My pursuit to win Trivial Pursuit
By Danaye Reinhardt
I have a growing list on my phone called “Things I Should Know.” I’ve spent the better half of my life laughing off general knowledge trivia that I just don’t know, and I finally decided to write down all the things I should have retained from elementary school. My list includes country flags, how elections really work, what languages people speak in specific countries, and what lakes exist in Chilliwack (where I lived for 21 years).
I’m sure that my dad, who’s a cabinet maker with a measuring tape permanently attached to his waist, is secretly ashamed that I don’t know how to measure in imperial. Maritime provinces freak me out; I can never remember which one’s New Brunswick and which one’s Nova Scotia. I don’t know anyone’s phone number except my own.
The problem is that I haven’t made any steps toward learning these things. Maybe I don’t need to know every fact in Trivial Pursuit, but I feel pretty stupid when I don’t know which direction the sun rises and sets.
Junk mail overload
Sydney Marchand
I have a terrible habit of never deleting any of my spam emails. I often sign up for those random online newsletters. You know, the ones that need your email address to get an extra discount on online shopping orders. And being the frugal and financially struggling student that I am, I can’t pass on a discount — even if it only saves me a couple of bucks. These discounts are so worth it to me in the moment that I don’t care if it leads to dozens of spam emails flooding my inbox every month. But I’ll admit it’s kind of frustrating having thousands and thousands of unread emails sitting dormant in my inbox and staring at me in an unorganized mess.
I’ve tried unsubscribing to a few of these newsletters, but honestly, I just can’t keep up. There are over ten years worth of emails to go through. I think it would take me hours, if not days, to go through it all, mark every email to “read,” and try to get my life together. I considered just deleting my email altogether and starting fresh with a new one, but I think I have reached the point of no return. For now, I’ll remind myself that the discounts are worth it and to just accept the overcrowded, spammed mess that I call my email account.
The sex life of bottlenose dolphins
Andrea Sadowski
It’s a well known fact that dolphins are extremely intelligent creatures, with their brain-to-body ratio second only to humans. They use this vast intelligence to communicate, use tools, and even to make each other cum.
Humans are quite foolish to believe that we are the only species on earth that has sex for pleasure and not soley for reproduction. Dolphins have a lot of sex outside of their reproductive cycle, with a lot of different partners, mainly to establish and maintain important social bonds. A recent study published in Current Biology found that female dolphins get a lot of pleasure through clitoral stimulation, which is practised most often during female-female sexual interactions. Yes, dolphins have clitorises; in fact, all female mammals have one. Whether or not every female mammal can experience orgasm, however, is still up for debate. But I hope it’s true. I hope all female mammals are experiencing mind-shattering orgasms like we all deserve to have.
The hibernating garden
By Kait Thompson
Outside my kitchen window, there is a rose bush that climbs almost all the way up to the roof. It was here when I moved in last summer, and their huge, deep red petals seemed infinite, with round after round of new rose buds popping up every week.
My favourite spot in my apartment is at my little kitchen nook. I love to sit there in the afternoons with the window open and let the sun and the wind filter through the flowers, filling my kitchen with their floral fragrance and casting delicate shadows across the hardwood. This week I woke up to a pathetic tuft of stubby, bare branches sticking up out of the dirt under my window. Early in the morning the building maintenance came and did their winter landscaping. I read that it’s necessary to cut the roses all the way back to help them grow bigger and better blooms next summer, but I’m still a little sad every time I look out my window.
Images: Iryna Presley / The Cascade
Danaye studies English and procrastination at UFV and is very passionate about the Oxford comma. She spends her days walking to campus from the free parking zones, writing novels she'll never finish, and pretending to know how to pronounce abominable. Once she graduates, she plans to adopt a cat.
The Managing Editor is responsible for providing support to the Executive Editor in respect to editorial workflow and administration, and an educational resource for sectional editors and volunteers. The Managing Editor is also responsible for internal editorial and volunteer relations.
Sydney is a BA English major, creative writing student, who has been a content contributor for The Cascade and is now the Opinion editor. In 7th grade, she won $100 in a writing contest but hasn’t made an earning from writing since. In the meantime, she is hoping that her half-written novels will write themselves, be published, and help pay the bills.
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.
