Back to School Funpage

1. Power Shift 2009 -- Youth Climate Change Conference in DC!
2. Invitation to Business Today's 2009 Regional Conference
3. Rice Students needed for tutoring jobs!
4. Book Drive
5. De Lange Conf. VII - Film Series Invitation
6. Rice University Citizens Police Academy
7. Willy's Pub is Hiring
8. Student Director of Orientation Applications Available
9. Join Rugby!
10. Invitation - Undergraduate Research Fair
11. Student worker position
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1a. You tube: Absolutely Ridiculousness http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_0JiIIsWd0&eurl=http://perezhilton.com/2008-12-17-we-were-wrong
2a. LOLcat of the Day: http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/funny-pictures-cat-challenges-you-to-a-fight.jpg
3a. Play with Yourself: Indestructo-Tank : http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/371290
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1. Power Shift 2009 -- Youth Climate Change Conference in DC!
What is Power Shift? It is an awesome conference that first occurred in November 2007 with thousands of students heading to DC to hear cool speakers, listen to panels, attend workshops, and get active about stopping climate change.


POWER SHIFT 2009 will take place from Feb 27 - Mar 2. This is during our Spring Break, so if you want to go, you wouldn't even have to miss class! So far, incredible speakers like Van Jones, Ralph Nader, and Bill McKibben have already been confirmed.

Anyone interested should contact Lila Holzman (Lila.Holzman@rice.edu). Beginning next semester, Environmental Club will be fundraising to help support those attending this conference.

So think about it! More info can be found at their website: http://powershift09.org/

"From February 27th to March 2nd, 2009 thousands of young adults will converge on Washington, D.C. for Power Shift 2009, the second national youth summit to solve the climate crisis. At Power Shift 2009, young people from across the country will take a message of bold, comprehensive and immediate federal climate action to Washington, D.C. We will leverage the momentum we have built through the Campus Climate Challenge, Power Shift 2007 and Power Vote to pressure our politicians to take bold, comprehensive action."
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2. Invitation to Business Today's 2009 Regional Conference
See attached
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3. Rice Students needed for tutoring jobs!
Did you know that you can earn $20-$65 per hour tutoring high school
students around Rice?

With incredibly hourly rates and flexible hours, tutoring is perhaps
the best job you can have as a college students. We are looking for
Rice students to help with math, science, languages, test prep,
writing, and more.

To read more please check out http://houston.universitytutor.com/?q=-5
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4. Book Drive
Want to do something useful with your old textbooks?
Alternative Spring Break has partnered with Better World Books (www.betterworldbooks.com) to run a book drive that will benefit Books for Africa (www.booksforafrica.org) and we would love to have your support!

Donate your college-level books and workbooks published within the past 10 years (highlighting/writing in books is fine) in the big green and orange collection boxes in all college commons and at the bookstore which will remain up until Wednesday, January 14. TC Party for the college that donates the most!

Books collected will be put up for sale online to raise a sustainable stream of funding for Books for Africa or sent directly to African schools. If the books cannot be donated or sold, they are recycled. Drives like this one have earned over $1,700,000 for Books for Africa since 2003.

Thank you in advance for your help – please spread the word to everyone you know!

Sincerely,

2009 Habitat for Humanity Alternative Spring Break Trip
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5. De Lange Conf. VII - Film Series Invitation
YOU ARE INVITED . . .
De Lange Conference VII
“Transforming the Metropolis: Creating Sustainable and Humane Cities”

CONNECTING FILM SERIES
“Transforming the Metropolis”
Rice University – Media Center
Free Admission (open to the public)


7:00 pm Monday January 12, 2009
Metropolis/ (144 minutes, B&W, Fritz Lang 1927)
“The film is set in the year 2026, in the extraordinary Gothic skyscrapers of a corporate city-state, the metropolis of the title. Society has been divided into two rigid groups: one of planners or thinkers, who live high above the earth in luxury, and another of workers who live underground toiling to sustain the lives of the privileged. The city is run by Johann 'Joh' Fredersen (Alfred Abel).”

7:00 pm Monday, January 19, 2009
Chinatown (121 minutes, color, 1974)
Chinatown is set in the 1930s and portrays water department corruption. The characters Hollis Mulwray and Noah Cross are both references to the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, William Mulholland (1855-1935) — the name Hollis Mulwray is partially an anagram for Mulholland. The name Noah is a reference to a flood — to suggest the conflict between good and evil in Mulholland. Mulholland was the designer and engineer for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which brought water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. The dam Cross and the city want to build is opposed by Mulwray for reasons of engineering and safety. Mulwray says he will not make the same mistake as when he built a previous dam, which broke resulting in the deaths of hundreds. This is a direct reference to the St/ Francis Dam disaster. The dam was personally inspected by Mulholland himself before it catastrophically failed the next morning on March 12, 1928. More than 450 people, many of them school children died that day and the town of Santa Paula was buried. The incident effectively ended Mulholland's career and he died in 1935.

7:00 pm Monday, January 26, 2009
City of God (130 minutes, color, 2002)
Taking place over the course of over two decades, City of God tells the story of Ciadade de Deus (Portuguese for City of God), a lower class quarter west of Rio de Janeiro. The film is told from the viewpoint of a boy named Rocket (Busca pé in Portuguese) who grows up there as a fishmonger's son, and demonstrates the desperation and violence inherent in the slums. Based on a real story, the movie depicts drug abuse, violent crime, and a boy's struggle to free himself from the slums' grasp.

7:00 pm Monday, February 2, 2009
Megacities: 12 Stories of Survival (1998, 90 minutes, directed by Michael Glawogger)
Megacities is a documentary that deals with the human experiences of work, poverty, violence, love and sex. It is a film about human beauty in twelve chapters which tells the tales of people from Bombay, Mexico City, Moscow and New York, who are all struggling for survival, with ingenuity, intelligence and dignity. They all share the dream of a better life in the Big City at the dawn of a new millennium. A time when “the world city” is the dominant habitat for the majority of the Earth’s population. In the tradition of Mondo Cane (1961), this Austrian-Swiss documentary captures the eccentric underside of human behavior in a variety of slum settings throughout the world -- Moscow (subway thieves, a downbeat detox clinic, depressing life of a female factory-worker), Mexico City (family dining on chicken-feet soup, customers groping a nightclub stripper, dogs at dawn in a garbage dump), New York (a street hustler, a radio call-in show), Bombay (back-alley poverty, waders in polluted rivers). Made with a blow-up from Super 16, the film features Hindi, English, Spanish, and Russian dialogue. Shown at the 1998 Locarno Film Festival, the 1998 Toronto Film Festival, and the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival. (Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide)

7:00 pm Monday, February 9, 2009
Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (60 minutes, 1988, William H. Whyte)
Whyte's classic 1980 study of New York's plazas started a mini-revolution in urban planning and design. In the 1970’s William H. Whyte convinced the New York City planning commission that if his team could determine what makes open spaces work, they would change the zoning laws to require that those elements be part of public plazas. Whyte's team, The Street Life Project, got to work. They selected plazas and parks that were well used. Then they set up cameras. They made diagrams. They wandered around and collected information about how people used the spaces. They documented the act of people eating lunch, shaking hands, moving chairs, and talking to themselves. Then they sorted through it, producing quantitative results. The final outcome was that the city accepted the research, and wrote a new zoning resolution for open spaces that reflected The Street Life Project's conclusions.

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RICE MEDIA CENTER
The Rice Media Center has a 246 person seating capacity. We advise arriving at least 15-20 minutes before show time.
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6. Rice University Citizens Police Academy
Class # 5 of the Rice University Citizens Police Academy begins next week, January 13. We have received great interest through our initial registration and are eagerly looking forward to another exciting time.
That being said, we have five spaces still open for anyone interested in experiencing the “behind the scenes” look at law enforcement and the Rice University Police Department as well as going through various phases of police training.
The class is held each Tuesday evening at the police department law enforcement training center from 6:00 – 9:00 pm.



Visit our CPA registration website (http://rupd.rice.edu/radform.cfm) for a course overview as well as to get enrolled.
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7. Willy's Pub is Hiring
Willy's Pub is hiring again! Willy's has a limited number of positions available for both daytime and nighttime bartenders for Spring 2009. Daytime bartenders must be work study eligible. Applications will be available at Willy's Pub starting Monday, January 5 and will be due back by Friday, January 9 at 12 PM. This is a great opportunity to gain work experience, make friends, and make money all at once!
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8. Student Director of Orientation Applications Available
The Student Director of Orientation is responsible for leading a team
of peers (College O-Week Coordinators) in the planning and execution
of a comprehensive, seven day O-Week containing university-wide and
college specific components. This position also participates in post
O-Week assessment and focus group activities, plays an active role in
the coordination of Mid-Year Orientation and participates in the
selection of the next year's Student Director. Ideally, a Student
Director will be a former Coordinator/Head Fellow and a rising Senior,
but that is not absolutely necessary. Applications are due January
14th. Any questions about the position can be directed to the current
Student Director, meganh@rice.edu, or Shelah Crear, screar@rice.edu.
Please find attached the Application and Job Description
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9. Join Rugby!
Not sure what to do now that Powderpuff season is over?
Want to stay in shape and meet people across campus?
Ever considered giving rugby a chance?

The Women's Rugby Team will be hosting open begginners practices next week,
Monday, January 12th from 5pm-7pm
Thursday, Januray 25th from 5pm-7pm

Practices will be held on the IM fields in front of Autry and are always followed by an optional team dinner at South Servery.

Come to practice and give rugby a try! Absolutely no experience is necessary and we welcome girls of all body types and skill levels.

If you have any questions, please contact Megan at meganh@rice.edu
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10. Invitation - Undergraduate Research Fair
The Center for Civic Engagement and the Office of Fellowships and Undergraduate Research are hosting the Undergraduate Research and Summer Experience Fair on Thursday, January 8, 2009 from 6:00 to 7:30 pm in the Grand Hall in the Rice Memorial Center. This event is an opportunity for the Rice community to join with local organizations with the goal of informing Rice undergraduates about rewarding research opportunities. We would love for you to come to the fair and to encourage students to attend the event. This is a wonderful chance for our faculty, staff, and undergraduates to meet and learn about various research programs.

Please visit http://ugresearch.rice.edu/ for information about programs featured at the Undergraduate Research and Summer Experience Fair. If you have any questions about the event, please do not hesitate to contact us at scholars@rice.edu or 713-348-2223. We hope to see you at the fair!
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11. Student worker position
Position: HR student assistant

Description: The HR student assistant will help in recruiting job candidates for the Resource Development division. They will be responsible for proactively searching for potential candidates online and inputting their information into our database. They will also help with advertising open job positions and scheduling interviews. The student assistant will also help with special projects such as new employee orientation, identifying and scheduling professional development opportunities, and division newsletters.

Location: We are located at 5620 Greenbriar, which is across the street from the stadium. The Rice shuttle has a stop here.

Compensation: $10/hr

Hours: 5-6 hours/week. We prefer the student assistant work 3 hours twice a week sometime between the hours of 8:30 and 3:00 if possible.



Interested candidates please send all correspondence to bbrehm@rice.edu.

In Mike and Casey We Trust