I can't believe what I just read. Professor Newman gave me a terrible letter of reference. Terrible. I am absolutely shocked. It does, however, explain why I was rejected by schools which I thought should have accepted me. My two other references were good. One of which was superlative. I am in shock. That fucking bastard ruined my chances of getting into a good grad school. Son of a fucking bitch. I can't imagine why he would do such a thing to me. Now I will have to apply again next year, without him as a reference. Terrible.

Anyway, to give some background. First, I went to the Taiwanese club night. It was good times, dancing with Rae. I felt like we were the only two people there. Just looking at her looking at me. Very sexy.

The next day, went to a barbeque at Lucky's place. It was good times, Rae enjoyed herself. I talked to the Germans and Amy. Basically a standard good times party at that house, just like the many others I have been to.

On thursday, Gabe, Rae and myself went to the Chinese consulate to pick up visas. Unfortunately Rae was unable to get one there as she is Taiwanese. The mainlanders don't like to recognise the Republic of China passport as a passport. I was quite worried about that, but Rae seems to have arranged something involving sending her documents to Taiwan that should work out fine.

After the passport affair, we went to another barbeque. This time it was at Shaharazad's place. It was on the roof, which was a great place for it, but the crowd was not right. There were two groups: one big goup of foreign Master's students, and a smaller group of Scott, Leo, Rae and myslef, with the 70 year old French Canadian woman thrown in for good measure. Later in the afternoon Newman showed up. He was talking most of the time to the Master's students, but eventually I got to talk to him. I said I was dissapointed with my graduate school placement. He got defencive. I left to avoid making a scene. It pissed me off that people who are not as smart or talented as me are going to better schools than me, and that it was likely Newman who was standing in the way. When I got home I was still very upset. I drafted a letter to send to Newman, but Rae's cooler head prevailed and I saved it as a draft to come back to later.

That night, we went out for dinner with Gloria. It was nice. We went to the Ukrainian place on Denman, but were sat at a bad table. Gloria was interested in anything I had to know about the Vancovuer real estate market. I told her some good places to buy, but also that I did not know if now was a good time to get into real estate. I don't think I cleared anything up in her mind. Then we went to another club night. This time it was the CVC's fashion show. The gossip of the evening was that Rae's friend Claire was breaking up with her boyfriend John. To do this, she did the very unclassy move of leaving the club early with her friend and without John. John lost face, Rae and I felt awkward.

Last night, I hung out with Tristan and Milan at the beach. It started with Tristan and myself drinking beer on a log at English Bay, then Milan came to join. I like the beach, especially at that time of day when the sun is not opressive. Eventually it got too cold and we made our way up to Greg's apartment where we had some more beer and good conversation.

Today, I wrote Newman the email about his letter. He told me that I should not have written him, but included his reference as an attachment anyway. His reference was the kiss of death for any top tier plans. I guess I should have known better than to ask him to write for me. I guess he was just the most approachable guy, even though he was not the best guy to write. I hate these asymetrical power relationships. Why does he get to screw me over for fun? Why does he have such a low opinion of me? Fucking asshole is too insecure in himself... gets all of his validation from his students because his peers don't like him. Fuck him, he can go to hell.

Marc

Last night I was at a party of a different sort. It was the thank you party for Professor Newman. This was an idea I had last semester. I wanted to do for him what my students did for me in Beijing. To give him a good dinner so that he could feel appreciated.

Somewhere along the line I became disillusioned with Newman. I felt that he was all talk, constantly self-aggrandising. Further, and perhaps more importantly, I worried that he wrote me a mediocre reference letter. These worries were only reenforced by his attitude towards my graduate school admissions. I was shocked that he was pleased that I got into Carleton and told me not to expect anything else. He was supposed to be on my side. Helping me to get into places I wanted to go, but instead he was patronising me. These feelings lead me to drop the leadership position of organizing his thank you dinner.

Luckily, Elisa picked up where I had left off. She organized the dinner and made sure people showed up. It was good to see her, as well as Sam and Matt as none of them showed up to my party. Dinner was lame. Stupid restaurant, but the beer was good and I did my best to get drunk. I felt that I should have put more effort into getting to know Sam because he is a cool guy who will probably go far in Singapore. We talked about summer plans and Asian issues while I polished off the better part of three pitchers. At 8:30 Matt and Sam left while the rest of us went to Shaharazad's place.

There, we talked again about Asia and how interesting it was to have students from all over. At 11 Elisa and the rest of the Chinese crew took off, leaving Shaharazad, Leo, a 70 year old French-Canadian woman, Newman, and myslef. From then on it was the Newman show as he unburdened himself of everything he wanted to talk about. He is a smart guy and definately has some interesting things to say, but I am still not sure whether I forgive him for (probably) writing me a crappy reference. Finally, at 3am I said enough was enough and broke up the party. In all, it was a good night. Much better than I was expecting.

Tonight, I go to a Taiwanese club night. I hope it is fun.

Marc

The party...

It was ok. Objectively speaking, it was quite good. Many people showed up and had a good time, there was mixing. People were impressed with the apartment and the preparations that my roommate, my girlfriend, and I had done. People enjoyed the food, wine, and liquor provided. I guess this was the point of the party.

However, the party left me with a feeling of failure. Despite my best efforts of making the party environment as pleasant as possible, many of the peope who I invited, and wanted very much to see, did not show up. No one from econ, save Scott came. Noah was out of town. Tristan was otherwise occupied. Carolynn did not come. Of the people that were there, some were good friends. Milan, Gabe, Scott, Dima, Greg, and of course Rae. The remainder were either Ashley's friends, not as close friends, or friends of friends. Of course, it is always nice to meet new people. I did enjoy meeting many of these people, but to be clear, I did not go through all of this effort and spend so much money just to give a good time to people on the outer periphery of my and my roommate's life.

This party left me with some very important lessons learned. The first is that a party is nothing without the company. No matter how well designed the space is, no matter how good the food or drinks provided are, it is the people who make the party. To forget this is to invite dissapointment. The second thing I realised, is that people generally don't care about the quality of refreshments available at a party. Whether $300 or $60 is spent on food and drink, people will not take much notice, especially if they have never thrown a party themselves. Finally, I learned that there is no point in having a big party simply for the sake of having a big party. I do not need to feed and give drinks to people I don't know, neither do I need to impress them. When friends of friends are asking to bring their friends, I should say no. When people bring nothting to the party besides their thirst and appetite, they should not be encouraged to take advantage of my hospitality. Perhaps I will have the chance to apply these lessons learned at a future party.

To end on a positive note, I will focus on the things that went well about the party. The satays were a hit. All that effort did not go in for nothing. Even though I did not have any, I could see that they were widely enjoyed, and that makes me happy. The wine bar was a big hit. Ashley's idea of a seperate space with many different wines available for drinking was a very good one. I spent quite a bit of time in her room drinking good wine. The party went until 4am. This was fun because as there were fewer people in my house and my hosting duties diminished, I was able to have conversations with more people. This ended the party on a long positive note. Many friends did come, and I got to enjoy their company. This is always the main objective of any party and this objective was met. Finally, there was nothing broken or stolen. My sister objects strongly to hosting parties. I suspect that this is because the parties she goes to are fraught with these types of problems. Thus, I am happy that the parties I throw are always so clean and safe, if only just to prove her wrong.

In a desperate effort to avoid studying for my math test tomorrow, I have planned a party. It will be on saturday night and I hope it will be my best party yet. Both Ashley and I are 100% behind it, and I will enlist Rae too. There will be food and drinks and good times for all.

Here is the email I sent out:

Dear friends,

You are invited to a party five years in the making. My roomate,
Ashley, and I are having the graduation party of the season. As
usual, it will be at the 21st floor penthouse on Burrard and Nelson
and will be one of the last parties here before I have to give up the
apartment.

Come early to watch the sunset over English Bay and enjoy our
sumptuous tapas. Wine and martinis will be served. We have an
extensive spirit bar which to we encourage you add your own favorites.

Please rsvp 604.602.0624 and dress to impress. Please advise us for
any +1 or more.

Marc and Ashley

I hope the party is well attended as I am looking forward to it immensely.

More later,

Marc

I finished my Honours thesis a few hours ago. It is a big relief. While I am still wondering if there are things that I could have made better, I think overall it is a good piece of work and I am certainly pround of it and ready to defend it in two weeks time.

Now, all that is left between me and graduation, apart from the defence mentioned above, is the math exam on tuesday. I look forward to being done. Even though I don't know what I will do for the month between exams and leaving for China, at least I have the apartment to myself and nowhere to be in the mornings... perhaps I will start drinking more...

Vincent called me today. I haven't spoken to him in several months, although I sent him an email last night that he didn't seem to have recieved. He has just recieved the news that he has been accepted into Columbia university in NY. I am very happy for him, and I am excited that I will get to see him the next time I go, even though that may well be a year away.

It seems that more and more of my friends are ending up in New York. Although none of them know eachother, three of my best friends from different places I have lived and different times in my life Jesse Mandel from camp Kadima in Nova Scotia, Roger Hsieh from Vancouver, and Vincent Deluard from my exchange year in Singapore and the summer in China afterwards have all managed to end up in the city that I too hope to move back to someday. At this point in my life, I don't know what I could do that would bring me back there, I just know that it has to be something good for me to be able to affort the outrageous Manhattan rents. Vincent's news also gives me renewed desire to visit New York at least one more time before my parents give up the apartment and move back to Vancouver...

China, although a country and not a city, is also turning into a gathering point for my friends. Apart from the few that I have personally convinced to go with me, I will know at least a half dozen people in one part or another of China this summer and fall. I hope that I am able to see them and that we can have fun there like I did last summer with Vincent.

I am looking forward to Milan's barbeque and Gord's birthday party tomorrow. A very busy day for me, especially in the middle of exams, but with only one exam left, I think I can take the the time off. These social events will be a good place for me to float the idea of a post-exam party of my own. Although I have not planned one yet, Ashley is very excited about the idea of throwing a party for both of us, and I am very happy to oblige.

On a final note, despite my dissapointment over graduate schools, I am still inclined to give a "teacher thank dinner" to professor Newman as I said I would. However, the above discussion has made me think that perhaps I should hold it at my trendy downtown penthouse. I wonder what good caterers cost?... takeout Chinese maybe?... Thai?... I should float the idea and see what the interest is.

It grows late, I should stop trying to avoid my sorely needed sleep,

Marc

I wrote my first exam today. It was Chinese and went ok. I know I did not ace it, but after winning the speech competition, I would be very surprised if my professor gives me anything but a good mark. Writing that exam I realized again that I was the only white guy in the room, but by now I am used to it and soon will be experiencing a lot more of it.

After the exam, I went to the library and studied a bit for math. I realized that the old exams I bought from the math club only go up to december 2003, and that there have been some serious changes in the curriculum since then. I don't know what to do about this problem, so I will just study from the book and notes and hope for the best.

I have found it very hard to be interested in this math class. It is not that there is something inherantly uninteresting about matrix algebra, it is just that not knowing anyone in the class, expecially for something that does not grab my imagination, makes it very hard for me to pay attention and care. Compounding this is the knowledge that I already have one good offer of admission and funding for my master's degree next year.

On a deeper level, whenever I take math classes, or economics classes that are essentially mathematical in nature, I wonder why I am willing to put myself through this. I like economics, and I think I am interested in the jobs that an advanced degree in economics leads to, if this sort of detached mathmatical theory ever becomes a major part of my job, I can't imagine how I would enjoy it.

These thoughts have lead me to wonder whether I should change my major entirely. At this point, I essentially have a good degree in economics, but my lack of a minor may disqualify me from applying to other diciplines. I hope the time I spend in China learning Chinese will give me a better insight as to where I want to go next with my education.

I saw Rae yesterday. Seeing her can really improve my mood when I am stressed about exams and such. We tried to go to the Chinese consulate to inquire about her visa and my scholarship, but by the time we got there, they had already closed. On the plus side, I managed to reach someone with more information about the scholarship and I will meet him on thursday morning.

On the home front, Ashley and I are enjoying Rachel's trip to Toronto. While I do love and respect my sister, living with her this past year has tested the limits of what I can endure many times. At the end of this year, I just hope that I never have to live with her again.

That said, we had a good conversation on tuesday night before she left. I explained to her that I will not give equal respect to everyone. Respect is something that is to be earned and there are certain amounts of respect that go along with certain positions in society. I will, without hesitation or guilt, respect a doctor more than a manual labourer because the acts that he has done in his life to reach his life are worthy of respect. My sister's argument was that different people live by different values and all people have different original positions. I agreed with these statements by made it clear that society has a prevailing set of values and rules and I will respect those who can succeed within that framework. Ignoring the framework or wishing it did not exist is not a real option, despite the number of people who follow this idea. To the second point I said that since everyone starts from different positions, that I must take full advantage of every opportunity I have. I should do this out of respect for people in a worse position than myself. There are people thoughout the world who would give anything for the advantages of a middle class North American upbringing. For their sake and my own, I do not want to waste these advantages.

That leaves me with the same question. What should I do next?

China is calling...

It has been a week since my last post, but I will just focus on the intersting parts.

On Friday, I went to Arts Country Fair. As usual, it was big and noisey. I ran into many people, but missed many more. I think the problem with something that big is that it is easy to tell people "see you at arts country" but hard to actually see them there.

I ran into Naomi on my way in through the gate and hung out with her for the first few hours. We found ourselves a nice perch on the grass hill and watched as the field filled up with people. It was quite fun talking to her about the ending of school and various other things.

As more people arrived, I felt the need to go mingle and find other friends. Overall, I was quite dissapointed that I would spend long periods between finding just casual aquaintances. It really put into perspective how many people I actually know at UBC. Even though a large portion of the attendees are not UBC students, I felt that I knew even a small proportion of those that were.

I left arts county a little bit drunk and looking for something a little bit more intimate. To this end, I called Chris to enquire about his after-party. In the event, it turned out that since the actual host had gotten too drunk, the party would not happen. After this, I called Rae and ended up going over to her place.

I spent a lovely evening with Rae looking over her paper and preparing my speech for the Chinese speech contest on sunday. The next morning, was slightly less productive with both of us reluctant for mean to leave as it would mean getting back to our work.

At 3pm I finally left and went home to work on my thesis. Several hours later I had finally finished a very rough draft of my thesis on the subject of the integration of immigrants and their children into the Canadian labour market. I will spare my readers the details right here, but it is comforting to see that there is no systematic racial discrimination against immigrant minority groups. Although much heterogeneity does exist in wages, this is almost entirely explained by different levels of schooling.

The next morning I went off to compete in the "Chinese Bridge Speech Contest" ("汉语桥演讲比赛" ). On my way there I ran into Carolynn. She helped me practice my speech a few more times on the bus on my way to the contest which was very helpful. After my speech, we spent most of the day talking about China issues, how to get ahead in life, and about the importance of getting ahead in life. Conversations with her are always empowering and inspiring to me.

Carolynn is one of those people who has profoundly changed the way I look at the world. Firstly, she is the one who introduced me to an accessable China and showed me that Chinese was a language that white people, given a bit of effort, could speak fluently. Also, as a viement capitalist, she has showed me that life is competitive in a positive way. It is not about rivalry, it is about moving to the top. Even if many people choose not see it, there is a social order and we are, to a large extent, able to control our position within it. As such, we should use every advantage combined with properly timed hard work to get ahead in life.

The speech contest its self went quite well. I used my debate background to "squirl" an otherwise uninteresting topic about the beautiful mountains and rivers of china (山川秀丽的中国) into a more engaging speech about impressive Chinese cities (中国的城市，中国的山). My favorite lines would probably be when I said that seeing the big business skyscrapers in Hong Kong, I knew that China's economy was rising like the sun (一看中国国际商业大厦,我就知道中国的经济贸易正在蒸蒸日上) and my final line about loving China's mountains and cities. The judges, who were all from mainland China, loved it and gave me first place in the non-heritage beginner category.

The prize for first place was a six month scholarship from the government of China to study Chinese in China. For me, this is both a great opportunity and a great honour, something I have been looking for since my limited success with graduate school applications. After discussing the issue with my parents, I have decided to take the scholarship and delay my econ grad school by at least one semester. I am extremely excited about this opportunity, especially because I will have my girlfriend as well as Gabe and Noah in China with me. This was without a doubt the best thing to happen to me in recent times.

Hope the mood keeps up,

Marc

Friday night was very busy. After my math class I ran into Milan in Buchanin. I went with him to the international relations journal launch. I felt somewhat out of place at this journal launch, especially because I was helping myself to the impressive assortment of food they had provided without having any connection to either the faculty or the journal. No one seemed to notice or mind but I left anyway after eating my fill.

At the launch, I saw my friend Zach who I have not seen in some time. He is planning on going back to Israel this summer to work. This is something I find very admirable about him and the whole Hillel crowd in general, however it is something that sets me apart from them. While I am very happy that there is a state of Israel and I do support its continued existence, I am more interested in and drawn to the Orient.

From the journal launch, I went to a party for the exec of the Economics Students Association. I am not a member of the exec, but I was on a storm the wall team with the president and three other members so I was invited and felt somewhat obligated to come. There, I quickly got drunk and had the pleasure of spending an evening talking with new people who I am unlikely to see again. At around 9 the party packed up to go to the Blarney Stone. As I do not like this bar at all, I went to the Poli Sci beer garden to meet up with Milan, Tristain and Ashley. When I arrived at the PSSA beer garden, Ashley and some debaters were on their way out, but I decided to stay. I spent most of my time talking with Chris Yung, a person I wish I had gotten to know more back when he was also in debate. It found out that he is also going to China this summer so I invited him to stay with us when he is in Beijing. I hope he takes me up on that offer because it is always nice to have friends visit when living in foreign lands.

After leaving the PSSA garden, I went to Koerners to find Ashley and Milan. Milan had already left so I just found Ashley who was haning out with Tim and Spencer. I followed them to the entrance of the pit where I realized that I do not like the pit. At this point I left to go home. On my way home Gabe called me and came by to pick me up in a taxi. We ended up having some scotch at the Jupiter lounge downtown and then going to Gabe's friends house to hang out until the early hours.

I started my term paper yesterday. Writing econ papers is not very hard. As far as I can tell so far there are two parts which require a lot of effort. The first is the empirical or theoretical work. This involves learning how to use STATA or another statistical program, finding a good data set, loading the data, defining the variables, and finally figuring out which regressions to do. The other difficult part is the literature review. I imagine this part is very similar in any dicipline so I will not describe it. For the rest of the paper, all that needs to be done is reporting your empirical results in relation to the existing body of literature. That said, I still have much work to do on my paper.

Daylight saving time started today. I wish I had remembered that when I woke up because my Chinese class had an informal lunch at 12:30 to which I arrived an hour late. Thankfully I was not the only one who forgot and there was still plenty of food left for me. The lunch was quite good, we ate Beijing Duck and a few other standard Chinese food dishes. While I was eating I realised that while I did not really know anyone in that class, everyone else seemed to know eachother much more than I thought. It turned out that most of them were in the Chinese Varsity Club and were quite friendly to eachother. Towards the end of the lunch, the topic turned to China. Someone asked me about my experiences teaching English there and after giving my standard spiel, I could tell that many people in the class were very interested in doing the same thing.

I bought my ticket to China today. I will be there from the 28th of May to the 20th of August. Rae will be on the same flights as me, which should make them much easier to handle. I have decided to do the responsible thing and only go for the summer, rather than to stay there indefinately to live the life of the low class expat. Even if it would be more fun, I know I should come back and do a masters degree while this econ stuff is still relatively fresh in my head.

I saw my thesis advisor today. He told me what I had been fearing most, that I have to stop running regressions and start writing. It has been so long since I have written anything, I fear that I am out of practice. I also feel that the data should speak for its self, I don't knwo what I could write about it that isn't blatently obvious, but then, maybe that is what I am supposed to be writing in the first place. Either way he has given me one week to write it, and I have already wasted the first night.

My thesis topic is immigration and the children of immigrants. This is a topic that interests me greatly. In high school I wrote my IB extended essay on the effects of immigration on the housing prices in Vancouver. It was badly done and I did not even know the proper methodology to use, but the interest was certainly there. I suppose part of it is being in Vancouver and seeing so many immigrants it is only natural to have a curiosity. This curiosity has been further intensified by having an immigrant girlfriend.

It grows late, I should sleep

Marc