The Ordeal of Finals and the Catharsis of Bowling

 So last week was the end of first year and concluded with a battery of 5 finals in 4 days (2 having been written the week before) to wrap up the current batch of courses. All 5 were written in the gym and given that you can probably all visualize a school gym full of desks, I decided to skip a picture of it entirely as part of the healing process.

 On the friday after the last exam (Working Capital Management) a group of the people from my set headed out for some bowling and escape from the financial education system. After a week of quickly trying to retain information to churn out answers, having a chance to drink beer and lob heavy objects around to knock down pins seemed like an excellent idea. I had never done 10 pin bowling before and did alright considering.

 Below is a picture of everyone that came out, given that our set had only 26 people or so we had a pretty good turnout and it was nice to visit and joke about with people outside of school and without the spectre of exams hanging over us any more.

Killer Whale Highlights of 2013.

Over the winter Geordie put together a lovely highlight reel from the footage I took over April through to October of my days on the water.  Working at Wild Whales Vancouver I got lots of opportunity to show off these animals and take their pictures.  Not only killer whales (both Bigg's and Southern Residents) but also humpback and minkes whales, harbour seals, steller and california sea lions. I need to work on my bald eagle footage.  Geordie really liked the jumps that I was lucky enough to get, especially as I don't see that kind of activity every day.  They are a bit statisticaly overrepresented in the video.

I hope to take lots more footage of orcas and all the animals out there.  I already have started on a collection for 2014 showcase.

Vancouver Enbridge Protest

 There was a protest in Vancouver this weekened against the proposed Enbridge pipeline. A crowd of 1500-2000 people waved signs and made speeches about preserving the traditional ways of life and fighting the fatcats at Big Oil and Steven Harper. Its easy to photograph a crowd and make it look bigger than it was, but I feel this is a pretty representative shot of the turnout.

 Across the bike lane was a much smaller (and honestly unexpected by myself) rally of people that were in favour of the pipeline. They were representing a handful of tribes that presumably stand to benefit from transportation rights and potential jobs, so I got a photo of them in the interests of equal representation.

 Regardless of which side of the arguement you find yourself on, you must agree that this woman's owl spirit outfit was as fantastic as it was Miyazaki-esque.

 

While I am personally opposed to the pipeline and hope to preserve the current state of the BC coast, I also recognize that we live in a global society which depends on oil to an outlandish degree. I laud the efforts of the organizers to preserve their culture and piece of the world, but doubt that the vast majority of Vancouver supporters would be too keen on the lifestyle changes required by all of us to truly change the modern world's oil addiction.