.We'll smoke the monster out.

I'm pretty upset. York cut down all the trees around our favourite student hangout at winters, flooded it, razed the bushes, and put in heavy, ten foot tall steel fence poles. They did it before, and the students pulled out the poles and carried them away. This time, they put the poles in much deeper, and I suspect that they may have put concrete in the bases of them. It was so awful, to arrive there tonight with my friends. They were enraged and dismayed. They kicked the poles, they gathered the treelimbs. They covered the woodchips. Half a dozen tired, sad people.

I get angry when trees are cut down for no good reason. Logging is different, somehow. If the old growth forest becomes toilet paper, its bad, but at least it went to something. When York cuts down trees from a student space, they are destroying my living room. Students can't afford paintings. We take our beauty where we can find it. When they replace the stumps with steel barriers, they desecrate our home.

We're coming back with shovels tomorrow, with rope. We'll dig out the fence and carry the poles as far as we can. It's futile in the end. York will get their fence, they will block us out. They took down the mural that had ten years of student signatures on it. I never got to add my name.

I shook one of the poles for an hour tonight trying to loosen it. My arms are tired. I'm bruised. What they had back-hoes and chainsaws to do, I can't undo with my bare hands.

With your degree, you will get a crash course in powerlessness.