Amidst the chaos in the distance, we ventured to a nearby park for some bocce ball. Definitely an interesting mood was in the air in the city.

Adding to the deafening surge of online noise, here’s my two cents. I don’t think it’s fair to compare these riots with the G20. Those had some political basis. This Walrus article suggests that maybe G20 protesters had a point. On the other hand, I think the hockey riots were a symptom of something more going on. I love this slightly cynical Georgia Strait piece that suggests just that. The riots should be a wake-up call. Why do we care more about a hockey game than democratic freedom, such as the right to vote?

This is my last night in the city and I have never been more excited about a bus ride to Buenos Aires that could be anywhere from 3 – 5 hours. I’m preparing for the worst…just in case. Costa Rican transport has been decent and cheap, but hasn’t fully earned my full trust yet. The jury’s still out on that one, but maybe they’ll come back in tomorrow.

Anyway, better posts to come…including a backlog of material that I’ve pressed “Save Draft” on because I wasn’t ready for the level of commitment that “Publish” entails. My travels and the people I’ve met give me an unfamiliar yearning to become a writer. This is a new desire for me, perhaps attributed to interesting conversations with a wide variety of people, from Orange County, California to San José, Costa Rica to…all over the world really. Or more simply, it might have been inspired by unemployment or the used bookstore I was in today. Who knows? Anyway, no intentions of following through on this spontaneous passion, or at least not yet. Enough spontaneity in my life for now. Or I’ll at least wait until I come up with a storyline more intriguing than an autobiographical one.

Okay, I guess that was longer than I had anticipated…

Following the medal ceremony, there was a grand reception where I had the privilege of speaking about the experience, on behalf of all of the medal recipients. This speech was a response to a toast from the Advisory Council for the award.

Your Honor, Members of Provincial Parliament, ladies and gentlemen and fellow medal recipients, I thank you for this unexpected recognition. Even the most careful planning and preparation could not have prepared us for such an occasion. As passionate volunteers, we quickly learn the value of thinking on our feet and responding as well as we can in each opportunity that presents itself, but as my fellow recipients can surely relate, I have been utterly overwhelmed and pleasantly surprised by the experience of being a recipient of the Ontario Medal of Young Volunteers. Although we feel privileged and honoured to experience this special occassion, volunteering is not a unique opportunity. Instead it is an attitude, a lifestyle, a state of being that we have chosen to adopt. And I believe that this is the true beauty of volunteering. Like myself, this year’s selection of recipients come from humble beginnings, in most cases, small towns that seemingly offer limited volunteer opportunities for volunteering. We are not exceptions or outliers among today’s youth. We are simply the lucky ones who received the unconditional love and support from our family and friends that inspired us to engage in our communities. And the secret is that volunteering is in fact a hedonistic act. It is an addiction that makes one feel so good that once we start, we cannot stop. And I don’t think, any of us have such an intention. We thank our nominators who took the initiative to give us this incredible distinction, the advisory council for their dedicated efforts in making this year’s selection and above all, we thank our supportive communities that empowered us in such a way that we can stand here today. This honour is one that we will cherish for a very long time and one that motivates us to continue volunteering for just as long.

This experience was an incredible learning opportunity. I was able to put Melanie’s etiquette training to good use and network with elected and appointed officials as well as Ministry staff. I was also able to talk to many people about my studies at Quest and share my enthusiasm for volunteering, while resisting the urge to talk about partisan politics, for the most part (The upcoming election made this a bit difficult, but I tried to adopt the essence of Eric Gorham by using my words judiciously.) This experience also re-ignited my grade-8 passion for politics, something that has been stirring as of late as a result of my election to the Quest Students’ Representative Council as well as the development of my Question. Who knows what doors this honour will open? I can’t wait to find out!

On a more personal note, I was overwhelmed and surprised by my emotion during the ceremony. I was the only university student among the recipients (the others were in their final years of high school) and I was the only recipient to cry during the ceremony. In addition to preparing physically (i.e. trying to make my unruly, half-finished head of dreads look as neat and tidy as possible), I tried to prepare mentally and emotionally for the experience. However, when I was standing beside His Honour hearing my citation read by Dr. Eric Hoskins, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, my lip started to quiver and my eyes began to well with tears. At first, I tried to hold back and smile politely. But then, two thoughts occurred to me (well, really a zillion thoughts were swirling around my head, but these two were especially significant): 1) In the words of Eve Ensler, “I am an emotional creature!” and; 2) “The only person I know how to be is myself.” And in acknowledgment of these two simple mantras, I recognized my emotions and allowed myself to express them. No, I didn’t burst into sobs of joy, but there were definitely a few tears. Besides, it is not everyday that someone cries in the Lieutenant Governor’s Suite, or at least I hope not.

I am likely romanticizing the circumstances (as I tend to do) in saying that my emotional response was a conscious choice. In more honest terms, this is only a half-truth or a way of rationalizing my emotional behaviour. In reality, once started, emotions can’t be stopped, nor should they be, in cases such as this. We are told to “save face”, “not to let emotions get in the way”, think rationally rather than emotionally (I personally don’t agree with the affiliation between irrationality and emotion.) and to save face. Although I appreciate these sentiments and even act upon them regularly, they are not as universal as we may think and in all honestly, they are highly overrated. That said, I am slowly learning the importance of wearing different “hats” and I look forward to further developing this skill next year during my term as student body vice president!

Most recently, I scheduled meetings with Andre, Jim, Court, Steve as well as a second meeting with Eric. I went into this second round of meetings with much more focus than my preliminary sessions, and was even able to propose possible Questions, such as “How can we facilitate collaboration effectively?”

1. Focus – What is an appropriate balance between breadth and depth? How can my Question be broad enough to encompass a wide range of curricular and co-curricular interests and to provide adequate flexibility and freedom during my Concentration years? However, my Question needs to be narrow enough to offer sufficient academic focus and direction?
2. Integration – How can I acquire a well-rounded education that integrates concepts from different disciplines in a meaningful, multidisciplinary way? To what extent is it possible or even desirable to pursue both arts and sciences with equal rigour?

My goals for these meetings were to:

• Gain perspective on the importance of focus and integration when forming a Question.
• Receive constructive feedback on the wording of my Question
• Identify some relevant sources of information that would aid further independent research, such as search words, topics, disciplines and possible readings

During these meetings, I gained a lot of insight about some possible areas that I would like to further explore as well as some specific courses that might be relevant to my anticipated academic journey. I was pleasantly surprised by the meaningful links I was able to identify between seemingly different fields, all occurring within the scope of my Question. For example, Court identified parallels between natural resource management and human resource management. Furthermore, population models used in the life sciences could inform human population models. On the other hand, Andre and Jim highlighted the importance of first defining the terms that I am using, such as management and collaboration, to make sure I mean what I am saying, after all definitions can be subjective. In addition, Andre suggested that I also define the anti-theses of these terms. Rather than strictly thinking about the motivations for collective action, he suggested it might also be useful to look at individualism.

Also, out of pure coincidence, I also began talking to Steve, our new international admission counselor. I described the nature of my Question, and then asked about his academic background. As it turns out, he has an Honours degree in Sociology, a discipline that Eric had directed me to during our meeting a day earlier. Sociology is defined as “the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society.” Steven has also worked in varying capacities within the field of institutional organization. According to Steven, I am destined for a career in human resources. I have fully processed that notion quite yet, but I’ve accepted it for now. Similarly, I learned that Vanessa, our university librarian, is currently undertaking graduate studies in leadership. She is currently writing a strategic plan for the library, which serves both her responsibilities for work as well as one of her courses. Coincidentally, I plan on writing a strategic plan for the Quest Students’ Representative Council (SRC) as experiential learning over the summer, so she will be an incredible resource. Melanie has also been extremely helpful in the past couple months as I attempt to integrate both my curricular and co-curricular activities. Once again, I am completely intrigued by the professional and personal backgrounds of the staff and faculty at Quest, and their willingness to take time out of their daily work to exchange ideas with students.

Also, Eric proposed a few more possible Questions: i) “What is the role of collaboration in political and social organization?”, or more broadly, ii) “How do institutions transform themselves?” Alternatively, in consideration of David’s suggestion, I could merge the two to read, “What is the role of collaboration in institutional transformation?” As you can tell, each of these versions has a slightly different focus. I’ll keep all three for now.

My next step is to start the next round of research, based on the keywords that I received. A long day in the library for me, but luckily, I am so interested and excited about my Question that it won’t even really feel like work. I was hesitant and overwhelmed at first, but I think I’m going to like this whole Question thing after all.

The first mind map outlines my academic interests and the scope of my Question.

While the second map is an initial brainstorm for my Question plan.

In this TIME article, the author identifies five persuasive reasons why the recent revolution in the Arab Middle East should not evoke international panic or concern. In summary:

1. Inadequate provision is the common and justifiable motive for all revolutions.
2. Despite this constant, the history of colonial rule, international relations and culture characterizes each revolution as unique, making generalizations very difficult to make.
3. This complex interplay of factors takes time to study and understand, so patience becomes invaluable.
4. A sense of “state power”, which often comes in the form of political institutions, is important because Twitter and Facebook cannot govern a country…yet.
5. The West does not have the answers, nor should we impose our theoretical solutions. A revolution is a way for local people to respond to the eminent problems themselves.

TIME Magazine’s large colour photos and minimalist margins highly restricted my side notes while reading this article. Similar to Botsman’s talk, it uncovered a wide range of possible fields of study that I am deeply interested in, but I hadn’t previously been considered integrating into my Question plan, such as history and religious studies. Furthermore, I was pleasantly surprised to draw parallels between this article and previous courses I’ve taken, such as Communities and Conservation and the Great Bear Rainforest. International conflict demonstrates the significance of multi-stakeholder collaboration as well as the ability to work across different levels and scales, from local to global.

Above all, I am naturally intrigued by the complexity of the situation and the opportunity to understand the political situation entices me. This level of complexity provokes an endless stream of questions, but to name a few:

a) Can we apply lessons across different scales and contexts? To what extent can we do so while being judicious about generalizations?

b) How can we practically and efficiently facilitate collaboration on this scale? What are the limits of informal mediums of collaboration, such as Twitter and Facebook? Do they offer more promise of peace and stability than nation states?

To borrow a phrase from a eloquent Quest 4^th year, Rachel Botsman is the “physical embodiment of my Question”. Botsman simple thesis persuasively argues that humans are evolutionarily wired to share and cooperate, despite the man-made capitalistic, egotistical culture that has emerged in the past century. Furthermore, tribes and “smart mobs” are emerging now more than ever (Seth Godin explains this phenomenon here). “Collaborative consumption” responds to the idea that we don’t actually want to own more “stuff”, we just want the services and experiences each “thing” provides. For example, rather than a CD, we want the music and entertainment of a CD. She proposes that ownership is an outdated concept. Botsman identifies four societal events that have catalyzed the emergence of this new consumption trend:

1. Ÿ  A renewed belief in the importance of community
2. Ÿ  Peer-to-peer social networks and real-time technology
3. Ÿ  An increased awareness of environmental concerns
4. Ÿ  A global recession to shock consumer behaviour

I did not choose this TED talk as my “idea generator” purely because it was one of the first hits when you search “TED” and “collaboration”. This TED talk connects many different academic disciplines and societal phenomena, such as the environment, science and technology, human psychology, economics. Like many of the TED talks, Botsman’s lecture epitomizes the interdisciplinary study that all Quest students should aspire. In addition, collaborative consumption offers a very useful application of collaboration that serves as strong evidence for relevance of my Question.

This TED talk gave me a lot of clarity on a wide range of topics, but a couple questions remain:

a) Does collaborative consumption suggest a dramatic shift in our economic system, from a monetary-based economy to a reputation-based economy that recognizes the Earth’s limits? Does collaborative consumption support economic “degrowth”?

b) How can we reverse the deeply engrained culture of egotism and individualism? To what extent is this possible? To what extent is self-interest in our human nature?

c) What are the limits to collaborative consumption? Would it be possible to eventually make private property an obsolete concept? What would be the political implications of this type of economic reform?