• weirdness

    poop cafe: a recap in gifs

    November 25, 2019

    Um so what happened at robarts

    ——————————————

    oh geez. i open my tumblr on a monday afternoon and this is what i get. yall really have no chill, do you?

    Goes wild indeed…(Category: Eat & Drink)blogTO

    Posted by Xi Huang on Friday, November 22, 2019

    okay. let’s see what we got here. friday, november 23. an absolutely devastating day for at least one individual visiting this esteemed downtown campus of u of t. it was around 5pm in the afternoon, and in the cafeteria on the second floor of robarts library, nothing was happening. or nothing yet.

    cue the shady individual redditors are calling peepeepoopoo man. some dude, apparently in a hard hat, presumably swaggers into the library, carrying a bucket. okay. nothing out of the ordinary. probably a repairs guy, right?

    he zeroes in on an asian dude, studying at one of those tables with the brown chairs. upends the bucket. dips.

    full silence. the smell hits. everyone in the vicinity packs up and leaves without saying a word, because they’re all too dead inside from finals prep to process anything properly or even react.

    two days later. york university. the same thing happens again, at the same time of day. video here, for those of you who can stomach it.

    What's next… George Brown? Seneca? UTM??? Nobody is safe.

    Posted by Alex Forgay on Sunday, November 24, 2019

    i dunno, man. i was almost there. decided not to spend my friday evening in robarts. look how that turned out. but yeah, this has been your recap. still have questions? so do i. i have so many. my roommates and i were sitting on the floor at 1 in the morning on saturday absolutely bewildered by this, and then it happened again. 

    one of the articles i read advised that students in toronto study at home for the time being, rather than in libraries– at least until the police get to the bottom of this. i’ll be following that sage advice. hope you will too.

    be Boundless (but in appropriate, non-fecal ways, PLEASE),

    aska

     

     

     

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  • weirdness

    the answer is! yes

    July 19, 2019

    do you need to pass a swim test before entering U of T?

    ——————————————

    hey,

    i love this. i’ve never seen a question in my inbox that has bewildered in this exact way. i have so many questions for you. why? how? what? what? do i know you? is that why you’re doing this?

    is swim a typo? am i missing something? it’s not whack enough that i know for sure it’s a joke.

    on a more serious note: yes, you absolutely do. it’s not very well advertised by the university, which it obviously should be, seeing as it’s such an essential thing. it’s toronto, after all. the land of torrential rainstorms during the summer months, and school cancellations that do not happen when they need to. how else are you expected to get to class? even billy bishop airport is overrun with frogs. look at me, citing my sources. 

    we’ve had so many students almost die drowning, in all seasons, all of them. toronto weather is WHACK. i almost died once myself. i was there. it happened. 

    many a wide-eyed frosh is turned away from the school each year for not meeting this requirement. you would think they’re out to get us, or something. make us pay our fees and then kick us out for some absurd reason. 

    what? you’re telling me this isn’t standard? that mcgill and queen’s don’t take policy-grounded precautions to prevent student drownings? frankly, that’s a pretty irresponsible oversight. this, and definitely not the millions of dollars we pour into research, must be the reason why u of t is the number one uni in canada. 

    just kidding. the only thing u of t kiddos are drowning under is the insatiable load of readings, labs, online homework, testsquizzesassignmentsprelabsahhhsendhel- ~static~

    be Boundless,

    aska 

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  • cool things,  weirdness

    what yacht, brittany???

    June 7, 2017

    How would you hide a giraffe living in your res from the government?

    ———————————————

    hello,

    thanks for writing!

    without revealing too much about which residence i live in, my college is named after a person and we’ve been told that he left a crap ton of gold hidden around our residence.

    he was a wealthy man with a sense of humour, so most people think that the cryptic letter he left behind for future students was just a big practical joke, but personally, i believe that there must be a great deal of gold hidden around the residence because i’ve noticed my skin improving a great deal since living there. did you know that people get gold facials now? yeah. it’s a thing.

    the cryptic letter he left behind said: (btw, if you figure out which college i’m talking about, i would highly recommend that you go check it out in person. the receptionist at the desk will know exactly what you’re talking about)

    *this is my own writing, not his. the original copy is on his own personal letterhead and is typed out and everything. again, you’ll see it if you go to the residence and ask where it is.

    you may be thrown off by the progressive usage of the word ‘hella’ in his letter, but this man was very ahead of his time.

    i mean, from that cryptic letter alone, any semi-literate human being would be able to decipher that he has gold hidden everywhere in the residence. i’ve included a pic of how i deciphered it, in case your mind can’t process the highly complex algorithm i used to crack the code. (i mean, you can’t even figure out where to hide a giraffe, why would i trust you to figure out my highly complex algorithm yourself?)

    anyways, continuing on, our residence hosts monthly treasure hunts for the residents to find the hidden gold. in fact, a large amount of our incidental fees go towards purchasing metal detectors and equipment for these events. if you happen to be part of this college, you’ll see a certain levy in your invoice. it’s disguised quite well since it’s not blatantly named “treasure hunt levy”, but yeah, the money that the students pay goes directly towards those purchases. these treasure hunts are honestly a great time for the members of our community to bond and get to know each other. i’ve made some of my best friends from working together with them on these treasure hunts. everyone is very interested in paying off their student loans with this gold.

    we also hire the city’s best gold-diggers (usually young, exceptionally attractive women) to help us in our search. they don’t help much, though. they seem to be very confused as to why we’ve hired them. they keep asking us where we keep the yacht. what yacht, brittany???

    i would tell you my theories about where i think it’s hidden, but that would give other people ideas and i kind of want to keep the gold to myself.

    no one has found any gold yet, so yeah. wherever this gold is hidden, i’d hide the giraffe.

    peace and love,

    aska

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  • athletics,  St. George,  UTM,  weirdness

    fear not, for the showers are hot

    May 17, 2017

    This is probably one of the most facepalm questions you receive in 2017:D Do pools at utsg and utm have hot showers? LOL I’m serious!

    ———————————————

    hi,

    this is definitely not one of the most facepalm questions i’ve received in 2017.

    yes they do.

    good luck with that.

     

    peace and love,

    aska

     

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  • awkwardness,  bad times,  sabotage,  weirdness

    u of t hunger games spinoff

    May 16, 2017

    I heard that UofT is filled with students who tear out pages from the library books to sabotage other students, students who give wrong notes and answers, and students who sabotage labs. Everyone says that the students are out to get each other and only care about their marks. Is this true? Does it depend on the program?

    ———————————————

    hello,

    dude, this sounds like a great idea for a tv show or movie. i can see it now:

    it would be like the hunger games but instead of an outdoor arena it’s actually the U of T campus during a particularly frigid winter. two randomly selected undergrad students from each college/ faculty are thrown into the arena to sabotage and betray each other to get marks below 50 *gasp* (after which they are forcibly transferred to repeat their senior year in high school). major obstacles in the arena would include un-shovelled sidewalks, people who refuse to look up from their phones when walking to class, and those speeding cars in front of northrop frye. while queen’s park may seem like a nice grassy soft area to lie down for a night’s rest, terrifying creatures like squirrels and muggers lurk in the shadows. tempting banners at second cup with hipster smoothies on them may lure you to wait in line for one but beware for they may cause you digestive issues, causing you to miss a final worth 50%! the last student standing gets to live in one of those nice new condos on bay FOR LIFE where they will be waited on by people who have committed academic offences like intentional plagiarism/ cheating. oooooh!!!!!!! and the best part is that they will automatically receive full ride scholarships and entry into the masters/graduate program of their choice.

    the point of these games is to remind us of that U of T is capable of destroying our whole career if we don’t work hard. omg imagine meric gertler as caesar flickerman omg it would be so good. yo ima copyright this asap and pitch it to warner bros or something. © askastudent

    right, you had a question. sorry i got a little carried away with my imagination.

    uhm. i haven’t personally experienced any outright sabotage at U of T, but that’s also because my programs aren’t very competitive. in other programs, i’ve heard of people maybe posting the wrong solutions to problems, but it’s hard to tell if they genuinely didn’t know how to do the question or if they were actually trying to sabotage people. people in my programs (social sciences and humanities) are usually super helpful and willing to share notes. i have a feeling that people at U of T are too busy saving their own a**es to care about fixing their notes to sabotage other people. that would be so crappy. if it did happen here, it would be super rare and it’s bound to happen at other schools too! tearing pages out of library books would result in fines for the borrower so i don’t know why anyone would do that. that would be so dumb. libraries have security cameras too! (i know this because i check every time i sneak my food up to the stacks.)

    regardless, if a student did betray their fellow classmate,  i’m sure karma would eventually come back and bite them in the a**.

    it definitely does depend on the program, too. if a program has limited enrolment, chances are, people will be more competitive. however, sometimes when the program is smaller, people make more of an effort to stick together and make sure everyone does well. i’m sure some specific disciplines will come to mind if i tell you that some programs are more cutthroat than others.

    anyways, these rarely occurring crappy people are no reason to avoid U of T. don’t forget about the wonderful people who exist here too, like me!

    peace and love and may the odds be ever in your favour

    aska

     

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  • dropping courses,  weirdness

    let’s not do that

    March 20, 2017

    Dear aska,

    It got me curious. What happens when everyone drops one specific course that there is no students enrolled in the course any more in the middle of the semester? It is merely a hypothetical question.

    Thanks in advance!

    ———————————————

    hi,

    lol, that would be both hilarious and quite sad.

    disclaimer: everything i am about to say cannot be backed by actual facts, i’m merely hypothesizing.

    i honestly have no idea what would happen. i asked my colleagues who have been here decades longer than i have and none of them had ever heard of this happening at U of T.

    i hope that you’re only curious and that you’re not actually planning on organizing a course-wide drop because that would be pretty bad….a**.

    i’m assuming that the department would try to conduct some sort of an investigation into why this class sucked so much and then take the appropriate measures to make sure it won’t happen again. like i said, there really is no precedent for this kind of situation so you’re allowed to use your own imagination????

    reactions spongebob imagination GIF

    idk man.

    peace and love,

    aska

     

     

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  • computer science,  computers,  courses,  weirdness

    sad face emoticon

    January 30, 2017

    why doesn’t uoft have any tech-y courses 🙁

    ———————————————

    hello,

    you and i are in the same boat because we’re both sad face emoticon people.

    you’re clearly sad face emoticon about U of T not having “tech-y” courses whereas i am sad face emoticon that some people ask me very vague questions that don’t make much sense.

    what do you mean by tech-y? am i missing something here?

    all classes TECHnically involve some sort of technology, right???? is computer science not tech-y enough a course? i can’t really think of anything more tech-y than the science of technology itself!

    in conclusion, please elaborate ’cause i’m pretty stumped here.

    idk man,

    aska

     

     

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  • other schools (boo!),  weirdness

    york needs an aska

    November 22, 2016

    Heya!

    So I’m a York student (you may get your fork jokes out) and I’m in a bit of
    a situation.
    In 2014 I had a family situation that mighhttt have caused me to get really
    sub-par grades in a couple of courses. I already retook the courses and
    everything, and fixed up the grades.
    Finally, in 2016 and with part-time student status, I got the time to
    petition the initial attempts at those courses. Unfortunately, the
    committee refuses to look at it since it’s a request past the deadline,
    regardless of my reason to petition them.
    I’ve already made one appeal that I did not have easy access to the
    documents throughout the 2 years (seeing as the court case pertaining this
    event is still ongoing, and it’s more important my family deal with that
    than some Uni petition). They rejected the appeal, again on grounds that I
    still don’t say why I decided to petition so late.
    I have one last chance to appeal, and I was wondering if you had any advice
    on how to do so successfully? This was a really bad time for my family with
    several economic and medical issues, in addition, it’s really important for
    me for post-grad opportunities, so it would be ideal if the courses got
    removed.

    Any advice is greatly appreciated!
    Thank you.

    ———————————————

    hello,

    **disclaimer, this post is filled with tons of shade. opt for another one of our lovely posts if you can’t handle the shade.**

    so i’m a u of t student (you can get your #uoftears jokes out of the way) and i’m in a bit of a situation.

    so in 1999, one of my predecessors launched a site called askastudent.utoronto.ca, intending it to be a website which answered the many questions of stressed out U of T students. since then, a significant number of york students have decided that utoronto stands for any flippin’ university in toronto and not JUST the university OF toronto.

    d6f

    so my question is this. why doesn’t york have a blog like this?

    askastudent.yorku.ca sounds pretty good to me, doesn’t it?

    sincerely,

    askastudentUOFTANDNOTYORK

    *

    *

    *

    *

    okay. all jokes aside, it seems like you’re in a really tough situation. while we do have a reputation of being really tough on our students, i don’t want to start a stereotype of us being terrible people, so i will say this. i REALLY wish i could help but since you don’t go to U of T, i’m not familiar with how petitions work at york. i’ve never even set foot on your campus… like, how do i even get there? we may be all-knowing on all things U of T related, but we definitely know as much nothing as jon snow when it comes to york.

    the best thing for you to do would be to keep talking to your registrar’s office. at u of t, registrars are the ones that help you with the petition process.

    i’m sorry that you guys don’t have this kind of ‘ask a fellow student’ resource at your school, but hey, maybe this would be a good time to start one? we could even entertain a healthy aska rivalry! let us know if you start one!

    good luck with your situation, again, i really wish i could help.

    peace, love, and solidarity,

    aska

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  • courses,  first year,  weirdness

    after a week of school, i hate it!

    September 17, 2010

    Dear askastudent,

    I have just started first year and I realized the program Im in now is not what I really want to do, how would I be able to change my program?

    ———————————————

    Oh dear lord, honey, you have a long way to go. First of all, you are only in your first week of your first year of school – how do you know that your program is not for you yet? Secondly, you don’t even have to worry about choosing a subject PoST until second year, which you can change at any time until applying for graduation.

    The feeling that you’re experiencing is normal, especially in first year. Chances are, your classes right now are huge and overwhelming. This is a reality that will eventually chill out once you head into your upper years of whatever program you end up taking, and take on smaller seminars and class sizes.

    I’d recommend thinking about what it is that you’re passionate about and going through the calendar with an open mind. Taking a thorough look at everything U of T offers will yield unexpected surprises. Many of the colleges offer really intriguing programs with much smaller class sizes and fascinating course subjects. Other programs can offer labs, research opportunities and internships that will help you gain experience in an field of interest.

    You have to be honest with yourself and think about what you want to commit yourself to for the next four (plus) years. Are you only in your program of study because you want to please your parents? Or for practicality’s sake? That may not be a reason to stay in it.

    A great resource is your college registrar. Most of the colleges (especially Innis) have a first year counselor who can talk you through some of the concerns you might be having. It may also not be too late for you switch courses, if that’s what you intend on doing though you should pay attention to these important dates. Please keep in mind that SEPTEMBER 26th is the last day to add new “F” and “Y” courses.

    My advice is to give the first month a chance and if you really hate it, consider taking something else in the second semester.

    Let me know what you decide.

    xoxo, Askastudent

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  • courses,  university-college,  weirdness

    the saga that is cognitive science

    August 24, 2010

    Hi Askastudent,

    Do you know what’s going on with the Cognitive Science program? Their webpage hasn’t been updated since January 2008 and when I look up their courses at University College, it seems they’re not University College any more… or something? “The Cognitive Science program formerly administered by the University College has been redesigned under the auspices of the Faculty of Arts & Science. Please refer to the Cognitive Science program: see Cognitive Science.” See Cognitive Science…. where? In the Arts & Science calendar there is no Cognitive Science category that I could find.

    I’m sooooo confused! I managed to find one course on the timetable (under University College, not Cognitive Science), and the course code has changed from UNI to COG. One course does not a program make, so I’m not sure what’s happened. Is the program no longer offered? If it is, where have the third and fourth year courses gone? How does a program go from having TWO specialist degrees and one major to not existing so quickly?

    Thanks for your help. I’m totally baffled.

    ———————————————

    Hello there. I’ve talked to a couple of peeps at University College and the short answer (after long explanations) is that no one exactly knows what is going on with the Cognitive Science program. It’s no longer under University College’s jurisdiction, and the only Cognitive Science course in the entire program is not being offered this year in the timetable (COG 250Y1). This year it seems that they are “taking a break” from Cognitive Science before determining where it is going. Which is totally weird, right?

    If you look at page 134 of the calendar, you’ll see listings of what classes are offered to make up the major pogram of Cognitive Science – all courses in computer science, linguistics and psychology. For now, all COG courses no longer exist, and it’s dammed difficult to find who exactly is representing the program. (Someone at the UC programs office actually laughed when I said that the website hadn’t been updated since January 2008!)

    If you are interested in the program, you will have to follow the course listings outlined on page 134, and wait until next year (perhaps?) where COG courses will be offered again. There isn’t even a faculty listing in the calendar, so there is no one you can even scream at for their negligence!

    Your best bets (for screaming) are the Faculty of Arts and Science registrar, or Hilary Browning at University College.

    Good luck to you! Let me know what happens.

    xoxo, Askastudent

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  • awkwardness,  friends,  fun & places,  homosexuality,  keeners,  weirdness

    8 questions from a very inquisitive person

    July 5, 2010

    Your website is very interesting , thanks! Now I’m going into gr.12 and I was wondering :

    1) Is it true that UofT is a nerd school that only studies and doesn’t know how to party ?

    2) Does UofT have air conditioning for those hot summer days?

    3) Are there any encounters with ghosts on the st. George campus?

    4) Do you have any gay professors on the campus?

    5) Is it possible to get perfect at UofT in your courses , like in high school ?

    6) Does UofT block any websites in their network?

    7) In the lecture halls, are there power outlets to plug In your laptop if it’s running low ?

    8) Oh and , are you a guy or a girl?

    ———————————————

    You are going into Grade 12 next year, and spending all your time reading a university admissions website?! I hereby order you to smoke pot and lose your virginity, like immediately.

    Because askastudent is nearly as pathetic as you are, here are the answers to your burning questions, dear. Once again, please stop reading this website and participate in normal high school activities, from one former aska-junkie to another.

    1) Depending on the program and its students, I can see how the “nerd school” rep might suffice, but U of T – unlike say Queen’s, or Western – is also in the biggest, most party-centric city in Canada (unless you’re going to McGill). You will meet partiers, and academics and even academic-partiers. Don’t worry. There’s a lot going on campus, as long as you stay out of the stacks.

    2) I believe that most of U of T is in fact, air-conditioned. Which is a godsend. My apartment is like a friggin’ furnace today.

    3) Totally, man.

    4) There are gay profs on campus, absolutely! An amazing one is the incredible, adorable Scott Rayter who teaches Queerly Canadian as part of the Sexual Diversity Studies program at University College. That program is terrific – not only is the course material really fantastic, but the classmates are pretty cute.

    5) Hahahahahaha.

    6) Mmm, not that I know of. Though there is a pretty awesome webnet supergroup that’s funded by the University that actually investigates human rights web blocking in other countries. Read this article and believe.

    7) Probably, though you would have to be in prime optimum plug locales. I’d be charging that sucker, just in case.

    8) Askastudent is an androgynous supermodel.

    Please don’t ask me anything else. This is your summer! This is your youth! Enjoy it while you can.

    xoxo, Askastudent

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  • courses,  weirdness

    salem revisited

    March 16, 2009

    Is it true that 300 and 400-series courses are easier to do well in than 100 or 200-series ones? Because my registrar told me in 1st year that courses are more difficult in higher levels! Thanks!

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