New Wallpaper!

Well, it's been a while, but I've finally made some new wallpaper. (Uh...for the desktop.) Anyways, My pen has (somewhat) started working again (no dropping it anymore, I guess) and so to commemorate this wonderful occasion, I decided I need 'Quebecian' wallpaper. It turned out alright, most of my problems I had come from the fact that the JPEG pixelated a bit, (to compensate, this is a huuuuuuge jpeg, just so you're aware) and the fact that my free corel software doesn't allow you to do basically ANYTHING with layers (I found this out in a rather unpleasant fashion once I was done the line art, and I nearly cried.) and since I don't feel like tweaking it much, (might break!) here it is...some winter wallpaper...because I couldn't find anything nicer on the internet to put on my desktop (have I told you that I'm nuts for desktop wallpaper?). Please comment if you like it, because a) I fear no one reads my blog these days b) I might make a few more c) I'm thinking of having a contest again. =D

Again, what should I be doing with my time??

You Are An INFP

The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world. Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships. It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close. But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. In love, you tend to have high (and often unrealistic) standards. You are very sensitive. You tend to have intense feelings. At work, you need to do something that expresses your personal values. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist. How you see yourself: Unselfish, empathetic, and spiritual When other people don't get you, they see you as: Unrealistic, naive, and weak

What's Your Personality Type?

The Cloud and its Silver Line

You know, a lot of bad stuff has been happening to me lately, ie.:

-The french is driving me mad
-The french course is partially driving me mad (although not in the same way)
-My laptop doesn't recognize DVDs anymore, making all my DVDs I brought with me useless (Why did I have to buy that Pilates work-out DVD and bring it?? WHY??? AND I SO WANTED TO WATCH THE B-VERSION OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT IN FRENCH)
-My pen for my wacom tablet (the thing I use to make cartoons, easily and happily) has kicked the bucket, and I have no idea how to fix it (this doesn't mean I didn't consult the user manual. I did. It told me I broke my pen.) so therefore cartoons may be nil in the near future. This was a MAJOR outlet for me. A major outlet, now dead. Like Heath Ledger style dead.
-The french is driving me mad
-I recently got swabbed of some of my money (really, really don't want to talk about it, but it could have been a lot worse, so it's alright) trying to buy something online that wasn't legit, which means I'm a dummy, and now I'm in the process of filing a complaint for fraud
-I am having serious problems sleeping. I know I am normally crazy with my sleep schedule and I usually love it, but I'm not kidding you when I say I am exhausted most days, and I get into bed, and I lay there, with my hands crossed over my chest, like a mummy, or maybe a vampire, and lay there with my eyes wide open. I just lay there. Not thinking. Eyes wide open. Highly unnerving.
-My connection to internet, through a router, is very bad, and I often disconnect from the internet daily, and I am starting to think that I may be living without internet on a regular basis if I'm not careful. I pray everyday that there are no mild vibrations, tremors, minor earthquakes, or nearby impacting missles which may upset the hanging-by-the-thread connection I have to the 'world unreal' which is my only means of entertainment, minus conjugating verbs (thanks to my dead DVD player). These prayers are usually unanswered, and it's not the kind of thing I want to bother my landlady about on a regular basis (ie. more than once every two days.) I do look on the bright side here, though, and she is going to get a router that allows me to connect wireless. While I wasn't looking for this in a place when I first moved here, I am now, especially that I cannot have easy access to the router to fix any problems I might have.
-My shoes are slowly dying. Thank you Quebec winter, where it can be minus thirty plus wind, and yet there still manages to be a sufficient amount of slush for me to nearly slip and kill myself everyday when I cross a major intersection with lots of buses that never seem to stop on time, and angry Quebeckers who drive like they speak french--fast and without a lot of concern for the details. (like me, for example.)
-the french is slowly driving me mad.



This week has just been a PEAK for frustrating things for me...and normally I'm not so upset, but I swear, I'm turning into a rage-a-holic. Everything seems to spur me a little. I don't know where I would be without all the correspondence I've been receiving from various people in my family, friends, etc. Probably utilizing a lot more french swears (since they're all meaningless to me, anyways, except when my friend David in my class says "tabarnak" in class as an answer to the question "What word starts with 't', everyone?" Even I can feel the social context seething on that one, and he just does it to be funny. Great guy, that Dave.)

One thing (although there are a few other private things, but that's for those people) that really made my day was seeing all the pictures of my friend Jim's new baby. Normally I destest baby pictures, (I think just because I love children, but not babies...not sure why. Huh.) but, if anybody would be good parents, the kind of people to really love their kid, and not just have kids because they are kids, then it would be this married couple. I really was able to have a happy moment for someone else this week, even amongst my own daily going-ons. It is something that gives me pause, which is really good for me.


So, it's been a lot of lows, not a lot of highs, but you know, it's all alright. I have been stressing about lots of things, but in the big picture, it's not a big deal. At least there is happiness somewhere in the world, maybe a little far away from me, but it's somewhere, and it's real. And that makes me happiest of all, seeing other people happy. It sometimes reminds me about the big things in life, and what the big picture is, since my life is currenly a mosiac of little things, which currently are stringed together, a messy blanket of many things, all which have little meaning, but I have to give them some meaning....since it's my little mess of a life maintenant.

Anyways, I hope everybody else is well. I've finally picked up some stamps so I can send things to people now.

That makes me happy.

Being Canadian

You know, I was just reading over a variety of blog awards, and I managed to amuse myself for a variety of hours looking at several very different views on a variety of subject areas (especially one on Mother Theresa, which almost made me cry. I'm such a sentamentalist.) and it made me really think about something I'm always thinking about these days, namely my 'Canadian' identity.

Sometimes I feel like I'll be able to discover much better what it means to be Canadian in Quebec, because I'll get to peer into the minds of the French-Canadians, and kind of understand the central part of Canada a little better. (I'll never understand the GTA, but hey, that's just me.) I'm feeling really nostalgic about everything these days, and in my many reflections (most of them on french verbs, currently) I find that there are a couple of pieces of Canadian culture that really speak to me in a variety of media:

Book: Fifth Business
Song: Northwest Passage (One of my favourite songs)
Famous Canadian: (There's someone famous who's Canadian???)

Anyways, I find these days, all those things I was being taught about Canadian identity aren't really all that true. There's a real Canadian identity out there, somewhere. I don't think it's very unified, but I think that's more a blessing than a curse. Most importantly, I find that French-Canadians really are misunderstood, since I have yet to meet one (whether in the 'Oui' or 'Non' camp) that isn't absolutely friendly and genial.

Sometimes I feel like I will 'have it' once I have my Canadian identity.

E-mail?

Well this is interesting. While doing a french writing exercise, I had to stop for a minute and think about how to spell the french term for e-mail. (I usually use courrier electronique, I think.) I knew that the french had several different words for e-mail, and that the french people also used the word 'e-mail' a lot even though it's english, but I didn't know that they had banned the word e-mail back in 2003. Interesting. I'm sure no one will read the link (who does stuff like that?) but the most popular word in french according to the linguistics minstry is 'courriel,' which seems to be hotly disputed as to the fame of its usage. I think my favourite comment on the whole situation is made by, of all people, a French Canadian:

"Hmmm. For years I have been following this "defense" of the language by the french in France and Quebec.It is understandable that they would want this. As a native french-speaker, I take that to heart. But I do think at some point it goes to far. I am not sure this is one of them.I also think it is a sign of the reflectivity that the the French have for their language, that Americans do not have for theirs. I would not want us to have an "academy" like the French, although we did so many years ( notice how many American english words are decidely different than English every elsewhere, including Canada). But I do wish we would consider where our language is going in terms of usage, etmology, slang encroachment and grammar among many others- ( god, if I here another split infinitive, or "hot water heater" or "ATM machine" I will "allez postal".) "


I laughed so hard at that. Go split infinitives! Anyways, I think I'll start using the term courriel, maybe? It's simple to spell, which is basically all I need to know, and it's short for, as per usual some really long french phrase. More short words in french would make me happy. Seriously, and what's with everything being 'of' something? Honestly!

Je suis tres OCP

I found a really neat site on about.com with a lot of french MSN style slang. Awesome!

I now have to learn all this stuff...b1sur.

This is way too much fun.

My Life as a French Student

Well,


It's been three days since class started, and already things are a little strange. I am very frustrated right now because they put the people who are right on the edge of the intermediate group, maybe 10-45 class hours away (ie. people who can speak and use some forms of other tenses, albiet badly, and speak pretty much without a problem in present tense, people whom they call 'advanced beginner') in with the people who absolutely. cannot. speak. a single. not a single. word of french.

I would be lying to you if I said there weren't times in the last two days I wanted to put a gun to my head or even just scream. Ack. Thing is, there were many 'advanced speakers' in the class before, and they could speak a higher level, and make things easier (ie. harder). However, two of them just left this morning for the next level (one that I really liked) and only other two of them took a test to see if they can go up to the next level this afternoon. If they leave, I will literally have no one to talk to in french, at least for the first three to possibly five weeks. This will be like my grade nine nightmare of core french all over again. (Seriously, it was bad. VERY BAD. Tres-bad-avec-le-bleu-cheese-bad.)

So, to 'quell' the adolescent rage, and the feeling stupid, (As in, "I'm so stupid at french they put me with the people who can't speak any french, so I'm really bad at everything' feeling) I went to talk to my teacher because I thought, you know, maybe if I talked about it, I would feel better, and I did, a little. And, also, because I know that I was partially frustrated because I couldn't speak french at the level I wanted, I was probably just mad at myself, especially over the last few days of 'language shock.' The teacher and I talked, and I told her I was worried it was always going to be really slow in this course, and that I understood everything she said in class (which, in my opinion, is usually not great in a language course, and definitely a bad sign in beginner's class) and I think it was clear I was really sad I was over the whole thing.

Tres Bizzare, she then she asked me if 'I' could (not if I wanted to, but if I could just do it for herm if I had the time) to write the little mini test to see if I should be at a higher level. I was like, "what??" and I did it anyways, (I mean hey, if they're going to give me even more than what I want and make me work so hard I cry, I definitely won't complain since this is what I came here for.) and made up a bunch of endings for the past tense, and wrote a short compisition for her, but it was really bad, (seriously, I totally made up words, and I didn't know what to write most of the time) and I told her that it was too hard for me, and that made me feel better, so that's alright, and she said it wasn't a problem, and was really nice to me. I kinda feel like the bigger man because I swallowed my pride and admitted that.

I suppose I should be a little more forgiving and realistic, since everyone will catch up, I guess. But for me, it's not about waiting for people to catch up; my time is just as valuable as the people who paid for the course and are complete beginners. I just feel kinda sad because I feel like I did something wrong because I know too much french for where everyone else is starting and not enough french for where I want to be starting.

I think what my fear is, is that everyone else is of a slightly different mentality. There are people that want to learn french, and then there are people that want and need to learn french. And I really, really want to learn french. I want to learn so bad I could cry. But I don't want to have to do it all myself after sitting through days of "Bonjour, Comment tu t'appelle?" because there isn't anyone (minus the very nice Australian couple in the back of the class, maybe) who can even speak in a full phrase, by themselves. And it's been three days. I need french for myself, I really do, but I am not sure I am going to learn more in this course than I did in my two week course in Belgium, and if that happens, I'm going to be so sad. =( =( =(

I think I would be more ok if I could have some sort of realistic promise that we were going to cover more than the present tense in 15 weeks. I should suppose we are, but I'm worried how long it will take to get there, is all. Do you think my fear is in earnest, or maybe I'm just freaking out because it's the first couple days? Maybe there's something else I could do? I'll have to think about it.

Whew, well, it's been a long day, and one good thing about being here in Quebec are all the people I can speak french with, so maybe I should focus on that, and less on the classroom experience. I think I will rest a bit, kinda chill and have an early night. Tomorrow is a big day, student pictures.

First Impression of Quebec?

Please feel free to tell me about the mistakes I've made while writing french. I also tried to write this in a hurry. Be aware, it takes a long time to do 10-ish panels, so I think I did alright, all things considered.


First day of french was alright. I think I'll have a better impression tomorrow.

And yes, Willem, you are a super hero. As per usual. Especially in french-speakings places. =)

Learning French

Well, I met my land-lady today, and she is SUPER nice. I am very happy, and I met my other roommate, apparently only one other, which is a bit of a relief, to be honest, and he seems really nice, although Julian's accent is a little harder to understand than Steve's, although I think he de-Quebec'd it for me when he was talking in french to me for the 2nd time. (Because the first time I had to tell him I didn't understand a thing he said because of his accent...wow, tres poli, Brennan) so now that the 'logistical things' are taken care of, I can begin my foray into the super french, where I will cram before I go to the school, so that I can hopefully be placed in a higher class (although I highly doubt this will happen, I can still hope, eh?)

My land-lady speaks very easy french to me, making me VERY happy, and even if I don't understand a lot of what she says, I understand enough to give very small replies, which makes me feel less stupid. I will try doing a french-side blog, maybe, but first I have to figure out an easy way to write accents on my blog, since I have no idea as of yet, minus using a number pad with the ALT key, which is just too much memorization for me.

Mon Maison! =D

The sitting room. A total of four to five steps long, and three steps wide. Cute.





The long steps can be seen here. It's about four small steps for man to the wall, people.







My room, with packing to be done!




My room, with everything finished! Isn't it pretty? Don't you dig the bedspread?? I do, for 18.88 at Sears, I do. BABY.






My desk. It's nice, although the chair brings the phrase, 'spinal pain' to mind. Definitely not pleasant, no back support. I either will need to fix this, or buy a 'new' one at Village des Valuers. Probably going to be buying a chair. =)

OK, ok, 'mon chambre' instead of 'mon maison' might be a closer approximate, but it's small and somewhat nice, and the price was right (Yay for cheap). More importantly, my place is STACKED. To say 'tout inclus' about this place is definitely an understatment. You noticed that TV in the pictures? Yeah, well, somebody LEFT IT HERE. Along with their Playstation (?) Sega Genesis (???) and their DVD player (!). On top of that, in the closet, there are TONS of expensive things...dishware, a wok, what seems to be a fully functioning HP Printer, and other boxes unknown what they may contain. C'est bizzare!



Steve (my roommate, one of three) seems really nice, so hopefully the others are nice, when I meet them as well. I also haven't met my landlady yet, nor had to pay for this month's rent, so, I'd say, it's looking up! =D Steve tells me she is 'tres gentil' (he didn't know the word 'nice,' in English but because I'm a nice guy I told him.) so hopefully we get along well. ( I REALLY HOPE SO. Maybe I'll bake her some good Western Canadian baking??)

*Yawn* Well, I'm exhausted. Hope you all are well. Quebec is really nice so far, it feels really homey, despite the immense size of it.

In case anyone is not aware, I'm leaving for Quebec tomorrow to go study french intensively. I should be on the blogosphere within a day or two again, and constantly updating, since I think I'll have a lot more free time on my hands, now that I'm not working 8-5 sort of hours.

See you on the french side.

Typical

Well...

First of all, Happy New Year to everybody. So far, as with every New Year, I seem more tired this year. Strange, yet with a deja-vu-like quality.

Secondly, take a look at this. I have been becoming a major nerd lately because of my now 'new laptop needs' so it's becoming quite the struggle to choose what to buy. With things like that smashy awesome laptops coming out, it made me realize that laptops are becoming the feathered hats of the future. Just like 'coon-skinned caps' or tulips, lappys (as they are affectionally called) seem to be aimed more towards how they are designed rather than how they perform. (Although, thankfully, they are less about trendiness and asnd more about usability than, say, cell phones/mobiles). My guess is that in 10-15 years, laptop design will be much more important than laptop performance...

Since we're all eventually going to succumb to implanting computer chips in the side of our head/hands/ankles, etc. =)