We have the second official teaser for the University of Toronto Lip Dub. Check it out below and let us know what you think:

I can feel it in the air – that distinct sense of shifting, as students are handing in their last essays and attending their last few lectures; the end of the semester is finally approaching, and as usual, it looks gruesome. The exam period – not only the actual writing of the tests, but the process of studying – overnights at Robarts, rewriting and rereading, cue cards, highlighters, coffee, sweatpants, snow, slouching – is just around the corner. It’s not a pretty time for U of T students, but it’s always laced with the comforting knowledge that winter break, that brief pause in our otherwise non-stop academic year (pardon me – there was that oh-so-satisfying “micro reading week”) where we might do a bit reading for year-long courses, but mostly can sleep, breathe, eat, and do all those other things that normal, non-U of T students do regularly and might consider, in fact, necessary to human survival.

I’m hoping to maintain my peace of mind during exam season this year, and while I know those moments of panic are unavoidable, there are certainly a lot of opportunities on campus for students to relax and defeat the stress plague, if only momentarily.

Hart House offers a variety of programs to soothe the stressed student:

• Massage Mondays – Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like. Free massages, because U of T knows – you deserve it.
• Lunchtime Crafts – Personally, I find arts and crafts to be really relaxing – though, of course, I have never produced anything presentable. Distract yourself with a little A&C, and who knows, maybe you will produce a great work!
• ThursTeas – Enjoy a warm cup of tea at Hart House while chatting with some new friends or reading a (non-school related, perhaps) book.
• Let Shakespeare distract you with the production of Macbeth playing at Hart House Theatre until November 26.
• Jazz at Oscars – This free event every Friday night brings all sorts of different music to the Hart House Arbor Room. Be entranced by live music to distract yourself from stress. The monthly Sunday concert in the Great Hall might also be of interest.

It’s difficult for students to keep up exercising during exam time, but sometimes going to the gym is exactly what you need to wake you up and keep you studying productively. Both the Athletic centre and Hart House offer a wide variety of drop-in fitness classes. The AC has free yoga among its repertoire, certainly a relaxing pastime.

The Multi-Faith Centre offers a variety of yoga and meditation courses over the term, designed to help you relax and find peace of mind.

The Angela Grauerholz exhibit is still on the University of Toronto Art Centre until November 26, and the centre remains open until December 10, for your perusing pleasure. Take your mind off exams by taking a brief tour through this great U of T resource.

Every Friday night at Innis Café, story tellers come deliver tales for “1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling”, a tradition which has been running since 1978. A well-told story could be just the right thing you need to wind down and distract yourself from the looming stress of exams. Innis Town Hall also has inexpensive movies playing throughout the exam period, which may also serve as a welcome distraction.

Exam period is one I clearly characterize as bleak, but I think there are definitely ways to limit your stress. You do yourself a disservice by climbing under a pile of books in a library for a week and not facing the light of day until you are forced to enter the outside world in order to walk to your exam destination. Taking some time during the exam period to not study for exams will make the time you spend studying all the more productive. It’s always a pleasant feeling to realize that the world is going on when you feel like it’s ending, so allow yourself to bear witness to that comforting truth by taking a break. Whether it’s a yoga class, or just a walk around our beautiful campus, indulge yourself this exam period, if only for a moment.

Sunday afternoon, I was working on my PolEthics essay. Then I looked out my window and realized it was beautiful outside and the sun was setting. A little thought crept in my ear. I grabbed it and ran… literally, dropped my book, grabbed my coat, ran out the door. I was fighting the sunset! Booked it to the metro and then to station St. Lazare to catch Bus no. 29. Why? I heard that Bus 29 from St. Lazare had the most beautiful bus route in all of Paris. also heard that this would be the sunniest day in weeks. somehow forgot about both those things and remembered them at that minute, which was why I had to drop my books and chase the sunset.

I missed the bus just as I got out of the station, and just then the sun set on St. Lazare. Darn..

No worries! I took the bus anyway and just sat on it in the gorgeous fall evening, looking out the window, to see where in Paris it would take me. I
took note of the things I saw on the way in my little black city book and soon noticed that the inside of the bus was just as interesting as the outside, (which was saying a lot!) Here is my jotted down list of the things I saw:

1. Resto: Pharaon (a really cool-looking French diner)
2. Musée: Fragonard (a perfume museum – my mother would get a headache)
3. Resto: Café de la Paix (swanky)
4. A monument
5. Winding streets
6. Librairie: de la Mode (ooh)
7. Magasin: Y’s (really cool coats)
8. Dépot Ceramique
9. The staple fashionista stores: Cop-copine, Naf Naf, some Shoebizz store… all that jazz
10. Magasin: Kabuko (very cool-looking coats)
11. L’ethnospecialiste (huh?)
12. Resto: Madame Tomate (nice couches)
13. A random office that looked like it was from the future. I think there was an architect working on a blueprint inside. It looked like the guy’s desk was on a second floor with the glass showing both the first and second floor, but it was the size of a room with the bottom floor completely empty.
14. Behind me: ”Il bosse. Il bosse pas énorme, mais il bosse.” ”Hmm.”
15. A young woman sitting beside us: Short brown shiny bob with bangs. Big black scarf wrapped around forever, until just below her lips. Dark eyeshadow, shiny levres. Leather jacket, of course.
16. A tiny girl schoolgirl with an Amelie —
17. Magasin: Antoine et Lili. I’d seen it before. LOVE. so bright, so colorful

1. — with an Amelie haircut, cute black-red plaid jacket, black boots tied up, and little black socks. Adorbz. I think she was playing musical chairs!
2. Magasin: Tepetto? Repetto? Lepetto? I don’t know, but a cool-looking store. The first letter of its name was a little too cool-looking, though
3. Sandro. Nice stuff. Maaaaan.
4. Musée Picasso. (ooh)
5. Another monument. Oh, at the Bastille!
6. A philosopher’s bookstore (I stopped by after getting off. So cute.)

23. No inhibitions, naked curiosity, a beautiful city.

Raha loves being the only tourist on free bus tours.

-
Raha Francis is a an economics and philosophy undergraduate at the University of Toronto. She is spending her third year abroad, studying in Paris. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact her at raha.francis@utoronto.ca.

As we struggle under the generous heaps of academic reading that we are all forced to endure as students, I find it becomes easy to excuse casual reading at the end of a day of studying. Prior to university, I used to go through more books than I could afford in my spare time. Prior to owning a laptop, for that matter, I used to read every night before bed without fail. I found especially in first-year that I dismissed non-academic reading with the excuse that, after all my reading for my classes, I simply didn’t have it in me to pick up another book at the end of the day, no matter the content. It was much easier to pick up my laptop and watch a show or peruse a day’s worth of tweets.

This year, I decided to reinstate my reading habits in favour of twittering, tumblring, and so on. In the pursuit of this cause, I decided to go on an inexpensive book-buying binge which led me to explore the various used books stores we are lucky enough to have around campus in search of gems for my night-time reading. Based on my exploration, I offer this informal guide to used book stores around University of Toronto campus, for night owls, overachieving essay researchers, commuters seeking subway reads, and, of course, book-lovers here at U of T.

Willow Books, 333 Bloor St. West

Tucked next to the Bata Shoe Museum, this visually unimposing bookstore is very easy to miss as one is bustling along Bloor Street. The book selection of this literary trove, however, is hardly reflected in its lacklustre store front. Willow Books boasts a vast collection of books at fantastic prices. Their fiction section has plenty of classics and a hefty amount of modern literature as well. As the signs on the shelves explain, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, they probably have it in storage. The store also has nonfiction books on a wide range of topics, anthologies, and otherwise. This is the type of bookstore where you find all those books you’ve been meaning to read for years, at five dollars each. The top shelves have the fancy, expensive editions that are a pleasure to behold for any booklover but certainly unaffordable. Exercise caution, though, as many of the books from this store are more heavily used. While a used book can be just as good as a new one, and some might say better citing the added charm, some of these books were clearly previously used by students and are covered in markings that are more bothersome than endearing.

Seekers Books, 509 Bloor St. West (Downstairs)

Seekers Books has a noteworthy range of classic and modern titles among its assortment of used books. This store has a unique selection in terms of niche reading on obscure topics, and is a great place to scout material for ambitious essay researchers. The staff is helpful and warm, and the store is more spacious than others of its kind so you’re not stepping on fellow shoppers as you look for books. The book selection at Seekers will satisfy the hippie in you, but isn’t quite as thorough as others on this list.

Ten Editions Bookstore, 698 Spadina Ave

Ten Editions is marked by an appealing exterior featuring a display window that draws in the curious book-lover at first glance, as compared to the more subtle storefronts of many of the other noted used bookstores. Ten Editions boasts an interesting array of editions and a diverse selection of books, as well as an intriguing collection of old postcards and travel booklets. There are also $2.00 books at the front of the store to peruse if you’re feeling lucky, though the odds of finding a prize in this pile are not in your favour.

BMV Books, 471 Bloor Street West

BMV Books is a beloved staple of Bloor Street and the largest book store on this list. It is by far the most visually imposing, and its big windows out onto Bloor Street differentiate it from the other used book stores on this list in a refreshing way. In other words, BMV Books feels less like a basement or library, and more like a regular book store that happens to be selling used editions – and though some may find this openness an advantage, others who are perhaps more romantic may prefer to suffer for their used finds in dusty dens. That sense of being a normal book store permeates with the books being sold, which are high-quality books that usually aren’t too marked up, but have a low price and minor flaws to indicate they are used. BMV offers not only books, but also CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, comics and magazines. It’s a well-organized store with friendly staff and really reasonable prices, as well as a lot of different, eye-catching editions alongside paperbacks that won’t cost you your life’s savings. The first floor holds fiction, with modern titles, classics, poetry anthologies, and a noteworthy Canadian literature section. The first floor also has a lot of the non-fiction titles, including the art section with its many impressive and cheap coffee table books. The second floor, which is filled with how-to guides, history books, and a youth section, also has 3 for $10 books that are definitely worth browsing with a lot of recognizable names on the shelves. These are often displayed outside the store as well. BMV Books has plenty of selection for those looking for something specific, but is also a great place to start searching for used books with its wide, high-quality selection and large, bright space.

If I’ve made a criminal omission, I assure you it is entirely accidental, and encourage you to include it in the comments!

Angela Grauerholz La bibliothèque (The Library), 1992, printed 1993 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

It was a dreadfully rainy afternoon and I was out for coffee with a good friend of mine who happens to be an Art History major. Our moods were dampened by the wet weather as we exchanged laments about long lectures and relentless readings. The second-week-of-school-slump was upon us, and was only made more dreary by the grey skies.

For a few days before this meeting, my friend had been asking me to go with her to a photography exhibit on campus. I had said yes noncommittally, like you say yes to a parent’s pleas to walk the dog or mow the lawn. As our coffee date was wrapping up, she implored me to attend the exhibit with her, and my strong desire to procrastinate at that particular moment in time prompted me to comply. (more…)

The Canadian national Exhibition (also known as the CNE and The Ex) is an annual event in Toronto. Although ticket prices tend to rise a bit each year, it’s something that I’ve enjoyed since childhood, and has become a tradition in my family. Since The Ex always takes place just before school starts, it’s a great way to mark the end of the summer holidays. Everyone should make an effort to go, whether it’s just once (to say that you’ve had the experience), or every year.

When is the Ex happening this year?

August 19th to September 5th.

What is there to do at The Ex?

There’s tons of stuff to see and do at the CNE, including:

• A variety of shows featuring cowboy trick riding, figure skating, and cultural song and dance
• The World Market, which features booths that showcase cool stuff from all around the world
• The Home Living Market – you can buy a sauna!
• The Arts and Crafts Market – browse (and buy!) cool jewellery, dips and jams, wind chimes, and tons of unique trinkets
• Carnival rides
• Carnival food – the usual corn dogs, cotton candy, and Tiny Tom doughnuts are always available (but why not try a Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger instead?)
• A kids playcentre
• A horticultural contest and gardening market – look at some spectacular blooms and gardens, and check out the annual flower competition
• Parades
• Last, but not least, the Labour Day air show!

Where can I get tickets to The Ex?

You can get tickets at the door but, if you want to avoid the lines and save a little money, some retailers such as Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaws usually have discounted tickets. You can also buy discounted tickets online before opening day here.

How do I get to the The Ex via public transit?

Take the 509 Exhibition streetcar from Bathurst or Union Station and it will take you right to the entrance of the Ex. Or, you can take the GO train to Exhibition station.

Let’s go to the Ex!

It’s almost time for the Taste of the Danforth!

What is it?

Lori did a post covering the festival 2 years ago, but hopefully it won’t be rainy this year. Enjoy tons of yummy food, games, and shows all weekend!

Food?

Some food you may want to try: spanakopita (spinach pies) and loukoumades (honey balls) from Athens Bakery, kangaroo burgers from The Friendly Butcher, souvlaki, gyros, and backlava.

When is it?

August 5^th – August 7^th.

How do I get there?

The festival is super accessible by TTC. Just take the subway to Broadview, Chester, Pape, Donlands, or Coxwell station.

(If this doesn’t sound like your idea of a good time, or if you’re looking for even more stuff to do this weekend, you can also stop by the Brickworks Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning. You can take the free shuttle bus by Broadview station on Erindale, just north of Danforth.)

For more information, you can visit the Taste of the Danforth’s official website.