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Everything you need to know heading into McGill’s fall intramural playoffs

by Aidan Hotte on

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It is the most important time of the semester already, and no, I am not talking about finals (though I guess in some way I am). Intramural playoff season is upon us, and over 500 teams across 14 sports will be battling it out for ultimate victory. As a seasoned and grizzled intramural veteran myself, I can attest that you have not lived until you have experienced the epic highs and lows of McGill intramural sports.

While most students are still recovering from midterms, McGill’s brave intramural participants are putting their bodies on the line for a championship mug, which some consider more valuable than their degree—myself included. Tier 3 pickleball duos are finally getting the hang of what “the kitchen” is, and Tier 1 volleyball teams are getting to relive their high school glory days. Now, to the uninitiated, this might all seem like unintelligible jargon, so let me, an expert, cover some intramural basics.

The McGill Intramurals program has a rich history, dating back to at least the early 20th century. Any McGill student, faculty, or alumnus can participate in intramurals, provided the right fees are paid. The offerings are varied and this fall included badminton, basketball, dodgeball, flag football, cricket, pickleball, roundnet (better known by the brand name Spikeball), three kinds of soccer (11-, 7-, and 5-person variations), tennis, ultimate frisbee, and volleyball. Searching IMLeagues—the McGill intramural online platform—one can also see that there used to be offerings for video games, such as NBA2K, and board games, like Catan, which it is unclear why they cut. Tier 1 Catan would be electric.

There are three categories within every sport: OPEN, open to anyone regardless of gender and using the standard sport rules; WOMEN, open to athletes who self-identify as women, two-spirit, trans and gender non-conforming; and MIXED, also open to anyone, but with maximums of “male-matching” or “female-matching” players, and with slightly altered rules for gameplay. Within each of these categories, there are different levels of play based on athlete experience level. Starting with Play-Fun, which is designed for beginners and does not feature playoffs, tiers then move from Tier 4 to Tier 1, with Tier 1 being the most advanced. Do not fall for the belief that any one tier is better than the others, though: Personal, unbiased experience tells me that Tier 2 Mixed is the most competitive tier—at least for volleyball. 

With these basics covered, and the shroud of mystery surrounding the intramural program now thrown away, let us return to the central topic of this article: Playoffs. The playoff style in McGill intramurals is single elimination—lose once, and you are done. If you make it all the way to the finals and win, you get an intramural champion’s mug. This high-stakes setup results in some thrilling finishes, as anything can happen in a single game. Here are some teams and matchups to watch especially closely as they head into the playoffs.

In Tier 2 Open badminton, “McGill Mayhem BC” are heavy favourites, holding an undefeated record and the top seed overall. However, underdogs 14th-place “Badmint & chips” took out another undefeated team,“Birdie Smashers,” in their first round matchup on Nov. 17, indicating that the bracket may not be as predictable heading into finals as it seems.

Women’s Tier 1 volleyball was predictably a runaway season for “Empire Spikes Back,” who won their 2026 championship match off an undefeated run: A repeat after winning the mug back in 2025. 

In Tier 3 Open dodgeball, the 8th-place “Hot Dodges” took out the first-place team “Men who B” in a shocking first-round upset that had the potential to change the game as we know it. In a continued final playoff push against the second-place “DodgeBallz,” Hot Dodges managed to take the mug.

Finally, the mug race everybody is talking about is Open Tier 1 doubles pickleball. The 5–1 “Pickleticklers” seemed poised to duke it out in the final with “Smash Bros”, also 5–1 in the regular season. But my pick to emerge from the battlefield victorious would actually have been the third-place “Pepinilleros.” As newcomers to Tier 1, but last winter’s Tier 2 champs, they could have very well surprised the tier’s pickleball juggernauts.

These matchups all deliver a thrilling finish to the fall season and act as proof of how high-level McGill’s intramurals are. Overall, though, the most important thing about intramurals is that everyone has fun. They truly do enrich the student experience, and the bonds you form with your teammates are remarkable. However, I would be lying if I said that winning does not matter as well. After all, there are only two kinds of McGill students: Those with a mug, and those without one. 

I wish all teams the best of luck—except the ones playing my team.

Features

Keeping the channel open

by Anna Seger on

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You sit down to write, the blank page in front of you simultaneously inspiring and intimidating: The channel is open, the possibilities are limitless. This stage of the process is difficult and anxiety-inducing, but you know it is an unavoidable part of writing.

//Or, maybe, it doesn’t have to be.//

The impact of computer systems acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) is hard to understate. Although conceptual and technological groundwork for AI had been established since the 1950s, progress and usage were largely sequestered in university and government research labs. It wasn’t until the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 that artificial intelligence began to dominate the popular consciousness. As companies and industries scramble to adapt to a new world, the divide between optimism and pessimism surrounding artificial intelligence deepens. AI forces us to confront questions looming over modern existence: What do we want from machines, and what will we sacrifice for it? 

Understanding AI and writing

Although these may seem like unprecedented times, contemporary discourse about AI echoes common concerns from earlier waves of technological development. Historically, new technologies and mediums have stirred fear among artists concerned about their effects on existing forms. 19th-century realist painters cursed the advent of photography, 20th-century filmmakers worried about advancements in computer graphics, and 21st-century writers considered how word processing software changes the way authors write. Through artistic movements and technological revolutions, writing as an art form has adapted and endured. 

Recently, the rise of Amazon and social media has tested the literary field,  significantly altering the relationship between publishers, authors, and readers, and pushing the novel into the modern economy of attention. Mark McGurl, in his book //Everything and Less//, explains how Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) reorient priority from writing innovation to customer satisfaction, contributing to the commodification of literature. Authors become producers, forced to adapt their image and work to the fast-paced marketplace. Readers turn into superficial consumers, captured by promises of entertainment or enlightenment; thus, the marketplace works hard to retain their attention. This attention-driven model restructures the reading experience, orienting it around convenience and constant engagement. To maintain and expand its customer base, Amazon aims to make reading frictionless, promoting an abundance of genre-fiction that caters to users’ niche interests. To make matters worse, Amazon uses machine learning and data mining—subsets of artificial intelligence—to extract data from users’ reading habits for marketing purposes, perpetuating a never-ending cycle of consumption.

The emergence of fiction-writing AI tools should come as no surprise, considering the commodified logic of modern literary production. One such program, widely regarded as the cream of the AI-writing-tool crop, is called Sudowrite. “Blank page, begone!” touts the website’s homepage, promising it can brainstorm, create story outlines, expand descriptions, generate metaphors, suggest character arcs and plot twists, and edit users’ writing. Since the post-Amazon literary landscape has positioned books and authors more as products and producers, the implementation of tools to maximize efficiency is an expected progression. While KDP opens paths to publication for more authors, the digital marketplace is an unstable one. For Amazon authors like Jennifer Lepp, who makes a living churning out self-published “potato chip books” multiple times a year under the pen name Leanne Leeds, using Sudowrite to accelerate the writing process allows her to keep up with the demands of the marketplace and her audience. 

Despite still using the program, in an interview with The Verge, Lepp considered the harmful impact of AI writing tools on her own skills and their broader homogenization of literature. 

“I need to pay attention much less closely. I don’t get as deeply into the writing as I did before,” she said. “I think that’s the real danger, that you can do that and then nothing’s original anymore. Everything’s just a copy of something else. The problem is that’s what readers like.” 

To make a living off one’s art, artists are tied up in the dynamics of consumer demand. How, then, do we reckon with cultural shifts surrounding literary production, and what responsibilities do readers and writers have to each other?

The promises and the problems

In literature, artificial intelligence makes two enticing offers. First, it claims to eliminate the kinds of reading and writing it casts as mere busywork—proofreading, editing, synthesizing, and summarizing—and free up time and energy for authentic artistic and intellectual exploration. Second, it promises to enhance this exploration, acting as an excitable book club buddy or a thoughtful writing partner. 

In an interview with //The Tribune//, Chris Howard, associate professor in McGill’s Department of Philosophy, expressed a cautious optimism about the incorporation of AI tools in creative fields.

“There is still a human element in terms of telling the machine what you want it to produce, and there’s a lot of latitude for creativity in that process [….] You could have an absolute explosion of culture and a diffusion of power from the gatekeepers of culture. Which is really exciting, but I also don’t want to be too rosy [….] I understand the attitudes of artists who feel like there’s some danger to their craft with this,” Howard said.

Using two dozen large language models (LLMs), Sudowrite functions almost like an advanced autocomplete, using data analysis and statistical probability to create sentences by guessing, one word at a time, what comes next. Despite being transparent about how the word processing system works on their homepage, in their FAQ, they answer the question “Is this magic?” with “Yes. But so is life, isn’t it?” 

To some extent, this is true: AI is still somewhat of a black box. It is hard to dissect exactly how deep learning and neural networks function, contributing to a fervour and mystique surrounding AI that strikingly mirrors religion. Tech companies’ insistence on the inevitable takeover of artificial intelligence bears resemblance to the eschatological story of the Rapture: You must get with the program, or get left behind. 

In an interview with //The Tribune//, Alexander Manshel, associate professor in the Department of English at McGill, rejected this narrative and advised against passive acceptance. 

“As with any technology, we’re often told that it’s inevitable, so it’s not if it’s going to change everything, but how it’s going to change,” he said. “But, as with any technology, we have a choice as to whether or not we adopt it, and if so, how. I’ve been really heartened by talking to a lot of not just McGill faculty, but McGill students, who see the value in doing their own complex thinking, their own complex writing.” 

To truly engage in complex thinking and writing, no part of the process can be dismissed as nonessential. By trying to eliminate or accelerate some parts of the process, AI writing tools contribute to the sacralization and romanticization of writing, detaching the work from the art. The actual process of writing is envisioned as an undesirable, but unfortunately necessary step that artists painstakingly overcome to translate their grand visions and ideas into the world. However, AI cannot replicate the craft of artistic creation or the process of critical exploration, which is where art and ideas get their value.

In a piece for The New Yorker on Sudowrite, Canadian novelist Stephen Marche wrote, “For writers who don’t like writing—which, in my experience, is nearly all of us—Sudowrite may well be a salvation.” Beyond the use of “salvation” revealing a quasi-religious zeal for AI, the sentence also points to a broader tension: The sense of distance from art that can emerge when generative technologies partly or entirely mediate creative work. In the creative process, ideas gain meaning by acquiring shape and structure through negotiating with the strengths and limitations of a certain artistic form. Marche’s framing places primary value on ideas in their abstract, inarticulated state, rather than on the interpretive labour required to realize them. To many, this perspective can appear liberating—writers might not need to be skilled in the craft itself if a system can refine their concepts into readable prose. But what Marche and the broader framework of AI writing tools overlook is that writing is not a means to an end. The process itself is both the labour and the art.

The way forward

Individual writers can often feel insignificant against the larger political, economic, and cultural forces influencing the trajectory of literature. But the issues and questions raised by AI writing tools go beyond the specific concerns of the literary field. All of us who engage in reading, writing, and thinking have a critical decision to make.

In an interview with //The Tribune//, Alex Steele, president of Gotham Writers Workshop, a creative writing school in New York City, discussed what is lost in AI writing. 

“AI does not think, it does not feel. It is, quite literally, bloodless,” he said. In his September newsletter, titled “In Praise of People,” he writes, “You, on the other hand, are the proud owner of blood, brain, body, and (most mysteriously) soul. The power of your writing—however imperfect, flawed, messy—will be found there and nowhere else.”

It’s a vital reminder of the purpose of art: To challenge perspectives, deepen understanding, and foster emotional connection through the transmission of human experiences. In writing, we are constantly confronted with the limitations and inadequacies of human language. Amorphous thoughts, feelings, and ideas beam into our brains, and we translate them into the world as we shape them through syntactic structures, diction, form, and style. Through practice and repetition, this process becomes mechanized in our brains. Perhaps this is why we overlook what we sacrifice when we let it become actually automated by machines. 

Agnes de Mille recounts a conversation with fellow choreographer Martha Graham in her biography that echoes Steele’s belief in the value of unique human expression. 

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you [….] And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open,” Graham said. 

AI is, at the end of the day, a technology and a tool. Particularly in the modern labour landscape, its use may soon be unavoidable. But in our personal, intellectual, and artistic lives, we have the power to be intentional about our implementation of AI, choosing how, when, and whether to use it. In our creative communities, we can influence the creation of guidelines, norms, and precedents regarding artificial intelligence. Above all, we must remember what may be at risk, and keep the channel open.

Science & Technology

ChatGPT, three years in

by Ella Paulin on

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Across higher education, professors, students, and administrators are grappling with how to respond to the widespread availability of fast, free, and increasingly capable chatbots like ChatGPT. In a survey conducted by The Tribune with 46 McGill undergraduate participants, only one in five students reported not using ChatGPT for class, while 56 per cent reported using it to revise their writing, and a full 21 per cent admitted to using artificial intelligence (AI) to write “part or all” of a written assignment for class. 

Despite AI’s ubiquity in modern education, ChatGPT remains a very recent technology. Nov. 30 marks the three-year anniversary of ChatGPT’s release to the public, making it a good opportunity to take a step back and see how exactly we got here. 

How did this all start?

A lot can happen in three years—it’s already difficult to recall the initial splash ChatGPT made when it debuted in November of 2022. Chloe Sproule, U4 Arts, recounted some of these early memories in an interview with The Tribune. 

“I was in the GIC, and it was the evening, and my friend was like ‘Hey, guys, come check this out!’ and we’re all like ‘What is it?’ and he’s like ‘Look at what you can do. This is gonna be the future!’” Sproule said. “What we were doing was like what you would do as a kid with Siri, which was like ‘Tell me a joke!’ That’s the first impulse you have. And then we just wrote little poems about everyone, based on our different friends.”

Sproule’s account was common among users playing with ChatGPT for the first time, as reflected by the tone of early media coverage surrounding the chatbot. Articles from the first week after ChatGPT’s release have a bemused-but-playful tone, with headlines like “OpenAI invites everyone to test ChatGPT, a new AI-powered chatbot—with amusing results” in Ars Technica, and “The Brilliance and Weirdness of ChatGPT” in the New York Times. 

Where did ChatGPT come from?

This moment of collective experimentation and play with ChatGPT hints at something that we’ve forgotten over the last three years: The release of ChatGPT to the public was not the sudden birth of a never-before-seen technology. It was the tipping point of text generation from a novel technology in computer science to a legitimately useful tool that was accessible to users without programming backgrounds. 

Andrew Piper, a professor in McGill’s Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Department, has worked with text generation models since before 2022, and remembers experimenting with earlier models such as GPT-2 and BERT in his classes.

“We played with various writing agents out there that you could use that were pretty terrible, and like, kind of parlour games,” Piper told The Tribune. “Text generation was a curiosity, and then, literally, there was a before and an after.”

While ChatGPT was a big step up in quality, it had another crucial feature: An accessible user interface. Prior to ChatGPT, it was very difficult for a non-programmer to experiment with text generation themselves. OpenAI’s own announcement of ChatGPT from Nov. 30 emphasized the conversational, interactive, and accessible nature of their new model. 

This isn’t fun anymore

By mid-December, the initial excitement and sense of play had already petered out, with the mood at the New York Times vacillating between existential dread and premature attempts to moralize. Take, for example, these three articles appearing between Dec. 10 and 21 of 2022: “The New Chatbots Could Change the World. Can You Trust Them?,” “Will ChatGPT Make Me Irrelevant?,” and my personal favourite: “How to Use ChatGPT and Still Be a Good Person.” 

After the 2022-2023 academic year, it was clear that this technology would not only shake up society, the job market, and ethics, but also the core of what it means to get a university education. 

“I think the intuition that we were pretty cooked was clear early on,” Piper remembered. “Like, a lot of university-level behaviour had just been automated.”

This is when we started to get a wave of think-pieces about the college cheating crisis, as well as more optimistic pictures of a world where AI scaffolds and extends learning rather than harming it. One Atlantic article announces, “The First Year of AI College Ends in Ruin,” while another wonders, “My Students Use AI. So What?” 

Three years on, how are students doing? 

Like the chatbot itself, research on the impacts of ChatGPT has only had three years to develop, so many findings remain tentative—and in many cases, contradictory. 

Some of the split in research findings can be explained by distinguishing studies that introduced ChatGPT in a ‘controlled’ way from those that studied real-world AI use. For instance, a 2025 study ran three trials: One group of students only attended lectures, one only used AI, and one attended lectures while using AI as a study aid. The last group performed significantly better on the final exam than the lecture-only or AI-only group. But does this study setup reflect the reality of students’ ChatGPT usage? Results from The Tribune’s survey found that some did, indeed, seem to be using AI in this way, and generally had positive feelings toward it. 

“I’m very happy I’m studying at the same time as ChatGPT. Especially for my coding class it has really helped me write code for projects and figure out where I’m going wrong.” 

“I am happy to have access to the tool […] it can help me to save time, especially when trying to understand a concept or to understand a wide array of data/information in a short amount of time….”

On the other hand, a significant group of respondents had more negative things to say:

“It makes me uneasy when I give into the temptation to use ChatGPT because I wonder afterwards if my own ideas would have been better or worse than the ones AI gave me.”

“ChatGPT has been a constant temptation in stressful moments. I try not to do so, but when the tool is readily available and I feel desperate for time, it is extremely useful.”

This trend in the survey responses is consistent with other research, including a 2024 study, which found that students who used ChatGPT for a research project experienced lower cognitive load at the expense of lower-quality reasoning and argumentation. 

Almost more worrying is research that studies AI usage in the wild, rather than setting up controlled trials. For example, a 2024 study of 387 students found no significant direct correlation between AI usage and their perceived academic performance, whereas it did find a correlation between AI usage and loneliness, as well as a decreased sense of belonging. The authors attribute this partially to “human-substitution behaviour” among students who use ChatGPT, which is also attested in the survey results: 

“My ideas tend to be scattered and disorganized—ChatGPT helps me sort through what I’m thinking and put it on paper in a cohesive way. Alternatively, I could do this with a friend, but I don’t feel comfortable asking someone to do what ChatGPT does for me.”

How about professors?

ChatGPT has also stirred things for professors, with two dominant trends arising: Shifting to oral or handwritten exams that are ‘AI-proof,’ or actively trying to incorporate AI into their curriculum. 

Derek Nystrom, professor in McGill’s Department of English, noted that grading any kind of take-home assessment inevitably puts the professor in the position of AI-detector.

“The interesting thing about the ChatGPT essay is that it can, at this point, generate something that sounds like a student who hasn’t been paying a lot of attention,” Nystrom said. “You just have this sneaking suspicion about, like, is this a C paper, or is this a paper that should get a zero because it wasn’t written by the student?”

Tabitha Sparks, another professor in McGill’s English Department, has tried to incorporate ChatGPT into her curriculum by adding a step to her essay assignment where students were instructed to interact with ChatGPT before revising and expanding its responses into their final drafts. 

“What really surprised me was that in examining it and discussing with my students, it actually was clarifying for what they should be doing as students of literature,” Sparks told The Tribune. “It got me to write assignments that I think better specified what I looked for as a high level of analysis.”

Overall, though, three years after ChatGPT’s release, the main feeling expressed by professors wasn’t so different from the students: Confusion. 

“Everyone’s super confused. It’s hard to know what to do,” Piper said. “We’re all struggling with, like, how do we maintain learning authenticity and learning goals and all that jazz when there’s this super intelligent bot at your disposal, and nobody has cracked that formula yet, right?”

McGill, News

Students organize events and rallies during Shut It Down departmental strikes for Palestine

by Eren Atac, Amelia H. Clark, Asher Kui on

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From Nov. 17 to Nov. 21, 20 departments at McGill went on strike, calling for the university to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. These departmental strikes, organized by Divest McGill, Divest for Palestine, Working Alternatives McGill, and McGill Admin Watch, occurred alongside programming put together by the Shut It Down strike collective as well as student picketing. The Tribune brings you coverage of some of these programming events.

Wednesday, Nov. 19 – “Tyranny of Structurelessness” lecture

Barry Eidlin, associate professor in the Department of Sociology, gave a lecture titled “Tyranny of Structurelessness,” then led a discussion encouraging students to reflect on the current Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestine. A striking student in attendance made a connection between the present BDS movement and the Indian independence movement.

“Coming from India, our independence movement was supposedly non-violent, but at the end of the day, what led to independence was the fact that [many protests in India were] violent,” the student said. “It’s just extremely easy to ignore ‘perfect’ [non-disruptive] movements.”

Eidlin responded by agreeing that disruption is often the only way to truly make change in activist struggles.

“You do need to disrupt to win,” he stated. “The whole point of social movement is to shake things up. [Movements] emerge when existing channels, the proper channels, are not available. And the way that you create new channels, it’s a process of disruption.”

Another striking student expressed that the difficulty in mobilizing students to hold departmental strikes demonstrates a general student apathy towards the on-campus movement for Palestine, and reflects significant disparities in student representation at General Assemblies (GAs) where departments vote to strike.

“Quorum to vote on a strike for either a department or for the whole undergrad [represents] a very vocal minority that shows up, including myself,” they described. “Most people are not going [to their departmental GAs] because […] they don’t care enough to vote. So then we go on strike because 10 per cent of students have decided we should, but that’s still 90 per cent of students who don’t necessarily feel as passionately about it, and then are frustrated that we’ve gone on strike because a small group of us voted on it.”  

The attendee highlighted that students—even those uninterested in striking—must continue to uphold democracy by participating in discussions about such departmental activist choices.

“[Students] should [still] show up [to GAs] if they don’t want to [strike]. They should show up and vote,” the attendee said. “That’s really […] why, even though we get these strikes passed and it feels successful, ultimately, it’s not really, because [most students] still want to go to class.”

More information on lecture content can be found here.

Thursday, Nov. 20 – Campus restrictions announced

At 6:17 p.m., the Emergency Operations Centre announced that students would need their student IDs to enter McGill buildings on Nov. 21. 

Friday, Nov. 21 – Divestment rally

At 7:30 a.m., protesters gathered in front of the James Administration Building to demand McGill’s administration divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide in Palestine. 

“It’s the [university’s] administrators that are refusing to have conversations with students, or if they do have conversations, they’re totally taken in bad faith,” a protester said in an interview with The Tribune. “So we came together early today to be able to shame administrators as they were coming into the building to show them that we’re always watching them. We’re always going to hold them accountable to the decisions they make. There’s no hiding from the students.”

At the beginning of the rally, five McGill security guards were standing outside the building. One was wearing a bright nylon vest and held a camcorder to scan the crowd. She was identified by one protester in an interview with The Tribune as a member of private security McGill hired in preparation for the strike who, at the beginning of the Shut It Down week, filmed students picketing while wearing civilian clothes instead of an identifiable security uniform.

In an interview with The Tribune, another protestor stated that the level of security McGill has employed during this strike is unparalleled to anything seen in the university’s history, with almost 30 guards at one point employed against ten students who were soft picketing. 

“[Security guards] are the ones that are intimidating students on campus because they cause escalations,” the protestor said. “They’ve been filming students’ faces. They’ve been recording students’ voices. It’s like we live in a surveillance campus.”

In a written statement to The Tribune, McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) stated that the university deploys security to keep protest on campus peaceful.

“When groups choose to protest, University Security personnel are present to remind participants that vandalism, violence, and classroom obstruction are not tolerated, and that compliance with the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures is required to avoid sanctions,” the MRO wrote.

As the rally continued, approximately fifteen more security guards arrived, forming a complete perimeter around the protesters. One marched into the crowd with a camera to get close-ups of students’ eyes: The only identifiable feature left exposed for most in attendance. Still, not one protester left their post. 

Organizers then poured red paint on the pavement in front of the James Administration Building and on their hands to demonstrate how students’ tuition may contribute to McGill’s investments in weapons companies such as Lockheed Martin and Airbus Aerospace. About 15 minutes after the rally ended at 9:00 a.m., McGill staff power-washed the paint away as security trailed departing protestors from rue Milton to av. Lorne. 

In an interview with The Tribune, a third protester cited previous student activists’ success in pushing McGill to divest from businesses with connections to fossil fuels and South African apartheid, affirming their confidence in the current movement for divestment from Israel’s genocide. 

“I’m sure that it’s going to take a long time for us to achieve divestment from weapons companies tied to the genocide in Palestine, but I really believe that we can do it, and I know that everyone else [here] believes in it too,” they stated. “And we need every single student on this campus to believe in it.”

Friday, Nov. 21 – “The Colonial University and its Opps” talk

A former McGill graduate student, who wished to remain anonymous, hosted a talk called “The Colonial University and its Opps,” on Nov. 21 at 1:00 p.m. in McGill’s Players’ Theatre. Their presentation covered a broad overview of McGill’s colonial entanglements and their implications for contemporary protests. The talk also explored the history of activism at McGill, focusing on how campus protests have evolved over time. 

The speaker emphasized the role of McGill’s physical presence in the workings of the broader colonial apparatus. They argued that the institution’s buildings and land use are intertwined with global systems of power, rather than being neutral spaces of learning as McGill’s community might believe them to be. 

“I really want to emphasize how [slavery and colonial extraction] are imbued into [McGill’s] buildings and their names,” the speaker stated. “For instance, the Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry Building. The first Baron Strathcona was a British Empire elite. He made all his money through things like the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which was key in the colonial encroachment on what is now Iran.”

The speaker then moved to a discussion of past student movements for justice, including the 1980s anti-South African apartheid divestment campaign at McGill. The speaker described this movement as an example of student activism that successfully forced administrative change at the university, but only after years of effort and moments of waning traction for the movement.

“McGill was the first place in Canada to divest [from South African apartheid], but it was not the first place in North America [to do so]. In fact, it was kind of late to the party,” the speaker stated. “A lot of Ivy League universities had already started to divest in the years immediately prior to 1985. Those successes were really mobilizing. People were excited. They felt like their goal was possible again. But those successes were only possible because the student movement at [that] point was pretty mature.”

The speaker then turned to facilitating discussion about more recent protest efforts at McGill. One attendee of the event questioned the effectiveness of the departmental strikes, contrasting them with the 2024 Palestine Solidarity Encampment. They argued that the encampment may have been a more impactful protest tactic, as it had no defined length; it was meant to persist indefinitely until student demands were met. In response, the speaker expressed that while unlimited strikes can be more effective at forcing action from the administration, they also require significantly more planning and coordination to carry out. 

“One of the important things to understand about unlimited strikes is that they’re really hard. [They are] the product of years of organizing [students] to build […] capacity in the student movement, to build the democratic processes in the movement to be able to strike,” the speaker said. “A lot of students don’t understand strikes […] because they haven’t been equipped yet with the knowledge to create their own analyses of the situation, and be able to engage with [striking] in ways other than what McGill emails say.”

Editorial, Opinion

Trans rights are human rights—and Canada is infringing on them

by The Tribune Editorial Board on

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On Nov. 20, communities across the world recognized Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day honouring the lives of trans and nonbinary people lost to anti-trans violence. However, this year’s commemoration in Canada was countered by an unprecedented wave of political hostility toward transgender youth. 

The Alberta government, in particular, has taken an especially hostile stance. The province introduced three anti-trans laws last year: Bill 26 bans puberty blockers and hormone therapy for most minors, effectively politicizing a treatment otherwise prescribed through medical assessment; Bill 27 requires schools to obtain parental permission for name or pronoun changes and turns gender and sexuality education into an opt-in system; Bill 29 bars transgender girls from gender-aligned sports participation. The province recently tabled new legislation, Bill 9, which invokes the notwithstanding clause in an attempt to shield the three previous bills from legal challenges regarding potential Charter rights violations. This surge in transphobic legislation under the guise of children’s safety is a coordinated political effort to restrict the autonomy of trans and non-binary people, and McGill’s own failure to guarantee access to gender affirming care (GAC) for its students reveals how deeply this disregard has been propagated throughout Canada.  

Quebec also contributes to this national hostility and insensibility towards transgender and nonbinary individuals. GAC in the province remains chronically inaccessible: Some surgeries have waitlists of up to nine years, and Montreal patients report being turned away or receiving no follow-up after consultations. Access is further constrained in that a single private clinic holds a near-monopoly over GAC surgeries, limiting availability and patient autonomy. These systemic barriers leave many trans and nonbinary people without timely or adequate care. 

These bureaucratic and legislative barriers produce measurable psychological harm. A 2025 study in the US found that suicide-related Google searches rose by 13 per cent during legislative debates regarding trans rights, with depression-related searches increasing by five per cent. In Canada, reports by the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre show similarly alarming patterns: 64 per cent of transgender and nonbinary youth report having self-harmed and/or seriously considered suicide in the past year, with 38 per cent reporting suicidal ideation and 21 per cent reporting a suicide attempt. 88 per cent of young trans and nonbinary individuals live with a chronic mental health condition such as anxiety or depression, revealing the extent to which GAC can—and does—save lives when accessible and unbarred by transphobic legislation.

McGill’s own records further affirm this pattern of institutional neglect. In the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s Fall 2025 Referendum, the GAC Fee passed by only 51.1 per cent, with just 19.1 per cent of students voting, reflecting apathy toward some of the most vulnerable students on campus and ignorance of the cruciality of this fund. From 2023 to January 2025, SSMU provided coverage for critical GAC procedures through a reimbursement program with funds drawn from an unstable budget surplus. Prior plans capped lifetime maximum coverage at amounts insufficient to cover most procedures not otherwise covered by provincial or international insurance. 

The GAC fund, created through the passing of this 2025 Referendum motion, allows students to receive coverage for critical services, including medication, gender-affirming procedures, mental health support, and more. Should the fee not have passed, McGill would lack a GAC plan entirely—yet the motion barely scraped through the referendum. McGill’s infrastructure mirrors this disregard for the importance of GAC: When the school’s only GAC-providing physician went on leave in 2024, students completely lost access to on-campus care; students consistently face name-change barriers on Minerva; and the administration has repeatedly platformed transgender-antagonistic speakers. 

Especially considering the rise in hateful anti-transgender rhetoric across Canada, McGill has both a moral and legal responsibility to vehemently protect its transgender community. Fulfilling that responsibility requires more than mere statements and symbolic gestures of solidarity. McGill should actively support and collaborate with community organizations like Queer McGill and the Trans Patient Union, whose work fills the gaps long neglected by the university and SSMU insurance offerings. Further, as Alberta weaponizes the notwithstanding clause to restrict transgender rights, McGill must publicly oppose such legislation and advocate for federal limits on the clause’s misuse, including supporting Bill S-218. 

Honouring the lives of trans and non-binary people requires that institutions—both educational and bureaucratic—actively reject and counter political erasure in all forms and commit to the safety, dignity, and autonomy of trans and gender non-conforming individuals.

Off the Board, Opinion

Self-care is the opposite of revolutionary 

by Helene Saleska on

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We’ve heard the lines and seen the videos probably more times than we can count—“Protect your peace,” “choose yourself”, “cut people off that don’t serve you,” and the one that gives me the most pause, “you don’t owe anyone anything.” 

The latest mental health trend: ‘Radical’ self-care. Originally coined by Audre Lorde as a revolutionary form of survival for Black women in the 1960s, self-care has since been repackaged for mass consumption in the form of self-optimization and healing. It is devoid of its original context, and in the hands of TikTok and Instagram influencers, has become capitalism’s newest way of distracting us from the power of collective action. 

The romanticization of solitude and an obsessive capitalist emphasis on the value of one’s personal comfort and success are implicit in the modern rhetoric of self-care, thereby devaluing connections that may seem less convenient. Of course, there are very real reasons to cut contact with family, friends, or relationships that have been sources of pain and trauma. But embedded within the framework of cutting off relationships that don’t serve you is the postulation that friendships should behave like investments—to be easily discarded when they are no longer profitable.

Through advice for self-optimization, influencers sell you a life designed to avoid pain, friction, conflict, and burden, and all it takes—so they claim—is to cut off the relationships that make you feel anything but good, to remedy negativity with self-isolation and the right products. It’s ‘self-care’ to blow off a friend who’s struggling, because they’re draining for you. Be careful! Their energy might rub off on you and get in the way of your future self.

These messages are also broadcast as healing. If you’ve experienced any of life’s inevitable pains—a breakup, maybe, or a fight with a friend—then pop psychologists will tell you to isolate yourself so as not to infect anyone else with your toxic mindset. This implies that healing is a linear process or an optimized state of mind, but also suggests your trauma is solely your responsibility. Heal first. Become a better friend, a better partner, a better person, and do it by focusing on yourself. 

This sets up an unhealthy dichotomy of you versus everyone else. Whether you’re healing or protecting your energy from others, this rhetoric convinces us that people and their needs are inherently a burden, making us afraid to rely on each other when we need it. This shift towards isolation harms more than just our mental health; it impairs our ability to organize at a time when it’s more important than ever to do so.

“Protecting your peace” doesn’t serve you—it serves the people that capitalize on your consumption, and on your constant quest for more in the absence of authentic human connection. Isolation as self-care obscures the fact that we are all inextricably connected, and that how we spend our time and energy will always have consequences on others, whether we give it out ‘for free’ or keep it all to ourselves. This view of the world doesn’t only come from an innocent desire to take care of ourselves, but from capitalistic values that teach us to be selfish with what’s ours. 

Connecting with each other means negotiating your perspective amongst divergent ones, inevitably bringing friction. If we don’t question each other and ourselves, then we won’t learn to question our systems or authorities. It is through our relationships that we practice navigating the messiness of the world that exists all around us, and where we start negotiating how that world should be.

All of history’s monumental social movements—from the Civil Rights Movement, to women’s movements, to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa—were rooted in relationships and mutual aid, with conversations and arguments over shared meals. Difficult conversations are what made people into revolutionaries, and revolutions sustained themselves through the support that people owed to each other. 

All the self-care you can buy won’t make you a better person or a better friend. We can’t be successful activists if we don’t first forge meaningful and sometimes messy human connections, and we can’t challenge powerful institutions if we run from discomfort or interpersonal conflict.  Maintaining community is self-care, not its antithesis. 

Behind the Bench, Sports

Inclusion done wrong: The backlash against Sky Sports’ Halo account

by Alex Hawes Silva on

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Sky Sports’ short-lived TikTok account, Halo, which was marketed as “Sky Sports’ lil sis,” lasted mere days before the company quietly pulled the plug due to intense backlash. Originally designed to “create a space alongside Sky’s existing social channels for new, young, female fans,” the initiative instead sparked immediate criticism. But the backlash did not come from sexist sports fans who disagreed with increased representation for women. Instead, the criticism came almost entirely from the audience that Sky Sports claimed it was trying to welcome—and for good reason.

Two early highlight videos quickly showcased the sexism at hand. One clip Sky Sports posted on Halo showed soccer forward Erling Haaland scoring a goal, with the caption, “how the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits.” Another featured a clip of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani with the caption, “Thinking about Zohran Mamdani rizzing us and Arsenal up.” 

Rather than offering meaningful sports analysis, the account relied on a caricatured and stereotyped idea of what young women supposedly like: Matcha, ‘hot girl walks,’ and ‘rizz.’ The buzzwords were used regardless of whether they had anything to do with the sport that was being featured. The campaign failed so spectacularly because it treated women not as fans, but as demeaning, superficial stereotypes. 

At the root of Halo’s embarrassing attempt at feminism is a longstanding problem within a sports media landscape that still cannot view women as serious fans. Media coverage surrounding women athletes and women’s sports, or directed to audiences of women, is softened and aestheticized by networks—or, in this case, decorated in sparkles. Instead of recognizing women as authentic and knowledgeable sports fans, campaigns reduce them to an overplayed stereotype, one that executives assume must be reached through pink, girly, and ‘cutesy’ graphics.

Halo’s tone was not youthful or inclusive: It was patronizing. It presented sports as something that women needed to have translated into ‘girl content.’ What Halo completely ignored is that women already exist in sports spaces as analysts, athletes, journalists, and fans—with the same intensity as men. Women care about sport, not because it aligns with trends, but because they love the game.

So when Sky Sports launched its Halo account built on the idea that women need a separate, softer version of sport to enjoy, it reinforced the stereotypes that women are constantly fighting against. 

As Emily Trees, a critic of Halo, said while speaking to BBC Newsbeat, “We’ve spent the last 50 years trying to come away from the stereotypes around women’s sport, and trying to make women’s sport seen as an entity in itself rather than just as an extension of what men can do. We deserve our own space, something that’s ours. We don’t need to be the ‘little sister’ to anyone.” 

Instead of inclusion, treating women fans as sports fans first, Halo offered segregation and infantilization.

Moreover, meaningful inclusion means putting women in the room in decision-making, leadership roles. If Halo’s planning team had been composed of women, the account would not have even considered including such content. Women should not just be the target audience; they should shape and create the very narratives and campaigns that are aimed at them.

The demise of Sky Sports’ Halo is not a sign that women do not want sports content tailored to them. It is a sign that they want it to be authentic, respectful, and true to their views around sports. Sky Sports attempted to build a space alongside its main channels, but women do not need a separate space—they need to be at the forefront of the media they care about. 

McGill, News

The Unity Flag: A conversation with Tekarontakeh

by Mairin Burke on

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McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) confirmed in a written statement to The Tribune that from Oct. 23 to Oct. 30, McGill raised the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Unity Flag to celebrate the newly-unveiled Tsi Non:we Onkwatonhnhets project at the university’s Y-Intersection. Designed by artist Louis Karoniaktajeh Hall in the early 1970s, the Unity Flag depicts a man in profile against a red background and a sun, wearing one feather in his hair. 

Despite The McGill Reporter stating that the Unity Flag on campus represented McGill’s “ongoing partnership with Indigenous communities,” Tekarontakeh, a knowledge keeper of the Kanien’kehá:ka from Kahnawà:ke, reported that he was not informed of the flag’s display at the university, despite being a member of the Rotisken’rhakéhte (Mohawk Warrior Society) who first used this banner. 

In an interview with The Tribune, Tekarontakeh contextualized the significance of the Unity Flag for Mohawk communities. He made sure to distinguish the Unity Flag from another iteration of Karoniaktajeh’s work, colloquially known as the “Warrior Flag,” which depicts a man with three feathers in his hair, rather than just one.

“[Karoniaktajeh] put [the Unity Flag] together because he wanted Native people [to] have a symbol […] to help to bring our people back together,” Tekarontakeh explained. “The reason he put only one feather in the [man on the flag’s hair] is to symbolize […] that we are one people. Even though we speak different languages, […] we’re all saying the same thing [….] We are all part of creation [….] What is being done to one is being done to all of us.”

Tekarontakeh also touched on the importance of the Unity Flag’s creation and original use. It was initially employed when Indigenous communities across Turtle Island were fighting for land sovereignty, particularly during the Mohawk reclamation of Ganienkeh in 1974. 

“We used that Unity Flag when we went and reoccupied lands in the Adirondack Mountains so that we could build a new community and not live under the Indian Act or Canadian law, or [United States] federal Indian law, or the [United States] Constitution,” he stated. “We wanted to live in accordance to who we are, and we asserted our right to do this [….] We made the choice that we would physically, politically, spiritually, do what we must do in order to ensure that there [would] be a future for our children.”

Today, the Unity Flag acts as both a specific Mohawk symbol of pride and existence and a broader, global sign of resistance against colonialism, oppression, and genocide. Tekarontakeh referred to the flag as a “psychological medicine”—an antidote to actions like McGill’s against Indigenous communities, both locally and internationally.

“McGill University […] did experiments on Native children,” he stated. “McGill was involved in working with the [Canadian] government to assimilate our people, [and McGill is] still a corporation [who has] made money [through] the exploitation of people’s lands.”

Tekarontakeh further referred to McGill’s decision to uproot a white pine tree from the Lower Field in November 2024 as reflective of the university’s ongoing colonialism. Kanien’kehá:ka women planted the tree during a Haudenosaunee peace ceremony in solidarity with the pro-Palestinian Encampment at McGill. The university removed the tree within a day of its planting.

“This tree was a symbol of the people about unification,” Tekarontakeh emphasized. “The question should be asked of McGill, ‘If you’re going to fly that flag, are you prepared to plant that tree back?’ Because they go together.”

Tekarontakeh emphasized that he does not disagree with the flag being flown on campus—as long as it is flown with true awareness, care, and sincere desire to do right by the Indigenous communities McGill continues to exploit.

“If [the] flag is being raised by people who truly support and respect that flag, I don’t have a problem,” he stated. “But if McGill is going to be raising that flag to try to pretend that they care about our people, I think that’s wrong [….] [The Unity Flag should not just be flown at McGill] to give the impression to Mohawk students or Native students [that], ‘Hey, look, we support you.’”

In an interview with The Tribune, Philippe Blouin, a PhD candidate in McGill’s Department of Anthropology and an associate of the Kanien’keha:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) fighting McGill for access to potential unmarked Indigenous graves at McGill’s New Vic site, described McGill’s performativity in flying the Unity Flag.

“It seems like cultural appropriation,” Blouin stated. “If you’re just [displaying] symbols, without any true means for reparation of [simultaneous] historical harm, that’s cultural appropriation [….] [McGill is] actively fighting against members of the traditional families that are represented by that flag.”

In a written statement to The Tribune via the MRO, McGill’s Office of Indigenous Initiatives (OII) affirmed that the Unity Flag was erected in collaboration with Indigenous individuals and groups from the McGill community and the Greater Montreal Area.

“The redesign of the Y-Intersection, along with all planning for its launch, was guided by an Indigenous Advisory Committee,” the OII wrote. “The flag included in the Y-Intersection event and installation was chosen as a gesture of respect and acknowledgment of our host and most proximate First Nation of Kahnawà:ke.”

Blouin shared in a written statement to The Tribune that, according to his Kanien’kehá:ka associates, proper representation of Kanien’kehá:ka symbols such as the Unity Flag at McGill requires more consultation with, and consensus from, the community where the flag originated.

“My associates say it’s really not a matter of criticizing the choices of other community members [who participated in flying the flag], but insisting that the flag being raised at McGill does not reflect an endorsement from the community, but remains a private initiative,” he wrote.

Tekarontakeh expressed hope that McGill and other colonial actors will start to honour their stated commitments to Indigenous communities such as the Kanien’kehá:ka. He shared that the Unity Flag is a way to reaffirm and celebrate Mohawk survival and identity for Kanien’kehá:ka communities and their proven allies.

“[The Unity Flag] is showing the world that we are not extinct,” he affirmed. “Even [when] Canada [tries] to pass laws to legislate us out of existence, […] we will continue to maintain who we are and to pass this on to our children [….] We are still prepared to work towards harmonization of all peoples [….] We’re alive. We can still tell the truth.”

Art, Arts & Entertainment, Exhibition

Art exhibition ‘Comfort and Indifference’ invites a reflection on shielded spectatorship 

by Romane Musquet on

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In a world where scrolling past tragedy has become routine, the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MAC) latest exhibition Comfort and Indifference asks us to reflect on the human cost of ignoring suffering while surrounding ourselves with comfort. On view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which made one of its exhibition spaces available to the MAC during its renovation, it features works by 22 Quebec artists.

Drawing on Denys Arcand‘s 1981 documentary bearing the same title, the exhibit explores the connection between past and present social detachment. Quebec’s first referendum on independence was held in May 1980; Arcand’s film, released a year later, traces the province’s struggle for political sovereignty. More importantly, it highlights a broader phenomenon in which Quebecers, preoccupied with their material wealth, found themselves increasingly detached from political matters. 

By defining success through ownership rather than social contribution and prioritizing personal gain over community well-being, they allowed lifestyle choices to shape political realities despite complaining about them. The exhibition similarly examines this shift from collective values to individual priorities, prompting us to reconsider our approach to worldwide crises. 

Western societies have increasingly pursued individualism, with the escalating use of cell phones contributing to a growing sense of isolation and detachment from social injustices. At the heart of these privileged spheres remain politically detached individuals. 

Through a selection of works temporarily on display, acquired by the MAC between 2020 and 2025, visitors encounter a wide range of pieces, each encouraging reflection on notions of comfort and indifference. On one exhibition wall, artist Joyce Joumaa presents five circuit breaker boxes that she transformed into light boxes. Inside each, she places photographs of various domestic or commercial spaces that illuminate at specific, predetermined times. This series of works reflects Lebanon’s energy crisis since the 1990s, which has worsened in 2021 due to the global oil shortage. Each box lights up according to the energy schedules of the places it depicts in the country, turning on when electricity is available and off when it is not. 

The scale of these works ultimately prompts us to reconsider our material comfort and privilege while approaching it with a more considerate lens. Following this objective, artist Michel Huneault shares a piece from his series Roxham titled Sans titre 1. The series depicts the Royal Canadian Mounted Police intercepting asylum seekers on Roxham Road in Montérégie, a central point of unofficial entry from the United States, which is now closed. Huneault specifically uses fragments of images instead of photographs, adding a layer of anonymity and speculation to his reflection, emphasizing the human consequences of immigration policy.

Walking around the gallery evokes a range of emotions. The varied nature of the works leaves no fixed route to follow; instead, you drift from one piece to the next. Each work brings its own flavour and originality, inviting you to slow down, immerse yourself, and get to know the story behind it. From paintings to life-sized sculptures, the different mediums successfully provide a rich variety of ways to explore the exhibition’s key themes of comfort and indifference, inviting you to pause and reflect. 

Comfort and Indifference does not offer simple answers or solutions. Instead, it leaves you with a series of lingering questions about what it means to feel comfortable while others bear the consequences. The exhibition suggests that indifference is never just a private feeling, but a position with real effects on other people’s lives. What we do with that realization is left up to us.

Comfort and Indifference runs until May 3rd, 2026.

A previous version of this article stated that the exhibition was one from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. In fact, the exhibition is organized and curated by the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, though it is on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The Tribune regrets the errors.

Student Life

It can be hard to love thy (conference) neighbour

by Rachel Blackstone on

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As I snake through the eerie Education Building in search of my POLI 244 conference, my stomach rumbles. I root through my slightly too small but impossibly stylish purse for a granola bar, and I wonder if Severance inspired this building design. 

A few minutes early, I wait for my TA and open the readings for the week, definitely not for the first time. Prepared with a few insights and questions (Game Theory?) and temporarily satiated from my stale granola bar, I am eager to learn, discuss, and get a break from Economics problem sets and the mouse in my apartment.

The room fills up; there are far too many chairs and not enough desks. Laptops rest on laps, water bottles scatter the floor, and Longchamps sit in salty slush. For a minute or so, we’re all seated, silent, wide-eyed, and expectant as the TA opens a PowerPoint full of quotes and questions. 

After attendance is complete, I watch a third of the screens in the room fill with iMessage or the New York Times Mini Crossword (followed by Connections, Wordle, and Strands). These minds are now elsewhere (free?), never to be grounded (trapped?) in EDUC415 again. I watch people online shop, check scores, answer emails, make weekend plans. Slightly envious—and slightly disappointed by their detachment—I stare daggers into my half-finished lecture notes, hoping for a revelation.

Due to the shrunken number of engaged minds, it depends on the rest of us to facilitate discussion. A booming familiar voice fills my ears. I sigh; Mr. PoliSci Bro has something to say (as always). The class turns their heads to listen, nodding appropriately to incomprehensible jargon and a slurry of statistics spat out too quickly to fact-check. He talks and talks, burying potentially solid points in layers of obvious self-assurance and male dominance. I lose track of the discussion—is he really referring to a 400-level political science course he’s taking “for fun?”

I struggle to breathe with all the air Mr. PoliSci Bro is taking up. Still, I raise my hand. I see a flicker of relief in the TA’s eyes, as she looks at the attendance to remember my name. I ask about Game Theory (What is it? When will I next taste freedom?). The TA opens my question up to the class. Perhaps they can help me. The girl sitting next to me looks up from Hay Day momentarily, but she swiftly switches to Block Blast. 

Someone in the first row raises their hand, giving an almost too concise definition of Game Theory to the TA. I feel embarrassed. How could they synthesize the 40-page reading so easily? When I lower my gaze from the back of their head to their laptop, I see ChatGPT open, prompted by: “What is Game Theory, 2 sentence definition.” 

The conversation opens up a bit more. A few brave souls raise their verbal swords to the mighty Mr. PoliSci Bro. I participate here and there, losing myself briefly in a Spotted McGill rabbit hole. Latecomers arrive eventually, ChatGPT triumphs inevitably, and Aritzia makes a few sales while the lull of Mr. PoliSci Bro becomes almost therapeutic. 

After 50 minutes of witnessing the squandering of my academic optimism, I stand on McTavish feeling confused, angry, and dreading a future society with these people in charge. The obvious disinterest in the real world disheartens me, but I get it. Everything is terrible.

Hungry again, I debate going home or to my eternal perch on floor three of Schulich. I turn off Do Not Disturb to find a text from my roommate: “Mouse is back, brought its friends.” Great. Luckily, my friends back home have sent a dozen Instagram Reels to lift my spirits.


I try my best to stay vertical as I inch down an already icy stretch of McTavish. Looking up momentarily from my careful steps, I see the sun setting—it’s already 4:30 p.m., after all.

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