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
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
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