I've
now been in the country for one month, a fact that outrages
Canadians, but no doubt pleases Australians. My French is progressing
poorly, my health is deteriorating, and I haven't managed to stay
awake for the entire length of any of my classes, but I have had some
fun.
Concordia
had a music concert on the night of Thursday the 15th, so I met up
with Tom and his friend Lunji, and we headed over together.
Thankfully it was the coldest night I had experienced so far in
Canada, and the pain of my freezing body took my mind off the awful
music. They had beer there, and the speakers made noise, so it was a
good night out for most of the people there.
On
Friday there was a sports day at the Loyola campus, where we played
soccer and dodge-ball. Nothing much happened, but I see it as an
opportunity to upload a picture of me in my peak physical condition.
I had a
day trip to the Laurentian Mountains with CISA, the Concordia
International Student Union. We caught a rickety old school bus for
an hour and a half, then arrived at a camp in the mountains. The day
began with kayaking on the lake, and ended with kingball, with
archery, rock-climbing and the obstacle course in the middle.
There
were two guys from Iran, who didn't know how to swim and capsized
their two person kayak. We had a nice bunch of people there, so a
girl went rushing to their aid. She didn't know how to swim either,
so I just quickly got some shots for the local paper before they all
fell in. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at
it. I could have sold those pictures for a lot of money if they
didn't make it), they were all okay, and they got the boat back in too.
It was
really nice out there, and I was really glad we got to see an
authentic aboriginal camp site. I only had a second to take the
photo, but I think I managed to get a picture of one of them leaving
the teepee.
The
next day I was back to school. After dropping one of my classes (and
a huge weight off my shoulders... I had to carry 2 text books for
that subject), I'm down to a three day week. I had a recording
session in the studio of Thursday, and went shopping for supplies for
my stop-motion/ puppet animation class on Friday.
Like
any good puppet animation student, I spent Saturday morning working
on the design on my character. I sculpted and I shaped, and I stayed
in my pajamas until 3 in the afternoon. If they told people that they
could wear pajamas until 3PM while on exchange, I'm sure a lot more
students would do it. But anyway, it was going pretty well until
baked the FIMO (modeling clay) at the wrong temperature and ended up
with a house full of toxic smoke (which turns out is actually what
people went to the Louis' party for... just read on!)
Today,
when I realised I've been here for a whole month already, I began to
reflect on not only my time in Canada and L.A, but further back as
well. Maybe I felt nostalgic playing with the modeling clay or
something, but I started to think about being a kid and growing up. I
wondered if I could pinpoint the point in my life where I lost my
innocence, and became just another empty soul looking for a good
time. I worked out that it was last night, at Louis' party. This
thing made the Tam Tams seem like morning mass. I guess the city can
save money on lawnmowers though, because these kids seemed to have
taken care of all the grass in Montreal. I just did my best to fit
in, drinking lemonade out of beer bottles, and injecting myself with
syringes filled with orange juice, but just when it looked like we might
a bit of good, clean fun, some guy sniffed up the chalk lines from
our hopscotch game. I left that all behind after a while and caught
the metro home.
Next
week, I have dinner at a friend's house, ride a rollercoaster, and
worry that there might be no reason for me to be here. Read all about
it next week in: “Vanishing Point – A Tourist's Perspective”.
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