Fables is a graphic novel. Yes, it is a comic book, but it is a series of comics collected into separate volumes and individual story arches with reoccurring characters. This is partially what denotes a distinction between it and the latest issue of Spiderman at 7-11.

Fables weaves an intriguing story line, based on primarily European folk and fairy tales that are living in various locations in the state of New York. They have fled from all their respective homes in the wake of an invasion from a powerful enemy known only as the Adversary. And, no kids, sorry, Aslan didn’t make it out.

Something about the traditional Christmas creates a distinctive seasonal feeling. Yet the holiday memories we treasure are easily hyped and distorted by obsessive shopping and hopeless expectations. We end up putting a barcode on sincere memories by trying to reproduce the same feelings every year through consumerism. Despite the sincerity of our love and appreciation for the season, holiday rituals become mere imitations of our overwhelming expectations. The holidays get bigger every year, and the values we waste on superficial sentimentality end up devoid of any worth.

Okay, let’s be honest right from the beginning: Who are the most successful university students? They are those “type-A” personalities, those check marking lunatics who are seen passing you at break neck speeds, getting back to their room by 2 p.m. because they have a schedule and they’ve been blessed – or cursed – with the ability to live their lives by it. They are the people who can sit down and study for hours at a time without the interruption of another living thing. They are those who get stuff done on time and even early. As for the other 98 per cent of the student population, we spend our days trying to be just like them. We buy day planners and assignment books, wall calendars, special pens that write the smoothest, anything to keep us from being distracted. I’m not suggesting that these things are negative, but on the whole they constitute a large misunderstanding of what it is that makes a successful student.

In one month we’ll be living in the year 2008, where technology has revitalized society. Omaha, Nebraska’s digital “barcode artist” Scott Blake, 31, began painting with pixels in 1998 using Photoshop, and in 10 short years he has seen the computer industry revolutionize art.

Scott’s work consists of barcodes. Literally. He makes them for companies like FedEx and UPS and on top of that has printed barcode illusionary art for 10 years, making barcode tattoos, barcode flipbooks, postcards, and larger installations of cultural icons – made up completely of barcodes. But despite how close a relationship Scott has with them, barcodes have always been an anomaly.

To Lauren Thompson:

You might not know me, my name is Christian. We have cartography class together. Every time I walk into class I am astounded by your perfect palette. During the Christmas Season, we should break out in choreographed song and dance… Just a thought. We could exchange news stories the next time we see each other, then we can go to my bat cave. We could totally play scrabble together while watching Newsies. Maybe later we could go find a rooftop and listen to the Shins. Your way of using colour language inspires me to read dictionaries the rest of the holiday season. My parents would seriously swoon over you. Take care and stay sweet,

Let me tell you about one of my favourite days of the year and the reasons for it being such. This particular day ranks itself among one of the greatest days that mankind has ever been privy to experience. Yes, Christmas is important, with the birth of little baby Jesus and all; Easter, sure why not, it’s important too; St. Patrick’s Day, c’mon, now we’re just splitting hairs. Anyway back to the topic. By now you’re wondering what sort of power such a day could hold over mankind. Well, let me tell you. It’s a day people lovingly refer to as “Black Friday;” it’s none other than the day after Thanksgiving. On Black Friday mankind sets aside their cultural/social/racial/sexist differences and come together to engage in the age old tradition: shopping like hell.

For nearly a decade it sat abandoned, neglected, and vacant.Now it awaits an inevitable fate. If any current student pays it any mind, it’s only to wonder why it wasn’t torn down long ago.

Yet the old chapel building still stands. For many alumni, it stands because it is seen as more than a building with a poorly designed roof; the Calvin B. Hanson Chapel has been a symbol of Trinity Western University’s spiritual focus.

As plans are drawn up to tear down the old building and erect a new chapel, President Jonathan Raymond and TWU alumni are working hard to ensure a significant tradition is not destroyed along with an old building.

It’s 8:00 AM. Millions of people along the Pacific Coast switch off their alarms and roll out of bed and into the kitchen. Eyelids drooping, they access their stash of coffee grounds and the early morning wake-up ritual begins.

Elsewhere in the world, in the country known as the birthplace of coffee, impoverished “buna” (coffee) farmers are finishing a day of hard labour preparing their crop for sale. Thousands of picked coffee beans will lie for the next two weeks spread over large woven pallets, sifted and stirred frequently to ensure dryness. This is Ethiopia, home to some of the world’s finest coffee. Ethiopians drink coffee routinely – the bitter brew is integral to their culture and is indigenous to the ancient Abyssinian land. It’s no surprise then that coffee composes 60 per cent of Ethiopia’s export value.