Longing for linearity
Maybe I’m just lazy — though I prefer to think I’m time-efficient — but when going from point A to point B, I often like to take a straight line, the shortest distance between two points. And so, UFV, I have a request: can we get a path of some kind from the SUB parking lot to the doors into the Great Hall? The inconvenience of having to loop around to the side road and back is like a slightly less annoying version of when the crosswalk is a block or two away from where you need to cross, and you find yourself tempted to just jaywalk — even more so, considering it doesn’t involve stupidly risking your life just to save a few minutes or catch a bus. However, the swamp that the area between the lot and the doors often tends to be has on many occasions left me with wet socks and regrets. I must say that a bridge across this moor of eternal peril would be greatly appreciated.
Kat Marusiak
In surprising news, students discover jazz
“Once you hear jazz, all other genres are ruined,” Jaime said.
“One hundred per cent, man. As soon as those smooth notes roll their way into your ears, everything else is cheapened.”
“I think that for this reason I wouldn’t have wanted to start loving jazz till I was at least 40, maybe 45 years old. That way I’d have my time with everything else before retiring on a fat pension of smooth bass and honey trumpet sounds.”
“That’s where you get it wrong! You shouldn’t wait! Once you hear Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, you get this feeling where you wish that this beauty would have been revealed to you the second you were born so you could spend as much of your life loving it as possible. So don’t cheat yourself, live your life to the fullest, and pick up that jazz ASAP!”
“Touché, my friend.”
Mitch Huttema
Cuddles or comfort?
There is no worse existential dilemma than being allergic to all the cute animals. I want to hug you, cat. I want to rub my face all over your soft, squishy body. And sometimes I know you’d totally let me, you’d be absolutely open to me picking you up and rolling around with you all over a dander-covered rug. I love you, cat.
But the universe does not love me. My eyes get dry and itchy. My throat gets dry and itchy. My soul gets dry and itchy. And when I cry about it, my eyes are not relieved. I just add wetness to my dryness. I become both. And you leave, cat. You leave because no feline wants to snuggle up with a big, dry, itchy ball of sorrow.
Sure, I take the antihistamines when I have to. They work, for a while. Then I get home with a sweater full of fur, and my whole night — my whole life! — gets catless and ruined. This is no way to live. But I know I must live. There are still so many cats to cuddle.
Alex Rake
Listening 101
In one of my classes a few semesters ago, there was a student who would consistently tell personal anecdotes throughout class. Nearly every time the professor asked a question specifically relating to the course material, the student would eagerly pipe up and go off on a tangent about experiences relating to herself, her friends, or her family. A question about immigration policy could easily be derailed by a response pertaining to what she had for breakfast, or the breastfeeding habits of her friend’s children. It was disrespectful and disruptive.
Unfortunately, this student’s behavior was not some isolated peculiarity, but rather what I believe to be symptomatic of a larger problem relating to lack of social awareness. Some students seem to think that needlessly talking about themselves or dominating class discussion is okay. But it’s not. If the student had taken a moment to look around the classroom, she would have seen exasperated students, irritated at her remarkable ability to waste class time. Ultimately, even though we are all “special” and have valuable things to say, that does not give us carte blanche to forgo reading a social situation, and in the process make everybody else in the room uncomfortable.
Terrill Smith
