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Student Life

Living with boys

by Ioana Varlan on

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collegecandy.com

Until recently, I’ve always lived with girls. If I decided to play Miley Cyrus on repeat for weeks on end, or buy a vanilla scented candle, it was never a problem. But things change when you live with a member of the opposite sex, which I’ve discovered by acquiring a well-dressed, well-groomed European boy as my roommate this semester. The most important thing to say about my new roommate is that he has really, really good-looking friends. He also, for whatever reason, rarely leaves the house, leaving me with very little time in my natural habitat. He spends his days relaxing, and his nights congregating with his gorgeous posse in shared territory, which turns my apartment into a Eurotrash Esquire magazine headquarters. Two months of living with him has thoroughly modified the looks and content of my apartment, room by room.

The bathroom

What used to be a washroom facility is now a stronghold of objects masterfully hidden from the male gender. Age-old feminine secrets like the fact that girls poop, use tampons, and occasionally have weird facial hair can’t be tastefully tucked aside, and are instead now iron-bolted in an opaque container underneath a floorboard.

The kitchen

Boys eat at least twice as much as girls. It’s infuriating. Having a boy in your kitchen is a constant reminder of all the things girls can’t do in fear of morbid obesity, like eat a pizza as a snack or drink Gatorade instead of water. Suddenly my fridge—which previously contained a carrot, cheap white wine, and a tub of margarine—is filled to the brim with meat products and beer that’s at least 85 cents more expensive than the type I usually buy. Jerk.

Moreover, for reasons I can’t really explain, I am too ashamed to eat my feelings in front of my new roommate. When I have the urge, I now have to go to my neighbour’s house to eat a tub of peanut butter with a spoon.

The bedroom

Our apartment is configured so that people have to walk through my room to get to the kitchen. It’s unfortunate, but it’s cheap. However, this means that my bedroom is public domain to French and German bros who spend more money on their jeans than I do on my rent. The sacrifices I’ve made are probably for my own benefit, but embarrassing nonetheless. Long gone are the days of hanging around in the flowery sweaters my mom made for me when I was a fat fifth grader. I’ve even had to purchase a fair amount of lace underwear just to surface-cover my good old Fruit of the Looms while doing laundry.

As you can see, my current living situation has caused a fair amount of trouble in my day-to-day life. But let’s be honest, when my roommate brings his friends over to pre-drink and walk around shirtless (because that’s what hot people do), and when they insist on kissing both cheeks instead greeting me with a hug or a hand shake (because that’s what hot European people do), I know all the trouble is worth it.

Student Life

Living with girls

by Matt Essert on

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Last year a girl I didn’t know moved in with me and my two other male roommates. It was weird. But during that semester, no matter how much I fought it, my living style changed, sometimes for the better, but mostly to the lamer. But, besides certain aspects of my life changing, I noticed a few things that surprised me about living with a member of the fairer sex.

The bathroom

No matter what anyone tells you, girls are definitely messier in the bathroom than guys. This really shouldn’t come as any surprise after seeing how long it takes girls to get ready for class or, God forbid, a night out. I guess I had originally assumed that girls take 30 seconds to apply makeup and then stand in the bathroom, not doing anything for the other 59 minutes and 30 seconds. I finally figured out that girls take so long to get ready because of all the products they apply everywhere on their bodies. Lotions, perfumes, potions, soaps, pads, dabs, appliances, colours, and unidentifiable containers with Chinese writing were always abundant in our bathroom.

The living room

There were a few big changes in our living room when the girl moved in. First, I felt extra nerdy playing video games for three hours at a time. When it’s just me and mes chiens, I had no qualms pwning noobs. But with a girl around, it became slightly embarrassing. Also, my television watching had to change. Either I felt compelled to watch more manly things, or when I did watch Say Yes to The Dress, I had to act like I didn’t love it (but come on, it’s a great show). Our pre-drinking situation also became way less manly because it turns out that hanging out without my shirt on while pounding PBRs before going out is not very attractive.

The kitchen

Maybe it was just my personal experience, but I have found that girls cook differently than guys. Girls are very into heating things up or cooking one small thing, and then leaving the dirty dishes next to the sink for five days. On the other hand, when I cook, I am using the whole kitchen and usually at least two or three burners. It can get messy, but I will clean up after dinner. Again, this could just be my experience, but every girl’s kitchen I’ve seen has almost been messy, and the leftovers are gross. Sorry, ladies.

    

Obviously, there are differences when living with a lover rather than just some girl you know, but I can tell you this: although chicks are awesome, living with dudes is sometimes just a lot easier.

Sports

McGill Redmen football: a damage report

by Sean Wood on

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John Kelsey

Ardent devotees of the varsity football team must be ready for psychiatric counseling.  Luckily, there aren’t many of them.  Those that remain have been shaken by five deflating losses.  Let’s have a look at the damage.

Game 1:  Laval blew out the Redmen 50-9 in Quebec City.   The Redmen could have recovered if they hadn’t lost starting QB Jonathan Collin for the season on a hit in the third quarter.  

Game 2:  In their home opener, the Redmen dropped an ugly match with Bishop’s in double OT, 26-17.  One Tribune reporter said it would have been a stretch to call it real football.

Game 3:  At halftime of the Fill the Stadium game, the Redmen had a promising lead and looked like they were going to send the rowdy fans home happy.  Concordia, though, had other plans, and took a permanent lead on a punt return with three minutes to go.  Concordia 34, McGill 29. Or perhaps Expectations 3, McGill 0. 

Game 4:  The fans who made the trek across the hill to watch the Redmen play at the University of Montreal came back reporting déjà vu.    Our boys had a ten-point lead over the third-ranked Carabins at halftime, and looked in position to nab a season-changing upset.   Unfortunately, they gave up 452 yards of net offence and 24 points in the second half, losing 24-11.

Game 5: At least they didn’t blow a lead.  They were never competitive against Sherbrooke, who rained on the Homecoming parade with a 34-8 win. 

 

The Redmen will spend the rest of the season trying to recover their dignity.  Even some normal losses would be nice…the blowouts and blown leads are hard to bear. 

My prayers are with them.

Arts & Entertainment

Between the Lines

by TVMcGill and The McGill Tribune on

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  • Credits: Theo Meyer, Meg Cramer, Ellie Marshall, Dan Beresh, with thanks to the Tribune editorial board
  • Duration: 3:25
  • Posted: 09.29.10

In this episode of Between the Lines, the Tribune Editorial Board recaps the Architecture Cafe Rally and the ongoing drama that is AUS Frosh’s financial complications. Tune in for exciting news every week from this fantastic TVMcGill – Tribune collaboration.

Arts & Entertainment, Books

Finding sanctuary in the written word

by Brahna Siegelberg on

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Jane Urquhart was born a writer, but she never envisioned that she would one day be considered among the ranks of the most widely read and respected Canadian authors. With the recent publication of her seventh novel, Sanctuary Line, Urquhart has been nominated  for the prestigious Giller Prize: an award honouring the author of an outstanding work of Canadian iterature.  

Aside from demonstrating Urquhart’s astonishing prose and vivid, cinematic descriptions, Sanctuary Line’s importance stems from its ability to incorporate—and masterfully weave together—a number of contemporary Canadian issues.

“It’s a novel that’s almost impossible to describe,” says Urquhart. “When I try to describe it, it sounds as if it should be 1,400 pages. But in fact it’s quite a slim book. I wanted it to be spare, not burdened with too much stuff because of the various things that were occupying my mind at the time.”

Among the many issues she grapples with are the plight of the monarch butterfly in Canada, the decline and almost full disappearance of the family farm in Ontario, and Canada’s uncharacteristic role as a combatant in Afghanistan. (Particularly female involvement in the combat.) Urquhart skillfully touches upon  these issues by telling the story of entomologist Liz Crane who returns to her family’s 150-year-old farm to study butterfly migration. There, she mourns her cousin Mandy who died in Afghanistan, and reminisces about how her uncle Stanley’s mechanization of farming techniques contributed to the demise of the traditional family farm.

While Urquhart is not among the camp of writers and scholars who consider Canadian literature to embody something inherently distinct from other Anglophone writing, she certainly credits her country’s unique geography and history with providing the landscapes for her works.

“My work is geographically autobiographical,” says Urquhart. “I do come from an agricultural past; a pioneer, Irish past that has intrigued me all my life. I didn’t grow up in Essex county, but I visited it every summer, so in that way I’m like Liz, who’s only in that world in the summertime.”

Urquhart’s work is also part of the body of contemporary Canadian fiction that has brought about the coining of a sub-genre called “Southern Ontario Gothic.” Invoking the Gothic genre made famous by American writers like William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, the term describes works that similarly critique social conditions and moral hypocrisy, but take place in Ontario.

Other well-known Canadian writers whose works fit into this genre are Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, and Timothy Findley. As Liz describes her family’s subtle mistreatment of the Mexicans hired to work the farm and emphasizes the ghostly presence of her dead family members, it’s no wonder Urquhart’s work is associated with this term.  

“Weirdly, this book may be more [Southern Ontario Gothic] than the works that got associated with that term,” says Urquhart. “Because I am dealing here with the ends of things—the moment when whatever it is that has existed in a seemingly stable state is no longer going to exist.”

And that emphasis on the ends of things that were seemingly stable is the root of the novel’s ironic title. Although the multi-generational Butler family felt incredibly secure in their prosperity and long-standing traditions, a series of events revealed throughout the novel ultimate disprove their apparent stability. While Liz goes back to her childhood summer home as a means of seeking refuge from her painful memories, the memories evoked by the place itself become even more painful.

“The understanding of sanctuary is often a confused one,” explains Urquhart. “The family felt so secure, as if what had been created around them was stable and forever. And of course that wasn’t the case.”  

Like many writers, Urquhart is convinced of literature’s ability to not only tell a compelling story, but to teach us something about our history and ourselves. As the study of Canadian history is fairly recent, it was left up to who she calls the “fictioneers” to fill in the gaps. Although she began her career as a poet, Urquhart sees the novel as unique in its ability to re-create lost worlds and bring life to individual stories.

“I like the novel better for me,” she says. “Not as a reader, but as a writer; I am able to create an alternative world and keep it with me for long periods of time. When I’m in the middle of writing a book, it’s the happiest time of all.”

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Opera de Montreal explores the dark price of laughter

by Sean Wood on

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Opera de Montreal’s season-opening production of Rigoletto’s famous tunes, virile tenor solos, rousing choruses, lavish costumes, and talented cast are well worth the price of admission.  

Spectators will be rewarded with a dark, compelling fable of comedy and fate. Rigoletto is the hunchbacked, misanthropic jester in the court of the Duke of Mantua—a libertine with limitless and dangerous desires who “shun[s] fidelity like a bad disease.”  

Rigoletto’s bitter joking gets him into trouble when he mocks a rival count, who puts a curse on him. When the Duke falls in love with Rigoletto’s cherished daughter Gilda, the jester vows revenge. The curse, however, prevents him from doing so.

Like most operas, Rigoletto’s plot moves slowly. The tunes, however, are so catchy that you don’t even notice. The opera runs a fast two hours and 30 minutes.

That’s not to say, however, that Rigoletto is just a sequence of foot-tapping songs. Composer Giuseppe Verdi was especially good at writing simultaneously accessible and serious scores, and Rigoletto is one of his masterpieces.  The quartet in Act III, in which four characters with totally different psychologies sing together in a coherent ensemble, is a world-famous piece of operatic art.  

Rigoletto is a complicated, tortured character, and baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore is excellent in the role. He despises his career, his employers, and mostly himself, but he is capable of powerful, concentrated love. Michaels-Moore’s rich voice is especially strong in Rigoletto’s introspective scenes, where it soars and falls with the character’s passionate emotional cadences.   

Opposite him, David Pomeroy is very good as the predatory Duke.  He prowls the stage like a panther, and is by turns slyly seductive and fiercely sexual. His voice isn’t as commanding as Michaels-Moore’s, but is full of style and bravado.  

In a supporting role as the lawless assassin Sparafucile, Ernesto Morillo’s broad, woody bass is also particularly memorable.    

The story is set in an unapologetically male world. The Duke’s courtiers’ sing three all-male choruses that are extraordinarily energetic, and the play’s most famous tune is “La donn’é mobile,” or “woman is fickle.”

Political incorrectness aside, Gilda is a multi-dimensional character, and soprano Sarah Coburn got a standing ovation at the curtain call as she sang Gilda’s challenging vocal parts admirably.

The 16th century set and costumes further enrich the drama. (It’s worth checking out the costumed mannequins in the concourses during intermission.)  The Duke’s court boasts a gaudy 25 foot tall statue of a cherub that emphasizes his decadence and lavish appetites.  

If you go, you’ll want to spend some time people-watching during intermission. Montreal’s aristocrats come to the opera dressed to kill, and if you stand by the bar you can witness a steady stream of them ordering $25 glasses of champagne.

Relinquish your credit card, find a date, get dressed up, and see Rigoletto. It’ll be a grand game of make-believe as you watch the actors onstage with your opera glasses and pretend you’re rich and famous.

Rigoletto is playing at Salle Wilfred-Pelletier, Place des Arts.   Tickets are $30 each for two productions (it’s probably the cheapest opportunity you’ll ever have to see an opera like this).

News

Arts Execs reveal $30,000 Frosh budget deficit at Council

by Matt Essert & Theo Meyer on

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The Arts Undergraduate Society announced on Wednesday that Arts Frosh had taken in far less than what was needed to cover the event’s expenditures, resulting in a budget deficit of $30,105.

AUS Vice-President Finance Majd Al Khaldi spent more than an hour detailing how the event went so deeply into the red at AUS Council.

Much of the revenue shortfall, Al Khaldi said, stemmed from the fact that Nampande Londe, the vice-president in charge of organizing Arts Frosh, decided to raise the cap for attendance to 1,800 participants. More first years chose to register online this summer, which led Londe to believe that a high number would also register on campus in August.

Based on the higher cap, the AUS projected that Arts Frosh would take in $170,863. As the registration numbers in the days leading up to Frosh failed to meet projections, however, the AUS decided to open Frosh to all McGill students in an effort to register as many people as possible.

Nevertheless, this last-ditch effort failed to register many more students. About 1,482 students registered for Arts Frosh, and the event took in $137,637.

Members of AUS Council were made aware of the shortfall during the first week of term, but most of them did not see the budget until Wednesday.

“When I saw the budget, I was appalled,” said Amara Possian, an Arts senator who has been involved in Frosh for the past three years. “Some of the things they spent money on were absurd.”

Froshies, for example, have typically spent the last night of Arts Frosh at St. Sulpice, a popular bar on St. Denis Street, which hosted the event free of charge. This year, though, Londe paid to book the Just for Laughs Theatre.

After news of the loss broke in campus newspapers, Londe resigned her position as AUS VP events on September 14. She cited personal reasons in her decision to resign and is no longer a student at McGill.

Many of Frosh’s financial difficulties, Possian said, stemmed from Londe’s mismanagement. She added that councillors were ready to impeach her if she had not resigned.

Although Londe was not present at Wednesday’s meeting, councilors voiced concerns about how the event generated such a large shortfall.

“Raising the cap was the biggest problem they had, and I wasn’t aware of the extent to which that was going to have an effect on the deficit,” said Cathryn Supko, a representative to AUS Council from the Society of Undergraduate Math Students. “I was actually really fascinated by the fact that they did not spend as much as they anticipated, and there was still quite a significant deficit.”

Several councillors also questioned some of the event’s expenditures. The AUS originally budgeted $4,950 to pay its six Frosh coordinators, who assisted Londe in organizing the event. The AUS subsequently raised their total pay to $7,000, despite the fact that one of the coordinators quit midway through the summer.

“[The decision to raise the coordinator’s stipend] was made by the executive based on the fact that these coordinators had to pull out more work based on the fact that somewhere halfway through the summer the cap was raised,” Al Khaldi said. “They ended up planning an event for 1,800 students instead of 1,400, hence this raise.”

In addition, the budget presented by Al Khaldi showed that the AUS spent $5,505 on food for a barbeque on the second day of Frosh, though only $2,263 was budgeted for the meal. Al Khaldi attributed the overrun to Casey Adams, one of the Frosh coordinators, who failed to order the food from Provigo far enough in advance.

The AUS spent far more on Frosh this summer than in previous years. Total expenditures ran to $167,752 this year—about $46,000 more than last year.

According to Al Khaldi, Arts Frosh had budgeted to lose money on Frosh, but these projections showed the event losing $7,933.

Councillors also expressed concern that Al Khaldi was unable to be more involved in the Frosh planning process. Though Al Khaldi was not required to help plan Frosh or be in Montreal over the summer, councillors suggested that the future holders of Al Khaldi’s position might take a larger role in Frosh.

“I think that it would have been better to have the VP finance there [during Frosh planning] to look over the budget and work in conjunction with them the whole summer,” said Tim Apedaile, the president of the Political Science Students Association. “I think that’s a positive that’s come of this because I think they’re moving towards doing that.”

McGill, News

Students rally to save the Architecture Cafe

by Maria Flores on

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Margot Van Der Krogt

In a last-ditch attempt to save the Architecture Café, hundreds of students gathered to protest outside the Leacock Building last Wednesday afternoon.

 The rally kicked off minutes before McGill’s first senate meeting of the year was scheduled to begin in Leacock 232. As administrators, professors, and other members of senate entered the building, students chanted slogans such as “Save Arch Café” and “Show some respect and show us the numbers,” backed by banging drums.

McGill’s administration permanently shut down the café at the start of the school year, citing concerns about the management and profitability of the café. However, they have refused to disclose exact figures.

At Wednesday’s demonstration, the largest at the university in recent memory, students held signs displaying phrases like “McGill ranked number one in ignoring students” and “Show us the numbers or give back the Arch Café.”

“I think it’s really upsetting that they’re shutting down the café, our last student-run food service, and they have absolutely no proof that they’re running a deficit,” said Taylor Stocks, a U3 political science student who attended the rally. “I mean, what’s next? We need a place to work on campus that we run.”

“The Architecture Café was always a great place to go to get reasonably priced food during breaks, and it was student run which was great,” added Cathryn Supko, U2 mathematics. “I think it’s really unfortunate that it’s not around anymore and [the administration is] not even giving us legitimate evidence for why they’re closing it. We have the right to know what’s going on.”

Students’ Society of McGill University President Zach Newburgh appeared at the rally and thanked the students for helping to send the administration a message.

The rally continued after the Senate meeting started and eventually made its way around campus towards the Macdonald-Harrington Building, where the Architecture Café was located. McGill Security refused entry to protesting students.

For some students, the café itself is not the main issue, but rather the way the administration deals with student needs and responds to their petitions.

 “I think it’s more than just the café,” said Lily Schwarzbaum, a U1 international development student at the rally. “I think it’s a representation of the attitude of the administration towards students, the manner in which they did it was really inappropriate. They want to replace it with study space, which is very clearly not what the students want.”

The Engineering Undergraduate Society, in conjunction with the Architecture Students Association, has presented an alternative proposal to closing the café to the administration, in which the EUS would take over the café and establish it as a student run service, similar to the Frostbite and Copi-EUS food outlets in the engineering buildings.

Despite the optimistic atmosphere at the rally, the efforts of Arts Senator Amara Possian along with those of SSMU President Zach Newburgh and Vice-President University Affairs Joshua Abaki at senate failed to sway the administration. At senate, Possian, Newburgh, and Abaki cited the rally and a slate of student signatures supporting the proposal for the EUS to run the café under their management.

Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson, however, said that the Architecture Café’s closure was part of a long process of phasing out student-run food services on campus. He rejected calls to re-examine the issue.

“I can accept that people in the university feel attached to the café, but I am convinced that the café can no longer operate at a managerial loss,” Mendelson said. “There’s been a number of years where we had student run services on campus which generated serious problems that were addressed by taking over.”

The café, Mendelson said, was operating at a loss which the university could no longer afford. He added that the purpose of having co-ordinated food services on campus is to improve the delivery of [these] services on campus.

“[When the café was] run by ASA, students involved were given seven years notice that there will be a change,” said Mendelson regarding claims that students were not consulted when the closing of the café was considered. “The administration does not wish to revisit the issue.”

 

We have additional photo coverage available online

News

McGill placed among world’s best schools in two rankings

by Michal Zuk on

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In two rankings released this month, McGill University was recognized as one of the world’s top universities. The QS World University Rankings placed McGill 19th globally and first in Canada, while the Times Higher Education (THE) Rankings placed McGill 35th globally and third in Canada.

McGill has been in the top 25 universities in the world by the QS rankings for the last seven years. It was ranked highest in 2007, when it was ranked 12th globally. This year, the QS rankings also affirmed McGill among the top 35 universities in Arts & Humanities, Engineering & Technology, Life Sciences & Medicine, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences & Management.

In the THE rankings, McGill placed behind the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia within Canada.

The publications of the two reports is the first since the end of the partnership between QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd and Times Higher Education. Previously, the two organizations worked together, with QS as the data supplier for THE magazine. This year, however, QS produced rankings in association with partners such as US News & World Report and Scopus, the Elsevier database. THE partnered with Thomson Reuters to produce its own university rankings.

“THE is very happy to be working with Thomson Reuters, who have very reliable data collection methods,” said Richard Renolds, a researcher for THE. “THE has rebalanced away from reputational surveys and adopted a more scientific approach.”

The two ranking systems now employ substantially different methodologies. Academic reputation  is the largest part of the QS rankings, compromising 40 per cent of a university’s score. This is measured by an academic peer review, an opinion survey asking active academics about top universities in their field.

 The THE rankings on the other hand, place the greatest weight on citations, which make up 32.5 per cent of a university’s ranking, compared to just 20 per cent in the QS rankings. THE also assigns equal weights to teaching and research, with each accounting for 30 per cent of a university’s score.

 Another advantageous factor for McGill in the QS rankings is the greater weight placed on international students and faculty (10 per cent compared to 5 per cent), a category in which McGill has consistently performed well.

“Part of both the teaching and the research components of the ranking had a reputational component to it as well,” said Vaughan Dowie, executive head of public affairs at McGill.

Dowie said that he was pleased with the recognition McGill was given and explained that the rankings are a useful method of determining how McGill is performing from year to year.

Dowie also spoke about the unique financial situation faced by McGill compared to other universities of a similar stature.

“We have a reality in Quebec in terms of the funding issues which is part of the equation. The kind of miracle of McGill rankings is that with a much smaller resource base than that of universities with which we are ranked, we still do really well. We will continue to do more with less.”

Dowie’s words echoed similar statements made by McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum.

“[McGill is] tremendously gratified to be recognized consistently as one of the world’s leading universities,” Munroe-Blum said in a press release. “[McGill has] managed to maintain its standing despite a growing funding gap between us and the universities with which we compete.”

News

Dawson shooting game taken off-line by creator

by Zach Connerty-Marin on

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“Dawson College Massacre,” a controversial videogame based on the 2006 shootings at Dawson College that killed one and wounded 19, was removed from the Internet on September 17 by its creator, a computer programmer with the screen name Virtuaman.

Virtuaman initially refused to remove it despite numerous complaints. He only did so after discovering that the game offended the victim’s family.

“I don’t really care who or what plays my games, I don’t really care if the average person is angry about my game or upset,” Virtuaman said.

“The victims, however, I can understand they could be upset knowing this thing exists, and I can understand if they are angry at me. [But] some that I spoke with were not angry with me. They were great people. They were able to understand that it’s just a game that tries to explore the mind of a killer.”

The game was posted on the Internet shortly before the fourth anniversary of the shooting. It irked many close to the incident and received mixed reviews from others.

Despite complaints, police were unable to take the game down since it did not violate any laws.

“We did what we could do, which is strongly suggest to the Internet provider to take out the game because we didn’t think it was of good taste,” said Marie-Elaine Ladouceur, a spokeswoman for the Montreal Police Department.

Despite police urgings, both Virtuaman and the U.S.-based website initially refused to take down the game.

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