Easter is upon us. When I was young, I used to enjoy the holiday, and we’d make a ritual out of boiling the eggs, and finding new and interesting ways to apply the dye to make them so brightly colored. My favorite was wrapping the egg up in a paper towel, twisting it tight, and then applying dye with an eyedropper to the paper towel. They’d come out looking tie-dyed, and, if you were careful with the colors you picked, quite beautiful.
I never managed to get into the art or skill of creating the traditional Ukrainian type of Easter egg. My patience only ran so far, and certainly not far enough for the type of intricacy involved in that work. But seeing Hazel’s article in “From Where I Sit” this week reminded me of those eggs in more ways than just the name.
The situation down in the Ukraine is somewhat like the eggs of the same name. It’s intricate, detailed, and terribly fragile. Often forgotten is that the President who started the egg rolling, so to speak, on this whole situation was democratically elected. That in no way excuses Russia or Mr. Putin for their use of force in the matter, but it is those kind of small details which make the situation so much more complex than most media have the inclination to inform us about.
Similarly, small details in how The Voice Magazine’s articles are stored online made our situation with the Heartbleed bug extremely complex, and as late as yesterday, AUSU staff were still helping us fix up the problems that turned up as systems were updated and old code was discovered to be sorely lacking. If you happen to be going through the website and you find any article that seems to be missing all the text, please contact me as soon as you can. I think we’ve managed to find all the issues, but with the style and amount of programming that puts the Voice out to you every week, there may still be one or two hidden in unknown niches of the site.
Small but important details are kind of the watchword for this issue of The Voice Magazine. For instance, any students in or around Edmonton, I strongly encourage you to read the “Did You Know?” entry, as AU is looking for participants in a focus group to evaluate their student orientation program.
Meanwhile, in “Primal Numbers”, S.D. Livingston looks at our capability to focus in detail, and how this skill may be becoming more important just as we’re losing it to the variety of technological devices we have running. Also this week, Meeting the Minds brings us Dr. Vive S. Kumar of the Computing Science Department, and as you’ll see by the interview, it is very much the specific details of tutoring and how students learn that he thinks deserves the most focus.
Barbara Lehtineimi has a plan to help us remember all those details, It’s called MindMapping, and you can read about it in her latest article.
One detail you all should remember, however, is that the AUSU Awards Deadline is rapidly approaching. If you think you qualify for an AUSU award, you need to have your application in by May 1. Thousands of dollars are there for those who qualify or need them, so don’t let a lack of focus on details keep it from you.
