Posted on

Finish Your Antibiotic Courses and Don’t Abuse Drugs

If you are easily grossed out by thoughts of yucky things, just obey the title and we won’t have any issues.

It started last Friday. Wait, no. Too fast.

It started during Reading Week. I got three wisdom teeth removed. I only had three. Two on my right side. It was a painful recovery – as expected – but I survived. I had my medicine and finished my full antibiotic course. I turned into a chipmunk for half a week. The check-up appointment with the oral surgeon went well; he said the recovery looked good. Life was good.

Then it started last Friday. I felt a strange swelling in my lower right jaw. Unsure if I had just slept wrong the night before, I decided it was probably nothing to worry about. Never make this assumption. Continue reading “Finish Your Antibiotic Courses and Don’t Abuse Drugs”

Posted on

Win Tickets for THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE

 * This contest is closed. Congratulations to Sarah for winning tickets to see THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE in theatres *

BlogUT wants you and a friend to win tickets to see
THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE, now playing in theatres. In the comment section below, tell us the name of the Canadian star who plays Steve Gray in this movie!

Superstar magicians Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) have ruled the Las Vegas strip for years, raking in millions with illusions as big as Burt’s growing ego.  But lately the duo’s greatest deception is their public friendship, while secretly they’ve grown to loathe each other.
Facing cutthroat competition from guerilla street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), whose cult following surges with each outrageous stunt, even their show looks stale.  But there’s still a chance Burt and Anton can save the act—both onstage and off—if Burt can get back in touch with what made him love magic in the first place.

For more information on the movie, check out the trailer below!
THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE is now playing in theatres !To stay up-to-date with Warner Bros Pictures Canada releases, follow them on Facebook  and Twitter !

 

Posted on

Sana Is Gone – Now What?

Opinions shared in this post belong solely to the author and do not reflect the opinions of the blog.

I’m probably not the only one who was left feeling discontent following last week’s lackluster UTSU election campaign period. We only had one slate running, the debate was so unremarkable that, even after sitting through the whole thing, I had nothing to say about it, and the platform was typical. Team Renew was trying to renew the campus, no doubt, in the same way you would renew a library card. Same books, new card.

I’ve said before that it seems like Team Renew isn’t keen on talking to anyone, especially since they have no real reason to. Well, now someone is talking, and that someone is ex-VP External Candidate, Sana Ali.

Here’s a quick summary of her letter:

  • Her job wasn’t to use her brain (her words), but to fulfill a predetermined set of mandates that haven’t changed much over the years.
  • The team runs supreme, and everyone part of it must find a way to conform, apparently without question.
  • Different opinions will not be tolerated.
  • Most importantly: the people are well-meaning and progressive, but the system is corrupt.

So what does this mean?

Well, first is that there are serious communication issues within our student government. It should be no surprise to most of us that the hottest student politics topic this year is the push for defederation by three colleges and one faculty. The biggest reason for is because many of those college and faculty unions think the UTSU is incompetent and unable to meet their needs (that’s the nicest way I can put it). It’s one thing to have other groups criticizing the big guy, but to have one of their own? That’s huge.

Second, it goes far beyond ideology. She talked about being stifled, and the suffocating nature of groupthink. She talked about how her statements were reviewed, and how everything was submitted by the same person. What she said isn’t anything new, but she was the first to say something about it. By doing so, she exposed the inner party politics that exists within our union. Does this make UTSU any different than any other political body? Or any other organization, for that matter? I don’t think so.

I thought it was very nice of Sana to not point anyone out and criticize people explicitly. As far as I can tell, a major reason why she’s pulling out is that her beliefs didn’t match up with the rest of theirs, and that led to undesirable circumstances. She was kept from talking to her friends and conversing meaningfully during the campaign. But even through all that, she doesn’t name any names. That was very classy of her.

Finally, with all the buzz Sana’s letter is generating, I am hoping that this will get more students interested in how our university works. As harsh as this may sound, this kind of press is exactly the kind of thing that gets people going. Team Renew and UTSU will be forced to address this and, if they don’t, it’s indicative of how our unions are run. I want them to take this chance to really review and think critically about what has happened, and what is wrong with the system.

For Team Renew, I want you to consider just how effective and novel your slate is. Is your platform really a bunch of antiquated mandates, and is there really no plan other than to “work together”? That seems sort of flaky. And are you really not letting your candidates talk to “one of them“? Are you five?

For UTSU and all the bodies under it, I want you to take this opportunity to put it all out in the open. The spotlight is on you now, and if things go the way I think they should go, then more people will be asking questions. Your communication skills are lacking. You need to review your agenda. I know you implemented many suggested changes this year, but most of us don’t know about them, and that’s a problem. If you want to address the discontent that is definitely spreading among our colleges and faculties, that’s the least you can do.

For all defederating student bodies, no doubt you think this as a major victory. It really isn’t. First, if you’re going to defederate anyway, whatever happens with UTSU doesn’t matter to you so you shouldn’t spend your time caring in the first place. If your referenda go through, then focus on making your colleges and faculties a better place, not on rubbing it in the UTSU’s face. Second, if you don’t defederate, then you’re just like the rest of us – we don’t have a VP External. I’m not sure how that will play out but, either way, you’ll be just as worse off as the rest of us.

And to all of you, are you really doing this for us, the students, or are you doing this for your bruised egos, as Sana suggests?

Critical thinking doesn’t mean just being critical of others, but being critical of yourself as well. I dare all of the parties and teams I mentioned about to criticize themselves. Seriously. Can you do it?

There’s this one line Sana wrote that didn’t sit well with me:

The day of the All-Candidate’s Meeting when it was revealed that nobody would be running against the team, I was really upset because I saw it as a massive call for reform. When I brought this up, I was told that it did not mean no-one had faith in the system, it simply meant that people were too lazy to put in the work.

Politics isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some people just have no interest or are repulsed by politics in general, which is fair. And others, like me, like to talk about it (some much more obnoxiously than others) but would never run for it, and that’s fair too. But the least we can do is listen in once in a while, and maybe question things that our governing bodies are doing. You may not care about it now, but one day they may bring up an issue that will affect you. Show that you care in your own little way. We’re adults now, and this sort of practice will extend to “real world” things, like municipal, provincial, and national elections.

Besides, I resent being called lazy. Don’t you?

This is probably the most exciting thing that has happened during the UTSU elections in the past few years. This is even more exciting than the tragic campus bar. There is no word on what the CRO will do in response to her withdrawal this late in the game. I also have no idea what will happen to that empty position. Perhaps a by-election in the fall? Everything will likely fall in the hands of the CRO and the rulebooks.

Posted on

Leadership through Forfeiture

For those out of the social media loop, student news feeds were overrun today by links to a public Facebook note by Sana Ali, the unopposed Team RENEW candidate running for the position of VP External in the on-going UTSU election. In her note, Ali  forfeited the election and terminated her relationship with Team RENEW, and offered some heavy criticisms of the party’s practises regarding open discussion and diversity of thought. She describes attempts to “squash dissent and individuality”, and reveals that her official candidate statement was written for her by the team. She accuses Team RENEW of drastically altering their platform from past slates’, of choosing her because of her ethnicity, of restricting her communication with opposition, and of manipulating students’ ignorance and apathy so as to gain political advantage. Her criticisms are concise, clear, and specific; entirely unlike the whole of her former team’s platform.

At time of press, over one thousand students have liked Ali’s note, an impressive number considering how few follow student politics and how little time the content has had to spread. There are dozens of comments as well, almost all of which are complimentary, often lionizing. Ali’s note is being heralded by some as “an inspiration” and indeed it should be: she’s got us all caring, though perhaps just a little, about a one-sided election.

There is something unintuitive in commending Ali’s action, though. How, exactly, is forfeiting noble? Why are we commending inaction? The answer is both chilling and condemnatory, not of Ali but of the campus that has nurtured the rise of Team RENEW: our state of political affairs is such that the most brazen, powerful action taken by one of our political candidates in recent memory is refusing to take part in something unethical. Ali’s decision is impressive because it is brave and principled, but the consequences of her decision are important not because they are good but because they are not bad. So surrounded are we by the haze of political doublespeak and the murk of self-serving governance that plain honesty’s dim glow is enough to draw us near.

I’m not going to chastise a body of tens of thousands of students, including me, if only because I know it could do no good. We, students, are among the most opinionated and vocal demographics in the world; we are surrounded by geniuses and innovators whose insights we absorb and analyze daily. The discord between our beliefs and refusal to act on them is so immense that there must be an underlying cause so powerful it not only compels us to apathy but blinds us to the extent.

I don’t believe, as Ali suggested, that there is a campus-wide epidemic of mass ignorance. Nor I believe that we are too lazy to mobilize. Apathy is a thing of its own kind; it is emotional inertia. We act only when we care, we care only when we must. We are not an active entity conflicted by the obstacles of ignorance or oppression; we are a motionless body with no apparent incentive to get up and improve our environment. There is, fortunately, unfortunately, simply nothing so terrible or unjust to compel us to take action at all.

Yet.

Posted on

Why Are We Afraid To Be Wrong?

Kathryn Schulz: On Being Wrong

I recently watched a video of a TED Talk by Kathryn Schulz (it’s posted above). Most of what she said resonated with me because there are times in my life when I didn’t want to admit that I was wrong. A recent example of this is when I told my mom that I was going to a friend’s birthday dinner and where it was, and she told me I was taking the longer way to get there. I then decided to take an alternate route to get there and she said I was also going to take the train in the longer direction. I didn’t want to acknowledge that she was right after I looked at the map and navigated my way to the restaurant.

As mentioned in the video and illustrated with my anecdote, we live in a culture where failure isn’t tolerated.  Individuals who make mistakes are seen as failures or they are humiliated, embarrassed, or teased. That got me to thinking about my time at U of T thus far. Why on earth did I decide to go to university? Originally, believe it or not, the main reason why I wanted to attend university was to learn more about subjects I didn’t know about and to expand my mind. I do admit that it was also a way to delay adulthood when it came to working full-time. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced adulthood in different ways during the time I’ve spent here so far (e.g. paying bills, finding a summer job, sending and responding to correspondence in a formal manner). Yes, I wanted more information on how to prepare myself for the working world, but it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind.  I had these thoughts in my mind when I was a high school student desperate to leave the highly structured environment. Once I was admitted to U of T, all of this changed. I still remember my first month here. I was still in a state of disbelief and shock that I was admitted to a top university and was now in a completely different world. However, the honeymoon ended and reality came crashing down on me as my first midterm deadlines approached.

When participation during class became an important part of my final grades, which was after I completed my first year, I started to become more insecure. I am a very talkative person and yet I’m not one of those people who likes to impress someone by pretending to know everything about a subject; I just want to share my point of view. In some of my classes, I was told by professors that my opinion was the wrong answer or not what they were looking for (sometimes it’s true and sometimes it’s not as I’m pursuing a double major in English and Sociology). I didn’t let my professors’ attitudes get me down but recently it has affected the amount of confidence I have in my responses. I still participate in class discussion (as participation is a large chunk of my final grade in all of my classes) but I noticed that I have been more reserved in recent years.

I also noticed fellow classmates who constantly spoke in a way to affirm their opinions and manipulate their arguments in such a way that the professor would give them favour (if they weren’t asking an open ended question). I’m not saying that the students in my classes weren’t intelligent; I just thought that sometimes their answers were inauthentic and every word that comes out of their mouth is a way to prevent them from feeling like they were wrong. Most people don’t speak up when it comes to close ended questions out of fear that they’d look stupid. I have begun to develop a line of thinking that I have to be right about everything and even if I have done my research at all, don’t speak.  This way of thinking has lead to me believe that I have to impress everyone all the time. I had to have all of the right extra-curricular activities (even though I am interested in them) and earning job credentials. I kept thinking about the future and the past but not the present. I became stressed all the time and it became a larger problem and I became unhappy and started losing interest in school altogether. I am getting help when it comes to planning for school but I still felt this way for most of last semester. As I am in my third year, I battle these thoughts as graduation approaches. Now I realize that I shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes and that I’m human. I am slowly learning how to stop putting more pressure on myself because let’s face it, the world’s harshest critic is yourself.

It’s only through making mistakes that we are able to learn. Life is a process, not a fixed path, and we need to be more open about this and creating a culture that allows us to show our flaws and not allow egotism to flourish. As Kathryn Schulz mentioned, if we continue to allow ourselves to ignore others when we are wrong, it can lead to larger problems in the future if our world and business leaders have this mindset. As Thomas A. Edison once said in an interview, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This doesn’t mean that you don’t try your hardest or to be a low achiever, just keep pick yourself off of the ground and keep going but don’t let other people’s comments eat you alive.

 “I err therefore I am human.” – St. Augustine

 

Now if only I can learn to continue to practice my advice on a daily basis…

 

 

Posted on

Team Renew Doesn’t Seem So Keen

Opinions shared in this post belong solely to the author and do not reflect the opinions of the blog.

Campus was eerily quiet today. So quiet that I had to double check my phone just to make sure today was, in fact, the first day of campaigning for UTSU elections. Gone are the intense poster wars at 7am. Gone are the heated (and albeit slightly hilarious) slogans shouted with vigour in front of Sid Smith. Gone are the UTSU elections.

Okay, not really. No one can get rid of UTSU (trust me, people have tried). Without further ado, let me introduce to you the one the only slate running this year:

Renew

Executive Board Candidates:

  • President: Munib Sajjad
  • VP Internal & Services: Cameron Wathey
  • VP External: Sana Ali
  • VP Equity: Yolen Bollo-Kamara
  • VP University Affairs: Agnes So

There are two familiar names up there. Both Munib and Yolen are current UTSU VPs of University Affairs and Campus Life, respectively. Everyone else are rookies to UTSU politics, so how those candidates do remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, with two international students running, Renew is using the diversity card to push their tuition agenda.

—

Chances are, you didn’t know we had UTSU elections this year. That’s okay! Don’t feel bad. You probably aren’t the only one. With the way campaigning week is starting off, you probably won’t be hearing much about it anyway. This is my fourth U of T election, and so far it has been my quietest.

An election is only as engaging as the parties running. It serves both legislative and entertainment purposes. What I mean by that is, an election decides the fate of legislative directions for the coming term, but it is only as interesting as the personalities in the race. In past years, the general formula has been an “incumbent” vs “opposition” race. Slate go head to head over issues they think are relevant to U of T (incumbent) or try to take down The Man (opposition). While voter turnout has always been low at our university, there was at least a buzz on campus. Candidates used to campaign in major campus hubs, and students going to and from class would get at least one pamphlet during the week.

Since Renew is the only slate running, it seems like they have taken the half-assed approach to campaigning. And why shouldn’t they? Why should they put in the same amount of work as previous years if they’re going to win anyway, right? At this point, all executive positions will be filled. Most of the Board of Director positions – with the exception of Trinity, of course – have been acclaimed, meaning that the people running are guaranteed positions on the board. Renew’s website wasn’t up until the afternoon, and as of March 4, 9:15pm their Twitter account is still locked and inactive. The link to their Facebook Page from their website doesn’t work. Once found, it doesn’t really tell us much.

Perhaps I am being too nitpicky about their PR strategy. But think of it this way: with horrible PR, how are they supposed to get the word out? You haven’t got a campaign if no one follows it. I get it though. There’s not point in actually campaigning when there’s no one running against you. It’s practical. It’s pragmatic. And most of all, it tells you just how much Renew wants students to know about their platform.

That isn’t to say Renew is going to sweep the board. Acclaimed positions undergo a “confirmation vote”, meaning that students can vote Yes or No. If enough people vote No or cast an empty ballot, these positions will remain vacant until someone more suitable fills it. So, as decisive as this year’s elections may seem, things can still change at the turn of a dime.

We should know about our student union. It can be as simple as learning about what services and platforms each new executive team has to offer.  Look for these candidates and talk to them. Clearly, they aren’t going to talk to you. It is up to us as U of T students to step up and put running candidates on the spot.

As always, I encourage anyone and everyone to comment and share their opinions. I will be posting my thoughts here on blogUT throughout the election period, so look out for them! If you would like to contact me or you have a tip you want me to talk about, comment below or tweet me at @cjyc23.

 

Posted on

The Hangover – Sans Bradley Cooper, Unfortunately

I must confess that while I have never tried the much-vaunted greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray (though it has unbounding appeal), there is nothing quite like fast food grease when battling the aftereffects of a bite from the rabid and snarling boarhound that is excessive alcohol consumption. The combination of an as of yet undeveloped frontal cortex and a freshly-purchased liver with not many miles on it breeds a dalliance between oneself and this pernicious beast and while this sloppy canine may present with wet kisses its bite packs a wallop like a donkey kick, a revelation usually reached at around 11 the next morn. The feeling is the kind common to all zombie movie extras, not the hankering for tasty brains; very few of them will take the method route there, but the disorientation, general queasiness, loss of self worth and the vague feeling your all too stunted brain can only guess is hunger. And as hunger appears the symptom with the easiest cure and your mind is host to deep thought-starved larvae it seems the quickest route to dispelling the regret shaped cloud around your skull.

Although it’s rare that last night will rear its pockmarked face in this way after upwards of 3 hours of unconsciousness, never underestimate a good expulsion of fluids through the mouth. Obviously one should aim for the most sanitary of conditions, ideally toilets or sinks rather than beds or friends, as most dorms won’t boast more than a Swiffer.

Now that yesterday’s abundant nutrition is done with one should continue on to today’s. As was said fast food, a pleasant phrase in and of itself, is a saviour in this instance, as its lack of any nutritional value doesn’t confuse your body into thinking there are worthwhile compounds in need of processing but rather just the daily grind of fats, calories, and other such gremlins that spend their days grid-locking your arteries. Muffins and other inventions of men who live on Drury Lane are recommended as they act like sponges to the hideous things you poured down your throat last night. Energy drinks will taste something akin to what you as a die-hard Harry Potter enthusiast can only assume goblin piss is like but will most certainly clear your mouth of the feeling that a cat has defecated in the back of your throat. Carbonated beverages of all types are encouraged,  bolstering your now near-empty energy bar. Fruit is allowed but not preferred as their textures do little for the fragile state of the stomach. Keeping hydrated is a must as alcohol, despite being one, drains a lot of liquid from the body making it harder to recover than a merciful god should allow. If your brain feels like a bullet train, or an actual bullet, has entered it, then Advil or some facsimile thereof will be much appreciated by your head and anyone within a couple miles of you.

But of all the carbonated beverages, pharmaceuticals, and real food-imitators, the best thing for a hangover is a friend who was there the night before and can commiserate. Misery loves company, but it also likes someone sitting closer to the TV remote who’s horrible at rock-paper-scissors to provide the day’s entertainment.

Skip your morning classes, avoid the scene at the liposuction clinic from Fight Club and anything featuring morbidly obese housewives, and you’ll be good to go (go nowhere that is).