The Tribune

A foremost concern among many first-year students in Rez is, besides getting used to the awkwardness of peeing in co-ed bathrooms, the safety of their living facility. Freshmen at McGill, many of whom are away from home for the first time in their lives, often need an extra hand at keeping threats to their safety at bay.

It would only have taken a single spark on the wooden fire escape for an entire block in downtown Sackville, New Brunswick, to go up in flames. A primarily student-inhabited apartment building near Mount Allison, Canada’s leading liberal-arts University, burned for over 24 hours on Friday, Aug 11, 2006.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I found it difficult to envision life in Montreal. It’s similar to how my fellow Canadians who haven’t been to Southern California imagine Hollywood as a strictly glamorous haunt, with California girls gallivanting in their bikinis while Abercrombie models surf to class.

Don’t get me wrong- I love Frosh. What better way to start off the new academic year than to get magnificently intoxicated on lower field with thousands of your closest drinking buddies? Frosh is more than just a spectacle of drunken bliss; the organized drinking orgy certainly contains its moments of glory: sampling of a first years’ first beer (mmm.

ow. Ow. OW! Who replaced the florescent lights with pointy, pointy knives? These are the thoughts running through poor little Gordon-the-Freshman’s head the morning after his first night of Frosh week. If Gordon´s waking thoughts are any indication, he is well on his way to achieving Frosh-Success.

This is for all the U1 students out there who are finally discovering the joys of having their own apartments. Although you might miss the glory days of Rez, you will soon realize the far superior nature of living off campus. One of the hardest things to adjust to is cooking your own food.

It’s a common misconception that burglaries in this city occur exclusively at nighttime, when the windows are shut tight, the doors are barred and security systems are active. In fact, recently, home invasions in Montreal during the daytime hours have become less of an anomaly, especially in the suburbs.

In a vibrant city like Montreal, McGill students are constantly urged to get out of the campus “bubble.” There is even a student club called – surprise! – Outside the Bubble, whose sole purpose lies in integrating anti-social McGill students into the greater Montreal culture.

The sudden proliferation of gruesome images of adorable seal pups, the fierce debates between the government and animal rights groups, and the manipulative rhetoric used on both sides are some of the events that can be expected around the time of Canada’s annual commercial seal hunt.

One would be hard-pressed to find two places with less in common than southern Bhutan and the town of Saint-Jérôme. In the south of Bhutan, the soaring peaks of the Himalayas descend into subtropical plains and fields of rice. Bhutan is primarily Buddhist and shares many cultural ties with its northern neighbour, Tibet.