Badge of Awesome

Lessons learned from a rickety DIY playground

Josh Martin — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 12:41:13 +0000

(By Annie Gyg) I’m not sure as a kid I was familiar with the Aesop proverb “look before you leap”, but in the summer of my eighth year the meaning of that expression was unforgettably imprinted on my—I was going to say “brain”, but that’s not exactly right. It was my butt, actually. And it […]

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Easy Come Easy Go: What My Honeymoon Taught Me About Ebbs and Flows in Life

Josh Martin — Wed, 10 May 2023 12:18:13 +0000

(By Becky Martin) We had just gotten married. I was all of 25 years old; we had moved back to Canada from Taiwan after 2.5 years. We were young, we were in love, we had inflated egos, we could do anything. We had only been back in Canada for a month and we had no […]

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The accidental purse snatcher: When good deeds go punished

Josh Martin — Mon, 01 May 2023 11:52:35 +0000

(By Breckon Angulo) Sometimes a good deed goes punished … and that’s okay! This is a story that I laugh at now but at the time I was trying with every muscle in my socially anxious body to keep from crying from pure embarrassment. I live in Whitby, Ontario with my husband. My parents, from […]

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Wandering wagon: Putting in that extra ounce of effort

Josh Martin — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 13:08:23 +0000

(By N. Van Asch ) How many times in a day do you rush through your routines? Maybe you’re in a hurry or maybe you’re just bored of doing the same old thing for the thousandth time and just can’t be bothered to care. This is a story about three siblings who just couldn’t be […]

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Mean, Mean Marge: Encouraging children to follow their dreams

Josh Martin — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 13:06:15 +0000

(By Bryna Jones) Growing up, I wasn’t particularly athletic. Early failure in Phys. Ed. class (yes, I was the girl who was always picked last for the team) brought on a chronic fear of team sports, and physical exertion in general. I was quite content faking sick in the Nurse’s office during gym class while […]

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The Legal Ramifications of Vomit: A lesson in perseverance

Josh Martin — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 13:05:53 +0000

(By Rob Shirkey) It wasn’t funny at the time… I was so nervous the first time I was in court. Outwardly, I did well. I won. A senior lawyer even paid me a high compliment on my cross-examination. But while I may have looked composed, my stomach was in knots. I even threw up my […]

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The hay bale: What a tough day in the barn taught me about work-life balance

Josh Martin — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 10:00:00 +0000

When someone says, “I’m buried in work,” they usually mean it figuratively. However, I’ve had the rare privilege of seeing it happen quite literally. As teenagers, my younger brother Nicholas and I would work as hired hands for local farmers. We were only making five bucks an hour, and even that was tough to get […]

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The Super Something: What blood and glue fumes taught me about putting myself out there

Josh Martin — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Resembling E.T. with a beak and cape, Super Something is a superhero I created when I was seven years old. He’s also the titular character of the award-winning short story I wrote in grade 1. That’s right: award-winning. This impressive piece of literature brought home a first-place finish in the children’s category at the 1987 […]

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The Dare: What a clay helmet taught me about bad habits

Josh Martin — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 11:00:00 +0000

Growing up, boyhood and bad habits went hand in hand. No matter how hard my mother tried to steer us kids in the right direction, we seemed determined to return home for dinner muddy, bloody or both. For example, I had the bad habit of not wearing sunscreen in the summer. Without fail, a fun […]

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The Great Burning of 1987: What a million paper monsters taught me about things going up in smoke

Josh Martin — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 11:00:00 +0000

Legend has it that in the year 64, Emperor Nero danced as he watched his city of Rome burn to the ground. Fast forward 1,923 years when the tyrannical Empress of the Martin Empire — my mother — danced and sang as she watched flames engulf her sons’ most prized possessions. To be fair, I […]

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