Its unusual to be only a voter in an election. This is the first time since pre-2004 that Ive not been a candidate or volunteer. Very odd. This was the debate election, and my friend Steve was elected debate chair. Anyway, the young liberls are having their election, and there are other things goign on like the sus eleciton and the young liberals nearly splitting apart at the seams. That said, Im having an ok time of it.

Im actually downstairs in the SUB right now, and I jsut felt like I should comment on a rather strange occurance. You see, I have just purchased and consumed a chocolate Vagina. If was for the "End Violence Against Women" campaign, and since I don't support violence against women, I felt like I should treat myself to a delicious and erotic confection.

I can only imagine what would happen if the chocolate for the vaginas was exposed as not being fair trade...

Dear Editor,

David Emerson and Stephen Harper are a match made in heaven. Even while both have talked so much about ethics in government and federal accountability, it took less than two weeks to start the backroom dealing. In one fell swoop, they sold out not only the residents of Vancouver Kingsway, but all citizens of Canada. Less than 14 days after the election, we see Stephen Harper and David Emerson for what they are - opportunist and power-hungry, emblems of all that they once claimed to oppose. In my opinion, these two really deserve each other.

Matthew Naylor


It makes me sad to see a man who I looked up to, who I deeply respected, betray us all, even conservatives on such a deep level. There is no comparison to Belinda Stronach; this is far worse. He is the epitome of the opportunist, she crossed for a reason - to save a government and to break with a party she didn't believe in. Emerson clearly believed in the Liberals - he was elected as one just two weeks ago. This was a power grab.

The soothing notes of the Who come to mind here. "We won't get fooled again." He lied to us, we trusted him. Well, Liberals, and others, especially the constituents of Vancouver Kingsway will not be fooled. A Tory will NEVER win there, Emerson or not.

Ok, an update. I’ve dropped to 10th in the recount, but improved my vote count significantly, to 489. And, I’ve applied to be both a RA and a MUG leader for next year, and my interview is later tonight. I have to write a program proposal, and I really like the idea of Oscar Week, where you could watch all the best picture nominees during the week, and then have a fun night relaxing, eating cake and ice cream and watching the Oscars, betting for prizes. Fun for all...

Wish me luck with my Carousel Interview (for RA).

This is an Open Letter to the Students of UBC

Dear friends;

You have, in a total sense, fucked up.

Jerry Fan Fan has, against all odds and every little scrap of hope in my heart, and the hearts of thousands of others, been elected. You have elected him. This is it folks. This man, the impractical and idiotic, has been elected to the Senate of UBC. The scary, pseudo-fascist(nope, entirely fascist) site has gotten votes. In lieu of competent and experienced other candidates, elected a man WITH A REPEATING SYLLABLE for a name. That's not what I think is bad - it is that THAT is what you chose for your voting criteria. Well done everyone. (www.jerryfanfan.com)

You chose it. This recount has gone through, and Fan Fan has beaten out Helen Cheung for the last spot. This could have been stopped.

Now, however, you have to live with it.

You woke up with Fan Fan. (http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2005/channel4-election-virals-p1.php?fromrelated=)

Matthew Naylor - Ex-Senatorial Candidate

Now, I’ve given some thought to the upcoming elections, and my possible candidacy in them. You know, the SUS elections, club elections, the Liberal Party Leadership. You know, minor stuff. I have decided that I will be announcing these at my volunteer party, and preferably after I get my reimbursement back.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet, other than me frantically trying to catch up on the work that I missed when I was campaigning. This week is intimacy week in Vanier, with such wonderful things as Sexapallooza. I also am preparing for my RA interview, and my MUG interview. And, so on and so forth.

Two final notes:
1. The Oscar Nominations came out the other day. I hope Crash wins.
2. They are selling chocolate vaginas in the SUB. Yep…

More updates, I promise.

Hi, and sorry I’ve taken so long to write. Things have been reall busy here, but that makes this post all the more interesting, because of all the content. Enclosed for your reading pleasure – University Model Parliament, The Federal Election, The Federal Election’s Aftermath, The UBC Senate Elections, The Musical, Science Week, and, as somewhat of an afterthought, school.

University Model Parliament
UMP is a great time, where university students all go to Victoria and pretend to be the Government of Canada inside the Parliament Buildings in Victoria. It was fun, and I was promoted from a backbencher when I first arrived, to Minister of Agriculture and Minister responsible for the Status of Women, and then shuffled into Minister of Social Development.

The Federal Election and Aftermath
Basically, we won the battle, but lost the war – a little. A Conservative minority isn’t so bad, but I find I funny that the major argument that Stephen Harper made for electing the Conservatives was “Don’t worry, you’ll have protection from the courts.” This is funny majorly because this implies there is something that we would need protection from. As opposed to say, the Liberals. Blair Wilson, however, won his riding, and I have been working my butt off trying to get him elected, but we did, with a margin of only ~950 votes, so our efforts did make a difference. I went up to west Van one morning at 6:30 AM (from UBC mind you, so I got up at 4:30) and was waving signs on the Lions Gate Bridge.
On Federal Election Day itself, I got up at five (yeah, I know, no problem for you) and headed up to Whistler on the Greyhound. I scrutineered there, and once again received conformation of my belief that everyone who works for Elections Canada is an Idiot. Maybe they inject them with something, I don’t know. They almost told us we couldn’t do our jobs, even though it was right in the candidate’s handbook.
That night, we left Whistler after all the votes were counted, and, due to the terrifying driving of Scott Bardsley, made it back to Whistler in one hour, actually beating the Squamish people there. The party was nice, and I made it back in one piece from the central party, even though I was exhausted and rather hungover the next day.

The UBC Senate Elections
During this whole thing, I was also running for UBC Senate, the highest academic body at UBC. And that too was exhausting. On election night, my supporters and I went to the election night party in the Gallery Lounge, and cheered my ninth place finish out of twenty, the best showing by a first year, and only 176 votes out of the 5th place, and final Senate seat. Not to shabby at all. Oh, visit www.naylor4senate.tk to see my election website.

The Musical
Well, I’m in a musical, but due to the prior two events, have been there only to block the scenes (do placement) in my role as Assistant Stage Manager. We are putting on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – its going to be great.

Science Week
Science week was Unremarkable, but fun. The major thing was that we got science jackets, which we used to have 15 years ago, but no longer. Well, they’re back, and look so good.

Erm…School
Well, I’m going, which is frankly an accomplishment in itself at this point, and doing pretty well.

This weekend could be easily described in two words, similar in the fact that they both commence with the nugatory prefix ‘un’. These words are ‘uneventful’ and ‘unproductive’, thus leading to the catastrophe that will be tonight. I managed to waste away the weekend through gallivanting about downtown, going to war memorials and trivia tournaments, or making calls from the Liberal office. One might event call tonight an ‘ultraviolet catastrophe’. (HAHAHA, Science humor… … I hate you all.) Anyway, last Thursday I was appointed Pop God of SUS, which encompasses fixing the pop machine in the SUS lounge, or finding some capable person to do so. Well, that was random.

Anyway, the Saturday was spent playing trivia games in a horrendous type of competition called ACG, in which the questions are far longer and far harder than any that have ever been seen before. And, event though I was reasonably good at the other types of trivia, there is no type of question that I was able to answer here – they all appeared to be on obscure literature, and other such garbage. On average, I think I managed to get about one or less questions per pack. Quite disastrous, if you ask me, but, admittedly, I was playing with Luka, a god of trivia, one of the triumvirate of excellence (the other two being Zarya and Fred), and was consequentially squeezed out of every question that I conceivably could have gotten. On Saturday night, I proceeded to get drunk with Madison and do laundry after a dinner with my uncle.

Sunday was spent doing callouts for people to go to the LPCBC policy convention, not that anyone I called actually wanted to go. We watched the press conferences for the leaders of the opposition, and were kind of hoping that it would cut out to Paul Martin saying “Fine, have it your way!” and walking up the driveway of Rideau Hall to dissolve parliament, calling the elevation for December 19th. That would have made them laugh; Jack Layton doesn’t even have a bus. Oh, well, its just a matter of time.

Well, it is now ten to one, and I have just returned from a Remembrance Day ceremony that can be summed up most effectively with the word "Moist". Now, that is not to say that I didn't find the service moving, or that I don’t respect the sacrifice that veterans and others made - the fact that I went speaks to that, but it rained so much, as it is wont to do in Vancouver, that "moist" just happens to be the most appropriate word.

I would like to take a moment to remember all those who gave their lives to protect our nation, our freedom and all we hold dear. We remember because we cannot forget. I hope you all will take a moment to acknowledge the sacrifice that so many have given.

Anyway, in other news, this week has gone decently well, without a huge amount going on. I did manage to get my poli-sci and physics midterms back, and, they went very well, adding to my general feeling of well being. Also, the Flames have won again, making it possible, that if Vancouver looses on Saturday, and we win against Colorado, we will be tied for first in the division, much to the chagrin of many, many people here.

The Vanier Musical has been selected, and has begun to consume my life. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the one with Marilyn Monroe in the movie version, and the one with “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”, was chosen. Since I’m the Assistant Stage Manager, I’m doing a variety of things, just generally running parts of the audition process. So far, it’s been a lot of fun.

On Wednesday, I seized control of or house calendar, in order to stop it from being September anymore. It was a bloodless coup, all smotherings. And I reorganized my room, and also Wishbone got here – we’re just waiting on the other DVD before the Wishbone party can begin.

Last night, when the Flames won, Michelle and I just sat downstairs in the second lounge (which is REALLY pink at the moment, by the way) and drank coffee and Bailey’s while watching the game highlights, including Dion Phenuf crashing into a players box. I swear, he’s going to have a blooper reel by the end of the year.

Well, now that I have spent several hours standing in the rain, and another half typing this up, I think that I may go take a nap. POST.

Saturday morning was interesting. I had a trivia tournament in the same building which I jumped off of the night before (see previous entry) and we kicked SFU's ass. Just BRUTALLY. So, yes, that’s about it for the Saturday day, aside from the general skipping of all the debate judging that I was supposed to do. That night my dad stopped into the city, or actually, on Thursday, but I didn't see him until today. It wasn't just to see me, admittedly, but rather for a medical conference, but it was nice to see him, especially since it is the last time I'll see someone from home in a while. He decided that, on Saturday night, he was going to come in to the University on the bus (Mistake 1) and wear what he was wearing at the conference (Mistake 2), after taking directions from the concierge (Mistake 3). He elected to take the 98 B-Line out of downtown, which wasn't a mistake in itself, but a mistake in the fact that he didn't take a cab after he missed the first one (Mistake 4). He, following this, became trapped in a rather unfortunate temporal hell on Burrard Street, as the 98 doesn’t seem to run with the same frequency as the 99. He then got off on Broadway, and eventually made his way to the University, where he proceeded, looking rather like a wet dog, to follow my directions (Mistake 5), because, even though I am good with maps myself, I'm not fantastic with directing. Additionally, we were working on a somewhat different coordinate system, in which my west was his south, even though it was more west than south (Its W by SW). Therefore, when I said to take the second one North, he proceeded (And this doesn’t make any sense at all) to go to (my) south. So, there was a bit of a disaster there. But we went for sushi, and paid my rez fees, and had a generally nice conversation. Following this, he took a cab (which I hitched a ride in) back to downtown, while I got off at Place Vanier to watch the rest of the Flames-Canucks game.

We handily won the game in what was a generally crappy appearing round of hockey. It looked like the Ice was very new, almost like Tampa or San Jose. Players were slipping and falling everywhere. But, this establishes the first 3 game win streak of the season, and paves the way for the Flames to get into the playoffs again, at least I hope. Following this, I went to debate party, where I rubbed the win in a lot of people’s faces, and then did my first keg stand ever. Call me crazy, but there is something about drinking upside-down that seems unwise. Nevertheless, it went well enough, aside from the fact that on the first time they pushed me too far over and I ended up falling off and just having beer poured into my mouth. But I did manage the second time, not that that is anything to be proud of.

At the party we also ended up fighting with crutches, but one has to remember that "If there is no respect, there can be no fighting with crutches." Wise words from a very drunk woman. Then, after achieving the perfect combination of drunk and tired, I went back home and fell asleep.

The day after was uneventful, me deciding to get down and study, and was decently productive, even to the point where I’m beginning to understand chemistry, not that it helps the Midterm, but at least Ill do well on the quiz. Midterms are evil. I wrote my math one recently, and it was like that oh so common feeling when you get to a midterm, thinking you know the stuff, and an alien jumps out and fucks your eye socket. I’m still suffering some neural bleeding. But, I’m studying hard, and starting to get it. I did see my dad today, briefly, where we had dinner and he, rather erroneously gave me a bottle of wine, which I think I will use for the Wishbone party. I do have to note how to store it. Speaking of storage, my fridge conked out because of not being plugged in, and, me not realizing this, bit into a mould pop, formerly a pizza pop. So, yes, it's plugged in once again. In general, things are looking up.