Saturday, August 29th, 2009

Green & Gold Community Garden

My Mum pointed out an article in Thursday’s Journal about a very cool community garden at the University of Alberta farm. Green & Gold Community Garden Volunteer-run, the Green & Gold Community Garden sells their vegetables on a pay-what-you-can basis, with 100% of proceeds going directly to Tubahumurize, a non-profit organization based in Rwanda that [...]

Monday, November 10th, 2008

Better Luck Next Time: Marco’s Famous

For a quick food stop prior to a Revolutionary Speakers’ Series lecture by Sue Johanson (of Sunday Night Sex Show fame), we opted to try Marco’s Famous in the Students’ Union Building on campus (8900 114 Street). We always walk by the “flagship” Whyte location with intentions to stop, but timing has never worked out. [...]

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

Theatre: "After the Fall"

With The Crucible and Death of a Salesman as evidence, I thought Arthur Miller’s last play, After the Fall, would have had similar oomph. Boy, was I wrong. From the Studio Theatre website: “Miller’s After the Fall (1964) is a strongly autobiographical work, which deals with the questions of guilt and innocence, examining failed relationships, [...]

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

Maher Arar: Civil Liberties & National Security

On Wednesday, May and I attended a lecture by Maher Arar at the Winspear Centre sponsored by the University of Alberta Political Science Department. I know it’s a formality at such events to have people of high academic ranking precede the main speaker to, in a sense, soften up the topical ground with grand introductions [...]

Sunday, March 25th, 2007

Narratives of Citizenship Conference

Mack and I attended the Narratives of Citizenship Conference this weekend, put on by the Graduates Students of English Association at the University of Alberta. The conference was divided into three sections – academic, artistic, and communal, though really, the concentration was on paper presentations. We were originally asked a few months ago to be [...]

Thursday, March 8th, 2007

Revolutionary Speakers’ Series: Art Spiegelman

Sometimes an event is witnessed that shouldn’t be reduced to text because it deserves the sensory justice of an in-the-moment experience. This was one of those nights. My APT English professor first exposed me to the work of Art Spiegelman, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus. It was my first brush with graphic novels, and [...]

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

New Works Festival 2007

After dinner, Dickson and I headed to the Second Playing Space in the Timms Centre for the New Works Festival, an event that features various student-created productions. The first show we watched, Flap, tells the story of a young couple who unite over their quest to save a dying bird. Dickson sarcastically commented afterwards that [...]

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007

Poverty in Malawi

I ventured out late this afternoon for another International Week session titled, “Gender, Education and the HIV/AID Pandemic in Rural Malawi.” Presenting were Dr. Anne Fanning, a retired physician, and Rachel Maser, who just recently returned from a ten-month volunteer stint in Malawi with Engineers Without Borders. Dr. Fanning began the session with a whirlwind [...]

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007

Film: "Their Brothers’ Keeper"

Until March, the University of Alberta International Centre will be holding weekly film screenings to increase awareness about global issues that affect the worldwide community, including human trading, conflict, and disease. Tonight, I went to watch a film entitled Their Brothers’ Keeper: Orphaned by AIDS: “Filmed over a seven-month period, Their Brothers’ Keepers goes inside [...]