Last semester’s student uprisings were a pretty big deal. I think everybody can agree on that. At the head of the this big deal, the representatives of the student movement were put under the media’s spotlight, and extensive coverage of student union-initiated activities were presented at every news outlet. The camera is something powerful: it adds 20 pounds, it never forgets, but most importantly it fortifies one’s hubris. If the ensnaring glare of the lens caught Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois (GND), the CLASSE’s ex-spokesman, only he will truely ever know. However, some of his wacky declarations certainly point to the fact that he did succumb, most notably  his repeated calls to disobeying court orders.  Since then, he has been bitchslapped by the long arm of the law: accused of contempt of court, found guilty. Recently, he has announced that he will go against this verdict in superior instances on accounts of the fundamental right to freedom of speech as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and freedoms.

Some objects just have an indescribable allure to them, a combination of looks and feel that just makes manipulating them feel right. If you’re an overall enjoyer of fine things, you probably know what I mean; knives, firearms, quality tools, engine parts, pretty much anything made of metal to exacting tolerances really, they all  have this special something that makes one feel warm and fuzzy on the inside when holding, contemplating or using them. Watches definitely fit into that category of items, and ever since the theft of my father’s pass-me-down Citizen chronograph, I’ve scourged the internet for more information on watches, to the point where it has become kind of obsessive. The initial goal of my researches the replacement of a lots watch, quickly degenerated into the longing for acquiring a wide variety of watches.

Apple’s talk at WWDC last Monday was a very expected event, without a doubt. As it turns out, the iPhone 5 wasn’t announced, and besides iOS 6, I felt like it was mostly the new Retina display-equipped Macbook Pro that stole the show. After all, it is quite a big deal…  despite not being on par with pixel pitch on the new iPad (aka v3, I hate that stupid name) or the iPhone, the new display brings laptop display pixel pitch to a new all-time high. That’s all fine and dandy… right up until you figure out that that they’ve compromised pretty much everything other than the screen to be able to use the Retina moniker on this new product.

In this battle against tuition rise, the students have many things going against them, and right after the government itself, the second biggest shit disturber is without a doubt the inside resistance from certain students. Those students, whether ideologically opposed to the whole concept of this “Revolution Erable” or just simply fed up with not being able to study, have been turning to the courts since the Laurent Proulx case. Indeed, since the legislation surrounding the formation of students unions does not recognize the right to strike or the right to picket lines, many court orders have been issued to order the schools to resume dispensing class. It’s one thing to get a court order, but as the media reports, it’s a whole other thing to get that order carried out and respected. So far, some schools have remained shut down due to illegal picket lines carried on despite the order, and some ballsy teachers have went as far as to dispense their students of class out of their own initiative in support of the movement. This blatant disrespect of the law is a problem, a major one at that , with two causes: on one side the students, and on the other the teaching staff.

Ten weeks later, the province-wide conflict between students and government over the rise of tuition is still raging on. In the beginning, it was strictly about tuition, because students unions are OBVIOUSLY not politically affiliated with any political movement, party, or trade union. But now, funny enough, the debate seems to have opened up to much wider questions of governance… or at the very least, some people seem to be very eager to make it so.