Tagging pictures of yourself on tumblr with the name of the school you happen to go to is fucking annoying. Please stop it.
tagged with Glendon
Q&A from Anonymous
Why York?
Anonymous
I’m afraid I don’t entirely understand the question. I assume you don’t mean something like “why does York exist?” or, if you think York is my name and I’ve wronged you, “why, York, why?!”
I’ll take a leap of logic and answer why I decided to go to York. And Ill begin my answer, very dramatically, by saying I didn’t. Well, not really.
I go to Glendon, which I consider a completely different school from York, even though it’s technically not. I like to compare it to North America in which Glendon is Canada and the United States is Keele. To outsiders, the two countries are practically indistinguishable and effectively face the world as the United States of Canada. However, ask a Canadian or an American if the countries are the same, and you’ll get an answer ranging from hyperbolic descriptions of complete differences - there’s igloos and Mounties! everyone has a Southern accent and is obese! - to something much more nuanced. In essence, to those in Canada and the United States, there’s an acute awareness of differneces. Outside, there’s not. (The metaphor can go on and on and on - Vikings landed and discovered parts of Canada before the United States; the bilingualism; the population differences; etc.) This is how it works with Glendon/York. The entire culture of Glendon is completely different from that of Keele, and while Glendon is subjected to the York U branding, most students like to make the distinction. So when people ask where I go to university, I never say York, even if outsiders don’t know or don’t care to make a campus distinction.
Glendon was designed to emulate the small, private colleges of the US northeast - Swarthmore, in particular - and to associate it with what is basically the opposite of that at Keele is, well, annoying to say the least. I’m actually of the opinion that Glendon should secede from the union that is York University and focus on its original mission, without the interference of York, which itself has a very different founding mission. I won’t call it a degree factory, but, well… (I don’t begrudge the Keele campus, as much as I complain about it, but it’s just not for me - it’s focused on exceptional growth at the cost of standards, while I think Glendon should embrace its small size and start limiting enrollment, thereby forcing admission averages up.)
I didn’t choose to go to York, really, so much as I chose to go to Glendon. I chose Glendon mostly for its bilingual education, which I’m afraid has mostly failed me (for a variety of complex reasons.) Had I known what I know now, I probably would have gone to U of T like I had originally intended - but on the other hand I would have a much different life. I enrolled at Glendon in English, and only added International Studies as a second major after reading about it and deciding that I loved how it sounded. I’m now applying for grad school in international affairs. That probably wouldn’t have happened had I gone to U of T - I’m fairly sure I would be some beat poet living downtown in a run down apartment with three other poets, just struggling to get by…I also love Glendon’s small size; as much as it can be a burden sometimes, it’s generally quite lovely.
I’m rambling. But I guess I’ll sum it up by saying “I chose Glendon for its size and its language offerings, and I consider my educational experience so disparate from students at Keele that I almost never say I go to York University. And so, to say that I chose York is wrong.”
Alas, the digital copy of the November 2011 issue of Protem.
We will be using FileDropper as the file hosting service for Glendonities to download Protem onto their computer.
Click the cover to take you to FileDropper.
Once you follow the link, just click “Download File” and enter the security characters. Once that’s done, voila, Protem should begin downloading as a PDF.
Here’s the link to send to friends as well:
It’s from November, but if you’re interested in reading my school’s newspaper, here it is. We’re a super tiny school - like maybe 2500 students - and we’re entirely bilingual. I’m the editor of Issues and Ideas, and I wrote two articles for this issue; one on our student union’s budget, and one on bilingualism in the federal government. Si tu parles francais, there’s also a good amount of stuff for you in here. Enjoy :)
In Which I Lie to a Stranger (Or: Bus Story 2011)
So normally when I have to go back to my hometown, I take the train, since it’s more convenient, nicer, more relaxing, cleaner, Internet-capable and generally just better. However, since I am currently running low on funding, I decided to save some coinage and take the bus. I arrived at the depot about an hour before the bus was supposed to leave and got in line. The guy in front of me was clearly a gregarious fellow - he kept making little remarks to me as I tried to read an article on fracking in the December issue of The Walrus - and I could feel him turn to me, only to decide what he needed to say was actually unimportant, even more often. Anyways, I eventually put away my magazine, defeated and ruing social niceties, and acquiesced to his need to chat. We talked it up in line, which, if you know anything about my personality type, is not easy for me - I’m not someone who enjoys, or is generally good at, small talk (and by extension, flirting.) The bus filled up before we could get on, so we had to wait for a replacement (not an issue when taking the train, I might add) which kept the flame of our conversation alive longer than was natural.
Eventually, the new bus appeared and we boarded and I sat a row in front of Line Guy - we got on early enough that each person could take a seat by him/herself, even if we all knew we would eventually end up with aisle seat neigbours. Anyways, the bus was almost full when this couple - the guy prettier than his girlfriend, both looking like total divas - walked on board and were dismayed to find no two seaters left in which they could, I don’t know, cuddle or whatever straight people do. The audacious divas approached the the guy sitting in the row behind me - the same one I tolerated in line - and asked him if he would mind moving to sit with me so that they could sit together. He agreed, and we made the obligatory “we meet again!” comments as he seated himself beside me.
The bus pulled out of the station and I readied myself for some more magazine reading, when all the lights turned out; me and my seat partner both reached for our overhead lights only to find that neither of ours’ worked. I was less than pleased, but Mr. Lots-a-Talk looked at me said “well, I’ll guess we’ll just have to get to know each other!” This is when the disaster began.
For some reason, in situations when strangers start to talk to me, I get really contemptuous and feel the need to lie. I can’t say why - I’m sure a therapist might say I’m avoidant, or whatever, but that’s a matter for a different doctor - but it happens nonetheless, and it happened tonight.
Lie #1: Seatmate asks me if I’m excited to be going back home. I tell him that “oh, I’m actually from Toronto.” I’m not.
Lie #2: Seatmate asks why I’m going to London. I reply “to visit a friend,” which would only be true if me and my orthodontist were good pals, which we’re decidedly not.
Lie #3: Seatmate asks where I go to school. I inform him that I’m a University of Toronto student. The best part of this lie? I had unzipped my jacket only moments earlier to reveal, in big block letters, “GLENDON” and “York University” emblazoned on my t-shirt.
At this point, Seatmate introduced himself - I’ll call him M for the remaining of this piece - and offered me his hand. I had been fiddling with my hair with my right hand, and instead of pulling my hand out of my hair, I awkwardly offered my left hand. Except right before we shook hands, I withdrew, muttered “oh, wrong hand” and supplied my right. Smooth move it wasn’t.
At this point, I realized that M was in fact kind of cute, and I wondered whether his affable nature was not, in fact, just general friendliness but something more. Unfortunately, my gaydar is basically non-functioning, and I have no sense of what’s flirtation and what’s just friendliness. Actually, he didn’t really seem gay, except that he made a point of mentioning that Gore Vidal’s third novel - he was reading Vidal’s Creation, hence the topic - was one of the first American novels to have a gay protagonist. It seemed sort of forced, but maybe he was just, you know, being intelligent. On the not-gay side, the strongest argument to be made is that I’m just unused to people being nice and so I mistook his amiability for flirtation. That’s probably what happened, but we spent the rest of the bus ride talking about movies and books and the weird Korean reality show the guy in the seat across from us was watching. It was actually really nice.
Anyways, remembering his name just now, I decided I would look him up on Facebook. Miracle of miracles, I found him and then - BAM - four mutual friends. Only in London fucking Ontario. I feel a Seinfeld moment coming - wherein I get caught lying - but, like a true Gorge, I’m sure I’ll come up with something to explain away everything.
Thought you oughta know, world.
Glendon College, York University
Today I decided I would get some Tintin from the library - since my school is officially bilingual we have a rather large collection of stuff in French - and just read the day away. As it turns out, Hergé’s elementary French is still an effort for me. I get like 75% of the words, and usually all the general senses, but god damnit, you would think after 13 years of taking French, I would be way fucking better at it. You would be wrong.
1500 words due at 9 am. Not a big deal, except I only have 250 of them right now.
I’m just sitting here in the Breezeway like
I thought I bought the oddly delicious organic iced tea from the caf, but I actually bought organic blueberry, lime and pomegranate juice. It’s not as good. Also, what the fuck, why is there lime in it?
