All Posts Tagged With: "Vancouver Olympics 2010"
Now that the Olympics are over…
Out of work? It’s never too late to go back to school.
What to do when the Games prorogue your semester
In search of educational opportunities in Vancouver.
The Winter Olympics have begun in Vancouver and Maclean’s OnCampus has, at great expense and undergoing no small amount of bureaucratic hassle, parachuted your favourite advice columnists (us) to the west coast and installed us at a luxuriously appointed Olympic headquarters in beautiful East Vancouver.
But why would they send education advice columnists to the Olympics?
Good question. For days now, we’ve been wondering why we’re here — not in the existential sense, (we’re much too shallow for that) but in the very real, practical, work-related sense.
Upon visiting all of our favourite Vancouver haunts, like the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, The Cambie Pub and even Capilano College University (we were getting desperate), we discovered that all of Vancouver’s post-secondary institutions have closed their doors for the duration of the Games. Under the flimsy pretext of not wanting to add to the Games’ traffic problems, (we suspect it’s actually because they wanted time off to go to beer gardens) university administrators have shut tens of thousands of students out of their laboratories and lecture theaters, leaving them with nothing to learn for two whole weeks!
Clearly, we’ve been sent on a mission of mercy, to find educational opportunities for these poor students. For four days now, we have visited every bar, beer garden and free concert we had the patience to get through the lineup of, in search of learning experiences we could pass on to you, our readers. We came away with little more than a headache and a nagging suspicion that we had been robbed. For what it’s worth, here’s what we discovered:
Downtown (Sociology, Anthropology)
You don’t have to go to any organized events to learn something about human behaviour here in Vancouver. The streets downtown are packed with visitors and there are endless opportunities for making ethno-anthropological observations. People from all over the world can be observed in their native dress, enacting their cultures’ own peculiar rituals.
For example, we learned that Norwegians traditionally paint Norwegian flags on their faces and sing to each other from across the street. Dutch people wear orange hats shaped like chicken carcasses and they don’t dismount their bicycles when riding through places crowded with pedestrians. Americans paint the letters “S”, “A” and “U” on their naked chests in white, blue or red paint, and then sometimes stand in the wrong order.
Getting downtown might be a daunting prospect with all of the road closures and the pressures placed on parking by all of the beer gardens foreigners have built in parking lots, but we’ll let you in on a secret: take your bike. If you don’t have a bike, buy one; if you can’t afford a bike, steal one. (Editor’s note: Maclean’s OnCampus does not endorse bicycle theft.)
Cycling is the fastest and most convenient way to get around downtown. Cars are no longer permitted on half of the roads, but to our amazement, we found that bicycles are allowed everywhere. While crowds of pedestrians are shuffling down the sidewalk to get a glimpse of the Olympic flame, you can ride your bike down the closed and totally empty street and take a good long look, until a very nice security person comes to tell you you’re not allowed to stop on the street.
Deutsches Haus (Foreign Relations, German)
That Deutsches Haus means “German House” in German is just one of the lessons you’ll learn in this parking lot that the Germans have turned into an oasis of beer and sausage. The lineup may look forbiddingly long, but it moves relatively quickly. This is largely because they charge $8.25 for a beer and $7.00 for a sausage, so most people can’t afford to stay very long.
Inside, you’ll find a very large TV and long tables lined with people drinking beer and watching the Olympics. If you look carefully, you may even find a German in the crowd who you can practice your pluperfect indicative conjugation on (ich hatte ein bier getrunken; du hattest ein bier getrunken).
In our experience, Deutsche Haus is an excellent place to watch Alexandre Bilodeau win Canada’s first gold medal last Sunday. If you can make it there in time, we highly recommend it.
Holland House (Political Science)
The first lesson at Holland House in Richmond is that there are two separate entrances, one for Dutch citizens and one for everyone else. The second lesson is that the Dutch people who go to the Dutch entrance can walk right into Holland House, and that the lineup for everyone else takes about two and a half hours to get through.
The third thing we learned was how to get back to Vancouver, because we weren’t willing to wait that long for overpriced Heineken.
Updated: Join a frat, live on the street
Olympics visitors cause eviction of 200 UBC frat members
This strikes me as rediculous:
More than 200 students at the University of British Columbia are being forced out of their rooms by their own fraternities — which have decided to cash in by renting out to 2010 Games visitors.
In particular, the admission that frat members had no choice:
At Psi Upsilon, 30 fraternity members who pay $730 for monthly room and board have been ordered to leave their rooms. All possessions must be removed before the rooms are rented out.
Psi Upsilon house manager Aaron Thomson refused to say how much the group is making from its rentals.
He told The Vancouver Province the money would go toward a scholarship fund, to pay for repairs and maintenance work, and to top up the fraternity’s contingency fund.“We have this great opportunity where we can fix the house and get all this money,” Mr. Thomson said on Wednesday. “It is, of course, difficult for most people to have to leave for a month.”
Thomson said frat members didn’t have a choice in the matter and no vote was held, but he said the majority favoured the plan.
If, indeed, the money will be used to improve frat houses, and directed towards scholarships, wouldn’t it be appropriate to put the case directly to members? Rather than evicting them without cause, why not try and convince them that it is in the best interest of the fraternity for tenants to leave for a month? According to Psi Upsilon’s website, house vacancies occur in September, and that if you want to live there, you have to wait for someone else to leave. Is there a rider in the lease that the agreement becomes during the Olympic? So much for Greek “brotherhood.”
Maybe someone a little closer to the action can tell us whether this is as outrageous as it seems.
UPDATE: As Justin Mcelroy has pointed out, not all fraternities have acted as outrageously as this Can West story has suggested. In fact, many frats consulted directly with members and ensured they were sufficiently aware of plans to rent out frat houses during the Olympics.
That still leaves the question as to whether Psi Upsilon, the frat featured in the Can West story consulted with their members or not. The Psi Upsilon house manager does say that no vote was held and that members did not have a choice.
UBC cracking down on free speech, says liberties group
University says rule is intended to prevent “predatory commercial marketing practices”
The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association says free speech is being threatened at the University of British Columbia, where the group says students have been forbidden from posting signs and posters on dorm buildings or in dorm windows “visible from the Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre.”
According to a press release issued by the group, the school has asked students who live on campus to sign a tenancy agreement that obliges them not to post “signage or displays that create a false or unauthorized commercial association with the Olympics.” In response, the BCCLA says it will be working with students in September to “overturn this prohibition on speech,” similar to agitation that took place during 1997′s APEC protests at the school.
“Canada, B.C. and Vancouver said in our bid documents that we would honour our constitutional commitment to free speech, but they forgot to mention this right was reserved for Olympic sponsors alone,” said Robert Holmes, BCCLA president in the release. “It’s time for a sober second look at these anti-free speech activities.”
UBC spokesperson Stephen Owen told the CBC that the university is not trying to suppress anyone’s right to political protest.
He says the clause in question is intended to protect the commercial interests of games organizers.
“There’s absolutely no impact on free expression of personal or political views. It’s very strictly limited to predatory commercial marketing practices,” says Owen.
