Humans of UCalgary

(2/2)
"Seeing how much joy these ducks brought to all University of Calgary community members, I continued making them. Whenever there was a cold day, I would bring along a couple of my friends, whoever was free, to help me make ducks. Eventually, the ducks made appearances on multiple UCalgary social media accounts as well as Global News, CTV, the Gauntlet, and Daily Hive. The ducks meant much more to people than I realized. I had deep conversations with several people who saw the ducks as a sign of hope. In a way, those simple ducks have now launched into a mental health initiative.”

The Duck Guys
Left to right: Youssef, Fam, Raine, Brian, Artemy, Owen
Being Carried: Jason, 'The Duck Guy'

(1/2)
“I saw this duck mold on an Instagram ad a while back and I bought it just because! Making the ducks all started on January 16th, it was a very cold Tuesday and a pretty sad time. I had my duck mold that day and so I went outside the Math Sciences building and made 30 ducks just for fun. It took me about 10 minutes. I was not expecting them to get much attention - but later that day, several people saw the ducks and posted them on social media. Others told their friends and professors about them. People were really excited about the ducks. I realized that I had created something fun and simple that made people happy."

“I don’t know that I’ve forgiven the kids who bullied me, but I can say that I better understand why they did it. I know some of them today, and after talking to them it was clear that they were only doing what they did because they were young and wanted to fit in. It wasn’t about any personal hate towards me. It’s just this tribe mindset everyone falls victim to - whether we’re kids or adults. We all have this tendency to conform, to follow the crowd, even if it ends up hurting someone else.

I’ve tried to understand their perspectives because I knew that, for the sake of my mental health, I had to move on from what happened. Holding onto the bitterness that I carried as a kid wouldn’t get me anywhere. People change, and not only is that okay, it’s part of what makes us human. I’m a completely different person than I was last year – by next year I’ll probably be unrecognizable. The one thing that has stayed constant is that I have come to accept and love myself for who I am.

I think of self love as its own category of love, similar to romantic love or platonic love, and also as a skill. It took me years to learn how to be comfortable in my own skin and to be a source of compassion and support for myself. After everything, I can now proudly say that I am my own best friend. Though I’m still learning, I have definitely come far from where I was before.”

(2/2)
“My family and culture are definitely some of the most important elements of my identity. They are so significant that they too have shaped other elements of who I am such as my involvement in academics and sports. I remember when I was little, I used to wear a really big chunky backpack and I would always hit people around me whenever I walked with the backpack. Seeing me like this, my dad would often remind me to be aware of my surroundings. This was a lesson not only in physical awareness, but one that also eventually pushed me to learn about mental awareness as well. I now understand how to be aware of my surroundings both physically and emotionally. I consistently try to understand the environments and situations around me. These are just some lessons that I carry with me in all aspects of my life. The things I have learned from my family, however little or big they may be, have grounded me and shaped me into the person I am now.”

(1/2)
“A name is incredibly powerful and meaningful. I think that the way people gravitate towards names is so important. In Inuit culture, a lot of kids aren’t even given their names until they grow into them. In Greenlandic, my name means ‘a person of lighter complexion’ - light eyes, light hair, and light skin. However, I was born with dark hair and even darker eyes. I like to think that I began to embody my name more and more as I grew up.

I think one thing I try to do and encourage others to do is to just appreciate the little, simple things in life - a flicker of a falling leaf in the golden sun, watching a bird fly through a window, or simply smiling at a stranger. Sometimes we look too deeply at the bigger picture, and that’s when the world becomes a more material world. Although we often fail to do so, just enjoying things for what they are is truly so beautiful.”

“My happiest memories all go back to the feeling of connectedness and having people you can call family; one of my favorite moments is probably when I had a big Thanksgiving dinner with my coworkers from my previous job. Creating a strong external support system on and off campus over these past couple years has been super important for me, it’s created a sense of home, belonging, which is something I truly cherish. It’s given me warmth and happiness. I do really try to take care of the people that mean the most to me, it’s how I show my love.”

“I’d say I’m ambitious, charismatic and intuitive. Intuitive because I believe in the power of the universe. Recently I got a tarot card reading and the lady told me ‘the universe is always going to say yes to what you’re putting out there,’ and honestly, I thought that was pretty applicable. The universe, I like to think, is kind of like a fabric. If you’re a point on the universe and you need to be connected to another point, it will fold itself to connect them. It’s like… a fluid fabric that will wrinkle to make your life what it needs to be.”

“Recently, I have been learning how to take better care of myself and devote my time toward doing what I genuinely enjoy. I used to find happiness in caring for others and putting them first, but in instances where my social battery was drained, I struggled. I would bottle up my feelings and set them aside, in order to focus on helping others. Eventually, these feelings would spill out and hit me hard.

It is cliche to say, but I think it often takes losing everything to realize that something needs to change. I still love making others happy and caring for them, but now I focus on myself as well. I had to learn to listen to myself, to my emotions, and to how I feel - that was really important for me. Pretending that everything is okay is not a good solution because it eventually catches up to you and you will not be ready for it. Growing up in a family with immigrant parents, there were a lot of things I had to figure out for myself. I didn’t really have anyone setting examples for me or guiding me, so I had to learn on my own. I learned by doing, by making mistakes, and by taking the time to reflect on what went wrong. I tried not to dwell on my thoughts too much.

This experience has taught me how to avoid ruminating on the past. You have to realize that it is very hard to make the right decision since you probably haven’t ever been in that position before. If you chose the less favourable of the options, you shouldn’t punish yourself for it. It’s done. You did it, and now you know better. I think that applies to a lot of things in life. It’s really easy to be hard on yourself - to think that there was something you could have done better or differently. But it’s so important to take a step back and recognize that, even if you feel like you aren’t doing well, you’ve done the right things to bring you to where you are today. You need to recognize your own accomplishments and be kinder to yourself. We all need to learn to give ourselves the same love we want to give to others.“

(2/2) “After years of facing the same treatment, my reasons for playing games became blurry. They were starting to leave a sour taste in my mouth because of the strangers who would be rude and disrespectful towards me over nothing. The “friends” that I played with were similarly toxic. I essentially lost motivation of what made me want to play in the first place and instead started to focus on playing to be better than the guys who had put me down. I now cared most about whether or not I was seen as someone who was good at games. The friends have since apologized, but I can sense that there’s a lack of remorse for their behaviour. There is a noticeable bias in the tone of their voice when they speak about female gamers, indicating that discrimination against women in the gaming community persists. It’s especially evident when there’s an unspoken expectation for the role you’re supposed to be playing in the games. Instead of playing stronger characters who would do a lot of damage to enemies, I would have to play the character that would support said stronger characters. It was implied that these characters are only for skilled players, suggesting a bias that female gamers are not as capable - it feels belittling.

I wouldn’t wish for anyone in the gaming community to go through this experience. I remember the days where I would mute my mic in calls to avoid revealing my identity. It is as if we aren’t allowed to have “bad” days where we aren’t playing our best, as if every game has to be our best if we don't want to be slandered. I think there is a long way to go before this experience for other girls is improved, but it luckily seems to be changing. I stood up for other girls who were getting harassed in hopes that they don’t have the same experience with gaming. With more and more female content creators becoming popular these days, I have seen a shift where people are starting to stand up for those affected by toxicity. This newly-established environment in the gaming community is a refreshing and welcome change.“

(1/2) “A toxic culture against girls exists in every corner of our lives. It not only affects academia when we’re out and about, but can also sneak up on us when we least expect it.

I started playing video games when I was a kid because my older brother made them seem so interesting. To me, playing these games was like an escape from reality, especially from the home environment I was experiencing at the time. It felt like a comforting breath of fresh air and was an activity that I actually enjoyed. While it was inevitable for anyone to encounter someone who was randomly toxic, I didn’t really mind it because it felt normal for this to happen to anyone in any type of scenario. What wasn’t so normal was the toxicity that I faced as soon as I spoke while gaming. It was as if everyone turned against me because they heard a feminine voice; something that seems to be the norm for girls that play online games. Since you’re likely to only play with these people for an hour out of your day, they think they can say whatever they want to you without consequence. You hear the same insensitive jokes repeatedly, phrases like : “Are you on your period?” or “Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen?”

It became mentally draining to play within this online community of gamers. Their behaviour became toxic to the point where a whole new set of expectations and level of pressure was placed on girls. I would have to be better than them just to receive the bare minimum of respect. I hated this, because games went from being a way for me to relieve stress, to them being the reason I felt stressed. I constantly had to push myself, thinking I needed to be better in order to be valued. You were expected to play at a higher level, despite being a beginner, and would constantly be told that you were doing things wrong without guidance on how to improve. At first, I naively thought that maybe I was the only one getting picked on because I was simply worse. But even after pushing myself to become better at the game, the toxicity never seemed to stop.“

“I’ve been climbing for about 10 years and the biggest thing it’s taught me is that if you don’t take yourself seriously, nobody else will. There have been many times in my career when I had to decide that I was going to do the work for myself, not for anyone else. For the first time in 2019, I took responsibility for my climbing and ended up placing on the podium at my first Senior Bouldering Nationals. After going through a bit of a rough patch, that was a moment where I was truly proud of myself, my parents were proud of me, and it was a very ‘full-circle’ feeling. Right now, I would say I am mentally content and balanced. There were doubts, injuries, and challenges in proving myself along the way, but I knew that I wanted to stick with it. The biggest credit for my journey goes to all the mentors and people who have helped me with my climbing, shaping me into a wiser person. One of my coaches once told me that at the end of the day, you have to try your best and that’s all you can do. That stuck with me because I saw how he lives his life and I want to try to emulate that.”

(2/2) “I’ve had a community that built me up, so I feel morally obligated to build others up. I started volunteering with summer camps, back in 2012. That was the start of everything. After that I volunteered with the Calgary Public library because it played such a huge role in our integration as immigrants, and there’s an immense amount of gratitude that we have for their services. I truly believe it was my chance to show my commitment and spread positivity within the communities I associate with. In my first year of university I was involved with the ELP program and then became a peer helper with the Leadership and Student Engagement office. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to be the SU KNES rep, so there’s definitely been many opportunities and experiences. But the keystone of them all I think is this non-varietal feeling of support from these different facets, which then perpetuates back onto how I am able to reciprocate that support. It’s beautiful how you find a home in the very communities you serve.”