Commentary

<p>Many people took to social media to share their opinions when La Rosalia’s Motomami won Album of the Year at the Latin Grammys over Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti. I noticed two main criticisms of this decision. The first criticism is strictly about the technicalities of the music contained in the albums and the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>On Nov. 9, I drove to Halifax to undergo the final selection stages for the Rhodes Scholarship. The scholarship offers fully-funded postgraduate study at the University of Oxford in England. The selection process is rigorous: the application requires an extensive CV, a detailed academic statement, seven letters of endorsement and a personal essay addressing moral [&hellip;]</p>

<p>“We just want to go home as soon as we can.” That is the wish of a Ukrainian couple I met on a street in Reims, France, in late May. Their city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest, has been constantly bombarded by Russian forces since the beginning of the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24. My Russian [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I’m not the person I was one month ago. I poured over the reality of the 33 million people adrift or dead who spoke my language — a population nearly that of Canada crushed beneath glaciers, their lives now rotted floodwater. My body was nauseous, my anger articulate. I had felt Pakistan vividly then. I [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Collegiate sports can provide a sense of community within university campuses, but like professional organizations, teams disperse in the offseason. Athletes return to their homes and resume the lives they lived prior to joining their college teams. My life outside the Tommies surpasses athletic participation in many ways. The return to team life is somewhat [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Dear readers, It has been my great honour to tell your stories for the last year. I watched the students of this university celebrate their highest achievements and tackle some of the most profound issues. I listened to your anger and fear, but also your hope. Reporting on a community while being a part of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Journalism is something I always knew was going to be a part of my life.  When I was in elementary school, I dreamed of travelling the world and writing about my adventures and the people I’d meet — not yet knowing there was an actual job for it.  My middle school years were spent buried [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I collapsed at my kitchen sink when I got the call of a lifetime. “We’d like to offer you the position of The Aquinian’s editor-in-chief for the 2022-23 school year,” said Hannah Rudderham, The Aquinian’s current EIC, no doubt with a cheery smile on her face. What a dream come true. I remember coming to [&hellip;]</p>

<p>If anyone ever tells you student journalism is easy, tell them to take it back. When I came to university, I was somewhat shy, timid and didn’t stand up for myself. I knew I wanted to be a journalist, but after years of being told that I was “too soft,” I was determined to toughen [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The fitness industry is growing and so are its misconceptions. You don&#8217;t need shredded abs and a huge chest to be fit, but that&#8217;s not what the industry would have you believe. Most people who are spewing this misinformation have attained their bodies by using various steroids and actively try to tell you that you [&hellip;]</p>

<p>For me, hunger tends to strike at the same time as creativity. It usually manifests as an urge to bake bread. Today it starts with focaccia. Water, yeast, olive oil and flour mix starting as a pale, shaggy mass decorated with oil spots. I dump the mixture out on my less-than-clean counter and knead until [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I live in downtown Fredericton. A normally prime location within walking distance of most places and kind people to pass on the street. But this weekend was different. From Feb. 11-13, I felt unsafe in my downtown apartment. I heard horns blasting through the apartment walls and smelled diesel in the air when I stepped [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I grew up on 2000s young adult fiction: The Hunger Games, Mortal Instruments, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and the Olympians… you know, the classics. Some might think of PJO as the forgotten brother of the YA craze, but for me, it had it all. There was a plucky lead, the cool-girl sidekick and Greek mythology. The [&hellip;]</p>

<p>“He’s a very strange cat, Novak is,” Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios once said. It seems to be an effective summary. Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic attempted to play in the 2022 Australian Open while being unvaccinated. Distinctly parody-like, the attempts spanned shapeshifting COVID-19 test results, false information on travel documents, prolonged indecision on his [&hellip;]</p>

<p>In the summer of 2020, I received the phone call that every family member of a person struggling with addiction fears. I remember the crack in my mother’s voice as she informed me that my cousin Cole was found in a motel after overdosing on a mixture of Fentanyl, heroin and meth.  He was partying [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Finding student housing is a constant cycle of disappointment. I knew landlords were charging too much for rent when I saw this three-bedroom house for rent on Facebook Marketplace that was more expensive than it should’ve been. The small house on Kings College Road cost roughly $600 per person, only some utilities were included, two [&hellip;]</p>

<p>It’s expensive to be chronically ill. In a country where we have “universal healthcare,” I don’t think able-bodied people realize how pricey a chronic illness can be. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, Lupus, when I was 16. My family spent years buying medication, medical equipment and driving to appointments. When I came to [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The 2021 Met Gala was possibly one of the most confusing Met Galas I&#8217;ve ever seen.  The high-fashion event took place on Sept. 13 and had fewer participants this year due to its vaccine mandate. The theme for the event was &#8220;American Independence,&#8221; a theme that, ultimately, proved to be too vague, as attendees and their [&hellip;]</p>

<p>This year was a trial by fire. Being a full-time online student and helping Diana Chávez, The Aquinian&#8217;s editor-in-chief, run the paper during a global pandemic almost killed me. There was a wave that knocked me down every time I tried to stand up, and I thought the stress and my anxiety would drown me, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>There is no proper way to say goodbye to the publication that has shaped me into the person I am today. I always dreaded writing this letter, but I never worried too much because it seemed so far away. But time doesn’t stop for anyone. I was terrified when I became editor-in-chief. I was scared [&hellip;]</p>