Lost boy emerges from Robarts stacks as jaded poli-sci student
Students, faculty, and staff alike were shocked late Thursday night when a young man reported missing three years ago emerged from the twelfth floor of Robarts Library unharmed and in good physical health. Mark Green, who was reported missing by his high school guidance counsellor after a campus tour gone awry in October 2014, was found in-between the seventeenth to eighteenth-century philosophy volumes, reading and furiously scribbling on sheets of scrap paper. Not to be confused with Jessica Goldman, who resurfaced from the Sidney Smith basement earlier this year as an exhausted PHD candidate, Green has yet to complete his undergraduate degree. In 2014, after a tiresome three-hour search, campus police officers labelled the boy “gone, but not forgotten” and pledged to work continuously to protect others from the same fate.
What doctors are calling a “medical miracle,” Green was able to sustain himself by licking the melted chocolate off discarded candy bar wrappers and consuming stale Starbucks Blonde Roast Coffee; quenching all but his everlasting thirst for knowledge.
In his high school studies, Green cited interests in chemistry, anthropology, and biology and planned on attending Western University to study psychology; at the time believing that UofT was, “too hard and overrated.” However, his time in the Robarts stacks deeply affected Green, changing his views on UofT and his own life purpose. Deep in the stacks, Green set out on a journey of self-discovery, reading thousands of volumes that expanded his views and left him hankering for what he refers to as “the distinction and promise of a University of Toronto Bachelor of Arts education.” Green took particular interest in scholarly publications that discussed the postmodern concept and consumer reality, in addition to his in-depth discussion of political theory and Marxism. “The more I read the more I found myself questioning all I’ve ever learned. Although I lived in isolation, the real isolation was my ignorance.”
Green hopes to continue his studies as an officially enrolled student specializing in political science, but plans to petition the university to forgo the first year of his undergraduate degree as he believes his three years of independent study have provided more than the foundation level courses can offer. When asked what he plans to do outside of his studies Green said: “Well, I really want to visit a Canadian Target, I hear those are great. Oh, and finally get to my ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.”
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