Montreal encore and Home again

Hello all,

The adventure is over but what an excellent ending.

In what can only be described as seamless, Kat, Ryan, and I departed Trois-Rivieres and got to our Montreal hotel by 3:30 pm on Friday. After a quick fresh up, we hit the downtown to meet up with Ryan's cousin, Sam, who is living in Montreal for the next couple months. Considering they're only cousins, the family resemblance was really strong - both tall, blonde, blue-eyed, boys with ridiculous stories and a skill for telling them. Sam took us on a quick tour of his neighborhood and to this mobster owned restaurant where we had a great time trading stories and eating good food. Afterwards, we spent a big chunk of the evening wandering the Fringe Festival which consists of live music and Ste. Catherine Street is turned into a big pedestrian walk with all sorts of stalls set up of all sorts of jewelry, clothes, etc. We ended up turning in early (on a relative student scale) since Kat had a 3:30 am wake up time and last metro was at 12:30 am anyway.

Yay! We figured out the metro!

Kat made it off just fine and Ryan and I crashed pretty hard, not getting up until around noon. By the time we got up, wandered back downtown, ate breakfast/lunch, and met up with Sam and his friend from New Zealand, it was solidly the afternoon. We climbed Mont Royal which is a huge hill (the locals call it a mountain...) in the middle of the city with awesome views and hung out until we got hungry. After some good Thai food we went our separate ways so that Ryan and I could wander more of the festival while the other boys prepared for some anticipated nightlife.

View from the top of Mont Royal with the boys

Ryan and I wandered until we got peopled out, returned home, repacked our bags, and hit the hay in anticipation of the early morning flight. Although we underestimated our flight time by 30 minutes, we still made it with 15 minutes to spare prior to boarding (still cutting it too close for comfort) and had a good flight back to Calgary where Meghan and Ry's mom were waiting for us.

And just like that, 5 weeks completely completed.

What an amazing program and experience. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone and will apply to do it again next year if at all possible - especially since I've possibly convinced Meghan to give it a shot :)

Thank you all for following along. Knowing I have friends and family reading my blog keeps the lonelies away.

Love & Light,

Jacqueline

Au Revoir Trois-Rivieres!

Hi Everyone!

FINISHED!

I don't think 5 weeks have ever passed so quickly.

Monday was our last day of actual lesson and she presented us with our oral presentation topic. It was actually a really cool set up. The class was divided into two teams, the defense and the crown, and every person was assigned a role as either a judge (3 people), witness (9 people including the doctor who performs the autopsy, the police investigator of the crime scene, the neighbor, concierge, two secret witnesses, the best friend, a bar employee, and the person who discovers the body), the accused (1 people), or a lawyer (8 people). In its own way, it was a brilliant idea for an oral examination; not only did it allow us to practice material as we memorized our stories and learned new vocabulary, but on the day of the presentation, a lot of improvisation was required. By doing this, each student had a chance to really shine if they put the time into it or if they were naturally good speakers by nature.

I was assigned to be a witness and thankfully got a really easy role. As the doctor who performed the autopsy on the victim, I had no story to keep straight and merely had to answer questions relative to the facts that I was given for my character. It was probably pretty strange for Steven though. I used him as my consultant the night before and he got a handful of texts asking about being stabbed in the lung without being given a context.  In my role I was a member of the defense.

All day Tuesday was devoted to preparing our final oral examination in our teams and it took us the whole 3.5 hours. The twist in the case is that each team has a secret witness that they get to create the story for and that doesn't get revealed to the opposing team until the witness is on the stand. It was actually more difficult than expected to create a story that didn't clash with the statements of all the other witnesses while creating a plausible alibi for the accused.

All class Wednesday was the court case itself. I'm pleased to say that the defense got the accused off by establishing a lack of distinctive evidence and a lack of valid crown witnesses. We got pretty lucky though. One of the crown's witnesses did an absolutely abysmal job of his story; it was as if he didn't read over his statement at all and decided to freelance it. Oh man did it blow up in his face. His team was of course pretty choked and tried to recover but the damage was done. What was particularly interesting though was the comment our teacher made. I guess every year she has a problem with people getting disrespectful with each other (one year someone even stormed out and slammed the door) but this was the first year that both teams kept it together. Kind of a compliment but hard to imagine how worked up some people can get over fiction! Mind you, it is fiction that is worth 20% of your grade... it is a little understandable that if someone is making you look bad you'd be upset.

Thursday was a double exam day. We had our course exam in the morning and the program post-test in the afternoon. As far as the morning exam went I was surprised by how easy the grammar section was and was surprised by the vocabulary and expressions. Especially because I studied in inverse and felt really well prepped for the vocab/expressions and was ready to accept my fate with the grammar. For the second exam, it is for the program to perform comparative analysis of our progress, hence it was the same exam as the placement test. It was kind of neat to the see the test again and recognize and be able to apply the concepts we've been learning. At the same time it was difficult because now that you're aware of the concepts, you're aware of how you don't know them as thoroughly as you would like. Regardless, it was relatively short (1 hour) and relatively painless. And that's it! Courses finished and credit transfer applied for.

Last night they actually held a little certificate ceremony (they called it a diploma ceremony but let's be real... they were participation certificates at best) for the students. Everyone dressed up nice and got called up on stage individually to be given the certificate by the program director. It was a nice touch and a little tedious as any of those ceremonies are but it was nice to sit together as a class one last time. And then of course, with it being the last night, people went out, partied, stayed up fairly late, and of course regret it today. I'm feeling my 3 am bed time right about now but am looking forward to the nap I can take on the bus from TR to Montreal at 12:30 pm.

Group S - looking fancy at the diploma ceremony

This morning has been spent finishing packing and cleaning in preparation for our departure inspection and deposit return. Wish me luck on getting back to Calgary. When I flew here the gate attendant let the fact that my bag was 9 lbs overweight slide but now I'm sweating it out thinking that my next check-in won't be so lenient. I've managed to whittle down the weight be a couple pounds but not nearly enough. Fingers crossed that Ryan as some extra room and can help me out!

See you soon!

Jacqueline

Class Picture & Flash Mob

Bonjour!

For your entertainment, here is my class picture :)

Back Row L-R: Justin, Sarah, Me, Graham, Sophie (Prof), Catherine, Fatima, Graham, Larissa, Robert, Alex, Kevinrae
Front Row L-R: Rebecca, Emma, Cassandra, Sydney, Lakshmi, Claudia, Christina, Lisa, Joanna, Aliya

Although it isn't overly apparent, they had a bunch of things for us to dress up with. All the hats, flags, sunglasses, tiaras, etc., made it pretty fun.

Also, today was the flash mob in the cafeteria. The video has already made the youtube rounds. It was particularly entertaining to watch it because they had to go in and edit... At one point in the real thing, a table breaks and a couple kids go down. In this video, they (unfortunately) edit it out (but if you look at the tables as he's doing the last quick pan of the room you'll see it). In the version my roommate has you definitely hear it and see some heads disappear from a distance. Also, to my disgrace, they have a really good shot of me forgetting what comes next. To be fair, we learned it last Thursday and haven't really gone over it since. That was a good 5 days ago, sheesh! You're watching for lots of curls and a royal blue shirt who is roughly the front row about 20 people deep on the right hand side of the screen... Enjoy :)

Cafeteria Flashmob

Cross it off the bucket list!

Jacqueline

Montreal & T-Minus One week

Hello All!

Marks came in for our first course. It is a mixed feeling of relief and disappointment. Although I did well on the final exams from last week, all things said and done I ended up with a B+. Not awful but truth be told it is my first B and I'm a little disappointed. To be fair though, the marking scheme here is shifted differently... had this been a U of L course I think it would've been an A-. Regardless, it is nice to be moving on to new material. The past week was more oral presentations, more tests (two on the same day... one of which we ran out of time for and had to continue the next day), and our teacher constantly reminding us to have courage. Yikes.

Yesterday was the program's day trip to Montreal which was incredibly enjoyable. The morning was a guided tour of old Montreal, we had a couple free hours for lunch, had our choice of an afternoon activity, and then had some free wandering time for dinner before heading back. For lunch we hit up this crepe place where Kat and I split a chicken/brie/asparagus crepe and a dulche de lece crepe with strawberries and bananas. Mmmm. For our afternoon activity, we selected the Biodome. It is kind of like an indoor zoo where you move through different biospheres like the rain forest, woodlands, etc. It was really well done with a surprising variety of animals and different views into their habitats. That being said, the best part of the trip was definitely the last couple hours. We selected an outdoor patio for dinner and right as we sat down, an absolutely fantastic duo set up for busking right beside our restaurant, facing us and the crowded walk way in front of the patio. Dinner and a show in 23 C sunny weather. Couldn't have asked for better. From there on out all the street performers came on full force and we dwindled our final hour and a half eating ice cream and watching the super diverse entertainers. It is a very very cool city with a distinctly European flavor.

Side note: On the guided tour we saw the Notre Dame Basilica which was raised to Basilica status by none other than John Paul II and is the site where Celine Dion got married and Maurice Richard's funeral was held. Unfortunately it was closed for some event but if you look at pictures of the inside online, it reminds me so much of Europe.

Picture time!

This week is going to whirl by. Everything is shifted to make room for the wrap up events such as the student talent show, what appears to be some sort of certificate ceremony, departure day, and various inspections and check outs.

Home in one week!

Love and Light,

Jacqueline

Rain, Rain, go away...

Hello!

It has been pretty much nonstop raining for the past 4 days and unfortunately our trip to the national park was delayed and ultimately canceled. I am quite disappointed - I have a buddy here who is a pretty hardcore canoe guru and he was going to show me the ropes on this gorgeous lake. Dang. Instead, I ended up playing lots of cards with the roommates and the boys across the street, watching the series finale of House, cooking a really makeshift soup with Ryan, and doing P90X with the girls. Although it was nice to have a more laid back weekend, I'm here to see Quebec - not the inside of the residence!

Today we jumped straight back into our class work and received more homework than ever. It is interesting to ask our prof to compare what we are learning to when kids in French grade schools would work on similar things. For example, last week we covered some things that were probably 4th grade level. This week we're touching high school material. It is intense to think that we only have 6 more days of actual class. Next week the Wednesday will be an oral exam and the Thursday will be the written. After that, Friday is departure day. Kat, Ryan, and I went ahead and booked our stay in Montreal for the two nights we have to spend there at the very end of the program. I'm looking immensely forward to it.

Love & Light,

Jacqueline

Chez Dany

Salut Everyone!

Yesterday's oral presentation went well enough. Our teacher arranged us into groups and would listen to the presentations in groups of 6. Unfortunately, we ended up going last and all the pre-class rehearsal I had squeezed in had mostly left my head by the time I got to actually start speaking. Oh well. As far as I can tell I used all eight of the verb tenses we've been working with and fulfilled the time duration requirements. At least it is over! Same goes for the written exam today. The test was divided predominantly into two portions consisting of technical grammar (verb tenses) and vocabulary/idioms/prepositions. Picking the right verb tense can always be a little challenging but I know I nailed the second portion. Again, just glad to be done. The next course is quite intimidating as it is going to comprise completely new content, literally a whole declension of verbs tenses that I didn't know existed but on the bright side it will give me a leg up when I return.

Tonight was the night we went to "Chez Dany" - a traditional Québecois style restaurant. They had live music going and served each table a wide variety of dishes. Most of  (aka all of) the dishes contained pork, which many of you know is something I try to avoid so that was interesting. I gave everything a try except the ham which was just too outright porkish for me. Otherwise, they had some sort of ground pork pie, egg/omelette, fried crispy pork fat, a traditional Canadian lentil/pea soup, traditional style beans (which honestly weren't that different from the canned variety), pomme de terre, pancakes, and of course maple syrup to add to everything at your leisure. It didn't particularly do much for me but the atmosphere was cool, everyone got up and was dancing at one point, the staff busted out spoons for people to play, and at the end we got to do the traditional popsicle dipped into fresh syrup and put on ice. Very cool experience but definitely only necessary once.

Maple syrup - nom nom nom
L-R: Moi, Kat, Maria, Candace

The Québecois Soirée is later tonight and the national park is going to happen tomorrow if it doesn't rain. The fun never ends ;)

Love and Light,

Jacqueline

PS: Something amusing happened on the bus on the way to Chez Dany. One of the guys I was talking to was trying to guess my nationality. Apparently I look a lot like one of his friends who is half Jamaican. On a different day I had someone ask if I was half African. I mean I get it. The hair is crazy. To be fair though I am fair in both skin, hair, and eye color. Plus I am in no way rockin' the black girl booty. The 'guess my nationality' game has always been an entertaining one for me. The Ukrainian/English explanation just doesn't do it for people.