Every once in a while, more often than I care to admit, I find myself going down a rabbit hole that’s difficult to climb out of. This week, I found a music video called “Hi Ren”, by a singer and rap-artist named, appropriately, Ren. I’m a few months late to this particular party apparently, but if you haven’t already seen it, it’s highly worth the almost ten minutes to watch it, especially if you have any experience with mental health issues, whether on the downside or the recovery, or just that of a loved one suffering through.
Kind of like when we purchased our first Jeep, it suddenly seemed that there were a lot more Jeeps on the road, as I attempt to deal more with the repercussions of ADHD, and much of that is simply in trying to figure out what exactly is the ADHD and what’s just myself, I’m finding myself spotting more and more connections and people who are in some manner or another neurodivergent. And I want to be careful because it feels like though this may be a defining feature of who I am, I don’t want it to become the defining feature of what I think and write about. That said, currently, it’s still pretty new, so I’ll beg your indulgence this time.
One such example is this weeks’ Minds We Meet interviewee, Wayne O’Toole. He tells us about how his own differences line up with his AU education and life in general, and I find myself thinking back on just how many of us the interviewees come from a background of being divergent in one fashion or another. United by distance? United by difference almost seems the appropriate slogan sometimes.
Also this week, however, the Fly on the Wall takes on technology driven dementia, with some interesting evidence of how all this technology we have, much of which is designed to make our lives easier, may be simply making things too easy for us overall, and how researchers are starting to see problems that might be directly connected to how we don’t need to use our minds nearly as much for basic tasks any more.
The third article we’re featuring is a look at why conspiracy theories are looming so large these days, are we getting dumber, or is there something more sinister behind it. Then again, maybe those answers aren’t mutually exclusive.
On a different topic, as Alberta officially enters the campaign period, what the parties intend to do for the future of post-secondary education isn’t very clear. The UCP party platform lists some of the things they’ve done (like capping tuition increases for 2024-2025 to 2%), while not listing most of what they’ve actually done (like cutting significant funding or tying future funding to economic indicators that universities have little control over) and the NDP platform promises to freeze tuition at 2022-2023 levels and cap any future increases to that of inflation. Unfortunately, neither party says that they’ll actually increase the funding going to post-secondary to make up for losses that occur if costs go up more than what the restrictions on tuition. I’m sure we’ll be having more on this later to help you decide who to vote for if you’re in Alberta, but meanwhile, this week, we still have scholarships, events, advice, a look at obesity and an interesting choice for a date night, music reviews, inspirational articles, and more.
Enjoy the read!
