First Blog Entry!

Welcome to the world of blogging. We will use our blogs throughout the semester for various purposes. Please remember to consider the internet as public space. Anything you write will be viewed by others, so do not disclose any personal information or opinions that you would be uncomfortable with other people reading. Also, please respect the rights and opinions of others as you will be having "conversations" in writing with your classmates. No offensive or inappropriate material on your blogs please.

Students often find it difficult to write "formally" (proper spelling, punctuation etc.) when they enter an internet environment. Please follow the regular expectations for writing in English 12. When you create a blog you are not emailing or text messaging your friends.

You have a choice for your first blog entry.

Option number one is a creative one:

If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be? You should then explain why you have chosen this particular power over all the others. Don't forget to proofread your work, and to make it interesting, as it will be viewed by others in the class.

Option Number 2:
Respond to the following email sent to UBC students three days ago. If you were a student would you attend school? How should the police deal with this sort of threat? How do we respond to this type of violence as a society?

Here is the email:
Broadcast E-mail to All UBC Vancouver Students, Faculty and Staff from President Stephen J. Toope:

For the second time in a week, our Vancouver campus community has received a threatening message.

In this second case, an unspecific threat has been made for Wednesday. The threat does not specify a time, a location within the UBC Point Grey campus or the method of doing harm.

We must take such threats seriously, and we are working closely with senior RCMP personnel to address this new threat.

What can we all do when faced with such a threat? We are taking the advice of the RCMP to treat the non-specific nature of the threat with a higher level of community vigilance but to otherwise continue our normal activities.

However, because of the specific mention of the Biosciences building in the threatening message received last week, and the traumatic experience of the occupants who endured a full lockdown of the building at that time, classes will be cancelled tomorrow (Wednesday) in the Biosciences Building.

For details, see the RCMP news release at: www.rcmp-bcmedia.ca

And please continue to look at www.ubc.ca for the latest information.