How do We Select Our Electives? Why did the chicken cross the road?  What leads us to choose a particular elective? Sometimes the process feels purposeful, as though we are fulfilling an interest that has haunted or intrigued us for eons.  Other times we might feel like uncertain fowl meandering through the traffic of unexpected… Read more »

Fwap, splash, fwap! Imagine a dream where you are ambushed and smacked across the face with a sopping filthy mop.  Why this assault, and from who? A few feet away leers a dour figure.  It’s the janitor of the building.  What does s/he want from you? The answer is spat out in syllables at once… Read more »

“How is school going?” For students the world over, that question often invokes feelings of stress and anxiety about interactions with classmates.  It’s been that way since the first cave family sent their kids down the mountain to an educational quarry.  Essay deadlines and academic struggles are unavoidable if we are to succeed in university… Read more »

A nightmare scene: our vibrant student minds reduced to a brainless blob! Who cast this malevolent spell? Perhaps it was nefarious alchemy wrought by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure who stated with slitting simplicity that, prior to language, “thought is merely a vague shapeless mass” (de Saussure in Allan, 316).  Language possesses us and subjects… Read more »

Religion and ethics often walk hand-in-hand. In other words, if we are of a specific religious persuasion, then we are typically prescribed a moral code which is intended to promote correct conduct. Even if we are atheists, we usually find that the laws of our society have been derived (at least in part) from some… Read more »