{"id":19887,"date":"2020-09-16T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T16:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=19887"},"modified":"2020-09-16T08:51:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T15:51:42","slug":"student-editors-letter-getting-out-of-the-haze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/09\/16\/student-editors-letter-getting-out-of-the-haze\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Editor\u2019s Letter: Getting out of the haze"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, September 12, a large group of UVic students gathered outside the UVic McPherson Library to party. Now, that\u2019s usually pretty normal\u2014socializing in colossal groups is part of post-secondary culture. But at this point in 2020, it\u2019s not normal. Or at least it shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

According to UVic\u2019s student newspaper The Martlet,<\/em> there were over 100 people at two different gatherings that night. After the police broke up the one on campus, the debauchery-hungry students headed down to Frank Hobbs Elementary, where they began playing basketball, smoking weed, drinking, and climbing up on the roof. Apart from the drinking in public and trespassing, sure, that\u2019s normally fine.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also normally fine for me to go see Tommy Lee doing somersaults out of the roof of Rogers Arena at a rock concert. But I\u2019m not special enough for exceptions to be made for me right now. No one is.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A sign on Camosun College’s Lansdowne campus in late June 2020 (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UVic\u2019s student-residence contract was amended this year to include the new public health rules that prohibit gatherings of over 50 people and to make it possible for the organizers of large, unsafe gatherings to receive fines of up to $2,000. I\u2019ve been a student for long enough to know that a $2,000 fine would probably break the bank for many students; getting a ding on a university record may actually be even worse.<\/p>\n

So, if for no other reason than that, be smart. We\u2019re all having a pretty tough time right now, whether at home or at work, and many of us aren’t able to see people we love. It\u2019s behaviour like recklessly gathering in an abnormal way (it used to be normal, but not now) that\u2019s going to keep us here for even longer.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not supposed to feel good right now. I certainly don\u2019t. Four-month-old macaroni that tastes like cardboard from the tailpipe of a VW Bug is currently thawing out in my fridge. Pour half a bottle of Frank\u2019s RedHot on top, and, yum, you\u2019ve got fuel for a day\u2019s worth of studying from home in a pandemic.<\/p>\n

I celebrated seven years free of drugs and booze this past weekend, so surely the party-goers out there can go six or seven months without rebelling.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be real. Sometimes, for whatever reason, it seems like you just can\u2019t follow the current orders. Although there weren\u2019t any reports of Camosun students at the UVic student gatherings, Nexus<\/em> is a student-media outlet, so there are probably a few readers out there who would do such a thing. But here\u2019s the thing: you can\u2019t. You need to do things differently for now.<\/p>\n

So, sure, have a few drinks with your pals, outside, in your core group of six. Blare some tunes into the wee hours. Get rid of some fury. Everyone is in the middle of some weird kind of reality we\u2019ve never really seen before\u2014a smoke-hazed one, at that\u2014so let\u2019s all help each other out of the haze as soon as humanly possible by being smart and half-decent.<\/p>\n

Live your life the new way. The old way is abnormal now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, September 12, a large group of UVic students gathered outside the UVic McPherson Library to party. Now, that\u2019s usually pretty normal\u2014socializing in colossal groups is part of post-secondary culture. But at this point in 2020, it\u2019s not normal. Or at least it shouldn\u2019t be. According to UVic\u2019s student newspaper The Martlet, there were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-views"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19893,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19887\/revisions\/19893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}