Switch it up this summer
Open your mind to a different lifestyle this summer
So you're stuck at Fanshawe reading this paper while your friends are all out enjoying the summer months. You're stuck inside studying, but what you really want to do is take in some sun, play sports, chill with your people, and go on adventures. So this article will be your adventure:
Do you want to:
a) Go play sports?
b) Go chill with your people?
c) Go to class?
d) Go on an adventure?
a) So you find a few friends, acquaintances and strangers, take whatever sporting gear you can find to a neighbourhood street and start playing. As cars see you they take alternate routes and the game goes on all night under street lights. Midway through everyone's lost count of the score, and it doesn't seem to matter anymore. The game goes on and on, and nobody stops until their bodies have no energy left because it's so much fun. Nothing is better than playing street ball. I'm not only talking about street basketball, I'm talking about street hockey, street baseball, street soccer, street football, etc. As long as there is a group of people and a ball of some kind a sport can be invented on the spot. The beauty of streetball is its organic and horizontal nature. No referees, no uniforms, no fees, just fun. Once there are coaches and trainers, and salaries, and arenas, it gets ridiculously competitive and is taken too seriously by everyone involved. Athletes get stressed into taking dangerous chemicals and are injected with performance-enhancing drugs when there's millions of dollars on the line. So instead of paying for sports we should start playing the sports. Another beautiful thing about streetball is that it is a prime example of reclaiming public space for more productive and social uses. Game ON!
b) So you hop on your bike, and pedal over to the spot where some of your people are already chilling, drinking some home brew. None of you have ever wanted to be a wage slave working some boring nine-to-five so the money's tight. But it's OK, you all get by. After hanging out and getting into some deep conversations, as well as busting some jokes about each other, everyone's hungry. The garden hasn't grown yet so you decide to hit up the nearest grocery store. As you arrive you see an employee bringing out garbage bags. After he tosses them you check it out because you know that in our consumer culture and capitalist ideology good food is wasted by the ton every hour to preserve artificial scarcity. This is some of that waste but it doesn't have to be that way. You open the bag and find enough bread and veggies to feed the whole crew. Life CAN be free, if you want it. Remember Capitalism doesn't work, Communism doesn't work, YOU work. So stop already and chill.
c) Like a responsible student you go to class, but not to YOUR class. You go to a totally different class that was supposed to be canceled before you cleverly removed the notice on the door. Dressed as a professor you enter the classroom and explain that you are a substitute teacher and make up some credentials. Then proceed to hijack the course and take it into uncharted territory. You teach gift economics and true cost economics to business students in a neo-liberal economics classroom. Then show the most radically subversive videos to film students. Remember, school is a place of learning, not a place to be programmed.
d) Facing the unknown, you set out on your journey. You just want to be free from school and work and social circles and all other constraints so you choose not to set a timeline or choose a destination. You choose not to plan anything at all, but to go. You enter the real world, the free world where your life isn't scheduled and programmed into a predictable cycle of repetition. You suddenly realize that living in the moment is the only life worth living. You don't need to wait, you don't need to look back, the time is now. Free Yourself.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
So you're stuck at Fanshawe reading this paper while your friends are all out enjoying the summer months. You're stuck inside studying, but what you really want to do is take in some sun, play sports, chill with your people, and go on adventures. So this article will be your adventure:
Do you want to:
a) Go play sports?
b) Go chill with your people?
c) Go to class?
d) Go on an adventure?
a) So you find a few friends, acquaintances and strangers, take whatever sporting gear you can find to a neighbourhood street and start playing. As cars see you they take alternate routes and the game goes on all night under street lights. Midway through everyone's lost count of the score, and it doesn't seem to matter anymore. The game goes on and on, and nobody stops until their bodies have no energy left because it's so much fun. Nothing is better than playing street ball. I'm not only talking about street basketball, I'm talking about street hockey, street baseball, street soccer, street football, etc. As long as there is a group of people and a ball of some kind a sport can be invented on the spot. The beauty of streetball is its organic and horizontal nature. No referees, no uniforms, no fees, just fun. Once there are coaches and trainers, and salaries, and arenas, it gets ridiculously competitive and is taken too seriously by everyone involved. Athletes get stressed into taking dangerous chemicals and are injected with performance-enhancing drugs when there's millions of dollars on the line. So instead of paying for sports we should start playing the sports. Another beautiful thing about streetball is that it is a prime example of reclaiming public space for more productive and social uses. Game ON!
b) So you hop on your bike, and pedal over to the spot where some of your people are already chilling, drinking some home brew. None of you have ever wanted to be a wage slave working some boring nine-to-five so the money's tight. But it's OK, you all get by. After hanging out and getting into some deep conversations, as well as busting some jokes about each other, everyone's hungry. The garden hasn't grown yet so you decide to hit up the nearest grocery store. As you arrive you see an employee bringing out garbage bags. After he tosses them you check it out because you know that in our consumer culture and capitalist ideology good food is wasted by the ton every hour to preserve artificial scarcity. This is some of that waste but it doesn't have to be that way. You open the bag and find enough bread and veggies to feed the whole crew. Life CAN be free, if you want it. Remember Capitalism doesn't work, Communism doesn't work, YOU work. So stop already and chill.
c) Like a responsible student you go to class, but not to YOUR class. You go to a totally different class that was supposed to be canceled before you cleverly removed the notice on the door. Dressed as a professor you enter the classroom and explain that you are a substitute teacher and make up some credentials. Then proceed to hijack the course and take it into uncharted territory. You teach gift economics and true cost economics to business students in a neo-liberal economics classroom. Then show the most radically subversive videos to film students. Remember, school is a place of learning, not a place to be programmed.
d) Facing the unknown, you set out on your journey. You just want to be free from school and work and social circles and all other constraints so you choose not to set a timeline or choose a destination. You choose not to plan anything at all, but to go. You enter the real world, the free world where your life isn't scheduled and programmed into a predictable cycle of repetition. You suddenly realize that living in the moment is the only life worth living. You don't need to wait, you don't need to look back, the time is now. Free Yourself.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
