Obligatory holiday-themed Lettitor Bex Peterson Editor-in-Chief Fe some people, the holiday season smells like pine and orange, cinnamon and apples, mulled wine and mince tarts. To me, the smell I most attribute to the holiday season is paint. House paint. With an eggshell finish. My house was in sore need of renovations when I was growing up, and my dad often saved up vacation days so he could be around for Christmas. The conflation of this meant that we spent many of my Christmas vacations Room 1020 - 700 Royal Ave. Douglas College New Westminster, BC, V3L 5B2 604-525-3542 Bex Peterson Editor-in-Chief M editor@theotherpress.ca James Moore Layout Manager M layout@theotherpress.ca Katie Czenczek News Editor © news@theotherpress.ca Jess Berget Opinions Editor M opinions@theotherpress.ca Greg Waldock Web Editor © webeditor@theotherpress.ca Caroline Ho Assistant Editor M assistant@theotherpress.ca D jo }e@ — » h renovating the house—knocking out walls, redoing floors, and adding layer after layer of paint. One memorable Christmas when 1 in elementary school was spent laying down laminate flooring after we ripped up our old, stained ’7os carpet. So yes, to this day whenever I go to paint a room, I’m immediately taken back to Yuletide days of old. It’s hard to think of anything to say about this time of year that hasn't already been said a million times before and far better than I could ever say it. Right now, like many of us, I’m just glad to have made it through the semester. The last few weeks of November have felt like a desperate @ theotherpress.ca © editor@theotherpress.ca ¥ © /theotherpress f/douglasotherpress Lauren Kelly Graphics Manager © graphics@theotherpress.ca Sonam Kaloti Arts Editor M arts@theotherpress.ca Brittney MacDonald Life & Style Editor M lifeandstyle@theotherpress.ca Isabelle Orr Entertainment Editor © humour@theotherpress.ca Jacey Gibb Distribution Manager Meghan Lin Production Assistant @ ») © ia p | crunch, and with only one final exam to focus on now I’m starting to feel like I can finally breathe. It’s weird to think that this is the last issue of the year—not of this volume, that’s not till next August, but even so. It really feels like fall just completely galloped away from us, and now that we’re finally getting our feet under us, we're taking a four-week break. Semesters tend to feel like that anyway; right when you start getting into the swing of things, it’s finals season. Time is weird; there's a cliché for the holidays. Whatever the break looks like for you, here’s what I hope: I hope you have some time to breathe. I hope you get to do the Angela Ho Business Manager Cara Seccafien Illustrator Tania Arora Staff Reporter Naomi Ambrose Staff Writer Roshni Riar Staff Writer Billy Bui Staff Photographer Angela Ho Business Manager Jerrison Oracion Senior Columnists Daniela Becerril, Vlad Krakov Contributors Cover design by Lauren Kelly Feature design by Meghan Lin Horoscope illustrations by Cara Seccafien things you want to do with the people you want to be with. I hope you have good food, good drinks, and the ability to sleep in the morning after having good drinks. I hope you come back energized and excited for 2019 (or at the very least, with enough sleep in the bank to survive whatever the winter semester throws at us). Wishing you all the very best, Bex Peterson Bex Peterson The Other Press has been Douglas College’s student newspaper since 1976. Since 1978 we have been an autonomous publication, independent of the student union. We are a registered society under the Society Act of British Columbia, governed by an eight-person board of directors appointed by our staff. Our head office is located in the New Westminster campus. The Other Press is published weekly during the fall and winter semesters, and monthly during the summer. We receive our funding from a student levy collected through tutition fees every semester at registration, and from local and national advertising revenue. The Other Press is a member of the Canadian University Press (CUP), a syndicate of student newspapers that includes papers from all across Canada. The Other Press reserves the right to choose what we will publish, and we will not publish material that is hateful, obscene, or condones or promotes illegal activities. Submissions may be edited for clarity and brevity if necessary. All images used are copyright to their respective owners.