Columns

Dear Barb—The Difficulty with Divorce

Dear Barb: I want a divorce, but my husband doesn’t and I don’t know what to do!  We have been married for seven years and have two beautiful children.  I just don’t feel the love for my husband any longer.  We have been growing apart and rarely do anything together.  We are almost like a… Read more »

Women of Interest—Mary Agnes Snively

Mary Agnes Snively was born on November 12, 1847, in St Catharines Ontario and died 85 years later on September 26, 1933.  She never married nor had children.  Snively was an educator and a nurse who was known as the “Mother of Nurses in Canada.” After graduating high school Snively taught for almost twenty years. … Read more »

Pokrpie Hat—The Night Picnic

In the English seaside town I grew up in, there was an urban legend about a certain apple tree that grew on the edge of the town park, or the Recreation Grounds, as the place was known. The story went that a woman, a single mother with three young daughters, had brought her family to… Read more »

The Fit Student—The Purpose of Mistakes

We are all placed in this world to learn lessons.  And how do we learn our lessons? Through hardships or mistakes.  Wear your scars like badges of honour, says my beloved friend, but sometimes our mistakes have grave consequences.  Like a one punch bar fight that leads to a death. I believe we are not… Read more »

Porkpie Hat—Random Thoughts About the Mind and the Year to Come

“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” – Emily Dickinson Ah, the human brain.  That overstuffed gray matter enchilada, filled with shredded images, diced ideas, and gooey melted memories.  Packed full of primo chemicals, tiny electrical sparks, Shakespearean sonnets, nursery rhymes, erotic  visions, misremembered lyrics, film noir dialogue, esoteric formulae,… Read more »

Women of Interest—Emma Gonzalez

Emma Gonzalez is a survivor of a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 that killed 17 people and injured several more.  Emma became a gun control activist and cofounded the gun control advocacy group “Never Again MSD.” Emma was born November 11, 1999 and has two older siblings. … Read more »

Fly on the Wall—A Marathon of Learning

Distance education can seem like a marathon: a lot of work over a long time with the end goal seeming to recede ever-further into the distance.  Like snowshoeing through falling snow, our trail can seem, at best, nebulous.  Marathons also imply suffering rewarded with moral and physical gratification.  At AU our struggles over months and… Read more »