Evans Theatre Update

With the new month comes a new lineup of showing at Brandon University’s Evans Theatre. And with the snow on the ground there’s no better time to stay indoors out of the cold and catch some cozy entertainment.

The Sisters Brothers will be having three showings beginning on November 9th at 7:30, another on the following day on the 10th at 7:30, with the last on the 11th also at 7:30. The Sisters Brothers is based on the novel by Canadian author Patrick deWitt. The story follows that of the assassin brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters as they pursue their target Hermann Kermit Warm, while dealing with Eli’s doubts about the wisdom in his chosen profession and the potential conflict of a counter offer by Hermann. This film is rated 14A for violence. 

The Wife will be playing from November 16th to the 18th at 7:30 pm in the Evans Theatre. Based on the novel by the same name by bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, the story is that of the wife of to a soon to be noble prize winning writer who travels with her husband to Stockholm to receive his prize. Conflicts arise however as complexities in the relationship are revealed and the impact of gender is revealed upon the Wife’s own literary pursuits. The film is rated 14A for course language. 

Lastly from November 30th till December 2nd at 7:30pm Beautiful Boy will be playing. Based on the memoirs of David Sheff and Nic Sheff, the film follows divorced father and journalist David Sheff as he struggles to reconnect and help his son who has become addicted to methamphetamine. The film stars Steve Carell as David Sheff and Timothée Chalamet as son Nic Sheff. The film is rated 14A for drug use. 

All movie tickets are $6 cash only at the door. 

The Tell-Tale Heart

Imagine coming home from your classes only to find a set of eyes glaring at you, like how a vulture stares upon dying prey, knowing that it wants nothing more than to scavenge over a carcass. How long could you endure the feeling of having your every move watched intently? As if someone was always there, waiting to gain for your demise. Now imagine you committed a crime, how heinous of a crime would you do if you knew you could get away with it? How would you feel if you killed and could never be caught or tied to the deed? Could you keep your sanity? Or would you be forever haunted by the demons of your own mind, slowly but surely losing grip on reality and plunging into the embrace of insanity?

Almost anyone could pick out the familiar writing style of Edgar Allen Poe. The discordant trochaic poetic metre and the notorious macabre imagery is the signature style of Allen Poe. In his short-story The Tell-Tale Heart, Allen Poe allows the reader to share the same thoughts and feelings as the narrator of story. In the short-story, the narrator claims to have hyperacute senses, which could very well just be the narrator suffering from severe delusions. The narrator is haunted by the pale blue cloudy eye of an old man, which the narrator describes as “vulture-like” or “evil’. 

The narrator then carefully plans out murdering the old man for seven days. He insists he cannot be insane at this level of calculation. During those seven days, every night, the narrator enters the old man’s room an lets a single ray of light revealing that the “evil eye” is still open peering upon him. On the seventh day, after claiming to hear the heartbeat of the old man, he decides to strike, thus killing the old man, then lastly hiding the body. Only to hear a knock on his door, followed by heartbeats from under the floorboards. 

Perhaps, instead of trying to finish reading one of Stephen King’s 1000-page horror stories, or 2 to 3-hour movies, we should return to the works of Edgar Allan Poe. We’ve all heard the saying, “sometimes less is more”. To make Allan Poe’s short-stories seem even more scary, I recommend reading the story in a pitch-black room; except for light from your phone, late at night, alone, regular uniform television/radio static. The reason why the uniform static, is because of something called the Ganzfeld Effect. Which basically means that prolonged exposure to uniform stimuli, causes the brain to hallucinate, and given that you would be reading Allen Poe’s short-stories, due to priming, you might start hallucinating the sounds from the story. The Ganzfeld Effect usually starts to kick in around 30 minutes. 

The Scariest Thing Of All: Students Loans And Debt

If I could dress up as the scariest thing I can think of for Halloween it would be my student loan. I thought about what I could wear to represent the terror of a student loan. But then I decided to think more realistically, I’ll just dress up as an over stressed and under paid millennial and ask for spare change. Oh wait… 

According to the Canadian University Survey Consortium, the average Canadian student will leave their post-secondary education with approximately $27,000 of debt. 

The Canada Student Loan program claims that most graduates take about 10 years to pay their loans. 

When recent American graduate Chad Haag realized he had to somehow make payments of $300 a month on his $20,000 loan with a job that doesn’t pay a living wage, he moved to Uchakkada, a small village in India. His student loan wisdom is, “if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it really exist?”. 

Brian Karimzad, co-founder of a financial analysis service, MagnifyMoney, says their studies indicate that the most meaningful difference between students graduating with student loans or without is that students with debt end up with half the amount of retirement savings than those without debt. Although being in debt doesn’t seem to affect the ability to buy a home, it does affect the value of the purchase. Those with loans purchase homes valued at 5% less than those without debt. Karimzad also reports that the majority of people who have loans rely on credit-card debt to finance their month to month living expenses. Maybe we’re just falling back on familiarity, I know it makes me suspicious when my bank account balance is not in the negatives. 

Student loans also mess with your ability to be an entrepreneur. According to finance professor Karthik Krishnan, people with student loans over $30,000 are 11% less likely to start a business than a graduate who is debt free. He also found that businesses started by people with debt don’t grow as fast as businesses started by people without. He postulates a gradual deterioration in economic mobility and start-up companies. 

A paper published by the Roosevelt Institute concludes that the amount of debt a student is in does not have significant relationship with their income. In other words, the amount you pay for your degree does not have a bearing on its financial return. With the cost of Canadian universities being significantly smaller than the United States, student loans are slightly less daunting, but the horror is the same: before you’re old enough to rent a car, you must make financial decisions that will affect the rest of your life. 

But maybe, if you wait long enough the government might just… forget about it. The federal government has recently announced plans to write over nearly $344-million worth of student loans that is not expected to be recouped from loan recipients. Loans may be deemed uncollectible when people file for bankruptcy, cannot be physically located, or the loan passes the legal limit on collection. Within the last two years, the federal government has written off about $3-billion in student loans. Any of the tips regarding paying off loans faster sound like living with a continuation of university life – minus the fun stuff. Work a side job, put any extra money toward repayment, get a roommate. Might as well stay in school, the institutions will own us anyway. 

The Evils Of Candy

Candy is cloaked in danger. Danger to your health, causing tooth decay and obesity. There is also the danger of being manipulated for malicious intent. As you’ve heard, “don’t take candy from strangers” – except on Halloween. But even on Halloween candy is associated with the terrors of tampering and contamination.  

Candy as small packaged morsels of delicious mass produced sugar became widely available in the 1880s. Prior to this, things like fudge, taffy, and brittle were homemade, and store bought hard candies available were relatively expensive. Recent trends in holding on to what is ‘natural’ tend to favour treats that can be made at home. But the same sugar is in candy as fruit, but big companies have always known we’re afraid of ingredients we can’t pronounce so they just changed the packaging to say “corn syrup” instead of “glucose”. This is to say that the pre-1880s homemade candy would be just as nutritionally deficient as what you buy from Nestle. Regardless of what you call it and if it comes from a peach or a chocolate bar, the plaque will build. 

Nostalgic for the supposed health of the past, another hot topic on social media is ‘the good old days’ when are kids were safe on Halloween – the only night they’re allowed to talk to strangers and eat their candy. Remember the past, when neighbours wouldn’t try to distribute illicit substances in lieu of treats?This is correct if by the ‘good old days’ you mean prior to 1959. In 1959, Dr. William Shyne, a dentist in California gave trick or treaters 450 candy-coated laxative pills, making 30 of the kids receiving this trick treat severely ill. Subsequently, candy scrutiny by parents became widespread. In the 60’s some towns allegedly set up stations at hospitals to x-ray the candy. To this day we hear cautionary tales about strangers sabotaging our kid’s after we let them ring the doorbell three times and beg for sugar. Surprisingly, most of these complaints turn out to be unfounded. Except one case in Texas where a child died due to drugs put in a pixie stick. But not at the fault of a strange neighbour, the child’s dad was the culprit. 

What did we think was going to happen with a tradition founded by capitalism? Before 1922, candy makers emphasized themed candy for Christmas and Easter but not Halloween. At the 1922 National Confectioners Association, executive secretary V.L. Price circulated the idea: “If manufacturers would create special Hallowe’en candies and retailers in large numbers would feature special displays and sales on Hallowe’en, but that it would greatly increase candy sales on that day, and in doing it, would eventually make Hallowe’en a candy season.” Like good capitalists, candy expert Dr. Samira Kawash says candy manufacturers often publish inaccurate and sugar coated histories of their products, as most large companies copied or stole home-kitchen inventions. Thanks V.L. Price and Dr. Shyne for showing us the way; putting our trust a billion-dollar industry whose success is entirely dependent on our desire to eat things with absolutely no nutritional value instead of trusting the people who live next door. 

A Letter To Quintilius

Dear Quintilius,

Now that Marijuana has been made legal in Canada do you think the rest of the world will follow suit?

Sincerely, Mary-J Investor

Dear Pot Belly Pig,

Marijuana is another item the government can tax. Of course it will eventually be legalized world wide. Even nowadays marijuana has been decriminalized or the laws are largely unenforced by police around the Earth. Sure it will be a little more difficult in politically divided countries or areas with certain religious ties but the sales and regulation of drugs will only benefit the people of that nation.

I will list several reasons why all countries should or will eventually allow the selling of marijuana. 1) It’s not that bad for you compared to some of the other stupid shit people are doing. Alcohol, tobacco and even sugar are all dangerous to the human body in large quantities. Also these are all already legal. These are items which are addictive, destructive and will eventually kill you. Marijuana isn’t some super healthy drug but it does offer different side effects and has some positive consequences. As an example you can look to those who use the drug medically.

2) Overdosing on marijuana is not possible according to any records on file. They tested a metric shit-tonne of weed on rats and you know what happened? The rats ate a lot of food, fell asleep for three days and then ate some more food. Overdosing occurs when weed is mixed with something else, for example fentanyl or other opioids, which also can make it addictive. Legalizing and regulating marijuana will help keep people safe as they know where their weed is coming from. It is specially bred and specifically focused on making sure the THC is able to elicit different responses in people and get them the type of high they want to experience.

3) Taxes. 10% or $1.00 per gram goes to an excise tax, note this doesn't include the HST or PST which is dependent by province. In Alberta alone, on the first day of legalization, they sold $730,000 and made about 8300 sales. No PST or HST there, therefore in Alberta alone the Federal and Provincial governments made about $73,000 just in excise tax.

Don’t get wrong, I hate dealing with morons and lack wits, but I deal with these people all the time anyways. At least now their smoking habit is turned into a benefit for the economy.

This Week In Science: Potential First Exo-Moon Discovery

Recently two astronomers, David Kipping and Alex Teachey, may just have discovered the first exomoon. An exoplanet is a planet that orbits around a star that is not our sun. An exomoon is a large celestial mass that orbits around an exoplanet, or in other words, a moon that does not orbit any of the planets in our solar system. 

Using the Kepler space telescope, Kipping and Teachey have been searching for far out moons around planets for a long time. When Kipping and Teachey were looking at an exoplanet, Kepler 1625b, which is many times larger than Jupiter; which is about 71,440 km. Both Kipping and Teachey noticed strange anomalies in their transit data; a transit is when planets, or celestial masses are revealed after passing in front of their host star. “We saw little deviations and wobbles in the light curve that caught our attention,” Kipping said.

After this discovery the two astronomers were granted time to use the Hubble space telescope to investigate this strange phenomena further. Using the telescope, they noticed shortly after the first transit, a slightly dimmer transit, which suggests that there is a moon, or larger mass following the planet. Both Kepler 1625b and its potential moon are not like the regular rocky planets and moons you would expect. Both are large gaseous masses. Because the exomoon is predicted to be gaseous, it leads to interesting questions about how the Neptune sized moon even formed in the first place. Considering the distance the “Nept-moon” is from its neighbouring star, the exomoon has a predicted surface temperature of about 80 Centigrade or 176 Fahrenheit. 

 To make an extraordinary claim that the first exomoon has been discovered, requires extraordinary evidence. Currently, the evidence is being reviewed for confirmation. 

It really is a fascinating discovery because the universe is known to be infinite, with trillions of trillions of stars, and trillions of planets orbiting many of those stars. To find out that we have not seen a moon outside the solar system really shows that we are only looking into one small glass of water from a vastly large ocean. Revelations like this open the world to many more unique discoveries that have yet to be seen in the universe or even considered as possibilities to look for. I am excited that the first exomoon has potentially been discovered, because if only our solar system has moons then that would be way too surreal to make sense. 

Review: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” – Roy Batty

The book that the Blade Runner movies are loosely based off, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is a dystopian science fiction novel written by Philip K. Dick that is set in San Francisco some time in 2021. Just after a third world war, millions of animals and species were rendered extinct and mankind was driven off the planet. 

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The people that remained on Earth, would covet the remaining living animals. For the poor, and people who could not afford one, hyper realistic birds, horses, sheep, were created, even humans, or androids. These new androids are so realistic that no one can tell whether they are human or machine and the government on Earth decides to ban the androids, for fear of their power. Androids are driven into hiding, while having bounty hunters known as “blade runners” hunt them down and “retire” them. 

When one group of androids are faced with this fate, they decide to fight back so they can experience and be treated like living beings. However, these androids face a deadly blade runner, Rick Deckard. 

While reading the book, the reader is faced with difficult questions about whether the main character Rick, or even perhaps you, are androids created with false memories implanted into your brain. The story also makes the reader question current moralities of how we view machines, and if we as part of humanity should treat artificially intelligent machines as “alive”. Even Dick’s title question is an astoundingly difficult problem that does not have clear answers. It is not even clear why humans dream, or if they have dreams, because currently, dreams are maya; facts that cannot be seen. 

All these problems are becoming more real as time goes on. In the not so distant future, humanity will have to consider the rights and morals of machines, or whether we should treat them as equals. We also might face the problem of not knowing whether you yourself are an android implanted with someone else’s, or false memories. 

I highly recommend readers to give this dystopian novel a read, and to consider for themselves whether an android is “alive”.

Recovering From A Bad Midterm

Your midterm mark came back, and it was rather disappointing. The good news is, there is still plenty of time to turn things around.

First you need to calculate how many more marks you need in the course to earn the passing grade you desire. Need a final grade of 60, but only scored 40% on a test worth 30% of your grade? This means you have lost out on 18 marks, but you have still earned 12 marks. [.40 x 30 = 12; 30 - 12 = 18] That leaves 70 more possible marks to earn in the course, and if you subtract the 12 you currently have, you only need to earn 48 out of those 70 marks in order to get that final grade of 60. That is equivalent to earning 69% on each future test or assignment. [48 ÷ 70 = 68.5]

With this information in hand, you need to resolve to put in the time and effort to achieving this new target mark. Your current habits and time spent on this subject have not been enough and you need to hold yourself accountable. Make sure you are attending every class. Take notes, pay attention to anything the Professor repeats or talks about in great detail.  Prioritize and block off time slots in your schedule for when you are the most productive (not after eating large meals, perhaps immediately after class, or right after a workout). Try including a friend in at least one study session a week so they can make sure you are genuinely spending that time on the subject. When temptations try to steal away your study time, stand your ground and remember why getting this mark is important to you.

Next, give a few new study strategies a try. Cue cards are great for memorizing definitions, anatomy, or items with a specific numeric value, such as elements from the Periodic table. Online cue cards are an option for giving your wrist a break or saving money and reducing environmental impact. Review with the end of chapter questions in your textbook, which are often used on real tests. Didn’t buy the textbook? Find somebody in the class you can borrow from, and offer them something to show your appreciation if possible. Watch videos on Youtube about the topic to get a better understanding (ASAPScience is a good channel), and set a limit on your Laptop/Phone time. Khan Academy is a great website for explaining math and science concepts. If you feel like you don’t know what direction you need to be focusing on, try and speak with your Instructor just before or after the lecture.

Finally, if you are serious about getting a solid grade on your end of term paper, go see the staff at Student Services. The Writing Skills Specialist can help you to really grasp what you are supposed to be doing with your topic, and how to navigate APA and other formats. 

The reality is that getting good marks takes effort, and you are capable of pulling it off. Your classmates are in the same boat, so reach out to them and learn from them as well. You’ve got this.

Best And Worst Places To Study On Campus

Before starting at The Quill and gaining access to its facilities I was like many of you, trying desperately to find a quiet place to study. Throughout the past few years that I have been at Brandon University I have discovered some great and some not so great places to study on campus. Today I shall share my secrets with you all.

I have always wanted to get the bad news out of the way before the good news comes in; therefore, this article will be no different. There are a few spots around campus that are absolutely terrible when it comes to finding a quiet place to study. The mingling area comes in as number one. This is understandable as both Forbidden Flavors and the Brandon University Bookstore are located there. There are also a lot of students and staff that use the mingling area to actually mingle, therefore it gets fairly loud during the day. Harvest Hall is also generally not a good location to study for exams or tests. Being the main dining hall for all three residence buildings, Harvest Hall becomes a gathering place for students staying in residence. Studying in Harvest Hall also opens the door up to numerous distractions. One such obvious distraction is that of food. Being a food hall there would be no shortage of items to eat. There are also projector screens that show TV programs, which would make it considerably difficult to concentrate on studying. Finally, I’ve had students say to me that the campus courtyard is one of the best places to study. I must, however, whole heartedly disagree. An obvious reason as to why it's not a good idea to go studying in the courtyard, or outside in general, is that we happen to live in the province of Manitoba, where half the year we are covered with nothing but snow and -20 C temperatures. Even if we were to only study outside during the warmer months it still would not prove to be the best location on campus. This is because there are loads of distractions outdoors. With everything from traffic noise to wind and rain I can assure all of you there are far better places on the Brandon University campus to study for an exam.

Having looked at all the poor studying locations on campus lets address some of the positive ones. Overall, I have found that there are three great spots, some hidden away, that truly provide an oasis of silence. These environments are exactly what you need in order to properly prepare for an exam or test. First off, and one that is probably the most obvious, is the library. On campus we have one massive, singular, library housed in the George T Richardson Building. Here you will find desks with computers available for student use as well as an area in which you can print your documents off for a modest fee. On both the first and second floors you will find a collection of desks and tables that are available for your use in order to catch up on some that studying you've been avoiding or complete that assignment which is due soon. Being a library, there is also an abundance of research material available. Books, databases and other materials make the library the best spot to complete a research paper. However, as many students soon come to realize the library is a busy place. A quiet place, but nonetheless an active one as well. Therefore, there are other areas on campus that still provide a quiet place to complete your school work. One of these areas is located inside the Education building on campus. In the basement of the education building there is a gathering spot which the majority of education students use when they have their lunch breaks. However, it is rarely used in the evening or when education students are out on their practicum and therefore provides students with a getaway from the hustle and bustle of the university campus. Although both the library and the basement of the education building provide great places for students to sit down and study I have always found the Clark Hall study rooms to be the best on campus. Clark Hall, as many of you are probably aware, is the big old building at the front of the university campus that houses both the Faculty of Arts and the University Administration. Inside Clark Hall there are four floors plus a basement. On floors two through four you will find three study rooms, one on each floor. These study rooms are centrally located on each floor and provide, in my opinion, the best possible location for a student to study while on campus. Each study room is a fair size and includes a reasonable amount of tables and chairs. Here students can study in peace and quiet while remaining on the university campus.

Now that I have shared with you the best, and the worst, places to study while on campus go out there and see what spot best fits your liking. Like most things it is better to get a grasp on studying and assignments early in the school year, rather than waiting until the last minute. By that time, not only are you struggling to find a quiet place to study, you also have an incredibly short time line to get your work done.

Chris Hadfield: The Legend In Town

Chris Hadfield came into town this past weekend to speak for the 50 year homecoming for the class of 1968-1969. The event went on fabulously as people from across the province coalesced   to meet the retired Colonel. The Canadian legend began his speech  with a story about astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and how during their mission in space, complications arose with their landing zone. They would be unable to land there, so quick thinking Neil, grabbed the manual control of the spaceship and landed the ship at a location they saw in a distance. When Neil landed the spaceship, he only had 16 seconds of fuel left in the tanks. One can only imagine how intense these precious seconds would have been for the space explorers!

This moment was a revelation for the young Chris Hadfield. “If Neil can do that then, what could I do? You know? Maybe I can do something like that. That’s what I want to do. I want to fly in space. It’s not possible yet.” – Chris Hadfield 

One of the most interesting parts of his presentation was when Hadfield talked about the time he had to send two astronauts outside in space to fix an ammonia leak on the International Space Station. In order to keep their mission from being compromised the leak had to be fixed without even a day to prepare for the dangerous space walk. Chris said that he had been preparing his team for any sort of trouble, for 5 years in case something did go wrong. “Things go wrong all the time.” One golden piece of advice Colonel Hadfield gave, was that we should never hope, or cross our fingers that something will go well. He said we should be competent and utilize our time appropriately to prepare for things to go wrong, so when issues arise we’re not caught up creek without a paddle.

Colonel Hadfield also emphasized on the important point that we should educate ourselves and teach at least one person some of the valuable knowledge we have to pass on. We all owe it to one other person to teach them. He then quoted the poet Mary Angelou, “If you earn, then share. If you learn, then teach.” Hadfield says it is important that we all find a way to share the amazing experiences to other people and the world, because “Impossible things do happen.” 

After Colonel Hadfield finished a short Q and A, he picked up his guitar and played David Bowie’s A Space Oddity to finish off the speech. Leaving the audience with a memory that will reside inside them for the rest of their lives. For me, personally, it was one of the best songs I have ever seen performed or heard live in my life. 

Awareness In The Month Of October

Aside from the reintroduction of pumpkin spice into everyday life and the airing of cheaply produced horror movies, October has a lot of important days and overarching themes to it, in particular health awareness takes precedence. October is national occupational therapy month, a particular branch of therapy “that helps to solve the problems that interfere with a person’s ability to do the things that are important to them”, one of the focuses of occupational therapy month is to get more dialogue going and explain the benefits of it as well as pressing for occupational therapy coverage in the workplace. Rett Syndrome Awareness month also takes place in October. Rett Syndrome is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects the ability to communicate through speaking and hand use, as well as other medical conditions. 

Specific times dedicated to a theme or event in October include Mental Health Awareness Week which took place from October 1st to 7th.  Focused on raising awareness for mental health issues and reducing the stigma around it, dialogue has been a priority in the previous years. World Mental Health Day took place on the 10th. 

HPV Prevention Week was October 1st to the 7th, focusing on education around sex and safe practices, as well as the infection itself and how to recognize it and prevent it. 

Respiratory Therapists Week is from the 21st to the 27th, focusing on “Advancing the Profession” this year, looking at how practitioners have impacted the health of the public.

World Sight Day was October 10th, advocating for the “right to sight”, dealing with prevention and increasing access to eyecare in order to lower chances of vision issues. 

Some more days include: World Arthritis Day on October 12th Pharmacy Technician Day is October 16th , along with World Spine Day, National Psoriatic Arthritis Day on October 19th and International Stuttering Awareness Day which is October 22nd. 

Art Gallery Show: In The (K)now

The Brandon University Fine Arts Students Association (BUFASA) put together the “In The

(K)now” show at the Glen P. Sutherland Gallery of Art on the 11th to an enthusiastic crowd of

art lovers. The show featured works from current BU visual art students and featured

ceramics, acrylic, photography, and various other mediums. Melanie Barnett, the GPS

Gallery coordinator, described the show as a presentation of current concepts and themes

the exhibited students are working on. She says “the show explores how and why the

students are making art at the moment and is in a sense a contemporary snippet of the

entire year.”

About fifty guests gathered in the locally run and beloved space for two hours

appreciating the art through wine, cheese, and cheerful conversation. Albyn Carias, a recent

BU fine arts graduate, displayed his gratitude to the show by saying how grateful he is

students keep exhibiting art at an increasing rate and with more and more guests each year.

My favourites from the show include Brittany Burch’s painting of prescription Cannabis that

explores her diagnoses with Fibromyalgia, Melanie Barnett’s dialectal paintings of what art is

and what it is “not” and my own, not to be conceited, of 35mm photographs I took of my

friends and colleagues in my home in Winnipeg.

The exhibition is up till the 26th and is open to the public till 6:00pm weekdays.

Some Empires Still Stand

September has gone out with a bang, thanks to a number of successful events. One such festivity worth noting is Darrach Hall’s Toga Social. The On-Campus Forbidden Flavours hosted the party on Friday, Sept. 28th, making it the first Residence Social held in the space and accompanying Mingling Area of the Knowles Douglas Building since the closure of the Student Union Drinking Spot (SUDS) in 2017. The theme of the party encourages dressing in ancient Greek/Rome fashion by sporting a toga (often made with material available such as a bed-sheet). Attendees enjoyed pizza, a drink discount special, door prizes and a variety of modern board games for those looking for a dance break or icebreaker.

Organized by Darrach Hall’s Residence Council, the Annual Toga Social marks the end of the usually week-long Residence Olympics. Teams of students participate in a number of contests and challenges, including the rousing 4 liter Milk Chug competition. This culminates in a Dance-off between teams at the Social to crown a winning team and to get the dance floor going.

A quick internet search reveals that an article can be found on the Brandon Sun Website dated 2003, stating that the social had (at that time) been happening for over 20 years. That would make the Toga Social a now more than 35 year old tradition.

This year’s event was a great way to connect new students with the community and to enjoy a night making memories with friends before buckling down for exams. Time will tell if the Flora Cowan and McMaster Residences will also put on events later this year, after abstaining from holding the Graffiti and 80’s/Stoplight socials respectively last year.

Review Of The Week: Spring Snow

“Just now I had a dream. I'll see you again. I know it. Beneath the falls.” – Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

When it comes to great romance for many of us, the familiar iambic pentameters of two star crossed lovers comes to mind. Perhaps though too few think of “Spring Snow,” by the legendary Japanese writer and samurai Yukio Mishima. Mishima was an award-winning novelist, poet, playwright, and nationalist. He was considered three times for the Nobel Prize in literature. 

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“Spring Snow” is set in 1912, Toyko, during the transition between the Meji era and Taishō era. The story emphasizes the relationship between Kiyoaki Matsugue and Satoko Ayakura, a daughter of an aristocratic family. Kiyoaki’s true feelings and passion only become apparent when Satoko has a sudden engagement to a royal prince. This leads the two into a love affair that is doomed to fail. Kiyoaki, a cold and intelligent law student, tries to deny his feelings for Satoko, but later is plagued by grief and pain, after he realizes his mistake for denying such passions. 

“Spring Snow” is also the first novel in Mishima’s genius tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. The series is about Kiyoaki’s friend Honda who believes that there are successive reincarnations of his childhood friend Kiyoaki. “Spring Snow” is a master piece that leaks the poetic imagery of Yukio Mishima, and perhaps, a speech comparable to Shakespeare’s “to be or not to be…” that is about trying to change the course of history, or the will of history. While William Shakespeare’s well-known play “Romeo and Juliet,” has traces of one of the most popular poetic forms, iambic pentameter, throughout “Spring Snow” Mishima shows the sheer beauty and power that Japanese poetry can carry despite coming from a completely different culture and time. Using poetic imagery, Mishima, continuously paints images into readers minds about the atmosphere of Japan, as well as the emotions of Kiyoaki. 

Whether you are looking for a new love story as great as “Romeo and Juliet,” or just wanting to read a book from a different culture, then you will find “Spring Snow” will not disappoint. 

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2018 Nobel Prize In Physics

This year’s Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou, and Donna Strickland. It has been at least 55 years since a woman has received a Nobel Prize in physics. 

Arthur Ashkin received half of the prize for the invention of optical tweezers, or “light” tweezers and their application to biological systems. Using the electromagnetic radiation from light he was able to push and move physical objects, in a sense, with just light waves. He then modified his laser light using an optical lenses and the laws of refraction, to trap particles, atoms, viruses, and even some cells. Ashkin’s breakthrough came in 1987 when he was able to trap bacteria using his “light tweezers” without harming them. 

The other half of the Nobel Prize was awarded to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland for generating the smallest and most intense of  laser pulses. Using what they call the “chirped pulse amplification”, Mourou and Strickland stretched out the short pulse in time, then amplified the pulse, and lastly compressed it with time. When a pulse is stretched in time its peak power is much lower, so then you can put the pulse through an amplifier without damaging the amplifier. The pulse is then compressed in time again, as a result, the intensity of the pulse is dramatically increased. Using this simple method, they were able to generate the smallest and most intense pulse that could come from a laser. 

Both inventions have opened a new door in the fields of physics and medical science. Ashkin’s optical tweezers are now being used in biological studies on life, cells, etc. While Mourou and Strickland’s new ultra-small, ultra-intense pulse could become part of laser eye surgery in the future. Laser eye surgery requires sharp lasers that also need to be highly accurate. This new laser pulse has been found to be more accurate and is capable of drilling even deeper holes. The new laser pulse might also have an application in the future of creating new parts for computers.

Many more possibilities of new applications have yet to be explored. In the spirit of Alfred Nobel, and David Hilbert, science and mathematics can continue to allow us to understand and discover new inventions. 

Arts Speaker Series:Rival Knowledges In Ancient Greece And Present-Day Canada

Are Western and colonial epistemologies inherently hostile to Indigenous perspectives and culture? Can that tension be resolved? And what does that mean for universities?

Brandon University Interim President Dr. Steve Robinson will give his answers to these questions and more in his talk: “Rival Knowledges in Ancient Greece and Present-Day Canada” on Oct. 11th, in response to the Calls to Action set forth by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and as part of BU 50 Homecoming events.

Ancient Greece evolved through fundamental and disruptive challenges to traditional forms of authority as it adopted early, populist-style democracy. This was at the same time that Greece witnessed the emergence of philosophy and the beginnings of Western science. Those interconnected struggles continue to offer timely lessons for the present day.

Dr. Robinson, a social and political philosopher who specializes in ancient Greece, now serves Brandon University as Interim President, and is uniquely qualified to find inspiration in the past which is of value to the present.

Date and Time: Thursday, October 11th @ 4:45 pm - 6:00 pm

Place: Clark Hall, Room 212

Speaker Series: F.A.S.S

All about the Dollar? F.A.S.S. and Price Dispersion in the Market

Despite the miserable weather on the Friday afternoon before Thanksgiving, room 104 in Clark Hall was full for the first Faculty of Arts Speaker Series presentation by Dr. Hejun Zhuang, the assistant professor of marking in the Business Administration department. Her most recent paper, Why is Price Dispersion Higher Online than Offline? The Impact of Retailer Type and Shopping Risk on Price Dispersion was the topic of her one-hour talk.

Dr. Zhuang partially summarised aspects of her research to make the finding of her research more accessible to non-Business students, such as myself. She spoke of motivations and factors in the market such as price distribution, competitive responses and brand differentiation. The two key components of Dr. Zhuang’s talk that are crucial to understanding her research: the market structure and shopping risk. Shopping risks to consumers include transaction security, which in part answers why individuals will continue to search for a product in-store, despite the possibility of finding it online cheaper.  She also spoke of Game Theory and how it relates to online retailer, offline retailer and dual channel retailers and presented formulas for how consumers price-hunt and purchase.

The audience had numerous questions regarding Dr. Zhuang’s model including how it accounts for temporality, geographical location as well as if this model could be tailored to apply to very specific markets such as electronics, fashion, etc.

I would highly recommend that you attend future F.A.S.S. talks as they’re fascinating and you get to hear about current research by our faculty members! The next speaker in the series will be Interim President Steve Robinson on October 11th during Homecoming with his talk Rival Knowledge in Ancient Greece and Present-Day Canada. 

Professor Review

With the 2018/2019 school year, Dr. Mary Malainey, Chair of Anthropology, has gone on sabbatical, leaving two full time Anthropology professors to teach all of the Anthro courses. But what the department lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. 

Dr. Emma Varley is a socio-cultural anthropologist specializing in medical anthropology. Aside from teaching socio-cultural classes, Dr. Varley does continuous ethnographic fieldwork in northern Pakistan. Her specialization is an extensive analysis of cultural, ethical, and experiential disposition of medicine. Specifically, her research examines how maternal health and development is affected by uneven governance, bureaucratization, and corruption. 

A class that stands out is Dr. Varley’s Medical Anthropology course. Aside from the passion exuded from lectures as a result of teaching material that is her own specialization, the course allows students to explore their own interests and experiences. Discussions not only draw on ethnographic accounts of medicine, but on the perspective of students and how they have experienced medical systems. The class examines everything from processes we don’t think twice about, such as seeing a family doctor, to global controversies such as abortion rights. 

Taking one of Dr. Varley’s courses, dare I say guarantees the opportunity for students to thoroughly explore their own interests. Forging your own learning path in these classes leads to some of the most engrossing and exciting research and writing, naturally resulting in excellent papers. This also results in compelling out of class discussions with classmates to understand their perspective in assignments. The definition of a great class is when students replace “have you started this yet?” with “what’s your topic?”. 

In all respects, Dr. Varley is always willing to modify her teaching or assignments to ensure every one of her students get the most out of her classes. She goes out of her way to help students succeed and is famously understanding and accommodating if students struggle. 

Dr. Emily Holland is a biological anthropology professor as well as a practicing forensic anthropologist. In addition to teaching biological anthropology courses, she is a consultant to law enforcement all over Manitoba; assisting in searches for remains with the RCMP, and providing expertise in the analysis of bone with the medical examiner’s office.  

Dr. Holland teaches classes such as Human Osteology, Paleopathology, and Introduction to Forensic Anthropology. As a student, a class of hers that stands out as exceptional is Anthropology of Death. The class examines the phenomenon of death from every perspective, including archaeological, forensic, and ethnographic research on the material and culture associated with dying, death, and mortuary rites. The class includes an assignment in which students are assigned a section of the Brandon Cemetery from which they collect information from headstones and analyze the data to report on demographic trends within the section. 

Dr. Holland’s lectures are uniquely informative because she is active in both fields the classes encompass (bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology). Real life examples and experiences emphasize the importance of all the material. Class sizes in the biological anthropology subfield are often small – many consist of less than 10 students. In many student’s opinions, this qualifies as the ultimate learning experience, open for endless questions and availability for one on one instruction. 

Dr. Holland’s courses are always hands-on, taking a class with her guarantees an opportunity to put lecture material into practice. In addition to mental and tactile engagement in lectures, Dr. Holland often provides enthusiastic and qualified students with extracurricular opportunities to assist with community workshops or casework.  

Short Story Review: The Library Of Babel

“Monkeys hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.”

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be in a library that contained every possible book? To most book lovers this library would be paradise, or some form of heaven however, Jorge Luis Borges says otherwise. In his 4-page short story “The Library of Babel,” there is a library that contains every possible 410-page book of a certain set of characters.

 What that means is that every past conversation, everything that will ever be said or written will be in this library. As well as this article itself, or what you are thinking about right now. Even a book about your complete biography, your complete genetic sequence, and so forth, but this also means that everything that someone didn’t write or say will be in this library. Everything you didn’t do yesterday, or the day before.

This leads to a major problem, because some infinities are bigger than others. Consider the word “the”, if we arrange all the possible ways “the” can be arranged, then only 1 out of 6 arrangements will be meaningful to us, so imagine a 410-page book in the same way. The ratio of meaningful things to nonsense will be small.

This is to a degree the plot of the story. Librarians are assigned to search through certain sections to find anything meaningful. Some Librarians start destroying books that they deem useless, other librarians disappear and are never seen again. How can one determine what text is useless? For example, what if you just destroyed a book that is the perfect genome sequence?

The crazy part about this story is that this Library of Babel is real. A digital library of babel containing every possible page of 3200 characters exists online for free. https://libraryofbabel.info/

 Now knowing this, will you search for your perfect essay paper, or read Jorge’s short story and find out why you would go insane searching for anything?

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Organizing A Research Paper – Only The Important Parts

             There aren’t many things as overwhelming as a research paper. Especially ones that have little to no parameters. There is a unique sense of dread that accompanies the announcement “whichever topic you want as long as it relates to the course”. But… but just give me a topic. Give me a list of topics to choose from. Give me the structure of the paper. Give me the arguments. Just… write the paper for me. In this students unprofessional opinion, there are three things in a research paper that determine its success; the topic, the notes, and the outline. 

1.    The topic

It’s tempting to pick a topic you think will be ‘easy’, but it will much easier to motivate yourself to do the work if you pick a topic that interests you. It sounds like a cliché and it probably sounds like something your already over-worked brain doesn’t want to hear. Realistically, it is much easier to read 10 peer reviewed articles and spend 10 hours writing if the subject matter doesn’t make you second guess taking the class or going to university in the first place.

            What parts of the course keep your mind active even when class is over? Which lectures caught your attention? Keeping that in mind, you shouldn’t pick a topic for ease, if you gravitate to certain material for test answers and in class discussion because it seems to come easy to you – you’re probably genuinely interested in it.

            Search related material on the internet but to start, stay away from peer reviewed articles. Their overly academic jargon may scare you aware from a topic before you’ve completely explored the option. Look at less formal resources; news articles and blog posts can be stimulating ways to get ideas flowing.

            Once you’ve settled on a general topic, start reading the abstracts and backgrounds of relevant peer reviewed articles. This will help you understand what research has and hasn’t been done. Knowing what research has been done will determine how many quality sources are out there for you to draw from. Knowing what research hasn’t been done will determine if your topic is significant to fulfilling a specific niche. There’s a sweet spot between these two that can be bridged by the creation of your thesis statement. The trick is to keep the statement broad enough that other people’s research can contribute to responding to the statement, but also specific enough in that the question is slightly unique. A general rule is that your thesis should be focused enough that you can make three solid points about your statement. This statement can be an opinion, fact, or question and will serve as a starting point for all research.

            Your professor will never penalize you for asking for feedback on your thesis statement, and they may help you understand the scope, if it needs to be more narrow or more broad. Once you’ve decided on a thesis statement – congratulations – the hardest and most stressful part of this research paper is done.

2.    The research notes

As you do research, refer back to your thesis statement. There will always be notes you take that are so ridiculously specific you later decide they aren’t important and that you can’t even use them. There will also be notes you take that you later read and have absolutely no idea what they mean. Make sure your notes are focused on the topic. Constantly ask yourself, will I understand this when I read it later? If the answer is that you’re unsure, air on the side of caution and take detailed notes – reading peer reviewed articles is hard enough, do what you can to avoid having to read them multiple times.

            Pro tip: Keep the notes and their citations together ALWAYS – this saves you from having to reread articles or guessing where evidence came from. Not only is Microsoft OneNote an awesome tool for taking notes, it makes referring back to them so much easier. Make a ‘section’ for the paper, and pages for each source. This way you can keep track of sources and information without separating the two.

3.    The outline

            It’s hard to admit that a little extra work is worth it even when it’s not for grades, but writing an outline makes writing so much easier.

            Start by writing out the most major points. These should be the most general, broad statements. Smaller details regarding evidence or research should fit into these broad points. Sorting the smaller bites of information into these broad points becomes much easier if you are able to formulate the major points before you do the bulk of the research. Keep sorting information from your research until you have no more relevant notes left. This can be done by duplicating the document your notes are in so that you can literally delete information as you use it (but still have it in a different file).

            If you’ve done your research and you don’t yet know your major points, sort your notes by relevance. Group the pieces of information by how they relate to each other and you should begin to see patterns emerge that will inform the creation of your major arguments. 

            It will be a little gift to yourself if you put information into your own words when you’re taking them from your notes to your outline. Ideally, if you write a detailed enough outline, all you will need to do to actually write the paper is delete spaces and bullet points and add connecting sentences in between information. Sometimes this feels like you’re skipping the real writing part. Which is obviously ideal but make sure to add the necessary padding so that the paper doesn’t read like you just deleted spaces between notes. If you use this outline method, give the paper an extra proof read to ensure it’s not choppy.