In this issue...

Welcome to Student Life

p5 Getting the most out of Frosh Week

p6 Memories of first year

p8 Commuter problems? No problem!

For some Victorians, the end of the winter semester didn’t mean much more than switch-ing to shorts on the morning trek to campus.

While most of us were cot-taging, camp counselling, or working whatever menial job we were able to get, there have been many student organiza-tions hard at work in the sum-mer months inside the Gold-ring Student Centre.

Members of VUSAC have been working on myriad stu-dent life initiatives over the course of the summer. Many of these initiatives stem from the campaign platform of the re-

cent president-elects, Ben At-kins and Gabe Zoltan-Johan.

One of the tent poles of the duo’s platform when running for the presidency was to fig-ure out ways that students can get involved in influencing and shaping how mental health and sexual violence are dealt with on campus. The summer saw the first manifestations of this increased involvement through focus groups run in collabora-tion with the Equity Commis-sioner, Claire Wilkins.

The groups aim to provide policy and protocol recom-mendations to university ad-ministration.

As policy is dealt with at the university administration level and protocol at the Vic admin level, the power of the groups is capped at providing recommendations to the re-spective administrations.

Despite these limitations, both were optimistic about the influence of the focus groups and their recommendations. “This is the only student-driv-en focus group on St. George campus devoted to these is-sues,” said Zoltan-Johan in an interview.

Cont’d on page 2

Anthony Burton | Editor-in-Chief

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPERVOL. 58 ISSUE 1 • SEPTEMBER 6, 2015 •THESTRAND.CA

Getting up to speed with what’s going on at Vic

For those of you who haven’t no-ticed that there’s a federal elec-tion going on: what kind of rock are you living under, and where can I get one like it? For everyone else, the constant bombardment of information from every pos-sible medium makes it difficult to process what goes into an election campaign, leading to cynicism and apathy.

Consequently, voter turnout across Canada has declined signifi-cantly over the last 20 years; it now hovers at around 60% of eligible voters. This number is dramatically lower among young voters, spark-ing numerous campaigns to get out the youth vote in Canada and to engage young people in politics.

Not wanting to add to the ca-cophony of articles imploring stu-dents to exercise their democratic right to vote on October 19, I would much rather appeal to stu-dents who are already engaged and ready to take their involvement one step further.

Here are some ways to get in-volved:

1. Join a U of T club

The easiest way to get involved on campus is through the local youth branch of the party you support. The Liberal Party of Canada, the NDP, and the Conservative Party of Canada all have organizations

here at UofT, and all of them are going to be heavily involved in this year’s election. Admittedly, this course of action may be too bu-reaucratic for some, so it’s impor-tant to note that there are plenty of other opportunities for young people to get directly involved in the political process.

2. Volunteer for a party

Another option is to get involved directly with the political party of your choosing. Since this elec-tion is anticipated to be extremely close, the major parties will be in need of volunteers from across the country to help mobilize their na-tional campaigns. All parties have clearly marked “volunteer” buttons displayed on their websites, leading you to a page where you enter your contact information.

3. Volunteer in your riding

One last option is to get involved with a campaign in a specific riding that is important to you. In gen-eral, local campaigns have limited staff and rely on a small, core group of volunteers to help get their can-didate elected. This being the case, volunteering with a local campaign can make a tangible difference in a candidate’s electoral fortunes. Some of the ridings within a short distance of campus that you may

want to get involved with are: Uni-versity-Rosedale, Toronto Cen-tre, Spadina-Fort York, Daven-port, Toronto-St. Paul’s, and Eglinton-Lawrence.

So there you have it—three different and easy ways for students to get involved in the 2015 federal election. Getting involved in a political campaign over the summer has been one of the most rewarding decisions I’ve ever made; it’s allowed me to meet a ton of super-cool people and also to feel like I’m making a difference.

L-P Veilleux has spent the sum-mer volunteering for Eglinton-Law-rence Liberal candidate Marco Men-dicino.

L-P Veilleux | Contributor

News • the STRAND

Cont’d from page 1

“There was a meeting where Kelly [Castle, Vic Dean of Students] came and members presented their solutions, suggestions, and complaints,” Atkins told The Strand. “The fact that she’s coming is definitely an indicator that they are going to be taking our recommendations seriously.”

The distinction between policy and protocol finds itself illustrated in the aims of each focus group. While UofT has its own sexual assault policy that Victoria College must conform to, Vic administration has a significant amount of control over how it responds to mental health issues.

It seems to be an improvement in efficacy almost too good to be true considering the disorganization and controversy that took centre stage over the work that VUSAC did last year. Clashes between the judiciary— which comprises the president and various vice-presi-dents—and the council led to inertia when it came to crucial decision-making.

“Last year, the judiciary was fragmented entirely, people would vote against each other, and decisions would be made without consultation with anyone else,” Zoltan-Johan said. This lead to a total breakdown in communication amongst the various arms of VUSAC, and a divided room when it came time to cooperate. Councillors would meet in private and vote as a block, which Atkins saw as a response to “a lack of manage-ment and leadership” from a judiciary that was too busy infighting to deal with these issues.

The disorganization came to a head when the year’s Arts and Culture commissioner was brought to impeachment over homophobic and racial slurs used

in the office and then survived the vote, only to be brought back to impeachment at the next meeting. The second vote succeeded.

Both Atkins and Zoltan-Johan used this break-down in communication as motivation for better rela-tionships and stronger collaboration amongst all mem-bers coming into this year, and the laundry list of new initiatives being undertaken before the semester has even started illustrates the success of their efforts so far.

The myriad projects worked on over the summer in-clude the development of a student credit union (com-mon to American universities, notes Atkins, who spent his high school days in Washington D.C.), concerts in the Cat’s Eye (another campaign tent pole spearheaded by Zoltan-Johan), and a tidying of the constitution, in-cluding the introduction of a preamble that specifically enforces equitable treatment and behaviour. This is in addition to the many operational initiatives that take place every summer.

For those who want to get involved in Vic student politics, there will be eight councillor positions up for grabs come the start of the school year. They’re open to all Vic students, from Fresh Froshies to fifth-years, and the campaigning period begins September 21.

VUSAC: building from last year

2

Image credit to VUSAC

So you want to get involved with federal politics

Lynn H

ong

Starting university is terrifying. Last June you were still asking permission to use the bathroom, and now you’re

living on your own—or worse, you’re expected to effectively cohabitate with another human being and you’ve got no parental safety net to fix things when you screw the pooch. You’ve got stadium-sized lectures where literally no one will notice your teeny existence. That can be daunting. It’s easy to start taking things way too seri-ously, and that can lead to intense student anxiety. Tomato tomahto.

At any rate, taking things too seriously is bad for your health, so stop it. Now. I see you freaking out about that 2000-word essay due in November. Cut it out. You’re making me nervous. It’s bothering me. This kind of behavior has a tendency to snowball into other parts of your life, and you find yourself feeling anxious about making friends, dating, finding something fulfilling to pursue, among other things. So here’s a survival list of sorts to help you out.

1. No one really expects anything of you.

All that’s really required of you after you pay up to get in is meeting deadlines and putting things in your mouth that will keep you alive. We’re all in this dorm to-gether, eating ramen and wearing flip-flops in the shared shower. Nobody’s judging anyone here. Be a hermit that never leaves their room. Or be that person always playing piano in the common room.

2. Don’t worry about being good at stuff.

You’ll have a tendency to think that everything you make, write, or pursue creatively is terrible. Sad truth, it likely is. But that’s okay. You’re in an institutionalized learn-ing facility because you still need to learn how to do stuff. You can suck at what you do because you’re growing, and you never really stop growing.

3. Take some goddamn bird courses.

The really irrelevant stuff that just sounds dope to learn about. Detective Fiction? Sign me the fuck up. The Physics of Sci-fi? HELL YEAH. You’re supposed to be still figuring out what you want to do, so sign up for something outside your major ‘cause it looks hella cool.

4. Go to class. Be productive.

Okay, so maybe this one seems out of place, but nothing is more likely to lead to depression than waking up at 5 PM, feeling like it’s too late to start anything, and not getting anything done. Don’t skip class. Get stuff done every day. You’ll feel awesome. You’re great. Reward yourself. Get a burrito or something. Eat it like an animal, you champ.

5.Don’t feel alone.

There’s, like, SO MANY peeps here. If you’re afraid that people are going to treat you weird for the weird stuff you’re into, don’t. Whatever you’re into, other folks around are going to be into it, too. There are whole Facebook groups for meeting people at the university. Need a dungeon master for your D&D group? Totes ma-gotes. Want to start an appreciation group for early Russian cinema? Do it up. Need ANOTHER dungeon master for your freaky sex cave? Use safe words, you beautiful weirdo.

Ultimately, whatever happens, you’re gonna survive. Don’t sweat it. Don’t freak out. The next four (or more) years are gonna suck sometimes. But they’ll also be pretty cool.

Trans[itioning] and the University

When you’re an 11th grader going to school with peo-ple and teachers who have known you for years, every step out of the closet involves a lot of defending your-self. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of patience, and the knowledge and self-assurance to give “Trans 101,” also known as “here’s why you calling me that is the reason I cry in the bathroom at lunch,” to everyone. After do-ing all this with my doctor, my therapist, my parents, my friends, and a couple of my favourite teachers, re-peating the process with literally my entire high school seemed downright herculean, and I am not, perhaps for the better, the son (or daughter) of Zeus. Which is why I graduated high school with one foot still in the closet. I imagine some of you can sympathize.

A new place and new people were perfect for the reinvented Alex, and beginning during Frosh Week, being out worked better in university than it ever had in high school. No one questioned me on my name or fought me about pronouns—people didn’t know me well enough to feel like they could do so, even if they’d wanted to. Anyone who found out (by guessing or being told) that I was trans either didn’t mind or just

avoided me. I made lots of gay friends, met one or two other trans people, and signed up for a million email lists for LGBT2SA clubs. I learned to tell people who and what I was, and that alone helped eliminate a lot of the arguments and doubts cisgender people had once felt entitled to voice.

To all trans Froshies: assert your right to your iden-tity, and don’t put up with anyone who doesn’t respect it. You deserve better, and there is better here.

Not everything was rosy from the start. I met very few other trans people in my first year. This may have been a result of my small friend group and taste for solitude, but when I got invited to a “Trans Men of UofT” Facebook group and it peaked at five members, I realized a need for more trans-focused groups on cam-pus. VicPride was one organization that helped with this deficit when they opened their hearts and their ex-ecutive committee to me. Through them I found my way into trans spaces both within the university and outside of it. And there are great signs of progress, too: the Trans Inclusivity Project is a new group on campus looking to address inequalities and challenges experi-

enced by trans students and Torontonians. They are still in the process of gaining funding from UTSU, and I for one pledge my support to them.

As my “goodbye for now” and my welcome, I offer to you a few specific tips on being trans at Vic—based, of course, on my own experiences.

If someone mistreats you, don’t give them your time. If they’re a TA, change tutorials. If they’re a prof, drop the class. Email your professors with names and pronouns if you’ve got a label you don’t like still stuck on you. You can change your name in the stu-dent records (talk to your registrar) without having a legal name change form, but beware the potential re-percussions—I accidentally got outed to my extremely conservative grandparents when the name change on the records interfered with my RESP. Join clubs. Run clubs and think of your fellow trans people when you do. Locker rooms have washroom stalls, and you can change in them. Your identity, even if it is fluid, is fact, and anyone who doesn’t respect that isn’t worth a sec-ond glance. You don’t have to tell anyone. You owe no one an explanation.

Starting college, if you’re into that

Alex Elcombe | Contributor

Connor Buck | Contributor

Opinions • the STRAND

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Genevie

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The Internet:

You may have heard of it. It’s been around ever since Al Gore invented it after losing the 2000 American presidential elec-tion. Here at The Strand, we call it The Final Frontier. Why, you ask? Because we’ve never been online before. Until now.

thestrand.cais the website address you’ll visit to see copies of every issue of The Strand, read articles by our fantastic contributors, see high-res versions of all the beautiful photography and illustrations in our paper, and read exclusive web-only content.

OUR MASTHEAD

The Strand has been the newspaper of record for Victoria University since 1953. It is published 12 times a year with a circulation of 2000 and is dis-tributed in Victoria University buildings and across the University of Toronto’s St. George campus.

The Strand flagrantly enjoys its editorial autonomy and is committed to acting as an agent of con-structive social change. As such, we will not pub-lish material deemed to exhibit racism, sexism, homo/transphobia, ableism, or other oppressive language.

The Strand is a proud member of the Canadian University Press (CUP).

Our offices are located at 150 Charles St. W., Toronto, ON, M5S 1K9. Please direct enquiries by email to editor@thestrand.ca. Submissions are welcome and may be edited for taste, brevity, and legality.

Follow us on Twitter for news and updates:@strandpaper

t

Welcome to Vic, and take a second to pat yourself on the back! You’ve survived high school and made it to one of the top universities in the country. You owe yourself some major congratulations for that, and you also owe it to yourself to keep that in mind over the next year. You got here, and that alone is an accom-plishment.

Some of you are going to love Frosh Week and will look back on it with fondness. Some of you are going to hate every moment of it and will worry that the rest of your undergrad is going to feel as isolating in its fake positivity. Both experiences are valid. The only thing I can tell you with complete certainty is that the way you feel about Frosh Week will not in any way affect the overall success of your undergrad.

If you’re anything like myself, you’re going to do a lot of idiotic and questionable things over the next few weeks, months, and probably years of your un-dergraduate degree. Terrible, mortifying, disappoint-ing things are going to happen to you. But many great

and exciting things are going to occur in equal and definitely more frequent turn. After three years at this at times unforgiving institution, I can say with confi-dence that everything (essay writing, socializing, class participation, extra-curricular activities) becomes easier. The not-so-great stuff will roll off, all those ter-rible decisions will become hilarious in hindsight, and the good times will become more regular and recog-nizable.

Don’t worry about being a number. Your ten-digit student number is going to become as natural to remember as your own name, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are 30,000 undergrads at this school—of course you’re going to find your people! I’m excited for you all to make mistakes, learn, and get comfortable in your stride.

I couldn’t be happier that my once-Froshie voice found a home at The Strand. I hope that yours can, too. But hey, don’t let me tell you what to do with your time at Vic. It’s all yours.

Dear Frosh,Holly McKenzie-Sutter | Editor-in-Chief

Anthony BurtonRhianna Jackson-KelsoHolly McKenzie-Sutter

Nicole ParoyanNews

news@thestrand.ca

Featuresfeatures@thestrand.ca

editors-iN-ChieF editor@thestrand.ca

Olivia DziwakopiNioNsopinions@thestrand.ca

Geoff BaileyClaire Wilkins

Clarrie Feinsteinarts & Cultureartsandculture@thestrand.ca

Bronwyn Nisbet-GrayFilm & musiCfilmandmusic@thestrand.ca

Neil MacIsaacstraNdedstranded@thestrand.ca

Jake McNairCopy editiNgcopy@thestrand.ca

CoNtributors

Amanda Aziz, Connor Buck, Ariana Douglas, Alex Elcombe, Dina Ginzburg, Alexandra Scan-dolo, Cara Schacter, Lia Schifitto, Angela Sun, L-P Veilleux, Maya Wong

Copy editors

Amanda Aziz, Holly McKenzie-Sutter, Bronwyn Nisbet-Gray

illustratioNs

Lynn Hong, Natasha Rosslein

photos

Sadia Awan, Victoria Chuen, Genevieve Wakutz

Cover photo Sarah Crawley

Genevieve Wakutzphotophoto@thestrand.ca

Lynn Seolim Hongartart@thestrand.ca

Emily PollockGrace Quinsey

desigNdesign@thestrand.ca

editorial assistaNts Vacant

Kasra Koushanwebweb@thestrand.ca

 

 

VIC STUDENTS

Do you like books? Do you like helping yourself by helping others? If you answered “no” to either of these ques-tions, you are probably at the wrong college. Since you no doubt answered “yes,” the Victoria College Book Sale is looking for people like you!

The Book Sale is looking for volunteers to help with setting up the event as well as to work at the sale. Send an email to

vic.booksale@utoronto.ca

to let them know you’re interested!

BOOK SALE HOURS

Thursday, September 24: 4 PM – 9 PM

Friday, September 25: 10 AM – 8 PM

Saturday, September 26: 11 AM – 6 PM

Sunday, September 27: 11 AM – 6 PM

Monday, September 28: 10 AM – 8 PM

First Night Only:Admission $3

Students FREE with I.D.

in OLD VIC91 Charles Street West

(Museum Subway Exit)

Comrade:In the mood to be recruited? Then come out to The Strand’s fall term recruitment night on Tuesday, September 22 at 9 PM!

If you have an interest in journalism, graphic design, pho-tography, illustration, editing, or working with a super cool group of people who spend their time making a su-per cool newspaper, make sure to join us in Room 153 of the Goldring Student Centre to find out how you can get involved. There will be people, pizza, and a chance to par-ticipate in some truly revolutionary journalistic projects!

We hope to see you there!

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Getting the most out of Frosh WeekRhianna Jackson-Kelso | Editor-in-Chief

Editorial • the STRAND

Way back on a hot, bright Sunday in September of 2012, I was standing somewhere in the vicinity of where you probably are now, Frosh kit and t-shirt in hand, wondering what the next seven days were going to be like. I was scared, excited, and more than a little unsure of myself. Though in the back of my mind I knew that there was going to be so much more to undergrad than that one little week, I was terrified of potentially miss-ing out, not getting the most out of my experience, and (admittedly this was a little silly) somehow completely screwing up my entire undergrad experience.

Now, looking back on that week almost three years later, with the bulk of my undergrad behind me and two years of Frosh Leader experience under my belt, I have a lot more insight into how Frosh Week does and does not impact your university experience. Truthfully, in most respects, Frosh Week is just a cool rite of pas-sage during which you can have equal amounts of fun by participating in the scheduled events and by doing your own thing. In thinking back on my own experi-ences, however, I’ve learned that there are definitely a few things you can do to help yourself get the most out of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

1.The Clubs Fairs actually will help you find your niche. There are two for you to explore throughout the week—the UTSU Clubs Fair at Hart House Circle on Wednesday, and the Vic College Clubs Fair at Old Vic on Friday. The former will showcase all the university-wide clubs, unions, teams, and associations you can join, while the latter will introduce you to Vic-specific groups. The seemingly endless rows of tables operated by over-enthusiastic upper-years who are hell-bent on getting your name and email address regardless of your personal feelings on the matter might seem daunting, but it’s definitely worth it to put in the time necessary to look through them thoroughly (a lot of them give out free stuff, too!). Look for anything that catches your interest and put your name on the email list. You defi-nitely won’t have time to do everything, but you can comb through your inbox later and pick out the ones you really want to go to. Extra-curricular activities have the power to shape your undergrad into something re-ally amazing, and getting involved early can give you much needed fun and stability to help balance out the stress of school. I found out about The Strand at the Vic Clubs Fair during my Frosh Week, and since then it’s been a hugely important part of my life.

2. Your floor mates are your best friends. This one really only applies to res kids, but it’s an important one. Spend Frosh Week getting to know the people you live

with, not hanging out with people from another resi-dence. When Frosh Week ends and actual school sets in, you’ll be glad to know (and hopefully love!) your neighbours. Residence provides the opportunity for an amazing community and surrogate family. Having peo-ple to sit with in the common room while you stay up all night finishing that term project you left until the last minute, knowing exactly whose door you’ll knock on for a late-night McDonald’s run, or being able to lie on someone’s floor while venting to them about how much your essay that’s due tomorrow is going to suck can help make the scariness of living alone for the first time so much less daunting.

3. Romance can wait. And I say that with as much love as possible for all you romantics out there. Significant others are great and can give you so many amazing ex-periences, but Frosh Week is a time for making friends and making the most of all the exciting opportunities that will be available to you, not for settling down. Your first year of university will be one of the most chaotic, exciting, and difficult times of your life, and you will have to undergo a lot of learning, personal growth, and self-discovery along the way. Romantic relationships are exciting and fun, but they take a lot of work and personal commitment, and trying to devote so much of your being to someone else can make it hard to spend the necessary time on yourself. Though I know there are definitely some of you who dream of meeting your soul mate at university, keep your options open and resist the temptation to spend Frosh Week searching for them.

4. The Frosh Dance is a lot of fun (and doesn’t go away). Don’t think you’ll be able to forget about it after orientation is over. It’s gonna come up again and again and again. And again. Just when you think you’ve seen the last of it, you’ll find everyone around you breaking out into grapevines and box steps because former Frosh Leaders have hi-jacked the speakers in the Cat’s Eye. It might be hot, the steps might seem complicated, and you might feel silly flailing around to overplayed pop songs, but once you’ve got the moves down, there are few things more fun and uniting than bursting out into dance along with hundreds of other people whenever the Frosh song starts playing (and trust me, they’ll be playing it a lot). And not to brag, but Vic has a long history of great Frosh dances. Even if dancing isn’t your thing, watching the whole thing come together, learning to belt out the words to a ridiculous mash-up of several of this year’s greatest hits, and generally just enjoying being immensely silly with your fellow Frosh

is seriously invigorating. If you want to get a taste of the enthusiastic, welcoming, and inclusive atmosphere espoused by the Victoria College community, learning the Frosh Dance is a good way to do it.

5. People come and go, and that’s okay. That might seem obvious, but in all the excitement, magic, and all-around fun of Frosh Week, it can be easy to for-get that it’s just one short week that’s not indicative of what university is actually like. People often say that the friends you make in university are friends you’ll have for life, but that’s often just not true. With the shift in the dynamic between Frosh Week and actual school, you might find that you start to lose touch with peo-ple as the year gets busier and more stressful. Some of the friendships I started in Frosh Week have endured, but others have slowly faded as time has passed. Most people I know still know a mixture of people they met in Frosh Week and people they met later, but some don’t keep in touch with anyone they hung out with at orientation. Again, all that is okay, and there’s noth-ing wrong with allowing it to happen naturally. You’ll make new friends as you go undergrad, and although everyone in your life has probably hyped the shit out of Frosh Week for you, it honestly doesn’t make or break your experience.

There’s no right way to do Frosh Week, but I hope that these tips help you out in some way. Hopefully you’re feeling calm, collected, and excited to have a really awe-some week. Even if you don’t have a really awesome week, that’s okay. Just relax, have as much fun as you can without injuring yourself, and make sure to get in-volved with as many things you’re passionate about as possible.

My Frosh Week was by no means perfect, but as you can see from the extremely flattering photo above, I turned out pretty okay! Like I said, university is so much more than just these first seven days. You’ll have new opportunities every day to make the most of your undergrad experience. You’re only just getting started!

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Victoria Chuen

Memories of First Year

The first few weeks of university can be a scary time. As a first-year trying to figure out a new set of customs and navigate an unfamiliar routine, it can be easy to feel like the odd one out. A lot of first-year students have probably caught themselves thinking something along the lines of “look at all these cool seniors, there is no way that I can ever be as cool as they are.” Calm down. Please relax. You’re going to be fine. Seniors were not always as cool as they are now, and to prove it, we asked Vic seniors to anonymously reflect on some of the embarrassing, irresponsible, or otherwise noteworthy situations they found themselves in during that weird transitional period that is the first year of university. Frosh, learn from our mistakes so that you don’t have to learn from your own.

Features • the STRAND

“My BODY is a CAAAAAGE,” blasted my laptop the moment that I opened it. No. God, no, I thought, slamming it shut. The class was silent. Twenty-four faces stared at me around the round table. Twenty-four faces and Professor David Wright. Former Canadian Ambassador to NATO David Wright. “He-invoked-Article-Five-didn’t-you-know?” David Wright. I was still panting from having run into class ten minutes late. I could feel my cheeks burning from embarrass-ment. After a brief pause, Professor Wright resumed his lecture. I stared at my laptop. I had closed it in-stinctively without turning off Arcade Fire’s soulful tune. A cold sweat formed on my forehead. What. Do. I. Do. I took a deep breath. I needed those notes. Hands trembling, I opened my laptop as quickly as I could, “THAT KEEPS ME FROM DANCING WITH THE ONE I LOVEEE…” and hit “mute,” silencing Win Butler’s vocals forever. I dared to glance at Professor Wright. He was looking at me with a per-plexed expression on his face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I mumbled pathetically while my friends shook with laughter in my periphery. Three years later and still I can’t listen to “My Body is a Cage” without cringing.

Everybody has people they meet and hang out with during their frosh week but never speak to or see again, right? After a fine fast food feeding at the Bloor Street McDonald’s (RIP) on Friday, I befriended some guys at the first of four frats we would visit that night. We battled the rain under my umbrella, fed some wine to the Beta House’s pet cat, and said screw it to Trin’s KA after they wanted to charge us to get in. I’ve seen those guys a few times in the years since, but I don’t think any of us recall that night well. We walk past each other as if we’re strangers, but they all live on as phone contacts thanks to my legendary inebriated typ-ing skills. The only vivid memory? The warm, greasy, and crisp Burwash Dining Hall bacon the following morning.

My frosh week was full of awkward experiences that some how turned into friendships, and the best ex-ample of this is the first person I met at Vic. We kept seeing each other through the open doors, and eventually our parents forced us to go through and meet each other. Fortunately, this didn’t completely scare this person away. By the end of the week, we had both sat around quietly drinking and been loudly crushed by Kin students in beer pong. An awkward start to a friendship, but that’s what the week was.

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The biggest change in the transition from high school to my first year at university was the lack of a rigid schedule. I was so used to operating within the confines of my high school’s 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM timetable, with extra-curriculars crammed in at the beginning and end of the day. After starting university, my 18-year-old self felt an overwhelming sense of liberation, thinking that he would finally have control over how he managed his time. The thing about my 18-year-old self, though, is that he was not very disciplined and spent a lot of his time doing really senseless things. I remember try-ing to pull an all-nighter one evening with my former roommate (and current VUSAC co-president!) Ben At-kins to get our Vic One term assignments done for the next day. For most of the night we did anything but our assignments, and in retrospect it was pretty amaz-ing what we managed to distract ourselves with in our state of sleepless delirium. We spent three to four hours down a YouTube rabbit hole of Robyn music videos, contemplating whether or not we could pull off her dance moves and fashion choices (we could not). Like two young Jeff Koonses-in-training we poured boiling water into plastic bottles to study the abstract form that the melted plastic took. Only after realizing that the sun was beginning to rise did we actually buckle down to get our work done. I wasn’t so practical in my ap-proach to class assignments back then, but I made some good memories and I wouldn’t redo a thing.

Features • the STRAND

As you will come to learn, there is a game at Vic called Assassins which, when played, pushes the level of paranoia among students to new heights. Like many first years, I decidedly wanted to win my residence’s game by being the last person alive; unlike most students, however, I was willing to go to ridicu-lous lengths to make these dreams become reality. Our house’s game was Toddlers and Tiaras-themed, and, as such, it had its own unique set of rules. If stu-dents wore a very silly looking paper crown on their head, they would be safe from being killed via wand (our equivalent of a sword). After taking out three people in the first day of the game and undoubt-edly elevating the house’s collective blood pressure 30 points, everyone decided that it would be for the benefit of the house if they all teamed up to assas-sinate me. Defiantly, I wore my paper crown every-where I went on campus for nearly three weeks be-fore finally being cornered by multiple housemates in a room, stripped of my crown, and assassinated by wand. To this day, I still have people come up to me and ask whether I was that guy who wore a paper crown for a few weeks back in first year.

When I first started at Vic, I was very excited about the amount of liberty I was given concerning class attendance. No one was on my back about starting assignments or attending lectures. It seemed like a good idea at the time to cut the classes I found boring and spend my days binge watching television instead. While I did complete four seasons of Breaking Bad and four seasons of Parks and Rec, I regret not going to my first-year classes. First year is the perfect time to experiment with studying styles and capitalize on college resources. University will provide lots of op-portunities to skip out and not pay for the immediate consequences, but don’t make that mistake. First year study habits can be really hard to change, especially when the later years become far more important.

As a first-year student, my primary concerns were surviving on a limited budget and minimizing the amount of travelling time necessary to get to class. Unfortunately for me, these two needs manifested themselves in a very unforgettable dinner at Burwash. Knowing I wouldn’t have enough time to run to the store after class, I decided to fill up a reusable bottle at the pop machine, seal the lid, and subsequently forget my bottle at the salad bar. As I ate, I was given a front-row seat when moments later the carbonation caused the lid to shoot off and spray soda ten feet in the air. It’s safe to say I never did get that bottle back (nor would I have tried).

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Frosh Week made me appreciate the importance of hydration. Hailing from a milder climate, I was a shuffling husk by the end of the parade on Friday. Someone asked me what college I was in and I said ‘Trinity’ because Trinity was visible behind their head. After correcting myself, I went back to residence and spent a long, restless night on my bed. I kept sporadi-cally waking up, confident that a shadowy stranger was standing over my head and ducking out of sight whenever I looked. So yeah, hydrate.

Frosh Week can be overwhelming, with constant events being held and eager up-per-year students shoving flyers in your face promising the “best new club.” Kids in residence get to immediately experi-ence the Vic community by simply stay-ing in res. Commuter students, on the other hand, have to take more initiative to become involved on campus in order to access the sense of community that res kids take for granted.

However, in our interview with fourth-year student Darren Cheng, co-manager of the Cat’s Eye Student Lounge, he explains his positive experience as a commuter student and how Vic, espe-cially the Vic Off Campus Association (VOCA), offered many opportunities for commuters seeking out their own Vic community.

The Strand: Residence and commuter stu-dents often have very first-year different experiences. Commuter students have to try that much harder to feel included in the community. What were your first-year experiences like? Did you find it dif-ficult? Was Victoria accommodating?

Darren Cheng: Going into my first year, I opted to stay on residence for Orientation Week, which I think was one of the best decisions I could have made in starting off my university career. Because of it, I was able to take part in events and experi-ence what Vic has to offer in ways that I don’t think I would have had I commuted throughout the week! Even after Orienta-tion, I spent time in the Cat’s Eye dur-ing VOCA pancake brunches and half-heartedly attended Vic events. In a way, I think I took for granted the different opportunities Vic gave me to get involved on campus soon after classes started.

TS: Everyone knows that UofT often lacks the community aspect of the uni-versity experience. But it seems that within the past couple of years, students have really rallied to change that. Have you noticed Victoria College taking more initiative to help commuter students (and students in general) gain a sense of com-munity?

DC: Of course! Isn’t that the whole rea-son why we have a college system? I think groups like VOCA and others that have worked with the VUSAC to promote mingling of the two “types” of students really aim to address the two-sidedness of the commuting and residence communi-ties- within the larger Victoria College community. The sense of detachment felt by commuters isn’t something Vic groups easily overlook, and many—if not all—make an obvious effort to provide events and opportunities that are equally acces-sible to both commuters and residence students. As well, commuter dons put on their own events during the year and are so important in giving support and help to commuter students year-round.

TS: What made you become involved with the Cat’s Eye and eventually become its co-manager this coming year?

DC: In second year, I was regretfully un-involved at Vic since I no longer had a seminar on campus. I realized what I was missing and ultimately made an active decision to join the Cat’s Eye Subcom-mitee in my third year, hoping it would give me more reason to come to Vic and get involved. Little did I know, it would eventually lead to me applying and get-ting the position as manager of the space, and now I’m spending much more time

at Vic than I ever expected!TS: What activities/programs do VOCA and the Cat’s Eye offer to students?

DC: Probably the most well known events put on by VOCA are the weekly pancake brunches (usually hosted in the Cat’s Eye). The event specifically targets commuter students, hoping that the stacks of free, delicious, syrupy pancakes (and sometimes waffles!) will give stu-dents a good enough reason to hang out with other Vickies. Throughout the year, VOCA also works in other ways to pro-mote commuter use of the space—rent-ing out free lockers at the beginning of each semester, for example. Along with being the venue for many VOCA events, the Cat’s Eye hires 33 student volunteers (Subcommittee, or Subcomm, members) from Vic at the beginning of each school year who are trained to oversee the space.

Both residence and commuter students are encouraged to apply for the Sub-comm, and managers usually aim to have an even spread of residence and commut-er students from different years.

TS: As a commuter student, what advice do you have for commuter Frosh this year to become involved on campus?

DC: I’m sure you’ve already heard it before, but JOIN ALL THE CLUBS!! VOCA and the Cat’s Eye (personal plug) are especially great ways to start getting in-volved, because you get to meet so many people and experience so many different events you might not otherwise know about! Vic has so many clubs and groups, [so] it’s not hard to find something that could interest you. You just have to take the first step by putting yourself out there!

Commuter students at no disadvantageCat’s Eye co-manager Darren Cheng discusses life as a commuter student

Arts & Culture • the STRAND

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Sadia Awan

Clarrie Feinstein | Arts & Culture Editor

Course Objective: Intellectually taxing yet stimulating, emotionally draining yet enriching, this course is designed to help first-year students navigate the cacophony of contradictions that make up the First-Year Experience. Harnessing the media of film, literature, art, and music, this course builds a creative environment in which students can refine their newfound identities as undergraduates while tackling es-sential questions such as “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”

Course Materials:Materials can be found at Sonic Boom, Queen Video, BMV Books and/or torrent sites (disregard the Bob Miller Books Room).

The Graduate: When viewing this film for the first time in first year, I was riveted. The protagonist has no life plan and no immediate goal upon graduation, and he follows the inclinations of his heart instead of practical solutions. The film puts the life of a teenager into perspective: enjoy the moment and do not constantly think about the future. It will all turn out as intended. Listen to your intuition and not to external pressures.

Grey Lines with Black, Blue and Yellow (Georgia O’Keeffe painting): O’Keeffe’s paintings often explore small portions of a larger image. This particular work is notoriously ambiguous; some see part of a flower, others the female genitalia (hence the moniker ‘Georgia O’Queefe’). Either way, Georgia’s magnified lens reminds us that the beauty of life is a composite of a million beautiful details. When writing papers this year, remember the importance of unpacking the intricacies of the sub-ject at hand—never take a flower for granted (sometimes a rose is a rose is a vagina).

2 (Mac DeMarco album): I was given this album a few weeks before starting uni-versity. The lo-fi, breezy, somewhat psychedelic tunes had me playing the album on repeat during our family beach holiday. Throughout the year, in times of stress while writing essays on Sylvia Plath’s Ariel or Aristotle’s Poetics, I would play 2 and

be transported back to those summer days when life was carefree and much more enjoyable. It’s important to calm a student’s mind during anxiety-provoking times, and this album accomplished just that.

Clueless: While this 1995 cinematographic masterpiece may be a BuzzFeed cliché, there’s no denying the wealth of knowledge dispensed by protagonist Cher Horow-itz. An expert flirt, Cher says “Anything you can do to draw attention to your mouth is good.” The film’s critical lesson lies in Cher’s ability to romantically reframe the dreariest of situations. E.g., Cher doesn’t “get her period,” she “rides the crimson wave.” May this turn of phrase inspire you to reframe moments of academic distress as opportunities for scholastic adventure.

Just Kids (Patti Smith memoir): While most know Patti Smith by her punk rock music that psyched the U.S. in the mid-‘70s, in 2010 she released a memoir of her life during the ‘60s and ‘70s following the beginning of her creative endeavours and relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The book delves into the complexities of what it means to be an artist and how to define oneself in a society that was creatively booming and constantly shifting. The search for who you are is only beginning in first year, and sometimes the greatest source of guidance can be from an author who has lived life to its fullest.

Your Moleskine: If you don’t journal, start now. Your upcoming year of ~intel-lectual and emotional growth~ is the ideal breeding ground for journaling. Avoid story booking (“Today, I woke up, went to class, and ate a bagel. The bagel was a bit stale but then I added herb cream cheese which helped.”). My first year journal lists everything from “Favourite Yogurt Toppings” to “Good Moves to Use on Boys I’m Into.” One time, in my journal, I wrote a letter to myself from the older brother I’ve always wanted (his name is Julian. He’s a bit pretentious, but very patient). You’ll be surprised by how soothing it is to establish a forum in which you talk to yourself.

VIC100 Syllabus

Course Instructors: Clarrie Feinstein and Cara Schacter

Artistic Persuasions for Impressionable First-Years

There is no better time to explore all the cool places at UofT than your very first year when everything is still new, fresh, and exciting. This list is written as a route that will take you all over the St. George campus. All of these spaces are open to students and close at around 5 to 6 PM (unless otherwise stated). See you around!

1. Lester B. Pearson Peace Garden, Victoria CollegeHopefully you’ve already visited the gorgeous waterfall and lush garden between Lower Burwash and the EJ Pratt Library on one of your tours. If not, you should go now before everything becomes grey, barren, and frozen during the winter months.

2. Fireplace Foyer, Flavelle House (Faculty of Law), 78 Queen’s Park Cres. W.Across the street from Vic, Flavelle House contains one of the most beautiful rooms in the Faculty of Law. With a gigantic fireplace, a painted ceiling, and elab-orate wood paneling, the Georgian-style “hall” looks like a lounge you’d find at some fancy European hotel. Plenty of comfy couches and plushy chairs make it a good place for some cozy little tête-à-têtes.

3. Bamboo Garden, Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research, 160 College St.Much-cited in various “UofT’s beautiful spaces” lists, it’s surprising how few Vic students actually make it down to this College Street building. You can actually see the bamboo garden through the glass walls of the Donnelly Centre as you walk by. While not secluded (it’s just left of a central staircase), it’s a still nice little oasis among all the concrete.

4. Eric Arthur Gallery, Daniels School of Architec-ture and Design, 230 College St. Want to impress someone with your appreciation for art and design? Though there are quite a few galleries at UofT, this one never seems to get mentioned alongside them, probably because comparatively small. But this space actually feels more romantic because of all the natural lighting it gets from a huge bay window. The current exhibit mixes modern images with a few Gre-cian-inspired sculptures. Bonus: The Shore + Moffat Library directly above is equally soothing for studying.

5. Harvest Noon, Graduate Students’ Union Build-ing, 16 Bancroft Ave.This is a great alternative for when you want to have a lunch date on-campus but would rather not be in a din-ing hall or food court. Harvest Noon is a student-run cafe and food co-op that serves local produce. There aren’t many tables in their attic-like room, and it’s not open very long, but the prices are SUPER cheap and the (vegetarian and vegan) food is delicious. Regular hours are 10 AM to 2 PM.

6. Tree Garden, Faculty of Forestry, 33 Willcocks St.Located inside the labyrinth that is the circle of Earth Science buildings, the garden is used as a research area for students in the Faculty of Forestry. It also happens to be a great secluded place if you want to get to know someone among some foliage. The place is surrounded by the transparent first floor of the forestry building so… don’t get too excited.

7. Rooftop Telescopes and Observatory, McLennan Physical Laboratories (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics), 60 St. George St. Yes, UofT has an observatory! You can’t access the tele-scopes on a daily basis, but the Astronomy and Astro-physics department give monthly public lectures and observatory viewings. You can find out more by signing up for their newsletter. Can you say perfect date?

8. Knox College, 59 St. George St. No “UofT spaces” list is complete without the inclu-sion of this theological college. Knox College is often called the most beautiful college on campus, and it’s great if you are into gorgeous stone arches and Gothic Revival architecture. Most people gush over the court-yard and the Caven Library, but I prefer having pas-sionate discussions inside the sprawling, usually-empty chapel on the second floor.

9. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library, Robarts Library, 130 St. George St.Robarts may be known for its brutalist architecture and its resemblance to a turkey or peacock, but you can re-ally find some great study spaces on the upper floors

—especially after its recent renovation. However, there are two spaces that really stand out as romantic. The Fisher Rare Book Library is a multi-floor room filled with rare, cloth-bound texts protected by sepia-toned lighting. It’s warm and mysterious and completely dif-ferent from the rest of Robarts. You can only access a small section of it, but just a look inside will set a book-lover’s heart ablaze. The Canada-Hong Kong Library on the 8th floor is pretty on par, the little screens that hide most of the two-person study spots tip it into the romantic. Only one of those spots looks out onto a large window, so you should probably get there early.

10. The Exterior Deck, Rotman Commerce, 125 St. George St.The best part of the stylish new Rotman building has got to be the rooftop patio on the fourth floor. It looks like the type of patio that a business student is sure to encounter in their future of attending weekly cocktail parties and/or museum fundraisers. Unfortunately the grey exterior of Robarts blocks most of the sightline, but the space itself is slick in a preppy, minimalist, cream, and astro-turf kind of way. It’s open until Octo-ber 31 from 8 AM to 8:45 PM.

11. Undergraduate Common Room, Max Gluskin House, 150 St. George St.If you don’t have an excuse to visit your TA at Massey College, the Undergraduate Common Room on the first floor of the Max Gluskin House is a fine alterna-tive. Overlooking the Innis College quad, the room looks like a skiing lodge with its wooden ceiling and beams. There’s even a small electric fireplace to one side. This is a location that will likely be even more romantic during the winter months.

12. Nexus Lounge, OISE, 252 Bloor St. W.Most of OISE looks like a series of high school staff rooms, but the Nexus Lounge on the top floor boasts one of the best views in UofT. The lounge area is simple with white walls and minimalist furniture, but it’s all just peanuts when surrounded by the magnificent pan-oramic view of the St. George campus. There are also lots of cute little date tables that go right up against the glass. It’s open most days from 8:30 AM to 8:30 PM.

Make campus your own!The Strand’s campus route of hidden gems around St. George

Angela Sun | Staff WriterSadia Awan | Photography

Arts & Culture • the STRAND

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September marks the last of the year’s cinematic exh-bitions with the Toronto International Film Festival. Films by North American and international directors are showcased during the event’s ten-day run. Remark-ably, despite the difference in theme and genre, a third of the features from this year’s lineup have one thing in common: they are book-to-screen adaptations. Hol-lywood is infamous for churning out mammoth pro-ductions of bestselling novels and comics under the generally correct assumption that pandering to popular culture will positively affect their revenue. However, the growing interest of independent production com-panies in adaptations of lesser known works indicate that perhaps adaptations have more to offer than profit.

Some of the most exciting adaptations from this year’s TIFF lineup include two gangster films, Black Mass and Legend, as well as Septembers of Shi-raz, based on the critically acclaimed debut novel by Dalia Sofer. Each film is bound to do well for the same basic reason: good storytelling can only be heighted by aesthetic appeal. Take The Dressmaker, for instance, an Australian film about a woman who returns to her village to care for her mother (an un-stable woman who may have murdered a child) and

pacifies the pitchfork-wielding horde of villagers with her haute couture dressmaking in the process.

The book on which the film is based has done rea-sonably well both critically and commercially, and the film adaptation has all the potential to ride on its source’s coattails and garner attention. Set against the unforgiv-ing and stark Australian outback, the film stars Kate Winslet and features an atmospheric soundtrack and wardrobe to boot. The story itself is smart and charming in a gothic mystery sort of way, and to see it expressed with added visual and aural details will only intensify and beautify what is already present within the text.

From a merely economic point of view, novel-to-film adaptations are an obvious and often safe choice for studios to produce. Regardless of what the creative types in the industry may preach, filmmaking is first and foremost a business. Movies cannot be made with-out money, and a director’s success is directly linked to the millions that their movies rake in at box offices. Releasing a film based on a novel or comic book will, at the very least, ensure that the franchise will come with its guaranteed audience and fan base. Readers of the original work are bound to see the film, even out of sheer curiosity, and there is nothing like pre-exist-

ing success and recognition to generate excitement. As consumers of media, we have a seemingly in-

satiable appetite for mimesis. The characters, morals, and storylines from ancient mythology, religious texts, and canonical literature have been reshaped and re-purposed in innumerable ways to create new pieces of literature, theatre, and cinema. Something about expo-sure to the same basic story through various outlets is appealing, perhaps because there is a certain thrill in dispelling familiarity and allowing our preconceived notions to be overthrown by a creator’s vision and personal relationship with a publicly available tale.

We find excitement in the visualization of mate-rial that previously only existed in our heads. Through music, design, and camera work, not to mention per-formance, films have the ability to conjure emotions and responses without the need for literary interpre-tation. It only seems natural that we should want to see our favourite stories brought to life with aesthet-ic appeal. So whether it be a new installment of The Avengers or a filmic rendering of an obscure, nihilistic manifesto, adaptations will always find their audience.

Reuse and Recycle:Why we love adaptations

How are you Feeling?A Response to Pixar’s Inside Out

Inside Out hits you hard if you’re will-ing to listen. As someone who is full of feelings, I’m always down to talk about them. I think it is important ask, in times of sadness or in happiness, What are you feeling? Well, it’s a loaded question.

Inside Out, film director Pete Doct-er’s (Toy Story, WALL-E, Up) latest proj-ect, was released in the early summer of this year. The film, a Disney-Pixar partnership production that features colourful characters, comical-but-age-appropriate shenanigans, and strong messages about friendship and fam-ily, is geared towards a younger audi-ence. However, the film sheds many perceived genre confinements in its overall message to the audience, which is applicable to child and adult alike.

The film intersects the story of 11–year-old Riley and her move from her snowy Minnesota home to a cloudy San Francisco side street with the story of her capital “E” Emotions—Joy, Sad-ness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust—dur-ing this experience. We watch how Ri-ley’s memories and emotions bleed into each other; together, they make Riley who she is and explain why she acts or thinks the way she does. Together, this motley crew works in a control cen-ter in Riley’s mind, facilitating her ac-tions, thoughts, beliefs, and memories.

As the turmoil builds in Riley’s mind and she faces homesickness for her beloved Minnesota, Joy and Sadness get lost in Riley’s long-term memory storage, a maze of thousands of memories she has made. Fear, Disgust, and Anger are left

alone with Riley and inadvertently place her in dangerous circumstances until Joy and Sadness learn to work together and return. Finally, Riley allows herself to fully experience the pain she feels having left all that she knew and loved behind.

We feel sad, elated, or nervous about things all the time, but as we become adults, we are taught to neutralize ev-

erything. Free expression and a gen-eral openness to people begin to suffer in the face of difficult life experiences. We learn to adapt to the casualties of living. This is good in some ways—we become stronger people, more resilient individuals. These are skills we ultimate-ly need to survive and succeed in life.

After leaving the theatre, I took

the TTC home. I found myself actu-ally looking at the people around me on the subway. I started to wonder what emotions were conversing in their minds and which one was running the control center. When you live in a city as big as Toronto and are smashed be-tween people going in different di-rections with different agendas, jobs, and lives, the human condition seems forgotten. It becomes a challenge to recall in the way we view the world.

Yes, everyone on the subway was composed, minding their own business, and I really could not tell who was hav-ing a bad day or who was on top of the world. And that didn’t really matter. The fact that I had stopped and was re-minded of the universality of emotions was truly an enlightenment that Inside Out had given me in that moment.

When we morph into adults, we are suddenly expected to deal with troubles quietly. But that doesn’t solve problems, and it can create something as minute as a bad attitude, or something as seri-ous as addiction or depression. The film demonstrates, in a masterfully creative way, that everyone feels, everyone gets hurt, and that it is quite alright to admit it and maybe once in a while express it.

Emotions are who we are, and they are vital to self-understanding. That’s the beauty and risk of really living: you will experience all kinds of highs and lows, just like Riley. We know that, but sometimes you need a visual re-minder to nudge you and say, “Hey, it’s going to fit together, just you wait.”

Film & Music • the STRAND

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Dina Ginzburg | Contributor

Lia Schifitto | Contributor

Natasha Rosslein

Enabling Amy SchumerAccountability in Comedy

Sketches from the Peabody Award-winning third sea-son of Inside Amy Schumer were as shareable as GIFs on social media this summer. From one feed to another, people posted clips of her show while proclaiming to have just discovered the feminist icon of comedy, with an air of she just gets me. Schumer’s usage of comedy as a platform for feminism suddenly went mainstream.

When the “12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schum-er” and “Girl, You Don’t Need Makeup” sketches premiered, the she just gets me comments resurfaced. As a viewer, I’ve found her sketches light and hilari-ous. As a woman of colour, Amy Schumer’s comedy is not entirely relatable to me. Seeing my mutual friends on social media and in real life hail her as the saviour of all women makes me uncomfortable and disappointed. Women in comedy shouldn’t have to be put on a pedestal to represent every woman out there—men in comedy aren’t subject to discussion of whether they represent every other guy out there.

When a comedian claims to embody a marginal-

ized group, however, it can be heartbreaking when they only speak for the most privileged among that subset. White feminism isn’t well equipped to deal with heavier topics that revolve around more mar-ginalised groups and intersectional identities. White feminism is a brand that Schumer capitalizes on, such as in the opening sketch of her third season, “Milk, Milk, Lemonade,” where she appropriates the bod-ies of black women for laughter. Yet, many white people still don’t understand why Schumer’s failure to be inclusive isolates people of colour. Silence—and then defenses—followed after Monica Heisey wrote an article for The Guardian about Schumer’s tenden-cy to have a race problem with her jokes. Instead of “she just gets me,” there were accusations that pieces like Heisey’s “don’t represent who [Schumer] is.”

Trainwreck, Schumer’s comedy film with Bill Had-er, was released after The Guardian piece was published, but it still became a box office success, with many critics announcing the film’s revival of the romantic

comedy genre through a feminist lens. While Train-wreck revisits the traditional storyline of a meet-cute couple and douses it with a rowdy, complex female protagonist who doesn’t feel ashamed of the choices she makes with her body, the film is sparse in pro-viding diverse representation of women who are not white, middle- or upper-middle class, and cisgender.

Trainwreck is feminist when it wants to be, and only funny to the select few it is targeted towards. The film is conditional and not wholly representational. Amy Schumer’s vision of feminism supports a world-view that simplifies sexism through a white woman’s lens, representing problems that can be solved through rom-com plots. The strong reviews for Trainwreck re-veal the dual nature of the state of viewership in cinema of 2015. Schumer is able to write and star in her own film and control her own happy ending, which—con-sidering how ridiculous the politics of Hollywood can be—is a refreshing feat (if we forget Schumer’s white feminism, that is). Fade to black and the “she just gets me” comments start to resurface again, silencing the cis and trans viewers of colour who are left wondering how this so-called revolution that ran for two hours and five minutes could ever reflect their experiences. This down-side isn’t about the audience, who can identify with Schumer, suspending their disbelief at the film’s lack of diversity; this is about an audience looking the other way when the whiteness of Trainwreck, and her oeuvre dedicated to every woman out there, becomes too ap-parent, resulting in defenses over her comedic integrity.

When Schumer took to social media to address Heisey’s article, her claim that she was only joking showed her inability to be accountable. While she has since apol-ogized for her remarks, she has yet to acknowledge that she, as a white woman, benefits from racism. Instead of opening the much needed discussion with I need to do better, Schumer is shutting it down with a moving on, now attitude that is enabled by her fans and followers.

What is remarkable about accountability is that there is always room for understanding after the wake of a mishap. I, like many curious viewers out there, will still tune in to see how, or if, her brand of femi-nism will evolve into something more inclusive and intersectional for the fourth season. But I’ll hold off from hastily sharing her work on my social media feed.

Film & Music • the STRAND

Amanda Ghazale Aziz | Staff Writer

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Screencap from

Bronwyn Nisbet-Gray | Film & Music EditorIf you’re anything like me, by about this time every summer you’re doing two things: panicking about school and panicking about what to see at TIFF. I know, one prob-lem is definitely more serious than the other, and it is most definitely not the one that has anything to do with tuition fees or the outrageous receipts from the bookstore.

But it tires me to no end that newspapers, blogs, and YouTubers alike seem to spend countless words prophesizing which films from the festival circuit will end up being Oscar winners, leaving little space to actually talk about the films that should matter at TIFF. The documentaries that tell unbelievable stories, the foreign films that might not be released anywhere else in North America (and probably not with good subtitles online), and the films actually made in Canada are pushed to the middle of the section, if they’re mentioned at all.

Don’t misunderstand—I’m a total award season junkie and I will definitely see all of the Best Picture nominees by January 2016, but I think it’s worth it to wait to gush over Tom Hardy’s double performance in Legend, Bryan Cranston in Trumbo, or Julianne Moore and Ellen Page in Freeheld. Here’s my own significantly pared down list of must-sees for this year’s festival:

The Lobster – Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ new film follows a group of hotel guests who are given 45 days to find a romantic partner or they will be turned into animals. From the director of Dogtooth, The Lobster features a pretty Hollywood-oriented cast, and while I think it could potentially fall into the Hollywood category, I think its absurdist, magic realism, sci-fi-esque plot will limit its theatrical run, so see it while you have the chance.

Sleeping Giant – Canadian director Andrew Cividino’s first feature film is set in Northern Ontario and follows a group of teenagers over the course of a summer,

examining their personal relationships and small town life experiences. The film has a dark, sharp, The Suburbs-by-Arcade-Fire kind of vibe, and strong reviews after its screening at Cannes.

Phantom Boy – A part of the TIFF Kids program, this animated film comes from the same Paris-based studio that produced A Cat in Paris. Created over a span of five years, the film, set in NYC, plays with film noir style in child-friendly form and will no doubt be as beautiful and meticulously crafted as it is delightful and fun.

Amazing Grace – Filmed by renowned director Sydney Pollack back in the 1972, this documentary captures the recording of Aretha Franklin’s incredibly successful album of the same name. The film’s raw footage sat unfinished for decades and pro-vides a concert film, a cinéma vérité look, and some outstanding early reviews.

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi – Panahi’s latest film takes place entirely inside of a taxi and is filmed with a dashboard camera. It’s an aesthetic mix somewhere between a drama and a documentary and promises to be enlightening and comic. Early reviews praise the film’s ability to capture a side of Iranian culture often left out of Western media and suggest that it’s political, but in a subtle, easy-to-digest kind of way.

TIFF Short Cuts Programmes (any of them) – seriously, if you want to learn a lot about film, see the power of order and syntax at work, and/or have a short attention span, the Short Cuts Programmes are always unbelievable and surprisingly fun if you attend with the right people.

What to see at TIFF if you’re tired of Hollywood

Kate Smith, a University of Toronto frosh, was terrified about starting her first year. She had heard all the horror stories: enraged dons throwing students’ furniture out the window in regular searches for alcohol, lab petri dishes be-ing reused as dining hall plates. Most of all, she feared her roommate would be a “shower-phobic, binge-drinking, heavy metal rocker from outside the Space-Time Con-tinuum.” So when Smith opened the door of B3412 to discover a seven-eyed Zyphoid in a Black Sabbath t-shirt reeking of body odour and vodka, she was “disappointed, but not surprised.”

“I spun in circles screaming ‘Why, universe, why’ nine times. I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and hoped I’d wake up from this nightmare. I tried to see beyond the translucent skin, but then I spotted her tiny beating heart and I just couldn’t,” Smith said with a hint of disappoint-ment in her own superficiality.

Pissed at admissions for accepting an extra-terrestrial, Smith contemplated transferring to Trinity College. Upon realizing it is “super cool to say my dorm is near Drake’s old condo,” she decided to stay put. Her subsequent deci-sion to walk outside proved disastrous. All her social anxi-eties reached a climax upon finding every single student sitting in fully-formed social circles on the quad. She pulled out measuring tools and tested the circumference and ra-dius of each geometrical figure. “They were perfect. Perfect circles,” she reported. She also overheard various plans al-ready being made for a “Squad Thanksgiving at that one rich kid’s lakeside cottage.”

Turning her focus to academics, Smith set off for her first lecture with confidence. To her dismay, every seat in the lecture hall was full except for one in the back obstruct-ed by a pillar, reserved for adult sit-ins trying to rekindle the fire of learning in their bellies. “I figured I’d connect

with Professor Woods after class,” Smith reported with stoic acceptance. Sadly, the Professor flatly rejected Smith’s proposal to commence the Teacher-Student Mentorship Of The Century that might serve Smith well when she ap-plied to graduate school.

Disheartened, Smith visited her registrar about switch-ing classes or becoming a part-time student. Their ensu-ing conversation about POSt requirements and tuition left Smith with a sensation “akin to feeling thin tape be-ing wound tightly around my entire person.” As the ad-visor concluded a financial analysis comparing part-time versus full-time, Smith realized she had transfigured into a number. At press time, a gleaming metallic number 7,979 hangs in the Cabinet of Newly-Admitted Assets.

Frosh bleak: How one student’s worst fears all turned out to be justified

Across1. Centre of universe, in its citizens’ opinion7. Beaker the Muppet’s catchphrase9. “Your mother sells clocks in ___”10. Number of lights Kanye requires11. Mordor mountain range, ____ Glamhoth12. Pre-mp3 artifact13. Do Re __14. Ship name prefix15. What cows do after they break up17. Gang leader ___ Barker18. Tommy Lee Jones’ best film, tbh19. The best Marvel superhero squadron21. Essential summer survival machine23. Initials of rock band that has never been to the Arctic #frauds25. Freud nickname? Probably only used by his closest pals27. Vic’s former president28. Babely and benevolent leader of the Fire Nation29. Bruins superstar and pride of Parry Sound30. ____ Farm and/or House32. Crafty abbreviation33. ___ sera sera34. Middle school emoticon staple

Down1. Where you run with your WOES2. ___, not theirs3. Part to play, minus ‘o’4. Spongebob regular ___ ___ Jenkins5. _____, WA6. Victoria College hub7. Large-eared member of Team Avatar8. “_____ your lack of faith disturbing.”16. Stuart Little author, __ White17. Hit single from Cats20. NZ indigenous peoples22. txt spk 4 mtn climbn equip24. Icy Hot spokesperson24. Dim ___26. The Scarlet and ____ Frosh Formal27. The Pope’s boss28. Dutch for “see”31. Greek letter fol-lowing ‘μ’

In early March 2015, a Facebook group was created for incoming UofT students to get to know each other prior to Frosh Week. Started by eager upper years, the group has garnered over 8,000 members, becoming a useful forum for students from across the globe to dis-cuss what music they like best and share class schedules. But one first-year student has been shocked to discover that being active on the University of Toronto 2019 group “means absolutely fuck-all in the grand scheme of things.” After pages and pages of shared photos and survey bios, this search for college camaraderie has been discovered not to leave the screen.

“I spent weeks thinking of the perfect way to an-swer these questions to try and appeal to my peers,” answers our source, who wishes to remain anonymous since she just started here and really doesn’t want to

make a weird impression. “Do I really want to be the shitty roommate who’s uncool with a late bedtime? How will I cope if my photos peak at a minimal amount of ‘likes’? What if I can’t pull off this practiced persona I’ve envisioned myself being for the next four years?”

The Facebook group began as a place to connect for new students and, as it does every year, has shifted from relatable life facts to increasingly panicked ques-tions about course selection and transit. Our source remarked that, “When someone commented that they also loved the [mother-daughter dramedy] Gilmore Girls, I thought all I needed to do was meet this person and I would be set for the next four years… But it turns out, you can actually meet people who love Gilmore Girls anywhere, even at your own college or faculty’s Orientation Week!” She also cited her classes as a space

where she has found other peers interested in the fast-talking CW sitcom, among other things.

Luckily for our source, she has realized that in a month’s time she will reflect on her completed survey as “something [she] would rather not comment on.” Congratulations to the “Accepted - University of To-ronto, Class of 2019” members, and enjoy your first year!

Frosh surprised that 2019 Facebook group makes “no difference” in university

Ariana Douglas | Staff Writer

Maya Wong | Contributor

Alexandra Scandolo | Contributor

Froshword

Stranded • the STRAND

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