McGill students, living up to their overachiever stereotype, are always looking for ways to enhance their university experience. That’s precisely why year after year many McGillians participate in the McGill Exchange/Study Abroad Program, taking on the role of international student and returning with more than another stamp in their passports.

Students typically leave on exchange sometime during their third year. This gives them two full years to adapt to and understand McGill’s academic and social environment. Yet in speaking to multiple returning exchange students, I noticed a common trend among them. They all expressed a great deal of trouble re-acclimating to the McGill environment.

“You forget that the lifestyle at McGill is so difficult to maintain,” says Ari Jaffe, U3 Management, who spent last semester on exchange in Bangkok, Thailand, “At McGill you have to be a superhuman. Exchange was nothing like that.”

Whether they’d gone to Bangkok, Sydney, London, or Sao Paulo I found these students’ symptoms followed a similar pattern, ultimately leaving them in a reverse culture shock state when they return to the Roddick Gates.

The process begins once you’re admitted to the program. “It’s all so surreal until the plane actually lands,” said Diana Stern, a U3 IDS  and Management student who spent last semester at the University of Leeds in the UK, “There is a period of shock when you arrive to realize that you have to build a life in a new city.”

However, the reality of exchange quickly kicks in. Proudly bearing the McGill name, you’re warmly welcomed by your new community. Between the travelling, new friends, and the ease of pass/fail courses, the bulk of these five months are spent more as a getaway than an academic experience. But  what goes up must come down.

“The thought of leaving exchange behind was heartbreaking,” said Jaffe.

This is where most recently returned students find themselves. “It was surprisingly difficult to readjust to the McGill environment,” said Stern. “You realize after experiencing student life somewhere else, the competitive nature and stress level that is synonymous with McGill is unique to it as well.” Acclimatizing back to McGill requires more than suiting up in Canada Goose.

McGill provides students with the opportunity to study abroad at some of the world’s most reputable institutions, so the level of academics is relatively similar. Why then are McGill students under so much more stress? Alana Romoff, a U3 cultural studies student explained, “We tend to put so much emphasis on the hardships of this school that we take for granted the great things that make McGill such a positive personal experience for us. My friends at McGill are what I came to cherish most about university.”  

Jaffe and Stern agreed that the well-rounded student we idealize here is an unnecessary standard worldwide.

We don’t need to be so concerned with being in the top five per cent of our class in order to feel accomplished. So in this pre-finals season of multiple papers and second round midterms, let us use the example of our peers overseas and view our degrees not as a means to an end, but as a larger journey outside of Leacock, Shulich and Redpath.

Alice Walker

Last Sunday, I experienced the wonderful world of Zumba for the first time.  

For those unfamiliar with Zumba, it’s essentially line dancing to pop and Latin music for the sake of getting in shape. Picture a square dance meets Sweatin’ to the Oldies meets a bar mitzvah in Colombia, and you’re starting to get the idea. This is “Cotton Eye Joe” and “The Cha Cha Slide” for the 21st century. And it’s good exercise, too.

For some reason, Zumba tends to be a female dominated activity. Maybe it’s because years of television have taught us that fat and ugly men inevitably end up with beautiful wives, and so men feel less inclined to exercise. Maybe it’s because some guys have a macho complex that makes them eschew cardio for weights. Or maybe it’s because for some reason guys don’t think they’re supposed to like dancing. Either way, men do not seem to do Zumba.  

Except for me. This kind of dancing feels just like camp to me, where every Friday night we’d Israeli dance. Girls changed into pants so nothing indecent would happen, and guys changed into skirts because, hey, twirling around in one is the most liberating thing in the world. Then we spent about 45 minutes working off dinner, with the extra motivation that I had to look sharp for Saturday lifeguard and tanning duty.

I didn’t wear a skirt to Zumba, I thought my thigh high running shorts would do the trick just fine.  But I did try to bring some of that spirit of freedom (read: being an attention-seeker) into class that day.  And so, I became the only male at Zumba.

This really shouldn’t have been a big deal, but I had had some previously negative experiences being the only guy in a group. Like when I was seven and dreams of being Chip in the stage production of Beauty and the Beast led me to enrol in acting classes. I was the only boy, I cried, and I quit. Or in grade three when I got stuck being the only boy in a group project. I cried about that one too. But now as a strapping 21-year-old, with a female friend-base nearby and my girlfriend Georgina for support, this was going to be nothing. There would be no tears today.

But there’s no accounting for the thoughts that swirled in my head. At first, there was a steady stream of “It feels so good to move,” transitioning into “Am I that obnoxious guy who can’t follow instructions and is ruining the exercise experience for all the girls?,” into “Uh oh, do all these girls think I’m some  pervert who’s just here to watch a room full of girls in tights shaking it?” I usually don’t think gender matters. But it was a bit hard to ignore at first.

Thanks to the power of the music, Zumba kept getting better. By the time we reached Pitbull’s “Calle Ocho,” my thoughts were gone as I happily shook my rump with the rest of the girls. Sure, I dance to the beat of my own drummer, and yes, that drummer tends to be offbeat, but that’s just the way I do. And I know I’m not there for the wrong reasons. We’re all people, and all people—male or female—have the right to get in shape by standing in line, marching side to side, moving their hips in a circle, and jumping back and forth with vibrating thighs to sweet Latin beats.

I’ll be going to Zumba again, and I encourage others to come too. Sometimes you just have to say goodbye to self-consciousness, let go of shame and pride, and just dance. Or if you prefer to do it at home, buy the videogame.

Internationally acclaimed author and journalist Mordecai Richler died nearly a decade ago, but two Montreal city officials have spearheaded an initiative to see that the Montreal native is not forgotten.           Michael Applebaum and Marvin Rotrand have begun an online petition requesting “the City of Montreal make an appropriate gesture to commemorate the contribution of Mordecai Richler in naming a street, a public place or building in his honour.” The councillors are looking for the commemoration to occur before the ten-year anniversary of Richler’s death on July 3, 2011.

Many proposals for what form the tribute should take have been presented. Richler’s widow, Florence, has suggested that St. Urbain Street, his birthplace and childhood home, be renamed. Rotrand has claimed that it should come in the form of a renamed library, or a plaque near his childhood home.

Montreal was the setting of many of Richler’s novels. His works include The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, St. Urbain’s Horseman, and the award-winning Barney’s Version, which was recently adapted into a film.

In addition to his work as a novelist, Richler wrote for ublications such as the National Post,  and the Gazette, often making waves with biting comments about Quebec separatists.

The petition has therefore received some opposition. Members of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, a large Quebec nationalist group, have been particularly vocal. The group’s president Mario Beaulieu cited Richler as an alienating individual who was “anti-Quebec.”

“I don’t think [commemorating him is] a good idea in Quebec because Mr. Richler created many divisions,” Beaulieu told the Canadian Press earlier this month. “For us, he’s an anti-Quebec racist because he denigrated French Quebecers.”

 Maxime Laporte, the president of a sovereigntist student group at the University of Montreal, echoed the sentiment.

“Mordecai Richler, for me, is someone who through his writings and words [expresses] a contempt for the Quebec people,” Laporte said. “Mr. Richler demonized certain politicians and was contemptuous of certain events in Quebec history.”

 Filmmaker Francine Pelletier’s new documentary, The Last Angry Jew, scheduled to air on Bravo in December, examines the bitter relationship between Richler and Quebec. While Pelletier acknowledges that Richler didn’t always write with tact, she makes an effort to tell both sides of the story.

  “I realized in making the film that most Francophone Quebecers see him as the troublemaker, the one who irritated us by beating up on nationalism, the Parti Québécois, and language laws,” she said. “But when people have read Mordecai Richler as a novelist, it changes their perception. They are ready to acknowledge he was a great novelist and a great Quebecer, even if he held views that were not the same as ours.”

Another prominent theme of Richler’s work, especially in Duddy Kravitz, was the adversity the Jewish immigrant minority in the city faced, which Rotrand addressed in an interview.

“He epitomizes, for many Montrealers, the experience of successive groups of immigrants—particularly in the Jewish community, but others as well—who came to the city,” Rotrand said. “For many people, they sense Montreal history in the writing.”

As of last Friday, the petition had 683 signatures, and had garnered support from some unlikely sources, particularly Jean-François Lisée, an advisor to former Parti-Quebecois premiers Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard. Although it’s at odds with Richler on Quebec sovereignty, Lisée praised the petition.

“He is [one of] the top three writers that Quebec has produced in the last century. He’s up there with our very best,” Lisée said. “He did write about Quebec in an astoundingly rich and original way. He’s a gem, and I think it should be recognized.”  

Rotrand and others, remain realistic, recognizing that naming a street or public area after Richler will prove difficult, given the writer’s controversial reputation. But Lisée believes the effort is a worthy cause.

“Quebec cherishes its culture, and it should be reflected in its landscape,” he said.