from the editors February 23, 2011 + Over the Edge Volume 17, Issue 10 February 23, 2011 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Shelby Petersen MANAGING EDITOR Kali Flick PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Gavin Ireland COPY EDITOR Jessica N Shapiro NEWS EDITOR Hanna Petersen ARTS EDITOR Darcie Smith FEATURES EDITOR Veronika Kollbrand CLUBS EDITOR Bianca Chorabik SPORTS EDITOR Brock Campbell PHOTO EDITOR John Hall CONTRIBUTORS PAUL STRICKLAND JACOB EZEKIEL ROSINA TURNER The Editor’s Edict It’s time to get back into the game and finish the semester SHELBY PETERSEN EDITOR IN CHIEF « Welcome back from reading break. Now there is nothing to 4 look forward to but the end. | ? trust that you are all in the throes » of the semester with enough midterms and papers to last you te a lifetime. | don’t know about you, “3 but | think that reading break 4 should have been a little longer! 1 Speaking of reading break, Over the Edge _ will be published both this week and next week in lieu of our little break. So that means, if you didn’t manage to get your submissions in this week, you can be sure to make deadline next time around. The rest of the semester is sure to be filled with excitement and adventure with loads of events and parties to attend. If you happen to attend any of these UNBC related events, Over the Edge would love to know what you have to say about it. We are always looking for reviews and articles about local and not so local things that interest the students of UNBC. After all, we are all about making a paper that is interesting to you! Over the Edge has three new members to add to the team. First, we have John Hall, who is our resident photo expert and cameraman. You will see John out and about roaming the corridors of UNBC looking for the next great photo to be featured here on these fine pages. If you would like to Next up we have Bianca Choribik, who is our new Clubs Editor. As Clubs Editor Biancais responsible for attending and featuring UNBC’s finest clubs and the events that they host. Did you know that Over the Edge features a Club in every issue? If you want to have your club featured in OTE in order to get your name out and recruit some new members (maybe someone will eventually beat the CSS in the annual blood drive?) Bianca is your girl! Finally, we have Veronika Kollbrod taking over the ever-popular Features Editor position. Some would say that Veronika has the best deal at the paper because she has creative free reign of her section. The Features Editor is responsible for keeping us up to date with pop culture and everything that doesn’t get taught in the classroom. From online dating to new moms on Facebook, Veronika is sure to inspire some creative thoughts. So, even though we have a full editorial board at Over the Edge does not mean that you can no longer get involved. We are ALWAYS looking for more people to write for us! Staff writers are a valued and respected resource at OTE (one we can never get enough of). Also, people who have written for over the edge have a better chance of making it onto the editor board when a position becomes available. On top of that, writing for Over the Edge will not only fulfill that void in your life, it will also look good on your resume (and isn’t that what we are all after). Employers love a person who is diverse, and intelligent. Staff writer at a prestigious university paper says all that and more. So, give writing for Over the Edge a shot because only good things can come of it! For more information on how you can get involved with Over The deadline for the next issue is Wednesday, February 23. Be sure to get your articles in on time! Over the Edge is the official independent publishing media of students at the University of Northern British Columbia. As such, it is our mandate to report on issues of interest to students in the North- ern Region. We encourage all students, both on the main and regional campuses to submit to Over the Edge. Over the Edge is part of the Canadian Uni- versity Press network of papers, otherwise known as CUP. CUP is an organization that is entirely owned by member papers, and provides such services as a news wire and advertis- ing to Over the Edge. Over the Edge is published every second week during the fall and winter semesters. Office Location: 16-350 MAILING ADDRESS 3333 University Way Prince George, BCV2N 429 PHONE (250) 960-5633 FAX (250) 960-5407 E-mail over-the-edge@unbc.ca submit a photo to Over the Edge or want John to show up at your event to have it featured in OTE justlet us know by emailing over-the-edge@ubc.ca! Transitions by our A creative piece on post reunification Germany PAUL STRICKLAND CONTRIBUTOR During a two-week holiday in late November 1992, Jim took the train from Heidelberg to Berlin. The train crossed over the former West German-East German boundary around 3:30. Things seemed greyer, dingier. Smoke curled back down from small, boxy houses onto narrow rural lanes. At Magdeburg almost everything downtown looked dark and poorly maintained. Paint was peeling off advertising slogans, probably dating from before 1933, on the sides of three- and four-storey buildings. Jim read Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray, the German translation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. He thought it was a good strategy to read a favourite novel, one he’d read several times, as a way to refresh his knowledge of German and gather the meanings of German words that were new to him by their placement in quotations he knew inside out. He had done the same in Mexico in the fall of 1974, after he had picked up El Retrato de Dorian Gray in an out-of-the-way corner store in San Luis del Rio Colorado in Sonora. When the train reached the capital city, it first went through the bright lights of the prosperous former West Berlin. Jim asked a_ white- whiskered portly older gentleman, “Wo is der Hauptbahnhof? (Where is the central train depot?)” The man answered in German that it was still a couple of stops ahead. The next stop was Berlin-Tiergarten, or the zoo district. Many of the passengers, most of them prosperous- looking, got off the train there. But Jim carried through with following the advice of the older gentleman and stayed on the train until he reached the Hauptbahnhof. Suddenly everything in the city was dark except for the occasional dim street lamp. Jim concluded he was now in the former East Berlin. On arriving at the main train station, he stepped out into a nearly deserted, poorly swept building. It might have been the busy main train station during the Weimar Republic, but it certainly wasn’t now. Most of the phones were out of order. Signs were in Russian, German, Italian and French, but there were no directions in English. Finally he saw a board from which a person could call hotels directly. He called a pension on Meinekestrasse and hailed a cab. The pension was back in the ONLINE SOURCE former West Berlin, a 40-mark ride when the mark was worth about 88 cents Canadian. He looked at the scenery during the rather long cab ride. The Rotratshaus (Red City Hall) had an imposing clock tower, but most buildings looked run-down. The area looked like the south side of Chicago -- not an area where he would want to go wandering at night. The pension was tidy and only 67 marks per night -- not bad for lodgings in a major metropolitan area in Europe. Jim spent the next three days sightseeing in Berlin. In the late afternoon one day, he walked back into one of the East Berlin neighbourhoods the taxi had travelled through on the way from the train station to the pension. Nearly everything, except perhaps a recently opened pub, was dirty or even sooty. Bullet holes could be seen in the stucco at the second floor and higher in many apartment buildings. Windows at top floors of some were dark and broken: Evidently no one had time or money to put in new glass. Bird droppings that had accumulated over years could be seen along the windowsills of these upper floors. However, unlike some Chicago neighbourhoods, this area turned out to be reasonably safe to walk through. Jim went into a pub. Inside it was decorated with angry-looking minimalist iron sculptures and industrial-theme mobiles. He waited 15 minutes, but no one would serve him. Assuming he looked too obviously like a tourist, he left. The the Edge please email office (we are usually in us at over-the-edge@ubc.ca or drop there)! See you around! next afternoon he walked back into East Berlin as far as the former East German television tower, the Fernsehturm. Then he proceeded back down the Unter den Linden toward the Russian embassy. By the time he got to the Brandenburg gate, night had fallen. Everything to the west was clean and bright. For Jim, who had seen nothing on TV since 1961 about this landmark but barbed wire, the Wall and the heavily guarded checkpoint, it was a trip to be able to walk back and forth underneath this gate -- where troops from the armies of the world’s two most powerful countries had once faced each other over a heavily fortified line -- without having to go through any border formalities whatsoever. The gate was now clean except for some whiter pieces of marble that had been set into the columns to replace spots that had been damaged by gun fire during the Russian advance into Berlin in late April 1945. There was an office in what Jim assumed was the former East German border-entry checkpoint. It was lit, but empty except for a single desk and a phone on the floor. Jim walked back and forth again underneath the gate, looking up at some of the ornate carvings near the top that he admired. Two ladies of the evening approached, thinking he was walking back and forth in that area because he was looking for the kinds of services they offered. He said, “Ich bin Kanadisch.” “Wir sind nicht hubsch? (We’re not pretty?),” they responded. Then Jim had to explain as politely as possible in his broken university German that he just wasn’t interested, and they finally went away. Then he walked north along where the former Wall had stood. The sometimes- winding course of the now removed Wall looked like the median of a dark, deserted four-lane highway. The dimly lit upper portion of one of the Reichstag towers loomed above bleak buildings that were just over the line into East Berlin. At one point where the Wall had been, Jim came across a makeshift memorial with wilted flowers and burning candles around it. On one side of it was a cardboard sign with the message, “Unser Sohn war hier geschossen drie Wochen vor der Mauerfall. Warum? (Our son was shot here three weeks before the wall fell. Why?)’The darkness now seemed _ all-enveloping.