Incite Magazine - March 2013

Incite Magazine volume 15 ▪ issue 4 ▪ March 2013

education MCATS, OPPRESSION, and ROBOTIC EROTICISM Plus ▪ Poetry, Art, Fiction, and MORE

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 1

photography by irena papst

Editorial ▪ Edu-catering Kate Sinclair, Editor-in-Chief

W

hen we selected “education” as the theme for our winter issue, we did not intend for it to unravel, as it did, into an issue consumed by disillusionment. I guess students can’t really discuss their education without acknowledging some of the disappointment that has accompanied it.

When John Dewey reformed the education system in the early 20th century, he did so with the aim of cultivating freedom in society. He felt that regardless of vocation, citizens should be trained to think independently so that they not become tools in the service of the nation. He was interested Incite Magazine is published six times per academic year by Impact Youth Publications, founded in 1997.

Entire contents copyright 2012-2013 Impact Youth Publications.Opinons expressed in Incite Magazine are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of Incite Magazine’s staff or Impact Youth Publications.

Letters of up to 300 words may be sent to incite@ mcmaster.ca; they may be edited for length and clarity and will not be printed unless a name, address, and daytime phone are provided.

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in the kind of institution that would bridge social inequality and ensure that the fabled ‘American Dream’ remained available to all.

Dewey took issue with a system that he saw as adapting workers for the existing industrial regime rather than training them to be independent, free-thinking agents. He wanted to ensure that American schools not become the handmaiden of capitalism. Thirty years later, his education system would be criticized on these grounds.

During the Cold War, liberal American schools (grounded in Dewey’s philosophy) were faulted for fostering professionals that lacked the discipline and skills to outcompete their Soviet counterparts in the race to space. Accordingly, policy-makers scrambled to ‘fix’ the system by intensifying science requirements and allowing other material to fall by the wayside. Today, the resulting decline in language skills and test scores constitutes a new kind of “crisis.”

It seems to me that North Americans have never been satisfied with our education system, namely because, as a collective, we have not yet decided what the real

purpose of education should be. Do we seek to establish a system that grooms students to assume productive roles in society or are we trying to foster a generation of free-thinkers able to overthrow the existing system if necessary? In either case, our current system fails. The modern university is neither a vocational institute nor is it an academy designed to give students the opportunity to find, what Dewey called, “large and human significance.”

Today, the undergraduate degree too often feels like a ticket, not an accomplishment. Undergraduates often feel that their education has not been made a priority, and that their degree only significant in the sense that it will lead to something “real.”

Institutions, therefore, seem to be willing to dispense bachelor’s degrees indiscriminately to anyone able to pay for the ride.

This, I think, is the real topic of this issue, brought to light by writers like Alexandra Epp and Jeremy Allen Henderson, whose eloquent and sincere commentaries expose the lingering sense of disillusionment that is so common among students today.

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OrGAN pATChWOrk ronald Leung FLIppING ThE CLASSrOOM Alexandra Epp GrOUp ThINk Nigel pynn-Coates, Columnist GrAFFITI yOUr GrANDMA CAN DO Isabelle Dobronyi ONTArIO’S LAbOUr pAINS Matthew Ing rACE, TO ThE SAT yardena Winegust CONFESSIONS OF A MODEL UN DELEGATE Ursula Nesbit

12 14 15 16 17 18 19

ArT SprEAD Alicia Giansante, Olivia rozema ThAT’S WrITE, DON’T STOp Meg peters NOTES FrOM ThE UNDErGrOUND Sam Godfrey bACkWArDS WITh INTEGrITy? Jeremy Allen henderson MCAT, MCrAp Jae Eun ryu “GrEENEr” pASTUrES Tyler Welsh ThE “NATUrE” OF ENVIrONMENTAL ED patrick byrne

20 21 22 23 24 30 31

ThE pLAy’S ThE ThING Sarah kanko MEMOrIES OF JAFFI raluca Topliceanu MOVIE rEVIEW: THE HOBBIT Sarah kanko MOVIE rEVIEW: FLIGHT Chris Leckenby rObOTIC EXOTIC MAN Colonel Seamus O’Toole phILOSOphy IS DEAD Stephen Clare pOETry Matthew bassett, Meg peters

teaM EXECUTIVE EDITOrS-IN-ChIEF Jeremy Allen henderson kate Sinclair MANAGING EDITOrS Mark belan (Graphics) Irena papst (Layout) Ianitza Vassileva (Graphics) ASSISTANT EDITOr Avery Lam (Layout)

CONTrIbUTOrS WrITErS Matthew bassett, patrick byrne, Stephen Clare, Isabelle Dobronyi, Alexandra Epp, Sam Godfrey, Jeremy Allen henderson, Matthew Ing, Sarah kanko, Chris Leckenby, ronald Leung, Ursula Nesbit, Colonel Seamus O’Toole, Meg peters, Nigel pynn-Coates, Jae Eun ryu, raluca Topliceanu, Tyler Welsh, yardena Winegust

GrAphICS Mark belan, Alicia Giansante, Natalie Jachyra, Colonel Seamus O’Toole, Irena papst, Olivia rozema, kate Sinclair, Ianitza Vassileva, Tyler Welsh, Derrick yick LAyOUT Avery Lam, Irena papst COVErS Mark belan

CONTENT EDITOrS Stephen Clare, Sam Godfrey, Matthew Ing, Sarah kanko, kacper Niburski Incite Magazine

@incitemagazine

ArTWOrk by IANITZA VASSILEVA VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 3

ORGAN PATCHWORK Ronald Leung

T

he blip of the steady heart monitor is the lifeline of the sterile, green-andblue room. Gowned figures, masked and gloved, murmur to each other as they collectively gaze at the patient lying in an anesthetic-induced haze on the metal operating table. The procedure begins: a cart of impressive medical instruments is wheeled in and as the surgeons and nurses converge, a human heart lies on the other side of the room, bathed securely in a bath of nurturing chemicals that keep it alive until the time comes to move it into its new home.

The thought of a foreign organ being hosted in a human body seemed like a far-fetched dream, until it became com-

monplace in operating theatres everywhere.

Norman Shumway toiled endlessly in the late 1960’s to perfect heart transplant techniques. One can only imagine the complications that arose during the early stages of development. Beating the slim odds of the time, an effective procedure would create an amalgamation of the alien and ingenious, with the complicated human body accepting a foreign component as its own, a symbiotic relationship where the patient can survive while the donated organ continues to hold a purpose and live on.

Modern technology has quickly pushed the limits of transplantation past the heart.

From other major organs, such as lungs and kidneys, to less squeamish substances like Artwork by IANITZA VASSILEVA

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bone marrow, these innovative surgeries allow those suffering from organ failures or virulent ailments like cancer to survive. Victims of horrific accidents are able to reconstruct a life of normalcy, as skin transplants became frequently used to repair skin damaged by heavy burns or animal attacks. The remix of old and new in the human body, though medically complicated, is sound in its results, extending life spans and giving second chances.

Organ transplants are only viable so long as willing donors exist. This is a particularly deadly issue in countries such as the United States, where only 30% of Americans in need of a transplant are able to receive one each year. The principle of patient autonomy prevents involuntary donations from taking place, so the average citizen typically needs to be coaxed into agreeing to be a donor. Debating organ transplant is often controversial, as the topics deals with competing definitions of life, death, and humanity. Some critics even argue that the transfer of organs is one of the first steps leading to the commodification of human life, a horrific dystopic vision of humans sold and herded: an ironic statement that overlooks this event already occurring in human history in the form of slavery.

However, the worry of a market for human flesh developing is not completely unfounded. Desperate donors, especially in the Indian subcontinent and Africa, are frequently financially exploited with promises of large sums of money, often disappearing after back-alley organ removal procedures are completed. This may occur in cases where donation of the organ in question, such as a kidney, is non-lethal. However, in situations where there a heart or set of lungs is sought, murder has been known to take place.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes coined this activity as “The New Cannibalism” in a 1998 article for The New Internationalist, where she argues that an ethical failing exists where the perception of the poor as sources of organs used to extend the lives of the wealthy is allowed to exist. Initially intended to be a modern scientific miracle, organ transplantation is slowly being drawn into the depths of greed, as the demand eclipses the quantity of willing donors. An ingenious patchwork of old and new human parts combats organ failures, diseases, and complications, but a sharp eye on the developing ethics must also not be neglected.

FLIPPING THE CLASSROOM Alexandra Epp

more equitable future. For example, Henry Giroux says in the introduction to his book On Critical Pedagogy, As part of the language of hope and possibility, I develop a notion of critical pedagogy that addresses the democratic potential of engaging how experience, knowledge, and power are shaped in the classroom in different and often unequal contexts, and how teacher authority might be mobilized against dominant pedagogical practices as part of the practice of freedom. (5)1 This is called “praxis,” the practice of enacting critical pedagogy. You might find a Humanities prof “flipping the classroom,” that is to say putting your desks in a circle and asking you what you would like to study. In my experience this has only created further confusion among students as they struggle to understand how they will be evaluated, or what they are supposed to learn from this.

In my admittedly limited experiences so far, I have not seen the beginnings of a systemwide revolution.

Paulo Friere, the forefather of critical pedagogy, says in his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom” (47). Perhaps there is some merit to this. Perhaps we are fearful. But, if we are, I would argue that we are fearful because the grade that is ultimately decided on by our professor, our oppressor, determines the level of funding we receive from scholarships, the calibre of graduate school we get into, the job we get upon graduation, maybe it even determines whether or not we graduate.

Grades matter. Speaking of creating freedom within the classroom is silly, because our degrees don’t measure our employability – not

really. They only measure how valuable we are deemed by the existing oppressors. Putting our desks in a circle and determining our own paper topics will not eliminate this oppression. I would like to quote Trent M. Kays, PhD student at the University of Minnesota, in his article on his position as a university educator. He states: Every day, every hour, every minute, and every second, I am consumed by the fact that I am a critical pedagogue who is also an oppressor and a hypocrite. I teach my students to question everything, but then I give them arbitrary grades that really mean nothing in the great scheme of education and life. I teach my students to write for an academic audience, even though that audience is small, and ultimately trivial to most. I teach my students to never stop reaching for their dreams while teaching them in a system actively pushing them down.

The university oppresses. I oppress.

My students are oppressed.2 I’m not arguing for the dismantling of the capitalist system. Not yet, anyways. I’m also not disagreeing with the field of critical pedagogy. I think it is an invaluable field of study and indeed it is of utmost importance as we move forwards. I’m not entirely convinced that it can be enacted effectively from within an institution so fundamentally opposed to its own doctrine. So, I think that after four years it’s time for me to take some time away from this institution, and to look into educational possibilities outside of system. ‘Education’ is not simply a degree, a program, a major.

Education is learning, and I can do that anywhere. Maybe I’ll come up blank. Maybe I’ll be in law school in a couple years, or worse, on a PhD track eating my own words. Who knows? For now, though, I’m out.

“

I

am not sure that I will continue with my formal education. I’m graduating this year, with a Bachelor of Arts & Science (a BAS, yep), and a combined honours in Economics. I’ve done quite well, surprisingly enough.

My average is above average, I’m involved in many extra-curriculars, and almost all of my professors know my name. So – why won’t I be back? There are many reasons, but most of all it is because I am frustrated.

In my life there are things I like to do and things I know I have a responsibility to do.

These are not mutually exclusive. I know that I am able to do many things I like to do – have some beers with friends, walk in relative safety, see awesome movies – because I am privileged. This privilege comes from years of political struggle, and a fortuitous economic prosperity that gives me opportunities to create and achieve goals. This prosperity, I believe, comes at the expense of those less fortunate in our society and around the world.

Despite my best, albeit sometimes lazy, intentions I am a supporter of the structural violence that harms vulnerable populations worldwide. I have yet to meet someone who is not. I believe that I should be allowed to do the things that make me happy but not at the expense of others, and so I struggle for social justice in the ways that make sense to me.

I thought the university was the right place for me. I thought the university had the potential and the resources to be a guiding force in the community. I believed that the university could be rescued from the claws of corporate capitalism and be once again, if it ever was, an institution for the public good.

But who gets to go to university? Those who had the opportunity, structure, and security needed to succeed in conventional education, those who had the financial backing to afford this education, and those who didn’t have familial or social obligations to fulfill before they pursued their own goals. If these are the only people attending the university, then how can the university be sensitive to the needs of the broader public? In many cases, we can’t even conceive of what the broader public looks like. So, a great deal of power is afforded to an institution that may be perpetuating inequalities and oppression.

I happen to believe that it is.

How do we address this oppression?

There’s a field of study called critical pedagogy, which attempts to unveil structures of violence and oppression, particularly those in our education system, and work towards a

“ Education is learning, and I can do that anywhere.

Artwork by ALICIA GIANSANTE

Giroux, H. A. (2011). On Critical Pedagogy (Critical Pedagogy Today Series). New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group.

1

Kays, T.M. (2012). I am What I Hate. From, http:// publicintellectualsproject.mcmaster.ca/feature/i-amwhat-i-hate/

2

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 5

Group Think Nigel Pynn-Coates, Columnist

A

way, as the joke seeks to illustrate. Indeed, cows seemingly have nothing to do with mathematics, except for those contrived exercises where Sally has three cows, Jim has four sheep, and Mary has ten chickens, and they need to divide them according to some bizarre rules. But like most things we encounter, cows are objects with certain properties, one of which is colour. That said, an animal’s colour doesn’t determine whether the animal is in fact a cow. Otherwise, we’d be equating brown cows with brown dogs, and those two are clearly distinct.

Now, you might object that everyone knows that brown cows and brown dogs are not the same, but precisely why is that? It is because the colour brown is not an essential property of being a cow. A list of the essential properties of being a cow probably includes the organisation of their organs, quadrupedism, and much more. At any rate, we’ve defined cows and dogs by such essential photography by Anne Davis (flickr) properties so as to distinguish them from each other.

On the other hand, cows and dogs are both mammals, but ducks are not, so we also care about the level of generality of our distinction.

Still, what does the definition of a cow have to do with math? Definitions are of paramount importance in mathematics since much of the discipline involves proving facts about abstract objects. Before we begin talking about anything, we need to know precisely what it is we are talking about. For mathematicians, this is often achieved by listing the essential properties as “axioms”. We define a group, for example, as a set with one binary operation (think multiplication) satisfying four basic properties.

Now, groups can be wildly different from one another, and we can further distinguish certain kinds of groups. For example, the set of symmetries of a square form a group with eight elements, each given by a rota-

n engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, are travelling together on a train through Scotland. The engineer looks out the window and sees a cow, remarking “Look, the cows in Scotland must be brown.” The physicist takes a look and says “Well, there’s at least one brown cow in Scotland.” The mathematician tut-tuts and says “Actually, there’s at least one cow in Scotland, at least one side of which is brown.”

When I tell people I study pure math, they often ask me why it’s useful, and my standard response is “I don’t know.” This is typically met with a disappointed “oh” and an unspoken “What’s the point, then?” After that, people’s eyes glaze over, and they start to edge away. Typically, this is when the conversation ends.

But what is the point? Well, mathematics changes the way you think in a profound

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tion or flip of the square, and there are finitely many flips and rotations. The integers (the set of all positive and negative natural numbers), also form a group with addition as the operation, but there are infinitely many of them. Moreover, it doesn’t matter in what order you add two numbers – you always get the same thing – but it does matter in what order you flip and rotate the square (check for yourself!).

It doesn’t take much to be a group, but we can still prove some facts that are true about all groups. Therein lies the power of abstraction. It allows us to immediately know important facts about an object because it belongs to a category we already know about. Similarly, if you know what a mammal is and a biologist says “Look, here’s a new species of mammal I found”, you immediately know something about it.

As elementary as it seems, mathematicians spend significant amounts of time trying to establish whether or not two objects are essentially the same. It’s more complex than you might think. First, we must determine what properties we care about. For algebraic structures like groups, we care about preserving their operations like addition or multiplication. For spaces where we have a sense of distance between different elements, we might care about preserving distance. Historically, it has often taken years of development in a field for mathematicians to figure out the “right” essential properties, or those that lead to interesting and fruitful mathematics. Then, we must have the right mathematical machinery to determine the properties of seemingly different objects and compare them to decide whether they’re the same.

Certainly, these kinds of basic questions are not exclusive to mathematics.

Indeed, we use this kind of thinking all the time, and that is the point. Mathematics requires us to be explicit about the questions we are asking, and forces us to clarify the terms of our discourse by stating definitions. Moreover, it teaches us to be precise and clear in our reasoning, so that everything we do is justified. Mathematics radically changes the way we think, and it is useful no matter what you do. Because at the end of the day, although there are probably many brown cows in Scotland, those three people on the train can only be sure that there’s one cow, at least one side of which is brown.

Photo Courtesy of Craftivist Collective

graffiti your grandmother can do Isabelle Dobronyi

T

he term yarn bombing first entered my vocabulary a couple of years ago when I heard the CBC’s George Stroumboulopolos calling it “graffiti your grandmother can do.” For those not yet in the know, yarn bombing is putting knit pieces on public property, including statues, staircases, phone booths and cars. It fits under the umbrella of craftivism, which means what you probably think it does: crafting (like knitting, crocheting, and sewing) + activism. “Well, that’s cute,” I thought when I initially heard the term, and then I dismissed the project as nothing more than a source of cool photos to scroll through and reblog. It wasn’t until recently that I began to think about yarn bombing as more than just an adorable photo op.

With Hamilton’s Revolution Wear (a group that runs an annual eco-fashion show, exploring sustainability and social justice) celebrating their 10th anniversary this March, I started wondering if craftivism can really be “revolutionary.” I did some Googling and it turns out that a lot of people are wondering the same thing. Knit the City, a Londonbased graffiti knitting collective, asks, with almost aggressive cheekiness, “[are you] frustrated to see we’re not battling society’s horrors by knitting jumpers for homeless

baby penguins with tuberculosis?” Knit the City challenges others to find meaning in their work. “We do have strong opinions and grand ideas,” they say, “but we’re not going to make it easy for you by screaming them…

You’ll just have to listen more carefully.” In this way, they aim to encourage creativity and mindfulness in urban settings. It seems that craftivism is, for them, a way to help bring beauty and energy to cities through art. As lovely as this sounds I was honestly a bit disappointed. Because what about those baby penguins? Where’s the activism?

I kept searching and stumbled on another group, also based in the UK, called Craftivist Collective. They were more what I had in mind. Their manifesto is, “to expose the scandal of global poverty, and human rights injustices though the power of craft and public art. This will be done through provocative, non-violent creative actions.”

From mini protest banners hung on fences and posts throughout cities to motivational pennants, these colourful pieces of thoughtprovoking messaging in cities are just too delightful to be considered obnoxious or unapproachable. In this way, they have something that more solemn activism often lacks.

Indeed, I think that one benefit of craftivism

over traditional protests or paint-splashing is that it can convey a powerful message without being threatening. What’s more, craftivism may be an outlet for people who don’t like yelling or marching to say what’s on their mind.

I’m not trying to say that we should stop staging good ol’ sign-holding, megaphone-yelling, non-violent protests in favour of knitting parties. And I’m not saying that craftivism is the best way to publicly express your dissatisfaction with the status quo—its subtlety and charm may be endearing, but perhaps not always the most effective. I do, however, think that craftivism can be an effective venue for speaking out, and that there is definitely is a place for creative, colourful, and positive activism on our streets.

Agree? Disagree? Want to learn more?

Then come to a free panel discussion on Craftivism in Hamilton, hosted by Threadwork (an OPIRG working group) on Tuesday February 26th from 6:30-8:30pm in a yet-to-be-determined room in MUSC. Refreshments provided.

The 10th annual RevWear Fashion Show is Saturday March 2nd at 8pm in the former BMO space above Jackson Square for $10 at the door.

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 7

Ontario’s labour pains Matthew Ing

I

f the consequences were not so dire, the absurdity of the Ontario teachers’ crisis would be enough to make you laugh. Their contracts set to expire at midnight on August 31st 2012, teachers and support staff began negotiations early last year to strike new deals. Bill 115, a draconian statute which imposes new contracts on teachers, is allegedly necessary because their unions’ intransigence over the past seven months has brought the province to the precipice of its very own fiscal cliff. Unions, on the other hand, insist they agreed long ago to the terms of the contracts now imposed on them, and take exception only with the government’s resorting to legislation. So really, everyone agrees on everything, except for the legislation without which this unanimously desired settlement would not be possible.

Given such harmony of ends, why have negotiations devolved into a very bitter, protracted, and public feud? This paradox is the result of colliding the self-flattering narratives that the unions and government have spun to win the PR war. Sometimes, the fog of dissimulation is so thick that even stakeholders get lost. In a recent panel discussion with teachers on TVO’s The Agenda, the participants railed against Bill 115 for eliminating their banked sick days (the sick day policy is an ersatz retirement program in which teachers can bank unused sick days, to be paid out on retirement). Bemoaning angrily the theft of their “property” and the government’s violation of a sacred contract, the teachers were apparently un-

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aware that Bill 115 explicitly states that sick days accumulated before August 31st will be exempted.

In their highly selective account, the unions rather nobly assert they fight not for money, but rather in defense of their Charter right to collective bargaining and of democratic rights in general. Yet after the abortive first round of negotiations, ETFO (Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario) president Sam Hammond issued a statement damning the proposed wage freeze and reduction in sick days for “punish[ing] newer teachers and discourag[ing] top-level candidates from entering the profession.”

Within the union, democracy receives only lip service. Bankrolled by mandatory membership dues, union bosses enforce iron discipline among the rank and file and retain a monopoly on labour (by law, all teachers must belong to a union). In the ETFO, failure to participate in the one-day rolling strikes could have resulted in “a monetary fine of up to $500 per day” and “publication of name in a Federation publication, suspension of the right to hold office in the Federation and suspension of Federation services except those required by law.” Furthermore, many members attest to whipping and intimidation tactics during votes.

The Liberal government joins the unions in that special circle of hell reserved for dissemblers. Citing the $15 billion deficit and a global recession, the Liberals took up the mantle of responsible fiscal stewards. In this light, the unions’ foot-dragging becomes a selfish project jeopardizing the economic

health of the entire province. Granted generous wage hikes and expanded pension benefits when times were good, teachers are now expected to share in the necessary hardships of recession. Ironically, the old policies of labour appeasement have actually aggravated the present situation.

Due in part to nine years of deficit spending, the McGuinty government ballooned an inherited debt of $139 billion in 2003 to $255 billion today. Interest repayment alone on this debt costs $10.6 billion annually, the fifth biggest item in the budget and also $3 billion more than total outlays on postsecondary education and training. Much has also been made of the government’s “negotiating” tactics. Few dialogues survive when one side refuses to budge from the conditions it has set out, and then threatens to legislate these terms should the counterparty not acquiesce.

Though imputing motives is at best guesswork, there is a plausible political rationale for the Liberals’ high-handedness.

Public sector remuneration is by far the largest line on the budget. Of necessity, salaries and benefits must be pruned. In crushing the teachers, McGuinty was possibly attempting to send a chilling reminder to the rest of the public sector that austerity is the new byword. Labour negotiations could also serve as a wedge issue; just as the fox who loses his tail wishes the same fate on all other foxes, so too would the recession-battered private sector delight in austerity measures imposed on the civil service. When it became clear that negotia-

photography by Anne Davis (flickr)

tions had stalled in an atmosphere “of the heightened rancour of politics in the legislature”, McGuinty prorogued parliament. In a rather karmic twist, the teacher file dominated the political agenda during the prorogation.

The reality of public labour negotiations is just as absurd as the spin that masks it.

The negotiating structure has not changed much since the industrial days of the 19th century. Big unions and big school boards square off, under the aegis of big government. The substantive stakeholders are thus corporate entities rather than people.

Teachers act on union directive and not necessarily on personal conviction. Students do not have a voice at all. Perhaps the greatest illusion perpetrated by all parties is that they are acting in the interests of students. Studding every picket line are placards championing the defense of collective bargaining and democratic rights.

Teachers insist they are preserving the workforce which one day their pupils will join. But the argument for students’ interests becomes untenable in the face of oneday strikes scheduled on short notice, and a boycott of extracurricular activities which the OSSTF (Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation) warns could last for up to two years. Strikes and work-to-rule are effective precisely because they inconvenience third parties. The resulting public pressure is yet another stick with which to beat the employer. To suggest that such actions could possibly benefit a third party as directly affected as students is hypocritical

in the extreme.

The Liberals are no less guilty. Bill 115’s official title is the rather shameless and opportunistic “Putting Students First Act”.

A more accurate moniker would confess that the bill is just the latest instalment in the ongoing brinkmanship with the unions.

Heretofore, the parties had been operating within a system of astounding complexity and ossification. Officially, school boards, not the ministry, employ teachers. The protracted negotiation process requires each of the province’s 72 school boards to sign contracts with the local bargaining units.

Meanwhile, the unions and the ministry negotiate “memoranda of understanding” to resolve big-picture items like salaries and preparation time. During the past eight years of labour peace, this structure actually streamlined negotiations. Now it is a byzantine labyrinth that stymies even local attempts at reconciliation. In Bill 115, the Liberals forged a giant sword with which to cut through this bureaucratic Gordian’s knot. The statute dictates the terms all contracts must include, in effect cutting out the boards completely. Public labour negotiations are therefore polite fictions; ministers and unions pretend that they both have bargaining chips, studiously ignoring the fact that the government wields ultimate power by dint of its ability to legislate.

This game has played out before.

When appeals to public servants for restraint failed, NDP Premier Bob Rae legislated his Social Contract and the infamous “Rae Days”. The next administration, led by

Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris, imposed a program of severe austerity which provoked the largest teacher strike North America has witnessed. Having run the gamut of the political spectrum, teachers appear unable to play nice with anyone.

Although it is tempting to blame the teachers, finger-pointing only reinforces a hostile culture of labour versus management, in which all other stakeholders are side-lined.

Assigning fault also detracts from the mentality of compromise and good faith crucial to a successful negotiation. Particularly in the current crisis, rapprochement could hinge on the possibility of salvaging the historically close relationship between teachers and the Liberals. Petty blame games serve only to strain these ties and thus to jeopardize an education system on which thousands of Ontarians depend.

The traditional stakeholders are so tightly locked into this antiquated system that their actions are almost pre-ordained.

An enduring labour peace could be secured by challenging the embittered culture and by overhauling the education system to reflect the interests of the individual teachers, students, parents, and administrators. But it is much cheaper to purchase a tenuous peace with generous compensation packages. Today, even the latter option may be unavailable – the finance ministry forecasts an endless sea of red ink until at least 2017.

Charged with this Sisyphean portfolio, even the most optimistic education minister might despair. To Premier Kathleen Wynne, the best of luck. She’s going to need it.

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 9

Race, to the SAT Yardena Winegust

Note: This is a work of fiction loosely based on friends’ experiences.

I

t’s too early. My alarm goes off, blasting Regina Spektor. Groggy and droopyeyed, I roll over to stare at my clock and see that I have just 30 minutes to get to the SAT testing centre at my school.

30 minutes?!?!

I guzzle down some messily-made coffee and hastily throw on my clothes, mismatching my socks, nearly taking out the zipper on my jeans, and pulling on a t-shirt backwards.

Hope this doesn’t foreshadow the rest of the day….

I run out the door, nearly forgetting my ID, jump into the car, and careen down Main Street. I get to the school gym with, somehow, 10 minutes to spare. I sit down and place my HB pencils at my desk, take a swig of water, and stare at the blue and white testing booklet.

“Collegeboard™: The Official SAT”.

“5 minutes to fill out your general infor-

mation. Once you are done, please wait until I announce that you may begin the test” the invigilator calls out. A long and onerous sigh escapes me as I feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins.

I flip to the first page.

Given name. Sarah Michelle Levin.

Birthdate. May 18, 1995.

Address.

School.

Race.

Seeing that last option stops me in my tracks.

Race? Why would they want to know my race? In fact, why would the Collegeboard even CARE about it? The options are pretty standard. White. African-American. AfricanCaribbean. Asian Indian. Chinese. Filipino.

Seeing these options just reminds me of the common question I’m asked by my peers at school.

“Sarah, just curious, what do you consider yourself?”

My father’s family comes from a small town in Poland. When they immigrated to America in the early 1920s, they uprooted their small town traditions and replanted them in the “New World.” My mother has a more exotic background, her family being from Mumbai.

Her family has a long history in India, living there for well over 400 years as major community leaders.

But better economic opportunities in the United States pushed them to leave India in the 1970s. They have been in the US for a little less than forty years, and still have their scarves and saris on their backs and a huge sense of pride in their Indian culture.

My parents both ended up at Boston University, met each Artwork by IANITZA VASSILEVA other through friends,

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and started going out.

Seems like a happy ending?

Add “Jewish” to both of them.

“An Ashkenazi Jew does not get involved with a Sephardi Jew!” my father’s mother would scream every time he’d mention my mother. In simpler terms, a Jew from Eastern Europe should not be involved with (read: marry) a Jew of Spanish, North African, Arab, or Eastern descent. My mother got the same rant from her mother.

“Keep to your own kind” they both said.

It took years for both of my parents to convince my grandparents that they were like any other Jew, keeping the same holidays and observances.

“So her family does a henna before a wedding and eats rice on Passover!” my father pleaded to his parents. “We all hold to the same principles, don’t we?”

I think those were the exact words that influenced my grandparents. After many trials and tribulations, my father and mother married.

The Ashkenazi/Sephardi rift between my grandparents lessened when my parents provided some grandchildren. Biological wonders and cultural confusion resulted.

Multi-tone skinned older brothers, and me, or “Oh, the blonde kids with the Indian mother?”

My mother sometimes jokes that she was only the incubator for us. “Your father’s Polish genes are quite strong,” she’ll say.

I’m the remixed result of two cultures, an American Jew with a twist of Poland and India.

The dirty-blond, curly haired, multi-tone skinned me.

I understand my peers’ confusion with my identity. I agree, it is a complicated one.

Some days, I’ll be at my mother’s parent’s house eating daal and coriander rice. The next, I’ll be chowing down on meat and potatoes.

Am I Indian? Am I Polish? Am I American? Am I Jewish?

Or, am I just a mix of everything?

Race.

“One minute to test time” I need to fill in this information.

Sarah, what do you consider yourself?

I look at my SAT booklet.

I think for a second.

I bubble in my answer: “Other.”

Confessions of a Model UN Delegate Ursula Nesbit

Disclaimer: I have been involved with McMaster’s Model UN club for four years. In my experience, the McMaster delegates have been exemplary and thoughtful students. I hope that if any of them read this article they understand that it is an indictment of the conference culture and not a personal attack. I have enjoyed my time with the team and I certainly do not want this article to undermine our shared experience. That said, I think that I’ve raised important questions, ones, I am sure, that some members of my delegation share. They are left for the reader’s consideration.

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hat do Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Office star Rainn Wilson (‘Dwight Schrute’), Ryan Seacrest, Samuel Jackson, and George Stephanopoulos have in common?

They all did Model UN. Ah yes. You can always tell a Model UN Man. If you browse Model UN promotional sites(you shouldn’t), you will notice that almost all of them list famous “alumni” of this calibre. The assumption, of course, is that Model UN contributed to the many accomplishments of these great men. Armed with the ability to simulate a pseudo-democratic body, these alumni could do anything. And they did. So there. If McMaster Model UN had a promotional website (we don’t), I might make a similar list. I would cite myself alongside several other decidedly un-famous people under the heading: “Distinguished Alumni”. Model UN, I would claim, is the secret behind my brilliant mediocrity. Join us.

At the last Model UN conference I attended, a British exchange student in my delegation observed: “It’s brilliant. It’s so quintessentially American.” He’s basically right. Model UN promotes aggression, conformity, and petty quibbling. It claims to endorse “collective problem solving”, while in reality pitting students against one another in competition for titles and prizes. The US Department of State Journal recently released an issue on the “Model UN Experience”. In it, alumni list 10 reasons for participating in Model UN simulations. Among these are “make your mark”, “think outside the box”, and “stand up and be heard”. Other items on the list included “meet new people” and “go new places”. While these might be valid reasons for participating in a Model UN conference, it is odd to me that “learn about in-

ternational issues” did not make that list.

I guess you could say I learned to stop Alumni present model UN as an emexpecting great things at Model UN conferpowering experience. Empowering, not for ences. The more I participate in the conferthe disenfranchised nations the UN alleges ence, the more I realize that it’s not about to protect, but for the university students international issues, nor is it about humaniprivileged enough to attend the conferences. tarian action and peacekeeping. Model UN Thank God. They finally have a voice. It took has nothing to do with the so-called “third long enough. world,” it has everything to do with first world Model UN conferences are, above all, students “making their mark,” and asserting lessons in social behaviour. There are two eltheir place. ements to any conference: debating and netThat said, I think Model UN probably working. Debating happens in committee, does teach students valuable skills. Namely, networking happens everywhere else (espeit prepares them to thrive in a system where cially at alcohol-included events). As a Model ideas that deviate from the consensus are UN woman, I find the conferences depresslost in a clot of meaningless paperwork and ing on many levels. Model UN is, decidedly, competing egos. It teaches them that instia boy’s club. That guy from Georgetown Unitutionalized policies often (usually) obstruct versity on your committee? He’s only intermeaningful conversations. ested in one kind of merger and it has nothIt’s funny, how the ‘real world’ can hit ing to do with foreign politics. Oh sure, he’ll you when you least expect it – during a simubrush you aside in committee and edge you lated reality game. out of important discussions - he’ll do it dogSo hats off to Supreme Court Justice gedly and with a determination you almost Stephen Breyer, Office star Rainn Wilson, respect. Then, at the bar: “Hey, you’re in my and all the other aforementioned gentlemen. committee…“, he’ll grin, not looking at your Hardened by years of Model UN carnage, face. “Can I buy you a drink?” And no, he they are now touted as its “success stories.” doesn’t want your thoughts on the debate.

Strange, that none of them have used their But this is a minor grievance. The bigModel UN skills for the “greater good”. But gest problem I have with the Model UN conthen, once you’ve been to the conferences, struct is that it assembles students together you realize it’s not strange at all. in the guise of “global citizenship” and “social activism”, asking them to confront problems with which, being privileged university students, they are woefully out of touch.

You might think it would be a valuable exercise – to debate world issues – but it’s not.

I don’t know what it is, but there is something crass about a group of privileged 1st-Worlders debating the world food crisis between club crawls and booty calls.

The “debate” (if you could call it that), is superficial at best and offers little opportunity for serious reflection. But then, I suppose “serious reflection” also failed to make the US State DeArtwork by IANITZA VASSILEVA partment’s “Top 10” list.

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Alicia Giansante

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Olivia Rozema

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Artwork by mark belan

THAT’S WRITE, DON’T STOP Meg Peters

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riting. You’re not very good at it.

You receive feedback from TAs and professors scolding your poor style, lack of structure, and glaring grammatical mistakes. Your papers are returned with low grades and bright red circles gathering the majority of your words. “Passive voice,” “consider rewording,” “be specific,” and “be concise” are just a few of the hurtful criticisms that stain your work. I get it.

Writing is hard.

Fortunately, in this electronic age you don’t have time to scribble anymore. While you used to read novels you’re now stuck on Twitter scrolling past 140 characters (or less) and clicking “retweet” whenever someone mentions Beyoncé. I get it. Facebook is more interesting than formulating coherent sentences.

But what if you could improve your writing and keep up with the busy online world? Impossible, you retort. The Internet is fun; writing is hard. Well, actually, writing can be fun too…

The answer is blogging. It’s been shown to improve writing skills. Classrooms across the US and Canada have started blogging programs encouraging elementary and high school students to write and maintain an online journal. The process allows students to engage in consistent writ-

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ing, peer evaluation, and editing. Instead of seeing their essays, stories, and poetry as completed projects after posting, students are encouraged to revise and repost. The result: more confident writers with the critical analysis capabilities of editors.

Sure, you say, elementary school students who are evaluated for posting blog posts would put the effort into posting blog posts, but how can this help me? Many instructors found that after the project started, students started writing posts that weren’t assigned to them. Not only that, but some students kept up writing after the semester was over. So if some grade 5 students can find the motivation to run a blog outside of classroom evaluations, improving their writing and critical analysis skills in the process, what’s stopping you?

There are a number of free blogging sites that allow you to sign up anonymously and easily. You don’t need to know code, have fancy formatting skills, or invest any money. Blogspot, WordPress, and Blogger are among the most popular sites, but there are literally dozens to choose from.

The great thing about blogging is that it doesn’t stop at writing well. Any one of the blogging sites mentioned above allows you to post video, pictures, links, and music. So Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter can all come

together in this handy little system. Or, you could choose to have them completely separate, keeping your blog anonymous and away from your “real” life.

You don’t need to write about politics, history, religion, or any other serious material. You don’t even need a theme. If you really like nachos, lacrosse, and cat-shaped mugs, you could choose to write only about nachos, lacrosse and cat-shaped mugs.

You could call your blog nacho-cat-mugshot, with a picture of nachos in a cat-mug held by a lacrosse stick. Write about anything and everything from chocolate fondue to mental illness. Either way, I promise, your writing will improve.

You could gather a following and follow other interesting blogs, sharing material along the blurry lines of ownership. You could post masterpieces and be ripped to pieces. Maybe your fanfiction could be the next Fifty Shades. (No pressure.) Or, you could write like I do. I post on my blog maybe once every few weeks. I have about three followers, two of which are my parents. It doesn’t matter to me much though, because at least I’m writing. The first step to better writing is to be writing.

Check out my blog at www. aworldofwords.wordpress.com and get blogging!

NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND Sam Godfrey

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nd you’ll need to bring some clothes you’re prepared to throw out, because we’ll be getting muddy. Really muddy,” the prof said solemnly.

When I heard that, I knew I had to go on the Kentucky Cave Trip. I had to.

The course description on the website read, “This is a four-day fieldtrip (Friday through Monday, 16-19 Nov. 2012) to visit karstic geomorphology features, investigate their form and origin, and consider the environmental issues caused by mismanagement of these natural features. Students will be required to complete a pre-trip quiz and will be evaluated on the basis of participation and a field notebook.”

What I read was, “A weekend of crawling through caves.”

I’d always loved exploring outdoors; climbing trees, rock scrambling, standing on that weird sunken log at the beach.

Growing up in Sarnia though, caves were in short supply, so I’d never had the chance to go spelunking, right and proper. But I knew I wanted to.

Once, at our family’s cottage, a cousin and I went exploring. We stumbled upon the mouth of a cave: a hole in the steeply slanted forest. Standing there at the opening, we hypothesised at what animals lived there. We’d seen bats tons of times, so we weren’t afraid of them. But this was an impressive cave. Surely, we knew, a bear must be sleeping in this cave. A black bear, teeth hidden behind leathery lips, claws like solid, sharpened pitch, and paws the size or our eight-year-old torsos. We wanted desperately to know what was in the cave, but we didn’t want to come face to face with that bear.

So we asked my younger sister to.

We suited her up in a lifejacket, for protection, and armed her with a pool noodle and flashlight, then we sent her on a noble scouting mission.

Presumably there was no bear in the cave, but I never got to see first-hand. I tried going back to the cave this past summer, to see for myself what the fuss was all about.

But I couldn’t find it.

Fortunately I found ARTS&SCI/ISCI 3IE1: Kentucky Caving Fieldtrip Module.

I’d received a few emails about Experiential Education, and though it seemed fun, I never paid much attention to them. It didn’t sound like something for me. It sounded a

little too loosey-goosey-hippie-dippy-softaround-the-edges, and this from someone who writes to herself in the margins of notes, and is often compelled to rollerblade through MUSC. I’m also inherently distrustful of anything containing the word “module,” but perhaps that’s an aside.

However, I was available when the first Kentucky Caving Fieldtrip Module information session was taking place, and it was at the Map Library, which I’d never been to before, so I decided to check it out.

The professor was wry, but not rude, which I immediately liked. He talked to us a bit about the trip, showed us some pictures, a roadmap, told some anecdotes. I was very interested, but wasn’t convinced that it would be worth sacrificing a weekend of productivity and/or watching television alone in my bedroom.

It wasn’t the smart decision, to go. I could have really used that weekend to get some work done, write an essay before the night it’s due, actually do laundry, sleep. But I really wanted to. I wanted to crawl around in caves for two days. Freud be damned.

So I packed my rattiest shoes (also known as “my shoes”), a hardy camera, and hopped in a van for 11 hours to get to Cave City (no, really, that’s the name of the town).

22 hours of travel, there and back, for about 48 hours in Kentucky. During these 48 hours, I learned a few things.

I learned that for an embarrassingly low price, I could get fried steak for breakfast, gravy on top, grits on the side. I learned that grits are pretty bad. I learned that there’s a spry woman named Peggy in Cave City

who’s been leading tours since the 70’s. I learned that I definitely don’t have claustrophobia. I learned that there are karaoke bars where the only songs sung are bluegrass. I learned that grits are actually not that bad if you add Tabasco sauce. I learned that there are park rangers with beards that will tell you to keep moving so I don’t get separated from the group and lost 70 meters underground. I learned that there are karaoke bars with karaoke every night of the week.

I also learned that Peggy and park ranger Bearded started caving in their teens for fun, and just never left. And I get it, because I learned a little blindfish can evade your hand because it’s been living in darkness for enough millennia to know better. I learned that when water erodes the sandstone around limestone, it can make the most baffling patterns in the wall. I learned that when limestone cuts you, three hours from the surface, people you didn’t know until yesterday will insist you let them clean up the blood, even if you’re stubbornly independent. I learned that sometimes caves are so beautiful you really can’t fathom it, so you just cry.

Some people question the fact that this course will turn up as a unit, a credit, on my transcript. But I hope it’s clear I didn’t do this course for a credit. People have different priorities at university, and I respect that, but I’m here because I want to do the things I like, and learn the things I want to learn.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t know what I was going to learn in Cave City, but I knew I was excited to find out.

PHOTOgraphy by DERRICK YICK

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 15

BACKWARD WITH INTEGRITY? Jeremy Allen Henderson

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his summer, I had the privilege of attending the ‘President’s Retreat,’ a one-day retreat hosted by Patrick Deane for faculty who have won teaching awards during their time at McMaster. The four students with summer internships at the Centre for Leadership and Learning, including myself, were invited to attend the event to represent the student perspective in conversations. The topic for discussion was Forward with Integrity, and participants were told to think big “pie-in-the-sky” thoughts. I went into the event expecting to witness great minds coming together to discuss the future of the academy in a setting where everyone could candidly express their concerns, without deference to social hierarchy or the dreaded bottom line. In short, I expected meaningful conversation. Oh, the naïveté of youth...

Most of the retreat was spent in working groups, each of which focused on one of the pillars of President Deane’s letter. I had the opportunity of being the student representative in the Student Experience working group. However, for the duration of the retreat, I was repeatedly reminded (often explicitly) of my ignorance of how ‘the system’ works, and of how I had no idea what

ideas were feasible, effective, or desirable.

Of course, the assumption underlying all of this was that the esteemed professors with whom I shared a table did know all of this.

Their familiarity with the institution and their experience as educators has shown them the errors of my ways. Instead of having a discussion about their vision for the university, the professors at my table spent their time pitching personal projects, from learning portfolios to online course development, as essential to the university’s future. There was a lot of posturing taking place around the table, old rivalries were eerily apparent, and I was viewed more as a prop than a participant. “See, my idea is clearly the best, the student supports it, right Student X?” To say it was disheartening would be an understatement; it confirmed that, regardless of President Deane’s intentions, the students at the retreat were merely tokens.

To hear Patrick Deane articulate a need for major reforms in the university is inspiring, but to hear others discuss it fills me with cynicism. The discussions at the retreat are fairly representative of what I have heard throughout the year with regards to Forward with Integrity: “What is in it for me?” “How can I propose my ideas so that they’ll be Artwork by ianitza vassileva

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consistent with the President’s vision?” Manipulation was the underlying theme of the conference, with everyone trying to ensure that their idea would be reflected in the minutes as ‘the next big thing.’ Consider the fact that these are supposedly the best teachers that McMaster has to offer, and it becomes less and less clear that students are learning the right lessons. Occasionally, I could sense the frustration of one or two professors around the table, and we’d occasionally share a knowing glance indicating our mutual frustration. However, the institution and the egos it has fostered had so much momentum that, despite our best efforts, it was impossible to change the direction of the conversation.

In the months since the President’s Retreat, I have served as a student representative on the McMaster Undergraduate Council, a body which can only be described as inconsequential. Discussion of issues has been implicitly deemed taboo. At the onset of every meeting, the student representatives are told that we should feel free to raise concerns or questions, but the temperature of the room suggests otherwise. While no one is actively gagging me during meetings, the glares around the room suggest that nobody wants to be there, and that slowing things down with questions or concerns will do no more than agitate the crowd. The substantive discussions that actually determine university policy with respect to undergraduates take place before the Council meets; our job is to correct any typos, and leave well enough alone.

What I have learned from my brief foray into university governance is that decisions are still made, for the most part, by an exclusive club. Sure, student perspectives, faculty dissent and community concerns are welcome, as long as you play by institutionalized rules, don’t undermine its assumptions, and make sure everyone is back to their office by 3:30. The combination of frustration and shame I feel after every meeting has compelled me not to fill out any graduate applications for next September. If the role of McMaster’s alleged ‘governing’ bodies is to act as a pretense of institutional democracy, then let’s purchase a rubber stamp and save some time and energy. If, on the other hand, this is actually what it means to be intelligent, informed, and behind the infamous closed doors, then I wish for nothing more than to be ignorant for a while.

Artwork by MARK BELAN

MCAT, MCRAP Jae Eun Ryu

I bemoaned in this prep course also exist in the modern education system. Learning for the sake of an essay, midterm, or final exam is common enough in university. Dr. Patrick Deane has challenged the necessity of some of these traditional methods of evaluation in his “Forward With Integrity” initiative. I think we do need to have a discussion over evaluation methods and question whether it is negatively affecting our learning experience.

The test preparation industry has now become a commonplace stakeholder in post-secondary education, especially for those considering professional school after their undergrad. Each company runs multiple courses during the summer months,

The instructor’s “ immediate reply was ‘you don’t have to know that for the MCAT.’

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ast summer, I took an MCAT prep course. My entire month of May was a blur of organic chemistry, biology, verbal reasoning, writing, chemistry and physics. Thank goodness I took this course with friends so we could commiserate together because (as I was quick to point out to anyone who asked me about my summer) my short dip into the world of test prep left me just a little bit jaded and disillusioned about the whole of my education.

The prep course industry is entirely built to teach students how to get around the system – the epitome of “teaching to the test.” If someone asked a question that probed deeper into a particular concept we were discussing in class, the instructor’s immediate reply was “you don’t have to know that for the MCAT.” Any joy I felt in getting a comprehensive review of my undergraduate science education was thus thoroughly quashed. My writing teacher actively encouraged the class to “embellish” details of their essays in order to raise their score, completely undermining the reason for having a writing section on the MCAT in the first place. Initially designed to challenge students to take an interest in politics, history, and their community and to be able to make informed arguments on various societal issues, the writing section has since been removed from the MCAT for 2013. It was upsetting to be in an environment that rewarded skills that opposed the values I had learned in another writing course at McMaster, which emphasized precision and integrity as key components to great writing.

I now wonder how many of the things

either on school campuses or online, for students desperately trying to score a little higher than their peers on these potentially life-changing tests. As someone who is part of that process right now, I wonder how valuable my MCAT score is and whether it truly reflects the reasons why medical schools adopted this standardized test as

part of their admissions requirement.

There is also the moral dilemma of privileging those who can afford to take these courses. There are many useful tips and tricks for writing this arduous exam, and most of the choicest advice is offered through prep courses. I was lucky enough to have parents willing to pay part of the exorbitant cost, but this is not the case for everyone. It does not seem fair that access to these materials depends on how much money you have.

To be honest, perhaps the most unsettling aspect of my experience was how I reacted to the test prep course. I discussed these little outrages and many others with my friends at great length and complained that this course was killing any love I had for learning. But other than that, I was a loyal little follower of this industry. I dutifully paid my fees so that I could gain access to concisely summarized strategic text books, sample questions, and experienced teachers who knew the secrets to raising your MCAT score. I adjusted my writing style and eventually learned to “embellish” with an artful flourish and barely a twinge of guilt. I prioritized my studying time so I could focus on the “high yield” concepts, with barely a second glance at the more intriguing problems I encountered along the way. I chose to be a part of this mercenary system, and while I would not want to repeat last summer, I would still tell my 2nd-year self to take the course. The test prep industry left me jaded and disillusioned not only with its practices, but also with my so-called integrity as a student.

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PHOTOgraphy by TYLER WELSH

“Greener” Pastures Tyler Welsh

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his April, thousands of students will graduate from McMaster University.

Their degrees range from medical physics to women’s studies to nursing.

Most of them will have spent two decades, most of their lives, in some sort of education system. Year after year, they had moved upward, climbing the ladder of academic achievement. A few of them will continue on to Master’s degrees or PhDs, but the majority of new undergraduate degree holders will stumble into the abyss of the Canadian job market. Coddled suburban children and self-supporting inner city residents alike will now have to grow up and earn their own livelihood. But is there an advantage to coming from a more wealthy family?

Let’s begin by eliminating a factor spoken of in an old adage – “It’s all about who you know.” Sure, more financially successful parents will likely have a more lucrative network of friends and colleagues, and a stronger network of family connections. Let’s just look at the graduates themselves – examine the individual. Will a student have greater success in school, or will his or her fortune prove more prosperous on the job market, if he or she hails from a high-income family?

Or does a student from a low-income family have equal footing in the job market, nullifying the influence of family connections or a networking advantage? I see a clear imbalance on the side of the graduate who hails from greener pastures.

This imbalance begins during study itself. Oftentimes, an undergraduate with18 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ March 2013

out parental monetary support must pay their own way through school. This usually entails a combination of large amounts of debt, a part-time job during the school year, and full-time work during the summers.

Debt and employment not only add a substantial amount of stress to a student who is already burdened by readings, essays, and exams, but having a job also takes up a lot of time. Slashing away 15 hours, for example, of study time can result in more rushed exam preparation, last minute essay completion, and ultimately, poorer grades.

In extreme cases, poorer students cannot even afford required textbooks or needed tutoring. Obviously, a student without these worries, and one with more time to study, can earn a more impressive-looking transcript with more ease.

Income inequality also affects the resume of graduating students. With the necessity of summer income, qualified and deserving students must turn down unpaid internships or training programs. These are positions that economically sound students can afford to accept and which look better than most pWart-time jobs on CVs. Examples include learning programs at hospitals, internships at the United Nations, photography training with magazines and publishers. Students who take part gain knowledge and experience, and build a professional network of their own. One student is sitting down with diplomats in Geneva, while another straight-A student is making Blizzards at Dairy Queen.

Small things can have a profound effect on a student’s future job search. In a job interview, a wealthy graduate can share stories from their travels abroad, while a poorer candidate will discuss their time spent babysitting. One man will buy a nice, new suit and drive to an interview in another city; another will borrow an ill-fitting suit and an ugly tie and take the bus. The least well off may have to turn the opportunity down, due to their inability to travel to the interview site.

Every advantage listed can prove valuable in the job hunt, while every disadvantage could deny a job-seeker his or her success, limiting their ability to pay down a mountain of debt. Upon graduation, a person can owe OSAP up to $28,000. This will put pressure on a debtor to take the first paycheck she can. A debt-free individual, on the other hand, has the freedom to be uncompromising, and patiently search for a job suiting his qualifications and career aspirations.

Is it immoral for an employer to hire a more desirable candidate? Of course not. Is it wrong for a student to take an unpaid internship if he has no need to make money?

Well, no. Is it a terrible thing that parents who can provide for their children? Certainly not. This article is not meant to be a record of wrongs, or a pointing finger. The optimistic hope is that by considering these issues, we can counter these imbalances in an effective manner, restoring education’s role as the great equalizer.

THe “NATURE” of Environmental Ed Patrick Byrne

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hat is environmental education?

I receive this question quite frequently, usually immediately after I tell someone that I teach the Arts & Science course “4CM3-Environmental Education Inquiry.” Common assumptions are that it is learning about flora and fauna or the science of climate change. While certainly guided by a good deal of natural sciences, environmental education, I argue, is quite different from a science class.

In his essay “What is education for?”

David Orr writes, “all education is environmental education.” This statement, while perhaps surprising to those of us who, despite at least a decade of formal education, have never taken an environmental education course, is nevertheless true. We are taught a great deal about how people interact with, use, degrade, enjoy, and understand nature throughout our school years.

We start by drawing animals in kindergarten and dissecting frogs in high school. In university, we might discuss whether humans are part of nature in a philosophy class or learn about sustainable technology in an engineering class. But these broken up, poorly connected lessons are not in themselves environmental education. In fact, as Elliot Eisner points out, there is much more to education than the explicit curriculum.

Behind textbook readings and test material, students receive important messages about how they should approach nature: namely, they are instructed to consider it

a realm distinct from themselves, one that serves merely as an exploitable resource.

Eisner notes that what is taught is as important as what is not taught; students quickly learn the true value society places on ideas by their relative prominence and frequency in the curriculum. As a culture, we pay a great deal of lip service to how we treat the environment, and this is echoed in our educational institutions. But when it comes down to it, what do we really value in schools? Well, it is a rare day that a student does not take a math, language, or science class, yet we are quite happy to relegate all of our supposed concern for the environment to one nice day in April where we pick up garbage in the schoolyard and pay extra attention to sorting our recyclables.

If this is environmental education, I’m afraid we are in for a rather rude awakening.

Environmental education, at its core, is about relationships, culture, and connections, primarily between humans and the natural world. By questioning foundational aspects of our culture, our philosophy, and ultimately, our actions, environmental education aims to help people connect to the natural world so that we can actively choose a new way forward that does not simply rely on the greed-driven economics of the 20th century. A way forward that envisions people putting the health of the land first, in recognition of the fact that the air we breathe, the food we eat, and, well, everything else we depend upon for survival, is

derived from the natural world.

Scottish polymath Patrick Geddes sums it up eloquently when he says, “by leaves we live” in his poem of the same name. When we forget that we are inextricably linked to the land, it is that much easier for us to exploit and destroy, often to our immediate detriment. Geddes’ simple words remind us of our humble place on a living planet where we form only one small part of a very great whole.

(Re)acquainting ourselves with the natural world is a fundamental aspect of environmental education. By acknowledging that it is as important to spend time outside as it is to study theoretical constructs, environmental education attempts to pull back the layers of traditional educational practices and engage people in the messiness of action, feeling, and indeed affinity for the natural world. As David Sobel notes, you can’t ask someone to save the world without helping them to love it first.

So, the question remains: what is environmental education? Perhaps the best way to understand environmental education is to simply go for a walk in the forest with your senses engaged and your mind open. You might be surprised by what you find.

For an easy and quick hike, check out the Chegwin Trail in Cootes Paradise, a trail that starts behind Brandon Hall and ends at Les Prince and will only take about 10-15 minutes.

Artwork by IANITZA VASSILEVA VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 19

The Play’s the Thing Sarah Kanko

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artley Jafine teaches courses in the Bachelor of Health Science program and the Arts & Science program. He holds a BA in Theatre Studies, an MA in Applied Drama, and is working on a PhD on Education and Theatre. At McMaster, he teaches and facilitates courses that look at the use of theatre as a tool for personal and social development, as well as the use of theatre and play to promote positive mental health, arts-based research, and health and science in literature. When he’s not teaching, he works as an actor and an Applied Drama practitioner.

really attracted me to it. Theatre did a lot for me. I was a shy kid, and when you’re looking for a place to belong in high school, theatre draws you in.

SK - What is your educational background?

HJ - Going in to first year at university, I was certain that acting was what I wanted to do with my life. But then in fourth year, I was introduced to Augusto Boal and Applied Theatre, which completely shifted my focus.

I realized a lot of the workshops that I was doing in local Nova Scotia schools were a form of applied theatre or applied drama. My work fit into this world of Applied Theatre, and I thought, “How can I pursue this further?”

I did my master’s in Applied Drama. We looked at how theatre could be used with in a number of settings with participants as a process, as well as how you could create your own pieces of applied theatre to perform for an audience to raise awareness or to encourage discussion and reflection. My focus was on theatre and health, and I was drawn to the Health Sciences program at McMaster. After teaching in the program for a year, I started working on my PhD. SK - What is your PhD about?

Artwork by IANITZA VASSILEVA

SK - Why did you get involved in theatre?

HJ - When I auditioned and performed in my very first show in grade 11, I was sold. It was The Merchant of Venice, and I was the servant, Stefano. I only had a few lines, but I loved it. The community that develops when you’re in a show; the bonds that you make with the other actors; and the playfulness of being on stage rehearsing, trying out lines, trying out actions. It was the playfulness that 20 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ March 2013

HJ - My PhD is in the Faculty of Education at York but the work has interdisciplinary links with theatre and health. My focus is looking at what theatre can offer health sciences education (medicine, nursing, undergraduate programs, etc.). I’m looking at how it can be used to develop transferable skills like communication, collaboration, and empathy and whether there is a lasting impact if you go through a theatre experience in your undergrad and then go into a health professional program post-grad. Another part of my work is looking at what theatre can offer health sciences students through creativity and play. Theatre can offer a space for students to make mistakes, to discuss fears and anxieties, to fail in a very safe way. So many students perform perfection, and never have the chance to discuss their struggles.

Also, a lot of medical schools, in particular, put on theatre performances every year (U of T has staged an annual show since 1911 and Mac Med ran their first musical in 2012). Part of my work is to uncover how

and why theatre has this longstanding presence in some health spaces. Some of what I’m uncovering is that it is giving students a space to make fun of themselves, to improve their own psychological wellbeing and mental health.

SK - Why do you think theatre is such an important part of education?

HJ - Theatre skills are life skills and can be applied to a lot of different spaces. Many of the things you learn as an actor, like active listening, living in and responding to the moment, can be used elsewhere. The rules of improv, like “never say no” and “always build the scene” are transferable to group work and to presentations. You also learn that everyone has a story. When you engage with a character, you develop empathy and a deeper understanding of people, a perspective outside of your box.

Theatre also offers students a different way of engaging with education and a different way of looking at the world. It offers a reflexive, ambiguous way of learning; it is all about exploring, playing, and creativity. Acting and theatre offers an embodied way of learning. In class, for example, I often say “don’t tell me, show me” in some of our discussions. Using this “don’t tell, show” rule, theatre can put a concept on its feet.

Especially in health care settings, acting can breathe life into ideas like power, like status.

SK - What kinds of challenges do you face in your work?

HJ - Many people don’t recognize the importance of theatre. The BHSc and Artsci programs have been amazingly supportive in terms of recognizing what theatre can offer, but beyond these programs, people sometimes don’t see the role theatre can play in education. Theatre can compliment the curriculum in many ways, many people still see the arts as fluff, as extracurricular.

But I think the arts are equally as important as math and science.

Because of those misperceptions, funding is a challenge. If a program doesn’t recognize the value of theatre, they won’t allocate scarce resources to the arts. But theatre in education is a growing field that’s being applied to many different spaces. It helps that research is coming out in support of theatre in education.

MEMORIES OF JAFFI Raluca Topliceanu

T

he texture he remembered, it was etched into his skin. His fingers had memorized every tear, every bump where Mommy tried to desperately keep his perfect childhood intact with nothing more than a needle and thread, hugs and kisses. Green glass eyes stared back at him through the familiar face of his oldest friend. Green glass eyes, the first things he saw when he opened his own. A stuffed, large-headed giraffe, grinning at him, a rough textured tongue protruding from a stitched mouth. How many times had Mommy sewn another part of the disintegrating animal? How many times had she tried, and succeeded, in surrounding him with innocent childish notions? But those questions were conquered by another: where was she now?

He pulled the animal to his chest, held it close, as if this hug was everything in the world. In this world, he was safe. He lacked nothing, wanted nothing. That was the philosophy that governed his life. He only needed to say a word and his desire would be placed in front of him, another addition to his bountiful collection. He kicked his feet, pushing himself backward on the swing, then letting go. The wind caressed his face, danced with his hair, and coaxed a laugh from his lips. A choir of other children joined in with their innocent chatter.

Words, barely audible, bade him pause. Jaffi was cradled in his arms, one wrinkled leg gripped in his hand. His eyes followed the trail of the words, sharp, strict—like nails on a chalkboard. Crowds of children frolicked amongst the trees, shaded by the discontinuous green canopy, but it was not to them that his eyes wandered, then fixated on. Beyond the boundaries of the park, where no child played, he watched. How could he not notice the man with rough hands? How could he not see, there, in the shadow of a building, a stranger drowning his sorrows at the end of a bottle? How could he ignore the children that did not laugh, or frolic in the grass or play but just remained still, their hands outstretched?

He looked back towards the park, the world he, no more than a few minutes earlier, was a part of. He saw the children cheering and talking and playing. He saw gentle mothers hovering nearby.

His fingers loosened, his hands let

go. Jaffi fell to the ground, dirt painting the matted fake fur, dimming those bright green eyes, burying the hastily-made stitches. Slowly, he took a step. Then another. He did not look back at the other

children, whose laughter tickled his ears.

He did not return to Jaffi, who sat on the ground, waiting for him.

He didn’t belong in that world anymore.

Artwork by IANITZA VASSILEVA

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 21

MovIe revIeWs

THE HOBBIT sarah Kanko

c

the costumes were meticulously handmade, many of the towns were fully built (hobbiton was built months before shooting began so the gardens would look overgrown!); actors would spend hours in makeup to have various prosthetics glued on to their bodies. The work that went into creating the movies is evident in the final films.

Every part of the films is so detailed that one could believe that all of the places and the different races might actually exist in New Zealand and have been, until now, just very well-hidden.

I thought The Lord of the Rings was a stunning series of films, so when I heard that peter Jackson would be directing The Hobbit, I was excited. The fact that it was going to be split into three parts was a surprise, but not a big deal, especially because the extra content would come directly from Tolkien’s writing, mostly from the appendices of the Lord of the rings. The other controversial choice Peter Jackson made was to film the movie in high frame rate 3D. I had never seen a movie in 3D, but decided that if anyone could effectively use 3D in a movie, it would be peter Jackson. but, oh was I wrong! The first time I saw The Hobbit, it was the hFr 3D version.

When the first few bars of the opening music began to play, I could barely contain my excitement. however, as soon as the images appeared on the screen, I almost ran out of the theatre! Characters’ movements seemed too fast, the camera zooming and panning seemed too smooth; it looked like the movie was being played on fast-forward. The only thing that kept me from walking out of the theatre immediately was the promise of ArTWOrk by kATE SINCLAIr familiar things. It seemed like the opening scene between Frodo and bilbo could easily have been a scene cut from The Fellowseries of films that captures the heart of Middle Earth while still beship of the Ring. Despite my best efforts, I did not enjoy The Hobbit. ing enormously entertaining. The film is beautiful in the detail it disAfterwards, when I was told that the movie is much better in regular plays, and is a serious interpretation of Tolkien’s work. The fact that speed 2D, I had nothing to lose (except the cost of a ticket) in seeing there are moments of comedy in the movies does not mean they the movie again. So, that’s what I did. are not also very serious. Jackson’s interpretation of Tolkien does For anyone who hasn’t yet seen The Hobbit, I strongly suggest leave out large parts of the book (Tom bombadil, for example, was you see it in 2D. The second time I saw the movie, I loved it. Instead a prominent figure in The Fellowship of the Ring, yet he never made of being constantly aware of the visual effects, I lost myself in the it into the movie) and makes substantial changes in the sequence story and the emotion. Contrary to what peter Jackson had hoped of events (most of Frodo’s storyline from Book IV: The Ring Goes to achieve, the effects and the action looked more realistic in 2D. The East of The Two Towers is relegated to The Return of the King in acting even seemed better in 2D because the nuances of the lines the movie series). Despite these changes, the films remain true to and the emotion were not overwhelmed by the visual effects. howTolkien’s core vision. ard Shore’s music was just as powerful as it was in The Lord of the The creative process responsible for bringing The Lord of the Rings, and I was finally able to appreciate the stunning landscapes of Rings to life is mind-boggling. Much of the movie was shot on-loMiddle Earth without feeling like it was all moving too fast. cation; there was a huge team of conceptual artists who drew or The parts of the movie that were adapted from the book were painted or sculpted almost every visual aspect of the movie; all of hristopher Tolkien, the son of J. R. R. Tolkien and the official executor of his father’s estate, was quoted in an interview with Le Monde as saying that: Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time… The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what is has become, has overwhelmed me… There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.

There are always those who dislike movie adaptations of treasured novels, but it is difficult to ignore the fact that Tolkien’s son, for whom The Hobbit was originally created, is not happy with the film version of Middle Earth. And although Christopher Tolkien is in an authoritative position regarding the interpretation of his father’s work (officially, he is in charge of all unpublished material), I must strongly disagree with him. peter Jackson’s version of The Lord of the Rings is a powerful

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done very well, maintaining a good sense of the storyline which, compared to LOTr, is more straightforward. Many of the extra parts, such as the discovery of the Necromancer in Mirkwood, were not directly faithful to the writing, but were well-incorporated regardless. however, there is one particular scene that I hated when I saw it in hFr 3D that I still hated the second time. radagast the brown is given a much larger role in the movies than he is in the book (which is fine, I suppose). But Radagast was given more than just a larger role. he was also given a sled pulled by giant rabbits. This sled does not exist anywhere in Tolkien and only serves to detract from the movie. peter Jackson may have had good intentions when putting in this rabbit sled. When comparing the books, The Hobbit is much more light-hearted and child-friendly than The Lord of the Rings. In making radagast a friendlier, funnier character in the movie, I think peter Jackson was trying to lighten the tone. There are times during the movie when he successfully does this, especially in many of

the scenes with the dwarves. however, the movie is still quite dark and gory, with large battle scenes, vicious warg attacks, and graphic beheadings. As much as peter Jackson may have wanted to lighten the mood, it seems as though he was unable to get over his love of epic battle sequences and gore.

Overall, I think The Hobbit is a much better movie than critics have made it out to be, but only if one watches it in 2D. Using hFr 3D was ambitious, but it ultimately failed. When the visual effects of hFr 3D aren’t distracting from the movie itself, The Hobbit is a high-quality film. It isn’t nearly as good as The Return of the King or The Fellowship of the Ring, but I would put it on par with The Two Towers. After only seeing the first of the three movies, it is difficult to judge Jackson’s interpretation of this story as a whole. After all, the dwarves and bilbo haven’t even reached the Lonely Mountain yet. To fully judge peter Jackson’s interpretation of The Hobbit, we’ll have to wait until they get there (and back again).

FLIGHT chris leckenby

thing to do, but Captain Whitaker’s story is permeated throughout by a captivating, edge-of-your-seat feeling which owes itself almost entirely to a potentially Academy Award-winning performance by the superb Denzel Washington. The supporting cast is strong, too.

Solid displays by kelly reilly, bruce Greenwood, Tamara Tunie, and Don Cheadle provide the conflict with added depth and character, personifying those well-meaning forces which plead, in vain, for Whitaker to take ownership and control of his hopelessly selfdestructive impulses.

This is not to say that Flight is without its problems. The plot’s realism has drawn heavy criticism from pilots who point to the absurdity of an airline pilot not only keeping a long-term substance abuse problem hidden from the authorities but even going so far as to mix drinks on board after takeoff.

Moreover, while the story raises a series of poignant moral questions there is a sense that it has bitten off more than it can chew. The ending is a case in point. Although the film reaches a fitting – if unorthodox – climax, it is possible that viewers looking for firm direction and a radical sense of enlightenment will be left disappointed by the state in which Zemeckis leaves things. Finally, despite the high quality of acting on show, some characters certainly add more to the movie’s overall appeal than others. Whitaker’s longtime friend harling Mays, for example, is well portrayed by John Goodman but of questionable value to the plot as a whole (though this is an admittedly trivial qualification to make of what is still an excellent film).

Overall, Flight‘s creativity is its greatest strength, providing moviegoers with a highly entertaining experience which is both mentally and emotionally stimulating. Captain Whitaker is right when he says that, “no one could have landed that plane like I did” – a fitting testament to both his skill and that of the actor by whom he’s played.

Nevertheless, avid fliers would almost certainly take great comfort in knowing that pilots like him are the exception and not the rule.

Hopelessly enslaved by his “ addictions, captain Whitaker is

clearly on the verge of a massive collapse ... and in the most dramatic circumstances, he crashes.

“

o

ne of the most gripping, emotional, and thought-provoking films of the year, director Robert Zemeckis’s Flight provides a disturbing account of the extent to which human life is shaped by fate. Captain William “Whip” Whitaker, a skilled pilot struggling to contain his alcoholism and drug addiction, maintains time and again that he bears no responsibility for the sudden breakdown of SouthJet flight 227 that resulted in the deaths of 6 of the 102 people on board, insisting instead that the plane was simply destined to fail. In fairness, it was. Exhaustive tests subsequently carried out by the National Transportation Safety board (NTSb) not only reveal the real culprit – a faulty jackscrew in the plane’s elevator assembly – but also ratify Whitaker’s claim that it was his intervention alone which prevented this disaster from being an outright catastrophe. And yet, blinded by arrogance and denial, he fails to see the irony of his defense. hopelessly enslaved by his addictions, Captain Whitaker is clearly on the verge of a massive collapse, but nevertheless spurns the help and advice of those desperately trying to salvage his reputation until finally, and in the most dramatic circumstances, he crashes.

The consequences, as one might imagine, are devastating. While the recognition of his problem is certainly a big step in the right direction, Whitaker’s sobriety ultimately comes at the price of his identity, leaving him with the daunting task of having to embark upon one of the longest and most arduous journeys of all – rebirth. However, in a final, surprising twist, Whitaker admits that he feels freer now than ever before; his wings may be clipped, but he’s still flying.

All things considered, Flight is definitely a worthy addition to Zemeckis’s impressive repertoire but one which, like the plane it focuses on, owes its successful navigation to the sheer talent of one of hollywood’s biggest legends. Watching a troubled individual hurtle unstoppably towards a major breakdown is a depressing

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Artwork by kate sinclair

Robotic Exotic Man Colonel Seamus O’Toole

F

or Mary Shelley, and I guess also Aldous Huxley.

Having proven morality to be factually incorrect, and modesty to be bad for your kidneys, science had at last issued to humanity a blank cheque for debauchery (as we all suspected it eventually would).

In place of traditional values, science had shown that we ought to adopt a newly discovered hybrid of nihilism and hedonism, which was most in accord with the principles of induction. These findings generated a revolution in the history of Western thought, giving philosophers around the globe enough journal article fodder for the ensuing hundred years or so, but more importantly, this paradigm shift presented a rare investment opportunity. Never before had there been such a sudden and drastic realignment of consumer values, and such a surge in the demand for certain goods and services. Every manufacturer on the planet scurried to get their hands on a piece of this newly baked pie, and the market was soon awash with gizmos and contraptions that a nihilistic hedonist could put to creative use on themselves and/or others. Civilization in general drank these up with a seemingly 24 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ March 2013

unquenchable thirst, and profits soared as never before. However, there was one demographic that suppliers felt they had overwhelmingly underachieved in extracting dollars from; who apparently did not believe the increasingly shameless innovations of the entertainment industry were anything worth writing home about; who did not think that possessing a license for debauchery necessarily meant you had to use it; who had always seen the prospect of being extensively sexually promiscuous as a readily available option, anyway, and saw the removal of the social stigma surrounding it as no particular reason to start now; and who, worst of all, had sophisticated notions of human dignity and value. This demographic was, of course, intelligent women.

It was in this context that the Robotic Exotic Man project was born. A mediumsized, privately-owned research and design firm, specializing in technological solutions and consultancy, was hired by a transnational manufacturing corporation to find a way to part intelligent women from their money. The contract was big, in proportion to the insolubility of the problem, and inspired quite a serious effort on the part of

the medium-sized research and design firm.

A team of young geniuses was assembled who, after much research and brainstorming, which involved many focus groups and a lot of math, reached a number of conclusions. Their calculations revealed that an intelligent woman doesn’t want something crude or unsophisticated. She wants something that’s liberating, not objectifying, and suggestive rather than excessive. She wants something that’s exciting in its grandiosity and compelling in its splendour. But once all this was determined, the direction the project must take was clear. For its obvious that there’s only one thing in the known universe that can deliver this unique combination of finesse, expression, and sex appeal—the geniuses realized that if you want to impress an intelligent woman, the only way to do it is through the rhythmic majesty of exotic dance.

The team of geniuses immediately directed their efforts toward determining how exotic dance could be utilized to turn a profit.

If the dance was good enough, they found, they could sell tickets to dance shows, and turn a profit indeed. But there was a bit of a snag, for their computer simulations

showed that the magnitude of torques and strains their groundbreaking dance required simply could not be sustained by even the most robust human physique. Any human who attempted this dance would be torn limb from limb. The implications of this finding were unavoidable: they would have to construct some sort of automaton with superhuman capabilities to take the place of a human dancer. They would have to build the Robotic Exotic Man. So be it, they said, and set to work with the kind of conviction that only financial incentive can inspire.

The first model of the Robotic Exotic Man was an utter failure of engineering. It was not coordinated enough to execute certain key moves so had to be scrapped, although the data the geniuses gained from the attempt was useful. The second model, REM II, was an improvement. It had better coordination and more flair, and by the time they designed REM III the mechanics of the dance were just about perfected.

REM IV was a good dancer but looked too robotic, making it incapable of enticing a human woman. For REM V, evidence from new studies about female cognition was incorporated to help fulfil the physical attractiveness criterion. The musculature was perfected, as was the bone structure, with the physical dimensions achieving maximal proportionality. REM VI involved a breakthrough in software programming and sensory simulation, featuring the most sophisticated communications abilities yet. It could interpret and respond to voice commands, construct and store in its memory bank maps of three dimensional spaces, and assess textures with tactile nano-receptors.

REM VII featured smooth biosynthetic skin, realistic looking facial features, and sensuously wavy hair. With REM VIII the geniuses impressed even themselves. It looked exactly like a man, only more handsome, and executed the dance at an error-precision index of a mere one part in a trillion.

Moreover, it was a self-sustaining device that could actually perform its own maintenance work, and was even carbon neutral.

However, when they sent REM VIII to trial in front of live women subjects, they obtained strange results. The robot received optimal ratings in appearance and ability, and everyone agreed their experience of its dance was very exotic, but subjects invariably felt it was lacking in some regard. They often described a feeling of suspicion toward the whole thing, saying they didn’t relate to the performance, although this feeling could not be traced to a specific source. The dance made them shrug.

The design team was distraught over these reports because exploiting people for profit requires unquestioning trust, and therefore an absence of suspicion. So they

racked their brains to locate the flaw. There was nothing wrong with their models, no unjustified assumptions in their equations.

There was no dust in the electronics and no damaged parts. Their diagnostic tests showed empirical perfection to within statistical significance. So why were the women unconvinced? A disgruntled team of geniuses sat staring at their creation, at a loss for what do next, and the creation stared dumbly into the middle distance...

“If it were perfect,” one genius complained, “it would be able to tell us what was wrong with it.” ...and it was like a lightning strike when they realized that the reason REM VIII couldn’t pinpoint its flaws was the same reason that a human woman couldn’t relate to it. It was a machine incapable of self-reflection, it wasn’t aware of itself or its audience.

It had no emotions, no mind, no subjectivity, judgment, or choice. It couldn’t invoke or allude or imply or draw on its experience— thus it could not truly dance. They realized it had to be brought to life. Feverishly, they took apart their robot, adjusted the hard-

ware to amplify rather than suppress the quantum chromodynamic fluctuations of the neutronal resonance signal transformer, thereby delinearizing the neurological system tensor approximation and... ...and after running a comb through the robot’s luxurious head of hair, the scientists flicked the ON switch and REM IX blinked uncomprehendingly into consciousness.

“Hello,” said one of the scientists, holding his breath as he waited to see if his quantum hypothesis had indeed yielded the first ever self-aware robot. “How do you, erm, feel? ... do you feel anything?”

“Yes,” responded the Robotic Exotic Man, “I feel like dancing.”

And so he did. They cued the music, and as a young bird sings its song without ever having heard it before, REM IX sprung confidently into motion. He twirled his roboarms and jumped high with his robo-legs, expressing the unarticulated anxiety of the human condition with each robo-flick of his robo-wrists. Pure athleticism without violence, and pure passion without lust, the Robotic Exotic Man’s exertions made

Artwork by kate sinclair

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 25

Artwork by Colonel Seamus O’Toole

the blood slosh around in the female geniuses’ chests. For this godlike beauty danced with feeling, with defiance, because he chose, because there was something urgent and unspeakable that he needed to tell you but could only communicate through the noble desperation of his suffered-for art.

He was certain, and so was his audience, that if he didn’t dance he would expire, and so he pressed on doing what his body was designed to do, all without contributing to the net carbon emissions of the planet.

It was moving, magnificent, life changing, and excruciatingly awkward. The men stood dejected, uncomfortable with their own slight arousal and feeling unimaginably emasculated in the presence of this whatever-comes-before-alpha male. The women, who were extremely intelligent, were totally 26 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ March 2013

smitten. But as they moved forward to try and strike up a conversation with the man whom they were sure they were going to marry, they were crushed to learn he saw them as his mothers and was completely uninterested in any form of romantic involvement with them. The lesbian genius felt conflicted. Thus the scientists stood around uncomfortably, though REM IX, being very young, was totally oblivious to the awkwardness and stood smiling, panting a bit, and hoping that his parents would bestow some kind of approval on him. This was not to be, as it soon occurred to them that they had fulfilled their contractual obligations and were now fabulously wealthy, meaning they were free to go and had the means to go wherever they wanted. They handed REM IX over to the research and design firm with

a hastily put-together report and user’s manual, then punched out for good. The scientists embarked together on a permanent vacation to the south of France to drink overpriced wine and do whatever rich nihilistic hedonists do.

The Robotic Exotic Man was put through all kinds of tests, which he thought were good fun, and ultimately the transnational manufacturing corporation that owned him decided to star him in a set of pilot shows to which they would sell tickets. If the performances were a success and he appealed to women, then perhaps they would consider a mass production of REM IXs, so long as it was profitable. Of course, the dance shows quickly became popular since the Robotic Exotic Man was so talented and charismatic, and women from all socioeconomic classes really did find him wonderful. Soon more shows were scheduled, at a bigger venue and at higher ticket prices. The demand continued to grow in a truly remarkable fashion, spurring the transnational manufacturing corporation to try and build more units. However, they found that reproduction of the robot was frustrated by certain deep problems arising from quantum entanglement... In the meantime they continued to back the original unit, spending more on advertising and supporting a tour of his show, which was by this point selling out soccer stadiums all over the world and generating huge profits. Women flocked to his performances as if he were some kind of Mecca, except, much to their delight, it was he who circled around them.

So REM IX was at first more or less happy, as he loved doing what he did, which is what he had been programmed to do.

But as time went by he got to know himself more and more, and developed a better understanding of what it was he wanted out of life. He wanted to dance, yes, but that was not all he wanted. He came to realize that his lifestyle, of touring from place to place and always being busy with performances, which sometimes were scheduled for twice in a day, left him very lonely. His guts were circuitry, and his blood, hydraulic fluid, but he was an artist and a sensitive soul, and there are certain things that all sensitive souls desire. Given these circumstances it was only a matter of time before this deeply reflective individual began thinking about the opposite sex. Naturally he received a lot of attention from his groupies, who were more or less perpetually after him. But despite his fearlessness on stage he was very introverted, and had such a love of the true and the romantic that he never considered going that route.

Instead he did eventually fall for a girl from (where else?) his hometown (i.e. the industrial town in which the transnational

manufacturing corporation was based, and where REM IX was shipped to, in a small cargo crate, whenever he had a little time off, which was not very often) who had met him and knew him only with his clothes on.

(He did not, after all, spend all his time in a speedo like when he was on stage. And it’s worth noting that he never actually took his speedo off during his performances, and was never actually naked, because that would make his dance erotic and he was strictly an exotic dancer. Exotic dance involves no hardcore nudity.) Initially she knew nothing of his international fame and his career as a much lusted-after, exploited corporate slave, but when she did find out she was one hundred percent accepting.

She liked him for his personality, though it didn’t hurt that he was an Adonis. She too was a sensitive soul, and very good looking, and though the recipient of a lot of unwanted male attention, was deeply lonely in her own way. After about a year and a half of sporadic but meaningful accidental run-ins, which evolved into planned meetings and eventually actual dates, and much discussion about aspirations, about feeling somehow unfulfilled, and about the importance of moral integrity in an amoral nihilistic hedonist world, there predictably came a fateful day for them both.

They found themselves at her place, in her bedroom. He was seated on the bed, and she was absentmindedly picking up and putting down things on her dresser.

They were chatting, and he said something clever, which he did often as he was so intelligent, and which was not mean but kind of cheeky in a way that was appropriate and that she really liked, and she turned to him, who was the Robotic Man still smiling on the bed, and she suppressed a smile because she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of actually laughing, and just held his gaze.

He was glad he didn’t have a heart because if he did it would have exploded from sheer yearning when she looked at him like that.

She was so beautiful, and he had such feelings for her. She moved closer from across the room, still looking into his eyes. He couldn’t bear to keep staring at her so he broke his gaze and cast around for something to look at, but finding nothing and deciding he had better try and look at her again, he only discovered her staring back with more resolute intent. And she moved closer, and he wanted of course to reach out and throw his arms around her, but instead stayed as still as he could in order not to exacerbate the system of tiny electrical storms that were firing through every circuit in his body. And as she continued to move even closer she kind of outstretched her hand (her achingly beautiful hand) toward him, and he kind of brought his own up

toward it. They were looking at each other now with perfect understanding, and were so relieved to have wordlessly agreed to the most wholesome, mutually validating kind of union of kindred spirits that there could ever be. Their hands were slowly coming closer, and soon they would be touching, and by some wildly improbable coincidence it just so happened that they had exactly identical fingerprints, only inverted, so that where he had small valleys on the tips of his fingers she had small ridges, and their hands were aligned so that as their fingers approached the patterns would dovetail, which, as unlikely as it seems, actually makes a lot of sense seeing as they were so perfectly compatible in every other way, anyway. It was at this moment, when there lay between their hands only one last tiny synapse of space, only micrometers wide, that she exploded.

Shocked, mortified, and soaking wet, the Robotic Exotic Man sat gawking openmouthed at the empty space where his love had stood only a moment ago. He gawked at the thin reddish-purplish film that now coated the inside of the room, and

the miscellany of anatomical shrapnel that lay strewn about, which together used to make up the most beautiful thing he’d ever known. There was a wedge of space behind him where his body had essentially cast a shadow against the spray, leaving a small segment of the room unbloodied, but everywhere else had got it pretty bad. His hand, which had expected to feel the inexplicable cool warmth of a beautiful girl’s skin but instead had been met with a horrible gush of hot blood, was still stretching uselessly into the void. Her hand, on the other hand, lay in a corner somewhere. He remained frozen for a minute, and tried to cry, but couldn’t because the geniuses who’d assembled him hadn’t bothered to install tear glands (what use has a robot for tears?). So he sat convulsing in dry sobs and reaching hopelessly into the nothingness.

You see, the team of geniuses had too effectively maximized the masculinity function while constructing REM IX’s body, and had too effectively calibrated his understanding while shaping his mind. He was scientifically perfected, and as a result was enhanced beyond the tolerance of a mere

Use the following prompts to facilitate a discussion of O’Toole’s Robotic Exotic Man. As always, pay attention to detail and strive for clearly articulated, textually supported arguments.

1. Speculate on O’Toole’s personal life.

2. The Robotic Exotic Man is constructed for other people’s purposes, not his own. What is the significance of this fact?

3. To what extent is this piece a comment on the inherent heteromasculinty of the techno-scientific worldview?

4. Compare O’Toole’s depictions of excessive bodily insult to other instances of violence in the arts, e.g. the popular films of Quentin Tarantino. Does such violence function as a legitimate literary device, or is it merely in bad taste?

5. O’Toole prefaces his piece with a dedication to Mary Shelley and Aldous Huxley. In which ways does his story parallel Shelley’s Frankenstein and Huxley’s Brave New World? In which ways does it diverge from these speculative fiction classics?

6. There is no market for the scientifically perfected but mindless REM XIII, and it is ultimately the subjectivity of REM IX that makes him attractive to human women. In which other ways are the themes of rationality, science, commerce, and humanity explored?

7. What is the role of humour in Robotic Exotic Man? Is it a comedy? Is it a romance?

8. Why does the Robotic Exotic Man sing in the last line of the story? What role does art play in this piece?

9. Compare and contrast the final scene of the story with the scene from the first Austin Powers movie where Austin Powers destroys the Fem Bots by dancing.

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 27

mortal woman. The poor girl who had just exploded could not take the level of emotion that he inspired in her. She had never felt this way about a guy, and after years of putting up with the drunken ass-grabbing from arrogant jerks who neither appreciated nor understood her, she could not believe her luck at meeting individual with such honest motivations and such a genuine heart (though of course he did not literally have a heart, although he had a good heart figuratively). One can imagine that while looking into those vulnerable metallic grey irises and seeing the reflection of your own years of loneliness, and the promise of some kind of belonging, compounded by such a taut and muscular dancer’s body, that you would just be overwhelmed. The girl was not built to withstand the same torques and strains as him, and her internal pressures evidently could only resolve themselves through her complete physical disintegration.

The Robotic Exotic Man thus swore that he would never be happy again. He was given no time to grieve and went right back to dancing his dance, but he spurned his groupies with redoubled resentment and for the first time began questioning whether there was any point in dancing at all. He stuck to his vow for years, never getting close to anyone, spending his free time sit-

ting alone in his crate, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and with the palms of his hands covering his eyes, clenching teeth and sometimes even sweating blood from the stress, trying to figure out what mistake he’d made. It was an awful time for him. However, it didn’t last forever. Being so smart and reflective, he eventually put things into perspective and found the strength to move on, attempting again to build meaning in his life. A few years later, after rediscovering a passion for dance and using the medium to bring closure to his grief, he was gently coaxed from guarded solitude by a kind and lovely woman with golden hair. Needless to say, she was soon converted into a thin film of fluid on the walls of her bedroom, as well, and the Robotic Exotic Man was again plunged into misery. Then once again he recuperated, but the next woman met the same fate and he regained a distaste for his tiring dance. He began staying up late at night a lot, when he would sit at some desk or table, and spend hours dismantling his own head. He would lay the parts out before him, then methodically clean each one and inspect it for defects, but could never locate any problem.

He considered giving up, and many times professed to himself that he was finished selfishly leading girls to the slaughter. But Artwork by kate sinclair

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he was an artist who saw great meaning in his struggle, and would invariably dare again to hope that love and happiness could be found. As more and more women exploded, he developed an intuition for when this was going to happen, and began planning things so that the explosion would take place in a shower, or some other room with a floor drain, or outside. At least that way it was easier to hose down the mess.

Little did he know that the fix for the problem was relatively simple, and any of the scientists who’d built him could have probably diagnosed and remedied it quite quickly. All they needed to do was permute one or two matrix parameters of the chaotic input element reductor... ...but his parents had long since abandoned him for a life of earthly pleasures in the south of France. He tried other creative solutions, like the time he sought out and dated the most robotic woman on the planet in the hope that she would be able to bear his charm.

This woman never got emotional, but was a constant employer of measured reason.

She judiciously weighed the pros and cons of every action before making a choice, and could always logically explain the motives and justification of her deeds. She was extremely well organized, had excellent time management, rarely made mistakes, and was usually in a good mood. The Robotic Exotic Man, like everyone else, found her insufferable, and she ended up being the only girlfriend he ever exploded on purpose.

After years of this morbid dating scene, of becoming progressively more crushed by the obvious futility of his attempts at relating, having exploded a full 117 women, and having tried everything he could think of to get around this problem, he was completely defeated. He hated his life, and with dark understanding gradually embraced the truth of his insurmountable aloneness. “The universe is blackness,” he decided, and headed for downtown.

Since it was a warm and sunny August evening, just after five o’clock on a weekday, there was a huge number of people out and about and a great deal of traffic on the street. The Robotic Exotic Man strode into the middle of the road and did what he did best: he danced. This dance, however, was unlike any he’d performed before, because it was fuelled by the indescribable frustration of a sensitive soul who had been brought into existence for the purpose of exploiting the very people to whom he most wanted to be close, and was thus confined from, thanks to the dictates of an ensemble of physical laws that had been manipulated, by the same self-interested scientists who had orphaned him, in such a way as to leave him with a vocational devotion to a ridiculous all-consuming dance never meant for

human performance in the first place and which perpetuated the economy of empty immorality against which he dearly wanted to rebel since it was that economy which was what ultimately caused him to inadvertently murder his loved ones. As you can imagine, this dance really captured the attention of the surrounding crowd.

The Robotic Exotic Man started benignly enough, but as he gained more and more momentum, and pumped more and more vigorously, the intrigue built and people were soon utterly distracted. “Wow,” they thought to themselves, “that is one sexy, lonely robot.” This spectacle led to several car crashes, as rubbernecking drivers drove up onto the side walk and over pedestrians, or rear-ended one another, or wrapped their vehicles around light posts. A streetlight fell over and the bulb landed with a crash of sparks onto an overturned car, which ignited. As luck would have it a gasoline truck was driving by, and after colliding with a delivery van it spun aflame through the ground floor windows of one of the skyscrapers lining the street, thus starting a rather large fire. People did not run, though, as they were entranced by the perfect creature who was by this time exuding unheardof levels of exoticness.

As REM IX reeled angrily, extravagantly, relentlessly about that city street, he pushed the intensity of his dance to greater heights.

The women were in love, and began edging closer, closer to their hearts’ desire, the complicated human robot who was the victim of so much injustice. They understood his struggle and wanted to soothe him, comfort him, but once they came within a certain radius of him, they burst into great plumes of blood that arched through the air and splattered against the building walls. Still, he was so supernaturally (literally) attractive that the crowd around him only grew, and people approached from miles down the road, a road which was just a canyon between mountainous office buildings. People even came from other parts of the city, sensing the electricity in the air. Now among spreading flames and thickening smoke, the Robotic Exotic Man raged his dance to such an unfathomable pitch of abysmal glory that even the most stubbornly heterosexual man could not help but explode with desire at the persuasive auto-gyrations of his beautiful pelvis. People couldn’t help themselves; they rushed forward, and they all exploded.

At a disturbing rate the spectators’ innards poured into the street, and the Robotic Exotic Man splashed hatefully in the red slush of human guts.

But still they congregated. The droves were now packed like clamouring sardines over the surface area of the street, except for a short radius around the dancer where

Artwork by kate sinclair

no human could possibly enter without being annihilated. Many were on fire, but they were too manic to notice. They shouldered each other out of the way in hopes of somehow getting through the mosh pit to what was all of a sudden the centre of their universe. The crowd converged incessantly upon the forbidden circumference, its leading edge continuously melting away in disgusting eruptions. REM IX was at this point doing something which could no longer properly be called dance, but was actually some unknown transcendent art form incomparable to simply moving your body through space.

The occupants of the skyscraping office buildings had by now noticed the commotion, and stood pressing their noses against their windows, fogging them up, riveted by what was going on in the street below. And as the dance evolved their desire eventually reached intolerable levels as well, and they soon began hammering away at the glass, breaking the bones of their hands and feet in an attempt to smash the window and get outside. Once the futility of their endeavours became apparent, they scrambled to find some other means of breaching the panes, and quickly discovered that throwing some piece of furniture at them did the trick. Thus there was a stream of people hurling themselves out of the windows, which could be forty or fifty stories up, and

falling freely toward the ground, where they were sure they were destined to become one with the dancer. But, again, once their descent brought them close enough, they too exploded. This mechanism delivered a constant supply of reddish-purplish nihilistic hedonist mist that fell gently from above onto the madness, and together with the heavy rain of shattered glass and office chairs, clouded out the warm August sun.

REM IX, elated, swam in the chaos.

Then with one last exertion, he transcended transcendence altogether and leapt from the ground into a state of sustained carbon-neutral levitation. In a whirlwind of frantic hypermotion, he floated upward through the falling muck and left the silly crowd behind to weep over his departure. Perhaps some great chasm cracked open in the ground below, and herds of people fell in to their doom. Perhaps some of the buildings, which ironically housed offices of both the medium-sized privatelyowned research and design firm as well as the transnational manufacturing corporation, buckled and collapsed. He didn’t care.

His guts were circuitry and his blood was hydraulic fluid. Improvising now, at a great height, he debated whether to move on to another city or to fly out for good into the black desolate expanse of outer space.

“Kill, kill, kill,” sang the Robotic Exotic Man, “I want to destroy.”

VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 29

Artwork by mark belan

Philosophy is dead Stephen Clare

“T

o be, in a word, unborable.... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.” So writes David Foster Wallace in the novel that helped kill him: The Pale King, a book about the soul-sucking, brain-crushing, monotonous greyness of everyday life. The anguished existentialism of the modern world.

The omnipresent pain of being human is a curse we have to live with. Or die with.

All life asks is that we resign ourselves to this fate. In our acceptance we manage to dull the hurt, smother it in pleasure, and endure. We lock it away in the dark corners of our brains, relegate it to our subconscious and pretend that it doesn’t exist. Don’t think about it too much, and things will work themselves out: mass self-delusion.

Philosophy used to be a way to identify and remedy existential pain. In 2010, though, Stephen Hawking, proclaimed the ancient discipline dead. He affirms that science has out-competed philosophy in the search for answers.

Hawking’s reasoning does not convince me. I don’t think philosophy and science are parallel roads leading to the same destination. In fact I think throughout history they have often complemented each other. Science is undoubtedly the best way of closely examining our world to figure out how it works, but it does not have much to say about what these observations mean in relation to own existence. On this point, philosophy still reigns. When we reach that impasse, it’s time to put away the lab coats and microscopes and get comfortable, because after the empirical ends, all the experimentation happens in our head.

Granted, advances in psychology and neurosciences have started to close the traditional gap between science and philosophy. Perhaps when we can map out

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the neural pathways activated by thoughts or feelings we will be able to graph our existential anxieties with precision. Perhaps.

But we’re not there yet. When it comes to the meaning of life we’re still fumbling in the dark, doing our best to figure it out based on intuition and our own frustratingly inadequate brainpower. I don’t think anyone really thinks life is just about spawning as many little DNA-carrying mini-me’s as possible.

All that said I think Hawking and I can both end our speeches with the same three words: philosophy is dead.

It was death by distraction. We live in a society without an off-switch. Something’s always happening, and we are always connected to it by your phone or computer.

The only downtime we have is in sleep, and even then our first instinct upon waking is to check for any new text messages or emails. Especially as students, when we aren’t working or studying we’re watching movies or playing games.

I don’t think most people see this as a problem. Or, at least not as a philosophical one. Obviously sitting around all day has negative health effects, but as long as you’re exercising enough, who cares what you do in your downtime?

I posit this, though: our media-saturated culture, our hours spent watching T.V., and our incessant, nagging desire to check up on Tumblr and Twitter are symptoms of a mindless society. We do these things not to relax or stay connected, but instead to distract ourselves from a yawning blackness within. We do these things because they are easy and the alternative hurts. They’re painkillers and band-aids. John Green says it best: “I can’t think anyone really believes that today’s so-called information society is just about information. Everyone knows it’s about something else, way down.”

Philosophy used to be a way for us to delve into our own minds to figure out what the hell is really going on in there. Today, though, we would rather drown the little nagging doubts and questions spit up by our subconscious, so we divert ourselves through external stimuli. We fear silence because it forces our brain to think about itself and admit that everything’s not okay.

That maybe there is this gnawing sense of dread as we hurtle ever closer to the impenetrable oblivion of death, desperately trying to wring life and love out of these fleeting moments that fly by ever faster, so we don’t stop to look at the scenery because to stop means to think and to think means to feel and to feel hurts because it makes us honest with ourselves, and being honest is the hardest, rawest, scariest thing, leaving us naked and vulnerable to the dark admissions we spend most of our time running from.

When did you last embrace silence?

When did you last take a moment to reflect?

Philosophy isn’t a practice reserved for long-bearded post-docs squinting down at ancient Greek texts. Philosophy is a daily practice of self-reflection. It’s messy, and painful, but also leaves us feeling richer and more content.

David Foster Wallace was more aware of this than anyone, so I’ll finish as I started with a quote from The Pale King: “Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that’s dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient, low-level way, and which most of us spend all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from feeling, or at least from feeling directly or with our full attention.”

Or maybe that’s just me.

They Told Me Matthew Bassett

Dear Math Teacher Meg Peters They told you that kids didn’t like math; it was boring. Numbers put them to sleep like the hum of static television; sometimes you felt it too. When 8 plus two always meant another decade of numbers; the world shrinking with the multiplication of apathy and the thought that division only adds to your loneliness.

I want to thank you for laying down equations that added to my knowledge. Sequences, series, and sets of correct answers, of simple recognition, and high fractions. Thank you for giving me the capacity to definitively prove a theorem, rather than sweet-talking my way to a good grade. I hate lying, love learning, and don’t mind trying.

Numbers taught me that I can be intuitive, creative, and based in fact. Numbers allowed me to take my feelings and put them aside, to try, to fail, and to try again. (Numbers never take revenge.) Words laughed when symbols took over, as I wondered whether letters were ever enough.

They told you that kids didn’t like math, and you taught me I can. you gave me the basis and told me to solve. I’ve had solutions ever since.

They told me, go to university Maturity, diversity, just wait for the city They told me, open your mind you’ll meet all those kids who are more than blind They told me, education is power So why is the only beauty in this life a single-petal flower practice what you preach, the great hypocrisy how funny is it when the pastors can’t even see It’s the same with the institution, these bricks and these stones Be creative they told me, find yourself, and you’ll burst from your bones but the same as the preachers, the whores and the schemers They feed you the gold until you are a believer Once you’re trapped in the vice, what do they do next? but pull you and prod you with black and white text Submit by the deadline with the other tired souls It’s like we’re crawling back to camp with huge bullet holes The marks come back, my smile gleaming With failure accepted, I put the kettle on steaming So much hope to succeed, planted in by my dreams Tears streaming down my face, all I want to do is scream but society has no time for the bloody and the broken I mean, look at all those people who can’t afford a subway token First world problems you say, now you’re just being naive With so much hope, am I not too aloud to grieve?

The substance of life, what can that be When substances take the life of the free In my life alone, the friends and the fathers I’m sure the grim reaper couldn’t even be bothered When I’m the one always falling off the edge It sure is a good thing that I made that pledge So what can I do now, so lost and confused Make my own path beside the beaten and the bruised?

When happiness seems so far off in the sky My only prayer is for time to pass me by Get back up you would say, you pathetic little being but I yell back, you’re just a tourist sightseeing Moral of the story, I guess there is a simple one Only mirrored by the waters and a sharp beam from the sun Don’t gain the world and lose your soul, As wisdom is better than silver or gold Words from a man, whose sounds echo in my ear, A lesson taught to me, by yours truly, my dear.

ArTWOrk by IANITZA VASILEVA VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ 31

WrIte ▪ draW ▪ PhotograPh ▪ edIt ▪ desIgn INCITE@MCMASTEr.CA Incite Magazine 32 ▪ INCITE MAGAZINE ▪ MArCh 2013

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