Originally Posted by sniderj

Totally legit argument against the "Your break really started on December 4th" argument.

That being said, riddle me this: If you are studying every day until your exams are over, I have to assume it is because you feel you NEED to spend that much time on studying. Would this not, then, lead you to be happier with an exam schedule that ended later so you could have the time you need?

I think I would study during all my exam-free days no matter when my exams are. I don't wish that all my exams were on the last two days. I like the way they are spread out now. I study this much because I'm able to, but I wouldn't complain if the exam break was a few days shorter.

Originally Posted by cowpuppy

Yes, because people's lives consist of nothing more than eating, sleeping, pooping, and going to school/work, and there are no other external factors that could affect their lives in any other way, ever.

I'm not actually complaining about our relatively short weekend, I'm just annoyed by everyone's rather poor responses.

Im not saying that's all there is either. I'm saying that 12 days is a long time to have all at once, even if it doesnt seem like it.

I grew up in Toronto, and most of my friends still live there. Moved to Peterborough at 22. A couple years ago I got into a long distance relationship with a girl in the US. I got 10 days a year off work at the time. But on those days off (taken in 2, 5 day installments, plus weekends, usually 8 days total), I could manage to get to Toronto to visit people, drive or fly to St Louis and back to see the girlfriend, and still get around town to do my everyday stuff, like visiting my parents, taking care of my pets, shopping, barhopping with the guys, etc.

I know for some people, moving away from home, or even from another country, is a big deal, and they want to get as much time as possible to do what they want, and see the people they care about. I'm just saying 12 (or more) days is more than enough time for it, and the argument that "someone else gets more so we should too" doesnt seem like a very good reason to extend our school year by another week.

Originally Posted by oakster15

very true, i never considered international students. thats another thing though that i'd like to point out. i only get to see my friends from home at christmas each year as well because i'm from about 500 km's away. my family i see a bit more often, but not much. i'm thinking some people that think the break is long enough maybe live close and have the privilege of going home weekends to see friends/family?

i could be wrong though

My home is over 600km away, and I'm not concerned one bit about the length of the christmas break.

You might not like what I have to say on the matter, but it seems to me that the number of people who have a serious problem with the length of the christmas break is quite small. Does that make their voice insignificant? No, of course not, but I'm a realist - there's zero chance of being able to make any significant changes to this, and in fact, next year the break will likely be longer since labour day won't be so late. This has nothing to do with the administration, and more to do with the circumstances. The second term cannot be extended because the summer term would be affected.

If you really think this is an issue that needs to be dealt with, then please contact me and we can discuss the particulars, but right now it just looks like a couple of students are upset that their exams are ending later than their friends in other universities. Big picture? This is quite a petty thing to be complaining about.

The only thing admin could have done is extend our first day back 'til the 6th. That way it seems like we got two weeks off. Each side of this argument has valid points.. it does suck to have to end the 22nd (3 days before christmas, no time to do christmas shopping, vacation seems rushed and no time to relax... etc), but on the flip side, in a way we are lucky we get that much time off because in some situations, having 10 days off would be considered a luxury. It's situational really.. it all depends on an individual's values / ideas. So, in that sense, everyone who's posted in this thread has a valid point. What lacks in this thread, however, is a respect for diverse opinions. One of my deciding factors for choosing mac as a university was the fact that there seemed to be a great respect and appreciation for diversity, and that collaboration was promoted, not segregation. In life, you're going to meet people who have different opinions than you, and part of maturing into an adult is learning the ability to respect a conflicting opinion while humbly declining it. All of the former name calling and sarcasm is so unnecessary. Respect another person's opinion and understand their situation, because it is probably different than yours. ^__^

Originally Posted by Mz.Morra13

part of maturing into an adult is learning the ability to respect a conflicting opinion while humbly declining it.

What kind of adults do you know? >_<

=( my parents? hahaha. I dunno the mature people I know have that ability to disagree with you without making you feel like a total dumbass.. you know?

Originally Posted by Mz.Morra13

=( my parents? hahaha. I dunno the mature people I know have that ability to disagree with you without making you feel like a total dumbass.. you know?

No, I don't. Any adults I've ever known are ignoramuses and extremely racist/more ignorant than "younger generations."

ie: most of my supervisors at Tim hortons and Walmart.

Originally Posted by lawleypop

No, I don't. Any adults I've ever known are ignoramuses and extremely racist/more ignorant than "younger generations."

ie: most of my supervisors at Tim hortons and Walmart.

I thought you were referring to someone else...

Originally Posted by lawleypop

ie: most of my supervisors at Tim hortons and Walmart.

Gotta tell ya... you haven't exactly picked the intellectual elite as your basis of comparison! I agree with you completely, but had to laugh at this. haha.

Which is disappointing, really...I wish our generation could put an end to it but no matter where you go there are always people like that. If those people actually stopped and thought about half of the crap that came out of their mouth..

Originally Posted by sniderj

Gotta tell ya... you haven't exactly picked the intellectual elite as your basis of comparison! I agree with you completely, but had to laugh at this. haha.

Haha, I know. I don't know too many adults per se, besides people I've worked with.

I mean, hell, my own mother still thinks that immigrants steal "our" jobs and she's extremely racist herself, and she'll argue with me till her face turns blue. >_<

Just for reference, here are the dates for each Term 1 session and Christmas break in the past five years:

2004: Term 1: Sept 9 – Dec 21; Break: Dec 22 – Jan 2 (Total: 12 days)
2005: Term 1: Sept 8 – Dec 21; Break: Dec 22 – Jan 2 (Total: 12 days)
2006: Term 1: Sept 7 – Dec 20; Break: Dec 21 – Jan 2 (Total: 13 days)
2007: Term 1: Sept 6 – Dec 19; Break: Dec 20 – Jan 6 (Total: 19 days)
2008: Term 1: Sept 4 - Dec 17; Break: Dec 18 - Jan 4 (Total: 18 days)

In addition, the years with longer Christmas breaks ended about 2-3 days later in April than those that had shorter breaks.

This year’s break is 12 days long; however, the year started on September 10th, so technically we’ve already had our additional break during that time. In reality, what we have right now isn’t that bad as most of you make it out to be (For instance, the new term used to start just two days after New Year’s Day). This year, we had the weird circumstance of Labour Day being really late, so there’s really nothing that could’ve been done about that.

I think you all should step away from your computers and spend your time like you would on your "Christmas break". Go Christmas shopping or something instead of wasting your time on a forum, and there you go, more hours to your break.

Originally Posted by RockerSocker

So calling their peers whiners because they have valid complaints is okay? Is that what they do in SRA meetings? I'm not sure who elected these people into the SRA, but if I was part of the SRA, I would never call any of my peers whiners, but I would try to understand where they're coming from. Wow, I'm pretty disgusted right now to be honest.

So you are generalizing the 30 other SRA members as people "who call their peers whiners"(whatever that means :S) because you "think" Mr Taunton here represents the SRA officially when he posts on his forum?

As Danny said Mr Taunton is a regular individual with his own opinions on everything. As long as they are under Macinsiders codes of conduct he has as much of a right to say them as you do. The SRA badge is just a part of his forum signature :S

However, If you were to email him formally with a rational/constructive argument about WHY the MSU should lobby the administration to change its exam scheduling policy and/or increase the break and he replies back to you in a unprofessional manner through his MSU email then that is a cause for concern. On Macinsiders though I feel as if he has a right to be part of this uneccesarily heated unformal debate.

But then again I have very liberal views on free speech because apart from being an SRA member I am also a rational human being capable of developing intellectual ideas different then you or someone else.