Sprott Shaw College

If you had told me three years ago that I would be graduating college in Canada, I would’ve laughed at you and said you were genuinely insane. Three years ago, I thought I’d graduate with a degree in literature. I thought I’d be writing the next series of novels that will be turned into big movies. “Take that, The Hunger Games,” I would’ve said mockingly.

Now, I’ve never actually planned on enrolling in Sprott Shaw College but I did see the ads on transit. Every time I saw those ads, I had two thoughts running in my mind:

1) “I’m never going there because I don’t know where their campuses are.”

 2) “Why the heck do they have ads everywhere? I keep seeing purple and blue on buses now.”

That didn’t stop me from enrolling anyway.

On August 27, 2013, I was browsing online through several colleges that offered hospitality management courses, curious as to what my options were. Among those choices was Sprott Shaw College or “SPROUT Shaw College” as I called it before actually reading the name clearly. I asked a question on their website, expecting to receive a generic machine-generated response in my spam folder. The next day, I got a phone call from Sprott Shaw College telling me that they booked me for an appointment.

“Hi Ralph, this is from Sprott Shaw College. We booked you for an informational interview at the Vancouver campus this Friday.”

My initial reaction was “WHAT?!” followed by “I was planning on eating pizza and Chinese food that day but I guess that’s out of the window now, eh?” I didn’t want to be rude so I just agreed to it. I had to go to a campus where I have never seen before in Vancouver, a city that I could easily get lost in. However, instead of not showing up for an informational interview, I thought it could be nice to at least be aware of what I could be missing out on. It wasn’t like I was going to actually enroll there. Haha. Ha. Ha....

Now, I wasn’t really sure at first on whether or not it was a good idea to enroll in a college that I had little to no knowledge about so I wanted to see what it was like. It was a different atmosphere from what I was used to. I was used to big, open universities with hundreds of classrooms in a dozen buildings. Sprott Shaw College Vancouver had a dozen rooms in an office building. I felt claustrophobic at first because I missed seeing shades of greenery out the window instead of disheartening gray buildings. I wanted to back out as soon as I entered the building.

However, I was told what possible jobs I could get hired for if I took a course with Sprott Shaw. I wanted to do something in my life and a literature degree was not the door to open for that path. I wanted the path to hospitality management and Sprott Shaw College was going to show me the door.

My patience is tested every day. I was promised that everyone spoke English but on my first day, the first thing I hear was everyone else in the classroom not speaking English at all. At first, I was absolutely annoyed that no one wanted to speak English. It had come to a point where the entire room was speaking in languages other than English despite the school having an English-only policy. “If none of you want to speak English,” I thought, “I’m going play loud videos of someone speaking English really fast.” And I did. I played Zero Punctuation, a series of videos from the internet where the critic speaks in a disturbingly fast voice just to annoy people who didn’t want to speak English in class.

I’ve also had rough encounters with poorly chosen group mates for presentations.

One particular group mate drove me off the wall for a presentation due for Technologies class. The project was due in ten days but the first five days were spent faffing about and going in circles. The particular classmate wanted something specifically done in what she wants but what she wants was unreasonable, insane, and utterly pointless in the end.

So what I did was basically go behind this faux leader’s back and make a presentation of my own for everyone else to present, just so it can be done and we can move on. I had to spend 5 hours editing and recording videos followed by 2 hours editing the presentation while doing laundry at night. When I showed it to everyone, the particular classmate basically said that it was wrong according to her vision and it was at that point where I had to scream in the hallways just to get the hate out of my system. Eventually, I was so fed up that the people at the front desk and the director saw me screaming in the hallways.

Despite this extremely negative experience, it never occurred again. I never had that particular useless classmate ever again and she never got honors for her bossiness. I did my best to be the best and it worked well for me without screaming.

I never wanted to give up. I didn’t want to cut my study of hospitality management just because I lost faith in it. I didn’t want to quit two courses in one lifetime. I’m not that big of a quitter. As the months went by, I was finally going to attend my college graduation. All my hard work had led to a graduation ceremony that I thought I was going to miss because the poster said May 22 and I misread it as March 22. I thought “Oh, I missed it. Oh well. Maybe next year.” However, after noticing that no one was removing the posters, it had come to my attention that it was actually May 22 and I thought “OH MY GOD! GRADUATION!” It was a graduation that I thought I would never have since I never finished my college degree in the Philippines. I thought I would never experience a college graduation in my entire life.

The one problem I came across was that the blue graduation gown couldn’t fit me. I looked like a potato wrapped in adhesive tape. Somehow, I’ve built up enough goodwill from the staff that they ordered a new graduation gown for me free of charge. I told them that they must’ve stolen bed sheets from a children’s hospital just to make the graduation gown fit me.

Sprott Shaw College has given me opportunities that I never would’ve gotten in my old university. I could never say that I had the opportunity to be a contender to be the valedictorian for batch 2014 yet Sprott Shaw College proved me otherwise. Sure, I wasn’t able to get it for some reason but to be able to say I was very close to being valedictorian is still a great achievement. The first paragraph of this was actually part of my graduation speech that was rejected.

I would never have had that opportunity in my old university, in my old life. Never could I have said the words “My graduation speech” in a sentence without the phrase “Does not exist” if I were still in my old university. I consider my experience at Sprott Shaw College to be the right path that will lead me to something even greater in life. For that, I’m thankful for every second that I have spent there. I never regretted a single moment in that college and I would always be grateful.

Graduating

Hey, better late than ever, eh? I'm finally graduating on May 22nd.

Okay, I may have imagined graduating with my classmates in UST but after everything that happened, I'd rather not. It just won't be the same. Yes, I feel like I'm graduating alone without my friends in Literature or anyone from UST but I guess that's what I get by moving to Canada.

First Week In Sprott Shaw

I started a new chapter in my college life at Sprott Shaw College last September 23. You can read about my decision to go there in this post. Yes, you can read that before you continue with this post. Just tell me when you get back.

Are you done yet? Oh, awesome. Where were we? Oh, right. Sprott Shaw. I'm gonna talk to you about my first week as an International Hospitality Management student.

The first week of classes is usually a week-long orientation. In my first day, I walked in the classroom and I heard no English at all. When I was toured around the campus the week before by the administrative advisor, I saw signs posted on the bulletin boards that said Sprott Shaw College was an English only campus. They had this rule because in the business world, English is the commonly used language so it was basically training for those who weren't used to speaking the language. That rule was not being followed at all in my orientation class. I heard Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean. So basically, I was stuck with my fellow Asians. Sure there were also people from other nationalities but a lot of them were East Asians who never bothered to speak any English whatsoever.

There were no seats in the front row so I opted to sit in the back. I didn't talk to anyone because I didn't really care about my classmates at all. I didn't know them and I didn't want to get to know them because I know that they won't all be comfortable talking to some guy who didn't speak their language. I saw people of the same nationality in groups. I didn't see any Filipinos around my age so I was stuck in the back with no one to talk to. For that entire week, I never bothered to talk to anyone. I didn't know any of their languages. I only knew Filipino and English and I can definitely say that I consider my English to be below average.

Not that I really wanted to talk to anyone in the first place though. I wanted to be serious. I wanted to do well in class. I didn't want to make the same mistakes I did when I was in UST taking up literature. I promised myself "Ralph, no more stupid decisions. No more crushes. No more feelings. No more pink puppies. You have to do better. This is your fourth year." I really didn't like how my last year in Literature ended with me basically not putting any effort at all because I knew that I was leaving and won't have to suffer the hell that is thesis writing. That was all in the past. I was in a different field now. Hospitality Management is a lot different from Literature and I wanted to get through the program  day by day.

Things I See - Snowfall

I was totally not expecting snow to look good. I thought it would be just really cold rain since I've been told that it doesn't really now as much here in the Vancouver area. Walking in the snow was awesome. It's like someone left the freezer door open.

Things I See - America and Earth

(This is more like a "Things I Bought" but come on, gimme some slack.)

Thanks to a Salvation Army thrift shop, I was able to buy these two books by The Daily Show writers for 25 cents. 25 cents for two hardbound books. I guess they were having a huge sale.

A New Chapter Comes Sprott Shaw

No, I'm not going to tell you how my first week in UST went. That's a story for another time even though I've already discussed that in an old "How I Never Met Your Mother" post. This time, I'm gonna talk about Sprott Shaw college and how I chose to start over instead of finishing my literature course.

To be perfectly honest, I wanted to finish my literature course here in Canada however, as much as I wanted to, but I asked a career advisor about the status of literature majors in this country. She told me that they either end up teaching and nothing else. Sure, writing a book is always an option but somehow, being unknown gets you nowhere here compared to the Philippines. Shitty poems have been posted inside the bus. Shitty novels get published here all the time. Not that I'm saying my work is ten times better but I have no connections with anyone here so I can't have the stupid stuff I write published. That career advisor made me question if all those years taking up literature was all for nothing.

After a few days of mulling it over, I thought of taking up a different course. While searching for jobs online, I saw a ton of job openings in hotels at front desk and housekeeping so I thought I'd take up Tourism and Hospitality Management. First, I thought there'd be bitchy tourism girls in that course because I've experienced dozens of bitches from the College of Tourism and Hospitality Management in UST. Second, I thought I'd be laughed at by my classmates back in the Philippines because we all looked down in CTHM students for several reasons (that I'd rather not mention today).

I probably might get some heat if some of the people in that college somehow read this but Sprott Shaw College was not my first choice.

I originally wanted to enroll in CTC or Canadian Tourism College because it's closer to where I live. Had I enrolled in CTC, I would just ride two buses which takes about 30 minutes of travel time. However, when I got the tuition fee price, I thought "Okay, this would cause me some financial problems in the future, student loan or not." I didn't want to be in too much debt even though I had 10 years to pay off a student loan. I wanted to save up for a trip to go back to the Philippines to see my friends again and tell them I'm never coming back (Haha).

When I told them that I had to back out from registering for CTC, I was absolutely heartbroken because I was looking forward to this great tourism college. I thought that it was right for me because I was starting over and Hospitality there would get me a job. I tried to look at the bright side and believed that things happen for a reason.

My next choice was Sprott Show College. Their only branch that offers Hospitality Management is located in Vancouver, which was 70 minutes from my house. At first, I had no intention of ever going there but I was simply curious at their Hospitality Management course. I asked a question on their website with my contact details. Two days later, I got a call saying that they booked me for an information session. I thought "Oh damn it, I'd have to go that far?" I was forced to go to Sprott Shaw because I always kept my end of the bargain when it came to schedules so I didn't want to look like a jerk and not show up.

I showed up for that information session after a 70-minute trip from my house. I asked as many questions as I can:
"What jobs would Hospitality Management offer?"
"What kind of people do I have to deal with here? Are they in my age group? Are they older?"
"What about practicum?"
"Would I get morning classes or afternoon classes?"
"Are there hot girls here?"

Okay, maybe not that last one.

Surprisingly enough, I got great answers.
"Executive Housekeeper, Hotel Manager, Resort Manager. The hotel business is booming"
"International people, even some Filipinos. They're close to your age but there some who are over 40"
"One month of practicum after you've finished everything in the program"
"You'll get some morning classes and some afternoon classes"
"Yes, definitely. They've all been waiting for you."

Again, maybe not that last one.

I honestly thought that I'd hate that college because I got lost on the way. There wasn't a big sign or anything. It was beside a Starbucks that had an even bigger and more prominent sign than the college. It turned out that I would eventually enroll there and pursue a new career.

As said in the Sprott Shaw College student handbook, "You don't need to stop your life to change its direction."

Things I See - Filipino Food

Judging by my body size, I can definitely say that I have been an avid fan of Filipino food. Or you could say that I just ate a lot in the Philippines. Nevertheless, I've missed Filipino food. It's what I've missed the most actually (Sorry, friends in UST).

You will not believe how giddy I was when I saw a ton of Filipino food being sold here thanks to the local Filipino stores.

I love these nuts. And yes, that joke is obvious as hell.

Nagaraya has never been one of my favorites but thanks to Canada, I've been deprived of cheap peanuts so I have to buy these for a dollar each.

Then I needed something to wash these down though. So...

Who loves orange soda? Ralph loves orange soda. Is it true? I do, I do, I do-oooh.

HOLY CRAP, ROYAL! You followed me here! I love you! Okay, $1.08 seems a bit too much for a can of Filipino soda.

Speaking of Filipino soda, there is nothing more synonymous with Filipino soda than Sarsi. I couldn't believe I actually missed the taste of this cheap soda.

So I'm actually doing fine here in terms of food.

Things I See - Bathroom Kitties

This was in front of you when you took a whiz in a bathroom where I had facilitator training. It was weird getting the feeling of being watched while you empty your bladder, especially that brown cat. It's looking at me like it's saying "Really? Is that all you have?"

Shut up, judgmental bathroom cat!

Things I See - Beef Jerky Betrayal

I have never eaten beef jerky before and after seeing a bag of teriyaki beef jerky at the dollar store, I thought I'd give it a shot. After all, it said "DELICIOUS!" on top of the bag. What could go wrong?

Everything went wrong. Oh my god, that made me want to burn all the jerky in the world.

When I first opened the pack, it didn't smell anything like beef or teriyaki. It smelled like hot sweat and burned salt. I had to taste it sooner or later since I spent a dollar on it that could've gone to a bottle of Pepsi or a delicious chocolate bar.

It tasted like salt on paper. It wasn't really "delicious" as the bag said. It was horrible. Really horrible. Never try that beef jerky again.

The worst part was that the room still had the stench of teriyaki hot sweat and burned salt because the powder had somehow blown across the room. I had to spray Febreze on my desk and around the room because washing my desk wasn't good enough.

Dear god, I now hate beef jerky.

MY Circle

For the past two weeks, I've been taking sessions in Vancouver for facilitator training/community leader. We learned a lot about diversity, sympathy, empathy, discrimination and a lot more that would make us understand what it's like being a facilitator that helps new immigrants and multicultural youth.

The facilitators made it great with their discussions and activities. Granted, not everyone was perfect but hey, I know they did their best and everything turned out well.

I've met a lot of great people there. I can admit that I've not been the most social there but that's just the cynical old person in me acting up.

But still, MY Circle was the best two weeks of my Canadian life.

Also, we had ice cream cake.

Things I See - Fountain Drinks of Youth

Holy crap, I just couldn't believe it. When I first ordered a Quarter Pounder BLT at McDonald's the other day, they just gave me an empty cup and we can serve ourselves on the drinks counter.

Now, keep in mind that I'm from the Philippines where getting bottomless drinks would cost a lot more because people tend to get abusive. Not just us fat guys but people would actually sneak in jugs to take home soda and ice.

So when I saw that we can get as much drinks as we want for a dollar, I was thinking "Holy crap, am I in Heaven?!" and getting 4 glasses of root beer. That's how much of a culture shock it was.

Things I See - Washing People

Doing laundry is one of the most boring things I do (aside from writing scripts for bad Sampung Sulyap movie reviews) so I tend to look around and observe details around the laundromat. I see a hole in the corner of the ceiling. A rerun of Jeopardy is on TV. And this...

There has to be an instance where someone tried to put another person inside a washer. I mean, no one would make a rule like that if it's somehow possible to actually do it.

Maybe this is one of those times where the manufacturer just said "Hey, people are becoming assholes and we don't want them to affect our machines. Let's leave a warning."

Now I just wonder how many midgets are killed in washing machines every year.

Things I See - Bowel Grenade

In June of 2013, I worked in Shoppers Drug Mart. Anyway, as I was stocking the shelves, I noticed this as I was putting products on to the shelves.

"Bowel Buddy - Grenade Flavor"

Somehow that doesn't really sound appealing. Something that says "Grenade" doesn't go well with something that goes into your bowels. I don't really want anything that would cause an explosive reaction in my toilet.

(Yes, I know this is the French side as almost every product in Canada has to have a French translation of anything written on the product. I know pomegranate in French is "grenade".)

Things I See - Moose Droppings

In May 30, I was hanging out with my friend who visited me from Delaware. Her family treated me to a trip to the aquarium. As we were about to leave, we were browsing the gift shop there and then I saw this.

I really don't see how something like "moose droppings" can be appetizing to some people, let alone be a good name for chocolates. It clearly says "Belgian chocolate covered almonds" at the bottom but why call it something that came out of a moose's ass?

Clearly, that can't be taken out of context.

"Hey bro, do you have any moose droppings here? I got a hankering for them."

Of course, I didn't buy them. Why would I want to be walking around with a bag of moose droppings? Unless I'm setting it on fire and leaving it on someone's doorstep, I really don't plan on buying it anytime soon  just because of the name.

This is coming from someone who's from a country that eats different parts of chicken, including the blood and intestines. But droppings? No way, brother! There's a line we don't cross. And that line is shit.

Things I See - I Am A Man!

One of the most hilarious things I've seen in Canada are adult stores.

Back in the Philippines, these things were usually sold under the table with you having to know that a specific store sold those. I remember a magic shop in Greenhills that sold adult stuff right behind the products displayed in front of the store. A few steps in and you'll be able to see the good stuff. Cheaply made good stuff but still.

But in Canada, it's just sold out in the open with display windows and stuff. I'm not against this but come on, if you see someone enter there, you'd think he's a damn pervert. We perverts don't go public with our perversions.

Things I See - Half

At the Canadian Superstore a few hours ago, I was browsing all the cellphones they had. This one caught my eye.

I'm not entirely sure if anyone wants to actually buy half a cellphone in full price. Hell, I'm not even sure if anyone would want to buy a cellphone keyboard. I mean, what would they do with it on its own?

I can understand if you want to go all McGyver on half a cellphone and make a bomb or something but come on, there has to be a better way to acquiring these.

(I know that these are just the display models and Superstore has fixed ones in storage. Play along~!)

Things I See - Yellow Oranges

I was at Walmart a few days ago and this caught my eye.

I never really knew that oranges can be yellow.

Yup, they're totally oranges, see?

(I know it's just the box but come on, you know you could get a better box to advertise lemons.)

Things I See - My Bathroom Has 50 Shades

When I moved to my new place here in Canada, the first thing I did was look for old stuff that have somehow been left behind. Now, I was expecting a wallet or a gadget of some kind but that's just really unlikely since people are more careful with their electronics than they are with their children (Kids can't play mp3 files apparently).

I was told by the landlord that the previous tenants were Native Americans, hence the dream catchers hung on the bed rooms. The weirdest thing, however, was when I had gone to the bathroom to inspect the cabinets for other Native American stuff...

Now, I really hate Fifty Shades of Grey and everyone who reads it but dear god, that book was left behind in my bathroom. It's like, why would you read that in the bathroom of all places? While taking a dump, you're trying to be turned on? That's just weird.

And I can understand why that horrible book is left behind - it's because it sucks. Come on, you know that book sucks so bad that fanfiction is written better than that crap.

“Look Around, You’re All Alone”

That simple line from the How I Met Your Mother episode “The Time Travelers” is one way to summarize by arrival in Canada. It didn’t even start there. As I looked around gate D5 in the Taipei airport where I had to spend 5 hours in as a stopover, I felt a dark cloud of emotion looming upon me as I was ready to go to Vancouver. I realized I didn’t know anyone in Vancouver, let alone Taipei. I had a small panic attack mixed with emotion because I really did miss my friends. I wanted to bring them along.

Rambles - Ralph's Day Out In Canada

My first vlog in Canada. More to come.