Exam results

My exam results are out! For the very first time, “efficiency” is the word in UBC

Since this blog is about exams, I’ll talk about the unregulated exam systems they had back in UBC.

1) It was free seating! That means, students were scattered all around and the invigilators had to give out and collect the exam scripts inefficiently.
2) Checking of student identification was conduct without a standard procedure. Some of the invigilators did not check, while for some other exams they checked the ID with a name list, while others merely looked at the UBC card and my face??!!!
3) You can leave your bags at the side of your chairs during an exam.
4) You can visit the washroom as and when you like and you don’t have to sign out when you do so.
5) The lecturer had the power to extend the duration of the exams based on the following reasons: A) The sunrays were shining too brightly and students were unable to concentrate, therefore 15 minutes extension were given. B) Students voted for 15 minutes extension.

It’s totally different back in NUS. Sigh.

UBC Botanical Garden

UBC Botanical Garden totally satisfied my hunger for flowers! Did I tell you how much I love flowers?! And goodness, they have the biggest tulips in the world!!! The petal is almost ¾ the size of my palm!! HUGE!

At the garden, we saw pretty looking flowers with weird names! Ok, the weirdest that we came across was “ Silene Vulgaris Robin Whitebreast”. Goodness! It’s a lovely plant but they made it sound so bad! Silent vulgarities together with Mr Robin Whitebreast?

After walking for so long, we laid our mat and had our picnic again! Ate donuts and prawn crackers, read Cosmopolitan and simply lazed around!

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The End is the Beginning

Yahooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve finished my EXAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOHOOO!!!!! WOOO WOOO WOOO WOOO!!!!

This is the only time I can shout after my exams because of the quiet /silent time system they had in our hostel!

For those who do not know, this system was introduced in the beginning of the exam week and really is just about keeping quiet or absolute silence 24/7.

Went to botanical gardens today! Uploading the photos soon!

dilemma …

BEP End-of-the-Year SOCIAL EVENT

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A farewell dinner Sauder Business School had for us. Free burgers and beers! The wonder of free stuffs!

Even though most of my Tabeem friends feel kind of sad that our exchange program is coming to an end, I am actually looking forward to it! After the exams, I’ll meet my mum and my boyfriend! And I’ll be starting on my grand tour and splurging my money on shopping instead of the current frugal life I’m living. Here I come Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Boston, New York, Montréal, Toronto and some other small little towns! YEAH!! Even though it means that there wouldn’t be any intern positions left for me, I believe I’m making the right choice.

Cherry Blossoms!

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It has been sunny for the 4th day and I can’t help snapping pictures of the cherry blossoms like a tourist!

Storm the Wall

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Took these photos 2 days ago during the Stomp the Wall event which lasted for 3 days? I’m not too sure. But it’s definitely the best event to check out cute and fit guys! Haha, they have to swim, run, cycle and finally stomp the wall!

Nitobe Memorial Garden + Wreck Beach Trail 3 [March 25]

Dawn and I decided to go for a walk around the campus today instead of staying in our room! For the very first time, I don’t have to wear my ugly black jacket! It’s so bright and sunny today! Here in Vancouver, you’ve got to suffer for 4 – 7 days of rainy days to enjoy 1-2 days of sunshine. So we’ve got to enjoy the sun while it last!

First stop, the Nitobe Memorial Garden. Walk around the small garden and sunbath on the grass patches.

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Next stop, Wreck Beach again! Head down the beach via Trail 4 [The pebble beach trail] and walk along it to explore the other parts of the beach. We walk towards the metal containers and discovered a second metal container! This time round, there is a British Flag painted on it. [Can anyone tell me the history of the war? How is it possible that the Japanese and British metal container be at the same coastal lines at such close proximity? Were they alliances? Hmm.] A family was building some sand castles of the Egyptian theme along the beach! How nice! After walking for about 30 minutes we found Trail 3! A new discovery!

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More pictures of flowers! Sorry for my obsession for flowers!

UBC Go Global Photo Contest

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UBC Go Global is having a photo contest for student on exchange at UBC or return student who went on exchange. Sharing some photos which I thought were really nice.

If you guys are interested to look at the other entries, visit http://www.students.ubc.ca/global/outgoing/events.cfm?page=contest&view=vote

Précis [Summary] of my Midterm examination results

Unimaginable, unbelievable, indescribable, incredible, beyond belief…

Intermediate Financial Accounting – I
Mid term: 58/60 [Top the class!]

E-Marketing
Mid term: 25.6/30
[Top results not released, but rumored to be approximately 85%]

Business Finance
Mid term: 99/100 [Class Average 80/100]

Consumer Behaviour
Quiz 1: 41.5/45 [Top the class!]
Quiz 2: 33.5/45
[Attempted to study briefly and yes I did much worse compared to the first paper. But guess what! Top the class again!]

This is getting a little creepy. I did try to slack and study extremely inefficiently after topping the first few papers. I don’t know how I did that. People are asking me “How do you study?” But I really don’t have the answer. “Er… study loh…” People who are getting good grades in the U.S (Val, Colin etc etc) How did you all do that despite traveling and playing so much? I have no idea.

On the side note, I did manage to slack in my project work. I guess the “slacking power” of many is greater than one. Haha. I’ve got 2 C+ so far for 2 of my group projects without feeling guilty! Haha… my group mate for one of them [Strategic Management] was soo “sian” [Not feeling too happy about it]! For the next 2 day after we got back our assignment, he just said “C+. Huh.” when he walked past me. Haha.

equity ambassadors program – Discrimination

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These postcards caught my attention when I was heading back to Vanier. It’s kind of interesting and intriguing that UBC chose to use such daring form of campaign to promote equity. It focuses on discriminatory and oppressive graffiti which many students drew to vent their anger or to even create an “aura of discrimination” among the student community.

Me [in the Generation Y cohort] who did not personally experience the war and who has limited knowledge about the true motives of Hitler [Except from the biased media, movies and the long forgotten history lessons in Secondary Education] thus had little to comment about the card on “Thanks Hitler”. The “middle finger” seems like a premature teenage venting his anger has little personal relevance to me too. [Sorry for having gender bias.]

I guess the majority of us would have personally experience the language discrimination that “Speak English Moron” tries to convey. We are either the one being discriminated for our poor English [or otherwise known for our excellent and unique Singlish] or us trying hard not to despise others of their weak capability in English. I remembered that when I’m here in my first marketing lesson, I asked [in fluent English or as I thought so] the lecturer if it is essential to purchase the textbook. She immediately replied that it’s ok if I choose to purchase from my home country in the language I’m comfortable with. Language I’m comfortable with? Despite knowing that I’m from Singapore, her ignorance of not knowing that Singapore’s first language is English made me feel that I’m from Tonkika Mountain [I obviously made that up]. Haha.

Alright, I admit that my “Engrish” is not that “powderful” and thus can understand her position in making that comment. I guess in the current society, English continues to be viewed as the “upper class language” or the “language towards success”. Perhaps it’s true to a certain extent. But it’s also true that other languages are increasingly gaining popularity and importance in today’s society. We all knew the importance of Mandarin and perhaps Indian language with increasing power from China and India. [FYI: “It was announced yesterday that China is looking into building commercial aircrafts in the future, competing heads on with Airbus and Boeing.”] Even though it may seem impossible to have Mandarin [or any other languages] as the first language [or as the main business language] in the future, we can’t simply discount the importance of other languages spoken in today’s society.

To conclude: Any discrimination against races, languages or in any other forms should be avoided. By doing so, the overall “happitability” [profitability in terms of happiness] and harmony in our already damaged planet earth will therefore increase.

The beach

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Yesterday I went to the wreck beach in the late afternoon with Joel. The journey began after having decided to explore trail 7. After 20 minutes of walking, I ‘ve decided to stop the campus security patrolling (CSP) team to ask for directions.

Me: Hi. Is there a trail to the wreck beach ahead?

CSP: [They gave each other a funny look.] Yes. But you really don’t want to go there.

Me: [Okay…] Why?

CSP: It’s a gay beach. Especially during summer; you really don’t want to be there. [They gave each other a funny look again. Hmm, they must be homophobic. Haha]

Me: Hmm okay. [I gave Joel the “funny” look.]

CSP: Come on. Let us give you a ride to the main trail instead. [WoW! How friendly can Vancouverians be?!]

Of course we went with the ride and off to trail 4…

At the trail, we discovered something new, a weird looking “metal structure” [I don’t know what to call that.] with lots of graffiti on it. If you look carefully there is a Japanese flag on it. Joel then shouted “Get lost you Japanese!” [Or something similar] Er…ok, Joel relax. Relax and breathe. Haha.

God’s Creation

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Remember the fruits in the previous post? It grew little pink flowers! And there’s actually a rose tree in Vanier!! I can’t wait to go to the botanical garden and also walk around UBC in spring. It’s the real garden city, unlike Singapore’s neat green trees. Haha… I love flowers!

Wreck Beach Trail 4

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Went to the wreck beach this morning, and it was drizzling. We took a different trail this time round. Instead of seeing many logs at the beach, we saw lots of pebbles! Sharon commented that they should call it a pebble beach instead. Now, this route seems safer with proper railings for us to hold on to, but then again, it’s 390 steps to the beach!

“Semi-winter-cum-spring”

Everyone is asking is it still winter? Or is spring here? I would vote for the later! Spring is definitely here! Look at the trees with small little flowers, or “flowers” within the fruits that can’t wait to “spring” out during spring! Ok, perhaps we are in the “semi-winter-cum-spring” kind of season, but I am glad we are here to witness the seasonal changes!

UBC Museum of Anthropology

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Yesterday, as I was studying halfway, Joel came knocking on my door at 4.05pm if I want to take a break. Then I’m like ok sure, where to? He wants to go to the Museum of Anthropology which is about 10 minutes walk from our hostel. So I’m like sure, why not. Then he said, but it closes at 5pm. Then I’m like Oh my, let’s go! Hahah, quickly put on my shoes and walk pretty fast… haha… ok, reach in about 7 minutes, managed to look through most of the stuffs quickly, but did not get to read the signs and boards carefully…haha, nice place…lots of totem poles, which all bears some story behind which is left untold… by the First nations people, the aboriginal people of coastal British Columbia… some of the tribes are still around, greatly hit by AIDS… and still unsaved by Christ. Kind of sad to know that… Oh, and we found trail 4 to Wreck beach, that trail is suppose to lead us to the nicer part of Wreck beach, and not the loggy ones near Vanier.. hmm, got to go there some other day… it was around 530 pm then, the sun was setting and it’s kind of dangerous to walk down the steps in the dark… Imagine that…

The day at the Wreck Beach

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Ok I went wreck beach alone on Friday before I went shopping… thinking that it would be a nice sunny day to visit a beach. Before I go, looking at the map, my impression would be….hmm, it looks near my hostel….probably the distance would be like pasir ris chalet to the the beach…but HA….it is 300 steps down…..YES…STEPS….. ok, jason will know that actually I have a mild phobia of walking down stairs or steps, and so I took bout 20 minutes to walk down that 300 steps…yeap i counted…that’s approximately 300 steps…and when I was making my way down the steps…. there is a middle age runner jogging me pass…..once…twice…thrice!!!!! up and down…..yes…three times…. i wish there was a hole for me to hide my head…hahah… ok….so I made my way down..Yap wreck beach is supposed to be a nude beach…. or a druggie hangout place, but at 11 am in winter… there are only people from UBC or some unknown visitors walking around, and sitting on the logs…. wreck breach…just like the name sounded….it seems like an isolated area…abandoned…hmm, i guess it’s because it’s winter… haha… ok the worst has yet to come…remember the 300 steps I told you……. yap…then I had to make my way up…that horrible steps…. I nearly fainted…..

Erotic bingo pics

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Erotic bingo, Potluck….

Hello! Hmm, on thurs we went for a super interesting event…. EROTIC BINGO! Hahhaha, ok…it is held in Pit Pub, one of the pubs in our school, so how the game is played is that…when you’ve got a line across or horizontally or vertically then what you do is instead of shouting BINGO, you should VAGINA!!…. haha…a bit crude right, then they have skits and talk shows all talking about sex and vagina! And they have games and chocolates shaped like ..AHEM…VA…….

 I bought a souvenir for my sister …..but hey, before you even think about what this stupid event is…hold your thoughts! It’s for a good cause! It’s an event to stop violence against woman! How cool….

The pictures of our pubbing event is with my friend Joel, hahaha…

Yesterday we had potluck too!! OMG the food is dammmm good!!!!!!!!! Ranging from appetizers like salads, tuna on crackers to xiang gu (mushroom) with gou qi zhi, vegetables with oysters, grilled salmon and chicken drumsticks, vinegar sauce with some other sauce of pork and chicken, chicken stew, mee suan with Japanese curry, Indian redeng curry, Ba ku tea, did I miss out on any other dishes, oh nice mix nuts fried rice, mini hashbrowns  and desserts we had jello and lime foam pie (ok I forgot what is it call)…… wooooowww….. hmm, again pictures are with my friend….

Ok, we are going ice-skating later!!!! And shopping!!

Snow capped mountains

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Nice views and all right! We were walking around after the church services and saw the clear blue sky with snow capped mountains, so we walked towards it to get a better view!