I open my eyes, get up, and sit on the bed. My eyes are barely open and I am hoping the cold air is going to wake me up.
“You can’t miss anatomy, Inda. I know you are thinking of it. You cannot. C’mon!”
Why does someone need to know me this well? I mean it is just anatomy and I have never missed it before. But… I could use my first missed day for an actual emergency. Isn’t this an emergency though, sleeping as much as possible?
“Inda, stop trying to justify your missed day. You need to start getting ready.”
“I know, I know, Hope.” (I groan). “Why do they make us study the most difficult subject this early, anyways?”
“Such is life, Inda!”
“Wait, what are you going to do?”
“Some Netflix… maybe yoga…”
“I hate you!”
“Don’t worry child, my suffering shall come!”
I finally opened my eyes. For some reason, I kind of like my face in the morning. It is fairly puffy, yet nice. Music, this is what is missing (I turn on my favorite song).
“Hey Hope, good morning by the way! How are you feeling today?”
“I don’t know… I think I need to stop ordering food at 3:00 in the morning. I keep waking up super bloated!”
“I feel you! My stomach is in the verge of starting a war with me. But we couldn’t finish that movie without pizza… I know you loved it!”
“Yeah yeah, but I still have to finish my essay for Kenton! I officially give up! I mean, how can I write a whole essay about a book called “Escaping Education”, if in essence I am going through education by writing this essay! Wow, I actually sounded like you.”
“I know, I should have recorded it (I laugh). You are very good with essays though, and if you’re stuck you can always ask for help!”
“Thanks! Anyways, aren’t you late for class?”
“Yep, I need to go! Love you!” (Door opens and closes quickly)
(I return to my dorm after a day of studying).
I enter the room to a Tanzanian love song. How do I know this? First, it is really soothing. Second, I can hear the ‘nakupenda’, which, as Hope told me, means ‘I love you’ in Swahili. And thirdly, Hope has her romantic face on. She is so romantic it makes me hate romance. I love how she can randomly imagine a wedding in its every detail, while I struggle to picture tomorrow.
Oh, she is writing. The essay is finally being written! Yes! Maybe I’ll make her some tea…
“Hellooooooo Hopeeeelllaa! How was your day?”
“Hmm, it’s been okay. Anatomy was pretty tough, and I studied for most of the day. How was your day?”
She looks at me and closes her laptop.
“I studied all day too!”
“So what I am hearing is: we both need a session of Netflix and food!”
“Hopppeeee!”
“It’s okay! We will make sure to watch only one episode and be super productive afterwards… oh and we will pray to God for comfort of mind!”
Next thing I know, I find myself doing just that and being happy, and as I close my eyes… thousands of miles away from home… there is a girl just as far away from home as me on the other side of my room, and strangely enough, I am happy when she is happy.
“Good night Hope! I love you!
“Night Inda! God bless!”
Inda Piroli is a 3rd Year General Sciences Major from Albania
I believe international students experience dorm-life differently from Canadian students. And while the majority of it has been amazing, there are some parts of it that have been less than.
My fellow Canadian students are blessed to have family nearby who they can run to when student life gets frustrating. Time and time again, I’ve watched students vacate their dorm rooms to spend the weekend over at their families’ and my roommate and I are left with an almost empty hallway filled with silence.
Moreover, while I have adjusted well to the food on the meal plan, I do remember past years where I had to force myself to eat food that I was not accustomed to. Fast forward to today, I actually enjoy the cafeteria food! Who would have thought? Regardless, Inda and I still spend most of our money on “SkiptheDishes” (more than we would like to admit).
However, there are numerous advantages I enjoy about living in dorms. One of my favorite things that I love about living in dorms is in accordance with CMU’s mission statement: COMMUNITY. Aside from my roommate, we have a tiny community right outside our room in the hallway.
My best memory of dorm-life is from my first year at CMU. I was the only international student in my ‘hallway community’ and I had prepared myself to be an outsider. Can you blame me? Being the only black girl, from a completely different country, with a different accent and a different idea of ‘fun’. I was no stranger to wandering eyes and blank stares trying to understand me before, so why would this time be any different? Boy was I wrong! The CMU community within our hallway became my Canadian family. We had weekly meetings that each had their own fun surprises (thanks to our Residence Assistant at the time), study dates in the lounges, movie nights, lots of dance parties, etc. Before I knew it, we were so close that we had our own special table in the cafeteria—a bit extreme maybe, but that is how close we were. Truly the best experience I’ve had at CMU so far.
But wait, there’s more! Tons of activities/events get you out of your room and engaging with other human beings. Dorm activities range from themed tea parties to playing (mostly harmless) pranks on each other. I speak for all university students when I say that it’s extremely easy to get caught up in the hustle of school and work. Finding time to relax and enjoy university life becomes difficult. Having RA’s and dorm-room friends that hold you accountable or even drag you out of your room to participate in ongoing activities is refreshing and much needed.
Furthermore, living in dorms allows me to learn from others while giving me a chance to teach others about my cultures and my individuality in a more personal environment where we learn to understand and accept our differences. I cannot count how many times I sat with a group of people basically giving a tutorial about the trials and tribulations that is my hair and vice versa. I’ve come to find that staying in dorms gives me the ultimate and rich university experience.
Hope Mwalugaja is a 4th Year International Development Studies Major from Tanzania
Welcome to winter semester, CMU students and friends!
Hopefully you’re feeling refreshed after three weeks of home-cooked meals and reading for fun, and are ready to dive into some new classes! But, let’s face it, the beginning of a new semester can be stressful. You’ve just arrived back on campus after your Christmas break, digging through your backpack for that pencil you *know* was there last semester, and you’re leaving every class with a pile of syllabi filled with information and due dates. Eek!
With the help of some friends and classmates, I’ve compiled some tips on how to survive thrive during these first few weeks of the new semester!
Sit down with those syllabi!
It can be overwhelming to receive SO MUCH information over the course of your first week back at school, but putting it in a different perspective can make all the difference. Once you’ve attended all of your classes, take a moment to collect all of your syllabi and sit down with a calendar or day-planner. Transfer all of the important dates mentioned in the syllabus (tests, assignments, presentations, etc.) into your calendar! Seeing all of these dates and “to-dos” spread over the months of the semester will help put you at ease and keep you organized. You can do this!
Say hello to your new professors!
Many of us will be learning from familiar faces this year, but if this semester you’ll be learning from a professor you’ve never had, make sure to introduce yourself! A quick “hello” and “I’m looking forward to this class” at the beginning of the semester will go a long way in encouraging further conversations with your prof. The lovely faculty here at CMU are here to help you, and they love to hear your questions and stories!
Do some “winter cleaning!”
Hey dorm and apartment folks, this one is for you! Everyone talks about “spring cleaning,” but tidying and organizing your space at the beginning of the winter semester can help give you a fresh start. Make a space for your important books and papers, do that pile of laundry from last semester, let some light in, and maybe put up that new puppy poster that your grandma got you for Christmas (thanks Grams). An organized living/study space will encourage an organized and focused mind!
So let’s get a head-start on this semester, and have some fun while we’re at it!
– Chloe Friesen, 2nd year Communications and Media student
Mackenzie Nicolle and Jeremy Dyck in the Centre for Resilience
It certainly does, and it’s called The Centre for Resilience, a space that CMU students Mackenzie Nicolle and Jeremy Dyck spent a lot of time in this past semester.
Nicolle and Dyck are the self-professed “guinea pigs” of the Social Innovation Lab: brain-child of James Magnus-Johnston (CMU’s instructor of Social Entrepreneurship and the director of the Centre for Resilience).
The Centre for Resilience is a “co-working lab for civic-minded social innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers” (Centre for Resilience website). Creative entrepreneurs can rent out desk space and collaborate with each-other and enlist the help of enthusiastic students completing their practicum. (Did you know that every CMU student completes some sort of hands-on work practicum before graduating?)
I sat down with Mackenzie and Jeremy to chat about their projects, experiences, and the space they work in.
Tell me a little bit about the class you’re in and what it entails!
Jeremy: So we’re in the Social Innovation Lab, that’s what the class is called, and it’s run out of the Centre for Resilience. It’s kind of like a consulting/mentorship hodgepodge/cornucopia, a little bit of everything. We’re working with the organizations that are up here at the Centre of Resilience and identifying some of their challenges and working on them in the time that we have.
Mackenzie: It’s a practicum course, and we’ve decided that we’re going to be evaluated based on how well the stakeholders feel that we’ve done for them. At the end they write a letter of recommendation. There’s no grade, it’s a pass/fail course. What we get out of it is the experience and letters of recommendation, which look very nice for prospective employers.
Could you tell me about the organization you’re working with and the projects you’re developing?
M: The two of us are working with Compost Winnipeg, which is a branch of the Green Action Centre. They are a social enterprise, and they’re planning on building a compost site on CMU’s campus! They’re hoping to start in the spring of 2019, so our position was to try to get an idea of how people in the area and people at CMU felt about the project, as well as any concerns they may have.
Because there have been previous groups that have composted in Winnipeg and have done it incorrectly, we wanted to get rid of a lot of the stigma that surrounded composting and to educate people about how it’s being done differently here.
Any stories or experiences that have stood out for you two?
J: We did a community survey door-to-door, down Shaftesbury and around the neighbourhood. And that was sort of interesting, to be soliciting people for information. They were surprisingly receptive, that was a nice surprise! I did get one house where I was walking up to the door and saw someone in the window. He was obviously there when I rang the doorbell, but then I heard the door latch lock, so he wasn’t interested in taking our survey… *laughter*
M: There was another house I went up to and a woman opened the door. I had three short questions for her. So I gave her a little blurb about how we were CMU students and that we’d like to engage in a conversation, and her assumption was that I was coming to talk to her because I was against composting. Because obviously nobody wants a compost site near them, and that’s why you’re talking to me, right? *laughs* So I was like no, I’m just trying to gauge what people’s reactions are. And then she got very actively angry about composting. It smells and nobody wants this, and why would you do this, and so on. And then her husband came to the door and the wife walked away. But then he was a lot more receptive when I explained to him the idea of an eco-drum, which is a large cylinder that helps regulate the temperature and the speed of the compost. It’s enclosed, has no smell, and he was a lot more receptive to that. It’s interesting to see how people’s opinions differ based on their prior knowledge.
How would you say this course differs from other courses you’ve taken at CMU?
J: I wouldn’t say it’s night and day, but it’s pretty close. The fact that there’s no grade at the end sort of implies that it’s really hard to measure success, and that’s because our projects are so different. It’s pretty cool to have a say on what you want to work on, because we were collaboratively with organizations to choose what we want to do, to actually discover what would be the best thing to do for them after analyzing their situations. So it’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate being able to exercise my creativity.
M: Part of the reason we don’t do grades is because we want the opportunity to fail. So that if you try something and it doesn’t work, that’s fine. And then you can renegotiate, research some more, and come up with another idea. And since this is the first time that students have been working with anyone here, we’re the guinea pigs trying to figure out “what does this class look like,” or “what’s successful, what’s not successful…” It’s a good challenge!
Everybody talks about how beautiful the fourth floor is. Tell us about this space! What is so wonderful about working in the Centre for Resilience?
J: It’s bright. The vibe is a little different, a little more energetic.
M: Right now it’s a very hopeful space. There’s a lot of people starting off and moving in here. There’s a lot of energy, it’s a different type of energy than school. University has the waves and the seasons of academics, and up here, this is a work environment. And everyone here is doing a unique project, but are still able to talk to each other. The space is still kind of blossoming. I keep telling everyone that the chairs are my favourite part of this space.
J: The chairs are sweet.
M: They are sweet chairs.
Anything else you’d like to say about the Social Innovation Lab?
M: This is an experimental class. It’s kind of James’ baby coming to life. It’s fun to see how excited he is about the projects, what he likes and what he doesn’t like. He’s a third party in all these projects. He’s someone we can rely on and bounce ideas off of. He guides us and he guides them. This class is about helping us figure out what works and what doesn’t. It’s a great experience to be able to work with him.
Mackenzie Nicolle is a 4th year Social Science major and Communications minor Jeremy Dyck is a 4th year Business Administration major
There are approximately 131 Christmas trees on CMU’s campus.
Let me repeat that: there are approximately 131 Christmas trees on CMU’s campus.
I know this because I counted.
I counted because I love Christmas trees (and I needed a break from studying for exams).
I love Christmas trees because I love Christmas, and I love CMU because CMU loves Christmas, too. If CMU was a movie character we’d be Buddy the Elf, spreading Christmas cheer by singing loud for all to hear (which is basically the entire premise of Christmas at CMU, right music students?).
Today I decided to indulge the Christmas-loving child inside of me. I put down my books and walked the halls of both north and south sides of the campus, sipping a peppermint mocha from Folio Café and adding a mark to my notepad with every shimmering tree I passed. Why I decided to count, I still don’t know. Maybe I wanted to acknowledge the existence of every single tree, big and small. Maybe it was an incredibly creative act of procrastination. But these trees certainly took me on quite the adventure.
I know that Christmas isn’t only about Christmas trees, and that counting Christmas trees won’t help me get a better grade on my New Media exam, but I do know that with every tree I passed my heart grew a little lighter and my childlike anticipation returned for a moment. I thought of the people who put hours into placing these trees around campus, decorating them with such care and spirit. I am so grateful for these trees. They remind me of the beauty of December in the midst of academic chaos. They remind me, over and over again, why I have such a love for this school.
There are approximately 131 Christmas trees on CMU’s campus, and I know this because I counted.
– Chloe Friesen, 2nd year Communications and Media student
