Sing the anthem. Raise the flag. Do, uh, a salute or whatever.

Because in a week’s time, McMaster will be host to pageantry a year in the making. With shades of incandescent green and eyesore yellow, MUSC will look less like a dirty zoo and more like a colourful, dirty zoo. Election campaigns will parade into classes in order to win the votes of people who don’t know an election is going on, who couldn’t name the current president of the MSU, and who are wondering if they are in the right class in the first place. Cheers will hiccup across campus, songs will blare, and the world will revolve around the halls of McMaster, if only for a few people.

But in between the screams and badgering, the prodding to vote for one candidate over another, some of you won't share the buzz on campus. You'll instead feel like you are but a piece on an indiscriminate checkers board, a vote who is drowning in competing ideas, and though you are you, you alone is not important enough.

Let’s do something about that gnawing apathy. Let’s make you fight against it all by becoming it all: Let’s run for the MSU Presidentials together.

I know, I know. Why would you want to do that? You don’t know jack shit about jack shit, talking to people turns you into an unsettling, sweaty mess, and besides, look at you: you’re a meat-wagon wrapped in unwashed sweatpants, a mustard-stained t-shirt, and your hair is a knot even a Scout hasn’t seen.

But that’s the point: you often convince yourself you’re a loser already – the blemish of mustard is your proof – and the first way to sweep the Presidentials is knowing that it takes losing in order to win. Luckily, you’re already half way there.

Next is your platform, or more importantly, the lack thereof. In a few weeks time, no one will care what you say. There will be no accountability or follow-up. You’ll win, you’ll spend a year waffling around, and boom, just as you’re about to pick a pen because someone shuffled outside your office door, you’ll be off doing something else with your resume padded nicely.

So promise only the very absurd. Promise big, grand things. Promise gold, qualify that you meant silver, and give nothing but dirt.

The next step is simple: smile everywhere. The shower? Smile. A photograph? Smile. Pooping? Smile. You need to convince everyone that with pearly whites that look like heaven’s Pearl Gates, you’re happy, even and perhaps especially, when you shit.

I’ll admit that your face will find itself constipated more often than not, and you might not be able to find reasons to grin. You’re unhappy after all; that’s why you’re going to be knee-deep in this election in the first place – you want to change things to make them better for yourself and others, you want people to depend on you, and you want to belong to something greater than yourself.

Yet these elections will wear you out. You’ll be exhausted. And with all the people around you vying for your attention, with all the banners and speeches and impossible demands, you’ll feel lonely even though you might not be alone.

But this emptiness in a world that seems so full of life is not trivial because the next step in winning these MSU elections is being able to lie. Throughout the snafu, you’ll need to string together mendacities that convince others and yourself most of all. People will say, “Your campaign colour is blue; isn’t that depressing.” And you’ll reply, “Is it?” They’ll say, “It is.” You’ll say, “Isn’t the world gray, though? Aren’t things never black and white?” And the person will clap and you’ll be victorious in a few weeks and then you’ll think back and remind yourself that you don’t actually know if things are black or white. You were lying. You are lying. You have become a lie.

Remember, though, that you’re going to be the next MSU president. It’s a sacrifice in order to help, right? You’re willing to forgo truth if it means that others can have it eventually. You’re a hero. A god damn saint. And in the next year, you’ll be our leader.

So here’s my, uh, salute or whatever we do here, President.

Photo: last year's presidential pub night. c/o Myles Frances, The Silhouette

The first step into a student home can lead to the onset of one of two decorating personas.

On the one hand, there is the student-turned-TLC decorator who hammers through a house making bold and trendy moves at every turn. They fear no glue gun or collection of nails because they have a team of construction workers standing behind them and a nearly budget-less vision.

But then there is also the unintentionally minimalist decorator, who often uses excuses to mask their décor flaws. Growing up, when asked why their room was so messy, they would respond, “What, it’s easier to find things when they’re all lying in front of me.” The type of person who eats KD every meal of the day may opt for this choice. There are a few half-hearted attempts to add some flare into the room, maybe a poster attached to the wall with quickly fading tape, or a coffee mug that they’ve convinced themselves is art.

But regardless of your decorating personality, the following list allows for style as intensely-TLC or as KD-minimalist as you please.

1.     Scrapbooking Silhouettes

You can make any silhouette by whipping out a huge piece of paper (or smaller ones for that matter) and designing a cut-out of your choice. Once you have your main cut-out, use a heavy weighted craft or scrapbooking paper (available at Michael’s, Curry’s, Wal-Mart, etc.) and cut organic shapes to fill your silhouette with various patterns. It doesn’t have to fit perfectly, because, hey, nature isn’t perfect either. I stayed within the lines and decided to copy the example I saw online. Once you attach them to your wall- we recommend tape- you can Mod Podge (Michaels, $8.95) over the silhouette to keep in place. You can also seal it to the wall that way, with multiple layers.

2.     Faux Flower Walls

If you’re anything like me, having flowers in a room, even if it is going solo in your drinking glass, is inevitably going to boost my mood just a little bit. But then they die, and my mood becomes increasingly lethargic. As the flower wilts, my mood wilts. So I never want that to happen to you. The solution? Faux flowers. Don’t call them fake. That makes it sound like cheating. Any local dollar store should have some fake ones, along with craft and art supply stores. For a fun feature, string them vertically across your wall.

Shout out to Elsie Marley for the super DIY.

3.     Washi Tape

The greatest invention since light itself: washi tape. In all its colourful variations, this tape can literally light up a room with joy. How I have evaded the existence of this glorious tape is beyond me, but I am so in love with it. Generally cheap to purchase (search up “washi tape” on Etsy and be amazed) and it can act as the perfect frame to any picture you’ve been itching to show off. It’s especially cool when paired with thicker, more conventional frames because those photos start to really pop out (use stickers from Home Hardware or even Titles to do so).

4. Quirky Cork

Look to your oven. Now look back at me. Oh, you’re not in the kitchen? Because what student cooks more than microwavable KD? Okay, agreed, but even the KD minimalist should take note of the simplest way to add an unexpected quirk to your room. Trivets, otherwise known as a surface to put your scalding hot pots and pans on after some *gasp* cooking, are essentially circular corkboards. Put to rest the conventional rectangular corkboards that have been up in your dorm or childhood bedroom since the beginning of time. It’s time to get funky with yo’ cork.

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