You may not be aware of this, but today, September 19th, is “Talk Like a Pirate Day” a lesser known holiday essentially made up by a group of friends that received a mention in a nationally syndicated column and took off. The means of celebrating the day is fairly obvious, add a dash of “Ahoy, me hearty!” to your greeting, a bit of “keelhaulin’” to your expressions of frustration, and replace every cuss word with some variation of “scurvy dog,” for starters. Advanced students may choose to speak of Davy Jone’s Locker or battening hatches down. The point of the day is simply to remember that there are tons of ways to have a little bit of fun and that, perhaps, not everything needs to be serious or even have a reason.
I was hoping this week that I’d have a bunch of pirate themed articles show up in my mailbox to share with you all, and hinted to my regular writers that such a thing would be quite welcome, but none of them took the bait, so to speak.
Instead, you’ll find a new installment of Minds We Meet, and this time we’re interviewing Zak Wallace from Fort Frances, Ontario, Management student and family man, and although he’s not a pirate, he does have an interesting collection of things he’d hope to have if he got stranded on a deserted island.
We also have articles exploring how Mensa may not be quite the group you think it is, and S.D. Livingston in Primal Numbers writes about how the desire for speed and results, even in the hard sciences, could be leading us into a world of trouble and missed opportunities. Like the rabbit and the hare, our need to race forward could end up costing us any chance of ever reaching the finish line.
Gregor’s Bed this week concludes the article begun two weeks ago, where we explore the combination of Jazz and Avant-garde music, and how the two forms coming together created a lasting impact through Western society. With these plus our regular submissions, including a new music review from Samantha Stevens, another installment from the Study Dude, and advice and thoughtful musings from our regular columnists, I expect everybody will find something to keep their interest this week. Unless you were looking for pirates, like me. In that case, I’m afraid this editorial is about as close as we’re going to find.
Next week, I hope to begin publishing a series of bi-weekly articles with career and job-seeking advice, something that everybody needs at some point in their lives. Also, the Voice Survey should be out in the next couple of weeks, to coincide with the monthly AUSU e-mail newsletter. I hope all of you take the time to complete it, if for nothing else the chance at winning a new Samsung tablet. (I like the Samsung one because it has a slot for an external memory card, which, if you’re reading a lot of textbooks on it, could be invaluable)
So, here we are, and while I can’t force you to, if you could each put a little jaunt in your step and a bit o’ yarr in yer inner voice as you read this week’s The Voice Magazine, it’d make me happy, and might just make you a little happier too.
