Category Archives: My Life

Happy news: ADFW Ted McMeekin Campaign Team wins advertising award

I was very pleased to learn that our Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale Ted McMeekin Campaign Team won the “Ontario Liberal Party Province-Wide Riding Advertising Award.” We nominated our entire communications committee (Alex Sévigny (chair), Peter Curtis and Peter Hargeave (campaign managers), Tom Aylward-Nally, Melonie Fullick, Nathan Shaw, Zac Spicer, Mark Ungar) which really worked wonderfully together. We put …

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Time passes, life passes us by. What’s important?

We are sometimes confronted by the reality of the progress of time, aren’t we? I have spent my precious few free hours the last week watching a series of documentary programs called the “Up Series”. This series was brought to my attention by Melonie Fullick (@qui_oui), who wrote a very thoughtful blog post about it. …

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The wages of insomnia, the beauty of sleep.

Sleep is a delicious and precious and thing, isn’t it? It permits us a few precious moments of respite from the world, a heavenly journey into dreams and alternate worlds that we cannot even think of visiting in our lives in the real world. Some among us who are tired, or those who have been …

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It’s good to be back at it, after a staycation!

I am someone who works tirelessly and generally very regularly. I am very disciplined and controlled, laser-focused on whatever I am doing at the time, intense. At times however, I am struck by an inability to get things done. These moments of paralysis are not unique to me, but common among academics. I have found …

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A good day: bought golf clubs, planned a program, went swimming.

Today was a sporty day for me. I bought golf clubs and had a nice swim. I went to the Ted McMeekin Golf Classic on Tuesday at the Copetown Woods Golf Club in Ancaster, where I live. That was a really pleasant day in support of a politician whom I think is truly one of the …

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My Writing Process (Or “How I Am Productive”)

A number of people who read this blog have written to me and asked me to share my writing process, having been intrigued by recent posts on academic workflow. Many people who know me ask about how I manage to get a lot of writing (and other stuff) done. I thought I would try to …

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July 1st – A Day of New Beginnings

Well, yesterday was finally July 1, 2011. A fateful day. A day of change and thresholds. Before I tell you why it was so important, I have to say that I spent the evening in lovely surroundings, at my friend and colleague, Dr. Terry Flynn’s house in Kitchener. He and his wife put together a …

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Life-Love 71: A mother’s care for her struggling child

I saw something very moving at Mass today. I had taken communion and was in my pew, on the red leather kneeler, saying the prayers of gratitude and reconciliation that I say each Sunday. I was in my usual seat, bathed in the winterlight streaming through a stained glass window that depicts Simon of Cyrene …

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A photoshoot with Rabee Younes in Toronto!

I spent today with Rabee Younes one of my former students who is just starting his studio as a professional photographer.  He is one of the most creative, talented and good-natured people I have dealt with. I could always tell he was special. When he was a student in our communications and multimedia program at …

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A wonderful night at the Opera: Nixon in China.

Last night I went to the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Nixon in China by American composer John Adams. It was a great night. I had been trying to get some friends together to see it, but it was a challenge because of family commitments, the upcoming reading week and the associated travel plans, etc. …

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