Today, there are exactly 48 days until Christmas. But, the most wonderful time of the year has already begun. The day after Halloween, stores switch out their cobwebs and witch hats for cheery window displays with fake snow and tinsel filling their fronts. The candy aisles transform, too, from cheap[Read More…]
Off the Board
Maybe it wasn’t the wind: In defence of ghost stories
Last summer, amid the shelves of children’s novels in my house, I found a book titled 101 Ways to Find a Ghost by Melissa Martin Ellis. As someone who has always explored and enjoyed anything related to the paranormal, I dove into it. What I found most odd about the book[Read More…]
Adults need Halloween, too
Being a grown-up is really hard. Any young adult can attest that our first encounters with personal finances, heartbreak, and aging parents can be downright scary. The real world is indeed a frightful place, rife with political instability, wildfires, and unexpected ways to die. The idea of having a specific[Read More…]
The world is larger than English
Like many others at McGill, I come from a background of multiple languages. My father grew up in Wolfsburg, Germany—a relatively small country town, about an hour away from Berlin. After 20 years of living in a rainy climate, he decided to venture south in search of sun and a[Read More…]
What I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving
This past weekend, as I sunk into a puffy chair to nurse my protruding belly much too full of turkey, mashed potatoes, and other Thanksgiving delicacies, I closed my eyes and took a moment to fulfill the holiday’s second mandate—being thankful for what I have. My four years at McGill[Read More…]
Navigating “just hooking up”
To my knowledge, I’ve been on one formal date in my life—and I say “formal date” in the movie-and-dinner, Gilmore Girls sense of the word. It was July in Toronto, and I met him at a midtown pub. I was sweaty, because July in Toronto is sweaty, but he told me[Read More…]
University students are anything but “fragile flowers”
In her Sept. 19 column for the Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente compared today’s university students to “fragile flowers,” arguing that increasing concern for mental health on campuses is conditioning young adults to be weak, not resilient. Wente needs to learn a thing or two about resilience. Wente’s staunch disapproval[Read More…]
In search of a nice Jewish boy
When I was 13, my mother told me that she would kick me out of the house if I got a tattoo, or if I married non-Jewish. Her first fear never came to fruition, and her second was something I supported—if not ideologically—at least pragmatically. I grew up in a[Read More…]
The allegory of Trump in Canada
As an American student at McGill, many of the things I’ve heard some Canadians say about the United States—particularly its politics—have been false, absurd, and, on occasion, hypocritical. More concerning, however, is the apparent failure of many Canadians to understand American politics and learn from our mistakes. In my experience,[Read More…]
Stand-up comedy has a sensitivity problem—here’s what you can do about it
“Be sure to check any and all political correctness at the door!” read the press release for one two-week running show at Montreal’s 35th annual Just For Laughs comedy festival. As though the industry has developed a reflex against audience members they perceive to be overly sensitive, it’s not uncommon[Read More…]
