THE MARK$FREE.99 MONDAY JANUARY 27, 2014

ALLEN, KIRKEGAARD WIN TOP SEATS

SRC President Graham Fischer’s substantial set of constitutional reforms will finally be put to a vote in the first week of February. The referendum comes after a six-week delay due to a disagreement between Fischer and Quest University Canada Pres-ident David Helfand over the scheduling of the vote. Fischer presented the 60 page slate of amendments to the public on the 29th of November, the first Friday of December block, with intentions of holding a vote in the third week of that block. Helfand’s heavy workload meant that he could not review the document in full in two weeks. Com-bined with Fischer’s condensed schedule, this resulted in Helfand threatening to send an all-school email imploring students not to vote on any of the amendments. Recount-ing his initial shock at receiving Fischer’s ex-tensive document, Helfand noted, “I said to him [Fischer], “I can’t possibly review these.”

That was out of the question. I told him that I couldn’t stop him from holding the vote but I would send out the all-student email.” Fischer initially believed that Hel-fand took issue with the autonomy clause, otherwise known as Amendment Five, Arti-cle One in the document. He presented this as the reason for the delay a public meeting held on 9th December 2013. “It turns out that after meeting with him [Helfand] in January that he really just wanted more time to read the whole package himself,” he said. Helfand’s responsibilities as Presi-dent of the University forced his firm reac-tion. “I told Graham that my responsibility is to protect the insurance and legal status of the University and the way that they [the amendments] are worded is unacceptable. I can’t just write any changes on the fly – I need to speak to stakeholders first,” he said. The two Presidents sat down for a lengthy meeting in early January to hash out issues Helfand had with the amend-

ments as they stood in December. “Some [of the clauses] had already been amended and there were only two that I had substan-tial issues with. In both cases, we discussed wording that would fix the problems I had with them,” said Helfand. Helfand also noted several of the amendments that he believed were unwise, including the clauses that solidify funding for The Mark and the Emergency First Re-sponse Team, adding, “It’s a good idea that we have a student newspaper, but it’s a terri-ble idea to have a dollar amount in the con-stitution for any organization. Constitutions should be procedural.” Fischer stood by his decision to ce-ment funding for the aforementioned insti-tutions, emphasizing in regards to The Mark that, “I think there is an inherent value in a media organization on campus… My goal is to provide the basic funding necessary that would allow a media organization to sur-vive on campus well past my time here. This

TARI AJADI

Celine Allen and Kyle Kirkegaard were elected President and Vice President of the Students’ Representative Council on Friday, overcoming a competitive field of candidates, navigating the dated SRC cam-paign policies, and engaging 68 percent of the student body. Ms. Allen, serving as the 6th SRC President, and Ms. Kirkegaard, serving as the 5th SRC Vice President, will be the first female duo to hold the positions concurrently. “Of course, it means a great deal to me to have been elected... I am very grateful for the opportunity to give back to this community.” said Allen after learning the election results. Kirkegaard expressed a similar sentiment. “It means a lot to me coming from such a vibrant and diverse

community, I am truly honoured,” she said. While the percentage of the elec-torate engagement fell from 70 to 68 per-cent, the 368 total student votes surpassed last years vote total by 71 votes. Receiving support from 69 percent of the votes, Allen won decisively in the first round. The path to victory for Kirkegaard was narrower, but still commanding. Winning in the second round when garnering 51 percent of the votes. The similarities between the two go deeper than their decisive victories. In equally eloquent, concise, and conservative campaign speeches, Allen and Kirkegaard outlined comparable visions for next year’s SRC. Both lobbied for increased student engagement, continued support of currents clubs, and were forthright in their hesitan-cy to promise big changes.

During Tuesday’s candidate de-bate and Q&A, Allen alluded to the am-biguous campaign policies when I asked which Vice Presidential candidate she would prefer to work with next year: “I don’t think, with how restrictive our elec-tion campaign rules are, I should be using this stage to proclaim any Vice Presidential candidate at this time.” After the election, Allen clarified her points of issue with the current cam-paign policies: “Like many other aspects of the current constitution, the campaign pol-icies are a relic of a time when the campus population was much smaller. The voting process for the SRC are in the midst of being refined - Addressing the issues in the campaign policies is the fo-cus of one of the 56 constitutional amend-ments proposed by current SRC President,

AMENDMENT VOTE BACK ON

Editors-in-ChiefTari Ajadi & Jake Smith

News EditorAlessandro Tersigni

Opinion EditorElise Scribner

Arts and Culture EditorCaleah Dean

Editor-at-large Brad Klees

THE MARKQuest’s Community Newspaper

Eighth Edition

Graham Fischer. Structurally, this year the voting process shifted from manual to automated. “The new electronic voting system func-tioned very well overall. Hopefully the Ministerial elections in a couple of months can run as smoothly.” said Andrew Luba, head of the Elections Committee. On the subject of being the first female duo to head the SRC, Allen avoided politicizing the point: “While I am excited to work with Kyle, I do hope that the fact that we are the first female SRC executive does not mean something significant to Quest. Us both being female has no bearing on how we will run the SRC next year.” Kirkegaard and Allen will assume their positions after graduation, on April 28th.

JAKE SMITH

amendment doesn’t benefit me, it benefits students in the future. So I recognize David [Helfand]’s charge that it’s a double-edged sword, but I think it’s for the best.” Any student can introduce an amendment to the Constitution, and both Helfand and Fischer offer advice on how to best go about it. Helfand encouraged stu-dents to submit amendments to the Dean of Students an entire block and block break before attempting to run a referendum. Fischer emphasized the impor-tance of long-term thinking, adding, “One of the toughest challenges is to try and make positive change and some people won’t agree with that change…but always keep those students in the future in mind. That’s what I’ve tried to do.”

More coverage of the Constitutional Amend-ments will follow online next block

I am very grateful for the opportunity to give back to this community

“”Celine Allen, SRC president-elect

Comic: Annamarie Bradley

NEWS & OPINION MONDAY JANUARY 27, 2014A2 || THE MARK

was understanding, noting that the school planned on running classes using the studio in the future, and wanted the equipment to be safe and the studio in good condition. One potential class that would use the space is a songwriting class taught by Jeff Warren proposed for next year. Additionally, the new Quest radio could potentially use the recording studio for their programs, though discussions are still ongoing as to how that would work. Powell and Feicht also expressed interest in doing workshops related to the different aspects of recording, specifically learning how to use the professional-level programs like Apple’s Logic Pro. The two students are excited about the possibilities the recording studio brings to Quest musicians and artists. “We know a bunch of other peo-ple who are eager to get in here and get their sound out. We can actually get a good sound and get cool original music coming from Quest,” said Powell. Feicht added, “It’s nice that we actually have space for people to create the best that they can.”

While a strong culture of enthusi-asts in British Columbia treat cannabis as a socially acceptable substance much like al-cohol, recreational use of the drug remains illegal province wide and cannabis posses-sion is a criminal offence. BC drug policy aims to protect citizens from using unsafe substances, but the present disparity be-tween policy and popular culture may be detrimental to safe drug use, especially at Quest where experimentation is common. Theoretically, an outright ban on drugs discourages usage and therefore lim-its people’s exposure to the negative effects of some substances. But in reality this ap-proach is wedged by many British Colum-bians’ willingness to experiment nonethe-less, and many people feel marijuana is a positive thing in their lives and rationalize their usage even though it’s illegal. Whether or not the province should prevent BC res-idents from using drugs, the stigma associ-ated with using marijuana and other drugs limits exposure to correct procedures, facts, and safety awareness because people avoid openly associating with illegal activity. Third year Quest student Lian Zeitz says that the difference between mar-ijuana policy and culture creates a space where people don’t receive guidance and support, especially in the socially liberal university environment. “Sharing secrets and going against the system is a really good way to bond,” says Zeitz. “Since creating

connections with people is part of universi-ty and drugs are an unacceptable avenue for this which is not discussed, these activities will not necessarily happen correctly and safely. Legality would provide the opportu-nity for discussion and for this secrecy to be confronted.” The recent legalization of canna-bis in Colorado will be an indicator as to whether liberal drug policy can counteract this lack of safety awareness by harmoniz-ing cannabis culture and government policy. In September 2013, The Colorado Enforce-ment of Revenue published a Marijuana Enforcement Division outlining rules to govern businesses, cultivating, and selling retail marijuana regarding factors like prod-uct safety, marketing, and preventing sales to minors. Colorado’s actions have prompted other states to reconsider their drug pol-icy. Former medical marijuana opponent New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2014 Agenda pledges to “launch a Medical Mar-ijuana Program to Research the Feasibility of Medical Marijuana in New York State,” which will help guide future drug policy. British Columbia’s Sensible BC Campaign also attempted to change can-nabis policy last year by collecting 200,000 signatures across the province, just short of the 300,000 needed for a referendum to de-criminalize marijuana in BC. Sensible BC board member Dana Larson feels that the misalignment of cannabis policy and culture in BC is not conducive to the safety of both users and society as a whole. “Prohibition

CANNABIS: POLICY VS. CULTURE IN BCin general has a negative effect on safety,” he says. “When the average person doesn’t see marijuana as a [finable offence] but the police do, you get disrespect for law enforce-ment, which makes it a lot harder for police to enforce the law against other crimes.” A Quest student that wishes to remain anonymous says this unfortunate misalignment of perspectives also demotes safety on campus. “For instance, I have a dependency on pot,” the student says. “But this is not necessarily something I would be comfortable discussing with anyone af-filiated with the administration because it’s illegal. This creates silence rather than open-ness.” At the University of Victoria, stu-dents show their dissatisfaction with cur-rent cannabis policy with a weekly public demonstration. Fifth year UVic student Harold Hejazi attends the 420 club demon-strations regularly. “We meet every Wednes-day at 4:20pm on campus,” he says. “We sup-port the aims of the Sensible BC campaign. However, our cause is only supported by a small number of students.” Even so, creating a culture that talks about drugs is the only way to convince policy makers that we need safety awareness which doesn’t condemn usage. “In a way, senior students have the duty to guide in-coming students on how to act safely with drugs,” says Zeitz. “Through mentorship and camaraderie, these issues could be tack-led.”

NEWS

ALESSANDRO TERSIGNI

RECORDING STUDIO SET TO OPENJORDAN ROSS

December block saw the construc-tion of Quest’s own recording studio, a sub-stantial step forward for the University’s cre-ative community. Michael Powell and Aaron Feicht, two third-year students who worked on the project as an Independent Study, have al-most completed the studio with just a few final touches needed prior to its opening during February block. The studio, which is located on the 3rd floor of Red Tusk, was funded by the SRC and the Arts Council, who provided $6,100 and $3,000 respectively. The Red Tusk room was only designated to become a recording studio over the summer. Powell and Feicht found out about the plan in September and seized upon the opportunity. From that point on, they worked with their advisors and the funding organi-zations to make the creating of the recording studio an independent study. Feicht com-mented on the process of working with their advisors, Colin Bates and Jeff Warren, saying

“They were great with letting us do our thing and trusting us.” As academic grounding for the credit, Powell and Feicht said they had to study engineering and architecture as well as learn more about the computer programs that powered the recording process. Powell says he was happy to have the project taken seriously and to receive credit for the process. “Aaron and I are much more competent at the actual process of re-cording. That will be valuable to teach other people and work with other people.” When the studio officially opens in February, Powell and Feicht will allow stu-dents to sign up to record during specific work-study hours. Powell or Feicht, or pos-sibly other work-study employees who have been trained in using the studio, will help get students set up and then return after a few hours to make sure everything is in order and locked up. Powell said that this was not the original plan, and that they “imagined it be-ing much more accessible than the school is saying it that should be.” However, he

ALUMNI PROFILE

The Mark reporter Jon Farmer caught up with Quest alumna Kirsty Graham in mid-Janu-ary in the final weeks before her first trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a post-graduate researcher.

What are you doing now?I’m doing my PhD at the School of Psychol-ogy and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews. My supervisor is Prof Richard Byrne, and my topic is ‘Gestural communi-cation of wild bonobos’.

What was your Question?My Question at Quest changed quite a lot, starting as ‘What is cognition?’ and I think eventually moving onto ‘How can studying animal cognition and behaviour help to in-form conservation policy?’ I just kept add-ing words!

How did you end up in this program? I ended up at St Andrews after working with bonobos as a field assistant for the Max Planck Institute. Megan actually put me in touch with Dick, my supervisor, and we corresponded while I was in the field in the DRC. My combined field experience with my Keystone project and field assistant po-sition meant that I was able to move straight into a PhD without a Masters.

Do you miss anything about Quest?Most of all, I miss jam sessions. And I real-ly miss my roommates. Quest can definitely feel like a bubble, but I think something you don’t appreciate until you leave is that you can approach absolutely anyone and have an insightful conversation. I’m finding that in-tellectual community at St Andrews too, but elsewhere I sometimes forget that not every-one is equally stoked to talk about French existentialism and quantum physics and Central African politics and rock climbing. Treasure it!

What’s your favourite part about your cur-rent program?It’s kind of the dream job – reading cool articles, conducting field research, writing about things that interest me, having coffee with my academic idols, attending seminars and discussion groups across departments. I’m really excited to go back to Wamba and itching to get some data to work with!

How does the work you’re doing now compare to your time at Quest? Quest was pretty self-directed, but this takes it to the next level. I’m setting all my own deadlines and deciding how to structure my working days. Imagine doing your Keystone project for 3 years.

Is there anything you wish that you had learned more of during your time at Quest?So at Quest, you don’t really learn how to say ‘No’ when you’re too busy. You keep on trucking like a superhuman. I’m not sure if it’s something that can be taught, but I can picture a lot of Quest students in the same situation afterwards, working out how much is possible without burning out.

Do you have any advice for students consid-ering a PhD?Take time to find a great supervisor. This is the person you’re going to be working with for the next several years of your life, so it’s important not just to share research inter-ests, but to actually get along. My supervisor is wonderful and supportive, and I could tell that from the weekly emails he sent me for the entire year leading up to my PhD. And for me, that’s more important than the pro-gram.

If you could tell your first year Quest self one thing: what would it be?“Remember that time you told Erica you wanted to work with gorillas in Rwanda? Well guess what…”

JON FARMER

The University Boulevard bridge has been unusually busy recently as a vi-sionary group of local skaters make prog-ress on a new mini-ramp underneath the structure’s concrete spine. For years such a project has been the dream of skateboard-ing students at Quest, and many are excited to hear that this ramp could turn a barren patch of dirt into a unique place to ride. Last week, however, an incensed letter calling for legal action against the builders of this unsanctioned skate ramp was placed on doorsteps around the Garib-aldi Highlands neighborhood. In it, the author (identified only as a concerned

neighbor) notes “ongoing problems with teenagers that hang out under the bridge” and chides both the Mayor and Squamish Council for inaction. A subsequent Squa-mish Chief article posted on the publica-tion’s website January 22nd reported that the municipality had issued a stop-work order to the builders, who are led by Stunt-wood skate shop owner Mike Quesnel. The bridge has long been known in the neighborhood as a place for drug and other illicit activity, and in the sum-mers there have been frequent complaints of loud, bonfire centered parties in the lo-cation where the skate ramp now stands. True or not, skate parks are in many com-munities known as centers for “sketchy” ac-tivity where drugs, cussing, and fights are believed to be the norm. But a rebuttal letter written by

Quest alumni Oliver Snow, who led the charge for Pemberton’s first skate park and is now a Squamish local, cautions to jumping to quick conclusions. Not all skateboarders are drug-addled partiers, and Snow says that aspect of the sport and surrounding culture is in decline. What skaters need are more spots to skate, and in this case, the municipality is getting one for free. Says Snow, “the Sea-to-Sky used to be home to one of the most iconic spots in the world of skateboarding (in an abandoned shack on the shores of Britannia Beach) but it’s gone…this could be the next iconic spot.” Quesnel has vowed to plow for-ward through the red tape, but the oppos-ing camps remain divided on the issue of the ramp – consider contacting a district representative to voice your opinion.

BRAD KLEES

CORRECTION: The print version of “Basketball Nationals Coming In March” states that the Quest Kermodes qualify for nationals because of their position in the league. They actually qualify because they are hosting the event. They are currently ranked 9th in the nation.

THE LITTLE RAMP THAT COULD

MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 2014B1 || THE MARK

MICE VILLAGEHILLARY YOUNG Over the past few months, stu-dents have encountered an abundance of house mice making themselves at home, in the residence buildings. While cute and fuzzy to some, the critters are damaging the facilities, pos-ing a health risk to students and breeding at shocking rates. The problem isn’t new at Quest, but just how dire is its current state? I tracked down victims of these en-counters, and grilled Jason Wright, Quest’s Maintenance Manager, to find out. Wright explains the concern, “the young are born about 19 days after breed-ing, and a female can have as many as 8 litters per year of 5-6 young. If its left un-checked, it could become quite a problem.” For one student who wishes to remain nameless, it has already become ‘quite a problem’. “In October/November, I found a nest in my [car’s] trunk,” she stat-ed. “[I found one] again ([in] the last few weeks). I’ve had to put mouse poison in my car... [It was] very frustrating and gross. I also don’t leave food/anything in the car, so I don’t know why it happens so much.” Wright points out how skilled the critters are at what they do. “As it gets cold out, the mice want to migrate inside. They can fit in an area that is one quarter of their body size; any small crevice, pipe, under dry wall, or propped open doors.” And this is certainly true. On Jan-

uary 6th the maintenance team fixed my condo’s broken washing machine, and ex-tracted a soapy, sopping wet sucker from its drainage pipe. An unverified rumour sug-gests that this has already happened several times this year. But possibly most shocking, is the abundance of mice witnessed in North and South Villages, and their indiscriminate travels. “We had mice upon our return from Christmas break,” states Mackenzie Seagram. “I caught two on North first,” she notes, proudly. “I’m on the third floor of south village, and so it’s weird that the mouse [we had] made it all the way up from the first floor,” remarks Gina Markle. “The mice don’t care about first floor, second floor. If they’re in the build-ing, they will make their way through the infrastructure,” Wright states. Roommates Ilias Benamirouche and Christian Crawford have also expe-rienced the fallout. The pests chewed up their toilet paper rolls and left droppings in their suit. “We submitted formal requests [for maintenance to fix the problem] (and laughed at the mouse that had drowned itself in the toilet,” Crawford explained. Maintenance came and set traps for the boys, but only the drowned casualty was collected. On January 8th, one trespasser had the audacity to crawl into bed with student, Caleah Dean. “I was just sitting in bed watching a movie when I heard

something scratching next to my bed, she remembers. “I looked over and saw move-ment out of the corner of my eye---it was the mouse running right across my bed, over me,” she remembers. So what is being done to procure the mice from extending their stay? “We have a preventative pest control program in place, where a contractor comes in bi-weekly and updates his traps,” Wright informs me. “Its not pretty,” he admits, de-briefing me on the rather gruesome proce-dure. “but you’re trying to get rid of a ver-min in your living area. That’s why they try to keep it low key,” he explains. But is this low-key system enough? Certainly not, according to our anonymous car owner with mice in her trunk. “I was told that the school would be taking care of it via exterminators before winter break, but seeing as it’s happened again, I guess that didn’t work.”

Wright concludes that this battle, is a slow one. “If the available food sources out-weigh the traps, the traps will be less suc-cessful.” He continues, “students can mit-igate their own circumstance by keeping their suits as tidy as possible and keeping the food away from [the mice].” Another key component, he notes, is not propping open doors. Wright does not believe the issue has gotten out of hand, but adds, “let us know [if you encounter a mouse], so we can do something. If it goes unchecked and we don’t know about it, we can’t do any-thing about it.”

Gear up Kermode Krazies! This March, the 12th to 15th, Quest will be host-ing the Men’s Basketball National Cham-pionship in the Quest gym which has seen some recent upgrades in anticipation of the event. The Quest Men’s Basketball team automatically qualify for the Nationals for hosting the event. The Kermodes are in sec-ond place in the PACWEST league, and 9th overall in the nation. Some of the exciting new upgrades to the gym have included the relocation of the current bleachers, freshly painted doors, and newly installed retractable backboards. The final installation – set for January block break – will be a new set of bleachers that will be able to seat 650 spectators. While 650 seems a large occupan-cy, especially considering Quest’s current 540 person population, it falls short of the 1,200 seats which the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) requires for the gold medal game. When asked about this issue, Sean Shook, Athletic Director and

Men’s Basketball Head Coach, commented, “the atmosphere that can generated in a smaller gym – its better to have 600 people in a 650 seat capacity rather 600 people in a 1500 seat capacity – its kind of what we sold them on so they were excited about that and they waived [the seat requirement] so we could be the hosts.” Fourth-year student-athlete, Jose Colorado, voiced some concerns about how the additional seating might affect the atmo-sphere at future home games. “What will we do with all those bleachers after nation-als? [The gym] is going to be nowhere near packed during home games.” Shook, on the other hand, not-ed that “right now on campus, anytime we want to have more than 100 people, we don’t have anywhere to go […] This may be the one place that we could actually hold the number of people we need to for bigger events.” In addition to future concerns, there have been some current issues with the disruption of intramurals as well as po-

tential safety hazards presented by the re-model. For example, fourth-year student, Jacob Smith, was playing intramural basket-ball when he “went up for a lay up and land-ed in a pile of scrap metal.” Shook commented that the sched-uling of the upgrades have been carefully thought out, with the initial upgrades being done during the winter break, and the final upgrades during block break, when traffic in the facility is lower, “I don’t think [the up-grade] has been as disruptive. There were some stuff on the baseline but […] we’re cleaning it up and that was a matter of find-ing the time to do that.” Despite these slight disruptions there is much excitement in the community about the upcoming nationals and the gym upgrades. “I’m excited for when they put the new bleachers in. Being able to watch the game from all sides of the court makes for a really cool setting,” said second-year student-athlete Denzel Laguerta. “The new hoops and the new flooring make the [Ker-mode Kave] one of the better facilities in the league.”

BASKETBALL NATIONALS COMING IN MARCHCYNTHIA LAU

THE VIEW FROM HEREDear Globetrotters, Daredevils, and Day-Dreamers,

To showcase the diversity of experiences Quest students are delving into while abroad, The Mark is happy is to introduce our newest column, The View From Here. If you’re abroad, or soon to be, and would like to contrib-ute to our most adventurous column, contact us at the-marknewspaper@gmail.com

In the few minutes I have, I can let you in on something profound that I have learned in my time abroad from Quest. I learned that if you don’t apply what you learn, you will hardly learn it at all. I have found this to be where academia fails at teaching, and where the real world suc-ceeds. In Guadalajara, it wasn’t just the Span-ish lessons that taught me the Spanish I now know. It was going out with my teachers and friends at night for some cervezas to put it all into practice. In Ladakh, it was the fact that I was surrounded by one of the oldest and richest cul-tures in human history that gave me the chance to really switch from being a photographer to an ethnographer. Seeing the beautiful, elusive Antarctic Snow Petrel dart over my head as I sipped on a glass of scotch and looked out from the hot tub to the moonlit mountains that surrounded the Ak-ademik Ioffe, to later hear from one of the worlds top ornithologists that they have the largest olfac-tory lobes relative to brain size of any animal-- why? Because they they hunt in complete dark-ness during the antarctic winter and rely mostly on their nose. This is the kind of thing that will stick with me forever. But I would actually say that the most useful knowledge I have acquired has come from the application of working on this Aqua-ponic Urban farm here in Austin, Texas. Where even the folks who work in biotech companies and occasionally come down to help with water chemistry issues-- they even say that what they know now, they hardly knew during their under-grad and it was only until found an application did they actually “learned” the material. And on that note, I have to get back to work! See you all in March!

set up a website, donatetoquest.com, where donations can be made by credit card only. The website is expected to raise a total of $100,000 from approximately 600 donors. “We currently have $23,535 from the website, but that’s not the number I’m looking at. I’m looking at the number of contributors because that’s a key sales pitch. Future donors want to know how invested the faculty, parents, staff and students are in the future of Quest University,” says Helfand. The search for potential donors will begin in May, according to Helfand, and will last into the next academic year. Few public foundations exist in Canada, so the focus will be directed on smaller, family foundations. “They are more informal,” said Helfand. “They only donate when they find connections [to Quest].” Finding donors for the endow-ment fund can be hard because they must understand that the money will not be spent this fiscal year, but rather over a longer peri-od of time. Some of Quest’s current donors (including organizations that donate up to $250,000 each year) only donate money to be spent this year. This money cannot be used to build the endowment. “Money can be restricted. We often have to negotiate with donors to make those restrictions as broad as possible,” said Hel-fand.

EVAN DECKER

DATING AT QUESTANONYMOUS

An anonymous student gives us their per-spective on dating at Quest just in time for Valentine’s Day.

I’ve talked to my grandparents a lot about dating, relationships and all those other things that generations are supposed to talk about. One thing that they don’t understand is the way our gen-eration dates; speaking with them I realize I don’t understand it either.It strikes me that our generation does rela-tionships in two ways; on the one hand we don’t and just fuck around; on the other, we jump into serious things faster than people used to. The first option, fucking around, is a luxury of birth control. The availability of contraceptives and the social accept-ability of premarital sex have liberated us to pursue sex for recreation’s sake and that

leads assumptions and expectations that everyone is game. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. It’s just my intention to point out that this changed the way young people do relationships. We can have the same fun without the consequences that inspired so many of my aunts and uncles’ marriages. The second option, serious rela-tionships, are what my grandparents refer to as ‘going steady’. Until I spoke with them I didn’t realize that the way we date isn’t the way it’s have always been done. They’ve de-scribed these years to me as the time when young people are supposed to be ‘playing the field’. They don’t mean have lots of sex with everyone, they mean getting to know people. I’m not sure when it changed but it seems that somewhere in the years between their adolescence and mine it became less common for young people to go on casual dates with a variety of people. I wish that hadn’t changed. There are too many attractive,

intelligent and good people around here that I want to get to know. Not that I want to sleep with all of them, although if it felt right I wouldn’t be against it, it’s more that I want it to be ok for me to show affection or interest without the assumption that we’re going to either fuck or be a serious couple. I want to make friendships that leave that door open, I want to ask differ-ent people to dinner and have it be cool. Maybe other people already date like this, but from my experience it isn’t the majority. Or this could be my own misconception and something I need to work on personally. But I’ve seen the same approach in other people and other rela-tionships and I think most of us could use a change. I’m going to start asking people out to dinner or over for tea and a movie. I’m going to start dating like my parents and my grandparents did, well dressed and casually, without the expectation of sex. I think it will be healthier. What do you think?

ENDOWMENTfrom A3