Reason and Squalor

There are a limited amount of things to do when you have to go to work at 1pm. So I’ve decided to write a bit of an update here. I’m currently working at a bakery for the summer. It’s near my house, which is nice (no 300 dollar/month commute), and although it’s retail the customers are nice people for the most part, so I’m enjoying it. Basically I sell people bread and desserts, clean, weigh up ingredients, and clean. The persistence of flour in getting into every nook and cranny is really something to behold.
I also took some tennis lessons with the bf, that was fun, learned all the rules and such. We’re still terrible, but now we have some sort of active thing to do together.

Yesterday I think I found someone’s lost cat…I called them up to let them know, I really hope it works out for them.

Hmmm…oh yes. So I graduated from university in June, with an HBA, with Distinction. I was accepted at the UofT iSchool’s Master of Information program, which starts in September. Really excited and nervous. I’m meeting the other students and the faculty this Monday for the first time (well, I’ve met some of them already, but this will be almost everyone in one place). We pick courses and register in the next few weeks. First year is pretty much about getting as many mandatory courses done as you can, to leave room for electives once you actually know what direction you want to go in, so it was quick picking out my time table. I’m also really excited to go to the weekly iTea’s where you basically just talk about research, things going on in the field, and so on..sounds amazing.

In addition I’ll be starting as a mentor for the First in the Family program sponsored by UofT’s Career Centre. I’ll be mentoring up to about 10 first year undergrad students on everything from where the best study spots are to how to choose courses, manage study time, and everything in between.   Such an amazing opportunity for me, and if I can help the new students even a little bit that will be fantastic. It really does present difficulties when you’re the first in your family to go to university…besides money stuff, which is also a huge struggle, there’s all the little information details you don’t get that others might. Small pieces of advice here and there that just make it a lot easier to get by day to day…that’s what I hope to give to the students, in particular.

I’ve also applied for another position, to be a service assistant at the Inform at the iSchool. I’d be helping my fellow students check out books, find things in the library, book rooms, and all that good stuff. I think it would be a great way to both get some experience in an actual library, working in the info services field, as well as network with my peers. At this point, I just want to meet every single student there. I’m really intrigued by the fact that suddenly all the students in every class with me have the same passion and interest in the topics we’re covering and the skills we’re acquiring. You just don’t get that in an undergrad program…well, ok, at least not in Fine Art History : ) And it helps that librarians and library types are honestly some of the best people in the universe. I hope I can live up to all the other people I know that are already in the profession or are studying it now. It’s certainly a goal of mine to become as good of a person as all of them already are.

Which brings to mind the Internet Archive Toronto’s forced layoff of most of its staff….I worked there last summer. It’s a really important project with amazing people backing it on all levels, and now most of those people are out of a great job. Not only are they loosing a paycheque, which is certainly bad enough, but they’re being stopped from being part of something so crucial for our history. The digitization of print materials needs more funding, in a big way.
Well on that depressing note, I guess I’ll go and make myself a radish salad. See you in 7 months, blog! -facepalm-

Studying fine art history in school, I took a lot of classes on Modern art and Modernism. One of the key concepts underlying the movement was the idea that geometric shapes are more “pure”, with the fact that they’re “not found in nature” being brought up a lot. Geometric (i.e. stuff with straight lines) gets tied up with things like purity, logic, ultimate simplicity, science, the masculine (with women being associated with “nature”, of course, on the other side of this binary), and so on. It’s more complicated then that, but you get the idea. So today when I saw these pictures of snowflakes under an electron microscope, I was reminded of this concept as an illustration of how this kind of binary thought process usually fails one way or another. Of course we don’t need a microscope to tell us that being a “woman” is to be in tune with nature and being a “man” is to be logical and scientific, but this is just good visual proof of this inaccuracy, not to mention the total awesomeness of nature.

Last night I saw Christopher Hitchens debate Tony Blair at Roy Thomson Hall.

Besides “it was amazing!!!” and “I am so glad I went” I really can’t seem to describe what it was like. There’s this feeling rattling around my rib cage that’s…I guess scared, worried, excited, sad, angry, inspired, and exhilarated. The person I admire most in the world was in the same room with me for the first time, and yet I felt like there was such a distance there still (I was on the upper floor balcony, but I mean that metaphorically). Blair also made some excellent points, was very sweet about the whole thing, and very kind to Hitchens (regarding the whole “dying thing”). I dislike both of these guys for the same reason, so that added a level of intrigue for me at least. Hitch was bald, constantly coughing, sniffling and shaking. There weren’t any book signings or pictures with them, although I don’t know if that was because of Hitch being sick or just logistics of the popularity of the event and speakers, and their need for security. There was a  wand screening before we could get in to the hall, and there were guys in suits (not the usual ushers) looking imposing at every door.

I don’t know why I care about seeing someone I admire for his intellectual works, i.e. books and articles that I own and can easily access. It’s his thoughts that make me admire him, and yet I want to see the person in action, and would feel deeply upset if I missed the opportunity. Strangely enough, it reminds me of some conceptualist art. The idea of conceptual art is that it is the idea that matters, and not the art object. And yet there are a number of instances where an artist has made a piece deemed “conceptual”, it becomes famous, and then whatever physicality goes with that piece is deemed worthy to visit in museums around the world. The grandfather of conceptualism, Marcel Duchamp, who made one of the greatest conceptual artworks of all time, Fountain, had this happen. There are many other strange examples. So Hitchens, then, becomes the physical piece that goes along with his (more important) ideas. It’s funny, if I follow this logic, I need to see Hitchens because I am mired in the world of capitalism. I don’t know about that, although I certainly did need to spend a lot of capital to see him. : )

He was nicer, funnier, and pudgier than I thought he would be.  I just realized…he almost certainly wasn’t drunk. That will make probably the first time I have ever seen him sober.

I’m just glad I get to say I was there, I saw this debate and Hitchens in person. I was happy to see the seats filled in the choir loft as well – a bunch of people that wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for some annoying people on the internet. I think it’s a good example of how for me, Hitchens and a few other intellectual’s works (Orwell, Goethe, Nietzsche, and maybe one or two others) coalesce into something like a “religion” for me. Of course by this I don’t mean all of the ridiculous spiritual garbage about authoritarian assholes in the sky, but instead in the sense that their words give me something to live by, something to inspire me to be a better person, to help others, to treat them as an ends, not a means, and to remember that I *will*be judged if I act negatively – by my fellow human beings. I “look up” to them like a religious person might look up to Jesus or any other prophet, only I know these people are only talking about the here and now, not the hereafter, and I don’t feel the need to deem every word they say as perfect and unquestionable. You have to be able to dismantle your heroes, I think, before your mind can ever approach true interior honesty. In the same way that a mind mired in ideological claptrap can never be free. If you can’t question the things you unquestioningly love, you haven’t learned anything. That’s one of the things I’ve learned from engaging with Hitchens’ works (I won’t say “one of the things he’s taught me”, as that is the opposite of my point). And, I think, one of the great examples of how humans, alone, can accomplish works and acts of importance that better the world. Humanity, as a society (lets not fall into the cult of genius here) is capable of great things, and Hitchens is one man in a long line of examples of this. While the religious can make great works and do great things in the name of their personal god or saviour, they are lacking an honesty, intellectual and otherwise, that I think is crucial to inspiring human good without all of the bad that goes along with it. They’re lying to themselves and to others, and, like a hot chick married to an old man, we must always wonder if they really have the best motivations.

Step One: find a Mad-Libs book at your local store or on the internet.

Step Two: make sure you don’t flip ahead to find out what the story is. It will be more fun that way (and you will get more readers)!

Step Three: fill in all of the blanks with the word: “Nazi”. “Neo-Nazi”, “Skinhead Scumbag Nazi”, or “Right-wing nutjob Nazi” are also acceptable.

Step Four: Click submit or take a look at the story in your book for your results! Congratulations, you are now able to craft professional blog posts just like your hero, Warren Kinsella. And all of that without an undergrad degree in journalism! *

* Please note: if you happen to have any views that might be deemed “right wing”, disregard results. You are clearly a neo-Nazi moron polluting “free speech” with your destructive hate speech and should be sentenced by the Human Rights Commission for your crimes against humanity, you Jew-loving, non-aborting, climate-destroying imbecile.