#queen'suproblems

In the age of do-it-yourselfers, Lena Dunhams, and ping-pong ridden advertising agencies, our generation, the one that is about to make the leap into the professional world, is fascinated by the dream-like idea of taking our passions, and turning them into a professional reality, where we’re paid to have a beer whilst working around a collaborative Eames desk.

The dilemma, of course, that always wakes us from this euphoric dream, is that we don’t know what kind of new-age company will hire us, and we definitely don’t have the money to go it on our own, so sometimes these dreams can seem unattainable. But what if they weren’t?

Enter: Neil Martin, a Queen’s graduate, innovative businessman, and an advocate for entrepreneurs. Martin is the co-founder of two cooperative workspaces, Project: RHINO and Project: OWL, both located in the heart of Toronto, that are aimed at helping people cultivate their creative ideas in a professional setting.

Martin knows all too well the trials and tribulations of today’s workforce, and as a result of these hardships, knows that the growth in freelance work has left many a creative professionals in need of affordable workspace; Martin took this understanding and made coworking his niche, and thank goodness, because the only thing more affordable than renting shared workspace, is your parent’s basement…

So why are Project: RHINO and Project: OWL such a refreshing take on workspaces for creative professionals?

1. COST: Both coworking spaces offer entrepreneurs the ability to rent desk space for a price that they can afford. Another perk, is that desk space is paid per month, leaving you with more control over the possibility of changing locations at any time.

2. PROFESSIONALISM: By renting coworking space, your venture seems more professional. Pitching ideas to potential clients? Now you don’t have to do it in a Starbucks. Even something as simple as having a professional address to send and receive mail to, is a huge asset in the world of self-employment.

3. NETWORKING: By setting up professional camp in a coworking environment, you are more than likely to experience inter-office networking, as these kinds of spaces attract likeminded people. By having more than one company working under the same roof, creative ideas are bound to flow more readily and new partnerships are within reach.

4. ACCESS: One of the best things about Martin’s coworking spaces, are that they can be accessed at any time of day or night by their occupants, which means that creative minds aren’t restricted to being exercised from 9-5. Have a great idea at 3am? Now you can bring it to life.

5. ENVIRONMENT: Does anyone else feel nauseated just thinking about spending eight hours a day in a cubicle? Both Project: RHINO and Project: OWL have eliminated the dull, claustrophobic work box, as they believe that creativity demands communication, and therefore, open work spaces.

6. BALANCE: Any student knows that in order to be productive, we need a break, and any creative person knows that sometimes, having a beer or playing foosball can bring the best idea to fruition; Martin obviously identifies as both, because his coworking spaces encourage comfort and a healthy balance of work and play.

The merge into the professional world can be a scary one, especially if you’re a budding entrepreneur, but with a high demand for affordable workspaces, people like Neil Martin are opening the doors, both literally and figuratively, to an exciting generation of creative go-getters, who want to nurture their craft into their profession. By putting time and care into Project: RHINO and Project: OWL, Martin has kindly given us nontraditional types the ability to dust off our dreams, and bring them to life.

http://projectspac.es/owl

http://projectspac.es/rhino

Kitschy? Yes. 

Set to the kind of music that would be featured during a 100 meter sprint, in some inspiring film, that the underdog protagonist participates in, and when he comes second, he is still a winner in the audience's heart? Yes.

The kind of message that your grandmother tries to instill within you? Yes.

Starring a male character who looks suspiciously like Charlie from Girls? Yes.

Reeking of truth and beautiful cinematography? Yes.

Enjoy every day, Queen's!

This year’s “Bell Let’s Talk” campaign flooded our social outlets, raising money and awareness for mental health. Although the campaign was a success, too often we see these kinds of projects come to our attention for a short period of time, only to leave our minds in their disappearance. In order to continue the conversation about mental health, I got together with my friend, Elizabeth* , to discuss her personal experience with a university health services counsellor.

Thanks for agreeing to open up this conversation with me! What made you reach out to your university counselling service three months ago?

I had spoken to a friend who had gone through similar things as myself and he had mentioned that he visited a counsellor and that it was really helpful. I feel like I had exercised all other options, so I thought, why not try it?

What were some of the things that you were going through?

Mainly anxiety. I hadn’t been feeling like myself and even though I had always struggled with anxiety, it had never been to the extent that it was during that point in time. I kind of figured that what I was going through wasn’t really normal for me, so I decided that maybe I should talk to someone about it.

And were you nervous when you decided to make an appointment?

Yeah, definitely nervous, because it was not something that I had done before. It was never something that I could previously have seen myself doing; it was totally out of my comfort zone and a totally new experience. I was nervous to reach out and ask for help.

Do you think there’s still a stigma surrounding mental health issues? If so, did that have anything to do with you being nervous?

There’s absolutely still a stigma around it, and people have opinions about it, and you don’t know what people are going to say or think about you if you’re someone who needs help. That definitely did play a factor. But I’ve only found support in my decision, from my friends, my family, and my school community.

Are campaigns like “Bell Let’s Talk” helping destroy the stigma in any way?

I’d say so. This year it was amazing to see how many people were participating and standing up for mental health. People are much more aware of it. Now that I’m dealing with it, and people I know are dealing with it, I think campaigns like that resonate with me a lot more.

So being open about mental health issues is important, then?

Absolutely, if you're comfortable doing so. That’s what was so great about the “Bell Let’s Talk” campaign; it created a space for people to talk about their own struggles and to support one another. One girl I know was using the hashtag in a tweet where she was also opening up about her own battle with depression and an eating disorder. It’s good that people are doing that. Why shouldn’t we be able to talk openly about something that affects so many of us? It shouldn’t be embarrassing.

You’re right, and I think a lot of people still get flack for voicing their personal struggles on the internet, but by personalizing our experiences with mental health online, we’re creating a really fantastic community for support.

I agree, and it's an important community to have.

So, what have been some benefits of visiting a counsellor?

It’s nice having someone to talk to. Obviously you have friends and family, but for me, it’s nice to have someone outside of that circle, who doesn’t know me in any previous context. My counsellor asks me things that other people wouldn’t normally ask me; he tries to get to the root of the things that I’m struggling with, and he makes me look at personal issues from multiple angles, so I can get an idea of why I feel the way I do. For me, it’s been amazing to walk away from each session with a set of tools that are specific to my needs.

Who would you recommend see a counsellor?

Anyone who wants to! We all have our own set of issues and things going on in our lives. You may not think that you’re the type of person who needs to see someone, or who wants to. I never thought I’d want or need to seek help from a professional. It’s so beneficial for me, and I’m sure anyone could find benefits in their own individual way.

So overall, reaching out to a counsellor has been a positive experience for you?

It’s going really well! Even if you’re just going once in a while, or even if you just go once in your life, I think it’s good. It’s so accessible to students and I know a lot of university students are under an immense amount of pressure, which can easily lead to a decline in mental health; anything that makes school or personal life more manageable is something I think people should take advantage of.

 *name has been changed.

-Emily Wraith

  Click here to go to “Bell Let’s Talk”

http://letstalk.bell.ca/en/

Click here to get more information about Queen’s counselling services

It’s beginning. Facebookers and Tweeters are taking to their social media devices to VOCALIZE THEIR DISTASTE for my most scared month, February. Yeah, yeah, everyone hates February; it’s usually slushy and cold and leaves us will little belief that summer will actually ever return. I scoff at this reasoning, however, because February holds the greatest day of the entire year, VALENTINE’S DAY.

Most people that I come across have a bone to pick with V-Day. Is it because they’re haunted by a past love? Are they bitter with their current romantic situation, which is most likely nonexistent? Did their crush in the third grade accidentally buy an incorrect amount of valentines, causing them to be the one person to miss out?

I’ve always been keen on V-Day, but when I drop this bomb on my counterparts, there’s usually some form of dramatic response that ends with questioning my sanity. So why, you may ask, do I hold the day of the sexiest saint in such high regard?

1. As a child, Valentine’s Day is the one day that you get a loving present from your secret crush, even if everyone else gets one too and it was mandatory for them to give it. Inclusiveness rules!!

2. The story of Saint Valentine is enough to make me swoon. Saint V believed in love and the right to marry so passionately, that he was imprisoned and eventually BEHEADED for illegally marrying Christian couples who were being prosecuted by Claudius. Not sure about you guys, but I think that’s top banana, especially because there's a huge fight for marriage equality happening in front of us today.

3. I feel like an asshole for even having to mention this one to all you love-day haterz, but chocolate is not only socially acceptable to eat in mass amounts on this day, it is highly encouraged.

4. Flowers! How can they not make you happy? Whether you’re giving or receiving, flowers are a great reminder of the summer season that will soon be upon us.

5. Valentine’s Day encourages love! Valentine’s Day is all like “hey guys, if you love someone, let them know!”, and all of you are like “yeah, well why do we need a holiday to remind us?”, and I’m all like “because life is fast and hard (probably the title of a Bruce Willis movie) and sometimes we get caught up in the mix of things, and forget to let the ones we love know just how much we love them”. Everyone needs a little reminder.

6. Imagine if someone did come forward and admit they had a huge crush on you? GASP. The prospect of it happening to someone, somewhere in the world, is enough to make me blush.

So how can you drop the Scrooge act and get on board the love boat this V-Day?

1. Send creepy, stalker-ish cards to your friends! Send normal, loving cards to your friends! Anonymity is required for both, to maintain ultimate humour/discomfort for the first option and to boost your friend’s ego with the second option.

2. Have a party! Get your friends together, drink pink beer, and groove to the playlist that I unloaded on ya'll.

3. Tell someone you fancy them!

4. Make dinner with your parents…because they can’t turn you down.

5. Get your marriage license and be responsible for a legal union of love….

So, for all you suckers who hate Valentine’s Day, just cause you're wiggin’ on your “lack of love” – look around, dummy! So many people love you, just maybe not the hottie that you’ve been visually undressing for the past two months. So what! My last real Valentine was this weirdo named Mark in the first grade, who gave me his silver chain necklace? MARK BABY IF UR READING THIS, I STILL HAVE IT. So, open yer eyes! Even if it isn’t romantic love you’re celebrating, there are plenty of other kinds.

- Emily Wraith, who is apparently a love blogger now...

SOCIAL SLUMP: A DANGEROUS DISEASE THAT IS INFECTING MOST OF SOUTHERN ONTARIO.

  Ok maybe I exaggerated about the whole covering most of Southern Ontario, and maybe I goggled how to spell exaggerated, but regardless, I find it impossible to believe that I am the only girl Gael who’s feeling the heat of post-Christmas social anxiety. For someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy celebrating frost week, I find it easy to slip into a social coma, with no hope of coming back out.

Usually after an extended leave from school, one that is often experienced over the Christmas holiday, I tend to become a little bit socially awkward. My mind and body can only take so many noon sleep-ins, board games nights with parents, and uncomfortable run-ins with weird uncles and estranged cousins, before I go into survival mode, and cut off all forms of communication with human life. This Christmas, I was off for five weeks…………….so the severity of my condition is worse than ever before.

When I get back to school, living in poor conditions, lackluster nutritions, and late submissions, I find myself in a bit of a slump, where all I want to do is sleep and say “no” to every friend that approaches me with a sweet !FroSt WeEk~ invitation. Maybe it has a lot to do with the fact that I skip forty percent of my classes during second semester? Who needs to review a syllabus when instead you can watch the entire Sherlock series? (I wore a cumberbun in grade nine choir). As great as Benedict Cumberbatch is, slumping around in bed all day definitely doesn’t make it easy to organize plans with friends, in fact, it makes it a lot easier to decline all normal social habits, like going for a coffee date to have your amigo be the millionth person to ask you about your holiday. It also doesn’t help that we’re in the middle of an Arctic vortex. Can I use my fear of the Abominable Snowman as an excuse to not leave the house? Yes, but I shouldn’t. Instead, I strive to be like that guy that Jim Carrey ruined his career playing, where he like…agrees to things.

  TIPS TO FIGHT THE SOCIAL SLUMP

  1)   GET THE %@!& OUT OF BED. That’s right, your alarm clock did go off, and all of your housemates heard it…while they were eating dinner in the kitchen. Getting up early is the first step to helping you get back into the social swing of things!

2)   GO TO CLASS. Although I’m the queen of rationalizing why I should skip class, I’ve come to understand that attending is a positive thing to do. It gives you a space other than your bedroom to roam the internet, and you can scope out all the other humans in the class, carefully selecting who you will friend-wheel during the semester. I’ve also frequented as the weird girl who comes into a new class after a couple of days, and that never works out like it does in the movies (as the mysterious brunette, who sits beside the hottest guy in school).

3)   USE YOUR BED FOR SLEEPING. My bed frequents as a restaurant, a movie theatre, and a plush location for readings (aka napping), and all other activities that are not a six hour beauty rest. When I hang out in bed all day, the last thing I want to do is get out, because…bed.

4)   SEE YOUR FRIENDS IMMEDIATELY. I find that the longer I put off seeing people, the easier it becomes to not see them, and the more awkward I get about meeting up. I was going to say rip off the proverbial Band-Aid...but friendship shouldn’t be painful? For us anxious types, though, you never know. I’m also a common perpetrator of the whole “we should grab coffee sometime” when I bump into a pal, but weirdly enough I haven’t drank coffee in like six months?

5)   SAY YES. Go to that wicked new club Fusion, or whatever, and like…have a $1.00 drink thirteen times. I’m not condoning binge drinking, but I am definitely trying to say that accepting an evening invite and getting out of the house always ends up being better than crying in the bath or taking Nyquil at 8:30pm to pass the time.

So maybe you’re not even trapped in your house, afraid of the outside world, like I always am at the beginning of second semester. Maybe I’m hiding from my unattainable New Year’s resolutions? Who knows. What I do know, is that after the holidays, it can be easy to continue on in slob-mode, but we aren’t slobs! We’re Gaels! And apparently that means something…so, do yourself a favour and have a shower, put on some lip chap, grab a coffee with that friend, join a club (whether it be chess or Stages), and get a good, social start to your last semester! 

On behalf of all over-privileged, stressed out whiners wandering around campus with frowns on their faces as they wait for exams to be over, I present you with the following. I hope you will find comfort in knowing that you are not the only one who complains.

As complainers, we vow to recognize that the glass is always allowed to be half- empty.

We will feel sorry for ourselves when our alarms wake us up in the morning. If we decide not to wake up when our alarms go off, we will validate our decision to skip class to every person we speak to for the rest of the day. We will probably cling to those who agree that it is unfair that we were expected to be anywhere before noon.

We will spend more time scrolling through Tumblr and stalking Twitter than we will on our final papers. When we do poorly we will take it out on the people who love us.

We believe that everyone deserves to be able to sit on their bed playing video games or knitting shapeless objects for as long as they should like.

We will regularly curse the responsibilities that force us to take off our sweatpants in order to act as functioning members of society.

As complainers, we recognize that everyday activities such as washing the dishes we have dirtied, going to the classes we pay for and reading the readings that educate us are extremely inconvenient tasks.

We will give evil eyes to our housemates when they do anything constructive, especially activities such as going to the gym, going to Stauffs or going to a meeting of an extracurricular that is going to help them be successful later in life. We will eat large scoops of their expensive Ben and Jerry’s ice cream once their gone to spite them for their cheerful productivity.

As complainers, we dream of a world where no one ever has to do anything important. We dream of a world where responsibilities are optional. We dream of a world where no one judges you for not washing your hair even though you should have.

We will find solidarity in our collective irritation at the glorification of busy. We must work together to make the world a place where people can still love us even though we spend too much time complaining.

- Danielle Jobb,

Part of being a student means testing the limits of the human mind, in ways more than one. Everyday we are faced with challenges ranging from trivial to life changing. Pop-tart or cereal? Workout or sleep in? Indecision may be a perpetual state of being but fortunately for you a few of the answers to your uncertainties lie right here.

 And now by popular vote (but not actually) here are a few of the most pressing concerns faced by students.

  Should I take an afternoon nap?

 A: yes. But you best set that alarm for 3:00, 3:05, 3:10 and place it on the goddamn highest bookshelf you got. Seriously, we all know that the struggle to get up from that seductive memory foam and luxurious IKEA sheets is very real.

 Should I cook a REAL meal tonight?

A: depends. Did your past three consecutive meals consist of preservatives, sodium, carbohydrates, and boiled water? If so, then the answer is yes. If not the answer is still yes. 

It’s Saturday and I’ve got an assignment due Monday but also FOMO. Should I go out? 

A: generally, no. Weighing the pros and cons here, staying in one weekend to catch up on assignments and notes has much more benefits than yet another night that begins at stages and ends at the spot. Would you have had a blast? For sure, but is it worth the cramming and temple-rubbing and nose-bridge squeezing afterwards? Not quite.

Timmy Hoes, Pizza Pizza, Starbucks, Pita Pit, or The Grill?

A: perhaps the most difficult decision of all, allow your wallet and hunger dictate this one for you.  To help with that process here’s a quick little chart:

 **disclaimer: these are not the opinions of a qualified nutritionist by ANY means.

No frosh, trust me once your meal equivs run out booster juice is not a viable option.

Getting through the academic year without a mental breakdown can be a pretty tricky feat (read: impossible) but at least now you can put a few stressors at ease. Oh hey cool that rhymes.

  Calista Kim,