A Piece of the Pie

Deadlines... the endless onslaught of the forever deadline. Life can sometimes seem like an endless deadline. Where spontaneity is just a dream over the horizon. Tasks, chores, duties, responsibilities; these are the activities that can sometimes shape our day. But the things we enjoy; free time to unwind, and doing what ever it is we like to do when you have nowhere to be and nothing to do. These moments of spontaneous bliss usually come from time that has been spent preparing and organizing. And it is these duties or chores that let us have that time, and that get us to where we want to be... so these tasks have become a part of our life, not separate but a balance that steadies us onward toward our goals.

One of my goals is to write. I like to write, it feels solid, and real. A timeless expression. of myself that will remained unchanged forever. Writing for the school paper is a wicked chance for me to write. Plus my read- ers are my peers. What other paper could I write for that would let me swear, write about sex, drugs, rock n roll, {which I do intend on doing}, everything in between, and everything in between that? Throw in my 14 bucks a week and we're talking a pret- ty sweet deal. I don't really have any plans for anything I'm going to write about, just that I plan to write about shit that I want to write about. Which brings me to my next point...

= Paying for school sucks. Ok... © paying a lot of money for school, and © paying more every year sucks. School a is great, we have it pretty cheap com- pared to most of Canada, it's probably worth the money. Not just for the Piece of paper you get at the end, but for the experience too. The question is, why is our tuition going up, and should we have to pay for it in the first place? The fact that our tuition is going up kind of scares me. I don't want my children, and they're children growing up not being able to afford School. A university should not be in

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the business of making money. They're role is to pass on the knowl- edge of our past. The institution that is now the university has changed so that money now drives their interests, and not the education of the community... So they are always looking to save money, and to gain money, and this usually ends up as a cost to the peo- ple. Rising Tuition. And as I don't see this changing anytime soon, I guess that means our rate will keep increas- ing. During the political race last month there was a education debate, a close friend of mine was in atten- dance. He said that all three parties had a different attitude on the subject. I will try to be as accurate as possible. He said the PC party explained that it was the university that sets the costs, and so it is not at their disposal to

change the tuition. Cop out. I think so. | _ The Liberals said it would cost 10

million to freeze tuition, what? Lets

_ try to do the math here. UPEI has

about 3,400 students, last year the

- average course costed 364 bucks, this

year it's 411 bucks. My calculator tells me that's 47 bucks, lets say every stu- dent took five courses that's an extra ( 47 X 5 ) 235 bucks each semester! Times 470 by the number of students and we get 1,598,000. Not quite 10 mil. What is that 470 dollars getting spent on? Do we know? I don't. All I know is that our tuition went up and it sucks. Finally we have the NDP party who says they would freeze tuition

_ tomorrow. Hello confusion. What's up

with all these conflicting views, who's telling a fib here. I know that for the last two years Newfoundland has had price reductions, and Manitoba, and Quebec have frozen their tuition the last year. This shows it's possible and that our government chooses not to, unless we elect the NDP.... I wish! If education is as important to those other politicians as they say it is, why haven't they approached this issue. Maybe they don't think we care. I think Mr. Binns is getting a letter. I'll. keep you posted.

2003 ARPA Conférence

Moncton est un big place for any lone twit, but packing a car-load of philosopher's together and telling them to navigate through such a mani- acal blossoming city proves to be quite difficile mon frére. A car load of impotent-headed silly billy-goats debated les directions, achieving prime philosophical end-results - a ridiculously confuddled conversation aimed at achieving an immobile auto- mobile in the correct lot of the parking parameters at UNB's Edifice des Art's. Obviously it didn't happen - nous sommes drove in circles, hit dead ends, and took the long way around several times - cars move trop hastily pour philosopher's - better to walk instead perhaps? We ended in parking on foreign pave - the engineering lot - et nous avons couru around campus like six year olds looking for the candy store. Les directions? I thought you knew. Le practicality? Hmm... new term, a conference on the subject may be of value.

The Atlantic Region Philosophy Association's Annual Conference was held at the Université de Nouveau-Brunswick this year, from Friday the 24th to Saturday the 25th. A party - or circus, s'il vous plait - consisting five professor's and four student's, luckily made it from UPEI in order to attend, which is actually quite a good nombre pour any univer- sity. The topic for the conference was Justice and Cosmopolitanism, and the keynote speaker was Kai Nielsen, who is now adjunct professor of philoso- phy at Concordia University, and whose main areas of interest are Ethics, and Social and Political Philosophy.

Nielsen's presentation began with a talk on the nature of cos- mopolitanism, first defining various concepts of cosmopolitanism, and éventuellement pitching the idea that the advent of globalization does not have to mean capitalist globalization - which is true, mais also quite hopeful, to be... realistic? or pessimistic about it? Possiblement, they are very much

the same thing in this case. Hope without faith mon ami, hope without faith.

After Nielsen's presentation there was a general gathering in order to meet other philosopher's, and some quite good things came out of it. We met some students from UNB and got along very well, later heading out to the student bar together - which really is almost as bad as ours - and then aprés ¢a, out to another spot in town, student and professor alike. On Saturday at lunch the two UNB stu- dents brought us UPEI students out to a small vegan restaurant pour la ~ lunche, where we talked with mouths full of egg-replacement for presque two hours. Now that the conference is over, we have exchanged contacts in hopes building a connection between the two school's departments where we can discuss classes, ideas, exchange essays for feed-back, and talk trash about our professors, among other things. Though Moncton is a long-haul distance, travel back and forth from here to there should be quite facile - as it is with the rest of the Atlantic regions - which makes us think that the possibility of creating social connections between them all might not be overly difficult, and pos- sibly a good idea at that. Also, at next year's conference, les étudiants will also be encouraged to present papers themselves. Wahoo! I honestly have wet dreams about this now - splurt!

Un autre interesting thing de this year's conference était que, being située in a bilingual area, beaucoup de personnes whom we met parlaientt en french, et un nombre des présentations étaient aussi en frangais. Nice time pour practiquer la langue. Si tu ne par- les pas le frangais, c'est extrémement probable que tu ne comprends pas ce que je dis maintenant, mais ce n'est pas - honétement - essentiel pour la reste de l'article. Merci, et mangez de la Miracle Whip avec une cuillére, pour le souper, encore demain - tabernac.