Student Life

All about student life on campus.

SILHOUTETTE: Dude, where’s my passport?

When you live in a city where most of the homeless people can beg for money in three different languages, you know it’s international. Out of the 19,000 undergraduates at McGill, 3,660 of them are from outside of Canada. Encompassing over 4,000 students, including graduates and part-timers, the McGill International Student Network is one of McGill’s most valued student organizations.

Is your face worthy of Facebook?

Think you’re on Facebook to socialize? Think again. With over 20,000 new members registering daily for the infamous friendship network, Facebook is known, first and foremost, as an efficient tool for the communicating masses. While eager stalkers interact via notes, poking and wall writing, they are also tuning into something much larger and essentially much vainer: themselves.

STUDENT LIVING: Recipe-Ah, zee Franche cuisine

Even the most particular person always has at least one thing to marvel at when they think of the French: food. French food is one of the oldest, proudest and most regulated gastronomical traditions in the world. This is not to say that Indian, Thai, Spanish or any of the other traditions are lacking in some way, but they were not institutionalized as early as the French.

STUDENT LIVING: How to…Talk shit in French

A few years past, one’s command of the French language had to be fairly deft to survive in Quebec for very long. McGill students, for the first weeks after arriving in Montreal, would need to assiduously commit dozens of key phrases to memory in order to obtain everyday household items, from milk to light bulbs.

WEBSITE OF THE WEEK: Gossip looks pretty in pink

As we enter the first week of school feeling relaxed and refreshed after four months of summer, we tend to forget the horrors of midterms, papers and finals. Slowly but surely, though, the pressure of university starts to creep onto the shoulders of each and every one of us.

ON CAMPUS: Waiting is the hardest part

If you take a walk down to the corner of Aylmer and Sherbrooke, near the eastern edge of campus, you will find a McGill building. This is no ordinary building, but a confusing labyrinth of dead-ends and key card-access doors that would make King Minos proud.

JUMBO SHRIMP: Something blue

The big fashion trend this fall is not the skinny jean, nor is it the sweater-dress, peek-toe pumps or military coats. The hot accessory for autumn, as I was informed this past weekend, is the engagement ring. Ah, engagement rings. The world’s smallest set of handcuffs, some might say.

FOOD: Tea’s company

Though it has only been a Western commodity for the past few centuries, tea has one of the longest and most illustrious histories of any beverage. Legend cites its discovery by Emperor Shennong of China around 2700 BCE, though early written record of the drink only stretches back to 300 CE or so.

THE HYDIAN PERSPECTIVE: How to be a hipster

Going to University is a chance to re-invent yourself; you can finally shake off the stigmas of adolescent awkwardness and become the beautiful swan you were always meant to be. While many students adopt a new identity because they have experienced a great maturation between graduation day and the beginning of frosh, this metamorphosis is more frequently facilitated by the fact that they are now miles away from the people who knew them during their brace-faced “my little ponies” phase.

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