The Window: The Renew Issue by The Window

Window is a student-run magazine published under New College at the University of Toronto. We feature stories and content that touch on subjects close to and far from home in hopes of providing different perspectives on familiar themes in life. // facebook.com/newcollegewindow issuu.com/ncthewindow

“Reshaping life! People who can say that have never understood a thing about life — they have never felt its breath, its heartbeat — however much they have seen or done. They look on it as a lump of raw material that needs to be processed by them, to be ennobled by their touch. But life is never a material, a substance to be molded. If you want to know, life is the principle of self-renewal, it is constantly renewing and remaking and changing and transfiguring itself, it is infinitely beyond your or my obtuse theories about it.” – Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago From countless nights of uncomfortable caffeination to the routined walks past the same construction site every morning wondering if the new building will ever be complete, we feel fixed in the cycling of wake and slumber, if any sleep at all. Then we remember that one book we have borrowed three weeks ago for an assignment. Opened. Closed. Back on the desk. Opened again. Closed again. Back on the same desk again. This is the irregularity we have been searching for, a break in the pattern, the button we press to renew our almost overdue library book. Renewal comes in many forms, from redefining an aspect of our lives to re-establishing a lost connection. Perhaps it is something as simple as taking care of ourselves, attending to the needs of what we may have neglected. In the process, we may choose to move forward or backward. We may find ourselves caught in a whirlwind of emotions, some of which contradict each other. But we remind ourselves that this, too like any other experience, is part of life. In this issue, we explore the concept of renew through different voices, some softer than others and some firmer than others. I am forever thankful for the team of talented individuals; without them, this very issue before you would not have been possible. To all the writers, thank you for sharing with us stories dear to you and becoming a voice for many. To all the photographers and artists, thank you for bringing every story to life. To the layout designers, thank you for weaving together bits and pieces of work and giving this stack of paper a life. To my assistant editor and business manager, thank you for your constant support in this journey. And last but not least, thank you, the reader, for picking up this magazine and listening to what we have to say. ...

Kitty Liu editor-in-chief

THE WINDOW TEA M kitty liu

p e i x u a n wa n g

Assistant Editor

Business Manager

Megan bhalla

n at h a n c h e n

z i ya n c h e n

v a n n i e ko p a l a k r i s h n a n

vivian li

Ly n n l i u

g o z i e n wa k a

a n a s ta s i a p i t c h e r

c h e ry l q u a n

ethan smith

anna maria sordjan

m a c k e n z i e s t e wa rt

C a n dy ta n g

w i n n i e wa n g

anthea wei

c h r i s to p h e r x u

i v a n ya n

eric yuan

Editor-in-Chief

Photographer

Writer

Artist

Photographer

Writer

Layout Designer

corals zheng

Artist & Writer

c h e r ry x i n

Writer

Artist

Writer

Photographer

IN THIS ISSUE / / 1 Student Number 3 My Home is not a House 5 The Monday after Sunday 11 Humans of New College 25 Vibrant New College 27 A Personal Essay on Finding Home 29 Private Bodies: Drugged up and Functioning 31 The Expansion Series 33 Chinese New Year 35 Cages 37 Lubenica is Croatian for Watermelon 39 Faulty Desires 41 A Space to Renew

1009Student3210 5134Number861 written by Anna Ma r ia So r dja n illustrated by Ly nn Liu

lasagna dinner from Metro because you forgot to cook that day. You also see numbers in your waitlisted courses, in the marks you get back, in the hours you spend on GPA calculators trying to determine what mark you’ll need to finish with an 80 per cent average. Evidently, we spend a lot of time spitting out numbers and playing with them in our heads. I moved from Kitchener to Toronto to attend the University of Toronto in 2015. Much to my parents dismay, I chose to move to a new city and attend a bigger school rather than stay in my hometown and attend the University of Waterloo. In 2015, the University of Waterloo had an enrollment of 36,670 students. Meanwhile, Toronto has 86,709. I didn’t really think much of this as they were just numbers after all. However, now well into my third year, I can say that I have felt like much more of a number and a statistic than an actual student, at multiple times throughout my time at U of T. In a way, this is unavoidable given the large student body and of course, the metropolis that is the city of Toronto itself. In a city and school with a size like this, it becomes increasingly difficult to not at some point, feel insignificant. In 2015, I was a fresheyed and optimistic first year. I felt that university would be the time for me to really learn, to get to know professors and actually pursue my knowledge in areas I am passionate about. Now, a third-year with bags under her barely open eyes, I can see why I had painted an overly utopian vision of what university would be like. It is easy to get swept up in all the students and to feel like you are just a number in a dehumanizing system. Given the large number of students, it’s hard to not feel extremely isolated, especially during exam season. It’s ironic—having so many people around you— but feeling more lonely than ever. In Robarts, you see everyone with their heads in their books and earplugs in. You start comparing and criticizing yourself in a cyclical process of self-doubt and lonesomeness.

A number on a piece of paper isn’t going to dictate who I am today and who I have the potential to become.

umbers. You see them everywhere. From telephone numbers, apartment numbers, and bank statements. You can’t escape them. They’re meant to help make life easier, to categorize and to organize, which by all means is fine. Numbers tell you what time to wake up and go to class, how long you should cook that frozen

Due to the fact that so much of the education system revolves around algorithms and numbers, I’ve found that it is vital to take moments and days to renew your faith in yourself and, to remind yourself that you a more than just a number on a piece of paper. Given that university can be demoralizing, it’s important to constantly work on building your self confidence. It took me a long time to realize this, but getting a 70 per cent as opposed to the 85 I was hoping for doesn’t diminish my value as a person or my capabilities. A number on a piece of paper isn’t going to dictate who I am today and who I have the potential to become. I’m still struggling to come to terms with this. It’s difficult to feel like more than a number when everything around you dictates otherwise. It’s moments like these where I take a deep breathe and make myself a cup of tea while reading a favourite book or journal. It’s in the small moments that I find myself again and am reminded that I am a human with feelings and emotions. Throughout the long and winding path that is univerity, it’s inevitable that your self-confidence and faith will fade in and out. You have to nurture your resilience and faith. Not faith that you’ll get that A or raise your GPA, but faith that even if you get a B- and your GPA isn’t a 4.0, you are not defined by the numbers on a piece of paper.

My H o me is

not a H o u s e written by Ana sta sia p itcher photographed by Nat h a n C hen Unknown names, a few heartaches I can’t remember but still sting, patched with duct tape, shoulders weighed down by all I’m expected to know. I tremble at the thought of failure. Home. New cogs in a creaky machine, Teeth uneven and grinding, but they keep turning and hum along. My heart bounces around trying to escape as I walk to class. Home. New faces, Missed calls from different area codes. We smear new layers of war paint on our hollow faces, old layers flaking and peeling as you try to keep them intact. Remind yourself that they are the deepest part of you. Home. Long hallways, bright lights. Late nights. Tears and misunderstandings, speaking the same language but it only comes jumbled. Tangles upon tangles, knots in my stomach. Home. The curve of their shoulder, fresh laundry and hard mattresses. Sleepy smiles, mediocre food, everything tastes gourmet with laughter on your tongue. Home. Following the lines on the street, foot prints left by big feet and tiny feet, branding the concrete in the pursuit of what sets our souls on fire. We exist under the weight of heavy hearts. Home. Fearlessness and courage, X marks the spot but it’s a multivariable problem. Living in a cloud and they try to pull you down but you float away. Maybe you’ll come back soon. Home. Puzzle and a half, missing pieces with jagged edges, some fit just right while others suffocate the most real parts of you and that’s alright. It’s okay. Not everyone is right for you. Home. Absorbing the shape of their breathing, batting eyelashes and warm hands. Everyone is drowning in their own way but never enough to submerge. Somehow we all float together. Home. Investing in sleepless nights; carried away by the crowd while your legs are no longer your own, going through the motions with no instruction manual. You don’t walk only for yourself anymore. Home. Human chain, gnarly and gangly but always connected, weaved with contortions and compromise. Twisting and splitting, not enough compassion to fill the cracks. The wind gets in and you wilt. Home. Some animals shed their skin to grow and so do I, I see old versions of myself in the rear view and they cheer me on. Don’t forget where you came from. Home. Underestimated and down for the count, getting up as many times as you can. Marching along with the sunrise. Humming the songs of your resilience and strength. New Home.

T HE M O N D A Y A F T ER S U N D A Y

written by et h a n gr ay smit h illustrated by co r a ls zh eng

peaceful melody played from James Doherty’s iPhone, breaking the silence of the dark room. On this Monday morning, James slowly shifted in his bed, attempting to wake himself up. The calm tone of his alarm continued for three minutes before being interrupted by the obnoxious beeping of an old-fashioned

bronze clock that hadn’t been properly set in months. The two musicians didn’t harmonize well, and the sound that once occupied the room was replaced with something short of white noise.

The awful composition woke James immediately. He quickly grabbed the iPhone that lay next to him on

his twin sized bed. The bright light of the screen blinded him for a moment while his eyes adjusted, and although he struggled to type in his password, he eventually cracked the code. Distracted by his morning tiredness, James pressed on the alarm application unaware of the alert showing two new messages from his mother.

In the morning, he would normally set another alarm, rewarding himself with 30 extra minutes of sleep. Today,

however, he had places to be. He switched off his iPhone alarm and sat up in his bed, listening to the banging of metal garbage cans against the garbage trucks at street level while rain lightly tapped against the window panes. He looked to his nightstand and slapped the off switch on the old-fashioned clock. Then, he grabbed the pull-chain of his bronze lamp and gave it a swift tug. This slightly illuminated the space, revealing a small bedroom with a cabinet, desk, drawer, and chair.

James sat on the side of his bed in his gray boxers, legs hanging off the edge. His feet touched the concrete

floor, which like today, was usually cold in the early morning. He picked up his glasses, slipped them on his face, and began checking the new messages he had received from the night before. After noticing that they were from his mother, whom hadn’t reached out to him for six months, he nervously adjusted the way the glasses sat on his nose and ears. The cracked screen of his iPhone showed a series of light gray text bubbles from his mother that James hadn’t replied to, and instead, only read.

The two new messages read “J? When are you coming home?” and “Hun, I’m worried about you”.

James grew up with his mother and older brother in a small town outside of Boston, Massachusetts. His

parents divorced when he was 7, and shortly after, his father moved out West. When he was 10, his older brother moved to California following business opportunities.

At this point in James’ life, his mother was the only close family he had. She supported him through his

schooling, told him to follow his dreams, and taught him how to cook his favorite meal, which was spaghetti and meatballs.

After finding an acceptance letter to the University of Chicago on the front porch of his mother’s house,

James immediately started to prepare for his journey to Illinois. He wrote applications for student loans and grants, researched the different residence buildings on campus, and bought the things he would need to live on his own, and although his mother was upset about him leaving, she helped him every step of the way.

At the end of the summer, they packed the black sedan full of luggage. A mixture of black and white garbage

bags and cardboard boxes filled with clothing covered the backseats, which blocked the driver seat view out the rear window. Paper coffee cups filled to the brim sat in the holders next to the gear shift. During the drive, James and his mother spoke about his life growing up. She told him embarrassing details about what he was like when he was a baby. Apparently, at least according to her, he had the cutest smile.

They spoke of the time James got lost in a super market when he was a toddler, and how his mother was

certain he was gone forever. James slightly recalled waddling like a penguin through the canned food and pasta aisle when his name boomed from the loud speakers, “James Doherty, could you please come to the registers.” Instead, he ran towards the source of the voice before being spotted by his mother and quickly swooped up into her arms.

“How did you think that would work mom?” he said to her from the passenger seat, laughing in between each few

words spoken.

She also gave a long speech about finding the right girl, and more importantly, at least to his mother, how grand

children were expected, eventually. “Don’t take things too seriously. But not too much, take it kinda seriously,” she said.

When they arrived at James’ new dorm, his mother unloaded the car while he fetched the keys to his room, and when

he got back, she had already finished moving all his belongings onto the sidewalk. James’ mother hugged him tightly for a moment, then took a step back and grabbed his shoulders. “Jim, I am very very proud of you,” she said.

“Thanks mom, I’m proud of you too,” he said.

“I’m serious Jimmy. You’ve grown so much.”

“Okay, okay, okay mom.”

“Okay I get it, enough is enough. Call me when you get all settled in.”

“Of course mom.”

“Stay in touch honey, I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“Sure” “Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Ok, I love you.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek, got in the driver’s seat, and drove off, leaving an 18-year-old kid

on a sidewalk in the city of Chicago.

But that was 3 years ago.

When school started, James spent much of his time studying to keep up with the heavy workload that came with

being a full-time student. On top of this, he made new friends and started doing new things, leaving little time to do anything, including talking to his mother. The number of texts, calls, and video chats decreased overtime.

After repeatedly scrolling up and down through the messages from his mother, James set his iPhone on his night

stand, once again choosing not to reply.

James got out of his bed, stepped over yesterday’s clothes, and walked to the wooden cabinet on the opposite end of

the room. He slowly opened the two cabinet doors, revealing a metal rod that held white hangers. Most of them didn’t hold up any clothing, boasting their pearly white bases, and of those that did, they held only dark colored shirts: dark blue, dark gray, and dark green. James peered to the laundry bin, and noticed that it was filled to the brim with more dark blues, grays, and greens. “Ah, I’ll do it later,” James said quietly to himself, knowing very well that it would stay full for at least another week.

He threw on a dark blue shirt, then opened the drawer next to the cabinet, picked out a gray pair of pants and black

socks, and slipped them on. Notes covered his desk like crisp fallen leaves on a lawn in Autumn. He meddled through them, finding his wallet, keys and some money. He stuffed these in his pockets, and shortly after, grabbed his iPhone and stuffed that in as well.

James walked into the living room and took in the view from the 19th floor of his apartment building. The horizon

was lined with the skyscrapers and large buildings that made up the heart of the city, and above that was a dull gray sky with dark clouds.

“Did you drink my fucking milk?” James’ roommate said from the kitchen, interrupting James’ moment of peace. He

was a young white man with short brown hair and a small scar in between his eyebrows. He wore bright red boxer briefs and a white tank top, revealing his extremities.

“I didn’t touch it, man,” James replied.

“I told you not to drink my fucking milk,” James’ roommate shouted.

“Jesus,” James said quietly as he walked out the front door.

He slapped his right thigh and butt cheek, in that order, to check if his phone and wallet were in his pockets. While he did this, the opening in the door frame created a draft of wind, which slammed the door shut, creating a booming echo that travelled through the long narrow hallway of the 19th floor. James had a poorly cut key, and because of this, he had to jam it into the key hole to lock it.

James walked down the hallway, gray carpet beneath his

feet. The walls were covered with light green paint that was chipping. The elevator button refused to light up until the fourth push. The metal cables suspending the elevator creaked like someone stepping on old wooden floor boards. With a short “DING”, the doors opened, and James stepped in.

The small space was well lit by ceiling lights, especially

because their plastic cover had a large diagonal cut through it. The silver walls were smudged, but clean enough to reflect one’s distorted image. Paper advertisements for used furniture, phone companies, and internet companies were taped to the walls.

James looked at the catalog of buttons; the 9th was missing. After pressing the button for the bottom floor, the

creaking of metal cables continued, but this time it was accompanied by the rhythmic beeping of the floor sign.

At floor 10, or 9, technically, the elevator stopped like a driver at a red light. A white middle-aged man walked in. He

had a small white wire protruding from his front jean pocket that slithered up, separating into two wires and into his ear like a two-headed snake. Neither of them said a word to each other while the elevator lowered to the first floor.

When the elevator doors opened at the lobby, both men rushed out like water through a recently opened flood gate.

James walked past a group of cleaning staff vacuuming the floors, through a glass revolving door, and outside under the roof that jutted out from above the doors. He stuck his hand out from under the roof, feeling the cold droplets of rain.

The rain formed a thin sheet of water on the roads, and was perfectly visible in front of the headlights of cars that

drove by in both directions and kicked up the water beneath their tires. James pulled the hood of his rain jacket over his head and walked up the street with his hands in his pockets to keep them dry and warm. Puddles had collected on the sidewalks, which James avoided carefully, moving in a zig zag manner like the windshield wipers of the cars to his right. He walked past a building under construction and underneath a wooden platform held up by thin cylindrical metal beams. Workers moved on top of the damp wood slats, and rain leaked between the cracks, tapping on the sidewalk and sometimes on James’ jacket. He felt like he was in a cave.

James ran across the street, moving quickly to avoid the cars that had started the race towards him after the appearance

of a green light. He stepped in a puddle, but continued across the street and underneath the electrical lines that spanned across the city.

Once on the opposite side of the road, James continued walking next to a series of run-down brick houses. In front of

one house was a garden that hadn’t been attended to in months. The yard it occupied was surround by a rusty chain link fence. A pile of cinderblocks laid next to the stone pathway leading up the house, which was bordered by patchy grass on both sides.

He reached an intersection bordered by groceries, banks, a convenience store, and tiny businesses that filled the blanks

in between them. Some had umbrellas, some not, yet everyone walked quickly; unless they were waiting to cross the street like James, who stood at the corner watching the glowing orange outline of a hand for permission to step off the curb.

The sign changed, and James walked across the street. Two cars eager to make a right turn occupied the crosswalk, 8

and James had to weave between them. The drivers and those who crossed the street exchanged middle fingers and short foul phrases.

Up the road a bit, James pulled down his hood and descended a stair case that went into a subway station. In the main

lobby, there was a fence of turnstiles that guarded the staircases leading down to the train platforms. At one end was a booth with a large glass window. James paid the fare at the booth, stuffed the spare change in his pocket (1-dollar bill, three quarters, and a dime), nodded to the thin employee behind the glass, then moved through one of the turnstiles and down the staircase on the left. He was now in a very large room with red brick walls, which were lined with posters for the different concerts and performances downtown. James glanced at them, knowing that he couldn’t afford the pricey events. There were two subway tracks that separated one platform from the other. The tracks were damp and sprinkled with plastic trash. A train had just arrived at the other platform. It sped up and disappeared into one of the dark tunnels that were at each end of the room.

James stood alone and waited for the next train. The room was relatively empty with few people waiting on both

platforms. On the other platform stood a preoccupied woman tending to her child in a stroller while holding the hand of her 4-year-old son. The young boy looked at James with a confused expression, and James responded with a wave. The boy did nothing.

The sounds of turbulent wind came from one of the tunnels, and soon enough, a train emerged from it. It passed

James, and the wind ruffled his hair and rain jacket. The wheels squealed as the conductor applied the brakes, slowing the train to a stop. The sliding doors opened, and James stepped on. He took a seat on the one of many identical plastic chairs with blue seat covers that lined the sides of the train. The doors closed and the train moved into the tunnel.

Inside the tunnel, the wind roared as the wheels hit the tracks

like the beating of a metal heart. The train shook and the wheels yelled their high-pitched squeal at each turn. Every so often, the train would stop and people would enter through the sliding doors, and over time, it filled to the point where many had to stand, holding the gray metal poles or the gray hand straps suspended from the ceiling. Most of the passengers either listened to music or looked at their phones, but some quiet conversations still took place between friends and coworkers. Sitting next to James, two business men in suits spoke about an important company project. Also, in the aisle of the train, a group of teenagers on their way to school talked about their plans for the upcoming weekend, and a young woman in her 20’s read a book with a dark blue hard cover, flipping a page every three minutes or so.

At one stop, many of the passengers got off, and as this

happened, an older man who appeared to be in his 50’s or 60’s entered through the open doors. He had a gray beard with some strands of black that covered most of the wrinkles on his white face. He also had shoulder length hair of matching color and a dark gray coat with a few small holes in the back and flaps that 9

covered his neck. He wore a pair of Nike shoes that could’ve been from the 90’s. Their soles were peeling from the base and one of them had a hole on top, revealing a black sock. The people exiting the train were careful to avoid him.

The sliding doors closed, leaving James and a few others scattered throughout the less crowded train. The man started

walking down the aisle in James’ direction. In his hand, he held a small slip of paper.

The man would stop at each person on the train, hold up the paper, then move along. James figured he was asking for

money. Some would look up, either saying something along the lines of “Sorry, I have no change on me,” or simply nodding no, but most ignored him. The man continued down the aisle of the car, meticulously showing the paper to each passenger.

James attempted to avoid eye contact as he was approached by the man, but once the man lifted the paper like he had

done many times before, pity drove James to look. The top of it read “I’m deaf and homeless. Please spare any change. God bless.” Below the writing was a series of common sign language hand signs. James hesitantly looked the man in his eyes, which were dark brown, and gave a quick horizontal nod.

The man retracted his hands with a look of defeat on his face, put the paper back in his coat pocket, and walked away.

He approached the last person in the train car, a woman with short brown hair. She wore a light green sweater with vertical seams that ran from the neck to the waist, blue jeans and white sneakers. She held a light brown backpack on her lap.

The man showed her the paper, and she smiled and made a few motions with her hands. Then, he smiled, showing

his teeth. He responded with hand motions of his own and then sat next to her, and although James had no idea of what they were communicating to each other, their silent conversation captivated him.

James watched as they took turns interacting with one another, moving not only their fingers and hands, but also their

arms, shoulders, and chest. They sometimes pointed at themselves, but other times at each other.

The man and woman continued as the train stopped at station after station, letting new people on. Like before, the

train slowly became crowded, and eventually, James’ view of the two was blocked by those who stood in the aisle of the train, some of which spoke to each other, but with their mouths rather than their hands.

As the passengers in the aisle obstructed his view, James thought about what the man and woman were telling each

other inside their quiet bubble and surrounded by people who couldn’t understand them. James wondered if they told one another about their day and where they were going. Maybe the woman was on her way to meet a friend, and maybe the man was just looking for shelter from the rain. James wondered if they conveyed their thoughts about the different people on the train. Maybe they talked about the two business men next to James, or the teenagers in the aisle, or maybe even the young woman and the book she was reading. James also wondered if the woman asked about where the man was from and where his family was. Maybe the man told her that he had no family, or instead, maybe he had a family, but they just didn’t care about him anymore. James knew he was only insinuating, and that they could’ve just as likely been talking about the weather.

The train slowed to a stop, and the space full of people began to empty upon the opening of the sliding doors. James

noticed the woman, now visible again, retrieve a 20-dollar bill from her backpack, which she gladly handed to the man. She stood up, said her goodbyes, and left the train while the man remained seated.

James realized that he had missed his stop, and at the next one, he placed a 1-dollar bill, three quarters, and a dime

on the seat next to him. Then, he got up, walked off the train, and into the crowded station. James climbed the stairs leading to street level. It was still raining, but this time, James didn’t pull up his hood. He was now in the heart of the city, surrounded by sky scrapers and large buildings. It seemed like there were hundreds of cars and taxis, and even more people. The honks and horns of the vehicles sounded throughout the city.

James sat down on a bench for a moment to check Google Maps, finding where he was and where he needed to go.

The rain drops hit the screen of his iPhone. He sent a quick text.

“Hey Mom”

hu mans of n ew co lleg e 12

Dr. Bonnie McElhinny

Principal of New Colleg e

W hen is a time in your life when you felt renewed? “My niece died 3 years ag o, which was an extremely hard hit to my family and the water was the place I went for solace. T he beauty and the feel [of water] is often comfor ting. T he work I do with water is a way to come back from g rief. It’s beautiful even when har med and it figures out ways to bounce back. We [like water] create a sense of har m to bounce back from in ourselves and from there we can move forward.”

Professor of Human Biolog y

Dr. Maria

Papaconstantinou What does renew mean to you?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;To m ake new ag ain or re-establish something you once had.â&#x20AC;?

W hen is a time in your life when you felt renewed?

Dr. Richard Borshay Lee University Professor Emeritus, Senior of New Colleg e

“Many people of my g eneration have become g randparents by their 50s and 60s, but I didn’t have my g randchildren until my mid 70s. T hey renew me with their energ y and youthful spirit.”

Dana Patterson

MSc; Underg raduate Coordinator for Human Biolog y

W hat does renew mean to you?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;New beginning.â&#x20AC;?

How do you feel renewed during this new school year? “Coming back to third year, it feels like time has been r ushing by so quickly that I am already half way through university. With school only g etting harder and harder, I hope to kee p up the “work hard play hard” spirit and make the most out of my last two years leaving no reg ret!”

Peter Li 17

Tammy Lee

How do you feel renewed during this new school year? “T his year I’m star ting off with a lot of new chang es. I quit my par t-time job, tried r unning for a student council position, became a mentor of the new colleg e community and signed up as a mentee for my major. I’m also at the librar y a lot more because I’m tr ying to pull my GPA up to g et into g rad school. I feel renewed especially during orientation week. Even though it’s my second year being a leader, I’m still meeting a lot of amazing people. Going into third year means I’m already half-way thro ugh my underg rad and I really want to g et myself out there for more oppor tunities this year. I’ve been pushing myself out of my comfor t zone and I think it has been g oing pretty well just by loo king at my prog ress in the first month into school. I’m feeling a lot more confident and g ood about my third year and hope to continue to feel like this when I reach my four th year.” 18

How do you feel renewed during this new school year? “During the summer, I’ve developed an interest in prog ramming. After a year of doing something that I didn’t see a future of me doing, I decided this year that I’m g oing to g et a major in Computer Science.”

Gun Yoon How would you define renewal in 10 words or less?

“Renewal is having a fresh star t.” 19

How would you define renewal in 10 words or less?

“ Renewal is possibility ”

Cici Zhang How do you feel renewed during this new school year? “Last year was rough. Transitioning from high school to university was extremely overwhelming, and the discover y of having to obtain a cer tain mark to enter the Computer Science prog ram only added to the pressure that was put upon me. After a long first year, I’m no long er drowning in the stress of not g etting into the prog ram. I can finally take a breath of fresh air, and pursue my passion wor r y-free.”

How would you define renewal in 10 words or less?

“A chance to star t fresh and clean”

Jess

Chang

How do you feel renewed during this new school year? “As my second year at UofT, I feel renewed in multiple different aspects whether it’s academically, socially, or personally. I was able to cautiously manag e school, work and play last year and figure out the right footwork and balance for me. T his year, I’ll be able to use my experiences to plan out and avoid any mistakes I’ve made in the past and hopefully build a better and improved year.” 21

Haiway Chen

How would you define renewal in 10 words or less?

“Coming back but better than before ”

How do you feel renewed during this new school year? “Looking back on first year, I was sor ta thrown into university and had no sense of direction really. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing. But coming back to U of T after a summer where I g ot to ref lect a lot on my mistakes makes me feel like I g et a second chance at University. T his time I know what to expect and what my g oals are.” 22

How would you define renewal in 10 words or less?

“ “Can we co-write a haiku instead?” ... High-five! Time to g o Renewal ever yday bro Dabironi Pie

Cait

”

& Ethan So how does renewal apply during this new school year? Cait: “Renewal means continuing something you’ve already star ted with a fresh™ outlook.” Ethan: “To me renew means ... [fi ve-minute pause] ... I like to tr y new things.”

Sous Chef at New Colleg e Dining Hall

Fitzroy Atkinson

So what does the word renew mean to you? “For me renewing is if you take something from the past and put a twist on it – to make it more moder n. It’s like… If you take burg ers – before you would have to g round up the meat yourself, but nowadays the meat is already prefor med. So in order to make it better, you have to add your own seasoning to it, changing it, making it a little fresher and more f lavourful. T hen you can your own toppings on it. Instead of burg ers with just lettuce and tomatoes, you can add jalapeno pe ppers, guacamole, and cream cheese changing it up a little bit from the old fashion burg er and by adding more stuff you make it your style.” 24

“...renew to us means a sort of restoration and reaffirmation.”

A Vibrant New College written by cheryl quan photographed by eric yuan New College is home to a diverse group of students, naturally making it a place where you will find a vibrant community of student organizations and clubs. The Student Centre, located in the basement of Wilson Hall, is where many groups such as the Women and Gender Studies Students’ Union (WGSSU), African Studies Course Union (ASCU), and Buddhism and Psychology Students’ Union (BPSU) are based. I reached out to a few representatives — Anyika Mark, President of the Black Students’ Association (BSA), June Marston, Vice-President of NewPRIDE, and Andrea Bermudez, Vice-President Internal of the Equity Studies Students’ Union (ESSU) — to ask about the identity of their respective groups, their upcoming plans for 2018, as well as what “renew” means to them.

JM: NewPride is an LGBTQ+ student group that operates within New College that seeks to foster a safer, more welcoming, more fulfilling community for LGBTQ+ students in New College and U of T as a whole. To this end, we host events, head funds, and compile resources for LGBTQ+ students. AB: The Equity Studies Students’ Union is the main representative body of students who are studying Equity Studies at the University of Toronto and seek to work towards equity in their everyday lives. ESSU supports students in their academic endeavours and encourage students to take what they learn in class to advocate for anti-oppression both on campus and society at large. CQ: What does it mean to you to ‘renew?’

CQ: Can you introduce your organization AM: The word ‘renew’ means more to us to us? than just a fresh start to a new year. ‘Renew’ to us means that we are putting our best AM: “The Black Students’ Association is effort into something progressive. We intend the largest representation of self-identified to move forward with our politics and social Black students at the University of Toronto. atmosphere to make our association the best The BSA remains dedicated to the education, it can be. As a new executive team, we have all experience and empowerment of the Black- brought new ideas and new-founded passion Canadian and international community, that we cannot wait to share with everyone aiming to represent and foster black this year! culture through community interaction and JM: I think renew to us means a sort of outreach.” restoration and reaffirmation. To be honest, 25

being an LGBTQ+ student at U of T has kind of sucked for the past couple of years. NewPRIDE’s goal is to restore a sense of warmth and togetherness to the community and to reaffirm to LGBTQ+ students that there’s a whole lot of people at New College and at U of T who love and support them and that they have a community they can rely on. AB: ‘Renew' to us means building from past experiences to bring the very best resources and opportunities to the students that we represent and support. This year, we are aiming to be much more active in the community, be more visible and make a name for ourselves as student leaders who are here to teach and work with students to strive for social justice and liberation. We hope to do this by collaborating more with other student groups, and by building a community that will continue to grow and strengthen with time. All the new executives are excited to start fresh and use their passion to work together bring something new to the table for Equity Studies students and people seeking equity in their lives. CQ: Can you tell us about any plans that students can look forward to in 2018? AM: This year, the BSA is focused on implementing sustainable youth programming through regular high school

visits, mentorship programs and more. In addition to annual events like our Black History Month Art Show and our trip to the U.S.A, we plan to introduce new events like the Black Panther Film Screening at Cineplex, a Career Café, Panel Discussion on Race, our Social Justice System and Policing & our first ever Black Expo! We are dedicated to outreaching our events to community members and bridging communication gaps between other campuses. JM: Every other Friday evening we host screenings of queer media, or pieces of media that are otherwise seen as important parts of queer culture. Our inaugural Queer Classics night was a showing of several episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and we’ll be showing works like Paris Is Burning and But I’m a Cheerleader in the future. We are also running a fund that puts donations toward buying and anonymously distributing binders and gaffs to students who have the need for these but not necessarily the means. In 2018, in addition to other events to look out for, we’re

hoping to start a campus-wide, submissionfriendly queer student blog for art, poetry, personal essays, etc! AB: We aim to continue having a combination of academic oriented events and social events for students to engage with equity work on campus. Our biggest event of the year, Linked Oppressions, will include a week-long series of panels and workshops that relate to contemporary issues in the community and put them into conversation with equity theories and practices across a variety of disciplines. Students can also look forward to a workshop framed around entrepreneurship for racialized women, and several other conversation workshops to encourage new ways of thinking and being through discussion. We are also happy to be hosting de-stressor socials during exam season to give folks a place to escape during times of high pressure. We’re always looking for new ways to bring people together, so stay updated!

New College is home to an abundance of amazing groups, so don’t be shy. Check out the Student Centre sometime and say hi to these organizations that are doing wonderful work. Don’t hesitate to get involved in issues you’re passionate about!

A Personal Essay on Finding Home written by v iv ia n li photographed by a nt h ea w ei According to my brother, his personal essay of finding home consists of three steps: 1. Acquiring a phone 2. Calling home 3. Getting picked up However, for many of us, finding our way home isn’t easy—especially if we don’t know how “home” could be defined, and we aren’t sure where we belong. I arrived from China on a plane to Canada thirteen and a half years ago. I vaguely remember my earlier years—as someone who arrived in a new country, I had trouble with my homework and constantly had to ask my parents for help. In one of my earlier assignments, my parents and I were debating about the use of the word “poisonous”, as an adjective, as we were uncertain whether or not a frog was described as “poisonous” or “poison”. However, slowly, I became acclimatized to the environment. Before long, the only memories of Chinese tradition were embedded in the Chinese Mandarin classes, or the early-morning Saturday classes, where the teacher repeated words on a white piece of lined paper, checked our homework, and occasionally prompted us to speak Chinese greetings on stage. The earliest memory I have of a Chinese tradition was during my elementary school years, where I learned a traditional song by heart and sang it in front of my class. But it was all snippets of Chinese practices—I participated in it while distancing myself from it, like an extra sticky-note you tack on to the refrigerator, a reminder to yourself of who you are supposed to be. The first time I went back to China was during grade nine. During my time there, I felt foreign to the place where everyone had memories of me, but I only had their memories to confirm that I was ever really there to begin with. For instance, the memories of my grandfather teaching me the violin was only ever captured in a single photograph. Everything felt foreign; the

places, the people—family members who looked taller or shorter than on small cellphone screens. Most of all, I felt foreign to the person they were expecting me to be. Although I could communicate fairly well with them, I couldn’t feel anything similar beating in our hearts. We were called to different arms, indoctrinated in specific values, and hence could only connect as far as language allowed us— without touching upon cultural boundaries. I thought that I’d outgrown China, that’d I’d left it behind in the past. It was seemed as obscure as the number of people with “Li” as their surname. Then one day, my maternal grandmother showed me something startling—she still had a collection of Tang dynasty poems, or tang shi, that I read when I was little. “Well, not exactly read,” my maternal uncle interrupted, laughing. “I asked you what the words were, but you didn’t know. You just made up stories.” When I asked to see the collection of poems, I found myself staring at a book with myriad torn pages and scribbles of crayons all over the front and the sides. I was curious, and started reading through the poems, realizing that there were a few classics I recognized from Chinese class—jing ye si, deng shang yi cheng lou, to name a few. Though I didn’t know it back then, the bridge which had been blown away by years of neglect was slowly weaving itself back together—the threads between myself and my Chinese heritage became tighter. I brought the collection back to Canada, thinking I’d look over them when I had the time. But time is not a renewable resource. As high school started, events began to pile up, and I was unable to sit down and read the book until this summer, four years later. By this time I had already acquired a healthy appreciation and admiration of poetry, and I was interested in expanding my horizons further, to see what other languages could teach me. However, what I opened

up wasn’t merely a collection of unique viewpoints in Chinese, it was a world that didn’t speak the same way, that made me foreign to the familiar environment it was speaking of, that forced me to come to terms with my own limitations and values. That moment was the first time I really wanted to return to my first home. I started copying out the poems, memorizing them, trying to understand it from the poet’s point of view, pestering my parents until they gave me a run-down of each enigmatic word and its connotations. I do not claim to understand everything in the book, but some of the poems resonated with me—the loneliness, the natural world and its wonders, the golden events that must pass. Of course, I had learned these lessons from English poets, but it was strangely satisfying and fascinating to connect threads of emotion between the English community and my Chinese heritage. I’ve learned something important along the way: it’s never too late to reconnect. Many of us may have forgotten our first languages, or had never learned them. But given this world and its whole wealth of knowledge and information, what adventurer does not wish to strike at a fortune? And what is language if not something to shape the world with, to shape the nearness and distance of our lens? I believe that language is a powerful tool, one that can not only be used to connect people to each other, but also one person to the rest of the world. But this process can only be cyclic—as one person changes their view of the world through language, they also influence another to do the same, until we can understand the different homes people live in, and realize that we do not belong to one home. In essence: home for me is a state of constant renewal. But enough of this searching and meandering—for now, I’ll take my brother’s advice: I’ll call home.

Private Bodies

Drugged Up and Functioning

written by corals z heng photographed by Nathan C hen

here are certain administrative to-dos that makes me feel a little wistful, a little older. This season of renewal, every three months, every year, every half year, I start thinking about such romanticisms like teeth cleaning, renewing prescriptions, and eye exams. Then there are the derivatives, reordering a supply of contact lenses, going to the clinic and having a check up, and the eventual flare ups of my eczema now that the wind is dryer, and the air being colder. There is nothing romantic or especially interesting about the degeneration of my body. Our bodies are public and private places; we keep our own rotting within these

administrative to-dos, and leave our houses with our public bodies. Public bodies are the subject of social interactions. These are impeccable pillars of our agency over nature, they are immortal machines that contain our brilliant minds and our kaleidoscope personalities. Our private bodies, on the other hand, needs intrusive upkeeps – so that we can traverse the world with the confidence that we are our best selves. God forbid you show off your private body to the world – that cough, that sniffle in class, a soft prick between your brow as it furrows stay at home you thought. There’s something foreign about other people’s illnesses – their upkeeps – that makes the viewer of their

degeneration, profoundly uncomfortable. What do you say to a sick person? How real are your sympathies? Their shame is your shame; your shame of intrusion is their shame of exposure. The permanent anxiety of broken teeth, bumpy skin, and bedridden bodies. I thought about my process of renewing a prescription. Every three months, I take the whole day off to renew a prescription. I walk from my apartment to Queen and Ossington’s Shoppers Drug Mart, a forty minute walk that I drag out to three or four hours. I take the longest way possible, languishing the change of the seasons: the blue flowers beneath dead branches,

the crunch of maple leafs, the hum of the streetcar when it’s too cold out to walk, and the sharp air after a rainstorm. Those are the memories I associate with getting new prescriptions. It is a liberating experience. Those four hours that I spend acknowledges that I am doing something important, something ritualistic, something literally and metaphorically, renewing. It’s almost too idealistic to think that renewal is solely some spiritual renewal. Some deep, emotional searching, to find some article worthy epiphany. I mean, I am aware of the criticisms that comes with the topic, even though I am being pretty evasive about what particular

prescriptions or teeth cleanings I have to do periodically. I am a woman, and maybe this subject strikes a chord because year after year, I find that I need to visit the doctor for a different ailment. There’s also nothing romantic about bureaucratic renewals either – driver’s licenses, am I right? (That’s a form of renewing your identity, you can’t drive, and now you can drive. Revolutionary.) But these renewals of private bodies are uncomfortable to talk about. They’re not spiritual renewals. There’s no epiphany that will change what you already know – that our bodies are shitty. The long list of medical records – shots, hospital visits, antibiotics, blood tests, urine tests, the shame of urine

tests, MRIs, teeth cleaning, the bit of teeth cleaning where they drill along your gums and it hurts really bad, cavities, the part of fillings where they numb your gums and it taste like artificial cherries – are just as important in personal renewal as say, a trip to Thailand where you found yourself. The physical pains of upkeep – keeping myself functioning. The constant iteration of sickness, health, healthy sickness, and the sickness that hides behind your eyelids. Does it ever end? How one manages, one recovers, and one goes on. Trying to forget it all until the next appointment. 30

The Expansion Series written by g oz i e n wa k a photographed by c h r i s top h e r x u

As dusk broke, It dawned upon us that change must be carried through... When Clocks struck day, Candles slept alongside. This reassignment of warmth signaled change to fly into the air; filling every spirit with with awe and intention. What was empty would be filled. What was full would be distilled... A revival. Revive: Lungs would work as they have been. Tirelessly filling, fulfilling their role; Giving and Receiving. Lungs, however, seem upset. Giving form to once lifeless mass, Brightening up festivities; yet such admirable decor seems placed in vain as they eventually deform. They can even burst before display. Ostensibly, unjustly, leaving Lungs just... used. Overworked. Disappointed. Relive: “I have given you life; but what do you, Balloon, have to give? Yes, you give me form. You respire, allowing Hands to give me form with water. Or allowing hands to fill me up with helios, Allowing me to float to another, Transferring a smile! You sustain laughter. Yet I–I have much to give too you know. “You either get lost-or are rendered useless. You can’t even be revived once you burst.” Can you? “But, I give and give, yet the same old outcome seems reemergent.”

Revival: “it seems so Lungs; though I provide the chance for you to learn from past endeavors, I move things from empty breaths to your mind. Expanding your ability to succeed.”

Chinese New Year A Timeless Tradition Celebrating Renewal written by ziya n ch en illustrated by c a ndy ta ng The drum beats slowly at first, its echoes reverberating loudly and clearly. Then, it picks up pace-rhythmic beats in a quick, repetitive succession. A quick glance from the conductor and the dizi starts playing. Girls swathed in flowing red silk twirl in unison to the harmony. In the far distance, fireworks crackle underneath the darkening evening sky. Delicious, mouth-watering smells trickle out of open doors and windows. Loud cheerful voices greet each 33

other “Xin Nian Kuai Le – Happy Chinese New Year!” Chinese New Year, or commonly known as “the Spring Festival,” is a traditional holiday that is celebrated in many Chinese communities around the world to mark the beginning of the New Year in the Chinese calendar. It is a public holiday in China, Indonesia, North and South Korea, and Vietnam and can last for up to fifteen days. During those fifteen days of celebration, it is

common to see a lot of singing and dancing, family gatherings feasting on an enormous variety of home-cooked meals, and dragon dances and parades, and the lantern festival. It is the custom for people to wear new clothes, preferably the colour red, and for the elders to give hong bao, “lucky money”, to children or unmarried adults. The New Year signifies a time of renewal and hope for prosperity and health to come.

The Legend of “Nian”

Popular Foods to Eat on Chinese New Year

The Chinese Zodiac

“New Year” in Chinese is “Guo Nian” which can be roughly translated to “overcome Nian”. “Nian” in Chinese means “year” but according to legend, “Nian” is the name of a mythical beast who has horns and sharp teeth. It generally remains to itself throughout the year in the sea, but on New Year’s Eve, it comes to villages and attack and prey on the people and their livestock. Terrified of the monster, the villagers turned to help from an old wise man. The old wise man realized that Nian was afraid of three things: loud noise, fire, and the colour red. Thus, he was able to ward off the monster by a few simple tasks: sticking red paper on doors and walls, burning candles in the house, and burning bamboo to create loud crackling sounds. Because of this, Nian did not come to attack the villagers and the tradition of setting fireworks, lighting lanterns, and wearing red continued to modern day. Nian has come to symbolically represent a year, chasing away the old year paves the way to a fresh start for a new year.

Certain foods are traditional to each on Chinese New Year because they symbolically tie into health, wealth, and happiness. » Fish: prosperity Sounds like ‘surplus of wealth.’ Common fish species to eat are chosen due to their homophonic similarities to Chinese characters: eg. Crucian carp, Chinese mud carp, catfish. Rules for eating fish: the head should be eaten only by the guests or the elders of the family, and the rest of the family can eat the fish only when the head has been eaten first. » Chinese Dumplings: Wealth The dumplings that you eat should be circular in shape, and have a lot of pleats. The common filling that is used is cabbage and radish with minced pork. Finding a white thread in the dumpling means long life, and finding a copper coin in the dumpling means good wealth. » Sweet glutinous rice balls: Family The stickiness and the circular shape represents being together in the family. » Long noodles: Longevity » Tangerines, oranges, citrus fruits: Wealth Their golden colour represents money and phonetically, the Chinese character for orange sounds the same as “success.”

The Chinese zodiac consists of twelve animals; each animal takes turns representing a year on the calendar: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig. The order of the animals was established according to a Chinese legend when the jade emperor invited the animals to a party. The first 12 animals that win in the race would be represented on the calendar on the order that they arrive. According to Chinese cultural beliefs, the animal which your birth year corresponds to also dictates your personality. It can also dictate your compatibility with other people based on the nature of the animals. 2018 is the year of the Dog.

Read more legends: www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/ festivals/chinese-new-year-legends.htm

See the full list: www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/ chinese-food/chinese-new-year-food.htm

The Chinese Lantern Festival Typically celebrated on the 15th day after Chinese New Year, the Chinese lantern festival consists primarily of lighting different shaped lanterns reflecting Chinese culture along the streets, on buildings and other public spaces. The word for ‘lantern’ in Taiwanese dialect sounds similar to a ‘new-born baby boy’ so lighting a lantern can symbolize ‘birth’, or ‘renewal’. Other traditions involving the lantern are posting riddles on the lanterns for others to guess, an old tradition that has supposedly been around since the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD). If someone correctly guesses the answer to the riddle, there is usually a prize that is offered by the owner of that lantern. Source: www.chinahighlights.com/ festivals/lantern-festival.htm

Chinese New Year is a time of celebration of the upcoming year: recognizing improvements that could be made from the previous years and keeping and establishing relationships between people. However, these are basic commonalities that are shared among different new years that are celebrated amongst diverse cultural groups worldwide. Regardless of who you are and where you are from, self-renewal, hope and happiness is a human universal that has spanned the globe for centuries.

Lubenica is Croatian for Watermelon written by c o r a l s z h e n g photographed by e r i c y ua n

he bright, the muffled, the long drudged out silences as your fingers pry through paper money you do not recognize, “Serbian money,” the cashier chuckles, taking the wad from your hand. There’s a moment of understanding when your eyes met hers and under the shame of your too flaccid tongue, “thank you,” you whisper. European air is the thin trail of smoke from a cigarette left in an ashtray. Everyone is cooler than you’ll ever be, everyone is harder than you, everyone looks at you with intent, whereas you look, to them, confused. As if you had fallen asleep in your own bed, and woke up in the middle of the street, standing still, confronted by people pressing bullhorns to your face. When someone is saying something, it sounds like wiggling a finger in your ear. The comfort you find is in those revelations of familiar behavior; learning the basic tasks of everyday life, renewing your knowledge of the mundane, unearthing it from something terrifyingly foreign. Take the the Muslim family BBQing in the park as an example. You thought that against the old Roman walls, they looked to be something intangible, liken to scene from a tapestry of antiquity, something part of the landscape that you could not relate to. No matter how good their food smelt. You simply do not know them. But you do see the crows feet around their eyes, the hysterical shaking, fingers beckoning at a little girl who caught a frisbee with her belly. You also think children getting hit with things (accidentally of course) is shamefully hilarious, and you relax. Actually, you were already relaxed. You relax when you enter a supermarket.

The blast of cold air, the bright lights, the delights of foreign pillaging as you struggle to pronounce the name of this exotic watermelon. You think it’s a nice name for a woman: sweet, juicy Lubenica. You think about the joke you made in German speaking supermarkets, it’s the funniest joke you’ve ever heard. If wassermelone is watermelon, then you will try, when you forget the word for water in English, next time to ask for ‘wassermelone without the melone’, you find it so funny that watermelon in German is also water-melon. You are proud that this is how you learnt the word for water, you are proud that this is how you learnt the word for melon. You ask for water with a smile now. When you line up to check out your groceries, you are mortified when the cashier inspects your box of plums, leaves her seat— cashiers work sitting down over there—-and heads over to a scale by cabbages, weighs the box, and returns with a sticker. Your cheeks grow red, you didn’t know. You start weighing everything you buy from now on, you like learning how to do things properly again. You learn in your last days in Berlin, to distinguish the difference between the indistinguishable bike lanes from the sidewalks. You celebrate when you weren’t dinged at once in a whole day, Berliners will yell at you, if anything, their bike bells are incredibly passive aggressive. You relearn how to say check in Turkish, so that it doesn’t sound like çay, you remember the word---that sounds like Hassan to you---so that the waiter won’t bring two teas when you ask for the check. Similarly, the waiter won’t speak any English sometimes: you raise a victory sign, and say “two çay” he

will repeat “two çay?” with a relieved smile and the same victory sign, and you will nod enthusiastically. You will come back to Toronto. The moment you step off the plane, you feel like moving through air like cotton balls, the bright lights, the fear, the urge to turn your head every time you hear English being spoken. Then you realize again, as you’re paying for groceries, that there is no scale, cashiers stand, and the language cuecards you mentally flip through are useless now. Thank you is thank you in English. You seek out the food that you’ve come to like, but you’ve left them behind in a different continent. It’s upsetting that you can’t walk down the street and get the best tomatoes you’ve ever had, or reach over the railing for figs growing out of the roof of a coke den. The familiarity of Toronto that you sought out between the aisles of those foreign supermarkets is now real. You return to a life where you know how to lock a door, know how to read the menu. Nonetheless, as you reach for that bag of oranges, you still wonder if you had weighed them or not. As if somehow, you were robbed of everything you knew once again, and that frustration made you smile. You appreciate the city more. You think, when you are not you, but a foreigner with a flaccid tongue, what little isms, in this hostile land, remind them of home.

Cages written by v iv ia n li illustrated by co r a ls zh eng

nestled between salt-rocks luminous in the moonlight – Anonymous like paper lanterns in the sky of the Lunar festival, two bodies sway back and forth on the dark blue she sleeps in a man’s embrace wooden shutters of her eyes flicker— water tickles down, copper bars link her arms, a continuous thread of displaced metal rods— they are blue like the paper tokens on her bones, little twists and turns of a party favour, the bruises on the shell body of earth and fire, body of fire and water, body of water and lightning and of sun and dusk— at his release, her paper erupts in flames

Faulty Desires written by va n n i e kopal a k r i s h n a n illustrated by ly n n l i u History stretches along the horizon: it’s a mural that pushes against your buried desires, capturing you in a limbo of doubt. It’s an ominous presence lurking between your eyes, a beacon of light that seeps between your palms when you pull in, itching to grasp it for yourself. What is it? Replaying in your mind. Over and over. Burying you, captivating you in a series of forgotten desires. The longing never subsides; it only deepens. Faint imperfections begin to gather -what stood as a wistful mural of memories grows into a mirror of insecurity. You being to wonder how memories so faint can make your heart churn with such displeasure. They burn with a regret that filters what you seem to recollect, a thought that keeps you still, consumed in a past that has forgotten you. But it’s the very thought of these doubts that slowly mend itself into a tool, to help you break free and bring life, vitality to the very mural that kept you so still.

A Space to Renew written by m ac k e nz i e st e wart photographed by m eg a n b h al l a

hen the topic of renewal was thrown about for this issue, only one thing came to my mind (strange as it may be) and that was Kombucha! Not being a kombucha expert myself nor an avid consumer, I was just as confused as you are. But, nonetheless, I decided to follow my intuition and it led me to a little shop in Kensington Market. This shop was The Witches Brew Handcrafted Kombucha. Now, let me just begin by saying the atmosphere of this place is absolutely amazing. It is as if you have stepped inside the word “zen” itself. From the moment I walked in, I felt welcomed by the staff as they were delighted to fill in my novice mind on all there is to know about this magic drink. Before diving into their kombucha, I browsed around the shop where they sell many special items. They have jewelry, books, and the most unique tarot card sets you ever did see. Before I got too distracted by their merchandise I decided to pick up a bottle of their kombucha. First of all, the packaging is so great and it really isn’t something you see often, but after admiring for a bit I popped open the cap and took a swig. Let me tell you, there are few beverages as refreshing as kombucha – maybe the fancy bottle helped, too. The unique flavour of tea and orange, from the flavour of my choice, blended perfectly and were all tied up with the crisp bubbliness of the drink which is personally something I adore; but one thing I really appreciate and admire about Kombucha, and what is one of its known health benefits, is its calming effects which I know as students, we could all use a little bit of. All in all, I would recommend this to any student or just about any person who is looking to try something new. Just take a moment for yourself and head on over to The Witch’s Brew for a refreshing drink and welcoming atmosphere, or even just a little time to recharge and renew.

J u n c ta J u va n t