Latest in opinions.
Love letter to The Watch
Dear The Watch, The first time I heard your name, you had nothing to show for yourself (save for a glitchy website, a magazine-turned-food box in the NAB and an…
Lament for the library
Since January 2022, I have worked as a student library assistant at King’s. In that time, I’ve probably seen thousands of patrons come and go. Some seek erudition. Some seek…
Hushed horoscopes: astrology at King’s
Many King’s students love astrology. In Prince Hall, you might hear whispered exchanges of big threes, daily horoscopes, maybe even the precise birth chart of a grain of rice flicked…
Students on strike … or not?
So, the strike is over. Was anything accomplished? You, reader, might have to answer for me, because I’m from the past. About two weeks out of fashion, because the nature…
Theatre is cringe. You should do it anyway
The Dal Theatre Society’s (DTS) production of Romeo and Juliet is an eight person show consisting mainly of lower-year acting students with a bewildering tendency to drop the word “chud”…
King’s residences redefine ‘habitable’
The cheapest residence at King’s costs $6,982 for roughly seven months of occupancy. The most expensive one costs $8,700. And for these amazing prices, students living in residence can expect…
ANTICIPATING HELP(2)
In 1995, the UK-based non-profit War Child recorded the charity album HELP. The project featured several British music legends and raised the equivalent of over $2.3 million CAD to support…
New Years Resolutions: Set them and regret them
Dragging ourselves out of the stagnancy of winter break, after weeks of lounging in bed, neglecting to exercise and reverting to teenage angst, it’s tempting to see January 1 as…
Bringing TV to the next level: the best soundtracks of recent
Music lovers like myself often see the new year as an opportunity to assess our catalog of favourites, and chart our listening journey for the year to come. But, this…
Letter to the Editor: From the Galley
Dear The Watch Magazine, It’s been a while since we last spoke. If I recall correctly, the last time I heard from you, the vibes were pretty tense. I think…
Nebraska, the Jeremy Allen White way
In an era where method acting has caused the resurgence of the double/triple threat, it’s not wrong to ask the question: should we even consider the likes of Timothee Chalamet…
Why are King’s classrooms so awful?
For such a beautiful campus with pretentiously well-dressed students, classrooms at King’s can be really awful. I’m not sure if it’s the uncomfortable chairs, fluorescent lighting or the annoying truck…
Love letter to the Wardroom
My dearest Wardy, We both knew this was coming. You’ve flown under the radar for much too long now but you are something of the elephant in the room for…
What’s up with the bell? The story of the loudest King’s community member
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! When I moved into the Angel’s Roost this September, I wasn’t told I’d have a built-in alarm clock. It comes as a resounding sound across King’s campus,…
Breaking the scrolling addiction
Scroll. Refresh. Repeat. We all do it. We lose hours we don’t remember, chasing the next hit of novelty on our screens. We say “just five minutes” and suddenly two…
Is BigXthaPlug all that?
Despite my irrational fear of permanence, one thing I will firmly commit to is urging myself and others to listen to music outside our bubbles of taste. This applies especially…
The Dijonification of pop
This past July, Justin Bieber released his seventh studio album, Swag, marking a major shift in the sound that Beliebers know and love. This new, auditory realm Bieber entered is…
Five reasons to support local cinema
It’s back to school time and King’s students are looking bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and … bored? Without the threat of exams looming just around the corner or the unyielding pressure of…
Student exchange: The best way to get out of your comfort zone
This semester, I embarked on a new adventure across the Atlantic, almost 5,000 km from King’s. I’m Mira, a third-year political science student at King’s and Dalhousie. For the past…
Girl, so confusing: a love letter to the Dalhousie Gazette, from The Watch
Dear Dalhousie Gazette, We need to talk. Clear the air and straighten out the facts. We’re all student journalists here, right? Recently, things have felt tense between us. When I…
Spots to cry on King’s campus
Exams, essays, maybe a bad breakup. Sometimes you’ve just got to let it all out. The end of the semester can be tough. We’ve compiled a list of places to…
Student-faculty relationships: the silencing power of social stigma
One of King’s biggest assets is its ability to foster community. It’s a unique school. And it means you might become friends with your professors due to our close quarters…
My problem with FYP
Around this time in first year, I was fed up. I was getting the lowest grades I had ever gotten in my life and I was driving myself crazy trying…
A love letter to the Galley
Dearest, Galley… How are you doing? I’m fine. Seems like you’re doing better now. I’m glad. It’s been a while. I see you got an espresso machine—that’s nice. It’s better…
FYP Intervention: King’s is not a cult
Fear not, King’s––you do not need to take “Magic, Science and the Occult” to immerse yourself in the study of cults. According to every first year enrolled in the Foundation…
Honest campus tour
If you’re in first year, by now you are probably tired of campus tours. Fair. It’s a small campus and it doesn’t take long to find your way around. I…
Watching America’s gun control crisis from the outside
I woke up this Valentine’s Day to a thread of concerning texts. They were from a group chat with my high school friends, who had been messaging each other late…
No mourning for a regrettable queen
Against the institutionalization of grief and reverence for the late monarch, Elizabeth Windsor.
An open letter to the class of 2020
Graduating from university, like one’s wedding, or the birth of a child, is one of a handful of milestones one always remembers. When asked what our graduation was like, the…
Live Like It
Last month, 10,000 people left their classrooms, offices and homes to march across downtown Halifax. They started in Victoria Park and marched to the steps of city hall. Overlooking the Grand…
Dare to go Bare
Breasts, boobs, chests, bosoms, cans or knockers. Whatever you call them, they do not need to be restricted by the claustrophobic, underwired torture chamber you put them in every day. …
Scary Dairy
Calves drink their mother’s milk. And for some reason, humans drink it too. Growing up, baby boomers urged us to drink a glass a day, expecting us to digest their…
Dude… It's natural
Periods are taboo. Blood is coming out of someone’s body. They are disgusting. They can be abundant. They can be small. They can last for a week. They can last…
Books be gone?
She’s cute, organized and here to ruin your life: Marie Kondo wants you to get rid of your books. Kondo is an author who was previously best known for penning…
Life after J-school
Being a young journalist in Halifax is hard. Damn hard. Salaried jobs are non-existent. Freelancing seems to be the only source of income. Second or third jobs are often the…
Opinion: Selling signet rings
Being more proud of tradition at King’s It’s around this time of year that graduating students start to think about how best to commemorate their time and education at King’s.…
A cynic's guide to Valentine's Day
Valentine’s Day brings out the cynic in me. Having never been in a relationship (or even on a date for that matter) and having spent my entire life around divorced…
Weekly horoscopes
Aquarius – The sun is in your sign until mid-next week, and now is as good a time as any to own it, moonchild. Being an air sign, you are…
Nana: Riled-up roommate
Nana is back with her biweekly instalment of ‘Ask Nana.’ If you’d like Nana to tackle your problems, send her an email at watchmagadvice@gmail.com. All submissions remain anonymous (to everyone…
Weekly horoscopes
Raine Moonwalker is the resident astrologist here at the Watch. She spends her spare time stargazing, reading tarot and meditating. She’s asked us to start writing weekly horoscopes because she…
Nana: Girlfriends and best friends
Ask Nana will be appearing bi-weekly on watchmagazine.ca. King’s students, and anyone, really, are able to ask Nana questions that they might need an outside opinion on. To ask a question,…
Nana's in the house
Hellooooo King’s! It’s me, your girl, Nana. I thought I’d drop you a couple lines explaining what this column is, what I’d like it to be and who I am.…
Holiday gifts on a budget
It’s the end of the first semester and after months of freedom, you are out of money. You are panicking: how in the world are you going to go home…
‘Christmas’ to Saint Nick
To paraphrase singer Andy Williams, we are approaching “the most wonderful time of the year.” To me, those words ring true. It’s the time of year that I get to…
Conveniently brown
Please see the note at the bottom of this op-ed in regards to updates made within the piece. I came home after a long, gruelling day of honours project bullshit…
Annual General Meeting
We’re hosting our annual general meeting next week. Find more information about it here. Agenda for the meeting:
A response to 'Deplorable: How I came to cast my vote for Trump'
This is a response to an op-ed published on the Watch titled “Deplorable: How I came to cast my vote for Trump”. I’d like to respond to Kyril Wolfe’s op-ed,…
Deplorable: How I came to cast my vote for Trump
“Donald Trump: death or exile?” That was the half–serious joke I told to my customers at the grocery store where I worked. To some people today, that might seem…
OPINION: Dismantling the divide
To continue my trend of pointing out issues I have come across in our community it is time to point out another: the false dichotomy and conflict created between the…
A response to 'Misusing trigger warnings'
The following response has been written on behalf of SNARC, an organization at King’s that advocates for representative curricula. To The Editors, In your most recent copy of The Watch,…
Misusing trigger warnings
I often start by saying what I’m saying and then explaining what I’m not. Today I’m going to do the opposite so you don’t get your knickers in a knot…
A case for international-mindedness
I recently watched a TED talk on the topic of international mindedness. For me, the concept isn’t just a way of thinking—it’s a way of life. The speaker explained that…
My frosh week
To reference Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: it is universally acknowledged that a first-year university student in want of friends ought to attend frosh week. The stereotypes of frosh week…
Anthems of the J-school
It proved difficult to find a connecting theme for the list, since journalism is such a broad subject. So I chose a bunch of songs that address certain topics in…
CSP: Contemporary Studies Playlist
How do we survive this scourge? With music, of course.
Do I honestly need a doctor's note?
At King’s we talk a lot about self care insofar as it’s important to take care of our mental health. But why do we never talk about the physical side…
If you've never been a day student
When you have to travel half an hour or more just to get to campus, all the notice in the world may not be enough to get you out the…
Sincerely, a T'd off driver
As both a driver and a pedestrian, I have noticed some alarming trends on the streets of our fine city. I have almost been hit at marked crosswalks more times…
OPINION: King's is headed to Dal
Rock n’ roll. Deal with it. This is where we’re heading, folks.
Editor's note: February issue
[box type=”info”] This editor’s note was published in the February 2015 issue. At the time of writing, we had not received the cheque for the first 50 per cent of our…
Library etiquette
It’s getting to that time of year where the handful of students who have been using the library since September are joined by hoards of crammers and last-minute essay writers.…
On consent and intoxicaton
Under Canadian law, people can’t consent to sexual activities when they’re drunk. Having sex with someone who’s intoxicated is then considered a non-consensual criminal act.
I am not an athlete
Why have we settled for this view of King’s where academia is all that we have? Why aren’t we working to further this reputation of excellence in sport, as we…
Proud to glare back
As I watched the proud, supportive group from behind the lens of my camera, I realized that I wanted – maybe even needed – to join in.
An opinion on money
In an issue of the journal Canadian Literature published in the spring of this year, Laura Moss (UBC) asks this important question: “What if, instead of thinking of the humanities…
Letter to the Editors: Sustainability
Sustainability officer Brianna Aird shares her opinion on Sabina Wex’s article “Spoiled Greens”, which appeared in April’s magazine.
Letter to the Editors: Fraternities
Sara O’Bryon, a fourth-year CSP student, shares her insights on the Kappa Alpha controversy.
Censor this: sticking up for our friends down the road
Election season hits King’s next week. Speeches will be filled with the usual bullshit of “more transparency, student activism and trend X to be applied to TWAK” (what’ll it be…
Ottawa climate conference gets gears churning about change
Four blackboards, already full of words by the time I had arrived, sat covered in terms like “capitalism” and “carbon credits,” under headings like “root causes” and “fake solutions.”
Peer pressure, policy and tradition
I remember, back in my day, we would drink and have a good time but other people would drink, and it wasn’t for the right reasons, and they would not…
The “Obama idea”
Barack Obama isn’t just a politician or a president — he’s an idea. And that idea marks a major turning point for those of us in the western world. We…
Editors' note: Why we don't publish KSU PR
KSU executive or council members have asked us on at least three occasions this semester about the “angle” our stories would be taking, including last night after the in-camera session…
On union reform
The success of the Quebec students’ strike has student leaders from all across the country asking the same question, “Can we do here what they did there?” Here in our…
Anger in the Muslim world
As I make my way to the other side of the Wardroom to put my name on the pool board, I find myself in a conversation about the recent protests…
On the Leavitt departure
The mystery that shrouds the sudden resignation and departure of Dr. Anne Leavitt from the King’s presidency over the summer after only 11 months on the job continues to baffle…
Torontifax?
Just as the waves of Lawrencetown beat against the Nova Scotia coastline, so the elitist Toronto snobbery clashes with Maritime values in Halifax. The Torontonian’s strange lingo can be forgiven…
On Protests
It’s something that isn’t being given much attention in Canadian media, but I’d like to point out that a strike of the current magnitude being executed by Québécois students is…
So… you wanna be a King's student?
Course registration started earlier this week. This is a time of opportunity and dread. Deciding what to major in is one of the toughest decisions you’ll make—ever. But don’t worry.…
More Cheers, Less Tears
As any first-year knows, Dean Hatt recently decided to blitz troublemakers with a series of suspensions, liquor bans, fines and threats of legal recourse. What’s curious is that the punishments…
The Price of Cheap Drinks
There are a few Wardy Birthday traditions we can expect to see on Saturday: lineups starting in the early afternoon and snaking up past the J-school, jealously guarded tables of…
Strike out
The union and workers want better conditions. The city wants to save on some cash. Everyone else just wants a service restored—a service integral to the day-to-day lives of the…
Letters to the Editors
February 18, 2012 While reading the January issue of your magazine I was disheartened to read that Dr. Anne Leavitt had decided to remove student representation to the Budget Advisory…
Pool sharks
Everybody’s a friend in the Wardroom. Chatting fervently, you drift toward the pool table and ask for a game, only to be met with some snarky advice like, “Sign the…
Watch my drink
On Friday, Jan. 20, at early happy hour, we were all reminded that the Wardroom may not be as safe as we hope. The administration strewed bookmarks across tables reminding…
Art of thanks
What happened to the fine art of writing thank you notes?
Letters to the Editors
January 28, 2012 ON CANTEEN COVERAGE 1. We were distressed to read the Watch Magazine’s supplemental piece this month regarding the referendum, as there were several incidences of misinformation. There…
Letter from the Editors
One Question Down. January 28, 2012 The big question that has consumed the union (and The Watch) since the beginning of the year was answered last week. With the ‘yes’…
Canteen considerations
The canteen referendum this week will be a big deal for the King’s community. I’ve weighed the benefits and the costs, and I’m proud to say I’ll be voting in…
Editorial: Our Last Chip
Saying no is what put student voices on the committee to renegotiate Sodexo’s contract in 2013. Our boycott was the students’ leverage. If students approve this vote, it’s done. The…
A Youtube guide to FYP
We may not be proper journalists, but we sure do spend a lot of time on Youtube. As oral exams approach, we thought FYPers might need a hand with some…
No Ifs, Ands or BUTTS
It’s Wardy time and you’re outside chatting with some charming creature, sharing a Belmont in the biting breeze of fall. The mood is social and the conversation is stimulating. The…
Letters to the Editor
On that Letter I am dismayed by the Watch’s decision to run a rebuke by Ms. Kim Kierans in the October issue without any formal editorial response. This, to me,…
Editor's Note
It’s been a heavy news semester. We at the Watch certainly haven’t wanted for material. The halls of King’s have been buzzing with it. And we’ve got more for you:…
Worth Saving
FYP Tutor and Don Dr. Matthew Furlong believes in the chapel By Matthew Furlong -October 28th, 2011 I want to begin with two disclaimers: This is not a polemic. I…
Letters to the Editor
On King’s Financial Future Dear students and fellow kingspeople, We are in threatening fiscal straits. Currently, a group called the Financial Sustainability Committee (FSC), put together by President Leavitt, is…
Editor's Note
Money’s Tight Everywhere By Evelyn Hornbeck and Charlotte Harrison -October 28th, 2011 Occupy movements across North America have proven that there’s a growing concern for how money is being spent…
Halifax Pop Explosion recommendations
If you are overwhelmed by the many amazing options in this festival, here are a few picks of bands who have recently released new albums that you should check out.