Another month down

Starting out writing this, I'm not sure how much I really have to say, but it's been awhile since I posted last and figured it was due time.

To start off with, I got my glasses AND new hard drive after waiting about a week - it seems like everything in Ireland is ordered and shipped in on demand. Definitely not the most convenient way of doing things, but I guess I'll have to get used to it.
My hard drive is installed, but is not quite in working order yet. I didn't want to shell out the 150euros for Windows XP, so I'm trying to work my way around a freebie Linix-based operating system. It's not going so hot - if anyone has an "extra copy" of XP lying around (legit or not, as long as it works), I would GREATLY appreciate the donation.

On to bigger and better things.
Last weekend was my flatmate's (Whitney) 20th birthday, so a few of us took off to Galway. I got up early and took the 4-hour bus ride on my own so that I had time to check out the town, then met up with the girls in the afternoon. [There will be new pics up from the weekend, plus some randoms from the past few weeks]. Turns out Galway is like a miniature Dublin, except WAY friendlier people and more of an "Irish" feel. There was Trad music coming from just about every pub and everyone seemed to be in a great mood walking around (in spite of the mist/showers). We checked out the usual sights - the Cathedral, Spanish Arch, Galway Harbour and finally made our way through the Saturday Market. A few Canadians spotted the flag on my pack and stopped to talk for bit - they had been living in Ireland for the past 2 years and filled me in on what pubs to check out that night.
After heading back to the hostel and having a few drinks with the other people in our room (an Itallian guy, a couple German girls and a group from Spain), we finally made it across the street to The Quays Pub. If you think you've been in a packed bar in Canada, it just doesn't compare to this. There is never any such thing as "capacity" and when it gets absolutely too full inside, people just hang out in front, or move next door to the next pub. We started a bit of a pub crawl, working our way through the town. I was stoked when I found The Kings Head, and had to stop in for a pint as I told everyone about the pub that shared the name back home - it was a thrilling story by that point in the night, believe me. Whitney, who works at a pub here in Dublin, got us put on the guest list at one of the late bars near Eyre Square (I think her boss owns both places, or at least they are run by the same company).
I was planning on getting up early and going on a tour of the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, as well as a few castles along the way, but we didn't end up getting back to the hostel until late (or early depending on how you look at it). I slept through my alarm and just caught an afternoon bus back to Dublin instead. The sightseeing will have to wait for another time - and there will definitely be another trip out that way soon!

This weekend there is a birthday party for a couple people I first met at the hostel when I got here, then I hope to get up to Howth to do a bit of hiking around the hills and coast line. Also, Saturday marks the start of the Rugby Six Nations tournament and the pubs are supposed to be great craic for the next 5 weekends.

Oh yeah, earlier in the week I got a couple of those "You know you're from (your city) when . . ." forwards and just about died laughing at a couple of them. I looked for one for Dublin, but couldn't find anything decent, so I'm taking it upon myself to make one up (on company time of course). If nothing else, it'll help the days go by - I'm a head of schedule and don't know if I have a continuing position when this job is done. I figure I'll try and drag it out as long as possible.

Bye-ya

A Final Post on Michael Baumann (Conclusion to the saga from 2 days ago)

If you didn't read the previous post, don't bother with this one - it's just the conclusion of the issue I wrote about before.

Dear students,

I just received a message from the Dean of Science (you can find it at the bottom together with my response). So, suddenly it seems that banning me was the furthest from their minds. Interesting indeed. It is also a classic in institutional behaviour: If the responsibilities are messy, blame it on miscommunication or simply deny. (I know, I know, it is somewhat disappointing that it took them three days to come up with that. And all I wanted was be reinstated as an instructor AND an apology, verbally, not via email.)

So far the President's Office has received 16 letters in support of me. (I must say that I was deeply touched what many of you wrote; thank you all again.) And it is exactly these letters that make me continue on: This is not about me; this is about what STUDENTS AND ALUMNI have to say about the state of education at UBC. This is about not knowing how many instructors have adapted to the demands of some administrators. (Don't forget: Without an administration, there would still be teachers and students. Without teachers and students there would be nothing to administer. So who should be serving whom?)

This is a great opportunity for you, it won't come often. There is a new president; I have stirred up the shit; now all you have to do is take your education in your own hands. (When a flat-earth-believer is shoving a machine gun into your mouth to teach you "the truth", chances are it will be too late to write a letter.) Voice your opinion on your education, it's the president's duty to listen. (You spend about $20,000 in tuition fees here and they are hauling in another $60,000 in government funds BECAUSE you are here. So somebody better listen -- instead of being proud of oneself for providing free parking on graduation day; remember Piper?.)

Tell the president (presidents.office@ubc.ca) what you want. What kind of courses. And what kind of teachers should teach them. Tell them about class-sizes and classrooms and class-schedules and exam dates and preordained mark distributions and "withdrawal" standings and being kept busy while learning nothing. Tell them about your worries and fears and your future and the future of your friends. Be creative. Ask hard questions. Think and make others think, if that is the purpose of an intellectual being.

(Of course, the last thing you need is yet another bullshit committee sitting around slurping expensive wines at the Sage following Standard Operating Procedure.) You will need intellectuals and dedicated teachers that go out to talk AND listen to students -- to students(!!), not student representatives. (Not me though, with this I think I have done my bit.)

Don't rely on anybody else. Stop whining about awful courses and start acting responsibly as the global citizen they want you to be. Now is the time.

Michael

(Note that I cannot be reached next week. I will be back on 29 January.)

Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:55:24 -0800
To: Simon Peacock <Simon.Peacock@science.ubc.ca>
From: Michael Baumann <michael@baumann.ca>
Subject: Re: Possible Human Rights violation at UBC
Cc: presidents.office@ubc.ca, george.mackie@ubc.ca, spie@interchange.ubc.ca, "Ian Cavers" <cavers@cs.ubc.ca>, Paul Harrison <harrison@science.ubc.ca>, news@ubyssey.bc.ca

Dear Dr. Peacock,

Even if there are no written documents about the issue -- they're not that dumb --, banning me was exactly what they tried to do. (Talk to George Spiegelman.) So, somebody is lying. The question then is: Will the president let a liar continue to interact with the students?

Michael Baumann


At 11:14 18/01/2007, Simon Peacock wrote:

Dear Michael Baumann -
In your open letter to Professor Toope and others, you claim that the Dean's Office has issued an order that bans you from teaching at UBC. This is not correct. No such ban has been, or is currently, in effect.
Sincerely - Simon Peacock

Simon M. Peacock
Dean, Faculty of Science
University of British Columbia
1505-6270 University Boulevard
Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 1Z4

Tel: 604-822-3337
Fax: 604-822-0677
E-mail: scidean@science.ubc.ca

It's amazing what can happen in a few short hours

What a horrible day . . . and it's only noon.

I got turned down for a bank account because they need proof that I am registered with Irish Tax Services (that letter supposed to on it's way, but has been 2 weeks already). It also doesn't help matters that you have to deal with the same branch as your employer, so instead of walking down the street to deal with Ulster Bank, I have to go across town.

I only managed to pull off 2 hours at work today before coming down with a splitting headache and general "sick" feelings, so I packed it in for the day. On the way home the wind was blowing like I've never seen before (the news is saying it's 120km/hr+). I was blown hard into the side of a building walking down the street, then almost fell as I was crossing the bridge over the river Lifey. Fortunately I was able to brace myself against the rail, but in the process had my glasses blown off my face, carried about 300 feet and dropped into the middle of the Lifey. I stood shocked for moment, then, realizing that I couldn't do anything about it, laughed. I made it home in a blurry haze and plan on taking it easy for the rest of the day. On the plus side, I did bring the prescription for my glasses with me and have a few sets of contacts here so that I'm not pulling a Mr. Magoo for the next few days. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by tomorrow and can pretend like today didn't happen.

Alright, that's enough complaining out of me for a while.

Updated Ramblings

It's official, my hard drive has crashed and I lost (almost) everything off of it. Ironically I was in the process of backing up my pictures when my computer crashed, so I had a partial copy of my files. Most of my pictures are gone, but at least I have a good assortment up on my site, so it's not a total loss. Plus, I have another 21+ months to take more pictures than I will ever be able to sit down and sort through.

The middle of the week has passed and the weekend is fast approaching. No major plans, other than pricing out a new hard drive and probably going to a few movies. Jill (my room-mate) is heading to Paris for the weekend, so I'm looking forward to a few nights of sound sleep (and the absence of the daily 6:45am alarm...). After never having to share a room my whole life, this past 3 months of having as many as 19 roomies a night has been an experience to say the least. The two main things I have learned from it all is that anger and frustration at the "snoring guy" crosses all language barriers, and that the bottom bunk is prime real estate.

Straying from my usual "day in the life of me" entries I wanted to comment on a recent e-mail that I got a past professor (who just happens to be my favorite from my time at UBC). Read on if you have the time, but I know this will be quite irrelevant to most.

When asked about my time and education at UBC the one experience that always comes to mind first is Integrated Science 451: From Perplexity to Complexity. Very easily, this could have been an incredibly boring lecture. Instead, it was a class that went beyond reading a text book and reciting back facts for a grade at the end of the term. Long story short, I loved the class and it was all due to the prof., Micheal Baumann. His methods were unconventional, to say the least, but it challenged us to approach problems from a different point of view and find our own answers to questions that we usually just take for granted (ex. Why do we have the voting system that we do? Is it really the best method? What other options are there? etc.) Of everything that I took away from UBC, it is the lessons from this class that have influenced my life the most.

Aside: Some of you may have heard about the prof. that sent back his PhD to Martha Piper (the President of UBC at the time) as an act of protest (in a previous and unrelated matter) - this was Michael.

The day before last I received an e-mail from Michael and I have posted it in its' entirety below (I do not know if all UBC students got it or not):

OPEN LETTER

Dear Dr. Toope, Dear UBC students,
I shall be brief.
In mid-December a complaint was filed against me at the Office of the Dean of Science here at UBC. As a result, I was called into the Dean's Office to explain my unconventional teaching style, particularly for isci 451, a course I developed within the Integrated Sciences Program. I defended my approach politely, although, as the complaint was anonymous, with reservations. Last Friday, Dr. Spiegelman, the Director of the Integrated Sciences Program, informed me that the Dean's Office has issued an order that bans me from teaching at UBC. Why has the ban been imposed?
Two possibilities:
(A) I'm a just another incompetent teacher. [This should be easy to prove/disprove. Unfortunately, in order to disclose the teaching evaluations of Dr. Paul Harrison and Dr. Ian Cavers, respectively, I will have to invoke the Access to Information Act.]
(B) I do not bow my head to the administration.As I was quite annoyed with myself the morning after my meeting with Associate Dean Harrison, I sent him an email(http://www.baumann.ca/mypapers/harrison07.doc) that day, which contains several questions that remain unanswered. Apparently, as I learned from Dr. Spiegelman, it was this email the Dean's Office "took great umbrage with", and not my teaching style per se. Unfortunately, if the ban imposed on me is based on point (B) above,the issue becomes a question of Freedom of Opinion and Expression as laid out in both, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and, of course, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Interestingly,the latter was drafted by a Canadian, John Peters Humphrey.) (I should mention here that in the Winter session of 2004/2005 Dr.Cavers already unsuccessfully tried to muzzle me, which I consider not only a violation of my basic human rights as an individual, but also one against my duty as an intellectual. It also goes against UBC's mission as declared in its mission statement.)

I trust that the President's Office will act upon this information, and remain yours truly,
Michael Baumannmichael@baumann.ca
(604) 722-1859

TO MY STUDENTS (feel free to distribute)
I never ask for favours, but now would be a good time to voice your support. Ultimately, this is not about me, but about YOU. One paragraph, one sentence, anything will do. Go straight to the president (presidents.office@ubc.ca; cc to me). This case is in HIS mandate, so disregard the flunkies in the middle. Never forget that the road to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.
Tuum est,
Michael Baumann

LINKS:My course website: http://www.baumann.ca/451
UBC's mission statement: http://www.ubc.ca/about/mission.html
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (in particular Part 1,Paragraph 2: Fundamental Freedoms):http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/Charter/index.html
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in particular Article 19): http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html


I am not usually drawn to speak out in such instances, but I took personal offence to the actions of UBC against Michael. I understand that we are only being presented one side of the story, but I wouldn't hold my breath to hear a spokesperson from the University defend their actions. I have already written my letter to Dr. Toope and believe that he will be doing a great disservice to UBC, namely it's students, if he carries through with this dismissal. I found it much to rare to of an event to have a professor/lecturer that actually took an honest interest in the education (academic and personal) of their students and it will be a shame to lose Michael Baumann.

So here's the story . . .

My computer died on me yesterday - I did a reboot and got the "blue screen of death". I'm in the process of reformatting and reinstalling windows. Luckily enough I remembered my install CDs, but don't have any of my old software (including data recovery programs). As of right now the vast majority of my pics are gone, but I have a few. I'm going to try to scavenge them off the hard drive, but we'll have to wait and see what I can recover.

Aside from that:
- Christmas was pretty uneventful and boring
- It rained the 4 days of big horse racing event, so I never made it out there
- New Years was tons of fun (I'll put up pics if I get them back)
- First week of work went smoothly, but isn't all that exciting (although there may be a trip planned to Befast in the near future to check out one of the production facilities up there)
- As we have no tv, I bought an unlimited movie pass for the theater at the end of the street. So I plan on trying to stay up to date in the cinematic world.
- Right now I'm just on my way out the door to check out Malahide Castle in North Dublin. I think this will be castle #6 for me - the ones in Luxembourg and Ghent are the clear favorites so far.

Hopefully I'll have things back up and running (with all of my pics) soon - then I'll put up a new post or two.