Postscript Archives - Page 2 of 6

On the first day of classes last year, I was hit by a truck. This is what it taught me.

Written on October 8, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

On Sept.4, 2019, the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears started off the NFL season at about 8 p.m. It was the first day of classes last year, and I sped home on my unlit bike to watch the kickoff. The game would end up being disappointing, but I would never know: a truck turned across my path,...

What I learned as a kid who loved the WE Charity

Written on October 6, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

As I scrolled through the news headlines back in July, “WE Charity Scandal” caught my eye for a moment, but not enough to entice me to click and read the article. Pandemic predictions, historic civil rights movements, and university updates had all of my attention. As weeks went on, the WE scandal...

Mourning my Opa during the pandemic

Written on September 25, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

In March, the pandemic shut down campus. In April, I found out my Opa had cancer—it was in his esophagus, his lungs, his brain. In May, he died. My family lives in Sarnia, ON., which is, at best, a five-hour car journey from Kingston. After coming to Canada from the Netherlands when he was in his...

How living in a US hotspot changed my view of COVID-19

Written on September 18, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

Two days after St. Patty’s weekend, I got an unexpected call from my dad in the States. “I’m coming to get you tomorrow,” he said. After Queen’s decided to suspend in-person classes last spring, I intended to wait out the rest of the abruptly online semester in Kingston. But I soon discovered I couldn’t...

Transitioning to adulthood in leggings and a hoodie

Written on September 11, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

As a child, I hated shopping for clothes. Every summer, I would have to be dragged to the mall by my family to buy new clothes for the upcoming school year. They would pull things off the shelves, trying exceptionally hard to find clothing I liked. On the rare occasion we would find something I...

Managing my expectations going into this fall semester

Written on September 3, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

If you had asked me a year ago what I thought my third year at university was going to look like, I can promise you I wouldn’t have said “learning in the midst of a global pandemic.” Like many students at Queen’s and around the world, I’m looking down the barrel at a fall semester unlike anything...

Confronting my relationship with body positivity

Written on July 27, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

When I was in the third grade visiting family in Bangladesh, I wore a lot of short skirts and shorts to keep cool in a tropical climate. I remember watching TV one afternoon with the windows open. I was sprawled across the couch, sweat beading down my forehead, craving an iced cappuccino and wishing...

Learning to outrun anxiety

Written on June 29, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

A lot of people hate running. It’s not the easiest sport to like—it can feel boring, interminable, and even painful. However, growing up, my dislike of running went a bit deeper than most. I wasn’t an athletic kid. I had thick glasses by the first grade and spent my recesses inside furiously scribbling...

Recognizing being white-passing as a privilege

Written on June 1, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

I was born in Baghdad to Iraqi parents who fled war to Amman, Jordan. Although I grew up as part of a marginalized Iraqi community in Jordan, I was also part of the majority of the population, adapting to the Jordanian accent and identifying as both an Arab and a Muslim. In Jordan, I never thought...

2020 grads say goodbye to Queen’s

Written on March 20, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

In light of the spread of Coronavirus cutting this semester short, The Journal put out a call to students graduating in 2020, asking them to submit a final message to Queen’s. Though the end to this school year (and some people’s whole Queen’s experience) has been abrupt, we hope these notes help...

Living with a sexual dysfunction at Queen’s

Written on March 13, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

Editors’ Note: The author has been granted anonymity to allow them to share their story with a sense of personal security. At the end of my third year of undergrad, I was diagnosed with vulvodynia, a form of sexual dysfunction which makes vaginal penetration extremely painful. Working through this...

What fitness has taught me about the human condition

Written on March 6, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

I’ve been overweight for most of my life. I was a bookish, geeky kid who stayed indoors, raised by an indulgent, foodie mother. My weight issues weren’t mysterious to anyone, especially me. This framed my adolescence and early adulthood in the usual ways. I won’t bore you with stories of how I was...

Our failure to acknowledge different perspectives sets back our progress

Written on February 28, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

When I was in my final year of high school at a diverse school, I remember telling my friends I was planning to accept my offer to Queen’s. I was instantly told about the university’s stereotypes: that it’s a snooty school that’s predominantly white. I brushed off these comments and refused to let...

Getting to know my grief

Written on February 13, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

My dad died when I was 16 years old. It happened on a Sunday. On Monday, my mom had to convince me to go to the funeral home to say goodbye to his body before it was cremated. This was because I wanted to stay home and finish reading Hamlet so I wouldn’t fall behind in English class. I went back to...

How my sexual assaults made me an advocate for male mental health

Written on February 7, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

This article discusses sexual assault and may be triggering for some readers. The writer’s name was omitted due to the sensitivity of the content. “I just wish they were dead.” To this day, I can’t believe I had ever been at such a point of darkness that I was able to speak such words about my abusers. On...

Growing closer to my parents while away at school

Written on January 31, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

University usually marks the first time that teens move away from their home and their parents, and when they really start developing into independent young adults. This might especially be true at Queen’s, with 95 per cent of its student population originating outside Kingston and from over 100 countries. It’s...

Addressing the persistence and foundations of South Asian anti-blackness

Written on January 24, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

A cruel and unaddressed racist rhetoric in South Asian communities means that we might just take the trophy for self-righteous anti-blackness. I grew up in Toronto, one of the most diverse cities in North America, and one that’s wrongly viewed as having evolved beyond daily racism. This is predicated...

Full Focus: How a campus film festival built a friendship

Written on January 17, 2020. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

Jonathon: As a Film and Media minor, I knew entering university that I wanted to get involved in extracurricular activities that fostered my interest in making videos. Little did I know that, now, as a third-year student, I’d be the video editor at The Queen’s Journal. In a lot of ways, it all started...

How Movember changed my attitude about my Asperger’s

Written on November 29, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

When November rolls around, many people are left wondering what Movember is and why a bunch of guys are trying to grow mustaches (even though sometimes, they can’t). Movember is an Australian charitable organization founded in 2003 with the mission of tackling prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental...

Switching out of science changed my attitude about university

Written on November 22, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

Last year, as I walked home to West Campus in the dark after a three-hour lab, wishing I was doing anything else, it dawned on me that maybe a science degree wasn’t for me. As a first-year student, it was easy to blame how little I was enjoying my studies on homesickness, early morning lectures, or...

Photo essay: A Gael takes on England

Written on November 15, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

Feeling exhausted in my second year of university coping with schoolwork and Kingston’s long winter, I decided to apply for exchange and escape my daily routines to explore the world during my third year. Fascinated by British culture, films, and music, I chose Manchester, England as my exchange destination. I...

Growing up in Asia taught me the importance of speaking up on social issues

Written on November 1, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

There’s something to be said for living in a free, democratic society, where voicing your opinion isn’t repressed, but is welcomed. The same is true for living in a place where everyone’s right to freely express themselves is protected by law. While this may seem like something to take for granted...

My encounter with the Kingston Pen’s notorious deceased employee

Written on October 23, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

I’ve always had an interest in the supernatural. I used to hope that one day I’d see a ghost, or that some unexplainable thing would happen to me. Luckily, I got my chance when I worked as a tour guide for Canada’s most notorious prison: the Kingston Penitentiary. From feeling cold in strange places...

Learning about my grandfather’s heroic life taught me the power of storytelling

Written on October 18, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

I will never meet my grandfather. His death in 1978 makes that impossible. But I would be grossly mistaken—and I was—to think that means I’d never have a relationship with him. When I was growing up my dad often read to me and my sister. I remember how the three of us fit snugly in his scratchy grey...

How joining Queen’s Bands changed my university experience for the better

Written on October 10, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

During my first year at Queen’s, I was relatively uninvolved. I was a part of Queen’s Dance Club so I could continue to dance as I had in high school, and went to socials with my residence floor. Otherwise, I mostly hung out with my close group of friends. I spent most of the year in my bedroom, wanting...

What I learned from all the bad advice I’ve received during university

Written on October 4, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

I arrived at Queen’s with many things: clothes, my great-aunt’s old mini fridge, a box of books, and a lot of bad preconceptions about university. By the time I carried that same box of books back down the residence stairs to my mom’s car, I’d accumulated a few more misguided ideas. I can trace some...

Navigating my long-distance relationship with my brother

Written on September 27, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

When students returned to Queen’s for the new school year, everyone fell back into familiar Kingston routines. But while they did so, it’s certain everyone also entered into some kind of long-distance relationship. With friends studying at post-secondary institutions scattered across the globe...

Discovering what life is like away from my immigrant family at Queen's

Written on September 20, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

The first night I spent at Queen’s in my residence room was hellish. I wasn’t feeling the tricolour spirit, and I missed home desperately. I wanted to go back to Scarborough. Granted, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Within a few weeks, everyone I knew was craving a home-cooked meal and a...

How learning about my PTSD at Queen's helped me overcome it

Written on June 3, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

This article discusses sexual assault. The Journal uses “survivor” to refer to those who have experienced sexual assault. We acknowledge this term is not universal. A long time ago someone hurt me, and I turned off. That’s how I described my situation before I learned about hypo-arousal, one...

Graduating students share their most Queen’s moments

Written on March 29, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Postscript.

Seeing everyone you know in the ARC, passing a horde of purple engineers on your walk to class or using the Romanian flag emoji as a tricolour stand-in, can only be described as “so Queen’s.” As the semester comes to a close and a year’s worth of Gaels start their next adventure, The Journal asked...

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