random house canada replied and said i should be getting the book soon

hoorah

going back a few days, i was going home with linda and sanjeyan
we — i, actually — decided to take the subway from museum station
i entered using a ttc token, but sanjeyan and linda flashed their student cards (from high school) and submitted student tickets
the ticket collector stopped them and asked “how’s university going for you?”
they said “oh it’s all right”
he confiscated their student cards … telling them they’re supposed to forfeit usage after graduation from high school

whoops!

let this be a lesson to all who still use student cards despite having graduated — perhaps it’s time to switch to the metropass

today i visited jeff’s maths tutorial
there were some students, but the T.A. had not yet arrived
so i strode right up to the front of the classroom, put down my bag, took off my coat, and faced the class
some of them muttered “he’s the T.A.”

“is this the maths tutorial?” i asked, i received a positive response
“well i seem to be a bit early, i believe the class starts ten minutes after the hour?” — again the students nodded
so i turned around and started erasing the board
halfway through, i turn around again, face the class
and ask
“how many of you have seen the film ‘catch me if you can’?”
some of the students responded in the affirmative
“well, you know how he walks into a class and pretends to be a teacher, but he’s not really a teacher? — well i’m not really your teacher” i said
and the class then realized i’d played a joke on them
“i was joking, you’ve just been pranked” i said
and i sat down beside jeff with the rest of the students

it was, to say the least, funny

i just sent off an e-mail to random house canada requesting a review copy of irshad manji’s book
i am now waiting for a response

i figure an affiliation with a newspaper is a convenient way to get free copies of books (if, indeed, this works) — all i have to do is write a critique of the book after i read it and voil� — free book!

i wonder how many books i can get through

but anyway, no response from manji herself yet

she’s in ottawa or something

(strange her book tour doesn’t seem to take her anywhere in toronto … or the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO where she wrote her book and blocked out all student publications — that makes me more sour than anything else…)

… and so the pronunciation of “the cacophony” might sound something like “the cocaphony” or “the cock is phony.” This, naturally, would not faze several English speakers who would simply ask, “Well, what’s wrong with pointing out fake roosters?” But for several other anglophones the word would be scandalous and reprehensible. Its exclusion from the vernacular would be vigorously pursued. (Ironically, some might even vigorously pursue the exclusion of “vigorous.”) Soon, English will be reduced to a completely inoffensive language. Hence, words such as “gay” would be removed to appease heterosexuals and words such as “straight” would be removed to appease homosexuals. Not only that, words such as “homosexual” would be removed to appease sraights and words such as “heterosexual” would be removed to appease gays. Naturally dairy producers would stop calling homogenous milk homogeneous, as this could potentially provoke images of intelligent gays. Ban “provoke,” too.

i sport three badges on my backpack

one says “I AM ANTI-IMPERIALIST”
the other “REDUCE TUITION FEES”
and the one i wear on the left strap of my bag (so that it’s facing a person when i have my bag on, rather than being on the back of the bag) says “EVES SUCKS”

the badge originally just said “EVES” — i got it from conservative campaigners at UofT
but it had this huge gap under the “EVES” and i said, now how could i possibly leave such a canvas un-marked by my artistic abilities
so with utmost care i painted on the “SUCKS” using liquid paper (i didn’t have the white-out pen anywhere, reckon that would be easier)
anyway
it gets the most responses

today alone several people, from SAC reps to students protesting high tuition fees gave me admirable reviews of my badge

once, upon entering the RT station at mccowan, conservative campaigners (along with MPP candidates) were handing out their shiterature
upon seeing the EVES badge that i pointed to, their spirits were lifted in seeing such a youth apparently supporting their party
but then they realized what it truly said, and saw that i didn’t support their shit headed party at all
they were disappointed

people like it, can’t tell that the “SUCKS” part was added on later, they think i got a pre-made “EVES SUCKS” badge … they want to know where they can get one

i am political, i like being political

ralph nader said something like if you’re not onto politics, politics will be on to you

so be political, be active

i can’t even vote yet because of the idiotic arbitrary voting age
but i’m motivated

go NDP
even though you’re not going to win

for shame, for shame

it’s important for the youth to become proactive and study, realize, and understand what is going around them in their immediate surroundings and the world at large

many youth are far too ignorant, and it’s a shame, for the youth are the best to call to clarity injustices and fight against them
it is the youth that brings revolution
but revolution cannot take place in a vacuum with an absence of any real thought

cycles of revolution always continue, like marx implied, when the revolutionaries themselves become the oppressors
it happens
all the time

i’m not a marxist

i’m not a socialist

i am a leftie, but i don’t accept all the baggage that is associated with the title

i don’t like labels, malcolm never liked labels either
because they constrict you into one little category

human beings cannot be categorized into one perfect little box
we were not designed to exist within boxes
we’re design to be dynamic and continually changing
so one day you may be liberal on an issue and two hours later you are conservative on another
no one is completely conservative or completely liberal, or completely anything

some people are completely ignorant, however, and seem to relish ignorance

and why not, it is, after all, bliss, as they say

but that bliss is temporary
when you are ignorant of yourself and your position, soon your bliss becomes your hell, and you find yourself a victim of your own lack of involvement as the system takes over — and you find that it is too late to escape

it’d probably be little different even if you start out with the knowledge

but knowledge, realization, is the first step in solving a problem

that’s why in problem solving they tell you to understand — realize — the problem first
only then can you try to solve it

my rant of the night

i have to complete the second book of lord of the rings by tomorrow, i have some eighty odd pages left

hola

i like chrétien’s recent attitude, when he’s telling everyone to hold on to their horses — he hasn’t retired yet

chrétien’s a millionaire, so is paul martin

how come all the politicans are rich? hmm, is there some sort of correlation between the corporations and the politicians? naah… (does paul martin own a corporation? naah…)

anyway, ride on chrétien, bien fait, whatever you did … whatever it was you did … here’s a cookie

yaser and i visited the varsity office, accompanied by sanjeyan
there we pitched our idea to the editor of the varsity to interview irshad manji and write a review of her new book (the trouble with islam da da da)
the editor was very receptive to the idea (he didn’t even ask us for our writing credentials)

so we went over the hart house, where manji was writer-in-residence until recently, to try and obtain some contact information

let me say it feels really cool to say, “i’m with the varsity” and so on so forth

at any rate, we got a very obvious e-mail address from hart house, one that would take around … eight seconds to guess

manji slighted all the student media at the UofT, none of them were invited to her book-launch — even though she made use of UofT’s resources as writer-in-residence at hart house

i don’t like that

anyway, i sent off an e-mail to her requesting a copy of the book for review and requesting an interview for the varsity

let’s see how it goes

turned around, didn’t mean no harm
i knocked her out with my vicious charm

as you can see … the site is finalized
well, the design is finalized
i’ll probably be changing and updating the “navigation” to the side

everything is religion
everything is politics
everything
everything is business