March 16, 2015

NEWS SPORTSCULTUREELECTIONS RESULTS

TRIUMPH OF LOVE

OLYMPIC PENINSULA

3 7 10

THENEW

PRESIDENTAaron Bailey was elected as the 106th AMS president.

MARCH 16, 2015 | VOLUME XCVI | ISSUE XLVIBOOBS IN A BARREL SINCE 1918

MARCH 16, 2015 | VOLUME XCVI | ISSUE XLVIUTHE UBYSSEY

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MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 | 2YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS, PEOPLE + CAMPUS

STAFF

Natalie Scadden, CJ Pentland, Kosta Prodanovic, Dave Nixon, Soren Elsay, Olamide Olaniyan, Lawrence Neal Garcia, Olivia Law, Tariq Vira, Kelley Lin, Jenny Tang, Leo Soh, Mateo Ospina, Koby Michaels, Jasmine Cheng, Miguel Santa Maria, Natalie Morris, Mackenzie Walker, Sam Fruitman, Braedon Atkinson Pauze, Jacob Gershkovich, Emma Partridge, Ben Cook, Ming Wong, TammyHsieh, Chloë Lai, Mischa Milne, Aiken Lao, Danni Shanel, Kaylan Mackinnon, Elba Gomez Navas

My Little Pony fandom launched Peter Deltchev’s careerLeo SohSenior Staff Writer

As with every other television show, My Little Pony has a dedi-cated fan base. Those outside this particular show’s intended demographic are often referred to by the terms ‘brony’ and ‘pegasister’. Computer science student Peter Deltchev is an integral member of Canadian brony fandom, and attributes many of the successes in his life to his involvement with the community.

The brony community has provided Deltchev with numer-ous opportunities to deploy his talents.

“I like to think of myself as one of the people who work in the background to actually facilitate the brony community at large. I’ve founded a num-ber of fan sites, and I help run BronyCAN, which is Canada’s biggest My Little Pony con-vention. I’m not a huge famous figure that everyone would recognize, but without me, the community wouldn’t have a huge forum that has almost 30,000 members, for example,” Deltchev said.

Furthermore, the impact that My Little Pony has had on Del-tchev’s life extends far beyond his involvement with the brony community.

“[Many] misconceive the brony community at large as ‘man-children’, people who don’t know what to do with their lives, who find solace and escape from a miserable reality in ponies. I certainly won’t deny

that there are people like that, but to apply that stereotype to all fans of this show is really overblown.”

Deltchev himself serves as a counterexample to this stereo-type.

“For me, ponies were the gateway to a really rewarding career. And the people I work with, other facilitators, these are some of the most driven and passionate people I know. Pon-ies is, to them, a way to express themselves and do things that matter to them,” said Deltchev.

Deltchev is currently on a co-op term, and his position at Hootsuite and his success with organizing BronyCAN support his claim.

As the founder of Poniverse, an “integrated super-commun-ity” of My Little Pony fan sites, Deltchev has had the opportun-ity to attend BronyCON, the lar-gest My Little Pony conference in the world, held in the city of Baltimore.

“Finding a career through ponies was certainly amazing; this is hardly a secret now, pon-ies got me a career.”

Like most other community organizers, however, Deltchev has to work around the wishes of thousands of individuals, and faces no easy task.

“We just do it because we love seeing people come together and enjoy the community, and we love being a part of it, too.”

Through the years, Deltchev has come up with a fresh way of viewing the brony fandom.

“The community is so huge, there are so many different types of people in it, that it’s pretty much become a micro-cosm of humanity. You can find just about any kind of person in this community,” Deltchev said. “About the only thing that all bronies have in common is that

we all enjoy this TV show.”Still, many are put off by the

idea of grown men idolizing fictional ponies, and Deltchev is aware of this.

“It is a misconception to say that the brony community is all about sexualizing ponies, but there is a certain subset of the brony community that’s into that. There’s a name for that certain subset that’s been widely adopt-ed, and that’s ‘cloppers.’”

It is fair to say that the brony community is no different from any other online community in that a certain portion of members fetishize whatever it is the com-munity is built around.

Deltchev also understands that some may just find it disturbing that grown men enjoy a show made for young girls.

“I’d think carefully about what it is that you don’t like about bron-ies, and think ‘Is that really some-thing that’s unique to bronies or could anyone have that “problem” that you find with bronies?’”

Also, Deltchev believes that bronies have only produced positive outcomes for society as a whole.

“We’ve put together conven-tions that bring together thou-sands of people, we’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity, and we’ve provided springboards for people to kickstart their profes-sional careers,” he said.

“The show and community might not be for everyone, but I think it’s really important to at least accept and tolerate the fact that people are different and will be into different things.” U

EVENTS THIS WEEK, CHECK OUT ... OUR CAMPUS ONE ON ONE WITH THE PEOPLE AND BUILDINGS THAT MAKE UBC

ON THE

COVER

TUESDAY

Peter Deltchev is the founder of one of the largest online My Little Pony communities in the world. PHOTO CHERIHAN HASSUN/THE UBYSSEY

Want to see your events listed here? Email your events listings to [email protected].

LUCK O’ THE IRISH11:00 A.M. - LATE @ SUB CONCOURSE; THE PIT; CELEBRITIES

The AMS and 200 BPM are hosting an all-day St. Patty’s celebration. Starting with family-friendly face painting and photo booths in the a.m. and partying in the evening, there’s something for just about everyone. More-or-less free

TUESDAY

TUITION TOWN HALL12:00 - 1:00 P.M. @ NORM THEATRE

UBC is hosting a town hall with Louise Cowin to discuss the proposed two per cent increase to tuition for 2015/2016. Attend to learn more about the process

and voice your feedback. Free

MONDAY 16

SUSTAINABILITY GALA3:30 P.M. @ CENTRE FOR INTERACTIVE RESEARCH ON SUSTAINABILITYThe AMS and SEEDS are hosting a series of presentations followed by a reception in recognition of UBC sustainability projects. Come and see what some of UBC’s best and brightest have to offer. $5; buy tickets online.

“UBC — drink it in, it always goes down smooth. It’s a fact, it’s the greatest university in the history of mankind.” - Photo Geoff Lister

Finding a career through ponies was

certainly amazing; this is hardly a secret

now — ponies got me a career.”

17

17

[Many] misconceive the brony community at

large as “man-children’ ... I certainly won’t

deny that there are people like that, but to apply that stereotype

to all fans of this show is really overblown.”

Peter DeltchevComputer science student and

founder of Poniverse, a massive My Little Pony fan community

We’ve put together conventions that bring together thousands of

people, we’ve raised tens of thousands of

dollars for charity, and we’ve provided

springboards for people to kickstart

their professional careers.”

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 | 3EDITOR VERONIKA BONDARENKO

Veronika BondarenkoNews Editor

Aaron Bailey has been elected the 106th president of the Alma Mater Society.

Beating out his competitors Cheneil Antony-Hale and V, Bailey listened to the announcement of his win amid sounds of pop-ping champagne and congratu-latory chants from members of his fraternity.

“I’m pretty excited,” said Bailey. “It’s going to be a very, very good year.”

Bailey, who has been involved with the AMS for over four years now and ran against a candidate with big plans for the society, said that he was nervous about the results until the last moments of the election.

“My competitor ran an unbeliev-able campaign,” said Bailey. “She was very grassroots, very good at being person-to-person. I was very impressed by what she did. I was nervous until the very end.”

Bailey’s next steps included go-ing to the Alpha Delta Pi Diamond

Ball fundraiser on Saturday and meeting with current president Tanner Bokor on Sunday to begin learning the ropes of the new position. By attending student-or-ganized events, he hopes to put his plans to make UBC and the AMS more inviting to students into action immediately.

“We have a new building open-ing and, legitimately, next year is going to be the most important year of the AMS in the last 100. If we don’t get people in that build-ing, enjoying themselves, excited, having fun times, we’re going to lose out on the first impression for the next 65 and that’s really what it’s about,” said Bailey. “I’m not going to stop fighting that until the day they take me out of office.”

Antony-Hale, who is a newcom-er to the AMS and ran against Bail-ey with a platform that focused on accessibility and social justice, said that although she had expected the results of this election, the ex-perience of running was a positive one overall.

“I feel really happy that I did this because I got very close with

a lot of people,” said Antony-Hale. “I learned a lot about the AMS, I learned a lot about myself and I learned a lot about just the power structure of the university and about different policies and dif-ferent issues on campus and about the solutions to them too.”

Antony-Hale also said that now that the campaigning and debating is over, she is relieved to be able to catch up on her homework, which she had not done for almost three weeks.

She also said that she is unsure whether she will continue with student politics in the future, but definitely values the learning experience that running against a popular candidate like Bailey has given her.

“I didn’t know that I could learn things so quickly and debate that well,” said Antony-Hale. “I’ve never debated before and the first debate was a huge eye-opener, a huge shock.”

Joke candidate V, who has ad-vocated for a complete dissolution of the AMS and a Hunger Games-esque battle between all the stu-dents, said that the entire electoral system was flawed.

“That just validated the opinion on the crooked elections system and the fact that most cannot be trusted to make the right choice for everyone,” said V.

V also said that he will not be giving up on his dark vision for the AMS and the university, but for now he needs to make himself scarce for the time being as the se-cret police is always on the lookout for him.

“I am not going to reveal any grand plans, but I’m just saying that there is a building that is opening up. The fact that I wasn’t elected does not mean that I will stop doing things. You may not see me for a while, but that doesn’t mean that I will be gone.” U

Aaron Bailey will be the 106th president of the AMS.

Aaron Bailey crowned presidentAMS ELECTIONS >>

Ava Nasiri re-elected as VP administration

PHOTO KOSTA PRODANOVIC/THE UBYSSEYAva Nasiri will serve a second year in office as VP admin.

Jenica MontgomeryCulture Editor

Incumbent Ava Nasiri was elected VP administration for a second term.

Nasiri, who has been the VP admin for the past year, has focused mainly on the comple-tion and move into the new SUB. However, her second term in office will focus mainly on stu-dents, she said.

“I think it’s all about the stu-dents and it starts with the clubs, and it starts with the constituen-cies,” said Nasiri. “And being able to look at the four year degree of any average student that comes through the doors and graduates from UBC, and creating as many opportunities as possible for them to engage with something at some point so that they feel like they’re part of something bigger than just them and their academic studies.”

James Jing, third-year biochemistry student, while disappointed on the loss, ac-knowledged that the race was an uphill battle from the beginning.

“It was a really hard thing to get over. She had a lot of experi-ence within the office so it’s

really hard for us, who [don’t] have any experience in the AMS to come out and stand out,” said Jing.

Fourth-year Alex Remtulla echoed the sentiment but recog-nized the dedicated work of his volunteers, comprised mostly of his friends.

“[I’m] a little upset, but I knew going in against the incumbent it would be a tough race, an uphill battle. I think for me it was over-whelming how much my volun-teers put in. I had a team of close to 30 and it was phenomenal,” said Remtulla. “Congrats to Ava.”

Though disappointed they were not elected, Remtulla and Jing plan on looking for oppor-tunities outside of campus. Remtulla may pursue an intern-ship with the BMO Marathon, an organization he’s worked for previously.

Nasiri feels confident that her win will afford her the opportun-ity to improve student life.

“I feel like the possibilities are endless because the point at which I am right now I under-stand the scope of the position and I think that I can imagine all of the possibilities,” Nasiri said. “As cheesy as that sounds.” U

PHOTO CHERIHAN HASSUN/THE UBYSSEY

Mateusz Miadlikowski re-elected for second term as VP finance

PHOTO CHERIHAN HASSUN/THE UBYSSEYMateusz Miadlikowski beat Will Pigott in this year’s race for VP finance.

Mateo OspinaSenior Staff Writer

Mateusz Miadlikowski will be returning for a second term as VP finance.

“It was great,” said Miadlikowski about the environment of the night. “I was really stressed, the adrena-line was pumping but I won.”

Will Pigott, who lost to Miadli-kowski in the race, still joined in the celebrations, clapping for the victory of his opponent.

“Going into this I wasn’t ex-pecting to win,” said Pigott. “I just wanted to put up a fight and ask some questions, talking to Mat I learned nothing is personal.”

Pigott feels as though the de-bates helped bring up new topics about the role of VP finance. Despite his loss, Pigott feels con-fident in Miadlikowski’s ability to continue his position.

“I feel like Mat will do a good job next year, I’m excited for the new AMS, excited to see if they

finish the new SUB,” said Pigott. “Mat will have a lot more time to accomplish a lot more actual projects.”

With regards to his plans for next year, Pigott mentioned that he would be graduating after complet-ing his final class in November.

Though his presence was less visible in posters or even a Face-book event page, Miadlikowski believes that his planning and performance during the two debates helped him beat Pigott in the election.

“I would like to thank Will for being so driven and having some disagreements on a couple of issues,” said Miadlikowski.

The credit for his victory belongs to the voters that kept him in office.

“I would like to thank all the people that voted in the elec-tion and for putting faith in my campaign and personhood,” said Miadlikowski.

However, Pigott was disappoint-ed with the voter turnout and said that he hopes students will remain critical of the election process in general.

“Hopefully more people are involved next year and we have a more outgoing and exciting AMS to get students going,” said Pigott.

Miadlikowkski, however, is satis-fied with the results of the race.

“I think I did well, I won,” said Miadlikowski. U

SUB, ROOM 23 FOR FREE TICKETS

4 | NEWS | MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015

Joshua AziziSenior Staff Writer

Jude Crasta was elected into the VP external position tonight, beating out opponent Janzen Lee.

“I’m definitely very happy about it,” said Crasta. “I really appreciate the support from UBC students, and it’s definitely going to be a great year ahead.”

Crasta, who served as the asso-ciate VP external this year under Bahareh Jokar, credits sticking to his platform as a key factor in his success.

“I was really confident in what I was saying to people,” said Crasta. “I knew that I could accomplish that, and I definitely feel that UBC students felt the same as well.”

On Friday, he looked forward to a good night of partying with friends and new members of the executive team.

“I have a lot of invitations to a lot of parties. I’m guessing I’m going to have to make 10 to 15 minute appearances at each, and we’ll see how the night goes,” said Crasta.

Lee, who is the current presi-dent of the Student Legal Fund Society, is confident that Crasta will perform well in his new role.

“I know that Jude is going to do an amazing job,” said Lee. “He’s going to continue doing amazing things.”

Lee credits his defeat to a lack of endorsements and a series of criticisms from election forums that interpreted his platform as

disrespectful towards the AMS. However, he said that these criti-cisms hurt him and that they did not represent his platform.

“I’ve been dubbed by some of the election forums as an ‘anti-AMS’, ‘anti-establishment’ person, and that’s very much not who I am. I believe strongly in the work that the AMS is doing; I would not have run for a position otherwise.”

Still, Crasta said that Lee ran a good campaign.

“I would just like to congratu-late him on the amazing cam-paign that he ran,” said Crasta. “I definitely think there were a lot of interesting points that he brought up that I’ll definitely take into consideration during my term.”

In the upcoming year, Lee plans to focus on graduating and remaining involved with the Stu-dent Legal Fund Society despite not being re-elected.

Crasta will transition into the office over April. When his term begins, his first priorities will be to work for a more equitable U-Pass and get students involved with the federal elections.

With the exception of a joke candidate last year, this year’s VP external election marks the first time in two years that the VP ex-ternal election was contested.

“It’s really great to see that a lot of people are now taking the external lobbying effort at the AMS a lot more seriously,” said Crasta. U

AMS ELECTIONS >>

PHOTO KOSTA PRODANOVIC/THE UBYSSEY

Jude Crasta will take over as VP external in a few weeks.

Jude Crasta beats out Janzen Lee for VP external

Kelley LinSenior Staff Writer

Eric Zhao, Marjan Hatai, Jenna Omassi, Gurvir Sangha and Aaron Bailey came out victorious in the Senate race.

Overall, all newly elected senators shared the same level of excitement and appreciation.

“I feel very excited [and] accomplished,” said Hatai. “I’m looking forward for the year to come and I can’t wait to make some tangible changes. Thank you so much for voting for me. I’m so excited to actually make an impact and follow through on my goals and make a change at UBC in the academic atmosphere.”

Sangha is also excited to try his hand at politics and student government.

“It’s very surreal,” said Sangha. “This is my first time in the AMS level of politics. I think the one common thing that every senator has said is that Senate is very slow-moving so the faster I can get the training wheels off, the better. I’m so excited to serve you next year.”

Omassi, who was also elected VP academic, is excited to com-bine her experience in both roles to make change.

“I’m feeling great,” said Omassi. “I’m very excited for the year ahead. I think that VP aca-demic and Senate are going to be a great combination. It’s going to mean that Senate can be effect-ive outside of the Senate doors. There’s not much happening outside, so I’m excited to actually start initiatives and carry them on to tie into what’s going on in Senate.”

Amongst the new student sen-ators, Zhao was relatively more relaxed about being elected to another term in the Senate.

“I’m feeling great — relaxed,” said Zhao. “It doesn’t feel like a huge change because it’s the same continuity, and for us, it’s kind of just a celebration, but I’ve really enjoyed this election period.”

Bailey, who was elected AMS president in the same night, also secured his seat in the Senate for a second term.

“Honestly, it was a good fight by both sides of the campaign,” said Bailey. “I’m very happy with the efforts that we put forth and they came through in the last couple of minutes. It was close.”

As Bailey will soon enter his fifth year here at UBC, he offered advice for upcoming students.

“In four years, if you’re a first year student listening to this now — this could be you,” said Bailey. “Start working.”

Bailey thanked the public and promised to successfully fulfill his new role as both senator and AMS president.

“I’m going to make the AMS something that people actually care about,” said Bailey. “There’s literally no reason we have a building that’s worth $135 million if people don’t give a shit about what we’re doing next year. Next year is going to be the pivotal year for the AMS and for the next 65 years, if you don’t make a good first impression the first twelve months, it’s going to be our fault, and I’m going to ensure that doesn’t happen.” U

Two incumbents, three newcomers elected as student reps to Senate

PHOTO GEOFF LISTER/THE UBYSSEYMarjan Hatai was one of five students elected to Senate this year.

Will McDonaldCoordinating Editor

Julie Van de Valk and Veronica Knott beat out Tanner Bokor in the three-person race for two spots as student reps on the Board of Governors.

“I definitely didn’t know what to expect, but I’m really glad that students have spoken and I look forward to working with everyone who was elected,” said Van de Valk.

“I’m really happy with all the candidates that participated in the elections,” said Knott.

“I’m really excited for the upcoming year, I think it’s going to be great.”

Both Knott and Van de Valk said they would celebrate their wins, then get to work at their goals for the Board.

“Today is really about cele-brating what we just acheived and less thinking about the future. Tomorrow, get back to me and I’ll give you an answer for next year,” said Knott.

 Bokor declined comment after the results were announced. U

Julie Van de Valk, Veronica Knott elected to Board of Governors

PHOTO GEOFF LISTERTHE UBYSSEY

Veronica Knott celebrates her victory.

Bill SituStaff Writer

Cameron Sharpe, Carol Dou, Kathleen Simpson, Jude Crasta, Ron Gorodetsky and Tanner Bokor have been elected to the Student Legal Fund Society (SLFS).

With the exception of Cam-eron Sharpe from the Students for Responsible Leadership slate, all of those elected were from the Students for Accountability slate. Bahareh Jokar was the only mem-ber of her slate not to be elected this year.

Gorodetsky said that he and his fellow slate members are very excited and grateful to have won. According to Gorodetsky, his team feels ready to live up to their goal of making a more transparent, accountable and accessible SLFS, which they have been campaign-ing about extensively.

“We really knew what we wanted to accomplish, we put a lot of thought and effort into our cam-paign promises, and I know all of us are very invested in actually making changes to the SLFS for once,” said Gorodetsky.

Gorodetsky also said that since the board members for the SLFS are now official, the next step would be to conduct an internal election to determine the society’s president.

Janzen Lee, who served as president of the SLFS during the past year and was not re-elected for another term, said that he has faith that those who have been elected will do a good job at the society.

“The candidates that won are amazing candidates and now they are going to go on and make the changes proposed for the SLFS and they’re going to make beneficial changes for students, so that’s all that I really care about,” said Lee.

As the society’s current presi-dent, Lee’s next steps involve transitioning the new board of the SLFS. He also said that he will try to be involved in the SLFS as a non-board member.

As Lee is entering his final year of study, he does not plan to run again next year. U

All new board elected to Student Legal Fund Society

Student falls 30 metres off cliff edge, escapes injuries

A 19 year-old UBC student fell 30 metres down a cliff near Wreck Beach, but managed to escape injuries.

The student, who was walking in an unmarked area between the Monument and Trail 7 paths on the University Endowment Lands, fell off the edge of a cliff on Satur-day night. His name has not been released by the police.

According to an article by Global, the student called 911 on his cell phone at around 6:30 p.m. and a search and rescue team had come down at 10:30 pm. After being checked over by the para-medics, the man was found not to have suffered any serious injuries.

The trail area near Wreck Beach has seen several falls in the last year, with a man falling 100 metres off a cliff edge in October 2014 and a woman jumping 12 metres into a ravine in order to escape the police in June 2014.

Whistler Lodge sells for $1.45 million

The AMS has sold the Whist-ler Lodge for just under $1.45 million.

The Whistler Lodge was first put on the market in Oc-tober, after students voted in favour of selling the Lodge in January 2014.

According to VP Admin Ava Nasiri, the selling price for the Lodge was $1.5 million, but the total that the AMS gained after the fees associated with selling the property added up to $1.45 million.

“We successfully sold the Whistler Lodge last Monday, March 2 and we now have around $1.45 million going into endow-ment with the AMS,” said Nasiri.

Nasiri also said the lodge was bought by a couple who would like to use the space for residential purposes.

The AMS plans to use the money gained from the sale to clear up the debts that the society accrued from managing the property and potentially starting new services such as a shuttle service from UBC to Whistler.

“We are very excited to have 1.45 million dollars in an endowment,” said Nasiri. U

NEWS BRIEFS

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 | NEWS | 5

the $1 billion cost to the regional Vancouver economy due to inad-equate transit services. It’s one of their main arguments for their proposed $7.5 billion transpor-tation plan, which includes the expansion of light rail in Surrey and Langley, a Millenium Line ex-tension from VCC-Clark to Arbutus street and improved bus service that includes 11 new B-line routes. On March 26, ballots will be mailed out to Metro Vancouver residents who will vote on one question: do you support a 0.5 per cent increase to the Provincial Sales Tax in Metro Vancouver, dedicated to the Mayors’ Transportation and Transit Plan, with independent audits and public reporting.

While it’s phrased as a simple yes/no question, the referendum has spawned a lot of debates.

One contentious topic is the use of a plebiscite to decide on transpor-tation projects. Although there have been many transportation referen-dums in the U.S., notably in Seattle and San Francisco, referendums are less common in Canada. This trans-portation and sales tax referendum is the first of its kind in Canada, and was part of Christy Clark’s election platform back in 2013.

Robin Lindsey, Sauder prof and CN chair in Transportation and International Logistics, said that time will tell whether voters will support the referendum.

“I am skeptical,” said Lindsey. “The referendum that’s about to start is so complicated. Given the highly imperfect situation that the Mayors’ Council is facing, they came up with a reasonable solution.”

Still, critics such as Jordan Bateman from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation have argued that increasing the sales tax will be particularly tough on small businesses and might not be managed efficiently by TransLink.

But along with various labour, business, environmental and student groups across the prov-ince that form the Better Transit and Transportation Coalition (BTCC), both the AMS Presi-dent Tanner Bokor and UBC’s President Arvind Gupta have expressed support for the transit referendum and urged students to vote yes.

BTCC also points out that the tax will affect people differently based on their income, with most

students expected to pay only $30 - $50 per year.

Despite her long transit times, Tran is still undecided on how she will vote in the referendum. She said that while the taxes will help students, the higher sales tax might put a burden on Lower Mainlanders.

“For students, it’s probably really beneficial, but for the rest of the Lower Mainland it might not be as helpful because people are going to be taxed for it,” said Tran.

Despite BTTC’s campaign in favour of the referendum, it seems that Metro Vancouver residents are still not completely won over by the plan. Recent polls indi-cate that 53 per cent of adults are inclined to vote no, with voters finding issues with TransLink, the use of the sales tax, the refer-endum or the transit plan itself.

At the same time, Lindsey said that the proposal was better than nothing at all given Vancouver’s growing population.

“The sales tax may not be the best way to fund that package, [the transit plan] is wholly better than nothing or the status quo,” said Lindsey. U

TRANSIT >>

The mail-in transit referendum will take place over the next few months.FILE PHOTO GEOFF LISTER/THE UBYSSEY

Sunny OhContributor

Monday to Friday, Carolyne Tran spends four hours on transit. A second-year Applied Sciences student at UBC, Tran wakes up in Surrey, runs to catch her bus to King George station, listens to music on the SkyTrain to Vancou-ver, and then hops on the 99 B-line

bus. If she misses her first bus, she has to wait another 30 minutes for the next bus.

“Sometimes the bus comes a couple minutes early. So even if you come on time, if it comes two minutes early, you miss class,” said Tran.

According to the Mayors’ Council, lost productivity is part of

As transit referendum nears, students and profs discuss drawbacks and benefits

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MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 | 6EDITOR JENICA MONTGOMERY

Olivia LawSenior Staff Writer

Last week, the main concourse of the SUB was the home and point of information and awareness for UBC Sexual Assault Support Centre’s (SASC) Clothesline Project. Bold, sometimes shock-ing, and certainly moving, the lines of decorated t-shirts serve to be viewed by others as a testi-mony to the problem of violence against women.

Ashley Bentley, SASC manager, wants to give survivors and those affected by sexual assault a voice through creativity. “The idea is that people can come in and paint shirts, or any type of clothing,” said Bentley. “It doesn’t only have to be folk who are survivors, but anybody affected by violence, whether it’s a friend of a friend, a family member or someone who just really cares about this issue.”

The Clothesline Project was founded in 1990 by a group of women in Massachusetts. His-torically, it has been a vehicle for female survivors of physical or sexual assault to express their emotions through decorating a shirt. The displays, hung on clotheslines, are intended to be viewed by others as a testimony of violence against women.

UBC’s SASC, however, is a community intended to sup-

port people of all genders, and thus, the Clothesline Project on campus is not limited to women only. “We’re a centre that serves all genders and we recognize that anyone can be a perpetrator and anyone can be a survivor,” said Bentley on the outreach of the Clothesline Project. “We want to give voices to all survivors.”

For the past seven years, SASC has hosted a Clothesline Project in the SUB. In the past, the dis-plays have been limited to closed rooms due to potential trigger warnings for members of the community.

“We have so many people com-ing by all day, walking around and reading the shirts, then coming up and talking to staff members or volunteers and just saying that they’re really glad these shirts are being displayed,” said Bentley. Aware of the potential contro-versies surrounding the blatant displays, Bentley is adamant that the most important part of the Clothesline project is to give the survivors and those affected a voice — something which cannot happen behind closed doors.

Understandably, there has been feedback on the triggering nature of the sometimes-graphic imagery. Signs have been placed around the area to provide ad-vance warning, and care has been

SASC >>

CHOIR >>

In previous years the Clothesline Project has taken place behind closed doors.

The Vancouver Bach Choir will be accompanied by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

PHOTO CHERIHAN HASSUN/THE UBYSSEY

PHOTO COURTESTY KAREN TREGILLAS

SUB hosted the Clothesline Project

Alumnus to assist conducting famed oratorio Elijah

PHOTO COURTESY ERIC WARD/FLICKR

Joel and Clara Marasigan joined UBC Dance club during their time at UBC.

Meritxell ParramonContributor

Joel Marasigan and Clara Marasigan did not know that ballroom dancing would change their life when they joined UBC Dance Club several years ago.

Neither Marasigan nor C. Marasigan danced before joining the club but they progressed to become ballroom dance cham-pions. After some years travelling around the world, they returned back to Vancouver in 2006 and founded their studio on West Broadway: The Dance Centre. Their aim is to spread the spread the dancing experience to as many people as possible.

The Dance Centre offers Discover Dance! a noon series that showcases the diversity of the British Columbian ball-room dance scene. The series will be informative and lively shows of ballroom dancing that will contain performance, questions to the artists and audience participation.

“We want to involve more people dancing ballroom,” said Marasigan. They both agreed that the dancing discipline is not acknowledged by Vancouverites. TV shows such as Dancing With the Stars spread the benefits of

dancing, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

The duo’s main goal is to bring the experience to people. How-ever, there is place for the most competitive who wish to be chal-lenged as well as space for those who only want to be spectators. Someone who wants to focus on ballroom should be “a structured and studious person because it requires a lot of dedication,” said C. Marasigan.

With effort, tenacity, persever-ance, discipline and passion for their profession the duo con-verted themselves from amateur dancers to world champions and dance instructors. They were not supposed to be dancers. Marasigan majored in biochem-istry and C. Marasigan majored in physiology and occupational therapy, both at UBC. But they agreed that beyond their aca-demic pursuits, university was a school of life for them.

“When you have fun, the experience becomes richer and the goal becomes better,” said Marasigan. Teaching and dancing ballroom is their main commitment nowadays. Both see dancing as “passionately fun” and intend to bring that love of dance to a wider audience. U

Two alumni spread joy through ballroom dance

DANCE >>

taken to ensure that the displays are arranged in a manner more easily digestible.

“We recognize that not every-body is in a place where they want to see that, and we’re not trying to silence anybody’s experiences,” said Bentley. “But for some of the shirts that are perhaps more triggering in a place we’ve placed them closer to trigger warning signs.”

Taking a different tactic from many other awareness groups, the Clothesline Project does not involve graphic imagery, just personal words and accounts. The physical depiction of a clothesline — something ordinary and every-day — is used in juxtaposition with a powerful subject matter. Words are extremely powerful tools, especially when used in conjunction with tangible objects, relatable to each and every pass-er-by.

While the t-shirts and sym-bolism can be disturbing and upsetting, SASC staff members and volunteers are positioned around the displays to offer debriefs and information to those affected. The Clothesline Project is intended to give individuals a voice in this issue perpetrating the media today, and to bear wit-ness to the devastating impacts of violence. U

Olivia LawSenior Staff Writer

When one thinks of exciting drama, shows such as Game of Thrones, House of Cards and Breaking Bad all come to mind. But Elijah ? You’d be hard pressed

to find a large number of students excited about an oratorio telling of an Old Testament tale. Yet, to contemporary critics of the work, Mendelssohn was focused too much on creating a dramatic, beautiful retelling of the well-

known story, and less on the true religious sentiments of the Bible.

Kemuel Wong, UBC music grad, is passionate about his work as assistant conductor with the Vancouver Bach Choir — Vancou-ver’s largest mass choral union. They will be showcasing Mendels-sohn’s two-part work alongside the Vancouver Symphony Or-chestra in a powerful representa-tion of the iconic 19th-century English masterpiece.

To listeners unfamiliar with Elijah , the oratorio will sound a lot like an opera — yet is performed without elaborate sets or cos-tumes, the reason for this being that in the 18th and 19th centur-ies, it was technically illegal for biblical works to be performed in a manner of entertainment.

Evidently creating problems for composers such as Mendels-sohn, the oratorio was born. With all the drama and excite-ment of an opera or a musical, the sacred texts are set to dramatic music, and comprise of arias, recitatives and choruses. Elijah takes the audience through vignettes of the prophet’s life; beginning with the overture and chorus describing a massive drought, set to befall everyone in the land.

The first part of Elijah follows the prophet during the period of drought, with dramatic chal-lenges between Elijah, sung by baritone soloist Giles Tomkins, and the chorus, who represent the Baal prophets.

“This section has very fast exchanges between Elijah and the choir, ranging from silences to represent the lack of responses from God, and very fast passages to represent the descending fire from the heavens,” said Wong, de-scribing one of the most dramatic and well-written passages from the oratorio.

The Vancouver Bach Choir’s concert of Mendelsohn’s work has a timeless quality to it, with themes of humanity’s desperation for natural resources across the world.

“I think even from a dramatic point of view a lot of pieces draw on mythology,” said Wong on the historical topic of Elijah. “We all love a good story, and especially one that’s filled with drama and quick action.”

Described in review as “a work of art,” Elijah is famous for the dramatic imagery it produces. Many artists have attempted to recreate the picture of Elijah as-cending into heaven in a chariot of

fire; the scene in the oratorio sung with immense virtuosity.

“Back in Mendelssohn’s day it would have been revolutionary,” said Wong. “It’s so dramatic, the way he writes the scores and the motifs that Mendelssohn brings back time and again throughout the work.”

Elijah is inspiring to all types of listeners. To the casual audience member, the oratorio will display exciting drama, beautiful, lyrical melodies and abounding Vancou-ver-based talents. Yet to the music aficionado, Mendelssohn’s motifs reoccur in interesting ways.

“I feel Mendelssohn does a really good job at that,” said Wong. “Put-ting motifs together and revisiting them, or even hiding them. It be-comes really interesting when you’re aware, using the same melodic lines for doom and gloom with triumph-ant choruses.”

The drama, the action, the fan-tasy — it’s all present in the reper-toire of the talented Vancouver Bach Choir. Combining two of the great ensembles in classical music for a performance is sure to be something special, and the dramatic story of Elijah is something not to be missed.

Elijah will be presented at the Orpheum on March 28. U

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 | CULTURE | 7

Triumph of Love plays with gender roles and stereotypesTHEATRE >>

Andrea GonzalezContributor

In a theatrical world often typi-fied by strong male protagonists and submissive, struggling female ingenués, UBC Theatre is challen-ging traditional gender roles with its modern musical adaptation of Pierre de Marivaux’s comic play Triumph of Love .

The musical adaptation Triumph of Love by James Magruder is based on the 1973 Pierre de Marivaux commedia dell’arte play Le Tri-omphe de l’Amour and has become renown in musical theatre for its unique craft and forward thinking.

Directed by MFA directing stu-dent Barbara Tomasic, the musical follows the fearless Princess Leoni-de, played by Catherine Fergusson, as she embarks in search for her love and discovers something about her-self in the process. When the prin-cess falls in love with Agis, played by Zac Wolfman, who is the rightful heir to the kingdom usurped by Leonide’s family, the princess dresses up like a man in order to win his heart. However, complications ensue when she deceives and sedu-ces other characters to get closer to Agis, all the while being unaware that he has been training his whole life to assassinate her.

“What was interesting to me was that the show was not only comedic but also had a sort of authentic underbelly and one of my goals as a director, especially in theatre, is to find that authenticity,” said Tomasic.

At its core, the musical fo-cuses on the journey towards self-discovery and finding out what love truly means. According to Fergusson, as the characters interact and engage in relation-ships, from meeting new people, making friends and hurting people along the way, they come

to learn who they really are and to accept themselves.

“Princess Leonide becomes all of these other identities in order to be-come her whole self. So she dresses as a man, and then she pretends to be a different woman but in the end all of these men and women that she pretends to be become her whole person,” said Tomasic.

Significantly, these are experien-ces to which most of us can relate. “We all have an idea of what love is and we are constantly having to re-evaluate that and adjust that in our lives based on our experiences,” said Wolfman.

“Triumph of Love has certainly made me question my beliefs about love. I think every character in this play goes through a different jour-ney in discovering what that means to them. From it being a romantic relationship, to knowing oneself or an unconventional relationship or accepting who they are within the context,” said Tomasic.

While generating a space for introspection, Triumph of Love de-livers more than a generous dosage of wit and humour. From mistaken identities to sexual jokes, recog-nizable stereotypes of hopeless ro-mantics, and what Wolfman terms a “Scooby-Doo feel” of loss and disorder, the comedic musical does not fall short of entertaining action.

In addition, the catchy music that underscores the play, con-sisting of a combination of pop, jazz, opera and burlesque is guaranteed to keep you on your feet as the characters saunter onto the stage and exit to the rhythm of their own musical themes.

“Prepare to leave, go home and download the soundtrack and listen to the songs over and over again,” said Wolfman.

Although the hilarious plot and energetic music promise to offer a refreshing cocktail for a modern

musical, the production’s open embrace of non-traditional gender roles and intentional gender bending is perhaps the most exciting aspect of this production. While each character brings their own flavor to the musical, it is the ambitious female characters, particularly Prin-cess Leonide, who propel the play forward. An intense and unrelenting force of nature, the Princess con-stantly fluctuates from being male or female, causing almost the entire house to fall at her feet.

“There’s something about a reverse princess story that appeals

to me. As a feminist, I’m not a huge lover of the Disney princess world, so it was interesting to come across a piece where the princess is actually ambitious and going for what she wanted and having to address her faults. It seemed like an enlightened fairytale to me. And the women in this play are really intelligent and strong,” said Tomasic.

Pulsing with political intrigue, romance, murder and mistaken identity, Fergusson likens the hil-arious, tongue-in-cheek musical to “Game of Thrones the musical.”

“2015 is a good time to be show-ing Triumph of Love , especially at UBC, because this kind of plot is something that people nowadays like. I’ve been posting on Facebook that it is like Game of Thrones the musical because we are fight-ing over a throne, and my uncle killed his parents. So it has all of those blood ties and fantasy stuff that people are into these days,” said Fergusson.

Triumph of Love will be per-formed March 19 - April 4 at the Frederic Wood Theatre. U

PHOTO COURTESY TIM MATHESON

UBC Theatre presents one musical production in their season.

Keagan PerletteContributor

Celebrating its 29th year, the creative writing program’s annual festival, Brave New Play Rites, is back this week with 12 brand new student-written shows.

This time around, the festival features some off-campus expansion into Vancouver’s thriving theatre scene, featuring directors and actors from the city’s theatre community.

Ramon Esquivel and Sasha Singer-Wilson, who are acting as

both playwrights and associate producers for the festival, have been hard at work throughout the fall and spring terms putting Brave New Play Rites together along with their peers.

“This year ... the festival is moving off campus, it’s been on campus for the past and it’s happening on Granville Island at Studio 1398,” said Singer-Wilson. “So we decided to kind of reach out more into the theatre community in Vancouver. So there’s a big mix

in terms of the directors: some are much more experienced, some are really emerging, this might be their first time and we were interested in that in terms of the festival ... having a big mix.”

Esquivel and Singer-Wilson have opened up the doors to the playwrights — from both the undergraduate and graduate creative writing programs — to experience putting their plays on stage with working members of the theatre industry.

Brave New Play Rites Festival moved off campus“The festival is like a stepping

stone professionally for people as opposed to, if it’s on campus, it feels a little more just like in the institution of UBC, which is great too, but this is a nice opportunity for people to have like a little bit more of a step out of school,” said Singer-Wilson.

The process allows the playwrights to grow creative-ly through this structure of extra-curricular involvement. Singer-Wilson and Esquivel have both had the opportunity to wear the many hats of theatre production and that opportunity has been available to all writers participating in the festival: some playwrights are directing other plays, while all students have the chance to sit in on rehearsals and work closely with the actors and directors bringing their work to life.

“If anything I think it’s made me a more ambitious writer because I’ve seen what we can do with like no budget and the creativity of the directors and the courage of actors. That’s sort of made me [realize] whenever I write I’m gonna find people to collaborate not only to bring it to life but to do it beyond what I thought,” said Esquivel.

With a dozen shows on the bill, there’s no shortage of ambition or diversity. “There’s a broad range of shows,” said Esquivel.

“There’s, you know, physic-al comedy, there’s dramas....

My play is kind of this magical realism idea of two people who meet on the bridge in the middle of the night. And it’s kind of about ... their entire relation-ship with each other, there’s also these sort of supernatural elements to it too, but it’s also funny.”

Singer-Wilson’s play could not be more different. “It’s about a 12-year-old boy,” she said. “It takes place at a Speakers League, which is like a public speaking platform for young people, and the past and present start to kind of blur for Lenny, the character, as he talks about his weekend that he’s just come away from that’s pretty dramatic.”

After months of tireless re-writes, coordination and creativ-ity, Esquivel and Singer-Wilson are ready to see the fruits of everyone’s labour.

“The fact that these produc-tions are moving forward — and I think they’re gonna be really good — I think that in itself is an accomplishment,” said Esquivel.

The festival promises to be an excellent display of UBC’s emerging playwriting voices and a fantastic way for new directors to help bring these new stories to life with the help of industry veterans. Brave New Play Rites is a great opportunity to support UBC’s stars on the rise and to check out the incredible work students are doing in the creative writing program. U

Brave New Play Rites festival is an opportunity for creative writing students to have their plays performed.PHOTO COURTESY CHRIS TSE/FLICKR

WRITING >>

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 | 8STUDENT VOICE. COMMUNITY REACH.

REDACTED RESULTS

On Friday night, the AMS an-nounced their election results — sort of. While they released the names of who won, they didn’t release the number of votes each candidate received. We under-stand that the elections staff were just following AMS code, which says the numbers shouldn’t be re-leased until at least 48 hours after the unofficial results “to allow winning candidates to withdraw.” But code should change.

Voting is electronic, and all the numbers are in. The vote num-bers will be released regardless of whether candidates choose to withdraw. If the AMS is confident enough in their voting numbers to call an election, they should be confident enough in the numbers to release them immediately, whether the results are “official” or not.

.ELECTIONS RESULTS: SOME SHOCKING, SOME PREDICTABLE

The majority of our staff attended the AMS Elections results party at The Gallery on Friday, and we have to say that we were a little surprised by some of the outcomes.

Aaron Bailey winning the presidential race didn’t come as a surprise to us. Cheneil Antony-Hale ran a good campaign but simply didn’t have the AMS experience or support-base to compete with Bail-ey. Bailey having the frat vote was a major advantage for him, as well.

VP admin was, in our opinion, one of the more closely contested races. Alex Remtulla, in particular, had a very active, grassroots cam-paign and, we believe, had a decent chance of unseating Ava Nasiri. Nasiri’s experience, reputation and advantage as the incumbent won

the day, however, allowing her to continue in her role next year.

The result of the VP external race wasn’t a huge surprise to us. Jude Crasta already has experience in the VP external’s office and presented more realistic ideas, if somewhat less ambitious, at the debates. Addi-tionally, Janzen Lee’s absence from the Great Debate likely didn’t help his campaign.

Although Mateusz Miadlikow-ski had a distinct advantage as incumbent, we still feel that the VP finance race could have gone either way. Will Pigott’s campaign did much to distinguish himself from his opponent, and if it was what UBC was looking for it would have been enough to win him the election — but apparently, it wasn’t.

Probably the least shocking outcome is VP academic: Jenna Omassi ran uncontested and cer-tainly wasn’t a candidate that people viewed as unsuitable. Omassi’s experience as AUS president helped to both build her skill set and her reputation around campus.

Board of Governors and Senate had two of the bigger upsets of the election. We believed Tanner Bokor to be the frontrunner of the BoG race: simply having the role of AMS president under one’s belt gives a significant boost to a candidate’s reputation. That said, we assume that it was Bokor’s lack of campaign-ing compared to his competitors that led to him losing the election. Veronica Knott had the support of a large and extremely engaged student body (i.e. the engineers), and Julie Van de Valk ran an active campaign with an issue that a lot of students care about (fossil fuel divestment) as a cornerstone. We feel that both Knott and Van de Valk will do well on BoG, and we hope that Bokor will remained involved with campus politics.

ILLUSTRATION JULIAN YU/THE UBYSSEY

LAST WORDS PARTING SHOTS AND SNAP JUDGEMENTS FROM THE UBYSSEY EDITORIAL BOARD

LAST WORDS >>

As for Senate, the election of incumbents Aaron Bailey and Eric Zhao was not surprising. Marjan Hatai, Jenna Omassi and Gurvir Sangha are all big names on cam-pus, so they were all likely enough to be elected. We were surprised, however, that Viet Vu didn’t win a spot: we feel that he had a strong showing at the debates, AMS experience and an active campaign, though perhaps people weren’t able to distinguish his serious campaign from his joke campaign as V.

Last (and only kind of least), the Student Legal Fund Society: no surprise here, other than Jokar not getting a spot. Students for Accountability had a stronger showing overall than Students for Responsible Leadership (literal-ly, in the sense that they actually attended both of the debates). Stu-dents for Accountability promised to actually make something out of SLFS, an organization that is little-known.

STAY AWAY FROM CLIFFS

Another month, another story of a student falling off a cliff. While the repetitiveness of this situation (Google ‘cliff’ and ‘UBC’ to see how often this has happened in the past) can seem hard to believe, the danger of losing your footing near a cliff edge when it’s dark — and if you’ve had a few beers — is not.

With several students falling off cliff or ravine edges at UBC within the same year, we thought we’d issue a public service announce-ment to stay away from cliffs. Feel like having a night of run-ning around and debauchery on campus? Go to Wreck Beach, go to the Rose Garden or even go to the fountain at Martha Piper Plaza, but stay away from the cliffs.

Seriously. U

It’s time for UBC to ban smoking on campus

Something caught my eye as I was strolling around our beautiful campus: cigarette butts dispersed all over the ground. Despite their innocuous look, cigarette butts are a reminder that some people willingly inhaled carcinogenic chemicals into their lungs and dispersed the rest to the people around them.

Canada has one of the lowest smoking rates in the world with British Columbia in the lead. This has in part a lot to do with tobacco regulatory policies, such as mes-saging on cigarette packages, bans on cigarette advertising and sale to minors. Most important among them and essential to health of non-smokers is banning smoking in public places. The City of Vancouver has taken great strides in making sure we breathe clean air in public areas, indoors and out.

Not long ago, the idea of banning smoking in public places seemed ludicrous. A few years before that, tobacco companies openly advo-cated health benefits for cigarettes! Nowadays, we would simply laugh at anyone trying to claim any health benefits for smoking. But for some reason, allowing smoking on the campus of a university that envisions creating an exception-al learning environment seems acceptable.

Last reviewed in 2007, UBC’s Smoke-Free policy states that UBC promotes a healthy and safe university environment. This policy rightfully prohibits sale of tobacco products on campus and also smok-ing within eight meters of univer-sity buildings to promote health of students, faculty, staff and visitors.

It’s time to go one step further and bring that health promotion mes-sage fully into action. It’s time for UBC to go completely smoke-free.

Many university and college campuses around the world have gone smoke-free. That means no smoking anywhere on university campus or property, no matter how large the campus is. Many Canadian universities have enacted such policy as well. Dalhousie University has been smoke-free since 2003. The Okanagan campus is already way ahead and restricts smoking to only designated areas.

No one needs to be reminded about the hazards of smoking. Science has repeatedly shown that there is no safe level of second-hand smoke. Yet, tobacco remains the top preventable killer of Canadians and a leading cause of hospitalization and re-hospitalization.

Going smoke-free is not just about quitting smoking, although it would go hand in hand with it. It’s rather about providing clean air for students, faculty, staff and visitors and disallowing an utterly un-healthy habit from being practiced on campus.

History repeats itself. Each time tougher bans and regulations on tobacco are announced, tobacco companies and smokers strongly respond with arguments on restric-tions of their legal activities or per-sonal freedoms. But also every time that a tobacco-regulating policy is put into place, smoking rates drop and lives are saved.

The odds are in our favour: a poll conducted two years ago at UBC suggests strong support for a smoke-free campus. We know it will eventually happen: going entirely smoke-free is only a matter of time. What are we waiting for? U

SMOKING >>

KASRA HASSANILetter

The AMS refuses to release vote counts until 48 hours after results are announced.

What is BDS and why should you support it?

The anti-BDS campaign is in full swing pending the upcoming refer-endum in the end of March and, for most, this is their first time hearing about the international Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement. But what is BDS? And why has it come to UBC?

The Israeli-Palestinian con-flict, as many will know, has been ongoing for over 60 years. The continued establishment of illegal settlements and the repeated wars — including last summer’s invasion that left 1,483 civilians dead — is making the dream of two states, Palestine and Israel, more and more remote. The international community has failed to implement the Geneva Convention to end Israel’s occupation, resettlement and human rights abuses. It was upon realizing this fact in 2007 that Palestinians decided to take action. BDS was born with one simple re-quest: stop letting your money fund these crimes! Specifically, BDS has three major goals:

Stop funding the illegal occupa-tion of Palestinian and Syrian land.

Stop funding abuse of hu-man rights in Palestine. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, refugees’ rights are guaranteed — including the right to return to their homes.

Stop funding the construction of a concrete wall around Palestine.

BDS is modelled closely on the international movement that forced South Africa to end its apartheid policies. It calls for people to boycott, divest or sanction any

company or institution that profits or contributes to these violations of international law. This grassroots movement has garnered significant support from national trade unions around the world; religious organ-izations like the United Methodist Church and universities across Eur-ope and North America. Ben Gurion University’s professor Neve Gordon said that there is no hope that the Israeli government will act without significant pressure from people around the world. BDS is the world’s concerted answer.

The international community has a legal obligation to abstain from lending financial support and global citizens have a moral obligation to ensure that their money is not used in illegal activity. UBC is no differ-ent, and students have the right to ensure that their money is not used to fund Israel’s current policies.

Despite this, the UBC AMS has decided to take the unusual stance of supporting an “anything but yes” vote, which is basically supporting a ‘no’ vote. The AMS chose to oppose the call to committing to end using tuition dollars to fund violations of international law, and that is before students even had cast their votes.

UBC students are part of the upper echelons of Canadian aca-demia, so standing for justice and challenging illegal policies is not a surprising move. UBC students will be asked to decide for themselves on this question of morality in a refer-endum from March 23 – 27. In the words of Rabbi David Mivasair, stu-dents should vote ‘yes’ as BDS is “the most powerful thing we in Canada can do to help those in both Pales-tine and Israel” who are suffering under the current policies. U

DIVESTMENT >>

MARYAM BAKSHLetter

538

STUDENTESSAYCONTEST

2015 Topic

National Security and the Role of Government: Safety vs. Privacy in a Technological Age

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: JUNE 1, 2015

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 | SPORTS | 9

Jack HauenSports and Rec Editor

Game one: Rams (W, 81-59)

It was the Kris Young show in the first match. The Canada West MVP scored a school-record 40 points to give her team a convin-cing win and a confident start to the CIS Final 8 Tournament and send the Ryerson Rams to the consolation round against Saint Mary’s.

In the first half, Young knocked down 26 of the first 39 points her team scored, going 10 for 11 to begin her explosive performance with a bang. The rest of her team had yet to fully follow suit, how-ever, and the Thunderbirds headed into the break with a 39-33 lead.

The third quarter began in sim-ilar fashion. Young knocked down four three-pointers in succession for 12 in the quarter. Her team ral-lied behind her and widened the gap to 60-44 heading into the final frame. That would be enough to take it, but the T-Birds didn’t stop there, mounting a 21-point fourth quarter to emerge victorious by 22.

Game two: Martlets (OL, 59-57)

A two-point overtime heart-breaker at the hands of the Martlets was all it took to kill the dreams of a UBC national championship.

It was a tight game the whole way through between two top-ranked teams both vying for a chance at gold. McGill was ahead 12-11 after the first, 27-26 after the second and 42-40 after the third.

The Thunderbirds were ahead by a score of 50-44 with 6:00 to go in the game, but it wasn’t enough to hold off McGill, who went on a furious 9-0 run to put themselves up by three. Adri-enne Parkin’s three-pointer tied it back up at 1:56, but with both teams playing incredible defence in a desperate bid to hold on, Young’s drive to the basket in the final seconds was foiled, and the game went to OT.

There, the usually strong Thunderbird offence wasn’t able to find its footing, and the Mart-lets would outscore them 6-4 to take the game.

Game three: Huskies (W, 73-61)

The word disappointing doesn’t quite do justice to describe the loss to McGill, but the Thunder-birds we’rent about to give up and sulk — they knew their sea-son wasn’t over yet.

UBC has had the Huskies’ number this year, going 4-1 against them this season and maintaining a lead for the entire bronze medal game. It was the last game for seniors Lauren Sea-brook, Harleen Sidhu and Kris Young, and what else would one expect but for the dynamic duo of Young and Sidhu to lead the team in scoring and rebounding (respectively).

Young scored eight of the final 18 points in the T-Birds’ 18-4 run to finish the game, true to form. Sidhu finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds, true to form.

And after an 18-game unbeaten streak that lasted from Decem-ber to March, the Thunderbirds rallied from a heartbreaking loss to make the most of a season in which they found so much suc-cess — true to form. U

Jacob GershkovichSenior Staff Writer

On March 6, the UBC men’s team suffered a devastating defeat against the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. The loss not only put UBC out of contention for the Canada West title, it rendered them ineli-gible for the CIS Final 8 Tourna-ment.

Some weeks have passed, and with the season now behind us, it’s time to look back on the year that was. Below are some of the high-lights from the 2014/15 campaign; and I would feel unjust beginning with anything other than:

Tommy Nixon’s performance

That Tommy Nixon was not named Canada West’s Outstanding Player of the Year is robbery, in my opinion.

It is difficult to imagine what UBC’s season may have looked like without Nixon steering the ship. In his final year of play, Nixon was the engineer behind UBC’s number one ranked offence. He led the team in points per game, free throws made, field goal percentage, three point field goal percentage, steals, rebounds and minutes played. He was Canada West’s most prolific scorer, aver-aging 20.8 points per game, and was recently recognized as one of the top players in the nation after being named a Canada West First Team All-Star and a Second Team CIS All-Canadian.

Awful start, valiant finish

After starting the season 1-5, I, like many others, began to question the fabric of this team. More distressing than their record was the fashion

in which they suffered each of their first five losses: the team had no fight; they looked timid; opponents bullied them into humble submis-sion. Ironically, the turnaround came against the University of Sas-katchewan Huskies in late Novem-ber. After sweeping the Huskies in a two game series UBC caught fire, winning 11 of their next 12 games to finish the year 14-6 and take the third seed in Canada West. The cool confidence the ‘Birds exuded as they concluded their regular season stood in stark contrast to the team’s early demeanour. By the season’s end, all of the ugly things that initially belied this team’s image had dissipated.

The Calgary series 

With both teams jostling for a playoff position back in January, the then 11-4 University of Calgary Dinos travelled out west to take on the 9-4 ‘Birds. The weekend had everything from controversial play-er ejections to heroic last-second buzzer beaters. It was, simply put, some of the most exciting basketball I’ve witnessed in recent years. After suffering a heartbreaking defeat in game one, UBC rallied to win game two and split the series. Their exemplary effort against one of the most dangerous teams in Canada West seemed to affirm UBC’s sense of purpose moving forward, and looking back, it remains one of the high points of the season.

Veterans

Vital to UBC’s success was the play of their seniors. Tommy Nixon,

Andrew McGuinness, Brylle Kamen and Tonner Jackson will all be hanging up their jerseys next year; and they will all be missed. While I’ve already said much about Nixon, perhaps the unsung hero on this team was Jackson. Jackson’s improvement on the offensive end was noticeable as the season pro-gressed. He worked his way into a starting role and was relied upon to contribute heavy minutes near the season’s end. Though they both had their bouts with injury, McGuin-ness and Kamen were integral pieces of the puzzle when healthy. McGuinness found his niche as the team’s most capable sharpshooter from outside, and the swift-footed Kamen was a dangerous inside scoring threat. Losing four senior players will take its toll on any team at this level, and it will be interest-ing to see how head coach Kevin Hanson and company respond next year.

Looking forward 

With the end of the year comes the loss of size in the post, veter-an leadership and one of the best players to come through UBC in recent history. In spite of this, the situation doesn’t seem so bleak. Far from it, actually. UBC has a poten-tial all-star named Connor Morgan. The 6’9 Victoria native will begin his third year of play next October. He averaged 13.9 points per game — second on the team behind Nixon — and that number is far below what he is capable of. This is good news. Look for Morgan to be the scoring leader on next year’s team.

Also due for a big season is Kedar Wright. Wright was UBC’s best player in their Final Four loss to the Saskatchewan Huskies, putting up 23 points in 40 minutes of play. Wright was often delegated the task of guarding opposing teams’ most dangerous offensive ball handlers this year. He gets in the face of his defensive assignments and plays with a little bit of an attitude, an aspect of his game that I’m sure is much appreciated by his teammates and coaches. While next season will only mark the young guard’s third year of play, I anticipate that he will quickly harness the role of the team’s emotional leader.

Along with Morgan and Wright, look for David Wagner, who will be the sole fifth-year senior next year, and Jordan Jensen-Whyte to play big roles. A number of younger players who rode the pine this sea-son will be battling for significant minutes on next year’s roster: Stef-anos Fasianos, Elijah Campbell-Ax-son, Luka Zaharijevic and Daniel Sutcliffe; and who knows what kind of freshmen Hanson and his boys are going to bring in?

The 2014/15 campaign will ultimately be remembered as one that fell short of its potential. Such is the world of sports — a single loss can cast a dark shade over an entire year’s worth of work. The sole consolation for the players, coaches and fans who fall short of a cham-pionship lies in the uncertainty of next season’s outcome. So while the wound from March’s early playoff exit has perhaps not yet fully closed, it will soon be entirely forgotten. U

Thunderbirds finish strong, take CIS bronze

Ups, downs and All-Stars: men’s basketball season in review

Kris Young and Harleen Sidhu lead women’s team to national success

Kris Young (6) scored a UBC-record 40 points Thursday night.

Tommy Nixon (7) was integral to UBC’s success this season.

PHOTO COURTESY MATHIEU BELANGER/LAVAL UNIVERSITY

PHOTO VICTOR HOGREFE/THE UBYSSEY

BASKETBALL >>

10 | SPORTS | MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015

There seems to be two inter-pretations of the meaning of reading week. One, championed by professors, is “a week for reading.” The other, cham-pioned by basically every student ever, is “a week to take a break from reading.” Okay, so maybe reading week isn’t that ambigu-ous of a title, but I wasn’t about to spend a week cooped up in Irving, studying for midterms. So first thing Saturday morning I grabbed my trusty backpack, closed my dorm room door and didn’t look back.

 Port Angeles

The plan was to take a ferry to Vancouver Island and another to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, stay most of the week at Jackie’s house, and spend the last night of our trip in Victoria before com-ing back to an apocalyptic week of three midterms.

Our troop of four musketeers; Cori, Jackie, Olivia and I met at the bus loop. All of us, with the exception of Jackie, were recent transplants to the Pacific Northwest and were eager to see as many of the sights as possible. Throughout the trip, I took sadistic pleasure in sending pictures of the beautiful weather back home to Boston, which was buried under metres of snow.

As any good trip should start; it began with a mad rush to catch the bus. We hopped on after the bus had started mov-ing. Tensions were high. But we caught the ferry, and the iconic double-decked bus on the island with plenty of time to spare. We grabbed lunch and soaked in the sun, a reoccurring theme for the week. I wanted to explore Victoria but we were running late; the group had another ferry to catch.

Usually, getting from one place to another is my least favourite part of a trip (few methods of transport have adequate legroom for 6’4” tall people like me) but ferry travel is the way to go. Un-paralleled views, a White Spot on board and free Titanicking (the act of standing on the the bow of the boat, arms outspread, singing “My Heart Will Go On” at the top of your lungs) come included on every standard ferry. That is how travel should be. We reached Port Angeles, our home base for the next week, as the sun set over the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

On Monday, after exploring the mom-and-pop quaintness of Port Angeles, we set out for our first big excursion. A short drive, another ferry (yet more beautiful than the last) which we sprinted onto as the last passen-gers, and we were off to Seattle. We spent the morning in Pike Place, exploring the artisan foods and crafts and avoiding being clobbered by the giant fish being tossed around. Live music could be heard in the distance, with vendors peddling everything from handmade pottery, leath-er-bound journals to obsidian blades. The long morning drove us to find food, and soon I found myself with a delicious Russian pastry in my hand and we sat down in the sun, overlooking Seattle’s harbour.

We explored a bit more of the waterfront, enjoying the rare Northwestern winter sun and the peaceful ocean. I made my mandatory stop in the local hat store (yes, I’m that guy) before we jumped on the ferry home.

We took the next day easy, sleeping, lounging by the lake and paddling a little. On Wed-nesday, we headed further west to the Hoh Rainforest. Somehow, we managed to avoid all the rain.

It isquintessential

PacificNorthwest.

Koby MichaelsSenior Staff Writer

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 | SPORTS | 11

Hoh

Often, when I set off into the woods or mountains, I go looking for adrenaline. It’s not hard to find; climbing a frozen water-fall, hiking a mountain in a snow storm or skinny dipping in below-freezing temperatures all get that sweet hormone coursing through your veins. And while excitement and danger are a sig-nificant part of the reason I love the outdoors, it is not the basis of our relationship.

I sit with my feet dangling over the sandy cliff. Below is a river, broken into several streams by rocky islands. The water is glow-ing a vibrant blue-green. Through the trees on the opposite bank, a lone, evergreen-covered moun-tain rises through the clouds.

The point, to me at least, of being outside in the wild is about the escape it provides. It may be cliche, though that makes it no less true, that there is something special about the untouched beauty of nature. No homework, no deadlines, nothing but the trail in front of you and the company you keep.

I’m somewhere in the depths of the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park, Washington, USA. Hiking the Hoh River Trail on an uncharacteristically warm and dry day proves to be a highlight of the trip.

First, we hike the short “Hall of Mosses” loop. Everything, and I mean everything, is covered in moss. The trail, branches, leaves and even the moss is covered in moss. It hangs like intricate, woven rugs, filling the air with an earthy smell. The hall feels closed, and indoor. The moss blocks out the sun; it feels like a natural Cathedral.

As we reach the main trail, the moss lessens and the trees open.

Pacific Spirit Park, and Lynn Can-yon Park, while rainforests, have nothing on the Hoh. Even though the day is dry, the rain 430 centi-metres of rain a year can be felt all around. With every step, mud oozes from under my shoes, falling drops hitting leaves mixes with the excited songs of birds enjoying the early spring.

We take our time hiking, walking mostly in silence. We take every detour. The best trail goes up to a waterfall, overgrown with fallen trees covered in moss. It is quintessential Pacific Northwest.

The hike is quiet, easy and peaceful; zero adrenaline. But nonetheless, it is an excellent day. After all, any adventure, is a good adventure.

Victoria

Our time in Port Angeles was up and we took yet another boat, back to Victoria. We dropped our bags off at the AirBnB we were spend-ing the night at and headed back into the city. All the trees were in bloom, the sun was shining yet again (how did we get so lucky?) and we just wandered. Victoria is filled with old architecture, unique shops and delicious coffee, or so I’m told. As far as I can tell, all coffee tastes like death.

Our trip ended as the sun set on our last full day away from UBC. All that was left was some deli-cious cheesecake from Pagliacci’s (worth the trip to Victoria by itself) and more buses and boats.

A week off from school, re-gardless of its purpose, is a great excuse to see our little corner of the planet. Rainforests, paddling, coffee, exploring cities, ferries and somehow, sun, is a week well spent by any measurable means. Sure, my lack of reading caught up with me, but I certainly don’t regret the procrastination. U

PHOTO KURT THOMAS/FLICKR

PHOTOS KOBY MICHAELS/THE UBYSSEY

12 | GAMES | MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015

How many Queen’s students does it take to change a lightbulb?One. He holds the bulb up and waits for the world to revolve around him.

How many U of T students does it take to change a lightbulb?Two. One to change the lightbulb and one to crack under the pressure.

How many Western students does it to change a lightbulb?

Five. One to change the lightbulb and four to find the per-fect J.Crew outfit to wear for the occasion.

How many McMaster students does it take to change a lightbulb?Two. One to change the bulb and the other to say loudly how he did it as well as any Queen’s student.

How many Guelph students does it take to change a lightbulb?Seven. One to screw it in and six to figure out how to power it on manure.

How many UVic students does it take to change a lightbulb?None. Lava lamps don’t burn out man!

How many University of Manitoba students does it take to change a lightbulb?One, if you can find any.

How many UBC students does it take to change a lightbulb?None, because they’re so sustainable.

PHOTO MAX GORDON/THE UBYSSEYAbout an hour from UBC, St. Mark’s Summit provides stunning views of Howe Sound.

Are you looking for close convenient storage?

We have two locations available minutes from the UBC campus and offer student discounts year-round.

■ 1850 York Avenue 604.731.0435 [email protected]■ 2034 West 11th Avenue 604.736.2729 [email protected]

We also have limited space available for on campus storage, please contact [email protected] for details.

The Ubyssey could not source the credit for these jokes.

March 16, 2015

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