Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
My girlfriend was excited to go to Todd’s surprise mail order viagra birthday party. Todd is a mutual friend, more so her friend than mine as they have known each other since they were fresh out of diapers, but that would be a fruitless argument of quantity over quality.
Todd and I have bonded over a variety of things and I was excited to go to the party as well. Why wouldn’t I be? Todd and his roommate Scott have a great apartment, especially for parties, and there was going to be a boatload of familiar, friendly faces at the party. Except for Scott. It’s because of Scott that we won’t be attending the party. He won’t allow me in his apartment.
Months ago I arrived at the place for a non-specific party. My buddy Andy was stationed at the makeshift DJ booth on the rooftop patio. The place was "bumpin'" and every face had a smile, including mine. My girlfriend, Kristin, and I brought our beverages to the Tiki bar for refrigeration and began making small talk with a few other party-goers. Things were pretty chill. Then Scott’s cocaine (and other illicit narcotics)-filled face rose to the surface of the shifting sands of social butterflies, right in front of me, with a half smirk, half smile.
“Hey man,” he said flippantly. “I don’t really want you here.”
Scott and I had met amicably on numerous occasions, exchanged kind words, engaged in conversation, and generally got along while getting to know each other a little better with each meeting. We had never exchanged any words of ill-will and, for the most part, as far as I knew, we were "acquaintances" of good will. There had been no drama.
“Where is this coming from?” I asked.
Scott’s face was flush with blood, his eye-lids purplish, and his skin cocaine clammy.
“I don’t need any of your drama,” he said in a smug tone while peering off at the crowd as if they were some kind of conquest. Needless to say, things escalated to hostile words. I composed myself while he made threats and referred to his "time in the clink" with wild and chaotic dilating pupils and froth at the corners of his mouth.
“Whatever man.” I returned to the Tiki bar to retrieve my beers. Kristin had been in the midst of the fray trying to diffuse the situation and was now cursing Scott while I made my exit as gracefully as possible. We made our way downstairs to a mutual friend’s apartment in the same building where we cracked some pops and decompressed a little bit with a cross section of our friends who decided to leave the party with us.
Later on in the evening, Scott made his way down to the apartment to try his hand at apologizing. Interpersonal skills aren’t one of his strengths. I wasn’t interested in a clumsy apology and made that obvious. This escalated into some barbaric chest inflation and name-calling until I told him it was better he leave, which, backed by the tenants, he did.
Allowing this to bother me would give more value to Scott’s theft of "social capital". I am disappointed, but not bothered. Scott allowed hearsay and minute blips echoing through the social network, to have enough meaning and value for him to formulate a concrete opinion of another living, breathing denizen of this place.
I will not judge him for his ignorance. I will not hold my values against his. Being objective, particularly when the desires of a loved one are compromised, is not an easy task. It requires the regular practice of the rational mind to offset the reactionary and passionate emotional mind. This practice of balancing these two fundamental aspects of the self can bring you to a centre point, a wise mind, from which you can make more pertinent, objective, and effective decisions.
Should you be on the receiving end of a social conflict, leverage the immediate emotional impulse by practicing the intellectual skills you are currently immersed in. This is a tried and true method for ‘getting out of yourself’, ‘getting out of the moment’, or at least ‘staying out of trouble’.
Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
It was 1993 and I was just turning 18 years old.
I began my first experience with post-secondary education in the esteemed Theater Arts program at the University of Toronto in Mississauga on the Erindale campus.
I was unprepared for the torrent of experience that awaited me. As a member of the enriched program (“brainer” in bully terms) I had spent most of my formative high school years in self-imposed, relative seclusion. I was particularly sheltered since my saint-of-a-mother was incredibly protective of her youngest son. And now, here I was, cut loose to explore the wilderness and free to choose whatever path I wanted.
While you would assume intelligence and critical thinking come hand in hand, I beg to differ. Intelligence is not wisdom. Wisdom comes from a coalescence of the reasoning mind and emotional mind. For me, the latter was overwhelmed. I made a series of poor choices that resulted in getting kicked out of UTM. I responded by applying to Ryerson the following year, and I was accepted, only to repeat the same cycle in an amplified fashion.
Being kicked out of Ryerson didn’t phase me. I was invincible. “I’ll just apply to another school,” I told myself, and I did. George Brown Theater School was my next victim, except they couldn’t see through the finely constructed veneer and accepted me as well. Needless to say, this was another recycling of the same broken bottle.
Sparing you the gritty details, alcohol and drugs became my primary institution. This is why I feel compelled to dig my hands into the rich soil in which I hope this article will influence you to sow your seeds. This repetitive chaos was directly correlated to a lack of balance between my personal life and school life. I could issue a ticker tape parade of post-it notes, each with their own excuse, as to why I made such poor decisions, but this would serve no purpose to you or me. The bottom line is that, as undergraduates, we are exposed to more than just a wealth of valuable knowledge with which we can achieve excellence and create lasting change in the world. We are exposed to a yawning abyss of gratification as well: sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.
Do not mistake this missive as a direct assault on the fun you can have during your years here. I drink. I smoke weed. Hell, dive in and have one for me. I’m no square, baby. I spent more than a decade in a Hunter S. Thompson abstract, yet, here I am enjoying a wonderful undergraduate experience, determined to have a serious impact on my community. But I am one of the lucky ones.
I hope to reach that part of you that knows what you want out of this life, even if it is only a fleeting glimpse in your most perfect moment. I implore you to ask yourself when you look into the mirror, “Can I live with the choices that I am making?”
“Am I sharing my gifts with the world?”
“Is this who I really am?”
Hopefully you can wholeheartedly embrace that person looking back at you, including the decisions and choices that have been made. Hopefully this embrace brings a warm, comforted smile to your face. In the hectic and white-tipped rapids that are the life of an undergrad, it can be very easy to get caught in the undertow and begin to compromise your morals. You will be faced with choices that will challenge your values. The types of choices that you could regret making and would hurt those you hold most dear. Just remember not to lose sight of your goals, your family, and especially, yourself. If you hesitate to answer the aforementioned questions with a smooth and transparent “yes”, it might be time to circle the wagons and connect with those you love, and those who you know love you.
New numbers on last year’s student conduct violations were released at the University Senate meeting Wednesday. The total number of major violations committed was 199, up from 162 the previous year and the highest in five years.
The most notable increase from 2010-11 to 2011-12 was the number of violations involving alcohol, which jumped from 46 to 68.
“Early in September we saw a lot of the Major A [Alcohol] and Major B [Drug] violations,” Tim Cameron, student conduct officer, said at the Senate meeting.
Security does a sweep for drugs and alcohol in September, particularly in the areas behind residences, to set a tone at the beginning of the year.
‘Major’ violations include offences involving alcohol, drugs and weapons, among other offences like stealing, vandalism and physical violence.
One point raised at Senate was that stealing was second highest major offence committed (50) last year, behind incidents involving alcohol (68).
According to Cameron, there have been perplexing trends of theft each year for the past few years.
“Pretty much every incident last year was shoplifting from La Piazza,” he said, noting that the items stolen averaged about $1.50, with the most expensive being about $12.
Most students’ justification was along the lines of being late for class and wanting to pick something up on the way, said Cameron, some with “the underlying attitude that they’re paying too much to be here anyway.” But in some cases, mental health was a factor.
Engineering and Social Sciences had the most students committing violations last year, with 47 and 38 respectively. Business was close behind with 29 out of 2,297 students committing offences. Nursing, Arts & Science and Graduate students had only 1 violation each.
The number of students in violation last year breaks down to 140 males and 28 females, with some students committing more than one violation.
Cameron noted that the numbers from the Student Affairs report could be more so an indication of how many students get caught than how many are committing the offences.
The number of students who were caught violating the code of conduct is roughly 0.8 per cent of the student population. Notably, more serious offences would have been reported to and handled by the Hamilton Police.
Brandon Meawasige / Senior Sports Editor
Like many Canadian university students I grew up in the 1990s, reaching my teenage years at the turn of the millennium. As a result, I have had the opportunity to witness some of the most rapid changes and progress in human history. There have been groundbreaking ideas, technological advancements and inventions. New levels of human achievement have been reached and nowhere is this more evident than the capabilities of the human body.
In sport, over the last 20 years, records have been broken – or, rather, smashed. Athletes have been able to do things that have never been done before. Felix Baumgartner jumped from space only to land safely, Michael Phelps became the best Olympian in history and at the same competition in London a man with no legs competed against the best in the world.
It is safe to say that the last 20 years have changed sports forever. Lance Armstrong won seven Tour de France titles, Barry Bonds hit 766 home runs-becoming the most prolific power hitter Baseball has ever seen and those with whom he competed Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire and Alex Rodriguez made for one of the most exciting periods the sport has ever seen.
In my childhood, I was able to watch these things, and such an opportunity was a blessing. History was made and the names I grew up knowing are forever entrenched in the books as icons of athletic excellence in their given sport.
Unfortunately, like many great things in this life, there are some underlying negatives. Though the history books are riddled with names from the last 20 years, most of the record books require some form of qualifier or asterisk to set aside the athletes who cheated.
By the same token that the last 20 years have been the most glorious in sports, let alone human, history - they have also been the most shameful by way of ethics and fair competition, so to speak.
Guess what? I don’t give a flying fuck.
For all of those people who are morally opposed to way things have gone, good for you. I too disagree that steroids and performance enhancing drugs are not right. That being said, I cannot sit here and say that they are completely wrong.
I would not trade my childhood sports experiences in order to say that I watched fair games.
During Lance Armstrong’s recent confession to Oprah Winfrey on national television, the world found out that one of the greatest athletes ever to compete was a cheater. Everything he did was a lie.
Would I have rather had six or seven cyclists win the Tour de France in those years? Absolutely not. Yes, there is a certain taint to the news that Armstrong cheated, but it never makes it past “Wow, that sucks”.
Again, I would not trade a night at the Sky Dome with my father watching Barry Bonds hit one of his home runs that helped make him the best ever.
He, too, cheated his way into the record books. However, the steroids he took did not make him the player he was. Just as they did not make Armstrong climb the Alps.
For every Armstrong, Bonds or Clemons there are an endless grouping of athletes who will never amount to absolutely anything.
It takes more than big muscles or high endurance to make up a world class, record-breaking athlete. Bobby Bonds, Barry’s father, was an all time great and Willie Mays, one of the best players to ever play the game, was Barry’s godfather.
It is of a narrow scope to say that steroids are the be all and end all of triumph. I will concede, undoubtedly, that performance-enhancing drugs are not ideal.
But in a world that is far from perfect or pure, and to search for purity in sports brings to question how exactly to define such purity.
To me, there is nothing more pure than watching Armstrong conquer the world of cycling, capturing the hearts of sports fans everywhere and using his fame to found one of the most profitable cancer research foundations on the face of this planet.
To me, there is nothing more pure than a memory of sharing a piece of baseball history with my dad.
To me, I would not trade either memory for drug-free competition, and if you say you would, then you are a purest, not a true sports fan - there is a difference.
