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Chapter 3: Lyra

NB: I'm jumping right in with fragments from my ongoing short story by providing you with the first half of Chapter Three, which foucses on a girl names Lyra and a conversation with her dog. If you like it, let me know! Feedback always welcome. “You know you don’t want to go,” the dog says sagaciously. It sits in the middle of the living room carpet, very poised, occasionally cocking its head at the girl sat at the table in the corner. She continues layering thick acrylic paint onto the canvas lying flat in front of her. “What are you painting?”             “You,” she says nonchalantly, not looking up. She puts her paintbrush in the jar of water next to her, and impatiently washes the paint off. The wood makes small clinks against the glass; the water turns a filthy grey colour.             “You don’t want to go, do you Lyra?”             The girl shrugs. “Not really,” she dries her brush on some nearby kitchen roll before plunging it into crimson red. “But I haven’t see
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Preface

I’m not sure how I’ve made it this far. Not that I’m successful, or happy, or have achieved anything. On days like this, when the sky is pale blue and the air feels like frost, and the autumn canopies arouse a melancholic nostalgia that sticks in my throat, I’m just surprised that I’m still here.             I take a long, hungry drag from my menthol cigarette. The smoke mixes with the October air and fills my lungs; it feels clean, satisfying. The bench I sit on is frosted with a fine layer of ice, and it slowly melts into my jeans. I’ve put ‘In the Sun’ by Joseph Arthur on repeat on my phone as I watch the blur of strangers walk by from this campus bench.             Some walk in groups of three, linking arms, heads bowed against the cold. Here, a boy on a skateboard weaves between those coming from their 9 a.m. lectures; next, a young girl in a blue beanie buys a coffee from the campus vendor; now comes a couple of housemates running self-consciously, probably late for their 10

Things "Fussy" Eaters Are Tired of Hearing

First of all: I'm not fussy, you're just obsessive. We all have things we don't like - it's almost as if we're not all exactly the same... crazy, right? If someone doesn't like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, move on, accept it. If someone doesn't like drinking, good for them, no problem. If someone doesn't like foreigners because they're stealing all the jobs, punch them in the face, because they're an asshole.  It's easy to differentiate the good kind of aversions from the bad kind - and I for one don't think that having preferences when it comes to food deserves the amount of wise-cracks and eye rolls that it gets. Here's my experience of being a "fussy" eater.  1. "Just try it!" I’ve suffered through my fair share of the “oh just try it, you’ll like it” conversations and the “you’re so fussy!” comments. It was forgivable when I was 10, and wouldn’t eat disfigured pancakes because I thought t

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We’ve all heard of Medusa. She’s the scary monster with a full head of venomous snakes, and eyes that turn you to stone. We have been told countless of times about the tale of Medusa and Perseus, who defeated the Gorgon by severing her head. It sounds oh, so heroic. But what if we thought about what history doesn’t teach us about Medusa? What if, instead of interpreting her as a monster who tormented people, we think about her in a new light? Because here is the stone cold truth: Athena blessed Medusa with the power to protect herself from the brutality of men, and she was murdered for it. It’s no secret that the world we live in is structured by patriarchal values that uphold the power and heroism of men, and diminish the value of women. We see it every day: in the media, in politics, even in our own back yard. Greek mythology is no different. What we are rarely taught about is how Medusa came to even be Medusa. As one of the Gorgon sisters, she was originally a golden-ha

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7 Life Lessons

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