Cover Concept

Tim Langendorf

Cover photograph, design & post production

Mark Dallas

Models

(inside the cage l-r)

Nicolas, Elisa, Regiane, Tim, Abril

(outside the cage)

Mark

Layout

Elisa Boscarato

Mark Dallas

Layout Assistant

Abril Martinez Ruiz

FUTURE PERFECT

Issue #10: Apr '14 Send comments to futureperfect.editor@gmail.com

What Gets You out of Bed Every Morning?Abril Martinez Ruiz

Toronto Dancing CityElisa Boscarato

Freedom in the WorkplaceNicolas Vecchio Milovich

To be Developed or not to be Developed; That is the Question Regiane da Silva Ferreira

ThoughtmakerRivka Lopes Pereira

One Man's trashTiago Langendorf de Souza

Mirror, MirrorRegiane da Silva Ferreira

Coffee: Habit, Ritual or Pleasure? Elisa Boscarato

Welcome, Spring!Rivka Lopes Pereira

The World In A Bottle. Tiago Langendorf de Souza Where the Money Went

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THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS

Abril Maria Martinez Ruiz

Elisa Boscarato

Nicolas Vecchio Milovich

Regiane da Silva Ferreira

Rivka Lopes Pereira

Tiago Langendorf de Souza

Nien-Fei Hsieh

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Foreword

Dear Reader,

Thank you for buying this, our tenth, issue of Future Perfect. It is, with-out doubt, our largest compilation of Journalism student work to date. But I assure you: the articles that follow will not disappoint on the basis of quality.

Our general theme in the Concrete Metastasis Issue deals with, as its title suggests, ways of living (or surviving) and growing older in cities.

According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “the number of people living in [cities] (3.42 billion) [has] surpassed the number living in [the countryside] (3.41 billion),” and the world is be-coming more urban than rural. This means we have finally become a predominantly city-dwelling species.

In this issue, we explore the various methods we humans have crafted over the past few thousand years to help us make life in a fast-paced close-proximity setting more bearable, and we look to the future to see what might be possible.

Mark Dallas

Editor

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By Abril Martinez Ruiz

After hitting the alarm clock three times, I wake up at 6:00 am, take a shower, drink a cup of coffee, put my lunch bag in my purse and go to the subway station. I am inside the subway, barely breathing because of the density of the rush-hour crowd. I get out of the subway, arrive at work, deal with my co-workers and attend lots of meetings. After all of the daily job stress, I am there again in the middle of the subway train, again barely breathing, and the subway stops because of a mechanical problem… ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Why do I bother to get out of bed each morning?

Most people have strong motivations and passions to wake up every morning and to dream about every

night to endure and inspire their lives. What are these reasons? Does it depend on something external or is it just something inherently internal? And do those motivations change over time or remain the same? And what about age, gender and country of origin? What other factors can influence our motivations? To clarify some of the answers to these questions, I decided to interview some people. But before I reveal the interesting and surprising results, let's clarify what ‘motivation’ means. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines it as: “[Acting] in a direct way due to a motive" and ‘motive’ as: "Tending to initiate movement, concerned with movement."

We can conclude that motivation is about acting on initiative. In my survey, I listed 8 motivations: personal growth and development; love and family welfare; personal self-realization; health; religion and faith; to fulfill a dream; to earn more money and buy more belongings and hobbies and interests.

I asked 35 people to put in order of importance the 8 categories. I found it really interesting that 60% of the 35 respondents took more than 10 minutes to complete the survey! Some of them even commented that they were uncertain about what their main motivations were but still answered the survey.

What gets you outof bed every morning?

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Let´s review the results:68% chose personal growth and development or family welfare and love as their main motivators. 36% chose personal self-realization in 2nd place of importance. In 3rd and 4th place respectively were fulfilling a dream and earning more money & buying more belongings. In 5th and 6th place were health and hobbies & interests. 56% of the total sample chose religion and faith as the least important motivation for them. After analyzing the results and talking in depth with some of the respondents, I concluded that their

principal motivations were based on the welfare of the people around them, and on having internal and external life balance. Most respondents commented that their motivations have changed over time, some of the main drivers being their priorities, goals, emotional and personal situation at that moment, as well as age. They said that, as they grew older, their motivations became much more focused on their families than when they were younger, because back then they were more focused on personal growth and fulfilling a dream.

What about you? What gets you out of bed every morning? If you haven´t already done so, Irecommend you think about it and get it clear in your mind because it will help you to be more focused on clear goals, and the most important thing in all of this is that it will insulate you from the insanity of your day-to-day life.

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By Elisa Boscarato

“This order is all composed of movement and change, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to dance, an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations”. Jane Jacobs

Is Toronto a liveable city? Considering Jane Jacobs quote could we consider it a dancing city?

Let’s have a look to the skyline of Toronto!

Nowadays cities are facing changes: the worldwide trend is towards bigger and higher. Evolution in contemporary cities is, of course, a necessary condition, due to the increase

of the population and its consequent need of housing due to economical growth and technology, which leads the city towards the direction of “smart cities”.

What are the effects of these changes? What’s happening to the image of the city: is it more recognizable or has it lost its character?

As a result of the change of the skyline, we have a more recognizable city in the world, if we look at a “high rise downtown” as a symbol of richness and economic growth. All over the world, cities continue to compete for the highest structures. Many European cities, for example, have for aesthetic reasons passed restrictive laws limiting building height to preserve the character of their historic downtown cores. Some cities, such as Toronto, have enacted temporary height restriction by-laws, fearing the impact that tall buildings will have on the quality of life, where recently a lot of older buildings have

been destroyed in favour of something newer.Often this replacement takes place without considering the old buildings value and without trying to consider other options, as for example the restoration of the old one in order to leave traces of the original settlement.

If we walk in a city of skyscrapers, a sense of alienation can occur. The feeling of isolation is a consequence of the lost relationship between humans and buildings.It seems that they don’t belong to the city anymore because they don’t easily meld with the “urban tissue”. They are usually a replacement of old low rise buildings or small houses that are sometimes a more valuable, vital part of the city core, representative of a community’s identity. Sometimes some neighbourhoods just need to be revitalized in order to improve their quality of life; it’s not necessary to destroy it all.

Toronto dancing city

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Unfortunately the proliferation of skyscrapers is probably a trend that we can’t stop, but it’s possible to try to involve them in to the city grids in order to integrate them and make them able to aggregate residents and tourist of the city.These structures need to interact with the streets, neighbouring buildings, and transportation systems around them, need to be sewn into the urban fabric. It is important to create urban diversity and thereby improve the quality of life of city inhabitants rather then create mono functional districts leading to feeling of isolation.

Anthropologist and urbanist Jane Jacobs, who wrote about a community-based approach to city building, introducing ground breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve and can fail.Jane Jacobs, thought that mixed use, frequented streets, varied buildings, and concentration help cities to live and thrive. That’s the reason why we can consider Toronto (even with its skyscrapers) quite a successful city: its neighbourhoods are distinct and plentiful. The city’s residents come from all over the world, bringing cuisines and traditions with them as they put down new roots.

The city core is active and alive as opposed to a downtown that stagnates after office hours: every day of the week at anytime is quite crowded and is not only made up of high-end retail and world-class restaurants, but also schools

and cultural centre. Its vitality, variety and diversity of ages, nationalities, cuisines and lifestyles make Toronto a great place to live.

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Everybody knows about the workplace, but how many of us know how much it has changed over the years? Advances to technology, ways of management, rights, and politics have affected the places where we work and spend a large part of our time.

According to Andy Greenberg, Senior Vice President of Product Development for Global Fit, “Many companies start with on-site changes. For example, they ban smoking on the premises, serving healthier meals in the cafeteria, and stock vending machines with healthy food. Some companies provide gym facilities or subsidize memberships at nearby fitness centres. Others

may bring in professionals to discuss health-related topics or offer on-site medical screenings to help employees to evaluate, and follow a healthier life. Some employers develop programs to promote weight loss or stress relief. But before implementing such measures leaders should consider how the activities

Freedom in workplace

By Nicolas Vecchio Milovich

like e-learning, women are also learning new skills that will come in handy in today's advancing globalized world. Work in the 1960s revolved around a nine-to-five workday, men supported their wives and children at home and jobs usually involved physical labour.”

The 1960s marked the start of the Women's Liberation Movement, which brought wives and mothers out of the home and into part-time work, previously unheard of. In 1961, 34% of women were employed (59% today). Those that were married wouldn't have been employed by the public service, which did not lift its ban on hiring married women until 1966. This was around the time the contraceptive pill went on sale in many countries, which gave women greater choice of when and how many children they were going to have and therefore their ability to participate in the workforce. In addition to this, union gains in many countries resulted in bringing the benefit of maternal (and

relate to long-term health objectives.”

The growing access of the web in the late 20th century has allowed everyone to empower themselves by using various tools on the Internet. With the introduction of the World Wide Web, we began to use social networking sites such as Facebook, and Twitter to expand our connections and even to enable us to participate in online activism. This especially improved conditions for many women seeking to acquire skills and qualifications in order to increase their potential of climbing the career ladder. Radovic-Markovic explains in his book The New Alternative Women’s Entrepreneurship Education, “With the easy accessibility and affordability of e-learning (electronic learning), women can now study from the comfort of their home anywhere, anytime. By empowering themselves educationally through new technologies

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a key factor, but employers now have to cast the net wider than they did 50 years ago by advertising positions. “A lot of recruiting was done by … who you know. If someone could recommend you,” he said, “there was a reasonably substantial

eventually also paternal) leave, allowing them to remain in their jobs while also having a family.

Most of the jobs in the 1960s were in production such as agriculture or manufacturing, which

Overseas migrants, who have the skills employers need, are now sponsored to work in many countries.

Unions have had a fundamental role in getting these rights; their gains have put workers in a better situation than before. They fought for and introduced the 5-day workweek, the 8-hour day, healthcare benefits, sick days, vacation pay, parental leave, equal pay for women, and in the case of unionized companies, seniority.

employed 46% of workers. Now that proportion is just 23%, the other 77% employed through the service industry. Tony Robins, founder of a recruitment agency in Adelaide, said many more positions are advertised today than when he first entered the industry 47 years ago. Word of mouth is still

workforce available for work. There wasn't a huge shortage of skills. There's a huge shortage now of people who have skills.” Only Chief Executives or those reporting to them were headhunted in the 1960s, with most senior staff working their way up within the company.

I believe that these changes have especially had a positive effect for every employee due to the improvement of the working environment, health insurance, and workers’ rights, not to mention facilities such as kitchens, games rooms, and also flexibility in the dress code that can allow workers more comfort.

Everyone knows a happy worker is a good worker!

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Developed countries have more natural resources.

But what does it means to be developed? To develop in general terms means to become mature, for example, the human body, an idea, and so on. However, when we discuss developed countries, we are talking about economic maturity. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, "economic development is the process whereby simple, low-income national economies are transformed into modern industrial economies. Although the term is sometimes used as a synonym for economic growth,

generally it is employed to describe a change in a country’s economy involving qualitative as well as quantitativeimprovements"1. So development can be understood as progress towards a better world, and in the same way, it means that humankind is evolving, which is usually understood to mean it is getting better. After the Industrial Revolution, the world changed so fast in all senses. The capitalist system imposed a new way of life, and for some people, a wonderful lifestyle. On Earth, so many things had never been produced, and

1 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178361/economic-development access on April 4 , 2014.

By Regiane da Silva Ferreira

oil. But this resource is not renewable. It will finish one day, creating serious economic problems for these countries that depend on this kind of natural resource. Water is another natural resource that needs to be preserved wisely because it is primordial to all kinds of life. But at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the United Nations is talking about a water crisis. The brutal exploration of natural resources causes a big

in the same way, society had never produced so much garbage. But natural resources had never been destroyed in such a short period. This paradigm of development is making some countries such as Brazil, India, China and Saudi Arabia explore their natural resources irresponsibly in order to make money and to have a good position in economic ranking. Brazil and Saudi Arabia, for example, are exploring their

Figure 1: Water stress indicator < http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/figure-3-2.html>

To be Developed or not to be Developed; that is the Question

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problem in many parts of the world. For example, forests are becoming deserts. In spite of water being a renewable resource, people are polluting it quicker than it can be renewed. But humankind needs natural resources, mainly freshwater, to maintain their existence.

According to Figure 2, Brazil, Canada and Russia have renewable water resources. Journalist Ruby Pratka said that Canada has more freshwater “than almost any other [country] on Earth”2. Brazil, for example, has a part of the Guarani Aquifer, which is considered one of biggest freshwater resources in the world.

Figure 2: Countries by Total Renewable Water Resources <http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-fresh-water-supply-map.html>

2 http://rabble.ca/news/2012/03/reservations-about-water-canadas-reserves.

Another journalist, Annabel Symington explains that “the Guarani Aquifer in South America is a huge underground reservoir that lies under Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, covering an area of land the size of Texas and California combined”3.

So when governments argue that it is important to cut down trees, making the forest smaller, and to build hydroelectric dams, devastating the rich ecosystem of the Amazon forest, it is making a big mistake. It is becoming undeveloped.

Development is not a dogma: we can question it. The economic theory of development is a way to explain the world, but it is not the only way. The Greek word θεωρία (theory) means "a looking at, viewing, beholding"4 , a way of seeing the world. Destroy natural resources essential to human life because it is good for business doesn’t make sense. I claim that developed countries are the countries that have more natural resources and they need to develop a conscience before it is too late. You can’t eat money.

3 http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/04/13/the-guarani-aquifer-a-little-known-water-resource-in-south- america-gets-a-voice/

4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

Figure 3: Aquifer Guarani <http://www.aguagrande.com.br/public/noticia/index/id_noticia/167>

A lot of scientists are arguing that extracting natural resources without responsibility will cause the end of the world, our apocalypse.

 

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When I asked Deadboy what his principal

objective was, the notorious Torontonian street artist quickly responded,

“To make people think”.

By Rivka Lopes Pereira

Thoughtmaker

Deadboy began his controversial urban art career in the city with an introspective angle in mind. It was in June 2011 during a G20 event when his attention became focused on criticising society’s behavior through his favourite hobby—drawing.

“At that moment, I wasn’t involved in any protesting, but since I realized that we can change a lot of things by signs, I felt the need to take back my city. Street art does it for me.” Influenced by SAMO, Blek le Rat and especially Banksy, Deadboy is known for his strong appetite for ironically commenting on common urban problems such as racism, poverty, crime and political events.

“The movie Exit through the Gift Shop was a major influence because it showed me the possibilities and some amazing examples of artwork and unknown artists.” From that moment on, he started to put his opinion up on walls.However, to better organize his work, Deadboy creates a lot by hand. The artist is also recognized for his painstaking manual process, paying great attention to specific details in his paintings. Even though it takes longer, he doesn’t mind skipping sleep at night to get

things done. The materials he regularly uses are Bristol Board and, when he knows he’s going to repeat a piece many times, corrugated cardboard. “It is my ideal stencil material simply because it is not too hard to cut in details and I do everything by hand.”Deadboy has a lot of different kinds of paintings around Toronto, but it was his Rob Ford stencils in particular that turned citizens’ attention

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to the artist. When the mayor of Toronto announced that one of his goals was to clean tagged walls in the city, Deadboy immediately started to fight back by drawing on them even more. “Street art represents freedom. Being able to put my work out there for people to see and judge by

themselves is a great feeling and everyone has that right. Once one tries to stop it, liberty is finished.”Thus Deadboy creates a dialogue between streets and art with the intention to make people stop for a minute to take a look. “It makes me want to do more

with my own creativity, and think outside the box, which more people need to do.” Just the fact his work causes people to discuss it and sprout ideas is enough motivation to get him out of bed every morning. “Street Art makes me feel happy because I can be walking home after a shitty

day at work, but then my eyes see a cool sticker or a new piece of graffiti. I stop thinking about how bad the day was for a second. I hope I can give others that same kind of experience. I also like doing some work that questions things like religion and politics, which always

provoke people in certain ways. This is good because regardless of whether you love or hate my work, as long as you think for a second, I'm happy.”

Beyond this, street art is an original way to renew a city’s appearance because people notice streets are prettier than before. Moreover, adding colour

and urban interventions to anything makes it more interesting because it is a form to contrast with the visual pollution provided by the thousands of advertisements all around us. In contrast, street art is a break from that because it doesn’t try to sell us anything, but gives us a moment of beauty that might not have been there before.

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By Tiago Langendorf de Souza

One Man's trash

Five years ago I heard the term ‘freeganism’ for the first time. I was in Porto Alegre, Brazil hanging around in the mall with a few friends, and I couldn’t let a couple at a table beside us put a whole portion of fries in the garbage, especially because I was really hungry, and there was a huge group of homeless people just outside the building. After I took the fries, one of my friends called me a freegan. I asked him what it meant, but he didn’t know exactly how to explain it properly, but it was enough to make me seek more information.

Freegans, also known as dumpster divers, skippers or binners are people who found a way to avoid a life based on consumerism, a cycle of

working, spending, trashing and buying again that seems inescapable nowadays. Volunteering instead of working, scavenging instead of buying and squatting instead of renting: that’s what freegans stand for. An uninformed person will think they’re just homeless guys that eat out of the trash, but they’re normally people who could easily afford their own food and just want to be distant from the oppression of capitalism.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO), about one third of global food production (around 30 to 40%), is lost or wasted annually. In developed countries, at retail level, large quantities of food

are wasted due to quality standards that emphasize appearance. Consumers in rich nations are encouraged to buy more food than they really need and fail to plan their food purchases. In developing countries the situation is the same, but the motives differ, the problem is essentially due to inadequate harvest techniques, poor management, lack of suitable infrastructure and lack of marketing information. Dumpster diving is a reasonable and simple alternative that anyone can do to ease this damage.

Toronto is a rich environment for dumpster divers. Lots of furniture, clothes and household items can often be seen lying on the street (I found myself a perfect suitcase on a corner of Bathurst Street) and huge amounts of food are cast off by restaurants and citizens every day. I had the chance to meet Jason, a brilliant guy who is raising four kids by only dumpster diving and growing food from his own kitchen garden.

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Jason told me he’s been a freecycle-based dumpster diver most of his life. If he sees something useful being thrown out, he’ll grab it, but just started dumpstering food about five years ago and claims that there’s no secret to scavenging food. “Basically, you should check all dumpsters regularly to get a sense of what gets tossed. Go with a buddy or two, carry a flashlight, plastic bags, a knapsack, wear gloves and always make sure to leave the dumpster area as clean as (or cleaner than) when you found it. If you’re respectful to the establishment where you’re diverting trash resources, they will never be mad about what you are doing, and maybe you can even establish a relationship in order to pre-empt the dumpster entirely.”

He’s also a co-founding member of the Torontonian branch of Food Not Bombs, an international organization that stands for solidarity instead of charity

and is dedicated to engaging in direct action to change society so that no one is forced to stand in line to eat at a soup kitchen, striving to create a community that cooks and eats together. More information can be found on their website (http://www.foodnotbombs.net/) or on the Toronto Food Not Bombs group on Facebook.

But sometimes these groups face some issues due to their activities. In many cities, including Toronto, dumpster diving is illegal and taking food from dumpsters leaves the restaurants or food outlets liable if someone gets ill from the food, and it’s also considered stealing, which sometimes makes the lives of these entrepreneurs who try to open our eyes to our prodigality a dangerous journey.

There’s still a long way till dumpster diving becomes a trend and people realize that something needs to be done. Dumpster diving is not only about saving the environment and helping

those in necessity. More important than that is helping ourselves, setting us free from the chains of indiscriminately buying; spending hours in a job we don’t like in order to spend our money on things we’ve seen on TV and don’t even need, just to impress people we don’t care about.

- by AJCGN, on Flickr. -

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By Regiane da Silva Ferreira

Mirror, Mirror

What would you do if scientists had found the fountain of youth? Time would not be a problem. Wouldn’t that be nice? But until now, the fountain of youth is just a good theme which has inspired screenwriters such as Andrew Niccol, who wrote and produced the movie ‘In Time’. He tells us a story about people who stop aging at 25 years old and time is a problem for poor people who need to fight to survive. Actually, he made a joke: characters exchange food and so on for time. For example, coffee costs three minutes. Rich people can live forever, but poor people can die at any moment. The idea of being young forever is an ancient one.

It was ever present in literature. Writers have talked about the fountain of youth, which had water to restore the drinkers of its magical water to their former selves. Wikipedia states that “tales of such a fountain have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, appearing in writings by Herodotus (5th century BC), the Alexander romance (3rd century CE), and the stories of Prester John (early Crusades, 11th/12th centuries CE). Stories of similar waters were also evidently prominent among the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration (early 15th century), who spoke of the restorative powers of the water in the mythical land of Bimini.”

The German fairy tale Snow White, written by the Grimm brothers, has already told us the dilemma of getting old, mainly for women. Everyone knows the famous phrase:

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is fairest of them all?”

"I am aging" and φόβος, phobos, "fear"), which is an abnormal or persistent fear of growing old or aging. One year ago, I was scared after seeing myself in the mirror and seeing a different face because I realized that I was becoming an old woman.

Being the most beautiful means being young. It was the queen’s wish. So fear of being old is an issue present in many societies. The Greeks called this Gerascophobia (Greek: θα γεράσω, gerazo,

I immediately remembered what an elderly friend told me about getting old. One time, he said, “When you get old, usually, people avoid touching you, talking to you, so respect yourself because they look

32 33at you as a person that they would not like to become in the future”. In Latin American cultures, people usually touch each other to demonstrate familiarity and friendliness, for example, they greet with kisses on the cheek(s) and sometimes with a hug. At the same moment, I was reading a famous novel `La femme de trente ans` (Woman of Thirty), written by Honoré de Balzac, who describes each phase of a woman`s life in France in the first part of the nineteenth

century. He tells us what happened to Julie when she got old. She knew everything about life, but no one would listen to her. She saw young people committing the same mistakes, but she couldn’t do anything about it, and finally she was alone, waiting for death. Before, she was beautiful and sexy; after, however, she maintained her elegance and charm. She had wrinkles as a mark of experience. I thought I could not get old, but I was not alone. My sister, who is 20 years old, told me

that she would like to study pharmacology because she would like to discover a formula to avoid getting old. After that, I was talking to my friend about the future. He is 23 years old, and he would like to be a famous actor. He told me that he had a fear of getting old, because in Brazil you have to be young to become successful in this career, mainly, if you want to get a job in television. Then I decided to look for a kind of modern fountain of youth. Nowadays, we use technology instead of magic. I read so much about it. I learned about medicines, types of exercise and plastic surgery. However, plastic surgery is definitely our fountain of youth: it’s an illusion of youth. In my country, for example, as Teresa Huyzers mentioned, “plastic surgery is considered a right”. Miss Brazil, Juliana Borges, is 22 years old, and she has had 19 surgical procedures, including collagen injections in her lips and silicone implants in her breasts, cheeks and chin. She said,

“You study and you work hard to have a perfect body”. Last year, a girl that studied with me at university won the beauty contest Miss Rio de Janeiro. Women and men admire her, and everyone was talking about her. Men tried to win her affections, and women felt envious of her, sometimes whispering, “She is not that beautiful. I am more beautiful than her”. In past patriarchal societies, being beautiful was a woman`s power, mainly to get a husband because it meant they would get a good social position. In the early 1900s, there was a period for women to get married and have children, which if it had gone, she would have lost her chance, and she would live with her family for the rest of their lives. Nowadays in some places, women do not need to get married to have a good social position. They can study and get a job, but they think that they need to be beautiful and sexy. It is an

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unconscious thing. However, these days women and men would like to be attractive according to a standard. When you obey the rules of the world of beauty, you have public esteem. If young people are competing for beauty and to be admired, they will be depressed when they get old because they will be marginalized.According to scientist Nancy Brossoie, “throughout history, older adults have been generally valued for their experience, insight, and the wisdom they can share with others. Leadership is frequently bestowed upon older adults because of a social belief that wisdom and experience are acquired over time.”However, she continues, “…conferring respect and responsibilities to older adults has not always been consistent. It tends to occur more in pre-industrial or agrarian societies, where families are intergenerational and members are dependent on one another for survival and support”. Getting old is a natural thing.

Everyone is born, grows up, gets old and dies. Actually, anyone can die at any moment. Sophocles defined human nature in his play King Oedipus through the protagonist’s words when he answers the riddle of the sphinx: “What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” Oedipus answers, “Humans. As babies, they crawl on hands and feet. If all goes well, they learn to stand up and walk on two feet as adults. And in old age, as their balance falters, they use a stick as their third foot.”So getting old is inevitable. But our perspective can change. According to the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, “…the global population of people ages 65 and older is expected to triple to 1.5 billion by mid-century”. For this reason, there is now a specific science to study aging, called gerontology. Scientist Nancy Brossoie explains it as “the biological, psychological, and sociological

(biopsychosocial) factors associated with old age and aging.” She goes on to say, “The factors that affect how we age are broad in scope and diverse: biological factors include genetic background and physical health; psychological influences include level of cognition, mental health status, and general well being; and sociological range from personal relationships to the cultures, policies, and infrastructure that organize society”.The global population is definitely on the brink of a remarkable transformation.

We need to change our point of view about getting old. Once, a friend told me about his elderly aunt. She

was charming, elegant, intelligent, but mainly, she was wise. She could talk about anything to anyone and people immediately fell in love with her. It was hard to believe that she was eighty-nine years old, just as in the song A Lady Of A Certain Age by the Divine Comedy: “And if a nice young man would buy you a drink,You'd say with a conspiratorial wink,"You wouldn't think that I was seventy."And he'd say, "No, you couldn't be!"

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By Elisa Boscarato

• Coffee is a brewed bever-age prepared from the roasted or baked seeds of several species of an evergreen shrub of Coffea

• According to some myth coffee was first discovered in or around the 9th century in Ethiopia by a young goatherd. He noticed that his goats liked to graze upon ber-ries, which seemed to have inter-esting side effects! They boiled them with water and soon realized the stimulating potential of the brew. This new brew spread into Egypt and into the Arabian pen-insula, where coffee travelled east and west, finally landing in south-east Asia and the Americas.

• Coffee trees blossom with white flowers in spring, which give way to small green beans. They ripen in to a full-blown “cherry” by fall. The outer husk of the cherries is fully removed, leaving a green bean waiting to be roasted. Roasting turns the green bean in to the dark coffee we know, and can be light, medium, dark, or somewhere in between, depending on taste. The final product is a bag

of beans put in your shopping cart or used to make a drink at your lo-cal cafe.

• Coffeeisgrowninmorethan50 countries around the world:while the plant that produces the beans is native to tropical east Af-rica, two main species of coffee—Coffea arabica and C. canephora, or C. robusta—are now grown in nearly every tropical region. Bra-zil and Vietnam lead production, which amounts globally to more than 150 million 132-pound bags per year.

Therearemorethan500bil-lion cups, worldwide, ofcoffeeservedeveryyear.2/3of the world's populationdrinkscoffee.

Drinking coffee is one of the habits of more than half of the world’s population, and its consumption has risen is such a way that it has become the second most demanded commodity after oil. In fact, many people demand that they have it before they will even speak to someone. Are we addicted to coffee?Known for its simplicity in its raw state and its presence in almost every country, cof-fee takes a wide and infinite range of forms throughout the world.

Every culture and place through time has personal-ized this simple beverage. Travelling around the world will let you discover a lot of different ways to drink cof-fee: with milk or without, with sugar, cream, espresso, cappuccino, and so on…there are infinite combina-tions and possibilities!Coffee dominates the morn-ing hours almost everywhere in the world. For many peo-ple, the day can’t start with-out a cup of coffee: on the way to somewhere, enjoy-ing it sitting down in a café,

Coffee Break Habit, Ritual or Pleasure?

ITALYespresso and espresso machine birthgiven

IRELANDalchoolic coffee with whisky known as irish coffee

NORTH AMERICAcoffee distribution through franchising network

ETHIOPIA native homeland to the Coffea genus.people here have been drinking coffee for more then 1,000 year

BRAZILThe biggest world producer is Brazil, who makes about 15% of the coffee global market.

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tasting it in your home, still in your pyjamas, or drink-ing it as soon as you get to your workplace, according to your personal habits.For many people, having a break at a certain point in the day or after a meal, a cup of coffee or espresso is a time to relax for a moment from their activities. The ritual has become not only a basic ges-ture of hospitality, but also a celebration of being together. In many cultures, the ritu-als of tea and coffee drink-ing also have religious or spiritual significance, as for examples. For people living in West Asia, and in some parts of Eastern Europe, the sludgy grounds left in the bottom of the cups are some-times “read” to predict the coffee drinker’s fortune. Ara-bian monks first used it as medicine and also for medi-tation. But many of us have become so dependent upon its effects that it has become more of a crutch than a ritual.For the majority or people, coffee has become a daily need, part of the normal ac-tivity, like eating, and they

probably don’t even think that they can be addicted to caffeine. In fact, accord-ing to a survey I carried out at school, 70% of the coffee drinkers I asked don’t con-sider themselves as being ad-dicted to caffeine. Do we have to consider this as an addiction?

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).Why is caffeine addictive? The reason comes from the way the drug affects the hu-man brain, producing a feel-ing of alertness. Soon after you drink something con-taining caffeine, it’s absorbed through the small intestine and dissolved into the blood, finally arriving at the brain.Structurally, caffeine closely

resembles a molecule that’s naturally present in our brain, called adenosine so much so, in fact, that caf-feine can fit neatly into our brain cells’ receptors for ad-enosine, effectively block-ing them off. Normally, the adenosine produced over time locks into these recep-

tors and produces a feeling of tiredness. When caffeine molecules are blocking those receptors, they generate a sense of alertness and energy for a few hours. Anyway, caffeine addicts, don’t be afraid! Compared to many drug addictions, the effects are relatively short-term. To kick the habit, you only need to get through about 7-12 days of symp-toms without drinking any caffeine.

During that period, your brain will naturally decrease the number of adenosine receptors on each cell, re-sponding to the sudden lack of caffeine ingestion.So if you think you can kick the coffee bean addic-tion, take the 12-day detox challenge...I surely won't!

Like many drugs, caffeine is chemically addictive, a fact that scientists established back in 1994. Caffeine with-drawal was finally included as a mental disorder for the first time, with the publica-tion of the 5th edition of the

How often do ILSC stUdents drink coffee?

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Welcome, Spring!

Good weather affects people all around the world. It is difficult to find someone who doesn’t get inspired when flowers bloom in the trees or the sun can clearly be noticed in the sky. Even animals usually fly and run to and fro with a lighter mood. We are in Canada,

recognized as one of the coldest countries in the world. Spring arrived at the end of March and, despite negative temperatures, Canadians started to wear their sunglasses to celebrate the new season’s arrival. The snow melted on the floor and the sun is going down later. By the way, which kind of activities do people do in warmer weather in Canada and other places? Jarin from Bangladesh, for example, has lived in Toronto for six years. She likes to admire the sun out in parks, riding her bicycle or simply walking around neighbourhoods. “After four months almost in the dark, I don’t need to put my alarm on to get up out of bed early, and I can appreciate the sun’s presence

By Rivka Lopes Pereira

until eight o’clock”, says the 25-year-old girl, who spends her days around Kensington Market.However, it’s not just Jarin whose mood changes in spring time. Canadians Douglas and Duff both usually pick their guitars up and go to parks to play and have some fun together. Duff told me, “More than hotter weather, I like the feeling of being together with friends just relaxing in an open-air place. Moreover, we can meet more people and make new friends.” On the other hand, other countries around the world celebrate the end of winter

with different activities as well. Some of them follow their culture, as in Argentina, where people usually go to the beaches. “Our winter reaches 10 degrees (above). When the weather gets better, we often go to Pinamar or Mar del Plata, two famous beaches with beautiful landscapes and friendly people,” says Nicolas from Buenos Aires.Europeans, more precisely Italians, like to have barbecues in their backyards or parks. “Streets are the first that change with increased temperatures. Because of this, people go to

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have their meals outside”, says architect Elisa from Milan. In contrast, Taiwanese still enjoy hot weather, but indoors. “Our winter is short and the minimum temperature reaches 7 degrees centigrade. By contrast, our summer is humid and goes up to 37 degrees, which makes people stay indoors with the air conditioner turned on,” relates Nien Fei. She says that the high humidity makes you sweat a lot during exercise, unless it is water activities.

“That’s why most of our summer activities involve water and other refreshing sports”.All around the world people try to enjoy the best options in each season. It doesn’t matter if you live in a cold or a hot country, you will always find good alternatives to have some fun or maybe improve your personal skills, as in São Paulo, Brazil, where some people go to a bookstore located in the principal avenue of the city and drink coffee while reading a book or magazine. They usually do this in the ‘cold’ weather,

which reaches a minimum of around 5 degrees centigrade. “Although our winter it is not that hard, people really feel cold on the street and do specific activities during this time, such as going to the movies, cozy bars and restaurants or vintage bookstores around downtown São Paulo,” says Paulistana Jessica.You can do interesting and different things in all seasons. You just have to have the disposition and imagination to crave the best entertainment in the place that you are in. It doesn’t matter if it is in parks, on

beaches, in the mountains, restaurants, cafés or at the movies, as long as you are with good company and enjoy good humour. Whatever you do, you can have a good time in hot or cold weather.

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By Tiago Langendorf de Souza

The World in a BottleDifferences and similarities between drinking policies around the globe

My father used to say that you only start to know someone for real after his third shot of whisky. I think that he meant alcohol is a mechanism we use to let our thoughts flow freely and to lose ourselves, revealing things we’re usually afraid or too resentful to expose. This is a common sense in my country, Brazil, even though cases of alcohol abuse are a constant issue in our society and nobody seems to really give the proper attention.

Since I got to Toronto, one of the most shocking differ-ences I’ve noticed between Canadian and South Ameri-can culture is the drinking policy imposed by the On-tario government. In contrast with most Latin countries,

here the minimum drinking age is higher; people are in no way allowed to drink out-doors, all the pubs and night-clubs are prohibited to sell li-quor after 2 a.m. and besides these places, the only stores where you can buy any alco-holic beverage are the LCBO shops, regulated by the pro-vincial government and functioning under its policy. It seems to call most of the students’ attention as well, but not for equal reasons. I talked to some of them to un-derstand their point of view about this and find out how the culture of alcohol varies from country to country.

For most Latinos and Euro-peans this is a huge change in their routine. With the majority of these countries

having a minimum drink-ing age between 16 and 18 years old [sometimes none, like Uruguay], many people that used to drink on a regu-lar basis at home are having a hard time in Canada. Some of them started drinking at the age of 14, or even young-er, and it has been difficult to adapt to specific drinking times. “Here the parties are over at the time they’re nor-mally starting in my city” - said a Russian student. In addition, the prohibition to drink outside seems to be

the most challenging change of behavior, given the fact it was one of the most impor-tant social events in their countries. Apart from that, I could see that all of them share the same problems and governmental concern about alcohol in their home-lands: overly-drunk young people causing trouble and a big number of car accidents caused by drinking and driving, especially in South America, where trains and subways are not so acces-sible.

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Meanwhile, Korean students don’t seem to really feel that much of a shock. For them the policies are really similar to Canada, except they don’t have a specific time to close bars and pubs. Even though Koreans are known to be the number one drinkers on earth [an adult usually con-sumes 13.7 shots of liquor per week, according to a Daily Mail recent article] it doesn’t actually interfere in people’s safety. Deeply attached to popular tradition, they de-veloped a myriad of different

drinking games throughout the years and having a drink together is a really important part of co-fraternization and mutual respect. Drinking is a vital ritual in Korean soci-ety and it doesn’t really give the government any traffic issues, thanks to their mag-nificent public transporta-tion system.

The most obvious change is probably felt by students from Muslim countries. Born in a country where drink-

ing is completely prohibited, the majority of the people I interviewed feel really joy-ful to have had the chance to enjoy a drink in a relaxed atmosphere and without fear of judgment. Although they seemed to enjoy their tempo-rary newfound freedom, it also raised concerns for stu-dents. Many explained how worried they were that the introduction of alcohol into the mainstream in their own countries would be accom-panied by a raise in corrup-tion and criminality, as nor-mally happens with illegal drugs, but especially because it’s easy for dealers to find sources outside the country or even produce their own moonshine liquor and sell it in clandestine stores.

After all that, my stance on Torontonian drinking policy suffered an impor-tant change. In comparison with many of the countries I had the chance to learn about, here it seems some balance has been achieved between exacerbation and total closure, a strategy that

is working successfully so far. Whether liquor laws are liberal or conservative, either extreme is likely to have its dangers.This all gave me the thrill of adding a few words to my dad’s adage. It may be true that you only get to know the real person after his third scotch, but I think you also start to lose him after his fourth.

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Where the money went last time...

The December 2013 Journalism Class raised a record $208.60 for the Ontario Association of Food Banks.

Future Perfect #9 Journalists Left–right: Yi-An Chen, Rina Nakazawa, Veronica Arruda Vieira, Youn Min Lee, Aline Fischmann, Louise Burenby, Mark Dallas (Journalism Teacher), Sung Won Park, Carolyn Stewart (Manager, Operations & Finance, OAFB),

and Alejandra Gutierrez De Velasco Medina

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