The culture behind beer is evident in the lives of many people, from going for a beer with friends after a day of work, to being personally involved in the brewing process. People typically include craft beer as a part of their definition of popular culture. I first found myself being roped into the craft beer industry when I was 19, after a friend got me a job as a bartender in a busy downtown restaurant in Calgary, Alberta.
The restaurant, called Beer Revolution, was well known for having staff with extensive knowledge of each of the 24 rotating beers they poured. I had to learn ...
Fred Wah, a quintessential Canadian poet, read at an informal poetry reading and discussion at VIU October 25. Wah endeavored to explain his lifelong project, Music at the Heart of Thinking, which is comprised of several volumes. In describing its original conception, Wah said “music at the heart of thinking started at an intersection in Winnipeg in 1980. The radio was playing Doug and the Slugs. I misheard the title ‘music for the hard of hearing’ as ‘music at the heart of thinking.’” Wah continued his humour-laced, down-to-earth talk to inspire students to take an idea and run with it. ...
I don’t know about you guys, but I definitely needed some pump-up music this month to help get through midterms and the neverending essays. Fortunately, November pulled through with some catchy beats to lift my spirits. Unfortunately, I listen to these songs and break into spontaneous kitchen dance parties, and now I’m not really getting any homework done at all.
N.E.R.D. ft. Rihanna - “Lemon”
First on the list, for good reasons. N.E.R.D. is making a HUGE comeback with this song (their first released in seven years), and Rihanna rapping gives me life. I hope N.E.R.D. continues to make ...
In Bodymap, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha examines the intersection of the body’s internal realities with the effects of the outside world. Described by Annah Anti-Palindrome as “a cartographer’s worst nightmare”, Bodymap plots points in the ideascapes of transformative love and queer desire, both blood and forged familial relations, resiliency among persons of colour, surviving marginalization, finding a loving home within one’s body, and the disabled body existing in an ableist culture.
Piepzna-Samarasinha is a Toronto and Oakland-based writer who has authored Dirty River: A ...
Weekday winter mornings were frantic in my household as a fourth-grader. There was only one shower between me and my four siblings, and we all needed to be properly dressed before walking to school in the cold. Naturally, we fought over the best winter clothing. Our ages varied from five to sixteen, so we each had our own jackets, ski pants, and boots fit for our respective sizes. For everything else, however, the policy was first come, first served. There were two plastic containers on the top shelf in the hallway closet: one stuffed with toques and facemasks, the other with mittens and ...
Uncooperative weather was a factor for both the Mariners and Royals as they faced off on the pitch at Merle Logan Field for the CCAA Men’s National Championship Game. A goal by Stefan Cukovic, scored 15 minutes in, proved just enough for the Mariners to hold on and capture the gold on their home turf. The CCAA gold is the first in men's soccer for the Mariners squad since 2010 and only the third since 1983.
The Mariners controlled momentum for the majority of the game. Mariners goalie David Turkstra made key saves throughout the match that kept the Royal attackers at bay. A brief ...
Tony Trozzo just wrapped up his sophomore season playing for the Mariners golf team. The 20-year-old Qualicum beach native already has some impressive accomplishments under his belt including qualifying and competing in the Canadian Men's Amateur Golf Championship in August. He spent a few minutes with the Navigator chatting about his love for the Calgary Flames, his golf career, and a clever trick that might just save him from spending money on gas commuting to and from campus.
Tell me about your background, experience, and how you got into golf?
My experience with golf starts as ...
A favorite professor of mine recently told me to watch The Incredible Jessica James, a 2017 Netflix original movie. It had a two-and-a-half-star rating, but I decided that if it was good enough for a busy professor with a PhD, it would probably be worth a watch. I hoped to find some inspiration to further pursue my own work for the public eye, before giving up entirely.
In the movie, Jessica James, a young outspoken playwright and teacher living in New York, made her way into my heart. Played by The Daily Show correspondent, Jessica Williams, we can see the passion and devotion she ...
Tromsø is an island town nestled in the Arctic of Norway. When I arrived in early August of 2016, the sun only set for two hours each day. As the plane descended through the clouds, all I could see was rain and the tiny lights of the town below. I immediately wondered what I was getting myself into. For months, I had been explaining to friends and family why I had chosen to study in Arctic Norway for a semester. I didn’t really have a solid answer beyond wanting to see the northern lights. At the time, I didn’t know I was making one of the best decisions of my life.
My story begins ...
“There are strange things done in the midnight sun…”
As soon as eyes read, or ears hear, that famous opening line, the brain slides into its automatic rhythm. We’ve got Robert W. Service to thank for that. Why is it such a successful poem even so many years later? Yes, the content is appealing—poor Sam Mcgee—but is there another element at play with this piece that sears the poem into one’s memory? Service deserves a high-level of praise for his level of poetic skill, showcased in his legendary piece. On the other hand, is the searing effect a combination of a fine poet, but also the ...
The initial glow and optimism of the early semester are long gone, and I don’t need a calendar to know it’s mid-November. Instead, I can simply read the appearance and behavior of my classmates: bloodshot eyes, slouched shoulders, bursts of maniacal laughter and hysterical tears.
Not that I’m doing any better. Under the pressure to complete my final projects on time, I’m getting less sleep, eating more McDonalds, and spending most of my day gazing at my laptop screen. By the time I lie down to sleep, my eyes are buzzing from prolonged LCD exposure. To ensure I get out of my bed come ...
World, becomes dense
alters assumed constellation
to starry force
Masked with stellar sense.
Land into sea—
Drowned, a little-felt nation
smother another course
lest they cease to be.
Comfort, dear
Life awaits the morrow
Granted, give you patience
whether it be yours
or another’s cheer.
Clear water floods
sweeps conscience under
rug spread out
on tempered mud.
Drenched in dry air
thoughts perverse
unholy and clean
wrought with care.
In bldg. 356 on the VIU Nanaimo campus, there is a small lab where students use neuroscience to better understand human behaviour.
Michael Willden is a senior psychology student in the process of completing an honours project with the Sleep and Biological Rhythms Lab. Under the supervision of Dr. Elliott Marchant, Willden is researching how having a baby affects a mother’s sleep architecture. Willden is using a portable electroencephalogram, or EEG unit, which measures the electrical activity of the brain and correlates the activity with brain states. For example, with an EEG, one ...
For VIU historian Cathryn Spence, wills are a deadly serious business. They are not, however, merely legal documents. They also offer rich insights into the everyday world of ordinary people who lived in days gone by. “The importance of making a will in modern society—with its investments, properties, and consumer culture—is clear,” says Spence, “but making a will was no less important in the early modern period.” She also notes that, “when the majority of people owned relatively few possessions, the importance of those items cannot be overstated.”
In an Arts & Humanities ...
Are you interested in learning more about organic gardening? Do you want to meet new people in your community?
The Nanaimo Community Gardens Society (NCGS) is an organization which focuses on the education and awareness of organic gardening, located at 271 Pine Street. They host volunteer drop-in sessions every Tuesday at 10 AM, continuing throughout the fall and winter. During the sessions, volunteers have the chance to work with others and learn how to provide for their own food needs.The drop-ins will be focused on harvesting, weeding, tool preparation, and more for the next few ...
Nothing is more challenging than family.
Family members sometimes pick their relatives apart. I used to pick on my brother mercilessly when we were growing up. I thought it was funny to make jokes at his expense. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized the cost of my jokes.
He used to think I hated him. He thought every joke I made was designed to make him feel bad. Sometimes they were, but for the most part, I thought I was just being funny.
I apologized when I realized I was bothering him. He told me how much I was affecting him, and I had no idea he took my words so ...
When VIU Intercultural Program Coordinator Simon Schachner was asked to be on the planning committee for World VIU Days, he knew he wanted to do something with hip-hop.
Back in 2005, when Schachner was a VIU student, he attended an international hip-hop summit in Venezuela. The summit featured conscious hip-hop artists from around the world, as well as workshops, panel discussions, and discussion groups. Schachner was influenced by a discussion group on hip-hop as a social movement. At the time, there was global opposition to the war in Iraq, including an international event called ...
Model United Nations is an authentic simulation of the UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, and a number of other UN organs. Placing students into the world of diplomacy and negotiation, participants step into the shoes of ambassadors of UN member states, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, to debate and work on resolutions to current issues facing the organization’s real-life counterpart.
During a Model United Nations conference, students, better known as “delegates”, prepare draft resolutions, plot strategy, negotiate with supporters and adversaries, resolve conflicts, and navigate ...
How do you balance between music and life?
Well, balancing can be a challenge. Essentially, I have to accept that, while I’m a student, music has to take a back seat in my life, which means less shows than I would like. Between working, paper writing, and class time, I’m not able to give myself much time for devoted music time. That being said, music has a way of sneaking into my day to day stuff. Concepts and melodies for songs show up abruptly and seem to love interrupting me when my head’s fully engaged with something else. Frankly, I love it. It’s encouraging to me that when I ...
As precipitation levels increase and temperatures drop, road conditions are growing increasingly hazardous. To learn more about how to better prepare for winter driving conditions, I spoke to automotive mechanic Linden Schultz. Schultz illuminated three basic points: optimize your visibility, ensure everything is in working order, and be prepared.
Optimize Your Visibility
The first step to readying your vehicle for winter is ensuring your vision is not impaired by the condition of your windshield. After a summer of little precipitation, it’s easy to forget about your vehicle’s ...
It's widely acknowledged that university is stressful. Not only can the courses be difficult, but many university students are also balancing part-time jobs and other responsibilities. They may be living on their own for the first time and attempting to navigate their way into a new social environment. It's stressful, and that stress may manifest itself as something known as adjustment disorder (AD).
According to mayoclinic.org, AD (also known as stress response syndrome) is a disorder that people may experience when adjusting to new and stressful situations, such as the death of a ...
Missing buttery popcorn? This vegan popcorn seasoning can fill that void. Tasting a bit like cheese-flavoured Doritos, but better, it’s also delicious on kale chips. This batch makes enough for one cup of unpopped popcorn (or more, depending on how coated you want your kernels).
1/3 cup nutritional yeast flakes*
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp onion powder
1 tbsp oil, or to taste
1 cup unpopped popcorn
Grind the yeast, cumin, paprika, chili, salt, and onion powder together in a spice grinder, blender, or with a spoon. ...
1. Create your thesis statement. It doesn’t have to be specific yet, but you’ll need a good idea of where you’re heading. This is the heart of your essay—every paragraph should relate back to the thesis statement. If you’re in doubt about how to create one, ask your professor.
2. Write up your ideas for your essay. What insights do you have? What statements do you want to make? Why are you interested in your topic? Just one paragraph is helpful for organizing your thoughts before you begin your research.
3. Do your research before you begin writing your essay. Not doing your ...
The sweet science of boxing can help improve your physical fitness, but more importantly it can provide a network of support and fundamental skills that carry over to life outside the ring.
That’s the outlook of Rob Fillmore, coach, and man behind the scenes at Precision Boxing Club and Fitness in Nanaimo, who has turned the small boxing workout facility into a thriving network of coaches and mentors. With their help, he’s been reaching out to the underprivileged youth of Nanaimo in an effort to help keep them off the streets.
“We just try to provide some consistency, that’s the ...
