SG? Never heard of 'em

BEN NGUYEN Managing Editor

Students have long stopped caring about Student Government, and with the conclusion of this spring’s elections, it doesn't look like student government cares about themselves either.

Oh, haven’t you heard? The Student Gov- ernment elections took place about a month ago, from March 28 to March 30. You can be forgiven for potentially missing out on the elections, as even though a reminder was pumped into every student’s email multiple times, less than 5,000 students voted for representatives for the “important” positions of all the various senators, the president and the vice president. If you didn't, you're part of the 80% of students who didn't notice or care.

This issue of apathy is so long-running, this isn’t even the first Mercury op-ed to mention it. Seven years ago, former editor-inchief Esteban Bustillos wrote a heartfelt plea to the student body to start caring about Student Government. After attending a Student Government debate in the Student Union that was largely ignored in favor of pool games and conversations, Bustillos said that The Mercury would support the candidates, even though they didn’t endorse any.

“That will sometimes mean praise, that will sometimes mean criticism. But more than anything, it means caring. Unfortunately, it sometimes feels like we’re some of the only people who do,” Bustillos said.

Seven years later, it almost feels like betrayal of that legacy for me to not care at all about SG. But if I didn't get drafts in my inbox about once a month with the SG report, not even I would be able to really tell you that SG exists.

This is largely because Student Government doesn’t do itself any favors. The meetings may be open, but who would want to attend them? Isn’t the whole point of electing a representative being that the students then don’t have to spend a significant time thinking about issues? There are no posters about significant meetings or resolutions, only eight tweets this semester and other social media posts were mostly about elections or events that SG happened to help organize. How are people supposed to know what this organization does?

Times have changed. In order to connect with the student population and learn what they want, they have to leverage social media and in-person events. It's not 1992 or 2016: a recurring writeup in The Mercury is not

SEE SG, PAGE 8

'Seconds' highlights dangers of obsessing over past mistakes

better way to move on from it.

SIHANYA ROCHA Mercury Staff

Many of us wish we had the power to go back and change things. “Seconds” by Bryan Lee O'Malley explores that natural urge to alter past regrets, with the twist that our protagonist uses the powers of a house spirit to go back and change those small regrets we all obsess over. There are greater consequences to getting a do-over, however, showing that facing the aftermath a of a bad decision might be the

“Seconds” follows a talented young chef named Katie, who runs a successful restaurant and is pursuing her dream of opening another one where she’s head owner. Despite things going well for her, as always, life happens. Progress on the new business starts to get delayed, her ex-boyfriend reappears, the fling she's been having with another chef starts to go downhill and to top it all off one of her waitresses gets badly hurt due to said fling. If there were ever someone needing a do-over, Katie was it.

Now, here is where things get interesting. In the middle of night after the incident with the waitress, a mysterious girl appears to give her a chance for redemption. Yet, as we see Katie and the mysterious girl—who turns out to be a house spirit—start to develop a tumultuous back-and-forth relationship, we learn that there are rules to the magic where this “second chance” comes from, and Katie quickly gets in the habit of abusing it. By using the folklore of house spirits as the vessel for this time-altering magic, O'Malley creates a situation where we are made to see how our actions and decisions don’t just affect ourselves but also those around us in ways we might never