Stamped paper promises

The day began with breakfast: bacon, sausage, toast, coffee, and chocolate chip pancakes. I was the only man in the deli wearing a suit. A shirt and tie had been requested; the final hoop to jump through before the school handed over our papers and sent the lot of us on our way.

Graduation day. So soon, finally, etc. After breakfast the family was sent off and morning mimosas were poured. The four of us toasted to ourselves on a balcony overlooking the square of city block we’d spent the previous four years. We gulped it all down.

We showed up late and seemed early, traded our names for robes and other rituals. We were lined up, arranged, re-arranged, and led on an audience-less parade across the quad.

Other people’s parents bombarded us inside the theatre, waving frantically and flashing cameras in our faces. People we hadn’t heard of, deans and presidents listed on calendars but never seen or spoken to, gave the same speeches they’d given at the morning edition and would again at the third ceremony later that afternoon.

We were told again to stand and walk across the stage, shake hands with further faceless academics. Finally, at the edge of the room a final hand reaches out, this time familiar from so many Thursday afternoons in his classroom where we shared our secrets and our words.

So he smiles and says, “you’ve made it,” and I pull back my hand and give him a hug. Follow the path off stage, check spelling (R-U-S-S-M-A-R-T-I-N), shake head and say to self, “Yeah. I guess I did.”

Spotted: Miss Robyn Urback snaps a shot of herself in the midst of the inevitable aftermath of that champagne toast we gave the other day.

Post grad we're quickly realizing j-school fools have two options: marry rich or die young.

The last supper

All this waiting has been enough to make my stomach growl. So as I flip on my stove’s front element and set it to high, prepping dinner, I think to myself: it’s about time.

Three months ago I wrote, “This is the first of many meals to be discussed, dissected, and devoured.” Well, each course of my meal is finished. This morning with the click of a mouse my final feature at j-school went up on Rabble.

I set out to discover the dining set in Toronto that has moved onto the web. Bloggers, restaurant owners, chefs, and critics invited me into their world. Morning meetings brought the best coffee that has swam over my underdeveloped taste buds. Evenings meant dinners or a drink at an industry event.

I visited old restaurants and consumed new media. Each day I’d wake up to a full feed of the new foodies I’d started to follow on twitter. But the semester has come and gone, and with it my story. Another copy, with the photos posted here, will run in Futureale come May—along with Lauren’s column on Cowbell’s butchery sessions.

If we have to bring out the dinner mints (though Lauren says they ruin the good dining taste) now is the time. The marks are in, the story is up; I’m pleased with what I’ve done.

Thanks to all that picked up my calls, sat in front of my camera; offered interest and answered questions. In a city so easy to get lost in, this community is undeniably tight knit and vibrant.

To all the food friends I’ve made over this semester: I’ll see you on twitter.

*all photos are by Ryan Couldrey

Our era ends

Sneakers, a bowtie, and black polka dots under a shining smoking jacket, I grinned like the boyfriend the Betsey girls didn’t have back in high school. Prom night. Time for sloppy wet kisses, screaming sentimental secrets, and dance floor anthems we’ll never forget the words to.

It was the last dance. We threw it ourselves, knowing our school is not the type for banquets or balls, homecoming or black-tie affairs. We rented out a bar. J-Prom, Carly called it, as she handed out little red tickets during our last days of lecture hall.

We cabbed west on College, finding a tiny bar filled with familiar faces, ribbons and balloons. Knowing we wouldn’t be all together like this again until convocation, if ever, we bought each other drinks, toasted to semesters past, then to moment; finally the future.

We chose our most likely to: become a CBCelebrity, take down the man, and teach our kids when they go to college years from now. (For medicine or law, we hope, anything but what we did.)

The DJ spun a few last classics always requested at prom, and we filled the floor, wrapping our arms around each other, and spitting out the lyrics.

So we crooned: A singer in a smoky room, a smell of wine and cheap perfume. For a smile they can share the night. It goes on and on and on and on…

And we held on to that feeling.

It’s all about to pop

Four years ends right here. With the pop of a bottle we raised a glass of street-side bubbly to all those endless classes and one final exam. We shrugged off all those a, b, and all of the aboves: gave hugs, high-fives, and smiles.

We did it. The final features have been pumped onto the web and printed out on glossy magazine pages. Documentaries have been cut and screened. Our CVs are stocked, jobs have been won or lost; new plans made to replace our school days.

With that it was off the pub for pitchers of beer, time to get hazy and say all those things we’d been meaning to mention over a semester spent grunting hellos and rushing off to finish what we started.

As we looked around the patio the faces we saw weren’t the ones we’d heard about back home when we announced we’d be heading off to journalism school. Not competitive bastards inching their way to top the media ladder. Instead we’d found shoulders to lean on, friends to act as editors: people we needed.

And when I got home I found two I’d leaned on all semester. One fast asleep in my bed, another using my scanner, both glad I’d returned. Though we’ll soon walk in different directions, I promise to them: I’ll always return.

See you bastards tonight at prom.

Final days of fashion

All month they have been counting down the days, just like they always do. I hear this spring the Ryerson fashion students had their collection due date printed on t-shirts to wear to sewing lab sleep-overs.

For them, Mass Exodus is the time bomb that ticks closer all of senior year. Then in April they invite everyone to theatre: turn up the stereo and dim down the lights. This year they opened with a movie by Miles, had Zed's Dead pick the mix.

The commercial work was executed well enough, but costumes caught the eye. Models were masked and given shin guards for protection, foxes crawled up legs towards shining metal sleeves. Jade took a trip round the world with her global backpacker collection, and made windbreakers out of recycled tents.

Kitty played with gendered shapes, wrote a modern love-letter to Virgina Woolf. And Carte Blanche should watch out, because it looks like Amanda Lew Kee wants to dress all the black tights-and-sheered bad things about the city. Or maybe call--she'd probably intern.

On the web I see pictures from one last party the girls held where everyone had to dress uncoordinated, and refrain from talking academics. The theme? Fuck fashion.

Looks are below:

Tiffany Kwok's Scarlet Lune

Kitty Wong's essay on Virigina Woolf

The bad girls by Amanda Lew Kee

Heather Constable's fantasy forest

Foxes don't scream when they die
(more Constable)

My favourite models are straight out of A Secret Garden
(Robyn Levin)