Opinions March 3, 2008 Aimee Ouellette opinions @theotherpress.ca The wind may blow, | spring holidays suck Aimee Ouellette opinions editor Wi does spring get all the crap holidays? Summer has the Canada Day long weekend (great for camping); fall has Thanksgiving and Hallowe’en; winter has Christmas and New Year’s. All of these holidays are great, A- list holidays. If these holidays were at the Oscars, they would be sitting in the front row, wearing Versace and smiling graciously when the camera pans across them. But spring holidays are B-list holidays. Like B-list celebs, the only reason most people pay attention to spring holidays is that we’re so completely “St. Patrick’s Day is basically just a culturally- enforced pub night, except less fun.” depressed by the midterm school rush and the constant rain that anything at all is better than more chilly monotony. This is a bad situation for many reasons. For one, spring has the potential to be a great season. Cherry blossoms, fertility rites, new beginnings—these are all great aspects of the season, and the only mainstream holidays around this time don’t take full advantage of this. Easter’s no good because you’re either a practicing Catholic and therefore it’s a super-important holiday involving lots of boring, preachy church visits, or you’re not religious and you have to be content with eating crappy American chocolate and making bad jokes about “zombie Jesus.” St. Patrick’s Day isn’t much better; it’s like the drunken frat boy of holidays, with little or no cultural significance. St. Patrick’s Day is basically just a culturally-enforced pub night, except that it happens to be less fun than a normal pub night because the pub is filled with annoying dudes who are pretending to be Irish. I think we need to get the ball rolling on some better holidays for this spring. Maybe if we mixed up a few of our existing holidays, and threw in a bit of Vancouverite experience, we could salvage our spring holiday roster. How about Eastbrella Day? That’s the day when all of the umbrellas that have ever got blown inside-out in the windy rain of Vancouver’s wet season come back to life, jumping out of garbage cans and roaming the streets. No? Too obvious? How about Starbucks Day—no, wait, you’re right. Every day is Starbucks Day. Well, if you have a better idea for a spring holiday in Vancouver and how it ought to be celebrated, please send it in! Steinbach the best choice for College Board By Garth McLennan Te College Board elections are coming up this week and there are several candidates on the ballot. One contender who truly has the students’ best interests at heart is Matthew Steinbach. Well-spoken and modest, Matthew is an excellent fit to represent students in any capacity. This is exemplified in his reasons for running. “The reason I’m running is that back in August, a member of the College Board suggested that students were here only to drink and party and he said other things that didn’t put us in a good light, and that’s why students aren’t taking a full five course load,” he says in his election statement. “I wasn’t allowed to speak on the issue even though I was at the table. Since then I’ve seen it as a duty of mine to get on the board and change this.” Steinbach, who is currently active in the Douglas Students Union (DSU), stressed the importance of student politics in an interview with the Other Press, hoping he could convey how much impact these decisions can have on us. “I’m trying to engage students more often and make Douglas a less leaflet type of place. I just don’t feel that students are impacted as much. I want to try just talking to people and see if that affects the way they vote. We have to try new ways. My other concern is that people aren’t informed as to how important College Board is. They have the final say on everything. It has the power in the college community. It also has a lot of power over students’ academic lives.” One of Steinbach’s chief rivals in the election race is Alysia MacGrotty, who is promising to work towards implementing a U-Pass for Douglas students. Steinbach wants students to know that he has been working hard to attain the program for us, as well, and that whether elected or not, he will continue to do so. “T have been working on getting a U-Pass since I started with the DSU, and I would continue working towards it whether or not I’m elected,” Steinbach said. On running against MacGrotty and the other candidates, Steinbach admits he is a little nervous, but is determined to not make the election about him individually, and to keep it about the issues. “I’m not just running to win. Obviously I would like to win the seat, but I mainly want to pursue my issues and get them out there. I think it’s a great to see four different people with different ideas out there. Whoever wins the seat, my goal would be to see that the issues get pursued by the winning candidate.” The student members of the College Board are student representatives elected to make sure that any policies of the College Board are passed with student involvement. Steinbach, 21, has attended Douglas College since 2004 and really enjoys history. In fact, he has aspirations of becoming a history teacher at the high school level. Eventually, he has plans to transfer to Simon Fraser University. Whilehemay wanttoattend SFU in time, don’t second-guess his loyalty to Douglas; Steinbach is an accomplished amateur photographer who was accepted into Langara College’s prestigious photo imaging program. However, he opted to remain here at Douglas. Hopefully, he’ll be around helping students for a long time to come.