am.)




















The bat swooped by me and disappeared. It was actually really funny because Rob, who's this ex-Mustang-driving ex-firefighter, is freaked out by the bat. I mean, it's a frikking bat, not a wolverine. It's pretty much a bird, only it swings around like crazy so it is kind of scary. We looked around and couldn't see him, so we thought he'd flown out suddenly. We went back to the party, one awesome photo later.

Few hours pass, everyone's gone and Nik's actually gone to bed already when all of a sudden I see the bat flying around the kitchen again. We'd closed all the doors, so it has to be the same bat. I dance out of the way of the bat singing (well not really) "Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck it's the bat." Rob arms himself by pulling his T-shirt over his head and grabbing a pillowcase (not a pillow.) The bat flies around and freaks Rob out and then passes out on the curtains. The curtains by my bed (well, comfy couch.) So I dance around a bit, and take some more photos. The best one's below.



So I figure I have to do something about this bat, so I grab a big black sheet and fold it up a lot. As carefully as possible (after five minutes of being unsure whether to do it) I grab him and fold the sheet over him. Well I more just carry him. Then I threw him out the backdoor. Which was really stupid, because the poor bastard couldn't fly, he couldn't even fly a straight path when I tossed him. He ended up flopping out and hitting our garbage can, which I feel quite bad about. I should have just placed him on the ground, but I wasn't expecting him to be stunned. A bird would've flown off right away. Anyways he looked fine because right afterwards he picked himself up and flew off. I miss him already.

A fucking bat! How cool is that?

The Queen Mary II

I think most everyone knew this before I left, but my family opted to return to Canada in style aboard the ocean-liner Queen Mary II. First things first- that is one hell of a giant ship (the largest passenger ship, I think.) It was super-luxurious with a friendly and too-courteous crew, excellent facilities, and awesome food. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The crossing takes nine days in total, during which the only internet access I had would have cost me $25 and a kidney per hour. Even emails were $1.50 to send AND receive. So I was cut off for the whole time. The ship was quite stable and quiet, so it was easy to think you were in some fancy hotel with a strange view and rolling motion. Our cabin was large enough to sleep in and had a balcony (and a TV with repeating episodes of Scrubs and Friends which we tried not to watch too much.) There was a gym, which I used three times, a theatre which I never used, a planetarium where I saw a mis-titled lecture on post-WWII Britain called "Rock and Roll Babies", various restaurants, swimming pools, hot tubs, a night club (which I did frequent), casino (did not), pub (did), and ball room (briefly.)

The food was, as I said, excellent. There were appetizers, salads, dessert, and a choice of pasta, fish, poultry, red meat and vegetarian for the main course. I ate a lot. What I meant when I said the staff was too courteous was that I felt weird because they'd do stuff like push my chair in for me, unfold my serviette and place it on my lap, or say sorry as they made space for me to pass in the halls. Even having priority over them while walking down the hall is weird, since I don't have the superiority complex other people evidently do, where they want crew to wait on them hand and foot and stay out of their way.

One other nice thing about being on board is that I managed to meet people my age. The average age on that ship was above retirement, it seemed, since it consisted mostly of "the newly-wed and the nearly-dead," with more of the latter, but there was some social event for people from 18-30 where I met some mostly German people and hung out with them for the rest of the crossing. I learned a bit of ballroom dancing, which was funny but also fun (and it let me dance with cute girls), played board games and ping-pong, and went to the nightclub where they had a 40-year old DJ who was odd but nice enough, and some frat boys who were busy getting smashed. I tried to avoid them but Nik didn't seem to mind them so we were in the same circle of people. There were also weird as hell German barony-types where the guy was in a German frat and was quite full of himself and his sister who was 16 and looked closer to 26, I kid you not. Her face looked quite lifted and artificial.

But I was with nice people, not weird people. There were four German girls, a German guy and a Welsh guy. There was a girl I liked who lives near Berlin, so I'll probably meet up with her there. Overall, the crossing was fantabulous. We got into New York (harbour) at 4:30 so I got up at 5 to see us come in and watch the sunrise. It rose over Wall street, which was beautiful. I spent two days in New York, about which I'll write later.