Learn-December2013

Christmas in China!

Article submitted by Feiran Zhou

Time is getting closer to the holiday season! Christmas is a relatively new holiday in China. It is only in the past two decades that Christmas became a mainstream holiday. Unlike here in the West, Christmas in China has less of a religious connection but more about getting together with friends and doing Christmas shopping. In addition, a growing number of Chinese celebrate on Christmas Eve by eating Christmas dinners with friends. Exchanging Christmas cards with close friends and family is becoming more popular. The traditional Christmas dinners are also readily available at hotel restaurants and Western restaurants during Christmas time in China.

Some families will have a small Christmas tree during this time. Few homes have Christmas lights outside or candles in the windows. But shopping malls and restaurants have adopted all the trappings of a Western Christmas. Santa Clause, reindeers and Frosty the Snowman are ubiquitous in malls around Christmas time. With the malls decorated with Christmas lights and stores clerks wearing Santa caps, all accompanied by classic holiday carols, it is now easily to get into the holiday season in China.

Although Christmas is not an official holiday in China, people do take the time to soak up the festive vibe. Skating, admiring ice sculptures, enjoying holiday lights shows and even watching a production of the nutcracker are all some of the way Chinese people are enjoying the holidays.

Chinese Spring Festival!

The Spring Festival—the most important festival for the Chinese people—is the Chinese version of Christmas in China. This is the time for all family members get together. Those people living away from home must go back and join the reunion. The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, often one month later than the Gregorian calendar. It originated in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC-c. 1100 BC) from the people’s sacrifice to gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one.

Store owners are busy then as everybody goes out to purchase necessities for the New Year. Not only include cooking oil, rice, flour, chicken, duck, fish and meat, but also fruit, candies and kinds of nuts. What’s more, various decorations, new clothes and shoes for the children as well as gifts for the elderly, friends and relatives, are all on the list of purchasing.

Before the New Year comes, the people completely clean the indoors and outdoors of their homes as well as their clothes, bedclothes and all their utensils. Then people begin decorating their clean rooms featuring an atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity. All the door panels will be pasted with Spring Festival couplets, highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper. The content varies from house owners’ wishes for a bright future to good luck for the New Year.

The Chinese character “fu” (meaning blessing or happiness) is a must. The character put on paper can be pasted normally or upside down, for in Chinese the “reversed fu” is homophonic with “fu comes”. What’s more, two big red lanterns can be raised on both sides of the front door.

Waking up on New Year’s day, everybody dresses up. First they extend greetings to their parents. Then each child will get money as a New Year’s gift, wrapped up in red paper. People in northern China will eat jiaozi, or dumplings, for breakfast, as they think “jiaozi” in sound means “bidding farewell to the old and ushering in the new”. Also, the shape of the dumpling is like gold ingot from ancient China. So people eat them and wish for money and treasure.

Contributed by Feiran Zhou

Campus Stores Canada visits Connections

Article submitted by Cathy Lee

Connections The Campus Store & the Algonquin eText Project hosted a presentation and lunch for Campus Stores Canada recently, here on campus, on Wednesday November 13^th.

The group Campus Stores Canada (CSC) was holding their annual conference in Ottawa that week, and accepted our invitation to board two buses from their downtown hotel to visit our Woodroffe campus.

This CSC group, of which Connections is a member, consists of independently owned and operated college and university campus bookstores and retail operations, and the conference attendees included general managers, managers, buyers, as well as some publisher representatives who also attended.

About one hundred CSC members arrived at the entrance to the Student Commons, and proceeded to Salon A to enjoy a buffet lunch that was beautifully done by Gordie & Helena, and to hear an interesting presentation by Larry Weatherdon, Project Manager of the eText Project, which detailed some of the history as well as future plans of the eTextbook initiative. Larry Cavanagh is a member of the board of CSC, and was the MC for the lunch and presentation. Shawn Davies and Catherine Lee of Retail Services also both attended the CSC conference.

As employees of bookstores and campus stores from across Canada, the CSC members were extremely interested in hearing about “The Algonquin Project” first hand, and wanted to ask some questions of one of the lead people involved in this project.

This was followed by a Connections store tour, starting with flavoured teas and mini-cupcakes with green AC logos on them in Connections Tea Shoppe. All Connections employees were on hand to greet our guests, and walk them through the reservations kiosk, the mobile storage area with electronic moving shelves, our fireplace lounge, the Under Armour, Adidas, and Algonquin Thunder clothing areas, and so much more. Everyone remarked at the beauty of the store spaces and variety of great products.

We handed each visitor a souvenir swag bag of Algonquin products and treats, after they had also visited the New Technology Store, and helped them on their buses to continue their stay in Ottawa. All members of this group seemed genuinely pleased to have been treated as honoured guests by Algonquin, and were all intrigued by the eText program and impressed by the surroundings and the friendly welcome that they had experienced while being our guests. The day was a big success.

Research tips by the Librarian In Green

Looking for that perfect book?

Article submitted by Helena Merriam

This time of the year, the Librarian in green gets lots of questions about what are good books to buy for gifts.Now the Librarian in green knows a lot about books, but she can’t keep up with all the different titles and genres out there. So, what does the Librarian in green do? Why look it up of course!

So, if you are looking for a good book for that special someone on your holiday shopping list, why not try searching the database NoveList? It is available as one of the many online resources at the Ottawa Public Library (and don’t even get me started on how many great online resources are available that few people know about). And if you don’t live in Ottawa – no problem, chances are, NoveList is available from your public library too, whether you live in Arnprior, Smith Falls, Pembroke, Perth or Kemptville.Just look for “Online Resources” and sign in with your library card.

For Ottawa Public Library users, you can go to:

http://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/databases/search-all

Scroll down until you see either NoveList or NoveList K-8 (for all those kiddies on your list. )

Log in with your library card number, and your password is the last four digits of your phone number.

You will then see a screen like this:

Novelist1

You can browse the categories on the left hand side, such as: Canadian fiction, Fantasy, Graphic Novels to find titles of interest.

What do you want the book to be about?

Or, if you have something specific in mind, you can type in keywords into the search box.For example, say your nephew wants a book about space travel and aliens. You can type those words into the keyword search box and get a list of results such as this:

Novelist2

Find just exactly what you are looking for!

Some of these titles look a bit old! 1958?? Really?So what you might want to do is click on the Sort button and change from ‘Relevance’ to ‘Date newest’, and then you can get the more recent books first.

You can see on the right hand side that you can limit by ‘Audience’, so you can pick the appropriate age range for your book selections. On the left you will see you can narrow results by a variety of ways to get just the right book for you, such as ‘Genre’, ‘Tone’, ‘Subject’ and more.

Novelist3

Find more books that are similar to ones you already like!

Where you see the term ‘Author Read-alikes’,this is a great feature to help you discover new authors that are similar to ones that you like. So for instance, for all you Ian Rankin fans, here’s a list of other authors and books you might want to check out:

Novelist 4

There is a lot to explore in NoveList!Have fun and happy reading!

Is there anything you would like to see in a future edition of Live Laugh Learn about research tips? Please send your suggestions to the Librarian in Green at merriah@algonquincollege.com

The Librarian in green is otherwise known as Helena Merriam, Coordinator of the Library and Information Technician program, and promoter of Algonquin Reads.She uses NoveList to find books for relatives and herself, and teaches students how to do the same.

Algonquin Reads update

For the first time ever, Algonquin Reads hosted an author reading session over Skype.Richard Wagamese, the author of Indian Horse, lives in British Columbia and graciously agreed to fit us into his schedule, corresponding nicely with the Algonquin Learning Resource Centre’s Library Week, in October. The event was held in the beautiful Mamidosewin Centre, and the staff there treated us to Moose stew and other refreshments. The technology for the Skype session went off without a hitch, thanks to our wonderful ITS team. The only problem was…. I couldn’t get the author to sign my copy of the book!

It was a great session, attended by staff, faculty and students. Richard Wagamese read a selection from his book and answered questions from the audience. He was funny and serious and gave helpful advice to aspiring authors in the audience. He even gave us a sneak preview of his next book, Medicine Walk, coming out in April.

Special thanks to Travis Winwood from the Learning Resource Centre, and Tony Mendes from the Mamidosewin Centre staff, for working with us to host this author reading event. Thank you to ITS department and Nancy Tremblay for organizing the Skype session. Thank you to Ryan Porter for making the arrangements with the author. And a big thank you to everyone who attended!

Coming up next is the Student Writing Contest! Contest deadline is March 1, 2014 and details can be found at:

http://algonquincollegereads.blogspot.ca/

Applied Research Project with KI Pembroke
– Submitted by Julie Sylvestre

Mid-November marked an important milestone for the Applied Research KI Nature & Wellness Trail project. Outdoor Adventure Naturalist students Ria Quik and Kate Ming-Sun worked tirelessly throughout late-September, October, and November to create a plan for the trail building component of the KI Nature & Wellness project, scheduled to debut on November 14-15 in collaboration with the Outdoor Adventure program and Wilderness Tours.

The trail is meant to provide an outdoor break and lunch-time respite for KI employees while also encouraging physical activity. Interpretive signage is also being developed to display along the trail. Future plans for the trail could potentially include linking the trail system to the City of Pembroke’s public trail system, erecting an exercise station along the KI trail, creating a community garden, and/or fencing in an area for a dog-park.

KI’s impressive display of corporate social responsibility and the avenues of innovation offered through Applied Research have created a partnership wherein the possibilities are endless.

A big thank you to Ian Pineau, Cam Dubé, Jeff Jackson, Laura Haines (KI), Dan Mellen (KI), Wilderness Tours, Kevin Holmes, Shandy Labine, and all local contracting and construction companies involved in making this trail possible!

Financial support for this Applied Research project was provided by the Government of Canada and the NSERC-funded Health and Wellness Research Centre at the Office of Applied Research and Innovation at Woodroffe