I've never been a huge fan of large crowds in small rooms.

On Saturday 08 October 2011, I found myself in the basement of the W2 Media Cafe, feeling not exceptional, waiting for the forum to begin on the upcoming Occupy Vancouver action.

A large camera was pointed at my face, with some guy with a leer looking at me through its finder.

Before I could even say hello to an acquaintance I had spotted, he turned to me and said "Fuck this, it's too much," pulled his jacket up to his face and walked out through the crowd.

Before the forum even began, the presence of media was a problem. Several times people mentioned that none of the media there had identified themselves or whom they represented.

I had been quite unsure about attending in the first place, given the history between myself, others at the Media Co-op and W2. The city seems to have an easy time forgetting hypocrisy, and so I'd somewhat agreed to show up and if/when prompted point out the irony of meeting in the building that was the flagship of gentrification.

Before we were even 15 minutes into the forum, someone asked to move to the Woodwards atrium due to lack of space. Hundreds had shown up for the meeting: a remarkable thing to see. A friend from Ottawa who came in later asked me if all I saw were the usual suspects milling about; I had to reply that in fact I didn't know the majority of people at the event. I was elated when I said this.

Others have written on the potential for anarchism at the upcoming action, as well as the disturbing stance some of those involved have taken towards snitching. I'm writing about my reaction to the discussion seen yesterday, between a diverse group of people.

The atrium was soon full of people, waiting as facilitators explained how human microphones worked. For some reason the facilitators wanted to get right into creating committees without talking about what was being planned or a basis of unity. A number of voices talked about the need to address the latter before anything else.

Quote of the night came from the lady sitting in front of me, who turned around and said "It's a bit patriarchal to want to...