Coffee-less Fridays on campus
A lot of the time I find myself staying on campus late on Fridays to work on projects. It would be nice to get a coffee or something to keep myself awake, but everything’s already closed! During the rest of the week, the places you can get food at UFV are usually open late, but on Friday they close a lot earlier than usual. I understand that the students that work there want to start their weekend early, and I’d probably want to, too. The problem is that unless you have change in your pocket, you can’t really get any food on campus if you have a late class or stay late on Fridays. Maybe someday something will be open late on Friday, or maybe there will be a coffee vending machine somewhere on campus so that I don’t have to remember to bring my own anymore … One that accepts student cards, too.
Catherine Bell
Are you ready for the big one?
When the “big one” hits, life as we know it from Vancouver to Sacramento will never be the same — thousands will die, infrastructure will collapse, billions of dollars worth of damage will occur, and the coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest could be uninhabitable for years. This poses an important question: how should society plan for a looming catastrophic disaster if we don’t know when it will occur?
You can start by being prepared at home; create an earthquake kit, and be aware of evacuation routes. At 10:15 a.m. on Thursday, October 15, UFV staff and students are encouraged to join the hundreds of thousands of people participating in “The Great British Columbia ShakeOut” — an earthquake drill. Lastly, we can lobby all levels of governments to increase seismic requirements of new construction, retrofit older public buildings and infrastructure, and increase funding for earthquake preparedness. We need to take this seriously, before it’s too late.
Ken Kellington
Where has the time gone?
It is incredible how fast time flies, how busy we become, and where life takes us. As days turn into weeks, then to months, and finally into years, the question remains: how did life pass us by so quickly? What did we do with the time we thought we had? Many people go through life wasting their time on frivolous pursuits, never really getting anywhere. Others think they will always have time to do what they love later. I believe it is never too early or too late to pursue our goals, even if they are not the majors in our degrees, but the burning passion of our hearts.
Our time on Earth is short; what we experience and take away will hopefully be remembered as special and monumental. So when opportunity knocks on your door, and you know it is the right thing to do, go for it — because you may not get a second chance. And years from now, looking back, you will not feel the tinge of regret lying below the surface of what could have been, but the satisfaction of having lived a full life.
Rachel Tait
Hallway traffic
No one likes to be late for class, but many of us have the bad habit of leaving things until the last possible minute, then having to rush around in order to be places on time. I have long legs, so I tend to walk more quickly than most, and when I’m in a hurry, I can speed-walk and make good time — when I don’t need to be constantly stopping to maneuver my way around people somehow managing to block off the entire hallway.
Barely moving as they chat or stare at their phones, I sometimes find myself tempted to barrel through them like a football player. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s my own damn fault that I’m in such a rush, and I could always just politely ask them to move. But I often wish we had lanes in the halls like on the highway. If you’re moving slowly for whatever reason, just stay a little further to the right — or, as my husband often declares while driving, “Get the hell out of the passing lane!”
Kat Marusiak
