The Tribune

I have a dirty little secret: I’ve never been to a frosh event. I’ve also never attended a McGill sports game, joined a club or even been inside a university rez. No, I’m not a hermit, or even anti-social. I’m a Montrealer. One of those cool but elusive people you meet in one of your classes then never seem to encounter again.

For stick-thin health conscious fellows, poutine is venom on a plate. However, to every other “normal” person in Canada, it is simply a mountain of fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. Poutine may be a Quebec delicacy and extremely delicious, but unfortunately, the fries-cheese-gravy aspect of poutine makes it an artery-clogging snack.

In an utterly charming, sultry voice, Mademoiselle Oui Oui Encore explains that burlesque “is not about sex; it is about seduction, and most of all, confidence in yourself.”  Blue Light Burlesque is the only troupe of its kind in Quebec, and this Thursday night over a dozen performers will be stripping down and heating up La Tulipe in a show entitled “Place Your Bets! Hot Las Vegas Nights.

Île de la Reunion! If you have any clue as to the whereabouts of this obscure island, then you are probably a Geography major because it seems only a handful of people in this city have even heard of it. J. Pierre Charpentier, the manager of Le Piton de Fournaise, decided that he was sick of the Montreal cold and went abroad and spent six years on this minute southern African island located in the Indian ocean off the east coast of Madagascar.

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.

Canadian comedian Russell Peters performed last week at Place des Arts and caught up with the Tribune to discuss college, cheating, and being Canadian. You’re very popular with college students. What’s your favourite college experience? I never went to college.

Research: Research papers are, after all, founded on research, and research implies sources. A good rule of thumb is one book for every two pages and two journal articles for every three. So for a 10-page paper, you would want at least five books and seven articles, plus as many primary sources as you can get your hands on.

Every path in life has a shortcut, a simple approach and an easy way out. It is common knowledge that the masses cheat in school, work and even dieting. Although we hate to admit it, almost every one of us has, at one point in our lives, found ourselves cheating at something or, even worse, on someone.

If Martha Stewart has taught me nothing else, it is to never apologize for a meal before you serve it. By all means, apologize as your guests are being carted off on stretchers by EMS, but not a moment before that lobster-lychee casserole hits the table. Thankfully, Martha Stewart’s credibility is completely shot, and thus I unabashedly forgiveness culpa, dear reader.

As of late, many students have become extremely uncomfortable with the level of creepiness some online social networks, ahem, Facebook, have stooped to – going from knowing details about people you’ve never actually met in reality, to knowing the last time that person ate a meal, went to the bathroom and slept in someone else’s bed.