While I was in Van City, I attended interview and orientation for 2010 Olympic volunteers called Creating Team 2010.

It was at the PNE grounds way down East Hastings. I had been to the PNE as a child, but didn’t really remember where it was until I had to go back there.

I had met a girl named Natalie from the island when we got off the bus and found out we were there for the same reason. I chatted briefly with a guy called Andrew while we waited for the session to begin.
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We returned to playing outdoor soccer with a scrimmage on Tuesday. It had rained all morning and the field in Breslau was wet and muddy in patches.

We played a strong match against a KDSL team. They had a good passing game and controlled possession well, but we were tight on defence and Chris controlled the net despite standing in mud.

We traded goals and were ties 2-2 until the very end. In the last second a long ball in deflected off my hip into the net. Disappointing, but it is just a friendly preparation for the season, which begins in two weeks.

• Indoor soccer season ends in the semi 10 Apr 2009

I just found this reply from Bahman Hadji to the Waterloo-negative op ed to which linked recently.

Bahman defends Plummer’s Pledge and WEEF, and links to an explanation of why the fellow’s piece wasn’t published in the Iron Warrior.

It was sad to read that the author was discouraging graduating students from donating to Plummer’s Pledge, which allows them to pledge to donate money back to the school to be used as they see fit, be it to benefit a specific department or a student team. This tradition was started by graduating students in the engineering class of 1989 to give back to the school so that future students would have a better quality of education, and led to the student-initiated founding of the Waterloo Engineering Endowment Fund two years later. I can only imagine how an alumnus from 20 years ago would react to reading a petty rant from a current graduating student calling for others not to give back to improve the quality of the school for the future, when it was his or her donations that helped make it what it is today. It is telling though that after the tirade, Sunny concedes that were he to do it again, he would still have attended UW mainly because of its reputation — apparently not realizing the irony that if he had his way, Waterloo wouldn’t have much of a reputation.
— Thank you Waterloo… Imprint 3 Apr 2009

Here’s part of the IW explanation:

On a personal level, I agreed with many of the sentiments brought forward in the article. I myself would never have expressed my outrage in such a way, with so many verbal attacks and coarse language, but some of the underlying thoughts resonated with me. This along with several other key factors affected my judgment in how I handled the issue. The fact that it was written by a friend of mine who I hold in very high regards also played an important role in how I responded to the concerns raised by certain members of the advisory board.
— Letter from the Editor IW 25 Mar 2009

I saw Feds President-elect Allan Babor today. He mentioned that University of Waterloo is planning a new student life building to be located in H lot — between Ring Road and University Avenue West near South Campus Hall.

He said the building would house various students services, the GSA, and provide study space and common space. He seems interested in developing the proposal, which would eventually have to go to referendum to get funding from a student fee. I think it is good for Feds to be involved in developing the proposal.

I felt the Feds exec back in 2001 was initially too standoffish with Watpaign — the CIF and SLC expansions. The previous Feds president had been vilified for his acquiescence and eventual agreement to the forced fee for the CECS building that would be later named the Tatham Centre. When Watpaign came to referendum, students had not had any meaningful input on the admin developed proposal.

For this building, if there is or will be a student need, why not make the proposal as good for students as possible.

Last year I warned against buying Bolthouse Farms vanilla chai soy beverage because of its excess of sugar. There were two and a half times more sugar than protein, though it made a protein claim on the label.

I was in Sobeys on Saturday and took a look at the same product. There was no macronutrient information. It did have a list of vitamins under the heading “medicinal ingredients.” Then there was a list underneath that which said “non-medicinal ingredients.” The n-m-i list didn’t list sugar, though it did have things that could have contained sugar.

How can they get away with that. I looked through the nutrition labelling regulations and couldn’t find an exemption that applies. Clearly flavoured, sweetended soy milk is not medicine.

I tried to find the nutritional info online and found this.

It shows a bit less sugar, more saturated fat, more sodium, and the same protein. Of course it could be a different formula for the U.S. Also, note that the U.S. serving is based on a 240 ml U.S. cup. not 250 ml Canadian.

I think it is wrong to have so much sugar in the product and still try to make nutrient related claims. Consuming protein is important, but the label does not show the trade off of getting the extra sugar.

• Don’t buy this product — Bolthouse Farms vanilla chai soy beverage

I was in Van City last week. It was very busy. While I intend to write more about some of the things I did there, I am going to write out a summary to keep everything straight.
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I wrote about my meal plan weeks ago, but haven’t said much since. I do have more to say.

So part of the TeamJacked program I am in is based on consuming a calorie deficit. So, Mariano estimated my Basal Metabolic Rate, the energy my body uses just to function, and multiplied it by an activity factor. Then the total energy in the meals is aimed to be around 500 kilocalories less than my body uses. (Nutritional guidelines are often based on a 2,000 kilocalorie diet.)

There are about 3,500 kilocalories in a pound of fat, so 500 times 7 days, means a target of 1 pound lost a week. Actual weight loss would vary based on activity and other factors.

Basal Metabolic Rate is interesting. Earlier formulae for it included age as a factor, but the one that the pedia says is more accurate is based only on lean mass (that is body mass minus the body fat mass).

Several prediction equations exist. Historically most notable was Harris-Benedict equation, which was created in 1919.
[...]
These formulae are based on body weight, which does not take into account the difference in metabolic activity between lean body mass and body fat. A more accurate formula is the Katch-McArdle formula based on lean body mass:
— Basal metabolic rate the pedia

There is a common notion that people’s metabolism decreases with age, but accuracy of the Katch-McArdle suggests it is not. As Hiro suggested to me, earlier models that included age could merely have been using age as a proxy for lean mass. Id est, lean mass generally decreased with age thereby decreasing the metabolic rate of person.

Aging is still a factor in our lives, but it may not have the same significance in metabolism or keeping fit. And, as we should all know, healthy food choices and an physical activity are important to a life of abundance.

• My day in meals 14 Mar 2009
• Meal plan begins tomorrow 8 Mar 2009

The university website quoted a phrase referring to Waterloo as Canada’s sexiest new academic destination. It clearly has conversational appeal. thus, I will remember to bring it up in conversations in the future.

It is talking about Thomas Homer-Dixon coming to Waterloo, which readers would have first heard about here last year.

The article interviews him and explores why he came to W from the T.

In his current thinking, Homer-Dixon has moved away from the narrowness of political science and into the vastness of complex systems theory. It’s fertile academic ground, mainly because it has room for all disciplines within its fuzzy boundaries.

In order to continue this work, Homer-Dixon abandoned the University of Toronto for Canada’s sexiest new academic destination, Waterloo.

“I didn’t talk to anybody at the U of T,” he says. “Nobody was very interested in my work. At Waterloo, I do a talk on ingenuity theory and the room’s SRO (standing room only). I could do it at U of T and two people would turn up.”

Homer-Dixon hopes to recapture some of the multi-disciplinary magic he remembers from MIT. However, his first order of business is a step away from the greater world: He plans to spend the next few years doing the academic research he skipped when writing his two bestsellers and allowing his wife’s career to come to the fore.
— A doomsayer, and a father, with a heart of faint hope TorStar 19 April 2009

It is interesting how universities attract big name academics in some part with freedom rather than name or money only. It’s like when The UBC scored Nobel laureate Wieman by allowing him to focus on science education.

I’ll be interested to see what impact TH-D has on our campus.

Recently I read some microblog bit where a friend complained that someone criticized a fundraiser for choosing a well-funded charity to support. He pointed out it might be important to consider the goals. I pointed out that one should consider the actual value created not just the intention.

It is much more than that though. It raises the question of how to judge the performance of a purpose-driven rather than profit-driven enterprises. We should judge business by more than just money, but at least “How much money does it make?” is a more easily quantifiable question.

The idea that people don’t like the notion of charities being flush with cash is one raised earlier post about fundraising as a business. Commitment to charity shouldn’t mean the group takes an oath of poverty. In fact, good works require resources.

In order to judge which charity deserves funding we need to figure out what to consider. I think it is like in Michael Lewis the book I read two years ago, which describes measuring baseball players by what actually win games rather than traditional, biased, inaccurate judgements. Any measure will have some arbitrary piece to it though.
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I found a link to this op-ed piece in Imprint on Mike Fagan’s blog.

The writer seems to be part of the annual enclave of bitterness in each Waterloo class. I often wonder if there is such a resentful crew at other universities in Canada, because I have heard similar themes from fellow Waterloo students and alumni.

As I’m approaching the end of my undergraduate career, I can’t help but notice that the longer I’ve been here, the more bitter I have become. However, I have met some really wonderful people in the last few years here and they’re probably the only reason why I don’t think Waterloo is entirely awful. Unfortunately, the bad definitely outweighs the good.

First of all, there’s the student culture on campus. I’m really irked by the fact that the majority of the student population here does not care about… well, anything. You would think that an academic institution that is supposedly full of intellects would be aware and passionate about what’s around them. But, every time an election is called, whether student societies or Feds, I shake my head at the pathetic turnouts and the low number of individuals running for office. Yet, at the same time every student should care about services they pay for every term.
— So long Waterloo… | The end could not come any sooner Imprint

Something different from when I was young is this kid’s disdain for WEEF and the criticisms he directs toward professors. I feel like there are greater feelings of entitlement, less empathy towards others, and a lack of personal responsibility. The entitlement may stem from higher tuition and the rest may be generational.

I do really wish there was more motivation and a more visible effort to address the concerns of students though. The poor unresponsiveness on the part of the university is saddening.