I was the first one to get to the cabin.

I wasn’t the strongest paddler out of the three of us, but I was the most cold and wet, so that day, I was the fastest.

Throughout the 1950s, the Benecasa, Russos and Ferraris families uprooted their lives in Southern Italy and immigrated to Edmonton, Alta. Each one of the family members left their Italian soil to begin a life that, so far, had only existed in their imaginations.

What: “Now Here” art show
When: April 16 to April 23
Where: Visual Arts Building
How Much: free

What: The Vagina Monologues

When: April 17, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Alix Goolden Hall

Climbing mountains and taking photographs of alpine landscapes is, for the lucky few, their summer job.

In Shutter Island, Director Martin Scorsese has the audience right where he wants them. 

Whether you live in an apartment or a house with a yard, there’s never been a better time to start vegetable gardening. Victoria’s mild climate and the constant issue of our food’s environmental impact point us in one direction: it’s time to start digging.

Welcome to a land where Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter, his dialect flipping between an English lisp and a Scottish brogue, Alice is a 19-year-old who barely remembers her first visit down the rabbit hole and the computer-generated 3-D environment looks a little like the planet Pandora from Avatar, but not as cool.

Raise Shit! That’s the mantra, and title, of a new book written in part by a UVic professor.

Emily Ross has been aching to wear a pair of sweatpants for weeks now.

Ross, a fourth-year UVic student in the Physical Education department, is trying to wear 55 different dresses in 55 days as a fundraiser for relief in Haiti.

Who: Victoria Women’s Sexual Assault Centre
What: Cupid’s Arrow benefit concert
When: Feb. 13
Where: Victoria Event Centre
How much: $12 at Lyle’s place or $17 at the door

Allan Seckel believes that it is more important now than ever to get a post-secondary education.

Let’s go back in time.

It’s Christmas day in 1985.  The Coopers, a dysfunctional family in upstate New York, have adapted well to the ‘80s. Gord, the dad, is wearing a red-knit sweater with a herd of reindeer on it. Nancy, the mom, has enough poof in her hair to rival Marge Simpson. There is shag carpet everywhere.

Panties will help marginalized women on the lower mainland this Valentine’s day.

Tom sits in my yellow, old-fashioned brocade chair that I bought on craigslist for $40 last week. I am lying on my living room couch a few feet away, staring at the ceiling. I use my sleeve to wipe dried slobber from my cheek.

What:Swollen Members
Where:Element Nightclub
How Much: $18

How would the Swollen Members sum up their new album?

Reverend Tom Oshiro is a born leader.

When he was a teenager in Ontario, he was the captain of the high school football team and the student council president. After becoming ordained as a priest and moving to the Lower Mainland, he became responsible for the welfare of all the Baptist churches in B.C.

Packing is hard. We don’t give ourselves enough credit when it comes to stuffing our entire lives into one bag in preparation for that three-month gallivant through Southeast Asia.

Sea races, identity crises, pre-teen love, island fever and death are about to change UVic campus forever — at least for those lucky enough to catch this year’s annual Festival for Innovated and New Drama, known more lovingly as the FIND festival.

Things are going to get a little naughty at the Norway House this week.

Organizers from No2010 Victoria and other community members have come together to put on Victoria’s first adults-only subversive cabaret, aptly titled: Dissent is Sexy.