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Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

‘Kim’s Convenience:’ The impossibility of cancelling a classic

by Matthew Molinaro on

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On March 31, 2020, CBC announced that Kim’s Convenience—their fan-favourite sitcom—had been renewed for two more seasons. Less than one year later, on March 8, 2021, fans around the world were shocked when the network announced that the fifth season of Kim’s Convenience would be its last. The confusion set in immediately, with many wondering why a network would cancel such a highly-rated and well-received popular comedy so abruptly. Although the decision—made by producers because co-creators Ins Choi and Kevin White were leaving for other projects—may seem justified, it is a risky move nonetheless. To end a show in its prime, particularly one that represents an underrepresented racialized group, seems like a major blunder for CBC. Yet it was exactly the show’s own risks—from its unconventional casting approaches to its radical plot choices—that made it popular and that will ultimately cement it in Canadian cultural consciousness.

When Kim’s Convenience first aired in 2016, the cultural winds of Canadian TV were sweeping in; Schitt’s Creek had already been on air for a year, and Workin’ Moms and Anne with an E were in production. But unlike its contemporaries, Kim’s Convenience had no connection to previous Canadian successes with which the network nor the showrunners could use to bolster the show’s reputation. Instead, Kim’s Convenience originated from humble beginnings: It was first a play starring Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and Jean Yoon, who would reprise their roles as “Appa” Sang-il and “Umma” Yung-mi on television. Meanwhile, Schitt’s Creek had Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, Workin’ Moms had Catherine Reitman, and Anne with an E had author Lucy Maud Montgomery’s international reputation. Alongside Lee and Yoon were talented, then-unknown actors ready to make their breakthrough: Andrea Bang and Simu Liu, who play Lee and Yoon’s children Janet and Jung, and supporting actor Andrew Phung, who plays Kimchee, pursued atypical acting post-secondary education in psychology, business, and economics respectively. 

Five years later, the virtually no-name cast won consistently at the Canadian Screen Awards, with Lee winning twice for Best Actor in a Comedy Series in 2017 and 2018, and Deidre Bowen and Millie Tom winning Best Achievement in Casting in 2017. Further, Liu is set to become the first Asian actor to lead a Marvel film in Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings, and Phung and Nicole Power have new shows in the works. Even though choosing actors from different experiential backgrounds can be risky for a major network sitcom, each actor entered the show with a drive that allowed them to embody their characters, displaying the power of a robust cast.

Beyond the deft acting, Kim’s Convenience represented Canada and Toronto’s diversity. The show centres around the Kims, a Korean-Canadian family who operate their titular convenience store in the Moss Park neighbourhood in Toronto. On the one hand, the show’s navigation of immigrant family dynamics and its exploration of racialized identities in a Western context accurately reflect the lived experiences of many living in Toronto, where half of the population is foreign-born, and another half is racialized. Yet, Kim’s Convenience did not make the same mistakes as its predecessors, like All-American Girl, which universalized individual experiences and made stereotypical jokes about accents. 

The show abided by routine sitcom procedures like cold opens and running plot points throughout while also tieing in issues like racism, family tensions, and aging. The pilot episode started off on this deft footing: Overwhelmed by the crowds at Toronto Pride, Mr. Kim offers a “gay discount” and learns about drag while Mrs. Kim posts an ad for a cool, Korean, Christian boyfriend for Janet. From that point on, the showrunners were able to marshal in a new era of Canadian television, one that celebrates a unique Korean-Canadian experience. 

Whether it be street car rides that showcase Toronto architecture, Janet’s education at the OCAD University, or jabbing at Muskoka cottage culture, the show lives and breathes a more accurate picture of Toronto and Canada. Kim’s Convenience may have been cancelled, but its impact on Canadian cultural formation will live on.

The finale of Kim’s Convenience will air on April 13.

Commentary, Opinion

Campus Conversation: McGill students’ resilience

by Jonathon Cruickshank, Kennedy McKee-Braide, Sophia Howard on

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Music 

Johnathon Cruickshank, Staff Writer 

Montreal’s creative spirit is difficult to put into words. Friends and family, too, have commented on the city’s distinct feel. One explanation may be its diverse and multilingual community, or perhaps it is the combination of the European aesthetics of Old Port and the laissez-faire style of the Plateau Mont-Royal. It may even be the vibrant student populations who keep the city young. For me, however, it has always been the rich and lively music scene. Whether it was attending outdoor performances at OAP or open mic nights in crowded basements, my first two years of university filled me with musical memories to last a lifetime. Although we may not be quite as artsy as our friends over at Concordia, McGill students have delivered some of the brightest and most talented acts in the city.  

The COVID-19 pandemic made it more difficult for the city’s music scene to thrive, with the days of big crowds, packed venues, and collective jam sessions are on pause for the foreseeable future. However, McGill students have adapted to these unprecedented circumstances, finding ways to prevent the pandemic from snuffing out creative expression. As the world went virtual, so, too, did our vibrant music community, displaying resilience only found in the most trying of times.   

Just before cities around the world plunged into lockdowns over one year ago, a good friend of mine had launched a student-run record label that sought to platform McGill musical artists. Now operating entirely online, Green House Effect records has become a revolving door of talent, lighting up the student music scene. Some of my favourite Friday nights in quarantine have been spent tuning in to their Twitch stream to listen to their in-house DJ mix the latest hits, filling the musical void that would otherwise have been satisfied by a night out at the club.   

Students have also been putting their performance skills towards charitable causes. On March 23, Meals for Milton-Parc teamed up with Jam for Justice to host a virtual event that demonstrated the power of music in bringing students together in solidarity with marginalized communities. It was a thrill to listen to the series of coffee house performances by local artists, especially knowing that it was for a good cause. Events like these go to show that even a  global pandemic cannot deter the McGill community’s creative output.          

Friendships 

Kennedy McKee-Braide, Managing Editor 

The day after McGill announced the two-week closure of the university back in March 2020, I sat with my three best friends in one of their basements making plans for the upcoming two weeks of freedom. At this point, none of us truly understood how serious the pandemic would become, but we would soon realize that it would be quite some time before we could see each other again. For those first months of quarantine, I cried over missing my friends more times than I’d like to admit. After all, they are my rocks, and I hate when we are apart for too long. 

Despite not being able to have sleepovers or watch shitty television over bottles of wine and junk food, we found ways to adapt. Days before my 21st birthday, I was dreading spending the milestone alone, when my doorbell rang and I was met with a package––a weighted blanket from my friends, who had remembered that I mentioned wanting one months before. On the day of my birthday, we watched almost the entire season of Too Hot To Handle together on Netflix Party, and I felt incredibly loved. 

Over the past year, one of our favourite activities have been our weekly—and sometimes even daily—Netflix Party routine. By my calculations, we have watched at least eight different shows together since the onset of the pandemic, and right now, we are rewatching the entirety of Pretty Little Liars. People are often confused when I tell them what shows we are watching, because they are almost always of awful quality. But nothing makes me happier than time spent with my friends making fun of Riverdale’s ever-deteriorating plotlines, or watching some good old-fashioned reality TV. 

At the end of the Fall 2021 semester, two of the four of us will be graduating from McGill, with the rest of us following suit in Winter and Fall 2022. We all have ambitious dreams for life after undergrad, some of which will inevitably require us to leave Montreal. We try not to think about this too much, because the thought of being apart is unbearable. However, if the pandemic has proven anything, it is that friends can always find ways to share laughs, love, and new experiences, no matter how far apart they are.

Humour 

Sophia Howard, Contributor 

Throughout the hardships of the pandemic, students’ sense of humour has been a great strength. Nothing brings people together like a good laugh, and university students have always survived tough times by poking fun at shared struggles. Even before remote classes, students shared jokes on Instagram meme accounts, Facebook groups, and the McGill subreddit. 

The news that comes through social media is often overwhelmingly negative—between horrifying COVID-19 death counts and gruesome details of human rights violations committed across the world—and it is important to have a variety of coping mechanisms, whether through friends, family, and various hobbies. Seeing a meme amidst one’s feed is one way to take a break from the constant bad news. 

Remarkably, the university’s comedians rose to the challenge of COVID-19 like never before. Meme pages mocked MRO Communications’ emails, Associate Provost Christopher Buddle’s daily vlogs, and even the province’s curfew. Instead of despairing about these difficulties, humour has helped students cheer each other up. Facebook groups like McGill Poll Party, for example, provide a community where students freely rant or joke about their experiences. In honour of remote learning, the popular Instagram meme page @eatingassinottomaas recently changed its name during the pandemic to @eatingassinonlineclass. When the McGill community heard of absurd events like the infamous fight club, meme pages immediately responded with a host of jokes about the event.

Research shows that a simple laugh can relieve stress by reducing stress hormones like cortisol. Even anticipating laughter can help the immune system by releasing oxytocin—a hormone linked to increased empathy and bonding. By joking with our peers through the internet, we are able to forge a sense of comradery. Having dedicated internet spaces to visit for comedic relief has supported students’ wellbeing.

The past year has been bleak for McGill students, but levity has helped them persevere through hardship and focus on the bright side of things.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

‘Godzilla vs Kong’ is mind-numbingly entertaining

by Michelle Siegel on

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While I am far from ashamed of my love of cult classic movies, I have never dabbled in anything remotely related to the Godzilla or King Kong franchises. Last week, however, I dived headfirst into Legendary Studios’ MonsterVerse with Godzilla vs Kong, released in theatres and HBO Max on March 31. As I loaded the movie on my laptop, the fact that I had not seen the prior three movies in the MonsterVerse series did not deter me at all: Even I knew that Godzilla films are not known for their engaging plots.

Godzilla vs Kong follows the mysterious Apex Cybernetics corporation as they use Kong to access a potential energy source, which allows them to fight back against a seemingly rogue Godzilla and inadvertently incite an ancient rivalry between the two monsters. The film is best enjoyed by turning off one’s brain during the scenes of human exposition—the plot is paper thin, but its flimsiness effectively contrasts the explosive battle scenes, making audiences wait in agony for the next one to take them out of their misery.

The characters, too, all fall flat. Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) and Dr. Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) from 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters are the only characters in the film to have appeared in previous movies. This normally implies that they are significant to the plot, but it is far from the truth in Godzilla vs Kong. Madison leads a completely inconsequential subplot that mainly facilitates some mediocre comic relief and unengaging background information for the main plot. On the other hand, Dr. Mark Russell is barely in the film at all. 

The multiple new characters are unmemorable, with most of their names forgotten by the time Godzilla vs Kong hits the halfway point. Their overwhelming number makes it difficult to feel any emotion for them beyond annoyance, and their scenes take time away from giant monster battles. All of the actors’ performances, while not necessarily the worst of all time, are perfunctory and placid. Perhaps this delivery is intentional, as this allows the human characters and plots to irritate and distract the audience, subsequently making them more excited and engaged by the massive battle scenes. 

The saving grace of the movie is ultimately its monsters: Godzilla vs Kong pushes the titular titans to the forefront of the film, inducing chills even when watched on a meager laptop screen. The CGI is extremely impressive, giving all the monsters a sense of intricate realism while they commit the most unrealistic of acts—from drilling a hole to another world with laser vision to destroying multiple skyscrapers with a couple of punches. The choreography in every fight is dynamic, engaging, and stunning to watch. The backdrops of the fights are equally dazzling, from the early ocean battle between Godzilla and Kong to the final showdown in Hong Kong, with a neon architectural aesthetic reminiscent of works like the Pacific Rim franchise, the Blade Runner duology, and Neon Genesis Evangelion series. 

Objectively, Godzilla vs Kong is a forgettable, bad movie. In many ways, it lacks humour, and feels like a rushed and nonsensical version of The Avengers (2012). If you are looking for a powerful, nuanced, and emotional film to watch, this is not the right movie for you. But the intense action is more impactful than I could have ever expected, and it provides a unique viewing experience that requires one to zone out to enjoy. Given the distraught state of the world, the timeline of this taxing online semester, and the common student desire to be able to turn off their brain, Godzilla vs Kong is somehow the most palatable theatrical vehicle 2021 has produced thus far.

Arts & Entertainment, Books, Pop Rhetoric

In speculative fiction, sex is no longer a fantasy

by Lowell Wolfe on

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New and exciting fantasy novels are constantly making names for themselves in the present day: From Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, the fantasy genre has continued to redefine and reinvent itself. While fantasy is not new—arguably over a century old, dating to George MacDonald’s Phantastes (1858)—authors’ attempts to shift the genre into R-rated territory, namely in the bedroom, is relatively nascent. Only recently has sex become explicit among heroes who typically fight evil magic or discover their world’s lost secrets. Far from being simply pornographic—which admittedly it sometimes is—the presence of sex in fantasy books allows the genre to access relatable, socially reflective, and even political spheres of discourse.

Many canonical fantasy books are explicitly non-explicit. Pillars of the genre such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or Tad Williams’s The Dragonbone Chair present worlds of propriety and modesty, while contemporary novels portray intimacy through grittier, nastier aesthetics. Some feature sex so prominently that readers and marketers alike recognize them for such; Joe Abercrombie’s First Law series is notorious among fantasy fans for its uncomfortable, awkward, and therefore realistic portrayals of physical intimacy between the main characters. 

Sex has also enabled innovative storytelling in fantasy novels, allowing authors to craft detailed, relatable human characters and to market specific stories toward certain audiences. Fantasy books often exhibit the peak of literary world-building and deep, original characterization, but sex-less worlds and characters foreground their fictitious, unrealistic identities. By incorporating sex and its associated expectations, stigmas, and even regulations, authors can literally and figuratively flesh out these worlds and characters. Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Legacy features a masochistic courtesan protagonist in a world where prostitution is a religious activity carried out by female devotaries, demonstrating that sex can be a powerfully liberating plot device and even act politically within a fictitious, otherworldly novel. 

In an interview with Rolling Stone, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin explained how relationships and their erotic fulfillments are tools for crafting realistic characters and stories. Because of his unequivocal treatment of sexuality, Martin has received many letters from fans—often women—asking him to include specific male sex scenes in his novels. Despite this, Martin maintains that he only choses to include sex scenes if they have mattered to his plot. Martin’s decision speaks to a larger trend in fantasy, where sex is not used simply for shock and awe, but to meaninfully advance character development and storyline.

Along with sex itself, new fantasy novels have also explored topics of sexuality and gender, accessing new forms of representation and relatability for their fanbase. In his first fantasy novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James decided to create characters of varying sexual identities, paying homage to his story’s sources of inspiration. Since James derived the novel’s world from traditional African mythology and storytelling, he wanted to accurately represent the cultures that influenced his book. In an interview with Vice News, James spoke on how queerness, gender fluidity, and sexuality fluidity existed within ancient African society, and, while their presence in the book was contemporarily relevant, he didn’t do it to appeal to certain audiences. 

“None of that was new. They end up making a contemporary statement, which is true, but that’s all old shit,” James said. 

Sexuality has allowed fantasy authors to take their characters and worlds into new, uncharted realms which many readers enjoy and relate to. The recent explosion of sexually provocative fantasy books might be jarring for some, but for many, it is just another dimension of the literature. 

McGill, News

SSMU report finds francophone students reluctant to exercise academic rights

by Juliet Morrison on

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The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) and the Commission des Affaires Francophones (CAF), released the Report on Francophone Academic Rights on March 26. The report, based on a survey conducted in April 2020, presented the impediments students face in submitting work in French and set forth recommendations to improve the application of this academic right. 

Compiled under the supervision of 2019-2020 SSMU Vice-President (VP) of University Affairs (UA) Madeline Wilson, current VP UA Brooklyn Frizzle, and CAF commissioner Juliette Chesnel, the report focusses on the application of Article 19 of the Charter of Student Rights’—an academic right that permits students to submit work in French and have it evaluated by a French speaker. 

Feedback from the report’s survey data demonstrated that 50 per cent of francophone students have not invoked their right to submit work in French during their time at McGill, despite the fact that 70 per cent of respondents said their writing skills were stronger in French than in English. 

Although professors are required to list students’ right to submit graded course work in French in their course syllabi, the report found that a minority did not. Of professors who included the academic right in their outline, 48 per cent said they received work in French over the past five years, compared to 20 per cent of professors who did not include the right. 

Some professors left anonymous comments in the survey that they had dissuaded students from handing in work written in French, citing the development of students’ English writing skills as reason for their discouragement. Juliette Chesnel, U3 Arts and CAF Commissioner, said that students should feel free to exercise their academic rights—without pressure from their professors to submit work in English for the sake of language improvement.

“At the end of the day it is not a valid reason,” Chesnel said. “The students know what is best for them and what they are more comfortable doing, so making sure they do not have a negative narrative from the professor is very important.”

Survey feedback also showed that many students opted not to submit assignments in French due to uncertainty about the grading process. Currently, when students submit work in French to a non-French speaking instructor, their work is passed to a French speaker for evaluation. Andylath Dijma, U1 Management, said she is reluctant to submit work in French because there is no guarantee that the French grader has knowledge specific to the topic of the assignment. 

“I am hesitant to write in French because I do not know how I will be graded,” Djima said. “In English, I kind of know […], but in French I do not. Especially if the person grading does not know the subject, […] I would rather just write in English.”

Some francophone students, including Arthur Courtois, U3 Arts, claim that submitting work in French is more complicated because the language of instruction at McGill is in English. Courtois said that he stopped submitting work in French because many subject-specific terms and concepts are only explored in English. 

“After a while I just stopped [submitting assignments in French],” Courtois said. “Oftentimes […] the specific terms and definitions are in English, and translating is a lot of extra work [….] It becomes easier to write in English.”

The SSMU report also contained recommendations for improving the application of Article 19. One such recommendation suggested ensuring that professors list the Article 19 right on all applicable course outlines, provide subject-specific terms and concepts in French alongside English, and supply French evaluation schemes.

Incoming VP UA Claire Downie said she plans to use campaigns such as SSMU’s Know Your Rights to bring more awareness to francophone academic rights next year.

“I would love to work with SSMU’s communications department to ensure that the campaign reaches as wide an audience as possible,” Downie wrote to The McGill Tribune. “I also think outreach with the First Year Council could be a positive relationship, because students should begin their McGill experience knowing [about] all their academic rights.”

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that a significant number of McGill professors did not list the right to submit in French on their syllabus. In reality, a minority of professors failed to include this right on their syllabus. The Tribune regrets this error.

Commentary, Opinion

McGill is responsible for confronting anti-Asian hate

by Charles C.Y. Xu on

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On March 27, my girlfriend and I were on our way to pick up sushi when a random man approached our parked car and raised his middle finger at us. As we crossed the street toward the restaurant, I heard, “F**k China! F**k Japan!” I turned around to see that same middle finger pointed at me, my ethnicity, my race, and my heritage. Blatant racism is nothing new to me—I first experienced racism at the age of six, before I could even speak English, days after my arrival to the U.S. from Wuhan, China. At that moment, I did not know that only an hour later, the same man would be filmed harassing and threatening Rebecca Ng, an Asian woman riding the Metro.

The TikTok video of the assault is hard to watch—not only because of the man’s hand gesture of a gun pretending to shoot her in the face or the Nazi salutes, but also because no bystander stood up for her. No one helped her. After viewing the video on Facebook, I recognized that it was the same man who harassed me. I knew I had to do something; I knew that this time, I could not just forget about it, as I have done so many times in the past. 

Ng and I have now both filed police reports with the hate crimes unit of the SPVM, not just to hold the man responsible for his racist actions, but to encourage others from the Asian community to stop tolerating anti-Asian racism. It is time to call it what it is, and ignoring racism only allows it to fester. The video also made it painfully evident that Montrealers can witness such horrific attacks and choose to remain silent.

The surge in blatant anti-Asian racism during the pandemic is simply a continuation of historic racial injustices and a manifestation of systemic anti-Asian discrimination. Western science has tried to categorize humans, with the white man always portrayed as superior to other people. These ideas, when combined with Darwin’s natural selection and implemented in governmental policies, directly harm minorities through Social Darwinism, eugenics, and Nazi race theory. Academia, then, helped develop and maintain social hierarchies through its imaginary objectivity and scientific authority, which has historically served as one of the founding principles of white supremacy. The history of McGill University is seeping with eugenics. Even to this day, some scientists, including Armand Leroi––who was invited as a seminar speaker in the Department of Biology on April 1––are strong advocates for the revival of race science.

“What gives a Han Chinese child the curve of her eye? The curve I read once described by an eminent Sinologist as the purest of all curves. What is the source of that curve?” Armand once wrote in a blog post.

The curve of my Han Chinese eyes come from the way I cringe when I think about how statements like “science is apolitical”—which Leroi claimed during the seminar—are used to defend the racist, imperialist, and misogynistic roots of science. Scientists are not absolved of responsibility simply because they are unaware of the ethical implications of scientific pursuits like modern neo-eugenics. Science is inherently political and continues to be used as a weapon by those privileged enough to wield it.

McGill has a large proportion of Asian students, staff, and faculty. Our ancestors were head taxed, discriminated against, segregated into urban slums, and killed. Yet, we persist. McGill’s reluctance to adequately condemn ongoing anti-Asian racism and systemic injustices is glaring. I hope that my personal experience can catalyze McGill to confront the distress of its Asian communities and create a concrete anti-Asian racism action plan to be implemented as soon as possible. The Asian community is beginning to find its voice, and it is about time we started using it.

News

Undiagnosed ADHD in women poses extra barriers to remote learning

by Ella Fitzhugh on

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As the Winter 2021 semester comes to a close, many McGill students have reported a range of challenges in finishing the academic year. One challenge in particular affects some students more than others, and often does so without their awareness: An undiagnosed mental disorder. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often goes under-diagnosed among women, largely due to differences in the way symptoms present themselves across genders and the gender-bias present in the medical field. With McGill’s mental health services coming under strain over the pandemic, some students allege that diagnostic services have become harder to access.

ADHD is listed among the Diagnostic Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and is characterized by pervasive issues with executive functioning—which include activities like attention, organization, time management, and self-control.

While individuals with ADHD often struggle academically, Tina Montreuil, assistant professor in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and associate member of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill, emphasized that the difficulty is not due to a lack of cognitive ability.

“ADHD, a lot of [the] time, affects the individual not at the cognitive level,” Montreuil said. “So when we assess individuals [with ADHD] cognitively, there are people that do really well. But, when you look at their functioning at the executive level, in terms of attention, concentration, focus, there seems to be some difficulties or deficits.”

There are two common types of ADHD: Inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive. The inattentive type is characterized by concentration issues, such as an inability to focus during a lecture, and the hyperactive-impulsive type—which is typically more present in boys—is characterized by poor impulse control and restlessness. 

Steven R. Shaw, associate professor in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill, explained that ADHD symptoms present differently in each individual.

“ADHD is one of those topics that everyone thinks they know a little bit about,” Shaw said. “But in fact, it is very difficult to make a diagnosis, and everybody who has it is very different […] It is not something where there is a typical case.”

While many students report struggling with mental health issues, an important step to treating a mental disorder is getting a diagnosis. According to Teri Phillips, the director of the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) many students have struggled to access diagnostic services this year.

“Anecdotally, and particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that accessing assessment services have been measurably more difficult due to the need for certain in-person activities as part of a thorough assessment process,” Phillips wrote. 

Statistics show that for every two males, one female is diagnosed with ADHD. Montreuil believes that gender biases present in the medical field are part of the reason behind the diagnosis gap.

“Sometimes, because of gender biases, these [symptoms] will be excused in males with the assumption that males are just less calm than females,” Montreuil said. “That is just a construct and a stereotype we are assuming. That can also impact referrals, diagnosis, and just helping in general.”

Juliette Vermes-Monty, U2 Arts and Science, spoke with The McGill Tribune about her personal experience in receiving an ADHD diagnosis and the impact that it had on her. 

“I did not get diagnosed for many years, so there was this constant battle of being too loud but not hyperactive enough to have ADHD,” Vermes-Monty said. “When I got diagnosed […] my life completely changed because […] although I did not fit the stereotype of ADHD, it made sense all of the struggles I had gone through in the past.” 

Certain symptoms of ADHD, such as hyperfixations, can be exacerbated by rigid teaching styles. Hyperfixations are a non-specific symptom of ADHD which manifest as a total engrossment in  a particular activity or interest. Phillips explained that there is a fine line between productivity and exhaustion when dealing with one’s hyperfixations.

“Counting hyperfixation as a superpower rather than an obstacle is definitely doable, […] however balance is the key,” Phillips wrote. “While focussing on an assignment for five hours straight might seem like a good idea, this neglects all the other things your mind and body need to be balanced.”

Vermes-Monty spoke about the complicated power of immersing herself into a hyperfixation, noting the importance of taking breaks.

“I sing and I play the ukulele, and also I sew,” Vermes-Monty said. “Those are things that once I start, I do not stop for hours [….] Last semester, […] I really did not have the time, and I would feel like I was wasting my time focussing on these hobbies. When you allow yourself to take breaks, it is fun to be so immersed in something.”

According to Shaw, professors who follow status quo teaching styles—often characterized by rigid grading structures, similar lecture styles every week, and rigorous academic workloads—may contribute to learning procedures that do not benefit students with ADHD.

“The undergraduate instruction can be quite uneven in terms of acceptability,” Shaw said. “You will have some professors who are wonderful in […] providing a scaffold for which things can be developed, [and] really helping students to develop skills. But you will also have other professors who may really have a difficult time avoiding the cookie cutter approach, [and] they tend to be more comfortable with that [approach].”

Vermes-Monty encouraged students with ADHD to embrace their own learning styles when navigating the learning structures in place.

“I wish that I had not been pathologized by the school system,” Vermes-Monty said. “The [educational system] is so narrow that you are bound to not fit into it, and it is totally okay. It is hard to believe that and tell yourself that […] because so much of our lives are based on how well we do in school [and] how well we fit in with the system [….] At the end of the day, if you do embrace the way that you learn and listen to your mind and your body and your intuition, it is going to help you.” 

Vermes-Monty added that students with ADHD exemplify the importance of prioritizing mental wellbeing and seeking help when struggling—two key ways to being resilient in the face of stress.

“I feel like in the past my ADHD has not been that big of an issue,” Vermes-Monty said. “Because I have had my accommodations [and] with my medication, I have been able to focus for the most part. But [last semester] was the first time that that was no longer enough for me, and I just did not really know what to do about it. This semester I just learned to prioritize myself.” 

Despite the dealing with the hurdle of dealing with undiagnosed ADHD, Montreuil urged students to continue to push forward in their journeys through university.

“We want [teenagers and young adults with ADHD] to feel as though ‘this is who you are,’” Montreuil said. “With the right environment, the right strategies, and the right accommodations, some people go on to being very successful. But it first starts with [individuals] acknowledging this and then advocating for what [they] feel [they] need to really optimize [their] potential.”

Off the Board, Opinion

Music as a way of remembering

by Ben Alexandor on

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People listen to music for three distinct purposes: To escape from their thoughts, change their mindset, or use as a narrative medium—something that can speak to one’s physical and mental situation first-hand. There is a time and place for each of these ways of listening to music: I will put on a certain album when I want to take my mind off something, but there are playlists made up of my friends’ favourite songs that are perfect before a Friday night out. Most of the time, though, music is just something that follows me around in my ears while I ride the Metro or wait for my clothes to dry at the laundromat. 

The past four years of my undergraduate degree were some of the most eventful in my life. I like to think that I have learned more about myself through the adventures that come with moving out of my childhood home to start a new chapter of my life in a different city. And during all the changes and growing pains, I found solace in the music in my library, my collection providing a soundtrack to help me through my day-to-day life. 

My spring 2018 playlist is marked by tunes that accompanied me through my first heartbreak, while my summer 2020 playlist consists of what I listened to on my solitary nighttime walks and socially-distanced park hangouts. My playlists are my life experiences catalogued by music and organized into months or seasons. Music amplifies how I am feeling at any time and reflects weeks or months of my personal narrative. To me, music functions as both a way of narrating and remembering. In the moment, it comforts me; but after the fact, it serves as an encrypted diary entry. Each playlist is a time capsule containing artifacts that only I can understand. 

With the advent of social media, the way we listen to music has also become increasingly socialized. Services like Spotify allow users to follow each other, see what other users are listening to, and collaborate on building playlists. Now, listening to music as a way to draw meaning from our experiences is something we can do together, the process helping to create shared life narratives. 

Amid the barrage of electronic communication I receive in the form of promotional emails, social media notifications, and spam calls, I always look forward to a friend sending me a playlist. In my relationships, sharing music is a show of love and inclusion in the life we are building together. It is a way of inviting each other into our lives and keeping each other in our minds. Songs on my playlists often find their way onto my friends’ playlists and vice-versa. Our bonds are strengthened by the music we share.

I am currently building the last playlist of my undergrad, which is both exciting and unsettling. I am looking forward to the adventures that lie beyond McGill, but I am also scared of saying goodbye to the student life I am familiar with. In the face of a rapidly changing world filled with uncertainty, I find myself latching onto the songs that guided me through the past four years. Just by putting on my headphones and clicking the play button, I can relive my frosh week, meet my best friend again at a pre-game for a Kacey Musgraves concert, and remember what it was like to warm up with other members of my dance company. I am sure I will revisit this music occasionally, the same way I sometimes listen to my now private high school playlists, but for now, it’s time to focus on the future and find music to narrate a new chapter. 

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Deadly pollutant PM2.5 is lacking regulations worldwide

by Henry Fletcher on

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Particulate matter (PM) 2.5 is a group of airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres found in ash, dust, vehicle exhaust, smoke, and sometimes the air we breathe. A micrometre is roughly one-millionth of a metre—about 30 times smaller than the average diameter of a human hair—and is only visible with a state-of-the-art electron microscope. With such a small size, these particles are deadly to humans: In 2015, they were responsible for an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide, 60 per cent of which occurred in Asia. The regulation of PM2.5 is a pressing concern to scientists as this form of pollution is on the rise globally. 

The minuscule size of a PM2.5 particle allows it to penetrate deep into human airways, where it can cause a plethora of health issues including cancer and pulmonary disease, which is usually induced by tobacco smoke or asbestos. Long-term exposure to PM2.5 was involved in more than four million deaths in 2019 alone—even higher than that of COVID-19, which, as of April 3, 2021, has a death toll of 2.85 million worldwide. If no action is taken to reduce the presence of PM2.5 in the air, this form of pollution will continue to be a major threat to those who are more vulnerable to respiratory illness.

In a recent study, a team of McGill researchers compared PM2.5 regulations globally, and found that 3.17 billion people live in countries without restrictions limiting the concentration of PM2.5 in the air. The study also reported that in countries with restrictions in place, the limits are often higher than what is considered safe by the World Health Organization (WHO). The researchers offered policy suggestions on how to prevent these microscopic particles from moving into human airways.

In many countries, air pollution constitutes a leading cause of death. In the United Kingdom, for example, a coroner made history by ruling that air pollution was the reason for Ella Kissi-Debrah’s death. Kissi-Debrah was a nine-year-old girl from South-East London who lived less than 30 metres away from one of the city’s busiest roads where thousands of cars expelled exhaust daily.

McGill researchers found that the concentration of PM2.5 stayed below the limit in countries where regulations are stricter, such as Canada and Australia. However, pollution limit violations were most frequent in countries with more relaxed regulations, such as China and India. Yevgen Nazarenko, the study’s co-author and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, believes that tighter regulations and standardized methods of measurement are needed to mitigate the dangers of PM2.5. 

 “We need tools that give us a benchmark allowing us to gradually reduce air pollution, disease incidence, and premature mortality,” Nazarenko said in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

The study recommends implementing universal standards of PM2.5 measurement worldwide, as well as unified global limits and clearer enforcement mechanisms. There are existing techniques such as short-term averaging, which allow for closer monitoring of spikes in pollution by recording PM2.5 concentrations for 20 minutes to one hour.

Nazarenko compared the challenges of global PM2.5 regulation to the COVID-19 vaccine distribution, explaining that keeping people safe requires international cooperation to ensure the same standards of protection for everyone—whether it be through vaccines or pollution regulation. 

“If we do not work on vaccine distribution globally, COVID-19 will keep spreading and new variants will arise that vaccinated people aren’t protected against,” Nazarenko said. “The same goes for controlling air pollution […] you need to intervene globally if you want to save people in your own country.”

After all, if there is one resource that transcends global borders, it is the air we breathe.

Student Life, Word on the Y

Word on the Y: Zoom edition

by Holly Wethey, Wendy Zhao, Maya Mau, Lucy Keller, Josephine Wang, Alaana Kumar, Leyla Moy, Kennedy McKee-Braide on

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One year into the pandemic that turned students’ lives upside down, The McGill Tribune’s Student Life team reflects on a tumultuous, yet occasionally triumphant, year. 

Holly Wethey; Contributor

For the past two semesters, I have been living in my Plateau apartment, watching Montreal go from the orange zone to the red zone, and back again. The ongoing isolation has led me to develop a habit of taking walks to decompress—leaving me with ample time for reflection. The loneliness of being the only people from my friend group in the city has made me realize how much the people in Montreal make the city so special. Though nostalgia for normalcy has certainly defined the past six months, so too have small pleasures, new experiences, and unexpected adventures. I made new friends, spent time missing distant ones, founded a magazine, drank a lot of bubble tea, and even started learning Portuguese. 

Wendy Zhao; Staff Writer

I have spent the last three semesters in my childhood home, passing most days alongside my grandmother. Our routines have come to mirror one another’s. Drinking hot water and venturing out for slow neighbourhood walks are new fixtures in my life. She prepares the same eggplant dish almost everyday, while I have found equal comfort in preparing endless oatmeal variations. I am grateful to have this time with her before I move back to Montreal for my third year at McGill. Even while surrounded by memories of a younger self, it has become difficult to feel like a kid again. I am unsure what the next year will look like, but am hopeful that a time of hugs and reunions will come soon. 

Maya Mau; Staff Writer

I have looked forward to attending university for a long time. It was strange to start my experience as a McGill student from my home in New York, but I still learned a lot from my professors and the peers I have met through remote student life. I am unsure what the future holds, but I am relieved that the vaccine rollout is underway, and thankful that I have received my first dose. While I have grown this year as a student and as a person, I look forward to experiencing in-person campus life in the near future.

Lucy Keller; Staff Writer

Everyone always says that university will be the best four years of your life. As my time as a McGill student comes to an end in these uncertain times, this phrase increasingly scares me. While I had an incredible time at McGill, I find comfort in the idea that I still have many years ahead of me to grow intellectually, make new friends, and have exciting nights out. This past year, I spent too much time on the couch pondering the years ahead of me. While thinking about the changes to come frightens me, it has made me more excited for what the future holds. 

Josephine Wang; Staff Writer

I remember the plans my friends and I had laid out for our senior year: Go to hockey games, attend concerts, try out new restaurants. Our plan looks different now––to see each other again someday. It did not dawn on me until recently that I had no idea when I would see my best friends again. This uncertainty made me feel lonely and lost, but it also prompted me to reflect on the relationships that I valued the most, and the ones I wanted to keep. So, I am okay with not knowing exactly when we will all be able to see each other again—just knowing that we will eventually is enough. 

Alaana Kumar; Student Life Editor

For many years, an acceptance to McGill was all I could think about, so seeing it end so abruptly hurts. Despite the current circumstances, I am incredibly grateful to have spent the last four years in Montreal and to have met such a unique group of friends both in-person and virtually. While my university experience was like nothing I could have imagined four years ago, I learned a lot—both academically and personally. I am graduating now with a greater understanding of what it means to work hard, be a good friend, and roll with the punches, and I think that is what makes it all worth it. Congratulations to my fellow graduates; it is quite fitting that the 200th class did it a little differently. 

Leyla Moy; Student Life Editor

To be totally honest, I am glad I will not have to worry about tripping while walking across the stage at graduation—that might be the only upside to graduating via YouTube video. Lately, I have been wondering how much the pandemic has really changed these pivotal moments in our lives: Whether all the fanfare of graduation makes the monumental change seem real, or whether all college graduates are left standing in the dust of these four years, marvelling at how it all happened so fast, and, more worryingly, pondering what happens next. Looking forward, I will know not to take anything, even the seemingly mundane—like the joy of a lukewarm samosa wrapped up in a printed newspaper—for granted.

Kennedy McKee-Braide; Managing Editor

While I have always been involved in a number of extracurricular activities at McGill, I spent most of the first two years of my degree too anxious to fully immerse myself in some of the more social aspects of campus culture. I would make excuses, telling myself that the next week, month, or year would be the one I would finally work up the nerve to branch out. During the first months of the pandemic, I beat myself up for not taking advantage of the opportunities I had when life was normal, but recently, I have come to terms with the fact that I cannot change the past. Instead, I look forward to making the most of my post-COVID life. While my last year of university next year may not look exactly like what I once imagined it would, I hope to have more opportunities to take advantage of all that student life at McGill has to offer––in person this time. 

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