January 30, 2012

THE Varsity

Vol. CXXXII, No. 17

University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

Special Investigative REPORT

Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

Club withdraws from BlackBerry-sponsored scholarship Student raises concerns over privacy and marketing strategies of promotional company Campus Perks Sunnie Huang and Akihiko Tse VARSITY STAFF

Advertised as a scholarship opportunity, a contest launched by a company aimed at enhancing student life has one U of T group questioning its practices, citing misleading information and privacy concerns.

Seher Shafiq, representative of student organization Pakistan Development Fund (PDF), was approached by Campus Perks via email last October to participate in its BlackBerry Messengers Challenge. She and her team dropped out of the semester-long contest five weeks later.

Campus Perks, founded two years ago, is described by president Dave Wilkin in The Sudbury Star as “one of the largest youth experiential social media marketing agencies in Canada.”

The Research In Motion-sponsored contest awards students $4,000 that would go toward charities or causes of their choice. To

win, participants from 16 universities nationwide must complete six challenges.

Shafiq, a fourth-year student majoring in international relations and ethics, society, and law, was unaware that the challenges required contestants to wear BlackBerry shirts, pose with BlackBerry Messengers (BBM) signs and create BlackBerry cheers.

“People started asking, ‘Is this even allowed?’ and I thought, ‘This is advertising, how did we not see this before?’” she said.

Campus Perks is a subsidiary of marketing firm Redwood Strategic, which connects corporate sponsorships with student networks. Virgin Mobile, Loblaw’s, Domino’s Pizza and Microsoft are among Redwood Strategic’s clients.

“Redwood Strategic is [their] other name, hidden from students and only given to corporations,” Shafiq said.

Sabah Khan, PDF member and

30 January, 2012

Shafiq’s teammate, echoed her concerns.

“We had very little say on how we wanted to do things,” she said. “It was just BlackBerry, BlackBerry, BlackBerry. It was a little overpowering.”

The organizer marked contestants on their ability to create student life and social media buzz.

The Varsity obtained copies of the contest rules for challenges two and five. Some of the judging criteria are the number of effective uses of program-specific hashtags on Twitter, such as #BlackBerry or #BBMessenger; the number of effective uses of online tagging, such as @BlackBerry or @CampusPerks; the ability to creatively incorporate BlackBerry as a sponsor of the event; and the ability to motivate BlackBerry users to use their smartphones during the event.

Groups could earn bonus marks for challenge two by creating a “cool jingle for BlackBerry,” to “get your whole crew to thank BlackBer-

ry for providing this opportunity.”

Other criteria include creative methods to distribute promotional items and to promote events outside of social media.

“So the whole competition is pretty much how well you can advertise BlackBerry,” said Shafiq.

Another reason for PDF’s departure from the contest was the privacy concerns that arose during one of the challenges.

In challenge five, teams were given a kit containing five BlackBerry phones with SIM cards (one Bold and four Curves) and other promotional items like t-shirts, headbands, and lanyards.

Shafiq said she was told to keep the Bold and distribute the remaining four Curves to her supporters.

According to her, the smartphones came in sleeves instead of boxes and “all the pieces were mixed up.”

Continued ON P3

That’s the ticket: Kicking OFF ELECTION SEASON see p3 UTSU responds to budget allegations see p7 a novel nightmare: colson whitehead speaks see p12 andrei yudin’s chemical concoctions see p16 three’s company: the blues’ forward line see p19

2

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VARSITY NEWS

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Behind the Scenes:

Meet Minora Coutinho We sit down with a UC cafeteria staff member Joan Sullivan It takes a lot of effort to keep a campus as big as U of T running smoothly. Behind the scenes, staff members work hard every day to provide essential services to students and faculty.

Meet Minora Coutinho, a member of the University College cafeteria staff. She works Tuesday to Saturday at the Morrison Hall cafeteria to keep UC students well-fed to tackle their long school days.

Cafeteria work is far from easy, but Coutinho’s cheerful disposition is contagious. She makes sure to greet her job and everyone she meets with a big smile.

Seven years ago, an internet job search led her to her current position. In her native India, she specialized in wedding cake design, giving her great preparation for the culinary job.

Most of the time, Coutinho works at the cafeteria’s hot table. On Saturdays, she assists the chef with food preparation.

A dedicated Catholic and philanthropist, Coutinho is active in her church where she volunteers her wedding cake design skills and provides communion to senior citizens in their homes on Sundays.

Before coming to Canada, she was a volunteer in Bombay, India.

She worked with Mother Theresa to provide poverty relief services, an experience she says affected her very deeply.

“Mother Theresa was such a powerful, amazing person,” she says.

“When she gave me her blessing it was a very special moment for me.”

She also met Pope John Paul II when he travelled to India in 1985.

Her meetings with both figures convinced her of the need to continue their philanthropic work.

Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

“I would like to continue to do volunteer work in India,” she says.

“My heart goes out to all of the poor children there, I want to do something.”

Despite the demands of her job, Coutinho enjoys interacting with students on a daily basis.

“I love working with the students,” she says. “They are always smiling and are so nice. I love talking with them and seeing them everyday.”

Coutinho has formed meaning-

ful relationships with UC students over the years. Many bring her cards and presents during the holidays, and some even return for visits after graduation.

“Just today, a student came back from out of town to visit and surprised me with a hug. It is always so nice when students remember us after they’ve graduated,” she says.

When she isn’t working hard in UC, Coutinho, a single mother, devotes her time to her daughter, 16,

son, 15, and her 85-year-old mother.

Like most full-time cafeteria employees, she goes on vacation for three months each summer. Coutinho prefers to spend her downtime camping and at the cottage with her loved ones.

Life in Canada has not been easy, Coutinho admits. However, she works hard every day to help her kids through school.

“Canada is not home, and I have gone through a lot of hardships here,” she said. “But I always make

sure I am wearing a smile!”

As much as she enjoys her work and values her relationships with UC students, she doesn’t plan on remaining in Canada forever.

Ultimately, her true calling is community service.

“Right now, I just work and live for my kids. When they can stand on their own feet, I will go back to India,” says Coutinho, talking about future plans. “I just want to go and continue Mother Theresa’s work there.”

Negotiations underway for food workers’ union Union lobbies for collective agreements with U of T to strengthen workers’ benefits Jennifer Gosnell VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Negotiations are underway to reach a collective food service agreement between U of T St. George, UTSC, and York University on the one hand and UNITE HERE Local 75, the union that represents foor service workers across the city, on the other.

Although the universities are at different phases in their dealings with the union, UNITE HERE Local 75 is revising workers’ rights across the board to include better wages and improved benefits. Union workers are also in talks with food service providers Aramark and Compass in an effort to reach fur-

ther agreements.

The Scarborough campus is currently engaged in deliberations with UNITE HERE and Aramark. Talks have been in progress for over a year and have since enlisted the aid of a Ministry of Labour conciliator to mediate the discussions.

U of T St. George and York University have also requested to rework collective agreements with corporations Aramark and Compass and are expected to begin negotiations within the next few weeks.

Amarjeet Kaur Chhabra of UNITE HERE Local 75 says that based on the union’s record with hotels and other food service industries, an agreement with the universities is achievable.

“We are hopeful that we can ar-

rive at new collective agreements that strengthen campus food service jobs as good jobs with decent wages and benefits,” said Chhabra in an email to The Varsity.

“We are at different stages in the bargaining process at the campuses, and it is our intention to bargain in good faith with the objective of achieving an agreement that works for everyone,” said Nicole Kennedy, Aramark’s communications director.

The current issue up for discussion between the parties is that of workers’ benefits. “We are fighting to improve these jobs so that they are jobs that can allow the workers to live with dignity,” said Chhabra.

The increase in the benefits to be

achieved from these negotiations could have great impact on the lives of service workers. Since most of these jobs pay close to minimum wage, every gain is significant.

Food workers have long played an essential role on U of T campuses and “are very proud of their work serving the university community and fulfilling a mission within the broader community,” continued Chhabra.

Furthermore, some critics suggest that the universities’ students can play an integral role in lobbying for the rights of food service workers. Sabina Freiman wrote in an article for the January 19 issue of The Strand that “the issue of fair working conditions spreads be-

yond the workers and should raise awareness to the injustices that happen on our campus.”

Compass Group Canada, and their division of Chartwells, which provides the food services to St. Michael’s College of U of T, commented, “We respect the right of our associates to be represented by a union and look forward to commencing the bargaining process.”

They declined further discussion regarding their camp’s perspective on the process of the negotiations.

Negotiations have been progressing between Aramark, Compass, and the Union for most of this past year and are expected to be resolved through Ministry of Labour arbitration.

VARSITY NEWS

Continued From P1

Furthermore, when turned on, all the Curves displayed messages reading, “Engineering use only” and “Not for sale or lease.”

“An initiative meant to improve student experience and make life easier for students essentially screwed me over big time.”

The Curve recipients reported finding automatically generated emails in the devices’ sent mail folder titled “Quincy Report.” The emails were sent to an email address at rim.net at regular intervals. The other users who received the Curves did not wish to comment.

The Varsity obtained a copy of a Quincy Report sent out by one of the four Curves. Among other information, the report shows how many emails, text messages, and multimedia messages were sent and received; how many BlackBerry Messenger PINs were sent and received; how many times each key was pressed; personalized device settings such as backlight

brightness and backlight time-out; current network and country code.

The Quincy Report, a debugging tool, is used in beta versions of BlackBerry software by developers at RIM. It is not for general public use.

“It’s possible that even debugging info could have some privacy concerns,” said U of T computer science professor Graeme Hirst, adding that many applications log information without users’ full knowledge. “This is just one instance of a rather more general issue.”

Wilkin declined to comment on his awareness of the Quincy Report issue concerning the giveaway devices. He said students could contact Campus Perks for any sponsorship product malfunctions.

RIM told The Varsity that Shafiq’s team was unintentionally given test units from their inside pool and it would contact Campus Perks to replace them with retail units.

All four Curve recipients have since stopped using the devices.

According to Shafiq, event requirements weren’t disclosed until a few days before the event itself.

For Challenge Two, Campus Perks staff emailed Shafiq with details on November 3. It outlined that the event must be hosted within a two-week time frame, starting November 7, which Shafiq said was overwhelming.

In her withdrawal email sent to Campus Perks last November, she claimed that the contest’s demanding nature caused her distress and interfered with her master’s application.

“An initiative meant to improve student experience and make life easier for students essentially screwed me over big time,” she wrote.

Wilkin said complaints like Shafiq’s were rare and called it an isolated incident.

“The world of being a student is you have so many things you can get involved in. You just have to choose what activities are best for you,” he

monday, January 30, 2012

Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

news@thevarsity.ca

said. “With anything we offer to students, you can opt in just as easy as you opt out.”

Wilkin mentioned that he could relate to Shafiq as he was involved with many extracurricular activities as an undergrad in the University of Waterloo. Now 23, the former biochemistry student is the secondyoungest person to make it to Profit Magazine’s Top 20 Entrepreneurs

That’s the ticket!

Under 30 list.

The Campus Perks website shows that over 25 student groups across three U of T campuses have worked with the company to promote student organizations. Some offered positive reviews of the company and its sponsorship opportunities.

Mehria Karimzadah, cofounder of the Digital Enterprise Management (DEM) Society at U

with associate news editor

of T Mississauga, was pleasantly surprised when Campus Perks sent a Smoke’s Poutinerie truck to help attract an audience to her event.

“It’s definitely beyond sponsorship,” said Karimzadah, who signed up for the BlackBerry Messengers Challenge but wasn’t selected. She believes that the reward is worth the effort. “$4000 is a lot of money, especially for a student group,” she said. “Our university doesn’t give us much money. Working hard for money is not a problem.”

The winner of the contest is Step Crew, a dance club from Queen’s University. The $4,000 prize would go to an afterschool dance program at Youth Diversion, a Kingstonbased alternative education program that provides services to expelled or suspended public school students, according to club’s website.

Although many university students have come across Campus Perks’ campaigns – mostly through Facebook and Twitter sharing – U of T spokesperson Laurie Stephens said its activities are not known to the administration.

“Independent campus groups sometimes enter into agreements with third parties, but because of the independent nature of these agreements, we aren’t necessarily able to vet the third parties,” wrote Stephens in an email to The Varsity.

Khan described her brief time in the contest as a learning experience. She cautioned future contest participants to carefully read the fine print.

“I don’t think it’s wrong for [Campus Perks] to be doing this but they have to tell us in advance,” she said, adding that she was uncomfortable that they didn’t disclose the full details of the kinds of events contestants were supposed to hold.

Shafiq echoed these views.

“I just felt like it wasn’t what my club or I myself stood for,” she said.

Simon Bredin

Can anyone give pro-CFS candidates a run for their money?

That’s the ticket! will be a weekly column covering UTSU elections this spring. For more on opposition slates since Change in 2008, be sure to check out next week’s issue.

*** As election season draws near, the modest beginnings of an opposition campaign have begun to appear around campus and on the Internet.

If recent history is any indication, there’s no reason to believe that Stop the Salaries will succeed — not for a lack of effort, but because for years, no opposition team has managed to break a long-standing pattern of incumbency at the UTSU. The last four years have seen three UTSU presidents, all with close connections to the CFS: Sandy Hudson, Adam Awad, and current officeholder Danielle Sandhu.

Each successive president has been inculcated to student politics

under the prior administration; all have known each other personally for years. After her second term, Hudson went on to become the chairperson of CFS-Ontario.

Awad has since been hired as the national deputy chairperson. In short, the UTSU has proven to be fertile ground for CFS recruitment, and previous executives have been known to return to campaign for their successors.

Although all three candidates have publicly objected to the use of the term “incumbent,” there is an undeniable coherence to their actions while in office and in their political ideologies. No candidate in memory has been able to win executive office at the UTSU on an anti-CFS platform.

This status quo has not been without its challengers. In 2008, a group known as Change slate ran the most effective opposition campaign to date. Change came within a few hundred votes of the presidency and several vice-presi-

dential offices. Its well-organized and highly visible campaign came during the perfect storm of popular discontent with certain UTSU activities.

Hudson, a two-term president first elected in March 2007, had made a handful of radical decisions that divided opinion on campus.

Controversial decisions made under Hudson included the denial of club recognition and funding for pro-life groups, the provision of funding for buses to and from events for Israeli Apartheid Week, and contentious requests for the use of student funds towards legal costs accrued from the arrest of then-executive director Angela Regnier.

Change almost certainly benefitted from the widespread negative reaction against the Fight Fees 14 during the previous year.

The disconnect between UTSU advocacy and the opinions of the student body at large had never

been more clear.

Ultimately, however, Hudson prevailed over Change’s Jason Marin.

Also aiding Change was the fact that many of its candidates were former UTSU officers and volunteers. Prior experience within the union helped the slate navigate the byzantine electoral rules, an area where later candidates would encounter significant difficulties. Change candidates were carefully vetted and strategically chosen to tap into demographics that tend not to vote in campus elections, such as the engineering faculty.

Although Change reprised its campaign in March 2010 under the leadership of Steve Masse, it was not nearly as successful. That year, Adam Awad was elected by a generous margin. He presided over a relatively benign administration, and at the end of his term, Sandhu and the rest of her slate cruised to victory essentially un-

3

opposed.

Like Awad, Sandhu has maintained a fairly non-controversial profile while in office.

Today, only senior undergraduate students can recall the Fight Fees 14 and the 2008 election from their first year. As the memory of Change fades, subsequent opposition groups have been unable to recapture the same energy that nearly propelled the team to victory.

The most important question for this year’s election is whether nascent opposition groups like Stop the Salaries will manage to tap into these masses of the politically uninitiated. The bulk of undergraduates on campus today have not experienced a full-on confrontation between supporters and detractors of the UTSU and CFS. If groups like Stop the Salaries fail to rally support among these younger students, Sandhu’s successors too will enjoy a cakewalk to office.

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VARSITY NEWS

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War Child surveys humanitarianism Speakers call for greater transparency, innovation Irina Vukosavic VARSITY STAFF

Last Thursday, War Child hosted a sold-out event entitled “The Future of Aid: Our Shared Responsibility” with students, community members, and faculty packing Isabel Bader theatre.

Co-hosted by the Canadian Council of International Cooperation (CIC), the event profiled leading humanitarians.

“In the most basic sense, aid is only one thing: hope. Through collective action we can begin to

mould prosperity from the ashes,” said Dr. Samantha Nutt, founder and executive director of War Child and the author of Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies and Aids in her opening address. She also emphasized the continued importance of aid, calling out political and corporate interests that threaten local communities.

“Aid is not about the rich giving charity to the poor. It is about building relationships with communities so that they can help themselves and become autonomous in the future,” stated Biju Rao, lead econo-

mist in the development research group of the World Bank.

The speakers stressed that aid should be an internal income at the local level to generate local capacity. Rao was also critical of conventional aid organizations that apply the same model of humanitarianism across all povertystricken countries.

Sylvester Bagulo Bayowo, a senior Ghanaian government official, added that countries have their own aspirations and that aid should build on existing institutions.

“Imagine some foreign power

came to Toronto and told everyone what to do and how to spend their money. I’m sure citizens would not be enthusiastic to conform, so why apply this model to third-world countries?” questioned Bayowo.

Panelists also argued for increased public consultation and greater transparency. The consensus was that organizations should also focus on better informing Canadians about where and how their money is being used. Nutt also added that there is an overall lack of public interest in foreign affairs.

Rao argued that small organizations are more flexible and can afford to be experimental.

These kinds of groups are freer to innovate, and when they suc-

ceed, larger organizations should follow their lead and apply their ideas on a larger scale.

At the end of the panel discussion, the experts turned their attention to the audience, speaking about how individual students can contribute to humanitarian work.

“You don’t necessarily have to be an aid worker. There are many other small-scale ways to get involved.

You can make demonstrations in your local neighbourhoods, publish newspaper articles, or make petitions,” said Sasha Lezhnev, policy consultant at Enough and executive director of the Grassroots Reconciliation Group.

Nutt also added that students don’t need to get on a plane and pay for an expensive trip to get involved.

She stressed working with local humanitarian groups as a fundamental step in becoming an activist.

News in brief On your marks. Get set. Strip.

Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

On January 26, University College students literally gave the shirts off their backs while participating in the first annual UC Undie Run Challenge. Students raced around campus in their underwear, through public buildings and city streets. All donated clothing went to Youthlink City Drop In Centre.

Madison Kurchik, who organized the event as part of the UC Lit Social Commission, hopes to get U of T certified as an official Undie Run school, in the hopes that this would connect us to campuses all across North America in the fight against poverty.

—Emma Jones

Two UTSC students robbed, assaulted U of T Scarborough Campus Police announced that two students were assaulted last Wednesday evening near the H-Wing patio.

The suspects, two black males around 20 years of age wearing black hoodies, are still at large.

The suspects assaulted the students and robbed them of their cellphones and wallets.

Neither victim was seriously injured, but police are asking anyone with information regarding the incident to contact the Toronto Police Service Division at 416-808-4300.

Police also advised students to remain vigilant about personal safety in a press release circulated around campus.

—Marie-Violette Bernard

Food trucks descend on St. George campus Willcocks Street was transformed last Thursday afternoon into a food truck alley as Food Truck Eats: The U of T Edition served delicious food to hordes of hungry students.

The first-time event was organized by UeaT representatives Sarah Kahn and Suresh Doss, whose social media campaign via Twitter and Facebook brought over 1,000 foodies out to sample the treats.

“It is nice to see the city, and especially the younger generation, embracing street food culture in Toronto,” said food blogger Joel Salish on the Toronto Food Truck website.

Despite the great turnout, some attendees were disappointed since popular trucks like Cupcake Diner sold out minutes after they opened.

—Georgia Williams

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Professors gradually embrace social media Experiments with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr well-received by students Morgaine Craven VARSITY STAFF

A whole new facet of learning is being introduced to postsecondary classrooms.

Most professors have strayed from using chalk and blackboard for some time, in exchange for projectors to display lecture slides, or even clips from YouTube. But now, in an effort to encourage deeper involvement and learning for students, many professors have begun to integrate new media into their lectures.

In many classes, students can now watch lectures online and participate in class discussions on Facebook, Twitter, or even microblogging site Tumblr. They can retrieve course material and supplementary readings without having to enter the classroom.

“The web option is really inventing the future,” says Brian Sutherland, a professor at UTM and educational technology administrator for UTSC. “What’s exciting is we can’t know what the benefit is, since it hasn’t really been tried before.”

You could say the classes are in beta testing.

By embracing social media that students have traditionally used as a distraction from tedious lectures, professors have discovered a new and successful way of extending learning outside of class hours.

“I do use Twitter quite a lot to circulate research ideas and com-

municate with students,” Sutherland says. “Social media is a really powerful communications phenomenon that can’t be ignored. These tools have the potential to amplify any message to the entire world if it resonates with people.”

Professors can also send students updates on class cancellations, projects, guest lecturers and learning opportunities like live-chatting with an author in another country.

American literature professor Ira Wells runs a Tumblr for his ENG365 Contemporary American Fiction course.

Wells posts ideas and thoughts about lectures, projects, and a music list that he feels complements the readings. He recently hosted a live-chat with Danielle Dutton, whose novel, Sprawl, is on the class syllabus.

“I would never have found the money to fly her to Toronto and facilitate a conversation, so the live-blogging experience turned out to be ideal,” Wells says. “Every student in the class could interact with the author in real time. It was a unique experience.”

Although the use of Tumblr is a bit atypical, many professors will now post lecture slides or audio recordings of their classes, as well as readings and assignments online.

Kiera Tremblay, who endures a two-hour commute to UTSC, is appreciative of the option for online coursework.

“It helps save me time and mon-

ey, and it gives everyone a chance to stay up-to-date on everything the class is doing and any changes to the course or assignments,” she says. “This leaves nothing to chance in case you miss a class one day and miss an important announcement.”

Sutherland suggests that having coursework online causes students to spend more time with the material, which in turn helps students improve in class.

“Lecture recordings allow students to review the academic narrative multiple times, pause, repeat, reflect and take time to really think and synthesize their experiences — what educators call the ‘deep learning,’” he says.

However, not all professors are as willing to embrace media integration into classrooms.

“I had a professor for three of my classes who hated using projectors and lecture slides,” says U of T student Gillian Worton-Scott. “A lot was missed because he moved quickly from topic to topic, and they were difficult concepts to grasp.”

Other professors prohibit the use of laptops in their lectures or won’t use Blackboard.

Ignoring the integration of new media, however, might mean missing out on huge potential for heightened learning, Wells says.

“It just makes sense to extend our classroom conversations into other corners of our lives. Thinking doesn’t stop when the bell rings.”

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Comedic or offensive?

Play’s logo removed to avoid racial controversy Dalana Parris ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

A comedic logo meant to unite Black and Jewish cultures was not entirely humourous for U of T’s Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office.

Through a series of satirical skits, The Black-Jew Monologues debuted at Hart House Theatre last Wednesday, igniting discussions of cultural expression and identity.

However, the Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office consulted the U of T community regarding the poster for the event, fearing backlash for the logo’s racial provocativeness.

The Black-Jew Monologues uses strong language, stereotypes and racism to highlight the absurdity

and similarity of injustices that have plagued these two minority groups.

As such, the poster for the skit features a Jewish man with an afro, and a black man wearing a yarmulke.

“It was felt that the images could be taken out of context, especially for individuals who would not be attending the event,” explained Sandra Carnegie-Douglas, anti-racism & cultural diversity officer.

“The committee decided that the image needed to be contextualized with additional explanation and, therefore, a poster with a different image was used to promote the event,” she said.

Although the play’s co-creators Ron Jones and Larry Jay Tish have been using the image for the last six

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years in their travels across North America, they acknowledge the concerns as legitimate.

“It was part of their job to look at these things, to make sure cultural sensitivities are being taken into account — they were just doing their job,” said Jones, in response to the Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office’s concern.

“We’re intentionally being provocative, but we like the logo because the show is a comedy first and foremost,” he continued.

Tish admitted that the controversy put a little edge to the performance, but that it didn’t subtract from the overall message. He also emphasized that people should see the play before passing judgment.

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The truth about UTSU’s budget

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

The future of the managed Internet http://var.st/a7z

Critics are misleading students about UTSU’s finances Danielle Sandhu UTSU President

Recently, a handful of individuals have been making outlandish claims regarding a supposed $100,000 increase in salaries of the Executive Committee of the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) and resulting decreases in services and clubs funding.

These allegations are false.

In lieu of proof, those promoting this misleading information point to an increase in the salary line item and decreases in the services and clubs funding line items in the 2010–2011 financial statements when compared to the 2009–2010 statements. As such, their claims are actually based on last year’s numbers and have no bearing on the current operations of the UTSU. This is a rather embarrassing error for those individuals who claim expertise in financial matters.

Also, the increases in the salary line item have absolutely nothing to do with salary increases to the executive (which include the president, VP internal & services, VP external, VP university affairs, VP campus life, and VP equity). The UTSU’s board of directors must first approve any such increases, and no

such approval has been made in either 2009–2010 or 2010–2011. Any claim that the UTSU executive has increased its salary by $100,000 is utterly false and absurd.

If you compare the audited financial statements of 2009–2010 and 2010–2011, you will see an increase in the “Salaries and Wages” line item, but this had nothing to do with increasing salaries. It is directly attributable to the hiring of more staff, both full-time and students as part-time and casual staff, to increase the UTSU’s capacity to effectively deliver services and advocate on behalf of our members.

It is profoundly dishonest to claim that the UTSU has cut services to students. Decreases in funds spent on UTSU services are due to decreases in the actual cost of administering some services, as we have seen with the book exchange program going online. This is a good thing for members as it now costs us less to operate our services, thus allowing us to expand the depth or

number of our services. In fact, this year we have introduced a number of new services such as discounted black and white printing, and photocopying (two cents per page), discounted AGO tickets, discounted Raptors tickets, discounted clubs

cut. As can be seen in the UTSU budget for the 2011–2012 fiscal year, clubs funding has increased by $10,000. The budget shows there has been a new line item added that covers the UTSU Clubs Directory, a popular service to our members and clubs.

In the past, the funds spent on this directory were taken out of the Clubs Committee line item. The funding previously going to the directory is now going to clubs directly. The “decrease” in monies spent in the “Clubs and other subsidies” line between the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 audited financial statements was due to the fusion of two events (Unity Ball and the Clubs Awards Ceremony) into one.

Of course, all this information is available to all of our members online and from the UTSU office.

It is unfortunate therefore that some individuals have chosen to try and take advantage of their peers by deliberately making false claims about the UTSU’s financ-

es. By working together, we have been able to create great services to support students and clubs by saving them money. Given the high cost of post-secondary education, this is an important part of the work we do.

It is a critical time for students to unite. This week, UTSU members will be joining thousands of students in a National Day of Action.

As students studying in Ontario, we pay the highest tuition fees in the country, and these fees will only continue to rise unless we do something about it. This year, students won the creation of a new tuition fee reduction grant, but this grant only helps a portion of students.

Our work in expanding this grant to include students in first-entry professional programs is proof that we need to continue to push back and demand an accessible and affordable system of post-secondary education — for everyone. By working together, students can win.

We look forward to seeing you on the streets this Wednesday, February 1.

multaneously substituted, it must air the programs at the same time as the American networks; this usually means during primetime.

As a result, local programming gets the short end of the stick and is often pushed out of primetime in favor of more popular American shows. With fewer opportunities to go primetime, Canadian productions have a tough task of surviving in a time slot that has fewer viewers. What has been framed as a law to protect Canadian interests is actually a law to protect Canadian broadcasters: broadcasters who are dominated

by American programming.

This policy has also forced some networks into making erroneous decisions in order to maintain the rights to “simsub” a program. In 2007, CTV planned to tape-delay the Juno Awards so that they could simultaneously broadcast The Amazing Race which was airing on CBS. After public outrage, CTV reversed its decision and aired the Junos live. The policy is also not fair to Canadian consumers— what is the point of getting Ameri-

can networks on cable, if they are going to be simulcasting the Canadian feed most of the time?

Simultaneous substitution may have had noble intentions from the outset; however, it is clear now that it is an outdated regulation that needs to be revised. In order to protect Canadian productions, the CRTC should impose quotas for Canadian content to be aired in primetime, much like they do on radio. Or, they should restrict the amount of American programming a network can show, thereby allowing some of the programming to air on the original network. Cable companies could also take the step of allowing Canadians to buy a separate American package that does not simulcast Canadian networks.

This will reduce unnecessary redundancies in cable packages and save the consumer money.

Regarding the Super Bowl, the CRTC has taken steps in recent years to crack down on cable companies that do not simulcast during the event. That being said, don’t fret; commercials can still be seen online after the game.

It is profoundly dishonest to claim that the UTSU has cut services to students. Decreases in funds spent on UTSU services are due to decreases in the actual cost of administering some services, as we have seen with the book exchange program going online. banner printing, and extending our office hours to improve access to all of our services to students (including mature students, students in professional programs, and other students who have class or work for most of the workday).

There is also no basis for the allegation that clubs funding has been

Danielle Sandhu is president of the University of Toronto Students’ Union. You can reach her at president@utsu.ca.

No substitutions How simulcasting hurts Canadian broadcasting Abdullah Shihipar VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

This weekend, millions of people will be gathered around TV sets in living rooms and sports bars everywhere for the grand spectacle that is the Super Bowl (Go Patriots!). They will be anxiously awaiting the kickoff, the halftime show, and the tension of a third down in the fourth quarter. However, for some, the thrill lies not on the 50-yard line, but rather, in the commercials aired during the TV breaks. Companies pay millions for the coveted 30 second spots, and as a result, commercials are produced with a vigour usually reserved for TV shows and movies.

Great ads from the likes of Coke and E-Trade are born during the Super Bowl and millions look forward to this cheap thrill.

That being said, if you tune in on Sunday expecting to be amazed by the feats of the commercial break, you will be greatly disappointed.

Instead, you will see the same boring commercials you’re accustomed to. The Canadian Radio-Television

Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, mandates that all cable and satellite providers implement simultaneous substitution. This means that if a Canadian network and an American network are both showing the same program, the American network has to simulcast the Canadian network at that time. The same program is shown, except the Canadian network’s logo and commercials are shown instead.

The backers of this law frame it as being good for the interests of Canadian culture. However, it has some unintended negative effects on the Canadian entertainment industry.

Historically, before the days of cable, Canadian broadcasters were finding that in the border cities, when they aired popular American programs at the same time that the US broadcasters did, people still preferred the American networks to the Canadian networks.

This translates into lost advertising revenue and ratings so the broadcasters successfully lobbied the government to implement a policy that would give them an advantage over the American broad-

casters, which they got in the form of simultaneous substitution. This law is intended to protect Canadian culture, by preserving the

With fewer opportunities to go primetime, Canadian productions have a tough task of surviving in a time slot that has fewer viewers.

Canadian networks that otherwise would not be able to compete.

Other than the badly-placed logos, this doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. However, there is a catch.

In order for a network to be si-

8

monday, January 30, 2012

THEVOL. Varsity CXXXII

The new commissioner Patrick Baud VARSITY STAFF

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Last November, Bob Paulson replaced William Elliott as head of the RCMP, Canada’s national police force. Elliott, the Mounties’ first civilian commissioner, resigned in February because he failed to achieve much-needed reforms to modernize the storied police force. He attributed his failure to the fact that he was perceived by the RCMP’s rank and file and much of its brass as an “outsider,” and recommended that the prime minister replace him with an “insider” to speed the process of reform. While Paulson is an insider, having risen through the ranks, it is not clear that he will be able to achieve much change.

There are many reasons why the RCMP is difficult to reform, many of which are not unique to an organization of its complexity and size.

However, there is a unique aspect of the structure of the RCMP which makes it inherently difficult to change. The RCMP is an agency of the federal government, but most of its officers are actually contractors for the provincial governments. All provinces and territories (with the exception of Ontario and Quebec, who have their own provincial police forces) contract the RCMP to police municipalities too small to afford their own local police forces.

The rest of the RCMP’s officers are divided between enforcing fed-

eral laws, such as those prohibiting counterfeiting, and protecting national security, such as through counterterrorism operations. The differences between these three groups makes it difficult to effectively control them because the

If Paulson is serious about reform, he should welcome British Columbia’s Independent Investigations Office and encourage other provinces to create similar investigation units. rules for one type of officer might not be appropriate for others. All three groups are theoretically subject to oversight through the RCMP Complaints Commission, which investigates complaints and makes recommendations to the RCMP to prevent future incidents.

However, the Complaints Commis-

sion lacks the legal authority and money to fulfill its responsibilities, and its recommendations are too often ignored.

The result is a police force that is subject to far less oversight than comparable provincial police forces in Ontario and Quebec or local police forces throughout Canada. The reliance on the Ottawa-based RCMP Complaints Commission to investigate incidents related to local policing that can take place nearly anywhere in Canada means that RCMP officers are less accountable to the communities they serve than they might otherwise be. While they are technically contractors of the provincial government, RCMP officers often behave as though they are above local oversight, which can lead to serious incidents.

Last year, this type of incident led the British Columbia government to create an Independent Investigations Office to investigate incidents involving the use of force by the RCMP and local police in British Columbia. Modeled on Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, which is considered to be the gold standard for police oversight in much of the world, the Investigations Office is led by Richard Rosenthal, an American lawyer who successfully set up similar offices in Denver, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon. While it is too early to determine whether the office has improved the behaviour of RCMP officers serving in British Columbia detachments, it is cer-

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How Bob Paulson needs to reform the RCMP

VARSIT HE

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No. 17

VARSITY COMMENT

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VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, and writer of philosophical dialogues, is praised for many reasons. He was the first to provide a conceptual framework for abstract thought with his Theory of Forms. He founded The Academy in Athens, regarded as the first institution of higher education in the Western world. However, slightly less laudable may be his questioning of the usefulness of the arts. Although Plato himself wrote myths and his dialogues are considered classics of Western literature, he derided the supposedly imitative qualities of poetry, painting, and sculpture through Socrates. Opposing this point of view, I advocate for the benefits of creativity, as I believe it is an unparalleled virtue, particularly when applied to academic pursuits.

Creativity can be interpreted in many different ways. To some, it may simply mean the ability to slap paint on a canvas and produce a masterpiece worthy of public view.

For those of us lacking such a high level of talent it can be considered a trivial thing. However, an increasing number of people would disagree with us and broaden the definition. The ability to think outside the box is truly commendable and completely attainable. Blogger Judith Zausner writes, “It is the pur-

pose of thinking, imagining, and delighting in possibilities.” This statement may seem trite and quixotic, but it’s put into practice every day of our lives. If no one was creative, we would all think similar, mundane, and repetitive thoughts.

Although Plato wrote myths and his dialogues are considered classics of Western literature, he derided the supposedly imitative qualities of poetry, painting, and sculpture…

Worst of all, our minds would become flat and boring. Whether or not that sounds appealing to you, I cannot say, but it would surely make for a colourless world.

The need for creativity in our academic lives is exceedingly important. As fellow first-year Amina Mohamed said to me: “When one puts time into creating a unique style of

revision, it makes what could be a rather tedious task into an interactive experience.” While statements such as these make perfect sense, most students tend to rely on the good, old-fashioned technique of taking notes, reading them, rewriting them, and condensing them, all in the hopes of passing. While these methods work and are often incorporated into my pre-exam routine, they are not very fun nor creative.

The task of incorporating sufficient creativity into schooling systems is ongoing. A good attempt can be seen in the Waldorf education system, loved and loathed since its creation in 1919 by philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Waldorf schools believe any worthwhile education should be interdisciplinary, integrating practical, conceptual, and above all, artistic elements. Having been brought up under the British education system, I had to drop certain subjects — notably art and design technology — starting in year nine (Canadian grade eight). Though such subjects could be continued, often at the expense of vocational ones, I never felt a necessity to continue the arts past middle school. Honestly, I had little reason to complain, partly because I was never very adept at either, but examples like the Waldorf education system make me question if my current study techniques could be more interesting and valuable if I had had a more creative education from start to finish.

Even though the Waldorf schools

tainly a promising development.

If Paulson is serious about reform, he should welcome British Columbia’s Independent Investigations Office, and encourage other provinces to create similar investigation units. This would go a long way in ensuring that RCMP officers are more directly accountable to the communities that they serve. This is especially important in larger provinces, such as Alberta and Manitoba, which see a significant number of complaints against the RCMP. It is also crucial that Paulson support the federal government’s plans to beef up the RCMP Complaints Commission by increasing its budget and clarifying its legal mandate. A well-functioning Complaints Commission would complement units like British Columbia’s Independent Investigations Office by ensuring that policies to prevent future incidents are implemented across the force, rather than in a single province or detachment.

It will undoubtedly be difficult for Paulson to achieve this over the objections of the rank and file. He will need more than his status as an “insider” to achieve change. It is essential that he also has the support of the Harper government, and that accountability for the RCMP is made a top priority. There is much to be gained politically by doing so for the Harper government as it tries to shore up the Conservative base in western Canada, where the RCMP is remarkably unpopular.

are sometimes questioned for their dubious curriculum, they emphasize the importance of imagination.

It is worth noting, as Albert Einstein once remarked that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.

For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress and giving birth to evolution.” This statement remains undeniable, as imagination will forever be an essential part of any education.

I challenge you to be as creative as you can be. How so? Personally, I play the piano, and find it quite stress relieving to play before, after, or in between study sessions.

Believe me, it’s amazing how much brighter a terrible day feels after I’ve pounded out some Rachmaninoff.

Making your notes more colourful, possibly colour coordinated, and eye-catching can help you to retain the information better. In addition, giving yourself time to get creative through drawing, song-writing or even just listening to eclectic playlists can stimulate your brain.

What is more, employers are increasingly appreciative of creativity in their applicants. Young, “hip” employees are usually the ones with the great ideas that help a company thrive. Now I’m not saying with an extra splash of creativity you will become the next Picasso or Steve Jobs, but maybe — just maybe — your life will be a little less mundane and a little more fun.

VARSITY COMMENT

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Support the TAs! Undergraduates suffer when TAs can’t teach effectively Rida Fatema Ali VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The first reaction from undergraduate students when they hear about a possible TA strike is anger or frustration. I’ll admit it was my first reaction, too. It makes sense, as it seems the education we are diligently pursuing is in danger; we saw what happened to the students of York University when their TAs went on “strike” a few years ago. However, this reaction stems from ignorance about what’s at stake.

When people hear the word “strike” the first thought that generally pops into their heads is that there must be a dispute over wages — and this usually leads non-sup-

porters to believe that the union is greedy. But what we need to understand is that in the case of CUPE 3902, while a wage increase is one of the issues in dispute, a wage gain is not. The difference is that while the union is asking for an increase in pay, it is in keeping with the rate of inflation. Salaries need to keep pace with inflation as the cost of living increases and salaries are worth less overall. So while CUPE 3902 wants a higher hourly rate for its members, they wouldn’t be making more than they were at the earlier inflation rate.

Another issue up for debate is funding. Many of U of T’s graduate students in the arts and sciences are funded. This means they have their tuition waived for four to five years,

monday, January 30, 2012

9

Converge Diverge

THe TA Strike

and they receive both funding for dissertation research and pay for TA work. The administration is trying to decrease the amount of funding that the grad students receive for conducting their dissertation research and eliminate funding for grad students who take more than four years to complete their dissertations.

What we need to realize is that our TAs are not trying to get rich; PhDs are not a cost-effective investment. If funding for PhDs were to disappear on a national or international level, fewer people would pursue them; this would greatly hinder research and advancement. Objecting to funding for graduate students without considering the long-term consequences is simplistic.

If you’re an undergrad, there are a few reasons you should care about the issues CUPE 3902 brings up.

The interests of the grad students and the undergrads are linked more tightly than most of us realize; the value of our undergraduate degrees hinges partly on the strength of the PhDs that U of T produces. Schools gain prestige from strong PhDs. Our U of T degree won’t retain its value if the school can’t attract strong grad students. So even if we don’t empathize with the members of CUPE 3902, we should support them as a matter of self-interest.

Another issue between the administration and CUPE 3902 that affects the undergrads is tutorial sizes. Tutorial sizes at U of T have

been on the rise for several years and have finally reached levels that render them completely useless. Right now, 42 per cent of tutorials have more than 50 students and more than a hundred have a class size greater than 100 students. CUPE 3902 wants to cap tutorial sizes at 50 students. Tutorials are in place to help students gain more from lecture material and readings through discussion.

Enormous tutorials mean less attention from the TAs and less time for students to voice their opinions or concerns. Large tutorials not only lead to distressed TAs but are also less effective for us. We need to support the strike, because when TAs suffer, so do we.

CUPE has rolled out an advertising campaign, and the UTSU has echoed its message. There is quite a bit of talk about tutorial sizes — a serious problem, to be sure. No one will argue that a 50-student tutorial is a conducive learning environment. The only real solution, however, assuming that this were viable, would be to hire more TAs — and since they’re already demanding raises and resources are scarce, I doubt you will hear CUPE pressing for more TAs to share in the pie.

When push comes to shove, this will likely be the first demand to be sacrificed. Including the tutorial size issue is little more than a transparent ploy by the UTSU to justify its indefensible actions, and to drum up undergrad support for a strike which

clearly pits our interests against those of CUPE. There are countless TAs and sessional instructors who are truly outstanding and deserve the best conditions. That being said, undergraduate students cannot afford and should not be forced to suffer the consequences of a strike. So why is our student government giving priority to CUPE’s agenda? Some may cite the supposed long-term benefits for undergrad students who may be considering graduate studies here at U of T. But what about those who aren’t? Others may claim that we must stand in solidarity with CUPE. But why should we lose time, money, and have our education and life plans disrupted? The “avoid a strike by supporting it” rationale implicit in CUPE’s literature and

echoed in the UTSU’s justifications is nothing more than Orwellian doublespeak, and U of T students are too intelligent to be duped. The UTSU is playing a dangerous game with our time, money, and education; its support of the potential strike is both grossly irresponsible and an affront to the students it is supposed to be representing.

How the UTSU can continue with its preposterous claims of unity and that it works for the students is incomprehensible. If that were the case, they would oppose the strike, or at the very least they would abstain from making an official statement, let alone such a congratulatory one. The UTSU is not working for our interests, but rather against them. I am absolutely appalled, and you should be too.

The UTSU’s dangerous game Esther Mendelsohn VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Once again, the UTSU has proven whom it is really representing — and it’s not U of T’s undergraduates.

There is only one word that captures the UTSU’s support of the looming TA strike: gall. The UTSU purports to act in the interest of undergraduate students and yet this move suggests otherwise.

UTSU president Danielle Sandhu offered her complete support when she addressed those present at the strike vote press conference; this conference was held after CUPE members voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike, should an agreement with the university not be reached. Sandhu extended to CUPE local 3902, on our behalf, congratulations, and expressed a sense of pride and solidarity, arguing that supporting the strike is in the best interests of undergrads.

However, she is supposed to be representing undergrads, who would undoubtedly suffer were a strike to happen.

Even in the sunniest scenario, classes will continue undisrupted, but tutorials will be cancelled and

assignments may not be marked in time. This can have an especially injurious effect on those relying on final grades for graduate or professional school applications. I doubt that those schools would be satisfied relying on my word that I am an A student. In the gloomiest of cases, we may end up like the students of York University.

In 2008, York’s CUPE local, which includes TAs and sessional instructors, went on strike. The strike dragged on for three months, leaving students out of class and out of luck.

Many felt betrayed by the York Federation of Students (a satellite union of the Canadian Federation of Students, like the UTSU). Students were overwhelmed with work after their Reading Week, and those who depended on summer income had to struggle to make ends meet when their classes spilled into the summer break, U of T students’ tuition has been paid, and most people have made plans for after graduation — plans that hinge on the timing of their graduation. Neither the UTSU nor the university will reimburse our tuition fees, and no one can give us back the time we will lose.

JESSICA MURACA/THe VArsity

Why the UTSU’s support for the TA strike hurts undergrads

THE VARSITY ASKS…

What space on campus do you hate the most? compiled by Ronique Williams

Alicia, 4TH YEAR Drama

“Emmanuel College: you’re locked away in a basement dungeon with no internet!”

Guriqbal, 2nd YEAR Human Biology

“Con Hall for sure! It’s way too big, very dark, and uncomfortably cold in the winter.”

Kenzie, 3rd YEAR Architecture

Ryan, 2nd YEAR Environmental Science

Victoria, 1st YEAR English

“Con Hall! It’s too big!”

“Sid Smith. It’s just so dry and bland in there — feels like a jail.”

“Sid Smith. It’s either way too hot or way too cold in there, not to mention those uncomfortable seats.”

Features

var.st/FEATURES

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

Video: what’s one thing you don’t like about U of T? #UofTsux

30 JANUARY 2012 features@thevarsity.ca

See the clip here: http://var.st/a7w

Where do you call home?

JENNY KIM/THe VArsity

Student living isn’t exactly easy. Whether you’re living with the fam, in res, or renting off campus, no place is perfect. Here are some of the stories (horror or otherwise) from the student housing front.

They aren’t always pretty.

by Larratt Vaughan

I

n first year, I convinced my parents to help put me up in residence at New College. Calling what I experienced total freedom would be incorrect. I made compromises with my roommate and adhered (mostly) to college rules, but those were marginal concessions. At first, living in res was a real pleasure.

But as time went on, I discovered that the students I lived with were a tad studious for my taste and were largely serial introverts. It wasn’t the social environment I’d been pining for in the months leading up to September. Sure, I didn’t have to answer to my parents, but the arrangement wasn’t perfect.

Over the course of my university years, I’ve pretty much seen it all. From frats to shared flats to moving back in with the fam, I’ve had my share of university living arrangements and each one has its ups and downs. Many students won’t have a choice at all, either with parents too far from campus

or with the only affordable option being to stay with the ‘rents. So, where do you live?

Co-op Having moved to Toronto from Windsor, fourth-year sexual diversity studies student Natasha Novac discovered student co-ops early on as a cheap and gratifying living option. Natasha lived in co-ops for her first three years as a student and considers herself an advocate of the co-op system… with a few reservations.

“One of the reasons why I loved and lived in co-op for so long was because the rent was reasonable, generally under $600 for a prime location downtown in chic, well-maintained houses,” says Natasha.

Somebody’s dad was a total boss in Bangladesh.

The Varsity does vintage fashion We asked for photos of your stylish relatives. Here’s what you sent us.

Check out the full feature here: http://var.st/a8l

“For students and housing newbies, co-op does a lot of legwork for you: it buys groceries, provides basics like toilet paper and laundry detergent, and has a wonderfully talented and devoted maintenance staff — those dudes can fix anything, seriously.”

The co-op system depends heavily on shared responsibility, through housemates divvying up errands such as cleaning and buying groceries.

But while the co-op approach may seem ideal, it’s not without its flaws.

“Sometimes people move in who can’t or don’t want to build community, and the whole co-op system falters when some people refuse to pull their weight,” says Natasha. She now rents in the

What initially struck me was that these guys were providing beer — this was a big deal.

private market but continues her involvement with Campus Co-op as a director for the organization.

Going Greek Early on in my university career, I was exposed to the Greek system. I received frequent invites early in my first year to a fraternity that I would soon join.

What initially struck me was that these guys were providing beer — and with alcohol being the valuable commodity it is to young university students, this was a big deal.

I spent some time witnessing what life was like in that place.

The house had huge parties, regular video gaming sessions, and a strangely appealing aura of unapologetic testosterone.

So I moved in. Parental support persisted.

As it turned out, the spot wasn’t quite the student dwelling utopia that I’d dreamt of. The frat house was run with some of the responsibility-sharing tenets

Hip kids in crew cuts, circa 1960.

VARSITY FEATURES

features@thevarsity.ca of the co-op system, but the standard as to what constituted an acceptable mess was low.

Even so, I probably could have lived with the constant stench of beer in the air and the unrelenting kitchen chaos. It was the lifestyle that grew old, along with a realization that the institution was severely lacking in inclusivity.

monday, January 30, 2012

11

Feelin’ like a baller

Shared rental After the frat house, my next undertaking was a rental in the private market. I moved into a house near Harbord and Bathurst with two close friends, along with three strangers.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t receiving financial support for rent since working in a computer store allowed me to sustain myself for a time.

At the beginning, it was wonderful. A shared enthusiasm for electronic music, film, and photography allowed our collective creative calling to flow through the walls. We’d have guests come in the evenings and stay all night listening to music with no complaints from any of us. A few times, we even stayed out all night and watched the sunrise from our roof.

But a rising sun wasn’t the only thing over the horizon. So was a gradual accumulation of stress that was about to make life very difficult. When a flatmate didn’t pay the gas bill we lost our hot water. Personal conflicts arose.

The computer store that I was so dependent on went out of business, and while looking for formal employment, I had to manage ongoing costs with a combination of odd jobs and credit card cash advances. After walking away from a less-than-ideal living environment, with a lessthan-ideal level of debt, I felt I had no other choice, so I moved back with my parents.

Relatively okay

Mildly awful

Satisfaction of living at home

Back home My return home wasn’t much fun at first. The parental grief seemed endless. When I wasn’t hearing about some housekeeping obligation that I’d failed to fulfill, I was being lectured on the dangers of smoking. When I’d come home late or play music too loudly at the wrong time of day, soon I’d be having a conversation with an exhausted and grouchy parent who was “already having a tough time falling asleep.”

Professor Roderic Beaujot at the University of Western Ontario has observed the phenomenon of young adults waiting longer to stake their own space away from their parents — a direct result of steep rents in even the most affordable accomodations.

“Economic forces especially play a role to keep young adults at home,” says Beaujot.

“The interest of young people today is to maximize their credentials with all the firepower that’s possible before leaving.”

In his paper, “Delayed Life Transitions,” Beaujot examines the changing landscape of parent-child relationships with respect to living arrangements. Citing Canadian census statistics, he notes that 27.5 per cent of Canadians aged 20–29 lived with their parents in 1981, a level which increased to 41 per cent in 2001. Beaujot claims that this trend is connected to greater economic exchanges from parents to their children (rather than from society to the children), but he also acknowledges a cultural shift.

“It’s now more acceptable for young adults to live at home; there’s a lessening cultural gap between parents and their children. A greater comfort with parents allowing their children to be intimate with partners at home is also more common,” explains Beaujot.

Social media is offering families new ways

Everything sucks

18

of staying in touch with their kids when they move out; some of us know this truth too well.

On the other hand, second-year U of T computer science student Steve Tsourounis found that tweeting with his mom while living on campus allowed them to connect.

“After moving downtown, I feel like me and my mom got a lot closer because we would call each other more. She ended up getting Twitter, so she would know everything that was happening in my life,” he explained.

After spending his first year in residence at St. Michael’s College, Steve moved back with his parents in Vaughan. He notes how his social life has deflated since last year.

“Living downtown, I had a pretty active social life and was going out a lot. Now that I’m home, it’s only once every few weeks that I go out,” says Steve. But he’s not living a socially desolate existence by any means.

“Most of my friends that I grew up with live in Vaughan, so it’s not really a problem

Smoking is bad for you! But she makes it look so good in the 1970s.

27

Age (Years) in that sense.”

Of course, social interaction isn’t limited to making it out to huge clubs, band showcases, or pub crawls. Egin Kongoli, a third year poltical science student, spent his second year of school living with his parents in North York. He found the experience was sometimes lacking in those smaller, subtler interactions.

“My social life didn’t suffer in the ‘partying’ sense. Being an only child and [being] so far from any friends, I will say that I definitely did get lonely. It’s the small social stuff you start to miss out on, like just watching some TV or hanging out — doing nothing.”

With the help of hospitable friends, Egin was able to mitigate some of those feelings by crashing downtown often.

“It was nice to couch surf with friends, because I got a bit of that experience there; waking up and waiting for someone else in the house to wake and hang out with.”

For his third year, Egin returned to residence at Victoria College.

The house had huge parties, regular video gaming sessions, and a strangely appealing aura of unapologetic testosterone. So I moved in. Parental support persisted.

More ballin’ in Bangladesh.

Aw, yeah!

*

*

*

As for my own return home, eventually, many of the initial problems started to get resolved. As it happened, I did quit smoking.

My hours of operation slowly started shifting towards something more agreeable to my parents’ (and to that of society, I’ll add).

We even teamed up to renovate our house’s third floor. Socially, living with my parents has become a pleasure, with us co-ordinating social events to mix the young with the slightly less young.

The shift in parental relations came not from some grand catalyst, but rather a gradual process of communicating to the end of developing mutual respect for each other as adults. And of course, things aren’t perfect; learning how to coexist with my parents is a continuous exercise.

More of us are staying with our parents for longer periods of time. The ways that we communicate and relate with our families are changing. But there are timeless aspects of the university student’s living experience.

There will be those with couches to offer and those to fill the couches. There will be some who live in res, and some who live with their parents. There will be — oh, excuse me, I have to push off; I think I hear my mother calling me for dinner.

Sitting pretty in 1950s rural Ontario.

Arts & Culture

var.st/ARTS

30 JANUARY 2012 arts@thevarsity.ca

Colson Whitehead’s monsters

Murad Hemmadi/The Varsity

He found his latest novel in his nightmares — in the zombie apocalypse, the terror, and beauty of the everyday Jade Colbert VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

EVENT GUIDE

Jan 30–Feb 5

Midway through Colson Whitehead’s latest novel, Zone One, Mark Spitz (not his real name but one given to him by fellow survivors) is sweeping an office building with the other members of his unit, hunting the walking, plagueridden dead. As he goes through the motions of clean-up — shooting “skels,” ID’ing them, bagging them, leaving them in the street for the incinerator crews to pick up — his mind wanders and he considers how his dreams have changed since “Last Night,” the eve when the pandemic at the heart of this literary zombie horror reached its tipping point.

Much of Zone One is told this way, through flashbacks over the course of one disastrous weekend as the three-person civilian Omega Unit (Mark Spitz, Gary, and Kaitlyn) travels through the “Zone” of the title: Manhattan south of Canal Street, an area that the provisional

government in Buffalo has identified as the first to be reclaimed from the plague.

No longer does Mark Spitz have nightmares about missing exams, or forgetting the materials for that big presentation on the taxi seat. Instead he dreams about the everyday, the former normal: “He took the train to work. He waited for his pepperoni slice’s extraction from the pizza joint’s hectic oven. He jawed with his girlfriend. And all the supporting characters were dead.”

The dead, missing limbs and dripping tendons, ask him if he wants to stay in and rent a movie.

“Sure,” dream–Mark Spitz says.

“Let’s stay in and snuggle, it’s been a long day.” The dead ask him if he has the time. “It’s ten to five. Gets dark early this time of year.”

As the author explains here, he got the idea for Zone One from a particular dream that contained a similar mix of the mundane and the horrific. Whitehead’s unconscious made the connection: after the zombie apocalypse, the living

MONDAY

TUESDAY

U of T New Music Fesitval at Edward Johnson Building (runs until Feb 5) Up to $25

Maya Secrets of the Ancient World at the Royal Ontario Museum 10 am–5:30 pm $5 for students (general admission included)

dead stay on like unwelcome house guests (Whitehead admits he was in a bad mood). The novel would be about those that survived, how they would try to put the world back together again, if they could.

Seen through the window of Mark Spitz’s traumatized mind, the new, shattered world illustrates through their loss the small beauties of that which came before. Then there is the unexplained phenomenon of the stragglers: infected individuals who do not become like the other skels and instead travel, the theory goes, to some place that has particular meaning to them where they then remain mute and immobile as if in contemplation.

Zone One is replete with monsters: the skels, New York City, and the day itself is described as a zombie. But it also illuminates the ineradicable aspects of being human — good and bad. The plague reveals your friends and loved ones for what they always were.

Colson Whitehead spoke to The Varsity in October.

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

All-Female Poetry Slam at The Boat 7:30 pm $5

The Who’s Tommy at Hart House 8 pm (runs until Feb 11) $15 for students

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

Dan’s pretty rad

Read our interview: http://var.st/a7-

The Varsity: When did you first get the idea for this book? Sag Harbor was your last novel, which came out in 2009, but I found that this book was maybe more connected to your non-fiction book, The Colossus of New York (2003).

Colson Whitehead: There’s a few different answers to that question.

Yes, some of the ideas and sentiments about the city that are expressed in Colossus appear here filtered through the consciousness of Mark Spitz. This is my first novel about New York, and my first attempt to have characters in the city who conceive of the city in the same way that the narrator of Colossus does.

And then in terms of this actual novel, it came to me on the July 4 weekend of 2009. I’d always had zombie anxiety dreams ever since I saw Dawn of the Dead when I was in junior high. So for the past 30 years, when I’m stressed, I don’t have dreams where I’m late for an exam; I have dreams where I’m being chased by the living dead.

TV: So you’re actually being chased. It’s not like the strange dreams that Mark has, where he’s just going about day-to-day existence and he’s surrounded by the living dead.

CW: No, they’re like movie scenarios, like I’m trying to find the army settlement, a band of survivors. So it’s not weird for me to have a zombie dream.

I had one on July 4. I was having house guests in Long Island. I woke up and I heard them talking and laughing and making breakfast, and I was just like, “Can you guys leave?” I was in a bad mood. I didn’t say that, but that’s what I wanted to say! [laughs] So I just stayed in bed and hid, went back to sleep. I had a dream that I was in New York, and I wanted to go into my living room, but I was wondering if they — whoever “they” were — had cleared out the zombies yet.

So then I woke up, and I was like, “yeah, that seems like a good question: when the apocalypse is over, who’s going to clean up?”

The plague-stricken wretches hang around like house guests. How to get rid of them?

TV: Over the past two years, there’s been almost a zombie renaissance, like there’s a lot of zombie stuff going on in various media. Somebody might think, “Oh, are you just tap-

ping into that?” But a book takes a long time to write.

CW: Yeah, I mean, obviously the book is out of sync. I’m not sure where the zombie trend is in Canada versus the States. When I saw the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a big bestseller, I assumed that was going to be the crest of the wave, because it couldn’t get more zombie than that. So I was operating on the assumption that when the book was finally done, people would be over zombies. And then the question is, like, do I care? No. You know, if you do a good job, people will read it. I wrote about elevator inspectors [in The Intuitionist]; obviously, people are completely indifferent to elevator inspectors. Does that mean I’m not going to write the book? No, that was the thing I had to write then.

My weird, neurotic fixation with that George Romero–type zombie has been going on for a long time. I felt that it was the right project, and trends come, trends go: I’d like the book to be read 10 years from now.

I assume that the trend will be over.

People ask me, “Why are zombies big? Why are people scared of zombies?” My conception of what makes a zombie horrible and terrifying is realizing the truth of the world, which you’ve always suspected, which is that your family, your friends, your principal, your boss can suddenly be revealed for the monster that they’ve always been. In your paranoid misanthropic worst, you’d imagine this about people — people you love, people you know. For me the zombie terror is that the world is turned on its side, and that’s the new reality.

The idea that the everyday can suddenly become horrible, lethal, out to get you, is what animates the zombie story for me.

My idea of the world in Zone One is that it’s pretty much exactly the same as it is today, except 95 per cent of the population is dead. So Gary is very much like Gary was before the disaster. Kaitlyn is very much still the grade-grubbing student council member. What makes them tragic or sad in my mind is that they haven’t changed and that they’re stuck trying to bring their past selves into this new place where it can’t exist. They’re as tied to the past as the stragglers, who are more emotionally tethered to who they used to be. But the survivors are in the same boat.

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

all-week

Kuumba: Screening of Devotion at Harbourfront Centre 9:30 pm Free

Exclaim 20th Anniversary w/ The Sadies, The Elwins, and Hip Hop Karaoke at The Horseshoe 9 pm $20

That Was Now (art show) at the Drake Hotel 9 pm $20

Winterlicious Everywhere (in Toronto) Jan 27– Feb 9 $15–$45

arts@thevarsity.ca

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

MONday, January 30, 2012

13

Courtesy of Alex McLeod

Dash of digital Artist Alex McLeod speaks about finding a creative career in the digital world

DENTAL SERVICES. We accept all dental insurance plans offered through your Student Association Centre. Payment direct from insurance company; student does not pay out of pocket. 1554A Bloor Street West (outside Dundas West subway). 416-539-9887.

Anne Rucchetto VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

At first glance, it is natural to assume that Alex McLeod’s imaginative landscapes have been constructed in a studio, painstakingly assembled with tweezers, paint, and sealant. Yet, McLeod needs only a computer and his ideas to pull together the dynamic (and at times haunting) scenes that have come to define him as an artist. Using only technology to create art, McLeod combines his digital prowess with a deep appreciation for nature.

Originally from Scarborough, McLeod studied at OCAD and first began his artistic endeavours with painting. However, he soon adopted a new way to channel his creativity; he remarks that “as soon as I could integrate software, I would. I used digital collages as preparatory works to base my paintings on. Once I got to a preparatory sketch which was refined enough, I could base work on that.” From there, software began playing an increasingly large role in his work.

McLeod’s work explores new depths in the digital medium. The incredible variation in level, colour, shadow, and texture eclipses the capabilities of two-dimensional art. “It allows me to make the work I always wanted to make, and I couldn’t make it painting. It gave me the ability to control every aspect [of the work] so what you see is what I want you to see. There’s no compromise.”

As whimsical as McLeod’s pieces appear, none of his work incorporates human figures. “Without people, viewers [are allowed] to be in control of the landscapes.” He adds that to feature people in his landscapes would inevitably offer markers of geographical whereabouts and historical periods based on their dress, activities, and dwellings.

“I try to make each piece devoid of time and place. Even if buildings appear familiar, I take them out of a

Courtesy of Alex McLeod

familiar context.”

This ambiguity is aligned with the larger message McLeod wishes to convey. “The work is about the transition between life and death, and how when we die, the nutrients in our body continue in a neverending cycle of matter. That’s why it doesn’t make sense for the work to appear from the past or as part of the future.”

The optimism in McLeod’s work reflects a positive attitude towards the capabilities of technology. “I’ve definitely got a crush on technology,” he says good-naturedly. “I am such a nerd at heart, and I feel we’re so lucky to live in these times. Knowledge is at our fingertips all the time, and everything is so much easier for us.” Although McLeod’s art has been getting more exposure in recent years and has been displayed from Toronto to New Zealand, he remains modest.

“I’m excited when anyone wants to show my work anywhere. It’s a privilege to be participating at all.”

It was the continual snowball effect of recognition that informed McLeod of his growing success. “In a lot of ways it comes down to steps.

There isn’t one blockbuster event.

With each step your presence grows in a small way.”

McLeod’s most recent undertak-

ing is interactive art that allows viewers to navigate a moving landscape at their own leisure.

This new endeavour immerses his audience in a world that they are able to explore and control. “If we have the potential to do this, why wouldn’t we, you know? I want to take advantage of any technology we have at our fingertips. It’s not necessarily to enhance, but just to do it for myself and others, to experience the work in a new way. This is also to inspire others to make work in ways that they thought they shouldn’t or couldn’t before.

If anything, it’s to give people a sense of empowerment.” Three-dimensional works or virtual reality exhibits aren’t out of the question either, he explains. “I’d do anything.”

Amidst all the innovation McLeod explores, his inspiration originates from an ancient Iroquois burial mountain nestled between rows of bungalows in a Scarborough community. “The bodies become fuel for the next generation,” McLeod reflects. His interest in biology and natural cycles evidently has the biggest role in creating this em erging method of artistic creation. “It’s like making a circuit board out of bamboo,” McLeod says, laughing in spite of himself.

Alex Rahimi Memorial Lecture Series

GLOBALIZATION: A Baha’i Perspective

By Professor Suheil Bushrui

Faculty, staff and students of the University of Toronto are invited to attend a lecture by world renowned Prof.

Bushrui of University of Maryland, in the honour of U of T Alumnus late Alex Rahimi. Alex was a strong advocate for activities that improve the human condition.

February 12, 2012 at 6 p.m. e Toronto Baha’i Centre 288 Bloor Street West Light dinner will be served after presentation.

For further info go to the Alex Rahimi Memorial Lecture page on Facebook.

14

MONday, January 30, 2012

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

Anything but plain

Thinking of Teaching?

Applications open for the Bachelor of Education Secondary12-Month Option

French, Sciences, Business Ed., TESL, Home Economics, Theatre, Music, P.E., English, History, Geography, Modern Languages, Math, Applied Tech

Middle Years 12-Month Option English, Social Studies, PE, Sciences

Elementary 12-Month Option

There’s a puppet in that play

www.teach.educ.ubc.ca

Ishita Petkar VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Study in Vancouver!

Courtesy of factory Theatre

Design for The Varsity – design@thevarsity.ca

nto Students’ Union University of Toro Federation of Students

G IN R P S 2 201

e c i t o N s n o i t c Ele Local 98 • Canadian

People tend to have misgivings about puppets and marionettes.

Let’s face it: the only spotlight they receive is from grotesque horror movies and creepy kiddy puppet shows. So when Factory Theatre announced its new production Penny Plain, Ronnie Burkett’s Theatre of Marionettes new take on puppetry, it seemed only fitting that it open the 2012 season.

An apocalyptic tale foreshadowing our impending ecological disaster, Penny Plain is a darkly humorous play that explores the disintegration of our society and the end of the world as we know it. Ms. Penny Plain, an elderly lady with a penchant for biscuits, attempts to clutch at the last strings of civilization by running a boarding house that is inhabited by serial killers, senile mothers, and a curiously familiar puppeteer named Gepetto.

When her faithful companion dog Geoffrey leaves to experience the world as a man, the disarray from the outside world begins to leak in, bringing with it peculiar personalities and horrific truths.

Burkett, the sole artist controlling dozens of marionettes, is unparal-

leled in his execution. Perhaps the most impressive part of this production was his ability to convincingly portray a range of characters simply with his voice. He breathes life into his marionettes, providing the audience with a privileged glimpse into this otherwise inaccessible world. Hugely imaginative, he manages to make us care deeply for the tottering little Ms. Penny Plain and sympathize with her attempts to cope with the changing world.

The witty banter presents a curious dynamic that evolves throughout the play, as Burkett’s marionettes represent human society.

Physically emotionless, their wooden visages raise questions of just how far this parallel extends to the real world, and what the inevitable zenith of our environmental maltreatment will result in.

While conveying a rather sobering theme, Penny Plain offers a thought-provoking, ironically comical production that is not easily forgotten. It is a unique experience to be deeply moved by puppetry, and Ronnie Burkett entrances the audience from the start by presenting a vignette of the raw emotion that comes from the heartbreak of loving a world gone to the dogs.

undergraduates at St. ion represents all full-time es such The U of T Students’ Una campuses. U.T.S.U. provides important servic d TTC nte aug cou siss dis Mis and and g e din org Ge book bursaries, clubs fun tral U of as Health & Dental Plans,nts’ Union also represents students to the cenconnects de and Stu , r hts You students’ rig Metropasses. social vernment, advocates for T administration and gopuses to work on common goals, campaigns and cam all oss acr nts stude programming.

The University of Toronto Students’ Union is holding its Spring 2010 Elections to fill the following positions: Position

Seat(s)

Division I Victoria College University College Innis College St. Michael’s College New College Trinity College Woodsworth College At-Large Arts & Science

2 2 1 3 3 1 3 2

Toronto School of Theology

1

Faculty of Music Faculty of Dentistry Faculty of Nursing Faculty of Medicine Faculty of Pharmacy Faculty of Law Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering Faculty of Physical Education & Health At-Large Professional Faculty

1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 2

Division II

Division III * Mississauga campus

7

Executive President Vice President Internal & Services Vice President Equity Vice President External Vice President University Affairs

* cross appointed to the Board of Directors of the UTMSU

1 1 1 1 1

Important 2012 Dates:

Election Nominations (All Positions) Election Campaign Period Election Voting Period Election Results

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 09:00 to Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 18:00 Monday, February 27, 2012 at 08:00 to Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 18:00 March 6, 7, 8, 2012 From 09:00 to 18:00 Friday, March 23, 2012

Nomination Pick-up and Drop-off Locations: St. George campus:

Mississauga campus:

12 Hart House Circle Hours: Monday - Friday, 09:00 to 18:00

UTMSU Office UTM Student Centre, Room 100 Hours: Monday - Friday 09:00 to 12:30, 13:30 to 17:00

To run for a position, pick up a nomination package during the nomination period at the U.T.S.U. or UTMSU office.

Please keep in mind the dates and deadlines.

For more information, visit our Students’ Union website at www.utsu.ca or contact cro@utsu.ca Please note that, at the time of this publication, “University of Toronto Students’ Union” and/or “U.T.S.U.” refers to the Students’ Administrative Council of the University of Toronto, Inc. (“SAC”).

Science

var.st/SCIENCE

30 JANUARY 2012

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

A new Science Illustrated

science@thevarsity.ca

Clutter-free batteries

Check it out at http://var.st/a85

How U of T scientists have embarked on the quest for flexible energy storage Catherine Chan VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

If you don’t find bulky batteries appealing, you might be in luck. Researchers at U of T have created a solid electrochemical capacitor, an energy storage device similar to the battery, that’s thin and flexible enough to be embedded into display screens or electric vehicles.

Dr. Keryn K. Lian, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at U of T, led the Flexible Energy and Electronics Laboratory to create a flexible solid electrochemical capacitor.

The size of a quarter, the compact device can be repeatedly charged and discharged in a matter of seconds and last longer than typical rechargeable batteries. At 100 volts per second, this is the highest charge delivery rate reported to date for solid electrochemical devices.

“A battery is like a big tank with a small faucet. It can’t dispense power quickly,” says professor Lian. Electrochemical capacitors, on the other hand, are capable of rapid, high-power delivery on demand.

This is why electrochemical capacitors would be excellent energy storage devices for electric buses, which require quick bursts of energy because they constantly stop and go.

The team believes their flexible energy storage device is also ideal for the multibillion dollar flexible electronics industry.

There’s a lot of research on flexible com-

Electrochemical capacitors might make old bulky batteries like the ones above a thing of the past. TOMBLOIS/FLICKR

puter displays, radio frequency identification tags, and intelligent packaging — for example, medicine bottles that show expiry dates, says professor Lian. “All of these need energy. You can’t have these things carrying a [bulky] battery. Our device is very thin; about 0.2 mm thick.”

The device stores energy in two closely spaced electrical conductors (electrodes) with opposing charges. It charges like a battery, applying voltage bias so one electrode is positive and the other is negative.

An ionically conductive polymer film, known as a solid polymer electrolyte, separates the two carbon-coated stainless steel electrodes to prevent them from shorting.

The polymer electrolyte and the right combination of the electrodes provide the device’s rapid charge delivery.

The scientific community has shown a strong interest in the team’s research. Han Gao, a MASc candidate and member of the FEE Lab, won first place in the student poster competition for his research on the

solid electrochemical capacitor at the 2011 Fall Symposium of the Electrochemical Society, Canadian Section.

The real appeal is the energy efficiency of the device over conventional electrochemical capacitors. Han says their device is more energy efficient because it requires less packaging. Conventional electrochemical capacitors have more packaging to ensure the liquid electrolyte doesn’t leak out during usage.

The solid electrolyte used in the team’s design eliminates the potential leakage problem, which is the main selling point for their device, according to professor Lian.

The compact design also means the energy storage of the device can be increased without significantly increasing the packaging used. Individual devices are stacked together to form a more powerful multi-cell device. They are combined into one package by replacing one of the two electrodes with a separator electrode.

What’s next for the team?

So far, a single-cell device can store enough energy to power an LED and perform well under normal conditions. Han says they are now working to optimize the power performance of their device by tweaking the materials used in the electrodes. They also plan to test their device under extremely cold (-40˚C) and dry (<10% humidity) conditions. The additional tests will prepare their flexible energy storage device for a wide range of future applications.

SC ENCe n br ef A genetic molecule may predate RNA, DNA

You can talk the talk but not walk the walk

Intelligent pill trackers

The perfect liquid

Quantum computing

The origin of life is a $64,000 question. Dr. John Chaput is particularly intrigued by the origin of replication and how the first genetic molecules were created. You may have learnt about DNA and RNA, but Dr. Chaput believes that it is TNA (threose nucleic acid) that was the first carrier of genetic information. In a recent Nature Chemistry article, his group described the Darwinian evolution of TNA sequences that could perform many of the basic tasks normally accomplished by RNA and DNA. Dr. Chaput showed that TNA could form Watson-Crick base pairs with DNA and that TNA double strands could be engineered to display highly specific binding to the protein thrombin.

TNA is more likely candidate than DNA or RNA for the first genetic molecule because of its simplicity, containing a tetrose sugar backbone that could have been synthesized pre-biotically from two identical two-carbon precursors.

—Dennis Dobrovolsky Source: Science Daily

Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder and Carnegie Mellon University have proposed a theory to explain why we often feel we are willing to take on an embarrassing task, only to change our minds when the time comes to perform it. The research team believes that these mistaken predictions are made because when we are initially presented with the task, we are not affected by the social anxiety that arises at the time of the task. Their study showed that participants initially overestimated their willingness to complete embarrassing tasks in exchange for pay. Later, when anxiety-related negative emotions were invoked during selfprediction, fewer were willing to take on their tasks. This reaction occurred because the participants were more “in touch” with the emotions they believed they would feel when it came down to carrying out the task. Knowledge of this “illusion of courage” can be beneficial since individuals may use this passing feeling of bravery to commit to difficult tasks.

—Kimberly Shek Source: Science Daily

The Californian biotechnology company, Proteus Biomedical, has declared it will soon be releasing a product known as Helius in the United Kingdom. Helius is proclaimed to be a special pill that can track other medications a patient might be taking. The Helius pill contains copper and magnesium that allow for current generation in the stomach’s acid.

With this power source, Helius is able to monitor various factors such as heart rate, respiration rate, and core body temperature.

These variables are continuously monitored, and any changes upon ingestion or lack of ingestion of a medication can be calibrated to automatically notify the patient.

For example, if a patient’s heart rate suddenly changed due to failure to ingest a certain medication, Helius can send signals to a patient’s cell-phone or computer informing them of what medication is missing. This device offers great promise in monitoring patient compliance to often complex prescription drug regimens.

—Sean Kennedy and Maggie Keenan Source: Science Daily

What is the least viscous fluid? If you said water, you’re wrong. If you said a gas, like light and buoyant helium, you’re clever — but still wrong. Quantum physicists predicted a theoretical lower limit for the viscosity of fluids, a value represented by ħ/4π, (π being our good friend pi, 3.14, and ħ being the Planck constant, an extremely small number). Helium, even though it is a super-fluid, does not even closely approach this limit.

However, a complicated plasma of quarks and gluons does, and it has CERN physicists questioning whether the limit could be pushed even further. Also known as “quark soup,” a quark-gluon plasma is not quite like traditional plasma, but is an extremely hot fluid composed of some of the smallest building blocks of matter.

It is difficult to take readings from this quantum state of matter but physicists think that quark-gluon plasma’s viscosity could be even less than what was thought to be the theoretical limit.

—Emily Dunbar Source: Science Daily

Is computing doomed to reach a standstill in the near future?

Perhaps not. So far, Alexei Tyryshkin, a research scholar at the Hoyt Laboratory at Princeton University, has been able to control the spins of billions of electrons using highly purified silicon-28 for up to 10 seconds. While this is an impressive amount of time in the quantum world, it is not sufficient for our needs. However, if this technology can be extended for greater periods of time and more complex processing units, there is great promise for quantum computing. Traditionally, computer signals are encoded in strings of ones and zeros, called binary code. Quantum particles are known for their uncertainty, and the ability to inherently code for probabilities rather than discrete values could unlock a myriad of as yet unseen potential in computing.

—Emily Dunbar Source: Science Daily

16

monday, January 30, 2012

VARSITY SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

A molecular exchange with Yudin

Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

U of T chemistry professor Andrei Yudin is at the forefront of chemical innovation Dennis Dobrovolsky VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Whether it’s in making molecules or starting companies, professor Andrei Yudin always strives for excellence — and it shows. He is the co-author of over 80 publications and patents, the founder of two companies (Ylektra and Encycle Therapeutics), and the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, such as the 2010 Rutherford Medal of the Royal Society of Canada. With these kinds of credentials, he is more than at home in the cutting-edge research environment of U of T’s chemistry department, where he is surrounded by similarly ambitious and successful faculty members. His lab is on the third floor of the newly-renovated Davenport Building, and a brief stroll inside reveals beakers, bottles, and flasks of all shapes and sizes harbouring various liquids and powders — an eclectic mix of high-tech instruments with glassware that seems straight out of a medieval alchemist’s workshop. The chalkboards are brimming with chemical structures.

Professor Yudin’s research lies at the interface of organic and biological chemistry. Many of his graduate students work on projects in the area of organic synthesis, which is all about finding imaginative and efficient ways of constructing molecules with the right connections between atoms.

In 2006, his group published a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society describing a new class of molecules, called aziridine aldehydes, that are capable of forming cyclic peptides by tying together the ends of linear amino acid chains. It is primarily this work which has allowed Dr. Yudin to extend his research interests into the realm of biology. Dr. Yudin feels that embracing this sort of inter-disciplinary approach is crucial in today’s research world.

“I think that exciting things are to be found almost exclusively at the intersection of fields and I think that anything significant in the future will be produced by teams of people,” says Dr. Yudin. “These teams will be composed of scientists with very different backgrounds.

I … urge the students to learn to speak and communicate the language of other disciplines… When I was a graduate student, I lived in the time of secure jobs, clear future, and emphasis on being an expert in one field because that was the way to secure a job in industry… Being an expert in what you do currently is not going to be enough in order to succeed.”

About a week ago, Dr. Yudin partnered with MaRS Innovation to create a spinoff company, Encycle Therapeutics, to further develop his technology for generating cyclic peptide libraries, a potential new hotbed for the development of pharmaceutical drugs.

When asked about the future of pharmaceutical companies, Dr. Yudin replied, “The times of mammoths such as Merck and Pfizer, who used to hire many of our students, are gone. For instance, MerckFrost recently closed its research and development facility in Montreal. In my view,

small and flexible companies who are aggressively pursuing discovery, are going to take center stage. This also means that the students must embrace these emerging opportunities and take advantage of them. I can see a lot more companies created around technologies that emerge from research universities.”

Dr. Yudin was not always set on a career as a chemist. As a boy he loved drawing and painting, a passion that remains with him to this day; he attends weekly life drawing sessions at the Toronto School of Arts and at the Arts Gallery of Ontario, and he claims that when and if he retires, he will paint and draw full-time.

“When I got exposed to organic chemistry, I realized that my drawing skills were really helping me in class. I was completely ‘sold’ when I found out that it was possible to represent chemical properties by using neatly drawn abstractions such as chemical structures,” he said in a recent interview with Nature Chemistry.

Dr. Yudin’s path through the world of academic research began with the completion of a BSc degree at Moscow State University, followed by a PhD degree at the University of Southern California. Dr. Yudin then went

“When I was a graduate student, I lived in the time of secure jobs, clear future, and emphasis on being an expert in one field because that was the way to secure a job in industry…

Being an expert in what you do currently is not going to be enough in order to succeed.”

on to complete postdoctoral studies at the world-renowned Scripps Research Institute in the lab of professor K. Barry Sharpless, a scientist Dr. Yudin respects very greatly.

“Barry Sharpless [was my biggest role model] due to his ability to profoundly affect science as a whole as opposed to a narrow sub-discipline,” says Dr. Yudin.

“He does this with simple but far-reaching ideas.”

Most U of T’s life science or chemistry students might know Dr. Yudin as their professor for CHM138, the first-year organic chemistry course; however, he also teaches a number of other undergrad and graduate level courses in the chemistry department.

Over his years of teaching, Dr. Yudin has realized that one of the most important skills as a lecturer is to be able to speak slowly and with eye contact. When asked how he made organic chemistry engaging for firstyear undergraduates, Dr. Yudin replied, “One must be able to relate to everyday life.

It is important to remember that many of the students will not choose chemistry as their future vocation.”

Dr. Yudin finds that one of the most challenging things about his job is to “find the right balance between administrative work, family, and science.” However, “discussing science with [his] students and seeing them succeed” is always a major source of excitement for him.

When asked to give advice to prospective grad students, Dr. Yudin said, “Don’t waste time. This is the best period of your lives; you likely do not have a lot of responsibilities outside research. I would advise students to always ask this question: ‘Am I, at this point, doing the most important thing I could be doing?’ If the answer is ‘no,’ switch to the most important task at hand, however difficult or at times boring it might be… Enjoy the moment!”

VARSITY SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

monday, January 30, 2012

Move over, malaria

17

KEN EULER reports on a new malaria vaccine that cuts infection rates by half

A

long-awaited breakthrough in vaccine development: Dr. Joe Cohen and his team at GlaxoSmithKline have finally produced the world’s first vaccine capable of significantly reducing the transmission of malaria. His team’s results were recently published in the November issue of New England Journal of Medicine.

Malaria is an infectious disease that affects approximately half the world’s population. It is estimated that over 250 million people are infected with the disease each year, most of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. While most healthy adults do not die from malaria, the disease is still the cause of approximately one million yearly deaths — most of which are young children who do not yet have an immune system capable of fighting off the disease.

Upon infection, malaria wreaks havoc on a person’s circulatory system through the destruction of red blood cells, which are responsible for delivering oxygen to the body’s cells and organs. The destruction of these cells can lead to many health complications ranging from mild flu-like symptoms (fever, aches, and vomiting), all the way up to more serious and life-threatening issues such as anemia, organ failure, and coma.

Malaria is transmitted from person to person through bites from Anopheles mosquitoes that introduce sporozoite-type parasites into a person’s bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, these parasites head for the liver where they lay in hiding for between one to four weeks and reproduce. When ready, the parasites release a new type of parasite into the bloodstream —

William AHN/THe VArsity

known as merozoite-type parasites — which infect, reproduce inside, and eventually destroy red blood cells. When the red blood cells are destroyed, new merozoites are release and perpetuate the disease.

Medication and methods to treat and reduce the risk of infection are available, such as spraying insecticide and using clothing that covers the body. However, the state of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa prevents many individuals from having access to resources that pro-

tect them from the disease. In addition, new developments such as mosquitoes resistant to insecticides and medication-resistant forms of malaria have reduced the effectiveness of current treatment and prevention options.

To help address the growing gap in viable treatment and prevention methods, Dr. Cohen has been working hard with his team for over 20 years to develop a vaccine that could prevent people from being infected with malaria in the first place.

The vaccine, called RTS,S/AS01, helps prime the immune system so that when malaria parasites enter the bloodstream, they cannot make it to the liver to start reproducing. However, since children are the most at risk for developing serious complications from malaria, it is important that the vaccine be effective for them.

To determine whether the vaccine was capable of preventing the spread of malaria in children, a randomized, controlled, double-blind trial was conducted across seven African countries between 2009 and 2011. The study examined the first 6,000 children age 5 to 17 months who were recruited for the trial. The children were randomly assigned to either the vaccine group or the control group, and after 12 months, were followed up to determine whether they were infected with the disease. Results from the study indicated that children who received the vaccine had a 50 per cent reduction in malaria cases versus children who did not receive the vaccine, indicating that the vaccine is effective about half of the

time.

Though still early in the trial phase, this vaccine breakthrough has demonstrated that it has tremendous potential in helping protect people from infection. If this vaccine is made available to everyone at risk the number of malaria cases diagnosed per year could drop by up to 125 million. This is a true medical breakthrough and hundreds of thousands of young lives could be saved.

Facts and figures

2

The number of swimming pools worth of saliva a person will produce throughout an average lifespan

20

The number of calories in a tablespoon of semen

Mice tunes Male house mice sing ultrasonic songs to attract the ladies

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Sports var.st/SPORTS

30 JANUARY 2012

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

sports@thevarsity.ca

Run, jump, throw

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Varsity Blues pentathlete Rachel Jewett talks us through her chosen discipline Lia Kim VARSITY STAFF

Pentathlon is a rigorous test of stamina, endurance, and versatility; the best pentathletes are endowed with strength and speed.

For the past two years, kinesiology student Rachel Jewett has worked to enhance those physical qualities.

The Varsity Blues athlete has shown promise since her time as a Junior Blue in the tenth grade and won the pentathlon at the recent Fred Foot Classic with 3,427 points.

“I was more focused on my overall personal best and 800m personal best than actually winning the meet,” said Jewett. “[The win] came secondary [to me] and was a nice surprise.”

Track pentathlon can be daunting, since it requires the mastery of five very different disciplines.

“The event requires the athlete to be fast [for 60m hurdles and long jump], explosive and strong [for high jump and shot put], and possess aerobic strength as well [for 800m],” explains track and field head coach Carl Georgevski. “In other words, a well-rounded, coordinated athlete.”

Pentathlon begins with the 60m hurdles. “[You’re] sprinting and [you need] strength to keep your body in line [to] get over the hurdles as efficiently as possible,” Jewett says.

The Blues pentathlete placed third at the classic with a time of 9.41s.

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1.67m in the high jump.

Then comes the shot put. “Shot put [requires] a lot of explosive strength,” explains Jewett. “You need upper body strength, but you also use your legs to propel the momentum of the

“Basically, you just run as fast as you can, [trying] to get your body up as high as [possible] to jump the farthest,” explained Jewett, who ranked sixth with a leap of 4.65m.

Pentathlon’s final event is the

800m race, which takes “the most mental concentration” according to Jewett. “I knew that no one else in the field had a very strong 800m time, and it’s difficult to run an 800m by yourself [because] you’re pacing yourself the whole time rather than following someone.”

Jewett finished the 800m with a time of 2 minutes and 17.70 seconds, 18.22 seconds in front of her closest competitor. Her total of 3,427 points, 136 points more than the silver medalist, was a personal pentathlon best.

With running, jumping, and throwing all required for this one athletic discipline, it’s hard to believe that Rachel can squeeze in a fulltime university degree. “Training for the pentathlon takes [up] a lot of hours,” admits Jewett. “Since [there are] many different events, and [you] need to do the technical work for every event, practices can drag out to three or four hours. But I find that the more demands I have on my time, the more organized I become.”

Jewett hopes to qualify for the CIS championship; her plan consists of more practice, proper rest, and a commitment to work on her weaknesses while maintaining her strengths.

“It’s nice to win [and] it’s nice to perform well compared to other people, but the biggest thing is to try to improve on what I did before, learn from what I did before, and try to do better next time.”

UTSB steps up to the plate Organization promotes the business of sports at U of T Melissa LoParco VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

All sports fans consider themselves capable of running a sports team. U of T students Avish Sood and Natan Levi have started a group that focuses on students who want to work in the business of sports.

The University of Toronto Sports and Business Association aims to allow students who are interested in joining the sports world to make contacts with industry professionals, to gain knowledge, and to network for their future.

The UTSB began after Sood, a fourth-year commerce student, and Levi, a third-year commerce student, attended a national sports conference in Montreal.

“Natan and I decided that an initiative like [the UTSB] needed to be established in Toronto,” explains Levi.

“There are so many passionate students, such as ourselves, in this huge Toronto sports market, and we wanted to create an interactive community for students to potentially build a career in this exciting industry.”

Though this is only UTSB’s first year, the club has seen considerable interest and is already being noticed

by media and people in the industry.

“We have had the opportunity to build sponsor relations with some great companies including the Blue Jays, MLSE, The Score, and NBA Canada,” said Sood. “All of the professionals [we have spoken to] are very excited about the events we have planned and have been more than supportive in helping our initiative grow in Toronto.”

Students of U of T are also taking to this program well and using it to their advantage, according to the founders.

“The feedback has been awesome.

We’re really surprised, we’re happy with the way it’s been working out,” said Levi.

The association’s success has allowed it to organize a sports industry conference; the speaker list includes well-known industry professionals such as Ian Clarke, EVP and CFO of Maple Leafs Sports Entertainment, and Bob Nicholson, the president of the Toronto Argonauts. “[The] goal of the conference is to allow students to build relationships and networks with sports industry professionals as well as learn about trends in the sports industry,” explains Levi. “What we hope comes out of the conference is to an increase in

exposure of U of T students to sports industry professionals as well as many different networking and industry opportunities.”

The conference will also look at branding and the impact of technology on sports.

A few other schools have picked up on the idea of having their own sports industry conferences, but Levi intends to come out on top. “[UTSB] want U of T to be the best at it. We want U of T to have the best speakers and the best students, and we want industry professionals to come to U of T to hire these students.”

“A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet [Toronto Blues Jays president] Paul Beeston and present to him the possibility of being one of the head sponsors for our conference,” said Sood. “After quickly looking over our sponsorship package, he gave little thought [before] deciding to be one of our main sponsors. I think that at that moment, our executive team realized that we had an opportunity to create one of the largest student-run sports career initiatives in Canada.” Though the UTSB is a newly formed group, it appears to be taking big strides towards putting U of T on the court in the sports industry.

sports@thevarsity.ca

VARSITY SPORTS

monday, January 30, 2012

19

Fawns, Jorgensen, and Urban have scored 19 of the Blues’ 55 goals this season. Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

“We rely on each other”

LAURA MITCHELL profiles a terrific trio of Varsity Blues women’s hockey players in the latest in our End Game series

V

arsity Blues women’s hockey stalwarts Amanda Fawns, Brenley Jorgensen, and Karolina Urban are getting used to the idea that they’re graduating soon. “We talk about it everyday, [about] how we can’t believe it’s gone so fast.

We’ll be there next year cheering [the team] on,” says Jorgensen.

The three players aren’t finished quite yet, and despite some trying times, they’ve had a very positive and successful year.

“There’s always challenges on a team,” admits Urban; this year the team had the added challenge of acclimatizing to a new coach, Olympian Vicky Sunohara. “I was excited to have an Olympian [as our] coach because she was such a good player that she had a lot to teach us,” said Jorgensen. “She’ll actually come on the ice and show us how to do specific moves or dangles. She’s so inspiring to watch on the ice, you can’t help but listen to her talk, especially with all her experience.”

Despite the players’ excitement, the new management took some getting used to. “It was a big change with the new coaching staff, so it’s been an adjustment, but in the last ten games we’ve started to do well,” explained Urban.

Sunohara seems just as enthusiastic about her players as they are about her. “I’ve only been with them since September… I’ve just been very impressed with the way they handle themselves and how much time and effort they put into the team,” she said. “I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was very happy.

“I met Karolina first, and she was directly involved, trying to get me established. The program [underwent] a big change by hiring a full-time hockey coach. The girls, I think, were very instrumental in the changeover. They did a good job of keeping the team going while I was going through growing pains.”

Sunohara was also impressed with the trio’s leadership skills.

“What’s most important is leading by example, and they do a really good job of that with their work ethic in the gym and on the ice, which is really important for the younger players to see, and they do that very well.”

However, this year hasn’t been all about growing pains or adjustment.

“They’re very respectful, very hardworking,” observes Sunohara. “It’s not just hockey. I think that as a new coach what I hope to do is develop the girls to be the best they can be on the ice and off the ice [to] help prepare them for life after university.

“I don’t have anything to worry about these guys. They’re so committed, very caring, which really transfers into the real world, so that won’t be a problem for them.”

It’s been a year of mixed results on the ice. “We had a rough start, but as we go into playoffs, we’re at a good spot. We’re almost at third place, and that’s our goal,” explained Jorgensen.

All three players have big plans for their post-Blues lives. Jorgensen intends to pursue a postgraduate certificate in human resources.

Urban will be staying close to her school and sport: she hopes to undertake a master’s degree at U of T, “hopefully something to do with concussion studies.” As for Fawns, the plan is to “go to college to be a paramedic.”

“It’s more of a team atmosphere — everyone’s there for each other.”

Fawns agrees. “More players are contributing … [and] the coaching staff are really positive and supportive of us.

“When we win, we win as a team, there’s no individual who wins for us.”

The camaraderie doesn’t end when the players step off the ice. “Managing your life as a student athlete is hard, but coming to the rink for a break is great — you see your best friends.

That’s one of the things I’m going to miss, seeing them every day,” says Jorgensen.

It’s hard for the trio to highlight personal favourite moments of their time with the team — clearly they feel spoiled for choice.

“Last year our team was in the quarter finals, and we went into double overtime.

We had a few injuries, and our team really pulled it together,” remembers Fawns. “We did end up losing, but it’s one of those experiences you’ll always remember: against a really good team, to go into double overtime and hold them off for that long.

It showed character from a lot of individuals.”

Urban picked out some highlights of her own. “Overall? I’d have to say going to the OUA finals. This year I wouldn’t say there’s [been] one moment, but I [will] mention the

“What’s most important is leading by example, and they do a really good job of that, with their work ethic in the gym and on the ice, which is really important for the younger players to see.”

The girls have high hopes for the team once they’re gone. “With Vicky’s credentials alone, there will be a lot of girls that want to come play for her,” notes Jorgensen. “I think they’re going to be very successful.

And we have two amazing goalies.”

The trio’s final year on the team has also been good for bonding. “We’re more of a team; more of us have a say, we’re more reliable, and we rely on each other,” observes Jorgensen.

York game,” she said. “It was the first time we felt like a team. Things were so positive, we had some luck, and things that we’d been practising were coming together really nice.”

Jorgensen agrees. “Our favourite moments as a [trio] would be that York game because it was just one of the things where, before the game, we were up in the air. If we wanted to keep going, we had to win.

“And without saying anything we all just did our jobs, we didn’t pay attention to refs, we just played.

Our goalie had a great game, she communicated with us more than she ever had. It was like a breath of fresh air; everything was positive and successful.”

Jorgensen scored two goals in that game against York, earning her mbna Athlete of the Week honours for the Varsity Blues, as the team won 4–2.

The season isn’t over yet, though, and the team has high hopes as they enter the playoffs. “We’re going for third, that’s our goal,” says Jorgensen. “We’re kicking ass, we just keep going up and up and up. We’re coming together as a team. I think we’re going to be successful because of how we’ve been playing for the last ten games.”

The team’s positive attitude, along with their recent performance in games, suggests that these ladies will have no problem reaching their goal.

But even if they don’t end the season victorious, Urban says having been on the team is reward enough.

“It’s been one of [my] best experiences… You learn so many life skills, and the friends you make will be friends for life.”

DIVERSIONS

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One of the D-Day beaches Cousin of control and delete -moi (French curse) Like some codes Carangi (American supermodel) Workout locales Eurasian mountain range Nichomachean Ethics author Prefix meaning “Chinese” Walter Scott title character North African dish and cooking vessel Opposite of engrave Ethiopian runner Haile selassie Radio format (abbr.)

Diva’s solo Steampunk pioneer Financial aid ’acte Eggs Gum added to foods

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Prefix with “morphic” or “metric” Pokémon ruins St. Serafina, shortened Thing that collides at CERN Glass toys IPE and Anticosti Alternate description of Frank Sinatra’s 17th year?

Italian card game Ten commandment word Id cousin Australian redneck She was murdered by Thomas Edison Hockey Night in Canada’s MacLean In (a la mode)

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Varsity How-To

MONDAY Trans Film Screening Series: Shinjuku Boys 6:30–9:30 pm William Doo Auditorium 45 Willcocks St.

In which we tell you straightup how to git’r dun.

TUESDAY Panel on Global Austerity, Access to the City & Citizenship 4–6 pm Hart House 7 Hart House Circle WEDNESDAY Panel Discussion on Women, Leadership and Sports 7:00–8:30 pm Hart House 7 Hart House Circle THURSDAY New Music Festival: Percussion and the Spoken Word 12–1 pm Edward Johnson Building 80 Queen’s Park FRIDAY Badminton vs. University of Waterloo & York University 7 pm Athletic Centre 55 Harbord St.

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Magnum Earn The word “solve,” for example, with indefinite article (with 32-down) Like Chlorine or Fluorine Stephen Hawking’s condition Tequila source Bygone European currency Pre-Christian Irish epic Southern Polish town Single celled organisms Telecom jargon intials Rushdie’s friends might call him this Language suffix Like Tenzing Norgay Indian Rupees (abbr.)

Mountain goat Study of birds Bahraini island Abraham’s wife Fringe discipline of biology Honolulu locale The word “loves” for example, with indefinite article (with 3-down) Eject from one’s home Like snake eyes Place to keep bees Corner Brook’s island (abbr.)

David Attenborough’s subject matter Oft-dried fruit Non-governmental astronaut group (abbr.)

Smart and fashionable Bibilical king Home of many a 19-down What one may misspend 34 across on Spanish for lake Of sound mind Mulroney legacy Chi- (Jesus symbol) “Annabel Lee” poet’s initials Abbreviation for a U2 song or a synonymous Black Sabbath album

Crossword Editor’s Note Some of you have been emailing us saying our crosswords are too easy, so this one’s for you. If/when you manage to solve it, take a photo and email it to contests@thevarsity.ca, and we’ll give you a prize — likely a CD, but perhaps timbits or just some pocket lint if we’re running low. Have at it!

PS, write crosswords for us. Email editor@thevarsity.ca to learn how you can help.

I Vant Advice with Ivana Listen

Dear Ivana, My boyfriend wants me to go on the pill because he doesn’t want to wear a condom. I told him I’m not okay with that, especially since we’re not serious. What should I do?

The pill is not perfect, and you might forget to take it. Both people should be doing some sort of birth control. He should use a condom unless he wants children. You can make compromises but you should not have to barter with him to respect your body and your choices. If you go on the pill, you won’t be happy about it and it will ultimately affect your sex life anyway. Perhaps you can consider other types of birth control, so long as you are comfortable exploring that. There are many options and lots of different brands. Figure out why you don’t want to take it in the first place. If he doesn’t want to accept that you don’t want to do it, then it’s time to move on.

Got questions? Need some relationship advice? Email Ivana at ivanalisten@thevarsity.ca

The Varsity

Weekly Horoscopes

by Destiny Starr

Aries

(March 21–April 19) Give yourself a little “me” time this week and get cozy in a sequin bathrobe with your favourite book and a box of chocolate. That Harlequin Romance paperback isn’t going to finish itself.

Taurus

(April 20–May 20) You might be feeling a little off-kilter about your rocky emotional terrain right now, but don’t worry too much because it’ll be smooth sailing very soon. Also, buy a pair of crocs, secretly.

Gemini

(May 21–June 20) You’re convinced that you know best despite others’ suggestions to the contrary. The stars know you’re a total badass, but you’d be wise to listen to those around you this week.

Cancer

(June 21–July 22) Consult your friends over an important romantic issue this week. While they might not know shit about relationships, they can offer you a good outside perspective and wine.

Leo

(July 23–August 22) Tread softly, dear Leo. Your confidence might not be able to handle another blow this week, nor can it take another cake binge (avoid Libras on Thursday).

Virgo

(August 23–September 22) You’re feeling sexy this week, and everybody’s noticing. Take some advice from visiting Venus and wear something sassy to that lecture with the hottie a few rows down. Draw your inspiration from the Artist Formerly Known As Prince.

Libra

(September 23–October 22) Libra, it’s time to get real. Get those toenails clipped ASAP or you will find yourself wallowing in cake by Thursday.

Scorpio

(October 23–November 21) You haven’t been able to get much work done these days, but that’s okay because the stars have got your back.

Specifically, they’ve got your latissimus dorsi muscles, but what do you think we are, nerds?

Sagittarius

(November 22–December 21) Visit a toy store sometime this week for a trip down memory lane. If all those Bratz dolls don’t scare the crap out of you, consider seeking psychological support.

Capricorn

(December 22–January 19) Your spiritual growth is on the rise this month with Neptune visiting your celestial palace. Avoid walking through Queen’s Park when possible; your aural energy may attract a following of squirrels and invisible honey badgers.

Aquarius

(January 20–February 18) You look great this week, but chances are, you feel the opposite of great. Harness the power of the swan for some extra grace and confidence. Also, call your parents.

Pisces

(February 19–March 20) If you didn’t think things were fierce enough last week, get ready for change in your life. Read some Chomsky and go for frozen yogurt on Wednesday to greet these new life steps.