Experiencing numerous obstacles in life, especially as you enter adulthood, it is hard not to turn cynical. You start to expect the worst and focus on reality rather than ideals. When you are in this mindset and hear something like “Every cloud has a silver lining,” it can feel stupidly optimistic, even condescending. Despite this possibility, The Granite Tower (GT) selected Silver Linings as the theme for this May issue.

Meaning that every negative situation has a positive aspect to it, the proverb “Every cloud has a silver lining” proves to be true regarding various social and cultural topics. Sometimes the only pleasant factor about a terrible incident is that you learn a lesson from it. This sentiment is clear in our Cover Story about the LH land speculation scandal. The article is a detailed piece about how and why such a corruption was able to occur; that loopholes in related legal regulations have been exposed and can now be resolved is a heartening takeaway. The same goes for our Feature section, which uncovers problems to be addressed such as sexual discrimination in the employment process and legal struggles in the settlement of the sharing economy.

More traditional interpretations of the proverb can be found in our Artist story about a K-pop group’s late rise to fame or our KU People article introducing an alumni who turned his sports career slump into a creative opportunity.

Oxford Languages said it best; the silver lining in a cloud “may not be immediately apparent.” In this issue, GT reporters and editors searched for that obscured pleasantness in your place. We hope that GT’s writing can be a ray of sunshine in what may be an otherwise brutally cloudy day.