Into the Void

I had a lot of fun doodling and designing this piece. I originally conceived it while doodling on my new tablet while on the couch with my partner in crime. I’ve also posted this on my Instagram. Software used: Illustrator. Skills practiced: Paint bucket tool is still not the wieldy beast I yearn for it to be. A post shared by K.Vasiliv (@anxi80) on Feb 27, 2017 at 9:07pm PST

Slavo Zizek on President Donald Trump

  Rough Notes: What changed recently? The new technic media (social media) allows people to organize themselves and present their own positions There is no authority on this. Creates a paradox (“paradoxical position”)…. first, we like this because there is absolute free speech. But this also creates a vacuum for fake news (this is the paradox). Distrust of “Official public spaces” and its version of events. Rise of Populism has dragged out this sense of distrust of public media and official He says it’s a justified distrust… official accounts have …

2017 Calendar (36″ by 24″)

I came across a fantastic large format calendar at Best Self ($36) but being at a time in my life where I need to rely on what I can make rather than buy, I put this together in Illustrator and printed it out (tiled with a 0.75″ overlap). Reason being I’m trying to make the best of 2017, and getting my busy mental road plan down on paper where I can play around and visualize items (and streaks, as well as lapses) is heartening early step. Just wish I got around to …

Propositional Logic

I’ve been thinking about starting an ongoing project so I’ve gone ahead and compiled some notes for section 1.1 of the discrete mathematics book I am re-reading (and re-working) through. I didn’t do all that great in my two attempts at this course, so, perhaps as punishment (but mostly because I really really think this subject is cool) I am going to go section by section according to my last syllabus and try to learn all I can about this discrete mathematics business (but, ssh, don’t go telling anyone). The …

Class & Education: Shattering the Meritocratic Illusion of Education

Due to the neoliberal individualistic discourse in which most Canadians are surrounded by, it seems almost natural for most people nowadays to view education as the vehicle to social mobility. Evidence surprisingly shows that this is relatively rare. Instead, at its very core, the Western education system is an engine of class reproduction (Ravelli & Webber, 2010). The scope of this paper is to explore the ways in which ascribed socioeconomic class affects the educational endeavours of individuals. By examining the lives of students from two polar extremes: working-class and …

The Benefits of Dearth: Appreciation Through Inadequacy

While most individuals have a specific object, activity or person they can point to, it is my staunchly held belief that it was what I did not possess or experience that inevitably guided the formation of my character. The poverty my family was entrenched in for the majority of my life—after we had become refugees from civil war and rebellion in Uzbekistan—was the guiding factor in how I would lead my life. As a child, I was like most ordinary children: wide eyed, inquisitive, and ever-so-trusting in the goodness of …