Howdy folks,
I hope you are surviving this exam season and your well-deserved break is not too far off.
Whether you are in the throws of studying or knocking back some sort of holiday beverage, take a break and check out these new articles from the features section.
First up, we have a profile on Concordia’s oldest student Mary Xenos-Whiston.
Mary Xenos-Whiston has been a lot of things in her life: a teacher, a mother, and a guide at an art gallery. But the one thing she has always been is a student. At 92 years old, she is Concordia’s oldest student and is currently enrolled in Dr. Nicola Nixon’s American poetry class.
According to Xenos-Whiston, lately, she has been doing the usual: “Going crazy,” to which her daughter Barbara commented, “Being 92 is not for the faint of heart.”
Despite going crazy, she is still enjoying her class on American Poetry. “I wouldn’t be taking them if I wasn’t really enjoying them,” she said.
“My Life Is Too Short For Doing Things That I Don’t Enjoy, Like House Cleaning.”
And next, we have a story from first-time contributor to the features section Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman. She details how Iranian Montrealers are reacting to the current unrest in their home.
McGill University’s Islamic Studies Library is a quiet and inviting place. From the outside, it looks like any other McGill building, and a passerby may not realize the beauty it holds. It’s filled with rows of leather-bound books, large windows, spiral staircases, and students studying for their finals.
Above the library, the Islamic Studies lounge is not so quiet. People talk, laugh, and eat together. There, Sonia Nouri and Sheida Mousavi, second-year Iranian political science students at McGill University, are animatedly speaking Farsi with a friend. They bid him farewell before finding a quieter room to discuss their homeland and the turmoil it faces since the death of Mahsa Amini in September.
“Being Iranian Is A Lot More Than The Government, It’s A Lot More Than The Hijab, It’s A Lot More Than Being Restricted Every Day,” Said Mousavi.
That’s all for this week, but who knows maybe we will drop another couple of articles before the new year so stay tuned for those.
As always thank you for supporting the Concordian, and if you want to get involved you can send an email to features@theconcordian.com.
Happy Holidays and good luck on all of your finals,
Evan Lindsay
Features Editor, The Concordian