issue 28 // volume 43 humour // no. 23 Writer wakes up from post-exam coma > Suffers horrible case of writer's block Carlos Bilan Staff Writer actually do not know what to write. I see the headline and I pitched it during the meeting, but I have been typing and hitting backspace so many times I’ve lost count. I see this big blank page in front of me, and I’m trying to think of a good introduction for this article, but I guess this will have to do. I was thinking that the article could be set in a hospital, but I can’t for the life of me think of a good name for the hospital. I ended up writing (Insert Name of Hospital Here) and continued typing the article, thinking that the idea might come to me later, somehow. I even thought of a name for the character by associating it with a romance language like “Ed Olvido” which sounds like “aide” in French meaning “help” and “Olvido” meaning “forget” in Spanish, but that’s about all I could come up with. I decided that maybe I should boil some tea and see if maybe during the three minute wait time for the water to boil and the half a minute it takes to let the tea bag set in my mug I might get some sort of inspiration. However, it’s been 15 sips and I still cannot come up with any good punchlines. It’s a humour article and it has to be funny but I can’t come up with anything hilarious! I can’t believe how studying so intensely for exams over the a span of a week-and-a- half can really make you feel like you ran a marathon that lasted more than four hours and all the glucose in your brain just disintegrated and you've like “uuhh how am I gonna write this.” I consulted sweet, sweet Miss Google and the results said that I’m suffering what they call a “writer's block.” Ironically, I was thinking of writing an article that had something to do with a character suffering from a writer's block and now I ended up rambling and typing up four paragraphs Illustration by Ed Appleby instead of coming up with the article. It’s already over 300 words, and I need 100 more words to fit the word count. That’s when I had a EUREKA! moment. I’m so happy! I can write the article in my point of view and talk about how it took me almost an hour to just come up with a full-length article with the minimum of 400 words and Counter-culture food recipes > Because flavour is, like, so mainstream Rebecca Peterson Humour Editor Te of offering the same establishmentarian fare at your post-poetry slam speakeasy-themed underground happenings? Look no further than this list of totally creative—but not trying super hard to be creative or anything—recipes for you and your acquaintances to nosh on while discussing the philosophy of man buns. Kombucha and cold-brew soup Ingredients: Organic kombucha, gluten- free cold-brew coffee, kosher salt. Combining flavours from two of your favourite organic drinks, this two- ingredient soup requires almost no prep time. Simply pour the kombucha and cold-brew into a sauce pan, heat it to boiling, and serve it in a mason jar with a little sprinkle of kosher salt. Kimchi-pickled zoodles Ingredients: Home-made kimchi fermented for two years in an antique Coke bottle in a hole in your garden, pickling ingredients, zucchini. Combining the best of at least three worlds, this dish will delight the senses like a good strong punch in the nose. Simply zoodle your zucchini and seal it in a tight mason jar with white vinegar, water, sugar, salt, kimchi, and an unsent love letter to your favourite underground band that no one’s heard of other than you. We suggest leaving this to pickle for at least three months. You might think to serve it in the mason jar, but that would be so pedestrian and obvious, obviously. Instead, we suggest serving it on a slab of wood cut from the tree that grew in that’s the punchline! It also fits the title because I am a writer and I just had three exams and you know what, I’m mentally exhausted. As soon as I walked out of the gym door from my last exam, I threw my fist in the air and opened all of my social media accounts, since I had blocked them to increase my productivity. I saw that I had four new Facebook messages, read that Kendrick Lamar is coming to Vancouver, Katy Perry is about to release a new single, and so much more. Withdrawing from social media and opening it all again really was like waking up from a coma. I’m proud to say that I survived! Exams are over. | am now over 500 words and I can finally submit this to Rebecca, our lovely Humour Editor, so she can edit it. A writer who has woken up from a post-exam coma but fought through the writer’s block. I really feel like I’ve got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire, and [insert more inspirational verses here]. Wow, I can't believe it! I could even extend this to 600 words, but nah, I think this should do. Shortly after this article was submitted, staff writer Carlos Bilan was seen tackled by a 510” woman with blue lipstick and a crazed look in her eyes. The woman was heard shouting about also having writer’s block and also deciding to “go meta’ with her article, before fleeing into a nearby alleyway. If anyone has any information on the suspect’s whereabouts, please contact Assistant Editor Chandler Walter or Editor-in-Chief Lauren Kelly. the backyard of your childhood home. Quinoa a la Craft (Beer) Ingredients: Organic quinoa from Whole Foods, your favourite IPA, wild mushrooms (psychedelic or otherwise). Best prepared over an open fire at a music festival, this fun dish is sure to fill you and your mid-twenties beer belly right up. Boil the quinoa in your craft IPA, carefully stirring in the mushrooms, until it smells a little like broken dreams and a lot like that art school you went to for one year before dropping out to pursue a career in vintage teacup peddling. We suggest serving this dish in all those vintage teacups you have yet to peddle. Food truck hash Ingredients: your favourite food truck dishes, from tacos to shawarma to whole-grain crepes. Chop up all these gourmet foods gathered from all the hottest spots around the city and fry them up together with avocado oil ina cast- iron pan, all while complaining about the gentrification of your favourite Vancouver alleyways and hole-in- the-wall establishments. Serve on a bed of kale with a side of a Starbucks unicorn frappe. Perfect for Instagram!