July 19th, 2007, 4 Comments »
In Canada, pretty much all of our packaging is in both official languages. For some reason, cereal boxes have become the synecdoche for this phenomenon.
As I’ve already alluded to, you get packaging in all sorts of languages here. Some are only in Maltese, some only in English, some English and Maltese, some only German, some German with, like, 15 languages in the fine print. The variations are endless.
Having never visited the Middle East, and generally being somewhat naive about all things Arabic, I was pleased by the linguistic combination on our gelatin package.
And, yes, it was made in Malta.
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May 27th, 2007, 14 Comments »
I was recently chatting with an English professor from a Canadian university, and happened to ask how many of her students took notes with laptops in class. “Oh, one or two,” she replied.
Really? Isn’t it 2007? I haven’t been in a university classroom for a while, but I kind of assumed that, regardless of faculty, nearly everybody would have laptops open.
Instead, apparently the vast majority of students take notes the way I did, with paper and pencil. Despite there being some kind of fancy, well-used eClassroom site, the students tend to print out materials, punch holes in them and stick them in binders. How very 1992.
Can any professors, students or recent graduates confirm this behaviour? Why do you suppose that laptops haven’t inundated the classroom?
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