She's a vocal coach and she goes by one name—Cilica. She sits across from her client Suzanna. No desks in this New Westminster office, they sit on exercise balls. The focus today is on controlling question intonation, but it's not your usual lesson in English pronunciation. Suzanna is already a native speaker, perfectly fluent. She's here because she wants to talk like a woman. Six months ago Suzanna was a man. Since 1988 Cilica has been helping clients like Suzanna reshape their voices. A professional singer with a three and a half octave range, Cilica began coaching by working with up-and-coming vocalists. Soon her client list included non-singers, like women ...

“You know, you look real familiar.” We were at the Riverside Guesthouse, conveniently located right next to the river in Siem Reap, about half a mile south of the central market. Siem Riep is where you stay when going to tour the ruins of Angkor Wat. The guidebook said there was a crocodile farm on the river and a map showed it wasn’t far from the guesthouse. I was thinking of going to look at some crocodiles. It was just after the rainy season in Cambodia and the river was at the top of its banks. Lots of crocodiles. “Everybody says I ...

Barb is an independent, professional businesswoman who is persistent, creative, loves a challenge and displays tenacity. Barb’s family relocated every 3 years from one air force base to another while she was growing up. Although she met people each time she moved, they were more often acquaintances rather than friends. By the time Barb was 13 her siblings had moved out of the house and her parents were in the process of becoming separated. This would be a difficult period for anyone. Barb remained living with her mother in Belleville, Ontario following the separation. Barb knew ...

A BRIEF HISTORY: In the late 1980s, after decades of civil war in their native land, thousands of Sudanese children, some as young as six or seven years of age, fled forced conscription by rebel armies and trekked to Ethiopia. Most of the female children did not survive the ordeal. Many of the survivors remained in refugee camps in Ethiopia until 1991, when a newly elected government expelled them. Finding themselves returned to the Sudan with civil war again threatening, some of the boys continued their long walk more than six hundred kilometers into northwest Kenya, where Kakuma refugee camp ...

What better way to learn about nursing school then from the president of the Nursing Students of Ontario. Vincent Lamb originally received a BA in Biology at the University of Western Ontario. Once he graduated, Vincent went to work in Toronto at a corporate mutual fund group. He was there for two years when things started to feel stagnant, and decided that he needed something more gratifying and personable. Vincent chose to go back to school and was considering either nursing or engineering. He has an aunt who is a nurse which got him thinking. But, both ...