December is upon us! Like every year, the Voice will go on hiatus for the last week of December, and then return in the new year with the Best of The Voice for 2013. If there are any articles that we’ve run over the past year that you think should get more attention, please let me know by writing to voice@voicemagazine.org before the end of the year.
There are still a couple of issues between now and then, however, so maybe your favorite is yet to come. It may even be in this very issue, because this week, we have the second part of Hazel Anaka’s account of her trip to New York City. Also, Christina M. Frey is beginning a multi-part series to help us with one of the trickier bits of punctuation that we use in our assignments: quotation punctuation. S.D. Livingston explores the meaning of the new bylaw to prevent knobs from getting into new residences in Vancouver, Antboy returns to The Voice Magazine with a “Terrorist Hootenanny”, and we also see the return of Barbara Lehtiniemi who makes us think about the difference between a mature student, and a student who’s mature.
We are also running a French edition of Maghreb Voices this week, as Wanda Waterman interviews poet Kamal Benkirane. My experience with French doesn’t go beyond elementary school basics, but as The Voice Magazine is for Athabasca University students across the globe, and as Canada is a bilingual country, we should make the effort to, at least once in a while, present something for our students who have a native language other than English. So if you are one of our French students, enjoy, and know that we haven’t forgotten you’re out there as well.
In other news, last week, some of you may have read that there was a hidden link somewhere in The Voice Magazine that would let you fill out a quick reader’s survey about what you like and don’t like in this magazine. Those of you who do will be entered into a draw to receive an 8″ Samsung Galaxy 3 Tab, a handily portable tablet computer that is perfectly compatible with the new e-text revolution that is coming to Athabasca University. But it seems I made the search a little too difficult. At least, I’m hoping that’s what happened. Because as of today, November 29, there are only two responses in the survey. Two. If it stays this way, I’ll be flipping a coin for the winner. So this week, I’m going to make it a little easier. Just click on this link and you can fill out the survey and be entered in the draw for the new Galaxy 3 Tab computer. How’s that for easy? The survey will run for at least the next two weeks to try to get enough responses to draw some meaningful conclusions from it, and also to give me time to plan out the larger survey and how it will be publicized to members.
But why waste time? The survey is very short, and surely your opinion is worth a chance at a new electronic toy, right? So go fill it out now, while you’re thinking about it. We’re not going anywhere.
