start

about the author, their intentions, and how to use this website:

i grew up in a small fishing/ paper mill town in nova scotia in the 90s and early 2000s. i always considered becoming a teacher, but was suspicious of this aspiration because i thought it only seemed ok in comparison to other jobs in this small limited community. i was even more suspicious of the cost of higher education. at the time tuition cost 4-6k per year. I didn't have any savings or financial support to go to university, nor did i have the grades for a scholarship, and the notion of going 20-30k in debt as soon as i have financial independence did not make any sense. youtube and social media were beginning to become familiar and common place but was lacking in organization, or maybe it was me that had issues. nonetheless, i graduated high school in 2008 continued onward in the food service workforce, in and out of grocery stores and restaurants while practising writing and photography with my personal time. over the next 6 years i encountered life's challenges with a variety of successes and failures, but ultimately always getting into more debt and more trouble. in 2012 i was 11k in debt just by the inn-affordability of living in halifax on minimum wage and a lack of financial literacy. in 2013 my younger sister died of luekemia and i had to stop working. i moved back in with my parents and eventually found employment at the tire factory in bridgwater. over the next year and a half with the support of my parents i paid off my debts and applied to schools to start a more meaningful life. i still considered education, but more so i wanted to become an occupation therapist. either way, those were second degrees, and either could be done with an arts degree, so i went to art school. during the four years i studied there, for the first time in my life i learned about identity, class, colonization, ideology, capitalism, philosophy, cultural work, union organizing and labour history in ways that critically changed the way i perceived and participated in the world. unfortuneately my suspicions of the innaffordability of university seem accurate as i am now 55k in debt and still not graduated with no b.ED of M.OT in site. Regardless I do feel strongly about education and occupational therapy, so this website is a blog/ toolkit for exploring and sharing resources in the spirit of sharing knowledge and resisting capitalism and alienation.

this website is a non-linear collage of people, places and things that provide meaning and influence in my perception of life.