Vol 39 issue 7

October 29, 2012 Volume 39, Issue 7 www.mediumutm.ca

UTM aims to graduate “innovators”

UTM’s first vice-president of special initiatives, professor Ulli Krull, speaks about UTM’s role in the community Larissa Ho NEws Editor In his new position as vice-principal of special initiatives, Professor Ulrich Krull plans on moving UTM towards the vision of a more comprehensive university, complete with cross-disciplinary professional programs that will creatively change the quality of life for citizens of the Region of Peel.

According to Krull, who is also UTM’s VP research until next June, the name “special initiatives” means the initiatives aren’t bound by the conventions of normal academic processes. Instead, they would be projects that challenge the assumptions of traditional education, like UTM’s recently launched master of management of innovation program does.

The approach is about looking from the outside in, said Krull. It’s about changing what the university can offer students and what the university can offer the outside world through the implementation of professional programs. Our university has often had governmental support, but the question, according to Krull, is what would change the nature of

Luke Sawczak/The Medium

VP special initiatives Ulli Krull at work in his office in the Health Sciences Complex. the quality of life for the people in our community.

Krull’s vision is to expand the university’s opportunities, offerings, and research in the specific areas of engineering, business, and medicine.

“That’s really where this campus has been trying to position itself,” said Krull. He said that not only should UTM support the U of T mission, but it should do so “in the context of the value that we have in our

local community”.

Krull wants to know what can be done to expand what UTM means for its students and supporters. Having fostered a relationship with the city of Mississauga for over 15 years,

UTM—which Krull says is known as the “research arm” of Mississauga— needs to graduate not just creative thinkers, but innovators.

“The university has more than the ability to teach. It has the ability to actually serve the population and serve the community in a much greater context,” said Krull. “If you can encourage students to put some of their creativity in the city, will that not change the quality of life for the citizens of Mississauga?”

The position of VP special initiatives was created in June by the provost as part of what Krull calls the maturation of the UTM administrative structure. Krull took up his new position on October 1.

“Ask yourself this: are you an innovator or are you a creator? A creator can dream up new things, has new ideas, has aspirations, but for the most part, the world doesn’t care about your ideas. They care what you can bring to practice,” said Krull.

“That’s what’s called ‘innovation’.

What we want to do is educate so that all these individuals that are creative learn how to move their ideas forward.”

Could the Liberals legalize it?

UTM professors and politically minded students discuss the legal status of pot Jai Sangha Associate NEws Editor Last Wednesday, UTM professors and political pundits discussed the legalization of marijuana at an oncampus debate organized by the UTM Liberals club.

Arnd Jurgensen, a political science lecturer at UTM, opened the discussion with his support for marijuana legalization. He compared the legal status of marijuana to that of other substances, including tobacco and alcohol.

“Almost every doctor that I’ve spoken to and read articles by would suggest that the health effects of tobacco are more severe than they are in the case of marijuana,” said Jergensen. “The addictive qualities of tobacco are far more severe than those of marijuana, and yet tobacco is relatively freely available to any-

Is PMS all in your head?

A U of T review of literature finds that there is no proof for the existence of premenstrual syndrome.

Medium News, page 2

Not much of a costume The sense behind Halloween costumes and pressure to follow the trend.

Medium Opinion, page 4

Theatre Erindale opens Noel Coward’s Semi-Monde marks the start of another season.

Medium A&E, page 5

Dreams, nightmares, stress Jasmeen Virk/The Medium

The UTM Liberals met and discussed the legalization of cannabis in the Davis Building last week. one over the age of 18—and, unfortunately, pretty much available to those underneath that age.”

Jergensen argued that the nega-

tive social effects of alcohol consumption are also more severe than those of tobacco and marijuana, giving the example of bar fights

started under the influence of alcohol.

Marijuana continued on page 3

What does stress have to do with your recurring dream of falling?

Medium Features, page 8

Suspension is one thing...

Which hockey games should UTM’s Rory Bourgeois have to sit out?

Medium Sports, page 11

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«NEWS THE MEDIUM

10.29.2012

Flesh flash at Halloween Pub Study finds scant UTMSU’s pub returns, along with skimpy costumes

evidence of PMS

U of T researcher calls PMS a myth Mudeeha Yousaf

CAssandra Tagliapietra/The Medium

Students dressed up for the ever-popular Halloween Pub at the Blind Duck Pub. Matthew Butler staff writer Students with the precious few sold-out tickets showed off their different costumes as they crowded the Blind Duck Pub at 11 p.m. last Thursday.

Halloween spirit was high as the line of students began to coil around the pub patio at 10:45.

Tickets went on sale last Monday at 10 a.m. at the information booth in the Student Centre. Students had started lining up as early as 7 a.m. to secure their tickets.

“We’ve been here since early this morning; no way am I missing the pub. I did this last year, too,” said

Tyler Kristjanson.

The tickets sold out in 30 minutes, leaving many students looking for alternative options.

Chris Thompson, the president of UTMSU, dressed up as Luigi. He greeted the eager guests at the door as they poured into the pub, which was soon at capacity.

The music was a mix of Halloween-themed music, club, and top 40 that played well with the crowd.

The dance floor stayed busy all night.

“Halloween Pub is always one of the most exciting pub nights, because everyone gets so into dressing up,” said Stefany Bakelaar. “The highlights of my night were seeing

everyone’s costumes, or lack thereof, and catching up with friends I hadn’t seen in a while.”

Besides the usual collection of traditional Halloween garments, this year featured many group costumes, including Mario and Luigi, an Oompa Loompa and Willy Wonka, a SWAT team and prisoners, and a group of army infantry in matching fatigues.

An on-site photographer captured the contest for best costume. The Oompa Loompa took first place, followed by a blackjack dealer in second and a Lady Gaga in third.

Students stayed to dance till just after the pub closed at 2 a.m.

The existence of PMS is doubtful, according to a review by of U of T researchers that found little or no evidence for it in the scientific literature.

PMS, or premenstrual syndrome, is a collection of symptoms related to a woman’s menstrual cycle, including mood swings and emotional irritability.

It is widely used to explain the symptoms that some women experience before menstruation.

The study, published last week in the journal Gender Medicine, was intended to find out whether PMS is a social construction of mainstream culture and media, or a genuine part of female biology. The team of female psychologists and psychiatrists, including Gillian Einstein, the director of U of T’s collaborative graduate program in women’s health, aimed to debunk what they see as “cultural baggage”. They believe their findings will empower women who can’t express themselves freely because of the stigma attached to being hyper-sensitive for a week every month. The researchers concluded that our culture’s media and popular perception likely over-attribute women’s moodiness to their menstrual cycles.

Of the hundreds of studies the researchers reviewed, they narrowed it down to 41 that they considered proper studies. Of these, only around 14%—some of

which Einstein called “biased”— found a connection between negative moods and pre-menstruation. Several of the studies found no evidence of unusually negative mood at any time of the month.

The study did not dismiss the physical symptoms of menstruation, such as bloating, breast tenderness, aching and cramps.

They also did not look into premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a controversial and uncommon extreme form of PMS. “PMS is real, because it has to do with the chemical reaction to the changes in levels of hormones during pre-menstruation,” says Harsimer Singh, a fifth-year women and gender studies major. “Though it’s been blown out of proportion by the media that contrives ideas about how girls are during this time. PMS exists, but the hype about crazy women on their periods needs to be eliminated.”

“I do think it’s real, because if it’s not then I become a horrible person two days a month for no reason. And I am not okay with that,” said Cathy Terefenko, a fourth-year English specialist.

According to some critics, including Elissa Stein, the author of Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation, it remains unclear to what degree mood swings are a result of biology and to what degree they are only social constructs.

U.S. debate under scrutiny

Political science professors analyze final U.S. showdown

Junaid Imran/THe Medium

Students gathered in the Student Centre to watch a replay of the final U.S. debate on foreign policy.

Amy Pryhoda The UTM Debating Club collaborated with UTMSU to air the final American presidential debate on US foreign policy last Tuesday.

The screening was followed by an analysis of the debate by UTM political science professors. Afterwards, the floor was opened to the attendees to discuss the debate and its implications.

The atmosphere of the final debate was not one of intense competition. “[There was] lots of agreement, not the competitive fuelling. Almost like two candidates from the same party, because it was so cen-

tralist,” said Professor Justin Bumgardner.

Because of this, the analysis and discussion primarily focussed on the rhetorical strategies Obama and Romney employed, and why they were particularly important.

The CNN electoral map was displayed during the discussion; it showed that Romney and Obama were close in the polls. It appears that voters are on the fence or are disillusioned with their party.

The swing vote is of crucial importance for both candidates; perhaps this was why Romney and Obama tailored their performance to appeal to the undecided voters.

The professors said the debate

was only superficially about U.S. foreign policy. They agreed that redirecting the issues on the agenda to what the candidates saw as pressing concerns of the American public, such as the financial crisis and the U.S.’s stance as a superpower, was a tactic to appeal to the swing vote.

Thus, although the content of the debate may have seemed somewhat irrelevant to the agenda, the way they treated it was crucial to the outcome of the election.

The UTM Debating Club and UTMSU will air the election day proceedings live at the Blind Duck on November 6.

Write for

NEWS

10.29.2012 THE MEDIUM NEWS

Decriminalizing marijuana Marijuana continued from Cover He pointed out that unlike other drugs, there is effectively no lethal dose of marijuana.

He dismissed the notion that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads users to take harder drugs like cocaine and heroin. “I know of quite a few people that smoke marijuana, and virtually nobody that takes harder drugs,” said Jurgensen.

He also said that because marijuana is put in the same category as harder drugs, people selling marijuana usually also sell harder drugs, which makes harder drugs easily available to people purchasing marijuana. “They have a profit motive to push harder drugs, because the profit margins for harder drugs tend to be higher than [for] marijuana,” he argued.

Revenue from the sale of marijuana can be taken away from drug dealers and organized crime and put into legitimate activities where it can be taxed, regulated, and kept away from the hands of vulnerable people, according to Jergensen.

The Liberal Party of Canada adopted the legalization of marijuana as its official policy in January.

Jonathan Scott, the president of the U of T Liberals club at the St. George campus, suggested that their official stance could be risky for the party.

“We’d be branded as an unserious party if we don’t sell this as a substantive policy,” said Scott. He also mentioned that the selling point of the legalization policy needs to be economic rather than ideological.

Zach Paikan, a former candidate for the national policy chair of the Liberal Party, said that money saved from the war on drugs and generated from taxing marijuana could be used to reduce corporate taxes, personal income taxes, and debt, which can be a crucial selling point for conservative voters.

“Legalizing marijuana is a really important way to generate billions of dollars per year […] to ensure that we are secure as a people.”

—Zach Paikan Paikan added that the revenue would be important as Canada assumes a more important role in world politics. “Legalizing marijuana is a really important way to generate billions of dollars per year […] to ensure that we are secure as a people,” he said.

However, Nicholas Li, an associate economics professor at UTM, suggested that the fiscal benefits

of marijuana legalization are being oversold.

Canada’s total government revenue is approximately $600 billion, and marijuana legalization would only create between $1 billion to $2 billion government revenue, according to Li, who cited Frasier Institute and Harvard University studies on marijuana markets in Canada and U.S. Li argued that legalizing marijuana will also have international consequences, particularly with the U.S., that could increase costs, such as at customs. Even a 1% reduction in trade with the U.S. would reduce Canada’s revenue by $3.4 billion, he said. This loss would outweigh the revenue generated from legalization.

Students and audience members asked questions after the speakers finished their statements. Andrew O’Brien, the president of UTM Liberals, moderated the Q & A session.

UTM Liberals used marijuana legalization to attract first-year students and new members this year, but the primary selling point for UTM students is lower tuition fees, according O’Brien.

A recent poll suggests that more than 65% of Canadians favour decriminalizing marijuana, according to a Global News report on July 1.

Marijuana became illegal in Canada in 1923 under the Opium and Drug Act.

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»IS PMS real?

Fatima Zulqarnain 5th-year, life sciences

Warren Clarke 4th-year, political science

I think it’s real, but I think we use it as more of an excuse.

Yes, I do. I think it’s a real weird phenomenon women can sync.

Jennifer Bryden 2nd-year, CTEP (for math)

Savio Chazhoor 3rd-year, sociology

Yeah. I mean, why not? I don’t know. It’s kind of a hard question to answer.

Yeah, I think it is real. I just base it off TV and stuff— mostly media.

SEC talks sex with Carlyle Jansen Sex shop owner comes to UTM for “What you wish you had learned about sex” workshop

She added, “Some people base their sex life off of porn, which is really unrealistic and fake. There is no stuff that people are ‘supposed to do’ during sex, like they see in porn. They sometimes think that the sex they are having is not good sex, or not ‘real’ sex, since it’s different than what is seen in

porn movies.”

Jansen compared how misconceptions about sex spread to the familiar game of broken telephone.

“I thought the event was great,” said Andriana Jouk, a fourth-year biology and chemistry specialist. “It was very informational. I learned a lot, and it was very entertaining at the same time, and was not dry and boring.”

“The vast majority of the student body has legitimate questions about sex and sexuality,” said volunteer coordinator Tristan Rashad. “The problem is, most people find it difficult to discuss these topics. That’s why we’ve brought in Carlyle. She is truly amazing at what she does, and knows how to address questions about sex in a way that is fun and entertaining.”

Carlyle Jansen comes to U TM to debunk sex myths.

Hurricane Sandy prompts massive evacuation in NYC

Madonna booed after supporting Obama in her L.A. Concert

Toronto doctor uses 3D camera to remove brain tumour

New e-passports to be distributed in Canada by 2013

Lena Dunham creates “virginity” ad for Obama

Hundreds of thousands of residents of New York City have been ordered to evacuate in droves towards one of the 72 shelters the city has set up as Hurricane Sandy roars towards the east coast of the United States and parts of eastern Canada. About 375,000 people in coastal areas, including lower Manhattan, have been told to leave their homes.

In her “MDNA Tour” in New Orleans, Madonna said: “I don’t care who you vote for as long as you vote for Obama,” evoking boos and walkouts. Madonna added, to even more boos: “Seriously, I don’t care who you vote for. Do not take this privilege for granted. Go vote.” The “Material Girl” has been known to be outstpoken.

Dr. Michael Cusimano, a neurosurgeon St. Michael’s Hospital, has pioneered the use of a 3D camera barely larger than a speck of sand to help surgeons manoeuvre their instruments in a tiny space. It allows surgeons to remove more of a tumour with less risk of error. Cusimano is the first surgeon in Canada to use a 3D camera to remove a brain tumour.

The new e-passport will have a tamperproof electronic chip, a 13.56-mhz radio frequency antenna, a digital photo to assist matchups with facial recognition technology, and iconic Canadian images.

The Conservative government hopes the e-passport will decrease fraud and speed up clearance. You still won’t be able to smile in your passport photo.

Lena Dunham, the 26-year-old creator and star of HBO’s Girls, uploaded a video to YouTube on Thursday, saying her “first time”—that is, voting—should be with “someone who really cares about and understands women”. She encourages young women to vote for Obama because of his support for women’s rights.

The ad has angered Republicans.

Source: CBC News

Source: The Associated Press

Source: TheToronto Star

Source: The Globe and Mail

Source: The National Post

Andrew Dmytrasz Room 140 of the Instructional Centre was filled with whispering as students entered to hear Carlyle Jansen’s presentation, “What you wish you had learned about sex: all your questions answered and more”, hosted by UTM’s Sexual Education Centre.

“Don’t be shy to ask questions.

Asking questions [is] important to have a good understanding of sex and sexual health,” said Jansen.

“Don’t let people shame you. Find a trusted place to ask questions, where you feel comfortable being open.”

Jansen covered myths and misconceptions about sex, ranging from pregnancy to BDSM to basic anatomy.

“Sex is a skill,” said Jensen. “It takes time to develop it. It’s not

something we learn from our parents. People have a lot of misconceptions about sex, and it can lead to relationships breaking up.”

“There is no stuff that people are ‘supposed to do’ during sex, like they see in porn.”

—Carlyle Jansen

Jasmeen Virk/the medium

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« 10.29.2012

Editor-in-Chief » Stefanie Marotta

Where’s your shirt? Bus etiquette Letter to the university on student behaviour

Looking at nonsensical Halloween costumes Photos from Halloween Pub always garner attention at The Medium office on publishing day. We crowd around the photo editor’s desk and gawk at the drunken moments and indecent costumes caught on camera.

The costumes always confuse me. The soccer referee outfit for girls—complete with low cut, striped halter top and mini skirt— makes an appearance every year.

If a female ref ever showed up to a game dressed like that, I’m sure the players would pick significantly fewer fights on officiating.

And I still don’t understand the costume for guys with the bowtie, naked upper half, and dress pants.

Explanations are welcome; come find me in The Medium office.

I don’t mean to judge. Our years as university students are unique. We’re all young enough that we don’t have to be concerned with reputation and we’re all broke enough to excuse the lack of clothing on Halloween. I appreciate that so many students are comfortable and confident in their bodies.

Do we dress up—or down,

rather—for Halloween because we genuinely want to show off some skin, or do we crave the attention?

Childhood is the truest time for Halloween. The algorithm was simple: the scarier the costume, the more candy that neighbours dump into your pumpkin bucket.

Now the factors are slightly different, but the algorithm is more or less the same.

The gym crew at this school sport suspenders, ties, chains—anything that will act as an accessory to their bare naked chests.

Around this time of year, the beauty community on YouTube pumps out videos on Halloween costumes and makeup tutorials, most of them showcasing skimpy Tinkerbell skirts and low cut firefighter vests.

I noticed one video on a makeup tutorial for a zombie bride costume, and not the sexy kind. It

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Stefanie Marotta editor@mediumutm.ca NEWS EDITOR Larissa Ho news@mediumutm.ca ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR Jai Sangha A&E EDITOR Colleen Munro arts@mediumutm.ca MEDIUM II PUBLICATIONS 3359 Mississauga Road, Room 200, Student Centre, Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6 Phone: 905.828.5260

ASSOCIATE A&E EDITORS Aristotle Eliopoulos FEATURES EDITOR Carine Abouseif features@mediumutm.ca ASSOCIATE FEATURES EDITOR Vacant

was very Mean Girls. The guru’s hair was frizzy, fake blood was splashed across her neck, and her face was painted to look bruised and hollow. I scowled at the image and bypassed the tutorial—there was no way I was going to look like that on Halloween.

Then I stopped myself. Every year, I comment on the strips of fabric that students wear as Halloween costumes. And I’ve done it too. Last year, I went to Halloween Pub dressed as a prisoner, but I doubt there are any prisons in North America where women suit up in tight striped dresses.

It’s not just girls that feel the pressure. The gym crew at this school sport suspenders, ties, chains—anything that will act as an accessory to their bare naked chests.

For those of you that don’t feel comfortable following the trend, don’t be deterred from going out for Halloween.

YOURS, STEFANIE MAROTTA

SPORTS EDITOR Isaac Owusu sports@mediumutm.ca

Yesterday, my daughter was on the 110N bus at about 4:15 p.m. heading to Square One from South Common. When she got on the bus at South Common, it was crowded with students.

My daughter has a disability and was trying to get to where she could stand comfortably without stretching to reach the bar that runs high in the bus. None of the students would move for her to pass to the back of the bus where it wasn’t so crowded. She also requested one of the seats reserved for the disabled or elderly. Not one of them would move from where they were sitting.

She contacted Mississauga Transit at the terminal at Square One and was told that the driver has no power to force the people to give up their seat for a disabled person unless that person is in a wheelchair; then the people sitting in those seats would have to move. The driver can’t even make them move to the back of the bus, either.

It doesn’t matter whether the disability is visible or not! According to the province, disabilities come in many forms and

DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Amanda Braddock

AD MANAGER ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITORS Aditya Kristiono Vacant ads@mediumutm.ca PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR BOARD OF DIRECTORS Junaid Imran Matthew Butler, Paul Donaghue, photos@mediumutm.ca Sviatoslav Romaniuk, Monika ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR Bianca Nagy Edward Cai COMPLAINTS online@mediumutm.ca Comments, concerns or complaints about DESIGN EDITOR The Medium’s content should be directed Vivian Wong to the Editor-in-Chief who can be located at the email address above.

COPY EDITOR Luke Sawczak COPYRIGHT copy@mediumutm.ca All content printed in The Medium is the WEBMASTER sole property of its creators, & cannot Gary Li be used without written consent.

must be treated with kindness and understanding. I have found that the students that attend the University of Toronto Mississauga campus to be largely rude and only thinking about themselves.

This is an ongoing problem on the 110 bus that travels in either direction.

I am writing this to you as it seems that Mississauga Transit’s hands are tied when it comes to these problems on the bus. I feel that maybe your school should teach these kids a little consideration and kindness as part of their education. My point to you is that maybe these students need to be reminded that the bus is a service for not only them but the rest of the people in Mississauga—and that they should realize that!

I am hoping that you could speak to your students and encourage them to be more considerate and polite. Encourage them to move to the back of the bus and give up their seat for someone that says they need to sit down!

Submitted by Paul Donoghue on behalf of a concerned parent

DISCLAIMER Opinions expressed in the pages of The Medium are exclusively of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Medium. Additionally, the opinions expressed in advertisements appearing in The Medium are those of advertisers and not of The Medium.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters to the editor will be edited for spelling, grammar, style and coherence. Letters will not exceed 700 words in print. Letters that incite hatred, violence or letters that are racist, homophobic, sexist or libelous will not be published. Anonymous letters will not be published.

10.29.2012

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Editor » Colleen Munro

Equal parts glamour and scandal Theatre Erindale takes on Noel Coward’s Semi-Monde for their first production of the season

JIM SMAGATA/PHOTO

The ladies of Semi-Monde size up the competition. (Left to right: Cassondra Padfield, Lindsey Middleton, Carolyn Nettleton, Ali Richardson, and Tavia Pereira.)

KATHELENE CATTELL-DANIELS Semi-Monde by Noel Coward is not a plot-driven show. Its primary concern is character, which means it’s the actor’s job to develop said character through both the text they have and the text they don’t.

The play’s setting—an expensive Paris hotel in the 1920s—perfectly echoes the people in it. Innumerable walk-on parts of well-dressed women on the arms of their men, glancing over their shoulders and giggling behind their hands, create layered characters in a matter of seconds and immerse the audience in the frivolous, supposedly carefree world of elite globetrotters.

Underneath the façade of correctness, though, lies a world rich in deceit. Semi-Monde quickly becomes a narrative of encounters between men and women who, almost as a rule, are not who they appear to be. This is conveyed not

through the lines themselves, but in the delivery, the subtleties of inflection. A bit of emphasis on one word, a hesitation, or a glance is the only clue to distinguishing between what is said and the truth.

The main part of the stage is taken up by a restaurant, with the lobby at one end and a bar at the other. It’s difficult to speak about left and right in Semi-Monde, since the audience is seated in a sort of tunnel or aisle. This arrangement works brilliantly when paired with the socially interactive nature of the play; it makes the audience feel like they’re part of the action, deeply involved in the lives of the characters. The seating also creates intimacy, bringing more of the audience close to the actors without leaving anyone at the back of a dark proscenium.

The design of the show was admirable, striking a balance between simplicity and luxury. The chairs, desks, bar, and chandeliers

all contributed to the effect, creating three-dimensional world that felt like it could be inhabited. One somewhat confusing, sometimes distracting element of design was the way the lights faded out after some scenes. The transition from chiefly yellow or white light to darkness was not linear but went through pink and blue hues, drawing my attention away from the actors and making me wonder about the technical aspects and purpose of the lighting.

This first show in Theatre Erindale’s 2012/13 season incorporates the entire graduating class, and Semi-Monde is a show brilliantly selected for this purpose.

With very few characters that stand out as “stars”, the text gives everyone their share of stage time.

The cast dynamic is one of unity; each actor is both unique and part of the bigger picture. Not one had to struggle to wear the physicality, including the hats, of the ’20s bourgeoisie; they moved comfort-

ably in the silky drop-waist dresses and formal blazers.

A few performers, though, were cast with particular accuracy to really exploit their skill and diversity. Hailey Gillis as Tanis Marshall, Elizabeth Stuart-Morris as Dorothy Price, and Owen Fawcett as Julius Levenovitch and Edgar Darrell gave particularly polished performances, executing the language and the double-crossing of the play with astonishing grace.

What made the acting truly immersive was that nobody ever seemed to rest. The characters would often sit alone or in groups in the crowded dining room to the side, and these side-scenes never appeared passive. Even if the characters themselves were supposed to be intensely bored, there was still a sense of activity about them. At times the temptation to watch the people seated around the main action instead of in it was incredible, as each table’s occupants sorted through

their own miniature plots and problems and relationships. One favourite was when Joshua, played

by Lindsey Middleton, exchanged his near-empty drink glass for his companion’s nearly full one when said companion (Jaime Hernandez Lujan as Luke Bellows) left the table for a moment. Upon Luke’s return, Joshua denied having switched the drinks while he calmly downed the one he stole.

This entire exchange took place without audible words, only with eye contact, hand gestures, and a couple of mouthed suggestions.

Overall, Semi-Monde was a rewarding show, fraught with beauty and something Patrick Young, the artistic director of the theatre and drama studies program, called “claws […] sheathed in velvet”.

This apt description of the scandal in Semi-Monde serves as a reminder that even the privileged elite of 90 years ago struggled in many of the same ways people do today.

Kendrick Lamar’s big breakthrough Up-and-coming hip-hop star gets brutally honest on good kid, m.A.A.d city ARISTOTLE ELIOPOULOS ASSOCIATE A&E EDITOR “I am a sinner who’s probably gonna sin again,” raps Kendrick Lamar in the second track on his second full-length record, good kid, m.A.A.d city. The lyric sets the tone for the album, a record that details the life, troubles, and guilt Lamar experienced growing up in Compton, California.

With the release of last year’s critically acclaimed independent record Section.80, a concept album inspired by the works of Tupac Shakur, Lamar set the foundation for his sound.

Throughout good kid, Lamar’s rapping succeeds through its pacing. Rather than relying on cliché rhymes at cliché times, Lamar uses rapid-fire delivery and wellplaced stress to create innovative

rhymes. Candid and unwilling to censor himself, Lamar evokes early Eminem, with a hint of Li’l Wayne in the audaciousness of his lyrics, such as in “Backseat Freestyle”.

The album standout “Poetic Justice” uses a looped female vocal track reminiscent of Ludacris’ “Splash Waterfall”. That the track features Drake makes it a sure R&B hit, flashy and ready for ur-

ban radio.

While Lamar is an excellent rapper himself, good kid also shines in its samples, including Kanye West, Janet Jackson, Kool and the Gang, and even indie duo Beach House. Lamar draws his listeners in with well-chosen and well-executed samples that complement his lyrics and hooks.

The album ends with “Compton”, an ode to the city in which

Lamar grew up, featuring Dr. Dre. As a lyricist and a storyteller, Lamar succeeds by holding nothing back and being candid, conversational, and sincere, particularly on this track.

As the art Lamar created out of pain, guilt, and the remorse of his past, good kid is a satisfying album that reinforces a new name in hiphop. But it’s only the beginning for this good kid. MMMM

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«ARTS THE MEDIUM 10.29.2012

Does Cloud Atlas compute?

The multi-narrative, genre-bending epic aims high, but does it live up to its own ambition?

WARNER BROTHERS/PHOTO

Cloud Atlas crosses the boundaries of time, race, genre, and gender, and actress Doona Bae is along for the ride.

ANDREA AMBROGI STAFF WRITER In this day and age, it’s hard for the majority of moviegoers to sit through a 120-minute film, so the fact that 99% of the TIFF Bell Lightbox audience remained in their seats for the 172-minute Cloud Atlas is pretty impressive.

Cloud Atlas has a lot going against it. Besides the length, the all-star cast—including the likes of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and Jim Broadbent—might also raise warning flags for some, since

films packed with talent have a tendency to be more flash than substance. On top of that, all of the actors play multiple roles, which means viewers must navigate a complex web of narrative.

But Cloud Atlas does not disappoint. Every actor, major and minor, holds their own in the film and gives a memorable performance that is fresh and exciting from scene to scene. Tom Hanks is masterful in each of his six roles, and Jim Broadbent gives some of the best performances of his entire career.

The film had an interesting combination of violence, humour, and creepiness. No one element was overwhelming or gratuitous, but each was used at key moments to create relief or emotion, and to magnify the impact of the storylines.

While Cloud Atlas was sometimes difficult to follow because of its non-linear narrative, the pieces began forming a cohesive story towards the middle of the film. I eventually adjusted to the pacing and was able to string each storyline together. But it’s defi-

nitely a movie you might want to see a couple times to fully appreciate it.

The film may take home some hardware this awards season for its cinematography, with its sweeping landscape shots, vibrant colours, and realistic special effects. Even if you were frustrated by the structure or confused by the story, it was at least pleasant feast for the eyes. Even the makeup and prosthetics (which have caused quite a stir and generated plenty of feedback from fans and critics alike) were superbly well

done. The old-age makeup on some of the actors was so good that you couldn’t help but wonder where these makeup artists were hiding during the production of last year’s J. Edgar.

Cloud Atlas is a must-see this year. It’s an independent film on a monster of a budget (rumoured to be around $100 million), and its success could mark the beginning of a new breed of movies out of the Hollywood machine—a breed that would be a breath of fresh air for anyone who appreciates the art of cinema. MMM½

Frida and Diego get their moment The AGO’s new exhibition celebrates prominent Mexican artists

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Diego Rivera’s “Portrait of Natasha Gelman” is one of over 80 works on display at the AGO. NIKOLINA LIKAREVIC The prolific and influential Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, drawn together by their visions for Mexico’s future, Marxist politics, and artistic expression, shared a volatile relationship. Their famous relationship is the subject of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s new exhibit “Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting”, which opened on October 20.

Mexican music and an enlarged black and white photo of the couple greet visitors to the exhibit. The rest of the exhibit, compiled by guest curator Dot Tuer, comprises over 80 works by Frida and Diego. Over 60 photographs and one video of the couple deepen the viewer’s understanding of Frida and Diego’s life together.

Both artists were heavily influenced

by the Mexican Revolution (which took place from 1910 to 1920) and the 1917 Russian Revolution; they shared the same vision for Mexico. But they differed greatly in how their art expressed their ideas, and themselves.

Rivera, influenced by his friendship with Pablo Picasso, started with cubism and moved on to murals, portraits, and landscapes. All of them focussed on Mexico: the indigenous culture, the people, and his vision of Mexico as a socialist country.

Frida was drawn to self-portraiture, using her art to put into perspective her battle with illness—she contracted polio at six and was in a bus accident, and both incidents later caused numerous miscarriages—as well as her Mexican and European heritage, her love of animals, her fascination with nature, and her painful on-again, off-again rela-

tionship with Rivera.

Rivera achieved acclaim internationally; his frescoes influenced various art movements, including Mexican muralism. Frida’s critical acclaim only came after her death in 1954. Her popularity grew in the 1970s when her work was noticed by the feminist movement.

Feminists saw her work as a depiction of the liberated modern woman.

It is refreshing to see these awesome artists exhibited together. They have been very influential in their different ways; presented together, a wonderfully complex story of turbulence in personal and political life unravels.

“Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting” runs from October 20 to January 20 at the AGO. On December 6, the AGO will host a lecture entitled “Frida Kahlo: Her Life and Art” from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

10.29.2012 THE MEDIUM A&E

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Where art and science meet Blackwood Gallery opens challenging new exhibition focussing on human anatomy

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Joyce Cutler-Shaw’s “What Comes to Mind” combines mixed media to create a unique representation of human brain activity.

ANDREEA MIHAI “Splice”, a new art exhibition that showcases the “intersection of art and science”, opened last Wednesday afternoon with a reception in the Blackwood Gallery.

All of the artwork in the exhibition explores aspects of the human body to present a snapshot of the foreign world that exists inside every person.

The plain walls and architecture of the gallery and the choice lighting from the spotlights complemented the artwork, which was a

combination of detailed black and white sketches, photographs, and installations.

On the left wall of the gallery from the entrance, a series of mixed media, black and white sketches, and watercolours lead up to three colour photographs on black and grey backgrounds taken by Jack Burman. They all give one impression from afar, but a startlingly different one up close. The first photograph, titled “USA #5”, depicts a shallow facial section in formalin.

From afar, the photo looks like a person’s disembodied, sleeping face;

up close you see the small strings that hold it upright up in the glass case, and the air bubbles that cling to the skin. The second, “Austria #12”, looks from a distance like an arm still attached to a person, but up close you see the inside of the arm and the wrinkles and positions of the fingers, and realize it is, in fact, detached. The third, “Germany #3”, depicts a human head preserved in formalin. From afar, it could be mistaken for an ice sculpture of a sleeping man’s head, but a closer look reveals the hair, the wrinkles, where the neck ends, and other de-

tails.

On the other side of the exhibition is Joyce Cutler-Shaw’s installation “What Comes to Mind”, which features three mixed media “tunnel books”—that is, HD screens buried in a wooden box. The piece is made of these dark-coloured tunnel books set on a dark-coloured shelf, and is in dim light, especially compared to the spotlight that shines on Burman’s photos. Playing on the screens are captivating movies of brain scans.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of the exhibition is the silent perfor-

mance by Khadija Baker, titled “My Little Voice Can’t Lie”. While Baker sits silently, a poem connecting the experiences of various women plays from speakers attached to the ends of Baker’s braids. By pressing the braids of hair to their ears, visitors can hear the poem.

“Splice” offers viewers a chance to view the human body—including parts of the human body they didn’t even know they had—in a way that draws them in without making them squeamish. “Splice” is free to the public and runs until December 1 in the Blackwood Gallery.

Student talent shines at open mic UTM Music Club lets students perform for the second time this year

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Students took to the stage and offered a variety of music styles at UMC’s open mic night.

JOE MEASURES Before the night became wild with ghouls and goblins at the Halloween Pub, the UTM Music Club hosted their second open mic night of the school year in the MiST Theatre.

The MiST Theatre is spacious enough to allow for great acoustics, yet small enough to feel intimate. The lighting and sound board in the theatre also contributed to the excellent atmosphere of the evening.

Students were asked to sign up to perform on the club’s Facebook page; the first 12 to sign up would be the ones to perform. UMC encouraged variety in the acts, and students were eager to show off a wide range of tal-

ents. Thursday’s open mic night featured covers and originals, guitar and piano. There was even a mash-up of two hip-hop tracks done on only an acoustic guitar.

There was a brief intermission for people to stretch their legs and grab some coffee and cookies. Many of them also used this time to chat with the performers and congratulate them on a job well done.

After the break, the show’s emcee, Zain Ali Shah, introduced the next batch of performers. Unfortunately, several of the scheduled performers had backed out at the last minute.

But instead of ending the show early, a few executive members of UMC stepped up and took turns playing.

One of the highlights of the night was a remix of several dubstep songs using an electric guitar and an iPad. It was a great change of pace, and many heads were seen bobbing in the crowd.

At the end, Zain came back out and thanked everyone for coming.

Some of the audience stuck around afterwards to chat and help put things away, and everything was wrapped up just in time for the 8 p.m. closing time.

This second open mic night was another proof of UTM students’ many talents. There are no more open mic nights scheduled for this semester, but two more have been planned for the spring.

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Editor » Carine Abouseif

Nightmares and “overnight therapy” Theorists say dreams are manifestations of daytime stress HAKIMA HAFIZI Stress doesn’t need an introduction. We all experience it and will continue to experience it in the coming weeks.

Stress is basically our body’s innate reaction to the “threats” we sense in our daily life. That can come in the form of a C on an essay or a change in our relationships. When we encounter a potential threat, a small region in our brains—the hypothalamus—sets off an alarm. The alarm sparks our adrenal glands, which are located above the kidneys, and they discharge a rush of hormones. Those hormones include adrenaline and

the primary stress hormone, cortisol.

The adrenaline and cortisol produce changes in the body: They increase our heart rate. They elevate blood pressure and encourage high levels of sugar in the blood stream.

The body’s stress response is selfregulating—all these changes return to normal once the detected threat has passed. But if there’s a constant detected threat or stress, the high cortisol levels can cause heart disease, depression, digestion problems, and sleep problems.

Now, dreams, like stress, are a substantial part of the lives of all animals. Neuroscientists now believe that sleep (and dreaming

while sleeping) is crucial to brain development. Sigmund Freud, one of the first dream theorists, proposed that dreaming is a means of achieving desires—often the desires that are suppressed in conscious life. However, subsequent dream theorists and researchers have proposed instead that dreaming is an adaptation to anxiety.

In that line of thinking, researchers at Miami University studied the dreams of students on campus and discovered that people incorporate features of their stresses into their dreams. They also discovered that stress actually increases the emotionality experienced in dreams; the more stress

you are under, the stronger your emotions during a dream.

To add to this relationship, Avi Sadeh of Tel Aviv University further investigated why some people sleep better when they’re stressed while others lose sleep. He found that those who tended to focus on their feelings during high stress phases were also more likely to sleep less. And, of course, less sleep meant even more stress.

In terms of dreaming, the lack of sleep was especially problematic, because dreams tend to aid us in coping with stress. Matthew Walker and his research team at the University of California found that dreams provide us with a form

of “overnight therapy”. Most of our dreams occur in the REM stage of sleep, a crucial stage for our feeling mentally rested. During REM, stress chemicals are suppressed. In other words, our stress chemistry shuts down while the brain manages the emotional experiences in dreams.

But there are many other theories about how anxiety relates to dreams, particularly nightmares.

Some theorists associate certain types of dreams with mood regulation, and others say that certain types of dreams play a role in committing certain events to memory.

Another theory is that stress is the cause of recurring nightmares.

What do your stress-related dreams mean?

FALLING

END OF TIMES

FAULTY BRAKES

LOSING TEETH

MISSED DEADLINE

MARIA CRUZ

MARIA CRUZ

CARINE ABOUSEIF FEATURES EDITOR

CARINE ABOUSEIF FEATURES EDITOR

CARINE ABOUSEIF FEATURES EDITOR

You’re strolling down the street on a warm summer day. You wave hello to friendly strangers as they pass you by. You’re merrily strolling through a cliché scene in the sunshine—and suddenly your sandal catches a crack in the sidewalk.

You start to fall, ready to face-plant at any second. But you keep falling, falling, falling. The sidewalk comes closer and closer. You prepare your body for the pain it’s about to experience—but then you’re jolted awake. Ever wonder what falling down in a dream means? These dreams are extremely common, and many theories have been offered as to why. One of the more popular and trusted theories actually comes from Cathleen O’Conner, an author and PhD. Her theory is that “falling is the mind’s symbolic way of alerting the dreamer to a situation in her waking life where she feels out of control or where things are quite literally going quickly downhill”.

You’re surrounded by rusted cars and empty streets. Smoke billows from deserted buildings and those creepy hobblers from The Walking Dead hobble towards you. It’s the end of times and you never learned how to wield a weapon. Whether your version of apocalypse includes drooling zombies or not, dreaming about it usually isn’t a good thing. Some theorists believe that dreaming of the apocalypse is caused by stress and anxiety stemming from the fear of change. It is also thought that dreams of apocalypse are due to how we see many things as the “end of the world”, even if it’s only a (relatively minor) loss of a friendship, a breakup, or, of course, the dreaded midterms.

Dreaming of being caught in a zombie apocalypse or having your house ripped apart by a tornado could mean that you’re incredibly stressed by something happening in your life. This time of year, it’s probably the midterms.

You’re driving along the road back to your house. It’s quiet and there isn’t much traffic. You’re tired and ready to plop down on the couch and watch some TV. You tap the breaks lightly as you get ready to turn the corner, but the car won’t slow down. You jolt your foot down, but the car seems to be moving even faster. You swerve to avoid a cyclist, but are about to crash into a tree. Suddenly you swerve off the side off the road... Why won’t your car stop? Dreaming that you’re behind the wheel of an out-of-control car is another stress-related dream, some theorists say. They say this dream indicates feelings of lack of control over things. For example, you could be thinking about a specific situtation in the past you feel you didn’t handle as confidently as you wanted to. Others theorists say this dream indicates that the dreamer feels like his or her life is literally out of control.

You’re hanging out with friends and someone’s about to take a picture. You flash your best smile, hoping this picture won’t end up on Facebook. The photographer lowers her camera. “Hey,” she says, “what’s wrong with your teeth?”

You trace your gums with your fingers and find an empty spot where your front teeth should be. You feel around with your tongue and find one, two, three more empty spots.

You wake up with your hands over your mouth and dash to your bathroom mirror to make sure all your teeth are fine. One theory about this recurring dream is that you’re simply worried about your personal appearance. But other theorists hold that it isn’t just about your physical appearance; apparently, dreaming about losing your teeth—whether they’re falling out, crumbling, or just plain missing— could have to do with feelings of inferiority or a lack of self-confidence.

You’re late! How could you be late?

You set like six alarms and asked a friend to give you a wakeup call!

You sprint past the herd lagging around the CCIT Building. You finally make it to the room where your lecture happens every Monday, but you don’t recognize any of the faces in the room. You certainly don’t recognize the prof. Dreaming about being late for a test or to hand in an assignment is pretty common.

Sometimes it feels so real that you wake up wondering whether it actually happened. Dream theorists believe these nightmares don’t have much to do with the tests or assignments themselves. They have more to do with obligations you were supposed to complete or stress about life in general. Dream websites associate this type of dream with intimidating questions like “Where is my life going?” and “Am I running out of time to do all the things I wanted to?”

Images by Luis Prado, Brandon Hopkins, and Stephen Peluso at The Noun Project.

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10.29.2012 THE MEDIUM FEATURES

9

Does GPA suffer when you have a job?

Study that shows 56% of Canadian undergrads work while they study

MARIA CRUZ For many students, the stress of studying we’ll all feel in the next few weeks isn’t the only weight they’ll be carrying. In June 2011, a Canadian survey found that 56% of undergraduates in Canada are employed while they study. On the other hand, Ontario reports show that unemployment in people between ages 15 and 24 continues to grow. For example, in 2009 a report found that the unemployment rate among that age group was 20.5%, and in 2010 it had risen to 25.5%.

No doubt the unemployment statistics are a cause for concern for graduates looking for jobs, but how do they react to these statistics?

Over half of undergraduates are choosing to work while they study, either to boost their résumés or to save up some money. But these motives beg the question: Does having a part-time job interfere with grades?

The Globe and Mail covered the same phenomenon among high school students. They found that over 65% of students who are able to work do. The declining grades they discovered among these students were a reflection of their choice, they concluded.

But maybe high school students are too young to have mastered the skill of balancing multiple commitments without a trade-off in quality.

Multitasking is part of young adulthood, we might say, and juggling a part-time job with school eventually

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The Career Centre’s Jimmi. Like many Canadian undergrads, Jimmi balances school and work. gets easier.

For some, that’s the point at which the stress sinks in. Is the money is worth the compromise?

Maggie O’Neill, a third-year English major at the St. George campus, says that even though she is juggling four courses this semester and preparing to tackle five the next, the income is indeed worth the work. “I pay all my own bills and often eat out,” she says. “I also enjoy the occasional retail therapy during the stressful midterm season.”

Would she continue working if

she didn’t need to worry about paying for food and other bills? “Yes, I think so,” she replies. “I like the sense of independence it gives me, and I love my coworkers.”

Nevertheless, the stress does sometimes set in once she leaves work. “I do feel like it has an effect on my stress levels,” she says. “I used to work full weekends, but decided that it took up way too much of my free time. Luckily, my work is very accommodating.” She also echoes a sentiment familiar among students: “The less time I have to get work

done, the more productive I am during that time.”

Cella Lao Rousseau, a secondyear student, holds down two jobs and a full course load. “Losing sleep from working two jobs isn’t a big deal for me,” she says. “As shallow as it sounds, having nice things gives me a little extra happiness, so I couldn’t care about the stress.”

Rousseau also finds time for volunteering and a social life. She adds that she would continue to work even if the responsibility of paying bills was eliminated. “Not working

shows a lack of drive and character,” she says.

On the other hand, some students find it too stressful to work during school. Eliza Yuzon, a third-year psychology major, believes the compromise isn’t worth it. “But I have to get money somewhere to pay my phone bills and food while at school,” she says. She also says she would probably not be working if she didn’t have to.

Her sentiments about stress are also different from those of O’Neill and Rousseau. “If I’m not working, I think about how my stress level at school would be down because I could focus more on school,” she says. But Yuzon also mentions that her part-time job aids her studies in a way: it helps her break the study routine.

O’Neill, Rousseau, and Yuzon all say they haven’t noticed a decrease in their grades since they started working, but they admit that their attention is divided between work and school.

In spite of the independence that comes from having an income, perhaps one of the reasons for the rising unemployment rate is that it’s sometimes just too hard to balance both. Perhaps some students assume it would be too hard and don’t even consider the option. The others stick it out at their jobs solely to spend time with their “work families”, or for the freedom of the paycheque. But much of the time, students simply have no other way to pay the bills.

Chemical coercion The chemical forces behind eating disorders JILLIAN LIM ASSOCIATE FEATURES EDITOR The chemicals in our brains affect how we feel and what we do. As they fluctuate, we go from feeling good to bad to in-between. For a person with an eating disorder, a chemical imbalance can trigger feelings of chaos that lead to starving and binge-eating.

In the last decade, scientists have built a case for a biological and genetic root of anorexia (the refusal to eat) and bulimia (the impulse to “binge and purge”, i.e., overeat and then vomit). Walter Kaye, the director of the Eating Disorder Research Program at the University of California, hopes to dispel the common perception that an eating disorder marks a person as vain, weak, or lacking in moral judgment.

“You talk to people who’ve had anorexia and they say, ‘I just don’t know what happened. Suddenly this powerful force took over my mind and compelled me to act this way,’ ” Kaye says. For Kaye, eating disorders have more to do with brain chemistry than with the influence of popular media. But if we’re all exposed to the same images in the media, what drives some to eating disorders but leaves others unaffected?

In 1998, Kaye’s lab found that patients with bulimia have abnormally low levels of the brain chemical serotonin. Scientists have found

that serotonin plays a key role in emotions and mood disorders.

According to the serotonin theory of bulimia, when a person “bingeeats”, or consumes abnormally large amounts of food at random times, they feel a temporary high. The gorge of sugar and carbs causes serotonin to flood the bloodstream. It then binds with serotonin receptors in brain cells.

As a result, the person feels the comfort their body craves. But with the overconsumption of food comes an overproduction of serotonin. This increase throws the person into anxiety, driving them to purge what they ate in attempt to regain control. When their serotonin level eventually lowers again, the desire to binge-eat returns.

Anorexics seem to have the opposite problem with serotonin. Doctors at London’s Maudsley Hospital found that anorexic patients had abnormally high levels of serotonin in their brains. As anorexics skimp on calories, their serotonin level decreases and they feel a sense of calm.

Because the body wants to prolong this feeling, it often drives a person with anorexia to starve themselves to maintain control.

The findings of Kaye and the doctors at Maudsley suggest that, with effort, we can stabilize the powerful chemical imbalance that triggers eating disorders. But what causes these imbalances in the first place?

Kaye and other researchers look to

genetics.

“If you don’t have a certain biology, you’re not going to develop an eating disorder,” said Kaye in a 2010 interview. According to Kaye, genetic variability accounts for 50 to 80 percent of predispositions to eating disorders.

Kaye’s current research focusses on isolating which genes or gene variations make someone susceptible to anorexia or bulimia.

But genes don’t cause eating disorders on their own. In a 2012 conference, McGill professor Howard Steiger said, “If eating disorders are about anything, they’re about the ways in which environments switch on hereditary vulnerabilities.” Steiger and others believe that images in the media, intense peer pressure, and talking too much about weight can be triggers for those with inherited vulnerabilities.

Steiger hopes that his work in genetics will contribute to the development of medication for eating disorders and promote the recognition of eating disorders as a mental illness rather than a lifestyle choice. “It’s not due to moral weakness or character flaws, but real susceptibilities, for which we can find real physical evidence,” says Kaye.

In the meantime, doctors continue to urge those who suffer from eating disorders to take the initiative to seek clinical therapy. As Ilona Burtan, a recovering anorexic patient, wrote in The Independent, “Anorexia isn’t a choice. Recovery is.”

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«FEATURES 10.29.2012

VOL 2 EP 6: Whom does it bother?

LUKE SAWCZAK COPY EDITOR Hello, and welcome to what they tell me will be another rainy week! Let’s all stay indoors and take advantage of the fact that it’s getting to be hot chocolate season again.

Today’s topic is people’s perception of language. I’ve talked about language correctness once this year already, in the context of language change. But there’s so much to say about it. For example, on Saturday, dictionary.com (whom, by the by, you shouldn’t take very seriously) posted a short article on the disappearance of the word “whom”. What I found interesting was the comments.

Here’s a comment by one “Jeff ” that brought a smile: “I think it should be kept. Just because people are getting sloppy with their grammar is no reason to do away with a word. If they want to sabotage themselves by not growing their vocabularies and using slang and computer lingo, then so be it.

But the rest of us like our words, and we find beauty in them.”

What’s funny is how widespread the view is among lay linguists that language needs to be pure and preserved, but in reality they just mean their particular language, the way they speak it, needs to be.

What do I mean? Well, the differ-

ence between “who” and “whom” is a rare vestige of Old English’s case system (think of it as the difference between “he” and “him”). But I’d bet that Jeff is content without the entire noun system we once had, which distinguished between five cases, three genders (yes, three), and singular versus plural.

That system eventually eroded away because (among many other factors) people pronounced fewer and fewer of some word-final sounds that marked case and gender—a habit which was no doubt condemned as laziness at the time.

Yet this erosion is precisely what left Jeff with the English of which he is now so proud. And before that stage, there was an earlier Germanic language whose speakers might be mortified by Chaucer’s pronunciation and (what they would see as) slang. They might even hear Chaucer describing the newly invented clock or spinning wheel and wince at his “technology lingo”.

But is it entirely wrong to fret about changes to language? Is Jeff right that we lose some sort of beauty when we lose particular aspects of a language? For that, we’d need some kind of definition of what makes a language beautiful and judge languages according to that. But what people find beautiful about their languages is, so to speak, in the tongue of the speaker.

Take sound, one of the more popular criteria of beauty. Ask people to name the most beautiful words, and more often than a list of Tolkien’s elven names (like good old “Lothlorien”), you’ll get words with for beautiful things, like “iris”, “liberty”, “melody”, “love”, “mist”, and “thrush”.

Why do so many people think the loss of “whom” has to do with laziness?

Many people of this generation were born into a milieu that doesn’t even have it in their vocabulary, so they can hardly be blamed.

My aunt has spent much of her life working in Nepal among the Maithili people. A native speaker was telling her one day about how Maithili was such a beautiful language that it was impossible even to sound angry in it. “The sounds are so lovely,” he told her. “Just listen to the word for ‘lady’: beggum!”

He paused to savour the sound of it,

editor@mediumutm.ca

and repeated, “Beggum!” To most English speakers, that probably sounds even worse than “Gollum”.

But to a Maithili speaker, it’s beautiful.

All languages have beauty, perhaps because they all share a few principles of phonology. Only from some standpoints can one language seem more beautiful than another—and never is the opinion unanimous. That’s not to say there’s no aesthetic quality to language, only that in the long run, we wouldn’t be any worse off without “whom”.

But the association of linguistic habits with non-linguistic traits, like Jeff ’s “self-sabotaging”, is nothing new. In my historical linguistics class, we studied regular sound change across languages. As I mentioned in last year’s column, a few language families—for example, Romantic, Germanic, Indic, and Slavic—capture a huge proportion of the languages of the Old World.

In the 19th century, Jakob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm discovered that almost wherever you have a voiceless plosive b, d, or g in Indic and Romantic languages, you have a voiceless plosive p, t, or k, respectively, in the related word in the Germanic languages (and other related changes). He found the latter set harsher, and wrote the following explanation: “From one point of view the

sound shift seems to me to be a barbarous aberration from which other quieter nations refrained, but which has to do with the violent progress and yearning for liberty as found in Germany in the early Middle Ages, and which started the transformation of Europe.”

Read that again. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you linguistics as she was played 150 years ago. Today, the above is not at all considered a good explanation of the sound change, except, perhaps, among the fiercest of language purists. In reality, the switch from voiced to voiceless plosives—a change describable in terms of the vibration of your vocal cords—has nothing to do with barbarousness.

So why do so many people think the loss of “whom” has to do with laziness? Many people of this generation were born into a milieu that doesn’t even have it in their vocabulary, so they can hardly be blamed.

As for their parents, they seem to survive without using “whom”. The fact is, people don’t speak to each other in languages that aren’t complex enough to express what they need to express. In fact, if people have lost the morphological complexity of “who/whom”, it’s a safe bet that they use more complex syntax when they need to avoid potential confusion over it.

So whom does it bother?

10.29.2012

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11

Editor » Isaac Owusu

Taking a slapshot in the face Rory Bourgeois suspended for two games from Division One hockey—but doesn’t get why he missed his tri-campus ISAAC OWUSU SPORTS EDITOR UTSC’s 5–1 blowout of UTM’s tricampus hockey team left secondyear forward Rory Bourgeois disappointed, but it’s not just the score that irks him. Bourgeois was suspended from the game as part of his two-game ban for volunteering to play with OISE’s hockey team for a single Division One game.

Bourgeois was suspended from the Division One league and, as a result, forced to sit out Thursday’s tri-campus match. Considering that tri-campus is a separate and higher level of U of T intramural hockey, Bourgeois doesn’t agree with his suspension being extended to it.

According to Bourgeois, a friend asked him to play for the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education’s Division Two team. Their team representative approved and Bourgeois played the game. This was technically against the rules, so he understands why he was suspended.

It’s being barred from a tri-campus game that baffles him. “The other leagues are all connected, but they keep tri-campus separate. So I was suspended two games from Divi-

Bourgeois is not pleased by the lack of effort shown by UTMAC sion One, and in the middle of those two games is a tri-campus game,” he said. “I’m not suspended from tricampus, but because I’m suspended from Division One, I’m not allowed to play.”

He added, “I spoke to John Robb [U of T’s manager of intramurals].

He really didn’t say anything; he just said, ‘Rules are rules.’ I talked to him for an hour about tri-campus and the future of it. He really just tried

to get me off subject to get me more calm.”

Bourgeois missed out on the chance to help his team’s performance. A lack in depth of players played a big role in the loss.

“You can’t redo a game,” he said.

“I just hope, going forward, we improve things at UTM. We don’t care as much as Scarborough. They take hockey very seriously. We don’t as much.”

JUNAID IMRAN/THE MEDIUM

When asked if it’s a problem with the institution or the players, he answered, “Both.”

“It’s the culture they have there.

They have a player’s association,” he said. “Scarborough has everything: they have a website for their players’ association, they have recruitment videos, they have team gear and team bags. We don’t.”

The idea of a players’ association led to the questioning UTMAC’s

role in the situation.

“When I talked to John Robb, he told me that they have a meeting to decide these rules every year, and UTMAC hasn’t been [there] in years. They get invited and they just don’t show up. So I was suspended on a rule that UTM has no say on because they just don’t show up,” he said. “That rule applies to every sport, too. And they weren’t at the meeting to decide that. I think UTM should [attend]. We have one guy on UTMAC, actually. He’s flaky.”

Robb stands by the suspension of Bourgeois. He stated in an email that Bourgeois, despite his registered status on a UTM hockey team, played for a non-UTM hockey team, leading to his suspension according to standard intramural rules. Robb did not make any mention of Bourgeois’ omission from the tri-campus game, which would raise his total ban to three games.

In the end, the second-year political science major doesn’t just want to see his team do well, but to see higher school spirit. “We’re in the same spot as Scarborough, separate from St. George,” said Bourgeois. “We should have pride in our school.”

How the World Series will be won A tale of tape for the World Series featuring the AL and NL champions, the San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers

sportaholic2112.blogspot.ca/PHOTO

The Giants celebrate winning the National League title.

KAREEM RAMADAN The Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants renewed their hostilities on Wednesday in the 108th edition of Major League Baseball’s World Series.

Each team went into the series on a positive note. The Tigers had won five straight games, and the Giants came fresh from a three-game comeback against the reigning World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals.

The strength of the Detroit Tigers

lies in their starting rotation and their minuscule 1.02 ERA through two rounds of competition. The Tigers’ bullpen has been equally outstanding; besides Jose Valverde’s and Joaquin Benoit’s efforts, the Tigers have yet to surrender a run.

By comparison, the Giants’ staff does not match up, though the team does have a lot of talent. For example, Ryan Vogelsong and Matt Cain are a potent duo at the top of the rotation, having earned victories in four of seven starts. However, for the Giants to be successful they need im-

proved play from Madison Bumgarner, who— in two playoff starts—has surrendered an uncharacteristic 10 runs.

In the bullpen, the results have been more encouraging for the Giants: Sergio Romo, Tim Lincecum, Jeremy Affeldt, Santiago Casilla, George Kontos, and Javier Lopez have surrendered a combined five earned runs in 40 innings pitched.

Unlike his Tigers counterpart, closer Sergio Romo has converted on all of his save opportunities this postseason.

“The Giants have no answer for the Tigers’ rotation of [Justin] Verlander, [Anibal] Sanchez, [Max] Scherzer, and [Doug] Fister, or the middle of their lineup, [Miguel] Cabrera, and [Prince] Fielder,” commented Moiz Badar, an economics graduate and Tigers fanatic.

On offence, the Tigers have under-performed to the tune of a .716 OPS (down from .757 in the regular season). The team’s struggles are due in large part to Fielder’s difficulties (.558 OPS). For the Tigers to be fully effective, Fielder must perform to

the utmost of his ability and protect MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera.

The Giants have also been underperforming (.671 OPS), but after RISP, that number increases to .768 OPS, the highest mark among qualified teams.

“On paper, the Tigers have a more talented squad, but they haven’t played since last week,” said Adam Ali, a second-year economics student. “and as we have seen in the past, a long rest can lead to rust.”

As of press time, the Giants are leading 3–0.

12

«SPORTS THE MEDIUM

10.29.2012

Classically crushed Spiking her way to success Men’s hockey takes a 5–1 beating from UTSC Brittney Gee begins new season as coach of two volleyball teams

INGRID MELDRUM The UTM men’s hockey team travelled downtown to Varsity Arena to take on the UTSC Raccoons for the annual East-West Classic hockey game. Fans from UTM who hopped on a bus from the RAWC were given t-shirts that read “What a Maroon”, poking fun at UTSC (whose school colour is maroon).

The puck dropped on Thursday night at 9 p.m., and the competition was fierce; UTM had a number of scoring opportunities, but could not capitalize. UTSC scored two unanswered goals in the first period. UTM came out strong in the second, and veteran Anthony Theroux scored the team’s only goal. UTSC quickly followed up with another goal.

In the third and final period of the game, the Eagles had various breakaway opportunities, but just could not get past UTSC’s goalie. UTSC netted another two goals, making the final score of the game 5–1. Rookie Mark Run-

ciman got a game misconduct and a one-game suspension for a scrum behind the net.

The Eagles also went downtown to dance and cheer along with UTM fans. UTSC brought their fans and mascot, too, and gave away maroon t-shirts with the words “Duck Hunt” and a picture of a duck from the Nintendo game Duck Hunt. Scarborough’s fans easily outnumbered Mississauga’s, and came prepared with signs supporting their favourite players.

This outing marked the beginning of UTM’s November hockey incentive. Meanwhile, the athletics department, UTMSU, UTMAC, Student Housing and Residence Life, the International Centre, and Peer Health Educators have all collaborated to bring a skating rink to UTM. The rink will be set up outside of the Kaneff Centre on Thursday, November 1 from 12 to 8 p.m., and on Friday, November 2 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

JASON COELHO ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR A team’s success can be attributed to innumerable different factors, including the skill of the players, the strength of the competition, and plain luck.

But the majority of the time, it’s the coach that allows players to play at peak performance. U of T’s volleyball coach Brittney Gee understands what it takes to compete in unfriendly environments, and her incredible ability to bring out the best in her players has allowed her to achieve success in more than one realm of her sport.

As coach of both the tri-campus men’s volleyball team and the UTM Division 2 women’s volleyball team and assistant coach of the tri-campus women’s volleyball team, Gee’s formula for success has made her highly sought after for coaching positions in volleyball at U of T. But Gee is humble despite being in high demand. “I am just very appreciative that the program coordinators at the university allow and trust me to coach the teams,” she says. “And I am especially thankful that I am able to coach a sport that I love.”

In her first year as coach of the tri-campus men’s volleyball team, Gee is motivated to win.

Her faith in and regard for her players seem to be what allows them to perform at such a high

level.

“I am very proud of how the returning and new players to the team have all adjusted quite quickly to each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and emotions,” she said. Gee’s attitude focusses on the improvement and success of the whole team; she believes “it all goes along with playing and acting as a team”.

“As coach of both the tri-campus men’s volleyball team and the UTM Division 2 women’s volleyball team and assistant coach of the tri-campus women’s volleyball team, Gee’s formula for success has made her highly sought after for coaching positions in volleyball at U of T.” Gee has the unique opportunity to coach players of different genders, which she has translated into coaching styles specific to the players. “You see, females and males think differently on and off the court. For females, emotions are involved and for males, not as much,” she said.

“I have to change my coaching styles according to the player.”

But players of both genders have the same competitive attitude, which Gee is proud to foster. “Luckily, all my players are competitive and will strive for their best and continue to learn and improve,” Gee said. “Every player is able to motivate and help their teammates to be their very best. Each player on this team has a knack for inspiring one another.”

So which players should UTM students keep an eye out for as they cheer their home team to victory? Gee is quick to answer.

For the UTM Division 2 women’s team she mentions Joy Rogers and Angela Wu. “They are two very competitive and skilled players to look out for,” she said. She also mentions Ania Grabowiecki, a veteran to the team.

“With the leadership of Derek Wilson, Justin Nguyen, and Peter Bui, this team can definitely come out on top,” Gee said about her tri-campus men’s team, who entered the 2012/13 season triumphantly with their first game against the St. George Red team the Sunday before last.

She says to look out for newcomer Andy Xie, whom Gee praises as being “quick on his toes, digging and diving for every ball, continuously winning our team points”.

Not in our house

Div One Blue dominant at home, blows PHE out with a 24-point win EBI AGBEYEGBE ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

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GLOBAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

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The UTM Division 1 Blue men’s basketball won their second consecutive game with a blowout 89–65 victory against the Physical and Health Education team.

The Eagles were looking to improve their 1–1 record; after their unconvincing win versus New College, the Eagles fared much better this week.

Last time the Eagles took to the court, it was clear that the new players hadn’t integrated well into the team, and there were visible flaws in the offensive plays.

There weren’t too many flaws this time, and the Eagles put on an entertaining display for fans.

They put their foot on the pedal right from the start and never looked back.

Power forward Tevin SuttonStephenson, whose shots were falling last game, set the tone early with a score and a foul that sparked both teams into action.

The first half was played at a quick tempo, with both teams running up and down the court and getting layups. The Eagles played a tougher defence than PHE and ended up forcing more turnovers, while their jump shots fell from both the two-point and two-point lines. The Eagles went

into half-time with a 49–33 lead.

In the second half, the Eagles blew the game wide open with good offensive and defensive plays from the new players coming off the bench.

The first half was played at a quick tempo, with both teams running up and down the court and getting layups.

The Eagles played a tougher defence than PHE and ended up forcing more turnovers, while their jump shots fell from both the two-point and two-point lines.

Shooting guard Terrel Subban showed off his strong playmaking, dishing out assists to his teammates, who were knocking down shots. Solid defence and good rebounding from centre Jordan Nazarene allowed the Ea-

gles to push up the court more to get easy baskets.

Strong drives to the basket from point guard Peter Bui allowed for other players on the team to have open shots, and efficient three-point shooting from guard Victor Dang put the game out of reach for PHE. The fans cheered as the game drew to a close. Both the players and the coaches were pleased with the performance of the team.

“We played well. We haven’t played like this all season; it felt like everything was in sync. The team chemistry came through and shots were falling,” said Anisha, Balla, the Eagles’ assistant coach.

Sutton-Stephenson finished with 25 points, the highest on his team. “I started off the game aggressively and got the team rolling. We had strong play from the bench and we spent a lot of time in preparation for the game,” he said. “I spent time before the game taking about 200 shots to get [my] limbs loose.”

The Eagles have played two home games in a row, and will play their next ones away from home. Now that their chemistry is forming and the shots are going in, the Eagles are going to be a hard team to beat this season.