Fashion 101: Ottawa style

As far as stylish cities go, Ottawa isn't one of them.

Honest.

If you were to ask any Canadian which cities are the most fashionable you would get either Montreal or Toronto. Both have booming fashion industries, amazing stores, and citizens who want to look their absolute best. And both have well attended fashion weeks!

Ottawa, well, not so much.

One of my "problems" about living in Ottawa is the shopping. I find it very generic and most of the stores that I love haven't arrived here yet.

Case in point: H&M. For my H&M fix, I need to travel two hours to Montreal, five to Sherbrooke or Quebec City, or six to Toronto. Rumors are running around that H&M is coming to Ottawa, apparently when the renovations at the Rideau Centre are finished. In like 2011. The thing is, it's going to be a mall H&M, which has nothing on the three floor flagship beauty in downtown Montreal. But at this point, I will settle for anything.

I think one of the major problems with fashion in Ottawa is that no one is really expected to look their best. Though this is a government town, the majority of government workers are wearing jeans, shorts, ugly tops, and flip flops to work (Unless you are a lawyer or a politician, where you were a suit, or in the Armed Forces, where you wear your oh-so-sexy uniform). Frankly, would a dress code kill anyone? And this isn't even a strict dress code, I'm talking business casual, ie. dress pants, dress shoes, and a nice top. It shows you have pride in your work and that you don't put work on the same level as boating at the cottage.

Also, certain fashion rules should just automatically be followed. Such as white socks with sandals. Now, I used to be a residential summer camp counsellor and I actually did this for time to time, AT SUMMER CAMP. Over the course of the summer, I have seen so many people breaking this big fashion "no-no", the worst was being teenagers or people my age. I would actually stop and stare at them while at the Rideau Centre. It was truly beyond me.

Oh, Ottawa, when will you fashion-bility improve? As a former Montrealer, you make me want to cry.

Creepy UOttawa E-mails

UOttawa has been on a creepy e-mail spree this week.

By my own personal definition, a creepy e-mail is one in which the sender is trying to alert you of something that you should be concerned about, but is doing it in such a vague way that it leaves you questioning if you actually find this comforting or just plain creeped out by it.

Earlier this week, I was sent an e-mail about H1N1 (aka, Swine Flu). Now, I personally don't find H1N1 to be that scary, especially after talking to friends of mine who are professionals in the health fields. However, I was suppose to be comforted by the fact that UOttawa has create a campus response and planning team. Oh, and all of those signs all around campus reminding us to wash our hands, sneeze into our elbows, and getting a flu shot are also helping to downplay my feelings of creepiness.

However, the one that truly has me annoyed is the one that I was sent at 3:04 am today. According to the e-mail, an "incident" happened at Thompson Residence where a student died. The university is deeply sadden by this event and also told us that our safety and security were not at risk. They also suggested contacting the counselling service, who are open Monday to Friday from 9 to 5.

First off, I was apparently the last one to know. I believe this has to do with the fact that I am a graduate student and therefore, not living on campus, hence I wouldn't have seen any of the "excitement".

So, I called a friend of mine, S., who works for Foot Patrol at UOttawa and asked her if she knew anything about it. Apparently (this is just a rumor, so please don't take this to heart!!), a male first year student either fell or jumped from the 15Th floor of Thompson Residence early Saturday morning. And he died.

Now, as of Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm (EST), there is no additional information. I have checked out a number of news sites (CTV, CBC, and the Ottawa Citizen), with no mention whatsoever of this incident. The University hasn't posted anything on their website and the only thing I could find was on KJ360, in the comments section:

"I was at the library yesterday and there were emergency services, ambulances and police everywhere at around 10:15 am. I was in the library so I didn’t see what happened although there were a number of witnesses, but they had been told not to talk about it. I did see an ambulance taking someone away though. It is very sad to think that there was a suicide right at the beginning of the year when there is such a sense of new opportunity."

So this, my friends, is the most information I could find about what may or may not have happened at Thompson Residence. Does it still leave much to the imagination? Oh yeah.

Now for some counselling ranting...

In terms of having lots of witnesses, but asking them to not talk about it, you have a serious problem. These people should talk about it. They need to talk about it. Seeing something as traumatic as seeing someone fall 15 feet could serious damage someone mentally. My only hope is that the University recognized this and brought in mental health professionals to help deal with this tragedy.

And secondly, what does not telling people the truth going to do? Lead to a whole lot of rumors. Frankly, it would have almost been better to be in the dark than it is to have a little knowledge, but not enough. I'm interested to see if tomorrow, the University will step up and give people further information. Because you know what? This individual who died was a person and a valued one at that. And his story needs to be told.

Getting Orientated!

September 8th marked the official UOttawa Graduate Orientation day. What did that mean for me? A long day of meetings, talks, and free food.

Orientation at the graduate level is nothing like orientation at the undergraduate level. Instead of alcohol and hook-ups, I had meetings, hot dogs, and Pepsi. It was QUITE tame.

I started my day off with a 3 1/2 hour session for all English graduate students. Needless to say, it was long and boring. After hearing from the Vice-dean of Graduate Studies and like every other service at the UOttawa, I heard lots of "great" advice from current graduate students. By great I mean, if you are working on a thesis, the advice was helpful. If you are like me and doing interships instead of a thesis, all this information is hopelessly useless to you.

I suppose one of the problems with most general orientation sessions is that it aims for the majority and excludes the minorities. My degree (Educational Counselling) falls into this category. In my departmental orientation later that evening, they actually touched on things that were important to us, as oppose to being important to those lucky individuals writing a thesis (or whatever the plural of that may be...).

The BBQ was nice though. There was no alcohol, but it was still nice. A really good touch was upon arriving in the tent, you were given a color wristband that represented your faculty. You could then spend the rest of the BBQ trying to meet people in your department.

However, I didn't have much luck. Other than L., my friend, we only managed to find 3other people in Education. Apparently we are not a very popular faculty when it comes to general orientation!

The evening session was much better. Though most of the information had already been discussed in the morning, the food was much better. It was a wine & cheese deal and I was able to enjoy a nice glass of red wine. Yummers. :) Also, I was able to meet some people in Counselling. Though I have only seen them once since Tuesday (and that was today), I know that the more I see them, the better we'll get to know each other and hopefully (fingers crossed!) new friends!

Overall, orientation was kind of boring, yet somewhat helpful. I suppose the real test of time will be if it is useful in the long run.