october 10, 2012
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The October 10, 2012 edition of The OmegaTRANSCRIPT
Actor’s Workshop Theatre 7
THEΩMEGA
VOLUME 22ISSUE 6
OCTOBER 10, 2012
TRU’s Independent Student Newspaper
CUPE launches job action
Availability of gym space examined 10
World Mental Health Day 3
October 10, 20122
ON THE COVER:CUPE Local 4879 marches on Campus Commons Thursday, Oct. 4 as one of their first forms of job action over grievances with the university.
—PHOTO BY DEVAN C. TASA
Members of the university’s support staff union want a contract and they want it now.
That was the sentiment expressed through picket signs and chants dur-ing the first day of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4879’s job action Oct. 4, which saw the facilities building and the Clock Tower blocked by picket lines and a rally take place on the Cam-pus Commons.
The union has been working with-out a contract since 2010. It’s concerned about stagnant wages in the face of inflation and in-creased costs like parking as well as job security.
“Our goal was not to disrupt stu-dents and classes,” said Lois Rugg, the union’s president. “The goal in the end is to ultimately bargain a fair and reasonable collective agreement, one we can bring back to our membership for approval.”
With the job action, the union wants to send a message to the university’s administration. That message: bring something serious to the bargaining table at the next negotiation meeting Oct. 18 and 19, Rugg said.
The union has met the university 10 times during the past two and a half years, a union pamphlet indicated.
“TRU never left the bargaining ta-ble. We take this process very serious-ly,” said Christopher Seguin, TRU’s vice president advancement. “October the 18th was the earliest date the union could supply to meet with us and we look forward to that date.”
Rugg was unable to say when the next job action would take place or what form it would take. Job action can include wearing buttons, refusing overtime, picketing certain buildings or picketing the entire campus.
“It’s hard to say. It may also depend on what’s happening in the rest of the province,” Rugg said. “Other universi-ties in the province may be supporting us and we may be supporting them and there may be some action as a result of that.”
Four other universities also faced job action from CUPE locals that day, which have similar grievances with their employers. Most of those locals chose job action that only closed down parts of their respective campuses, but the one at the University of Northern
B.C. chose to close down the entire campus by picketing the only entrance.
Seguin didn’t say what the univer-sity would do in the event of more job action, but he said it would work to ensure there’s a minimal effect on students.
There were around 120 people at-tending the rally, including members from the TRU Faculty Association (TRUFA), TRUSU and local Steel-workers from outside campus.
“As students, we know that the decision to take strike action is never an easy one,” Dustin McIntyre, TRUSU’s president told the rally.
“It’s not easy for you or your family and it’s certainly not easy for our members. But at a cer-tain point, we know that you’re left with no other option.
“TRUSU looks for-ward to working with you in the coming days,
weeks and months to ensure that CUPE members are successful in this fight.”
Jason Brown, the president of the professors’ union, TRUFA, told the rally that now was a time to stand to-gether.
“There’s no doubt the [provincial] government is making it difficult for all universities and public post-sec-ondary unions,” Brown said, “but if we don’t take a stand, things are going to change and they’re not going to change for the better.”
If a student or faculty member en-counters a picket line, it’s a personal choice whether or not that person is willing to cross, as the picketers have no right to stop somebody from cross-ing.
TRUFA is asking their members to not cross. The professors’ contract indicates they can do so without con-
sequence, but they would have to for-feit their pay for that day. It’s TRUFA’s policy to provide those same profes-sors with some compensation from its strike fund, as long as they contribute in some manner to the strike.
Updates on the situation can be found on both TRU’s and TRUSU’s websites.
Ω News EditorDevan C. Tasa
Support workers take job actionCUPE Local 4879 begin picket lines and rallies in protest of grivances
—PHOTO BY DEVAN C. TASA
“...if we don’t take a stand, things
are going to change and they’re not
going to change for the better.”
—Jason Brown, TRUFA president
Nominations have opened for student representatives on the university’s two most powerful elected bodies, but there has been no change to the rules that contributed to problems in last year’s elections.
Students interested in running for the board of governors, which over-sees items like the university’s man-agement, operations and buildings, or the senate, which handles its academic aspects like creating and deleting new courses and degrees, must submit a nomination form to OM1155 by 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 22.
Voting will take place online from Nov. 20 to 30.
Yet the elections are being conducted with the same rules as last year’s.
Due to a problem discovered with the voters list and in combination with rigid timelines with those rules, the previous elections were held Dec. 8 to Dec. 22, 2011, the same time as exams and holi-days.
Only 2.2 per cent of 13,689 eligible voters cast a ballot in that election.
The Omega’s request for an inter-view with the registrar’s office, which is responsible for conducting the elec-tion, was not returned before press deadlines.
The office has placed information
about the election online and on closed-circuit screens around campus. It has also taken out an advertisement in this week’s Omega.
There is one student position avail-able on the board of governors and four on the senate.
Those elected to a board position will be expected to attend five meetings a year that take three to five hours, as well as read an agenda made of hundreds of pages before each meeting, former stu-dent member Melissa Schuurman told The Omega last year.
Those elected to senate can expect to spend four hours per month, with one hour used for the actual meeting and the rest to prepare, student senator Dylan Robinson told The Omega last year. Sit-ting on a subcommittee could add an-other two to three hours.
Robinson, who also is now TRUSU’s VP external, told The Omega he’d definitely recommend students run for these positions.
“I think it’s a really good experience,” Robinson said. “You get to meet people, like administrators and faculty, who make really important decisions about what’s going on in the institution.”
There’s also one student position available on the university’s communi-ty trust board and planning council for open learning.
Nomination forms and more infor-mation can be found at http://www.tru.ca/about_tru/elections.html.
Ω News EditorDevan C. Tasa
Nominations open, but no changes made to policy
News
East Meets West, a face-off between DJs MaRE and Erik Boog outside Old Main, was the first event held by TRU’s new Intercultural Council, Thursday Oct. 4.
“The council itself is trying to inte-grate domestic, international and aborigi-nal students because we have noticed that (different cultural groups) tend to stick with themselves,” according to Mary-Grace Maung, a TRU psychology student and member of the Intercultural Council, which formed over this past summer. “We are trying to get down all those boundaries and integrate [the stu-dents].”
There are other events on campus planned over the academic year but Maung said that for now they are just trying to become known to the student body.
The party started with MaRE (real name Vadym Nosov) onstage. He is an international student from Ukraine and when he arrived in Kamloops this sum-mer he immediately sought opportunities to DJ.
“[I wanted] to transfer electronic music from Europe to America,” Nosov said.
He said he doesn’t consider himself a professional DJ yet but an electronic mu-sic lover. “I listen to music six hours per day, all the time.”
He said in his hometown he DJed for four years in a local nightclub.
His challenger was Dutch-born Ca-nadian DJ Erik Boog who took the stage second. He has performed his craft at Kamloops nightclubs such as the Com-modore and Cactus Jacks, where he has opened for big names such as Steve Aoki, Morgan Page and Chris Lake.
Boog decided to become a DJ after one of his earliest music festival experi-ences in Holland. His mom helped him with basic music knowledge and he self-taught the rest. Last year he won a contest to play the Dutch Loveland Festival 2012.
“DJing in Amsterdam in front of 2,000 people was really nice,” Boog said.
As the night went by, the campus
commons filled with students looking to dance.
Both DJs had two 30-minute sets. To-day’s electronic beats were mixed with hits such as Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” Pitbull’s “International Love,” Psy’s worldwide hit “Gangnam Style,” and a mash-up from Oasis’ “Won-derwall” and Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” There was also spot for a special sing-a-long “Happy Birthday” for those who celebrated his or her birthday at the party.
To be environmentally friendly and reduce garbage, the Intercultural Council asked everyone to bring their own reus-able cups for water that was offered dur-ing the show.
Ω ContributorOriol Salvador
Musical standoff held to integrate cultural groups
Erik Boog represents Canada at East Meets West. —PHOTO BY ORIOL SALVADOR
publishingboardEDITOR-IN-CHIEF * Mike DaviesBUSINESS MGR * VACANTINDUSTRY REP * Mike YoudsFACULTY REP * Charles HaysSTUDENT REP* Sadie Cox
letterspolicyLiterary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste and legality. The Omega will attempt to publish each letter received, barring time and space constraints. The editor will take care not to change the intention or tone of submissions, but will not publish material deemed to exhibit sexism, racism or homophobia. Letters for publication must include the writer’s name (for publication) and contact details (not for publication). The Omega reserves the right not to publish any letter or submitted material. Opinions expressed in the Letters & Opinion section do not represent those of The Omega, the Cariboo Student Newspaper Society, its Board of Directors or its staff. Opinions belong only to those who have signed them.
copyrightAll material in this publication is copyright The Omega and may not be reproduced without the expressed consent of the publisher. All unsolicited submissions become copyright Omega 2012.
3
THE MEGA
October 10, 2012 Volume 22, Issue 6
Published since November 27, 1991
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NEWS EDITORDevan C. Tasa
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SPORTS EDITORAdam Williams
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ROVING EDITORSamantha [email protected]
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COPY/WEB EDITORTaylor Rocca
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www.theomega.ca
omegacontributors Oriol Salvador, Chris Hearn, An-drew Bates, Kai Jacobson, Luke Henderson, Mark Hendricks, Maxi-milian Birkner, Courtney Dickson, Allison Declercq
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Editorial/Opinions
Take a moment right now, if you would, to think about what it is you need to accomplish by this time next week.
I’m guessing that you didn’t in-clude much (if anything) that you enjoy. The fact that I asked you to think about what you “need to” do lends itself to the thoughts that are generally unpleasant — as press-ing as they might be — or at the very least, that’s the way my mind works. When I think about what I “need to” accomplish, I don’t im-mediately think of things I “like to” do.
A few weeks ago, this changed,
however. I began to integrate “like to” into “need to.”
Why am I sharing this with you? This past week was Mental Ill-
ness Awareness Week, and to-day — at least the day in the near future when this paper hits the stands — is World Mental Health Day.
Despite what some say regard-ing my diet and consumption hab-its in general, I believe strongly in keeping the mental side of your health in order. It’s why I spend somewhat exorbitant amounts of money on golf.
As frustratingly difficult as the game is at times, it makes it all-but-impossible to think about other stressful aspects of your life for a few hours at a time, and de-spite what some people think, it’s a pretty good physical workout, as well.
It’s also why I don’t make plans for Saturdays. I spend Saturdays with my family — and try not to think about what else I “should be” doing.
Check out Mr. Rocca’s column this week (just below this one) and try to tell me that mental health isn’t an issue you should be paying attention to.
After reading it, decide if you can afford to put off taking some
time for your own mental health.Maybe you don’t like golf. May-
be you like horses, or shopping, or road trips with your friends. Maybe you like cooking, or danc-ing, or watching horror movies in the dark.
Figure it out.Make time for these things.
As important as your education, job(s), volunteer opportunities and everything else you think you “need to” accomplish are, they aren’t as important as your overall happiness.
If you turn a few of your “want to”s into “need to”s, I think you’ll find that you’re a happier person. There’s a reason that people say you should “do what you love for a living and you’ll never work a day in your life,” after all.
I’ll never be a professional golf-er (unless I somehow miraculously learn how to putt), but I can make it more of a priority. Between that and Saturdays with my family, I should be able to keep myself mentally healthy enough.
Maybe I’ll see some of you out on the golf course when the snow (that we all know is coming, right?) thaws. My email address is right below this if you want to join me.
Mike Davies Ω Editor-in-Chief
Editor’s Note
A little “me time”
The Canadian Mental Health Association’s (CMHA) Mental Illness Awareness Week took place from Oct. 1 to 7.
The World Federation for Mental Health’s (WFMH) World Mental Health Day takes place on Oct. 10.
For students on campuses across the country and around the world, mental illness and mental health should be of con-cern year-round.
With heavy course loads, part- or full-time employment and extra-curricular activities, stu-dents don’t exactly lead the most carefree or stress-free lives. Pile on the additional stress of stu-dent debt, relationship anxiety and even a poor diet and you’ve concocted a pretty darn poison-ous stew that can eat away at the mental well-being of even the strongest individuals.
Depression: A Global Crisis, is the theme for this year’s World Mental Health Day.
According to literature re-leased by the WFMH, depression can be a result of anxiety and at its worst can lead to suicide.
Check out these scary facts about depression and suicide:
According the World Health Organization (WHO), approxi-mately 1 million lives end due to suicide in a given year, trans-lating into 3,000 suicide-caused deaths per day.
Another shocking statistic that comes from WHO — for every person who commits suicide, 20 more may attempt to end their life.
Depression is such a serious and widespread mental illness that WHO actually considers it the leading cause of disability worldwide.
When boiling down the issue to university campuses it is easy to see the impact it has on stu-dents.
The National College Health Assessment (NCHA), Spring 2000, indicated that 10.3 per cent of college students (6.2 per cent male and 12.8 per cent fe-male) reported having been di-agnosed with depression at some point in their life.
For the purposes of the study, 15,977 students were sampled across 28 different American university campuses.
Those are alarming numbers. The most up-to-date enrollment on TRU’s website states that stu-dent enrollment at the Kamloops campus (part-time and full-time students) in 2007-08 was 10,588.
If one were to use the NCHA assessment and apply it to TRU, that means 1,091 students on TRU campus would be suffering from depression.
To put that number in perspec-tive, you could f ill Heroes more than f ive times with all of those people.
Considering the time of the semester and the fact that mid-term season is approaching if not already here, it’s crucial for students to not only be self-aware but also observant of their peers and friends.
This will sort of drag back to my column from last week, “Ap-preciation simplif ied.”
One of the best things any per-son can do to help out a friend potentially suffering from de-pression is to be a listening ear. WFMH indicates that one of the most important supports for a person struggling with anxiety and mental illness is that of fam-ily and friends.
I’m not a medical doctor, so don’t consider this professional advice.
Simply put, look out for your fellow classmates. Something as simple as asking about some-one’s day or taking time to have a little vent session can make a bigger difference than you might believe.
That being said, don’t be afraid to seek out professional help if you f ind yourself strug-gling or witness a classmate go-ing through a rough patch.
A comprehensive PDF on WMHF World Health Day and depression can be found at http://www.wfmh.org /00WorldMentalHealthDay.htm.
Important contact information for on-campus services:
TRU Counselling: 250-828-5023 (Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.)
TRU Wellness Centre: 250-828-5010
Mental Health Kamloops: 250-377-0088
Mental Health 24-hour toll-free line: 1-866-661-3311
TRU campus doctor: 250-828-5126 (Monday to Fri-day, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.)
Not to be ignored: Mental health matters
Taylor Rocca Ω Copy/Web Editor
TRUe Thoughts
WINNIPEG (CUP) — When Kris Doubledee stopped the city bus he was driving one day, stepped off, and gave his shoes to a man that did not have any, he really did show the best of what humankind can offer in a time when it’s easy to give up all faith in humanity.
The other day, I heard a CBC in-terview with Doubledee and he said, “Anybody would have done it.”
No, not everybody would have done that. As the story goes, Mr. Dou-bledee noticed a man walking along the sidewalk with no shoes. The next day, he saw him again and decided to stop and talk to him. He asked the man if he would wear his shoes if he gave them to him. He said yes. So, he gave them to him.
Would anyone do that? Well, did anyone in the 24-hour period between when Mr. Doubledee first saw him and the time he gave him his shoes? Nope. Who knows how many other people saw that man walking without shoes. And, those who noticed, what would they have thought? First im-pulse would probably be “That guy is crazy!” and steer clear of him.
Or they would just think he was an-other homeless drunk.
Or perhaps they went by him and didn’t even notice that he was there — let alone that he had no shoes.
No, it’s fair to say that not everyone would give their shoes to a complete stranger on the street. In fact, I think the number of people who would do that would be few and far between in our society. I even ask myself if I would have done it. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have even thought about it, and I consider myself to be someone who is supposed to care about these things.
I talk a lot about human rights, peace, justice, and caring, but I have never given anyone the shoes off my feet. I often don’t even give out change, sadly. I feel suspicious about where the money is going instead of thinking as though I am helping someone.
Why? I suppose I am caught up in the world of stereotyping as many of us are, and face it, we all know what those stereotypes are. But Kris Dou-bledee has got me thinking about this. Have I passed anyone without shoes? If I did, why didn’t I help?! Why didn’t I notice? What if it was I with-out shoes and what if Kris Doubledee wasn’t around? Would someone else fill his shoes, pardon the pun? The answer is: not many would.
No, Mr. Doubledee, you really did do something special. You really did do something that many of us other humans would not do. But, I think that every time we hear a feel good story of human kindness it does, or at least probably should, get us thinking about our own actions in this world, even just for a short bit. And the more we hear about these stories, the more we will be inspired to follow suit. It’s fair to say that this man has inspired many, given the international atten-tion he has received – every bit of it deserved.
You’re a good man, Mr. Doubledee. You’ve done a good thing. Thank you.
Of shoes and inspiration:
Doubledee reminds us that there’s still good
in the world
The Manitoban (U of M)Chris Hearn
Take care of yourself by devoting time to “likes”
October 10, 20124
News
Rocking for a cause
Cancer sucks. Everyone has had their life affected by cancer in one way or another. Musician Matt Genshorek has a close friend — also the lead vocalist of his band I’ve Taken a Lover — who battled brain cancer and won.
Genshorek also has an aunt who sur-vived breast cancer, a grandfather who passed away from cancer and a three-year-old cousin who is recovering from leukemia.
It was cancer’s effect on his life that made him want to make a difference.
“But what can we do to help?” he said.
It was mid-August that he came up with a plan to use his passion for music to take action against the disease.
The Rock for the Cure concert came to be. On Saturday, Oct. 6, eight bands played at the Rotary Bandshell at Riv-erside Park for more than eight hours in order to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society.
People could donate on location or online.
The Canadian Cancer Society focus-es on prevention, research and support services for cancer victims and their families.
The society’s theme at this event was taking personal charge for health and against cancer.
“What one thing are you going to do?” asked Canadian Cancer Society event coordinator, Tessa Derksen. She said approximately half of all cancer diagnoses are from preventable causes and the society is trying to highlight the changes anyone can make in their life for prevention.
She and two TRU student volunteers, Ryan Turcot and Reason Chambwera, worked under the blue and yellow tent in the warm sun all day collecting do-nations and communicating to concert
goers about the easy changes to make in their lives to prevent cancer.
Turcot is a second-year communica-tions student and Chambwera is a post-baccalaureate finance student.
“People in their 20s, 30s, 40s think they don’t need to worry, but the things you do now will affect you down the road,” Derksen said.
She added that people from Kam-loops are a very generous group. “They just need an opportunity. We need to create more opportunities.”
Create opportunity is exactly what Genshorek did.
It was only a few short months ago he and Rob Wikstrom, his cancer-survivor bandmate were discussing what a fund-raising event would look like, and it was in their very first conversation that they wanted the Bandshell, in October, all afternoon.
After much hard work, Genshorek made it a reality.
Despite many hours of rallying ex-citement and building an audience, sponsorship fell short, with only Lee’s Music and 98.3 CIFM jumping on board.
“We waited as long as we could,” Genshorek said. “I wanted this show to happen, so I paid for it.”
He estimated he probably put forward $3,700 himself to make it happen.
“I don’t regret it.”The total amount raised for the so-
ciety on the day was more than $1,100, but Derksen and Genshorek are already planning next year’s event with the in-tention of building off this year’s suc-cess.
“I wanted it to be a good show so peo-ple will know about it,” he said.
As the afternoon went on, a crowd did slowly form, even those who were at the park for other reasons stopped and stayed for a set.
Papa Tee’s restaurant provided pizzas at the event and as a surprise to Gen-
shorek, donated all their earnings at the end of the day to the society.
The bands were recruited by Gen-shorek through networking. Every musician donated their time and even Calgary rock group Black Phoenix Or-chestra donated their album sales to the society. From Kelowna came Fields of Green.
A Name Unheard came from Van-couver and five more Kamloops groups filled the afternoon, including Van Damsel, Matt Stanley and the Decoys and The Fine Print. Mohsin Zaman is a local artist who signed onto the event only the day before to fill in for an in-jury.
Genshorek found time to perform as bassist and guitarist in his group, I’ve Taken a Lover.
Ω Roving EditorSamantha Garvey
VANCOUVER (CUP) — A pro-vincial plan to combine administra-tive services at B.C. universities has cast a shadow over labour negotia-tions at UBC.
The government hopes to save money by consolidating services at universities and colleges across B.C. But service and support staff unions currently striking at various B.C. universities say that this amounts to privatization and worry that some of their members may lose their jobs.
A $20 million cut is planned for the B.C.’s government’s entire post-secondary budget next year, and this plan is one of many ways for them to save some cash.
The province is calling the plan the “Post-Secondary Sector Admin-istrative Service Delivery Transfor-mation Project.” They’ve brought in consulting firm Deloitte to look at universities’ non-academic opera-tions and deduce where things can be run more cheaply.
The firm is considering whether everything from libraries to IT sup-port could be run centrally for all B.C. universities.
The union representing service and support workers on UBC’s Van-couver campus, CUPE 116, is wor-ried about what could happen if the
project goes through. CUPE 116 president Colleen Garbe said that it will result in private companies tak-ing over jobs from the union’s pub-lic-sector workers, whose job de-scriptions range from IT support, to janitorial work, to Campus Security.
“We’re not signing a collective agreement with that threat over-head,” said Garbe on Thursday.
“They have to take that away, just like [the B.C. government] took … the threat of privatization of the li-quor distribution branch away,” she said, referencing how the provincial government recently went back on its plans to privatize liquor distribu-tions when labour negotiations with another public-sector union went sour. “That has to go.”
“[UBC] doesn’t agree with it, but at the end of the day, the university told us they have no control, ulti-mately, if the government decides to contract services at UBC,” Garbe said Thursday.
But UBC plans to keep their bar-gaining with CUPE 116 limited to issues like wages and pensions, and doesn’t want to discuss this project at the bargaining table.
“Our bargaining proposals and the mandate we got from the gov-ernment were completely indepen-dent of this particular review,” said Lucie McNeill, the director of UBC Public Affairs Lucie McNeill. UBC
is participating in discussions about the project, and McNeill says that so far, she isn’t convinced that it will end with UBC staff jobs being out-sourced.
“We have not had indication that this project would entail any kind of privatization,” McNeill said.
CUPE B.C., the group overseeing collective bargaining for the many CUPE unions across the province, argues that centralized university services will wind up being less ef-ficient.
“If you’re registering for a course, as a student, and you have to phone … or email somewhere that’s not your university and the person who’s actually dealing with your registra-tion doesn’t work there, that would end up being a problem in the end,” said Jordana Feist, staff advisor for CUPE B.C.
A provincial steering committee working on the project will release a report about how to go forward by mid-October. Any decisions they make will be binding.
Minister for Advanced Education John Yap said the public may not see the report “before the committee completes its work.” Critics of the project are concerned that univer-sity staff and faculty will not get to have any input before any changes take place.
In September, the Federation of
Post-Secondary Educators (FPSE) sent a letter co-signed by the faculty associations of 19 B.C. universi-ties asking the government to hold a summit to discuss the issue. The group is worried that the plan will lead to layoffs.
“We want to talk to them about it, because we don’t really know much in the way of details,” said George Davison, secretary-treasurer of the FPSE. “We’re concerned about what may happen to students and support staff.”
Davison continued, “If serious de-cisions are going to be made … we’d hope that stakeholders would be in-volved, including … support staff unions, faculty … and students.”
B.C.’s official opposition party also has a dim view of the project. “They’re looking at [this] not from the perspective of how can we better serve students, but how can we save money,” said Michelle Mungall, the NDP critic for advanced education.
Still, Yap contends that B.C. uni-versities should be able to cut $20 million — which accounts for one per cent of the total budget for the sector — without hurting services to students.
“What we’re asking, what we’re talking about, is a one per cent op-portunity for finding ways to work more efficiently,” said Yap.
—with files from Laura Rodgers
Striking CUPE union unhappy with B.C. plan to centralize university servicesThe Ubyssey (UBC)Andrew Bates
Get involved. Contact any of our
editors to see what you can do to
see your name in print!
B.C. bands perform to benefit Canadian Cancer Society
Your stay supports YWCA community programs.
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Kamloops band The Fine Print, including lead singer Jarrett Boyetchko, plays for free at the Rock for the Cure concert to fundraise for the Canadian Cancer Society, Saturday Oct. 6.—PHOTO BY SAMANTHA GARVEY
The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 6 5
News
New California law to provide free textbooks for students
A new law in California will provide students with free elec-tronic textbooks for 50 select low-er division courses.
Californian governor Jerry Brown signed into law last Thurs-day a bill that will create a website to serve as an information com-mons where select textbooks will be available to download for free. Which textbooks will be available hasn’t been decided yet.
The law will give Californian universities the option to either create textbooks or to purchase licenses for already available text-books. Any textbooks that are cre-ated by the Californian universi-ties will have a creative commons license, allowing these textbooks to be used for free by other univer-sities.
“Many students are paying more than $1,000 every year on their textbooks,” senate president pro tem (the highest ranking mem-ber of the state senate) Darrel
Steinberg said in a press release. “Sometimes having to choose be-tween buying the books they need or paying for food and other living expenses.”
Where you can find more: www.theatlantic.com
Looking at cute things can im-prove your performance
A recent study at Hiroshima University in Japan found that looking at cute images can im-prove your performance doing ev-eryday tasks.
This study means that those im-ages that f lood your Facebook wall or email inbox with more cuteness than a puppy and kitten taking a nap together might actually be helping you in your studies and daily activities. The study mea-sured both fine motor control and concentration skills. Both areas saw significant improvement after viewing cute images.
The research team believes this increase is the cause of “cuteness-
triggered positive emotions that is associated with approach motiva-tion.”
The study is called “The Pow-er of Kawaii”, kawaii being the Japanese word for cute and can be found on the peer-reviewed open access electronic journal site PlosOne.
Where you can find more: www.plosone.org
Slums being levelled and resi-dents evicted in Rio
Buildings in Rio’s Favela do Metro slums are being levelled and the residents being evicted as Rio attempts to spruce up its im-age before the World Cup.
Approximately half the families in the Favela do Metro have been evicted and placed in a new hous-ing estate. The housing estate was not finished in time and is only able to accommodate half of the families at the moment.
This has not halted the demo-lition as earth movers are in the process of destroying the build-ings.
“It looks like you are in Iraq or Libya,” Eomar Freitas, one of the last remaining residents, told The Guardian, “I don’t have any neighbours left. It’s a ghost town.”
Residents of the Favela do Met-ro believe the city wants the area to build a new parking lot for the nearby stadium.
Jorge Bittar, the city’s hous-ing secretary, said the area was singled out for destruction due to the precarious state of the homes there.
Where you can find more: www.guardian.co/uk
Ω ContributorMark Hendricks
International Intonations
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Biological gold in the hills
A microbiologist and instruc-tor at TRU has discovered bac-teria new to science while ex-ploring caves in Wells Grey Provincial Park.
Dr. Naowarat Cheeptham dis-covered these bacteria while bioprospecting, a term used to describe searching for new life forms for practical use and com-mercialization. She hopes to discover microbes that could be used in the pharmaceutical in-dustry to benefit humans.
“Can we use their compounds they produce to our benefit? Such as anti-cancer agents or anti-microbial agents?” Cheep-tham said.
Cheeptham chose the caves because of their extreme ecolog-ical nature.
“When you talk of darkness, you don’t have primary produc-ers for energy, they complete the food web,” she said. “If you don’t have photosynthesis where do you get the energy from?
“Caves are actually a near-starved envi-ronment.”
This was the f irst bioprospecting in volcanic caves to take place in Canada. Cheeptham expect-ed the life forms to match the uniqueness of their environment.
“Wouldn’t they have unique metabol-ic pathways to be able to produce something new for us?” she said. “We can make use of their metabolic diver-sity.”
During her explora-tion, Cheeptham did discover a strain of Actinomycete bacte-ria that may be ben-eficial to the agricul-tural industry. The bacteria, at this time only known as E9, has shown anti-microbial properties against Paenibacillus larvae, a destructive honey-bee killer that causes foulbrood disease.
Entering isolated environments, such as caves, is not a simple matter.
“You have to be aware that every action you do in the cave can change the native microbial community,” Cheeptham said.
This isn’t the f irst time Cheep-tham has undergone an expedi-tion in search of new life forms. She has also done research ex-ploring ocean sediment from To-kyo Bay.
Cheeptham is not alone in her bioprospecting.
Soricimed Biopharma Inc. is a Canadian-based company in Sackville, N.B., that specializes in discovering and utilizing new microbes.
The company’s mission state-ment is: “To advance the health and wellness of humanity by developing globally applicable cancer and pain management platforms.”
Bioprospecting walks a f ine line of serving human needs and f inancial gain.
“On the one hand, our mis-
sion is to discover and deliver medical innovation to treat un-met medical management needs in various disease conditions,” Biopharma’s website stated. “On the other, our target customer/collaborator is the traditional pharmaceutical industry.”
Recently a group of research-ers discovered new microbes in some of the world’s deepest caves in Lechuguilla , N.M. The bacteria found have been in ab-solute isolation from the outside world, but have built-in antibod-ies, according to an article post-ed in http://www.sciencedaily.com.
The bacteria are resistant to nearly every antibiotic in use by medical doctors. These bacteria are challenging scientists’ un-derstanding of bacteria.
“Maybe bacteria harbor more antibiotic producing genes that we haven’t discovered,” Cheep-tham said. “The purpose of bio-prospecting gives us info we didn’t have before.
“There is other knowledge to be gained from this.”
Ω ContributorLuke Henderson
Wells Gray Provincial Park. —PHOTO COURTESY GERTHMICHAEL/WIKIMEDIA
Textbook law in California, trouble in Brazil, and puppies!
—PHOTO COURTESY JDK243/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
—PHOTO COURTESY ASA-HIKO/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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October 10, 20126
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The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 6 7
Arts & Entertainment
— IMAGE COURTESY DUPLASS BROTHERS PRODUCTIONS
TRU Actor’s Workshop Theatre kicks off this season with its first production, Village of Idiots, playing nightly from Oct. 11 to 13 and 18 to 20. Village of Idiots is about a Russian Army deserter who winds up in the vil-lage of Chelm in Poland where things don’t seem quite right to the outsider.
“It’s a farce comedy but there’s also a deeper story to it,” said Kelsey Gilk-er, a fourth-year theatre arts student who plays the part of Miriam in the production. She said the plot is usually secondary to the humour in most farce productions, but that isn’t the case with Village of Idiots. Audiences can still expect the high energy performance typical of farce comedy, according to Gilker.
As well as four classes, Gilker is participating in a work-study program as the publicity coordinator for the Actor’s Workshop Theatre, which has been a huge help to promote the pro-ductions and grow the program. Last year’s productions, A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream and Death of a Sales-man, had an overwhelming reception in the community and many sold-out nights.
“All publicity [effort] was thrown on directors, [which was then] pushed to the back of their mind because they’re focused on the show,” Gilker said.
The lead character Yosef is played by Jared Rashke, who has been co-lead in past productions but this is his first time taking centre stage of a major pro-duction.
“I’m more excited than nervous,” he said.
In the theatre arts program, stu-dents take courses not just in acting but directing and technical production among other subjects. Raschke said he would like to one day work in techni-cal production while Gilker would like to continue to work in promotion and publicity.
Students are responsible for all aspects of the production including lights, costume, hair and makeup, set and props. Rascke built several props himself.
Positions in the production are open to all students and a handful of the 17-member cast comes from other departments, such as business admin-istration. The core is mostly made up of fourth-year theatre majors who have known each other and worked closely for three previous seasons.
Village of Idiots was written by John
Lazarus, a prominent Canadian play-wright.
“I love that we’re doing a Canadian work,” Gilker said. “People don’t al-ways recognize it... It’s important for us to be showing it off.”
The community of Kamloops has been a support to the group. Western Canada Theatre has lent equipment and set pieces to the TRU department. Occasionally, the company opens its auditions to students which gives them experience in the professional world.
“They’re a wonderful support to us,” Gilker said.
This year the theatre underwent a facelift, drawing attention to the en-trance with a dramatic black finish. Raschke said it’s good to highlight the place as last year he met students who didn’t know TRU had a theatre major.
Ω Roving EditorSamantha Garvey
Actor’s Workshop Theatre: Village of Idiots
—PHOTO BY SAMANTHA GARVEY
Dragonette played a sold out crowd at Cactus Jack’s Saloon on Oct. 2 and those fixin’ for a thrill left thoroughly entertained.
They brought a long list of open-ers for a triple bill. Data Romance, a moody electro duo brought Bjork- like vocals, tons of percus-sion and a bit of synth.
The show really picked up with Young Empires, a four-piece group from Toronto. Leading with a fast rhythm and building on it with a keyboard and guitar Young Em-pires created an incredibly dance-able mix, pumping up the bass to nasal cavity-shaking levels at times. By the time the band left, the dance f loor had filled up and people were in the mood for more.
Dragonette brought it with pixie-punk lead singer Martina Sorbara jumping right into one of their ear-liest single, “I Get Around.” Sor-bara was more than happy with the attention from the energetic crowd, dancing and strutting across the stage, her small stature augmented by an intense light show.
Despite enjoying the, at times literal, limelight, Sorbara was a lit-tle jealous of those in front of her.
“I wanna be with you, on that side,” she shouted over the fence.
With Dan Kutz playing a vari-ety of instruments and drummer Joel Stouffer setting the pace on drums, Dragonette was able to play a variety of extraordinarily electro-dance-pop-rock. An up-tempo 13-song set (plus an en-core), disappeared quickly with a very fast hour up on stage. Part of this was due to the occasional melding of four songs at a time into super-mixes.
While the first two-thirds were strong, the last three songs really riled up the crowd, with “Hello” leading into new single “Let It Go.” By this time the workout on stage got to Sorbara as she climbed on a security member and inserted new lyrics into the band’s megahit.
“Alright, you should sing this part so I can take a drink,” she sang, holding a cup of water at the
ready. The crowd happily obliged with a big, “I just came to say hel-lo!”
A high-speed rush of a bouncy, electro dance rock night, Dragon-ette concerts are always for those willing to get a workout on the f loor.
Check out more photos from the show at theomega.ca.
Ω Arts & EntertainmentBrendan Kergin
Fixin’ to thrill
Safety Not Guaranteed tugs at the heart. While 300 words are usually enough to destroy a time travel f lick, if you take it with a few grains of salt and ignore Aubrey Plaza’s one-muscle face, there is story enough to keep your eyes off your watch.
Let’s skip the inevi-table time travel movie comparisons with Back to the Future or The Ter-minator.
S a f e t y Not Guar-a n t e e d ’ s r e d e e m -ing feature is that it spends a lot of laughs on comic relief and very few snores on the complications of time travel.
The story kicks off when a reminiscent, lost-in-life report-er named Jeff (Jake Johnson) and two deadpan interns, Dar-ius (Aubrey Plaza) and Amau (Karan Soni), go on assignment to Oceanview, Wash. to get the scoop on ragged eccentric Ken-neth Calloway (Mark Duplass) who has placed an ad in a news-paper looking for a partner in time travel.
While her two friends go on the prowl for libidinous teen girls, Darius embarks on an al-
most-personal mission to f ind out what Kenneth is all about.
Predictable romance ensues, peppered with anti-climactic ac-tion sequences and some mildly-insightful dialogue.
From where it picks the audi-ence up, Safety Not Guaranteed drops them just as far.
Things take a dramatic turn from a campfire make-out ses-sion to the appearance of B-
movie secret agents and a twist in the plot.
The cli-max is as quick as it is pe r plex i ng , while still being heart-w a r m i n g and leaves you won-dering what really hap-
pened.The only thing that makes this
a 21st century movie is a men-tion of Facebook and the use of smartphones. Everything else is 1985.
Electric-blue lightning bolts even make an appearance, leav-ing you to speculate what com-munity college actually pro-duced this thing.
Safety Not Guaranteed is a throwback to the accidental feel-good f lick that got you laid in high school.
On a Thursday night in Kam-loops at the Paramount Theatre, that’s good enough.
Safety Not Guaranteed
Ω ContributorMiximilian Birkner
TRU Career Mentoring
Networking 411 > Grand HallOctober 23, 2012: For all studentsJanuary 28, 2013: Faculty of Adventure Tourism, Culinary Arts and Tourism January 29, 2013: Science / Animal Health / Health Sciences January 30, 2013: BusinessMimics “speed dating” format
> Meet with 5–7 professionals over 90 minutes > Answer your career questions in quick group discussions > A wide variety of industry professionals will be present
MC1
1704
7
Discover the Strength of Networking
www.tru.ca/careermentoring
Mentor Connections: 1-on-1 Pairing > Culinary Arts buildingOctober 29, 2012: Online Application Deadline (registration limited) November 7, 2012: Pairing Reception > Based on your registration information,
you are paired 1-on-1 with a mentor > Meet your mentor at our pairing reception > Subsequent meetings are at the discretion of the pairing
Career: TALCC Series (Timely Advice Linking Campus and Career)> Available Upon Request > Program specific panel discussions with industry professionals > Students are encouraged to suggest the career focus > Learn who is being hired and why and increase your career understanding
To do List1. apply for TRU awards and bursaries
2. study for next exam3. attend Career
Mentoring event4. Start my career!
—PHOTO BY SAMANTHA GARVEY
Film review:
SEE THEATRE p. 9
October 10, 20128
Space pop powerhouse Grimes may have only been making music for the past two years, but she’s been impactful in that short period of time. Based in Montreal, though originally from Vancouver, she already had an interesting life before becom-ing a major player in Canadian indie, attempting a riverboat trip down the Mississippi River. When that met an early demise, she came back to Canada and started in on music.
Her inf luences are varied and she herself described the music as “ADD music” to W Maga-
zine. A woman of the digital era, space pop is the easiest way to describe the futuristic instru-mentation and layered vocals that go into a Grimes piece.
Synths, and keyboards in gen-eral are common, with her vo-cals often providing additional melody. Rhythm is generally 80s-esque drum machine mate-rial and at times a dark and ag-gressive presence.
Successful in England and Belgium, she’s well regarded in Canada’s indie scene and by the more pretentious music fans. “Vowels = space + time” off of her Polaris Prize Short List achieving album Visions is an excellent introduction to melo-dious digital work.
Lindsay Ell is a singer-songwriter from Calgary, Alta.
Though not blatantly country, it could be argued that Ell’s recent sound falls into the country genre. On her 2006 release Consider This, Ell deployed a much more pop-rock-inspired sound.
“Seize the Moment” is lyrically inspiring and empowering song that opens up Consider This on a positive note. “Let Me Keep Fallin’” has more of a bluesy flavour to it, though still keeps aligned with the overall pop sound that the rest of the album carries.
2009’s Alone marked a departure from the pop sound featured on Consider This as Ell dabbled with an acoustic country influence.
Using an acoustic guitar to drive her songs, Ell has worked alongside Canadian rock legend Randy Bach-man.
Apart from working with Bach-man, Ell opened up a Keith Urban show in Halifax, N.S. on Aug. 19. While she might not be a household name on the Canadian music scene, she is certainly getting noticed by some heavy-hitters within the in-dustry.
For those looking for an easy, soothing tracklist to sit quietly and read a good book to, Lindsay Ell is worth checking out. Her silky vocals allow listeners to slide into a com-fortable chair and simply let go.
Other worthy tracks for a taste of what Ell offers include, “Might As Well,” “Fallen House,” “High Hopes” and her cover of Jann Ar-den’s “Good Mother.”
Ω Copy/Web EditorTaylor Rocca
Ω Arts & Entertainment EditorBrendan Kergin
Arts & Entertainment
Lawrence, Where’s Your Knife? — released in 2011 — is the Crooked Brothers’ second album. Recorded in a cabin in the band’s native province of Manitoba during the middle of winter, makes it tough to get the impression these guys aren’t dedicated to their craft.
Darwin Baker, Matt Foster and Jesse Matas make up this multi-talented trio. All three write, sing and play the music.
The f irst track was strategi-cally chosen to engage listeners with a great beat and raspy vo-cals.
Following that, the album slows down for more than 15 minutes during tracks two to f ive. If it weren’t for the poetic lyrics, it would be easy for lis-teners to check-out.
The sixth track, “Up the Mountain,” starts off with a banjo solo comparable to intro-ductions of many contemporary country songs. Despite this, the vocals are anything but modern. Though the Crooked Brothers consider themselves primarily a roots and folk band, listeners could argue that classic country
is a more appropriate way to de-scribe the group’s genre.
“Good Man” is the big f inale on this album and can be heard as nothing less. Johnny Cash himself would have been privi-leged to provide a voice for the lyrical genius and smooth har-monica that sets this song apart from the rest of the album.
The group is on a break after a summer of touring but will be
making a few appearances in Manitoba, Alberta and the Yu-kon throughout the fall. Recent-ly returned home from a tour in Europe, the band’s lyricism seeps onto its website as well; even updates from the tour are written in a poetic style.
Fans will appreciate the soul that went into this album, re-gardless of how they react to the genre. The passion these men
Ω ContributorCourtney Dickson
Album review: Lawrence, Where’s Your Knife?
—IMAGE COURTESY TRANSISTOR 66 RECORD CO
Canadian Music Corner
PAID ADVERTISEMENT (TRU Registrar’s Office)
On March 31, 2005 the Thompson Rivers University Act created three governing bodies for TRU: the Board, the Senate, and the Planning Coun-cil for Open Learning.
Please see the ‘TRU Board, Senate & Planning Council Election Proce-dures’ document dated January 25, 2010 for details. It is available on the TRU web site at tru.ca. Search on ‘Elections’
I) The positions on the three governing bodies which need to be filled through the election process are as follows:
Nominations: All candidates for election must be nominated in writing by three individuals eligible to vote in the election for the candidate. Nomi-nation forms are available on-line at tru.ca. Search on ‘Elections’.
BoardStudents:
1 (One) Student nominated from students who are members of the TRU Student Union but elected by all TRU & TRU-OL students (1 year term)
SenateStudents:
4 (Four) Students nominated from and elected by TRU & TRU-OL stu-dents (1 year term)
Support Staff:
1 (One) Support staff, elected by the support staff (2 year term)
Teaching Staff Open Learning:
1 (One) Member from the teaching staff in the Open Learning Division, elected by members of the teaching staff in the Open Learning Division (2 year term)
TRU Community Trust (TRUCT)(For more information about the TRUCT, please view on-line at: http://www.tru.ca/vpadmin/university_village.html )
Faculty:
1 (One) Faculty member elected by and from all of the TRU faculty mem-bers (3 year term)
Students:
1 (One) Student nominated from and elected by TRU & TRU-OL students (1 year term)
Planning Council for Open LearningStudents:
1 (One) Student nominated from TRU-OL students and elected by both TRU and TRU-OL students (1 year term)
II) The timelines for the 2012 elections are as follows:
October 1, 2012 – The Voters’ Lists are available for inspection at the TRU Registrar’s Office in Kamloops and Williams Lake.
October 1 to October 22, 2012 – Nomination period: All nomination forms must be submitted to the Registrar by 4:30 p.m. on October 22, 2012. The Registrar will acknowledge receipt of all nomination forms from nominees.
November 20 to November 30, 2012 – Voting period for online secret bal-loting: Voting will close at 4:30 p.m. on November 30, 2012. All online ballots must be submitted and paper ballots received in the Registrar’s Office by the close of voting. No ballots will be accepted by the Registrar after the close of voting.
December 7, 2012 – Announcement of results on the TRU website and by e-mail
III) Proposed Meeting Times (subject to change):
Board – meets 5 times per year with some additional committee meetingsSenate – the fourth Monday of each month, 4:30-6:30 pm, except in July and AugustTRU Community Trust – TBAPlanning Council for Open Learning – meets 2 times per year - dates and times to be determined
IV) Meeting Attendance for TRU Employees and Students:
Meetings will take place in Kamloops. For those not in Kamloops, tele-conferences will be used and in person attendance will be arranged when necessary and appropriate.
Elected representatives will commence their term in office in January 2013.
Questions and requests for nomination papers:Nomination papers are available on-line at tru.ca (search on Elections), or from the TRU Registrar’s Office: in Kamloops or (Phone: 250-828-5032) or e-mail ([email protected]); for the Williams Lake Campus (Phone: 250-392-8000).
Secret Broadcast rolled into town Oct. 3 for a show at Heroes amid its cross-Canada tour supporting the Hungry Ghost EP. The recent signees to eOne, originally from Calgary, are on the way back home for the official album release.
Sounding like a mix between Nir-vana and Radiohead, Secreat Broad-cast played a short set of indie rock. Starting off with a classic sound, the set occasionally grew into moments of epic proportion, using a driving guitar presence to maintain the small-time indie charm.
Vocalist Matt Lightstone sings like he means it, with enthusiasm in the words he’s written.
Hardly a soul showed up for the concert. A planned two sets were trimmed to one as the doors opened at 7:30 p.m. without a person to let in. Never did the number of audience members outnumber the number of people working.
While no doubt disappointed by a comically small crowd, the band persevered and played nonetheless, working through a variety of material, including most of the Hungry Ghost track list. Lightstone took to the mike like it was any other show and played like the front-man of a rock band, leaping and having fun. The set-up at least offered the chance for a full dress rehearsal before a much bigger show in Calgary.
So, to the students and music fans who decided to stay home Wednes-day, you missed a good show from a band playing indie-garage rock with moments of grandeur.
Truly a Secret
BroadcastΩ Arts & Entertainment EditorBrendan Kergin
The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 6 9
It’s hard to make friends here. Or maybe I don’t want to.
Agreed. Sometimes I feel I’m better off by myself than with people, being fake.
You are beautiful. You are loved.Maybe all of us who have written here should meet up?
How can we? We’re all the same person.
- Five anonymous women on a bathroom stall at UBC
Stalled is a 15-minute f ilm based off a collection of more than 800 quotes from bathroom stalls across North America. Meghan Gardiner, scriptwriter and actress for all the charac-ters, collected the quotes for three years as she toured for her play Dissolve.
She came up with the con-cept after coming across a de-bate about abortion on a bath-room stall at the University of Toronto. She found herself en-thralled by the similar messages and their dark sides that thread across North America.
“Why did someone crouch down to write ‘I throw up my food’ under the toilet?” Gardiner asked herself.
The f ilm focuses on four prominent themes she found
Arts & Entertainment
Time travel leads to messy plots. The more a story discuss-es its intricacies, the more issues arise. Looper is a f ilm where plenty hinges on time travel and the mechanics surrounding it, which are all unknown and un-certain. While writer/director Rian Johnson tries quell them, there will always be issues.
The story puts us a little more than 30 years in the future, where the mob has control of an unnamed dystopian city.
Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a hit man for the mob, but not thug or assassin -- he’s a loop-er -- someone paid to kill those sent back from the future to be killed.
This is apparently the most ef-f icient way of making bodies dis-appear from the technologically-advanced future where tracking devices are commonplace and time travel has been invented and immediately banned.
As part of the job description it’s agreed that the loopers will, at some point, have to kill their future selves, completing a loop.
This is where the movie takes off. The f irst portion explains a lot; when telekinesis came into existence, the mobs rule, loopers and establishing a fairly solid setting.
Bruce Willis’ arrival and sub-sequent escape as a future Joe is where things get fuzzy, with paradoxes and time-related memory loss.
It’s also at this point new major characters get involved, which is a hiccup at f irst, but the
movie is long enough to absorb the impact of the late additions.
Looper is a conceptually a strong f ilm and despite being action packed and sci-f i, it has plenty of moral questions with some dark ethics.
The climax involves no real villains and two perfectly under-standable viewpoints facing off in a life-or-death situation.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a strong central f igure and his Joe does express some charac-ter growth. Though slow at f irst, he eventually catches up to the unique situation he’s in.
Bruce Willis’s Joe, on the oth-er hand, is fairly one-dimension-al with a couple strong scenes. It’s not Willis’ acting, but the
writing that leaves him f lat.Aside from Joe (all versions)
most characters are fairly gener-ic, but this is acceptable as the real issue at hand for the major-ity of the movie is time travel, knowledge of the future and destiny. Plenty of the audience’s brain power is needed to unravel things like why the mob doesn’t want to kill Levitt or how Willis’ memory might be working at any given moment.
For the time travel fans, a def-inite must see.
For people looking for a more straightforward action f ilm this might be a little diff icult at times. Looper is not a bad f ilm to sit back and think about from a cool distance.
Ω Arts & Entertainment EditorBrendan Kergin
Film review: LooperGeneric characters don’t mean you’re in for a straight-forward Sci-Fi romp
—IMAGE COURTESY DMG ENTERTAINMENT
Film Review: Stalled
Ω ContributorAllison Declercq
Entertainment blends into awareness
Puzzle of the Week #5 – Whodunnit?
The murder. The suspects. The detective: you.
There are three suspects: Tom, Dick, and Harry. One of them always tellsthe truth, one always lies, and one alternates between telling the truth andlying. They each made two statements.
Tom:
1. “Dick always lies.”
2. “I sometimes lie and sometimes tell the truth.”
Dick:
1. “I didn’t do it.”
2. “Harry did it.”
Harry:
1. “I am innocent, innocent I tell you!”
2. “Tom always lies.”
Whodunnit?
This contest is sponsored by the Mathematics and Statistics department. The
full-time student with the best score at the end of the year will win a prize.
Please submit your solution (not just the answer but also why) by noon next
Wednesday to Gene Wirchenko <[email protected]>. Submissions by others are
also welcome. The solution will be posted the Wednesday after that in the Math
Centre (HL210A). Come visit: we are friendly.
Contact [email protected] review films, albums, books or
theatre productions for us!
among the anonymous quotes of graff iti: eating disorders, drugs, sexual assault and bullying. Its f ive characters span ages, na-tionalities and eras in an effort to encompass women from all areas of life.
An elder female janitor leads the journey, f inding graff iti on each stall and transforming into four different women experienc-ing different problems.
“Each character is stalled,” Gardiner said of them during the discussion afterward, as she and the audience explored how the f ilm addressed each issue through the characters.
A look at some quotes brought poetry to mind while others seemed like an attempt to con-nect.
“If you write it on the wall you either love it, crave it, or hate it,” wrote an anonymous person from an unknown bathroom.
Gardiner also described her desire to explore the difference between art and cries for help.
“Do these women come back to see if there was a response?” she asked.
In the f ilm one of the charac-ters wrote a poem – one found on a bathroom stall in reality – written by several anonymous contributors.
Discussions on stalls can be shocking and deep; “Is it be-cause they are more anonymous than Facebook?” Gardiner asked the audience.
The f ilm was f inished f ive days before it was shown at in the Clock Tower at TRU on Thursday, Oct. 4, making the viewing the premier of Stalled. Though the f ilm was only 15 minutes, discussion continued well beyond 7:30 p.m. as Gardin-er worked “to f igure out where the impact lies.”
The audience members, the majority women with a handful of men, voiced their opinion on the f ilm, the issues and their ex-periences with stall discussion.
As Gardiner had hoped, Stalled ended up being “entertainment first, awareness second.”
In addition to the new look, the schedule has also been altered to start several weeks earlier than last year, in order to avoid any productions that might interfere with exam schedules or students that have already returned home for the winter or summer breaks.
On the Oct. 13 showing, a din-ner theatre experience will be offered, where patrons can enjoy a meal by the Culinary Arts de-partment before seeing the show for a ticket price of $65.
Upcoming plays this season are The Good Soul of Szech-uan at the end of November and Curse of the Starving Class in February and March 2013.
Tickets are $12 and can be pur-chased at the box office in Old Main which is open weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. or at Kamloops Live Box Office at kamloopslive.ca.
THEATRE...from p. 7
October 10, 201210
A new yoga program started by the TRU Wellness Centre at TRU is taking a different approach to help-ing those fighting mental illness.
“In general, all campuses are struggling with how to help students with these issues [depression and anxiety],” said Chelsea Corsi, the wellness coordinator at TRU.
“More and more students aren’t only students. There are so many demands on them like having jobs or being parents.”
The TRU Wellness Centre runs nine free classes each week that are aimed at help-ing students and staff maintain their “physical, emotional, so-cial, intellectu-al, occupational, and spiritual well-being.”
Par t icipants can find classes on everything from meditation and belly dancing, to Piloga (a blend of Pilates and yoga) and desktop yoga. The implementa-tion of yoga classes geared specifi-cally towards treating mental illness is something new to the centre this year.
Previously, the Wellness Centre offered workshops that were geared at giving staff and students infor-mation and resources for issues of mental illness. The new direction is an effort to give those in attendance specific tools for helping their men-tal well-being, according to Corsi. In a time where people are so con-nected to those around them, taking time to disconnect and recharge is more important than ever.
“We need to reduce the stigma
surrounding mental illness,” Corsi said.
“One in five will experience men-tal illness in their lifetime, either themselves or through connection to someone else. We need to be more accepting, open and aware.”
Yoga is a popular way to help stu-dents as Jesse Faubert and his sister Phelan found out earlier this year. The siblings started the TRU Yoga Club, a student group with TRUSU and had more than 103 sign-ups in their first afternoon at Clubs Day.
The club is still young and just re-cently had their first meeting but interest has been impres-sive.
“We’re look-ing not just to have yoga class-es but to be able to build com-munity,” said Jesse Faubert, a pre-MBA stu-dent. “We’re just stoked about being able
to start something like this at TRU.”Both the TRU Wellness Centre’s
depression and anxiety yoga classes and the TRU Yoga Club’s classes are slated to begin in the next few weeks, just in time for students who will be heading into the busiest parts of their semesters.
While the groups aren’t officially connected in any way, Corsi said she would love to see if there are any op-portunities for the groups to partner in the future.
Regardless of the directions each group takes, there will be plenty of opportunities for students and staff to engage in yoga on campus this semester, whether they’re just look-ing to get some exercise or to battle the stress that is all too prevalent on university campuses today.
Sports
Limited gym space
For an institution its size, it could be argued that TRU lacks gym space. The Tournament Capital Centre (TCC) and the Old Gym are both constantly in use and while they do an amicable job of housing the sports they do, there’s not exactly extra space for individuals or groups hoping to put on a sporting event. Which is exactly the problem that Garrett Horvath ran in to a few weeks ago.
Horvath is a second-year law student and the organizer of the TRU Dodgeball Club.
With more than 140 play-ers registered in the league, the Dodgeball Club is the largest on TRU’s campus and they nearly had to close the doors on their season before it even began. The reason? They couldn’t find any-one who was willing or able to rent them gym space for their weekly games.
“It’s an uphill battle just trying to get anything done in this town that requires a gym, unfortunate-ly,” Horvath said. “Like I said in my email [to The Omega], my high school has more gyms than this university.”
He attempted to reach out to
resources on TRU campus. John Shephard, the athletics
and recreation assistant facili-ties coordinator, said WolfPack sports and special events use up the bulk of available space, ac-cording to Horvath. Similarly, Horvath claims that Pina Russo, the campus recreation coordina-tor, said no weekly “open gym” space was available when he ap-proached her for help.
“I’m doing everything I can to get it running,” Horvath said. “So hopefully it will work out.”
With the help of TRUSU and the Kamloops Sports Council (a local sports advocacy group) Horvath managed to secure a booking for a local elementary school gym and the league was able to continue, having only missed one week of scheduled games.
Horvath’s situation highlights what might be a larger issue on campus.
Does TRU need more gym space? After all, the Dodgeball Club is a part of the students union and is made up of students and alumni. It seems a little hard to believe they have to leave campus and rent an elementary school gym to be able to play their games.
If it’s not an issue of gym
space, with demand like Horvath is outlining, is it time for Cam-pus Recreation to take over the league?
“That’s ideal, because then I wouldn’t have to [run the league].The only reason I started this league up is because I wanted to play dodgeball,” Horvath said. “That would be so awesome be-cause it would reduce the cost on everyone and make it just a regu-lar part of the campus. Look at University of Alberta, they had
the largest dodgeball game in the world. Other universities see the value in the sport because you get people out doing exercise, it takes very little athleticism.”
The Omega attempted to con-tact Shephard and Russo via phone. Neither responded by print deadline.
Whether the issue is gym space or the priority sports are given within Campus Recreation, one has to beg the question, why is dodgeball still a peripheral sport
at this university? As it stands, the Dodgeball
Club is in operation for another year and in an email to The Ome-ga the first week of games “went really well,” according to Hor-vath.
Let’s just hope that the TRU Dodgeball Club always has an organizer who is this committed, because without the support of the university or Campus Rec-reation, the club itself could be short-lived.
Ω Sports EditorAdam Williams
Does TRU have enough floor-time available for those who would make use of it?
Alex Walker, Kris Henderson, Mardi Edmunds and Eric Rines of “Seal Cub Clubbing Club” of the 2011/12 Kamloops Dodgeball League.
—PHOTO BY TAYLOR ROCCA
WolfPack Scoreboard
Downward dog has students looking upΩ Sports EditorAdam Williams
Women’s Soccer
Saturday: 2-0 victory over Douglas CollegeSunday: 3-0 victory over Kwantlen
Men’s Soccer
Saturday: 1-0 loss to Douglas CollegeSunday: 3-1 victory over Kwantlen
Hockey Oct. 6 - Season Opener:
WolfPack vs. Trinity Western: 8-6 WolfPack
Baseball
Saturday, Oct. 6 and Sunday, Oct. 7
WolfPack vs Douglas College: 6-3, 5-3, 7-2, 5-3, sweep for the Wolf-Pack
Golf
7th place team finish (632)
Top TRU golfer: Nic Corno 15th (151)
Winners:
Individual: Aaron Pauls of UFV (138)
Team: University of Fraser Valley (586)
—PHOTO COURTESY ROBERT BEJIL/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
“One in five will experience
mental illness in their lifetime.”
—Chelsea Corsi
The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 6 11
Across
1. Stopping point5. Mischievous god9. Regional flora and fauna14. Accomplished15. Masculine side16. ___ management17. Gain wealth wrongfully20. UK soft drink21. Perennial plants22. Refines25. Clear26. Provided relief28. Back talk32. Conelike structures37. Window alternative38. Subject of parent-child talk41. Alleviated42. Some eyes and teeth43. “Isn’t it a ____,” Harrison
song44. Old Faithful, e.g.46. Other side47. Italian city53. Pristine58. Mexican bread59. Confess62. New World lizard63. Gulf leader64. Fill beyond full65. Less66. Fishing site
67. Genuine
Down
1. Drifts2. Crosswise, on deck3. Grassy plain4. Surrender5. Burn cause6. Galley tool7. Turning point?8. Slight, in a way9. Established10. ___ of Court11. S-shaped molding12. Check13. Fine things?18. Radioactive19. Chisholm Trail town23. It grows on you24. Young herring27. “Rock the Boat” music28. Bronx cheer29. Brings into play30. Bug out31. German historian Joachim32. Dance bit33. Pad ___ (noodle dish)34. Leftovers35. Mind36. Nod, maybe37. Pop-ups39. Astringent substance
40. Perceive44. Arias, usually45. Looked secretly46. Manicurist, at times48. Place for sweaters?49. Perspicacity50. Bartender on TV’s Pacific
Princess51. Needle point?52. Still53. One of seven branches54. Supreme Court count55. Singer Phoebe56. Rake’s look57. It’s just for show60. Melody61. Blubber
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