One of the most special aspects of being part of this university community is that I am free – and even encouraged – to engage with fearless, brilliant, passionate people that have the ability to hold up a mirror to…
Occupy your Academic Don
Comrades, My mind has been occupied lately. Mid-terms, assignments, this blog and world events that seem extremely loud and incredibly close (I'm reading Jonathan Safran Foer for my Cook the Books class at the moment) are mentally taking its toll…
Coming Out is So 1995
In case you never heard of it, much like myself, last Tuesday was International Coming Out Day. Who’d a thunk it? A special day for people to announce to their family, friends, the world even, that they are in fact…
“I From Foreign!”
In the dialect of my home country, this phrase — in more ways than one — says that I’m not from around here. These would have been the words spoken from my mouth four years ago as I arrived in…
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Criticism
Dear readers, Recently somebody very close to me hurt my feelings. Childish as it sounds, it wasn’t fun. The person in question was under the assumption that they were providing me with constructive criticism; however, it was delivered as a…
Overcoming the Stigma
U of T Health and Wellness has named October as Mental Health Awareness month, in hopes of raising awareness of those often suffering in silence due to stigma and misunderstanding of mental impairments and disease. A recent study by the…
You say tomayto, I say tomahto…
Yesterday, on my way to class, I overheard a really interesting conversation. This conversation, between three students, was quite heated, and was attempting to define the ideal firmness that a tomato should possess if one were to eat a tomato…
Things we can all be thankful for
Let’s be honest with ourselves: in the words of Sartre (well, not really), things just got REAL. I don’t know how it is for everyone else, but my to-do list is covered in highlighting and red pen and exclamation marks.…
Part 1: The Fruits of our Labour
It’s Saturday morning and ten students from ENG 434HF: Cook the Books: Modern Food Literature also known as "the English class where students cook" (and thereby learn useful life skills as some naysayers of the humanities may insinuate) are huddled…
Ubuddy is my Buddy!
School has just started and I'm already tangled up in a web of course announcements, emails from my professors and fellow classmates, newsletters from the university, events listings from associations I take part in, college newsletters etc. It is exhausting trying…