I didn’t believe my cousin Kylie when she told me she’s afraid of flying, but she insisted.
Even after I pointed out that the only problem with travelling from Halifax to Los Angeles for her 2009 family vacation stemmed from a sickness that started the night before, she shrugged, barely looking up from her book as she told me, no, it was the whole being airborne thing that left her feeling ill. I pressed the issue at first, but it quickly became clear she wouldn’t back down, her 10-year-old mind set.
A couple weeks later, Kylie took off camping with her father and I found myself up early, driving her mother to the airport to catch a flight to Toronto for a client meeting. When I mentioned her daughter’s latest admission, Cherl shook her head.
“She’s not afraid of flying. She’s just at that age, you know? The one where you want to have something that makes you different from everyone else.”
Despite spending my entire summer surrounded by young girls, I hadn’t thought much about that particularly element of their personality. But laid out in front of me, I could see it: how keeping up with everyone around you was important in Kylie’s world, but so was finding a way to stand out in the crowd.
After thinking about it more, I realize this behaviour isn’t exclusive to elementary school. Wanting to stand out and be different is a common, human trait.
This year, we’re making changes at the Aquinian.
The print edition has undergone a total makeover and, starting next week, we’ll be adding more pages and more special features to bring you the most news every week. Additionally, our website is always changing and you can look forward to new multimedia features in the coming weeks.
It’s not just the physical products that are changing, either—it’s our attitude. While we’re still committed to making sure you have all the information you need about what’s happening on campus and in the city, we want the Aquinian to be something you look forward to each week, something that illustrates what it means to be a St. Thomas student. This means more personality—more people stories, more features, more STU attitude on each page.
Put simply, this year we want the Aquinian to keep doing what it needs to do and still find ways to stand out in the crowd. But we, as an editorial board, can’t do this alone.
That’s where you guys come in.
If you think there’s something we should be talking about that we’re not, we want to hear about it. Hate the way we’re covering something and think you can do it better? We want to hear about that, too.
So stop by our story meeting or drop us a line. We’ll never please everyone, but this is your paper, STU—let us know what we can do to make it something you can be proud of.
