Quest University

This week’s theme for Life at Quest is your wildest winter break fantasy! So, I will share with all the readers of the front page what my personal winter break fantasy is. If I could do anything at all for winter break, I would of course not take a break at all and just take another block at Quest! Why would I possibly want to spend time in a remote, tropical island when that would entail leaving cold, rainy Squamish? The mere thought of not having to wear four layers of clothing every day fills me with a deep and utter sadness. If I were anywhere but at Quest University, I might also have some free time, which would be horrible because I just wouldn’t know what to do with my time if it wasn’t filled reading and critiquing peer edited journals. Were there not deadlines for large essays perpetually hanging over my head, then surely my world would crumble beneath my very feet. Given all this, there is nowhere I would rather be during my winter break than where I am right at this very moment. 

Isha's fantasy
Ligia's fantasy
Anonymous fantasy!!!
Jaimie's fantasy

 

What did I do this past month? Write for Life at Quest? Most definitely not. I did, however, see a lot of mustaches. Some were nice. Some were not. Some were at that really awkward stage of I’m-trying-to-grow-a-mustache-to-join-the-cause-even-though-I’m-not-at-that-stage-of-development-yet-where-I-can-actually-grow-a-mustache. And some, well, let’s just say I would have paid people to not grow them. And I tried very hard to be accepting and open minded, because all of those little furry caterpillars crawling across the upper lips of males (and some females) everywhere are for a good cause. But some of them, I just want to run up to with a strip of wax and take matters into my own hands. It is time for those caterpillars to turn into butterflies and fly away. Far, far away...

--Jenna Saffin

Here are links to what other LAQ Staffers have been up to!  Don't forget to check out the Quest Classical Concert on Friday night and the Snowflake ornament making session at the Library next week! 

Ligia
Isha
Jaimie
Anna
 

Some shots from the climbing gym at Quest...featuring Heather, Kirsty and Isha.

Last Thursday, after a crazy block of filming, editing, and coffee, I had the wonderful opportunity of attending the nightly general assembly of the protesters of Occupy Vancouver. The air at the Vancouver Art Gallery, or "Tent City" as it is fondly referred to, was not as lively as the image I had concocted in my mind. It was dark. It was cold. It was full of announcements. The most passionate people were those who were speaking about their individual causes, and there were a LOT of individual causes.

I came out of the experience confused, but not discouraged. A good portion of the meeting was dedicated to delineating logistics and communication.; it was like watching a kid learn how to ride a bike. Coordination is everything, but also pain-staking. Interestingly enough, many of the organizers were white, able-bodied males, so the lack of diversity was a bit disconcerting.

However, It was inspiring to see people who really believed in a cause whole-heartedly dedicate themselves to it. Mad props to the sisters and brothers out there in the worsening weather, standing up to a massive and pervasive ideology.

Check out one students thoughts on the ground-breaking protest in Vancouver here

In the best of cases, theatre can be a means of overcoming limitations, of expressing deep emotions, of exploring new vistas of experience. Our last theatre meeting was the best of cases.

It can be exhausting to run a theatre meeting. As a facilitator, your focus is not just on wiggling around happily in the activity you adore, but on what time it is, whether or not elbows are flapping too vigourously or not enough, and which exercises are left to do on your crumpled list (and whether or not you can remember what each item on that list meant . . . acronyms are always a bad idea, in hindsight). You must pay attention to whether anybody is uncomfortable or overwhelmed or a little too happy. You must be a sympathizer. You must be an agitator. You must be a mind reader. And contrary to popular belief, magic takes a lot of hard work.

Part of why I especially loved the last theatre meet-up, then, may have had to do with the fact that I was not the magician. This is one of the many benefits of collaboratively running a club. It’s not all on you all the time. Someone else can fly the plane sometimes, giving you the chance to taste the peanuts and make faces at the ducks you pass.

Oh, yes, there were large game birds at this theatre meet-up. A goose, to be exact, chased by Claude Monet (of course). Saxophones were played; children were taught how to swim. Mirror exercises ended up in peculiar dances and some very up close and personal time with the floor. Multiple aerobics classes were taught; robbers were accosted by stalwart dogs; an elderly couple forgot their gender identities; and a garbage can may have been peed in. Six of us chameleons danced through multiple roles, improvising and laughing, surprising one another and sharing observations, honking and tooting and wailing our hearts out.

And, at the highest point of all, we left that crumped list of exercises behind and forayed out into the strange world of spontaneous, unstructured improvisation. It came unexpectedly, as this week’s facilitator-magician, Jeannie, announced that we had run out of time, and would not do the last game on the list, “Emotional Rollercoaster.” Well, we showed her. Hardly before she finished her declaration, we exploded into raucous performance. We didn’t need to know the rules of the game; we became the emotional rollercoaster. We jumped up and ran around the room. We cried hideously and laughed uproariously. We took on the opposite emotion of the others. We all took on the same emotion. And all entirely spontaneously.

And we didn’t stop there. We went from explosions of emotion to an elaborate zombie scene. After all the brains were eaten, we found ourselves in a slow motion conversation, and then an energetic collective dance. There was no stopping us. We were liberated. There we were, six widely different people of very different backgrounds and ages, but it didn’t matter. We were playing together.

That’s it. I am convinced.
The world needs more playing.
Jaimie

It’s halfway through the second block, and the time has come to speak of tiredness. October has lumbered onto the scene, mopey and long-faced. The rains have come . . . as have the words “exhausted,” “knackered,” “spent,” “wiped,” “cracked,” and “ponied.” Yes, ponied. These tired old horses are falling behind the young horses of yesterday. These hours and days are running into each other and falling over. Here we are, a puddle of students, panting, squinting, and gnomish.

These days, every other student I run into on campus smells of insomniac muttering. We talk of sleepless nights and the perils of joining five too many clubs. When asked about how we are, we faintly grimace and reply, “You know.” Life on the hill is becoming a routine. Homework is becoming that one cinematic character that just keeps coming back, even after you beat it with a stick, toss it in the ocean, and make it listen to “The Chicken Dance” for hours.

Is that character the hero or the villain? It seems all villain as I burn my eyes eight hours in a row on LCD research. But the thought that pulls me through is that someday, it just might be the hero. It just might fly me to the moon so that I can bring back the special elixir that saves the orangutans. Or, at least, it might grant me a pretty great cape. Someday.

Who knows? I change my mind by the hour, and while I may, at times, be disillusioned with academia, I’m not complaining. I know our predicament as students is also a privilege we pay big bucks to enjoy. I know that life might just continue past the mounds of homework to a brighter, more balanced day.

Of course, you never know. But most who have gone without sleep for a night know that the next day is often full of giggles and/or grand life realizations and/or serenity. Many who make time for clubs end up making lasting connections, even if the club makes no celebrated breakthroughs. These experiences are precious, even if experienced drooling and delirious.

Yes, it’s October. Yes, saliva is hard to contain when you’ve lost feeling in your face. Hang in there. Get some sleep sometimes; eat well, and don’t worry about the drool. Do what you need to do to stay balanced. Find meadows to run wild in between the cartloads of heavy study.

It’s a horse race, but we’re all in it together. I am tired beyond belief, and the finish line is far away. But one thing is for sure: I will never tire of all your brave, toothy smiles.

To all the wild horses,
Jaimie
 

If there's one thing we writers at lifeatquest are, it's dedicated.  We've got spies heading out to all sorts of events to bring in the campus news.  We've got people reading books on top of their coursework to furnish your "Books to Read Before I Die" lists.  We've even got writers reaching into their pasts to deliver their grandmothers' wisdom to you (make sure you cite Grandma if you quote her in your next essay).  Most of us aren't paid.  Most of us could use a nap instead of a lifeatquest meeting.  Our site may not be as user-friendly as it could be (we're working on that), but, by gum, we will do anything it takes to get the word out to you.

... even if it means looking a little silly.  

It was an alarm-bell Wednesday afternoon in the excruciating third week of the block.  After nearly three weeks of chopping block science, it had reached the time of dirty laundry and delirious mumbling.  It had reached the day of the third lifeatquest team meeting.  And I was to step in for Isha and run the meeting.  I was to leave my off-campus home by exactly 3:40 pm to make it there on time.  I was ... running late.

3:46 pm.  Pry eyes from homework.  Out the door, and up the hill, at a jog.  Ten minutes in, breathing heavily, lopsided, backpack gait.  A car passes by, pulls over; red lights shine like beacons, and I find myself in the back seat.  The joy of going to a small school:  most students know each other well enough to offer rides, lend belongings, share forks...

3:58 pm.  Dropoff in North Village parking lot.  With one final sprint up the hill to the library building, I might make the meeting on time!  This is the final stretch, and I am going for it!  I am barrelling full steam ahead!  I am greeting a fellow student , while at the same time reaching down to hitch up my ... OH.

That's right, folks.  I ran to that last lifeatquest meeting with my pants down.  And I didn't stop running when I found out; I just yanked 'em up and kept on going.  And you know what?  I was at that meeting on time.

That is how important getting the news out is to us.

Thank you for being so worth writing news about, and enjoy the first day of Block Two!

Jaimie

It was, at last, Saturday. Saturday, whose furry stomach promised solace to exhausted academic creatures. Saturday, whose teeth gleamed with possibilities, whose teeth gleamed with dreaming, whose teeth gleamed because Saturday is one of two days of the week in which taking the time for teeth cleaning is a real and distinct possibility. Saturday had arrived, thank goodness, and it had arrived with a howl.

This “Howl” was no incidental colouration on the part of the narrator, but, of course, a film about Allen Ginsberg’s poem of that name. A projector was scrounged up, and as the back legs of the best day of the week began to disappear into the night, the guests arrived.

Several of the guests had never heard of “Howl,” Ginsberg, or the Beat Poets. On this fateful night, however, all of that changed. Scenes of revolution-by-typewriter crept in through retinas. Voices calling for freedom and spirituality flowed through ear canals. At one point, I even felt fifty-three tongues lovingly scraping my spine. (Maybe that last one was just me.)

Afterward, a few of the guests stayed and threw many excited words up into the air. It appears that Ginsberg’s poem, after fifty years, still has the power to speak to our lives. I guess this means that repression is still a reality. We have still not attained full freedom of speech or sexuality, choice of religion, or choice of substances. Fifty years on, materialism and vacuity live on. Moloch, the poem’s demon antagonist, looms ever overhead.

These are no occasions to celebrate. But what is, I think, occasion for rejoice, is the light I saw in the eyes of the attendees after an elderly Allen Ginsberg sang the credits into rolling. The enthusiasm and ranting that erupted after the film. The stories and ideas that poured out of mouths. Who knows where these ideas will run to?

To say the least, the night—and the discussion that ensued—was epic. However!  Before I start sounding like a Beat Generation groupie, I should make clear that I have no intentions of throwing my underwear on the stage. There are things that I absolutely love about the Beat Poets (their free-writing style, extreme creativity, resistance to many forms of oppression...). There are also pieces of their orations that I would not pick up off the street and eat (casual sex, arrogance, constant drunkenness, hedonism…).

So, although I would probably not go to bed with any of them, I will say this: the Beats are worth checking out. No matter your own peculiar set of beliefs about freedom, there is a profundity to be found there, particularly in “Howl.” I can’t think of many other beasts I’d have liked to seen out my Saturday on.

Keep howling,
Jaimie

Please note: I know what a sentence fragment is, and I know when I want to use one. I think Allen Ginsberg would support me in this.
 

I thought y’all might like to have an idea of all the arts goings on and arts opportunities on campus, and so, after hours of sniffing around and digging up dirt . . . and possibly some howling at the moon . . . here it is, for the very first time, the mostly-complete and abridged down-low on the arts at Quest! Check it!

If you’re interested in sharing your art with crowds, we’ve got a bunch of exciting performance and showcase opportunities peeking out from around corners. If you’re into visual art, you could submit some protest-themed art to Magdalena Angel’s art auction (going down in November) in support of the fight to keep the Enbridge oil pipleline out of the Great Bear Rainforest. If you’re a musician, you could perform at open mics or the Classical Concert in early December (you don’t have to play classical music to partake in it). If you’re interested, contact Laurel Parsons… and you might want to start practicing now... December pounces viciously on unsuspecting performers! If you’re into activist art, there’s the Vagina Monologues theatre production coming up next semester (contact Carmen Petrick)… and there’s a good possibility that another social issue performance event will happen this year. Last year we did one on oppression, and it was AWESOME. Contact Ligia Batista if you’re interested. Finally, our SRC Arts and Culture minister, Lauren Head, might get Arts Showcases, Lip Syncs, and Arts Slams going if there’s lots of energy in those areas, so get in touch with her if you’d like to see such adventures happen!

If you want to practice your chops, we’ve got some instruments and spaces to do that. We have been blessed by the gods and now happen to have a grand piano in the MPR. Contact Laurel Parsons to get permission to play it! The soon-to-be-tuned communal piano has also been reinstated, in all its glory, to the cafeteria, and there is one more piano (and possibly a drum set!) in the music bay, which will soon be up and running. Contact Brendon Barber to get access. And never to be forgotten is our good friend, the communal guitar, in the Atrium!

If you want to develop your skills at various types of fine arts, from drawing A-class bananas to strumming a guitar with confidence, we’ve got a number of opportunities hopping around in that boat. For one, we’ve got arts workshops coming soon in the arts bay. Sign up for the Arts Collective club if you want to hear about the workshops, and contact Sophie Major if you’re interested in teaching or taking a specific workshop. The arts bay may also be open to individual use by regular users, so fire an email to Jon Reich (who is currently planning it) if you want in on that! If you want to improve your twang or yodel or trill for free, there’s a music skills exchange group on campus called FLARP (now, there’s a name you won’t forget). Annnnd if you want to work on musical compositions with other people, check out the Quest Music Collective. This group has transmogrified from Fogon, the music collective of the last few years, into a new working group that welcomes new members and new compositions! Fogon’s CDs are available if you want to hear some of what went on in the music collective last year.

What else, what else? We’ve got dancers and prancers coming out our wazoo, wiggling gracefully around at the dance club, the SRC dances, spontaneously during study breaks and outbreaks of excitement around campus, and weekend dance parties. We’ve got jammers and drummers lurking behind every door waiting for people to follow the sounds and join in. We’ve got artisans of all types, developing enviable hand muscles with all that crocheting, sewing, jewellery-making, wood-working, skateboard-crafting, and more. New artisanal clubs this year include a clothing design & production club and a workshop club.

Rumour in the grapevine also says there’s a brand spanking new theatre club (a group of excited enthusiasts stoked to do theatre games), a writing club (a great place to break out of the tight collar of academic prose), and a photography club (a group dedicated to “taking pictures of awesome [stuff]” in club in leader Tucker Sherman’s words). If you like wearing an organizer’s hat, you might also want to fasten your chinstrap and start your own club! Or, put on your meetin’ boots and join the planning meetings for the Dancing Bear Music Festival happening in the Spring (contact Megan Myles),

If you’d like to throw arts into the academic sack, well, the cat’s out of the bag: Quest does have some arts courses! And more and more seem to be popping up each year. Classes that have gone on to date include Theatre and Film with Fei Shi, Math and Music with Laurel Parsons and Glen Van Brummelen, and Musical Composition, Musical Neuroscience, and Ethnomusicology with Laurel Parsons. Next semester, we’ve got a couple of new arts courses being birthed: Art and Social Change with Judith Marcuse and a possible Fine Arts course (contact Sophie Major if you want to help midwife that one). And if you’re hankering for a course that’s not included in this list, why not design your own independent study? I did one; it involved writing a theatre piece about beans, and it was one of the best courses I’ve ever done. A final option for art-starved students is an exchange to partner university that does have the delicious arts classes Quest hasn’t cooked up just yet.

Last, but not least, if you are having problems drooling and falling asleep in class, you may want to think about bringing your arts into the classroom! Even if you’re in a geology course, there’s a good chance you can find some way to be creative with your homework. Seriously, I left another university because I felt creatively constricted, and at Quest, I have found that creative input is welcomed and celebrated. At Quest, I have drawn cartoons, written all over my skin, and choreographed a dance for class presentations. I have also seen other students ramp up classroom creativity by doing such things as composing poems, presenting theatrical works, and creating dioramas. So, I urge you: do not leave your creativity at the door!!

This account has not, of course, encompassed all of the arts happenings on campus. There are whole worlds of informal and individual art that go on under the radar, and there are too many creative people and shindigs and projects here to account for! So, please don’t grieve if I haven’t included your initiative in this overview; just get in touch with me about it, and I’ll make sure it gets reported on.

If you have more questions about the arts at Quest, contact your SRC Arts and Culture minister, Lauren Head, or your lifeatquest Arts and Culture regular contributers, Jon Farmer or myself. And always, if you have questions or comments for me, send em’ along (or post them on the site)!

Create, care, play!

Jaimie Sumner

There is something different around campus.  Maybe it's the new Asian bar at the cafeteria, or maybe the new sign that blocks off the makeshift footpath plodded into the planter between North and South Villages. 

Or maybe it's the 156 new students up on campus. 

Once again, it is a pleasant September in Squamish, as Quest kicks off another fall semester.  Despite having lost the recent graduates to the 'real world,' the students continue to shape the culture on campus.  And with a few new faculty members, the diversity in interests and life will only be fostered. 

With increasing numbers, however, there is a growing concern that the University may lose some trademark qualities of the past: spontaneity, individualism, student impact in academic and administrative ideals.  Of course each new student brings a new characteristic that molds what it means to be a Quest student.  The community is changing, so it will be able to retain the idea of progress that is characteristic to Quest, but what defines the culture of Quest University? 

Needless to say, starting a new school year without the founding class is weird.  It feels like waking up on the wrong side of the bed.  Not in a bad way, just different.  Imagine waking up, knowing exactly where you are, but facing a completely different outlook.  Our school has a legacy now.  So as each of us approaches becoming part of that legacy, we must think of what we have done with our time here, and what character it has brought out. 

A merry first week/block to all: good luck to the eight sections of Cornerstone, and welcome back, everybody. 

Isha