Welcome Back
Hello World
January is here and as it’s still early in the month everyone is being as lazy and/or productive as possible in this calm before the storm. The USSU Help Centre is about to get ridiculously busy. I’ve already had loads of people coming in for the exam file even though midterms are still a month away. I’m a bit envious of their enthusiasm. It is my last semester as a University Undergraduate student and I believe that I have finally reached the ‘final year slump’. This is a time when students who are about to graduate start losing momentum and really just glide on by. I’m hoping that this slump is only temporary and Skyrim induced, as it is my final semester and I will be working—or should be working—diligently on my honours project and last 100-level social science credit.
I’ve been planning Mental Health Awareness Week for several months now and it is fast approaching. For this week there will be a panel regarding suicide in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan with panelists from Avenue Community Centre, Living Works (an Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Trainer), Aboriginal Student’s Centre, and After Suicide (a community-based Support Group). I am hoping that this talk will encourage people to start talking more about the fact of suicide as it has always been a rather taboo topic. There will also be an ASIST training the weekend (January 28th/29th) before, which helps people to recognize people having thoughts of suicide, intervene, and connect them to help. The following week there will be a SafeTALK (February 6th), which helps train people in a similar way to ASIST, but in a less intensive and shorter time period. If you are interested in partaking in either please contact help.centre@ussu.ca for more information!
I will talk more about Mental Health Awareness Week as we get closer to the date.
Hope your January is stress free or at least a bit more relaxing than December was.
<3 Alex
