After having lunch with my brother Mica and father downtown, I walked across the Granville Street Bridge and caught a bus out to UBC. The campus is certainly changing rapidly. Where once the northern wing of the Main Library stood, there is now the completed half of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. For all the skepticism I recall about the project, it actually seems like a pretty amazing facility. It’s a modern sort of design, not unlike the American Institute Library at Oxford. I particularly like the large metal spiral staircase inside the two-story tall lounge at the extreme northern end, with tall windows looking out at the Buchanon buildings.
Being back on campus feels very comfortable, as I suppose it should after I lived here for most of four years. I look forward to doing a bit more exploration of bits both changed and unchanged. Hopefully, I will manage to run into a friend or two, as well as some of the professors who I would like to meet, but didn’t really have cause to arrange a meeting with.
[Update: 12:11am September 13th 2006] I had a really nice dinner at Gyoza King with Sarah P, followed by lounging on the beach at English Bay. As always, she is a fascinating young woman. After waiting forty five minutes for a bus that wasn’t coming, I stuck out a thumb and got deposited ten metres from my doorstep in seven minutes – good evidence for the idea that the Oxford to Morocco hitch this spring will work.
The thing is… those construction sites do eventually become nice buildings. Though it’s hard to believe after you live with mad jackhammering for months on end.