When I was growing up, I was taught to respect authority. I sat quietly in class, with my legs properly crossed, and listened with rapt attention to everything that my teacher told me. I watched the town mayor walk by in the annual parade, with the giant medallion around his neck, and was suitably impressed… Read more »

Happy Holidays, from AUSU! Please see the front page of AUSU.org for a Christmas card to the members and a new message from the President. AUSU Job Posting – Chief Returning Officer Deadline – January 17th The Athabasca University Students’ Union (AUSU) represents AU students and their interests. The Union strives for a fair and… Read more »

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Dear Readers: Thanks to everyone who wrote in this year with questions. I hope I have been able to help some of you. I’d like to end the year with a story I found online. It is a story about the true meaning of Christmas. Some of you may have read this story, but I… Read more »

Your whole life you are sleepwalking, until suddenly, one night, you wake up and know exactly what it is you must do. You open wide your bedroom window. The wind is whipping your face, screaming in your ears, but you barely even notice. You climb out onto the narrow ledge. One quick leap upwards, and… Read more »

One of my favourite rituals each November or December is deciding on a planner for the coming year. It may be contrary to the advice of time management gurus, but I always have more than one tool at my disposal. Nothing electronic, mind you. No Palm Pilot or Blackberry to keep this kid focused and… Read more »

It’s December 11th as I write this. In two short weeks from today, our extended family will be gathering here for Christmas dinner. Yikes! Check out this status report. The new dishwasher we bought in June is still sitting in the middle of the kitchen awaiting installation. What’s the big deal you may ask? When… Read more »

Last night marked the official arrival of the Christmas season in our home. It came a little later than usual for us this year, due to an abnormally hectic work schedule. But we finally found the time to head to the tree lot at the elementary school near our house to pick out a Christmas… Read more »

Well, it’s certainly been a week, all right! I have been doing some outside reading for my due-any-day-now Communications 321 (Computers and Human Experience) paper about the Information Revolution. I have to tell you, reading what some “?experts’ thought was going to happen, and what some of them still think is going to happen, makes… Read more »

Athabasca University behind the Times Once again, it seems Athabasca University (AU), supposedly the premiere home of distance education, is caught having to play catch-up in the very field it supposedly specializes in. Early in December, the provincial government of Alberta announced that NAIT was training welder and electrician apprentices through videoconferencing — something that… Read more »