There’s something about the onslaught of February that leaves me feeling a little haggard. Maybe it’s that, in thinking of the month, I automatically conjure images rife with salty sidewalks and grey mornings, brown snow and assignments piled high in…
Carnivorous plants in the greenhouse: limb-eating fun at U of T.
It must be the Harry Potter enthusiast in me that can't help but conjure quasi-magical images when I think about the University's unused rooms, locked tight behind oak doors; its unexplored basements; its attics filled with heavy afternoon light. After…
UpbeaT on UTBEAT: Environmental action and U of T
Here I am, studying for exams, with reams of printed notes sitting before me on my desk, stacked high and crooked. Not only is it depressing that I need to work my way intellectually through the notes (so much to…
Good Ideas Fund
I don’t normally pay too much attention to posters pasted on the inside walls of U of T’s toilet stalls, but last week, one of them caught my eye: “Do you have a good idea? The good ideas fund (GIF)…
Sciences vs. humanities: A debate after class
I was walking home last week with a classmate. We got into a lively debate after he told me that he didn't really see the point in studying the humanities. Yes, I am currently completing my B.Sc. through Ecology &…
Planes, trains and automobiles: travelling home, à la undergrad
Anyone who's waited for a bus inside the Toronto Coach Terminal will be aware of what a noxious experience it is, complete with a Soviet-inspired, roofed-in parking lot in which, as you stand in line waiting to board, you are gassed with diesel…
U of T: The inception
Setting: Upper Canada, town of York. Early 1827. It is winter and it is cold. From a bird's-eye view, the town is a barely discernible band along the north shore of Lake Ontario, surrounded by a patchwork of farmers' fields, themselves enveloped by dark…
Bugs, fungus and white pines: How to stuff Ontario’s woods into U of T
My general plan for school these past four years has always been to go to class, get good marks, and and at the eventual end of my bachelor's degree, take up those opportunities open to me thanks to my degree.…
Popular myths at U of T (Argonauts and Greek pantheon excluded)
Anyone who's going to U of T is aware that given its learned progeny, its claim to Canadian intellectual history, and its dimly lit 19th-century stone corridors, the university is basically a myth unto itself. Academic land of plenty, the university is alma…
Out of the whirlpool, into the rapids: Yikes! Grad school applications
There are many different kinds of movement. There's involuntary movement, kinetic movement, the Dada movement, and my personal favourite, lateral movement. In particular, I'm referring to undergraduate lateral movement: the academic eddy sustained by the depthless pool also known as…