This year, why not try finger painting your New Year’s resolutions? While written lists of goals can obscure raw intentions, the tactile nature of hand paint can get us in touch with our primal natures. Multiple senses are stimulated when we paint by touch. As the paint oozes and traces from fingers to paper, and… Read more »
To all the 2020 graduands, congrats! And for the rest of us grads, future and past, let’s rest on our virtual laurels for a moment and consider the conquest that’s been. Many of our peers would shudder to attempt distance education. AU is not for the faint of heart or slack of skill. We learn… Read more »
Winter Solstice 2020: it’s cold, it’s dark, and it’s isolated. As the sun’s light declines to its nadir we might wonder what there even is to celebrate. Like receiving an outstanding course mark by email and then looking around and realizing with a sigh that nothing tangible has changed in our immediate environs, the turning… Read more »
“It’s freezing out there!” We’ve all been that person who bursts in from the cold, accompanied by a bracing gust of frigid air. Greeted by icy stares we slink away to our study corner. Winter is a challenging time for AU students as the indoor biped population increases. More people in the abode can mean… Read more »
A notorious recent exposition of the vicissitudes implied by post-truth culture is Jeff Orlowski’s documentary titled The Social Dilemma. At first blush the show elucidates just how far social media has permeated our culture and our consciousness. Yet, when pressed to describe the problem in words (not only feelings, as would fit the standard definition… Read more »
One of my sweet nieces said the darndest thing to her Dad the other day. Having finished her special kiddie-sized bowl of ice cream she blithely asked for some ice cream. Not more ice cream—just ice cream. As if the first bowl had never happened. Her Dad replied with a no and explained that she’d… Read more »
Why are we here? Mars glows red as it traverses a starry abyss with the moon in tow. Sitting outside on an autumn night, amidst Goliath Mulleins, ideas about meaning bubble to the surface of my mind. What feelings guide their trail and where do they lead? Like a zephyr breeze through dried tumbleweeds the… Read more »
Every day holds potential for learning if we look at life that way. Glorious new experiences are only ever a mouse click or a calm stroll or an exchanged glance away. And knowledge is only partly contained in our AU course materials. One can read a text forward and backward and still only know it… Read more »
Huddled as a mass, we across Canada gather at our local cenotaph on November 11th. The experience transcends differences of rural and urban, class and race, gender and belief, because the spectre of war brings us together today as it has throughout our history as a nation. As we give thanks for those whose sacrifice… Read more »
Having a runny nose has a whole new meaning this year. The response script of “quick, run and catch it” has morphed into “eek, go get tested”. Life as living pathology, sigh, that’s reality at the outset of the 20’s. But wait, on Hallowe’en anything goes, right? Our dress can express the social and mental… Read more »