Pickwick and Bureaucracy
May. 25th, 2009 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chibimuseWe decided to name him Pickwick!
He has gotten much bigger in the two weeks we've had him, and he is much more active! This does mean he spends less time cuddling and sleeping in our arms, but he plays a lot more. We are both pretty clawed up from his playful pursuit of "catch the hands and feet and bite" game, but he's so cute and you know he's just trying to play.
He has doubled in size since we first brought him home!
Best Sleeping Posture Ever
I can has Stargate?
My CFS lanyard from the meeting is his newest toy!
That binder is of printed off fanfic, and he went straight for it. Clearly this is a fandom cat.
It has been confirmed by a medical professional that I am flea-bitten! :(
Pickwick shows no actual signs of fleas, butphnelt has some bites and I am peppered with them on my back, arms and legs. I washed the bedding and vacuumed the whole apartment last week, but I'll vacuum it again with a flea collar in the canister. Pickwick will be getting a thorough bath. The over-the-counter flea products are too toxic for kittens under 12 weeks old, so he'll be getting a special treatment at the vet on wednesday. (Advantage I think it's called?)
I just got back from a semi-annual general meeting of the Canadian Federation of Students in Ottowa, it's a four day meeting held at Carleton University. I was representing Emily Carr University as an elected senate rep and the internal affairs coordinator of our student union. Also with me was the photo rep Chantelle and our amazingly competent staff person, Lori. I knew a lot of people there from the provincial meeting I attended in january, so yay for friendly faces!
For the really curious, here's an overview of how the meeting went in detail: (be warned, bureaucracy follows, it's pretty boring)
Six weeks before the meetings any 'local' (fancy word for member school) can submit a motion. These range from asking for support for campaign for environmental policy reform to requests for money for special projects to proposals to change the way the organization runs. The motions are presented at opening plenary, with a recomendation from the national executive as to which comittee should discuss them. The meeting is divided up into committees; budget, organizatonal services and development, policy, and campaigns forum. Representatives are elected to each committee from caucuses/constituency groups or as provincial reps. Campaigns forum is open so you don't need to be elected to attend. Our uni only has 1600 students, so I sat on the 'small universities' caucus as well as the queer constituency group. Lori sat on the graduate students and student artist caucuses. Chantelle sat on aboriginal caucus, and we all sat on women's caucus. Queer caucus is a lot of fun! I sat on the budget committee as a queer rep. There are 3 reps elected from each constituency group/caucus, and the other caucuses we don't have members on include students of colour, international students, large universities, and colleges and institutions. We also meet with all the delagates from our province. In the mornings caucuses meet to discuss the motions and elect representatives to each committee. In the afternoons the committees meet and discuss and eventually vote on the motions. At closing plenary on the last day all the delegates are presented with the motions as well as the recommendations from the committees on whether they should pass or not. Each is discussed and then given a final vote.
There are also workshops and guest speakers. There was one on tuition fees, adressing arguments that are frequently used to justify raising them. Another talked about private/public partnerships, also called P3's, and why they're bad. Someone from Rock the Vote and USSA came and talked about campaign methods that worked during the Obama campaign and how we could apply them here. A woman from the stolen sisters group spoke very passionately about the huge problem of missing and murdered aboriginal women across Canada.
I slept through some other workshops and a meeting because I caught a bad cold from somebody there on the first day and it only got worse.
We had long discussions about the discriminatory Canadian Blood Services policy that bans men who have had sex with men from donating blood. Michael, the chairperson of queer caucus, as well as another member have been in meetings with the CBS for over a year, and we've had a lot of success campaigning on this issue. There have been articles in all the major newspapers here. There was a groundbreaking meeting with the man whose study provided the backing for the policy, who was forced to admit that based on his criteria, heterosexual women shouldn't be allowed to donate blood. The women of the queer caucus held a special lunch-time meeting since the blood issue took up a lot of our discussion time and we had some women's issues that we really wanted a chance to discuss among ourselves. The women there were sweet, and a couple of the ones from vancouver are getting to be friends of mine. I've been invited to Maggie's wedding shower and I found out her roomate (not her partner) works at the pet store that I have been at practically every other day since we got Pickwick.
There were socials on the first night and the last, one at a mexican restaurant and the other at one of the campus bars. Both were fun, and a nice break from the residence food, which was pretty gross. Being sick really limited my ability to stay awake late for these, but I still had a good time.
He has gotten much bigger in the two weeks we've had him, and he is much more active! This does mean he spends less time cuddling and sleeping in our arms, but he plays a lot more. We are both pretty clawed up from his playful pursuit of "catch the hands and feet and bite" game, but he's so cute and you know he's just trying to play.
He has doubled in size since we first brought him home!
Best Sleeping Posture Ever
I can has Stargate?
My CFS lanyard from the meeting is his newest toy!
That binder is of printed off fanfic, and he went straight for it. Clearly this is a fandom cat.
It has been confirmed by a medical professional that I am flea-bitten! :(
Pickwick shows no actual signs of fleas, but
phnelt has some bites and I am peppered with them on my back, arms and legs. I washed the bedding and vacuumed the whole apartment last week, but I'll vacuum it again with a flea collar in the canister. Pickwick will be getting a thorough bath. The over-the-counter flea products are too toxic for kittens under 12 weeks old, so he'll be getting a special treatment at the vet on wednesday. (Advantage I think it's called?) I just got back from a semi-annual general meeting of the Canadian Federation of Students in Ottowa, it's a four day meeting held at Carleton University. I was representing Emily Carr University as an elected senate rep and the internal affairs coordinator of our student union. Also with me was the photo rep Chantelle and our amazingly competent staff person, Lori. I knew a lot of people there from the provincial meeting I attended in january, so yay for friendly faces!
For the really curious, here's an overview of how the meeting went in detail: (be warned, bureaucracy follows, it's pretty boring)
Six weeks before the meetings any 'local' (fancy word for member school) can submit a motion. These range from asking for support for campaign for environmental policy reform to requests for money for special projects to proposals to change the way the organization runs. The motions are presented at opening plenary, with a recomendation from the national executive as to which comittee should discuss them. The meeting is divided up into committees; budget, organizatonal services and development, policy, and campaigns forum. Representatives are elected to each committee from caucuses/constituency groups or as provincial reps. Campaigns forum is open so you don't need to be elected to attend. Our uni only has 1600 students, so I sat on the 'small universities' caucus as well as the queer constituency group. Lori sat on the graduate students and student artist caucuses. Chantelle sat on aboriginal caucus, and we all sat on women's caucus. Queer caucus is a lot of fun! I sat on the budget committee as a queer rep. There are 3 reps elected from each constituency group/caucus, and the other caucuses we don't have members on include students of colour, international students, large universities, and colleges and institutions. We also meet with all the delagates from our province. In the mornings caucuses meet to discuss the motions and elect representatives to each committee. In the afternoons the committees meet and discuss and eventually vote on the motions. At closing plenary on the last day all the delegates are presented with the motions as well as the recommendations from the committees on whether they should pass or not. Each is discussed and then given a final vote.
There are also workshops and guest speakers. There was one on tuition fees, adressing arguments that are frequently used to justify raising them. Another talked about private/public partnerships, also called P3's, and why they're bad. Someone from Rock the Vote and USSA came and talked about campaign methods that worked during the Obama campaign and how we could apply them here. A woman from the stolen sisters group spoke very passionately about the huge problem of missing and murdered aboriginal women across Canada.
I slept through some other workshops and a meeting because I caught a bad cold from somebody there on the first day and it only got worse.
We had long discussions about the discriminatory Canadian Blood Services policy that bans men who have had sex with men from donating blood. Michael, the chairperson of queer caucus, as well as another member have been in meetings with the CBS for over a year, and we've had a lot of success campaigning on this issue. There have been articles in all the major newspapers here. There was a groundbreaking meeting with the man whose study provided the backing for the policy, who was forced to admit that based on his criteria, heterosexual women shouldn't be allowed to donate blood. The women of the queer caucus held a special lunch-time meeting since the blood issue took up a lot of our discussion time and we had some women's issues that we really wanted a chance to discuss among ourselves. The women there were sweet, and a couple of the ones from vancouver are getting to be friends of mine. I've been invited to Maggie's wedding shower and I found out her roomate (not her partner) works at the pet store that I have been at practically every other day since we got Pickwick.
There were socials on the first night and the last, one at a mexican restaurant and the other at one of the campus bars. Both were fun, and a nice break from the residence food, which was pretty gross. Being sick really limited my ability to stay awake late for these, but I still had a good time.