C/O Simranjeet Singh
Meet Simranjeet Singh, one of the candidates running to become MSU president
Simranjeet Singh is a fourth-year biomedical discovery and commercialization student at McMaster. Currently, Singh serves as the McMaster Students Union’s associate vice president: services. He is currently running to become the next MSU president.
Singh has provided a platform of five core foundations: student wellness, building a stronger community, environmental sustainability, creating more equitable education and career development support.
Student Wellness
Singh emphasizes his commitment to student wellness.
He wants to increase collaboration between the Student Wellness Centre and various student groups around campus, including the MSU. To facilitate this, Singh proposes the creation of a Student Wellness Centre Advisory Committee to serve as a direct liaison between the SWC and leaders of various student bodies. With this, he wishes to increase the number of support groups and staff at SWC enabling a more students to access the service. Singh also hopes to expand Thrive Week, a service offered by the SWC to teach students about stress management and anxiety He believes Thrive Week is underutilized and looks to better inform student societies of the event to garner greater engagement.
Building a Stronger Community
Singh proposes a number of solutions to strengthen the McMaster and Hamilton communities.
He wishes to work with Metrolinx to expand bus service during Welcome Week and reintroduce cancelled express buses. Singh states that this will ease the commute to McMaster for off-campus students and allow the city to plan effective transit routes when taking into consideration peak student times.
To address housing concerns, Singh wants to conduct a study to determine average rental prices, availability and demand in Ward 1 of Hamilton by collaborating with partners such as Spark: A Centre for Social Science Research Innovation and the MacPherson Institute. The findings of this research study will serve as evidence to advocate for a more affordable housing market for renting students.
Singh wants to utilize his own experiences of working with provincial and municipal governments to help inform students of their rights and obligations as tenants. Singh believes this initiative will increase student awareness of bylaws and their rights which will better equip them to navigate finding off-campus housing.
He wants to support students facing income insecurity or poverty through support increased and bursaries, specifically through the McMaster Access Strategy, a group dedicated to aiding students from marginalized communities in Hamilton access post-secondary education.
Singh will advocate to implement the Hamilton light-rail transit as soon as possible.
Environmental Sustainability
Singh also focuses on increasing environmental sustainability across campus.
Singh will create a waste management initiative to better understand what waste is produced at McMaster facilities and offer solutions to help this waste be reduced and safely sorted. Believing this to be an overlooked issue on campus, Singh hopes to work directly with facility services, McMaster University Student Center management and the office of sustainability to perform audits to document waste production on campus and brainstorm how this waste can be sustainably managed.
Singh looks to work with various faculties to develop more sustainable lab practices. He hopes to launch a pilot project that catalogues waste in labs, especially as it relates to the use of plastics. The findings from this project will create a list of best practices to implement within labs to reduce waste.
Singh wants to work with hospitality services to better understand production of food waste and craft methods to reduce waste production. He has a two-fold plan. First, reduce overall production of excess food waste by campus services. Second, distributing waste generated to disadvantaged students and Hamiltonians experiencing food insecurity.
Creating More Equitable Education
Singh aims to create a more equitable educational future for students.
Singh wants to increase the adoption of open educational resources to reduce and even eliminate textbook costs. He will advocate to substantially increase funding for OER and push to include this as part of the professor tenure process. To kickstart this, Singh will collaborate with the Associate Vice Provost, the OER committee and McMaster Libraries to implement OERs permanently within McMaster’s practices.
Furthermore, he plans to introduce job opportunities in which students may work as research assistants to help develop OER alongside professors. This will better student-faculty relations and alleviate professors of the responsibility of developing OER, hoping to implement them faster.
Singh looks to increase experiential learning opportunities to give students more hands-on skills. In collaboration with the office of community engagement, the Student Success Center and MacChangers, he hopes to reintroduce cancelled experiential learning opportunities.
Singh intends to work towards a tuition freeze and a reduction in any more increased tuition costs. Singh plans to advocate for a moratorium on increase in tuition for the next three years and work with the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance to develop province-wide strategies to increase university funding outside of students.
Career Development Support
Singh hopes to increase career development support.
He aims to increase online chat hours of the Student Success Center to allow students more opportunities to communicate within the department.
Singh plans use the MSU to help support students with resumes, cover letters and other applications.
Singh hopes to foster a greater number of educational opportunities so students learn of opportunities that exist after graduation and gain necessary insights into potential careers. He hopes to centralize information about existing career supports and create more networking opportunities in tandem with faculties, student societies and the SSC.
To learn more about Singh’s platform, visit his Instagram page @vote4simranjeet.
C/O Dayne Topkin, Unsplash
Fables For a New World asks artists to imagine what comes next
Over the last three years, COVID-19 has reshaped the world as we know it — our usual pastimes turned into DIY hobbies, outdoor days turned into lockdowns and in-person classes turned into Zoom meetings. But what comes next? What will happen in the post-pandemic world? What would be the first story to tell? Industry, a Hamilton-based theatre and media company, tells the stories about what comes next in their new project, Fables For a New World.
Co-produced by Rose Hopkins and Matthew MacFadzean, members of Industry, the project is the sequel to the Corona Diaries in which seven artists from around the globe shared how they were coping with the pandemic and changes to their arts practice. Each artist uploaded a series of video entries over the course of eight weeks. The project wrapped up with a live event in August 2020.
The artists included: Deepti Gupta (Canada), Andile Nebulane (South Africa), Tamlyn Magee (Australia), Celine Mun (South Korea), Haruna Kondo (Japan), Harry Long (England) and Michael Rubenfeld (Poland). None of them knew each other nor had interacted with each other during the Corona Diaries project until its wrap-up event.
“We uploaded separate videos to a series of questions without any communication with each other and then when we saw the collected versions, the collective response was very interesting — in how different artists in different countries had synchronicities and connections with what they were experiencing,” said Gupta, a choreographer and performer as well as the owner of Arzoo Dance Theatre and a member of Industry.
“We uploaded separate videos to a series of questions without any communication with each other and then when we saw the collected versions, the collective response was very interesting — in how different artists in different countries had synchronicities and connections with what they were experiencing.”
Deepti Gupta, choreographer, performer, owner of Arzoo Dance Theatre and a member of Industry
The same seven artists are now all part in the Fables For a New World.
The premise for the Fables For a New World is the world as we know it has ended and the seven artists are tasked with creating fables emerging out of a narrative for the new world. The first assignment the artists did together was looking up at the sky — the only scenery commonly available to all seven artists from seven different countries — and finding a new constellation to create their own individual fables.
Hopkins and MacFadzean then reviewed the fables and artists whose had similar themes were grouped together to continue developing those stories in a collaborative effort.
For instance, Gupta collaborated with Mun, an actress and assistant production manager in Atobiz theatre company, and Kondo, a trained actress, director and owner of AHURI Theatre.
The project was unlike what Gupta had ever done before. Not only was she new to integrating technology into her practice, Gupta found working in the digital space challenging, especially away from a live audience.
“Dance is very live and theatre is also very live. These are very live art forms — you are in with your body in a space — that’s how it works but there was nothing,” said Gupta.
However, despite the challenges, the support and bond the artists developed watching and reacting to their common thoughts, experiences and feelings shared in the Corona Diaries made it a valuable and meaningful undertaking.
“Being selected to be part of this project helped me to be connected with members of Industry and a group of artists across the globe made me feel like I’m still a part of something. Each of the people [Industry] selected are incredible talented and really experienced artists, so no matter what my own age or level of experience, it was an honour,” explained Gupta.
At the moment, Fables For a New World is still in early development. Hopkins and MacFadzean are applying for additional funding from the Canada Council for the Arts to continue the project and hopefully plan for a public presentation of the final pieces.
Both the Corona Diaries and Fables For a New World are indicative of how Industry is reimagining what the theatre space could be and of the fascinating and growing art scene in Hamilton.
“Industry is really interested in international work and bringing Hamilton into the international theatre and performance community. This has been the first project where we really started to be able to do some of that and I’m very excited about the idea, what this project could mean for future collaborations or expanding our networks of international companies,” said Hopkins.
Gupta echoed the Hopkin’s sentiments about the impact of the two projects.
“Hamilton has this buzz of technology and creating new art in new ways and I think it leads to these kinds of experiments . . . The newness of this project, how innovative it is, how it took risks and the beauty of that has emerged, I think is very magical for the pandemic where so much was lost in creation and so much was lost in artistic practice,” said Gupta.
"The newness of this project, how innovative it is, how it took risks and the beauty of that has emerged, I think is very magical for the pandemic where so much was lost in creation and so much was lost in artistic practice."
Deepti Gupta, choreographer, performer, owner of Arzoo Dance Theatre and a member of Industry
Fables For a New World brings beauty and magic in a period of time which has otherwise felt sad and discouraging. Hopefully soon, the audience can join Industry and the artists and follow them along their tales for the new world and learn more about their gentle collaboration which has nevertheless been very inspiring for everyone involved.
C/O Mateus Campos, Unsplash
The evolution of society is cultivating the different childhoods of youth today
Young adults today often observe the emerging wave of teenagers and adolescents with mixed feelings of frustration, confusion, disgust and awe all at the same time. Throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, Tamagotchis have somehow turned into the iPhone 13, playing at the park has been replaced by scrolling through social media and better yet, no one ever foresaw a day where children can attend school from their beds.
Though these new practices shock the young adults of today, it only makes sense for an evolving society to yield different childhood experiences for newer generations. After all, every generation will have unique markers based on differing common experiences.
What many find difficult to comprehend in adolescents, however, is their changing behaviour, rise in mental health issues and declining social skills. Through personal investigations, parents and other adults are quick to point technology as the leading culprit, but there’s much more to the picture.
In addition to the rapid evolution of devices since the early 2000s, the world has also seen increased importance laid upon social media, influencers and remote communication.
Of course, no conversation nowadays is complete without factoring in the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s completely valid in this case though, because it is arguably the defining historical event for this new generation, much like the World Wars, the Great Depression and American presidential elections have been for previous ones.
The pandemic has effectively magnified both the causes and effects that have resulted in the colourful palate of children and adolescents today. It has enforced an increased reliance on technology and social media communication, even enlisting the few things that remained “normal” such as school into the same category.
The pandemic has effectively magnified both the causes and effects that have resulted in the colourful palate of children and adolescents today.
Hadeeqa Aziz, Opinions Staff Writer
With schools and childcare programs coming to a halt or shifting online, children growing up in the pandemic are lacking sufficient social and cognitive stimulation which directly affects their habits and behaviour. Like many issues, this is also an intersectional one wherein children of different races, family incomes and neighbourhoods are affected differently.
This is true for both young children as well as teenagers in high school who are now finding themselves in difficult situations in university classes. For example, last week, an alleged fourth-year McMaster student shared their experience and concerns on the university’s unofficial subreddit, r/McMaster, after attending a first-year online course.
The fourth-year student claimed that the younger students were spamming the online chat feature with disrespectful comments aimed at both the professor and TA during the lesson. The Redditor claimed that the students were “disgusting” and that it’s time for them to take off the “pampers.”
Though it serves as no excuse for such behaviour, experiencing the latter two years of high school online may play a role in the inability to recognize and adapt to different social situations. The same concept can be extended to younger children who experiencing critical stages in life, including elementary school and pre-school in a pandemic.
Children of this new era also differ greatly in social conformity as it pertains to the virtual aspect. With the rise of TikTok in the last couple years (and even more through the pandemic), it has made it increasingly convenient for influencers to post unachievable standards of beauty, looks and lifestyles that are nothing but meticulously designed highlight reels of reality.
Nonetheless, it has effectively resulted in children gaining an increased urge to conform to these standards. Where many of today’s adults can recall dressing themselves in Disney-themed t-shirts as kids, they’re shocked to learn that their younger siblings are sporting the latest TikTok outfits, complete with Nike crewnecks and Air Jordan 1s.
Whether this conformity is rooted in self-esteem issues or something more positive in nature will differ from person to person.
Whether this conformity is rooted in self-esteem issues or something more positive in nature will differ from person to person.
Hadeeqa Aziz, Opinions Staff Writer
Some of the admirable things that have resulted from placing social media on a pedestal are the increased conversations surrounding social issues such as mental health, racial and gender discrimination and climate change.
Today’s youth have become more comfortable with speaking out and having difficult conversations about these issues that generations before them may have been rather hesitant to.
It seems that adults can’t make up their minds on whether they wish to applaud today’s youth or condemn them. The only certain thing is that their lives and the lives of future generations will continue to evolve much like the world will. There’s no stopping that.
It seems that adults can’t make up their minds on whether they wish to applaud today’s youth or condemn them.
Hadeeqa Aziz, Opinions Staff Writer
C/O Ester Chow
The Silhouette: Please introduce yourself.
Ester Chow: My name is Ester Chow and I'm the Assistant Director of the Food Collective Center, the FCC. I go by she/her pronouns. I'm in my fourth year of [the health sciences program] in the Child Health specialization.
What is the FCC?
You can think of it as the food bank on campus. It's a major hub for anything to do with food. We have a community kitchen program where people can learn to cook food. We have food boxes where you can get a big box of fresh produce for $15. A big part of what I oversee is the Lockers of Love program where people can access food and health items confidentially. You basically just fill out a form. You don't have to put your name on anything. Then, within two to three days, we'll send you a locker code and you can go pick up your food and health items.
What inspired you to join the FCC?
In my second year, I participated in one of the community kitchen workshops. It was a five- or six-week thing where you get to go and cook with other people and learn a new skill. One thing I really appreciated about it was the community aspect. There's a lot of great initiatives and clubs off campus but it can feel a little bit like working in isolation. With this community kitchen, it wasn't about learning by myself — we were a team. In fourth year, I also realized that I was missing something that really made me feel like I was making a big difference. I joined a lot of clubs and was really interested in research, but also just doing a lot of things I was told I should be doing. In my fourth year, I wanted to do something for myself. I really liked the FCC and even though it was kind of a new experience, I just went for it.
In fourth year, I also realized that I was missing something that really made me feel like I was making a big difference. I joined a lot of clubs and was really interested in research, but also just doing a lot of things I was told I should be doing. In my fourth year, I wanted to do something for myself. I really liked the FCC and even though it was kind of a new experience, I just went for it.
Ester Chow, Assistant Director of the Food Collective Centre
Can you elaborate on the community aspect?
When Morghen, the Director and I were choosing the [executive] team and volunteers, we really wanted to give people the opportunity to join us whether or not they had experience at all. We wanted to give everyone an opportunity because food isn't really something that you necessarily have to have a lot of academic or personal background with; it's something that you have to have every day. We also really try to think about the community impact even in small things. For example, we have Trick or Eat, which is our Halloween food drive. We emphasize that it's not food that goes just towards [McMaster] students, but also to the nearby community. So we set up bins in Westdale and Emerson and all around campus. People who can access Lockers of Love, which is what most of the donations go to, are not just [McMaster] students. It can be for someone who's affiliated, it can be for a family member. So that's another part of how community plays a role. It's not just the students that are affected by food insecurity, but it's a deeper intersectionality that also affects a family, affects their ability to do well in school [and] their ability to exist as a person.
What continues to inspire you in the FCC?
I think that the opportunity to oversee Lockers of Love made all of these intangible numbers about food insecurity much more real. For example, something simple is in first year when you have a meal plan. You kind of expect everyone in residence to have the same amount when you're living together. That kind of thought can be really damaging when you go into second or third year and you're living on your own, you're working and cooking for yourself and you see other people are getting takeout all the time or you're struggling to get fresh foods. There are all these things that you compare yourself with. That was a big part of contextualizing everything through Lockers of Love when I realized how many people were using it. Another thing that Morghen and I continued from last year is the e-card version [of Lockers for Love]. Just because we're slowly transitioning to in-person [classes], it doesn't mean that those cards aren't valuable to people who might not be able to get to campus. I've just learned so much from people who are contacting me and saying that Lockers of Love has helped them and how we can make it better. That's the biggest part. For me, I'm just doing this as a job and I really enjoy it. But for some people, they really rely on this to survive. So being able to connect with those people, even though I don't know their names, makes me feel that this campus needs the food centre.
C/O McMaster Baseball
After a major collision, two varsity athletes have faced months of recovery time
The 2021 season was supposed to be a good one for the Marauders baseball team. They had championship aspirations on their mind and a team with a chance to do it, featuring the reigning Cy Young winner (awarded to the best pitcher in the league), Julian Tymochko, the reigning (and now back-to-back) most valuable player, Nik Motruk, the 2021 rookie of the year, Josh Kalmin and four players who would be named to the 2021 all-star team.
Congratulations to Josh Kalmin (@JoshKalmin) who was named the Rookie of the Year. #ROY pic.twitter.com/8m8ZYiAXMA
— McMaster Baseball (@McMasterBasebal) October 20, 2021
Having finished with an OUA silver, many would suggest the season to be near perfect, but a major collision changed the whole story.
On the weekend of the qualifiers, McMaster needed to win just two games to secure a spot in the playoffs. Oct. 9, the first day of games, was not what they expected when they lost both games. They would eventually win both games on Oct. 10 to earn their spot in the playoffs and many of the team members credited a newfound motivation after a very scary moment in their second loss.
It was a standard baseball play; a shallow fly ball to left. Left fielder Mark Zanette ran in, attempting to get to the ball before it dropped. Shortstop Nicolas Velocci, realizing just how shallow the ball was hit, began ranging back to make the play. With the ball in no man's land, neither felt they had a clean play and when nobody called it, both ran at full speed to try and get there in time.
At the last moment, Velocci goes to make a desperation play, diving for the ball. Instead of making the catch, Velocci’s head would collide with Zanette’s knee, leaving both players with severe injuries.
“I went into a full on dive and everything from there on is just black. I don’t remember anything. I remember for a few seconds getting loaded onto an ambulance and that’s where it all hit me . . . I didn’t have time to gather my thoughts, but I knew that something was wrong. Seriously wrong,” said Velocci.
Following the play Velocci would lay there unconscious. Ambulances quickly made their way to the field, the first taking Velocci and a second (later arriving) to take Zanette, who soon realized he could no longer hold his weight.
Baseball players from McMaster and Guelph forget rivalry to help teammates who suffered serious injuries https://t.co/Fi0GUi994k via @CHCH @GryphsBaseball @guelph_gryphons @McMasterSports
— McMaster Baseball (@McMasterBasebal) October 12, 2021
“As the ball was about to hit my glove, I felt the impact on my knee. I did a flip in the air [before landing] and wasn’t really sure what happened . . . I think adrenaline was going, so I didn’t feel that much pain in the moment,” said Zanette.
Zanette originally believed that he was relatively unscathed and had gotten lucky. It was only after a few minutes that he would realize how badly he was injured.
The outfielder would later be diagnosed with an intermediate grade partial thickness tear of the ACL, a complete tear of the proximal PCL, a grade one MCL strain, a radial tear involving the posterior root of the medial meniscus, an impaction fracture at the medial femoral condyle and several other less significant injuries throughout his leg.
It has already been three months since the incident and, although Zanette has gone a long way, there is still a long path ahead with several more months of recovery.
“I avoided surgery, which helped a bunch. In terms of a [recovery] timeline, I’m not really sure . . . By the end of the school year, I won’t be back to normal, but pretty functional again,” said Zanette.
As bad as that may sound, Zanette may have actually gotten the better of the two. Zanette may have a longer recovery period, but Velocci had a much more difficult time thus far, with his site of injury being his head.
Velocci would incur fractures and breaks to his nose, jaw, orbitals and cheekbones, while also dealing with a concussion. He would spend 14 days in the hospital in a time when hospitals were trying to get people out as quickly as possible due to the pandemic.
In the recovery process Velocci would have his jaw wired shut with screws and elastics for three weeks, causing a 30-pound weight drop. He also needed a breathing tube inserted in his throat (tracheotomy) and went through two surgical procedures.
“I can say whole-heartedly that it was the biggest challenge of my life. In the beginning I didn’t even know if I was going to be alive — it was that big a shock to me. I remember asking the doctors while half out of it if I was going to live . . . It was traumatic,” explained Velocci.
“I can say whole-heartedly that it was the biggest challenge of my life. In the beginning I didn’t even know if I was going to be alive — it was that big a shock to me."
Nicolas Velocci, Shortstop
Velocci described the early days of the injury with a very dark tone, elaborating as to just how terrible an experience it all was.
“It was bad. It was so painful that I kept passing out. I wasn’t even awake,” said Velocci.
Through the interview, Velocci continuously brought up the number 53. This was the number of days in which he called the recovery period. This is the timeline from the day it happened to the day he was finally able to function somewhat normally and unassisted.
He hopes to begin training with the team again before the winter is over as he is already doing much better and hopes to be fully recovered over the next month or so.
The event was very traumatic, not only for the players involved, but also for their teammates who witnessed it all. They would soon develop the hashtag #DoItForNicolasandMark, which helped inspire their playoff run.
The team would go back to the tournament after two losses, facing elimination and win both games to advance for their chance at a medal. In a past interview with the Silhouette, pitcher Josh Kalmin commented on the situation and how badly the team wanted to do it for their fallen teammates.
“Going back on that bus Sunday morning, we knew we were going to win. No one on our team ever said anything about [possibly losing]. We were going to do it for Nicolas and for Mark,” said Kalmin.
As badly as Velocci and Zanette wanted to be on the field, they were thrilled to see the success the team had. They both plan on a full return next season, where they will once again have their eyes set on the gold.
C/O Nico, Flickr
We might get a snow day sooner than you think ❄️☃️
On Dec. 3, McMaster University posted an update on their information website, Daily News. Titled "Update on McMaster's Snow Policy", McMaster outlined amended changes to the Storm Emergency Policy.
As of January 1, 2022, new amendments are in-place for the Storm Emergency Policy. All in-person and online classes will be cancelled in the event of a snow day. All McMaster faculty and staff will also not be required to work, unless they are deemed "essential".
"If necessary, the university will formally announce a closure when severe weather poses a danger to students, staff and faculty while on campus or if the weather would prevent large numbers of them from coming to campus or returning safely to their homes," reads the statement posted on Daily News.
According to this policy, McMaster will announce by 5:30 a.m. whether university operation will commence on days suspected of having inclement weather. It is worth noting that if weather conditions change throughout the day, classes can be reinstituted. Students, staff and faculty have been advised to check Daily News to find out more information during university closures.
McMaster also noted that if nothing is posted by the morning deadline, university operations will continue as normal.
Previously, the Storm Emergency Policy was amended ahead of the 2020-2021 academic term due to the online nature of classes. This amendment included a stipulation that if McMaster declared a snow day, all in-person classes would be cancelled; however, all online classes would continue.
At time of publication, Hamiltonians are bracing for a snow storm set to hit southern Ontario with an estimated snow fall of up to 40 cm. No word has currently been issued as to whether or not McMaster will have its first snow day of the season on Jan. 17.
This is a developing story. For more information, keep it locked to www.thesil.ca
For Catiyana, her third year of university is when she started to feel like graduation was a near to impossible idea and it began to grow more daunting everyday. Nevertheless, she persisted – and now she can say she is a McMaster graduate! While she may have felt lost at times, she eventually found her people and the things she enjoyed. Looking back, she is happy she trusted in the process, and more importantly herself. For Catiyana’s full article visit: https://medium.com/mcmaster-alumni/lifeaftermac/home
The Life After Mac series is run by the McMaster Alumni Association and provides career and life hacks from the McMaster alumni community.
C/O McMaster Sports
The women’s basketball team hits the ground running in the first month of play
As many McMaster students have become used to seeing, the women’s basketball team is once again finding themselves in the midst of a strong season. Despite a fairly inexperienced roster full of athletes making their university debuts, the team went into the winter break with a record of five to one, their only loss having come to the Guelph Gryphons.
Through the course of the season it has become very obvious that the Marauders have done a great job at playing team basketball, which has played a big part in their success. They regularly beat the opposing teams in assists by wide margins, and commonly find themselves sharing the load when it comes to scoring. It isn’t uncommon for the team to have several scorers bunched up around the leading individual point totals.
With such a young team, it’s rare to find such strong chemistry so early on, but according to forward Amy Stinson, that’s exactly what the team has been able to create.
“This year is very special for us. We have a lot of new girls, it’s a big new group. Going into the season in November we were really finding our chemistry, so as [games] went on, we were learning more and more about each other and our strengths . . . We were confident in each other and we were confident in ourselves,” said Stinson.
Stinson, a jack of all trades, frequently finds herself making a difference in the box score, whether it be by way of scoring, rebounding, or anything else. Stinson discussed the importance of being an all around player and how much focus she puts on scoring compared to all else.
“I like to look at the little things, like positioning on defence, rebounds, assists. It’s the stuff I look at when I [evaluate] my all around game. I’m happy with what I’ve been doing, but I think there’s a lot more I can do,” said Stinson.
"I like to look at the little things, like positioning on defence, rebounds, assists. It's the stuff I look at when I [evaluate] my all around game. I'm happy with what I've been doing, but I think there's a lot more I can do,"
Amy Stinson, Forward
Through the season Stinson has become a fairly consistent scoring option for the team, regularly finding herself among the teams top scorers. Despite this, she stressed that scoring isn’t actually a major focus in her game and is rather something that just comes as a result of the way the team has played.
“Scoring has actually never been something I’ve made a priority and I think that’s why I’ve had this success I’ve had this season; I don’t put much pressure on myself. I find that when I’m just in the game and playing for my teammates, sometimes it’ll just come,” explained Stinson
This season Stinson and [Sarah] Gates have been the only players on the team to find themselves scoring double digits on multiple occasions. Despite sharing this achievement, Stinson considers Gates to be on a whole different level.
“Sarah [Gates] is just another story, she’s just [incredible] . . . To her that stuff just comes naturally because she’s just outstanding,” said Stinson.
"Sarah [Gates] is just another story, she's just [incredible] . . . To her that stuff just comes naturally because she's just outstanding,"
Amy Stinson, Forward
After several strong performances in November, Gates was named the Ontario University Athletics female player of the month, putting up a league leading 25.5 points per game while shooting to a 52.6 per cent field goal percentage, accompanied by per game averages of 7.7 rebounds, two assists and two steals while shooting 38.6 per cent from three point range.
“It was my first time ever getting that award, so it was really nice! I was a little bit shocked to get it, but honestly, this will sound pretty cliche, but that’s not my focus. My focus is just to get to that national level and compete from there. We have the team to do it . . . I just see good things to come,” said Gates.
Gates, despite her own consistently strong performances, praised the efforts of her team, suggesting that they are going against the grain in what is stereotypically a “rebuilding year” in university sports.
“We have such a unique group this year, especially since it’s such a young team. The amount of work ethic and drive our team has is pretty awesome . . . When so many new [players] are coming in, people usually say it’s a rebuilding year. I wouldn’t say that — we’re definitely really good. I like being the underdog and we’ll take that to our advantage," explained Gates.
"When so many new [players] are coming in, people usually say it’s a rebuilding year. I wouldn’t say that — we’re definitely really good. I like being the underdog and we’ll take that to our advantage,”
Sarah Gates
One of the most notable games of the season was against the Gryphons on Nov. 13. After losing by a 28 point spread on Nov. 10, the team was able to refocus and pick themselves up before their next game on Nov. 13. Gates paved the way, having scored 38 points while shooting 67 per cent from the field and from three. She also put up 11 rebounds and five assists in the redemption game, which the Marauders would win by a final score of 74-70.
Gates suggested that the loss was just a part of being a young team and facing their first “strong” opponent of the season. With the nerves out after the first game, they were able to play their way in the second of the two game matchup.
“We just went in with confidence and knew that if we just played our game that we could dictate the outcome. It all came with our team's confidence,” said Gates.
With a confident and hardworking team of young players, the Marauders have a chance to make a strong push once the season resumes. Originally scheduled to start on Jan. 12, games up until Jan. 22 have been postponed, with their next scheduled game coming against the Laurier Golden Hawks in Waterloo on Jan. 26.
C/O Mark Sanchez
The pandemic will come to an end, but only with fair and meaningful restrictions
Cloth masks won’t cut it anymore, so you must purchase medical masks. No, not those, the expensive ones that are out of stock. If you’re experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, isolate yourself from family and friends for a minimum of ten days. You should definitely be back to work in five though.
We will start to limit PCR testing, so instead, use rapid-antigen testing kits. Good luck finding those, but if you do, don’t use them because they’re not accurate. You need PCR. But wait, they have great news! Elite sports are allowed to run. Not the largest university athletics organization in Ontario though, they said elite.
As hard as it may be to believe right now, all pandemics do eventually come to an end, though the fate of this one is clouded by the rising Omicron variant. Just as many started to regain hope for returning to a pandemic-free lifestyle, the Ford government placed further restrictions in Ontario in response to Omicron on Jan. 6, 2022.
These changes included a halt to indoor dining, gyms, movie theatres and further capacity limits for essential and non-essential businesses.
The execution of these changes, however, left many confused with questions about how this will aid in efforts to control the spread of COVID-19, with just one thought at the forefront of thousands of minds: make it make sense.
How exactly does this response fit into the potential end of the COVID-19 pandemic? First, it’s important to note that this alleged “end” cannot be abrupt, but one so gradual that COVID-19 will become something that the world simply has to learn to coexist with.
This may sound frightening at first, but recall that the human race has been doing this for centuries with viruses such as influenza and measles.
After establishing that COVID-19 isn’t going away, governments must set clear and realistic goals of how life is expected to be like upon endgame and take measures that directly result in said goals. At some point, the World Health Organization would declare when the pandemic is officially over, after measuring each country’s success in controlling case counts, or hospitalizations and deaths at the very least.
This would mark the endemic, or a post-pandemic state many would call the “new normal”. The endemic would mean reaching a somewhat steady-state of manageable cases, but how many is not exactly a scientific question, but a social one.
Omicron has proven to be an ultra-contagious variant so different as a result of mutations that it has managed to evade detection by immune defences gathered through previous infections and even vaccines.
That being said, Omicron essentially marks the beginning of when the virus will eventually max out in its ability to drastically mutate and make large evolutionary jumps.
New variants would still arise every so often again, much like the flu, but booster vaccines that are better catered to new mutants will also continue to evolve, as will the human immune system.
Additional measures and meaningful restrictions can effectively reduce hospitalizations caused by Omicron and give the general population a chance to boost their vaccinations. After all, it’s easy to point out that a major barrier preventing the COVID-19 pandemic from evolving into a flu-like endemic is hospitalizations and deaths.
With over 100,000 active cases in the province, this is more important now than ever.
Despite this, the request still seems to remain: make it make sense. As long as healthcare pursues a capitalist model, anything experts will say may be perceived as persuasion and manipulation rather than facts that fuel an effort to safeguard the public.
Living in low-income areas where healthcare may not be accessible is conducive to (valid) feelings of confusion and neglect.
Naturally, the first community that government officials turn to for information and guidance is the scientific one. Where most governments fall short is listening to research done by the social science and humanities community.
Time and time again, social scientists have identified how public health communication can impact the way people respond and act. Especially since this crisis so heavily relies on behavioural changes on a massive scale, social science can be used to align human behaviour with scientific recommendations.
The public continues to announce their frustration on further restrictions and lockdown measures that don’t seem to offer any slivers of hope. Some have even drawn comparisons between COVID-19 and suicide death rates, implying the importance of one over the other.
However, ranking equally important issues and insinuating the dismissal of one will not solve nor validate the other.
So how exactly can the government induce restrictions that appease the general public? It’s impossible. What’s completely plausible though, is alleviating mass confusions that accompany tighter regulations.
Lockdowns and public health measures will continue to seem like a performance act to the public unless they’re joined by measures that rebuild the damages inflicted by for-profit agendas on our healthcare system. It may be the key to reaching the endgame before running out of greek alphabet letters.
C/O Vitolda Klein, Unsplash
Chasing perfection is a societal ideal that rarely benefits the one chasing
Recently, I have noticed how often the term "perfectionism" is thrown around. Nowadays, it seems as if everyone is a proud perfectionist who refuses to accept any standard short of perfection.
Their sense of perfectionism will appear in their work ethic, study habits and even personal relationships. In spite of the rise of perfectionism in the last decade, I have had a difficult time understanding the glorification of this phenomenon.
To be clear, I don’t believe that individuals willingly fall into the trap of perfectionism. It's often society that pushes us towards perfectionist behaviours as we are incessantly told from a young age to improve and polish every aspect of our life that might be slightly blemished.
From our parents to our schools, to our mentors, we are told how the “real world” holds high standards that we have to live up to. Time after time, we have been told how achieving greatness stems from perfect work ethics, perfect grades and a perfect attitude.
Because of these harsh statements, many of us have been conditioned to only judge ourselves and our accomplishments on a zero to perfect scale — meaning if our work is not performed perfectly, it might as well deserve a zero.
For example, we often don’t feel proud if we score a 90% since our immediate thought is how we could have potentially achieved a 100%, but failed to do so. We slowly start losing happiness and joy because accomplishments are no longer satisfying if they are not “perfect.”
In fact, over 60% of McMaster students reported feeling higher than average levels of stress in a 2017 survey, leading to concerns about the effects of chronic stress in university students.
In fact, over 60% of McMaster students reported feeling higher than average levels of stress in a 2017 survey, leading to concerns about the effects of chronic stress in university students.
KIMIA TAHAEI, OPINIONS STAFF WRITER
However, I must say that I don’t believe that perfectionism is entirely devoid of value. In fact, science has proven that “healthy perfectionism” exists. Studies have stated how in some cases perfectionism can often be a driving source to perform your absolute best and achieve the highest of accomplishments.
However, I must question, how thin is the line between “healthy perfectionism” and obsessive perfectionism? Can individuals who fall into the trap of perfectionism in their work life keep it detached from their personal lives? Wouldn’t relationships, hobbies and activities done for the sheer joy of it deteriorate if perfection is the only given option?
“The most evil trick about perfectionism is that it disguises itself as a virtue,” stated author Rebecca Solnit.
“The most evil trick about perfectionism is that it disguises itself as a virtue,” stated author Rebecca Solnit.
KIMIA TAHAEI, OPINIONS STAFF WRITER
This quote excellently explains why so many individuals fall into the trap of perfectionism. They do so as they believe that this could increase their quality of work and they could reach perfection. However, the unfortunate truth is that the concept of anything ‘perfect’ is erroneous. Often, because individuals cannot define ‘perfect’, they assume they aren't reaching it, making perfectionism a never-ending cycle.
Candidly, we must take a step and ask ourselves, how are we defining a ‘perfect job’ or a ‘perfect relationship’? Or whether a ‘perfect grade’ is truly worth it, if it comes at the cost of our mental health?
We cannot let the false and outdated definition of perfectionism gain control over our decisions. In a world that is so cruel and chaotic at times, it’s foolish to rob ourselves from experiencing the simple joys of life.
