Radio station The Zone 91.3 is sponsoring a wicked event with Tourism Victoria called "Dine Around and Stay In Town Victoria."
From February 19 - March 8th, 50 restaurants around Victoria are offering three-course meals for 20-40 bucks. Apparently hotels are also jumping this bandwagon, offering discounted rooms. Personally, I think a dorm room can be just as romantic - and cheaper.
Menus available on the website.
In sad news, it seems that Felicitas pub on the UVic campus has ceased offering two for one appies between 2 and 4pm. Now they're buy one, get one half... but that's far less fun.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Grants, Not Loans!
On January 21st, student loan debt in Canada reached an all-time high of $13 billion. To call attention to this abomination, the University of Victoria Student's Society (UVSS) held a "Starving Student Soup Kitchen" in conjunction with The Canadian Federation of University Students, colleges and universities across B.C.
I was welcomed with slices of brown bread and steaming vats of tangy vegetarian minestrone. A projector flashing statistics also welcomed me, statistics I was a part of. As I watched the live counter quickly adding numbers to student loan debt, I woefully speculated that $40,000 of that money was mine.
Not including taxes.
And I'm not even done school yet.
Tuition fees have more than doubled between 1985 and 2005. This is a rise of 14% to 30%. This is largely due to post-secondary schools having to charge students more because of cuts to their own government funding. Students studying in the Maritimes have the highest debt, but here in B.C. we're right behind them.
Watching the screen in the Micheal Pujol room, I was shocked and angry. This is usually what happens when I talk about my student loan. However, seeing others going through the same situation just heightened my disgust with the way our government takes care of its future brains and bodies. One in four students say that finances are impeding their post-secondary eduction. As debt rising from $1,000 to $10,000, completion rates drop dramatically. And when it comes to filing for bankruptcy, only those who have committed financial fraud have more restrictions than people with student loans.
At a table in the back, amidst "Lower Tuition" buttons and UVSS keychains, a station sat for people to write letters to Stephen Harper. You could ask anything you wanted - and indeed, some people were asking everything from better bicycle laws to greener cars - but the main point was to ask him to help post-secondary students out. My letter was two pages long. It didn't attack, it didn't lament, but it put in plain view that I'm absolutely terrified to graduate with 40 grand in debt.
I am a statistic. My student loans are preventing me from applying to graduate school at BCIT to become a broadcast journalist. This is the reason I took my undergraduate degree in writing and journalism, but now I'm not sure if I'll be able to move on at all.
I panic because I don't want to take a job I dislike after graduation just to pay off some of the loan. However, I'm resigned to the fact that hey, that will probably happen. I guess it'll be good training in bread-and-butter communications writing, at least. Something to pay the bills.
The students kept filing in. When I arrived, at the very start of the two-hour event, there were perhaps 20 people who were chatting and eating. After an hour, nearly 300 people had gone through, causing the UVSS to order more soup.
Seems like everyone is starving these days.
"We didn't think we'd get this many students," says Caitlin Meggs, Chairperson of the UVSS. "Hopefully we wo
n't run out of everything because it's very important." While she doesn't have government student loans, she is taking out private loans to complete her education.
"Government should invest in education and ideas, especially during this economic crisis," she says, hand clutching more information sheets. "They keeps bailing out corporations, so they have the money. They should be helping students."
As I nodded - face flushed - I looked around me. More students, more debt. And how many students weren't here that wanted to come - or even students at university who had the grades but couldn't make the finances?
And why the heck can't I get into BCIT even with the grades and the drive? Why is everyone about bloody money?
Tracey Ho, UVSS director of finance, says that there is an increase in students using the UVSS emergency food bank.
"When the budget gets tight, the first thing to go is food," she says. "We need to pay rent and get books, but we can cheapen out on what we eat." The food bank is avaliable to all UVic students and is open Monday to Friday.
I said a spiel to CBC radio and was flimed for A-Channel's 11pm news. Happy that at least there was some publicity, I couldn't help wondering if this was going to make a difference. If anyone would even read my letter. If Stephen Harper would turn on his T.V. and see all these faces, the faces of the future, and decide to help them relieve their debt. Just a little.
I don't know. But that doesn't stop me from trying.
I was welcomed with slices of brown bread and steaming vats of tangy vegetarian minestrone. A projector flashing statistics also welcomed me, statistics I was a part of. As I watched the live counter quickly adding numbers to student loan debt, I woefully speculated that $40,000 of that money was mine.
Not including taxes.
And I'm not even done school yet.
Tuition fees have more than doubled between 1985 and 2005. This is a rise of 14% to 30%. This is largely due to post-secondary schools having to charge students more because of cuts to their own government funding. Students studying in the Maritimes have the highest debt, but here in B.C. we're right behind them.
Watching the screen in the Micheal Pujol room, I was shocked and angry. This is usually what happens when I talk about my student loan. However, seeing others going through the same situation just heightened my disgust with the way our government takes care of its future brains and bodies. One in four students say that finances are impeding their post-secondary eduction. As debt rising from $1,000 to $10,000, completion rates drop dramatically. And when it comes to filing for bankruptcy, only those who have committed financial fraud have more restrictions than people with student loans.
At a table in the back, amidst "Lower Tuition" buttons and UVSS keychains, a station sat for people to write letters to Stephen Harper. You could ask anything you wanted - and indeed, some people were asking everything from better bicycle laws to greener cars - but the main point was to ask him to help post-secondary students out. My letter was two pages long. It didn't attack, it didn't lament, but it put in plain view that I'm absolutely terrified to graduate with 40 grand in debt.
I am a statistic. My student loans are preventing me from applying to graduate school at BCIT to become a broadcast journalist. This is the reason I took my undergraduate degree in writing and journalism, but now I'm not sure if I'll be able to move on at all.
I panic because I don't want to take a job I dislike after graduation just to pay off some of the loan. However, I'm resigned to the fact that hey, that will probably happen. I guess it'll be good training in bread-and-butter communications writing, at least. Something to pay the bills.
The students kept filing in. When I arrived, at the very start of the two-hour event, there were perhaps 20 people who were chatting and eating. After an hour, nearly 300 people had gone through, causing the UVSS to order more soup.
Seems like everyone is starving these days.
"We didn't think we'd get this many students," says Caitlin Meggs, Chairperson of the UVSS. "Hopefully we wo
n't run out of everything because it's very important." While she doesn't have government student loans, she is taking out private loans to complete her education."Government should invest in education and ideas, especially during this economic crisis," she says, hand clutching more information sheets. "They keeps bailing out corporations, so they have the money. They should be helping students."
As I nodded - face flushed - I looked around me. More students, more debt. And how many students weren't here that wanted to come - or even students at university who had the grades but couldn't make the finances?
And why the heck can't I get into BCIT even with the grades and the drive? Why is everyone about bloody money?
Tracey Ho, UVSS director of finance, says that there is an increase in students using the UVSS emergency food bank.
"When the budget gets tight, the first thing to go is food," she says. "We need to pay rent and get books, but we can cheapen out on what we eat." The food bank is avaliable to all UVic students and is open Monday to Friday.
I said a spiel to CBC radio and was flimed for A-Channel's 11pm news. Happy that at least there was some publicity, I couldn't help wondering if this was going to make a difference. If anyone would even read my letter. If Stephen Harper would turn on his T.V. and see all these faces, the faces of the future, and decide to help them relieve their debt. Just a little.
I don't know. But that doesn't stop me from trying.
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