Reading week

I have had a brilliant week. Actually, I have had a brilliant… month? I’m not sure if it’s been that long, but the moral is things have been pretty great as of late.

I finally got all my marks all sorted out and my average is looking good. It seems that before the break I had appointments with someone everyday and now I’m going to be much less busy but that’s good I think because I have developped quite the pile of books that I want to read. Before I get into the events of the past week I’m going to go through that list.

One I just finished is Ladykillers by Charlotte Gill. It was incredible. Very Canadian feel to it, most of them are about women, but there are some men too and all of the characters are so real and complexe in slightly bizarre ways. The writing is just incredible. I highly recommend it. Before that I finished Betrayal by the Marquis de Sade, which was quite good. Very mean, but funny and of course well written. I’m just starting Life of Pi (I know, I’m SO behind the times), and I have On the Road (Jack Kerouac), Walden (Thoreau), The Te of Piglet and Les Liaisons Dangeureuses (Laclos) and Le Colonel Chabert (Balzac) on the go (I read based on mood, so I always need to have some choice). Plus school reading, which includes La Princesse de Clèves (Madame de Lafayette) and some of La Fontaine’s Fables, and Alice au pays du langage (Yaguello).

So I headed up to Montreal for reading week to visit with my brother and look at appartments. SO much happened and I have so many stories, but I think maybe I should just give the basics. Got there Saturday night, had poutine and searched the ads for rent. Sunday Cameron came up and the three of us went to the McGill v. Concordia hockey game. Monday went to the Barenaked Ladies concert (at which Andrew Kreegan made an appearance, playing on Brian Wilson). I got the second installment of their BLAM cds (first one is bnl are me, this one is bnl are men) and I love it just as much as I loved the first part. Tuesday John had me running with one of the groups he coaches and it was tough, but so good.

Wednesday night Cam and I went out to the bar. We hit up Au Diable Vert and Marc-Andre Grondin was there (he’s on the top of my celebrity list for the very reason that something like this might happen, and also because he is gorgeous and an incredible actor). So I got to dance with him and it was wonderful. I found everyone seemed very taken with me that night, girls and guys alike. I’m something of a novelty there because I speak French almost fluently but I don’t have a Quebecois accent, or a French accent. So everyone likes to talk to me. It’s fun!

Thursday night, Cam found out that the montrealenlumière street festival thing was happening so we went down to the vieux port and had a blast. They had a 120m ice slide! It was wicked fast and I was terrified that my glasses were going to fly off my face. And we had roasted chestnuts and tire d’érable sur neige and lait au chocolat chaud and lait à l’érable and there were these fire pit things and we roasted sausages and marshmellows and we danced to the live DJ and hung out in the sphere of warmth (literally). There was also some snow volleyball happening and the bungie-trampoline things that you see at the CNE, but we didn’t partake in those. And there were some buskers (I guess) who were dressed up in a way that made me think of Spy vs. Spy, although I’m not sure if that’s what they were going for. They were skulking around and sometimes they had their flares lit. It was wierd, but neat. It was great fun! And after all that Cam and I went to get him some poutine cause he had never had any. We left earlyish the next morning. All and all a great week.

Next episode: Friday night in Toronto with le boy and Podcamp Toronto! Plus some discussion of what the plan is. For now, I need to get some rest.

Réflexions diverses

“L’amour aussi bien que le feu ne peut subsister sans un mouvement continuel; et il cesse de vivre dès qu’il cesse d’espérer ou de craindre.”

I know it’s been awhile. Things have been… up in the air. Undecided. So I’ve decided. I’m moving to Montreal and that’s all there is. There is still much planning to be done, but it’s exciting. I feel like I don’t really have a plan anymore, but I love it. I’ve made a decision but it’s still so open. I was helping out taking down and putting up posters across campus and I had that same feeling… I knew what I was doing and somehow I was getting there, with some help from friends, and discovering a whole new world along the way (who knew the science buildings would have such cool things in them!) I just feel like that’s how things have been recently. Nothing is the same, and yet it’s not really that different. I’m not going to the gym anymore, but I’m swimming and running again. I’m still ridiculously busy, but it’s not all school and work. I’m going out and doing a whole bunch of things I haven’t done in quite some time… lazer tag, bowling, plays, concerts, drinking with friends, playing videogames. And I’ve been… living. Everytime I go to write about it… I just can’t get it into words. And that is usually when I’m most happy. So I think that’s good.

I’ve also been finding how small the world is. So many people I have met recently have some sort of other connection to me. It’s nice to have things in common with perfect strangers. It makes them a little less strange, a little more perfect. I know the a lot of times opposites attract, and in many ways I think that applys, but I think it’s also important to understand where someone else is coming from and some things you just can’t understand without being a part of it. Ok, that’s a bit vague, but I think it’s valid. I’m also finding a place where I can say what I mean, without it being overtly blunt. It’s not that I’m sugar coating, I just I’m just getting better at being… a little more sensitive to the reactions people have to my honesty. Which is great, cause it also makes me feel more capable of being honest about everything. And of course I still have my moments of “Wow, I probably shouldn’t have said THAT out loud” but they’re becoming fewer in number. But I think it helps that the people I’ve been spending time with are more about the present and the future. The past is good for stories and learning from our mistakes so that we can make things better next time, but it can’t stop us from trying. Did you know I like olives now? I hated olives for years. I’m still not big on the green ones, but I actually LIKE black olives. It’s wierd.

Anyway. I’m happy. I’m not in a rush to get to the next thing. But I also don’t want to stay here forever. I’m really liking the motion right now. Good speed, good road, good direction… and definitely some good company. And I don’t know if that’s what has made the difference, but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I’m just going to ride this for as long as I can.

“La sincérité est une overture de coeur, qui nous montre tels que nous sommes; c’est un amour de la vérité, une répugnance à se déguiser, un désir de se dédommager de ses défauts, et de les diminuer même par le mérite de les avouer.” – La Rochefoucauld