The more Friday the 13ths I’m exposed to, the less likely I am to believe they’re unlucky. You, for instance, are lucky to get this issue of The Voice Magazine because I’m thinking it’s going to be one of our stand-outs of the year. The only unlucky thing about it is that it’s coming out so late in the year most people probably won’t consider the articles in it for our upcoming Best Of issue. (An issue, by the way, that I’m still looking for input on, pick out those articles you really think deserve a wider audience and let me know – we’ll pick the best of the best and republish them in the first week of January.
But in this issue, to start, we have our feature interview with student Laura Szabo. What struck me about this one was how well Laura was able to demonstrate her own self-awareness in the context of our questions. To be asked the question what moment caused you most to doubt your educational career and be able to respond, and explain, an incident in the 8th grade made me take notice. How many of us, without professional help, can look back on our lives and rationally spot isolated incidents that may have affected us for years, even decades thereafter?
We follow it up with a Porkpie Hat that just happens to be one of the most insightful pieces I’ve read in a long time. I sometimes wonder if people might question my decision to keep running things like the Porkpie Hat, it’s not that tied to AU or the student body, after all, but then I get submissions like this one, and frankly don’t really care what anybody else has to say. It’s good writing, and I think it’s something that students deserve to be able to read.
And, if that isn’t enough, we have the return of the Travelling Student. Many of you may not know, but several years ago we ran a bunch of articles from student Philip Kirkbride, who took us along with him as he’d taken his courses with him while travelling around the world. Well, Philip’s back, now in graduate studies at AU, and he’s decided it’s time to start travelling again, this time down to Mexico. I’m hoping he’ll have another set of adventures to bring us along with him, and maybe inspire us to go beyond the usual with our studies. After all, we have this great advantage at AU of not being tied to anywhere while we study, why not fully utilize that?
Meanwhile, it seems with the recent UK election, we’re about to finally put to the test whose theories are the best match with reality. Boris Johnson’s large victory there means Brexit is now assured, with #Scexit and #NorIrExit hashtags soon to be seeing some prominence, if the trends continue as they have. (Also, for the record, this new habit we have of mashing parts of multiple words together into a hashtag really has to stop. I know language can be fluid but without stability, we’ll all just end up talking past each other with nobody having any idea of what anybody else is trying to say. Okay, some might argue that’s happened already anyway, but…)
I do wish the people of the UK the best of luck. I’m on the side that is predicting they’ll be regretting this in a few years, and given as they’re a nuclear power, we may all end up regretting that. So even though being wrong means I may need to shift a large section of my world view, I’m really hoping I’m wrong. But hey, it’s Friday the 13th, so, uh, yay? Until then, though, enjoy the read!
PS! Don’t forget there’s a Council Meeting on Monday, where Council will have the first reading of some changes to the Bylaws. These changes will affect who can run for AUSU Council in the upcoming AUSU election, so if you’re interested in doing that, it would be a good time to stop in and ask any questions you might have! Go to https://www.ausu.org/governance/meeting-agendas/ for more information.
