The Tribune

Montreal is a politically charged city in a politically charged province; even the most insulated McGill ghetto resident knows that. When put to the task, it is a good bet that most students could also tell you a bit about Quebec’s beef with Canada, Canada’s beef with Quebec, and do a half-decent impression of Jean Chretien (hint: as you’re talking, move your mouth like you are, in fact, chewing beef).

During a drunken night out on the town, no one thinks to question the political affiliation of his or her favourite street. Enjoying the bars on St-Denis? You might be promoting a military regime. Walking along Stanley? You could be a potential colonizing bastard.

The shiny brochures in the Welcome Centre may romanticize student life, but they cannot exaggerate this fact: McGill is a unique institution. As an internationally renowned, English university located in the centre of a French-speaking province, most McGill students come in contact with a tongue that they do not understand every day, whether it be French, Arabic or Japanese.

As informatiive – and enthralling – as student textbooks are, in order to be a truly knowledgeable student in Montreal, it is important to read the city newspapers (no, the Tribune doesn’t count). Although McGill is situated in the heart of one of the most socially and politically active cities in Canada, many students are unaware of what happens beyond the campus gates.

As I sat down to write this article, I was feeling less than inspired. Plagiarism is a topic that has been covered excessively, and it is also a rather boring one. I’ve read the same warning paragraph on each of my course outlines this semester, as has everyone else.

Engaging in a one-on-one meeting with a professor at the front of Leacock 132 for more than five minutes is a fantasy envisioned by many McGill undergraduates. Professors have their own agenda to attend to (think: “publish or perish”) and often cannot provide personal attention to each of the hundreds of students in their classes.

Frosh will go alcohol-free this Fall as part of a series of massive changes which are the result of a decreasing interest in getting shitfaced. Students’ Society Vice-President Internal Alex Brown said, “It’s really too bad that it’s come to this, but incoming students just don’t want to party.

A foremost concern among many first-year students in Rez is, besides getting used to the awkwardness of peeing in co-ed bathrooms, the safety of their living facility. Freshmen at McGill, many of whom are away from home for the first time in their lives, often need an extra hand at keeping threats to their safety at bay.

It would only have taken a single spark on the wooden fire escape for an entire block in downtown Sackville, New Brunswick, to go up in flames. A primarily student-inhabited apartment building near Mount Allison, Canada’s leading liberal-arts University, burned for over 24 hours on Friday, Aug 11, 2006.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I found it difficult to envision life in Montreal. It’s similar to how my fellow Canadians who haven’t been to Southern California imagine Hollywood as a strictly glamorous haunt, with California girls gallivanting in their bikinis while Abercrombie models surf to class.