The streets of Montreal are notoriously difficult to navigate. What might begin as a simple walk down a few blocks can spiral into an Odyssey through a dystopic landscape of potholes, puddles, and decades-old construction sites. One-way streets abruptly end at public parks, only to reappear ten blocks north. The steep slopes that crawl up… Keep Reading
Days prior to returning to Montreal this August, I visited my father’s grave for the first time in nearly a decade, 17 years after he died. As a child in visits past, I had trudged along with my mother and sister, longing to return to the car. This time, though, I looked forward to going… Keep Reading
Puffy-eyed and greasy-haired, a McGill student emerges into the crisp morning air after a night spent holed up in the library. The half-semester’s worth of lectures they just watched were tedious, but, with the help of 1.5X accelerated audio-visual speed, they were preferable to a biweekly trek to Leacock 132. The caffeine pills are beginning… Keep Reading
I was nine when I first became a victim of sexual violence. I was assaulted again when I was 12, then again when I was 13, and then I stopped counting—so many different people, and so many different faces to remember. Flashbacks are unpredictable. The first snow of the season reminded me of his cold,… Keep Reading
All of the clothes on the floor are damp, but the shirt seems to be the least damp. Judging by its position behind his accumulated under-bed objects, he assumes it’s been down there for a while. It’s difficult to discern which of his shirts it is. Keep Reading
I was only 15 years old. Kicking off my Converse, my heart raced. The long-anticipated package was finally in my hands. The Arctic Monkeys blaring in my headphones tried to restrain the voices in my head. I analyzed the stranger in the mirror one last time. It was for the best. No it wasn’t. Yes it was. No it wasn’t. Tears fell on top of my hands as I pulled the bottle of skin-whitening cream from the box. I wanted to be white. Keep Reading
Along with serial killers and Cold War conspiracy theories, few topics reliably elicit as much morbid fascination as cults. There’s a near compulsive readability to the Wikipedia entries for Jonestown, the Manson Family, and the Branch Davidians that, as far as midterm procrastination is concerned, can’t be substituted for more wholesome online histories. While their stories each combine a measure of conspiracy and murder, part of the allure of researching cults is the processes of indoctrination their members undergo. The actions of cult members make headlines, but the motivations behind joining such groups remain obscure. Keep Reading
“Math is everywhere. To varying degrees, of course, but math is just something that’s everywhere,” Professor Limin Jao, assistant professor and assistant graduate program director in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. She’s right, of course. There’s math in our kitchens, on our walks to school, and… Keep Reading
The hallowed aisles of Leacock 132 are almost a rite of passage for undergraduate students. The massive 601-seat lecture hall can often feel humid and sticky, and there’s occasionally a rat to be found. It’s usually the home of prerequisite lectures, and, thus its atmosphere isn’t often defined by its occupants’ enthusiasm. Keep Reading
So chanted the frustrated masses gathered outside the James Administration building on Apr. 11, 2018, protesting a university culture of abuse and open secrets. The walkout—which brought together students from McGill and Concordia—represented a fever pitch for student outrage. This event did not occur in isolation. On Apr. 4, the Students’ Society of McGill University… Keep Reading
