Global warming freezed my face off today. This coming week I will be skiing in minus twenty weather, you know, with wind chill and everything. But I doubt I will ever feel as cold as I did today, standing on the platform at the Rupert sky train station for a full ten minutes. As I stood on the quiet platform, no noise save the wind and the young woman talking in another language on her cell phone, I could feel the cold even underneath my jacket and sweater. I stared off to my left and wondered, "Why are Millennium line trains so damn slow?" I gazed briefly at the other people who were also waiting for the next train. An elderly Asian man, fidgeting on the bench and trying to stay warm; a large, bald man with a cane; the young woman, still on her cell phone, and who was now pacing the platform; several Asian women; my grandpa.
Finally, the train came and I rode the two stations to Commercial. Wow. For a Saturday morning, it was pretty busy. I'd never taken the 99 B-Line bus before, so the three massive line-ups for the 99 outside Commercial were quite confusing. Then the bus came, and I remembered about the loading method for such busy buses as the 99, so I left the line I was in and went to the first one. I don't know what the carrying capacity of this bus is, but it was super crowded in there. Until we got to Cambie and half the bus got off, my busing experience was pretty terrible- I was standing right behind the driver, holding on to the pole, and this man comes on in front of me. I move back to let him in, but I keep holding onto the pole. He's listening to his music and bouncing up and down to it, so I have no idea if he had any idea that he was squishing my hand. At one point, a lady came on the bus and as she squeezed past me, her purse went right into my stomach. It hurt.
This was probably my first trip into this area of Vancouver, so I got a eyeload of the big, pretty houses and cool shops in this area. At about 9:15AM I arrived at UBC. Now for the most difficult part of the trip: Locating the Hugh Dempster Pavilion in the massive UBC Campus. All I knew was that it was south-south-west of the bus loop. But since I apparently have no spatial ability whatsoever, I take off in the completely wrong direction. Go me. After walking around in what I think was a big circle, I decided to ask people for directions. The first two people I came across had no idea where it was, but third time's the charm, and the nice woman I asked happened to be going to the same place. Lucky me.
She escorted me all the way across the main campus and finally to the Hugh Dempster Pavilion. We chatted a bit, I told her why I was here, and she gave me some advice: Something about differential equations, something about algorithms, how Calculus is fun but has no real application in Computer Science because computer models can do it all, and how probability and statistics is more important. Or something. I thanked her and went inside to check-in.
As luck would have it, I picked up my name-tag from the table and they gave me a little gift: A bright orange carabiner with a time display and a compass. Seriously. I entered the partially filled lecture hall and sat down. No one that I knew was there, but the room was eventually filled with, mostly, parents and boys. I think there were about nine girls there. The lecture was very interesting and I learned a lot about how CS has changed how we think and solve problems. We also had a presentation from two guys who work at EA, and at the end they gave out prizes to those who could answer questions about the presentation and EA. The prizes ranged from pens, to laundry bags (?), to actual games. I didn't know anything, so I didn't win anything.
At about 11:10 we had a break. We were escorted into the lobby of the building across from the Dempster Pavilion, and there were snacks and refreshments for everybody. Twenty minutes later, we were led by volunteers, I think, to the "hands-on workshop." We got a taste of some basic programming with StarLogo, so for about an hour I busied myself with making my little colourful turtles run across my screen and make pretty, rainbow-rific patterns. I had a whole lotta fun, and we were dismissed at about 12:35. I also received a pen and a bunch of pamphlets.
Fortunately, I had little trouble finding the bus loop again. I managed to secure myself a comfortable window seat this time around, and thoroughly enjoyed my ride back to Commercial station. The highlight of this part of my trip was the variety of shops and restaurants that we passed. There was a shop called " .the butcher. " ...no idea what they sell; A cute and very pink clothing store with no apparent name, just a big, fat cupcake; and another meat store called, "Vera's Meats" with the tag line, "You can't beat Vera's meat." But yeah, I finally got home just after 2PM.
I had a lot of fun today and I learned lots, can't wait to go back to the next two sessions.
1 comment:
better get used to that whole packed bus situation if you end up going to University at UBC! My advice to you is to try not to schedule your classes for early in the morning, that way the buses are less packed AND you get to sleep in. Took me a year to figure that one out. ;)
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