Hope Magazine

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Medium Magazine: Hope

Cover Design: Sara Li Layout Design: Hannah Grace Wang Printed in Canada © 2025 Medium II Publications. All rights belong to the original creator(s). No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or shared in any form without prior written permission from Medium II Publication and the respective creator(s).

Credits Writers Mashiyat Ahmed Madhav Ajayamohan Rhianna Buck Chloe Cathcart Massimo Bozzo Keira Johannson Sara Li Celesta Maniatogianni Tyler Medeiros Maja Ting Gisele Tang Aya Yafaoui Menahil Warriach Eraj Zaidi

Photo & Design Mashiyat Ahmed Keira Johannson Sara Li Erin Sauve Adanna Scott Amber Wang Hannah Grace Wang Sehajleen Wander Suzie Zhang Melody Zhou Editors Editor-in-Chief: Hannah Grace Wang Managing: Aya Yafaoui Photos & Design: Sara Li Copyeditor: May Alsaigh Copyeditor: Maja Tingchaleun

Table of Contents Introduction

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The Cedar Tree by Aya Yafaoui

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I’ll be your emergency contact by Rhianna Buck

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Finding light through life’s unpredictable challenges by Chloe Cathcart

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What if I want to lie down too? by Eraj Zaidi

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The Walk by Maja Tingchaleun

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Weaving Webs of Hopes by Sara Li

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Just a summer baby learning to survive winter by Keira Johannson

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The Bloom after the Frost by Menahil Warriach

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To Hope Means To Go Beyond Belief by Madhav Ajayamohan

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What is Hope and Why Does it Matter? by Tyler Medeiros

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Written by you Not just another by Gisele Tang

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The power of friendship: A Youtuber’s guide to making the most out of college by Massimo Bozzo

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Finding hope for the climate around the world by Celesta Maniatogianni

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Censorship is evolving, but so is journalism by Mashiyat Ahmed

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Introduction “Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops - at all —Emily Dickinson Holding onto hope, even when it feels like there’s no reason to, is the bravest thing we can do. Let this magazine containing stories, poems, essays, and artwork dedicated to hope be the proof in uncertainty that hope is worth having.

As you flip through this magazine, you’ll notice the colour palette changes from dark to light. This was a deliberate design decision to represent the journey of finding hope. Just as dawn comes after the night, this visual transformation represents the way hope emerges.

Our words have the power to rise above our fear, pain and struggles and remind ourselves that light is never far away. Growing up, I’ve always found immense comfort in stories, in words. If ever hoping becomes too difficult, I hope you find comfort in words and let them carry you through. Hope comes slowly, subtly, then all at once. And before you know it, it’s daylight.

I encourage you to explore what hope means to you, and how you can share hope with others. It’s never too late to hope.

Hannah Grace Wang, Editor-in-Chief

Poem Copyright Credit: Emily Dickinson, “’Hope’ is the Thing with Feathers” from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Reprinted by permissions of the publishers and Trustees of Amherst College.

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The Medium Magazine started as a passion project in 2010. It was a collection of articles and graphics that mimicked a traditional magazine, with articles that spoke about campus and student life, recommended albums for different scenarios, featured recipes, and more. Back then, it was a way to try something new, to highlight the creativity of our team and the unique perspective of UTM and its students. As the paper continued, this magazine became more than a passion project, it became a way to respond to the changing media landscape. As 2012’s Magazine Editor, Michael Di Leo, wrote, “while print, especially in the case of the newspaper, may be withering away, I am of the opinion that it won’t die. It will take on a new form…This magazine is our first step towards that end.”

After a brief hiatus, the magazine would come back with a new purpose: to explore a theme and concept that was most important to the masthead and students of that year. It became about sharing stories and experiences that mattered. In 2020, as the world shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic and was rocked by the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, The Medium’s magazine theme was inspired by the word “essential,” which was attached to workers, services, and actions. Subsequent magazine issues explored themes of growing, changing, and becoming in tune with the world.

This year, as we sat down to think of this year’s theme, all that seemed to surround us was death, destruction, hate, and horror. For a year and a half, all we’d witnessed on our phones and in the news were children dead or disfigured, houses destroyed, families torn apart, leaders spewing hate from the podium, and life getting harder and harder to live. It’s been five years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the world only grows harsher. In thinking of the theme for this issue, we asked ourselves, “what is most important right now?”

The answer that came to us was hope.

Hope. The remaining spirit in pandora’s box. The only thing that will not leave humanity. The most essential and painful thing that is needed in crisis. It takes hope to live. It takes hope to love. It takes hope to try. Our young people are often called a generation that despairs, that we do not have hope for the future. And with the state of the world, it may seem so. Yet, we are also hopeful. Our Magazine seeks to showcase that. We are still holding on to hope, despite the darkness.

Thank you to our writers for sharing their hope with us. Thank you to our design team for bringing that hope to life. Thank you to our editors for bringing it all together.

May you never despair, dear reader. And we hope you enjoy this issue of The Medium Magazine.

Aya Yafaoui, Managing Editor

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Illustration and layout: Suzie Zhang & Amber Wang

I’ll be your emergency contact Rhianna Buck

It would be simple to describe the relationship between addiction, mental illness, and hope as being one where clinging to hope is what enables one to endure their pain. But there is a powerful logic that guides your thinking when you need a substance, and that logic narrows your focus to what is immediately present and the actions that must be taken to meet the most salient of your needs. Something changed for us both when we understood escape as never being an option—though it was one we turned to habitually.

There is no specific order to how you and I came to imagine our own goals and lives as fleshed-out things. There is no simple chronology for how something which once seemed like a hopeless waste of energy, a delusion, grew into the pupal form of lifelong goals.

This will have a brute chronology because is that not how we remember things?

You and I, a brute chronology. *** I am fourteen. Panic disorder emerges like someone has poisoned the water supply. Something is deeply and incurably wrong, but it is beyond my ability to identify or prevent. So, I live with the fear of nearly everything I can conceptualize, and I have bouts where I feel as if the whole world is crooked—I fear I will go insane. There emerges a cure for pain, a removal from thought, the likes of which you had already found.

June 2021 I don’t wish to flee anymore, as much as I wish that I could be alone again and sink comfortably into my own fantasies, I have more than what is necessary to make my beige walls kaleidoscope.

I will live like this We are fifteen and sixteen-ish. Mum sees the painting that I have been working on, it’s a self-portrait. In the background of my painting are rainbows and cannabis leaves, mostly concealed by images of politically motivated vandalism cut from our local newspaper. I wrote on this painting, “La tristesse durera toujours.”

Allegedly, those were Van Gogh’s last words. Mum remarks that she felt sad to see this self-portrait where I was crying. Though I don’t recall what you say exactly, it is a tremendously blunt statement about how my sadness is blatantly apparent to you, too. At fifteen, I felt sometimes that we are like them, Van Gogh and his brother, Theo.

I spent much of my time for a few years not worrying about you, as it was too hard to think about how much danger you were in. I hoped sometimes you would create something, like you did occasionally before you turned twelve and found the escape which has grown with you. There was an immobility and eerie stillness to my sobriety and psychological withdrawal. My consciousness had shadows and colours, evidence of

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Illustration by Suzie Zhang

fear’s physical grips, just at the edges.

September 2021 And once, I asked another to relish in the suffering caused by a venom, by a sting, and the other did not seem so willing to drink up their own suffering To refuse the preached state of things, allowing ambiguity to swathe its blanket-like weight upon all that is just a sense, just a feeling, Of what importance is the separation?

You and I have grown into something strange, where currently hope doesn’t inspire a clear goal. It instead emerged simultaneously with the understanding that we only have two options as people. We either cope or die. Once we knew that we would not choose to die, we lamented and walked in circles until we understood that we must cope. Hope is the revelation—one hardly spontaneous—that an existence focused on its own destruction is no existence at all. We had to see the struggle as being evidence of a body of things both equal and opposite; we had to believe that this could not be all.

You need their name, number, and relation on the front page of most intake forms. Describe someone who would come see you, someone you can trust to make choices on your behalf.

Through a thick haze, you always saw me clearly. If the time comes, you can trust me to decide again.

December 2024 In the passenger seat of your car, you showed me an old video of you falling down the stairs face-first I thought that in the video, you looked younger, But really, you looked like someone I didn’t recognize And I’m not sure now if it was because I was too embedded in my own addiction or if you just weren’t around.

You laughed hard, I didn’t.

There is this soft movement, emphasized by the lengthening of time that comes with sobriety and depression. The movement is defined by understanding escape is not an option. We move from a space of hoping for one’s own undoing into hoping for the strength to choose, into hoping for the strength to keep going. Eventually, the things of our desires become more abstract and intricate. First, we want to want things. Eventually, we believe in a future where what we want is not a substance, not escapism, not sleep, not forgetting. And we are here, further than we have ever been before.

I think you and I initially hated the idea of hope. Or at least we hated what we understood hope to be.

Hope, to us back then, was surrendering to foolish helplessness, wishing to be preyed upon.

I think we had already learned that nobody was going to devour us.

I think we had already learned that we were our own undoing.

I think we have a biased understanding of surrender.

The actual ability to hope requires a real degree of knowing your pain to be acute and temporary. Ev-

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erything within a young mind feels eternal. To hope, in our sense, is to know. It is to believe. It is to think of recovery and actualization no longer as choices but as necessities, where it was only ever an illusion that we could turn away.

Tomorrow is the most dangerous day in addiction, but tomorrow is something that we are all constantly ill-equipped to face. My hope for myself has changed, as has my hope for you. It manifests as my persistent belief that things will continue to be okay. Because we must cope.

Sitting on the asphalt outside my local grocery store, I identify that each time, drab skyline descends into the quiet of night.

I will be your emergency contact, if things are ever to be like they were before. I will be your emergency contact, because things will get better than they are now.

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Finding light through life’s unpredictable challenges Chloe Cathcart

Hope. With each to gain their own definition of what the word may bring throughout their lifetime, it becomes a personal force with endless possibilities. Growing up, the meaning of hope has fluttered from definitions to conceptions and evolved by my side.

Around the second or third grade, I remember racing carelessly through Nan’s house, chasing my brother for various things, and seeing the word ‘hope’ being littered across the walls and shelves of her house.

From acronyms spelling out different meanings of hope to the individual letters painted on canvases, I saw the word ‘hope’ across many items. Bubble letters elongated across the walls, tea towels embroidered across the bottom—it seemed that these decorations were as important to the walls as the foundation was holding them. Intrigued, I wondered why hope was this important to hold onto and carried that question throughout my life.

A few years later, I learned that Nan’s middle was Hope. And truly, even at that point, I could understand why. She was truly grounded in hope. Always holding on for the next best thing to come, always encouraging our future endeavours for one reason or another. Yet, I remained interested in why the word was so important and held such great connotations for her and many others. What did the presence of hope give us that the absence was worth mourning?

In school, they teach you that hope translates to looking forward to your future dreams and achievements. Yet, I believe hope should be perceived differently. Like a verb, hope should be lived through our actions. But I didn’t always think this way. It was only a few years ago that I learned my Nan’s middle name is Hope, which sparked my interest in the connotation of the word.

Growing up in a generational military family taught me how important hope was, even if I did not always see its significance. I began to conceptualize hope when my parents were deployed to war-torn countries, and I was left to wonder about their whereabouts and safety. March became a dreadful month for me. Every three years, without consideration for my family, friends, and relatives, the military would send our family away from country to country. I disliked this month. Engraved deeply was the feeling of sitting on our cold leather couch, waiting to hear where we were headed next. My parents folded out maps for us to conceptualize the move to Europe, yet all I could picture was brick roads and horse-drawn carriages, some distant reality of what was to come. But it all taught me hope. Hope for their return, hope to make more memories, hope for the future.

With every challenge that occurred throughout my life, I discovered a new hope. Positive or negative, hope was there to back me up on whatever life gave us.

Though it was heartbreaking during our move to Europe, leaving our family and dog behind, the hope of reconnecting once again kept me going. Even though it would be difficult to reconnect with the friends I once had before moving to Europe, I had a new hope of finding and making new friends in Europe. Or simple things, the hope to return to my Nan’s house again where this journey of mine started, the hope to reconnect with Hope provides insight and light into different aspects of our lives even when we don’t take time to realize it.

And with that, I’m not sure what was pivotal, my Nan’s middle name or my experience being in a military family. But at the end of the day, my connection with hope is one I will forever condemn important.

From the times I spent worrying for my parents to what may come next, gifted me with the ability to discover hope and grasp onto it throughout my life. For that, I am internally grateful.

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Illustration by Sehajleen Wander

What if I want to lie down too?

Eraj Zaidi

“Abu? Abu!” Mama calls for her father on the phone. Her bedroom door is closed, and it muffles nothing. “Bhai! You’re right next to him, right? Abu? Abu!” she insists, as if convincing something to return.

“I’m here, Abu! Forgive me. I tried. But I couldn’t be there for you.”

“Please, Bhai. No, the funeral can’t be over. No, Bhai, please, I still need to say goodbye. He’s right there. You didn’t let me say goodbye.”

Mama never says goodbye before the phone connection cuts off. I don’t think she planned to. *** The person who loved Mama most was my grandfather, my Nana. Last year, Nana died alone on his hard mattress in Pakistan after years of battling painful Alzheimer’s, depression and cancer. Before Nana died, he, miserable with illness, begged my mother to visit him every night on the phone. The opportunity never came.

When Nana died, Mama asked everyone back home to postpone the funeral until she arrived. But my grandmother, my Nani, said the funeral must be arranged quickly before the body decomposes and that Nana died on a holy Friday, and Fridays wash away a passing soul’s sins. Since Mama couldn’t attend the funeral or say goodbye, she believes Nana died angry at her.

Two years ago, my mother and I visited Nana for the last time in his apartment in Karachi to take care of him. When we left, I remember staring at his face as Mama dragged the apartment door shut, its ledge gradually cutting him away. Somehow, I knew that was it. The last time. I hauled my suitcase down the elevator and back to the airport. *** Whenever Mama stops eating, Nana’s memory seems to halo her. This is when I reminded her that Nana’s illness had altered him—Nana always moved the wrong chess pieces, mistook Nani for an intruder after 8 p.m., and hated staying inside the apartment in his last years. So whatever frustration he felt towards her, I insist to Mama that it came from a sick person who wasn’t completely her father anymore.

In turn, my most vivid memories are now of Mama’s grief. I hear her scream goodbye to her father’s corpse through her phone. I hear Nana’s WhatsApp voice messages, the ones where he mumbles Mama’s name that Mama saved to my Google Drive. I hear Mama rambling aloud about every flight she could have caught to see Nana but failed to.

I tell her what I hear: living is easier than dying. When we die, we don’t feel pain, we don’t feel fear.

There is no reason to cry for Nana because Nana has nothing left to hurt him.

But then I waver, and so does Mama, until we’re crying at the breakfast table at 9 a.m., because how do you reconcile with a ghost? *** Nana died on the same mattress he taught me to walk on, and now it feels like a betrayal to keep living without him.

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“Every day I wish I were dead,” I hear Mama say one day in her bedroom, talking to a grieving cousin on the phone. “I wish I could have laid down in the grave right next to Abu so we could be buried together.

But the worst part is, Eraj doesn’t cry.”

It’s not the first time I’ve wished for our doors not to be so thin. The first few nights after Nana left, I stifled my sobs in my bedroom until my ribs contracted. Grief left me limp on my work desk.

When Nana died, I decided to forget him. I decided Nana moved to Denmark, his favourite vacation spot. I pretended Nana forgot me or that I never had a Nana, hoping the lie would give me back the mornings I didn’t wake up with a throat clogged with memories. To erase Nana, I decided it was him who left us in that Karachi apartment one summer day.

But Mama will never do the same.

Instead, Mama seems ready to leave me for a dirty grave even though I’m not ready to let her go. But I understand because if she left me, I would follow her, too. I understand Nana loved Mama the way Mama loves me, and love is a hard thing to find in an immigrant family so far from the right shores.

Tomorrow, Mama will leave me. So, what happens when it is her turn to lie down? How will I stop myself from curling up next to her in the same dirt we dodge by leaving our shoes by our door? I will surely close my eyes and pretend I have also found silence in my veins until I see her again.

When I am standing on the edge of the grave, what do I do then, God? Why must I live when my family doesn’t have to, when there is nowhere left I hope to be? *** “Does Auntie show up in your dreams? I keep expecting Abu to show up in mine. But he’s not there,” Mama’s voice breaks, speaking to her cousin. “I thought he’d come to see me after everything, and he didn’t.” Mama believes that when a soul moves on, it still visits their loved ones. If a loved one visits your dreams, it means they’ve decided to stay with you. Mama refuses to produce Nana’s death certificate because it’ll mean he truly left her.

Nana sometimes appears in my dreams. Sometimes he’s sitting in a lush chair in a law office, sometimes he’s walking around my university. Every few months, he comes back. I don’t tell Mama because I don’t believe in what she does, and if she knew, she’d ask me things I don’t have answers to.

But I know that Nana always smiles in my dreams, and he talks to me. He’s not sick anymore. He’s Nana. And he smiles at me. *** Some time after Nana died, Mama told me Nana knew something.

“The night before it happened, I called him like I always do, and he said something funny,” Mama says, vaguely staring at a spot beyond my ear. He said, “I wish you were here, and life wasn’t so quick.’ So, I asked him, ‘Abu, are you afraid of dying?’ and he said, ‘No. I’m afraid of staying like this.’”

“Abu’s always been a lot smarter than me,” she continued, “I tried so hard to hide his illness from him, and he knew anyway. He knew everything, and I think he knew he was about to die.”

Mama finally looked directly at me. Nana had wanted to leave. For the first time in two years, Mama looked at me the same way I looked at Nana when the apartment door closed. With a look of sureness, Mama acknowledged that Nana had died.

It was then I knew that Mama had finally said goodbye. ***

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I never thought I’d survive the loss of a loved one, but things have been changing.

Mama has started giving me Nana’s old hoodie and socks to wear. She started sharing her favourite stories about him at the breakfast table. I think she knows now that Nana’s memory doesn’t haunt her, instead, Nana’s memories have always celebrated her, and in turn, Mama now celebrates her unwavering love for Nana.

We used to think Nana’s last breath of anger fossilized his legacy, like a fly trapped in amber. But his breath was just one of many, and it took us months to realize that.

Still, how do I prepare for a loss I know will break me?

I think Nana prepared me to accept living as a responsibility. One day, I’ll be on my own, and I’ll miss Mama’s hugs. But Mama will miss nothing because in another life, Mama will have found a certain kind of peace the noise of our immigrant life never gave her. One day in this life, I will continue living with a sureness—the sureness of a parent dropping their child off at daycare.

There is relief in carrying a burden for someone else. Sometimes that burden is living, breathing, seething, sleeping, but always waking up. I found hope shovelling dirt onto a familiar face and turning the light off in a bedroom with a stiff mattress this summer. I found hope that suffering would end.

I think Mama and I are less anxious about living and losing now. Life and loss are funny like that because maybe they’re the same thing—always preparing us for the other.

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Illustration by Sehajleen Wander

The Walk Maja Tingchaleun

Andy, Ayera, Ben, Selina, and I hover uncertainly at the edge of the parking lot, peering into the woods.

“Okay, guys,” Ayera says finally, her voice sharp with latent irritation. “Are we going or not?”

We’ve just come out of our biwwostatistics midterm, and we’re pretty sure we bombed it. We’d compared answers for a few minutes, fraying where they differed, before deciding we should all forget about it and go for a walk. My chest still thrums with the test anxiety, still feels heavy with the grief of the past couple of months. There is no trail to the main path from this parking lot. We’ve been dissecting what our next move should be for the past ten minutes, the conversation looping around and around.

We stand in an uneven circle and stare at each other.

“Are we going or not?” Andy echoes.

I turn and plunge down the sharp dip from the road into the woods. I hear the scurry of following feet and a couple of shrieks–equal parts surprise and laughter–as my friends trip down, unprepared. I spin in a slow circle, taking in the sight of the trees. They’re neck-breakingly tall: long fingers of black and white and grey, traced in their last vestiges of red and gold and orange.

Andy hops over to me. “Where to now?”

Ben squints off into the distance. “I guess over there?”

We set off. As the trees get thicker, the woods get darker. A huge fallen tree looms in the sea of leaves and twigs like a shipwreck, and we immediately jump onto it, balancing on it with our arms outstretched like we’re little kids. A soft breeze rushes through the canopy of branches, and the sea shimmers with flecks of light and shadow as a fresh cascade of golden leaves flutters down. We each freeze, jaws agape. It’s so beautiful that it seems fake.

The carpet of detritus on the forest floor is ankle-deep, soft but slightly itchy. It crunches softly as we weave our way between the trees. Another breeze—this time, one with a bite—whooshes through, scattering more leaves. Selina shudders and turns to me.

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispers. “But I’m so cold.”

I shrug off my coat and hand it to her. She accepts it gratefully.

Ben looks at Ayera, who is also trembling. “Are you cold?”

“No,” she lies, but when he offers her his jacket, she takes it.

I look at her and laugh. “Dude,” I tell Ben, “it looks better on her than it does on you!”

We plunge further through the forest with renewed energy. Andy, Ben, and Selina pull ahead while Ayera and I lag behind. We find another log, this one too small to use as a tightrope. Ayera crouches to examine it, then pulls my arm to make me crouch next to her. “Look,” she points. “Mushrooms!” When I lean closer, layer upon layer of brown and white tissue ripple like waves on the shore of a cappuccino-coloured beach.

Suddenly, our feet stumble upon firm ground. Without realizing—and without even trying very hard—we have found our way to the main path. The sudden change is disorienting: our view of the sky is too unobscured, the world around us is too bright, our steps are too easy. I am startled by the electricity of the blue sky and by the haste with which the wind picks up clouds and whips them away. Leaves dance above our heads, tossed higher and higher without ever descending to rest. We follow the path until we’re back on campus. My heart feels light.

When I get home late that evening, I spend more than an hour scrolling through all the pictures and videos I’d taken. There is one clip I took: a close-up of vibrant green leaves edged in gold. When I’d filmed the video, I’d been momentarily annoyed with my friends. I’d wanted to capture the sound of the wind and the leaves falling, and the camera rolled for more than a minute while I waited for my friends to shut up. They never did, so I eventually gave up and ran to catch up with them. Watching it back, the sound of their murmured conversations and loud laughter as it recedes into the distance is my favourite part.

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Illustration by Adanna Scott

Photo by Sara Li

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Weaving Webs of Hopes Sara Li

Imagine someone telling you to have hope when you’re feeling low—does it ever make you feel encouraged? At the moment you hear this, do you truly understand the power that hope can bring you?

Personally, I believe we have never fully grasped the true meaning of hope. The concept of hope we often encounter feels abstract and vague, reduced to a simple encouragement to stay optimistic. Like many others, I used to find the word “hope” empty. I did not realize until I sat down to write this piece that hope is most powerful when it is not just an empty word but something you can visualize and attach meaning to— clear motivations that drive you forward.

When successful people advise their audience to “have hope,” I think they likely have a clear source of hope in mind. That’s why I want to encourage you to start reflecting on what has sparked hope in your life— big or small. Collect those memories and weave them into a mental web. When life gets tough, drawing strength from this web can feel more empowering than simply being told to “stay hopeful.” I want to share how I built my web of hope to inspire you to recognize your own sources of hope.

Finding hope through cherished memories One of the most important things in my web of hope is my cherished memories. I’m a nostalgic person and firmly believe that every experience adds richness to who we are.

Seven years ago, I came to Canada alone and completed an International Baccalaureate diploma in high school in Nova Scotia. Throughout this journey, I experienced countless moments of joy and challenges.

However, when I graduated and looked back on those three years, I realized that every difficulty had been overcome—I had achieved milestones, and I had grown into a better self. Standing in the present, I constantly reflect on my journey, appreciating how far I have come. It was through these three years of positive growth that I came to understand how life has decorated me with diverse experiences. Since then, I no longer fear new environments or challenges. Instead, I embrace them, filled with anticipation and hope for the road ahead.

In high school, I realized my deep passion for creative expression. University, however, marked a new phase of growth—one where I began contemplating how to turn my passion into a career and what kind of life I wanted in the future. I discovered that beyond just creating, learning and experiencing new things, connecting with inspiring people all brought me immense joy and served as sources of inspiration for my creation. So, I made a conscious effort to accumulate new experiences, document them, and reflect on how they shaped me.

For instance, with university offering longer breaks, I had more opportunities to travel. I found myself drawn to unique destinations rich in culture, and I especially enjoyed engaging with locals, forming connections that made each trip feel even more meaningful. My goal was for every journey to leave behind a one-of-a-kind memory. As a way to preserve those moments, I started bringing back small souvenirs—a tiny bottle of black sand from Hawaii, a volcanic rock from Banff, a purple seashell from Vancouver, and a Yayoi Kusama postcard from Japan. Over time, these souvenirs accumulated, and now my room is curated like a personal memory exhibit.

One wall features a collage of paintings, photos, and natural objects I’ve collected along the way, not just from my travels but also from everyday moments with friends. On sunny afternoons, when the light streams into my room, looking at this wall fills me with happiness and hope. Each item serves as a reminder of the places I’ve been and the memories I’ve made, all of which have shaped who I am today. Before these trips, I never imagined visiting such places or meeting so many fascinating people. It’s this serendipity that fuels my hope for the future because it remains beautifully unpredictable. Who knows what new photos

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might join that wall next?

How the process of creation inspires hope Another source of hope for me is the process of creating. I believe any creative profession—whether a scientist, writer, or artist—is an incredibly fulfilling career. The act of bringing something new into existence fills the heart with hope. Creators have the unique ability to manifest their imagination into reality, enriching the world for others. As an artist, I enjoy creating work that is fantastical and visually pleasing, offering audiences a different sensational experience every time.

I’m currently working on a photography project that involves altering the colours of ordinary objects and scenes to create a dreamlike world. I have already created around 30 photographs. I vividly remember the excitement when I discovered the photoshop feature that worked like magic and produced the first image in this series. My joy stemmed from not only the beauty of the picture but also the hope of expanding the series further.

Beyond the excitement of the creative process itself, I experienced something even more profound.

When I showcased this project in class, both my professor and classmates immediately expressed their appreciation and resonance with the concept. Although I initially worried that the series might be too abstract, seeing the audience connect with the surreal colours in the photos brought me a sense of reward and hope.

As a creator, the thrill of bringing something truly unique into the world fuels your excitement to share it and witness how others interpret, appreciate, or even reimagine it.

Whether you and I are similar or different, your web of hope will undoubtedly hold different elements than mine, as everyone’s experiences are unique. I like to compare the process of building one’s web of hope to creating a Pandora bracelet.

First, list everything you love, big or small, on a piece of paper—whether it’s a particular field of knowledge, a person, or even a favourite ice cream flavour. Everything you write down represents the different raw materials you are collecting. For example, if you love marine science, imagine it as a seashell filled with pearls. If you enjoy lavender-flavored ice cream, picture it as a ball of blue yarn. It can be anything!

Once you have collected your raw materials, take a sample from each and begin refining it. This step involves thinking deeply about the fundamental reasons why these things bring you joy. For example, if you love marine biology, it might stem from your deep admiration and respect for nature. If you enjoy lavender ice cream, perhaps you are the kind of person who seeks unique sensory experiences. If you love travelling like I do, you might find excitement for meeting new people, curiosity for first-time experiences, or the satisfaction that comes after stepping out of your comfort zone. By reflecting on what brings you joy with each passion, the refining process is complete.

Now, take all these polished elements and string them together into a beautiful bracelet—this becomes your web of hope, filled with your motivations and passions. Each charm represents a core value that drives you forward, reminding you of the things that inspire and sustain you.

I hope my story inspires you to reflect deeply on what makes up your web of hope. No one else can define your hope for you—only you can discover it. This is also an opportunity for growth and self-understanding. By building this powerful mental framework, you’ll always have a reminder of who you are and what fuels your hope, even during life’s most challenging moments.

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Just a summer baby learning to survive winter Keira Johannson In 2003, I was born amidst a burning hot July. My mother recalls eating pounds of fresh British Columbia blueberries, sitting on the cold leather sofa with a fan blowing in her face as she awaited my arrival.

When I was finally born, albeit a week late, summer was in full swing. Dandelions and fresh-cut grass. Sand in between toes and watermelon dripping down faces. Sidewalk chalk and the taste of salt water. These were the things I would grow to love about the season I was born into. But what no newborn could ever understand, and what my adult self still fails to accept, is that no season lasts forever. Dandelions disappear into the early autumn air, watermelon goes out of season, and the sidewalk chalk gets washed away by late-August thunderstorms.

It was only fitting that I’d grow to loathe the cold. Now, in my twenties, winter tends to slow-dance her

Photo Collage by Keira Johannson way to my door each year, knocking ever so quietly. Soft enough that you’d only hear it if you were already listening, anticipating, and waiting on her arrival (regardless of whether you were happy about it or not).

But unlike the summer of 2003 when my mom was counting down the days to meet her new daughter, winter for me is the uninvited guest to the baby shower—bearing a gift of darkness tied in a deceiving red bow.

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This past winter hit me harder than winters before. Instead of a slow waltz, she came in blazing with a quickstep. I was, undoubtedly, unprepared. My boots still hid in the closet. My sweaters were still folded in the bottom of my dresser. And, most notably, my longing for a hot July was stronger than ever before. I could still taste the salt of the sea on my tongue, feel the grass tickle my toes, and, if I squinted hard enough, I could see my hand reaching out for the sun, clinging to that first image of childhood that was oh-so-familiar. But then I’d remember that the grass was dead, the trees were bare, and I couldn’t recall the last time I saw the sun.

Despite my distaste for summer’s looming dark sister, I was determined to find winter’s silver lining.

Thus, I spent countless afternoons staring at the frozen Port Credit River. Ducks followed the rushing water and found their home along the bank. Geese flew overhead, prompting me to wonder why they hadn’t migrated south for the winter. Maybe the geese, like myself, have a hard time walking away from things that feel comfortable. Maybe they also don’t like change. Maybe they too were hoping that warmer weather was just around the corner. Or maybe they were just geese.

On another afternoon, I stared at the ground in front of the river, where my feet stood as I watched the stream travel towards Lake Ontario. I noticed how the ground was hard as a rock on the surface but there was still soft soil to be found underneath. I just need to break through to find it, I thought to myself. My breath became a puff of cloudy white.

And so, there I stood, waiting. Waiting for the thaw, for the moment when the layers of cold would give way to something softer, something warmer. In that stillness, something shifted within me, a quiet understanding blossoming like the first buds of spring. I realized that winter’s chill was not a finality but a part of a cycle—a season that, like all others, had its place. It was a time for rest, for reflection, and for rooting down in ways that weren’t immediately visible. Beneath the hardened ground, life was still working its quiet magic.

The geese, despite their hesitation, would eventually find their way south. The river, though frozen at the surface, would continue its journey toward the lake, carving paths through the ice. And me? I would survive this winter, too. I would press on, even when the days felt short and the darkness seemed endless, because somewhere beneath the frost, hope was still stirring. The promise of the sun’s return, the scent of fresh-cut grass, the weight of warm sand beneath my feet—all of it would come again. Seasons change, as they always do. And though it’s hard to accept the passage of time, the cycles that turn endlessly around us are the very things that sustain us, reminding us that even after the coldest winter, summer’s warmth will always be around the corner.

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Illustration by Sehajleen Wander

The Bloom after the Frost Menahil Warriach

The instant the frost starts to melt has a certain, almost mystical, quality. It seems as though the world is holding its breath, and suddenly, almost imperceptibly at first, life begins to move. A bird sings, a bud appears, and the soil gradually changes from bare to lovely.

In March 2024, after a hard winter, I stood in my garden and stared at the bare ground, wondering if anything could ever sprout again. That morning, the frost clung obstinately to the windows as though it had no intention of going, and the air was acrid. In Canada, winters come early and go late. Moving back to Canada, not so long ago, I noticed the frost more, and how people yearn for spring to come. It brought to mind the several occasions in which life had felt like that a period of loss and silence, when hope appeared to be buried beneath the chill. However, I was about to look away when I noticed a small green sprout. It had persevered in spite of everything, serving as a silent reminder that life may blossom even after the frost.

The world is replete with tales of people overcoming personal loss and groups recovering from natural calamities, all of which reinforce the same idea: hope is the flower and resilience is the seed. However, the bloom following the frost is more than just a seasonal shift: it is a symbol of resiliency and the discovery of beauty and life in the face of adversity.

My favorite flower is the snowdrop. I always liked the thought of it being the first flower to bloom after winter. The first snowdrop to emerge from the chilly ground at this time of year is a welcome sight and a signal that spring has arrived.

It’s supposed to represent fresh starts, comfort, and hope.

I have always admired the metaphoric comparison between the seasons of the year and the seasons of our life! Spring’s symbolism serves as a moving reminder that life is more than just winter. It is possible that winter may come upon you. Setbacks in finances, family, or health have an impact. But my friends, keep in mind that spring will arrive soon, even after the most gloomy winters you have ever experienced.

Earthquakes leave behind unfathomable loss, damaged homes and scarred landscapes. However, communities frequently find remarkable resilience and strength in the aftermath. Pakistan, a country that has seen earthquake destruction as well as other losses before, has important lessons to teach about hope and rebirth. Families get together to rebuild as the dust settles, reestablishing schools, building homes, and replanting fields. In addition to physical structures, this process involves mending mental scars and regaining one’s purpose. Recovery is not a solitary act: it is the strength of the community that helps us rebuild. Children play, flowers blossom, and craftspeople continue their work amid the wreckage, demonstrating that life goes on.

Growing up in Pakistan, I saw a lot of people going through unimaginable hardships every day, especially the children, like not being able to go to schools or not getting their needs fulfilled. But there are always smiles on their faces, and seeing them laugh and smile through the day allows the kids to see rays of hope which are seen in their smiles, that their hardships will lead them to something even better.

As university students, first year can be hard. It can be harder on students who come from different countries in the world, as everything is new to them. This was true for me. Even though I didn’t have any language issues, trying to understand the system, documents, university policies, and how to manage all that work was really challenging n first year, especially since everything was online, and I didn’t know anything or anyone to ask for help. However, after some time, you start understanding everything and reaching out to people can be very helpful, especially in first year. If you’re skeptical about anything, ask! Asking peers or just talking to others about your hardships can bring a lot of hope in your life.

Despite their diverse religious and cultural origins, Christmas, Eid, and Holi all convey the same message: adversity and sacrifice are inevitable, but they also open the doors to development, hope, and com-

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munity. These festivities act as a kind of “bloom after the frost,” bringing people together via their common humanity and the hope of better times to come.

Christmas remains a time of giving, happiness, and fresh starts. Families reunite and reestablish their relationships, communities band together to help those in need, and people consider the possibility of better days in the future. Christmas teaches us that hope endures even in the dead of winter, whether it is via charitable deeds or the symbolic glow of candles and sparkling lights. Following the month-long fast of Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr is a time to honour self-discipline and spiritual development. Eid signifies the flowering that follows the month-long fast: a resurgence of compassion, thankfulness, and faith. The month of fasting is a personal “frost,” a period of sacrifice and introspection. Families get together to worship, eat together, and donate to the less fortunate, creating a feeling of hope and camaraderie. After winter’s frost, Holi is a celebration of rebirth and a festival of colours. Holi, which signifies the entrance of spring and the blossoming of nature, has its roots in ancient mythology of victory against evil. To represent the shedding of negativity and the acceptance of fresh starts, people congregate to dance, toss colourful powders, and forgive past wrongs.

The ongoing tenacity of the human spirit—across religions, regions, and eras—is highlighted by this diverse tapestry of cultural traditions. The bloom always appears, regardless of how cold it gets.

Regaining hope after adversity can be one of the most difficult yet transforming experiences. It doesn’t happen right away; rather, it frequently develops through small actions, introspection, and relationships with other people. For students like us, it might be daunting to find hope after adversity, but it’s crucial to keep in mind that challenges are a necessary component of progress.

Little actions can have a tremendous impact, even when university is difficult, assignments are piling up, or personal issues are weighing you down. Seek assistance from friends or instructors, take mental pauses, and acknowledge and appreciate your accomplishments, no matter how minor. Remind yourself that every obstacle you encounter can lead to growth and new opportunities, just as the frost eventually melts to expose fresh life. The coldest winters will always give way to spring, so never lose hope that you can triumph.

The flowering after the frost is a cycle of life, not just a tale. No matter how severe, every frost holds the possibility of rebirth. That promise is celebrated in this issue of the magazine. It’s a compilation of tales that demonstrate that despite the length and severity of winter, blossom will always arrive, bringing beauty, hope, and the opportunity to begin afresh. Maybe when you’re walking, you’ll find a flower sticking through the pavement, or a bud growing after the snow.

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To Hope Means To Go Beyond Belief Madhav Ajayamohan

Redefining hope as more than believing in a better future.

Ancient Greek mythology tells the tale of Pandora’s Box. The gods wanted to punish humans for stealing fire. So, they presented humanity with a box that must never be opened. In our curiosity, we opened the box and released evil spirits into the world: the spirits of death, disease, greed, rage, and more. The once perfect human race was plagued with mortality. However, we closed the box before the last spirit escaped: the spirit of Hope.

The story explains why we are plagued by disease and devastation and, more importantly, tells us how to overcome them: through hope. We describe hope as the sun that rises to dispel the night, a candle that guides us through the dark, and the light at the end of the tunnel. As Desmond Tutu, an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

From these metaphors, it’s obvious that we equate hope with optimism: believing that our life will get better, no matter how difficult it is right now. Even the first Google search result for hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”

However, if just wanting something to happen was enough, we wouldn’t have wars or poverty. If all we needed to do was just imagine, then there wouldn’t be people dying due to starvation and disease. If just wanting the world to be perfect was enough, then there wouldn’t be discrimination based on colour, ethnicity, or gender. Just having desire isn’t enough. Belief just isn’t enough.

The spirit left behind in Pandora’s box isn’t just a belief– it isn’t a fantasy. Hope is something real and tangible that leads to change and growth. Hope goes beyond believing to achieve our goals.

The Power of Belief In sports, top-level athletes often use visualization to reach their best performance. Emily Cook, a three-time Olympic freestyle skier, describes how she would visualize her perfect jump before events: what steps she needed to take, how they should feel, and what the results should be.

Each time an athlete pictures themselves giving a perfect performance, their brain becomes more accustomed to perfection. In other words, athletes’ belief that they can execute their event perfectly increases each time they do visualization training.

From the success of visualization training, one fact becomes evident: to reach a goal, you need to imagine a reality where you reach that goal. Seeing such a possibility is essential, because only then can you move on to the next step.

When we explain Cook’s visualization of a perfect jump, we can see she doesn’t just picture a perfect jump. She visualizes all the steps she needs to reach that reality. Thus, to attain our goal, we must picture a concrete path to our goal.

Redefining Hope Dr. Chan Hellman, director of The Hope Research Center, defines hope as the “belief your future will be better than today, and that you have the power to make it so.” The most important difference between Hellman’s definition and our colloquial understanding is the addition that we believe we have the power to improve our futures. It changes our understanding of hope as a passive action to an active action.

To understand this, we will examine what Hellman defines as the three major tenets of hope: goals, pathways and willpower. Our goals represent what we need to make our future better. We set our goals to

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match what we need to survive and thrive. Pathways represent the steps we need to take to attain our goals. Finally, willpower represents our motivation to traverse that pathway. It represents the strength and energy we need to complete the steps needed to reach our goals.

Just believing we will attain a goal is a passive process. However, to truly believe that you can attain that goal, you need to identify a pathway to reach that goal and trust that you have the willpower to follow that pathway.

Returning to our example of Emily Cook, we can see that hope is an active process. Her experience doing perfect jumps and training as an Olympian gives her enough confidence in her willpower to follow the pathway she created.

To hope means to consistently reflect upon how to reach your goal and develop yourself to make sure you reach that goal.

To Act “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it,” is one of author Paulo Coelho’s most famous quotes. However, I believe that quote isn’t quite accurate. It should be more like, “When you want something, you truly believe that you can get that something, and you work towards it with all your willpower, then all the universe conspires in helping you

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Illustration by Melody Zhou

achieve it.”

Even after all the discussion of going beyond belief, in the end, we still define hope as a belief. However, hope is not merely the belief that things will be better. Hope is the belief that things will be better because you have the ability to make them better. You may be wondering, if hope is just a belief, then how does it solve the world’s problems? You’re right– it doesn’t.

The spirit inside Pandora’s box couldn’t solve the world’s problems. It gave us the ability to create a better future. Hope gives us the courage and strength to counter the problems of the world on our own and change our current situation with our own hands.

Many times, in our lives, we feel powerless to change ourselves and the situation we are in. We wish to be better people and get to a better place, but it’s like we are in a pit we cannot escape. However, it’s possible to leave that pit. As long as you are willing to hope—as long as you are willing to look at yourself and work on yourself—you can take control of your life. You can create your own future.

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What is Hope and Why Does it Matter?

Tyler Medeiros

Why should I have hope? How can I possibly have hope during a time of great negativity? These are some questions that you may be asking yourself, or your family and friends. Questions that you, or the people close to you, just might not have the answers to. Life in recent years has been hard. Multiple terrible events have weakened our ability to be hopeful. Tragedies like Hurricane Milton in Florida, the genocides in Gaza, Sudan, and Congo, and the continuing Russian invasion of Ukraine have negatively impacted the lives of many people around the world. Issues like these darken our world and echo the injustices of the past.

So I guess that begs the question, is there any reason to be hopeful? Well, that is the question we are here to answer. Let’s spend some time looking at the impact of hope, and whether or not it is worth caring about.

Why Hope?

One of the best ways to figure out if hope is valuable is by looking at examples of it in action.

Stephen Jay Gould, a doctor and professor at Harvard University, was diagnosed with abdominal mesothelioma, an incurable form of cancer, in 1982.

The median life expectancy of patients with this form of cancer is around 8 months. Gould immediately went to the library to do some research on mesothelioma, despite the shock and distress he was in after hearing the news. Gould refused to give up and wanted to see what he could do to improve his disease. In his words, this is what he found: “[M]atch people with the same cancer for age, class, health, and socio-economic status, and, in general, those with positive attitudes, with a strong will and purpose for living, with commitment to struggle, and with an active response to aiding their own treatment and not just a passive acceptance of anything doctors say tend to live longer” (Gould, 1982, p.78).

Gould began reminding himself of all the aspects of this description that favoured a longer life. He was in good health, well-off financially, a

high-status member of society, and had a strong will to live so that he could continue to support his family. Gould was now hopeful that he could live longer than the 8-month median expected of a mesothelioma patient. Gould died in 2002, 20 years after his diagnosis.

Although this example of Stephen Gould’s extended life span is heartwarming, many cancer patients do not have the same luxuries to extend their lives as Gould did. What about mesothelioma patients who are not wealthy? Or ones who are not well respected in society? Do they have reason to be hopeful? Well, considering that the median life span is 8 months, it doesn’t seem so.

Continuing our search for reasons to hope, studies show that academic and athletic performance is also improved when people are hopeful in themselves and their socioeconomic situation. Research done by Jennifer S. Cheavens, Scott Michael, and C. R. Snyder looks into bot the academic and athletic spheres to see the impact of hope. Snyder et al.

(2002) took a group of students with high and low hope levels entering university or college. Snyder and researchers found that “... students with higher hope when entering college had significantly higher grade point averages, were more likely to have graduated, and were less likely to have dropped out six years later than those with lower hope scores” (Snyder et al., 2005, p. 121-122).

So now that we have at least some reason to believe that having hope and being hopeful is beneficial, let’s see if we can find ways to have hope in 2025.

How to Hope A large portion of having hope or being hopeful is having a positive mental attitude. A positive mental attitude is similar to being hopeful in the sense that a person or group of people chooses to believe in, or focus on, the positive circumstances and or outcome of a situation, rather than the negative ones.

So when we look at the common saying, “is the

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Illustration by Sara Li

glass half full or half empty?” A person with a positive mental attitude would say half full. Someone filled with hope is likely to say the same, but being hopeful focuses on looking to the future, more than it does on the present or the past.

But how can we have hope for something in the future, something that we can’t know for certain is coming? Sarah Stitzlein, a Professor at the University of Cincinnati, looks at the different ways that students can learn how to have hope in the classroom. In somewhat of a contrast to having a positive mental attitude, Stitzlein believes that to have hope “we need mechanisms that allow us to enact and sustain hoping across time, and habits provide those” (Stitzlein, 2020, p. 114). Stitzlein uses habits within a classroom setting as examples for teaching hope to kids and young adults. The teacher’s job in the classroom is to make sure that students’ academic needs are met. Teachers are encouraged to provide students with a supportive environment that promotes positive thinking and discourages inappropriate language.

Stitzlein also believes that students’ basic needs must be met, making them feel safe and secure to dream big. Teachers and staff play a role in fostering

hope within students, but the physiological needs that kids and young adults require are largely dependent on their parents or guardian(s) providing it for them. Unfortunately, according to the Government of Canada, thousands of youths across the country do not have secure parental figures or guardians to provide the physiological needs that allow the next generation to hope.

Overall, the ability to hope is dependent on a combination of having a positive state of mind and making sure that our physiological needs are met.

Stephen Gould shows us how having hope can be psychologically and physiologically beneficial if you meet a certain socio-economic standard. Professor Stitzein gives us the blueprint for obtaining hope, even if it may not seem within our current reach according to the Canadian Government.

Hope is sometimes about believing without seeing. We must choose to believe in a greater future for ourselves, and the world, even if we can’t visually see that possibility. Think of hope as the fuel for our bodies and minds: it gives us the energy to keep pushing through times of hardship and distress.

Without hope in our lives, we would be stagnant, floating with thoughts of defeat and despair.

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Written by you Not just another Gisele Tang

Why is the sky grey again?

Seated in some confined cafe, You can only focus on your terrible day.

The coffee sucks, Not because the beans are bland, But because the barista looks like he wants you dead.

Well, anything would taste blue, When infected with such a mood.

You glance around, There’s not much of a crowd.

Still, you’re unsure if you want to ponder now.

But your thoughts close in, The blasting music can no longer stop them from spilling.

So you lay out the notebook you’ve purchased for the sake of aesthetics, But never once did it serve the purpose of journaling.

Eyes closed, deep breaths.

You wander to the forbidden zone of your mind, Filled with unwanted memories you’ve stowed away.

One foot in, Darkness crawls up and grips your leg.

You scream.

It comes out silent, The only hint of that horror is your sombre eyes, widened.

To those around you, You’re just lost in a daydream.

But the twisted wires of anxiety come sneaking out, Tangling, chocking, slicing through your flesh, Until you must vomit out the pain.I You glance at the pen on your table.

You hear it spew memories of the friend who never treated you right, Worries about your love life, Frustrations of never achieving peace of mind, And questions from people asking, “What’s the plan for your career?”

In response, you want to yell, “I don’t know. Are you going to be my fortune teller?”

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Illustration by Erin Sauve

You wonder how you hear all this just by looking at your pen.

You pick up your pen, It gags on the friend who never treated you right, It retches on worries about your love life, It pukes out the frustration of never having peace of mind, It spews out the concerns about your future, Of the overwhelming dread when they ask you, “What’s the plan for your career?”

And in desperation, you want to yell, “I don’t know. Are you going to be my fortune teller?”

Finishing your degree was your only priority.

You had it all planned out.

It will get you a job with a decent salary.

Then, you can finally be free.

But you read about the inflation rate, And wonder, what if struggling is my fate?

As they say, World War III can happen anytime, Bloodshed occurs daily.

And the news just gave up reporting it eventually. .

Meanwhile, politicians are unfazed, Justice is no longer what the governments chase.

All you see are people lying, stealing and manipulating, As if their will to live is solely fueled by animalistic greed. fueled by animalistic greed.

How can you be hopeful?

When all you see is how the world betrays you.

Every day, these thoughts pump surges of fear through your veins.

Inhale.

What is the meaning of life?

They keep asking you to try, But never noticed how many times you’ve died inside.

Exhale.

You’re back in the café.

The warm smell of buttery pastry fills your nose, It spreads through your body like a fuzzy blanket.

The faint golden caress snaps you back, And a new batch of croissants is brought out.

Your lips curl up a bit, Until suddenly, The rock pressed on your chest feels a little less heavy.

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You attempt to shift your focus onto something light.

But once the brooding starts, You’re always stuck on it for a few hours.

How can I relax when the bad side always seems to get the upper hand?

Inhale.

The golden caress glides through your nose again.

You clumsily chase after its footsteps.

If a batch of croissants can lighten the weight of the world, Even just for a split second, What happens when you gather millions of these moments?

Will speckles of hope be enough for you to stand tall against all disappointment?

But how many before you have experienced this agony?

Yet, none of their battles were fought in vain.

They are remembered, Because they always chose the hopeful lane.

Maybe the point isn’t to ignore the darkness, But to hold on to hints of light.

Stars amongst the stormiest nights never disappeared, But we forget their presence, Eventually, all we do is mourn the loss of their existence.

If you also fall into the trap of hopelessness, Who is going to be the light?

If you give up on your mission, Who is going to fight?

Well, you, but remember the vows you once made.

The goodness that you promised to bring, And remember that you are the one holding the blade.

You are the one holding that weapon of fate.

You decide which step to take.

The first step of healing this pain, Is recognizing that you are part of the change.

If you give up on your mission, Yes, you might not have to fight, But you will forever live in fright, Haunted by the vows you once made.

The goodness that you promised to bring, Will be mercilessly slain,

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And you’ll realize you were the one holding the blade: The weapon of despair, The symbol of true failure,.

The first step of healing this pain, Is to recognize, that you are a part of the change.

Hope comes from everyday life, From being undefeated by endless tries.

Hope comes from crying, Then standing up with courage.

Get up.

You walk to the barista.

Instead of flinching at his coldness, You squeeze out a smile and ask for a croissant.

He doesn’t smile back.

But his eyes soften, barely noticeable But that’s enough.

Hope doesn’t have to be grand.

It starts with showing up with a smile.

Hope doesn’t care how many times you’ve failed.

So, find the courage, find the strength.

Remember, every time you break through, It’s proof that hope starts with you.

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The power of friendship: A Youtuber’s guide to making the most out of college Massimo Bozzo Ever since I started university, I’ve wondered about what my experience would be like. Would it be like the movies and television shows that I watched? Would there be parties and fraternities at every corner? Not quite. However, I noticed that some universities have a more exciting scene than others.

Many students see the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) as a not-so-exciting school. Compared to other “party schools”—like Western University, Wilfrid Laurier University, and McMaster University—UTM is widely regarded as a commuter school with no social scene, lacking widely known aspects of student life like homecoming, fraternities, and parties.

Although the UTM campus is relatively small and located among neighbourhoods, there are still ways to make the most of college without huge parties and extravagant events. One YouTuber I know serves as a great example of someone who maximized his college experience. Anthony Po, or @Anthpo, embraced the power of friendship and documented it all in his content throughout his time in college.

Anthpo is a YouTuber with over 1.8 million subscribers and is known for his many antics, including playing fictional characters in front of students like Fat Yoshi and Perry the Platypus—skits that made him go viral in high school.

As his content shifted from green screen parodies to comedy skits, he eventually landed on making content around his college life after moving back to his campus following the Covid-19 pandemic. There, he began to hone his content around what he calls “the power of friendship”—a recurring theme across all of his college videos which shows how simple ideas and getting together with friends can help you make the most out of college.

Sure, students often focus on the next big campus party, but for Anthpo, college was about much more.

Hosting presentation nights, Wii tournaments, and ridiculous challenges to keep students from losing their minds are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Anthpo’s college experience.

It may seem like a stretch for the average student to do things like this, but you don’t need to be a YouTuber to have fun. Anyone can hold a Nerf tournament with their friends, start a band or simply relive their childhood by going to Chuck-E-Cheese with friends like what Anthpo did. The college experience goes beyond college and into the little things—spending time with people you love, getting out there and meeting new people, and most of all, trying new things.

Even with a campus as small as UTM, fun things can still be a reality if students have hope in a good community and in themselves to do something fun for everyone occasionally instead of just waiting for something to happen.

Last month, I came across a post on Instagram by @SpottedAtUTM2.5 where a student proposed a game of duck-duck-goose on campus. Sure, it may not have been a large gathering, but it only takes one person to make a difference in someone’s day and host fun little events where people can come together and do something fun without a particular reason. No club policies, no commitments, and no requirements of any kind. I was confident that after seeing an event like this take place, there was hope for UTM to take after Anthpo’s antics and bring people together to do something fun on campus for a change.

It’s as simple as booking a room on campus to make your presentation nights with your friends, gathering in the middle of a field to have a Nerf battle, or simply holding a giant game of manhunt across campus.

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I feel that hope for a fun university experience can happen through events like this because of YouTubers like Anthpo who showed the world what you can make of college if you keep a positive mindset and just gather with friends to do something fun.

Illustration by Melody Zhou

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Finding hope for the climate around the world Celesta Maniatogianni Winter feels like it’s getting shorter each year, governments and billionaires seem apathetic to their massive carbon footprints, and I am bombarded daily with daunting headlines warning about how climate change is going to lead to the end of humanity as we know it. As a young person, this constant anxiety over the climate and the powerlessness I feel over the future of the planet is exhausting. Any hope regarding climate change seems impossible to come by, but when I do come across a piece of good news, I feel, even for just a moment, optimistic.

In the spirit of this year’s theme being hope, I wanted to write a piece highlighting a few people and groups across the globe whose efforts to slow down and find solutions to the effects of climate change bring about just that. From large-scale conservation efforts to small-scale local activism, these stories offer us a little bit of hope about our planet and reveal the importance of climate activism, no matter how futile it may feel sometimes.

The emergence of climate cafes As it turns out, the anxiety I have been feeling over the climate has a name—eco-anxiety. And it’s more common than you think, especially among younger generations. To understand and combat eco-anxiety, there has been an emergence of climate cafes across the globe. These cafes, which are typically informal and community-led, provide a space for people to discuss their feelings and perspectives on climate change.

In Nigeria, SustyVibes, a non-governmental organization focused on motivating youth to participate in climate action by making sustainability cool and relatable, opened its own climate cafe in Lagos. The climate cafe is a part of the organization’s initiative to understand and validate the eco-anxiety and environmental perspectives of Africans. The initiative, The Eco-anxiety in Africa Project (TEAP), is leading the effort to understand how Africans feel about climate change and providing space for their communities to discuss these feelings.

I spoke with two of TEAP’s team members to discuss how addressing eco-anxiety, particularly in Africa, can lead to better outcomes for climate change. “When we speak about climate change, we often forget about mental health,” said Svetlana Onye-Sanya, project lead for TEAP. Posttraumatic stress disorder, grief, and anger are all factors which can contribute to someone’s unwillingness to participate in climate conservation. Ayomide Olude, project manager at TEAP, added that apathy is also a common feeling promoted by climate change.

Especially in West Africa, according to Svetlana and Ayomide, which has seen oil spills, flooding, heatwaves, drought, and a lack of relief efforts and support from the government, there is a shortage of research on the social aspect of climate change. Through their research and initiatives, such as the climate cafe, TEAP is hoping to find ways to best support vulnerable groups and encourage youth in particular to become involved in conversations about climate change. By addressing the impact of eco-anxiety and shifting the focus towards younger people, Svetlana believes that youth will be “less anxious to plan ahead for the future.”

The emergence of climate cafes, especially in places disproportionately affected by climate change, highlights a gap in the discourse surrounding climate change–how our perceptions and feelings towards the climate crisis have impacted the work we put into protecting the planet. How many of us have been deterred from taking action to protect the planet purely because the effort seemed pointless? How many people are being left out of these discussions altogether? Climate cafes and building accessible spaces for open communication on climate change are just some of how we can go about protecting the future of our planet.

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Illustration by Sara Li

Indigenous solutions and restoration When I began my research into climate change innovations and solutions, I was expecting to learn about new, elaborate, technological inventions which may finally turn out to be the one-size-fits-all cure for climate change. What I found, however, is that many of these “solutions” were either just concepts, hypothetical, or only about one aspect of climate change.

For example, the “Mammoth” is a giant new carbon-sucking machine—basically a massive air purifier based in the Icelandic tundra. While in theory, these sorts of machines are a smart way to remove the gases from the atmosphere, which lead to climate change, it has been criticized for being expensive, energy-hungry, and lacking proof of effectiveness.

However, in learning about climate conservation efforts around the world, I realized that the solution for global warming may not be in the future but rather rooted in the past. Indigenous people from all over have been taking care of the land for centuries. Their invaluable knowledge of their environment, when applied to modern conservation efforts, may well be the first step in combating the effects of climate change.

In New Zealand, native Māori groups have been organizing their own conservation efforts, rooted in the beliefs and practices of their ancestors.

Led by Te Rūnanga o Kaikōura, a Māori tribal council based in the town of Kaikōura on New Zealand’s South Island, a conservation project is cleaning out creeks and rivers, planting native plants, and setting up traps for invasive pests. This restoration of the natural environment supports and preserves the biodiversity and ecosystem of the area through the implantation of traditional Māori conservation methods. Also, since much of Māori tradition, belief, and life is deeply connected to the natural environment, it is a critical step in maintaining Māori culture, something which climate change has made difficult to conserve.

The daily tasks of the conservationists who work as part of this project are assigned based on phases of the moon, which not only takes into account the physical effects of the moon—like tides and weather—but also the spiritual significance of what the different phases of the moon mean. This project serves as an example of Māori tradition being applied to modern-day conservation and the positive outcomes of it.

New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment (MfE) is committed to working with Māori communities in developing environmental policies and resource management arrangements. This not only benefits Māori communities across the country, who are at high risk of being displaced by the effects of climate change, but also the entirety of New Zealand’s ecosystem. Based on the Māori concept of Te Mana o te Wai—which refers to the vital importance of water—New Zealand’s MfE has enacted an Essential Freshwater work programme, which at its core, reflects the values of Te Mana o te Wai. This work program prioritizes the health of freshwater sources over social and economic needs, which in turn ends up benefiting people as a whole.

This integration of Indigenous knowledge in conservation efforts is also found in southwestern Guatemala, where each year, the 48 villages of Totonicapán, an Indigenous Maya K’iche region, gather to elect their new council and president. The job of Totonicapán’s Council of Natural Resources and its president is to protect and restore the region’s communal forest, which spans over 51,892 acres. Using traditional modes of governance and ancestral ecological knowledge, the K’iche have been successfully managing their own natural resources for centuries, but in recent years, deforestation and climate change-related forest fires have posed significant threats to the region.

Nevertheless, the region has a long-term conservation partnership with the EcoLogic Development Fund, which helps Indigenous communities in Central America and Mexico safeguard their natural resources. The partnership provides the K’iche with the guidance and financial support needed to maintain their conservation efforts. In addition to this, EcoLogic has been carrying out a large-scale reforestation project in the region, in which native plants such as cypresses and pine trees are planted and matured in greenhouses before they are used for reforestation by community members from all across the region. Similar to the Kaikōura-led project in New Zealand, this project is based on ancestral knowledge and the value of caring for the environment and is deeply connected to the lives and well-being of the people who depend on it.

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Imagine if the collective knowledge of Indigenous people from across the world and the shared value of caring for the environment were applied to our modern approaches to conservation. Centuries worth of ecological knowledge and a worldwide community effort to reverse climate change may well be the solution that we have been searching for.

Small-scale activism and big outcomes Last spring, a neighbourhood in Memphis, Tennessee, proved that local activism and small-scale efforts can have a profound impact. Beginning in 1976, the community of Shelby County in Southwest Memphis was home to a facility responsible for sterilizing medical equipment and materials. The facility, Sterilization Services of Tennessee, emitted a known cancer-causing gas into the air, ethylene oxide, or EtO. Classed as a hazardous air pollutant by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), breathing in EtO over many years, such as the residents who lived near the facility, can lead to leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and stomach and breast cancers.

The Memphis Community Against Pollution, a local environmental organization focused on pursuing environmental justice for Black communities in Southwest Memphis, as well as protecting the area’s health and environment, is the group which led the fight to the facility’s closure. Through petitioning the White House, the EPA, and the Shelby County Health Department, as well as putting pressure on the facility to close, the facility announced that as of April 30, 2024, it will no longer be in operation.

For Shelby County, this is a huge win in the pursuit of environmental justice on a local scale. The facility’s closure serves as a reminder that to battle global warming, you don’t need to take on the whole world at once because more often than not, there is a positive impact to be made on your own community. Every major climate movement has started small, and many, such as Greta Thunberg’s “School Strike for the Climate”, have grown to a global scale. Even just joining an already existing movement, you will be making a positive impact.

Managing the stress of climate change For many people, climate change will continue to cause anxiety and uncertainty, especially for younger generations. There is, however, effort and hope being put into managing and reversing the effects of climate change. Whether it be talking about how climate change has personally impacted you, following traditional and proven methods of conservation, or just beginning your journey as a climate activist, there is so much you can do to contribute to the fight against climate change. What I hope you, the reader, take away from these stories is a sense of inspiration and the knowledge that you do, in fact, have the power to make meaningful change. Start as soon as you can.

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Censorship is evolving, but so is journalism

Mashiyat Ahmed

An interview with journalist Emma Paling on fostering hope in an age of distorted realities.

From a young age, I remember wanting to write — with the vague dream of being a journalist always looming over my shoulder — even as I flung myself into the sciences for hopes of a better career. Now in my third year of university, writing is no longer relegated to a hobby. It shapes my career decisions and my civic engagement. But though I love it, 2024 has taught me that the journalism industry I want to work in is not without its flaws.

The pitfalls of mainstream media Although public trust in centralized mainstream media — such as the New York Times, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Toronto Star, and Global News — has been declining, these platforms remain at the forefront of shaping public perception, especially during politically important moments such as elections and other globally relevant events. As corporate-owned establishments, these news agencies have an unshakable grip on the information access and decision-making of ordinary citizens. Politically or financially motivated pressures, the concerns of the corporate elite, and the status quo influence these news organizations to report certain things in certain ways.

Even smaller platforms like the Huffington Post are driven by a corporate model and informed by industry norms. Journalists, whose responsibility is to deliver critical, empathetic, and accurate reporting, often work under difficult conditions where their time, resources, and access are restricted by demands to increase virality and digital traction, while adhering to simplistic, partisan-pleasing neoliberal narratives.

This is heartbreakingly evident in the Canadian media’s coverage of Israel’s genocidal violence on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and neighbouring countries following the October 7th Attacks by Hamas. In writing this article, I had a

conversation with Toronto-based journalist and writer Emma Paling, who has done exceptional investigative reporting on the media’s treatment of Palestinian stories.

“Colonial bias” and slow violence: the media and Palestine How much propaganda and lies can be packed into a headline? In the month following Israel’s retaliation against Hamas, Paling investigated anti-Palestinian bias in how editors and directives at CTV News, CP24, and BNN Bloomberg — all owned by Bell Media — “guided” their journalists to cover stories about Palestine. Not only were more Israeli voices featured, but mentions of Palestine as a country and identity, and critical narratives about the extent of violence in Gaza were sanitized or simply censored. For example, coverage of protests with chants for liberation, statements on the exact Palestinian death toll, and the provision of important context on Israeli-Palestinian history — especially ones that focused on Israel as an occupying power — were met with unjustified scrutiny and censorship.

What was particularly appalling to me was another report by Paling where she reveals the extent to which the CBC normalizes sanitized language, even when journalists resist such editorial decisions.

Not only did the CBC use more sympathetic language to describe Israeli casualties and sentiments, but the CBC responded to complaints over their editing choices by asserting that “Israel carries out its killings ‘remotely’ instead of face-to-face,” which “does not merit the terms ‘murderous’ and ‘brutal.’”

At the time, Israel had killed more than 22,600 Palestinians. Unbelievable.

There’s multiple reasons for this, but when asked why the Canadian media — which prides itself on journalistic integrity and press freedom — has a glaring double standard, Paling says: “there’s a long standing colonial bias in Canadian newsrooms.

Canadians don’t want to see themselves as the bad

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guys.” And while unmarked graves at former residential schools have forced the media to confront that our nationhood is birthed upon Indigenous cultural genocide, “there’s still resistance to using that [reckoning] to look at the whole country, to look at Canada’s influence in the world, and the fact that our country is allied with such a violent occupying power such as Israel.”

Paling goes on to say that, even though corporate-owned media have done ground-breaking journalism, when it comes to “Israel and Palestine issues, and on other issues too I am realizing, such as politics in general, there’s actually a lack of rigor.

There’s a whole history of occupation that people just don’t want to talk about.”

From casual conversations with her friends to observing the industry climate, Paling also claims that unjustified and excessive editorial scrutiny of Palestinian stories is exhausting for journalists who yearn to write critically. CBC journalist Molly Schumann wrote an article for The Breach, an independent Canadian media outlet, where she identified that many writers feel pressured to self-censor their writing to uphold CBC’s clear bias against fair coverage of Palestine.

Schumann observes that some of these pressurizing conditions include, but are not limited to, CBC overly editing or cancelling interviews from the Canadian-Palestinians compared to Israeli interviews. Other examples include censoring mentions of genocide, whitewashing western-backed Israeli violence, unwarranted accusations of anti-Semitism in the newsroom, and secret blacklists for passionate pro-Palestinian speakers. I urge you to read Schumann’s original article, as it interweaves the relevance of her Jewish ancestry and career interests at CBC with her fight against the media’s complicity in delegitimizing genocide.

In my opinion, the media’s treatment of Palestinian stories is tantamount to “slow violence,” an idea elucidated by Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung that describes human suffering to be the result of invisible and indirect violence. Majority of human lives suffer not at the hands of violent gunmen or militias, but at the behest of oppressive systems of inequality and greed that our politicians and the status quo happily uphold. The media, lobbying groups,

and the religion of money and power are all forms of slow violence that kills behind closed doors and in expensive suits, hiding behind whatever guise or explanation that pleases the systems that benefit them.

Is there a possibility for reform and hope in journalism?

Reform starts with accountability. And there has been none. Since the conflict, talk radio shows and articles have carelessly spewed many dehumanizing and incorrect statements. One radio station at Global News said that students at pro-Palestinian encampments in Montreal taught children to use weapons to dig tunnels. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) demanded a correction of this absurd statement from the regulators of the show, but nothing was done since the comment did not meet an arbitrary threshold for what is considered racist. “The bar is so high to be considered hateful content that you can basically get away with total lies and implying racist things, and there’s no accountability. It’s been shocking,” claims Paling.

It’s certainly disturbing knowing that Canadians are unaware of the terrible reporting that takes place inside newsrooms and of the editorial decisions, whether spoken or unspoken, that shape public opinion and policy. Canada and the US are living through a politically consequential period: global consciousness is rising about how Western greed and violence are deeply entrenched in the Global South and third-world countries.

Yet, there is little to no possibility of reform in mainstream news. Not only is there a complete lack of accountability, but some editors have outright “refused to correct things that were proven to be incorrect later on,” says Paling. Amidst the many colours of censorship the media has enabled, a future of truth and justice on behalf of media corporations looks unlikely.

However, I think there is something important to be learned here: the questions and stories our mainstream outlets stifle or censor are precisely the questions and stories we should be seeking. If anything, the injustice perpetrated by prestigious outlets like the CBC and Global News have simply told us where to look. In distorting the truth, they told us where to find it.

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Photo Collage by Mashiyat Ahmed

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Alternative media: a beacon of hope Independent (indie) media, as evident in the name, is not corporate-owned and much smaller in scale. This means that journalists have more freedom and time to pursue critical and original stories, ones that are not subject to elitist and profiteering pressures. Paling is just one of a handful of journalists who have written about Palestine with the sensitivity and depth lacking in mainstream media: work which she says could only be published on leading indie platforms like The Maple, The Breach, and The Grind.

Mainstream platforms regularly dehumanize minorities. Even when journalism is well-intentioned, coverage can lazily feed into stereotypes to communicate information. For example, Palestine needs to be talked about independent of its subjugation under Israeli occupation and suffering. What about the stories of positive resistance, Palestinian culture, and achievements? And not just achievements “in spite of horrible conditions” or “unimaginable suffering.” Indie media has spearheaded such stories, and those of other demonized minorities too, such as Indigenous Peoples.

“I think we’ve really played a huge role in informing Canadians, and demonstrating the power journalism has when we are not falling into these lazy and cowardly journalistic conventions,” says Paling.

Though indie media has made strides, it’s important to point out that the rise in podcasts — which are forms of independent media — and conservative indie outlets coincides with the rise in right-wing rhetoric that has only added to a climate of information pollution, especially in an age where many lack media literacy.

However, these small-scale platforms, largely funded by local and loyal readers, continue to be voices of empathy and reason. Reporting on protests and rallies, reading in between the lines of mainstream rhetoric, investigating our country’s shameful complicity in building weapons that bomb the civilian-packed streets of Gaza, and amplifying minority voices are just a few things indie media has excelled at. Indie media can write about these things because their readers demand it. And their readers, according to Paling, are overwhelmingly Gen Z and

millennials.

“I think I can say without a doubt that over the course of the genocide in Gaza, the Canadian independent media has absolutely proven its worth. We have been at the forefront of the conversation and setting the agenda, while the traditional outlets are following us,” says Paling, exuberantly.

Interconnected struggles, interconnected hope Faulty reporting is not limited to Palestine.

The student-led mobilizations in Siberia calling for systemic reforms, the crises in Haiti, resource and labour exploitation in Congo , or the mass suicide of Sudanese women and girls to avoid rape amidst the ongoing civil-proxy war have all gone grossly underreported.

Where is the critical narrative that such displays of global suffering and violence are, in part, products of western exploitation and funding and not just isolated problems? Why is our media failing to explore the interconnected realities of Palestine, Venezuela, Congo, Haiti, Sudan, and many more?

It seems to me that the mainstream media is grossly hesitant in asking uncomfortable questions about underlying issues, because the same elitist conglomerates that benefit from such displays of slow violence are the same conglomerates that fund these media companies, essentially buying and selling narratives. But where traditional media has failed, indie and student publications, have succeeded.

In December of 2024, the Israeli government, supported by Jewish-American lobbying groups, motioned to invest a whopping $150 million into the country’s propaganda machine, which aims to abolish anti-Zionist and leftist views from social media, university campuses, and foreign media platforms.

In Israeli newspapers, this investment is framed as simply supporting “public diplomacy abroad.”

Money speaks volumes. That $150 million is a cry of desperation against the much louder voices of humanity that have protested, boycotted, and condemned Zionist propaganda since even before October 7th. If the urgent truth-telling done by independent sources was failing, then such money would not be needed. If the situation was hopeless, the propaganda would be unnecessary.

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In a touching article for The Toronto Star, Egyptian-Canadian journalist Pacinthe Mattar says that when she held a vigil for murdered journalists in the Middle East, the only reporters that showed up to cover the event were from student publications like The Eyeopener — Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) newspaper — and the Review of Journalism, another TMU-based magazine.

In the summer of 2024, pro-Palestinian encampments took to the field of King’s College Circle to protest U of T’s complicity in the genocide. The Varsity rigorously reported on these encampments, as well as other Palestine-related happenings, with consistency and a student-focused lens. The Varsity is currently creating a database of resources and best practices to enhance campus coverage of such events.

Against the flood of heartbreaking images of global events, the hypocrisy of our institutions, and the inadequacies of traditional media, indie media is a beacon of hope for me, Paling, and many others. In the past, I read the CBC and The New York Times.

Part of me still wants to have bylines on these platforms, but the truth is, I am incredibly proud to write for student publications like The Medium and The Varsity where sensitivity and student-centered discourse take precedence over pushing certain agendas or succumbing to the simplistic appetites. This is where my hope lives.

informed and polarized by simplistic narratives and shy reporting.

On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like indie media will overtake mainstream sources, but there is a generational pattern among indie media consumers, namely young folks. “That’s a source of hope,” says Paling, “because it’s younger people who are really caring about this [despite] professional and social consequences; so the fact that young people are willing to be vocal about this, and post it on their social media, and be proud to support Palestinian solidarity, gives me a lot of hope.”

Journalism and writing are also spaces to cultivate rage and hope in an intentional way. Journalism that can stand its ground gives shape to hope. It gives hope to a future where hope is not an imagined and fickle emotional desire for a better world, but an actionable reality. But only if we can see through the poison of corporate media.

Without the shared hope journalism gives us, we risk devolving into passive nihilism, which threatens any social justice progress we have made so far. The past year has shown us that independent journalism is for the people, and by the people. That is where my hope is.

Writing hope into our futures We live in an increasingly frenetic culture. Everything from our lives in real-time to the fast-paced, bite-sized, algorithm-driven world of social media fails to capture the depth of experiences. It also doesn’t equip us with the skills to digest information in the digital age with nuance and perspective. We scroll, we read, we hear the cries of orphaned children and wailing parents on our screens, and amidst it all, it’s too painful to remember that what’s on our Instagram feeds isn’t just “content.” It’s real people with real sorrows and real happiness.

Mainstream journalism has noble intentions, but amidst the rush to cover stories, it prioritizes quantity over quality, neglecting a lens that humanizes.

In my experience, instead serving its democratic purpose, mainstream sources have left readers mis-

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