I’ve always had an interest in the supernatural. I used to hope that one day I’d see a ghost, or that some unexplainable thing would happen to me. Luckily, I got my chance when I worked as a tour guide for Canada’s most notorious prison: the Kingston Penitentiary.
I will never meet my grandfather. His death in 1978 makes that impossible. But I would be grossly mistaken—and I was—to think that means I’d never have a relationship with him.
I arrived at Queen’s with many things: clothes, my great-aunt’s old mini fridge, a box of books, and a lot of bad preconceptions about university. By the time I carried that same box of books back down the residence stairs to my mom’s car, I’d accumulated a few more misguided ideas.
The first night I spent at Queen’s in my residence room was hellish. I wasn’t feeling the tricolour spirit, and I missed home desperately. I wanted to go back to Scarborough.
When I tried going vegan at the end of my first year at Queen’s, my motivations were mostly personal. I’d never been bothered enough by the concept of factory farming and animal abuse to stop eating meat, and I didn’t know much about the environmental reasons for veganism.
The first time I told this story, I was in my first year of university. I was sitting on the grass at City Park, just a few blocks away from Queen’s, with my orientation leaders and group. We were playing Two Truths and a Lie, and one of my truths was that I was a 20-year-old first-year student.
One month into my first year at Queen’s, I wanted to drop out and go home. There wasn’t anything wrong with Queen’s. In fact, it was the opposite: there was something wrong with me—or so I told myself.
Seeing everyone you know in the ARC, ing a horde of purple engineers on your walk to class or using the Romanian flag emoji as a tricolour stand-in, can only be described as “so Queen’s.”
I found it difficult to connect with other men during high school because I didn’t feel masculine enough to fit in, even when we shared similar interests.
