NOVEMBER 2019
Published since November 21, 1910 Circulation 3,500 ISSN 0845-356X Suite 3-04 8900 114 St. NW University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2J7
Editor-in-Chief Andrew McWhinney
News Editor Adam Lachacz
Managing Editor Christine McManus
Arts & Culture Editor Ashlynn Chand
Art Director Peter Elima
Opinion Editor Payton Ferguson
Photo Editor Helen Zhang
Staff Reporter Khadra Ahmed
Online Editor Advertising ads@gateway.ualberta.ca Tina Tai Website www.gtwy.ca
Director of Finance & Administration Piero Fiorini
Webmaster Hugh Bagan Director of Marketing & Outreach Pia Co
Contributors Helen Aquino An Bui Calvin Chan Pauline Chan Étienne Fillion-Sauve Sofia Gauvin Parul Kanwar Yuri Marquez Carla Soriano Jack Stewardson Harmon Tamura Cover Peter Elima
Copyright All materials appearing in The Gateway bear copyright of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent.
Volunteer Want to write, draw, or shoot photos for us? To get involved visit gtwy.ca/volunteer for more information.
GSJS The Gateway is published by the Gateway Student Journalism Society (GSJS), a student-run, autonomous, apolitical not-for-profit organization, operated in accordance with the Societies Act of Alberta.
Printing Printed in Canada at Capital Colour, on FSC certified uncoated paper.
ILLUSTRATION HELEN AQUINO, “YOU'RE MY WISH COME TRUE”
DEAR READER, You know all those assignments you saw on your syllabi in September and promptly ignored because they wouldn’t be due for a while? Well, now it’s November, and everything’s due. As you hunker down in Rutherford to write that 15 page paper in less than a week, it’s easy to feel isolated. But we’re never truly alone. Shared experiences, like scrolling through Overheard or looking forward to the reprieve of Reading Week, bring us together. History ties us to the past, our loved ones tie us to the present. Like the dark matter that binds our galaxy together, we are bonded by all the little things we share, all the victories and the hardships. This month, our writers, photographers, and artists have captured how we are connected to everything and everyone around us. The world still exists outside the pages of your textbooks, and when you have a moment, you should interact with that world. Call your parents. Take a walk around campus. Make sure you’ve eaten today. It’ll take the edge off. g Hang in there,
Christine McManus Managing Editor
Peter Elima Art Director
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CONTENTS 4 6
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NOTES What Should You Do For Reading Week? You only get one break a semester — how should you use it? Find out here.
Badasses Through the Ages Get inspired by five Canadians who’ve made a difference.
REQUIRED READING Unseen Forces
Investigate one of the most mysterious forces in the universe: dark matter.
Tiptoeing Out of the Nest Read about one student’s journey to real adulthood.
THE STUDIO Forever a Foreigner Explore the complexities of Chinese-Canadian identity.
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FEATURES Student Life Through the Screen Learn how student-run social media pages create community on campus.
Dangerous Gains, Deadly Losses Unhealthy relationships with food are eating away at students.
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DIVERSIONS Horoscopes This time, your horoscopes will be reading you.
Crossword Test your November knowledge here!
Comic Follow the Fat Tire Vegabond’s perilous journey.
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HOT GIRL SUMMER FO LYFE (no)
Yes because I am emotionally vulnerable enough to be in a healthy relationship
Have you Boo’d up?
You’re pulling all nighters ...
Live tweeting your third quarter life crisis
It’s cold outside, which can only mean one thing: It’s cuffing season. Time to warm up by stealing your SO’s sweaters and cuddling beside the SUB fire pit.
Let’s be real, you can survive on three hours of sleep and a shot of espresso. Sleep is overrated! You’re young and invincible!
Studying because KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
slutty U of A administration raising international student tuition. So Dirty!
Slutty drug dealer breaking into FAB to weigh cocaine
Halloween has come and gone, but it’s never too early to start planning for next year. Which scandalous costume will you grace campus with IN 2020?
TEXT KHADRA AHMED + CALVIN CHAN ILLUSTRATION CARLA SORIANO
what light through yonder window breaks? It’s finally time for Fall Reading Week! Should you be good and study ahead for finals or should you throw caution to the wind and party your brains out?
There’s a chill in the air, red eyes pass you in the hall (is it sleep deprivation or the flu, who knows?) and the first round of midterms have finally wiped the smiles off the faces of hopeful first-years. We’re only in the third month of school and you’re already willing to exchange your firstborn for a least one A this semester. But soft,
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Shopping Get in loser, it’s time to go shopping. Geek may be chic, but those sweatpants ain’t. It’s time to ditch the Birkenstocks with socks and give those international students a run for their money (seriously, why are they always so well dressed?). Convince yourself you’ve finally fixed your imposter syndrome by showing up to lecture in a kick-ass outfit.
Study Bitch! Y’all think this is a joke? Walking around our snowy-ass campus acting like this a giant slip and slide? Well, it ain’t just you slipping, your grades are too! You want that A? You gotta hustle! No pain no gain! As the 21st century prophet Britney Spears once said, “You want a Lamborghini? Sippin’ martinis? Look hot in a bikini? You better work bitch!”
Self-Care week
thing you learned all that French on Duolingo. “Bonjour mademoiselle! Oui oui baguette!”
Time to grab “Daddy’s” credit card for a weekend in Paris. Sex work is real work and you need a vacation! Nothing beats a glass of fine wine, cute French boys, and a view of the Eiffel tower! Good
Take a shower and find Jesus
Rutherford Library
Netflix and chill
HUB stairwell beside Ho Ho’s
Where do you do the deed?
because what’s hotter than putting on a show for that security camera in the lecture hall?
Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Y’all nasties have definitely done it…. And by it, we mean have sex in public campus space
Are your student loans We know some If you’re not a first-year, piling up? Worried sketchy things happen about your employabili- you have no excuse to be in HUB stairwells, but doing the nasty in ty after graduation? let’s not make fucking Rutherford because you Tired of working for one of them — do it should remember that it “the man?” It’s time to from the comfort of kick start a new career, was heavily infested with your dorm! There’s a where YOU take charge bed bugs. If you’re THAT reason Netflix and chill willing to risk it for the of YOUR own future! If is a time honoured biscuit, we don’t really you’re smart enough to tradition: it’s the get those scholarships, want to know what else perfect lubricant to you’ve been up to. All we you’re probably smart finally get physical know is you’re long enough to start a cult. with your cute lab Always remember: “you overdue for a shower and partner. If you have perhaps some religious have more fun as a their consent, throw intervention. You have follower, but you make on some Breaking Bad seven days, get your more money as a and break that back! g act together! leader” - Creed Bratton.
Start a cult
No, I got scholarship money you stupid hoes
Hop on a plane
Yes, that’s what UWS is for
We see you out there, crying yourself to sleep at night. Cramming for exams till four in the morning. That shit ain’t healthy. YOU are always YOUR first priority. So, grab a bath bomb and some essential oils, treat yourself to your favourite food, and surround yourself with people/animals/things you love! Love yourself the way you would want to love others!
Birkenstocks with socks
Are you joining the thousands of students on Seeking Arrangements?
What shoes are getting you to class on time?
Vans
men pictures of your feet.
from ECHA to Humanities?
Blundstones
School is tough and working on top of that is tougher. However, there’s always the option of sending old, lonely, and most importantly, RICH
Who needs to line up for an elliptical at Van Vliet when you have ten minutes to run your ass
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NOTES
Badasses Through The Ages TEXT PARUL KANWAR ILLUSTRATION AN BUI If you grew up in Canada, you’ve probably sat through countless Canadian history lessons during your educational career. But all the social studies textbooks in the world probably didn’t teach you about the movers and shakers of yesteryear. The world has seen so many badasses, and this list features only a fraction of the many who have made a difference.
Dr. James Collip
Dr. James Collip, who taught at the University of Alberta in 1915 and became the Head of the Department of Biochemistry in 1922, was one of the many hard workers who isolated insulin. Commercial insulin is the synthetic form of the hormone with the same name and is used to treat diabetes. Although Collip was not officially recognized by the Nobel Foundation, the parent organization of Nobel Prizes, he was integral in creating insulin. Even more awesome than isolating a life-saving hormone, he didn't patent it under a commercial firm. This decision was made primarily so that no one could use insulin as leverage to limit healthcare for impoverished individuals.
Leilani Muir
Leilani Muir is the first person who filed a case against the wrongful sterilization under the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta in 1995. She ignited an uprising that led to multiple lawsuits that followed her example and held the Government of Alberta accountable for their actions. Her personal history proved to be an obstacle at every step of the way. Her mother tried to remove her from her family and consented to Muir’s sterilization for her, creating a familial rift. She also experienced depression and a lack of resources due to stigma against mental illness and class barriers. However, Muir stood the test of time and trials and won the case. This led to a chain reaction that shed light on nearly 885 individuals who had been forced to go through similar traumatic experiences.
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Margeret Atwood
Any list of badasses is incomplete without Margaret Atwood. Atwood taught at the University of Alberta in 1979, but is best known for her works of literature. In addition to being the mastermind behind The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood has been vocal about her political leanings. Her written works are steeped in feminist and animal rights themes. She has stated that "power had a responsibility to the community, that money should not be the measure of all things." Outside of her literary works and her political involvement, Atwood was also the one who created LongPen, a device that allows one to remotely write in ink anywhere in the world via tablet PCs and the Internet. Not only is she giving us quality reads, she’s also technologically savvy and politically active.
Rose Fortune Richard Wagamese
Richard Wagamese was a Canadian author who won Alberta Writers Guild Best Novel Award for his debut novel Keeper's Me. He also became the first Indigenous writer to win a National Newspaper Award for column writing. Wagamese was the introduction to Indigenous history and tales for many Canadians. He was abandoned by his family at a young age, and did not see them for 21 years. Bearing his own struggles and trauma, Wagamese penned his tales to make sure that the mental and physical abuse of Indigenous people in Canada is never forgotten. His works also highlight the experiences of Indigenous people with homelessness, drugs, alcohol and the prison system. Wagamese brought to light what was often overlooked by many.
One of the most badass people of all time, Rose Fortune, defied odds her entire life. Born in Virginia to enslaved parents, Fortune moved to Nova Scotia following the American Revolution. There, she became Canada's first female police officer. Rose Fortune made a fortune for herself in a time when opportunities for women, especially black women, were more or less non-existent. Although the title was not officially acknowledged, her position led to a change in many mindsets in her hometown of Annapolis Royal. To this day, her legacy continues: her descendant, Daurene Lewis, became Canada's first black female mayor in 1984.
None of these five people came from similar walks of life. Their accomplishments and their life struggles are very much their own, but they all have made a difference in the world. I hope this article implores you to choose your own path, whatever that may look like to you. g
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REQUIRED READING
Unseen Forces TEXT CALVIN CHAN ILLUSTRATION SOFIA GAUVIN
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REQUIRED READING
of A particle physicist, Marie-Cécile Piro, spends most of her days over two kilometres underground. Over five Empire State Buildings’ worth of earth, rock, and dirt separates her from the rest of civilization. There, deep in the earth’s crust, Piro is in search of what many believe is the glue that holds the world’s billions of galaxies together: dark matter. Despite having permeated throughout popular culture, from classic video-games like Metroid to the popular science fiction series Star Trek, the truth is, researchers still aren’t sure dark matter exists. Across the globe, physicists like Piro are racing to be the first ones to find it. At the SNO (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory) underground laboratory in Sudbury, Ontario, Piro is hedging her bets on three of the world’s largest dark matter detectors. Over the next decade, she will be patiently waiting for the rare chance that a dark matter particle collides with one of her machines, sparking the faintest echo of light and sound that will prove its existence.
ur lives are occupied by different types of matter, from the air we breathe to the electrons that power our technologies. But across the cosmos, these things that physicists can feel, touch, and observe, amount to only 15 per cent of all matter in the universe. The rest is dark matter, both invisible and untouchable.
“This is a new form of matter,” Piro said. “It’s not composed of the electrons, protons, or neutrons you learn about in high school. There’s nothing to compare it to, at least not yet.” The hunt for dark matter didn’t begin until the 1970s, when American astronomer, Vera Rubin, proved that the stars and planets orbiting our neighboring galaxies were moving at speeds hundreds of times faster than predicted. Like swinging a yo-yo in a circle, the faster you spin, the harder it becomes to hold on to. In space, the string holding the stars and planets in their orbits is the immense gravity created by the weight of the galaxies themselves. But with the stars and planets spinning at over 100 kilometres a second, this string should have snapped, with stars and planets thrown into deep space. Physicists believe it’s dark matter that’s creating a force strong enough to hold the galaxies together. Many astronomers also believe it’s this same force that catalyzed the original formation of galaxies after the Big Bang. By pulling dust, gas, and other ordinary matter together, stars, moons, and planets began to form. Without dark matter, the Milky Way – our own home galaxy – likely wouldn’t exist, and the universe would have no signs of life at all. But unlike regular matter, dark matter doesn’t reflect, emit, or absorb light. To map out its location, Piro says astronomers have to look at the way light behaves as it moves around it. Because of the immense gravitational forces dark matter creates, the space around it becomes
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REQUIRED READING
deformed, and light passing through becomes distorted – similar to how images can bend when examined through a magnifying glass. By measuring this distortion, astronomers have mapped out where dark matter might be located across millions of galaxies. But knowing where it is hasn’t made figuring out what it’s made of any easier. Despite numerous global efforts, the particles that make up dark matter remains as elusive as ever. Piro describes it as seeing a shadow, but not being able to tell what casts it. “We’re trying to find something we can’t see,” Piro said. “You just know something is there, but you don’t know what it can be.” The prevailing theory is that dark matter is made of WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. They’re “massive” because they create so much gravity, but are “weakly interacting” because they can’t usually be touched by regular matter or even light. As the earth travels around the Milky Way, dark matter particles fly through our planet and our bodies every second, but are both unseen and unfelt because they don’t interact well with the regular matter that makes us up. Piro says this enigmatic property of dark matter can be best observed by watching the Bullet Cluster – two colliding galaxies 3.7 billion light years away. As the regular matter like gas and dust collide, they mixed and ignited into a firework display of energy and light. But when cosmologists looked at the moving dark matter, they saw most of the mass passing through the cluster unfazed. To detect the undetectable, particle physicists like Piro need their machines to reach an almost unimag-
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inable level of sensitivity, where even trace levels of radioactive uranium or thorium that are present in all our day to day objects can accidentally trigger the sensors. To these detectors, the earth’s surface is an incredibly noisy place. “We’re surrounded by particles,” Piro explained. “Particles coming from cosmic rays, from the sun, from the atmosphere, even from the impurities in the materials we use to build the machines. All of this can trigger our detector.” To protect her work from this constant pattern of regular matter, Piro performs her experiments in the SNO underground laboratory located in the subterranean Creighton Nickel Mine. It’s the second deepest underground research facility in the world and one of only a handful that are suitable for dark matter research.
o reach SNOLAB, Piro starts by gearing up into mining coveralls, water-proof boots, and a hard hat before boarding an open cage elevator. Piro and several dozen others are then pulled into a still operational nickel mine at up to 40 kilometres per hour, about three to four times faster than a standard elevator. While adjusting to the much higher atmospheric pressure of the underground tunnels, she then walks 1.8 kilometres in 30-degree Celsius heat before reaching the laboratory entrance. Down there, Piro is working on three different dark matter detectors.
REQUIRED READING
The first one is the DEAP-3600, a giant acrylic sphere filled with 3600 kilograms of liquid argon chilled to -188 degrees Celsius, a temperature too cold for even modern spacesuits to withstand. The second is the PICO-500. While still under construction, the PICO looks more like a traditional water tank, but is instead filled with super-heated fluoropropane. And the third is NEWS-G, which uses a blend of gaseous neon and methane. To understand how the detectors work, imagine being a batter at a baseball game. Similar to striking a baseball, when a dark matter particle collides with a molecule of liquid or gas in the detector, a sound can be heard. In a typical game, you can usually see the ball coming. But when you’re dealing with invisible dark matter, it’s more like playing a game blindfolded. Chances are you’re going to miss. But if you let that detector run every day for a couple years, you might just get lucky. “Dark matter is everywhere,” Piro said. “It’s just that it interacts very weakly with regular matter, so we’re expecting only one to three hits a year.” By working on multiple detectors, Piro can maximize her chances of finding dark matter. The different liquid or gas in each machine also gives each one a different competitive edge. NEWS-G for instance is more sensitive to lightweight WIMP particles, while PICO is better at weeding out erroneous signals like gamma rays which can occasionally slip through the kilometers of rock above the lab. She hopes all three will eventually detect a signal of a similar size and weight. That’s when she’ll know she’s found it.
Piro began searching for dark matter as a college student in her twenties when she was first recruited onto the PICASSO project, the PICO project’s earlier incarnation. Now over a decade later, Piro believes we’re closer than ever to unmasking the dark matter enigma. Within the next ten years Piro hopes to have an answer. If dark matter is made of WIMPs, we’ll find it. If not, then we might have spent the last 20 years barking up the wrong tree. “Either we detect it or we don’t,” Piro said. “There’s nothing else we can do.” That’s not to say the hunt will end, but rather physicists might have to reevaluate what they’re hunting for. In the world of particle physics, Piro says anything is possible. Instead of a particle, dark matter may work more like a vector field, similar to how magnetic fields function. Or perhaps it’s a particle with unconventional traits, making it hard to measure through collisions. For instance, in solid state physics where atoms are cooled to temperatures nearing absolute zero, Piro says molecules can begin to move and act in mysterious ways. Even “frozen” solids can start to behave like liquids. Exploring these possibilities will require decades more research and a whole new generation of detectors. But regardless of what we find, Piro says she’ll never stop searching. “What I’m trying to do is to solve the mystery of the universe and our story just isn’t complete without it.” g
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REQUIRED READING
Tiptoeing Out
of the Nest TEXT Étienne Fillion-Sauve
DESIGN Peter Elim
B
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ecoming an adult is an awkward process. It’s something that requires taking on more responsibilities, becoming more independent, and having new life experiences. Therefore, staying at home with your parents in the exact same living situation as when you were a little kid makes it even more of a struggle to become an adult. Nowadays, more and more young adults are staying at home longer, thus making this life experience of living with your parents during early adulthood become all the more common. A big part of transitioning to adulthood is changing the way you interact with those who brought you up, and staying at home can stall that process. As an only child who still lives with their parents, this is something I face every day. Well, most days. I’ve been away from home on a couple of significant occasions, and these have transformed the way I interact with my parents. The first time I left home for longer than a week was to take on a summer job in Jasper National Park. It was a terrific opportunity to make money, gain work experience, make lifelong memories and meet new people. But
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it was also a terrifying opportunity to take on. The evening after my first day at work, my dad and I took a long drive down the Icefields Parkway in an effort to assuage my fears and anxieties about the experiences that lay ahead of me. Although we said very little, it felt good to just hang out with my dad. The piercing light of the setting sun was beautiful on the mountains, and I felt supported just by my dad’s physical presence. I spent four months living in a trailer park with other people who were also working there for the summer. I was working as a guide in Jasper National Park. On top of being in an unfamiliar setting, it was the first time that I really had to balance having a job with looking after myself: cooking, chores, grocery shopping and other “adult” stuff. Even though I have family in Jasper and spent lots of time with them that summer, with suppers on Saturday and borrowing their laundry room, I still spent most of my time either by myself or with my roommates and colleagues. There were hot-bowl suppers, potlucks, and impromptu lakeside jam sessions. The job itself was a blast. I drove around the gorgeous national park and
educated visitors on safe wildlife viewing practices. It felt really rewarding to do: I got to teach people how not to get attacked by a bear, and entertain them in the process. I can think of few better ways of spending a summer. When I got back home just in time for the next fall semester, I had a whole new array of skills to bring to my home and my everyday life. Socializing suddenly felt a whole lot easier, and I connected with people at school like I had never done before. I started writing for The Gateway not long after my return home, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence; before that, I was always too shy to give it a try. Helping around the home became second nature. I found myself cooking more and doing more chores without my parents having to ask me to do them. Driving was less daunting after spending a whole summer using an SUV to corral moose, bears and tourists alike. My relationship with my parents suddenly felt more like one of three adults on the same level of understanding and responsibility, and a whole lot less like one of me depending on them, and them having to provide for me. Of course, I still
REQUIRED READING
PHOTOS COURTESY OF
Étienne Fillion-Sauve
depend on my parents a lot, but it’s less of a big thing now. They don’t need to kick me in the butt for me to make something of myself anymore, and I can be much more direct and serious with them as we talk about the future, while also appreciating the time we have left living together. The second independent experience I had was spending a month studying abroad this summer. I went to Cortona, Italy, to take a course on Italian cinema. Again, this was a time of plenty of “firsts” for me: the first time being in another country by myself for so long, the first time flying outside of Canada by myself, and the first time travelling on my own budget. As someone who’s not a fan of large crowds and unfamiliar situations, the whole trip was an exercise in pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I went on day trips to places like the hilltop town of Orvieto and the sumptuous cathedral of Assisi. The many walks I did on the crooked streets of that hillside village made up for all the carb-heavy pasta dishes, pizzas and paninis I ate during that month. I met new people, some of them fellow U of A students, and others locals or tourists. A retired
couple once paid for my lunch in a cafe, and now I hope that when I’m a retiree one day I’ll get to do the same to some young adult studying abroad. I interacted with the locals by using little more than exaggerated hand gestures and bad Italian, and still managed to have surprisingly good interactions in the process. I looked after myself, my financials and my possessions all relatively well. The fact that I didn’t lose anything is remarkable in itself! I wish I’d brought more clothes though, since I ended up having to wash stuff in my bathroom sink every other night, but at least now I know that for next time. It was all over sooner than I expected, and then I was back home. I watched movies (by myself and with friends), took care of my cats, my backyard and my house, and enjoyed doing hobbies like working out, writing film reviews and baking. It was a nice chill way to spend the remainder of my summer, and one that I wouldn’t have the luxury of taking had I not done that job in Jasper. I’ve had so much support from my parents. Most of everything I’ve done so far in my life and even plan to do in the future, I can trace directly back as being thanks
to them. My parents have been by side this whole time, helping me in every possible way. They listen to me and encourage me to be a better person, while also providing me guidance in doing so. They are my models, my friends, my mentors. These last couple months have been particularly significant since we have all been more or less always at home. It’s given us the chance to spend a lot of time together, and while that has meant that we’ve gotten on each other’s nerves more than once, it’s also meant that we’ve bonded a whole lot. There’s been board games, berry picking, bike rides, movie nights, suppers with other friends, cat-sitting, and so much more. This may be one of the last occasions that we get to be this close-knit of a family, and so I try to appreciate every moment of it: the good, the bad and everything in between. I’ve already got other trips and jobs in mind, so who knows what’s next in my relationship with my mom and dad. All I know is I always want them to be a part of my life. g
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THE STUDIO
REVER R
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TEXT PAULINE CHAN COLLAGE YURI MARQUEZ
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aybe it was in third grade when everyone stared at the lunch box my mom so carefully packed. Was it curiosity? Was it disgust? I don't remember. Maybe it was in seventh grade when my classmates scanned for the closest Asian kid. They wanted a translator for some Chinese characters. I turned the little pictographs upside down, sideways and again. But nothing came to my mind. Was it disappointment? Was it embarrassment? I don't know. Or maybe it was yesterday when we were talking about the festivities of Thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas. Turkey, gravy, and pie. The staples to every holiday meal. Except I've never had a dinner like that before. People would ask me, "Where are you from?" and in my mind I thought about that small town where I was born. It was surrounded by fields of wheat, canola, oats and every other grain you can imagine. Middle of nowhere: a sleepy farmer town in Saskatchewan. But that's not the answer they were looking for. It never is. "No, where are you really from?" Oh. Yes, I'm Chinese, but I'm not from China. I'm from here. The confusion struck them next. I don't say that anymore. Chinese. Canadian. Those are my labels. They were given to me and they are mine to keep. But what do they really mean? What does it mean to be Chinese Canadian? You and I might throw some stereotypes around. Good at math, good at studying, tiger parents, blah blah blah. The jokes aren't funny anymore. We all know stereotypes are merely words used to mock, to generalize, to pick at our very own existence . But if we were to tear down those stereotypes, those misconceptions and those empty jabs, what would we find? At this point in life, I thought I'd be able to figure it out. But there's still no answer. It's constantly changing and its different for every single person. Sometimes, it feels as if I'm switching mask after mask after mask,
desperately searching for the right one. In the end, none of them fit. Other times, it feels like I'm some sort of ambassador. Fancy name for a not so fancy person. I like the idea though. A representative. Among the Canadians, I represent the Chinese. Among the Chinese, I represent the Canadians. I am the coin that never stops flipping. Always looking for the right identity, right time, and at the right place. I am all of them and none of them all at the same time. Chinese. Canadian. I remember sitting among my relatives, quietly, carefully listening. Contaminated with boredom and desperate to catch some words, I was hungry to be included. But when it was my turn to be questioned, I struggled and stumbled through a language that is supposedly mine. Disappointment immediately snapped at my reddened face. My chance was lost, the spotlight was passed to the next contestant. I've lived my life in Canada. I can't speak Chinese without using a few English words here and there. Chinese. Canadian. I remember those Saturday mornings spent in the high school learning Chinese taught by someone's mom. We all obediently repeated the teacher's words then copied and pasted the white board's contents. A small dictatorship in each class. The moment the bell rang, not a whisper of Chinese was heard again. Chinese. Canadian. It's a Tuesday night. I'm scrolling through my feed. Flooded with trash, I continue to keep my eyes glued to the screen. It takes a while before I hit gold. A real chuckle. It's a meme, a terrible one too. In its simplest stupidity, it was a Chinese pun created by someone like me. Broken Chinese within mainstream media. Perfect. Tagged. Chinese Canadian. Time to cook dinner. My comfort food is the same old bowl of rice accompanied with my favourite stir-fry that mom always made. Today, I’m craving the familiar aromas of a home cooked meal. I call home asking for the recipe but the ingredients are as puzzling as my last midterm. I guess it’ll have to wait. Chinese Canadian. It's funny though, who am I kidding? A representative? A bridge between two cultures? More like a broken bridge. Comfort in neither side. But that's okay. To me, that's the definition of me being Chinese Canadian. Never quite Canadian enough, never quite Chinese enough. Chinese-Canadian. g
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ost of us on the University of Alberta campus have grown up intertwined with the internet. We are digital natives; social interaction on the web is just as natural as in-person communication to us. An essential part of our self-understanding as U of A students, then, comes not just from us interacting in physical space — taking classes, participating in extracurriculars, and partying with our pals — but also in the digital space of social media. While the U of A has a plethora of social media pages dedicated to official campus organizations and events, there are a few private U of A pages that serve several purposes: asking questions about registration; sharing unique campus experiences; and even laughing at the U of A itself. How do all these pages operate differently, and how do they create a sense of identity on campus?
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A block away from the Enbridge Centre, I’m grabbing coffee with Ross Lockwood, the man who started one of the biggest U of A social media pages out there. Sitting at a table on a patio enclosed by office buildings, we sip coffee and talk about the origins of Overheard at the University of Alberta. Overheard was started by Lockwood and a few friends back in 2007, back when Lockwood was in his third year of a physics degree and before Facebook allowed photo posts. Inspired by the blog Overheard in New York and the quote wall tradition in Lister, Lockwood says that the group mostly just wanted a fun space for U of A students to talk about the weird and wacky stuff they’d heard on campus. “[Overheard] was initially a small group, so maybe like five people had access to it,” he says. “But we made it public and more people found it useful — it’s a good platform for discussions and things like that.” Due to its public status, the group began to grow very quickly. Overheard now has over 20,000 members, with posts being made daily. Overheard posts are supposed to tackle interesting, odd, or hilarious things overheard or seen on campus. Often this takes the form of text posts recalling snippets of conversation heard in a library; other times it’s bizarre photos of campus happenings.
“if Overheard didn’t exist, where would these people be expressing themselves, and where would that expression be appreciated?”
Lockwood says that one of the reasons the group is great for U of A students is because it allows people to make connections that they may not have the chance to make in person. He cites Ray Dagg, a custodian at the University Station LRT stop, as one of the prime examples. Dagg, who has become a beloved figure in the group, often posts nature photos from around campus, which get a sizable amount of attention. “I think for a lot of people, being able to develop a community without face-to-face interaction is really good,” he says. “My question is, if Overheard didn’t exist, where would these people be expressing themselves, and where would that expression be appreciated?” With the expansion of the group and Facebook adding new features over the years, the strictness of this doctrine has changed a bit. But its core philosophy has remained the same: make posts that are relevant to the U of A community. “Overheard has always [been about] what’s relevant to the university community,” Lockwood says. “Memes might be funny for a subset of people, they might be annoying for another subset, but we really go for, ‘does
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this contribute anything of value to the community at large?’” This value is not just humorous or light-hearted anymore; at times, Overheard has been at the centre of more serious campus going-ons. One such event happened on October 21 2016, when multiple Overheard members began posting anecdotes about a man contemplating jumping off the sixth floor of CCIS (the man was later taken to hospital without injury). The incident, which was still ongoing when the first posts were made, sparked rampant discussion around the man’s motivations, if he was safe, and how mental health is dealt with on campus. For Lockwood and the admin team at Overheard, this was a moment when they realized they needed to step up. They decided to include several campus and Edmonton mental health and distress line services on their page. “We were like, if it’s something that happens on campus and this person didn’t have access to resources, we need to be the place where those resources exist,” Lockwood says. “Where else would somebody look for help? One of the first places that people get introduced to digitally... [at] university, is Overheard.” A year before the CCIS incident, an Overheard post was made about Evan Tran, a U of A student who died by suicide. Tran was well-known on campus; he was a moderator on the Facebook page University of Alberta Compliments, volunteered with the Dean of Students office for their mental health initiatives, was a member of Students’ Council and General Faculties Council, and volunteered for various student groups. The post mentioning Tran has over 1,900 likes. Commenters are gave their condolences, offered solidarity with Tran’s family and other students on campus, and shared links to campus resources. For Overheard admin and recent U of A engineering graduate Subhashis Chikoritaborty, this is one of his favorite moments he’s seen on the page. “The amount of support I saw from faculty, [Tran’s] friends, and everyone who was close... was absolutely incredible,” he tells me. Posts like these, and the reactions they’ve garnered, seem to represent the other side of the discussion space that Overheard is attempting to foster: one that’s not just about funny happenings, but also about vulnerable campus moments and the issues that affect all U of A students. “We want to create a discussion space where people should feel free to discuss [serious] things, [and] I think Overheard can provide that kind of space because it’s high-traffic,” Chikoritaborty says. “If you can share something like that [or] something vulnerable, we try to create a space where people can share those thoughts and feel a bit of comfort.”
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Moving on from Facebook, we come to reddit. More specifically, we come to r/uAlberta, the de-facto subreddit for the U of A community. Founded in 2011 and just over 13,500 members strong, the subreddit is a place for students to ask questions about anything related to their degree, including the quality of certain profs, how to register in certain courses, and what program is best to enroll in. Users have created lengthy guides for various programs and have told varied stories about their U of A experiences; some incredible successes, and some failures as well. u/firesofpompeii, one of the admins of the subreddit and recent graduate from molecular genetics, says that the subreddit is set apart from other social media sites due to two things: its emphasis on anonymity, and its focus on user engagement. “With reddit in general, anyone can post at any time, [and] although there are users who are more wellknown, it’s not like there are popular users who a lot of people follow,” he says. “[Everyone is] at an equal playing field, which you don’t always get with other social media platforms.” The subreddit is not just a place to ask questions. Much like Overheard, r/ualberta has become a locus for campus discussion; unlike Overheard, however, the subreddit’s user anonymity has led to the rise and fall of several trollish characters.
“If you were to sort of say something in a kind of ‘normal’ way, often it doesn’t get much traction on those sites, but if you say it in a more extreme way, you might get more of a reaction.” There’s been a few notorious users on the subreddit who have drawn the ire of many of the subreddit’s frequenters. The most notorious of them all, however, was u/unsunghero. They initially drew the ire of the subreddit by starting a thread called “Am I too Competitive?”. In the thread, they detailed how they would scout out classes considered GPA boosters and ask the professors to curve the class average down, all because they “[wanted] to protect the sanctity of the A grade.” u/unsunghero would continue to troll the subreddit and share many controversial opinions, and soon the moderators of r/uAlberta were getting complaints. They couldn’t do much, however, because u/unsunghero technically wasn’t violating the rules of the subreddit. As long as a user is being civil in expressing their opinion, even if it is one that many people disagree with, the moderators let their posts stand. “We’ve had a lot of users complain about them, that’s why we’ve had to tell them that until they’re attacking
other subscribers then there’s nothing we can really do about it,” u/firesofpompeii says. “We definitely don’t want to censor people.” To anyone who’s spent anytime online, this kind of behaviour isn’t unusual. Johnathan Cohn, an assistant professor in the department of English at the U of A whose research focuses on critical internet studies and digital culture, says that digital spaces often lend themselves to this kind of behaviour. This is both because they’re a relatively safe space to perform different identities and figure out who you are, and because these sites encourage more extreme modes of behaviour. “If you were to sort of say something in a kind of ‘normal’ way, often it doesn’t get much traction on those sites, but if you say it in a more extreme way, you might get more of a reaction,” Cohn says. “So it also sort of encourages people who are more extreme, in one way or another, to interact more, and it discourages people who maybe don’t like that kind of interaction.” Trolls aren’t the only thing that the subreddit occasionally fosters. It has broken out into meme territory as well, creating lore that has arguably given the community its own identity and history beyond being a forum for student questions. The most recent example of such territory is the Ghoul Wars, a saga that began on January 24 2019 with a post by u/lividnaynay that spoke of an experience they had with a particularly unhygienic student. Three days later, u/RogerMooreIsMyDad made a post stating “I swear im (sic) going to buy a costco pack of deodorant and hand it out to all the little engg ghouls running around DICE.” That was enough to set off a dramatized war between the Ghouls and the Resistance. Posts were made detailing battle plans for the war, casualty reports, and the development of ghoul-repellant technology. Dozens upon dozens of these posts sprung up; it felt like an augmented reality game had suddenly began on the subreddit. When I ask u/firesofpompeii about the Ghoul War, he simply laughs; I can practically hear his head shake over the phone. “That kinda made me feel really old, cause I had no idea what was going on,” he says. “I was just kind of a bystander to that.” In his five years as admin, this isn’t the first time u/firesofpompeii has seen events like the Ghoul War arise. Back in 2016, r/uAlberta and r/UCalgary had a meme war, flaming each other in various memes over a period of a few months. Events like this are apparently cyclical on the subreddit; they come and go, cementing themselves as defining moments in the development of the rhetoric and identity of the subreddit. With each of these cycles, r/uAlberta slowly becomes its own community apart from the physical U of A.
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The term “meme” was first coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. For Dawkins, memes are like genes of culture; they are ideas and concepts that spread in communities and get passed down over time. A meme’s fidelity — how well it can retain its original idea as it spreads — varies depending on the specificity of the idea. Oftentimes memes with community-specific ideas don’t travel very far, whiles memes with more generalizable ideas do. This can be seen in the different content U of A-related Instagram meme pages put out. Some pages like @ualberta_memes stick very close to U of A material, with past topics including Konz (a short-lived and universally hated pizza place in the Students’ Union Building), the UASU, and other U of A happenings. Other pages, like @uofaenggmemes seem to take general engineering student memes and put a U of A label on them. “[More generalized memes] translate very broadly but are very weak in their transmission,” Cohn says. “They can be rethought and reused in a lot of ways, but the original meaning or community [from whence the meme came] gets lost very quickly.” @ualberta_memes is the biggest U of A Instagram meme page, having gained over 6,600 followers since its start on February 4 2019. The admin of the page — a third-year kinesiology student who wishes to remain anonymous — tells me over the phone that he started the page as a way to kill boredom. He posted a few memes on that fateful day, and the response he received encouraged him to continue.
“we can either come to school and just clock-in clock-out, or you can look at everything around you and kind of care a little more than you usually do.” @ualberta_memes sources his content from a variety of places. Typically he makes the memes himself and posts them directly to his page, but he also will post submissions and take ideas for memes. The core of his content, in typical internet meme fashion, pokes fun at a group; namely, the various faculties on campus. “A lot of it is just to show that we all have faults and we can all kind of make fun of ourselves to a certain level,” he says. @ualberta_memes feels personally that the U of A lacks a strong sense of culture, given how large the school is and that people from all over the world attend it. Through making posts that highlight universal U of A experiences — like the disaster that was Konz or Lister’s dodgeball culture — @ualberta_memes hopes to help students feel more connected to their campus.
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“You get people [starting] to care a little more about the small things that you see on campus,” he says. “That’s kind of important because we can either come to school and just clock-in clock-out, or you can look at everything around you and kind of care a little more than you usually do.” In this way, students are able to feel more attached to their campus and to each other in more tangible ways; instead of simply proclaiming “I’m a U of A student because I go to the U of A,” students can begin to point out the multitude of small, specific details that make up their campus experience. Another account, @ualbertameme, started just a month after @ualberta_memes. The main admin of the page — a third-year science student who also wished to remain anonymous — was inspired to start his page in a similar way to @ualberta_memes. When sourcing posts for the page, @ualbertameme looks for universal U of A experiences that are easily translatable into memes. The page is run by a small team of about five people, all of whom work on different aspects of the page; some post content, others check analytics, and others handle responding to DMs and comments from followers. Some of the feedback that @ualbertameme has gotten from his followers is that his page’s memes help boost student morale, especially during exam season. In a way, being able to laugh about the experience of being a U of A student helps to bring people together and make student life a little easier. “University is supposed to be a relatively fun experience, although it can get really difficult at times,” he says. “I guess seeing things like memes kind of helps alleviate the pressure or the anxiety that comes with university.” What makes an Instagram meme page different from hanging out on Overheard or r/uAlberta? Both page admins have different answers. For @ualberta_memes, it’s having an anonymous admin post all the memes. He can post memes on behalf of people who are afraid of judgement, and can also act as a scapegoat in case someone gets upset about their faculty being made fun of. “The whole anonymous aspect of me posting, I think, gives people more comfort to comment what they want,” he says. “It doesn’t have to feel like whoever is posting it might be made fun of or might be judged by their friends or something.” For @ualbertameme, it’s the relaxed nature of Instagram pages, which don’t have to have as strict of accountability measures as other platforms. “Certain pages like Overheard, they have to appear [to have] a certain level of responsibility and accountability,” he says. “On meme pages, people can post whatever they want and there wouldn’t really be any repercussions unless it’s a very serious thing.”
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If there’s one thing all of these pages try to do, it’s capture fragments of the U of A student experience and provide a space for them to be disseminated and discussed. With their varying degrees of anonymity, subject matter, and unique rhetoric and rules, each page fills a different niche.
“It’s easy on these sites to feel like you have nothing to contribute and that therefore you’re not part of the community, but that’s the normal situation.” Many of us may feel out of place on these pages; we may lurk instead of post, feeling out of place or feeling like we lack something to contribute. But as Cohn said before, most people who post on these pages are on the hyper end of extroverted, and they likely only make up a small percentage of the group. “If you’re someone in these groups who doesn’t post much and you feel sort of marginal, you are actually the norm,” he says. “It’s easy on these sites to feel like you have nothing to contribute and that therefore you’re not part of the community, but that’s the normal situation.” Lurker or poster, we all can feel more connected to our campus through these pages.They bring us together in times of need, alleviate exam pain, foster discussion about issues on campus, and help us begin to love the little things about being a U of A student. These pages, arguably, are just as integral to being a U of A student as going to class. g
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R E G N DA
DEADL L
TEX T PHO PAYTO T N ART O HELE FERGU DIRE S N CTIO ZHANG ON N P ETE R EL I MA
S U O ER GAINS,
DLY S E S S LO
...while male students gained an average of
8 lbs according to a study from PLOS ONE in July 2019
Female students gained an average of
4 lbs during first year of university in Canada...
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lmost as far back as I can remember, I’ve had issues with food. Whether I was eating too much, too little, or too much junk food, I’ve never quite been able to get the hang of eating a healthy, balanced diet. This wasn’t really an issue for me until recently. I had a fast enough metabolism to keep up with whatever I threw at it, despite the fact that I’m allergic to the gym and I eat worse than anyone I know. However, after some time in university, things are catching up with me in a visible way. The freshman 15 is not a myth. The scientific journal PLOS ONE published a study in July 2019 which concluded that during their first year of university in Canada, female students gained an average of four pounds, while male students gained eight. They also concluded that “during first-year university, both male and female students undergo unfavorable changes in nutrition.” But why is this happening? Shouldn’t a large group of educated, driven young people be able to maintain a healthy lifestyle? There’s more to it than that. Many factors can contribute to weight gain, perhaps most notably poor nutrition and lack of exercise, but there are other culprits too. Stress and sleep loss can also lead to weight gain, as both have been associated with hormonal imbalance and tendency to overeat. Sound familiar? I can’t speak for everyone, but I can honestly say that my first year of university was one of the most stressful years of my life, and I slept less than possibly ever before. During that short year, it can be hard not to feel like the whole universe is conspiring to make you unhealthy. On top of being stressed out and tired all the time, many university students are buying and preparing their own meals for the first time. Figuring out how to make food can be hard in and of itself, let alone making that food healthy. And finding the time to cook wholesome, homemade meals? Forget it. You’ve got enough to worry about with that 3000-word Spanish paper due on Monday! Chelsea Laronde, a fourth-year anthropology student, says she still struggles with making healthy choices on campus, where she has lived in residence since her first year. “A lot of [undergraduates] don’t have a private kitchen they can use, and it’s very time-consuming to
plan healthy meals. I eat the most at Starbucks. After every single class that I have in the same building with a Starbucks, I will go get Starbucks.” She goes on, “It’s probably more expensive to eat out like I do, but for convenience sake it’s worth it.” All of these factors work against students trying to maintain what might’ve been healthy lifestyles. Even going into university with an admittedly unhealthy lifestyle, mine only got worse than it already was. Robyn Adelman, a fourth-year Kinesiology student majoring in physical activity and health, puts much of the blame on the nature of university itself. “University in general isn’t exactly set up for the healthiest of living styles,” she says. “We spend two to eight hours in classes a day sitting, and then the rest of our time sitting and studying… coupled with the lack of healthy options on campus, it can be really difficult to balance your time to grocery shop or prepare meals for yourself.” She’s right. There are many more options for fast food on campus than there are healthy options, and even those are usually further away and more inconvenient to go to. If I have a class in Humanities, I’m far more likely to just grab A&W or Subway from HUB mall than I am to walk to Van Vliet and get Chopped Leaf. Time and a sedentary lifestyle are things many university students tangle with. But even more difficult to balance than those things, perhaps, is money. Yes, the big dollar sign. The age-old struggle between university students and their own empty wallets is wellknown and highly satirized. Even in more serious films, like the recent J.R.R. Tolkien biopic, students grapple nearly constantly with debt, finances, and trying to balance the cost of studying with the cost of living. If you go to school full time, it can be difficult to offset these extra costs with a job. “Most students aren’t working,” Adelman says. “If they are it’s in a really limited capacity, making minimum wage, which is enough for like a meal a day… Like, do I want to sleep and not work tonight? Or do I want to take a student loan out and then have to pay it back?” This is partially true; Statistics Canada posits that over 50 per cent of post-secondary students have jobs, but that number includes freelance and part time work. So while most students are actually working, the perceived full time income still isn’t there. In large part, we can do nothing for the state of our finances. If, like me, students are self-reliant all the way through university, they will invariably face the same question more than once: do I buy the healthier, more
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36% of college students weren't getting enough to eat
study conducted by Temple University and the Wisconsin Hope Lab
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expensive option, or do I choose the unhealthy, less expensive option? Almost every single time, they’re going to choose the cheaper option. If I have to choose between spinach and paying my heating bill, I’m always going to choose heat. This is a common struggle — so common in fact, that it has become a widespread inside joke among students. From personal experience, I can assure you that students don’t want to eat ten-cent ramen noodles for dinner every night, but sometimes we have to. “The college experience is all about junk food,” Laronde says. “All the memes are about college eating, and going home and having a home-cooked meal that isn’t from a can or a plastic package. That’s like the number one thing everybody [makes] jokes about.” But not all of us are gaining a so-called “freshman 15.” Some of us are losing it, and not in a healthy way. A recent study conducted by Temple University and the Wisconsin Hope Lab concluded that 36 per cent of college students in their survey weren’t getting enough to eat. Not eating enough is just as bad — if not worse — than eating too much. But the problem concerning a lack of food doesn’t stop there. College campuses have become well known over the years for being breeding grounds of mental illness. Burgeoning adulthood, frequent drinking, stress, and other factors all contribute to things like a heightened rate of alcoholism, drug addiction, and mood disorders. Alongside all of these is an increased risk for eating disorders.
25 per cent, and 23 to 32 per cent in females during that time. The national rate of anorexia is between 0.3 and one per cent, according to Statistics Canada. There is a huge gap between the national average and the average among university students. It could have something to do with the average age on campus, but it’s likely more than that. Adelman, who opened up about her ongoing struggle with disordered eating, says, “I skipped out on so many family events and social events with my friends. Anything that involved food, I was terrified to go.” She goes on, “I see all these [people], women especially, doing the exact same thing I was [doing] two years ago.” Adelman wonders how the situation got to this point. “Like, none of us are stupid. We’re all in university. We for the most part know what we’re doing.” Laronde describes it more broadly. “I feel like it’s very [true] that a lot of students go through some form of body dysmorphia,” she laughs uncomfortably. Body dysmorphia, or Body Dysmorphic Disorder, is a condition characterized by a strong dissatisfaction with some aspect of how a person looks. Those who are affected often spend hours obsessing over perceived flaws, even when those flaws are so insignificant no one else would ever notice them, or outright imaginary. Depending on the person and which particular flaws they’re obsessed with, body dysmorphia may lead to the development of an eating disorder, and is almost always present in cases where an eating disorder already exists. Having struggled with an eating disorder myself, it was an odd experience walking around campus with so many clearly disordered men and women while I carried a relatively clean bill of health. I suppose it was easier to resist the temptation of falling back into old habits for me because it’s been years since I was labelled “recovered,” but I still felt the pull. It seems like everywhere you go on a college campus, droves of men and women are overeating or obsessively exercising and restricting their calorie intake, and no one intervenes. Perhaps this too has an effect on the sky-high frequency of eating disorders in college students. NEDA says that “screenings for eating disorders on campus are seriously lacking.” In my own experience, despite meeting many individuals who might qualify for having an eating disorder, I have never come across someone who was offered help for it. This might be because of the university’s lacklustre mental health programs, which exist but are inaccessible or unknown to many students (and are always a topic of contention during election season), or because of the stigma surrounding eating disorders in general.
“I skipped out on so many family events and social events with my friends. Anything that involved food, I was terrified to go.” Eating disorders— specifically anorexia nervosa, which causes sufferers to chronically restrict caloric intake and exercise to the point of exhaustion— have long been cited in the DSM-V (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by professionals to diagnose mental illnesses) as the most deadly type of mental illness, with about one in five sufferers dying within 20 years of diagnosis. The National Eating Disorders Association, or NEDA, conducted a survey between 1995 and 2008 to study the prevalence of eating disorders on college campuses. Shockingly, they found that the incidence of anorexia in males increased from 7.9 to
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So time, money, stress, sleeplessness, and mental health all contribute to poor nutrition in university students. But what can we do? How do we fix the unfixable? “I think the biggest thing that will make the biggest difference in someone’s journey is having a supportive network,” Adelman says. “Not all of us have the time to spend in the gym or the money to get a personal trainer or nutritionist. That can be a barrier to access for a lot of people, which sucks, but there’s tons of information online, and it’s just about making a commitment to yourself.” “There are a bunch of affordable options on campus in terms of physical activity,” Adelman goes on, “but the awareness on campus of those opportunities isn’t super well-known. Your gym membership in VVC is included in your tuition for most students.” Many students seem to be sacrificing their physical and mental health in favour of their grades, which isn’t good, but it is understandable. Tuition is the highest it’s ever been. According to Statistics Canada, in the 2018/2019 academic year, tuition increased for Canadian students 2.4 per cent on average. Canadian undergrads pay an average of $6,463 per year and international undergrads pay $17,744. Most of us can’t afford to waste our time here. Even drug abuse has become a meme among students. Adderall, a synthetic mood-stabilizing drug, has been used so frequently to combat sleep deprivation and
inability to concentrate that TV shows have written it into their storylines. grown-ish, a spinoff of the popular sitcom black-ish, prominently featured the main character’s struggle with the drug during its first season. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse conducted a 2013 study which found that youth (15 to 24 years of age) had the highest prescription stimulant use in Canada, at 2.6 per cent, compared to the general population average of 0.9 per cent. Additionally, the spring 2013 National College Health Assessment Survey found that 3.7 per cent of Canadian university students had used stimulants for non-medical reasons in the past 12 months. While that study was not representative of all students in Canada, other studies conducted on individual campuses have found that up to 5.9 per cent of the student population engage in these behaviors. Ironically, being an amphetamine, Adderall is also an appetite suppressant whose chief side effect is weight loss. The list of problems students face when trying to maintain or gain health only gets longer the more you think about it. First it was only unhealthy eating, then lack of exercise and sleep, then increased risk of eating disorder and now amphetamine abuse? How can we solve all these issues? It just isn’t that simple. All of these problems on their own are complex, and require many steps to right. When combined, they’re like a hurricane of poor health and nu-
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3.7% of Canadian university students had used stimulants for non-medical reasons 2013 National College Health Assessment Survey
trition that students are lucky to escape alive. It’s a loselose situation; you take care of your health while your grades suffer, or your health suffers while you watch over your grades. If you try to take care of both, it isn’t long before you burn out and both health and grades suffer. I strongly agree with Adelman’s assessment that we need better support networks. Students are often away from home for the first time in their lives, their only company being other students who are trying to find the same balance as them. We need to provide more support to them, because they clearly and statistically need the help.
“All of these problems on their own are complex, and require many steps to right. When combined, they’re like a hurricane of poor health and nutrition that students are lucky to escape alive.” “You need to do well in your studies,” Adelman says, “but it’s often at the detriment of your physical and mental health, which are very closely tied.” So we’re still between a rock and a hard place.
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Despite all the grim statistics and issues students are facing down in the modern age, there is hope. Many universities, one being Guelph, have created student support groups on campus for people who might be struggling with their mental or physical health. The University of Alberta has the Sexual Assault Centre, which helps to relieve yet another issue in the maze that is the student experience. If you ever find yourself struggling to afford meals, the Campus Food Bank is also a wonderful place to go, and the Peer Support Centre, as the name suggests, offers peer support, crisis management, and is a place where students can go if they just need to talk. Though we are working towards easier navigation of college life, we still have a long way to go until we are healthy, happy human beings. Until then, the best we can do is strive to be better than we have been. Take the stairs, go for a walk, swap out your Starbucks coffee for a bag of carrots. If you have, or are even suspicious you’ve developed an eating disorder, you should speak with a healthcare professional. Friends and family are important support pillars too, no matter how far away they live. Chances are that they care enough to help you get help. If you feel your health is in danger, you shouldn’t be afraid to take steps to improve it. Ultimately, our health is our own responsibility, and we need to take control of it before it can begin to get better. g
DIVERSIONS
HOROSCOPES TEXT TINA TAI VISUALS PETER ELIMA
ARIES
TAURUS
GEMINI
You’re baby.
You are extremely warm and nurturing, but you can be... bullheaded, especially when hangry. Please have a Snickers.
Stop starting 38763271 projects simultaneously and then end up not finishing a single one. Focus your energy on a select few important things and really pursue them.
CANCER You’re either breaking into people’s houses to feed them or because you’re suspicious and need to find dirt on them. Either way, stop doing that!
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DIVERSIONS
LEO
VIRGO
LeOs aRE tHe BeST. Sorry, I can’t write a roast for Leos because y’all will get mad at me.
LIBRA
You is organized. You is hardworkLibras are the people who say ing. You is a bit of a control freak; “I don’t know, what do you please have a breather. Learn to slow want?” when you ask them what down a bit and find time to take care they want to eat. Go with your of yourself, or you’ll find a Cancer gut and stick with that choice. breaking into your house to feed you.
SCORPIO Scorpi-o-no. It’s OKAY for people to know the more vulnerable side of you. It will not make you look weaker to anyone else.
SAGITTARIUS
CAPRICORN
AQUARIUS
PISCES
Listen. I know that 4000 word research paper is looming over your head and it’s stressing you out. Do NOT buy that ticket to Mexico to escape your problems.
You’re the absolute worst when it comes to gossip. When a friend goes to you with some delicious, steaming tea, you offer a mundane, simple solution that brings it down to lukewarm. Next time, have a biscuit and enjoy the tea.
You’re the people who refer to red as ““blood-orange.”” It’s okay to not be #edgy #unique #different all the time. Relax and be yourself.
Pisces are moody and sensitive; channel your idealistic worldview into positive energy working towards what is morally just. g
GET YOUR TICKETS ONLINE
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uOFa student account manager Student Account Manager provides students access to their free tickets for Golden Bears & Pandas regular season conference events as well as their University of Alberta student pricing for conference playoff events. Students will be able to redeem and manage their tickets on their mobile device or desktop computer.
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CROSSWORD TEXT & PUZZLE HARMON TAMURA ACROSS 4. Turn back your clocks to save this 6. Suburban drivers will move their parked cars upon seeing this message on ETS busses 7. These get spookier (i.e. gross) if you don’t clean them up after Halloween 11. Not nearly as romantic as a rainstorm and infinitely colder 12. With Thanksgiving done and Christmas still a ways off, you have a break from these people 13. Avid supporters of raising awareness for men’s health issues will be sporting one of these this month
DOWN 1. The color of this annual Friday sale 2. This November birth flower is derived from the ancient Greek for gold flower 3. Originally written for American Thanksgiving, this carol was later stolen by Christmas 5. The day after Halloween, this Mexican holiday honours the deceased 8. Now that Halloween is over, get this on sale now in preparation for the Christmas season 9. Some prospective authors spend this month writing one of these as part of an internet writing tradition 10. This species of fish return to their place of birth with incredible accuracy in order to mate 14 This mineral is a rare similarity between November and the state of Utah
Find answers on our website, gtwy.ca
Student Admission: $10 ($8 Matinée) Metro Cinema is a community-based non-profit society devoted to the exhibition and promotion of Canadian, international, and independent film and video. metrocinema.org Assholes: A Theory NOV 15 @ 9:30PM, NOV 17 @ 9:30PM Inspired by the NYT bestselling book, this lively philosophical investigation into the rise of asshole behaviour across the world asks: What does it mean to be an asshole, and more importantly, how do we stop their proliferation?
Under the Skin November 20 @ 7PM Disguising itself as a human female, an extraterrestrial drives around Scotland attempting to lure unsuspecting men into her van. Once there, she seduces and sends them into another dimension where they are nothing more than meat.
The Irishman
Opens November 21 This biographical crime thriller follows Frank Sheeran as he recalls his past years working for the Bufalino crime family. Now older, the WWII veteran reflects on his most prolific hits and, in particular, considers his involvement with his good friend Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance in 1975.
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Metro Cinema at the Garneau 8712-109 Street | metrocinema.org
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The Fat Tire Vegabond Enters the Mountain of Madness
Jack Stewardson
What is this? Panic in the Face of the Fat Tire Vegabond? Few things could cause such duress. For Instance...
... a renegade, Arctic Thunder Lizard!!!
Compelled by the Cave’s Mystic Properties, Our Hero pushes ahead.
my only chance is in that precarious cavern!
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But is this Joy genuine? And Whose fruit boots lay at her feet? Continued next month!
Congrats Vegabond! You’ve found me... eternal Joy!
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we’ll print
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Lower Level Students’ Union Building subprint.ca