Montreal-Bound

I'm ditching this hole for Montreal tomorrow for Kathy and M-C's wedding on that lucky day. I'll be staying at my sister's place, so don't nobody do nutin' until I get there. Yeah, I'm a narcissist.

Vacation!

I'm on vacation!
It's celebration!
It's celebration,
I'm on vacation....

Oh wait, no I'm not. :(

At least not yet! :D

As soon as these kids write their final exams on Monday afternoon, I'm taking everything home, correcting it all (which is going to be less than last term, as I have half the number of students and exams), delivering them Tuesday morning, and we're jetting off (by car, that is...)to possibly Toronto, and Montreal. And possibly Quebec. I don't know about Quebec, since Jorghnassen doesn't seem to want to take the extra two hours of driving to visit, but I'd like to see my mum at least, and hopefully squeeze in some time with the bunny man and his wife.

Then we're jetting off (literally) to England on the 27th, to attend Jorgh's brother's weeding. (Inside joke.) Oh, that reminds me, I need to get a camera before that. A real camera, not one that takes things like this:



Anyway, time to get cracking... I have another pile of corrections to complete at the moment!

Back and Forth, Back and Forth...

"Back and forth, back and forth; I'm beginning to feel like Sisyphus!" -some merchant, Zeus Master of Olympus

Once again, I took to the task of driving back to the homeland, while Jorghnassen had the monumental task of keeping me awake and calling for rest stops at every other service station. Our primary goal was the week-long vacation in our home province. Our secondary goal was to obtain the Rav4's summer tires from Jorgh's dad in Quebec.

Our first stop was in Toronto, to attend the pre-wedding Ning fling at a Dave & Buster's out in the middle-of-nowhere-Toronto. All I know is that one of the Ikeas was next to it. (I-KEEEEE-AAAAAHHH...) I haven't seen Ning in a long time, and even then it was a brief coincidental meeting in Quebec City as she was walking in old town with her now-fiancé Steve. They're supposed to be getting married this week. So happy...! :)

After spending overnight in Toronto with my cousins, we spent all day driving to Montreal, and then I spent all evening correcting Calculus final exams. The marks had to be submitted the next morning at 8 a.m. by email, otherwise I would have had one hell of a commute. I called Davy up as soon as I arrived, certain he would be having his party, to send my regards, and he promptly told me to get our butts over there. Unfortunately, I could not complete my corrections until 10 pm.

By the time we arrived, Ian had already scuttled off, having waited all night for our arrival. On the other hand, Ivo had been asleep and appeared half-dead on our arrival. Then he slept some more. ;) We spent the rest of the evening chatting, sipping tea and whatever else was left, and singing more Beatles songs.

Checklist of Montreal/Quebec Things to Do Eat:

• eat poutine


• eat poutine from Ashtons


• buy maple syrup in cans


• buy bagels by the dozen


• eat and buy tasty bread


• buy or eat own weight in cheese and curds


• eat sushi (!?)

(The last one actually makes sense if you remember what my mum does for a living.)

My favourite thing to do with friends is to make food for them. (Heck, any excuse to get the old roomies together.) So we ended up having one supper in Montreal with homemade sushi (unfortunately not Sushi Sunday but still good).

I managed to secure some of SUMS' doorstops Calculus textbooks for the school. Another reasonable excuse to make this trip's expenses tax-deductible. :)

Eventually we made our way to Quebec, but none of my siblings could make the trip. My bro is recording a new album, so all his evenings are taken up; my sister was entertaining her 'rents-in-law. And arriving in Quebec... my mum was working. Alas, we were also booked for pre-Easter supper with Jorgh's parents and brother in downtown Quebec, so we had virtually no time to go anywhere nor do much shopping. :(

I do feel like we ate a lot though...!

I was pretty bushed by the end of the week. And I still had to drive back to Waterloo, and then the next day yesterday was the first day of school.

... also I had to stop in Toronto for about an hour or so to drop off the bags of bagels, cheese curds, and beans for my cousin. We got back in Waterloo at about 10:30 p.m. and I worked late into that night at making new lesson plans.

Ooh you can bet your sweet patootie I'm completely off my rocker. I made a class blog for my computer class and I think it shows. (In order not to let random strangers get to this blog from the other one, or vice versa, you'll have to ask me what it is.)

A Can of Worms? Open?

To my relief, I secured a part-time job teaching math at a private high school outside of Waterloo, with Jorghnassen's help, starting in early January. The details of the job are still lacking, but the major detail in my quest for sanity has been more or less fulfilled. On the other hand, it caused a much bigger "deal" than it fixed: zero public transit and a 20 km commute.

I had thought of every single possible way I could get there on a regular basis.

Carpooling would be the most obvious one (and most feasible) if only I had asked the principal when he offered me the job; but I was only given his cell number and it apparently costs a crapton for him to use it for incoming calls... thus I am still rather reluctant on calling him through that number again. (And I know what you are going to say, so don't say it and stop saying it!)

Someone suggested getting a bike; cheap and ideal, but I loathe to find out what kind of physical shape I am in right now. Last summer, it took me 2 hours to travel 20+ km uphill, and 1 hour to roll it downhill.

Car sharing is great, but would run up quite a bill for daily commuting, compared to the final option:

Buying a car.

(The absolutely, unquestionably retarded option my mum demanded from me, despite it not being her decision, was that I take a cab every single day until I "matured" enough to know enough about cars to get one, which would take at least a year, and even then she told me I was "too stupid" to own a car. I won't even begin on ranting on the stupidity of this.)

I thought of buying a scooter or car as the absolute last option (barring the above), as I know probably less about scooters and cars than anyone I know, and I have the most overbearing, insane family of anyone I know. Fortunately, as I am the most inept of all my acquaintances, I have the option of asking advice from everyone else. And here are a few nuggets!

Rachel's brother, Pat, who had accompanied us to Bwawston, works with and studies in cars, and has a classmate who could probably locate a suitable used auto. He also offered to service it in his school. This would be in Montreal.

Ian has prevoiusly advised me to buy in Ontario, as the transfer between provinces would cost more than it was worth, but as I was uncertain whether I had time to do that before the job started, I opted for the former.

Shhh! told me that car dealerships would take care of everything in a pretty timely manner, and that it was well worth it for him.

Davy said to look into cheap enough cars within $3000 (if I could only think the costs would end at $3000 :( ).

And alas, I know naught about scooters except deep-voiced Eugene has one that he commutes with in Ottawa to the bus station. Though scooters seem quite cute. :)

---

To excuse my absence, I have been helping Jorghnassen fix up his presentation for his Ph.D. defense last Monday. Which he then passed with flying colours!

There and Back Again

... but with fewer magic rings and giant flaming eyeballs. More girls in it tho. ;)

I prattled around Montreal for two weeks, all of the time being sick to some degree or another. As I discovered, it was the same thing that everyone was going through recently, although in my case I didn't get medical treatment for it (except getting cough syrup, but not for that extreme).



I met up with Jin last Sunday, who was also visiting with her cousin Kevin. Really nice guy, who was patient enough to wait with us while Jin was trying on bras and jeans all afternoon. Initially, Rachel was trying to get the girls together, but Jin's talents (with her cell phone) managed to assemble nearly everyone for dim sum. It was a miraculous, spontaneous gathering that barely involved Rachel's intervention.

The interview mentioned in the previous post went alright; I suppose I was mostly confused, as I was still suffering from a bit of flu, but I hope that I brought across, most of all, the impression of a teacher having grown from the complicated and ill-prepared mess that I was, to being ready and excited to start teaching again. It looks odd from my CV how someone with my background could have spent so much time waiting for a position, but I think it has made me all the better for it. (And if I dwell on it some more, I might end up changing my mind and get depressed again so I won't talk about it any more.)

Davy and I went into the wee hours of Friday night and Saturday morning writing a song. Actually, I would like to claim I helped write the lyrics, but I feel like I mostly guided Davy's words into something that made sense (and all the sillier lines were of his own twists). If we were more serious about the song, I would probably have liked to insert a musical interlude somewhere. ;)

Still Goddamn Si-*koff koff koff*

I spent the last two nights in various states of unsteady sleep and coughing myself awake every hour. My lame treatment of doses of cold water, and attempts at just keeping my eyes open until fatigue set in, don't seem to work, but I am convinced that I will be better soon.

In a surprising twist of fortune, the contact at the EMSB told me to email her my CV "ASAP" this morning (after admitting that she had almost given up on me but then realizing that I had been sick all week), which led to a phone call a few hours later from a principal out in Montréal-Nord, which now leads to an interview tomorrow morning out there. I will probably capitalize on Ian's idea on getting a 100-pak of Fisherman's Friend and at least stumble through the interview without hacking up spittle or whatnot.



In yet another piece of (old) Islands news, my brother published an article in Chart Magazine, September 2006 (page 62). I remember my sister showing us the article earlier this year, and yesterday she had just sent me a pdf scan of the page. It's not about anything in particular (... it's called "Who I Have The Hugest Crush On") but it does have that popsicle picture and a sketch by his friend Sinbad at the bottom of the page.

Still Sick

An evening spent at the QPAT convention managed to mangle my healing(?) voice box some more, not to mention develop into coughing spasms that prompted one woman in a 5 person audience to essentially tell me to leave the room. So I decided to forgo the rest of the convention today by inadvertently sleeping in and figuring out what to do for the next few days in Montreal as I have little voice left and a cough threatening to invert my respiratory tract. I had planned to crawl to Waterloo this weekend but Jorgh told me to get better beforehand (as everyone knows that travel + sickness = :(^:( ).

It costed $25 to register for the convention, more or less returned by various samples and things at the exhibitors' booths and the keynote speaker, Stephen Lewis. (The Crayola table and the Sunkist/CHOCOLATESAMPLING table, although popular, don't quite make up $25 on their own.) On the other hand, I felt that the talks I attended weren't as informative as I had initially hoped, which contributed to dissuading me from going to more talks today. I also didn't want to get told off again for coughing up my lungs during another talk.

I was expecting to see a few teachers I recognized, which I did (including Erik), while I was quite surprised to come across my Teaching Mathematics (university course) teacher at the QAMT table. It was surprising not because I remembered his face (but once again, not the name), but that he remembered me. (Though I guess he also cheated and saw my nametag.)

The weirdest thing was arriving at the EMSB table and being told to call them today to tell them I was available to work. Weird because: 1) I could barely talk in the first place and they said they would get back to me if I couldn't call them, and 2) then receiving a call this morning asking me to interview for a substitution card(???) even though I could barely talk on the phone. I pretty much told them I'd have to postpone it until I got better.

The highlight of the evening was indeed, Stephen Lewis. His passioned speech about the work with children he did throughout the years in Africa and elsewhere, was enough to emotionally move all the teachers in the room to physically herd towards him at the end of his talk, bombard the tables selling his book and mob his lineup to sign the book. I had the displeasure of having imbibed too much water (from coughing so violently in the previous talk) and darting out to the washroom in the middle of this inspiring speech. It would have been less embarrassing if I hadn't chosen to sit in the fifth row up front, but infinitely more embarrassing if it had been right in the middle of the row.

Alas, I would have liked to attend more talks today and hang around the exhibitors' stalls, but I think I had enough for now. It's been 5 years since I started wanting to go to one of these conventions and now I have finally arrived, but I guess it has been overshadowed by the depressing lack of employment and being sick sick sick sick sick.

Montreal Blues

I was sick all of Saturday with a flu-like headache that made my head feel like it was going to explode. On Sunday, I thought I was better, although I still had lingering cold-like sniffles. It got much worse on Monday when I arrived in Montreal, because my voice started to give way to a diseased rasp. I did attend Lil V's convocation, followed by Ivo's birthday supper at Mon Nan, followed by an evening gaterhing at Davy's apartment. By then I was already slipping downhill on the voiceability of my voice box. I wanted to stay indoors for the most part of this trip, but now I think it is too late. :(

So today (and for the next few days), I am refraining from talking at all, which sucks because I spent so much time in Quebec not having anyone to talk to anyway. Ivo, Lil V and I are planning to watch the Inu Yasha movie 4 here though (although all I could manage to scrape up wasd the dub) so less talking needed. I heavily dislike being sick. :(

Above all, I blame the elementary school kids with all those germs and things (pokemon cards) they bring to school to infect everyone else. >:(

On a related note, I am sorry to have to miss my friend's (brem's wife) birthday tomorrow and having (the ability) to call and wish her such greetings.

Someone Got a Blog!

I'm hiding in Jorghnassen's Montreal condo right now, as his parents dropped me off here this afternoon, and they're not planning to leave the city until Tuesday. It's pretty lonely here without anyone around, especially Jorgh. :( On the plus side, Jorghnassen finally set up his blog, bleuetfjord.blogspot.com!

People keep wondering if I'm going to be in Waterloo with him, or stay in Quebec. Well, if I can secure a job for certain in Waterloo, then I'll go for sure since one doesn't drop a few (hundred? thousand?) bucks on furniture to live in a massive apartment by oneself...

Holy carp holy carp holy carper

Dawson College shooting:
I sit at home pretty much all day (except the 1 hour a day I get up and go, as per yesterday's post and I don't have much else to do except look for a job and read the news. Except I didn't read it until 3 pm, after I turned on the TV and there were images of cops running around Montreal downtown and people being loaded up on stretchers.

Donnah lives next to College Lasalle, which is right in the neighborhood. I called her a little while ago and she said she was fine. She was taking the 24 bus from Westmount to home, and first spotted a bunch of students running in the opposite direction. (She thought someone might have bombed one of the jewish temples or schools again.) Then the bus divered its route, but was stalled on the road. The police cordonned the whole area, and there was apparently a dead body on the road. @_@ ... Later, she got off the bus still far from home, but the police denied access to everyone for the whole block. So she got home by taking a (rather long) detour by way of orange line to Sherbrooke and back home by 24 bus in the opposite direction.

Then we chatted about finding jobs again. Life must go on, eh?

I'm freaking out because it happened downtown and everyone I know in Montreal has at some point needed to go downtown to do something, so any one of us could have been a bystander or witness. Also, I'm angry because, and I quote what I told Felix: "kids are still kids and they're stupid!" >:@ (By kids, I am referring to the shooters.)

Montreal residents, please report your status!

T-0 Yay!

I'm having a happy birthday, thank you. :)

On the other hand, I ended up with quite a few blisters (and one that turned very purple, due to someone stepping on one by accident. No biggie, tho, eh?) from walking a lot in unbroken shoes a few days ago. So my activities lately have been mainly walking around the plateau area. Fortunately, blisters can be solved with Davy's solution.

This evening, Jorgh took me to the nice restaurant, L'Express, where he ate too much and I ate tons of blueberries and too much. The up side is that the food is good and the prices are not too bad for a French restaurant (as long as you don't go overboard). The down side is that the place setting seems to have been inspired too much by the cheapo eats; but paper napkins and paper table cover seems to pale in comparison to the unsharp dollar store steak knife...! Anyway, good food.

P.S. Jorgh says tartar is not something you want to eat regularly. Or semi-regularly.

P.P.S. RUN, FORREST, RUN! That's all I ask for all year from anyone, so I'll ask again in a week or so.

T-3

As it stands right now, I'm going to Montreal today to get out of this rut. But not without a long set of scathing words from my mum. Grrr! *shakes fist*

---

I can't begin to say how sorry I am for one of my heroes Steve Irwin's unfortunate demise. It seems like a miracle that he lasted this long among the poisonous, the fang and claw equipped, the swift, the noxious, the gigantic, the violent, and the rest; it led us to believe that he was invincible. To end this on a well worn racetrack of cliché, he died the way he lived. Impossibly brave!

Mini Rest

I took a few days away from blogging because I realized I had nothing constructive to say, and stories don't come so easily.

Anyway, Davy and Stefan (?) are going to come to Quebec City tomorrow, and we're taking a day trip to Chicoutimi to pick blueberries. I should also prepare for the next wedding in Toronto, next Saturday the 19th, thus once again I will be heading south for a while.

Lil V is back from China and she's got stories to tell. Right? :D

I'm sorry I missed brem's birthday. I hope you had a good one!

Jorghnassen's likely to head to UWaterloo in the fall, once he's finished his Ph.D. thesis, and I think it's also likely that I will be going with him when time comes. (You know. Guys.) It's not so likely that I will have a job myself when I get there, so I'm still kind of holding out on whatever will keep me around here.

---

Now I know my mum is certifiably insane and probably has Alzheimer's, not to make light of those who have acute cases of this disease. Some years ago while I was in Montreal, she brought me a pair of shorts that are pink, red, and white checked, too small for me at the time, and absolutely hideous. She claimed that they were cheap from Simons (probably knowing her, "2 bucks!"), thus I should wear them. I was fortunately too tubby to fit into them so I hid them away (except for one day where I had a lapse of judgement and there are photographs to support this... Lil V would know).

Today, my mum washed all my wearable shorts, and thus I am stuck with... the hideous shorts that I would only consider wearing if all my other summer clothes were in the wash and I wasn't going anywhere. (Maybe I should have put on my suit.)

She looked at them and said, "What the hell are those?"
"You bought them."
"No way! YOU must have bought them because they were on sale!"
"Nooooooo way in hell would I have bought these on sale."
"Yes, you said they were '5 dollars!'"
"Goddammit! I would have never bought anything this ugly!!!"
"See? They're ugly."

This is me.

---

Salon has a literary guide on Montreal. Personally, I don't feel as I know Montreal as well as some of you out there, because I've lived outside of Montreal about 80% of my life. Alas, as one of the comments put it, "Quebec is more than Montreal." And Montreal's not quite Quebec.

Crazy Trip Crazy

Due to my unable to go home from Boston on Monday as hoped, I chose to stay in Montreal on Monday and Tuesday. ('Course, during that time I was feeling pathetic because I was supposed to go home to tutor, but that didn't happen.) Wednesday, Jorghnassen and I hopped on the train and headed southwest toward his dreaded destination, Anglo-land aka Ontario. It was a long ride, starting at 5 pm, switching at Toronto to the London train, and we arrived at around 11 pm. I missed seeing my cousins' house along the train tracks in Toronto because it was pitch black and thus I was not able to determine if their balcony was completed. Yay balcony.

Waterloo-Kitchener was peculiarly quiet. It is known as a student town, with student population estimates at approximately 30% (from what I heard they say anyway), and every house had a "FOR RENT STUDENT COME HERE LET US GOUGE YOU" sign in front of it. Yet, it was too quiet... I think it was attributed to the fact that exams were about to begin and people were theoretically studying for them. Maybe.

What was particularly cute at first then disgusting was the Canada Geese. We spotted a group of them hanging out on campus, eating the food and drinking a pond. The chair said that they stayed year-round now, feeding off whatever, which I thought was (unnaturally?) charming considering Montreal only has year-round stupid pigeons.

Then we came across the green sidewalk sausages. Lots of them. Everywhere. Then I didn't think the geese were so charming.

I felt kind of stupid when Jorgh had to drag me everywhere to talk to various professors in the Statistics and Actuarial Sciences Labyrinth Department. One: because they were more or less interviewing him and I was making him look bad by having nowhere else to go; and two: because I had no bloody clue what anyone was saying. Then I felt doubly bad because they took us out to lunch and paid for me as well. :( :) :(

Still, they responded pretty favourably to his presentation that I was sooo instrumental in setting up. And I still had no idea what was going on. Perhaps I'll make an S5 version of the thing so he can show it online and then I can link to it. Then maybe you might have no idea of what I have no idea of what Jorgh is talking about.

My favourite part of the trip was coming back home and finding my mouse crapped up probably because my mum doesn't know how to use a mouse.

Two Cities Two Events

Both start today.

Fantasia 2006 - [July 6-24] Montreal film festival that I used to attend when I first started my studies at McGill. I stopped going when I felt that it had become too large and inconvenient to stand in line for four hours for tickets to movies that the scalpers would buy up just before reaching the ticket booth. (Trust me, I know.)

Festival d'été - [July 6-16] Quebec City music festival held in Vieux-Quebec. I have gone only once many, many, many years ago, and found it completely baffling why anyone would want to wander around in streets of massive crowds with expensive blinking badges, and entering badge restricted zones - only to be unable to see or hear bands due to the massive blinking badge crowd inside said restricted zones. Montreal Jazz Festival is much more accessible because of the lack of badges, but it is also privy to even more phenomenally sized crowds. (Thus, one must consider that the Quebec music festival doesn't get as much attention as the Jazz Fest so they have to recoup the money by selling said blinking metal thingies.)

Yes I Was Travelling.

I'm currently listening to this orchestral but hilarious History of Canada on CBC Radio One. Radio Two will be playing the program again.

Sunday June 11, 2006
From the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia
the CBC Radio Orchestra welcomes Canada's favourite storyteller, Stuart McLean - the
host of Vinyl Café - for a program of words and music
Stuart McLean, narrator
Mario Bernardi, conductor
CBC Radio Orchestra
Clifford Crawley: Overture on a Canadian Theme (or two)
Cameron Wilson & Stuart McLean: History of Canada
John Beckwith "Polka" from Music for Dancing
Cameron Wilson & Stuart McLean: I Remember Wayne (world premiere)

I went to Montreal this weekend, but it was a bit too hectic to do much. So you'll have to forgive me if I haven't called anyone nor posted. On the other hand, I witnessed PJ getting a nice suit. Finally!!! (We'll have pictures up when he comes by later next week.)

I'll have to take back that "Worst Onramp 3V4R" on the Quebec map that I commented on. I haven't driven very much throughout this city, just up to boonytown Valcartier and back. I avoided going on the highway, due to my complete disdain of Quebec drivers stemming from the funeral incident.

But I decided after having sufficient experience, I was ready to tackle the disgusting roadways of Quebec near the bridges. My mum had warned me that it was kind of crappy.



For the first time driving by myself, I actually thought I was going to die. There are stop signs on the onramps. Mysteriously appearing onramps. LOTS of mysteriously appearing onramps. And then a really weird curve in the road. With an onramp on both sides mysteriously appearing. LOOK.

If the highways look like spaghetti to you, that should explain why Quebec drivers are completely insane.

Arigato, minna-san!

Attribute the absence of posts during long weekends to travelling.

I had some great moments this weekend. One was jamming with Davy on his gui-tars in his fantastic loft downtown Montreal. Not that I know how to jam on a guitar. Jorghnassen kareoked to Davy's strummin' to the oldies. He also invited us to taste the 99% chocolate-with-warning that left some of us (Jorgh and I) quite shocked at its profound... cocoa-ness.

Related to this thought, we made brownies this morning before I came back to Quebec. After a few chunks of semi-sweet melded with oil, flour, eggs, sugar, and even more oil, I wondered why one cannot eat the baking chocolate in a similar fashion as mentioned above. Of course, the answer lies in the fat content and the nature of the product. I also discovered that the cheaper the chocolate, the less you're likely to enjoy it. (Case in point: milk chocolate Easter bunny priced at 89c ... before Easter.)

I also had a nice Schwartz lunch with friends yesterday, followed by a pretty entertaining game of Cranium. Unfortunately, Jorgh and I were an over-powerful team, since we had the greatest factor of communication between ourselves (6 years of experience and counting) compared to Johanne and Rachel's teams that knew each other for barely 5 months. Also, Johanne's boyfriend Francis was clearly more francophone than his anglophone game-handling skills could compete with, which did lead to many hilarious moments for which we all did applaud in merriment and good show. (Push versus pull?)

My most unfortunate change of plans was to discover that the learning center cancelled my Thursday and Friday dates, but wanted me to come in tomorrow. SEE BELOW. Unfortunately this message was left on the answering machine on Friday when I had already left Quebec (and my mum only told me in the evening), and today is a holiday. I hastily left a message on their machine Friday evening from Montreal... So they will probably already have either someone else scheduled for tomorrow, or I will find out in the morning if they confirm this message.

EDIT: No, my mum misheard. It's 2 Tuesdays from now, not tomorrow.

Norm and Davy!

I had a devious plan. It was to organize a (reverse) surprise party for everyone (especially Norm). In fact, it was so devious that I had others do my bidding without knowing what it was for! Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Like the classical evil masterminds, I divulge my plans to you, dear readers. Here's what happened in chronological order.

Felix went to visit Davy in Seattle. Davy told Felix that he was quitting MS and coming back to Montreal. Felix told me, correctly surmising I would be ecstatic. I told Jorghnassen. Then Davy told Felix not to tell anyone. Of course, the buck stopped at Jorghnassen, since he was too busy to tell anyone else, but I was almost ready to publish a front page story in the National Post. :| In the end, we agreed not to tell anyone else since Davy wanted to surprise everyone.

The second step was to produce this surprise to everyone at the same time, otherwise it would have been impossible to keep it a secret from everyone. So I had to mastermind a party plan, which wasn't hard. The hard part was to get this plan going. I don't know how other people make parties in cities they don't currently live in, but I just had no bleeding clue.

Hence, the puppets! Now, Norm is usually the one who plans the gathering because he has the most contacts and the best ideas. On the other hand, it would be too much to ask him to do the arrangements, so I had sent out an email asking for suggestions. This was around 2 weeks ago, to ensure people would not make other plans for the event.

After a week of consultations, I was ready to get Jorghnassen to make reservations and I was about to send out a last email to confirm these things, but then Norm sent out an email to everyone, as he had gone out of his way to set up a reservation for us. He sent to people on and off the initial list (which I was expecting, since it would reach more people), thus started the confusions.

What works the best for surprises is to make sure that the planner is completely in control and the planees are not suspicious of anything off the mark. So I had to justify getting more seats than people had confirmed. (Of course, this led to more confusion after.)

In fact, it turned out no one had any idea who was coming because Norm had been waiting at the restaurant with place for exactly 8. I had counted 10, but I was also expecting more. The waiters didn't want to arrange for more if we weren't sure.

In the end, after Davy arrived (after running into Ivo and Donnah, of all things), we ended up being 14. That's the last time I'm going to organize these things! >:|

Anyway, it was enough to get (some sort of) reactions from everyone when Davy announced he quit MS. It was all worth it though to see Norm completely dumbfounded while he kept asking if we were all kidding him, and Davy showing him the newly signed lease to his new apartment downtown.

Yeah, all you suckaz who didn't make it, don't say I didn't tell you this stuff could never be repeated again. In verbatim:

It is also imperative that you attend (with whomever I haven't done
gone put on this mailing list), for the sake of an evening that will
never be reproducible again forever and ever. Even for the first two
hours or one hour. I'm serious!!! ... I mean, I'm serious.

I'm mostly sorry that I didn't write this in a 60 point font.

I'm finally home

I called up my sister on Wednesday, and the following conversation ensued:

E: Hi, it's me.
M: Oh. Hi.
E: What are you doing on Friday?
M: Why?
E: Well, I was wondering if you had already planned something, or whatever... So...
M: Why? What's happening on Friday?
E: Um... cuz it's your birthday?
M: ... Oh yeah... I forgot.

It's not typical that she would forget such things, unless there is something even more pressing on her mind that she deems more important. Like furniture shopping in Toronto this weekend. But she claims such days are nonsense or useless, in the sense that gift giving and celebration shouldn't have an artificial reason. (Like turning a year older, or because a certain religious icon was born on some random day in winter, for instance.) Nevertheless, I had a quick supper of Indian take-out at her house that evening, just before she took off with her boyfriend to Toronto.

Other events this March Break included making sushi for Lil V, Stephen, Jorghnassen and his brother. For this purpose, I had the distinct pleasure of walking to Parc and Mont-Royal with Jorgh, finding no fish store, hunting for the fish store up to St-Joseph and Parc, then walking back home, in the rain. Who would believe that just a week before, there was a pile of snow that fell on QC, when at that moment inches of rain ran wildly through the streets of Montreal? The raw tuna in the maki rolls made it all better.

Norm had recommended the fish store on Parc, although in his defence he didn't remember which intersection it was on. I would usually double check such things in the Yellow Pages (or the Telus Pages, their machiavellian rivals), but in our drooling haste we neglected to do so. Just the description of his fish excursion that he gave us earlier this week was enough to entice us in our own journey. It may have been part of his evil plans. Curses, you fiendish rapscallion!

On the subject of my odd writing styles of late, it is a plan to craft a fantasy novel with Jorgh. I have attempted to commence (read: slept and ate and avoided) personal projects that I have listed often. Draw, record, work on... Well, with Jorghnassen's collaboration, I think co-writing a novel would probably be the only one I could complete properly. If only it were that easy to start...

We thought that this week we could take some time to look for fantasy novels to inspire and guide us on our own attempts. Jorghnassen and I spent a day wafting through book stores and their sections of fantasy novels and titles only to come up with rather mediocre or stupid collections. Then he got tired of searching and asked me to order stuff online.

One of my career aspirations, forgotten long ago for more concrete goals, once had been to become a writer (of short stories, actually). It is exceedingly difficult, though, to believe that this person, having not cracked open a non-comical book in years, could become such a writer. I used to write in high school, but that sappy and nonsensical trite that I spewed could not have held much water in the cutthroat writers' world. In CEGEP, I was introduced to the deeper and more satisfying aspects of reading and writing, much different from the high school book report or recitations of Animal Farm.

But I had forgone the path of languages, due to the overwhelming pressure from without and within to pursue the sciences. Then I had no idea what to do with it (as such things happen often to us science students), so I became a teacher. On the other hand, I do appreciate being a teacher and spreading the merits of being scientifically literate. (So, why fantasy novels? I'm not sure... but I'm certain it's more fun to write.)

Another career aspiration was to become a math teacher. Indeed, I am.

And yet another career aspiration was to become a musician. My brother is now fulfilling this in my stead, so I don't feel so bad. On the other hand, he was rather upset that my mother is upset that he would prefer this than to return to regular studies, I imagine. And he called me while I was at Jorgh's place to loudly make his point.

But such are the pressures of a life where East meets West. Is it too much to make a career change when everything is uncertain?

Quebec City Online?

To sum up my community's internet world:

• Quebec's craigslist, which suffers from settling internet dust.


• Quebec Urbain - for the urbanist in all of us. I guess.


• Le Soleil - the only paper in Quebec City that doesn't suck. (Journal de Quebec, and Chronicle Telegraph. 'Nuf said.)

To find a job... huh... well, I'd have to go on the Education Canada network, that apparently hardly ever works (seeing as with the hundreds of listings for the rest of Canada, nobody ever seems to post from Quebec). Or the ever-so handy Emploi Quebec site that offers a wide range of jobs from dishwasher to telemarketer. Of course, as all else fails, I just went to the schools themselves to give my resume. And then I wait.

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<start of rant> My mum just came back yesterday, and among the very first things she said was, "DID YOU GET A JOB? NO? THEN YOU'LL HAVE TO MOVE TO ONTARIO!!!"
Among my protestations were: "WHAAAA?" "Are you on crack?" "Why the hell would I do that?!" and "What the hell do you know?!?"

Seriously, it's just a repeat of last year's crap, except she's even crazier now. I would probably attribute it to the fact that she thinks a person can't make a living working as a substitute or replacement (which one can't... if you're a single mother or a homeowner), and she thinks I don't worry enough about my own finances or situation (which I already worry about enough by myself, thank you very much, without some overbearing crazy woman screaming at me).

The Ontario bit... well, I think she figures that there are more jobs there (which there are... if you want to work in Thunder Bay) and they do pay marginally more. But the downside is that one has to join the Ontario Teachers' college, which is a completely separate entity to the union, and the hassle to join that plus the yearly fees makes it complete bullshit. (It doesn't guarantee that you'll be working or not - it just means that you're allowed to work as a teacher.)

I already thought about what I wanted to do this year. I figured that I could just stay in town for another year to supply teach and work as a tutor. It'd be a good opportunity for me to

• practice driving in a non-crazy driving city, when I do get my license,
• function en francais some more, and
• give me time to establish myself properly in town, to decide a long-term future.

If I were still in Montreal, I'd undoubtedly be more active and less cranky, but I would have the more painful guilt of not having been more of a caretaker to my family. (I'm already in doodoo for not going to Toronto a few weeks ago for Eddie and Rebecca's gramma in the hospital, because everyone else was there.) But I don't regret being in Quebec over the last year because I would not have been able to mess around my job and learn much more about myself and others. I would not have been as able to cope as well with the transition between university and work.

As much as I enjoy being with everyone in Montreal, I don't think I could have really advanced with my maturity as much as I would like. There's something about being alone for long periods of time that helps me be more decisive (while at the same time be even more insecure).

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My sister is apparently house hunting in Montreal. That's a big step! She's apparently looking at one house around Jean-Talon, where she took my mum to look around. My mum then came back and said, "If she buys the house then I'm moving to Montreal."

The first thought that came across my mind was, "What the-!? She's really going to let you move in with her? No effing way!"

I can recall vividly the numerous times my sister exclaimed for everyone to hear, "I'm not letting you move in ever!" That was especially true when she was moving out to Montreal the first time around, while she was nearly frothing in the mouth at the detestable behaviour my mum was exhibiting towards her.

On the other hand, my sister let me live with her for about 8 months in the same apartment she is currently living in, the first year when I went to McGill. I was grateful for the futon and suitcase surface area, but I lacked the 3D volume and privacy that I suppose anyone would need when living out of the house.

So now my sister is buying a house, and letting my mum move in? If that's the case, then I wouldn't mind moving out finally on my own. It would probably still be in Quebec for now, as I made my own personal commitment to stay for another year. On the other hand, would I be able to afford it? (...*reality kicks in*...)