Summer is definitely the best time of year in Calgary. No, you can't ski and yes, the Den is dead every night of the week, but once the freak May blizzards stop and the snow melts, the town transforms. Never ending prairie sunshine hits the city with enough intensity to make even the pavement sweat dusty heat waves. Hiding inside after nine months of winter is unimaginable, but there isn't a beach in sight. Instead, there is an alternative form of refreshment--two ounces good company and one ounce cool location.

When the sun is blazing overhead and the weather is too beautiful to spend another second inside, there's only one place to go: the Calgary Zoo.

How strange is it that death by embolism is the most unusual item to emerge from a news day?

The past 12 months have amounted to what seems like an exceptionally bad year. And sadly, I don't foresee things changing in the future.

A "modern-day Nazi regime" is the only way I can describe it. You may think it's harsh to refer to it in such a manner, extreme even, but if it was your everyday life, you could only agree. Some of you can relate to my difficulties, my trials, and few triumphs: those with Chinese parents.

By the time we'd reached the entrance to the club we were already an hour behind our timetable. This was bad, since our escape route depended on a well-timed rendezvous with an accomplice in an SUV. My cell phone rang on cue. "Kyle? I'm just leaving now, I should be there in about 45 minutes."

"Damn it, he's late!" So much for our dependable pick up.

The timing couldn't be better. If we hurried, we'd be out of this place just in time to leave this corner of downtown Calgary.

Some sort of background should be provided to explain why I set out to test the waters of Protest culture. It begins with an amusing video, Protesting the protesters, put out by a group known as the Devil's Advocate. The reporter in the video asked many poignant questions of the protestors at a New York rally to see what their reasons were for rejecting the administration's causus belli.

Editor, the Gauntlet,

Re: "A party does not a protest make," March 27, 2003.

The Gauntlet annually gives out the Extra Effort Award to two athletes that deserve it. This year's recipients were from women's hockey Kealy McGraw and from men's volleyball Kelly Cherniwchan (far right). McGraw went out off her way to make inspirational pre-game CDS and highlight videos for her team, while Cherniwchan overcame injury after injury to help a team with a losing record finish fourth in the nation.

In her two months on the job, Jayna Gilchrist has done the minimum requirements of her position. However, according to most, this is an improvement on the work of her predecessor, Rosia Nagra, who resigned in early January due to personal reasons.