Personal

It’s fascinating how you start to see people differently when you have kids. And I say that loosely, as I haven’t exactly spawned minions of my own – my experience stems from fulfilling a stepfather role, years ago, which came quicker than I expected. I mean sure, I had certainly thought of a hypothetical future that might involve kids, but there’s no way I thought that would happen in my 20s. In my mind, I wasn’t yet good enough at managing multiple aspects of my life, such as my finances, certain aspects of my business, etc. It wasn’t that I was bad at these things, but more so, I didn’t feel I was good enough. It thus felt ridiculous to even consider raising additional human beings… I wasn’t, in my opinion, even a great example for them to follow, at least not as much as I wanted.

Certainly, I can see now that perhaps my obsession with being the perfect example was a little extreme, an endless pursuit of machine-like efficiency. Over time, in other areas of my life, I calmed this aspect of my personality, and instead started believing in the idea of reasonable perfectionism.

You can drive yourself batty trying to do the absolute best job possible, or, you can do a very good job based on your experience, but not obsess to an unhealthy, unreasonable level.

This was a great milestone to reach psychologically-speaking, but it didn’t quite soothe my belief that I didn’t have the required amount of self-management prowess to take on the challenge of raising kids. But that, altogether, represented a whole lot of rational thought, and while that generally drove me quite well, emotion was another factor that couldn’t quite be controlled as easily.

And so I found myself living with a girlfriend and her two kids, a boy, 2, and a girl, 5. Not only had I not expected to take on a parental role so soon, but my background was one where I basically had a total lack of experience with children in general. While I had a bunch of family and cousins, my parents would often skip family gatherings – and as such, I would rarely see the younger generation of our family while growing up. This lack of exposure to kids made it challenging for me to feel confident in how I approached and interacted with them.

I had also gotten used to having total control over my environment and its associated levels of cleanliness and order. I can’t say I was a germophobe, but I was conscious of germs and was pretty careful to keep things clean and orderly, at least to a reasonable degree. As you might imagine, when I came face-to-face with the two-year-old, who often had a drool and bits of food on his face during key moments in his meal, I quickly realized that the world I knew was going to be very different. Soon enough I was sharing drinks with these kids at amusement parks and the food and drool mix during mealtime was just another element of life.

And then, there were the diapers. Can you imagine what it was like for a sort-of germophobe to change diapers? I would be lying if I said the possibility of wearing a full Hazmat suit never crossed my mind. But, ultimately, I found a procedure that worked for me.

I’d carry the child to a suitable location, mostly clear of external objects, to minimize collateral damage. I’d have two plastic bags with me (one in the other), and a container of wipes. I would then open the diaper, and use wipes to progressively clean up the waste, while depositing them in the bag as I went along. While I could have technically done this with just one bag, I knew that there was always a chance that one bag might have an undetected hole in it, potentially allowing the poop to escape. Suffice it to say that my method was in no way environmentally friendly, as I would go through a ridiculous bunch of bags and wipes cleaning up the child from his own excrement over time. But, I did it, in the end, despite having my own weird approach. His mother, on the other hand, had unquestionable diaper-changing skills –  she had the ability to change a child’s diaper in such a way that she barely needed any wipes, and ended up with this wrapped up ball of a diaper, mostly safe for handling.

Of course, there was far more to the step-father experience than learning to purge the concentrated evil that was regularly produced in a child’s diaper. For example, I learned to appreciate aspects of human life that I had ignored before. I took note of things like parks and playgrounds, and recognized their potential at helping raise the kids. I made use of restaurants where the kids could eat free, or paid, but with nice features for kids. And, in a similar but yet different way, I learned to fully appreciate the grocery store shopping carts in that had toddler seats built-in. The 5-year-old was well behaved, for the most part, but the “issue” was really the 2-3 year old, and containing his inevitable abundance of energy and semi-frequent mischief. I say issue in quotes because at that age, there’s only so much order you can expect. That said, at times, the prospect of entering a store without such a cart was too much to bear – it really depended on the day. Other times, I could pick up the two-year-old and walk around with him as I did some shopping, interacting with him as I went along. These were some of my favorite moments with him, actually – because it was a fun, cooperative kind of experience that I knew I could only have with him at that moment of his life – he would soon grow bigger, and seek more autonomy.

And that’s the thing – there were always good moments, even if for the most part things weren’t necessarily easy – and not just because of the kids. In the midst of relationship troubles with their mother, I still have very fond memories, some of which I know I will never forget. I remember, for example, one particular day when I noticed it had started hailing all of a sudden, and I immediately ran to get the daughter, to show her something I always found so fascinating, despite it being a simple aspect of our world. She shared that enthusiasm, and the resulting experience of us catching hail in our hands, will forever remain burned in my mind.

So despite my lack of exposure to children and my somewhat abrupt immersion into a parental role, I have to say that it was an extremely enriching experience. And when my relationship with their mother met its unfortunate but necessary end, the sad reality was that it also meant a severance from the two kids that I helped raise. I can imagine in the future that it might be possible to see them again, but in my mind that can only occur if I can guarantee the absence of hostility and turbulence – the last thing I’d want to do to them is inadvertently introduce another stressful moment in their lives.

Before this entire experience, I would walk around treating people as they appeared at the moment I encountered them – that is, I based myself on their current age – they were either a child, an adult, a senior, whatever the case. This was, of course, the most literal interpretation of reality – but it was Joe Rogan, of all people, who ultimately uttered words that would cause a significant shift in my perspective, via his podcast. Put simply, he explained that having kids helped him realize that the people he encountered on a day-to-day basis were babies once, and he was just meeting grown-up versions of those babies. This, he suggested, helped foster empathy and compassion right off the bat. Everyone faces their own paths and challenges in life, but they are still a version of that baby from the very beginning… innocence as an origin. What happened to that little one to make them into the person you’re seeing today? Perhaps more empathy is in order?

And furthermore, if you had any kind of quarrel with a person, would you regret anything if they died the next day? I recently had to face the harsh reality of losing my father. And, given our general tendency of avoiding family gatherings, as you might imagine, there was no one else (other than my mother) that I knew quite so well and for so long. Though undeniably horrific and painful, it still brought crucial realizations to my mind – both sobering and transformative. I realized how so many things were completely not worth arguing about – because when a person is gone, none of it matters. My list of regrets surpassed anything I’d ever listed before. And yet, my rational mind knew that I had done reasonably well considering the circumstances – and that ultimately, nothing could be changed but my path forward.

If I had more deeply understood these ideas in the past, I wouldn’t have made as many mistakes in my overall interactions with other human beings. I would have had more empathy, patience, appreciation. It wouldn’t have necessarily changed the outcomes, but the overall journey would have likely been more rewarding, enjoyable. However, in the end, there’s no re-writes. There’s just an abundance of memories and a whole lot of lessons to be derived from them. And though it’s really unpleasant to affirm, it’s often after being completely destroyed that we can rebuild ourselves, and do better moving forward. And in between these so-called moments of destruction, that, is where the finest moments of life can be had, only enhanced by the knowledge that they are fleeting.

So I’ll cut right to the chase on this one. On Friday the 10th of November, at 6:15 PM EST, I received an odd Facebook message from a friend, one that I’ll call Jane for the sake of this article. At first glance, just from the thumbnail, her message seemed like a risky thing to click on. Here’s what I saw:

UPDATE December 7, 2022: I blurred the image quite a bit more.

Now, I knew Jane pretty well, so I knew that she often said and did things that weren’t particularly appropriate – but it wasn’t a constant thing, it happened from time to time. So, even though the preview to this video concerned me, I reasoned that perhaps this wasn’t what it looked like. After all, it could have been a play on the word “cock,” whereby some dude positioned a rooster in such a way that it could, ostensibly, be perceived as an appendage of sorts. Not something that I would personally find funny, especially given the probability of a misunderstanding occurring; however, I felt Jane deserved the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately for me, and unfortunately for the chicken, this video was 100% what it looked like. To my shock, the video depicted full-on bestiality – there’s just no other way to put it – some depraved, demented human was having sex with a chicken, and enjoying himself. I think it’s safe to assume that the chicken never gave consent.

Realizing the seriousness of what I’d been sent, I immediately sought a way to report the message as being inappropriate through Facebook, so that they could remove it from their servers, or at the very least, my message history. Reporting, of course, is part of life on the Internet – sometimes, inappropriate content gets through the filters, and it’s up individuals to raise the necessary flags. And while the definition of “inappropriate” or “offensive” may vary, I felt that an explicit video of a dude sexually violating a chicken was a pretty good candidate for deletion.

Here’s the problem. While Facebook has some tools for reporting posts, comments, pages, profiles, and conversations, it doesn’t have a great way to report a single message for being offensive/inappropriate. If you press the gear icon next to a Facebook conversation, and you press Report, it immediately returns this message without giving you a chance to intervene:

We’ve marked this message as possible spam. If you’d like to report threatening or abusive messages, please visit the Help Center.

I mean, that’s good in case you’re getting spam from a random Facebook stranger, but what if this is a friend that I normally don’t have issues with? I didn’t think it made sense to flag her as a spammer.

The only other option I found was reporting the message as a threat, which is ultimately what I went for. I didn’t feel Jane was threatening me, but I found no other way to communicate the problem to Facebook. When writing the report, I made sure to specify that it was entirely possible one of her friends got a hold of her phone, and sent it without her knowing. I provided a screenshot, and figured that they’d respond rather quickly. 

That was at around 7pm EST. The case is still open, and it only features this:

Their initial auto-response.

How long will it take for Facebook to remove something like this? Isn’t it a little bit of a concern that they can’t react faster when someone reports this type of content? I mean, to their credit, I assume that if it was an actual threat of violence against a human, they might be quicker to respond. I also imagine they’re probably pretty busy overall. But still, isn’t this still an important thing to remove? Shouldn’t Facebook be better at responding to these types of issues? I realize they might not be able to bring the guy to justice, but they could at least remove the video and prevent it from being uploaded again.

I’ll update this post when they reply to my support ticket.

UPDATE: Took them a month. Video still in my messenger history.

Photo credit

Photo by Daniel Jurena

On a particularly normal morning a few weeks ago, I was preparing to leave for work. I had a small pizza cooking in the oven, one that I planned to eat for lunch – it was not a standard small pizza, more reasonably-sized. When the timer rang, I opened the oven, took the platter out, and placed it on the top of the stove. I then tried to do my usual next step: lifting the pizza from the aluminum foil. To my surprise, on this day, the pizza was very much stuck to the aluminum foil, making for a complicated task – I had to separate the pizza from the foil without comprising the structural integrity of the crust underneath.

Now, what’s important to know here is that I very rarely put oil on the aluminum foil to ensure it doesn’t stick to whichever pizza I’m cooking. That’s because in 99% of cases, I never have trouble with the pizza sticking to the foil – and if I do, it’s usually stuck at one specific contact point, maybe two. (Something I could very easily resolve.) But this particular pizza was hanging on for dear life – clearly, it had been given a glimpse of its future, and had no interest in being consumed. We’re talking 5 or 6 contact points… it was putting up a fight. Even though I’d cooked hundreds of frozen pizzas in my life, I had never seen a case this bad. Thus began a delicate, complicated operation.

Unfortunately, the pizza didn’t survive. By the end, I had a mangled mess of a pizza, a shattered image of its wonderful, tasty self. While not catastrophic on a cosmic scale, the loss of my pizza served as a bit of foreshadowing for the day that awaited me. See, up until that point, it had been a great morning – I was in a good mood for no particular reason (other than being alive), and was looking forward to going to work. The pizza incident kind of took me by surprise, a random frustration that I didn’t expect.

And so I went to work, and within an hour or so, a co-worker called me to her desk to show me something on her computer. While I sat next to her watching her screen, she casually mentioned that something had gone well for my ex-girlfriend, in terms of her education, and that she would finally receive a certificate she had long since wanted to receive. My colleague mentioned this because it was related to our employer, and she knew I was aware of the issue from the past, while we were still a couple. Now, while I was glad to hear that this particular thing had gone well for my ex, I don’t think my colleague realized that mentioning my ex-girlfriend was probably not the best thing to do – we hadn’t been in a contact for months, and there were reasons for that.

As an after-thought, a few moments later, my co-worker decided to flat-out ask me if my ex and I were still talking. I responded quite honestly, but bluntly, that I could only see that happening in a matter of years, not anytime soon. I wasn’t happy with how this came out, but I did recognize the complicated nature of the situation, and that my reflex was at least pure in its honesty. I had reasons for having this stance, reasons that I didn’t necessarily want to share at that moment. And yet, there I was, faced with this topic at my place of work.

And that’s the thing. This happened at work. In the past, I was strict when it came to keeping my personal and work lives apart. I only revealed very limited details to carefully selected individuals, and that method worked well. And then, somewhere along the way, I tried to be more open about what was going on in my life. I would say that this likely had a lot to do with the fact that I worked with lots of women, though it’s not strictly a gender thing. In any case, I started sharing more, as my colleagues did, and I must say, there were a few times in the past couple years where doing so made me really uncomfortable. I should have paid more attention to the signs – it was clear that I wasn’t truly comfortable with the change – and I’m a big believer that above all, one’s comfort is the key. My old method rarely made me feel discomfort, and when it did, it was incredibly low impact.

But this particular encounter quickly devolved into jokes from multiple colleagues within earshot, and a further question about my personal life. The jokes were surely said with the goal of lightening the mood, hopefully lessening the discomfort of what had just happened. I could certainly appreciate that, if that was actually the case, but despite the effort, I was still quite simply not comfortable with what had happened. Though brief, I felt that my private life had been invaded, more than I felt comfortable. As bad as the day had become, however, it led me to a very good conclusion – that I should return to my previous policy. Personal life and work are two completely different worlds, and that’s how they should stay – for me, anyway. Perhaps others are comfortable with mixing the two together, but in my own mind, given my own experiences over the past two years, I discovered that by allowing myself to be more open about my private life, I’m opening myself to pointless discomfort, with very little positive return for doing so. If talking about my private life was a hugely positive experience for me, and it enriched my life, then perhaps the negative aspects could be overlooked. But this was not the case. Only one method truly worked, and it involved being more selective in what I said, and who I chose to say it to.

And so despite how horrible of a day it had become, comfort-wise, I had to cherish it for its positive attributes – finally, I experienced enough discomfort to make a change for the better. No longer would I allow my personal life to mix with my professional life. In fact, just the idea of restoring that policy outright relaxed me, made me feel better, and that is how I know that it’s the right decision – the compass I’ve come to trust.

Note: The following is a reading response that I wrote for my Mass Communications class, earlier this year. I’ve added photos, links, and formatting to make the content a little more readable online, but other than that, it is identical to the version I submitted.

In “Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism,” author Anderson (1991) explores the idea of a nation being both a political and sociological construct. In the first three chapters, he starts by defining nationalism in abstract terms, then proceeds to analyze its cultural roots, and finally, he reviews the changes in society that made a national consciousness possible.

While reading the text, the concept of nationalism being “imagined” interested me. “It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson, 1991, p. 6). I could think of various instances in video games, for example, where I took on a certain nationalistic alignment to fit the narrative of a fictional world.

Some games have obvious lines set in the sand – players are either with faction A, or faction B. More interesting to me is a crime-based game, Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Online, which has no pre-established separations between players. It has the concept of “crews,” akin to gangs, but generally, these facilitate the same group of players playing together, rather than instigating crew versus crew conflict. I recently joined a crew tagged “SAFE,” one which shares a unique governing ideology – no player-directed violence is to be tolerated against its members.

GTA Online was not created with this type of cooperation in mind. Its structure is one where multiple 30-player limited sessions exist simultaneously, where random players can join at any given time, and player versus player combat is enabled by default. To achieve its goals, SAFE makes use of the game’s “kick” feature to remove players that refuse to follow their rules. With enough numbers, they can effectively take over a session, turning it into a kind of self-policing nation-state, reflecting the overall SAFE collective’s vision and ideology, despite lacking any pre-established or geographically-set boundaries to their influence.

Membership in SAFE results in a powerful symbolic association – the mere sight of the SAFE tag evokes a certain sense of camaraderie. Yet, while I may not meet all members of SAFE, I know that elsewhere, other members are reinforcing the nonviolent, cooperative nature of the whole – an imagined sense of nationalism ensues.

Anderson (1991) lists three fundamental concepts that had to fade from society to make it possible to “imagine” a nation – I will mention the two most relatable to GTA Online. First, “the belief that society was naturally organized around and under high centres – monarchs … who rules [sic] by some form of cosmological (divine) dispensation” (Anderson, 1991, p. 36). Indeed, in GTA Online, which mimics a contemporary American cityscape, there is no clear, overarching monarch figure to which players can pledge servitude. Second is a “conception of temporality in which cosmology and history were indistinguishable, the origins of the world and of men essentially identical” (Anderson, 1991, p. 36). Within GTA Online, the world and its history are, by necessity, taken at face value.

 Combined, these ideas rooted human lives firmly in the very nature of things, giving certain meaning to the everyday fatalities of existence (above all death, loss, and servitude) and offering, in various ways, redemption from them.” (Anderson, 1991, p. 36). This brings us to the crux of my comparison. Though GTA Online is by nature a virtual world, it too reflects humanity’s core desire to live while evading death. SAFE takes this to another level, with further emphasis on avoiding in-game death. This philosophy, I would argue, facilitates members seeing SAFE through a nationalistic lens, as what the author calls an “imagined community.”

References

Anderson, B. O. R. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

Photo credit

First photo by BagoGames.

Second photo by Bryce Womeldurf.

One of the clients that I work for, Champlain College Saint-Lambert, recently posted the following notice on their blog (emphasis added):

Champlain College Saint-Lambert will become a smoke and tobacco-free campus for all for employees, students, and visitors effective July 1st 2017.

The use of all tobacco products is prohibited on campus properties, both indoor and outdoor, of the College including all buildings and grounds owned by the College. This policy applies to the parking lot as well as the front and side walkways. Tobacco is defined as any type of tobacco product including, but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, electronic cigarettes, smokeless or spit tobacco or snuff.

For those who are interested in stopping their use of tobacco products please contact Health Services (students) or the local HR department (faculty and staff) for a list of resources and programs.

My first reaction was “wow, talk about an aggressive stance.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I totally understand the overall opposition to smoking. (Once you learn about the negative health impact of smoking tobacco, it’s kind of hard to defend it.) I can therefore appreciate the idea of a green, smoke-free campus. I can even commend Champlain for mentioning how people could get help in quitting their habit, right there in the post. However, I still felt there was a certain harshness in the announcement, particularly surrounding the “including all buildings and grounds owned” bit, and how that would play out in the real world considering Champlain’s specific campus design.

Put simply, the layout was such that smokers would be forced to go to the park next door, or across the street in front of the college, to indulge in their habit. The two other sides of the college were too impractical – one faced the highway and had a fence barrier, meaning people were always on college grounds, and the other was a large parking lot. Technically, you could walk completely across the parking lot to go smoke, but this was pointless when you could simply walk to the park next door, or across the street.

Keep in mind, before Champlain’s announcement, in Quebec, it was still forbidden by law to “smok[e] within a nine-metre radius of a door, window or external air intake of a public or private building.” Nine meters, in my opinion, seemed like a pretty good deal. It was the complete ban of smoking on the campus grounds that seemed excessive, especially given Champlain’s layout. While this may seem like a minor issue, consider the meteorological realities of Quebec. In the winter, this would mean getting dressed and going for a walk specifically to smoke. Winter temperatures would make this journey an uncomfortable affair.

Of course, discomfort is likely the intention… don’t like the inconvenience? Stop smoking. But what I’m saying is this: don’t these people still deserve respect, despite their habit? Are they so disgusting and vile that 9 meters couldn’t possibly be acceptable?

Intrigued, I took to Google. Guess what I learned? With its announcement, the college was simply adhering to Quebec’s Tobacco Control Act (emphasis added):

2.1. Smoking is prohibited (3) on grounds placed at the disposal of an educational institution governed by the Education Act (chapter I-13.3), the Education Act for Cree, Inuit and Naskapi Native Persons (chapter I-14) or the Act respecting private education (chapter E-9.1) and providing preschool education services, elementary and secondary school instructional services, educational services in vocational training or educational services to adults in general education;

I never realized exactly how aggressive the anti-tobacco laws were in Quebec. Further googling revealed a page by the Quebec government in which they reveal the actions they took towards controlling tobacco use, chronologically. For 2017, here’s what they wrote (emphasis added):

Health and social services establishments and post-secondary institutions must have adopted a policy for creating a smoke-free environment no later than November 26.

So again, Champlain was simply putting in place the needed policies to be in full compliance with the law. And yes, these policies meant people would be displaced somewhat when smoking, but this would likely be the same at other institutions, also forced to comply with these new rules. I still feel there’s something to be said here about respecting people’s choices, as unhealthy as they might be, without resorting to extreme measures. The 9 meter rule seemed reasonable to me, as a way of minimizing second hand smoke; the Quebec government, however, took it to another level. But I guess the logic on the part of legislators is likely that the significance of the health threat justifies this type of a response. Does it, though? I’ll keep pondering this… feel free to let me know what you think.

Photo credit

First photo by AQanta S Sutarjo.

Second photo by Patrik Nygren.

So it was the day of my final exam in Law & Society, and there were only a few mins left before I’d have to leave. And yet, casually, I launched Rust on my computer, logged into a server, and stepped away from my machine while the world loaded. As I was cleaning my apartment to pass the time, I noticed in the distance that the game had finished loading. In Rust, when you connect to a server for the first time, you’re placed in a random location, and you have a first person view of your character laying on his side, just having woken up. When you join the world in this manner, you’re known as a “naked” by the community. This, as you might expect, is because you’re completely nude when you first appear in the world, with only a rock and a torch in your inventory.

Despite noticing that the game was ready to be played at a mere keystroke, I continued working on my apartment. At a certain point, through my speakers, I heard the unmistakable sound of someone building a wooden structure in my vicinity. Intrigued, I wrapped up what I was doing, sat at my computer, and left-clicked to make my character wake from his slumber. I looked around for the source, and in the distance, I could see a partially-clothed male looking in my general direction. I could also faintly hear his voice, but not enough to fully understand what he was saying. As I approached, swimming across a stream to reach him, I heard him ask, more clearly, “are you friendly?“

This question was somewhat uncommon, in my experience. In Rust, typically, whenever you make contact with another player, you’re usually attacked immediately. There’s just something about the world of Rust that makes people murder each other on sight, without hesitation. Based on my specific experience, I’d say this occurs about in about 90% of player encounters. Yet, I’m totally not the type of dude that indulges in violence by default. In fact, I’m usually the one that states I’m friendly immediately upon seeing another player, rather than attacking. I’ve always had this angle of non-violence, opting instead to heal, or to simply abstain from combat where healing wasn’t an option.

So the fact that this player would actually ask if I’m friendly, that, was refreshing. I of course stated that I was friendly, and as I got closer to him, I could hear his voice better, I could tell he was likely an 11-year old, somewhere around that age. In game, of course, he was a full-grown adult, but his voice gave me some insight into the person playing the game. I generally prefer to play with people that are 18 and above, as it usually means a higher probability of the player having some basic level of maturity. In this instance, however, I didn’t mind… especially considering his friendly status.

So I told this player, whom we’ll call Kevin, that I’d have to go soon (to my exam), but that I’d help him gather resources until I had to leave. He thanked me, and invited me into his base, which was currently in the process of being built. In Rust, you can build structures using a few different types of materials. Kevin’s base was currently built out of twig, the cheapest, easiest to break material that was only meant as a placeholder until you had more materials to upgrade. It was clear from my experience that this house would not survive any kind of encounter with hostile players. I told Kevin I’d go out and start gathering, and as I left, he threw me a spear, in case I needed to defend myself.

As I ventured out to gather resources, I reflected on the encounter. Kevin was one of the few Rust players that didn’t kill on sight, and given his youth in the real world, I felt that this friendly attitude needed to be protected. Having played a multitude of games in my life, I could safely say that Rust was by far one of the most toxic when it came to player attitude and general hostility. Kevin and his twig house would be an easy target for abuse – I felt driven to get materials to help him upgrade his walls.

And so I focused on gathering wood, given its abundance, knowing it would allow Kevin to quickly upgrade his walls to wood planks, rather than twigs. I also grabbed stone and other random items wherever I could, anything to help him in his Rust experience. Kevin eventually caught up and joined me in the gathering process. After a while, I had accumulated a decent amount of resources, so I gave him the stacks of wood I had gathered, along with other items, and suggested he work on his base, while also saying I’d head out again to gather more while he did that. He thanked me, and threw me a pair of wood armor pants, to give some form of protection against attacks and the elements. Up until that point, I was a naked man with a spear tied to his back – now, I at least had some form of clothing. I thanked him and returned on my quest for resources.

For a while, all was well. I continued gathering resources for him, getting a good mix of wood and other miscellaneous items, until I spotted something in the distance. There was a stream to my left, heading into the distance ahead of me, and at a certain point it lead to a large rock formation, where the water seemed to disappear underneath. Above this rock formation, I could see another Rust player, looking my way. I froze, trying to determine if he was aggressive. My doubts were clarified by a multitude of bullets being fired my way. In response, I immediately turned and ran, in a zig-zag formation. In the distance, I could see an area with the remains of civilized life, concrete walls, as well as other obstacles I could potentially use to protect myself from an attacker. As I ran to this area, I realized that I had not crafted a sleeping bag yet – meaning if I died, I would respawn somewhere random in the world, and would have difficulty finding Kevin again. To solve this, I frantically started crafting a sleeping bag as I ran.

When I finally reached the concrete wall, I slipped behind it and waited for a moment, silent, to see if my attacker was still giving chase. After a few seconds, I noticed him running right past the wall, not noticing where I had hidden. He was wearing armor made of broken road signs, a form of improvised protection, and in his hand, he held an AK-47, the rifle that had attacked me moments earlier. Though I was glad I wasn’t noticed, I realized he was running in the direction of Kevin’s home, which concerned me; however, I knew the first step was to get myself to safety, so I could place a sleeping bag down. So I waited a moment, and then bolted in the opposite direction, where my attacker had come from.

To my surprise, I ran directly into another player wearing improvised street sign armor, holding a handgun. In a panic, I stabbed him in the face with my spear. It then occurred to me that this person might not be hostile like the other, so I attempted to recover from my instant attack reflex by extending a peaceful message via voice chat. I said “actually, I’m a friendly – ” and then was shot in the face immediately, making me fall onto my back, still alive, but injured. In Rust, when you fall like this, people can take stuff out of your inventory, and they can either help you back up afterwards, leave you to bleed out, or just eliminate you. I waited a couple seconds as they looted my body, and said “can you please help me up after you loot all my stuff?” I was still hoping I could place a sleeping bag down, somehow, or that I could still return to Kevin – if he was still alive, he would surely need my help. I feared for his twig house, his trusting, friendly disposition, and what would happen when it came face with the harsh brutality of Rust. Alas, the player looted my body did not help me up… he left me to bleed out. I died without a sleeping bag on the ground, and the game let me know that I had been alive for about 20 minutes. When I respawned, I was someplace else entirely… so I logged out of Rust, and left to do my final exam. I could have technically gotten in contact with Kevin via Steam’s recent players list, but given my exam and how unique the story was, I felt it was best to leave it as is, respecting the realism and harshness of the Rust world.

Second to last photo by Facepunch.

Last photo by Facepunch.

Credits

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

Transcription

Matt: Hi this is Matt Refghi at Toronto Comicon, I’m here with Ace Ventura, who for some reason was not on the celebrity list, but he should have been.
Ace: Yeah, what’s the problem with that?
Matt: I don’t know, we gotta talk to management. But are you here on business by any chance, are you looking for somebody’s lost pet, or kidnapped pet?
Ace: No, not right now, I just came down to the comiccon.
Matt: Okay, came dwon to the comic con.
Ace: Yeah, I was there actually, I saw you, but there was some problem with the mic, I guess.
Matt: Yes, it seems like we have somewhat of a curse. The microphone doesn’t want to cooperate. But maybe this time it will, we have to keep fighting against things like this.
Ace: Yes!
Matt: Because what’s important in life, as you have told me before, is…
Ace: To enjoy yourself.
Matt: To have a damn good time.
Ace: Yes, have fun!
Matt: Right, so, you’re like the physical representation of fun, basically.
Ace: haha, thank you
Matt: So, you mentioned to me that you’re an actor.
Ace: Yes, I am an actor, I graduated from John Abbott College in Montreal.
Matt: Alright, perfect. And you go to bars, and you go Ubisoft, and places like that in character…
Ace: Yeah, haha, you’re right, I just kind of put myself out there, I just gotta try it, right? Do it, actually. So.
Matt: Right, absolutely, and your goal is to – well, you’ve already perfected this character, I’ve already said that before – a few times, microphone.
Ace: haha
Matt: But anyway, you’re doing great with that, you also mentioned The Mask, that you’re gonna venture off into The Mask territory.
Ace: Yeah, well that’s a work in progress actually right now. I’m planning to do it at the Montreal Comic-Con, I gotta get, you know, the costume and everything, but the act’s – it’s kinda there – still gonna need practice, but yeah just need to change it a little bit, and show what I’m able to do, you know, cause this is, I’ve got it down pat. And my goal with this character, actually, is to meet Jim Carrey one day, and I don’t know, maybe he’s gonna be in front of a mirror right now.
Matt: Yeah. A mirror that, as you mentioned before, there’s like a personal element. Cause it’s not a pure copy, right?
Ace: Exactly. I am not Jim Carrey, you know.
Matt: You coulda fooled me.
Ace: I know! Right now… hey, buddy!
Matt: haha. Very good, very good. So, Montreal Comic-con, you also said you’re planning to hit up a bunch of other conventions, basically just trying to, you know –
Ace: All of them this year, actually, all of them this year. I don’t know, I’m just so excited and I come down here, I see the people having fun, and I look at all the booths, everything’s amazing, and when people laugh, that’s my fuel, right? That’s my – it gives me energy, and I just keep doing it.
Matt: You keep spreading the cheer, and your philosophy of just having a damn good time, having fun, right?
Ace: Yeah, well, that’s my philosophy of life, that’s my life philosophy, yeah, haha
Matt: Alright, best of luck in your acting, sir, and as I mentioned before, I look forward to seeing the Mask, so I’ll see you probably at Ottawa Comic-con, no sorry, that’ll be at Montreal Comiccon.
Ace: Yea, but I will definitely go down with Ace at Ottawa Comiccon, for sure, I’ll be there.
Matt: Alright, so I’m hoping to see you there. And just keep working on this, man, you’ve already got this one down – just keep working, hey, what can I say, you’ve got this down, keep what you’re doing, going, alright?
Ace: Thank you. Thank you! I hope you’re having a lovely day.
Matt: I’m having a great time, sir.
Ace: Have yourself a lovely day! Take care now. Bye bye.
Matt: Okay, I’m fine with that.
Ace: haha

Credits

Featuring: Simon Fontaine

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

On August 1st, 2016, I decided it was time to continue challenging myself just like I did with my two 30-day challenges in 2013. The third challenge turned out simpler than the previous two: I would bike at least 20 km (~12.4 miles) per day for thirty consecutive days. Unlike 2013, there were no other rules – no photos, no mandatory checkpoints. And, for some reason, I also decided to keep the challenge completely under the radar until I completed it. The only people that could see my progress were those that followed me on Strava, since I named my rides incrementally (Day 1, 2, etc) as I went along.

And so the challenge began, and progressed without fault for two weeks. Then came day 16, a particularly rainy day. I wasn’t new to dealing with rain – I understood very well that no matter what the weather was like, I’d still get out there to complete my challenge. That’s why I was wearing a poncho, and as much of a water resistant jacket as I could locate. Despite my gear, given the abundance of rain, I was soaked far before I reached the half-way point. By 19.2 km, I realized I needed just a little more distance to meet my mark. So, to wrap up the day, I decided to drive (large) circles around an empty parking lot. It may sound weird, but I’d done this before, and it was a good, optimized way to finishing up the day. On this particular occasion, however, I drove over a certain puddle that I expected to be exactly that: a puddle, but instead, it was a puddle concealing a massive chasm leading to another dimension. 

Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but that’s a size 14 shoe. That pothole wasn’t messing around. My bike rolled over it from the right (from photo’s perspective), which meant my front wheel immediately dropped into it, and the next thing I knew, I was flying off of my bike, where I landed on my left side. I managed to get up fairly quickly, and discovered some basic wounds on my left elbow and hand, but other than that, nothing seemed to be wrong. As I was still being bombarded by rain, I immediately turned my attention to my bike, as the chain had been knocked out of position.

After a few minutes, I’d restored the bike to working order, and proceeded to glance at my phone. I was short roughly 0.5 km from my 20 km goal, and while my wounds were bleeding a bit, they weren’t too big or too serious, so I resumed cycling – I wanted to finish what I had started (the challenge, not my demise). Having learned my lesson about puddles and potholes, I specifically chose to drive on a bike path where I knew the asphalt was in great shape, and I even specifically avoided puddles, just in case.

Despite my optimized approach and my original assessment of the damage, a few minutes later, I started to realize that something was wrong. When I rolled over bumps or cracks in the road, it would trigger pain in my ribs, on the left side of my chest. This, wasn’t good. Back in 2014, I had broken 2-3 ribs in an inline skating fall, and I worried I might have earned myself additional fractures. The 2014 rib injuries were incredibly painful – by comparison, the pain I felt driving over the bumps wasn’t as pronounced. I wondered if perhaps I had a hairline fracture, something less extreme.

But I was stubborn, so I still drove, but did so as carefully as I could to still reach the 20 km for that day, since I was so close. Part of me still wanted to continue with the 30-day challenge despite the accident, but by the next morning, I had decided to be reasonable, to let my body heal. I later learned from an x-ray that I had fallen in such a way that I caused trauma to the same ribs that I broke in 2014, only, thankfully, I did not fall directly on the same spot. Ending the challenge meant avoiding the probability of me falling on the ribs once more and doing more serious damage, no matter how small the odds.

The accident caused me to reflect on cycling as a sport. I had a lot of experience cycling in my life, and this was the second time I was sent flying from my bike. The first incident occurred years ago when I drove into some mud, and rather than stay the course, I tried to turn to the right, to escape it. This caused me to lose balance, and I was sent flying straight over the handle bars, landing on my stomach in the dirt ahead of me. I tore up my left knee pretty bad, and suffered multiple scrapes, but other than that, I didn’t break any bones.

I’ve always been the type of guy that wears a helmet when cycling, without fail. I was also a fairly cautious rider, making sure not to push limits needlessly… but even still, these two accidents occurred, and they served as valuable lessons that would undoubtedly shift my behavior in a very permanent way. I pondered about all the other cyclists in the world, and the experiences they might have accumulated in their careers, amateur or otherwise. Just from my two accidents, I had learned some good lessons:

• Puddles may be hiding giant pot holes that are out to kill you, so it’s best to avoid them altogether.
• When you drive into mud, do not under circumstance try to turn – release pedals, keep your balance.

Surely, if all cyclists got together somehow and learned tricks like these, overall we’d suffer less injuries simply through increased awareness. But then again, is anything as good as experiencing an error yourself, and dealing with the consequences? In my experience, the best way to avoid repeating mistakes is to form a really deep, negative association. That said, I’m thankful my consequences this time around weren’t as bad as they could have been. Still… don’t be surprised if you see me cycling with a rib-protecting Michelin Man type get-up.

Photo credit

Second photo by Martin Deutsch (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Third photo by Edmund White

On the night of April 9th, 2015, I collapsed onto my couch, having finished a second day of working at a job fair that took place at the Palais des Congres de Montreal. On my face, despite my fatigue, was a smile – I greatly enjoyed working at fairs. At the time, I would occasionally work job fairs for one of my corporation’s clients, Champlain College Saint-Lambert. I even wrote a blog post about what they do. For those that didn’t read that post, here’s a quick run-down:

I worked primarily with the Recognition of Acquired Competencies (RAC) department, which fits within the realm of Continuing Education, for adults. RAC is a process that people can use to have their life and work experience recognized towards obtaining an official college certificate or diploma. If they have a significant amount of experience, Champlain can evaluate them for what they already know, and help them fill in the remaining gaps.

So anyway, that night, after collapsing on the couch, I felt motivated to write about my experiences that day. I knew I wouldn’t necessarily publish the post that night, but I wanted to make sure that the events were recorded in their freshest state possible, especially given my mood.

While I no longer work job fairs for Champlain, I felt it would still be valuable to share what I wrote back then, given the pleasure I derived from such experiences. I’ve also refined and reworked the content since then, so it should read better than it did originally. Here goes.

April 9, 2015

I’m always amazed at how much energy I derive from working almost every single shift at fairs. Every time one comes around, I secretly find myself hoping that I get to work as many time slots as possible, so I can personally be there to spread the word of RAC. You must understand: I absolutely love the concept behind RAC. It was incredibly awesome to learn that the Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur had such a mechanism in place, back when I started working with Champlain in 2013. I couldn’t even believe it didn’t always exist – it seemed so logical to me. Ultimately, this meant – and still means that I derive genuine satisfaction by working alongside the RAC team, as I play a part in helping RAC change lives. Yes, RAC offers a practical, tangible product: a diploma or certificate, but what I value most is that the person is getting rightful credit for something they clearly knew all along. Why should an academic path be the only means of acquiring a diploma or certificate? If you can show what you know, then you deserve the diploma, regardless of your life path.

In this particular fair, two unique events occurred, both of which I felt were worth sharing.

Encounter 1

When the first occurred, I was standing at the booth, re-configuring one of our laptops so it’d be ready for future visitors. Our booth was situated at the end of a row, but in such a way that it was next to the main artery that people used to navigate through the various rows of the fair. As I was finishing with the laptop, someone was walking past the booth via this artery, only to suddenly stop, and speak to me.

He noticed I had a container of paper clips on the table next to me, and asked if he could have one to help him with his papers. It was an oversight that it was out and visible, but since it would be useful to this attendee, and we rarely used them, I figured why not. I handed him the container so he could retrieve one, so he thanked me, and jokingly said “I’ll be going now” and feigned walking away with the whole container in hand, with a laugh. I laughed in suit, and joined in on his humor: “yep, take the whole set.”

After taking a single clip, he handed the container back. While he worked on clipping his papers together, I returned the container to its rightful place underneath our table, further cleaning up the desk space for future visitors. Once he had finished and put his sheets away, he casually looked up at the booth. He then proceeded to ask me what we did, but in a way that clearly showed it was an after-thought. I explained the usual things: that we recognize what people already know in a given field, and help them get diplomas that prove that knowledge. In the middle of my explanation, he noticed something crucial, and made this known out loud. I could detect that he was surprised, his interest peaked: “you have IT programs?” I smiled and quickly signaled him to come over to the front of the booth, knowing I’d have plenty to say to him. (I love talking to people about RAC services in general, but speaking to them about IT and RAC is a nice combo, given my own Computer Science background.)

The more I spoke to this person, the more we both realized that he was hands-down an amazing match for Champlain RAC’s services. He had recently moved to Canada from the States, and wanted to get Canadian credentials to help with Canadian employers. He liked both Champlain’s IT Client Support (ITCS) and Cisco (networking) services: a combo only certain candidates can do, those with strong IT support skills, and also significant networking knowledge. But, this person, in the end, ended up applying for ITCS, with plans to do Cisco after completing it. Each would reward an Attestation d’études collégiales (AEC) that would help in boosting his employability, and amusingly, as he told me, he had no idea what the fair was about, and had no reason to be there. He simply noticed people walking around with the fair’s branded bags, and figured he’d see what was going on. It’s amazing to me, how random chains of events can lead to potentially significant discoveries. If he hadn’t investigated the fair, if he hadn’t specifically wandered to our section to ask for our paper clips, and if I hadn’t been positioned perfectly for him to see our programs listed behind me… would he have ever known about RAC, a solution that he so clearly hungered for, without realizing it existed?

Encounter 2

Another encounter really marked me that day. A man approached me with his wife, and proceeded to ask me questions about RAC’s Transport and Logistics (T&L) AEC. As usual, I jumped into the RAC pitch, and, while he seemed interested in the concept, I also got the impression through his body language that he felt it wasn’t for him. He eventually mentioned that he had heard of RAC before, and liked the concept, but that it didn’t seem right for him…. so he thanked me for my time and started leaving the booth.

As he did so, I had an impulse – I asked him where he actually heard about RAC. He explained that he was involved in a training session of some sort, and that the option was mentioned: but that it wasn’t Champlain College Saint-Lambert specifically he heard of. The way he answered, I could tell that he thought I was primarily concerned with where he heard about Champlain’s RAC services, but in reality, my question was born of genuine curiosity regarding the spread of RAC as a whole. In my work for Champlain, I’ve come to realize, along with my colleagues, that a huge factor of promoting RAC is simply sensitizing people to its existence. Once they know it exists, it’s a no-brainer – the services practically sell themselves. So in asking him this question, I genuinely wanted to know where he happened to hear about RAC, as a concept: regardless of Champlain. 

Here’s what was interesting. That last question I asked kept him around talking. The more I spoke to him, the more I understood why he had tried to leave. He had the feeling that his experience was not going to be enough to satisfy RAC’s general admission requirements. Before, I didn’t know why he thought it wasn’t for him; but now, I could help. See, with RAC, people need to have a lot of experience: roughly 70% of the knowledge required to obtain a particular certificate or diploma, at least. We make this abundantly clear from the start – RAC’s not about handing out free diplomas and certificates, the person will be interviewed and tested to assess whether their experience is enough for admission. And, if they’ve acquired a lot of experience but are missing bits, it’s not necessarily a problem: we can help them fill those gaps with seminars and online resources, as long as those gaps are reasonable and proportionally sensible.

The more I spoke to him, the more I understood why he doubted his own skills. His T&L experience stemmed from working in a warehouse while in the military. It wasn’t necessarily a direct, cookie-cutter type of position, but I remembered what a colleague once told me: sometimes, people don’t realize how much they know. I even remembered editing a particular video testimonial where a T&L candidate was unsure that he knew enough, and guess what? He worked in a warehouse, also. Ultimately, while not in the most obvious of T&L roles, the candidate in the video had absorbed and done enough over the years to be considered a valid RAC candidate. 

I relayed the gist of this to the military man, citing the warehouse testimonial as an example, and by the end, it seemed clear that he might very well be a valid T&L candidate. And if everything worked out, he could even technically work on T&L while in the military, over a year, and then when he was ready to return to civilian life, he’d be able to transition straight into a industry, no down time. Beautiful. The flexibility of Champlain’s RAC services certainly made this a possibility.

Now, obviously, I did not possess the authority nor the experience to 100% guarantee whether this candidate would be admitted, but I heard enough, based on my experience, to suggest that he get in contact with the T&L advisor, rather than assume he wouldn’t get in. Ultimately, his experience would be analyzed through RAC’s admissions procedure, which would include an interview from an industry professional, and a self-evaluation. In short, he didn’t really need to worry about whether he was experienced enough – the admissions procedure and the team at Champlain would sort that out one way or another.

And to think, he almost walked away thinking he wasn’t going to be good enough! Afterwards, I was really amazed at how a genuinely selfless question, born out of simple curiosity, could potentially lead to this man’s life changing for the better. When I asked, I wasn’t looking to keep him talking. I was merely curious. Yet, that random impulse on my part could have very well triggered a whole new journey. I love how the world works.

Photo credit

1. First photo by Jana Sharock
2. Second photo by Anita Borg Institute (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
3. Third photo by U.S. Pacific Fleet
4. Fourth photo by IKEA Woodbridge
5. Fifth photo by raymondclarkeimages