An unofficial AU advocate at large, Jason never misses a chance to recount the merits of an Athabasca education. Jason’s studies began alone in front of a rustic rural fireplace in December of 2003 and carried on through various brick and mortar college classrooms yet always with Athabasca as part of his journey. In 2014 he completed his BA in Sociology and in 2022 graduated with an MA in Cultural Studies. To this end, his columns seek to explore edifying moments of learning how to learn within the challenging ideological terrain of that great bugaboo facing students everywhere: the real world!
Every cognitive absence contains the presence of our mind; rushing floodwaters of thought gush into our awareness whenever a vacuum prevails. Sounds illustrate the social world of me and you. While the bucolic sound of silence contains a certain valour, most everything that we humans enjoy emits some sort of, if you will, auditory odour. … Read more »
The notion of receiving something for nothing invokes a tricky psychological algebra. Whether its investing in extraterrestrial acreages in hope of becoming a lunar landlord or raising one’s kilt in glee after having purchased some Scottish highland peat bog (the better to become an exclusive member of a landed gentry, any gentry), the promise of… Read more »
Strapping on virtual reality headgear allows a person to enter worlds ranging from aquatic utopias to hideous warzones. Students equipped with the mightiest of weapons, our keyboard-typing fingertips, may not find a game that matches that part of our minds. On the other hand, war-torn roadsides littered with the smouldering hulks of tanks and jeeps… Read more »
There’s a meme out there with the caption “no talk before coffee”. And yet, miraculously, instances occur where a person will pound back that morning cup of joe and breezily go about their day, only later to realize that they’d consumed decaf. What?!? Herein lies somewhat of a mystery: how the placebo effect of something… Read more »
We can be forgiven for feeling as though we live in a world on fire. Literal firestorms engulf swathes the size of a small province each summer, and an El Nino year like 2024 makes forest fire fears a top story even in the depths of winter. Meanwhile, global tensions have reached our back door… Read more »
What better time to really release ourselves, Scroogelike, from the weight of our past existential attachments, than with the advent of a new year. After all, the phrase new year/new you, wasn’t coined for nothing. Looking ahead can involve blinders; greatness and spontaneity do require somewhat of a short memory. At the same time, we… Read more »
Good fiction’s infused with all the senses; like Christmas morning, there’s sights and sounds, flavours and feelings, thoughts and memories. For me a wondrous childhood holiday moment was my Mother giving me a half teaspoon taste of gravy and asking my single digit self: “does it need more salt?” Perked up to my full youngster… Read more »
December unfurls and with it an advent of events, shopping, stress, and school. The frenzy carries excitement and consternation and messes of decoration and mind. Then there’s the matter of wrapping gifts; at AU we all probably have a study desk, a more comfortable clime for wrapping parcels than the floor. This could lead us… Read more »
Good fiction’s infused with all the senses; like Christmas morning, there’s sights and sounds, flavours and feelings, thoughts and memories. For me a wondrous childhood holiday moment was my Mother giving me a half teaspoon taste of gravy and asking my single digit self: “does it need more salt?” Perked up to my full youngster… Read more »
Amidst a backdrop of stockings hung with care, many adult students this time of year find themselves comatose and crawling into bed for that famed long winter’s nap”- with studies far removed from both heart and mind. And yet, what should to a slumbering mind’s eye appear? The return of the annual gift season to… Read more »