Yes, I would like fries with that.

Yes, I do want to make that drink a double.

Yes, I would like to to join the AMS Confidential team.

It’s been fun here. It’s going to be even more fun in the sparkle and glitter world.

XOXO,

GG <3

Barenaked Ladies

Hey Ocean! (I <3 Ashleigh Ball)

Michael Bernard Fitzgerald

Hosted by CBCR3′s Grant Lawrence

Tickets: $22.50, on sale Friday, March 12 at The Outpost

The 3rd annual AMS Block Party is taking place on April 15, 2010, from 2:00pm-8:00pm on MacInnes Field.

• Love letter from Taylor Loren? I wish.
• @bowtiebrian and @zeevp are now following me on Twitter? Hopefully soon.
• UBC will have a balanced budget for the 2010-2011 year? Yes!! Clicky on to see a picture too!

Since it was addressed to the UBC Community, I’ll assume this email was sent to all 40 000+ people at UBC. How did people react to said email?

Wow GG Graphics Department… you’ve really outdone yourselves on that one.

Made it this far? Neat. What’s UBC planning for the next year? Well, who knows. The actual budget isn’t released for a little while longer. What I can tell you is:

• $1.5 million to the Learning Exchange / Community Service Learning, which is great!
• $6.1 million in new student aid funding
• $19 million in “centrally funded activity” cuts. Comment if you know what that means.
• Faculty budgets reduced by 2.5% across the board
  • In the next year, funding will also be determined by how many students the faculty actually has too.

The PDF sent out essentially said the budget would be balanced, and gave a few highlights. Seems like something that could have been blogged over on The Administration. (working link this time… thanks KK!)

As of late… I’ve also had a few inquiries about who I am. To clear things up:

• Yes, I do enjoy being the big spoon.
• I find glasses extremely sexy.
• Yes, I am free on Saturday night.

A lot has changed in the past few years, and now our UBC Admin have a blog. Zee VP Finance, Pierre Ouillet,  says “adopting social media is another example of the powerful transformation continuing to take place at UBC. Openness, transparency, broad dialogue in a context of quiet confidence about who we are and where we are going.”

Well Pierre, GG really wants to see how this is going to turn out – if you’ll keep posting, if more people will join in (currently only Pierre and VP Students, Brian Sullivan), and what you’ll actually say. Yeah, I’m skeptical like that.

What was said by Pierre and Brian at the super duper top secret (not really) Student Editorial Team meeting today was encouraging, to say the least. All the hotshots were there… The Insiders, AMS Confidential, Ubyssey… I’m going to dub this group “The UBC Electronic and Paper Media Consortium,” and we’re going to soon have a theme song that’ll get stuck in your head 10x longer than CTV’s.

My favourite quote of the afternoon:

A 2% tuition increase is necessary for us to not go bankrupt.

The “rapid beautification” of University Boulevard was also brought up briefly. Funny how we lived with a fence and construction for years, but BOOM, Olympics, and we have roads and grass. It was essentially said at the meeting that yes, the Olympics were coming, and that provided the kick in the heiney to get something done. Money was freed up, we got grass trucked in and a fancy new advertisement board thinger was put up. An honest, straight up answer. That’s exactly what we need from our Administration, and I hope that’s exactly what their blog will be.

CUS referendum stuff was also talked about, but frankly, I don’t give a shit about that, nor do I know much about it, so I’ll refrain from saying anything.

XOXO,
GG

From the UBC Spectator liveblog of the AMS Council meeting: “Basically the security of the system was on the front end. When you log in you go through CWL, authorizing the vote. Makes sure you’re a real student and haven’t voted. At the voting page, the person cloned it, and there is no authentication after submission. So they cloned it multiple times and were able to vote multiple times. There is no back-end authorization.”

So basically, someone who is a heck of a lot better with computers than I am did some funky things, and voted a lot.

http://www.votermedia.org/communities/82-ubc-ams

UPDATE: Forgot the link. FML.

Say it ain’t so…

Seriously though… please don’t. Yeah, things are a little haywire right now. Seems like a few people in the AMS are taking a few too many hits out of the Hash Pipe before making decisions around here. This definitely isn’t a Perfect Situation. But you… don’t come Undone. GG likes your attitude, and your sweaters. Don’t go off to some Island in the Sun. If you do, you’ll just be some other Dope Nose around campus. Keep fighting the good fight in the council chambers.

Unless you’re gearing up for an election campaign. Then do that.

Weezer references in this post: 6.

“There was shit going down at MASS and all the AUS people were freaking out about something new Blake did.”

Is Blake being a little too accountable with his tweets and Facebook statuses? I’ll await his response to elaborate….

Wonder what that’s going to?

Council meeting. Monday. 4pm. Be there. Should be fun.

Hopefully it’ll be over by 9, so I can get home and watch the last Gossip Girl episode until next year.

I’ve been trying to rationalize what you’ve gone and done. I think I’ve got it, and I’ll lay it out here.

I’ll start with saying that I’m pissed off. I don’t know exactly why though. I can’t pin it down to just one thing you’ve fucked up. Notice how I say “you,” not the AMS as a whole. Had you and Tristan gone through with this whole debacle yourselves, I probably would have supported you from a far distance, while overall, laughing at the ridiculousness of you actually taking this up with the UN.

Even the TwitterMoms are making fun of UBC. That hurts.

One reason I’m mad is because you’re wasting my money. $3000 retainer, and many, many more legal fees to come. Gossip Guy won’t lie to you and say he’s a starving, sober student, but he doesn’t have extra money to throw away at shit like lawyer fees for your bloody fantastical pursuits. What do I pay to the AMS… $35? I’d really like that back. That’s 3 – 6 packs I could buy with that.

By association, you’ve also made a laughing stock of me, and UBC, in the media. It’s now clearer than ever that your views do not represent my views, nor the views of of the UBC community. You’ve dug us deeper into the sociopolitical black hole than we ever were before. I doubt the University administration is please about this whole situation. This definitely won’t improve the AMS’ relationship with them.

However, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re an educated person. Tristan must be too, with his two degrees. You had to have been expecting this kind of public reaction to your UN complaint, which leads me to believe that you did this for the public reaction. The outrage and the outcry. You want more than 15% out voting in the AMS Elections, and you were willing to put yourself and your reputation on the line to get people involved. For this… for raising concern and getting people talking… Thank you Blake.

I’m excited to see if this will work. I have my doubts. There’s certainly no way that the UN will take this seriously, which led me to the aforementioned notion that this is all a publicity stunt. As long as people are dying in war, nobody is going to give a shit how much you pay for your higher education. Nobody forced you to come here and learn. Nobody forced Tristan to incur all of that debt. You can live without a University degree.

I see what you did, and I do *partially* agree with the idea, just not (at all. never. ever) the path you’ve taken. On Saturday, I hope Council votes your heiney out. You got people talking, and it worked; however, you’ve shamed the University, the AMS, and thousands of students that do not agree with your views. Give him the boot!

As of Saturday night, I hope you are no longer my elected representative, but I do hope you do not give up the fight. Yes, tuition fees suck, but they could be worse, and we need people like you, Blake, to make sure they don’t go all California on us.

XOXO,

GG