Portal 2011 Announcements

This semester I'm enrolled in the publishing class that puts together VIU's literary magazine, Portal. Portal's aim is to give VIU students the opportunity to see their prose, poetry, art, photography, or script in publication. Portal provides the first publication credit for many student writers and looks great in a portfolio!

We're currently seeking submissions, and here is the info for our postcard prose contest and the early bird draw! Deadline for both is November 25. The final deadline for submissions is January 7, 2011.


I encourage student writers to submit their work to Portal—whether you're in the creative writing program or not. It's a daunting experience to put a piece of writing out there, and in my first year I didn't submit anything at all. I thought I couldn't possibly write anything good enough or that anyone would want to pay to read my work. Perhaps I was right at the time, but that shouldn't have stopped me submitting. In my second year I submitted two stories and one of them was published in Portal. I initially wasn't going to submit the piece that made it in to the magazine—once again I thought it wasn't good enough, but a (literal) last second change of heart made all the difference!

So don't hesitate to send us your work, we want to read it, and perhaps you'll make it into Portal too! Any questions? Email portalmagazine@viu.ca, or leave a comment below.

Kaitlyn

Alive and Kicking

Hello faithful readers!

It’s been awhile, how are you?

It’s safe to say that my semester has been intense. Starting upper courses level feels like learning to walk again with assignments due every week, and everything counting a whole lot more. If the first two years was the practice round, upper level is the big show. But I find the stress rather fun, if anything, it’s only hard because I care.

That being said, I have had time to attend a couple of excellent events which I thought I’d re-cap over the next few days.

On the last Sunday of September Word on the Street is held in five major cities across Canada, including Vancouver. The last two years I have attended the event with a contingent of students from VIU’s creative writing department. Word on the Street is an all-ages, all-day free event held in library square that celebrates the joy of reading. Authors read in tents and BC publishers and magazines have booths set up to visit. There is music and fun activities for everyone. One of my favourite parts of the event is Word Under the Street- in one of the large meeting rooms below the library, Vancouver comic book artists set up booths where there are lots of pins, comics, and the chance to meet the artists themselves. Back up on street level, VIU has its own booth to promote our literary journal, Portal.

Another of my favourite activities is the treasure hunt. For twenty dollars attendees can purchase one of 250 treasure bags and fill it with books, pens, and other goodies from participating booths. This is serious business, and being my second year undertaking this quest, I felt like something of an expert. The only daunting aspect of the thing was knowing how much pain my shoulders would be in by the end of the day. Participating in the Word on the Street treasure hunt is like volunteering to be a pack horse for a day. Here are a few photos from the day.

A portion of our group on the morning ferry.


Library square.

The Portal Booth.

Rearranging bags for maximum efficiency.

A Word on the Street veteran on the hunt for more treasure.

The Treasure.

Exhausted Adventurers head home.

Like what you saw? Word on the Street will happen again next year, on the last Sunday of September, and is an excellent cheap trip for anyone who loves reading!

Up next? The Gustaffson poetry event and a few announcements regarding Portal.

Your still-alive blogger,
Kaitlyn

A Piece of Wisdom

One of the most dreaded things that happens in the first or second class of semester is volunteering for class presentations. How it will often work is a sheet of paper goes around the room and everyone writes their name down for a week to talk on a given subject. Nobody wants to be The Last Person To Sign up. Said Last Person To Sign Up almost invariably has to go first (and if they’re really unlucky, they’ll only have one week to prepare).

Now what are commonly viewed as the prime choices tend to be in the mid to latter half of semester, but I’m here to argue in favour of that dreaded first spot.

The Student Who Goes First might risk misunderstanding instructions, or may miss out on a strong example of how to approach the material, but here’s the so-called “worst” possible reason for going first: the student has to get to work the first week of semester, while it still feels like summer. So why go first when you can give yourself, say, six weeks to prepare?

Well, lets be honest. How many of us will really use those six weeks to whip that presentation into 12-15 minutes of perfection? No, those weeks will be spent with other deadlines, late night tv, videogames, anything but working on the assignment. That is, until we get to week five and four days and realize, “Whoops.” There are only three days left to produce this thing.

So why not get it out of the way? If you’ve turned procrastination into an artform (like myself), there is value in being forced to get that assignment over and done with. You also won’t have to worry about it when the bigger projects are coming due.

But best of all? Once you’ve presented, it’s smooth sailing from there. As your classmates forget all about their assignment, or are juggling six things due in one of those sleepless end-of-semester weeks, you can sit back, and privately chuckle, smugly satisfied that you decided to go first.

Kaitlyn

Back to School

Hello students of VIU, professors, Grandma, and random readers. Welcome back!
Labour Day is nearly gone and tomorrow it’s back to school where I’ll be entering in to my third year at VIU. Each year I find that throughout the month of August I look forward to the first day of classes, that is, until Labour Day weekend when I realize that my freedom hangs by a thread. Tomorrow I shall be bound by deadlines and obligations (I must admit, I do love a solid deadline). For now there is a final evening to relax with a piece of cake, a light read, and Mythbusters on my tv. My school supplies and books are neatly stacked on my desk and my bus pass is nestled in my wallet, ready for tomorrow’s trip up to campus.
And yes, I am once again excited.

Coming soon on the blog:

A last minute course pack is added to this student’s book list: how will she survive the bookstore mayhem of the first week? Will her foot fall asleep while standing in line? Stay tuned!

Also, adjusting to night classes: two in one semester? How will this morning learner cope!?

Online classes: A New Adventure, in slippers!

Enjoy your first day everyone,
Kaitlyn Till

Grab Some Popcorn

Watching waitlists is like watching snails race.

It’s course selection time, and I delightfully ended up on nine waitlists. For me this is a new experience, exempting last semester when my late sign-up for a course resulted in anxious waitlist-watching over the Christmas holiday. (In November I started with little hope at spot 22 on the list and it ended with me snagging the last place in the class a week in to term- talk about cutting it close!) Needless to say, I have thought carefully about which courses I want to take in the coming year and signed up at the stroke of noon on my registration date.

This, of course, was not enough to keep the waitlist monster at bay. The good news is that I’m likely to get in to most, if not all of my classes as there will be a lot of waitlist movement over the coming months and reserved seats will open up. All of my reasoning tells me this, yet I still anxiously watch my student record. It’s quite a spectator sport! Yesterday morning I even moved from spot 13 to 12 on my most dire waitlist, the discovery of which resulted in an enthusiastic air punch.
Happy course selection everyone!

Kaitlyn

The Post-Exam World

Welcome to the post exam world! I've just about recovered, as I hope the rest of you have, so lets take a trip back in time and review the last month and conclusion of the semester.

The last week of school, the work was nearly done, school was almost out, let there be cake!

The Portal 2010 Launch cake. Delicious as it was beautiful.

Let us now skip the "studying" week, because that's just boring, and move on to post-exam excitement!

The post-exam view from the business building where one of my english exams took place. Perhaps not the most exciting, but just think about it! It's a whole outdoor world ready for the exploring now that we are no longer tied to our books for four months!

Exams must be followed by copious amounts of sugar in the form of ice cream at Tim Horton's. Note the wearied student in the center who has retreated into her shell...err...hoodie.

And here is the part where I get to experience nature, for the first time in many many months.

And learn how to use my camera.

I held a work-op shelving books in the campus library the past two semesters, and most days the fourth floor was busy from morning until evening. On the last Friday of exams, however, students made themselves scarce. Very, very scarce. I could have skipped laps around the fourth floor singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and no one would have known. But I showed restraint, and didn't.....or did I?

Silence in the library.

Now that school is out, I can put my expensive education to good use, such as for party games:

Unfortunately I didn't take the course in how to draw a horse on paper on top of my head after drinking, see Exhibit A:

Of course I maintain that my effort looked more like a horse than Desiree's, see Exhibit B:

You can judge the winner!

Summer holiday means time to participate in sports:

Trips to Pirate Chips:

Fun in the park:

And attempting to look cool in others sunglasses:

Hope you've all enjoyed your post-exam recovery!

Kait

The Joy of Exams

This image illustrates pretty much how I feel right now. A little comical, brushing with potential disaster, but mostly, “huh?” It’s exam-time delirium—and I only have two exams, neither of which I have taken yet, but I still feel like Henrik Sedin. Is it the fact that the information I study seems to go in my head and right back out again? Are my exams like the stick, crippling me by sending me to the bench and out of the awesome game that is real life? Or perhaps I’m just reaching for an excuse to post an excellently comical photo!

If I’m feeling a little crazy, my sympathies are certainly with those brave souls who have five finals to contend with! I have observed the frayed nerves of some students, and the relaxed approach of others. And an amusing hurl of verbal abuse regarding vocal volume in the VIU library.

I tend to have some pretty terrible study habits, but astonishingly I have been diligently plowing through the books that are covered on my two English exams, and I’ve been able to track down most of my notes (unfortunately still searching for an illusive page). Like most students, I’m just counting down the hours until I am done and can:
a) watch the playoffs guilt-free
b) read any book I want
c) get back to writing stories rather than research papers
d) stop waking up at 4am in a panic wondering if I’ve forgotten to do anything
e) have some general fun times
f) continue to job hunt (okay, I don’t actually want to do this one, but it is a necessity of life and continuing my education)

I will, on the other hand, be thrilled to continue to update this blog throughout the summer on a monthly basis (or more often if I feel so inclined). Good luck on finals everyone!

Kaitlyn

The Word Count Challenge

Paper writing time also means that the glorious word count competitions between classmates are back. I’ve always been a little slow to pick up on the social networking platforms: facebook, msn, etc. But I have come to learn that they can be put to excellent use. I’ve even come around to using Twitter, despite the fact that I initially found the name irritating and impossible to take seriously (six months ago I would have run from the room, fingers plugged in my ears, humming as loudly as I could if someone said “tweet,” couldn’t stand the term—unless in reference to the sound that birds make, in which case it’s awesome).

Here is one fabulous reason why these platforms are kinda cool: essay word count competitions. Sure they’re petty, the mark of procrastinators, and the time spent changing the status should be spent on the paper, right? All of the above is certainly correct, but these little competitions can also provide much needed motivation to crank out that word count.* If my classmates are hovering around the 950/1500 mark, and I’m at 250 words, then I know that I should probably put down that extra-curricular novel and get cracking. Especially if it’s the night before the due date.

Not that I’m saying that it always is that last minute, but certainly sometimes.

Another wonderful reason for these competitions is that those who witness the competition, but don’t have the assignment, can sit back with their popcorn and savour the feeling of laziness while friends are torturing themselves hunting down online sources or trying to make sense of the baffling thing that is citation formatting. Very satisfying indeed.

Lastly, the winner gets the satisfaction of gloating until everyone else is done as well as the benefits of a proper night’s sleep. Not that I know what that feels like; I’m still waiting to win the bragging rights.

Have fun with those papers,

Kaitlyn Till

*Disclaimer: this does not mean that the papers produced will be of quality. In fact, they may down right suck. On the other hand, they could be awesome. What do I know?

VIU: Zombie Invasion Part IV The Conclusion

Nabil writes Part III

And here is the conclusion!

“Coffee! We need coffee!” I cried. Sustenance would be required if we were to hold off the zombies. That and I was beginning to feel the effects of three late night essay-writing sessions. “Curse those essays for limiting our zombie-fighting powers!”

Becka and Jacqui each grabbed a coffee carafe from the Jumpin’ Java, and we headed into the main library.

“Cups! Paper cups!” Nabil ran back into the coffee shop and grabbed the cups. “Okay, we’re good.”

“Lets move people!” I scouted out the library, my familiar stomping ground. Those without weapons headed to the reference section, to collect some ammunition. We wheeled several carts from behind the desk and loaded them up with the most back-breaking of tomes and took them up the elevator to the forth floor.

The zombies pushing at the glass of the front doors. As we were headed up the elevator with a second trip of carts, Gareth ran up to us. “Well, they’re coming through.” He looked at the carts. “You’re going to chuck books at them?”

“Yup.”

“Okay.” Gareth reached into his knapsack and pulled out his copy of Spirits in the Wires, he slapped it onto one of the carts. “Lets go.”

On the forth floor we lined up the shelving carts at the top of the stairs. At the top of the fifth floor stairs, Jacqui and Becka set up the coffee station.

Everyone gathered at the base of the forth floor stairs for an informal speech-gathering scene. The kind that’s all moving and rallies the troops to great enthusiasm even though they’re headed to their death. Nabil held up The Rhetorical Tradition. “This book and I have been through a lot together,” he sighed. “I say it needs to take out a few more zombies.”

“Yes!” We all cried, shaking our respective weapons in the air.

“Just remember,” I said, tapping the closest book trolley poised at the top of the stairs. “Books do save lives. And this is the best use some of these are going to see!” The crowd chuckled. “Also, if we survive, you’re all helping me put these back on the shelves.” The chuckles stopped mid-chuckle.

“Wait’a be a mood killer,” said Nabil.

I shrugged. Glass shattered downstairs. “Lets kill some zombies!”

“Huzzah!” the troops cried, and we positioned ourselves behind the carts, waiting for the zombies to find us.

It didn’t take long and as they staggered up the stairs we responded, sending carts over the edge; they piled up on the landing, creating a barrier. It seemed all too soon that we ran out of carts. “To the forth floor,” yelled Jacqui over the clatter of the last cart. The zombies were beginning to climb over the books, leaving bloody trails on the pages from their earlier snacks.

“Hey!” I yelled at one particularly blood-fouled zombie. “That’s really crossing a line. You can’t treat books like that! You’re leaving a bloody footprint!” Becka and Riley dragged me away and up the stairs to the forth floor. “Sorry,” I apologized when I came to my senses, “but there are some things you just can’t do to library books.” Everyone nodded sympathetically.

We had a minute, maybe two, before the zombies made it over the book barrier. I grabbed a coffee. Strong stuff. Perfect.

The zombies began to climb the stairs toward us, moaning, staring through us with their dead eyes. Desiree looked at the cup of coffee in her hand. “I guess this is the end,” she said, and chucked the remains of her coffee into the face of the lead zombie.

The zombie recoiled. It’s skin began to bubble and burst and flow with bloody puss.

“The coffee! Throw more coffee on them!” Jacqui and Brianna grabbed one of the carafes and moved toward the stair edge. Becka pulled off the top. And together they flung a third of the contents on the pack of zombies. We wasted no time and set upon them with our weapons. We continued, down to the third floor, fighting our way toward the elevator, invigorated by the power of coffee. Down the elevator we went. There were zombies everywhere but it didn’t matter, even after the carafes were empty. We were stronger, invincible. No plan needed to be made, the goal was clear. We just had to get to the coffee shop and hold up there.

I thought back to my research paper. Coffee would save the day, again.

***

And that it did. We held off the zombies, and soon the onslaught abated.

Once the students returned to school the Jumpin’ Java saw a massive surge in popularity when they began printing their cups with the slogan “It Kills Zombies.” They did not recruit one of the heroic creative writing students to come up with the slogan.

As for us, life went back to normal. We did what we always did before the zombie invasion: we sat around on our crappy lounge furniture and came up with scenarios for what we would do if the zombie invasion came, and we drank a lot of coffee.

And yes, I did make them help me re-shelve the surviving books. To this day, I have not been forgiven.

The End

Happy Zombie Hunting
Kaitlyn Till

VIU: Zombie Invasion Part I

11:29am

A group of us stand outside after class, loitering, discussing the readings, diligent students that we are. The smokers are smoking, and the non-smokers are not smoking. A bush rustles and out hops a bunny. “Awww,” we chorus. As many bunnies as there are on campus, each is individually adorable. This one, pure white, hops around chewing on dewy sprigs of grass. Its ears perk. “Awwwww.” It bounds to the side, and promptly becomes an explosion of fur and bloody effluvia.

“Zombie attack!” I cry. Burning cigarettes drop to ground as we all rush back into the building as a dozen zombies lumber out of the bushes. A lumber may not sound like much, but when the lumbering is done by a brain-hungry monster it’s suddenly a pretty threatening form of movement. Their blood-encrusted mouths gape, moaning, and their arms stretch, grasping at us. Toward our throats.

“To the lounge!” yells Riley. We have heard of these creatures, but infestation on campus is news to us. Zombies are something that we hear about on the news, but don’t actually show up in real life. And yet here they are. At the English building. Which has not been zombie-proofed. There is no point in barring the outer doors as zombies will beat their way through the glass. Instead, we head for the student lounge. No windows, one door. We can make our stand, bottleneck the living dead. Hold them off until—what? Rescue? No. That won’t be coming. We are on our own.

We push a tacky red couch into the doorway and stack a bookshelf on top creating a pathetic barrier. The doors open outwards and have no inner handles to bar (does no one keep zombies in mind when designing buildings?). Desiree and Gareth drag a box out from under a table, they shove a pile of Navigator back issues off of it and open the top to reveal our stockpile of weaponry. We are not completely unprepared. They pass around a couple of baseball bats, golf clubs, and tennis rackets. Blunt instruments appropriate for hit-and-run zombie bashing!

We hear scuffling and clamoring outside. Something’s coming. They’re coming. We grip our weapons tight, and wait.

***

Are you DYING to find out if we survive the VIU zombie invasion? Sate your thirst right now! Look for installment #2 from my fellow blogger, Nabil Boschman!

The Quest for Knowledge

I love science fiction. I love reading it, and I love writing it, but science fiction has a tendency to make me feel stupid. Perhaps stupid isn’t the right word. Under-educated? Ignorant? In any case, science fiction leaves me feeling that the world is a damn big place, and I don’t know much about it.

Like how am I supposed to sit here, at my desk, and invent a plausible explanation for artificial gravity? That’s asking a hell of a lot! I barely passed high school physics!

But this frustration with a lack of knowledge goes for most writing, even the more down-to-earth stuff (perhaps especially the down-to-earth stuff). How can I write a story with a character who is an investment banker if I don’t know anything about investment banking? How can I write a story about a corporation that takes over the world without knowing the first thing about how a corporation works? How can I write about an avid bird watcher without some credible knowledge of ornithology?

There are any number of ways to go about learning. Read a lot of books, peruse the internet, and ask lots of questions. Go places, see things, meet people. Every time I get around to course selection, I’m always drawn by the obscure electives—the really fascinating stuff that seems to have little practical application (for me anyway) except to further knowledge on a subject. I’m always interested in astronomy, anthropology, art, and linguistics, sciences too. I like the idea of sampling from all walks of life. Even if I don't usually get around to those particular course samplings.

As a child, knowledge was gathered piece-by-piece, by looking through a cheap plastic magnifying glass at a patch of dirt while getting my shoes muddy, or reading a stack of books, whether it be about how to be a detective, castles and knights, or Pluto (I was saddened to learn of Pluto’s demotion—like taking away a part of my childhood learning, not to mention rendering “The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space” out of date). There was never any goal to learning, it was all about satisfying curiosity. But along the way from there to here, learning became focused on letter grades, and credits, and began to cost a whole lot more than the price of a dollar store magnifying glass.

The shoes still occasionally see mud—such as the time my first year English class went on a nature hike. Mud was not in short supply.

I do love that evolution. We’re lucky to live in an age of internet and easy travel, where if we want to learn something, we can go and do it, on our own. Or we can learn in a classroom. Knowledge flows freer than ever before. Simply the fact that in our time, as a woman I can gain an education that not so long ago wouldn’t have been possible (or at least very difficult) is pretty darn cool.

So sometimes I feel frustrated about a subject. I don’t know enough, and don’t know where to start finding out, but I just remember, ignorance is the first stage of the journey. Without that initial ignorance, there wouldn't be anything to learn. It’s exciting, to think of all the things I don’t know—yet. There are all the things that I have the potential to learn, and the gravity of that isn’t so artificial.

Happy questing!
Kait

Reading Break

Reading break has a way of flying by, much like this semester has. A week ago there were feelings of freedom, excitement of a week to go in the Olympics, with the sense that Canada was just starting to get going. There was the anticipation of a week’s rest and fun. Now it’s the weekend, and there’s that bittersweet feeling that the games are coming to a close, as is reading break.

As the athletes make their final push for gold, the final push to the end of the school year is in the back of my mind. The assignments are coming fast, and the reading seems endless (my stack of remaining readings comes in at about 18cm high—probably on the low end in comparison to others) and the fatigue is setting in.

School is a lot like long track speed skating! Each assignment is a lap that gets harder, as each week there’s a little less sleep to be had, until those final days leading to exams where it’s all adrenaline just fighting to cross the finish line. Writing my name on the top of the exam, or handing in that final assignment—whatever the outcome of the grade—is an accomplishment. Finishing the work feels golden.

But isn’t that getting ahead of things? In a race it’s important to be in the moment. Don’t look too far ahead. The same could be said for school. There’s still a month and a half to go. That’s a lot of laps.

In the mean time, go Canada.

Kaitlyn

Sick Day

I didn’t realize how widely the current common cold at VIU had spread until sitting in my genre fiction writing class on Tuesday. There were seats to spare in the usually cramped classroom, and who would willingly forgo a three hour discussion on writing science fiction? (though I could be biased on that one) Germs must have been the culprit!

I tend to think that I’m going to be immune to these things. I get colds, but I never miss classes for such silly little things! I was definitely sick on Monday, but plowed through. I had a paper due and I had to go to work. It’s February, which is basically the poorest month of the year for many students, such as myself. (I’ve just handed over my bank account to pay tuition, so missing work is not an option!) I was also sick on Tuesday, but I was certainly better than on Monday, and there was absolutely no chance that I would miss the science fiction class. Restraints would have been required.

I woke up on Wednesday feeling pretty crap, the cold had inevitably caught up and overtaken me, so I had to call it a sick day from school. I don’t do sick days, the last time I missed a class was November 2008, though I’ve been lucky this year. This week has been the first real cold I’ve had since last summer- which I figure is a pretty awesome run!

We’re told to stay home and get healthy when we feel like crap, but easier said then done. At least for me. Taking a day off school seems criminal! I have this eternal fear that on the one day I’m sick, I’ll miss some piece of information instrumental for one of my final exams, causing me to eventually crash and burn on the page, my exam booklet exploding, a metaphorical fireball....

I also don’t like to miss out.

But it was nice, to get my rest and recover, lie back on the couch and watch fifteen hours of Olympics and Dexter (alright, possibly a bit excessive). Snack on oranges and raisin toast in between the coughs, sneezes, and sniffles, and eventually face an impending assignment. (admittedly, in front of a hockey game) The important thing is that I slowed down, and got my rest.

Perhaps taking a sick day isn’t such a crime after all, and hopefully my exams won’t explode.

Happy Reading Break
Kaitlyn

The Sound of Deadlines

I, Kaitlyn Till, am an amazingly talented individual. I swear it, cross my heart and all that. You see, I have a Very Special Talent. I have this amazing ability to procrastinate! I have been honing this remarkable talent from a very young age, and feel that it has reached its glorious peak.

However, I am worried. I have an english paper due on Monday, and I have already chosen a topic, and have a commitment to have the draft completed by Saturday. Granted, I haven’t finished the readings, but somehow my reading may end up focused on the chosen topic. Egads! What? This is a travesty! My thorough procrastination skill development may possibly have been wasted!

I have come up with many fabulous procrastination aids over the years. One time that I had a paper due, I craftily decided to add cover art to all 4500+ songs in my itunes! Brilliant, right? Inventive? Definitely! And it’s incredibly useful because now I can flip through my ipod touch and see all the albums whizz across the screen, instead of the anonymous music note placeholder image that makes cover flow unexciting. My ipod is damn pretty, and that’s all thanks to procrastination.

If it weren’t for procrastination, I’d never vacuum or do other chores that only procrastination can inspire me to take on! Procrastination gets my laundry done. That can only be a good thing. Last semester I catalogued my entire book collection.

I have spoken to several other master procrastinators, and they have provided a wonderful list of further procrastination activities that you may like to try: walking the dog, riding the bus, YouTube, soak in the hot tub, sleep, reading ahead for other classes, reading every story in the anthology but the required one, sorting Facebook friends, reading fan fiction, baking five hundred cookies, drinking, taking a bunch of pictures and photoshopping them, making plans with friends, trying on clothes, reading in the bath, renovations, hiking, watching entire seasons of tv shows on DVD, knitting, catching up on procrastinated readings for other classes, taking extra shifts at work, sorting through stuff, and hatching plots to gain assignment extensions.

The thing is, I have to face the fact that there are so many fabulous things that can be accomplished by not procrastinating. Like having a paper copyedited, or taking it to the writing center or my prof for further suggestions. Even just having time to read it over before printing off the final copy! So I understand that there are upsides to being disciplined and ahead of the game and such, but then where’s the drama of last minute paper-production? It’s a truly organic, creative experience, dashing off that paper the night before it’s due, powering on, fueled by caffeine and adrenaline past three, four am, however long it takes to get the job done.

But then, I’m not sure I want to end up like famous procrastinator Douglas Adams, who once had to be shut up in a hotel room under the watch of his editor in order to finish a book. I wonder how many more books Douglas Adams could have produced in his (albeit, sadly short) lifetime if he hadn’t procrastinated.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to further contemplate when to start my essay. I may possibly attempt an outline.

On a completely unrelated note, when ordering from subway—no matter your spicy food tolerance—make sure that the hot peppers don’t get stacked up at the end of the sub. The result is unpleasant.

Til after the paper is done,
Kaitlyn

Thirteen Hours of Excellence

At VIU there are certain courses that complete nerds like me go crazy for. This semester, it's Fantasy Literature. The main work that we study is The Lord of the Rings, but why just read the book when there are those awesome movies available? That's what our class did on Saturday. We marathoned the trilogy (the extended editions, of course). It was thirteen hours of excellence, and here is the picture story.

Three Rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Second breakfast (pre-Fellowship of the Ring munching, mainly on donuts) The lecture theater that we had for watching was fabulously beautiful (much newer than any classroom that English students normally see!). It would be pretty much perfect, for the purpose of classes—amazing chairs, perfect view of the front from every seat. But chairs that are amazing for a classroom setting do not translate well for thirteen hours of parked bums (are there any chairs that do?).


Luncheon, between Fellowship and Two Towers.

Bring on The Two Towers.

After The Two Towers ended, we had our dinner break. The call of cheesy-delicious pizza was so alluring, that the camera was promptly forgotten, and there is no pictorial evidence of the pizza carnage.

Return of the King intermission. Popcorn bowls require re-filling.

There comes a point in such a marathon where the fatigue starts to set in, but it’s not so much tiredness as restlessness. As someone who finds it near impossible to sit still for a single class, this was the ultimate challenge, especially given the chairs! The restlessness really dug in its claws about an hour into Return of the King. However, a fabulous solution was found: a written commentary. There are two kinds of movies that are worth making snarky comments on: the very awesome, and the very awful. I don't think I need to state which category LOTR falls under. So began the passing around of a battered notebook. Here's a small sample:

K: The Orcs could do the triathlon. Run. Boat. Ride those monstery things from the last movie.
G: Gimli can do long jump!
K: Legolas can do high jump. Merry and Pippin can do shot-put (Pippin can also light the torch at opening ceremonies)
G: Sauron can watch and be the judge. Tom Bombadil can too, but he won’t care enough to give scores.
K: That’s okay- wouldn’t want Merry and Pippin to be disqualified for drug use!
B: Pretty sure everyone is on drugs. Gandalf smokes a lot.


Post-movie clean up! Once the movies are over, the tiredness just fades away, segueing into post-marathon hyperactivity. It gets us through the food-tidying.


The nerds head for home...

...or not. Of course the day can't conclude without a little extra adventure, in this case, while carrying supplies out to the car, the building locked us out. We got our exercise running the perimeter trying all the doors. After twenty minutes and the prof calling security, we got back in the building. I retrieved such vital items as my wallet, and sweater (apparently it was more important to keep the camera with me than such essential things as ID, and money) and things ended Happily Ever After.

The moral of the story? Don't let the door shut behind you. Always prop it open.

Also, it's a good idea to question the origin of golden rings, should one come into your possession. Especially it it has magical disappearing properties.


Until next week,
Kaitlyn Till

First Impressions

When asked if I would like to write a student blog for Vancouver Island University, my first reaction was “Sweet! Yes! If I’m being asked to do this I must be doing something right.”

My second reaction, a few hours after the high of the initial response wore off: “Oh crap. If I do this, what do I write about? Why me!?” I was thrilled and daunted, but that’s the best thing about writing: the exhilaration and terror that come from a new project. When I started to seriously consider this blog, my thoughts went to my first impression of VIU. I’ve just begun my forth semester, but memories from my first time on campus as a student are fresh.

The bus breezed across the main road in front of me. It was August 2008, and of course I missed my bus to student orientation day, another twenty paces to the corner and I would have made it. There was a distinct defeated feeling that came when I called my mother for a ride on my first trip to university. This does not serve as an overarching metaphor for my VIU experience, rather it was an unfortunate, isolated incident.

Once on campus (having been delivered to the Woodgrove bus exchange by my wonderful mother - thanks for that!) the real terror of university set in. I had been a distance education student for high school, and was used to taking my courses while wearing fuzzy slippers and pajama pants, sitting in front of a computer, sipping tea from my favourite blue whale mug. This going to school thing was a bit of a leap.

“Damn, there are a lot of stairs!” is a truth universally acknowledged by new students, but that was my second impression. My first impression was “What am I doing here?” I didn’t know anyone, I had already missed a bus, and I certainly didn’t know what I wanted to study.* Starting post-secondary without sense of direction is certainly not uncommon, but the feelings seemed unique at the time. I thought that every other first year student had at least a clue of what they wanted to do, was more put together, and better prepared than I was. I learned that this was not the case, that many beginning students remain undecided of what they want to study, and those that do have goals still often change direction. Starting university is a time of life where it’s okay (possibly valuable) to be directionless- there’s even something a little exhilarating about it.

It bares further emphasis that there are stairs at VIU. We should not be known as the Mariners; we should be known as the Mountain Climbers.

No? Well, there are a lot of stairs, and a VIU orientation tour is spent touring as many of these stairs as possible. There’s no casual growing acquaintance with the stairs; this special, intimate relationship is established within minutes of arriving on campus. The question of what I was doing at this university was immediately replaced by the question of how I would survive all those damn stairs.

Like any new experience, the stairs take adjusting to (though I have a great deal of respect for science students, whose buildings are at the top of campus—a place that I like to think of as “the wilderness”—as an arts student I’ve never ventured that far up). Peace must be made with the stairs, and they must be endured. The dramatic view of Georgia Straight from the top floor of the library is unparalleled. For that view alone, the university’s situation on the hillside is forgiven. Some things are worth climbing for.

Taking on a new writing project is like climbing the stairs. At first it’s hard, it’s all looking to the top of the hill, rather than the step or two in front, but ultimately all that climbing results in greater fitness—and hopefully an interesting blog! I hope you stick around to hear more about my VIU student experience; I’ve come to love VIU, my program, my classes, and the people that I’ve met, and I’m excited to share some of my stories. I’ve come a long way since orientation day, if nothing else, I’ve haven’t missed another bus, and the stairs seem a little less steep.*

Thanks for reading and Happy Climbing
Kaitlyn Till

*Well, that’s not quite true. I knew what I wanted to study, but I was under the impression that a creative writing degree was not a sensible choice if I wanted to enjoy the comforts of a roof over my head, food in my tummy, and cable television. But that’s a topic for another day.
*Though the bus did break down on the Nanaimo Parkway on my way to my first day of classes. I have had many wonderful Transit adventures.