For me, seventh grade was the first year of middle school. I had no idea what middle school would be like, and being new in Kelowna, I had no idea who I’d be going to school with. As the school year progressed I found my place, but I noticed something I’d never seen before. Guys were constantly going around and slapping girls asses or groping them in some way. It seemed like I was the only one not doing it. A friend of mine told me that girls like guys that are assholes, so I became an asshole.
Looking back at my own life, I can pick out multiple times where something I thought was ...
A cannabis-focused curriculum has been making its way into post-secondary institutions across Canada in the wake of the October 17 country-wide legalization. Course topics vary from applied sciences to legal and agriculture.
The Nav interviewed Glynis Steen, Dean of Trades and Applied Technology at VIU about some of the cannabis educational opportunities. VIU’s nine-month-long Horticultural Technician Foundation program is designed to provide students with a thorough understanding of horticulture principles and practices. Skills learned include plant propagation techniques, greenhouse ...
Don’t bury me in a cemetery
below the pockmarked blocks
that romanticize the forgotten.
Bury me next to an abandoned school
where memories of younger days
mix with decay.
Bury me next to a lighthouse
wherein the dark
light can still be seen.
Bury me next to a waterfall
where what has fallen
still continues forward.
Bury me where a gravestone
is not the only sight
worth seeing.
Question:
Aside from one-to-one counselling available to students, what does VIU offer to support students struggling with their mental health and to educate the student population about mental health and illness?
Answer:
Thank you for this very important and relevant question. As a society, we are still learning how to build and maintain our mental health, to prevent and recover from mental illness, and to support each other. VIU is committed to fostering well-being in the campus community. Here are some of the supports available to students:
Groups: Several ongoing groups to ...
To my naïve generation,
yielding,
too inexperienced for truth.
Politics, panic, purgatory yet untouched.
We hardly know
love from lust.
To my gullible generation,
unthinking,
with media’s unending hiss.
Bidders buy young minds.
Convinced to believe anything
we don’t believe in ourselves.
To my angry generation,
rebelling,
with misplaced red rage.
Misdirected feelings lash.
Who should we blame?
Because we’re fighting ourselves.
To my apathetic generation,
unfeeling,
with stilled hearts,
ignored into atrophy.
Not caring,
nor caring to know.
To my despondent ...
With the VIU Mariners Women’s Soccer season in full swing and playoffs forthcoming, we chatted with newly appointed Apprentice Coach Zoe Grace in order to get to know her even better. Coach Grace was among 12 candidates chosen for the 2018-19 Female Apprentice Coach Program established by the CCAA in 2004. Kevin Lindo, Head Coach of the Mariners Women’s team will serve as Zoe’s primary mentor during the 2018-19 season. Grace has five years of first-hand experience as a Mariners player, winning two provincial titles, and appearing in a pair of CCAA Nationals in her time as a player. That ...
A new academic year presents opportunities for ways education can be more affordable and accessible to students. With tuition costs ever increasing and an ongoing lack of funding from the BC government, creative approaches to addressing student debt must be pursued.
One avenue is in exploring Open Educational Resources (OER), which is supported by BCcampus and the BC Federation of Students’ #textbookbroke campaign, calls on the government to fund the creation or revision of low-cost digital textbooks. In turn, faculty in post-secondary institutions need to adopt these open-access ...
I am sick of my friends dying from preventable opioid overdoses.
Opioid use disorder is a medical condition and should be treated as such. We don’t force people with diabetes to buy contaminated insulin off the street, so why do we force people with opioid use disorder to buy fentanyl-contaminated opioids off the street?
According to the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), from January to June of this year, 742 people have died in BC from unintentional illicit overdoses. Of those 742 overdose deaths, 81 percent involved fentanyl, an opioid that is 100 times stronger than ...
The first ghost story I remember hearing came from my Irish-descended grandfather. I was about seven years old at the time, and we were sitting around the kitchen table on the farm. The conversation was amongst adults and I just happened to be in the room. Some neighbours, he said, had just buried their father. After they’d left the cemetery they went home for the wake. A short while later, the dead man walked in through the front door and stared at everyone for a long moment before vanishing.
“He looked as real as you or me,” my grandfather said. “Even the priest saw him.”
I ...
In Part 1 of this series, I discussed my general ambivalence toward “fad diets” and the factors that led up to my decision to cave to keto. I outlined the basics, boasted about bacon, and even went a little “Bill-Nye” for anyone interested in the science. As promised, this section provides an account of my personal journey with the famed high-fat diet.
The first week: When pigs fry
I woke up early and excited to start my new diet with bacon, eggs, and a lot of butter. This basic breakfast had satisfied me for years, except this time I didn’t pat the grease off with a paper towel. ...
It is always the time to think about the impacts of colonialism on Indigenous communities, but we have the opportunity to come together, as a community, to do so for the annual Sisters in Spirit vigils.
In 2005, in response to mounting evidence that hundreds of Indigenous women had gone missing or been murdered, many women and human rights groups advocated for a comprehensive action to investigation into the violence and its causes. In partnership with the federal government, Sisters in Spirit was initiated as a database of murdered and missing Indigenous women—however, federal ...
Despite a long history of student participation in activism and government, the youth vote in Canada and the province has been undervalued for years. This has resulted in party platforms not including vital student issues and concerns. Even with the NDP-Green coalition, which was greeted with much hope for reform to social issues, little has been done thus far to support the needs of students, as seen through the 2018 BC Budget. This means students are returning to university and colleges across the province with higher tuition fees and looming interest on loans.
However, this could ...
The first issue of the Navigator was released October 16, 1969. (Technically, yes, that is only 49 years ago, however, the Navigator is currently in its 50th volume, which makes this year our 50 year anniversary). Since then, much about the Navigator, and the university it represents, have changed.
The Navigator was originally the student newspaper of Malaspina College, Vancouver Island University’s official title in 1969. The school later became Malaspina University College in 1995, and then Vancouver Island University in 2008. The Navigator was formed as “The Navigator Newspaper ...
On September 7, rapper and producer Mac Miller (whose real name was Malcolm McCormick) died of a suspected overdose. He was only twenty-six years old.
Throughout my addiction, I listened to his music. It was therapeutic. I was lonely, depressed, and couldn’t stop using substances, and his words touched on each of those subjects with a rawness that gave me both comfort and goosebumps. Putting on a Mac Miller track was like talking to a close friend who was dealing with the same issues that I was. After several stays in treatment centres, I am now five years sober.
A few hours after ...
Nanaimo’s Discontent City has been a hot-button issue for residents of Nanaimo since the camp was formed in May of 2018. Discontent City is a tent city set up by Nanaimo’s homeless population as a safe place for them to live, as well as raise awareness about homelessness in the city. A tent city was briefly formed at City Hall as a protest over lack of affordable housing, and shortly after that, Discontent City was illegally formed illegally on private City property. Some citizens of Nanaimo have come out in support of Discontent City and its residents, and others have come out against ...
According to BC Coroners Service, 1,449 people died from illicit-substance overdoses in British Columbia in 2017. Compare that to the average of 206 people per year from 2000 to 2010.
Despite the province announcing a public health emergency in response, stigma regarding substance use remains at an all-time high. Here are two Facebook comments on a recent CBC Vancouver story about rising overdose deaths:
“I wish the addicts would all just die so we can get on with spending money where it needs to be prioritized.”
“Survival of the fittest, thinning the herd.”
Sadly, comments ...
VIU students have been contributing to The Nav for 50 years now. During that time, they’ve also submitted to Omniverse, Stump, Shorelines, Atrevida, The Malaspina Review, and Portal. Some have even been published off campus—usually the result of entering a writing contest.
The Vancouver Island University—then named Malaspina College—Creative Writing program was established in 1989 with the mandate to “train the writers of the future [to] make significant contributions to culture.” Since then, waves of CREW students have graduated from VIU—but where are these “culture-contributing” ...
2018 was BC's second worst wildfire season in history, following 2017 as the worst fire season on record. Over 600 wildfires burned simultaneously up and down the province this year. The provincial government was forced to declare a state of emergency to combat the threat.
Smoke from the BC fires has floated across the country, making it as far as the Maritime provinces. BC had the overall worst air quality in North America in August 2018, and some of the communities hardest hit by wildfires experienced weeks of thick black smoke that blotted out the sun.
Wildfires in the Nanaimo ...
Nighttime sighs her last goodbyes,
Sweet sunlight trickles in.
I've never moved my arm so fast,
This alarm makes such a din.
My muscles ache, my eyelids burn,
Don't ask about my head.
If I must do this every day–
I wish that I were dead.
Why, oh why, I moan, I cry,
As stumbling steps I take,
On violent crimes my mind doth dwell.
On yawns my jaw doth break.
As water boils and grain-bread toasts,
I contemplate my fate.
Another morning has come 'round,
Another one to hate.
Curious about a counsellor’s perspective on your problems? VIU students are invited to submit questions about mental health and well-being for response in a new column in The Nav. Maybe you’re wondering how to build healthy habits, cultivate calm and confidence, better manage a stressful situation, cope with anxiety or depression, tackle a challenge in a relationship, or support a friend going through a hard time. On a biweekly basis, a VIU Counsellor will respond to one question for publishing in The Nav online and/or in print issues. Please submit questions to ask@thenav.ca.
The ...
The start of the school year finds students once again facing the cost of textbooks required for their education. With an average cost of $200 per book, students are struggling with how to pay the high costs for mandatory materials.
“As if record-high tuition fees weren’t bad enough, publishing companies are gouging students with unreasonable textbook prices,” said Aran Armutlu, Chairperson of the British Columbia Federation of Students. “These days it’s common to pay $200 to $300 per textbook—but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The sticker shock of textbook prices is a ...
Last school year, VIU student Sarah Packwood pitched the idea for a disability-focused anthology during a class presentation from local publishing house Rebel Mountain Press. Lori Shwydky and Cheryl Ann Kelly of Rebel Mountain Press showed immediate interest, and plans for the anthology were set in motion.
Packwood was willing to answer The Nav’s questions about the forthcoming Disabled Voices anthology.
What is the drive behind having an anthology based around disabled voices?
Initially, I was inspired by Rebel Mountain Press’ work in providing platforms for voices of ...
The Vancouver International Film Festival, (VIFF) is gearing up for its 2018 run and is looking for volunteers to help with events. VIFF runs for 16 days in various locations around Vancouver, and the event boasts a yearly team of over 1200 volunteers.
With 21 volunteer teams there’s something for everyone. Tasks range from handling virtual reality kits, to working the hospitality lounge, to helping set up festival equipment. This year, VIFF is also accepting high school students for select volunteer positions.
VIFF hosts films from around the world, from Bulgaria to Egypt to ...
The 2018 Mariners Fall sports season is underway as student-athletes arrive on campus for the preseason.
The men's and women's soccer programs will see the biggest change this season as long-time men’s head coach Bill Merriman stepped down last spring after nine years at the helm of the program. Taking on Merriman’s responsibilities is Larry Stefanek, who most recently had been the associate head coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC Upper Island Academy squad.
The men's team, which finished 9-1-2 in PACWEST play, hosted and won the CCAA national championship last year. With a new ...
