The Mystery of the 7th Floor

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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 Communauto 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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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?

Read the article, then sign your donor card!

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

Seriously?

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

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

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

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!