Peckish for YouTube passerines
By: Jessica Barclay
I have started to put on YouTube videos for my cat when I’m studying or playing games. She sits on my lap or on the back of my chair and purrs gleefully at the birds on the screen, following their flight and jumping slightly when one moves too quickly.
During the winter, my cat doesn’t spend much time outside watching the real birds, and I get worried that she isn’t getting sufficient intellectual stimulation, but YouTube is there to save the day. There’s a whole range of YouTube videos specifically for cats. Whether it’s squirrels running in trees, birds eating at feeders, or big fat pigeons waddling on rooftops, there’s something for every indoor or semi-indoor cat’s needs!
She’s still learning that the birds aren’t actually on the screen, and licks the screen and any place around the screen the bird might be. I have to wipe drool off my screen, keyboard, chair, and desk daily, but the joy on Sergeant Pepper’s face as she watches the videos makes it feel worth it.
I can’t stop buying turtlenecks
By: Nadia Tudhope
I used to hate turtlenecks. Even a mock-neck made me feel like I was being choked. This time last year, I had a grand total of one mock-neck shirt, but increasingly, I’m drowning in a pile of turtlenecks and my own inability to keep from buying more. I’m not sure when this happened.
Every time I go shopping now, I seem to come back with two new turtlenecks. Admittedly, they do also appeal to some of my other tastes — most pleasingly, big funky sleeves — but I feel like I’m losing the ability to buy an item of clothing that is not turtle-necked. When was the last time I got a shirt whose neckline didn’t creep up my throat? What happened to the regular necklines, the low-cut tops? At what point did I completely lose the sense that any shirt with a neckline this high was trying to asphyxiate me? When the turtleneck trend ends, will I be free? Or will I be reduced to desperate roaming, like a hungry wolf on the tundra, starving for more turtlenecks?
One life is all we have
By: Aneesha Narang
People always wonder and worry about the future. Why? Just stay calm and go with the flow of life. People can have a particular way of living; for example, some may have a systematic one. However, when life brings you a bundle of surprises, it isn’t easy. Sometimes we just have to jump for the stars and hope we make it to the other side. Hope, willpower, and strength determines your fate. Enjoy the time you have in life and do what you want because we only have one life and should live it to the fullest. What is stopping you? Kids, marriage, age, money? If there is a will, there is a way. At times in our lives we have so much going on to the point where we don’t even know how to function, but it is important, at the end of the day or month, to reflect on what you were able to accomplish because if you don’t, you may not realize your capabilities and achievements along the way. Take time, and accomplish whatever your heart desires, and never take life for granted as we never know when it may disappear.
You look tired
By:Andrea Sadowski
It’s that time of year where students are dragging their feet from Building A to the SUB like zombies and clutching massive cups of coffee like a lifeline, just waiting for that sweet black liquid to enter their bloodstreams. It’s the time of the semester for pulling all-nighters because you should have started that research paper a week ago, but you somehow managed to leave it until the last minute. Look around your classroom and you’ll see a gaggle of messy buns, piled atop of heads that have long abandoned arduous beauty routines in favour of something that takes two seconds to do, because they probably all slept through their alarms. It’s the season when someone will stare into your lifeless eyes, framed with bags so big they could be suitcases and circles so dark you look like a 13-year-old girl who tried to do a “smokey eye look,” and say “You look tired.” What they really mean to say is “You look like crap; go have a snack and take a nap.”
Illustrations: Kelly Ning/The Cascade
Andrea Sadowski is working towards her BA in Global Development Studies, with a minor in anthropology and Mennonite studies. When she's not sitting in front of her computer, Andrea enjoys climbing mountains, sleeping outside, cooking delicious plant-based food, talking to animals, and dismantling the patriarchy.