I Dream of Kimchee

The Mystery of the 7th Floor

2008-07-06T00:23:00.004-04:00

Having taught in Korea before, the idea of cameras in the classrooms is not entirely foreign to me. It is however, a bit creepy when teachers tell me that if you write a message on the board asking the office to turn off the air conditioning, they actually do it. As the first week of the session drew to a close, teachers exchanged stories about classroom doors flying open and office staff snatching cell phones from sneaky text messaging students. It never happened to me; perhaps because I'm super teacher and am so alert and entertaining that my students are enthralled by my lectures on pronouns, which I feel like I'm making up as I go along, even though I spent three hours preparing for it. Or maybe the camera in my classroom doesn't work. This is more likely. In any case, a group of us went out for a quick dinner the other between the end of class and the start of our hours of prep work. As we walked back to the school, we saw trees on the roof of the school. Many of the buildings in Korea have gardens on the roof, so we got excited and decided to investigate. We took the elevator to the 7th floor and took the stairs to the roof. The door was locked, but we could see a small garden and trees from a half floor below. We turned and headed down the stairs and noticed a set of frosted glass doors. Assuming that they led onto the roof, my co-worker reached out to slide it open. Before his fingers hit the glass, a woman slid the door open from the inside, giggled nervously and shooed us away. The three of us exchanged looks, now so much more curious to discover what lay behind them. We headed for the stairs and as we reached the sixth floor, one of the office staff burst out of the office and in broken English asked us why we were up there. I pointed to the rooftop of the building next door, which had trees and a small rock garden. He shook his head and told us very secret things happen on the 7th floor. It was not a place for teachers. We apologized and bowed our heads to indicate how sorry we were, but we weren't sorry, just curious.

In other news, the young man that I discovered passed out in the street is doing just fine. I pass him on the way to school every morning and am happy to report that is up and about. It's a bit strange crossing paths with him every morning. Foreigners are such a common sight in this area that he never notices me, but I see him every time. It's weird that he had such an impact on my thoughts last week, but since he was asleep he has no idea that it was me that talked an ajimma into calling an ambulance for him. She suggested we let him sleep.

When Enough is Enough

2008-06-29T06:28:00.004-04:00

I'm worried about Korea. It's a bit strange. I've been back here for a week and a half and in some ways feel like I never left, but at the same time it feels like everything has been kicked up a notch and I'm beginning to see the seedy underbelly. I wonder if Korea has changed or if my eyes are more open. If I was sheltered the last time I was here by the relative poverty of my neighbourhood; a neighbourhood in which children played and peed in the street, sometimes simultaneously and always dangerously close to my door. A neighbourhood in which parents let their children ride their skateboards down the steep hill while cars share one lane, but head in two directions. Maybe my eyes were heavy with exhaustion and I missed the things that I'm seeing now. Because now I'm worried about Koreans.

Song and I stepped off the subway after a visit to Yongsan market, where I had picked up a used cell phone for 45$. I was delighted to feel connected again and somewhat alarmed by how naked I had felt without a cell phone for two days. In any case, we stepped off the subway and headed for the stairs, bypassing the line of weary Koreans waiting for the escalator. A large crowd was gathered at the top of the escalator. We glanced over, wondering what was wrong but all we saw was blood. An enormous red puddle grew around the top of the escalator and we hurried away, shaken and hoping the man would be alright. I assume he misstepped getting off the escalator and fell, or maybe his shoelaces got caught. Whatever the case it was unnerving to see so much blood. We continued on our way and fought to chase the red puddle from our minds.

Friday morning I was hurrying to work, anxious to get my first teaching day behind me. I stepped off the subway at Apgujeong Station, impressed that I would be making it to work a full half hour ahead of our scheduled morning meeting. As I rounded the corner near my school, a young man lay on the ground in a position that would have been comical if it weren't so frightening. His arms frozen away from his body in the air, as though he were a boxer; one leg pulled over his body as though he were struggling to flip over using only the weight of that leg. His hair was carefully styled, his Prada glasses sat perfectly over his closed eyes. His Louis Vuitton side bag was draped over his shoulder and he lay motionless. I stopped, noticing that Korean businessmen rushed past and glanced our way, but seemed unbothered by the scene. I gently shook the man and noticed he was breathing. An ajimma (older woman) stopped and was asking me what was wrong, but I couldn't answer, I just passed her my cell phone. She called an ambulance, which took twenty minutes to arrive and had to call back twice for directions. Finally I heard the sirens and rushed off to leave the ajimma to explain the situation to the EMTs. My Korean vocabulary definitely was not up to the challenge.

Before rushing away, I made sure to point out that the case for the man's glasses lay on a nearby flower planter and a contact lense case sat open next to it. I was on edge all day. Upset that so many people had passed by the man, likely assuming he was drunk. I wondered if he were diabetic and passed out from low blood sugar, or if he had gotten up to start yet another gruelling day as a Korean student and his body had just given up.

All these things were on my mind as I walked into my classroom at 8:30am, greeted the sleepy faces and passed a pile of SAT diagnostic exams to the twenty-five 14 year olds that were beginning class that day. After completing the two hour exam, I started my lecture and welcomed the kids to the Silver level SAT prep class. I informed them of the three school rules; arrive on time, do your homework and score 90% on the daily vocabulary quizzes. They shuddered as I informed them they had 100 words to study per night and if they 'failed' by getting 89%, they would not only lose their lunch hour to study session, but their mothers would also be informed of this failure immediately by text message. I watched as any hope of summer vacation slipped away as they were passed their course materials, two books totalling more than 700 pages of reading... to complete in July. I cringed as I tried to crack a joke and then directed the students to the first page of their text books. An exert from Einstein's Theory of Relativity. As they read over the text in silence, a few students gave up and put their heads down on their desk, exhausted from a summer morning trying to wrap their minds around words and concepts alien to a 14 year old, no matter how intelligent and mature.

I thought about the man who fell on the escalator and about the young man lying frozen in the street and I wondered whether the two instances were related to the ridiculously long days, stressful environment and pressure to be smarter, richer and better than everyone else. I wondered if that young man, who lay frozen in the street in Seoul's richest neighbourhood with his Prada glasses and Louis Vuitton bag was studying 16 hours a day like so many young Koreans. Or if he was working 16 hours a day to be able to afford his lifestyle and keep pace with his friends. I wondered how many Koreans try desperately to keep it all together, but are tearing themselves apart from stress and exhaustion and the pressure of being perfect. I wondered how long it would take for things to change here and for a forty hour work week to be enforced. Or for parents to decide that their children need to play as much as they need to study. As I take on this new class of children, 14 years old and already concerned about gaining acceptance to Harvard or Princeton, I worry about Korea.

2008-06-02T12:07:00.004-04:00

It's hard to believe that I've been back from Korea for a year and a half. Hard to believe that I'm already running short on things to say. Hard to believe that it's taken me so long to stabilize myself again, only to find myself questioning that stability. I have a problem. I struggle with two sides of myself. My lovely astrologist friends tell me I have only the stars to thank. I was born at the end of August, a Virgo. This makes people think I should be practical, responsible, reliable and organized. In other words, boring. Part of me would love to be these things, but I'm far too unorganized, spacey and forgetful to measure up. My astrologist friends blame my Gemini rising for screwing everything up. They're probably right. How else could I explain the BFA that I spent four years working towards, without even once thinking realistically about how this BFA would help me pay for food?

The school year is nearly done and my year of two day work weeks is coming to a swift end. I hate the school I work at. The children can be monstrous, like children everywhere, but it's really the staff that make me feel like a 'maudite tête carrée' (damn square head- a slang term used by French Quebeckers for us anglos, it apparently suggests that our heads should be square to prevent us from drinking from the toilet). Just five more classes at the school and I'm free! I can't wait to be done and looking forward to the healthier environment of a new school.

I accepted a position in Seoul for the summer, since my plans of traveling in Cambodia and Vietnam were smashed by the discovery that my summer would be unpaid. So June 18th, I'm boarding the plane once again for a painfully long flight to Seoul. I start work at The Princeton Review the following day and am looking forward to teaching children who aren't six years old. The summer is likely going to be a whirlwind of seeing things I regret missing the first time around (how is a year not long enough?) and then I'll finally be back in Montreal in the evening on August 24th. The morning of August 25, I'll wake up realizing that I'm 28 years old (ouch!) and I have to go to work like a big girl. I have been hired to teach the English immersion program (or bain linguistique - language bath) at a private elementary school in Ville St-Laurent. I'm a little worried. I've never built a curriculum before and should probably begin working IMMEDIATELY, but am not too sure where to start. But don't tell anyone. I'll figure it out. The problem is I can't remember when I decided to go the responsible route and get a real job. Was it last summer when I accepted work at a call center because I was desperate for work? Was it when I realized Fred really was having a transplant and I should organize myself to support us? Part of me- the long dormant practical part of me, is happy that I won't be eating dog food for the rest of my life. The rest of me is concerned that this is the first step to seeing artistic dreams slip away. My goals have not disappeared or even changed really. I just need to figure out how to make them more practical. Perhaps teaching can help me support my artistic addictions?

Back to Korea- Just in Time

2008-04-12T11:17:00.002-04:00

Well, it's official. I seem to have run out of things to say. I realize that I haven't posted anything here in a long time, but it seems I've been lacking in inspiration. My days have been filled with screaming, bratty children which has confirmed for me that I never want one in my house. These children do not inspire my creativity. Unless we're talking about creative birth control. Who on earth would want children after listening to twenty of them screaming for six hours? I am exaggerating a little I guess... Minus the hour and a half I have for lunch it comes to four and a half hours of screaming.

I recently discovered that as a part-time teacher, I fall under the category of an hourly-paid employee with the school board. Although this means I make roughly twice as much as a salaried teacher, it also means my summer is unpaid. Rather than spending the next four months working for 7,00$ at a crappy Greek restaurant in the Old Port, I've decided once again to pack my bags and head to Korea. June 18th will find me on a plane back to Seoul for the summer and hopefully I will once again be inspired to write. Right now, I'm really not into it...

Sick of the OLF

2008-02-16T12:55:00.005-05:00

Mostly I love Montreal. But about once a week I hear some stupid jabber that makes me mad enough to pack me bags and move to Toronto. I know, scary stuff. This week's trigger was the investigation by the Office de la langue francaise (OLF) into the English signs inside an Irish pub in downtown Montreal. This week the OLF is upset because the signs fail to conform to Bill 101, which outlines the French language in Quebec. According to Bill 101, French must be prominent in any business. Generally this means that the French is usually twice the size of the English font, or the English is barely legible in a pale gray font on a white background. The French is not prominent on these particular signs because many are the vintage Guiness signs that adorn the walls of most Irish pubs. Most people would admire them for their artistic and historical value, but the OLF watchdogs see these signs as a threat to the vibrancy of the French language in Quebec. The pub is facing a 1500$ fine for their lack of regard for the French language unless they take the signs down. Their grace period expires just in time for... guess when? That's right. St-Patrick's Day. It seems the OLF is really bent on ruining the St-Patrick's day parade which usually attracts somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 to 750, 000 people. Maybe they're upset that it proves too much competition for their St-Jean Baptiste parade. Or that while St-Patrick's Day is known for the drunken entertainment it provides, St-Jean Baptiste is mostly renown for the vandalism that abounds throughout the city. In any case, the pub is starting a petition online at http://www.byebyeolf.com/

If you find this as insane as all of us in Montreal, add your name to the petition. By the way, last week's trigger came from a comment I heard on a radio show from a francophone woman who thought that the use of spoken English should be restricted to private homes. To check out the most ridiculous shit you've seen all year, please refer to http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/

Refusing Donations?

2008-01-16T12:23:00.000-05:00

Just when we were beginning to think that the stereotype of promiscuity in the gay community had been dealt with, Health Canada decides to give some more weight to the issue. A new regulation prevents sexually active gay men from donating their organs because of a higher risk of sexually transmitted diseases. A sexually active gay man, by the way, is defined as having engaged in anal sex anytime over the last FIVE years. Maybe I'm crazy but I wouldn't consider someone who hadn't had sex in five years as sexually active. I can appreciate that some diseases are dormant for awhile before showing up in blood tests, but I've never heard of one that sleeps for five years! What about sexually promiscuous straight people? There are plenty of them. Why not go one step further and say anyone who has had sex in the last five years can't donate their organs? The decision whether or not to accept the donation will come down to an interview with the family. If the family reveals that the donor was 'sexually active', the donation will not be accepted. I would be deeply offended, particularly if I were in a monogamous relationship if my donation were not accepted. Or I guess I wouldn't since I wouldn't be around to hear about it. Some estimate that this new regulation will cause as much as a 7% fall in organ donation. I'd really like to hunt down the actual justification for this policy...

PS- For those of you who are not gay men, please sign your donor cards!

Finally Driving

2008-01-12T10:53:00.000-05:00

Growing up in Alberta I understood early on that adults had to drive everywhere they wanted to go. Grocery stores were far away, transit was impractical and walks through the city were made impossible by big highways. In some areas, sidewalks had not even been put in when the community was founded. There's no point in a sidewalk if there's nowhere to walk. So like most Albertan teenagers, I took the written test for my learner's permit at fourteen and started driving on my own at sixteen. I drove to school because it would take me fifteen minutes, rather than an hour and a half to get there.

I worked as hard as possible to avoid taking Calgary transit. I learned that it was faster for me to rollerblade the forty-five minutes to work from my dad's place than it was to take the bus. So I rollerbladed. I rented an apartment downtown in an effort to completely avoid using Calgary transit. I mostly rollerbladed or walked to work at Eau Claire market from 17th Ave. I had somewhat found a way to get by without a car. Although now the bus ride to visit either my mom or my dad seemed even longer than before.

When I moved to Montreal, I discovered, first of all, how lucky I was in Calgary to have roads flat enough to rollerblade. It's just is not possible here. Except in Westmount where the streets (should be) paved with gold. Having only one community with roads worthy of rollerblading does little to encourage me to take them out of their box. I also realized that older cities were set up so that you didn't need a car. I could walk to the grocery store and for two dollars have them deliver the groceries to my door (a service not available in Calgary). The dep (convenience store) is always close enough to walk and would be inconvenient to drive to. I live 7 bus minutes out of downtown Montreal and that bus comes every five minutes. If I were to drive, it would take me longer to find parking than it does to take the bus. After nearly six years in Montreal, I am still proudly car free, as are most of my friends. But lately I'd starting getting that itch. Being car-free has prevented me from snowboarding in the winter and from week-end trips to the country. There are ways of getting up there without a car, but they take planning and I'm not much for that. So as thoughts of buying a car began to creep into my head, someone told me about a Quebec organization called Communauto.

This is brilliant. You pay a 500$ deposit to the company, refundable at any time after the first year. Then you select an annual package according to how much you expect to drive. There are cars parked across the city at 187 different locations, available for pick-up any time of day. All you have to is go online and reserve at your choice of location when you want the car. The hourly rate is 1.55$, and you pay 0.16$ -0.29$ per km, depending on the annual package you chose (for the first 100km, then the price goes down). The annual packages range from 35$ to 350$. So take the car to work the other day, I paid 12.40$ for an eight hour rental, plus 8.00$ for mileage. The price of gas and insurance are already factored into the prices, so I don't have to worry about it. If anything goes wrong with the car I'm not responsible for the cost of repairs. There are four pick-up locations within a ten minute walk of my apartment, so if the cars are already booked out at one place, I've got at least three other places to rent from. Out of town rates are cheaper per km and more expensive per day, but still by far the cheapest way of getting to and from Toronto. Especially considering the cost of gas is included. So I have my car booked for a few Costco shopping days and to pick up the new desk we just bought. Apparently Communaut o is the most extensive car share network in North America, but other cities also have smaller ones happening. The program also has offices and pick-up locations in Laval, the South Shore, Quebec city, Sherbrooke, Levis and Gatineau. I'm so excited that I no longer have to bribe, blackmail and threaten my way into rides to IKEA!! And I can make my way to the mountains up north all by myself... not that there is any snow this year. At least I can still hang out at the spa.

Sometimes the Good Guys Win

2007-12-22T11:05:00.000-05:00

If you received Quebec student loans for the 1997-1998 or 1998-1999 school years, you were probably screwed. I mean, everyone on student loans has been screwed, but you were screwed a little more than the rest of us. Apparently during these years, the Ministere de l'Education backtracked on their agreement with students not to charge them interest or request payment until six months after their graduation. They started charging interest immediately upon graduation, just to get that little bit extra out of you. Quebec say fare. Or Quebec sait faire, as my Dad would say... although I was never sure in what language. They didn't account for the fact that not everybody on Quebec student loans gets a useless degree like a BFA (I can say that because I have one- you holders of BAs or BSCs, by the way, are not much better off, so be quiet). McGill law school graduate, Harry Dikranian, recipient of said screwy loans took the government to court in 1999 and has finally won his case. Good thing he was a lawyer and could book himself some 'free' (except for that nasty student loan) legal aid. In June 2008, some
80 000 Quebec students should be receiving checks for as much as 1200$. The government expects to dish out about 30 million dollars in interest repayments. So if you happened to be a loan recipient those years in Quebec, visit http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/ministere/info/index.asp?page=communiques&id=144
and sign yourself up to get your money back. The government claims they'll be mailing out letters to these students, but I'm sure many of them will be lost in the mail. And good luck finding this information on the ministry's English site, or in the English newspaper. Apparently only the French deserve to know about this reimbursement. I'm surprised they didn't post it only in English to minimize the number of payments!

Snow Day II

2007-12-03T11:40:00.000-05:00

Monday I enjoyed my second snow day ever. I always thought that phone calls at 5:30am could only bring bad news, but as it turns out, they can also bring very good news. Not having slept well Sunday night, I was particularly happy about being able to stay in bed all morning. Part of me wanted to pack up my bag and head for the mountains- another part of me realized that since I hate winter, most of me is throughly unprepared for a good snow day. I don't own a toboggan or a pair of skis, or even skates for that matter. And what I've come to call a mountain is little more than a hill with a T-bar. Even if I owned skis, that would have made for about ten seconds of excitement.

Sadly I haven't posted lately because I have nothing new to report. It seems substitute teaching is in full swing now- I look forward to my weekdays off, only to see them quickly snatched up one by one. Which is a good thing, I guess. In January I'll be starting my Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Victoria through online studies. It seems like a perfect match. Three years at Bishop Carroll High School taught me to loathe sitting in a classroom, so this seems like the perfect way around two years in a cold, dark and dingy classroom with eight hundred other people. I know what it's like. I took a class once. The 8am Psych 200 class at University of Calgary. I think I lasted three weeks. After successfully falling asleep in an exam worth 25% of my grade, I decided to drop out while I was ahead. A W on my transcripts qualifies as ahead in this case. I wish the person sitting next to me had woken me up. I mean, I fell asleep on the guy's shoulder, it's not like he didn't notice.

Hopefully more news soon... although winter usually makes me want to lounge about on my new couch enjoying our 148 satellite channels (10 of which are CTV, 8 of which are CBC and 6 of these are Global). At least I'm sure never to miss House again- we get it in five different time zones.

Toujours Sexy

2007-11-14T13:13:00.000-05:00

Since I started teaching in Quebec, I feel like I've been in a constant state of shock. I was spoiled by the respectful, well behaved students I taught in Korea and I still have trouble adjusting to the differences. Fearless six year olds are a frightening thing. They know that there is absolutely nothing that you can do to them to make them work. I have witnessed temper tantrums involving ripping posters off walls, running around the classroom throwing things around, even spitting water all over the place. Each and every time I encounter one of these situations, I contemplate how happy I am that Fred and I agree on never having children. It is becoming harder and harder, I think, to point to the parents as the source of trouble. It's society as a whole.

Last year, I was shocked by the grade two class I was teaching when I noticed them giving each other the finger. That same class used the word sexy to describe everything under the sun- a word I know was never used in any of my classes... although I did go to Catholic school. Then the other day at Provigo, I passed by the deli section and saw the sign below;

It's an ad for tourtière, a traditional québécois pie, described as Always Sexy. What? Really? What is so sexy about tourtière, I wondered. Does it take a special person to make sexy tourtière? Is there a dress code? Does the beef and the pork have to be ground by sexy hands? What about the garlic? Is there garlic in a sexy tourtière? I wouldn't think so. I guess that's where these kids get it from. If a tourtière is sexy, why can't I call my classmates sexy? Why not my teacher? My eraser? The colour blue?

Embarrassing errors in Asia were understandable. English signs were everywhere, but they didn't have enough English speakers to correct and edit them before they went up. And they were too proud. In Canada, it's a completely different story. I would be interested in sitting down with the marketing team for this particular brand of tourtière, to help me understand what it is they were trying to say with this campaign. They definitely know what sexy means. So it isn't in the same category of errors as the sign I saw at La Ronde last week that said Dis is a Trill Trill Ride. To be fair, they were screwing up the French as well at La Ronde. Apparently the Office de la langue française hasn't been around in awhile. Or nobody knows how to write the French language. One or the other. Maybe a little of both.

It's unfortunate that we're getting to a point where so few people can write effectively. Can be understood. An Anglophone girl in one of my classes spelled dumb D-I-M-E. That's trouble. If she were francophone, I'd let it go. But for a girl of eleven not to be able to spell a simple four letter word, there's something that's not right.

In studying for this stupid French test that I still haven't taken, here's some French terms brought to you by the Office de la langue française. For those of you that speak French, it's hilarious. Ils sont pris de la section vocabulaire du livre de révision, qui cherche à adresser le problème d'anglicismes, barbarismes, paronymes et de synonymes dans les textes français.

J'ai fait une demande d'emploi (au lieu d'application).
N'oublie pas de verrouiller la porte (au lieu de barrer).
Mets des agrafes dans l'agrafeuse (au lieu de brocheuse).
Voilà un bel appareil photo (au lieu de caméra).
J'ai apporté mon acte de naissance (au lieu de certificat de naissance).
Nous avons l'air conditionné dans nos bureaux (au lieu d'air climatisé).
Vous devez remplir un formulaire (au lieu de complèter).
Je descendais de l'autobus au moment où tu montais (au lieu de débarquer et embarquer).
Lisez bien le modes d'emploi (au lieu les instructions)

Il y a plusieurs des examples qui s'emploient jamais au Québec et semble être tellement ridicule- (comme le terme air conditioné), mais au moins ils ont des normes...

A Rant From a Tete Carre

2007-11-03T11:09:00.000-04:00

Having lived in Korea for a year, I became accustomed to being treated like I didn't quite belong. Whether it was the blond hair or the blue eyes that gave me away I'll never know, but it didn't take long for this treatment to get old. True, it bought me plenty of attention, discounts and over-the-top service, but there are days when you just want to blend in. Now in Montreal, surrounded by the French speaking majority, the same feeling of unease is setting in.

The developments of the reasonable accommodation hearings have become as common a topic as the weather, and slightly more heated. With PQ leader Pauline Maurois's recent proposal of a Quebec citizenship card, I feel ill at ease. This card would require new immigrants to sign a contract agreeing to conform to our culture and to learn French within three years. Apparently this ridiculous proposal has now been expanded to new arrivals from other parts of Canada.

Seven years in this province have shown me that no matter how fluent you are in French, if your last name is not Gagnon, Lefebvre or Levesque you will never be fully accepted. Despite having two Anglophone parents, I was lucky enough to be registered in a French immersion school. Having learned French at school, I never picked up on the joual (Québec slang). Some of my teachers were Québécois, others were French, resulting in an accent that was neither Anglo, Québécois or French. A little confused, one might say. Upon return to Montreal, I confused both the Régie de l'assurance santé (Health board) and the Société d'automobile (Automobile association) when I turned up and requested a Quebec drivers license and health care card. Speaking in French at the Régie de l'assurance santé, they were completely confused when I told them I needed to renew my health care care but had been gone for nineteen years. The women asked if I had been in France or Belgium. When I told her I had been in Alberta all this time, she was shocked. Such experiences have proven to me that my French is pretty good. I still try to challenge myself to improve it- my written French is far from perfect and I try to make an effort to push myself to learn more.

For every time I've been mistaken for a foreign francophone, there have also been times when someone has gone out of their way to point out that my French is different from theirs and I should be ashamed. Serving a large table in my days at the restaurant du Vieux-Port, one man turned to me and asked where I was from. Before I could answer, he said your accent is not quite québécois. I explained that I was born in Quebec, but raised in Alberta and learned French at school. "Ahhh, that's what it is! An Anglophone accent!" he said, both of us knowing full well that if he really thought I was Anglophone, there would not have been a need to ask. He knows full well what an Anglophone accent sounds like. Not to mention the fact that I was there a year and a half and the management always addressed me in French. A few weeks before I left, they heard me speaking English and it was only then that they realized I was English. The other day at school, I got really angry. I was sitting at the lunch table talking to the homeroom teacher whose class I had just taught. I was telling her how terribly our English class had gone and how her students had shown no respect for me whatsoever. After we finished ranting about her class, I asked her who was sitting beside her. I taught for three months at this school last year, so I know most of the teachers. But there was someone new sitting next to her. She introduced us and the woman asked if I was replacing the English teacher. I said yes and she announced that she knew I was English from my accent. I wanted to scream, "That's not how you knew I was English! You knew I was English because I've been sitting here talking about my terrible English class for ten minutes!" I shot the other English teacher a look and she was clearly holding back as well. An unwritten rule at this school prevents the English teachers from speaking in English in the lunchroom. Whether that is because of the school full of separatists working there (who are not anti-anglo, but anti-Canada), or because they feel uncomfortable not understanding what is being said, I've never been sure. What I am sure of is how frustrating it is to have someone speak to you so condescendingly about the quality of your second language when you know damn well that they couldn't get out ten words in English. Of course, such condescension is reserved for those Anglophones who do speak French very well. There would be no point in making such a comment to someone who does have a pronounced English accent, after all, they already know they sound English.

To those outside Quebec, these may sound like petty frustrations. I once thought so too. But the longer I spend here, the more disillusioned I become. The discussion about maintaining the French language is getting not only old, but ridiculous. Saku Koivu and the Montreal Canadiens were attacked this week for introducing the team in English at the home opener. Coming from Finland, Koivu's French is minimal and he was attacked, raising a debate about whether or not players for the Canadiens should be required to learn French to be on the team. How could he spend twelve years here and not speak French? Perhaps he was a bit busy overcoming cancer to attend his language lessons. While the rest of the world is struggling to learn English, Quebec is struggling to keep it out. They ignore the fact that the international language of business is English and the vast majority of their population is unemployable anywhere else in the country, if not the world. I am embarrassed for Quebec, determined to remain unilingual. It will be a rude awakening when they realize that the basis for the reasonable accomodation debates is a reality. The immigrant population will take over. They will take over the economy because they will be the only ones that can communicate with the outside world and understand the reality of the global economy. The more I think about it, the more I want to pack my bags and move to BC.

Organ Donation

2007-10-27T12:57:00.001-04:00

While you're waiting for a kidney you think
about the guy who told you he always wanted
to be president, or a doctor but never did. But never
did anything but sell day old bread.
You list your accomplishments, picture obituaries,
and send out emails urging your friends to drink
and drive but to remember to sign their organ donation cards.
Any day now the call about kidneys available,
any day you might stumble onto something.
While reading the paper you might see an ad
for a Matzo Ball eating contest and be suddenly certain
you'll be remembered and you'll receive a pancreas
and a perfect kidney. For you there is greatness
and both your parents are still alive to see it. Any day now
like it happened for the day-old bread store owner
who became somebody in the competitive eating circuit.

-Larissa Andrusyshun
(A friend of mine & Fred)

Changes

2007-10-13T10:41:00.000-04:00

My apologies for not having posted anything particularly interesting in the last few weeks. I've been crazy busy. I've had only one day off since August, so I haven't really felt like doing much but sleeping. In September, I started subbing at a school for learning disabled kids (did I post about this already, maybe I did...). I've been there at least once a week for the past couple months. Not wanting to ditch Brother just yet, I was switching shifts with people and coming in on Sundays. Saturdays I'm still working at the yoga studio. So things have been hectic. I completely unintentionally ended up with three jobs. The last couple weeks, my phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from a various schools looking for English or Drama teachers and I've been ditching shifts at Brother left, right and center to go to interviews. So I decided it may be time to pack it in at Brother, and my last day is tomorrow. I've accepted a part time teaching contract at a school in the east end, where I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm going to spend this week circulating my resume to various other schools, hoping to pick up more substitution work for the next little while and completing my applications for the school board. I thought I had already finished with this, but then I received a notice in the mail that they were in fact serious about wanting my official transcripts from high school and my diploma. Silly me, I didn't think these things would matter after University...

Amidst all this insanity, I came to the realization that it was time for me to go back to school. So I've applied to do my Bachelor of Social Work online through the University of Victoria starting in January and hopefully should heard back from them soon. I discovered while ordering my high school transcripts from Alberta Education, that I never paid the fee for my diploma exams, which I had rewritten purely out of pride. I was shocked and disgusted when I received my mark back on my English exam and I had been given 77% on my essay- probably the lowest mark I've ever gotten in English. I rewrote that same exam six months later, agreeing to pay the forty something dollars to do so-- only to receive the exact same mark in the mail. For the last ten years, I have successfully quashed the desire to retake that same exam, concluding instead that Alberta Education doesn't know its ass from its elbow. This makes me feel better.

Blog Action Day-October 15th

2007-10-08T18:59:00.001-04:00

  


October 15th is blog action day.  Bloggers from around the world are posting about the environment as a call to action for people and governments around the world.  Currently there are 12 316 bloggers involved, expecting to reach an audience of
11 284 000 people.

Post for Burma

2007-10-06T20:00:00.001-04:00

Myanmar (or Burma) is ruled by a military junta, leaving the people with impoverished and with little freedom. The human rights violations are astounding, and the Burmese people are speaking out for the first time since 1988. Though many face torture and death for their political activism, Buddhist monks have been the voice of change in Myanmar in recent weeks. Officially, pro-democracy Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was elected by a landslide in 1990, but has never been allowed to govern. The country has benefited from increased tourist overflows from Thailand and Laos, but little of the incoming funds have touched the people.

A New Approach to Organ Donation?

2007-10-01T21:34:00.000-04:00

Read the article, then sign your donor card!

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/opt-out-organ-d.html

Seriously?

2007-09-29T13:02:00.000-04:00

I have had a slow introduction to the Quebec Education system. I had a temporary contract at a private school for three months last winter and have done some substitution work at a private school for learning disabled kids. At the special needs school, I noticed my first day that the classrooms were pretty old looking, the books, having been used for twenty-some years were falling apart and that for a class of ADD children, there was an alarming amount of reading in the curriculum, with very little hands on learning. The school is 75% French and 25% English, and my first experiences there were on the English side. Then I worked on the French side. With new books, new desks and even blinds for the windows! Coincidence? I've been in Montreal too long to believe in that.

So finally after a lot of running about, I finally got all the appropriate papers to the smaller school boards to apply for teaching. I'm still missing the mandatory exam, but I'm hoping I may have found a way around it. At least for now. A few days later, the Commission Scolaire de la Pointe de l'Ile (Tip of the island school board) called me and proposed two positions. They were both teaching drama, one at an elementary school and one at a high school. I told her I would prefer the high school and set up an interview for the following day, Friday. I made my way up to Montreal North and approached the address I had been given. I reached an enormous building on Henri Bourassa East and the sign on the building confirmed that I was at the right place. I made my way to the front doors, just as a student leaned out the window and yelled "Hey Sexy!". I began to question whether high school was the place for me. How hard would I have to work to get respect from the kids and the staff if I was mistaken for a student at my interview? I walked into the building and began to feel slightly overwhelmed. A group of security guards were huddled around the reception desk dealing with four awkward looking boys. I tried to get their attention and eventually asked one of the guards for directions to human resources. Up the escalators to the third floor.

The human resources lady greeted me excitedly and informed me that they had been looking for a drama teacher for awhile. She directed me to the principal's office for my interview. He seemed immediately unimpressed. For the next forty minutes, I was grilled about my pedagogical vision. I struggled to find a way to explain that it was difficult question, given that drama isn't like science or math, where students are coming in with a particular set of skills. I gave examples of exercises and activities, long term goals and tossed out the idea of each semester culminating in a final performance for the school. He seemed unimpressed. How would I go about preparing a lesson plan? According to my goals for that class. Here are some examples. I was getting flustered and frustrated that his questions seemed to be coming out of a standard interview guide, without room for understanding that the arts cannot necessarily be taught in the same way. I struggled between helping him to understand how important the dramatic arts are in the school curriculum and sounding too artsy. I soon discovered the reason for his hesitation, his barrage of questions and his insistence that my plans need to be more concrete. I was being interviewed to teach nineteen classes of thirty students each. I suddenly understood and became quite uneasy. With six hundred students, how likely is it that I would even learn all of their names by the end of the year? How effectively would I be able to help them reach the goals that I had set for them, if I only see them for seventy-five minutes every nine days? Most importantly, with nearly six hundred students to keep track of, how quickly would I lose my mind?

And so continues the quest for the perfect job- or at least a tolerable one. ..

Reasonably Québécois

2007-09-17T07:05:00.000-04:00

If Quebec were a reasonable province, Bill 101 would never have passed. Montreal would still be the country’s economic centre. Francophone children would have the right to go to school in English and allophones the right to choose between French and English education. If Quebec were a reasonable province, it would never have built the world’s second largest airport two hours away from the city it was meant to serve. Nor would they have built a stadium that took thirty years of smoking by Montreal residents to pay it off. Were Quebec a reasonable province, two hundred thousand Montreal residents would not spend their national holiday moving. Major grocery stores would be allowed to staff more than four employees after nine pm and bread would be delivered everyday, even on Mondays.

In light of these lapses of judgment, forgive me if I question the goals of a body established to discuss the issue deemed reasonable accommodation. Do I believe that newcomers to Canada should have the right to retain their culture? Absolutely; what would Montreal be without its Muslim population or its Jewish population? It would be a city without Schwartz’s and shish taouk. Diversity characterizes Montreal. Makes the city and the province more rich. In how many other cities of the world could you have ten friends sitting around a table, all of different backgrounds, switching back and forth between English and French as though they were one language? It should go without saying that values guaranteed every Canadian under the Charter of rights and freedoms will also be applied to newcomers. That is what made Hérrouxville’s code of conduct so shocking- that it was denying the newcomers basic rights promised to every Canadian. The Charter is not a buffet. It doesn’t allow us to decide that particular groups are exempt from it. The Charter is part of our culture in Quebec, and in Canada. There is no greater threat to this culture than a proposed code of conduct that contradicts what it means to be a Canadian.

My old roommate, Fajer, on the cover of a Quebec weekly

drawing attention to the reasonable accommodation debate.

The world is changing. Economics and communication are moving people more than ever from one edge of the globe to the other. It is not just Quebec that is changing. Korea has always been proud to have the most homogenous population in the world, but even they are starting to see blue-eyed Korean children. There is no need and no point in fighting these changes- they are inevitable. In a diverse city like Montreal, mixed race couples are now common place and there is no turning back. The argument that society is changing too fast is a weak one. The pace of change around the world has been accelerated, not just here.

As the reasonable accommodation debate heats up, I cringe. In a province that has never been known to be reasonable to any sort of accommodation, I fear the judgments that will soon flow freely. Quebec needs to wake up and realize they are dangerously close to falling behind the rest of the world. While children in China, Japan, North and South Korea are learning English, many Quebeckers are still unable to communicate in the world’s language of business. Bill 101 will not be remembered as Quebec’s saving grace, but rather as the nail in the coffin. If reason resided in Quebec, our street signs would be bilingual and bus drivers would all speak English, if for no other reason than to accommodate tourists. Quebec’s children would grow up perfectly bilingual and unconcerned about the politics of learning to speak English. If the Chinese are learning to speak Japanese, even after World War II, I’m sure we can toss French/English politics aside. But reason, I’m afraid, resides in Toronto. Which is what makes the reasonable accommodation debate so frightening here. If Quebec is unable to accommodate its English speaking population, what chance do other ethnicities have?

Adventures in Vars, Ontario

2007-09-01T10:36:00.000-04:00

The last couple weeks have been chaotic. Carrie arrived for her first visit to Montreal, Thelma and Francis arrived for their wedding. Fred and I stepped up to the plate as tour guides and tried to give Montreal a fair showing, which doesn't take much. On Thursday, Carrie and I hopped into our rented Hyundai Elantra and sped off in search of Thelma's farm in Navan, Ontario. Armed with our MapQuest directions, we were sure to get there in one piece. We bravely faced the streets and highways of Montreal, marked not only by potholes, but also by the littered remains of cars that just couldn't go on. Ontario license plates scattered across the harsh terrain- drivers that couldn't handle the stress of driving the streets of Montreal. We sped towards Ottawa and finally an hour and a half later made a quick right onto Rockdale Road in the direction of Navan. Arriving downtown Navan, we realized that MapQuest had failed us (or rather we had failed MapQuest- apparently you need to give it a complete address). The directions were incomplete, so we dialed the farm, hoping that Thelma would be able to give us directions...

The night that changed the relationship between Thelma and I began with Rob and Syd, a lot of homemade wine, and a hot tub. Rob and I had already been dating for a couple months, and Thelma and Syd started dating that night. We were up all night and in the morning, Rob drove me to work and took the car to drive Thelma home. He'd never been to her house before, but I assured him that it wasn't far from where my mom lived. And it isn't. But Thelma's famous sense of direction (or lack thereof) resulted in a good hour of driving around SW Calgary until finally one of them saw something that looked familiar and were able to figure out where to go from there. Thelma had been living in that same neighbourhood for most of her life. This was the girl that I called to get directions from downtown Navan to her farm.

First off, Thelma informed us that she didn't in fact live in Navan, so were in the wrong place entirely. Carrie and I laughed and bickered through the nonsensical directions we were given. Thelma told us the addresses on her street weren't sequential, so not to bother looking at them. The house can't be seen from the street, so don't bother looking. We were told to look for a green mailbox, brown cows in the pasture and a corn stand on the corner. As you can imagine, there is no shortage of brown cows or corn stands in the Ontario countryside. After a heated argument about whether or not there was a fire station on Thelma's street, we discovered that she in fact lived in the town of Vars, and not Navan. Is it any wonder MapQuest and I had a fight about what town her street was in?

We eventually arrived. For the next four days, the Bearbrook Resort Inn was home to us at the incredible inflated rate of 100$/night. That night, we took Thelma out for her Bachelorette party with a group of her high school friends. Despite her best efforts to remain sober, Thelma had a few too many martinis at eighteen. For half the night, she sounded a bit like a broken record- proclaiming that she had too much to do to deal with being hung over the next day. By the time we met up with Francis's stag party, she was having fun and had forgotten about her list of things to do. On the way back to the farm, we enjoyed our last 4am breakfast run for quite awhile and dropped Thelma off at home. We told her we wouldn't leave unless she promised to go right to bed, she promised, so we drove back to our 'cozy' room at Bearbrook. I discovered the following day that my good friend Thelma, who I'd known for eighteen years and was about to stand beside as maid of honour, was a liar. She stayed up for hours after we dropped her off- making center pieces and finalizing the seating arrangement.

The wedding was beautiful, despite all of our fears that there was too much left to do. Thelma finally learned how to delegate the day before the wedding and everything came together. The ceremony was relaxed, simple and beautiful all at once. We were attacked by mosquitoes and Francis, ever the gentleman, was chastised during the ceremony for slapping his bride's forehead to save her from a bite. Both Thelma and Francis were so happy all day and it made me think. When I get married, I think we'll elope.

I Feel Fall

2007-08-18T11:20:00.000-04:00

It seems summer comes and goes a bit faster every year. Yesterday I woke up early to make my way to the yoga studio for my weekly reception gig. I tossed on a sarong and some flip flops and left the house, only to be greeted by crisp fall air as I opened the door and stepped into the sun. This first breath of fall is always accompanied by a feeling of dread. I love the fall, but there is always the knowledge that it is about to lead into a cold, long winter. Every winter spent in Montreal makes Vancouver look a lot better.

The last few weeks have been hectic. Today I'm enjoying my first day off since Thelma's wedding. As I have trouble tolerating my position at Brother, I'm desperately seeking a way out- which seems to have led me to substitution work at a school for learning disabled kids. They've taken me on for French and English work, so I've actually gotten quite a few days from them already. If I can find another two or three schools to substitute for, it should become a full time job.

I walked into my classroom on my first day and analyzed the room. On the far wall, large windows looked out onto the playground and the basketball court. The left side was lined end to end with computers, available for use once the kids finished their work. On one wall was a blackboard, and the other was lined with the very same Houghton Mifflin Mathematics books that I remember using in grade six. I checked the publication date; 1980. With all the school board reforms, it seems they are still clinging to the set of now dilapidated books. The large windows were a great distraction to me throughout the day, as students filed by on their way to gym class. The classes are small, usually no more than twelve kids but the work is difficult. It takes a lot of patience, both with the kids and the school itself. Not having been there long, it's hard for me to really get a feel for how their system works, but apart from the small class sizes, it doesn't seem terribly different from a normal school. I wonder about the method. If students are incapable of learning in the conventional classroom, wouldn't it make sense to try other approaches? Perhaps less lectures and more hands on learning? With so many of the students describing themselves as stupid and using a missed pill as an excuse for bad behavior, I wonder what kind of titles are assigned to these kids away from the school and if being here was made to feel like a punishment for bad behavior.

Both my brothers having grown up with learning disabilities, the situation is not entirely foreign to me. But I can't say I ever remember my brothers describing themselves as stupid. I wondered how they ever got anything done in one classroom that I worked in. The chorus of 'I can'ts' was so loud that even I had trouble believing these kids were capable. If the message that you've been fed for so long is that you can't do it, how will you ever get it done? The experience made me wonder how specialized schools such as this one should exist. If even five of the twelve students in your class believe themselves incapable because of their difficulties, will this attitude not catch on with the other kids?

So many thoughts, so tired though. With substitution work, Brother and the yoga studio, I haven't had a day off in nearly a month. So tired!! Time for bed, more later!

Tantrums

2007-08-11T12:48:00.000-04:00

I'm afraid I may be allergic to corporate life. My eyes are again swollen for no apparent reason and I blame sitting in front of a computer all day under florescent lights. Years ago I used to pride myself on being able to effectively handle any type of customer, however difficult. Talk them down from their high horse and get them to realize how ridiculous they sounded carrying on about this or that. A year and a half out of customer service and I've lost not only my patience, but also my words in such cases. I sit there, valid arguments forming in my head, but they just won't roll off my tongue. I just can't get past the fact that these people are calling me for help, but yell at me when they don't like the answer I give, the questions I ask or the speed at which my computer operates. I just don't care. I find it baffling that some people have nothing better to do then call up customer service and yell and scream and carry on. All I can think is how spoiled we are. I feel like screaming, "Don't you think there are more serious problems in the world worth yelling about than whether or not your fax machine is working?" Maybe if these people would yell just as loud about things that really matter our world would be a better place. I listen to the other agents, swearing and making a stink with the customer on hold, about how stupid the caller is and I think it's not the stupid questions that bug me. The very fact that technical support exists, at least on the level at which I work, is not because people are not smart enough to understand what they've bought, it's because they're too lazy to try. Too lazy to open the book and follow the basic instructions. Dependant on other people to solve their problems for them, rather than taking a moment to think about the situation. Did I check to see if it were plugged in? Did I turn it on? Is there paper in it? Instead they pick up the phone, dial the 1-800 number on the box and yell about the poor quality of the product, scream about the stupidity of all the companies employees and carry on like a two year old having a tantrum over a side of brussel sprouts. I've become much more adept at dealing with children having tantrums, I realize. Often times all it takes is a cocking of the head, a glance in their direction or a certain tone when calling their name. Their outbursts are also more acceptable, understandable and rarely show the same disrespect as you get from adults. I've intensified my search for a teaching job and will hopefully find something permanent for September. I just haven't the energy to commute to the West Island five days a week, leaving the house at 7am and if I head to yoga after, arriving home only at 9pm. I haven't the energy for the job because it isn't even in the direction of where I'm headed and I hate that this is all I have on my mind on a beautiful Saturday morning. Other than my work and the subsequent swollen eye, I feel fantastic. I feel super healthy thanks to my yoga classes this week and I am happy to see that the hole in Fred's belly is very close to closing. Last Sunday marked our five year anniversary, which is pretty amazing given all that we've gone through together. And the fact that previously I wouldn't have last four months before running away screaming, terrified that I was teetering on the edge of a committed relationship. I have friends in town for the next couple weeks, preparing for Thelma's wedding in Ottawa. I haven't seen Thelma in two year, so it'll be great to hang out and get some Bloody Caesars in us. Hopefully we have the good sense to stop before a Caesar induced hang-over!

Les yeux grand ouverts

2007-08-04T03:06:00.000-04:00

Thank you to everyone reading this page regularly, I've just noticed that my page has reached ten thousand hits, which excites me. Secondly, I've decided to begin doing some of my posts in French- below you'll find the first one, with I'm sure, atrocious spelling. My apologies to the French language for the bastardization, it's been over ten years since I've written anything in French...

J'ai décidé que je devrais, de temps en temps, faire des postes en français. Jusqu'à maintenant j'en avais pas fait parce que j'ai tellement peur de faire des fautes d'orthographes. Mais finalement j'ai réalisé que je serais jamais plus comfortable si je ne prends pas quelques minutes pour écrire un petit mot en français. Désolé d'abord si vous trouvez mon texte plein d'erreurs. Ça fait quaizement dix ans que j'ai pas écrit plus de vingt mots en français.

Je ne peux pas dormir. Ma tête est plein d' idées et de pensés qui m'excitent en même temps qu'ils me font peur. Après trois semaines de retour au service à la clientèle, et c'est assez. Ça me tente pas. Ça m'intèrese pas. C'est pas un job bien difficile, mais c'est plate. Je me lève à six heures le matin pour me rendre tout au bout de l'île avec la mère de Freddy. Je passe la journée à lire mon livre à mon bureau, agacé des appèles qui dérange ma lecture. J'écoute les conversations banales de mes collègues et ça m'ennuie. Je pars le soir, trop fatiguées pour mettre sur papier toutes les idées que j'ai eu pendant la journées, toutes les situations qui m' ont inspiré. J'ai faites des demandes d'emplois pour quelques écoles cette semaine et j'espère d'entendre des bonnes nouvelles dans les prochaines jours. Imagine combien de temps j'aurais si je travaille seulement jusqu'à quatre heures! Si j'avais pas à passer deux heures en auto pour me rendre à un emplois qui vaut vraiment pas la peine. Je veux bientôt commencer à faire la révision des articles que j'ai l'intention de soumettre aux journals et aux magazines. Une étape à la fois, premièrement, il faut que je me couche. Il est trois heures et demi du matin et je travaille de bonne heure au studio de yoga. Bonsoir...

The Tender Bar: J.R. Moehringer

2007-07-28T12:35:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, I read everything I could lay my hands on. I'd devour books, even bad ones, simply because they were there. But as time goes on, I realize that life is too short to read bad books. Why waste my time when there are countless classics that I may never get to? Over the last couple years, I've started so many books that I've never finished, and part of me felt guilty for letting them go. But there is a time and a place fo every book you read, and if it doesn't hold my interest now, maybe it will down the road. Or maybe not. Maybe that book will never speak to me. Or maybe it is awaiting my more focused self to come back to it.

Fred and I were en route to the clinic last week-end, him for his daily wound cleaning (gross, isn't it?) and I wanted to have a doctor investigate the cause of my swollen eye. It was itchy as hell and driving me nuts, not to mention the fact that I had spent a whole week looking as though I was about to burst into tears. As we prepared to leave the house, I ducked into our office to find a good book to read during my long wait at the clinic. Fred passed me The Tender Bar and we were off.

Since J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, the book has long been regarded as the perfect coming of age story. It's one of the only books I've ever re-read, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time around. But in The Tender Bar I discovered something different. A book that was able to capture the pull between two opposing sides of myself; my drive to succeed and my contentment to sit all at once, my artistic impulses that strive to find every possible medium (even when I'm not conscious of it), and my secret wish that I could find a more direct, obvious path through life. Every now and then, I convince myself that I am deeply interested in law and should attend law school. Not because I care about law at all, but because I want to prove to myself that I'm capable of law school. Because I think about all the travelling I could do if I were a lawyer and had the money to go where I want. Eventually the thought occurs to me that law is often an exercise in semantics and a struggle to find a loophole, neither of which appeal to me in any way. If this weren't enough to disway my application to McGill, I start thinking about how much work law involves, and how little vacation time. All the money in the world but no time to enjoy it. I can relate to the book's author. I understand how excitement to attend university can quickly fade away and your focus can shift, attention can be lost and you begin to question why you decided to be there in the first place. When I was younger, I looked forward to being in my thirties- when all my hard work at school would pay off and I would be well settled in my career. Now that I'm nearly there, I doubt that I will ever reach a point where I feel settled. I can't imagine being able to sit back and say that I had done all I set out, seen everything I wanted to, learned all that I hungered for. I've always been in a rush, but I've never stopped to figure out why. It's not as though I'm running out of time, although I suppose we all are in a way. More than anything, the book helped me to realize that things take time. I've felt frustrated lately, felt like I'm taking a step backwards in doing customer service, particularly since I swore I would never do it again. It's easy to forget that I've acquired a university degree, a year of teaching experience and begun my journey to see the world. I am headed in the right direction, and I need to remember that. I haven't chosen the most obvious career path, but I need to relax and realize that everything about life is a journey and no experience is wasted. I have all the pieces to begin my professional life, I just need to put them together.

All that said, I loved the book. Read it. Time for bed. I just got home from yoga and experienced what 70% humidity feels like. It feels a lot like bedtime.

Hangul

2007-07-22T12:40:00.000-04:00

I just stumbled upon an excellent site to learn the Korean alphabet. It even talks! Check it out.

http://www.indiana.edu/~koreanrs/hangul.html

Florescent Lighting Hurts My Eyes (and corporate air makes them swell)

2007-07-21T17:41:00.000-04:00

Three weeks have passed since I last posted, I know. I finally recognized that my search for a teaching position was over for the season and would have to be put on hold for the summer. Despite my lengthy cv (or perhaps because of it), I have spent the last two months searching for any job that would pay me to show up... and preferably only to do that. I finally accepted a job as a tech support agent at Brother Canada in the middle of nowhere (Dollard-des-Ormeaux) and grudgingly showed up for my first day of work on July 3rd. Of course, the moment I started, the phone began to ring and all those jobs who had failed to call me back have left me messages over the last three weeks. In any case, the job at Brother comes with such perks as door to door pick-up in the morning and drop-off in the evening, along with fully catered breakfast and lunch, with the occasional snack. These are not, of course, services offered to just anybody- only those who happen to be dating Fred, provided they meet his mothers expectations. Apparently I do, so I enjoy quite the royal treatment. As for the job, it is probably the best customer service position I could ever find. The pay is not bad and the company offers its employees real perks: profit sharing, health & dental benefits, subsidized gym memberships, RRSP, financial recognition for valid suggestions and trips for the employee dubbed the best of the year. The atmosphere is largely laid back- people joke around in the cafeteria and laughter is heard in the halls. It seems there are actually companies that treat their employees well. Bulletin boards in the staff room are packed with activities planned by the social club; trips to La Ronde (amusement park), Super Aqua Club (waterslides), river boat rides to observe the fireworks competition and even a charity baseball game against a local radio station. Charity baseball games? I feel like I've tripped and fallen into a sit com. Except the pay isn't as good and my agent never called.

It all makes me feel a bit guilty that I don't want to be there. My large cubicle sits beside our customer service department; two really sweet women who talk about their kids and puke a lot. My cubicle mate, Joyce, has thus far only spoken one sentence to me. In fact, I'm not even sure her name is Joyce- I've based that entirely on the name card that is glued to her side of the wall. My ears are overwhelmed with chatter. A girl whose name I don't remember sits opposite me talking about her recent trip to Thailand. The boys talk about baseball and pretend they know what they're talking about. They seem to think 'punt hitter' is an actual baseball term. It makes me laugh. The ladies next to me talk more about puke and mucus. I try to focus on the blank page in front of me, though not a single creative or inspired thought leaks from my head. I try to force it, but all I imagine are call center stories about fax machines and silly customers. No one wants to read about that. I definitely don't want to write about that. I need to get out, and fast. The fluorescent lighting hurts my eyes and makes me drowsy, the glare off the computer screen induces paranoia, the empty pale green cubicle walls bring on an odd mix of nausea and apathy. The free coffee keeps me pumped full of mocchacinos, ensuring that I'll be conscious enough to deliver my passionate spiel about fax machines as required.

Happy Moving Day!!

2007-07-01T22:20:00.000-04:00

I awoke this afternoon with familiar aches and pains running throughout my body. It was July 1st. It was not only the late night move that we had pulled off last night that was causing me such pain, but also the memories of how every first of July has been spent since moving to Montreal in 2001. I long for the days when Canada Day meant BBQs at a friend's place, or double time pay at a crappy job. But ever since my first moving day, everything has changed. The very thought of July 1st sends shivers down my spine and thrusts me into a cold sweat. I run through the endless list of things to do, complete with ways to avoid the day altogether. Inevitably, I realize I was forgetting something and continue to panic until the day has finished and I'm sleeping on an unmade bed surrounded by unpacked boxes. The feeling of being completely overwhelmed gradually subsides over the days and weeks that follow, until eventually most everything has been unpacked and found its place. By then, school has started for all the students and other concerns take over as the summer comes to an end. Before I know it, Christmas has come and gone and I awake one morning to find that its a new year. In the midst of the coldest, most miserable month of the year, there is a knock at the door and a postal worker presents me with a registered letter. My hands shaking, I sign his clipboard and nervously turn my attention to the slim envelope. Tearing open the envelope, I gaze down at the enclosed papers. Notice of lease renewal. My landlord needs to know if I intend to renew my lease until the following year. But it's January- how could I possibly know what my plans will be for July? Return by February 28th. Hmmm... one month to ponder what I will do for the next year and a half. I have three choices, none of them pleasant. I can;

A) choose not to answer the letter, automatically renewing my lease until July 1st of the following year, and automatically agreeing to any rent increases specified in the notice.

B) refuse the rent increase and agree to present myself at the rental board court room to argue my case.
or C) decide that I want to put myself through another July 1st move.

A is the easiest option and suckered me into spending three years at my crappy St-Henri apartment. B is unpleasant and too much trouble. For the 2% that my landlord is allowed to raise the rent every year, I'm not about to take him to court over it. I couldn't be bothered. Rental court is buried somewhere deep in the East End, where Anglophones don't like to go. Option C. This is the option that makes my blood run cold. Before agreeing to a July 1st more, it is absolutely essential that I understand what hell it is to move on this day. I would have two months to find an apartment. If I haven't signed a lease by April, it's likely that I'll find myself scrambling to sign the lease for the first apartment I can get in to see, for fear of being homeless on Canada Day. My moving truck needs to booked by May, at the latest, otherwise I'll be stuck renting an overpriced U-Haul, rather than an overpriced Discount truck. I can expect to pay about 300$ for a four hour shift with the truck. If I happen to return the truck five minutes late,I can tak on another 200$ late fees. Then I need to book friends. This needs to be done early, particularly since Montrealers answer their phones very tentatively after June. We are familiar with the tone of voice associated with calls for moving help and our hang-up reflexes more developed than other Canadians. I will spend any spare time over the next few months calling my cable, internet, hydro, gas, phone, medicare and licensing offices to report my change of address. I can expect to spend a lot of time on hold. In May, I need to start hoarding boxes. Grocery stores and pharmacies stop handing them out, some even putting up signs to tell their customers that they are not sharing their moving day boxes. As the end of June approaches, I'll be spending every free moment running about to pack up my things. I'll be expected out of my apartment at noon on July 1st, to allow the new tenant to move in that afternoon. No move ever runs smoothly, and Canada Day moves are no different. As people run here and there, desperately trying to be out of their apartments at 12:00pm and still stay within the four hours with the truck- the architecture of Montreal helps to further challenge your average mover. Appliances being carried, ever so carefully down flights of spiraling iron stairs. Old doorways, mysteriously too narrow for couches to pass through. Already memories of the previous July 1st have faded and I can't remember how I got the couch in to begin with. Hopefully I never again live downtown, where I had the added challenge of dealing with the Canada Day parade that shut down the street Fred was living on.

This year,Fred and I were bracing ourselves for a July 1st move. Luckily, however, a bigger apartment opened in our building and we were able to transfer our lease and move in December. We thought we had dogged the bullet. But inevitably in May, the phone rang and our good friends, Claire and Matt told us they had rented an apartment in our building. For a moment, we were excited by the prospect of having friends in the building. Then we realized what that meant. Another move on the first of July. But Claire and Matt had slightly different plans. If they took a van on June 30th, they knew they could get a longer block of time at a cheaper rate. If the old tenants hadn't left yet, they could leave things at our place overnight. So the van was rented from 7pm, to be returned by 6:30am or pay the nasty 200$ fee. To move Claire and Matt from their
3 and 1/2 downtown (complete with steep staircases) to their new 5 and 1/2 up the street in Côte des neiges, it took the four of us working until 6am. At 6am, Claire returned the van and Fred and I went downstairs and crawled into bed. At nine there was a knock on the door. Matt and Claire hadn't quite finished and had planned on renting a car to pick up the last few things. It being July 1st, there were no cars available. Fred called his mom and asked her if she could drive them to clear out the last few things. They did another three trips, and they finished completely at 2pm.

The separatists really have an amazing thing going here. If this is your typical Canada Day, is it any wonder that the Quebec's national party the week before is so successful? I think it's pretty safe to say that Montreal is probably the only city in the world where its residents spend their national holiday with couches strapped to their backs in blistering heat, too tired to appreciate anything but the cold beer and pizza that follows any move... unless of course you finish moving at 6am.

Door to Door War; A Film by Jared Eves

2007-06-26T14:24:00.001-04:00

A short film by Jared Eves, a friend from Calgary. Check it out.

No Job, But Free Yoga

2007-06-23T11:13:00.000-04:00

A recent lock-out at the cemetery across from our house inspired me to record the unkept state of the grounds.

At 19, when I was young and idealistic, I started a BFA in theater performance. Despite the lectures and warnings of those around me, I was determined to do what I loved, even if that meant waiting on tables for the rest of my life. I dragged out the degree, taking five years to finish it in all. I walked the stage at Place des Arts, wrapped my hands around my degree and was suddenly hit with a wave of fear. I had fought to have the day off of my crappy union job to attend my graduation and realized at that moment that I was no longer a student, but suddenly an out of work actor. I got scared, suddenly realizing what I had done. I called myself a teacher and boarded a plane to Korea, returning a year later with teaching experience and a new outlook on life. I was optimistic, enthusiastic and sure that I could easily secure work back in Montreal.

It seems I was wrong. After two and a half months of desperately looking for work, I finally landed a job teaching English at a private French school. But it was short lived. The woman I was replacing returned from sick leave and I was job hunting again. This time seemed easier, however. I was only looking for something short term- just for the summer. I hit restaurants with my cv and was sure that I had landed the first job I interviewed for. A friend of mine was a manager there, and on top of that I had run into an old co-worker during my interview who already worked there. He sat down and told his manager all the reasons he should hire me and concluded my interview by informing him of all the hoops he would jump through to get me to work at his restaurant. The manager told me that as far as he was concerned I had the job and he would call me in a couple days. No call. I left four messages, no call back. I accepted that they had passed me over, for whatever reason and hit the street again with a stack of cvs. A new Irish pub downtown interviewed me twice, finishing the second interview by telling me that training would start on Monday and they would call to confirm. No call. I called them and the very laid back manager rudely informed me that they had not made any decisions yet regarding staffing. Click. No phone call back. Next, I interviewed at a language school. The group interview started with some chit-chat, revealing that I was the more experienced of the three in our group. The owner came in, going on and on about the school's new and innovative methods, without ever revealing what was so new or innovative about what they were doing. He was unable to answer any of my questions and hardly looked at me throughout what he called 'an interview'. It was obvious that the school's new and innovative approach included brushing off experienced teachers. I had accepted that I didn't have the job before I left the office. The man called me two days later to confirm that he had hired one of the less experienced teachers. Two weeks later, he called me back to say that they were opening another new class of students and he would like to meet with me to discuss the possibility of working together. We met, talked, and decided that I would start teaching at this 'new and innovative' school starting on Monday. I turned up for a few hours to observe a few classes, in an effort to discover what was so unique about this place.

Sunday afternoon, as I sat on the bus to the the hospital to visit Fred, the phone rang. It seems the plane load of Mexicans that made up the class I was supposed to teach had decided to postpone their trip to Montreal. They would call me when and if the Mexicans in question decided to reschedule their trip. A couple days before, yet another restaurant that had interviewed me had called to offer me a job. It turned out, however, that they only had lunch shifts available now. Since I had secured this teaching job, I had turned it down.

Hearing what happened with the school, Fred's mom called her work. Her boss assured her that there would be a job for me at Brother. A week later, the manager of the customer service department called me to schedule an interview. Despite the extreme sense of condescension, all went well and she told me to expect a phone call from the HR department. A week and a half later, they called to schedule an interview. I bussed all the way out to the West Island to sit in a room with a very simple woman who felt the need to take advantage of her status as interviewer and insist that I tell her about a time when I did something I was not proud of. To my surprise, I was able to find just the right words to tell her it was none of her business, without actually saying that. They told me that I would start on June 18th. Then it was pushed to June 26th. Now the official start date is July 3rd. I've lost my patience with this company, and with the employment options available in Montreal. In no other city in Canada would a bilingual university graduate with teaching experience and a brain in her head have such trouble finding a job. I may have been idealistic at 19 when I threw myself into theater school, but I never imagined that even the customer service industry would want nothing to do with me. Either this is a sign that I'm not supposed to be in Montreal, or I'm being given a very clear indication that customer service is such a part of my past that it shouldn't even be a fall back... Just as my frustration had begun to give way to depression, my yoga studio called. They offered me a position as receptionist on Saturday mornings, in exchange for free yoga classes and towel service. Woohoo!! I may not be able to pay my rent, but at least I'll be relaxed about it.

After spending months trying to secure work in Montreal, my mind is beginning to wander. Thoughts of life in Toronto or Vancouver have begun creeping into my head. I love Montreal, but if being here means being unemployed, I've just about had it. I know that I haven't finished traveling, but I had always imagined Montreal as home. Now even that is being questioned...

A downpour in our backyard.

Ignorance was Bliss

2007-06-15T22:24:00.000-04:00

I was a tomboy growing up. I argued with my mother about wearing skirts to church and did much better in shop class than I did in home-ec. I wore baggy clothes and was likely to be at soccer practice after school than at the mall. I saw my strings of flings as reinforcement of my feminist beliefs- the image of the woman alone, refusing to be domesticated. As I got older, things started to change. I gradually began to buy clothes that actually fit and enjoyed wearing a dress every once in awhile. I met Fred and bit by bit began to feel more domestic. I remained quite unable to cook, and was rather proud of my incompetence in the kitchen- largely because it assured me that my roommates would always cook for me. When I moved to Korea last year, it was with a heavy heart- I knew it was inevitable that living alone, I would finally learn to cook. But when I arrived, I found eating out so cheap and easy that the effort simply wasn't worth it. Here I am, back in Montreal and still unable to cook. As Fred went into the hospital for his transplant, I realized this was the ultimate test- if I could just make it through the next three months... Unfortunately the other day, I caved under pressure when Fred complained about his three sandwich a day diet. I bought a pound of salmon, cooked it in maple syrup and served it with grilled vegetables and fettucine alfredo. Part of me hoped it would be a terrible failure, but Fred loved it and has spent the last two days accusing me of being a good cook. Ignorance was bliss. Now it's into the kitchen with me.

These posts are becoming fewer and further between. I'd say I've been busy, but I don't really feel like that's true. Two weeks spent hanging around the Royal Victoria Hospital virtually killed any creative impulses I may have had. I suppose I have been busy, but most of my time has been spent hanging around with Fred- and then all the cooking, cleaning, housework and running about that one would expect when you're the only one doing the work. I don't know how women do it. Three weeks in and I'm already burnt out from it all- while at the same time, I'm giving myself little credit for all the work I am doing. No matter how much work you do, there always seems to be more. That said, I've also taken to reorganizing the apartment.

Fred continues to do well. It's been easy to forget that he's just undergone major surgery. He's up and about, accompanying me on long-ish walks to Queen Mary street. He's exhausted when we get home, but he's getting out a bit. His incision became infected before they released him, so they had to take a few staples out. This resulted in a gaping hole in his stomach about three inches long and an inch deep. A nurse is coming to the house twice a day for the last week to change his dressing, which has been oozing goo. Last week-end I played nurse myself, cleaning the inside of the wound, stuffing the hole with saline gauze and applying the necessary gauzes and tapes. I never thought I'd be able to do that. How many people can say they've seen the inside of their boyfriend's stomach?

It is so difficult for us to wrap our minds around what we have just been through. Boxes of insulin sit lonely in our fridge and I pass my days calling charities, hoping someone will accept the donation. Fred takes his blood sugar reading four times a day- lately the reading has been between six and ten, within the normal range. Prior to the transplant, his sugar level could be anywhere between two and thirty. He has had some really rough days in his recovery. Four days after the surgery, the doctors dropped his steroid dose considerably, resulting in an unexpected mood swing and a lot more pain than he had previously had. The tube that had been going through his nose to his stomach, the purpose of which was to suck out the stomach juices, was removed at his insistence. The following day, they had to put it back in because he was vomiting too much. Initially the tube had been inserted when he was under anesthetic, but the second time he was awake. It was badly placed and stuck out from his face at a 90 degree angle. His throat bled, his ears hurt and it irritated his stomach. Four times a day, he pops a handful of pills- two anti-rejection, a steroid, two pills for hypertension and a collection of antibiotics to prevent infection. Sixteen prescriptions in all, which will eventually drop to three. I spent an hour at the pharmacy last week getting the run-down on each drug and left feeling as though I should have the bag shackled to my wrist. Two months worth of Cellcept, one of the anti-rejection drugs, came to 1200$. The Prograf, also an anti-rejection was 4000$ for two months, and the antibiotic Valcyte was 5000$ for three months. Fortunately, the bill was passed onto the insurance company and I paid only for the box of multivitamins.

The last few weeks have been so surreal for me. It's hard to believe that our wait came to an end so quickly and that Fred's surgery and recovery went so smoothly. We've been reminded that although all looks good, we aren't out of the woods yet. There will still be ups and downs as his body adapts to his new organs and as they continue to ease him off his obscene dose of steroids. I've taken to calling Fred 'Triple Threat' or 'Three-Kidney Freddy', but I'm at a loss for pancreas-related nicknames. I'm sure this will result in countless new names, and eventually speculation as to who it was that passed on their organs so that he could live.

All kidding aside, if you haven't signed your donor card, please do. While we waited a short time for Fred's transplant, we were very fortunate. We have a friend who waited two years for a kidney and we met a man at the hospital who had been waiting three months at the hospital (and who knows how long before) for a liver transplant. He was unlucky enough to be a very generous O blood type- universal donor, but picky recipient. In Ontario, it is not uncommon for people to wait eight years for a kidney. In the Netherlands, three hundred people die every year waiting to receive a transplant. Consider for a moment what a difference your organs could make to so many after you pass on. And it isn't just one person that you'd be helping, but possibly as many as ten. Not to mention all the friends and family of those recipients that would also be affected by your generosity. Allow the last thing you do to be the most heroic thing you ever did.

Oh Canada

2007-05-21T21:11:00.000-04:00

Being a young Concordia graduate in Canada means that I must do my part to keep up the reputation of my alma mater. Concordia is famous for its politically charged atmosphere- and its students reputed for speaking (or screaming out) their political views. In these rare moments where I contemplate for a moment how lucky we are to be in Quebec, and in Canada, I feel I need to acknowledge them.

Fred waited about five months for his new kidney/pancreas set. Our friend Ethan waited two years for his kidney (also in Montreal). In Ontario, patients wait up to eight years for a kidney transplant and have to be on dialysis before even being put on the transplant list. Fred was fortunate that he is an AB blood type, making him a universal recipient. His age and his diabetes allowed him to move up the list quickly, saving him the ordeal of undergoing dialysis. On top of that, the Royal Victoria Hospital here in Montreal happens to be the only hospital in Eastern Canada that performs pancreas transplants. Had we been anywhere else, we would have had the added stress of flying here for the procedure and dealing with hotel bills for his family and myself, not to mention the absense of friends around us.

Every day this week I have contemplated how fortunate we are not to be living in the US. The base cost of Fred's procedure in the US is broken down as follows:

Procurement of organs: 118,000$
Hospital stay: 70,400$
Physician: 20,500$
Testing: 12,400$
Follow-up: 40,800$
One year of Immuno-suppresant drugs: 31,000$

Total: 293,100$

Cost to us for Fred's procedure in Canada:

Cost of Immuno-suppresants in the US over the next fifty years: 1,550,000$

Cost of Immuno-suppresants in Canada over the next fifty years: 35,000$

Canadian citizens pay no more than 700$ per year for prescription drugs
The Immuno-suppresants cost 2,000$ per month, charged to the Canadian government

As much as we bitch and complain about our less than perfect system, we need to remind ourselves that the grass is not always greener. It almost makes me wish I weren't spending Canada Day helping people move (yet again).

Mommy, Where Did My Pancreas Come From?

2007-05-17T09:07:00.000-04:00

I am not a doctor. My experience with medicine is limited to repeated ankle injuries and an addiction to ER. Yet here I sit, on the third floor of the Ross Pavillion at the Royal Victoria Hospital wondering what could possibly be taking so long. The whole thing seems fairly straight forward to me. Unplug a kidney, plug the new one in. Unplug a pancreas, plug the new one in. I suppose I shouldn't be basing my expectations on a TV show where every problem is resolved within an hour with room for commercials.

The phone rang yesterday afternoon as Fred and I sat down to watch an episode of Lost. I could hear the calm voice of his nurse making small talk and I went back to watching TV. She sounded far too calm for this to be THE CALL. After a few minutes, she revealed that they may have a donor and we should stay close to the phone. The blood type was a match, but they needed to run more tests to be sure. She told us to be ready to come in later that night, likely around 11pm. I checked my watch. Nine hours to kill. Fred hung up the phone and we both burst into tears. Though our wait has been relatively short, it has seemed as though the surgery would never actually take place. We collected ourselves and started to clean up the apartment- the one thing we were capable of doing. We began to make calls- he called his mom as I called his dad. Then his sister, brother-in-law, and my dad. I emailed Thelma. We braved the wind and rain to stock up at the pharmacy down the street, and returned home to pack Fred's hospital bag.

Claire, Matt, Christine, Michael and his mom turned up at dinner time to hang out while we anxiously waited for the call. At 9pm, the phone rang and we frantically rushed out the door, arriving at the hospital a few minutes later. Again, they told us nothing was for sure. We still had to wait to be sure the organs were good. At 11am, fourteen hours and countless tests later, Fred went into the operating room. Matt, Claire, Christine, Michael, Fred's mom, dad, sister and myself had spent the entire night at the hospital- eagerly awaiting the verdict. At 7:30pm, they rolled him out of the operating room to the ICU. We were told that the surgeon would soon be by to brief us on the operation. We waited forty minutes, but no one came. I snuck through the steel doors leading to surgical ICU and crept carefully to Fred's room- expecting someone to pounce on me for entering. No one said anything- so I stood and waited at the door to Fred's private room- I could hear his nurse talking to him, and Fred was responding in garbled words. We all took turns poking our heads in to say hi and the nurse told us the surgery went well. At 10:30pm, we decided to let him (and us) get some sleep.

The morning after.
Surprisingly this is not the worst Fred has looked in the morning.

I dragged myself from the comfort of my uncomfortable mattress the next morning, showered and prepared to return to the hospital. Just as I was walking out the door, my phone rang and Fred's voice demanded to know where I was. I anxiously ran out the door- every minute of the half hour trek seeming like days. I was excited that Fred was already capable of bitching at me. On arriving at the hospital, we were briefed on his condition. His brand new kidney had already started working, as had his pancreas. He was in alot of pain, but was alert and quickly recovering. We discovered that his surgeon had been the only one in the hospital the night before and was responsible for the transplants of a few different patients that night. Good for us since he happened to be the only surgeon specialising in pancreas transplants in Eastern Canada... not so good for the guy that got the liver that night. We soon found out that Fred had been passed over several times in his wait for new organs. His doctor was determined to find the closest possible match for him- in age and tissue. As a result, the match on his new kidney/pancreas is very close to perfect.

We have been so lucky it's unbelievable. For so long, both of us have wondered when our luck was going to turn around and it seems as though it finally has (as I knock furiously on wood). Fred is doing extremely well. The efficiency of the kidneys is measured by the level of creatonin found in the blood- the higher the level, the less effective the kidneys. Before the surgery, his creatonin was over 400- this afternoon it was 98 (better than average). After the surgery, he was receiving 35 units of insulin an hour to keep his blood sugar regulated. This afternoon he was down to half a unit per hour. I can't explain, can't put into words how overwhelming the last week has been. Anxiety, fear, guilt, joy and hope have all been around this week. While Fred, his family and his friends anxiously waited for the confirmation that the surgery would happen, we were informed that the family of the donor were still in the hospital. The donor was young, close to our age and I imagined how their family must be feeling. We'll never know who that person was, or anything about them. It is absolutely unbelievable that a complete stranger saved his life- and we'll never be able to explain to them how thankful we are.

I hope that all of you have signed your donor cards and will allow your final good deed to be the longest lasting, most heroic and powerful thing that you've ever done. We have the rest of our lives to be thankful for the donor that allowed Fred and I to build our lives together.

Two days later. Green means morphine.
Thank you, Mr or Ms Mysterious for saving my Freddy.

Montreal: City of Design

2007-05-14T14:48:00.000-04:00

Old Anglican church on Côte des Neiges-
the peeling of the bells can still be heard throughout the community

The people at UNESCO have announced what all of Canada has known for so long. Montreal is a uniquely beautiful city. As celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Expo 67 kick off, Montreal was officially declared a UNESCO City of Design, along with Berlin and Buenos Aires. With summer upon us, I've promised myself to really appreciate what we have here. Despite having spent last summer immersed in a different culture and language, the summer came and went without my usual summer activities. Seoul being a rather concrete city, my summer lacked lazing about on the grass and listening to the drums at the tam-tams. This summer I have decided to do my best to record the beautiful city I live in, and remember how it blew me away when I first moved here.

The politics of Montreal are inescapable.

I have also come to the realization that I am quite detached from the Montreal theatre community. When first I arrived in Montreal, I was launched smack into the middle of the mess that is the anglo theatre scene, but as I distanced myself from the Fringe Festival and other grassroots events, I've lost touch. This, of course, makes it difficult when I am occasionally hit by a stroke of genius and realize that everyone I know in theatre has made the move to Toronto (damn you, Toronto!!). So last night Fred and I hopped on the Metro to St-Laurent & Ste-Catherine (the sketchiest corner in the city) and strolled as quickly as we could to Théâtre Ste-Catherine. The theatre was bought by a young Calgarian who moved to Montreal around the same time I did. Though it doesn't yet have the same feel as Calgary's Loose Moose Theatre, it's a start. A few of the actors are imports from the Loose Moose and trained with Keith Johnstone- the god of the improv. world. Some of the skits were good, others were bad, but it didn't really matter. The audience was more engaged and more involved than I've seen in a theatre in a long time. Best of all, it inspired to get my ass back into the theater.

Alliance of Artist Communities

2007-05-12T18:21:00.000-04:00

I was super excited to stumble across this site. For years, I've contemplated checking myself into the Banff Centre for the Arts and creating something really amazing. But that takes advanced planning and forethought and we don't get along so well. As I've begun to write more and have spent more time away from the stage, I really that I need to build myself a community. Writing I can do on my own, but acting takes a team of people. I have great trouble auditioning for films and plays because I have a deep and unsettling feeling that I am about to become involved in a bad project. And I'm usually right. Unfortunately, like any field, there are far more half-baked artists than really talented, intelligent and creative people. The discovery of a worldwide artistic community sponsoring internships and residencies is really encouraging. I can't wait to further investigate this...

Stephen Harper is Embarrassing Us!

2007-05-04T10:37:00.000-04:00

The Clean Air Act is a total embarrasment to Canada. Our country is not doing enough to neutralize climate change. Please, please, please- click on the link below and send a letter to Harper. The message is already written for you! Just type your name and click send- that's it, that's all.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/harperdotherightthing/

What does David Suzuki think?

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/latestnews/dsfnews04270701.asp

Reuters reports Canada receives international "Fossil" award for misleading countries on climate change:

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39038/story.htm

What does Al Gore think?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070430/ap_on_re_ca/gore_canada_warming

Free Hugs in Korea

2007-05-02T02:17:00.000-04:00

Feeling that I had been slacking in recent days with my yoga practice, I arrived at the studio early on Friday to properly prepare myself for class. I lay my mat down in the center of the room, stretched out on my back and closed my eyes. I was sweating before the class even started, but was quite successfully focusing on my breathing. As the instructor walked into the room, I opened my eyes and stood up. I was shocked to find that the three people closest to me had laid their mats painfully close to mine. I was annoyed, but class was beginning so there was nothing I could do. The day before my mirror view had been blocked by some girl who seemed intent on always stretching just as high and deep as I did to ensure that I would have the worst possible view. Today, all was well during the hour long standing series, but the last half hour on the floor was a test to my patience. The girl to my right, sporting a black t-shirt with the message `It's all about me', which she seems to believe is ironic, though I suspect that the shirt was probably a gift from an ex-boyfriend with a real message. Over the next half hour, I learned that in fact, it was all about her. She nearly kicked me in the face at least four times during various stretches and I spent the rest of the class flicking, slapping and catching her feet as they came flying at my face. Buddy next to me must have recently broken up with his girlfriend (perhaps Miss Self-Centered?), because he seemed quite lonely. He was cuddled up so close to me that I couldn't properly stretch, and I had to continuously move his hands off my mat. Mr Shaved Head at my feet seemed to have a foot fetish, as he took every possible opportunity to fondle and play with them. I kept snapping my feet closed on his hands and kicking them away from me. By the end of class, I was worn out from defending my space and dealing with the 'Plateau People' (a special breed of Montrealer that attends McGill on their parents dime, lives in an overpriced apartment in what is sarcastically referred to as the ghetto).

There are a lot of things that piss me off on any given day. Part of the reason for starting yoga classes was to help me with this, but it can be very difficult to relax in a room with sixty sweaty, tired, cranky people believe it or not. All this to say, I came across this clip the other day, and it seems that Free Hugs is a recent sort of flash-mob, performance art thing that is happening all over the world. This particular video is shot in Hyehwa (the area where my play went up), Seoul. I thought it was beautiful, and no, it didn't piss me off.

PS- Yes, I know this video is there twice, but when your screen looks like this ?????????????????????, it's a little difficult to figure out how to change it. If you like, watch them both simultaneously and pretend that your computer does picture and picture. Or you can imagine that you're at Future Shop looking at all those TVs that play the same thing...

Announcement from Spacey Caycee

2007-04-30T23:22:00.000-04:00

Hey all fellow former imaxians

I'm just hijacking Steph's blog to share my news

As many of you already read Steph's marriage rant, I got engaged in Jan while on vacation in Mexico.

Turns out we also brought home a stowaway...

I'm almost 14 weeks pregnant now - passed the dangerous first trimester and baby is doing great!

Baby is expected to make an appearance on Nov 1st, which is oddly appropriate for Kent & I, as that is the first day of Dias de los Muertos ( Day of the Dead festival)

Adiós

Caycee

Congrats Caycee! Rant about the contagious disease of pregnancy to follow soon...

Love, Steph

The End of Stability

2007-04-19T10:43:00.000-04:00

I sit at a café on St-Catherine Street- coffee in hand, and watch those passing by the open door. A cool breeze wafts in, mellowing the overpowering stench of perfume that is overtaking my nostrils- assuring me that spring has once again arrived in Montreal. Skeptical Montrealers leave the house in winter jackets, with gloves and tuques- fearful the weather is trying to trick us once again. Hopefuls take to the city's terraces and convince themselves that outdoor beer is here to stay. The bike lanes are open, and rollerbladers far braver than I are taking to the streets to enjoy every moment of sun. The city's notorious pot hole problem/collapsing streets make rollerblading unthinkable for those of us with a brain in our heads.

I awoke this morning at 8:00am, having promised my grade six class that I would come and see their fashion show presentation. I took the bus over the mountain and looked forward to othe long walk from the bus stop to the school. The bus dropped me off at Parc Lafontaine and I made my way through the hoards of cyclists, rollerbladers and strollers till finally I reached the school. It was my last day at l'École St-Joseph. The teacher has returned from sick leave, leaving me to contemplate, once again, where I'm headed. At the moment, I am relishing in my return to unemployment. Montreal is the best city in Canada in which to be unemployed, and there is no better time than the summer.

As the last week in this teaching position drew to a close, I'm suffering from very mixed feelings- as I so often do. On the one hand, I quite like having money in the bank and not worrying about what magic tricks I'll need to pull off to pay all my bills. On the other hand, I fear that such stability is sending me in the exact opposite direction of where I would like to be. You have probably noticed that my posts have become few and far between since mid-February, for a few reasons. For one, working forty hours a week is quite exhausting and has killed any creative impulses I once had. Secondly, the reality of teaching in Canada seems to mean never seeing an end to the work on your desk. I'm not a fan. This may be the most I've ever made, but it isn't very good. I can't imagine what sort of insane person would spend another two years in school to obtain an education degree (that cannot be used outside of Quebec) to make 35,000$/year, with poor benefits and be considered, by the children and their parents, to be a glorified babysitter. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to see the reality of the profession in Canada before I was tempted by the promise of summers off. Schools have changed. The older teachers predictably discuss each day the differences between my generation and this one in the classroom. They fear the coming of age of these students, many hoping they won't be around to see them children in their adult years.

This experience was invaluable. I realized that I am far too impatient with nonsense and excuses to teach children for a living. I just don't care enough. You didn't do your homework? Whatever, your loss, not mine. English is useless, you say? Okay, sure. You're off to a great start in life. Call me in ten years when you want to work in Toronto. In any case, all this chasing children around and pretending to care wore me out and distracted me from what I would rather be doing- writing and acting. Worse than distracting me, the experience drained me. When I was teaching in Korea, I was exhausted from listening so carefully to everything being said and trying to make sense of it. From reading very slowly aloud every message on the photocopier, hoping that eventually I would understand why it wasn't working. From bouncing kids on my knee and being poked in the eye with little fingers. Teaching here is exhausting because of the atrocious amount of work. It's never ending. And like I said, draining.

So I have the summer to contemplate. The Commision Scolaire de Montréal is still anxiously awaiting the scores from my French test so they can hire me on full time for next year. I've come to terms with the fact that my procrastination is based in fear and I'm going to register for an online refresher course in French grammar, which will do me good. My agent has been put on alert to find me some good work for this summer, and I'm awaiting the announcement of next season's auditions at the English theatres. I snapped last week after another health scare with Fred and bought myself my expensive, over-priced yoga pass. I decided if there was anything that could take my mind off the upcoming transplant for an hour and a half a day, it was well worth the money. Today will be day six of my Bikram routine and I'm loving it. I feel amazingly healthy and my winter tummy is quickly melting away- or should I say thankfully. I'm off to yoga class and promise to be more active in my posts. It would also help if my computer would stop trying to speak to me in Korean- which looks very little like Korean and a lot like this ?????????????????????????????????????????????. There's nothing more obnoxious than having every button and tab on a web page full of question marks. Hopefully the next post will also be more direct, as we say in theatre. I struggle with being shockingly indirect, for which I blame the ADD. But summer is the time for ADD and summer is very, very close. I plan on spending an obsene amount of time under a tree reading a book.

This was the biggest patch of grass I found last summer in Seoul... It was not a comfortable place to read a book.

Post-Election Blues in la Belle Province

2007-03-28T09:57:00.000-04:00

My voting card in hand, Fred and I trudged to St-Joseph's Oratory on Monday to cast our votes. We approached the church, praying silently that we wouldn't have to climb the hundred something stairs to the top in order to do so. Apparently the government accounted for this laziness and set up post in a little chalet at the foot of the stairs. We waited no more than a minute to register our votes, traditionally a sign of a Liberal victory in Quebec. The formula has long been low voter turn-out equals Liberal victory, high voter turn-out equals Parti Québécois victory. Though Quebec has the highest rate of voter turn-out in the country, this election put us at a sad 71% participation.

Quebeckers rarely waffle. Stubborness, pride and political conviction are three characteristics that very accurately describe your typical Quebecker. You're either separatist or federalist, there are few who sit in the middle, indifferent. This is exactly why it has been 129 years since the last minority government in Quebec. It is a difficult picture to paint for someone who has never set foot in Quebec. I engaged in very few political discussions during my years in Calgary- Albertans are largely politically indifferent. The province in prospering so it appears that the government is doing something right, and voters continue to elect the same people to lead them. That's why Kananaskis was such a perfect place for the G-8 summit meetings, and Quebec City such a poor place. My year at the University of Calgary, I was part of the campaign against tuition hikes. To our extreme frustration, few people signed our petition against the hikes- indifferent about the price and the actions of their government. Meanwhile, tuition hikes and cuts to student loans and bursaries left Quebec universities and Cégeps empty during student strikes two years ago. Some schools were closed only a day or two, the Université de Montréal, however, was closed for three months in protest.

We watched the election coverage intermittently that night. Up until 9pm, CBC was predicting an ADQ victory. I was both baffled and afraid. How can a party that waffled on the issue of sovereignty possibly be leading? A party that presented few clear ideas in the hopes of capturing the voters who were turning against the PQ and the Liberals? The consequences could be dire. The Quebec economy is not what it once was. With the passing of Bill 101, hundreds of big businesses packed up and moved to Toronto. Few, if any have returned. Today the two biggest industries in Montreal are the sex trade and telemarketing. Thankfully, the city has in recent years also become a hot bed for the video game industry. In any case, the desire to maintain the culture of the province has gone to such lengths that it has crippled the economy. Instead of looking at the city of Montreal, approximately 60% French to 40% English, and realizing the incredible potential that this held for businesses, the government has done their best to prevent the French from learning English. French and English are the two most common official languages in the world- imagine the possibilities if nearly 100% of permanent residents were bilingual. But bilingual people have the freedom to leave for provinces with lower tax rates and this would threaten sovereignty, so instead it has been made very difficult for francophones to learn English. I'm rambling. Back to Mario Dumont- a leader with so few clear plans, his election would have been disastrous for this delicate economy. Rather like Ralph Klein, but in a less fortunate province. His collection of questionable choices for ministers does not particularly help his case. I was fearful of an ADQ victory. Children, it seems, were also fearful of such a victory. The French newspaper, La Presse polled a group of kindergarten students and asked them which of the three party leaders most resembled the evil Lord Voldemor of Harry Potter. Mario Dumont (ADQ) was the clear winner.

Evil Lord Voldemor

Evil Mario

See the resemblance?

Having said all that, a PQ victory would have been less disastrous, in my mind, but not by much. André Boisclair is not a leader. While people at Liberal headquarters shouted 'Charest, Charest!' and ADQ headquarters was filled with screams of 'Dumont, Dumont!' on Monday night, les péquistes (PQists) were apparently chanting, 'Un pays, un pays!' (A country, a country!). The PQ may have the strongest platform in terms of social programs, but it is too idealistic. They fail to generate any new ideas to provoke the economy and resort to blaming the federal government for budget shortfalls, yet remain determined that separation is a viable option. It seems that voters this election gave them a clear message that their message is tired and old. Nobody wants another referendum. The province can't afford it. I'm not sure if this has been big news across Canada, or if the focus has largely been in Quebec. Montreal is a cosmopolitan city and one of Canada's most diverse. The issue of 'reasonable accomodation' seems to have snuck its way into the media and they are trying their best to instill fear in les québécois that their culture is at risk because Muslim women choose to wear hijabs, or because I'm not permitted to eat non-kosher spaghetti in the kosher section of the Jewish hospital. Please. Is your culture really so fragile that it is threatened based on where you eat your lunch? On passing a woman dressed differently in the street? Boisclair's recent comments about Asians with les yeux bridés (slanty eyes) reveals that he is not the one to lead us through this definitive period of cultural integration.

At least André Boisclair is happy. That's what counts...

We can probably assume this photo was taken before Monday.

The Liberals. The lesser of the three evils, but I am still not interested in supporting them. Charest fell short of his election promises from the last election, and in my mind does not deserve a second chance. That having been said, he was the best of the realistic possibilities. At least we know that his platform is all lies and his federalist agenda means that it is in his best interest to make the Quebec economy more accessible. Of course, this is in the best interest of Quebec, but some are too stubborn to acknowledge that welcoming in big business does not have to mean sacrificing your language and your culture. English and French are perfectly capable of living side by side in Montreal. Despite the unfortunate and sometimes mysterious choice of having each candidate posed with their fist under their chin (in French, the word for chin is menton, dangerously close to the verb mentir -to lie.) on campaign posters, it seems that many Quebeckers chose their Liberal candidates to lead them. Perhaps their victory (if you can call it that) had something to do with the Gazette's review of which party's posters were the best to go sliding. The Liberals won that contest by leaps and bounds- probably due to their disregard for the environment, demonstrated by needlessessly big campaign posters.

Jean Charest

We wouldn't have been happy with any of the possible results. The Liberals won in my riding, followed closely by the Parti Québécois and in third place, the Green Party. Change is in the air. If nothing else, these elections have sent a clear message. We are not pleased. At school the other day, we were discussing how mysterious it is that the ADQ won so many seats when no one will admit to voting for them. Perhaps their success was meant to signal dissatisfaction, and we came frighteningly close to teaching ourselves a very important lesson.

Québec Indecision 2007

2007-03-25T18:33:00.000-04:00

On the eve of the Quebec provincial elections, we wait. Braced to hear which of the three under-qualified candidates will lead our province for the next four years. A minority government is certain- what is yet unclear is who will lead that minority government. Will it be the separatist, the racist, or the idiot? So much for the separation of Church and state. I received my voter card on Friday that informed me the voting location for my riding is the lobby of St-Joseph's Oratory.

St-Joseph's Oratory-
where thousands crawled up the stairs on their knees to be healed by brother André.

This notice was also the first introduction that I had to any of the candidates in my riding. Apparently the days of door to door campaigning have gone the way of political honesty. I discovered that my choices were:

Romain Angeles (Independant)
Raymond Bachand (Liberal)
Yvon Breton (Marxiste-Léniniste Party of Quebec)
Luc Côté (Green Party)
Sujata Dey (Québec Solidaire)
Pierre Harvey (ADQ/Équipe Mario Dumont)
Salim Laaroussi (Parti québécois)

Well, Romain Angeles- you're cut, I'm sorry to say. I would expect that someone running independant of a party would do a better job of communicating what they stand for. I've never heard of you before, so you've lost my vote.

Dear Raymond Bachand (Liberal), perhaps if your party had not just cut 100 million dollars from student loans and bursaries and weren't contemplating lifting the ten year tuition freeze, you might stand a chance of getting my vote. But as it stands, the Liberals seem to stand for lies and broken promises. Whatever happened to those tax cuts? Weren't you even campaigning to keep that 1% of the GST cut by the Federals? Sorry, Raymond- you're cut. I also believe you to be the same man who left many of my phone calls unanswered a couple years back. Not a chance, Bachand.

Hmmm... Yvon Breton (Marxiste-Léniniste). I have to say my interest is peaked, but seriously- did you really think your party name said it all? I'd like a bit more of an explanation of your platform. Just because you're communist, I'll pay you a little more attention and venture to your website... strictly out of curiosity. The site is completely in French, with no English tab. I have to look for the tab marked platform and discover that even the communists of Quebec are separatist. On their platform page, all I find is an assurance of separatist sympathies and an indication of hatred for the Liberals. Sorry, Breton- you're out.

Luc Côté (Green Party), well Luc Côté, I can't say I'm too impressed. For a party that is up and coming, I'm shocked that I didn't get a little notice in my mailbox about you. If you didn't want to waste the paper, it's okay- I get it. Stick up a notice of a meeting at my dépanneur and I would have been there. I know you're pro-environment, so am I. But what else do you stand for? I consult the website. Political accountability, okay that's good. Economic sustainability- not something you hear alot about in Quebec. Health care- create easy access to healthy lifestyles, I like that. A family doctor for every Quebecker, that's a good thing. Policy in support of supporting a healthy lifestyle and encouraging health, rather than treating sickness. Sounds like something I've been saying for the last two years. Accessible education, promotion and encouragement of the arts. Hmm... so far, so good Mr Côté... We'll come back to you.

Sujata Dey (Québec solidaire). Well, to start off- I've heard nothing about you Ms. Dey and little about your party. Being that you seem to be all the rage with disgruntled separatists, I'll check you out and find out what you're about. It should perhaps be noted that separatism doesn't necessarily strike a party immediately in my mind, if they can make up for this fault in other areas. English tab on their website, point one. Okay... platform- equality between the sexes, solidarity among citizens, environmental protection and sovereignty. Anti-union laws? Really? Health care- all you have to say is that we have the right to affordable medication? What about the ridiculousness of new doctors in the province being required to take a three year position in Chibougamu before working in Montreal? How does it help our shortages if our doctors don't stay? Whatever, solidaire- I think you might be crazy. Education- well, you seem to be okay there. Reduce debt, accessibility and so on. Okay, on sovereignty- more referendum talk, great. Oooh, with tax cuts- tax cuts are good. But how do you achieve accessible education, improve environmental standards, reduce prescription costs by 50% AND cut taxes. Sounds suspiciously like the ADQ too good to be true platform. NEXT.

Pierre Harvey (ADQ/L'équipe Mario Dumont). First and foremost, if you really feel that you need to put Mario Dumont next to Action démocratique, perhaps it is true and Mario Dumont really is a one man show. Having fired two or three candidates over the last couple weeks for racist and sexist remarks, I think I have to skip right you, Harvey.

And last, but certainly not least- Salim Laaroussi of the Parti québécois. That's not a terribly québécois name. I wonder... oh, Morocan immigrant. I wonder how he feels about the racist comments that have spewn from the mouth of his leader. I wonder if it's a coincidence that one of the few people with the parti québécois who is not pure laine is running in one of the most ethnically diverse ridings in the province. Twenty-eight, impressive résumé. Salim Laaroussi on his own may have a good shot with me, but not affiliated with the Parti québécois. I really don't want to see Boisclair take the leadership...

It looks like the Green Party wins out, as I expected it would. Many tell me I'm throwing my vote away, but I'd rather support a party who will be able to grow a little bit every election and may one day be the big kid on the block than lie and say that any of the big three represent me when they don't. It's amazing how quickly we begin to lose our idealism. I used to listen to my mother complain that there was no one to vote for and get so frustrated. Now part of me feels like I'm in the same boat, especially in a province where your vote comes down to a decision between being Canadian together or being québécois apart. I hate that people continue to vote for the Liberals just because they don't want to separate, and that others vote for the PQ just because they do. The ADQ may be trying to toss it up a bit, but I'd really like for them to answer the question of where they stand on separation instead of being ambiguous about it so they can get votes from both sides. So tomorrow we go to the polls and vote to see if we will once again be faced with a referendum, or as Boisclair is calling it 'a public consultation on separation.'

Tragically Nameless

2007-03-21T22:21:00.000-04:00

These posts are getting fewer and farther between as my teaching job eats up more and more of my day. I'm really not sure why people do this. I understand that some people are passionate about it, and it baffles me. I can't imagine dedicating my life to chasing kids around in an effort to help them learn and grow, and receive so little appreciation from the kids, their parents and society. I simply wouldn't be able to justify six years of school to make 35 000$ a year. Not even summers off could convince me to pursue this as a career. Three weeks into my teaching job and the unthinkable has happened; I've turned into my Uncle. My Uncle Bob has been an English teacher in Quebec since the beginning of time (or at least my time). The summers that I spent out in Montreal with him and his family meant being subject to his comments about hating children and being fed up with babysitting. Even worse seemed to be the student teachers who weren't, in his books, sufficiently well read to be doing a stag as an English teacher. Only years later upon meeting Julien did I discover that my Uncle may hate children, but he clearly loved his job. He was one of those teachers that changed lives, but didn't want anyone to know and now I've gone and publicly ruined his reputation.

Work is going alright. I don't hate it, I just don't like it. It's difficult to see any sort of improvement and garner any satisfaction from teaching a second language as it is, pair with that the large class size and it's nearly impossible to leave feeling you're making a difference. I'm not passionate about teaching English. Maybe if I could have real discussions with them- push them to see a piece in another light, or provoke and challenge new thoughts. Unfortunately the nature of the work is that you spend most of the day trying to suppress the urge to finish sentences for your students just because it would be faster. You try not to scream as you listen to the hundreds of different excuses for homework not having been finished and actually try to make that student believe that you just listened to whatever gibberish spewed forth from their mouth. You try in vain to avoid the flashbacks to your own Elementary school days, especially when you hear yourself yelling, "Stéphanie. Assis-toi. Comme il faut. Avec les quatre pattes de la chaise à terre et tes deux pieds sur le plancher." (Stephanie. Sit down. Properly. With the four feet of the chair on the ground and your two feet on the floor.) I nearly collapsed when I heard the words explode from my mouth- shocked that it took me so far back. My tone, my pacing -it was all so familiar! I suddenly felt like Mme. Nicole Jolicoeur, my grade three teacher. It was eery. My frustrations are heightened by the disrespect of the students, their indifference to learning and their ability to complain about absolutely everything. I had slotted to spend today's class reviewing vocabulary with my grade five class today, which promised to be painfully boring for all parties involved. So rather than have me talk at them about how these words were important, I put the students in groups of four and explained they would be playing charades. The only requirement was that they preface their physicalization with the phrase, "I like (don't like) to ______," and then they would proceed with their animation. The amount of students who bothered to approach me to inform me the activity was stupid absolutely stunned me. I finally replied if they didn't like it, they were welcome to take their seat back at their desk and read the key words to themselves over and over again. They shut up.

School has changed, kids have changed and I'm glad that this path is just for the moment. Swearing is fairly common in the classroom now, the students refer to their teachers by their first names (Mme. Stephanie, Mme. Julie- although often the madame is dropped) and address them with the more familiar tu, as opposed to vous. In the past three weeks, I realized beyound a shadow of a doubt, that I don't want children. As our society seems to move further and further from values that I still hold precious, I cringe to think of how little respect and hard work will be valued in ten, twenty years. The Western materialism has reached its peak when every student in my grade six class describes shopping as a favourite activity and believes they are entitled to a Playstation3 and an iPod. I can't help but think we have gone so, so wrong.

While it is far from what I want, I know that teaching will bring me closer to what I want to do. Hopefully I can manipulate the desperation of the Commision Scolaire de Montréal into a contract that will only amount to part time hours, leaving me open to do other things. In the meantime, it is providing an eye opening experience with this next generation. This post has perhaps seemed negative, and I don't mean it that way. I'm feeling fairly indifferent about my situation at the moment- apart from having to wake up at 6am. I hate 6am.

As I settle into a routine, I'm struggling to balance my life. I don't know how people work a job this demanding and actually have a life... which explains why these posts are becoming fewer and farther between. I started Bykram Yoga last week, in a room heated to 42 degrees celsius to prompt you to sweat out all your toxins and protect your muscles from injury. I felt amazing all last week and have developed quite an addiction to it. Unfortunately, difficult as I am, I had to choose the most ridiculously expensive type of Yoga to fall for and am currenly arguing with myself about whether or not its worth the 150$ per month. My cheap intro pass expired on Monday and now I've decided to bounce around from studio to studio for awhile until I make a choice. I wonder how many cheap intro weeks one can enjoy at Yoga studios in downtown Montreal... I'll let you know.

Losing Steam

2007-03-08T17:47:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's the return to the monotony of real life without intriguing observations or thought provoking encounters, maybe I'm drained from my new job that requires me to juggle the behavioural problems of twenty-seven students at a time. Maybe my itchy feet are unsatisfied finding themselves back in Montreal, or maybe the cold has gone to my brain and frozen any creative impulses I once had. Maybe it's a little of this and a little of that.

After two weeks of hard work as an elementary English teacher, I felt I deserved a week off. And it so happened that my wish was granted- spring break, although I can't what this week has to do with spring. I had plans to actively look for a new job, to get some writing done and perhaps even begin to edit my Korean travel account. As it happened, I was sick on Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, and yes- even Wednesday. Today is therefore my first real day off and I celebrated by staying in bed all morning and doing nothing at all of interest, unless you count the dishes.

Tuesday I was called up by the Commision Scolaire de Montréal, the largest school board in the city. We arranged an interview for the following morning and the woman gave me the questions that I would be asked, in order to prepare myself, I assumed. So yesterday morning, I dragged myself out of bed down to the metro and all the way to the East end of Montreal for this interview. I had prepared as well as I felt necessary, which wasn't a whole lot. The questions seemed fairly ridiculous to me- and some of them non-sensical given my inexperience as a teacher. What did I think of the role of the teacher in the face of the reforms? Hmm-- I assumed that these reforms are responsible for the lovey-dovey atmosphere of the classes with the younger teachers at my school... the mistaken belief that children do not require rigid rules in a school environment. I imagined that they probably wanted to hear about how I believed that the teacher's role should be that of a facilitator that provokes the children to become interested and engaged in the subject matter. I half believe this, but mostly feel that Canadian children have it easy and should just buckle down and do the work. Also, I've learned I'm not passionate about education- this is clearly not so much a career move as a stabilizing move. In any case, I arrived at the school board, sat down in front of the two men interviewing me and launched into my semi-prepared speech about the eligibility of my candidacy. One of the men interrupted to inform me that in fact I was not being interviewed for a position as an anglais langue séconde teacher, but for a drama teacher. And with that, the little preparation I had done for the interview was tossed out the window.

In any case, I told the men about my experience as an English teacher in Korea. As is usually the case with francophones, they stared at me in disbelief. How did you come across an opportunity like that? Really, a lot of anglophones do that? Why do they want to learn English so badly? Each and every time I have this conversation, I'm blown away by how isolated the French community is from the rest of Canada, and from the rest of the world. I explained to both men that there is a huge push in Asia at the moment to learn English, and that many educated people were bilingual (leaving out the fact that English is the language of business, as I was still hoping to endear myself to these men). I hope that they passed on their disbelief to other school board officials- perhaps these rumours will result in more English in québécois schools, out of pure embarrasment that they have chosen not to learn what people across the world recognize as valuable.

Even though we were sidetracked for quite awhile by a discussion comparing the educational systems of Korea and that of Canada, we finished the interview and they wished me luck on my French test. It seems that since I was being interviewed for a position teaching in French that I could no longer get away with writing the bobo French test. I called human resources in a panic and my good friend Catherine, assured me the test wasn't that bad. Catherine and I have in fact never met face to face, but she feels like a close friend as we have tried to wind our way through a maze of red tape together. The test I was scheduled to write was equivalent to a grade nine French test (or sec 3), but now I'm required to pass the test grade eleven (sec 5). Having made the switch to anglo school in grade ten, I have reason to be terrified. Apparently my interview went well and she was given the green light to hire me, as long as I pass this nasty French test...

Teaching Position Near Seoul

2007-03-03T14:39:00.000-05:00

I have a friend just outside of Seoul whose school is desperately looking for a kindergarten teacher. It's a great school, the owner and boss are super nice and the accomodations are way nicer than the usual. They need someone to start ASAP- preferably within the next two weeks. If anyone is interested, leave me a message and let me know.

My First (real) Snow Day

2007-03-02T09:46:00.000-05:00

A snow day is a rite of passage for most Canadian kids. Waking early on a weekday and waiting in anticipation by the radio-- will it be closed? Can I go back to sleep and spend my afternoon sledding instead of studying? But of all those mornings that I awoke and hoped for the good news that would liberate me for the day, it happened only once.

Grade twelve. Now, I went to a weird high school. I didn't have to attend classes (which served my ADD just fine). Instead I just showed up at 9am, sat myself down with some books and studied whatever I felt like that day. I had skipped my evening math class (yet again) at Viscount Bennett (those of us from Bishop Carroll High that had motivation problems went there for real classes ) and opted for smoking a joint and going to see a movie with Colin, the boy of the moment. I don't remember what movie it was, but I know we were the only people in the theatre. We left the movie theatre and walked across the deserted parking lot to the car, buried under a foot of snow.

I contemplated how I had mocked my mother for keeping a shovel in the car, but being a Montrealer to the bone, she had refused to remove it. I hate it when she's right. With much difficulty, I drove Colin home. A group of drunken young men helped me push the car out when I got stuck on his street, and I continued home. When I finally reached my driveway, I tried to pull the car in as far as I could, but ended up leaving it half in the street. At 3am I wasn't about to start shovelling snow. I went to bed and awoke early for school the next day. School was cancelled! Finally in my grade twelve year I got the snow day I had been waiting for since grade one. I called around to find out how everyone was celebrating the day off and was invited to go sledding with Colin and his friends. I got dressed, keys in hand and made my way out to the car, determined to dig it out and enjoy my day off. My mother met me at the door and asked where I thought I was going. At the time, she was quite accustomed to saying no to everything under the sun, so I had simply stopped asking her and had begun telling her what I was doing.

She looked at me and shook her head. I wasn't going anywhere until I shovelled the drive-way, she told me. I looked out the window and saw that the foot of snow that had greeted me at 3am, had become nearly two feet of snow in our drive-way. Despite my best efforts to recruit various boys who called themselves friends, none of them came to my rescue. I began to dig. The snow was past my knees and heavy. I glanced up and down the street and saw families outside shovelling the mess together. Tyler and Travis were at my dad's place for the week, and my mother had put her back out, so it was me and me alone. It took me six hours to shovel the drive-way, and I took plenty of breaks to complain to my mother about lack of solidarity in our family. I was nearly finished, and gazed with some satisfaction at our neighbour's house. She hadn't even started shovelling yet. I laughed to myself about how she would be up all night. Just then, the garage door opened and a snow blower emerged. She was finished in twenty minutes.

Colin called later on and infuriated me by recounting how much fun he had had that day. After twelve years of anticipation, my first snow day had been absolutely terrible. I got in the car to drive to school the next morning and arrived to find that the crew in charge of plowing our school's driveway had also opted to take the day off. I had to park on Crowchild Trail (on the highway) and walk for half an hour to get to school. Stupid snow day.

This morning, I awoke at 6 am. I accidently turned the radio on as I fumbled in the dark and the announcer declared that it was going to be "An absolutely terrible Friday." Words of encouragement. I got dressed, grabbed my coffee and left the house. I could barely see across the street. The snowflakes stung my face as the wind whipped them at my cheeks. I caught the number 11 bus to take me over Mount Royal, not my usual route to work but a better one given the weather. I got off at my transfer point and noted my bus would not come for ten minutes, so I started to walk. I arrived at school half an hour later- the bus had never come. I glanced in the mirror on my way to my desk and found mascara running down my face and snowflakes frozen to my hair and eyelashes. Madonna continued to blare away from my mp3 player, and I made a note to myself to remove her songs. Fred had been wrong, I didn't like her new album. I took off my jacket and walked past the secretary's desk to my first class. I heard her tell a parent we were closing the school and a smile broke out across my face. Woohoo! Snow day #2!!

I left the school amidst grumbles as teachers and parents complained about having to turn right around and go home. It was fine with me. The trek home was long, but enjoyable because I knew I had the whole day to myself. My first real snow day- and it's full of possibilities!

Teaching in Canada

2007-02-21T12:28:00.000-05:00

I was never really clear on how I managed to find myself in a supervising position at IMAX. I may have been reliable in some ways, but I know without question that mornings were not my forté. I never understood why Ingrid would schedule me on Saturdays for early morning functions. I rarely made it on a time and finally asked her to stop scheduling me on Saturday mornings, and she didn't, so I went right on being late. Miraculously once I was given a key to theatre, I only slept in once. Thankfully Brett was au courant with the various ways to break into the theatre....

Last Monday I started work at a private French school in the plateau. School has changed little since I was in Elementary, except that mornings start earlier. I start teaching at 8:30am and am expected to be here at 8am. Unfortunately this means waking up at 6am.... something that I do far from gracefully.

Aside from my shock at the complete lack of respect that these Canadian students have for themselves, each other and their teachers, it's easier than teaching in Korea. I actually have enough materials to sustain a full class, without resorting to absolutely ridiculous activities. It's difficult though, going from teaching a class of seven students to teaching twenty-seven. On the upside, they expect less individual attention because they know they aren't about to get it. On the downside, the students are less self-sufficient, less respectful and more self-centered. In the two weeks since starting, I've kicked at least four students out of my grade six class for swearing and other innapropriately language. One student told another to fuck off, another told a girl to suck his dick. He told me afterwards he didn't think it was offensive to say it to a girl because she didn't have a dick. Nice. It seems one of the things that has changed since my days is students now call their teachers by their first names. I was introduced to my classes as Mrs. Stephanie - and many of the students have dropped the Mme when talking about their homeroom teachers. I was shocked. I've also noticed that the students don't use vous when talking to their teachers, but the less respectful and more familiar tu. Of course I didn't expect the students to bow to me as they entered the school as they did in Korea, but I just didn't expect... this. It doesn't feel like that long ago that I was in Elementary school, although it has been fifteen years. Every time I yell at my classes, I can't help but feel eery flashbacks to grade four. Every time I yell, "Samuel, je veux voir les quatre pieds de la chaise à terre," I hear Mme Deschênes' voice. Every time I snap "On lève la main et on ferme la bouche," I hear Mme Jolicoeur. I don't feel old enough to have a real job... responsible for the education and growth of over two hundred students. But I am, and it's scary stuff.

After teaching in Korea, I'm not on the same page as the other teachers. At lunch one day, they discussed how it was terrible to have such long days for the students in Elementary school and they were just too tired. They talked about how their schedules were too rigid and it was too bad the system didn't allow the students more freedom. Excuse me? I nearly yelled. Eleven year old children are telling each other to suck their dicks and you think these kids need more freedom? If ever there was a doubt in my mind that I didn't want children, working in a Canadian school has made my decision. I got angry with a student for propping his feet up on the chair next to him- to which he responded, "My feet are clean." I lost it. My time of Korea made me hyper-aware of how dirt travels. At home, I had three pairs of slippers for different areas of my house so as not to transfer bathroom dirt to the kitchen, for instance. Even now I have two pairs of slippers for my Montreal apartment, and keep a seperate broom to sweep the bathroom floor. It was both the sight of dirty feet on a chair and the indignant response of the child that shocked me. I can't imagine how anyone could teach for thirty years. In fact, the idea of going back on Monday makes me mildly anxious. There are too many students in the classes and they have not been trained to think independantly or resourcefully. After explaining a presentation that I assigned my grade four class, I was bombarded by students asking me to translate various words for them. In my day we had dictionaries, which we were trained to consult. Not so today, as they hmmed and hawed about the injustice of my not doing their work for them. People love to blame the schools for not teaching children this or that, but truth be told, the responsibility to teach children respect rests squarely on the shoulders of parents and the community. And it seems we're failing all around.

Fire on St-Catherine

2007-02-18T16:10:00.000-05:00

Fire breaks out in a restaurant kitchen on St-Catherine &
St Mathieu...

Two Chinese restaurants, one dépanneur, and all the above
apartments are destroyed...

Unfortunetly I didn't have my camera when I first passed by,
so the above pictures are grabbed off a google image search.

Fear not- Sex Cité and the sketchy Bar Diana are doing okay

The Evolution of Language

2007-02-16T18:29:00.000-05:00

I finally received my study guides for my upcoming French test and have realized that it won't be as easy as the woman on the phone promised me. It seems that the Quebec government is picky about details that no one else cares about. And apparently the beloved Office de la langue française has made some new rules for writing. Perhaps they heard a rumour that Francophones were actually becoming somewhat capable of writing their language and decided to further complicate it while they had the chance. For part of the test, we're given a paragraph of text and asked to correct the errors. The prep-booklet suggests that we keep in mind that the proper way to write 21, for instance, is no longer vingt et un, but the Office de la langue française has fallen in love with les traits d'unions and has declared that vingt-et-un c'écrit comme ça. The text also contains des anglicismes. Some are fairly obvious. Ça ce dit pas appointment en français, mais plustôt rendez-vous. Mais y en a d'autres qui peuvent facilement nous tromper. La phrase; 'Veuillez compléter le formulaire' contient un anglicism, mais ça ce dit souvent. Compléter, allegedly, should only be used in the sense of adding something, or to complete it- not à remplir un formulaire. Then again, it was likely printed in France and they speak funny French. They say things like cake instead of gâteau or ticket instead of billet, words that would surely give me a failing grade on my knowledge of government of Quebec approved vocabulary. The Université de Montréal Department of French lists the following as words and abbreviations often contaminated by English:

adresse (address)
app. (apt. - meaning apartment)
Dr (Dr. - note the lack of period in French)
h (hr. - meaning hour)
n^{o (no. - meaning number)}

The Office de la langue française is so terrified of my contamination of the above French terms that it fears allowing me to teach English to young Francophones could have disastrous effects on the French language. Just imagine if there were consistency in abbreviations across language barriers! Quelle horreur!

Ethical Tourism

2007-02-11T16:01:00.000-05:00

For those who have been reading my ramblings regularly, you may recall that I had very mixed feelings about being in Thailand. I found it difficult to deal with the hoards of tourists and though it was a very easy country to travel because of their dependance on tourist dollars, I also couldn't help but feel that I'd walked into a sort of Disneyland park. Western tourists seemed to believe that since their hard-earned money was paying for their trip, they had earned the right to be condescending, leacherous losers. I actually heard a young Brit telling our guide that led us through the jungle that he took offence to Thai people thinking he was so rich because he had to save up for six whole months to travel to Thailand. He went on and on- really trying to communicate how difficult his life was as a young Brit- never even stopping to consider that our guide, who was paid pretty well by Thai standards, would likely never be able to afford to vacation in England.

The experience made me think about what sort of traveller I aim to be. Though I've found myself back in Canada, I know it won't be long before I'm hitting the road again (and by not long, I mean shortly after my boyfriend gets some working organs). Though cheap, trips to Cuba and Cancun have never interested me. I'm not fond of the concept of package trips and resort vacations. It alters the local economy and puts the tourist in an elite category above the local people. I'm not a fan. Without interaction with local people, I would have had very little to say about my year away. In any case, I began to think about how I plan to travel in the future. I want to see it all- which is an impossible feat as time and money are always concerns, but I plan on seeing every continent at the very least. And it seems as though teaching English and drama will be my vehicles. I am so lucky to be a native English speaker (except in Québec), as there is an endless stream of opportunities for me.

I've been thinking alot about volunteering to teach in Africa for awhile. This is the only way that I would consider travelling to Africa. The idea that some people spend thousands of dollars to go on a guided safari gives me chills. I began to look into volunteer opportunities while I was still in Korea and was annoyed that the agencies serving as the middle man were charging thousands of dollars to place you in a community. I'm perfectly willing to pay my own way and donate my time, but I take issue with paying to volunteer. These agencies are quite clearly scams, as far as I'm concerned. Help is so badly needed, I can't imagine I would be turned away if I just turned up there.

In any case, these plans are still in the thought stage, but if any of you have had experiences volunteering in Africa- please leave me some comments about your time there. I've got some leads on some good agencies, but you can never have too many...

Just Politics

2007-02-10T01:52:00.000-05:00

A short rant for you today. I'm off to bed in a minute here, but need to get something off my chest. Ever since I left Canada, I've been contemplating how ridiculous our government is, and how we allow them to go on this way. The Liberal government stole billions of dollars from tax payers and we punished them with re-election. I bet they learned their lesson. Thankfully in the following election we came to our senses and booted them out- even if it did result in Harper being elected. They were too cocky and needed a wake-up call. In any case, I began to contemplate Canadian politics more and more and I became infuriated. We've been brainwashed into believing that our health care system is fantastic- when in truth we only think that because it's better than what you find in the US. We still pale in comparison to many European countries and we pay comparable tax. Our education system is also weak in comparison. My rollerblades have become useless since I moved to Montreal. The roads are too bad to allow me to use them. Travelling in Thailand, I wished that I had them with me. I dream of coasting down hills of roads so nicely paved. Even Mexicans enjoy free education. With all these thoughts floating about in my head, I returned to Canada.

I was determined to get some answers. I hope down the road Canada will be my home away from home- dreaming of settling in a warmer, more transparently corrupt country. For now, however, I feel I should make the most of being home. And I want some answers. I want to know where my tax money goes. I want to know why I nearly starved on the less than adequate student loans provided by the Quebec government. I want to know how they justify cutting off my loans because I made 8,000$ in my graduating year. According to their calculations, 5000$ should have been set aside for my education the woman had told me, glaring down her long pointy nose at me. I've seen how things are done elsewhere, and I'm just not happy with our system. So I looked up my député provinciale- M Yves Séguin (Liberal). All I wanted was to talk. Of course, previous calls to his office have never resulted in a phone being answered, or a message returned. I don't know why I would expect any different in Quebec. Nothing on the Quebec government site indicates anything out of the ordinary. A Google search, however, reveals that M Séguin has stepped down and his seat has been left vacant. Hmmm... I searched for my Member of Parliament. Lo and behold, this position is also vacant. I'm glad that my interests are not being represented at the provincial or the federal level. What a relief!

That's what I get for having a spurt of idealism. Thank god it comes at a time when the Quebec government is voting on raising tuition for the first time since 1994. I'm thrilled that my opinions on the matter will not be heard and that I can enjoy a 200% increase in tuition upon starting my next degree.

Gainfully Employed

2007-02-09T13:39:00.000-05:00

Montrealers have got to be the most employable Canadians. We just have to be. We enjoy the country's cheapest tuition and have the most educated population. Perhaps we're more likely to call our employers on bullshit as a result. We take more days off than the rest of the country, but that's just to keep us sane. It's difficult, after all, to turn up at a bullshit job everyday when you realize what it is. The more education you've got, the more likely you are to realize it's bullshit.

We speak at least two languages. You'd think that this would give us an incredible advantage, but that all depends really. If you are fortunate enough to have a passably French last name in Quebec, you're likely to do well. Though Bogue is passably French, it is also the term for a computer virus ... perhaps not the impression I'm trying to make. In English Canada, if you have a passably English name, you're also likely to do well. If you're a French Canadian with a last name like Leblanc, fear not, all is not lost- just pronounce it 'Le blank' and try not to shutter. Being bilingual also allows us to curse our employers in the language that they are least familiar with. This is important.

Montrealers are adept at navigating mazes of red tape and accept that we will be paid poorly for it. This also ensures that we will complain more than other Canadians, but at least we're accustomed to making a hundred calls just to get our address changed on our driver's licence. You'll find us pleasantly surprised if we're able to do it in one phone call- and suspiciously shocked if we aren't charged 50$ for such a service.

We are the fastest driving Canadians, and are thus likely to be on time for work. I say that, but we're actually painfully unreliable. And quite likely to speed away from work an hour early at the end of the day. We drink the most, leading some people (myself) to believe that we are happier in our work. We also gamble more than other Canadians, which should serve as assurance that we will continue to turn up at our mind-numbing jobs (until we win big, that is). Montreal men and women alike spend more money on their appearance than other Canadians. This makes us seem better looking. Screw the filles des roi theory- it's all about not wearing your sweatpants to work.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I just got home from an interview at a temp agency and was struck by the differences between working in Calgary and working in Montreal. Years ago, I saw an ad in the paper in Calgary for a temp agency looking for bilingual receptionists. I faxed in my résumé, sure that I wouldn't get a response since I had extremely minimal knowledge of Word, or any other computer program. I got a phone call the next day. The woman on the other end asked how good my French was... I hesitated. How do you answer that, I don't know. What do you want? A rating from one to ten? She passed the phone to her colleague and we finished the interview in French. She offered me the job and told me I started on Monday. In closing she asked if I was familiar with Word. Of course, I lied.

This morning I dragged myself from my bed bright and early. I made my way down to the temp agency and presented myself at the front desk. The young woman behind the desk passed me two thick packets- ten pages each, one in English and one in French. She pointed me to the exam room and set me to work correcting the grammatical errors in each packet. It screws with your head. They had a list of mispelled words in each one- confusing as hell when they've spelled words in the French packet the English way and vice-versa. They know damn well it reaches a point where you can't remember one way or the other. After that ordeal they sat me in front of the computer and called me on my claim that I 'knew' Word and Excel. By now they must know I lied. Just like that fancy restaurant in Westmount figured out real fast that by 'knowledge of wines' I meant I could tell red from white. In any case, the long stream of testing finally came to an end and I interviewed with the owner. It was refreshing to be able to be totally honest in an interview. She looked down at my cv and asked if I was just looking for work until I found a teaching job. I said yes. Like most French Canadians, she marvelled at how I was able to work abroad and totally misunderstood what the imminent French test was for. She seemed to think that as a requirement for further teaching in Asia, I was being asked to write a French test. Only in Quebec would such an error be made. After careful review of my grammar tests, she gave me a passing grade in both languages and informed me that I would hear from her soon.

The process took me over two hours, and I walked out shocked that I had to go through so much to get a job temping. In no other Canadian city would you be asked to do so much work, with so little in return. As I left the office, I checked my voice mail and found I had a message from the school. After all that, I start teaching on Monday. My days of lounging about are officially done and I'll have to get up at what my mother calls 'a reasonable hour'.

Face to Face With My Quarter-Life Crisis

2007-02-05T13:29:00.000-05:00

I assume there's a time in everyone's life when they come to the realization that they are getting old. I came to realize recently that most of my long-time friends are exactly where I would have pictured them to be at this age. Maybe not geographically- but in terms of relationships, careers, education. But every once in awhile someone surprises me. A couple that I always thought were perfect suddenly split up, someone's career takes an unexpected turn, someone has a baby. Fred and I left our friends Michael and Christine on Friday night after dinner. The four of us were exhausted. We had talked about going for drinks but none of us were motivated enough to move beyond the couch, so there we stayed until we decided, half asleep- it was time to head home. A symptom of early-onset old age, as I understand. But there is no greater indication that 'time is marching on' then when your crazy old roommate, 'Spacey Caycee' announces her engagement.

Caycee and I worked at IMAX together. We didn't really know each other all that well until word got around that I was looking for a roommate and had gone to such desperate lengths as to call up an ex-boyfriend to move in. I thought Caycee was crazy- but determined that it would be best if I weren't living with Jon alone. I'd like to say that once we moved in together, I realized that Caycee was not infact crazy, but just misunderstood. But I'd be lying. She's nuts. Barbie dolls with shaved heads and facial piercings left out as cat toys proved that Caycee and I had been very different little girls. I never owned a Barbie doll- soccer balls were so much more versatile. Our lives may have been simple had Caycee and I lived together with Jon. But somewhere along the line, we picked up another couple of roommates, Greg and Gerald. They snapped and moved out a month later. Apparently believing that Caycee's requests that they keep it quiet in chatting to each other on their computers till all hours were completely unreasonable. Exit Gred and Gerald, enter Rageful Scott. Caycee and I thought he was cute. Turned out he was a complete lunatic. Caycee was one of the closest witnesses to the ridiculousless of my flings that year- and has largely remained silent about the extent to which I embarrased myself. Thankfully. But if there was one person that I considered less likely than myself to settle down in a real relationship, it was Caycee. Not entirely surprising- she has been with Kent over five years now, but that in itself is pretty nuts. That's when you know you're getting old. When the person you consider the least likely to settle down, announces that they are. Damn it- we should start a pool. I'd be losing miserably- I also would have bet Diana to be a long-time single girl, and her and Jerod have been married over a year now.

Some people think too much. Others think too little. I believe I'm the former. Just as I think I've made some choices about my life, I talk myself out of it by examining other options. Or taking a step back and considering whether the choice I'm about to make will bring me closer to or further from my goals. Whatever they may be at that particular moment. Now that it looks like stability is just around the corner and my anxious nerves can calm themselves, I began to ponder exactly why I was looking for a teaching job to begin with. It's not what I want to do. I suppose it's closer than serving over-priced food at crappy restaurants though. I know full well that I'll need to return to school- part of me loves the idea of returning to the security of thick books and quantifying my personal development with As & Bs. Part of me dreads the student lifestyle. The instability, lack of funds. For awhile, I've contemplated returning to school in Psychology and pursuing a Master's. I've long thought about pairing the self-exploration of the arts with therapy. Not in the drippy Master of Fine Arts in Drama Therapy kinda way, but in the less obvious- Master's in Psychology - I have intelligence, an imagination and a BFA kinda way. So I begin the phone calls. McGill University pointedly informed me that I could not speak to an academic advisor until they had my 80$ in application fees firmly in their pockets. The woman refused to answer any questions, even regarding scheduling and the possibility of doing the program part-time. I crossed McGill off the list of school possibilities. If that's the snobbery I'm greeted with in making inquiries, they can take their pretentious reputation and shove it. I knew there was a reason I went to Concordia. They were happy to make arrangements for me to speak to someone. The University of Waterloo promptly responded to emails concerning their online Psychology program. As long as I never have to live in Waterloo, it looks like a good option. My mind was made up. This was going to be my course of action. And then I thought, hmm... maybe I'll go to law school instead.

Some article I read said that if you're having trouble deciding on a path, examine the books on your night table and extrapolate from them. So I looked at my night table. The Montreal Gazette, The Bell Jar, A Brief History of Everything, Laughing Wild, Guns, Germs & Steel. Okay.... hmm- current events, literature, philosophy, drama and anthropology. So I've learned I'm ADD. Apparently most artists are, not to worry. After spending so much time focused on returning to school, I suddenly began to wonder if these fields would lead me to the lifestyle that I wanted. I think I've established this year that I need to be mobile. I need to travel. I want to take off for months at a time, and bounce about here and there and everywhere. The idea of being one of those office people that crams their life into their two weeks of vacation every year is absolutely painful. It's just not for me.

On The Road to Stability

2007-02-03T14:42:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, I had an interview for a teaching job at a private Catholic school in Montreal's plateau area. The interview went well, with the principal and vice-principal impressed by my French and asking, as usual, for clarification as to how a girl from Calgary came to be so comfortable in French. The head of the English department was impressed by my insights into the education system of Korea, and by my experience as an actor. They promised to call me back by Friday to let me know if I had the job. Thursday I received a call saying they were concerned that with only one year of teaching experience, I may be a little lost when it came to classroom management. Of course, I didn't tell them this, but I was concerned too. My biggest class in Korea was ten kids- at this school, my class size would increase to 28. They asked me to come in the following day and teach a class, to demonstrate my level of comfort and ability to manage the students. Fear kicked in. I was fairly certain that they would sense my inexperience and eat me alive. I awoke painfully early Friday morning (6am) and began the long trip to DeLormier and Sherbrooke East. As a testament to the time of day, my dépanneur was closed and I was forced to go without coffee until I arrived at the school. Then they tossed me in with a class of grade three students to see how I fared. And I learned something. Teaching English in Korea is a thousand times harder than teaching English in Montreal. As the kids grumbled and grunted their confusion about why a young blond woman was demanding their attention and their usual English teacher was nowhere to be seen, I understood every word effortlessly. I could give them the English word when they asked how to say, for instance, guimauve (marshmallow) in English. The biggest difference, however, was the fact that I wasn't expected to play the role of an overly enthusiastic mime. With thirty kids in a class, they aren't accustomed to individual attention the way Korean kids are in classes of ten. They had all their books on their desk when I walked in. Canadian boys aren't used to their mothers dotting on them, so they don't expect it of their teachers. They're accustomed to hearing English spoken around them, so they already have the ear for it. My fear subsided right away and I breezed through the class and was offered the job. Unofficially. I'm still waiting on the final verdict from the principal, but the woman in charge of the department assured me I would be hired. The only catch is that the position in temporary. A replacement for a teacher who's going on leave for an operation, but apparently a date for the surgery won't be confirmed until 48 hours beforehand. So sometime in the next four weeks, I will be working. Needless to say, I'm still looking. It's comforting to know what I'm getting into, however. At first I felt like I was taking advantage of a staffing shortage to gain employment in a position that I was in no way qualified for. Now I can see how much I learned in my year in Korea, and how it definitely prepared me for teaching in Montreal. Once I start working, I'll deal with the question of how exactly this teaching thing can fit into my acting world... or a busy University schedule. Step by step, as crazy Mr Choi would say.

L'Entrevue

2007-01-29T17:45:00.000-05:00

Last week my cursed telephone finally began to ring in response to résumés I've recently sent off. I interviewed for a job as a secretary at an advertising company on Thursday. Not, obviously, what I want to do- but I thought I'd show up for the interview and see where we went from there. The manager was super young and apologized for the thundering noise coming from the adjoining room- they were building a gym on site. They also offer ski passes to their employees- not so bad, I thought. The following day, I got up early and dragged myself out of bed and made the long trek to the Old Port. I arrived at the office and was greeted at the door by your typical middle-aged Québécois man, M.St-Pierre. He smiled and said 'Ah, Bonjour Debbie!' - not a good start. Turns out I dragged myself out of bed and all the way down there for nothing. He meant to call Debbie Bolton for an interview, but somehow called me instead (he said because Bogue and Bolton are so similar). He interviewed me anyway- and succeeded in becoming the most frustrating interview I've ever had. He asked me why, as an actor, I was applying to work as a receptionist at his télé-production company. Like any good actor, I'm quite adept at lying. I blathered on about wanting to see how things work on the other side, learning the ropes of the administration side to further my goals of one day running my own theater company. And blah blah blah. Of course, the real reason is because ACTRA is on strike and this makes it difficult to convince an agent that they should take you on. And because I have yet to perform in French, I have no French demo, and thus cannot acquire a French agent. Blah blah. So M. Le Québécois, looking over my cv with squinty little eyes, asks what makes me think I'm capable of multi-tasking since none of my jobs have required this skill. I sort of laughed and said, well- I do have teaching, management and waitressing experience. He stared at me blankly, and without missing a beat he said he didn't see how any of those jobs involved multi-tasking. Another glance over the page and he proclaims that I have too much leadership experience to work under someone else. He doesn't think this will work, and by the way- you're being very quiet, how is your French? Quiet? Hmmm... perhaps, sir, because you keep interrupting me to tell me your interpretation of my position, which frankly I don't care to hear. Of course, instead I just smiled and said "M.St-Pierre, je parle très bien français." He went quiet. Gave me an outline for a letter and asked me to write it in French, then in English and then I could go. A test, he said, of my creativity and written skills. I wrote the letter and stormed out of the office and up the street back to the metro, ranting silently the whole way. Of course, he was right- why would I want to work there? And I do have too much leadership experience (and intelligence) to work for a man who completed the interview by inquiring as to fluent I was in Mandorin. My face blank and confused, he had repeated the question- and finally it clicked- "They speak Korean, in Korea," I said.

Back home, my head throbbing from the frustration of the job hunt and damn it, how hard it is to be content when you're so darn smart. I spotted a posting for a temporary teaching position at a private school. I have an interview tomorrow, and hopefully if all goes well, I should be teaching next week. I just can't sit on my ass anymore. I'm about to lose my mind.

Koreans Love Their Juice

2007-01-25T11:19:00.000-05:00

I was unable to find my favourite Korean commercial, which features a newly wed couples skipping around their brand new 'smart home', then at the end make a cutesy heart with their hands and exclaim 'Samsung!'. This one is a close second though. The commercial is for pomegranite juice.

In Contemplation of Flying Bananas...

2007-01-24T01:05:00.000-05:00

Not to re-ignite any mind-numbing arguments from my theatre school days, but really- what is art? Montreal artist César Saez has determined that an enormous floating banana is an art installation. He recently thrust said banana into the skies of Mexico, with the intention that it will rest over Texas. In an interview with Montreal weekly magazine, Saez acknowledged the inanity of the project, but noted that Texas was lacking in flying bananas. No word yet on how US authorities will deal with a giant banana entering their airspace, although I would personally love to see them shoot it down. Just to compound the absolutely ridiculous nature of the world in which we live. That would be art.

The Banana Over Texas project was funded by the Government of Quebec and cost an estimated one million dollars.

I'm taking a poll here- check out the website and tell me here... What's the verdict on the Banana Over Texas project? Art, or as we actors call it- artistic masturbation?

http://www.geostationarybananaovertexas.com/

Yet Another Way to Capitalize on Low Self-Esteem...

2007-01-21T16:25:00.000-05:00

The Hooters corporation has finally clued into the money to be made in South Korea. The social taboo on discussing sex and the acceptance of extra-marrital affairs ensures that the latest American export will become just as successful as McDonald's. Finally all those beautiful Korean women who have spent a ridiculous amount of time and money dieting and getting nose jobs will have a place of their own to flaunt their low self-esteem. Thanks America!

Rather than sliding Hooters into a low-income area as they are in North America (or at least, in my experience with Canadian Hooters), the corporation is trying to pass this off as an important piece of American culture that Koreans NEED by placing it in the upper-class area of Apgujeong. Currently the Apgujeong area is known as the Rodeo Drive of Seoul and houses all the big plastic surgery clinics, within convenient walking distance of Hooters. The area is also home to the city's most expensive gym, the Louis Vuitton store and Seoul's most expensive department store- and for proud Albertans, a Big Rock Brewery Pub. And so begins the moral take-over of Korea. As though Korean women didn't have enough challenges...

North Korean Account

2007-01-18T17:40:00.000-05:00

North Korea

Many people have asked me about the sentiments of the Korean people towards their Northern neighbours. I have tried my best to make sense of it for those who have asked. Korean society is a reflection of their families. In a restaurant, the middle-aged man serving you is not a waiter, but ajossi. The woman, adjimma. These terms are equivalent to uncle and aunt in English. Min-Su (16) used to tell me that he wouldn't lock up his bike because it was an insult to the Korean people- an implication that he believed someone would steal his bike. It revealed a distrust towards others- a distrust that is necessary in Western countries to keep you from being robbed blind. In any case, I often use this as a metaphor to explain the relationship between North and South. Though they may be divided, they are still Korean- part of the same family, sharing the same history, culture and language. Older people probably have very different views on the situation than their children. It is hard to believe that the country was devastated just over fifty years ago. The growth is a testament to the work ethic of the Korean people (or insanity, as I came to call it). Nowadays, it seems that young people worry more about the impact the instability on the peninsula could have on the strength of the Korean economy. In any case, my point was this- I stumbled on this account of an American-Korean woman who had the chance to meet her Uncle and his family in Pyongyang. Those who have spent time in Korea will be hit hard by this I suspect, it gave me chills. Check out Ann Kim's photos of North Korea as well.

South Koreans banging the reunification drum in Paju, South Korea

Castro's Anus

2007-01-18T00:38:00.000-05:00

I was waiting to find an appropriate moment to use this picture, and I have finally found one!

I have been mocking this sign for months- since I first passed by on my way home from work one day. Anal reconstructive surgery? Were people really so vain that there was a demand for anal beautification? Was I jumping to conclusions by assuming that reconstruction meant cosmetic? Probably, but it's funnier that way. So for many months, I've pondered how to comment on the Seoul Anal Surgery Clinic and gradually, it became a faded memory. But tonight I sat watching The Daily Show and it all became clear. Fidel Castro, Cuba's reknown dictator has been in and out of surgery to fix some problem with his intestines or something.

"A second operation to clean and drain the infected area was conducted. Doctors removed the remainder of Castro's large intestine and created an artificial anus. But this operation also failed, El Pais said... A prosthetic device made in South Korea was implanted in the bile duct and failed..."

So there you have it, folks- Castro's anus brought to you from Mok-Dong, South Korea...

Compromise

2007-01-17T13:38:00.000-05:00

Much to the frustration of my family, I've never been big on compromise. My father particularly, was often extremely frustrated by my inability to meet him, or anybody else half-way. Then again, I can't say that he was ever big on it himself. In fact, now that I think about it- no one in my family is particularly good at compromising, except maybe Travis (the baby of the family). Tyler was the worst. If he didn't feel like doing something, there was nothing in the world that could convince him. I remember being furious with him in high school because we had planned to go see a movie together, but when the day finally came, Tyler was content sitting in front of the TV and decided not to go. I was so angry with him, but try as I might, nothing would coax him from his place on the couch.

Lately I've been contemplating my inability to comprimise myself and whether or not it's really just another way of shooting myself in the foot. I've been back in Montreal dangerously close to two months now and still find myself frustratingly unemployed. Fred is urging me to cave and find myself a shitty call center job. I've considered it- for the time being, but the thought of returning to that environment literally brings tears to my eyes. I don't know how anyone does it. The eight or so months I spent working at Affina were the most miserable of my working life. I just can't do that again. I've begun sending out résumés for receptionist positions, which I'm hoping might hold me over until the new school year starts and I can be assured a teaching position. Despite the fact that both my boyfriend and my bank account are threatening (in not so many words) to stop speaking to me, I really don't feel I can bend on this issue. I'd sooner go back to Korea. Unfortunately, the question of Asia is complicated by Fred's imminent kidney/pancreas transplant. Obviously I want to be here when it happens, and though I would like to say I'll be on the first plane home, reality is that it still may take a few days to get everything organized. The transplant could happen tomorrow or a year from now. We have no idea. So my mother's looming Calgary question is still demanding answers. Not that I'd have necessarily better prospects there, just that the crappy job I'm forced to take will pay much better there than it will here. Or perhaps I can learn to hold a hammer and call myself a construction worker. I'm sure they're doing well in Calgary at the moment. Anyone with jobs to offer-- you know where to find me.

Living in Distinctland

2007-01-16T01:54:00.000-05:00

Well, shit did not hit the fan with the declaration of the 'nation québécois' as I had expected. Or at least, hasn't yet. Keep in mind, we are still having to live under the rule of our beloved Liberal leader Jean Charest for another year or so... I don't think we'll see the full consequences of the declaration of the nouveau nation until the Parti Québécois is inevitably re-elected to clean up the mess that the Liberal government made (yet again). Federalist voters have it bad in Québec- a vote for the Liberals is a vote for a united Canada, but unfortunately they just aren't fit to be in the running. A vote for the Parti Québécois is a vote for sovereignty. And so begins my ode to this frustrating place called Québec.

Some of you may have been privy to my rants on eccentricities of Quebec. Like the government branch set up to okay the name you propose to give your child. That's right- in Quebec dumb children's names like Apple or Idaho or Rainbow just don't fly. Well you might be able to get away with it in English, but in French, it's a definite no-go. Or the Montreal city by-law prohibiting orange garbage bags. Topping the list, of course, is the Moving Day phenomenon which was actually the subject of a BBC documentary. For those of you who aren't aware, Moving Day (strangely coinciding with the federalist holiday of Canada Day) is when all the leases in the city of Montreal end, we fight over moving trucks and snake our way ever so slowly through the streets in the scorching heat to dump all our belongings at our new home... which we first saw six months ago. A close second is the infamous Bill 101 - the language law that has left many English Montrealers bilingual and most French Montrealers sadly unilingual.

Recently the renaming of Park Avenue (which quietly celebrated it's 124th birthday today) has been drawing a great deal of attention here. The current mayor, Mr Tremblay, has decided, for no apparent reason, to rename this historic street after Robert Bourassa, formerly the Premier of Québec. Most of the city disapproved of this move, even the Bourassa family, who suggested that St Joseph be renamed instead, since this was where Bourassa lived. But Tremblay wouldn't hear of it and so off the proposal goes to the Provincial naming police for a final rubber stamp. Ironically, I recently discovered that the names of the metro stations are protected by the historic society. So we will hold onto the name Guy-Concordia metro as though it's something special, as we say good-bye to Park Avenue.

I've finally gotten some clarification on how to go about applying for a teaching position in Quebec. It sounds fairly simple, I'm sure, but when a province has laws about signs and names you can rest assured that it's never an easy feat to have anything to do with a government body. It seems that in order to teach English as a second language- now get this, I have to prove my competency in French. So soon enough I will be locked in a room with a Bescherelle I haven't opened since grade nine and test my knowledge (or memory, more appropriately) on the passé composé and infinif tenses. AHHH!!! Amazing how I honestly believed that I would never need to know it... Thanks Bill 101!

The Job Hunt

2007-01-12T18:16:00.000-05:00

It's not easy to settle back into life in Canada. Nothing about it is easy. I have to repress the desire to scream at people who wait to be tipped for the bad service they provided. I try not to think too much about how we're being absolutely gouged here by big corporations, and we accept it. But there's one thing I'm having a lot of trouble getting passed- the frustration of finding a job. Here's the thing- when a bilingual, University graduate with management and teaching experience is finding it next to impossible to find a job that doesn't involve french fries, I feel there's a problem. I hate to sound like a princess- I know countless people have had the exact same frustration. But I just can't hack it. The idea of going back to a customer service job makes me absolutely ill and I don't think I should have to. Nor do I see the point in spinning my wheels and hating my life for 10$ an hour. What the hell is wrong with this place? There's a time to break free of the easy solution, or soon you're left without a choice. For some reason, people around me believe that I should compromise myself- that I should suck it up and go back to the call center that kept me absolutely and frighteningly angry and depressed for the length of my disastrous call center career. Maybe I haven't given it enough time. With Christmas and New Year's, I suppose it has only been a couple of weeks, but my frustration is nearly overwhelming. I'm considering my options and may just find myself either back in Korea or back in Calgary before long... Is it any wonder people leave here and never come back?

Catholicopoly- Good, Clean Fun With God

2007-01-10T12:47:00.000-05:00

Now it's not that I don't think religious people can't have fun. It's just that I'm beginning to question if perhaps what they identify as fun comes from a part of the brain that I seem to lack. Church was always painfully boring for me- and apart from my summer-time Christianity that assured me a summer of water-skiing and horseback riding, I never really got into it. I hated being dragged from my bed- barely conscious, on a perfectly good Sunday morning (which always seemed to have nicer weather than Saturdays) to listen to an old man drone on about heaven and hell and the wrath of God. I came to the conclusion years ago that Catholicism- and perhaps all organized religions, were just not for me.

But lately, my curiosity has been peaked by a string of religious board games recently released. 'Catholicopoly' (obviously based on Monopoly) encourages you to bankrupt your opponents, but in a 'nice, fun way'. This game, quite clearly, is marketed towards all those mafia gambling operations surrounding Monolopoly games. You know the ones- where you sit around playing with seven acquaintances, palms sweating as you bankrupt them one by one in that 'cruel, mean way'. If Catholicism isn't your thing- how about 'Kosherland'? It's plum full of 'crazy, crazy Jewish fun'. The game, based on Candyland is designed to teach children about kosher eating. "David! You mixed meat and milk- back two spaces!" Still not satisfied? 'Race to the Kabah' will teach your child the 99 names for Allah. Imagine all the fun you could have with that. Like a long, drawn-out flash cards game... Mormons, if you were feeling left out, don't despair- there's one for you too! 'Mortality' allows players to collect testimonies that make them stronger. Yet some people (heathens) doubt the efficacy of these games. And the message. Apparently the losing players in some of these games don't reach enlightenment (or heaven). Some wonder about the messages these send to children. Will little Sally think she is forever damned to hell because she landed on Jerusalem and had to pay through the nose? Will Sammy be able to make up for the fact that he only succeeded in building ten churches, to Sally's eighteen cathedrals?

This is what passes as 'crazy, crazy Jewish fun' these days

Why do we need to build churches, even in games?

Alright, I can accept that some people might feel very strongly about Catholicopoly. I'm just not one of them. I've never understood how some sects of Christianity claim that singing and dancing are sins, but I suppose it does help to take the fun out of absolutely everything. But now the Christians have gone after yoga. Yes, that's right. Crazy Christians in middle of nowhere BC are claiming that their public school system is promoting Hinduism by encouraging teachers to use yoga at points throughout the day. Apparently the threat of their children turning to the Hindu faith is more disturbing to these parents than a lifetime of health issues stemming from obesity. Clarity of mind and self-awareness have always been traits that I've linked, perhaps incorrectly, with the 'supernatural power of Satan'. First Harry Potter, then daVinci Code, now yoga. One by one, people are finding a way to suck the fun out of everything.

The Honeymoon is Over

2007-01-08T13:16:00.000-05:00

Subway of Seoul - serving 20 million people

The honeymoon period is wearing off and I'm getting antsy. I've been back in Canada a little over a month now and the impulse to run back to Korea gets stronger everyday. Classic case of 'Grass is always greener' syndrome. Everything Montreal seems a little strange. There aren't enough people roaming the streets, but the grocery stores feel sterile under the florescent lighting. The Metro seems filthy and bank machines smelly. My body is adjusting poorly to Canadian foods- craving bibimbap and kimchee (which I keep stocked in my fridge). My head is also getting tired of lazing about the house and searching the web for jobs. I'm beginning to question whether or not I was being too optimistic by saying I would not return to customer service. Although I still feel I shouldn't have to. It's odd how much Montreal has changed, and yet it has stayed so much the same.

In 2006, Montreal...

Concordia University has finally completed their towering Visual Arts Building

and the Theater Department has taken over the Grey Nuns Convent

Has wasted an obscene amount of money on machines that accurately count

your change on buses- so the days of riding for ten cents less are long gone

Has extended the hours for meter parking to midnight on week-days and soon enough

will also nix the free parking on Sundays.

Most cafés, chain or not offers Wireless Internet

Cinéma du Park closed down & re-opened again

City Hall voted to rename a historic Montreal street after a man who never lived on it. Park Avenue will soon become Robert Bourassa Boulevard- a move even the Bourassa family objected to. Poor Mordecai Richler must be rolling over in his grave.

Montreal smokers have long been paying an extra tax to pay for the construction of
the Big O (built for the 1976 Olympics). Thirty years of smoking has finally paid for the monstrosity which, we expect will soon be torn down.
In unrelated news, Montreal passed a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, prompting many smokers to call it quits. Interesting that the ban comes in at the same time as the Big O is finally paid off.

Montreal Metro- serving three million people

The adjustment to being home hasn't been easy- but I was well warned. It seems most people who leave experience this same sense of frustration and unease at returning home. I get it even when I return to Calgary to visit. It makes me wonder whether Montreal will be home in the long run, though. Or even Canada for that matter. The endless string of taxes, expenses and over-priced services are pushing me to consider that perhaps I could be happier elsewhere. For the moment I have enough questions on my mind, though- where and when to go back to school, what jobs to consider taking, what countries next to travel... Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself - Step 1- Find a job...

The Good Old Days

2007-01-04T17:28:00.000-05:00

In the good old days, Romans flocked to the Colosseum to watch gladiators fight wild animals and each other to the death. People attended crucifixions for entertainment. Granted there was nothing good on TV at the time. For along time the ultimate form of entertainment was gathering in the town square to watch a hanging. Fortunately, we live in a more enlightened time. Gathering publicly to rejoice in the death of a human being has become... passé. We have become civilized. In the Western world, we may practice capital punishment (not in Canada, we're much too civilized for that) but we minimize the humiliation, the pain, the discomfort. The needle is cleaned before its fluids kill the condemned.

Two years ago, I performed in Our Country's Good (by Timberlake Wertenbaker). The play was about the first penal colonies to Australia and the challenges that they encountered. As we spent a year rehearsing to present this play, we spent a good deal of time delving into the history of the period (1788). We studied the physical condition of these prisoners upon their arrival at Botony Bay. One of the primary questions that Arthur Phillip (Captain in charge of the new colony) dealt with was the question of capital punishment. So the issue of hanging was one that surfaces again and again in the play, and thus was a focus of our studies. The way the body reacts to a hanging is absolutely disgusting- and it blew my mind that anyone would choose to watch it. But again, there was nothing good on TV.

But in this day and age, I just can't get over it. First of all, try as I might to escape the image of a noose around the neck of Saddam Hussein, this has proven to be virtually impossible. You have to be ready to change the channel at every possible second. They keep trying to sneak it in. From what I've heard, I'm sure it's THE video on You Tube at the moment. I seem to be a part of a tiny minority that isn't excited (or at least curious) to witness the grainy video and the death of a dictator. Perhaps the images that formed in my mind as I read stories of failed hanging and all the like have turned me off.

My disgust aside, what really amazes me is how despite all our technology, innovation, social advancements and civility, we have really changed quite little since the time of the gladiators. People still gather together to watch a gruesome, violent death- only now people flock to their computers, a virtual village square. Death still peaks our curiosity because we still haven't solved that question. We are still intrigued by a violent death. As a side note, it's also interesting to note that our sense of humour has also changed very little in the past two thousand years. The Simpsons are characters rooted in Commedia dell'arte (Italy 1700s) and the Greeks laughed just as hard at a huge phallus on stage as we do today (believe it or not, this theory has been tested in at least two plays I've been in). It's nice to know that even though each day we move further and further into an age of computers and electronic toys, that we still hold some things in common with our ancestors.

Pantalone- on whom Mr Burns is based

Mr Burns - note the similarities between his face and the mask of Pantalone.

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T02:01:00.000-05:00

The sun rises for the first time in 2006 over the East Sea in South Korea...
though I wasn't there this year, I'm guessing it looked pretty much the same.

In my younger days, I was often forced, against every willful bone in my body- to attend Church on Sundays. It combined three elements that made it absolutely painful for me to sit through- getting out of bed, a boring lecture and a dress. Every Sunday morning, I would find myself in a dreadfully uncomfortable wooden pew in a deep trance that would make me magically aware of the number of candles, flowers and crosses on the altar. Stand up, sit down, kneel. Stand up, sit down, kneel. Prayers mechanically recited. Tyler would poke me and stir me from my trance- I'd realize I was also praying mechanically. Travis asleep on the pew. I was jealous- no one ever let me sleep in Church. Every Sunday was the same. Sometime in the spring, we would leave Church and Dad would ask me what I was giving up for Lent. I would pause. Lent? Hmm... I didn't realize that was coming up so soon. Crap. "Fighting with Tyler," I'd say. "No go? Then I don't know..." By the time I finally came up with an answer to the question of Lent time sacrifices, Lent was nearly over and my sacrifice really didn't cut it anymore. New Year's resolutions were always the same for me. Not that I couldn't keep them- more that I never felt any particular relationship with the new year and I never felt terribly driven to make any resolutions. I think I'm pretty good at doing what I set out to do and making changes as I see fit. I might procrastinate alot on doing the dishes or going Christmas shopping, but I've always been good about changing my situation if I find myself unhappy.

That said, what challenges did I confront in 2006? I moved to Korea, spending a year away from my friends, family and Fred. For the first time in my life, I lived alone- and loved it. I visited Taiwan, Thailand and Laos- thus knocking four countries off the list of places to see. I made some big decisions about my direction with my career and my relationship. I gained some perspective on my finances and stopped thinking about money as though it were impossible to hold onto. I learned the Korean alphabet and started out on the road to having a third language. I tackled my fear of big purchases and finally rewarded myself with a nice laptop, camera and mp3 player.

What awaits me in 2007? Soon enough, my days as a house-girlfriend will run out and I will find myself a job. Presumably a real one. I'm hoping to get some things rolling with acting and writing. At some point this year, I will deal with the huge challenge of seeing Fred toss aside his old pancreas and kidney in favour of newer ones. I'll stand beside Thelma as her maid of honour at her wedding, on my 27th birthday. I hope to take a few small trips in Quebec- maybe even get some canoeing in. And I'll occupy myself with getting my bank account in shape for a trip to India in early 2008.

I'm curious to hear about your plans/resolutions/hopes. Where does 2007 find you? Have you made resolutions? On another note- is anybody else getting too old for New Year's Eve?

Octopus Eats Shark

2007-01-02T01:15:00.001-05:00

This video is nuts. Something's gone a little funny with the food chain...

Unexpected Culture Shock

2006-12-30T16:12:00.000-05:00

Totally unrelated to my post...
A Korean couple takes wedding photos under water.

Like all of us, I have been profoundly influenced by my parents. My father is a social worker- and though I have long said that I refuse to follow in his footsteps, sometimes it looks quite likely that I will- in my own way, of course. Before my father went to University, he served in the Canadian Air Force. Though he didn't make a career of the military and luckily never had to go to war, there were some lasting effects. To this day, my father still makes his bed with hospital corners, and thus so do I. My apartment may be a complete mess, but there are always hospital corners on my bed- unless my boyfriend (whose father was not in the military) rips the sheets out in his usual careless way. My dad told me once that his poor eating habits stemmed from his time spent in the military. He had to wake up too early and wasn't able to eat right after he woke up, so he would skip breakfast. For some reason, he'd skip lunch also and soon supper became the only meal he ate. He's eaten this way for as long as I can remember. Somewhere along the line, I developed what my mother calls "Kerr eating habits." I began skipping breakfast to squeeze in another fifteen minutes of sleep. For lunch, I'd have a small snack and end the day with a big dinner.

My lifestyle changed completely when I arrived in Korea, though. I was spending my days bouncing about in front of three year old children who didn't understand me. Everything required so much effort and energy. I was also going to the gym everyday. Breakfast became essential to get me through the morning- so I would make myself a fruit smoothie every morning, or grab an egg sandwich from the ajimma on the corner of our street. Lunch was usually bibimbap (egg, rice, vegetable and red pepper paste), kimbap (like sushi, but without fish) or sushi. For dinner, I often ate digigalbi (bbq beef), mandu (dumplings) or Kkachisan's famous chicken on a stick. I was working out at least two hours a day, eaten healthy, sleeping well and feeling great.

Now back in Canada, I find myself struggling to find appetizing food. The pizza that I had craved for so long in Korea is not as good as I remember it. Pasta is pretty bland. Everything seems to be carb heavy or dripping in grease. My first day back in Calgary, I was shocked to find myself downtown- walking past one restaurant after another in search of a Korean restaurant. I didn't know what else to eat.

Mmm... kimchee

It amazed me the whole time I lived there what an awareness the Korean people had of good health. Even my kids would tell me that they didn't like pizza or fried chicken because it was bad for their health. Parents would often bring in donuts for the teachers, but if I tried to share with my kids, they would refuse. It makes sense. When you are so accustomed to eating good, healthy food that makes you feel good- why would you want to eat something that weighs you down and turns your stomach? With that, I'm off to the Korean grocery store in search of gochujang (red pepper paste), mandu and ginseng. I have to eat something familiar.

The End of an Era

2006-12-28T12:08:00.000-05:00

A street in Montreal- after it was hit by freezing rain.

I feel as though I haven't properly closed the Korean chapter of my life. As though I refuse to close the book- refuse to move on to the next. Perhaps it's difficult to do until I've reestablished myself in Montreal- until I've settled into our new apartment (housewarming pending) and found started to see money coming in. Until I have my gym pass in my wallet, half of me is still living in Korea. Admittedly, Fred came home the other day to find me applying for jobs at winter camps in Korea- a month long position (flight, accomodation, food paid- plus two thousand dollars). I thought it was perfectly reasonable to want to go back- Fred didn't seem to agree. I know I've only been back in Montreal a few weeks, but it feels like much longer. It's difficult to turn my back on the easy lifestyle I had in Korea. That said, I'm also glad to be back. I walked down St Catherine Street with my brother, Travis the other day and I felt annoyed by all the people around me. Memories of the markets in Seoul seem so distant now. I'm sure I've become a very distant memory to the kids by now. I feel pressure to stabilize myself. Fred has been very supportive of me- and keeps telling me not to stress about finding work. I need to hear it since I was in Calgary just a few weeks ago and probably could have walked into any number of jobs that I was unqualified for. Such are the benefits of being bilingual in oil-rich Alberta. With the thought of Fred being called in for his transplant, possibly as soon as June- it seems it's time for me to fnd a real adult job.

Fred at Karaoke

All this said, visions of my next trip are already rushing about in my head. Fred's mother is going to India next year to visit family- and since none of her children (for some odd reason) have any interest in going- I will hopefully be going with her. If all goes well with work and Fred's health, I should be headed there soon enough. Already I can't wait.

Shameless Plug

2006-12-28T01:06:00.002-05:00

I've been home long enough now that reality has begun to sink in. I've realized that I became accustomed to a particular lifestyle in Korea- with my apartment being paid for and the cost of living being only a fraction of the cost of living in Canada, it's easy to feel alot more relaxed about finances. My gym pass was not the luxury that it had been the year before- it instead became a necessity. I would have lost my mind without it. I began to re-examine my job prospects in Canada in a very different way. The possibilities seemed endless, with my bank account full (or as full as it ever has been). I decided that upon return to Canada, I would throw myself- head first- into writing and acting. To supplement my love of these fulfilling, yet financially unstable professions, I'd launch myself into a half-assed career as a teacher. Half-assed not because of any lack of effort on my part, but because it isn't where my passion lies.

So here I find myself back in Montreal- anxiously trying to get my ideas off the ground. The résumés are in- just waiting to hear back from the collection of schools I applied to. I'm working on putting together a demo CD to go on the hunt for a new agent, and trying to figure out how to make this writing thing work. In an effort to do this, you'll notice stage 1- becoming friends with Google. Stage 2 is also underway- thanks to the help and tips from internet-savvy friends - increasing the traffic on my page.

To that end, to all of my friends who have sent me messages over the last year praising my blog, here's your chance. To all the readers who happen upon this page and love it- help me out! Seth Godin (author and blog man) has a list of blogs worth checking out at http://www.squidoo.com/zlist. I don't know how exactly this works, but when I signed up, my blog was number 388 on the list- now it's at 15. I don't know if this is based on hits, or votes, or what. Point is- the higher I appear on the list, the better my chances of increasing traffic. My intentions are totally transparent, wouldn't you say? Check it out. More on me and life and kidneys later- now I intend to sleep.

Can Con

2006-12-26T13:09:00.000-05:00

One of the things I loved about Korea was their strong sense of culture and history. Though American movies still sneak their way into Korean cinemas, Korean people flock to Korean movies. American movies are bought on DVD from the street vendors selling pirated copies- in my opinion, just the way it should be. I'd much rather he get my three dollars than George Lucas who has already gotten too much of my hard earned money for producing crap (apologies to all the hard-core Star Wars fans, but I just can't calm the feeling in the pit of my stomach that says we've been ripped off). Fiercely proud and patriotic, Koreans would rather see films that reflect their history and culture than American films reflecting American culture. Makes sense to me.

One of my Korean co-workers asked me why Canadians didn't like the arts. I was confused, and she went on to site the lack of Canadian actors and films as support for her thinking. It was one of my saddest moments as a Canadian. I hung my head and informed her that John Candy, Mike Myers, Jim Carrey, Kim Cattrall, David Cronenberg, Pamela Anderson, Keanu Reaves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, James Cameron, Alex Trebek, Kiefer Sutherland, Hayden Christianson and Michael J Fox all hail from Canada. I was so embarrased. So many incredibly talented artists move south because of the lack of support for the arts in our own country. Watching CTV is truly a frustrating experience for a supporter of the Canadian arts. The shows that are truly Canadian- Corner Gas, Trailer Park Boys, Degrassi High- are incredibly successful, and yet for some reason we still jam CTV full of American-style shows. Why do we attempt to produce lame rip-offs of American shows when there are plenty of talented people in Canada working hard to produce original art? Why do so many Canadians roll their eyes at the thought of attending a Canadian film, as though it's synonimous with low production values and a bad script- when clearly we deserve to be proud of our arts?

Having said all this- go see Bon Cop, Bad Cop - Canada's first bilingual film about a murder that takes place on the border of Ontario and Quebec. The film is hilarious- and while stereotyping the Québécois character as an irresponsible, chain smoking ladies man and the Anglo as a maudite tête carré, at least it gets the two sides talking. In fact, support the arts- don't just see it, buy it. Of course, this message is somewhat self-serving as I hope for more film work in Canada so I never have to consider that trip down south. Just imagine the film industry we could have if our talent didn't have to leave to make money.

A Green Christmas

2006-12-24T14:48:00.000-05:00

When I was young, my family and I lived in Grande Prairie, Alberta- a small city five hours North of Edmonton- or as my mother always said, in the middle of nowhere. Christmases were different then- they included sleigh rides through the woods with my dad's office, skating, toboganning and vain attempts at making snowmen- an unfortunate challenge in a province as dry as Alberta. I remember lying awake at night- unable to sleep because of the excitement of Santa's arrival, the countless gifts under the tree and the promise of spending the day playing with Tyler and Travis out in the snow. When I was in grade four, we packed up our whole house and moved to Calgary, where I was to experience my first green Christmas. I didn't understand. This new city was so strange- one day it was -20, the next it was +15. I remember one year wearing shorts to school on Tyler's birthday- in February. I came to accept the chinooks as normal, making my first winter in Montreal absolutely brutal. I kept anticipating that warm wind that would sweep in over the mountain and give us a well-deserved break from the bitter cold. But it never came. I even begged friends on the Plateau to join me with hair dryers on the north side of Mount Royal. If only we could get that warm wind going... Christmas in Korea could hardly be called green, though it was warm. The heat emenating from the concrete structures allowed me to experience a grey Christmas for the first time. I wasn't a fan.

Back here in Montreal, Christmas Eve is upon us. The sun is shining, the grass is green and mitts and tuques can be left at home. Images of Christmas past flash through my mind- images of Christmas long past. Before my time. I remember how my parents grew up together on Harvard (NDG) and how they would spend their winters playing ice hockey in my dad's backyard. I remember seeing pictures of snow banks big enough to bury your car- and my mother explaining to me why she always kept a shovel in her trunk (she's never really settled in Calgary- despite her claims, her heart is in Montreal). But this Christmas, there will be no ice hockey in any Montreal backyard, nor on Beaver Lake. Jewish ski day is a bust, unless you appreciate artificial snow (which no real skier does). I sat at Croissanterie a few days ago (our old coffee shop of choice) and overheard an older man saying 'Jamais de ma vie j'ai vue ça- l'éclair et tonnerre au mois de Décembre' (Never in my life have I seen thunder and lightening in December). On the tips of the tongues of every Montrealer are not the usual complaints of cold weather- but whispers of fear. How frightening to see such change in so short a time. Will we left only dreaming of a white Christmas?

But with thy brawls, though hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea,
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
Hath every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents,
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard.
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are indistinguishable,
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now hymn or carol blest.
Therefore the moon (the governess of floods),
Pale in anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thotough this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems' (thin) and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set; the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
By their increase now knows not which is which.

-Midsummer Night's Dream (Act II; Scene I)
Titania- Queen of the Fairies

Honesty

2006-12-19T02:30:00.000-05:00

It's officially been over a year now since I've been sharing my thoughts and opinions with you. What's interesting about internet communication is that it makes everything more and less intimate at the same time. It's easy for people to write things that they wouldn't normally, because the interaction isn't immediate. The consequences of your response aren't tangible. There's no accountability. It's interesting how the written language- how the art of writing is evolving as a result. The goal of any artist is always to break down barriers- to challenge. Sometimes we set out to challenge a particular thought, opinion, or view of our society. Other times we set out to challenge ourselves. Many artists take themselves far too seriously to ever admit that any part of what they do is for self-gratification. But of course that plays into it. No one would do it if there was nothing in it for them. The possibility of fame and fortune drive many to LA- hoping for a chance at making it big. But for others, it's a way to express the voice that drives us. The inner monologue of the writer, the endless string of scenes in the actor's head, the images of the sculptor.. Inevitably one day we are forced to confront what terrifies us most. And it's different for everyone.

The adrenaline an actor feels as she steps on stage is related to survival instincts. Your body reacting against the public exposure which is about to take place. You can't help but reveal yourself. Your issues are laid out for all to see- and this is the gift the actor gives to the audience. The gift of honesty. All the masks are laid aside as the actor presents himself to you. It's our instinct to keep our weaknesses hidden, however. To dance and distract from them as though no one will notice how cleverly we hide aspects of ourselves. The goal is always absolute honesty.

Here I am, back in Montreal. A 150 page account of my travels stares me in the face and I realize I'm at a crossroads. For a year, I've written weekly about all that I experience in my adventures in a different country and culture. Back at home, I lack external inspiration. Now it's coming from within my head. Within my relationship. Within my family, my home. There are topics I've avoided writting about this year- things that hit a little too close to home, aspects of myself that I've never wanted others to see. But now these subjects seem unavoidable. I've never been able to admit to vulnerability, always wanting to seem invincible. Yet here I find myself unable to ignore the fact that Fred and I have been together four and a half years. Somehow I have trouble acknowledging that it's real- that it's love, and it's serious. After a year in different countries- on opposite sides of the world, a year of daily phone calls and loneliness, I suppose I can't hide it anymore. It is real.

Last week, after only two weeks back in Montreal, Fred and his mom and I met with a transplant specialist at the Royal Victoria Hospital here in Montreal. Ironically the last time I was in the building was when I was born- the memories are a little fuzzy. The surgeon, apparently incapable of reading not only his own writing, but the entire chart itself, gave us the options available to Fred. After an hour and a half of discussing timing and the importance of waiting for the right moment for a transplant- the surgeon realized that he had missed a test result and that Fred's kidneys were not in fact functioning at 45%, but at 25%. Ooops! So with that, Fred was officially marked down on the transplant list- making him the third AB blood type waiting on a kidney and a pancreas. We left the hospital in silence. I had nearly passed out in the doctor's office- a reaction brought on by my engagement with my own mortality, I suspect. Or perhaps just my inherent distrust of the medical profession rearing its ugly head again.

And so, for the next six to twelve months, Fred and I will jump at every phone call until he gets 'the call'. He'll have one hour to respond. As someone who's never been hospitalized (knock on wood) and who's only visits to the hospital have been for sports injuries- a transplant is huge. If they were my organs, I'm fairly certain that I'd tell the doctor to shove it. My experience has always been that bed rest and an ice pack cures everything. It's so hard for me to wrap my mind around what's happening right now- it's all just so foreign to me.

1 Transplant, 2 Transplant, 3 Transplant - MORE!

2006-12-15T18:59:00.000-05:00

I've never talked about my relationships in these postings, except maybe to make fun of an ex boyfriend or two. They're easy targets- most of them can't read so I'll never get in shit. I won't bore you with the details- although I'm sure if all of my friends sat down at a table together, they'd have quite the story book. It just so happens, however, that my friends are spread out all over the world- thus insuring that such a moment will never happen... unless of course I do something stupid like get married and actually invite you people.

Fred and I have been together for four years. When we first started dating, I came home one morning, about a week into this new relationship, to find Fajer (my roomate) still there. I had been avoiding him because I didn't want to admit to him that I was hooking up with his Indian friend. But I was caught shamefully sneaking back into my own apartment in the early hours of the morning. Fajer couldn't really understand why I had been so afraid of telling him, and I remember saying that I didn't want to make it real because I knew Fred was going to last... and I wasn't sure if I was ready for that. A pretty big statement coming from a girl who watches the days tick away and then breaks off relationships at the four month mark. Except for those that sneakily got around this by doing the on-again, off-again thing. In any case, my horoscope eerily confirmed my feeling that this one would last- I cut it out, and I still have it.

I don't know what else to say. I'm at a loss, which is why I've never brought it up before. That and I'm petrified of commitment. But it's hard to be with someone for four years and still pretend that you're commitment-phobic. But here's the thing- Fred falls outside the mold. In many ways. I have a tendency to go for the high school drop-out. But Fred- he's got a high school diploma and TWO post-secondary diplomas. He doesn't play the guitar, but he's a singer... and now I'm a sucker for that (although if he learned to play...). I'm not going to get all mushy. It's not my thing.

In any case, I'll get to the point. Fred is Type 1 diabetic. And we've just been informed that in a few short weeks, he'll be placed on 'the list' for a new kidney and a new pancreas. We're told the wait is expected to be around the six month mark. That having been said, anyone with an extra kidney and/or pancreas lying around the house- please let me know. You know- that pair that you kept on ice after old Aunt Hilda passed on? Unless she was a drinker, or a diabetic than old Hilda can keep her pancreas.

That's all for now- you may notice that I've now got a Google search bar and some ads on my site. You'll probably also notice in the next few weeks that my posts will become shorter (I can hear you cheering!) and more frequent as I try to increase traffic on this site. Don't worry- it won't evolve into stories of hospital politics, or transplant tales. Or perhaps it will- who know? I would like to draw some attention to the fact that Fred's kidneys are currently functioning at 25%. At my prompting, he took two months off work to relax and give his body a much needed break. According to his insurance company, kidney failure is not sufficient reason to file for medical leave - so he hasn't had a paycheck in two months. Hmmm... perhaps I'll post their address and we can all send them hateful, nasty letters...

Aren't We Being a Little Extreme?

2006-12-08T10:31:00.000-05:00

There are few things that allow such a clear insight into a culture like its arts. I loved to go see movies in Korea, because it was interesting to see how people would react. A few months ago, Song and I went to see Matchpoint- that new Woody Allen movie. The movie itself was mediocre for Woody Allen (I usually love him), but it was the reactions of the audience that made it well worth the price of the ticket. Song kept giggling to herself as she explained to me that the girl beside her was absolutely livid that the leading man was having an affair. She seemed to miss the point of the movie- or at least the point as I saw it. The character married the wrong woman and continued to have an affair with the woman he really loved throughout the film. But love was no excuse for this woman- clearly determined that marriage should be honored above all, an unusual opinion in Asian culture. The highlight of the film, however, was seeing the leading man sitting at his laptop. His frustration got the better of him and he swiped at the glass of wine that was beside his computer. And as the glass of wine tipped, the audience GASPED. There have been a few film moments in my lifetime that prompted the entire audience to gasp audibly. Perhaps in Usual Suspects when the identity of Keiser Soze is revealed. Maybe in Empire Strikes Back when we find out Luke & Leia are brother and sister. Or Darth Vader is Luke's father. These moments may well have prompted audible gasps- but does a falling glass of wine really merit such a reaction?

What I love about these moments is how transparent it makes our values. Clearly Korean people have a very strong relationship with technology. Before I returned to Canada, I was hit with the realization that our values are often quite backwards. I picked up a newspaper in Chiang Mai, Thailand and allowed myself to be absorbed by what was making headlines there. I was struck by two articles- side by side- from an American newspaper. The first was a clip about a man who was escorted out of a World Health Club facility by police and security guards when he grunted as he was lifting a weight that was over two hundred pounds. Apparently the gym has a strict 'no grunting' policy, as it can be intimidating to other patrons. Have we really gotten to the point where we are obliged to repress every one of our animal instincts because of societal convention? As far as I'm concerned if other patrons are intimidated by a man grunting at the gym, it is their sensitivity that is the problem, and not his grunting. One of the things that I enjoy most about going to the gym is that (at least in Korea) you are free to react authentically to your body. When you push your body to run a little farther, or lift a little more- you silence that inner voice that keeps you acting properly in public. All your energy is devoted and focused on the task at hand.

In order to prepare children to face dumb restrictions at their health clubs in their adult years, we need to start early. We wouldn't want them questioning the stupidity of such rules. I repressed the impulse to exploded into an hour long rant about the irony of such occurences in a a country that delights in spreading a rumour that they are 'land of the free' and I moved on to the next article. It was also a clip from an American paper- this one explaining why hugging had been banned in some elementary schools. Apparently tardiness was becoming a problem because students were spending too much time hugging in the hallways. Rather than addressing the real problem of their lack of time management, or perhaps inability to emmulate Pavlo's dog and respond to the ringing of bells, hugging has been banned. Just what children need- more protection from the evil grips of... each other.

When I accepted my teaching position in Korea, I thought little about the actual experience of teaching. I was more focused on the prospect of seeing a new country and getting paid well to do it. But at some point on my twelve hour flight from Calgary, I got scared. I suddenly realized that I would need to learn all these strange Korean names that I wouldn't be familiar with. What if I mixed up their names? Would the kids think that I thought they all looked the same? Some of my kids would be as young as three- how do I react if they give me a hug? Do I really have to raise my hands in the air and pray their parents don't complain? A mild panic set in. I wasn't sure if I could refuse a hug to a three year old kid. Both my fears were eased my first day at school as I was introduced to my first class of the day- Ryan and Leah among them. I realized all the kids took on an English name for English school- which left me pondering if they really gave me so little credit that I couldn't learn a few strange names. I watched as the kids launched themselves into the teachers' arms as they entered the school that morning, and how they all enjoyed being tossed around a little before class started. I was so relieved. I quickly learned that in Korean culture, the teacher is considered the third parent and instantly becomes a part of the family. Both kids and parents expect you to be affectionate with the kids- to give them plenty of hugs and you'll soon hear complaints from parents if you don't.

Only in North America do we make such a big deal of physical interaction. Throughout the world, people greet each other with a kiss on the cheek (or two, or three depending on the country) or a big hug. In Asia, men and women alike are very affectionate with their friends and family. It is common to see a mother and daughter walking down the street holding hands. Men young and old will snooze on each other's shoulders on the subway. Almost natural, isn't it? In North America, we greet each other with a handshake. The most distant of physical interactions. Why are we so uptight about it? Most other cultures break through the physical barrier immediately and they seem more at ease with each other. When I passed through security in Korea, the metal detector went off. The woman who's employed to feel people up wasn't shy in patting me down every which way until she was satisfied there was no knife in my bra. I landed in Vancouver and then continued on to Calgary on a different airline. As I passed through security there, I set off the metal detector again. The Canadian woman charged with checking me for weapons was so thoroughly uncomfortable with the idea of patting me down that she was nearly across the room as she did it. With arms outstretched, she patted my back a couple times and whisked me on my way.

What is wrong with us? Why are we so prudish? Did we inherit this from the Brits and simply take it to the extreme? Does it come hand in hand with our culture's focus on independence? Just because we are capable of standing alone- does that mean we have to? Are we so worried about offending the people around us that we're losing touch with how we're meant to interact? How we're meant to behave? And at what point can we expect these codes of conduct to stop being pushed to extremes? Will we soon be at the point where even a hug between a parent and child is questionable? What are we so afraid of?

La Nation Québecoise

2006-12-04T15:08:00.000-05:00

I've returned home at a strange time. My body skipped from summer to winter very quickly and is throughly confused by the change. A couple weeks ago, I watched the final game of the Grey Cup series and my poor head couldn't wrap itself around it. How was it the finals already? My good friend Ralph had finally stepped down as king of Alberta and the race was on to see who could replace the drunken, poorly educated, homophobic red-neck. Paul Martin had left the Liberal party following some sort of tantrum after his party lost to the Conservatives in last year's election, and so they too were striving to find a replacement. The smoking ban finally passed in Montreal and I sat in a smoke-free bar feeling as though something was missing. The ability to see exactly what I was touching in our seedy downtown bar was nearly enough to chase me back to the airport. The famous Park Avenue that runs North/South in Montreal directly in front of Mount Royal is about to be renamed Robert Bourassa Avenue- much to the chagrin of all Montrealers, including the Bourassa family. I'm sure poor Mordecai Richler is rolling over in his grave. I question why Park needs to be renamed when the merger of the boroughs (une île, une ville campaign) left the city of Montreal with seven streets called de l'Église (Church Street). Why not rename one of them? I'm sure the post office would be happy. Another overpass nearly collapsed in Laval, but the city feels that priority should be given to renaming a famous street. Montreal's biggest English language library is facing closure due to lack of support, but our tax money is going to change the name of a street that no one agrees with (see links to sign the petition to save the library). These are just some of the changes that met me when I got off the plane at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport (yet another expensive name change).

In several postings this year, I've pondered the question of Canadian identity. I've contemplated even provincial identity- a question that haunted me even before I left Alberta. Albertans readily accept people from all parts of Canada- except Quebec. Québécois are always the 'other'. Born in Montreal and raised with as much of the Québécois culture as my anglophone parents could muster, I've always been a little confused about Canada. The problem was further confused when I was tossed into a francophone program at school with other equally confused children. In English, we don't have a word for native English speaker, so we borrow the word from French. Anglophone and francophone have found their way into the day to day speech of every Montrealer, regardless of what category they find themselves in. But we don't have a word for an bilingual, English born Quebecker in Alberta. Through my days in Calgary, I was confronted with this problem anytime the question of birth place arose. I was occasionally told to go back to where I came from- as politically ignorant Westerners can't distinguish between federalist and seperatist Quebeckers anymore than they can between anglophone and francophone Quebeckers. Upon return to Quebec, the problem somehow became more confusing. The difference was I found others who were equally confused. When I first entered the Régie de Santé (Health care board) to renew my provincial insurance (long expired since I was forced to leave at the age of one), the confused secretary stared at me and in a tone that reaked of confusion she asked, 'Benh, t'es québécoise, toé?' With an equally confused tone, I replied no. I've met a lot of English Montrealers who don't identify in any way with the French language. Who force themselves through the mandatory French interactions in taxis and dépanneurs, but who try to speak as little as possible. But then I met people like Nouria, Simona and Fajer. Nouria isn't sure which is her first language- born of a francophone father and anglophone mother. Simona attended francophone schools and is nearly as comfortable in French as she is in English. Same with Fajer. But Simona and Fajer weren't born in Québec, or in Canada for that matter. Simona was born in Romania, and Fajer in Iraq. Both have lived in Quebec longer than anywhere else. In Montreal there is room for people like us. Despite the warnings I received from relatives, when I returned to Montreal I had little trouble finding a job despite the fact that my last name is not québécois. Things have changed. There is less division and less tensions between the French and the English of Montreal. But now my questionable Canadian identity has become a matter for politicians to decide. Before it was merely a question of labels, but now a team of politicians will decide how to categorize us. Our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper recently tossed out this idea of Quebec as nation within a nation, without a real understanding of what he was saying. As the Conservative party continues to make efforts at gaining votes in Quebec, all he is really doing is cementing in the minds of Quebeckers that they don't understand the people they are trying to convert. More than promote national unity, Harper is successfully indicating that as a politician from the country's furthest right-wing province (Alberta), he clearly has no understanding of the country's furtherst left-wing province (Québec).

In the wake of the Dawson shooting, gun control laws take center stage. An American-style view of gun control doesn't sit well here. The shooting at Concordia (1992) by a crazed man who obtained his firearms by threatening co-workers until they signed the necessary documentation further cements the need for tougher gun laws in Quebec. The fact that Fabrikant should have been institutionalized long before the shooting adds to the politically delicate situation. The shooting at l'École Polytechnique (1989) remains fresh in the minds of Montrealers and women's rights groups have been in the spotlight ever since. Funding cuts to these groups won't gain any votes in Quebec. Issues like gay marriage and legalization of marijuana are not issues here- or rather the only issue is why these are still issues in Ottawa. Tossing out the idea of Quebec as a nation within a nation was a political strategy to cock-block the Bloc Québécois, but has for some reason been treated with credibility. I can't wrap my mind around it. The looming question of what defines this new nation is likely to further divide the province. The question is- is Quebec defined by its geographic borders, by its unique culture, or by its purelaine roots? Are we that have not been judged to be purelaine québecois to be treated like foreigners in our own country, own province, own city? Are we to become second class citizens? Are we going to see the rise of the purelaine elite, as we struggle to find hospitals that will service someone whose last name is not Lefebvre or Leblanc? What is to become of the First Nations people of Quebec, who still possess most of the land in Quebec? Will they be québécois? What about the thousands of immigrants that bring so much of the unique culture we are so proud to have here? Will they be québécois? Following the 1995 Referendum, Jacques Pariazeau outraged Quebeckers by blaming immigrants for failure of the OUI side to take the majority. It looks as though years later, they might just be excluded from this new nation altogether. How can a country built on immigration even conceive of passing a bill that promotes this sort of racism? What sort of bureaucratic nightmares await? I imagine there will soon be new ID cards for La Nation Québécoise. I imagine my tuition rates at school will rise, as previously I was considered a Quebec resident, but now as a Quebec born non-purelaine I'll be subject to the same fees as other Canadians. I imagine that this declaration and acknowledgement of Quebec as a nation will only propel the seperatist movement to step up their game and force a separation. Harper has opened up a debate of which he has no understanding, and it is those of us who call Quebec home that will be forced to deal with the consequences. When I left Canada last year, I never thought that my country could change to this extent within the space of a year.

On an unrelated note- Fred and I have outsmarted the Quebec government at long last and broken free of the cycle of Canada Day moving days. We moved into a two bedroom apartment last week, so excuse the delay in postings. It seems the woman who lived there previously passed away recently, thereby vacating the apartment before July 1st. Thus far the government of Quebec has not passed any stupid laws prohibiting this.

Thoughts on Canada

2006-11-22T04:19:00.000-05:00

When I left Korea, I told myself that my vacation was over and I was headed back to reality. But then I landed in Calgary- a city just as surreal as Seoul, but in a totally different way. Canada is messed up. My painful ten hour flight came to an end in Vancouver at 11am on Thursday. Singapore Air is the way to fly- I had all the leg room I could possibly want, my own TV with over a hundred movies and channels, video games and all the rest. A flight made even more enjoyable by the memories of my painful Air Canada experience en route to Korea. Knowing full well that I had little time to clear Immigration and Customs, and catch my West Jet flight, I wasted no time in getting to the Immigration desk. It was useless to rush. I was met by the sight of five hundred irritated Canadians awaiting their readmission to their own country. I pondered the irony of having experienced no waits in entering and exiting Thailand or Laos, or even Korea - despite the fact that my latest entry into the country was for only twenty-four hours. I waited (less than patiently) in line to be re-admitted to Canada. I kept careful watch on the time and became more and more irritable as it became increasingly unlikely that I would board my flight bound for Calgary. I finally reached the desk with thirty minutes to go before my flight. The man chatted casually and seemed annoyed that I was so rushed. He marked a 1 on my customs card, which I soon found out meant that I was to be searched at customs. He underlined weapons on the declaration and wished me a good day. I dragged my bags off the over-flowing luggage carousel - it had gotten stuck and was no longer moving because there were too many bags on it. I ran through the gate into the customs area and was stopped by the dreaded customs man... every traveller's nightmare. He directed me to the search area and I pondered the so-called random search. Ten Asian people were lined up in front of me. Behind me, two other English teachers coming from Korea. Hmm... random... if you say so. I finally reached the front and glanced at my watch. Ten minutes. The woman politely asked if I had picked up any weapons in Laos that I had forgotten to declare. I said no. Instead of tearing open my bags, as seemed to be happening to all the Asian people around me, she settled for scanning my bags through the X-ray machine and sent me on my way... after further questions about who paid my flight to Korea, how much cash I was carrying, what purchases I made, what I had shipped home... I got to the West Jet desk hoping that they would give me the chance to run to the gate. They didn't. They charged me 50$ for a seat on the next flight- apparently it wasn't West Jet's problem that Immigration Canada had only staffed two people... it was mine.

Calgary is surreal. Carrie picked me up at the airport and I felt as though I hadn't seen the sky in a year. Really, I hadn't. I can't explain the feeling of being back here. Calgary has changed. Both money and aggresion have reached Calgary, and I know it's not just me. I may be more sensitive to it having come from Asia, but other Calgarians have noticed it too. Two years ago, the homeless people of downtown Calgary were just that- homeless. Now the people downtown at night don't seem so much homeless as cracked out. Last year in Calgary, downtown creeped me out a little- this time my instinct was to run. I witnessed a bar fight for the first time in a year- and watched as the two 'men' were escorted out of the bar by the police. With the mass migration to Calgary has come diversity. And it is long overdue. I was thrown by all the different ethnicities that I saw around me. Calgary has long been a predominantly white city, and it is nice to see that changing. Ethnic restaurants are opening up all over the city and different languages are starting to be heard. It's so good to see. If you're willing to put some time in and look for culture, you'll find it. Calgary has long been home to safe art- but experimental arts are also on the rise. Years ago, Albertan artist kd Lang was denounced for being a vegetarian. Today, a successful vegan cafe calls 17th Ave home. Calgary is changing- for better and for worse. But as I touched on earlier this year, I've been gone too long to call it home. I don't recognise the city anymore. As I flipped through Fast Forward (free newspaper), I turned to my friend and asked him what Broken City meant. He laughed. You know it's not home anymore when you ask about the city's biggest club. Mordecai Richler once said that Calgary would be a nice city once they got it unpacked. I hope that in 'unpacking' Calgary, they don't lose what makes it a great city. There aren't too many big cities left like Calgary. My friend Drew who recently moved there from Montreal tells me that he considers himself a polite Montrealer, and a rude Calgarian. He's absolutely right. I'm thrown every time I go back by the bus drivers that say 'hello' as you get on the bus, and the people that make small talk at a bus stop. Calgary is a friendly city- and I hope as it grows by a hundred people a day, that it manages to hold onto that.

The adjustment to paying sales tax and tipping has been a hard one. I have the distinct impression that people in Canada are out to steal from me. And they are... or at least the government and big corporations are. I've touched a little bit on the obscenely low prices that I enjoyed in Korea- perhaps I should expand on this, because I'm determined to start a revolution in Canada. I want answers. When I bought my cell phone in Korea, I asked the woman how much it cost. 140$ she told me. I asked about all the added charges and she simply repeated , 140$. But how much for a phone number, I asked. She asked what good a phone was without a number. No charge, 140$ she repeated. I asked about the activation fee. She asked what good an inactive phone was. 140$, she repeated once again. That includes a month of service, she added. Over my time in Seoul, my cell phone cost me 10$ a month. I had free text messaging, free voicemail, free call display and free call waiting. I didn't pay for incoming calls, or for calls made from a calling card. My phone worked on the subway, and I was never out of the service area, not even in the mountains.

But it doesn't stop at cell phone service. My bank, KB Star, was open daily from nine to six- at every location. I got free calendars, umbrellas, cell phone holders if I had to wait in line. There was no service charge to use the machine during bank hours, and only a 60 cent charge to use it after hours. The use of another bank's machine set you back 60 cents, not three dollars. When I moved apartments, my cable and phone line were transferred that same day- with the service men showing up at the apartment less than half an hour after they were called... on Boxing Day. Tipping is an insult in Korea, as it is taken as an implication that you are calling them poor. But if there are people that deserve to be tipped, it's Korean service people. They trip over themselves to help you put on your jacket and shoes. They wait on you literally hand and foot. Arriving back in Canada, I'm irritated that I'm expected to subsidize the salary of the person serving me. I worked in the service industry for far too long not to tip, but I can't help but find it obnoxious. To be honest, service people in Alberta can bite me. I tipped, but wish I hadn't. While any server will get up in arms about how they're taxes on their tips, Albertan servers have no right to complain. Throw 50$ down as declared tips on your income tax and everyone's happy. In Quebec, however, the server is taxed on their sales. The equivalent of eight percent of your sales are deducted from your pay cheque, meaning that if you make less than that, you actually lose money going in to work. On top of that, your underpaid co-workers also expect to be tipped out- meaning that now you have to make at least 11% just to break even. Disgusting. Canada is viewed as one of the world's wealthiest countries- we are G-8 after all. So why is our country so corrupt? And why aren't we demanding changes? In Quebec, you can expect to lose nearly 50% of your income to taxes (30% to income tax plus 15% to sales tax). And for what? Thailand had flatter roads than Montreal. Seoul had a better cell phone network. Mexico has free education. Both Korea and Thailand enjoy super-cheap health care. And for those who proudly say that we have free universal health care, you've been fooled. Albertans have to pay 40$ a month for their basic health care. The rate is the same in Korea, except you can actually get your wisdom teeth pulled for 3$ there. I plan on meeting with my MP to get some answers. I'll let you know.

I'm glad to be back in Canada. I'm releaved to finally hear a plethora of languages around me. I feel at home in a city where I can have maply syrup for breakfast, Korean food for lunch and Greek for dinner, without even trying. I can see the stars at night. I feel a little lonely walking down the street- just last week, I had twenty million friends parading about with me. But I also feel releaved that I don't have to push my way through crowds in downtown Montreal. As much as Calgary changes every time I visit, Montreal stays exactly the same. It makes no apologies. There's no place like it anywhere else in the world, and for better or for worse, it's home for now.

Homeward Bound... Indirectly

2006-11-15T23:16:00.000-05:00

That's that. My bags are packed and I'm waiting at my Korean apartment for my boss to pick me up and drive me to the airport. I've barely slept in three days. On the 13th, I took the bus from Vientiane to Bangkok- which I thought was twelve hours, turned out to be only nine. I arrived in Bangkok at 5am and went on the hunt for a place to stay. Everything was full, so it took me awhile. I finally crashed at 6:30am and woke at 10am to do one last run through the landmarks I'd missed in Bangkok. At 8pm, I made my way to the airport and boarded the plane at midnight. The flight was just short enough that I managed to fall asleep and was woken up half an hour later for breakfast. I did one last run around Seoul and met up with Leslie for some digi-galbi (bbq pork with all the side dishes). Afterwards I met up with Song for last beers and good-bye. It was hard to do. I crashed last night in my old bed as my short-term roomate, Joey stayed out with friends. I enjoyed my last night to myself in my big bed. I woke up at 9:30am, feeling like I was late for school. I started to pack and have now finished stuffing a year's worth of memories into a few big bags. My flight leaves at 6pm (Thursday, Nov 16) and arrives in Calgary at 3pm (Thursday, Nov 16)- meaning of course, that I arrive in Calgary three hours before I leave Korea. The jet lag might just kill me. I've strategized, however- I've slept as little as possible, hoping that I'll fall right asleep as soon as I get on the plane. In any case, I'm off for my last bibimbap (rice, vegetables, egg and red pepper paste- all mixed up). I should have photos up shortly of my trip and will be sure to update on my culture shock upon returning to Canada. I apologize in advance for my slow speech and inability to complete sentences without pausing. I might have been here to teach- and my kids learned alot, but my English has regressed. Don't say you haven't been warned.

My Laos Experience

2006-11-12T07:39:00.000-05:00

Some days ago (I'm not sure how many), I boarded a mini-van in Chiang-Mai and made my way to Chiang Khong- the last stop before Laos. The town was charming and quite small. Although they have tourists running through there all the time on their way to Laos, the locals were still excited to see foreigners and kids stopped what they were doing to stare. Once 'hellos' were exchanged, they'd go back to whatever they were doing. Our guest house was far from luxurious, but we were right on the Mekong river and had a beautiful view at sunset. The next morning, we picked up our bags and made our way to the dock where we were ushered into tipsy motorized canoes to take us on our thirty second journey across the Mekong to Laos. After passing through 'customs' and having my passport stamped a hundred times, we boarded the slow boat that would take us (eventually) into the heart of Laos. I was last on the boat and settled myself right at the front with the locals. I had by far the best seat on the boat- far from the smell of the toilet and the deafening sound of the motor at the back of the boat. The sun was always on my side and I even had the priviledge of stretching out my legs. I received envious looks throughout the journey and promised myself that I would not leave my seat until we docked in Pak Beng.

I learned a very important lesson in Pak Beng. Never, ever, ever book a room without having seen it first. As we boarded the slow boats, the man herding us into the boats indicated that we may have trouble finding a place to stay as the sun would have set by the time we arrived and the town had no electricity. Suckers that we are, each of us shelled out our 200 baht (about 6$) to guarantee our rooms that night. When the boat pulled into the town some six hours later, it was clear that we had been taken. Those of us that had fallen for the trick- myself, two Austrians, six Brits, and two Israelis followed the creepy little man back to our guest house. I had been weary of booking the room without having seen it, but I thought what were the chances that I would be screwed the first time I did it? I thought, no big deal- it's only one night anyway. The creepy little man finally stopped in front of our guest house and we each made our way in. Up a steep, narrow flight of stairs we encountered six wooden doors. The hallway looked like it belonged in a film about Alcatraz. I dropped my bag in my room and went out for dinner. The place wasn't pleasant, but one night there wouldn't kill me. Besides, I had very little kip on me (Laos currency) and had noticed that while Baht is accepted everywhere, the prices seem to triple when you use it. I went for dinner with the British girls- who turned out to be quite dull. They were travelling all over the world in one year- starting from London and then through India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Australia, South and North America. They had just left four weeks ago- had whipped through India- or rather, the expensive, beach front cities in India and were now making their way through Laos. I was subject to an hour rambling about all the foods that they missed from home- namely different types of chocolate bars dipped in tea. Once they finished that, I was subject to another half hour rambling about how they had each gained weight since leaving London and they couldn't imagine how. This was followed by another half hour of "Do I look better with my hair up or down?" "Do I look better with my hair straight or curly?" "Do I look tired today?" "I looked awful that day we were in New Delhi- remember?" I almost died of boredom. Just as I my head was about to explode, the two Israelis boys sat down and interrupted the girl talk. I proceeded to experience extreme embarrassment when one of the Brits asked what sort of things there were to see in Israel. The two Israelis, Nati and Avi, just stared at her without responding. Another said she had heard there was good skiing in Israel. Thankfully the girls finished their meals and headed out to find chocolate bars to dip in their tea. I stayed behind with Nati and Avi for awhile- quite interested in their perspectives on Israel as ski central. When we returned to the guest house, we discovered it was worse than we had thought. The bathrooms did not have light bulbs and were lit by candles, making an already dank and dirty room seem even worse. The hot showers that we had been promised turned out to be enormous bathtubs full of dirty water. It smelled really bad. I went upstairs to my room and covered my bed in clothes- it was too late to look for another guest house, the electric generator in the town was about to be turned off, plunging everything in darkness. I went to sleep with my keys in one hand and mosquito repellent in the other. I couldn't explain it, but I had a really bad feeling about the creepy little man that ran the guest house. He had asked me earlier to join him for a beer and I had said no. He seemed shocked, saying that he always drank with the Canadian girls that came through. He wasn't pleased when he stormed away, and left me with a bad feeling. I lay awake for quite awhile, nervous. Feeling quite disgusted with the state of the guest house, I barely slept. I was awoken at 5:00am by the screams of the British girls next door. They had heard rats and weren't able to turn the lights on because the generator wouldn't start up until 6. Having woken everybody up, we all made our way downstairs for some bad coffee and counted down the minutes till the slow boat would leave this horrible place. We were on the boat a full two hours before it left, and none of us bathed in the trough of dirty water. A Chilean man I met a few days later told me he had made the mistake of buying pot in this town- and someone had threatened to call the police unless he paid them off. Possession of marijuana doesn't get you jail time in Laos, but is used as a means to extract money from tourists. The going rate for possession, apparently, is 500 US dollars.

In any case, we lived through the night and eight hours later, pulled into Luang Prabang. Despite the first impression I had of Laos, Luang Prabang redeemed it completely. I quickly forgot about the creepy little man and the horrible guest house. A recent adddition to the UNESCO list, Luang Prabang has a unique mix of French colonial architecture with ancient temples. The temples were less polished than in Thailand, allowing the age of them to really hit you. The town was absolutely beautiful. You can see that the town is verging on huge changes- store fronts are being redone and immaculate guest houses can be found at really reasonable prices. Travel agents all over the main street reveal that they are preparing for a boom in tourism. There were tourists everywhere- but somehow it didn't feel like the town was being overrun. The Laos government is so fearful of their country turning into tourist central that they are really cracking down on laws to maintain the Laos way of life. Everything- bars and restaurants included, close at 10pm. Posters all over the town remind visitors that prostitution is illegal, and will land you in jail. People sit in front of temples reminding visitors to please cover their shoulders as a sign of respect to Buddha. I treated myself to a night in an expensive guest house to make up for the previous night- headed out for a Laos massage (1 hour cost me 3$) and passed out early. The staff at the massage place invited me to stay for tea, but I could hardly keep my eyes open. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I spent the following day running about to see the main sights and prepared to leave for Vang Vieng in the morning.

I've learned not to believe bus schedules and the like. I was promised the bus left promptly at 9:30am, but arrived at the station to discover that in reality, that meant 10:30am. I met a Mexican guy, Branko, and as we were the only two foreigners on the bus, I was quite happy that he was interesting and didn't talk about tea dipped chocolate. We pulled into Vang Vien at 6pm, instead of the promised arrival time of 3pm. No matter- I've become accustomed to it by now. We went for dinner and noticed that the menu included 'happy food'- so we ordered a joint and sat back in the restaurant contemplating this odd town. Vang Vieng has become backpacker central in Laos, and neither of us could decide if we liked it or not. It was definetly not Laos, but it was a place that promised countless ways to spend the day in the sun and allowed you out past the 10pm curfew that existed elsewhere in Laos. The locals were so relaxed- whenever we tried to pay for something, they kept saying "later, later". I marvelled at the fact that it must mean they trusted tourists a great deal- and have yet to be burned by them, which is a very nice thought. We awoke early the next morning and decided to throw ourselves into the backpacker scene. Apparently a right of passage in traveling South East Asia is tubing down the Mekong river. So we grabbed our tubes and headed for the launch point- it took us about four hours to float back to our guest house and we arrived relaxed. I don't think there could possibly be a better way to spend a day than floating leisurely down a river in the mountains with the sun beaming down on you... and plenty of places to stop for beer along the way. Towards the end of the trip, we were swarmed by young Lao children wanting to talk. They gripped our tubes and floated down the river with us.

This morning, I said good-bye to my Mexican friend and boarded a bus to the capital- Vientiane. Of course, we arrived an hour and a half later than expected. I've checked into a guest house and wandered around the town. It seems that Vientiane is not the place to be. Tomorrow I'll be doing a quick run around the city and then heading back to Thailand to catch my flight back to Korea. It's been quite a week. Forgive me. I've lost all sense of time- which I believe is a good indication of a busy, yet relaxed vacation in the sun. It feels like I left Seoul yesterday, and ten years ago at the same time. I've eaten more baguettes in the last few days than I think I have in my life. Apparently I needed to make up for a whole baguette-free year. This trip through Laos and Thailand was exactly what I needed after a year in Korea. It's so refreshing to encounter people who have nothing and are absolutely fine with it. They have absolutely no desire to have our digital cameras, or our nice clothes. Buddhist to the core, both countries demonstrate an incredible sense of happiness. Content with what they have. In Korea, people often tell me that they would love to move to Canada. I haven't heard that at all from locals here. They just smile and say Canada has nice people. There is something so beautiful about seeing people as they really are. They have nothing whatsoever to hide. The Laos people are still a little unsure about tourists, but you can tell that they love it all the same. They're excited that so many people are visiting, but still seem a little thrown because it has happened so suddenly. The children in particular seem really confused by the sudden presence of blue-eyed, backpack people in their small towns. But it doesn't stop them from running around naked. I leave here genuinely relaxed and happy that I have had the chance to experience, at least a little bit, this absolutely beautiful country before it becomes overrun by tourists. So far Laos seems to be teetering on the edge of big changes, and they're doing their best to maintain their culture and way of life as best they can while welcoming people into their country. I only hope that we will be respectful of their wishes. The ideal traveller is one who can blend in as easily as possible with the culture they are in. I hope that those tubing down the Mekong river will read the sign that pleads with women not to don their bikinis for the trip and asks that when walking about in town, clothes are worn overtop of swimsuits. I don't think it's too much to ask if it makes the Laos people feel more comfortable with the abundance of Westerners parading through their towns...

Divided on Thailand

2006-11-06T05:57:00.000-05:00

Alright- time for a real posting. I arrived in Bangkok on Wednesday and headed directly for the ridiculously touristy area of Koh Sam Road. I was thankful for having been warned by Melisa, Alex and Mike about feeling like a guichet (ATM) in Bangkok. The plane landed and before I made it out of the airport, a dozen or so taxi drivers had already made an effort at landing me in their cab. Instead I boarded the express bus for free and eventually wound up in tourist land. The first travel agent that ushered me in his door gave me pricing information and was quite distraught that I was writting everything down. I had not yet done enough research into the prices to know what was reasonable, but had been warned that prices varied greatly. The man bragged about his membership with the Thailand Tourism Board (again, I had been warned that this meant absolutely nothing) and I left his shop promising to return when I checked the prices elsewhere. He had quoted me 7000 baht (about 280 Canadian) for a package from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, inclusive of the bus and the guided treking trip. I quickly learned that in reality, the trip should cost me no more than 1500 baht (about 40 Canadian)- needless to say, I didn't go back. My initial reaction to Bangkok as a whole was fairly negative, although perhaps it's not really fair. I was really thrown by the abundance of tourists and the amount of English was overwhelming to my Korean-acclimatized ears. I crashed early at the hostel and went out the next day by tuk-tuk (taxi on three wheels) to see all the key sights. A tuk-tuk driver agreed to take me around everywhere for 40 baht (about 1$) . We stopped at a a couple temples and then he insisted on taking me to a jewelry store. Again, I had been warned. A bit of an argument insued and finally he revealed that if he took me to this store the government would pay for his gas for the day. He said all I needed to do was walk in and walk out. So that's what I did. We moved on to the next temple, but when I came out, he was gone. Not that I can blame him. He had driven me around for four hours already and was only going to get a dollar out of the deal in the end. I would have left too if someone offered me twice as much for a quick trip.

The next day, I boarded the bus and ever so slowly and casually rolled into Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand). In true Thai fashion, the bus arrived half an hour late and sat for about an hour before we left. Of course, those of us not familiar with the complete lack of regard for time were quite stressed, wondering if we had missed the bus or were waiting in the wrong place. At 7 am the bus pulled into a random gas station and we were herded into vans from different guest houses. Of course I realized full well that I was being given little choice in my accomodation, but was too tired to care. It only cost me 6$ for my private room anyway. I rented a bike the next day and breezed around Chiang Mai in an effort to see all the temples I possibly could. I barely made a dent, but what I saw was absolutely incredible. The next morning, I awoke disgustingly early to head off into the jungle. Again, the bus was late and when it arrived it was less a bus and more a pick-up truck with everyone stuffed in the back. I called shot gun. Our first stop was at a gorgeous waterfall where we ate lunch and went swimming before piling back into the truck and arriving at a montain top temple. Finally we weer dropped in the middle of nowhere and began to walk through rice fields, jungle, up and down mountains. A few hours later we arrived at a Karyn hill tribe village where we ate dinner and settled into our bamboo hut for the night. When we arrived, children greeted us and thrust bracelets and necklaces in our hands, hoping for some purchases. The women stood back for a bit and when the children had cleared away, they approached with sarongs, sheets and scarves. After dinner we sat around the camp fire, drinking Chang beer and talking with the Karyn men who had come down to drink with us. There were a few children, a couple of young men and a very old man among them. The old man kept us entertained for hours with magic tricks that he'd clearly taught of all the children as well, as they laughed when we couldn't duplicate them. I drank the British boys under the table in an effort to uphold the Canadian reputation . To be fair, it seems it's not much of a challenge to drink a young Englishman under the table- they know nothing of pacing and kept chugging beer after beer. Silly boys. The following day, we awoke early for a second hike to an absolutely stunning waterfall. If the guide hadn't been pushing us to hurry, I easily could have spent the day there. The hike continued until finally we arrived at the river for our brief bamboo rafting experience. Then onto the elephants before our trip back to Chiang Mai. Last night was day three of a four day festival - Loy Krathong (spelling??) - in celebration of the King of Thailand. Chiang Mai just happens to be the biggest party in the country. People lit small fires inside of large balloons and sent them floating up into the night sky. Fireworks of all kinds were seen and heard throughout the city. A parade snaked through the streets and people made their way to the river to launch their flower boats with candles and incence. It was beautiful. I was meant to meet up for a beer with one of the guys from the hiking trip, but it seems we missed each other and I was perfectly happy to spend the night wandering about by myself.

The events of the last few days have put me in a strange frame of mind. I look around me, and I'm astounded by how warm and welcoming the Thai people are. I had anticipated feeling some sort of resentment with the number of tourists passing through, but there doesn't seem to be any. I have been stopped in the street countless times by people just wanting to say hi and ask where I'm from, where I'm headed. They are happy to share tidbits about Thai culture and history. I witnessed a Muay Thai boxing match the other night where the boxers just kept smiling the whole way through. The Thai people are poor, for the most part- but there doesn't seem to be a trace of greed or jealousy at the amount of money that tourists are dropping without a thought. Though people may try to rip you off, there's the sense that it's not so much out of greed as it is a desire to take care of their family. They are perfectly happy living the way they do. They aren't envious of our fancy cameras, or international trips. They aren't waiting for validation from the west. The Thai people are well aware that they have a beautiful country. But I can't help but feel divided about being here. On the one hand, I'm glad to have experienced - although briefly, this very beautiful country. But on the other, I feel that Thai culture is being overrun by westerners and I would rather not be a part of it. I very much enjoyed my time up in the hills with the Karyn tribe- it was so refreshing to see people who were truly happy with what they had, and didn't want anymore. But I was disgusted when a couple of the people on our trip whipped out their cameras and marched into the centre of the village to take photos (we were put up just outside the village). The people seemed unbothered by it, but I was embarrased. Perhaps spending a year as a novelty has made me quite sensitive to it. Maybe it's just decency. AsI watched the parade snake through the streets of Chiang Mai and people stopped floats to take pictures, it just felt like too much. As the Thai people tried to celebrate their king, westerns paused their festivities for a few photos. As I walked by a temple, I saw people taking pictures of the monks- which to the Buddhist monks, as I recall is extremely offensive. They believe that it steals your soul. I remember reading an article for my Philosophy of Leisure class in which a Hawaiian woman begged tourists to stop coming because it was destroying Hawaiian culture. I can't help but wonder if this isn't also true of Thailand. I was warned about the beaches in South Thailand and glad that I opted out- I think it would have enraged me. So I leave Thailand stuck between really wanting to come back and experience more of this truly fascinating country, and feeling a little sick that it' s becoming an absolute playground for westerners.

Tomorrow I'm on to Laos-- very, very slowly. I board the slow boat down the Mekong River tomorrow morning and will arrive in Luang Prabang on Wenesday night. I might just go crazy.

Chiang Mai

2006-11-05T10:13:00.000-05:00

I managed through the twelve hour bus ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. I arrived at 7am and was dropped at a gas station where we were piled into mini vans from different guest houses for the rest of the journey. I crawled into my double bed in my air-conditioned room after paying 6$ at the front desk. I spent the following day tearing around the city in an effort to see as many of the city's temples as possible. The city boasts over three hundred temples for it's 1 million people. I didn't even make a dent. I just came back from two days in the jungle hiking, bamboo rafting and elephant treking. Oh yes, and drinking with the hill tribes. Tomorrow I head to Chiang Rai (further North) - and then continue along into Laos by slow boat... which will take two excruatiating days. Time is up, I'll write a better post later!

Bangkok- I was warned, but didn't believe...

2006-11-02T05:14:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note- I got to Bangkok okay yesterday afternoon. This place is ridiculous. I was warned that I would immediately feel like a guichet (ATM) after debarking (is that a word in English?!?) the plane. And it's true. I quickly learned that instead of cutting the price by 20% when bartering like we do in Korea, 50% is perfectly acceptable and all it takes is an impulse to walk away and they've agreed to your price. I hired a tuk-tuk (taxi on three wheels) to take me to all the key places in the city. It cost me 40 baht (about 1$) for four hours, but amazingly he dissapeared after we stopped in at the jewelry center he insisted on taking me too (apparently he gets money from the government just for dropping me there). The next tuk-tuk I hired actually followed me for a few blocks when he finally agreed to my price. That was that- I found the Lucky Buddha- called so, I believe because the Burmese once cut off his golden head and tried to melt it, but it only blackened and didn't melt. Made my way to the Grand Palace and was totally overwhelmed. I hadn't expected it to be so beautiful. There's too many tourists here, so I'm booking it up to Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) tonight. The train was full, so I'm stuck bussing up there- a miserable 12 hour bus ride... uggh. Gotta run, bus leaves in five minutes. A bientot!

368 Days in Seoul

2006-10-29T05:02:00.000-05:00

Golf in Korea

It's over. I leave Korea on Wednesday morning. The new teacher has arrived and moved in. He has completely taken over my classes and the kids are excited that he has curly hair. He has successfully reminded me that I never again want to have roommates. He has cluttered my kitchen and stomped through my apartment with his shoes on. He's a good guy- I've just become particular. I have four different pairs of slippers in my apartment, all for different spaces. This time I can honestly say that it's not him, it's me. He's proven himself perfect for the job- laid back and unconcerned with all the little things that drove me crazy about my school.

Book vending machine- 2,000 won each (2$)

I just experienced my last week-end in Seoul- mostly calm and relaxed. I went for dinner with Song in Gangnam (or the world's plastic surgery capital) last night, hoping to find billboards encouraging me to have my face redone. Part of me hoped to be dragged off the street by some doctor pleading with me to allow him to perform the dreaded calf-reduction surgery. I hoped to leave Gangnam with stories of the craziness of the plastic surgery explosion. But alas, it was free of unsolicited offers of plastic surgery. We were, however, surrounded by Louis Vitton and Gucci stores. I tried to count the designer purses for awhile, but lost track and gave up. We had Vietnamese food and then indulged in four dollar ice cream. I had to get something obscenely expensive there. After dinner, we hopped on a bus to Hungdae to meet Simona for drinks. The night was largely uneventful- just a casual night out with Song and Simona. It was exactly what I wanted for my last week-end here. I didn't want a ridiculous drunken crawl through the streets that I would regret in the morning, and in years to come look back on my last days in Seoul and kick myself for having spent them recovering from a hang over. It seems Song wasn't ready to say good-bye, as she ducked out early declaring that she was too drunk. A terrible lie when I know full well that she can drink me under the table. We made tentative plans to meet the following day, but it never came to pass. It seems we avoided out tearful good-bye simply y not having one. I know that we'll see each other again because neither of us have finished traveling. In fact, we've barely started. It's just sad that after six months of spending nearly every week-end together, it's come to an end. Just like that. I hate good-byes. When I left Calgary, I learned that you keep in touch with those most important to you and even some you never expected to. But it's harder when you can't see ahead to the next time you'll sit together face-to-face and have a beer. As the stretches between my visits to Calgary grow longer and longer and the visits themselves become shorter, I lose touch with more and more people every year. But that's okay. We have alot of people in our lives who are just 'filler'. People that we don't have a particularly strong connection with, but they're okay to go for drinks with. I've lost touch with all of my filler friends in Calgary. Distance and circumstances have cut the list of people I call when I arrive in town- and of course, it's nothing personal. There are still alot of friends in Calgary that I suspect will be in my life for years to come. But I wonder how many of those relationships only stay alive because of my annual drop-ins. The unspoken promise that I'll pop in to say hi once a year. I hope that Song and I are up to the challenge. That we'll last through the separation until the next time we meet, because I know that there will be a next time- whether it's in Canada, Korea, or some random country in between.

Turtles for dinner?

I've reached the end of a year and the end of my Korea rants, it would seem. Amazingly, I've run out of things to say. That's not exactly true, I suppose. Were I to stay another year or two, I know that I would have just as many rants in me as this year. But my Korean experience has come to an end and I'm looking forward to the next phase. On Wednesday, I leave to run about in Thailand and Laos for two weeks before returning to Canada. The next month will find me running here, there and everywhere. I may or may not update everybody next week on my travels - I suspect that Internet access will be hard to come by in Laos, but plentiful in Thailand. I'll continue to post for as long as I have things to say- and I'm sure you'll find my rants about my first few weeks back throughly entertaining... For those of you in Calgary, I'll see you for my annual stop-in on November 16th - where you hopefully won't feel like tossing me back on the plane as you experience the brunt of my culture shock. Beware that I will probably complain about the cold and how expensive everything is. I may embarass you by trying to barter at 7-11, Moxie's or even KFC. And I'll definitely be speaking a version of English that has come to be recognized as "Konglish". I'll be speaking painfully slowly and doubtlessly making big x's with my arms when I say no. You can't say you haven't been warned. I will expect the undivided attention of everyone in sight for no particular reason. I may become irritable if some random person doesn't tell me I'm beautiful at least once a day. I might take my shoes off in restaurants and try to sit on the floor. I may insist that the server help me put my shoes back on, and then offer him no tip anyway. I will doubtlessly bowl people over in the street in a race to get there first. I apologize in advance to any old ladies who might be knocked to the ground. Ajimma, as they're called here, are a force to be reckoned with.

So the sadness and reluctance to leave have mostly passed and I'm ready to go. After all the ups and downs this year- the excitement, shock, frustrations and occasional anger- I come to an end of my time here, but I look forward to my next visit to Korea. Somehow it'll always be a home away from home. I'll be curious to come back in five, ten, even twenty years and see how much Korea has changed- because as much as I've enjoyed living here this year- this culture is also verging on some immensely exciting changes. It will be a very different place next time I'm here, for change is in the air. My final count of women smoking in the street rests around. I suspect next time I'm here, there'll be many more. If there isn't, it will be because Koreans have finally realized that their healthy food is no match for the amount of cigarettes and soju consumed here. Kimchee might battle some illnesses, but I suspect lung cancer isn't one of them.