My Governor General #Award link with Alice Munro the Nobel prize winner

Admittedly I have the longest way to go to even be in the shadow of Alice Munro, the newest Nobel Prize winner of literature. Nevertheless my heart jumped a beat when I saw that in the past she got the Canadian Governor General's Award for fiction (three times!!!) and this year I was very proud to get the Canadian Governor General Gold Medal award. I agree that my award is only a start to invest in continued academic work, while Alice Munro is a completely accomplished and wonderful writer, but still it gives me a good feeling to have something in common with a strong human being. And her book the beggar maid was a good read, now in dodgy, read condition sitting on my bookshelf.  

I did not dare to write about getting the Gold medal award from the Governor General at first, as I am a bit uncomfortable with sharing accomplished work at times. But, today I thought I would just share it, because the gold medal really did give me a boost to make a difference with my future distance education work and projects. The Governor General’s Academic Medals have recognized the outstanding scholastic achievements of students in Canada for more then 125 years now. And I am a proud graduate student from Athabasca University. The medal which I was granted to receive is awarded to the student graduating with the highest average from a university program so it is a real honor to get the award.  Prizes sometimes matter on a personal level. For one my parents were really proud of me, and my nephews and nieces patted me on the shoulder expressing enthusiasm which really means a lot to me (and surprise that gold medals are also given to non-sporty people). It means a lot to me, also because I am well passed the average graduate student age (46 at present). 


So although my roots are Flemish and my family and I live in the United Kingdom at present, I say: Go Canada!