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. ..
Showing posts with label Montreal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Montreal. Show all posts
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Happy Moving Day!!
I awoke this afternoon with familiar aches and pains running throughout my body. It was July 1st. It was not only the late night move that we had pulled off last night that was causing me such pain, but also the memories of how every first of July has been spent since moving to Montreal in 2001. I long for the days when Canada Day meant BBQs at a friend's place, or double time pay at a crappy job. But ever since my first moving day, everything has changed. The very thought of July 1st sends shivers down my spine and thrusts me into a cold sweat. I run through the endless list of things to do, complete with ways to avoid the day altogether. Inevitably, I realize I was forgetting something and continue to panic until the day has finished and I'm sleeping on an unmade bed surrounded by unpacked boxes. The feeling of being completely overwhelmed gradually subsides over the days and weeks that follow, until eventually most everything has been unpacked and found its place. By then, school has started for all the students and other concerns take over as the summer comes to an end. Before I know it, Christmas has come and gone and I awake one morning to find that its a new year. In the midst of the coldest, most miserable month of the year, there is a knock at the door and a postal worker presents me with a registered letter. My hands shaking, I sign his clipboard and nervously turn my attention to the slim envelope. Tearing open the envelope, I gaze down at the enclosed papers. Notice of lease renewal. My landlord needs to know if I intend to renew my lease until the following year. But it's January- how could I possibly know what my plans will be for July? Return by February 28th. Hmmm... one month to ponder what I will do for the next year and a half. I have three choices, none of them pleasant. I can;
or C) decide that I want to put myself through another July 1st move.
A is the easiest option and suckered me into spending three years at my crappy St-Henri apartment. B is unpleasant and too much trouble. For the 2% that my landlord is allowed to raise the rent every year, I'm not about to take him to court over it. I couldn't be bothered. Rental court is buried somewhere deep in the East End, where Anglophones don't like to go. Option C. This is the option that makes my blood run cold. Before agreeing to a July 1st more, it is absolutely essential that I understand what hell it is to move on this day. I would have two months to find an apartment. If I haven't signed a lease by April, it's likely that I'll find myself scrambling to sign the lease for the first apartment I can get in to see, for fear of being homeless on Canada Day. My moving truck needs to booked by May, at the latest, otherwise I'll be stuck renting an overpriced U-Haul, rather than an overpriced Discount truck. I can expect to pay about 300$ for a four hour shift with the truck. If I happen to return the truck five minutes late,I can tak on another 200$ late fees. Then I need to book friends. This needs to be done early, particularly since Montrealers answer their phones very tentatively after June. We are familiar with the tone of voice associated with calls for moving help and our hang-up reflexes more developed than other Canadians. I will spend any spare time over the next few months calling my cable, internet, hydro, gas, phone, medicare and licensing offices to report my change of address. I can expect to spend a lot of time on hold. In May, I need to start hoarding boxes. Grocery stores and pharmacies stop handing them out, some even putting up signs to tell their customers that they are not sharing their moving day boxes. As the end of June approaches, I'll be spending every free moment running about to pack up my things. I'll be expected out of my apartment at noon on July 1st, to allow the new tenant to move in that afternoon. No move ever runs smoothly, and Canada Day moves are no different. As people run here and there, desperately trying to be out of their apartments at 12:00pm and still stay within the four hours with the truck- the architecture of Montreal helps to further challenge your average mover. Appliances being carried, ever so carefully down flights of spiraling iron stairs. Old doorways, mysteriously too narrow for couches to pass through. Already memories of the previous July 1st have faded and I can't remember how I got the couch in to begin with. Hopefully I never again live downtown, where I had the added challenge of dealing with the Canada Day parade that shut down the street Fred was living on.
This year,Fred and I were bracing ourselves for a July 1st move. Luckily, however, a bigger apartment opened in our building and we were able to transfer our lease and move in December. We thought we had dogged the bullet. But inevitably in May, the phone rang and our good friends, Claire and Matt told us they had rented an apartment in our building. For a moment, we were excited by the prospect of having friends in the building. Then we realized what that meant. Another move on the first of July. But Claire and Matt had slightly different plans. If they took a van on June 30th, they knew they could get a longer block of time at a cheaper rate. If the old tenants hadn't left yet, they could leave things at our place overnight. So the van was rented from 7pm, to be returned by 6:30am or pay the nasty 200$ fee. To move Claire and Matt from their
3 and 1/2 downtown (complete with steep staircases) to their new 5 and 1/2 up the street in Côte des neiges, it took the four of us working until 6am. At 6am, Claire returned the van and Fred and I went downstairs and crawled into bed. At nine there was a knock on the door. Matt and Claire hadn't quite finished and had planned on renting a car to pick up the last few things. It being July 1st, there were no cars available. Fred called his mom and asked her if she could drive them to clear out the last few things. They did another three trips, and they finished completely at 2pm.
The separatists really have an amazing thing going here. If this is your typical Canada Day, is it any wonder that the Quebec's national party the week before is so successful? I think it's pretty safe to say that Montreal is probably the only city in the world where its residents spend their national holiday with couches strapped to their backs in blistering heat, too tired to appreciate anything but the cold beer and pizza that follows any move... unless of course you finish moving at 6am.
A) choose not to answer the letter, automatically renewing my lease until July 1st of the following year, and automatically agreeing to any rent increases specified in the notice.
B) refuse the rent increase and agree to present myself at the rental board court room to argue my case.or C) decide that I want to put myself through another July 1st move.
A is the easiest option and suckered me into spending three years at my crappy St-Henri apartment. B is unpleasant and too much trouble. For the 2% that my landlord is allowed to raise the rent every year, I'm not about to take him to court over it. I couldn't be bothered. Rental court is buried somewhere deep in the East End, where Anglophones don't like to go. Option C. This is the option that makes my blood run cold. Before agreeing to a July 1st more, it is absolutely essential that I understand what hell it is to move on this day. I would have two months to find an apartment. If I haven't signed a lease by April, it's likely that I'll find myself scrambling to sign the lease for the first apartment I can get in to see, for fear of being homeless on Canada Day. My moving truck needs to booked by May, at the latest, otherwise I'll be stuck renting an overpriced U-Haul, rather than an overpriced Discount truck. I can expect to pay about 300$ for a four hour shift with the truck. If I happen to return the truck five minutes late,I can tak on another 200$ late fees. Then I need to book friends. This needs to be done early, particularly since Montrealers answer their phones very tentatively after June. We are familiar with the tone of voice associated with calls for moving help and our hang-up reflexes more developed than other Canadians. I will spend any spare time over the next few months calling my cable, internet, hydro, gas, phone, medicare and licensing offices to report my change of address. I can expect to spend a lot of time on hold. In May, I need to start hoarding boxes. Grocery stores and pharmacies stop handing them out, some even putting up signs to tell their customers that they are not sharing their moving day boxes. As the end of June approaches, I'll be spending every free moment running about to pack up my things. I'll be expected out of my apartment at noon on July 1st, to allow the new tenant to move in that afternoon. No move ever runs smoothly, and Canada Day moves are no different. As people run here and there, desperately trying to be out of their apartments at 12:00pm and still stay within the four hours with the truck- the architecture of Montreal helps to further challenge your average mover. Appliances being carried, ever so carefully down flights of spiraling iron stairs. Old doorways, mysteriously too narrow for couches to pass through. Already memories of the previous July 1st have faded and I can't remember how I got the couch in to begin with. Hopefully I never again live downtown, where I had the added challenge of dealing with the Canada Day parade that shut down the street Fred was living on.
This year,Fred and I were bracing ourselves for a July 1st move. Luckily, however, a bigger apartment opened in our building and we were able to transfer our lease and move in December. We thought we had dogged the bullet. But inevitably in May, the phone rang and our good friends, Claire and Matt told us they had rented an apartment in our building. For a moment, we were excited by the prospect of having friends in the building. Then we realized what that meant. Another move on the first of July. But Claire and Matt had slightly different plans. If they took a van on June 30th, they knew they could get a longer block of time at a cheaper rate. If the old tenants hadn't left yet, they could leave things at our place overnight. So the van was rented from 7pm, to be returned by 6:30am or pay the nasty 200$ fee. To move Claire and Matt from their
3 and 1/2 downtown (complete with steep staircases) to their new 5 and 1/2 up the street in Côte des neiges, it took the four of us working until 6am. At 6am, Claire returned the van and Fred and I went downstairs and crawled into bed. At nine there was a knock on the door. Matt and Claire hadn't quite finished and had planned on renting a car to pick up the last few things. It being July 1st, there were no cars available. Fred called his mom and asked her if she could drive them to clear out the last few things. They did another three trips, and they finished completely at 2pm.
The separatists really have an amazing thing going here. If this is your typical Canada Day, is it any wonder that the Quebec's national party the week before is so successful? I think it's pretty safe to say that Montreal is probably the only city in the world where its residents spend their national holiday with couches strapped to their backs in blistering heat, too tired to appreciate anything but the cold beer and pizza that follows any move... unless of course you finish moving at 6am.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
No Job, But Free Yoga
A recent lock-out at the cemetery across from our house inspired me to record the unkept state of the grounds.At 19, when I was young and idealistic, I started a BFA in theater performance. Despite the lectures and warnings of those around me, I was determined to do what I loved, even if that meant waiting on tables for the rest of my life. I dragged out the degree, taking five years to finish it in all. I walked the stage at Place des Arts, wrapped my hands around my degree and was suddenly hit with a wave of fear. I had fought to have the day off of my crappy union job to attend my graduation and realized at that moment that I was no longer a student, but suddenly an out of work actor. I got scared, suddenly realizing what I had done. I called myself a teacher and boarded a plane to Korea, returning a year later with teaching experience and a new outlook on life. I was optimistic, enthusiastic and sure that I could easily secure work back in Montreal.
Sunday afternoon, as I sat on the bus to the the hospital to visit Fred, the phone rang. It seems the plane load of Mexicans that made up the class I was supposed to teach had decided to postpone their trip to Montreal. They would call me when and if the Mexicans in question decided to reschedule their trip. A couple days before, yet another restaurant that had interviewed me had called to offer me a job. It turned out, however, that they only had lunch shifts available now. Since I had secured this teaching job, I had turned it down.
Hearing what happened with the school, Fred's mom called her work. Her boss assured her that there would be a job for me at Brother. A week later, the manager of the customer service department called me to schedule an interview. Despite the extreme sense of condescension, all went well and she told me to expect a phone call from the HR department. A week and a half later, they called to schedule an interview. I bussed all the way out to the West Island to sit in a room with a very simple woman who felt the need to take advantage of her status as interviewer and insist that I tell her about a time when I did something I was not proud of. To my surprise, I was able to find just the right words to tell her it was none of her business, without actually saying that. They told me that I would start on June 18th. Then it was pushed to June 26th. Now the official start date is July 3rd. I've lost my patience with this company, and with the employment options available in Montreal. In no other city in Canada would a bilingual university graduate with teaching experience and a brain in her head have such trouble finding a job. I may have been idealistic at 19 when I threw myself into theater school, but I never imagined that even the customer service industry would want nothing to do with me. Either this is a sign that I'm not supposed to be in Montreal, or I'm being given a very clear indication that customer service is such a part of my past that it shouldn't even be a fall back... Just as my frustration had begun to give way to depression, my yoga studio called. They offered me a position as receptionist on Saturday mornings, in exchange for free yoga classes and towel service. Woohoo!! I may not be able to pay my rent, but at least I'll be relaxed about it.
After spending months trying to secure work in Montreal, my mind is beginning to wander. Thoughts of life in Toronto or Vancouver have begun creeping into my head. I love Montreal, but if being here means being unemployed, I've just about had it. I know that I haven't finished traveling, but I had always imagined Montreal as home. Now even that is being questioned...
A downpour in our backyard.Monday, May 14, 2007
Montreal: City of Design
Old Anglican church on Côte des Neiges-
the peeling of the bells can still be heard throughout the community
The people at UNESCO have announced what all of Canada has known for so long. Montreal is a uniquely beautiful city. As celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Expo 67 kick off, Montreal was officially declared a UNESCO City of Design, along with Berlin and Buenos Aires. With summer upon us, I've promised myself to really appreciate what we have here. Despite having spent last summer immersed in a different culture and language, the summer came and went without my usual summer activities. Seoul being a rather concrete city, my summer lacked lazing about on the grass and listening to the drums at the tam-tams. This summer I have decided to do my best to record the beautiful city I live in, and remember how it blew me away when I first moved here.
The politics of Montreal are inescapable. I have also come to the realization that I am quite detached from the Montreal theatre community. When first I arrived in Montreal, I was launched smack into the middle of the mess that is the anglo theatre scene, but as I distanced myself from the Fringe Festival and other grassroots events, I've lost touch. This, of course, makes it difficult when I am occasionally hit by a stroke of genius and realize that everyone I know in theatre has made the move to Toronto (damn you, Toronto!!). So last night Fred and I hopped on the Metro to St-Laurent & Ste-Catherine (the sketchiest corner in the city) and strolled as quickly as we could to Théâtre Ste-Catherine. The theatre was bought by a young Calgarian who moved to Montreal around the same time I did. Though it doesn't yet have the same feel as Calgary's Loose Moose Theatre, it's a start. A few of the actors are imports from the Loose Moose and trained with Keith Johnstone- the god of the improv. world. Some of the skits were good, others were bad, but it didn't really matter. The audience was more engaged and more involved than I've seen in a theatre in a long time. Best of all, it inspired to get my ass back into the theater.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Post-Election Blues in la Belle Province
My voting card in hand, Fred and I trudged to St-Joseph's Oratory on Monday to cast our votes. We approached the church, praying silently that we wouldn't have to climb the hundred something stairs to the top in order to do so. Apparently the government accounted for this laziness and set up post in a little chalet at the foot of the stairs. We waited no more than a minute to register our votes, traditionally a sign of a Liberal victory in Quebec. The formula has long been low voter turn-out equals Liberal victory, high voter turn-out equals Parti Québécois victory. Though Quebec has the highest rate of voter turn-out in the country, this election put us at a sad 71% participation.
Quebeckers rarely waffle. Stubborness, pride and political conviction are three characteristics that very accurately describe your typical Quebecker. You're either separatist or federalist, there are few who sit in the middle, indifferent. This is exactly why it has been 129 years since the last minority government in Quebec. It is a difficult picture to paint for someone who has never set foot in Quebec. I engaged in very few political discussions during my years in Calgary- Albertans are largely politically indifferent. The province in prospering so it appears that the government is doing something right, and voters continue to elect the same people to lead them. That's why Kananaskis was such a perfect place for the G-8 summit meetings, and Quebec City such a poor place. My year at the University of Calgary, I was part of the campaign against tuition hikes. To our extreme frustration, few people signed our petition against the hikes- indifferent about the price and the actions of their government. Meanwhile, tuition hikes and cuts to student loans and bursaries left Quebec universities and Cégeps empty during student strikes two years ago. Some schools were closed only a day or two, the Université de Montréal, however, was closed for three months in protest.
We watched the election coverage intermittently that night. Up until 9pm, CBC was predicting an ADQ victory. I was both baffled and afraid. How can a party that waffled on the issue of sovereignty possibly be leading? A party that presented few clear ideas in the hopes of capturing the voters who were turning against the PQ and the Liberals? The consequences could be dire. The Quebec economy is not what it once was. With the passing of Bill 101, hundreds of big businesses packed up and moved to Toronto. Few, if any have returned. Today the two biggest industries in Montreal are the sex trade and telemarketing. Thankfully, the city has in recent years also become a hot bed for the video game industry. In any case, the desire to maintain the culture of the province has gone to such lengths that it has crippled the economy. Instead of looking at the city of Montreal, approximately 60% French to 40% English, and realizing the incredible potential that this held for businesses, the government has done their best to prevent the French from learning English. French and English are the two most common official languages in the world- imagine the possibilities if nearly 100% of permanent residents were bilingual. But bilingual people have the freedom to leave for provinces with lower tax rates and this would threaten sovereignty, so instead it has been made very difficult for francophones to learn English. I'm rambling. Back to Mario Dumont- a leader with so few clear plans, his election would have been disastrous for this delicate economy. Rather like Ralph Klein, but in a less fortunate province. His collection of questionable choices for ministers does not particularly help his case. I was fearful of an ADQ victory. Children, it seems, were also fearful of such a victory. The French newspaper, La Presse polled a group of kindergarten students and asked them which of the three party leaders most resembled the evil Lord Voldemor of Harry Potter. Mario Dumont (ADQ) was the clear winner.
Quebeckers rarely waffle. Stubborness, pride and political conviction are three characteristics that very accurately describe your typical Quebecker. You're either separatist or federalist, there are few who sit in the middle, indifferent. This is exactly why it has been 129 years since the last minority government in Quebec. It is a difficult picture to paint for someone who has never set foot in Quebec. I engaged in very few political discussions during my years in Calgary- Albertans are largely politically indifferent. The province in prospering so it appears that the government is doing something right, and voters continue to elect the same people to lead them. That's why Kananaskis was such a perfect place for the G-8 summit meetings, and Quebec City such a poor place. My year at the University of Calgary, I was part of the campaign against tuition hikes. To our extreme frustration, few people signed our petition against the hikes- indifferent about the price and the actions of their government. Meanwhile, tuition hikes and cuts to student loans and bursaries left Quebec universities and Cégeps empty during student strikes two years ago. Some schools were closed only a day or two, the Université de Montréal, however, was closed for three months in protest.
We watched the election coverage intermittently that night. Up until 9pm, CBC was predicting an ADQ victory. I was both baffled and afraid. How can a party that waffled on the issue of sovereignty possibly be leading? A party that presented few clear ideas in the hopes of capturing the voters who were turning against the PQ and the Liberals? The consequences could be dire. The Quebec economy is not what it once was. With the passing of Bill 101, hundreds of big businesses packed up and moved to Toronto. Few, if any have returned. Today the two biggest industries in Montreal are the sex trade and telemarketing. Thankfully, the city has in recent years also become a hot bed for the video game industry. In any case, the desire to maintain the culture of the province has gone to such lengths that it has crippled the economy. Instead of looking at the city of Montreal, approximately 60% French to 40% English, and realizing the incredible potential that this held for businesses, the government has done their best to prevent the French from learning English. French and English are the two most common official languages in the world- imagine the possibilities if nearly 100% of permanent residents were bilingual. But bilingual people have the freedom to leave for provinces with lower tax rates and this would threaten sovereignty, so instead it has been made very difficult for francophones to learn English. I'm rambling. Back to Mario Dumont- a leader with so few clear plans, his election would have been disastrous for this delicate economy. Rather like Ralph Klein, but in a less fortunate province. His collection of questionable choices for ministers does not particularly help his case. I was fearful of an ADQ victory. Children, it seems, were also fearful of such a victory. The French newspaper, La Presse polled a group of kindergarten students and asked them which of the three party leaders most resembled the evil Lord Voldemor of Harry Potter. Mario Dumont (ADQ) was the clear winner.
Evil Lord Voldemor
Evil Mario
See the resemblance?
Having said all that, a PQ victory would have been less disastrous, in my mind, but not by much. André Boisclair is not a leader. While people at Liberal headquarters shouted 'Charest, Charest!' and ADQ headquarters was filled with screams of 'Dumont, Dumont!' on Monday night, les péquistes (PQists) were apparently chanting, 'Un pays, un pays!' (A country, a country!). The PQ may have the strongest platform in terms of social programs, but it is too idealistic. They fail to generate any new ideas to provoke the economy and resort to blaming the federal government for budget shortfalls, yet remain determined that separation is a viable option. It seems that voters this election gave them a clear message that their message is tired and old. Nobody wants another referendum. The province can't afford it. I'm not sure if this has been big news across Canada, or if the focus has largely been in Quebec. Montreal is a cosmopolitan city and one of Canada's most diverse. The issue of 'reasonable accomodation' seems to have snuck its way into the media and they are trying their best to instill fear in les québécois that their culture is at risk because Muslim women choose to wear hijabs, or because I'm not permitted to eat non-kosher spaghetti in the kosher section of the Jewish hospital. Please. Is your culture really so fragile that it is threatened based on where you eat your lunch? On passing a woman dressed differently in the street? Boisclair's recent comments about Asians with les yeux bridés (slanty eyes) reveals that he is not the one to lead us through this definitive period of cultural integration.
At least André Boisclair is happy. That's what counts...
We can probably assume this photo was taken before Monday.
The Liberals. The lesser of the three evils, but I am still not interested in supporting them. Charest fell short of his election promises from the last election, and in my mind does not deserve a second chance. That having been said, he was the best of the realistic possibilities. At least we know that his platform is all lies and his federalist agenda means that it is in his best interest to make the Quebec economy more accessible. Of course, this is in the best interest of Quebec, but some are too stubborn to acknowledge that welcoming in big business does not have to mean sacrificing your language and your culture. English and French are perfectly capable of living side by side in Montreal. Despite the unfortunate and sometimes mysterious choice of having each candidate posed with their fist under their chin (in French, the word for chin is menton, dangerously close to the verb mentir -to lie.) on campaign posters, it seems that many Quebeckers chose their Liberal candidates to lead them. Perhaps their victory (if you can call it that) had something to do with the Gazette's review of which party's posters were the best to go sliding. The Liberals won that contest by leaps and bounds- probably due to their disregard for the environment, demonstrated by needlessessly big campaign posters.
Jean Charest
We wouldn't have been happy with any of the possible results. The Liberals won in my riding, followed closely by the Parti Québécois and in third place, the Green Party. Change is in the air. If nothing else, these elections have sent a clear message. We are not pleased. At school the other day, we were discussing how mysterious it is that the ADQ won so many seats when no one will admit to voting for them. Perhaps their success was meant to signal dissatisfaction, and we came frighteningly close to teaching ourselves a very important lesson.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Tragically Nameless
These posts are getting fewer and farther between as my teaching job eats up more and more of my day. I'm really not sure why people do this. I understand that some people are passionate about it, and it baffles me. I can't imagine dedicating my life to chasing kids around in an effort to help them learn and grow, and receive so little appreciation from the kids, their parents and society. I simply wouldn't be able to justify six years of school to make 35 000$ a year. Not even summers off could convince me to pursue this as a career. Three weeks into my teaching job and the unthinkable has happened; I've turned into my Uncle. My Uncle Bob has been an English teacher in Quebec since the beginning of time (or at least my time). The summers that I spent out in Montreal with him and his family meant being subject to his comments about hating children and being fed up with babysitting. Even worse seemed to be the student teachers who weren't, in his books, sufficiently well read to be doing a stag as an English teacher. Only years later upon meeting Julien did I discover that my Uncle may hate children, but he clearly loved his job. He was one of those teachers that changed lives, but didn't want anyone to know and now I've gone and publicly ruined his reputation.
Work is going alright. I don't hate it, I just don't like it. It's difficult to see any sort of improvement and garner any satisfaction from teaching a second language as it is, pair with that the large class size and it's nearly impossible to leave feeling you're making a difference. I'm not passionate about teaching English. Maybe if I could have real discussions with them- push them to see a piece in another light, or provoke and challenge new thoughts. Unfortunately the nature of the work is that you spend most of the day trying to suppress the urge to finish sentences for your students just because it would be faster. You try not to scream as you listen to the hundreds of different excuses for homework not having been finished and actually try to make that student believe that you just listened to whatever gibberish spewed forth from their mouth. You try in vain to avoid the flashbacks to your own Elementary school days, especially when you hear yourself yelling, "Stéphanie. Assis-toi. Comme il faut. Avec les quatre pattes de la chaise à terre et tes deux pieds sur le plancher." (Stephanie. Sit down. Properly. With the four feet of the chair on the ground and your two feet on the floor.) I nearly collapsed when I heard the words explode from my mouth- shocked that it took me so far back. My tone, my pacing -it was all so familiar! I suddenly felt like Mme. Nicole Jolicoeur, my grade three teacher. It was eery. My frustrations are heightened by the disrespect of the students, their indifference to learning and their ability to complain about absolutely everything. I had slotted to spend today's class reviewing vocabulary with my grade five class today, which promised to be painfully boring for all parties involved. So rather than have me talk at them about how these words were important, I put the students in groups of four and explained they would be playing charades. The only requirement was that they preface their physicalization with the phrase, "I like (don't like) to ______," and then they would proceed with their animation. The amount of students who bothered to approach me to inform me the activity was stupid absolutely stunned me. I finally replied if they didn't like it, they were welcome to take their seat back at their desk and read the key words to themselves over and over again. They shut up.
Work is going alright. I don't hate it, I just don't like it. It's difficult to see any sort of improvement and garner any satisfaction from teaching a second language as it is, pair with that the large class size and it's nearly impossible to leave feeling you're making a difference. I'm not passionate about teaching English. Maybe if I could have real discussions with them- push them to see a piece in another light, or provoke and challenge new thoughts. Unfortunately the nature of the work is that you spend most of the day trying to suppress the urge to finish sentences for your students just because it would be faster. You try not to scream as you listen to the hundreds of different excuses for homework not having been finished and actually try to make that student believe that you just listened to whatever gibberish spewed forth from their mouth. You try in vain to avoid the flashbacks to your own Elementary school days, especially when you hear yourself yelling, "Stéphanie. Assis-toi. Comme il faut. Avec les quatre pattes de la chaise à terre et tes deux pieds sur le plancher." (Stephanie. Sit down. Properly. With the four feet of the chair on the ground and your two feet on the floor.) I nearly collapsed when I heard the words explode from my mouth- shocked that it took me so far back. My tone, my pacing -it was all so familiar! I suddenly felt like Mme. Nicole Jolicoeur, my grade three teacher. It was eery. My frustrations are heightened by the disrespect of the students, their indifference to learning and their ability to complain about absolutely everything. I had slotted to spend today's class reviewing vocabulary with my grade five class today, which promised to be painfully boring for all parties involved. So rather than have me talk at them about how these words were important, I put the students in groups of four and explained they would be playing charades. The only requirement was that they preface their physicalization with the phrase, "I like (don't like) to ______," and then they would proceed with their animation. The amount of students who bothered to approach me to inform me the activity was stupid absolutely stunned me. I finally replied if they didn't like it, they were welcome to take their seat back at their desk and read the key words to themselves over and over again. They shut up.
School has changed, kids have changed and I'm glad that this path is just for the moment. Swearing is fairly common in the classroom now, the students refer to their teachers by their first names (Mme. Stephanie, Mme. Julie- although often the madame is dropped) and address them with the more familiar tu, as opposed to vous. In the past three weeks, I realized beyound a shadow of a doubt, that I don't want children. As our society seems to move further and further from values that I still hold precious, I cringe to think of how little respect and hard work will be valued in ten, twenty years. The Western materialism has reached its peak when every student in my grade six class describes shopping as a favourite activity and believes they are entitled to a Playstation3 and an iPod. I can't help but think we have gone so, so wrong.
While it is far from what I want, I know that teaching will bring me closer to what I want to do. Hopefully I can manipulate the desperation of the Commision Scolaire de Montréal into a contract that will only amount to part time hours, leaving me open to do other things. In the meantime, it is providing an eye opening experience with this next generation. This post has perhaps seemed negative, and I don't mean it that way. I'm feeling fairly indifferent about my situation at the moment- apart from having to wake up at 6am. I hate 6am.
As I settle into a routine, I'm struggling to balance my life. I don't know how people work a job this demanding and actually have a life... which explains why these posts are becoming fewer and farther between. I started Bykram Yoga last week, in a room heated to 42 degrees celsius to prompt you to sweat out all your toxins and protect your muscles from injury. I felt amazing all last week and have developed quite an addiction to it. Unfortunately, difficult as I am, I had to choose the most ridiculously expensive type of Yoga to fall for and am currenly arguing with myself about whether or not its worth the 150$ per month. My cheap intro pass expired on Monday and now I've decided to bounce around from studio to studio for awhile until I make a choice. I wonder how many cheap intro weeks one can enjoy at Yoga studios in downtown Montreal... I'll let you know.
While it is far from what I want, I know that teaching will bring me closer to what I want to do. Hopefully I can manipulate the desperation of the Commision Scolaire de Montréal into a contract that will only amount to part time hours, leaving me open to do other things. In the meantime, it is providing an eye opening experience with this next generation. This post has perhaps seemed negative, and I don't mean it that way. I'm feeling fairly indifferent about my situation at the moment- apart from having to wake up at 6am. I hate 6am.
As I settle into a routine, I'm struggling to balance my life. I don't know how people work a job this demanding and actually have a life... which explains why these posts are becoming fewer and farther between. I started Bykram Yoga last week, in a room heated to 42 degrees celsius to prompt you to sweat out all your toxins and protect your muscles from injury. I felt amazing all last week and have developed quite an addiction to it. Unfortunately, difficult as I am, I had to choose the most ridiculously expensive type of Yoga to fall for and am currenly arguing with myself about whether or not its worth the 150$ per month. My cheap intro pass expired on Monday and now I've decided to bounce around from studio to studio for awhile until I make a choice. I wonder how many cheap intro weeks one can enjoy at Yoga studios in downtown Montreal... I'll let you know.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Losing Steam
Maybe it's the return to the monotony of real life without intriguing observations or thought provoking encounters, maybe I'm drained from my new job that requires me to juggle the behavioural problems of twenty-seven students at a time. Maybe my itchy feet are unsatisfied finding themselves back in Montreal, or maybe the cold has gone to my brain and frozen any creative impulses I once had. Maybe it's a little of this and a little of that.
After two weeks of hard work as an elementary English teacher, I felt I deserved a week off. And it so happened that my wish was granted- spring break, although I can't what this week has to do with spring. I had plans to actively look for a new job, to get some writing done and perhaps even begin to edit my Korean travel account. As it happened, I was sick on Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, and yes- even Wednesday. Today is therefore my first real day off and I celebrated by staying in bed all morning and doing nothing at all of interest, unless you count the dishes.
Tuesday I was called up by the Commision Scolaire de Montréal, the largest school board in the city. We arranged an interview for the following morning and the woman gave me the questions that I would be asked, in order to prepare myself, I assumed. So yesterday morning, I dragged myself out of bed down to the metro and all the way to the East end of Montreal for this interview. I had prepared as well as I felt necessary, which wasn't a whole lot. The questions seemed fairly ridiculous to me- and some of them non-sensical given my inexperience as a teacher. What did I think of the role of the teacher in the face of the reforms? Hmm-- I assumed that these reforms are responsible for the lovey-dovey atmosphere of the classes with the younger teachers at my school... the mistaken belief that children do not require rigid rules in a school environment. I imagined that they probably wanted to hear about how I believed that the teacher's role should be that of a facilitator that provokes the children to become interested and engaged in the subject matter. I half believe this, but mostly feel that Canadian children have it easy and should just buckle down and do the work. Also, I've learned I'm not passionate about education- this is clearly not so much a career move as a stabilizing move. In any case, I arrived at the school board, sat down in front of the two men interviewing me and launched into my semi-prepared speech about the eligibility of my candidacy. One of the men interrupted to inform me that in fact I was not being interviewed for a position as an anglais langue séconde teacher, but for a drama teacher. And with that, the little preparation I had done for the interview was tossed out the window.
In any case, I told the men about my experience as an English teacher in Korea. As is usually the case with francophones, they stared at me in disbelief. How did you come across an opportunity like that? Really, a lot of anglophones do that? Why do they want to learn English so badly? Each and every time I have this conversation, I'm blown away by how isolated the French community is from the rest of Canada, and from the rest of the world. I explained to both men that there is a huge push in Asia at the moment to learn English, and that many educated people were bilingual (leaving out the fact that English is the language of business, as I was still hoping to endear myself to these men). I hope that they passed on their disbelief to other school board officials- perhaps these rumours will result in more English in québécois schools, out of pure embarrasment that they have chosen not to learn what people across the world recognize as valuable.
Even though we were sidetracked for quite awhile by a discussion comparing the educational systems of Korea and that of Canada, we finished the interview and they wished me luck on my French test. It seems that since I was being interviewed for a position teaching in French that I could no longer get away with writing the bobo French test. I called human resources in a panic and my good friend Catherine, assured me the test wasn't that bad. Catherine and I have in fact never met face to face, but she feels like a close friend as we have tried to wind our way through a maze of red tape together. The test I was scheduled to write was equivalent to a grade nine French test (or sec 3), but now I'm required to pass the test grade eleven (sec 5). Having made the switch to anglo school in grade ten, I have reason to be terrified. Apparently my interview went well and she was given the green light to hire me, as long as I pass this nasty French test...
After two weeks of hard work as an elementary English teacher, I felt I deserved a week off. And it so happened that my wish was granted- spring break, although I can't what this week has to do with spring. I had plans to actively look for a new job, to get some writing done and perhaps even begin to edit my Korean travel account. As it happened, I was sick on Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, and yes- even Wednesday. Today is therefore my first real day off and I celebrated by staying in bed all morning and doing nothing at all of interest, unless you count the dishes.
Tuesday I was called up by the Commision Scolaire de Montréal, the largest school board in the city. We arranged an interview for the following morning and the woman gave me the questions that I would be asked, in order to prepare myself, I assumed. So yesterday morning, I dragged myself out of bed down to the metro and all the way to the East end of Montreal for this interview. I had prepared as well as I felt necessary, which wasn't a whole lot. The questions seemed fairly ridiculous to me- and some of them non-sensical given my inexperience as a teacher. What did I think of the role of the teacher in the face of the reforms? Hmm-- I assumed that these reforms are responsible for the lovey-dovey atmosphere of the classes with the younger teachers at my school... the mistaken belief that children do not require rigid rules in a school environment. I imagined that they probably wanted to hear about how I believed that the teacher's role should be that of a facilitator that provokes the children to become interested and engaged in the subject matter. I half believe this, but mostly feel that Canadian children have it easy and should just buckle down and do the work. Also, I've learned I'm not passionate about education- this is clearly not so much a career move as a stabilizing move. In any case, I arrived at the school board, sat down in front of the two men interviewing me and launched into my semi-prepared speech about the eligibility of my candidacy. One of the men interrupted to inform me that in fact I was not being interviewed for a position as an anglais langue séconde teacher, but for a drama teacher. And with that, the little preparation I had done for the interview was tossed out the window.
In any case, I told the men about my experience as an English teacher in Korea. As is usually the case with francophones, they stared at me in disbelief. How did you come across an opportunity like that? Really, a lot of anglophones do that? Why do they want to learn English so badly? Each and every time I have this conversation, I'm blown away by how isolated the French community is from the rest of Canada, and from the rest of the world. I explained to both men that there is a huge push in Asia at the moment to learn English, and that many educated people were bilingual (leaving out the fact that English is the language of business, as I was still hoping to endear myself to these men). I hope that they passed on their disbelief to other school board officials- perhaps these rumours will result in more English in québécois schools, out of pure embarrasment that they have chosen not to learn what people across the world recognize as valuable.
Even though we were sidetracked for quite awhile by a discussion comparing the educational systems of Korea and that of Canada, we finished the interview and they wished me luck on my French test. It seems that since I was being interviewed for a position teaching in French that I could no longer get away with writing the bobo French test. I called human resources in a panic and my good friend Catherine, assured me the test wasn't that bad. Catherine and I have in fact never met face to face, but she feels like a close friend as we have tried to wind our way through a maze of red tape together. The test I was scheduled to write was equivalent to a grade nine French test (or sec 3), but now I'm required to pass the test grade eleven (sec 5). Having made the switch to anglo school in grade ten, I have reason to be terrified. Apparently my interview went well and she was given the green light to hire me, as long as I pass this nasty French test...
Friday, March 02, 2007
My First (real) Snow Day
A snow day is a rite of passage for most Canadian kids. Waking early on a weekday and waiting in anticipation by the radio-- will it be closed? Can I go back to sleep and spend my afternoon sledding instead of studying? But of all those mornings that I awoke and hoped for the good news that would liberate me for the day, it happened only once.
Grade twelve. Now, I went to a weird high school. I didn't have to attend classes (which served my ADD just fine). Instead I just showed up at 9am, sat myself down with some books and studied whatever I felt like that day. I had skipped my evening math class (yet again) at Viscount Bennett (those of us from Bishop Carroll High that had motivation problems went there for real classes ) and opted for smoking a joint and going to see a movie with Colin, the boy of the moment. I don't remember what movie it was, but I know we were the only people in the theatre. We left the movie theatre and walked across the deserted parking lot to the car, buried under a foot of snow.
I contemplated how I had mocked my mother for keeping a shovel in the car, but being a Montrealer to the bone, she had refused to remove it. I hate it when she's right. With much difficulty, I drove Colin home. A group of drunken young men helped me push the car out when I got stuck on his street, and I continued home. When I finally reached my driveway, I tried to pull the car in as far as I could, but ended up leaving it half in the street. At 3am I wasn't about to start shovelling snow. I went to bed and awoke early for school the next day. School was cancelled! Finally in my grade twelve year I got the snow day I had been waiting for since grade one. I called around to find out how everyone was celebrating the day off and was invited to go sledding with Colin and his friends. I got dressed, keys in hand and made my way out to the car, determined to dig it out and enjoy my day off. My mother met me at the door and asked where I thought I was going. At the time, she was quite accustomed to saying no to everything under the sun, so I had simply stopped asking her and had begun telling her what I was doing.
She looked at me and shook her head. I wasn't going anywhere until I shovelled the drive-way, she told me. I looked out the window and saw that the foot of snow that had greeted me at 3am, had become nearly two feet of snow in our drive-way. Despite my best efforts to recruit various boys who called themselves friends, none of them came to my rescue. I began to dig. The snow was past my knees and heavy. I glanced up and down the street and saw families outside shovelling the mess together. Tyler and Travis were at my dad's place for the week, and my mother had put her back out, so it was me and me alone. It took me six hours to shovel the drive-way, and I took plenty of breaks to complain to my mother about lack of solidarity in our family. I was nearly finished, and gazed with some satisfaction at our neighbour's house. She hadn't even started shovelling yet. I laughed to myself about how she would be up all night. Just then, the garage door opened and a snow blower emerged. She was finished in twenty minutes.
Colin called later on and infuriated me by recounting how much fun he had had that day. After twelve years of anticipation, my first snow day had been absolutely terrible. I got in the car to drive to school the next morning and arrived to find that the crew in charge of plowing our school's driveway had also opted to take the day off. I had to park on Crowchild Trail (on the highway) and walk for half an hour to get to school. Stupid snow day.
This morning, I awoke at 6 am. I accidently turned the radio on as I fumbled in the dark and the announcer declared that it was going to be "An absolutely terrible Friday." Words of encouragement. I got dressed, grabbed my coffee and left the house. I could barely see across the street. The snowflakes stung my face as the wind whipped them at my cheeks. I caught the number 11 bus to take me over Mount Royal, not my usual route to work but a better one given the weather. I got off at my transfer point and noted my bus would not come for ten minutes, so I started to walk. I arrived at school half an hour later- the bus had never come. I glanced in the mirror on my way to my desk and found mascara running down my face and snowflakes frozen to my hair and eyelashes. Madonna continued to blare away from my mp3 player, and I made a note to myself to remove her songs. Fred had been wrong, I didn't like her new album. I took off my jacket and walked past the secretary's desk to my first class. I heard her tell a parent we were closing the school and a smile broke out across my face. Woohoo! Snow day #2!!
I left the school amidst grumbles as teachers and parents complained about having to turn right around and go home. It was fine with me. The trek home was long, but enjoyable because I knew I had the whole day to myself. My first real snow day- and it's full of possibilities!
Grade twelve. Now, I went to a weird high school. I didn't have to attend classes (which served my ADD just fine). Instead I just showed up at 9am, sat myself down with some books and studied whatever I felt like that day. I had skipped my evening math class (yet again) at Viscount Bennett (those of us from Bishop Carroll High that had motivation problems went there for real classes ) and opted for smoking a joint and going to see a movie with Colin, the boy of the moment. I don't remember what movie it was, but I know we were the only people in the theatre. We left the movie theatre and walked across the deserted parking lot to the car, buried under a foot of snow.
I contemplated how I had mocked my mother for keeping a shovel in the car, but being a Montrealer to the bone, she had refused to remove it. I hate it when she's right. With much difficulty, I drove Colin home. A group of drunken young men helped me push the car out when I got stuck on his street, and I continued home. When I finally reached my driveway, I tried to pull the car in as far as I could, but ended up leaving it half in the street. At 3am I wasn't about to start shovelling snow. I went to bed and awoke early for school the next day. School was cancelled! Finally in my grade twelve year I got the snow day I had been waiting for since grade one. I called around to find out how everyone was celebrating the day off and was invited to go sledding with Colin and his friends. I got dressed, keys in hand and made my way out to the car, determined to dig it out and enjoy my day off. My mother met me at the door and asked where I thought I was going. At the time, she was quite accustomed to saying no to everything under the sun, so I had simply stopped asking her and had begun telling her what I was doing.
She looked at me and shook her head. I wasn't going anywhere until I shovelled the drive-way, she told me. I looked out the window and saw that the foot of snow that had greeted me at 3am, had become nearly two feet of snow in our drive-way. Despite my best efforts to recruit various boys who called themselves friends, none of them came to my rescue. I began to dig. The snow was past my knees and heavy. I glanced up and down the street and saw families outside shovelling the mess together. Tyler and Travis were at my dad's place for the week, and my mother had put her back out, so it was me and me alone. It took me six hours to shovel the drive-way, and I took plenty of breaks to complain to my mother about lack of solidarity in our family. I was nearly finished, and gazed with some satisfaction at our neighbour's house. She hadn't even started shovelling yet. I laughed to myself about how she would be up all night. Just then, the garage door opened and a snow blower emerged. She was finished in twenty minutes.
Colin called later on and infuriated me by recounting how much fun he had had that day. After twelve years of anticipation, my first snow day had been absolutely terrible. I got in the car to drive to school the next morning and arrived to find that the crew in charge of plowing our school's driveway had also opted to take the day off. I had to park on Crowchild Trail (on the highway) and walk for half an hour to get to school. Stupid snow day.
This morning, I awoke at 6 am. I accidently turned the radio on as I fumbled in the dark and the announcer declared that it was going to be "An absolutely terrible Friday." Words of encouragement. I got dressed, grabbed my coffee and left the house. I could barely see across the street. The snowflakes stung my face as the wind whipped them at my cheeks. I caught the number 11 bus to take me over Mount Royal, not my usual route to work but a better one given the weather. I got off at my transfer point and noted my bus would not come for ten minutes, so I started to walk. I arrived at school half an hour later- the bus had never come. I glanced in the mirror on my way to my desk and found mascara running down my face and snowflakes frozen to my hair and eyelashes. Madonna continued to blare away from my mp3 player, and I made a note to myself to remove her songs. Fred had been wrong, I didn't like her new album. I took off my jacket and walked past the secretary's desk to my first class. I heard her tell a parent we were closing the school and a smile broke out across my face. Woohoo! Snow day #2!!
I left the school amidst grumbles as teachers and parents complained about having to turn right around and go home. It was fine with me. The trek home was long, but enjoyable because I knew I had the whole day to myself. My first real snow day- and it's full of possibilities!
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Fire on St-Catherine
Fire breaks out in a restaurant kitchen on St-Catherine &St Mathieu...
Two Chinese restaurants, one dépanneur, and all the above
apartments are destroyed...
Unfortunetly I didn't have my camera when I first passed by,
so the above pictures are grabbed off a google image search.
Fear not- Sex Cité and the sketchy Bar Diana are doing okayFriday, February 09, 2007
Gainfully Employed
Montrealers have got to be the most employable Canadians. We just have to be. We enjoy the country's cheapest tuition and have the most educated population. Perhaps we're more likely to call our employers on bullshit as a result. We take more days off than the rest of the country, but that's just to keep us sane. It's difficult, after all, to turn up at a bullshit job everyday when you realize what it is. The more education you've got, the more likely you are to realize it's bullshit.
We speak at least two languages. You'd think that this would give us an incredible advantage, but that all depends really. If you are fortunate enough to have a passably French last name in Quebec, you're likely to do well. Though Bogue is passably French, it is also the term for a computer virus ... perhaps not the impression I'm trying to make. In English Canada, if you have a passably English name, you're also likely to do well. If you're a French Canadian with a last name like Leblanc, fear not, all is not lost- just pronounce it 'Le blank' and try not to shutter. Being bilingual also allows us to curse our employers in the language that they are least familiar with. This is important.
Montrealers are adept at navigating mazes of red tape and accept that we will be paid poorly for it. This also ensures that we will complain more than other Canadians, but at least we're accustomed to making a hundred calls just to get our address changed on our driver's licence. You'll find us pleasantly surprised if we're able to do it in one phone call- and suspiciously shocked if we aren't charged 50$ for such a service.
We are the fastest driving Canadians, and are thus likely to be on time for work. I say that, but we're actually painfully unreliable. And quite likely to speed away from work an hour early at the end of the day. We drink the most, leading some people (myself) to believe that we are happier in our work. We also gamble more than other Canadians, which should serve as assurance that we will continue to turn up at our mind-numbing jobs (until we win big, that is). Montreal men and women alike spend more money on their appearance than other Canadians. This makes us seem better looking. Screw the filles des roi theory- it's all about not wearing your sweatpants to work.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I just got home from an interview at a temp agency and was struck by the differences between working in Calgary and working in Montreal. Years ago, I saw an ad in the paper in Calgary for a temp agency looking for bilingual receptionists. I faxed in my résumé, sure that I wouldn't get a response since I had extremely minimal knowledge of Word, or any other computer program. I got a phone call the next day. The woman on the other end asked how good my French was... I hesitated. How do you answer that, I don't know. What do you want? A rating from one to ten? She passed the phone to her colleague and we finished the interview in French. She offered me the job and told me I started on Monday. In closing she asked if I was familiar with Word. Of course, I lied.
This morning I dragged myself from my bed bright and early. I made my way down to the temp agency and presented myself at the front desk. The young woman behind the desk passed me two thick packets- ten pages each, one in English and one in French. She pointed me to the exam room and set me to work correcting the grammatical errors in each packet. It screws with your head. They had a list of mispelled words in each one- confusing as hell when they've spelled words in the French packet the English way and vice-versa. They know damn well it reaches a point where you can't remember one way or the other. After that ordeal they sat me in front of the computer and called me on my claim that I 'knew' Word and Excel. By now they must know I lied. Just like that fancy restaurant in Westmount figured out real fast that by 'knowledge of wines' I meant I could tell red from white. In any case, the long stream of testing finally came to an end and I interviewed with the owner. It was refreshing to be able to be totally honest in an interview. She looked down at my cv and asked if I was just looking for work until I found a teaching job. I said yes. Like most French Canadians, she marvelled at how I was able to work abroad and totally misunderstood what the imminent French test was for. She seemed to think that as a requirement for further teaching in Asia, I was being asked to write a French test. Only in Quebec would such an error be made. After careful review of my grammar tests, she gave me a passing grade in both languages and informed me that I would hear from her soon.
The process took me over two hours, and I walked out shocked that I had to go through so much to get a job temping. In no other Canadian city would you be asked to do so much work, with so little in return. As I left the office, I checked my voice mail and found I had a message from the school. After all that, I start teaching on Monday. My days of lounging about are officially done and I'll have to get up at what my mother calls 'a reasonable hour'.
We speak at least two languages. You'd think that this would give us an incredible advantage, but that all depends really. If you are fortunate enough to have a passably French last name in Quebec, you're likely to do well. Though Bogue is passably French, it is also the term for a computer virus ... perhaps not the impression I'm trying to make. In English Canada, if you have a passably English name, you're also likely to do well. If you're a French Canadian with a last name like Leblanc, fear not, all is not lost- just pronounce it 'Le blank' and try not to shutter. Being bilingual also allows us to curse our employers in the language that they are least familiar with. This is important.
Montrealers are adept at navigating mazes of red tape and accept that we will be paid poorly for it. This also ensures that we will complain more than other Canadians, but at least we're accustomed to making a hundred calls just to get our address changed on our driver's licence. You'll find us pleasantly surprised if we're able to do it in one phone call- and suspiciously shocked if we aren't charged 50$ for such a service.
We are the fastest driving Canadians, and are thus likely to be on time for work. I say that, but we're actually painfully unreliable. And quite likely to speed away from work an hour early at the end of the day. We drink the most, leading some people (myself) to believe that we are happier in our work. We also gamble more than other Canadians, which should serve as assurance that we will continue to turn up at our mind-numbing jobs (until we win big, that is). Montreal men and women alike spend more money on their appearance than other Canadians. This makes us seem better looking. Screw the filles des roi theory- it's all about not wearing your sweatpants to work.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I just got home from an interview at a temp agency and was struck by the differences between working in Calgary and working in Montreal. Years ago, I saw an ad in the paper in Calgary for a temp agency looking for bilingual receptionists. I faxed in my résumé, sure that I wouldn't get a response since I had extremely minimal knowledge of Word, or any other computer program. I got a phone call the next day. The woman on the other end asked how good my French was... I hesitated. How do you answer that, I don't know. What do you want? A rating from one to ten? She passed the phone to her colleague and we finished the interview in French. She offered me the job and told me I started on Monday. In closing she asked if I was familiar with Word. Of course, I lied.
This morning I dragged myself from my bed bright and early. I made my way down to the temp agency and presented myself at the front desk. The young woman behind the desk passed me two thick packets- ten pages each, one in English and one in French. She pointed me to the exam room and set me to work correcting the grammatical errors in each packet. It screws with your head. They had a list of mispelled words in each one- confusing as hell when they've spelled words in the French packet the English way and vice-versa. They know damn well it reaches a point where you can't remember one way or the other. After that ordeal they sat me in front of the computer and called me on my claim that I 'knew' Word and Excel. By now they must know I lied. Just like that fancy restaurant in Westmount figured out real fast that by 'knowledge of wines' I meant I could tell red from white. In any case, the long stream of testing finally came to an end and I interviewed with the owner. It was refreshing to be able to be totally honest in an interview. She looked down at my cv and asked if I was just looking for work until I found a teaching job. I said yes. Like most French Canadians, she marvelled at how I was able to work abroad and totally misunderstood what the imminent French test was for. She seemed to think that as a requirement for further teaching in Asia, I was being asked to write a French test. Only in Quebec would such an error be made. After careful review of my grammar tests, she gave me a passing grade in both languages and informed me that I would hear from her soon.
The process took me over two hours, and I walked out shocked that I had to go through so much to get a job temping. In no other Canadian city would you be asked to do so much work, with so little in return. As I left the office, I checked my voice mail and found I had a message from the school. After all that, I start teaching on Monday. My days of lounging about are officially done and I'll have to get up at what my mother calls 'a reasonable hour'.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
On The Road to Stability
Earlier this week, I had an interview for a teaching job at a private Catholic school in Montreal's plateau area. The interview went well, with the principal and vice-principal impressed by my French and asking, as usual, for clarification as to how a girl from Calgary came to be so comfortable in French. The head of the English department was impressed by my insights into the education system of Korea, and by my experience as an actor. They promised to call me back by Friday to let me know if I had the job. Thursday I received a call saying they were concerned that with only one year of teaching experience, I may be a little lost when it came to classroom management. Of course, I didn't tell them this, but I was concerned too. My biggest class in Korea was ten kids- at this school, my class size would increase to 28. They asked me to come in the following day and teach a class, to demonstrate my level of comfort and ability to manage the students. Fear kicked in. I was fairly certain that they would sense my inexperience and eat me alive. I awoke painfully early Friday morning (6am) and began the long trip to DeLormier and Sherbrooke East. As a testament to the time of day, my dépanneur was closed and I was forced to go without coffee until I arrived at the school. Then they tossed me in with a class of grade three students to see how I fared. And I learned something. Teaching English in Korea is a thousand times harder than teaching English in Montreal. As the kids grumbled and grunted their confusion about why a young blond woman was demanding their attention and their usual English teacher was nowhere to be seen, I understood every word effortlessly. I could give them the English word when they asked how to say, for instance, guimauve (marshmallow) in English. The biggest difference, however, was the fact that I wasn't expected to play the role of an overly enthusiastic mime. With thirty kids in a class, they aren't accustomed to individual attention the way Korean kids are in classes of ten. They had all their books on their desk when I walked in. Canadian boys aren't used to their mothers dotting on them, so they don't expect it of their teachers. They're accustomed to hearing English spoken around them, so they already have the ear for it. My fear subsided right away and I breezed through the class and was offered the job. Unofficially. I'm still waiting on the final verdict from the principal, but the woman in charge of the department assured me I would be hired. The only catch is that the position in temporary. A replacement for a teacher who's going on leave for an operation, but apparently a date for the surgery won't be confirmed until 48 hours beforehand. So sometime in the next four weeks, I will be working. Needless to say, I'm still looking. It's comforting to know what I'm getting into, however. At first I felt like I was taking advantage of a staffing shortage to gain employment in a position that I was in no way qualified for. Now I can see how much I learned in my year in Korea, and how it definitely prepared me for teaching in Montreal. Once I start working, I'll deal with the question of how exactly this teaching thing can fit into my acting world... or a busy University schedule. Step by step, as crazy Mr Choi would say.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Cliches
On October 16th 2005, I boarded the plane in Montreal, said an emotional goodbye to Fred and his mom and made my way through the gate. I was leaving for Calgary, then onto Korea, but it still didn't feel real. It still hadn't clicked that I would spend the next twelve months in a country where I knew nothing of the culture or the language. And I would be doing it alone.
My stop in Calgary felt the same as always- Andrea and my mom met me at the airport and we went for lunch. Over the next few days I tried to squeeze in as many people as I cared to see. Diana and Jared were getting married, so I was sure to see all the old IMAX crowd there. I saw Andrea, Carrie and Clay, but as always not enough of them to last me the year before we would meet again. I spent alot of time with my mom this trip, and it was good. As always, I saw Rob without intending to, although this time I had an easy out as I was driving down 17th Ave or 'The Red Mile', at the time.
I realized it had been years since I stopped by Bishop Carroll (my high school) to say hi to my old drama teacher, Mr Doyle. I had seen him at Andrea's wedding briefly, but that whole day seemed so unreal to me and we barely spoke. So the day before I left Calgary, I made the trek out to my old school and swung the car into 'visitor parking'. I laughed as I tried to head in the side door by the drama room and found it locked- which it never was in my days there. I guess this was to prevent students from easily sneaking back into the school after they'd spent the day at the mall, or ironically hanging out at the college across the street. I stepped through the front door, and held back laughter as I realized every student in the halls were wearing ID tags with their name and Teacher Advisor. They had tried that with us, and failed. I was on my way to the drama room- fully intent on playing stupid if asked why I didn't have a visitor's pass, when I saw Mr Doyle in the front office. His face broke into an odd toothy smile when he saw me- an unexpected visit from a student he knew lived far away.
We finally made it down to his office in the drama room and caught up. He had heard of Tyler's passing, I had heard his wife had quit her job and was doing really well teaching art independantly. Mrs Doyle was the first person to break through to me about my tomboy routine. All through high school, I wore baggy clothes and scoffed at anything girly. Mrs Doyle walked in on a costume fitting when I was in grade twelve and she was shocked. Not only was I in a dress, but, she told me, had a body I should be showing off and not hiding under piles of clothes. Everything in Mr Doyle's office was exactly as it had been seven years before, except there was now a computer on his desk that I'm sure was in truth no more than a paper weight. I was the only one I knew who got hand written report cards in high school. As it always had been, the door to his office was open and there were students wandering in and out of the room. Two girls came in crying, telling him that they had to drop drama because they just didn't have time. He shot me a look and gave them the same lecture I had heard him give a hundred times when I was a student. "Do you love it? Why did you register for it? Why are you dropping it? Who told you that you had to? No, I won't let you drop it for those reasons. I can help you make it work." The two girls left and another student entered, tentatively. She wanted an extension on a paper that was due. As check- out time came and Mr Doyle distributed the familiar 'green slips' (how you got your marks at this strange school), I felt fifteen years old again. We wished each other luck, promised to stay in touch, and he ran off to deal with two students who had gotten so drunk at school that they were sick all over the bathroom. High school kids are all the same. Everything about high school is so cliches, especially those who try so hard to live outside the cliches. You're so self-centered and so dramatic at that age that it can't be any other way. Nobody can understand you. Your love, your pain, your frustration, your stress- everything is yours and no one else's.
Bishop Carroll was a weird school. Without regular classes and the trusting system that allowed you to finish your work when you felt like it, we were short on cliques. If you asked me who the popular kids were, I couldn't have been sure. The student council was run entirely by Drama students, but I definitely wouldn't say any of us were popular. At least not in the way it means to be popular at other schools. We had stoners, but in reality that was most of the school population. We had jocks, but they weren't labelled that way, they just were.
In the wake of this shooting at Dawson College, the subject of cliches come to mind. It's a familiar theme. The misfit takes revenge. We can all somewhat understand the anger and frustration that must be felt by kids that become the butt of all jokes, that are constantly picked on and excluded in school. Or at least I hope we can. Maybe I had it easy but somehow the pieces of this puzzle just don't fit to me.
I remember I was sitting at the Second Cup in Kensington (NW Calgary) with Stuart when we heard on the radio about the Columbine shooting. Over the next days, weeks, months, even years, information slowly leaked out. Movies were produced based on the incident- Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine tried to make sense of it. Teen angst, to the extreme. I remember in high school feeling so frustrated at points that it was impossible to see an end in sight. I remember feeling no one understood me. I remember being angry that I felt I had to put in my time at Bishop Carroll before I could move on to bigger and better things. I remember thinking high school was holding me back from doing all I wanted to do. I had friends though and I had passion- places to lose myself. I spent so much time in the theatre it shouldn't have been possible for me to graduate. I played soccer and basketball and I swam. Without these outlets, I may just have lost my mind. They kept me balanced in some ways. Sports gave me a place to work out my frustrations and gave me a rest from my constant stream of sad and angry thoughts. I was the cliche of the girl who tried too hard to do it all, who kept herself too busy so she never had to stop and think. Part of me could understand how people could snap under all the pressure of high school- without realizing that they are pressuring themselves, no one else particularly cares.
Grade twelve was a miserable year for me- I'd had enough. Everything suddenly felt so juvenile and I was ready to move on. It seemed so was everybody else. As the school year came to an end, I found myself thankful that I wasn't going straight to University the following year. I needed to break away from my high school group. The first thing you realize once you're out of high school is how much time you spent making a big deal about nothing. And you see yourself as an adult. Or most people do. You realize that the boxes that people put themselves in to make sense of themselves are nothing but limiting. You realize the grass is always greener. When Clay told me that his ex-girlfriend had been jealous when he and I became friends, I didn't understand. She always wanted to be part of the popular crowd, he had explained. I don't think I'd ever laughed so hard. I couldn't get over the fact that someone looked at the group of people I hung out with and were intimidated by us. Yearned to be friends with us. For god sakes, the guys in the group camped out for Star Wars tickets later that summer. There's nothing dorkier than that. Well, maybe Dungeons and Dragons.
The truly unfortunate thing about these high school cliches is how terribly normal everybody is. As hard as you might try to be different, there are always other people trying to be different in the same way. As I read the online updates from the Dawson shooting, my first assumption was that the young man must have been a student there. Even at that, the environment at Dawson is so drastically different from high school, it just didn't make sense. It's a college- cliques don't happen in college. School yard fights mostly end at snarky comments by that age. The pressures that one experiences in college have gone far beyond Mary talking behind your back. People are too frantic about getting work done to bother with such nonsense, not to mention that in a school of 10 000 people, no one stands out. Put all these factors together and then throw in the fact that Montreal is probably one of, if not the most diverse city in Canada. And it's difficult to be a misfit in a city that is so diverse, because everyone fits.
When the facts finally started coming out, I began to feel sick. At twenty-five years old and a resident of a burough of Laval, it seemed the shooter had no relationship whatsoever to the school. He lived with his parents. I assume it was their Sunfire that he hopped into to make the hour long drive to the school that day. A goth kid with a mohawk, the papers tooted. Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson blamed again. As I caught sight of the pictures on the website, the first thing I noticed was the complete absence of a mohawk. Maybe he stylized his hair differently for his day at Dawson. He may have been dressed head to toe in black, but he was no more goth than I am. A black polo shirt does not a goth make. The quotes off the web and the pictures with the guns revealed pieces of his identity. Far from being crazy, he in fact seemed normal to the extreme. Perhaps disgruntled more by the fact that he was still cast in the role that he created for himself in high school than by anything else. It's a lonely life if you refuse to grow from the identity you made for yourself at fifteen. Based strictly on the exerts I've caught from the paper, and knowing nothing about him as a person except for his final dramatic goodbye, it seems to me that's all he was after. A dramatic goodbye. Someone who was just so painfully normal and couldn't find any other way to set himself apart. He never attended Dawson college- didn't even live in Montreal. He didn't have a message like the Columbine shooters, or Mark Lepine from the infamous Polytechnic school shooting. He was just a painfully normal kid with no outlet for his angst.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
A Tale of Two Cities
I've been doing a lot of thinking this week. Last week's rant on stupidity drew some interesting comments, and I was particularly struck by Diana's comment on my being too hard on Alberta. I'll admit that it did strike me at the time that I should balance it with tales of Montreal's stupidities, but it is hard to top an example like re-electing Ralph Klein again and again and again. At the same rate, Montreal has it's fair share of head spinning idiocies. And all this got me thinking, once again, about Canadian identity. I'm a confused Canadian. Where is home? I've called Montreal home as many times as I've called Calgary home. But before we get to that, I feel that I should introduce these two cities. Montreal and Calgary are so very different, and I love them both in different ways. It's time the two cities met once and for all to examine their differences, and perhaps even their similarities...
Round 1: River
Calgary- Downtown from the Stampede Grounds
Montreal, meet Calgary. The Calgary Tower was once the tallest free standing structure in the world, but then Toronto heard that Calgary had something they didn't. The CN tower went up soon after. Although they call this body of water the Bow River, Calgary, it is time you learnt that it should in fact be called a stream.
Old Montreal from somewhere in the middle of the St Laurence River
Calgary, meet Montreal. The silver topped roof is the Marche Bonsecours, that dates way back to the days of the fur trade. This Calgary, is a river. Complete with some kind of tug boat looking thing in the St Laurent.
Round 2: Mountain
Lake Louise, Alberta
Montreal, I would like to introduce you to mountains. I'm sorry to inform you that Mount Royal does not count, and a t-bar does not a mountain make. As a general rule, if you can take a bus to the top, it is not a mountain.
Montreal- The famous cross on Mount Royal
Calgary, it is clear you don't have a cross at the top of your mountain lit up with thousands of little light bulbs. And even if you did, would it glow purple when the pope died? No, no it wouldn't.
Round 3: Cultural Events
Calgary Stampede- "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth"
I was never big on the Stampede, or not on the cowboy events anyway. The best thing about the Stampede is that business slows to a crawl for ten days. Offices don't expect too much work to get done, because most of those days are spent drinking. And eating those little donuts... mmm... those little donuts... The best part of Stampede week is trying to scam as many free breakfasts as you can.
Montreal 's Annual Jazz Fest
Where else in Canada can an unemployed, broke student be entertained for two straight weeks by over 500 free shows from all over the world?
Round 4: Seasons
Calgary -Chinook Arch
Topping the list of things I miss most about Calgary. Chinooks - which are responsible for the occasional 20c day in February. And seeing the sunset over the mountains, not the Ville Marie expressway.
Montreal- Tire d'erable
Given the fact that Montreal is plunged into freezing cold for six months of the year, they have been forced to find ways to enjoy it. The best part about winter are the trips to the Cabane a Sucre- where you're stuffed full of fattening foods and then finish it all off with the tire d'erable. Boiling maple syrup is poured over snow, and you roll it onto a stick and make a big sucker. Mmmm... tire d'erable....
Round 5: Drive-Ins
Calgary- Peter's Drive-In
Number 1 destination for Calgarian teenagers skipping school. Mmmm... Peter's... located conveniently close to the old drive-in.
Montreal- Orange Julep
Peter's might win for best burger, but the Julep wins for architecture- doesn't everyone want to eat at a giant orange?
Round 6: Hockey
Calgary: The Red Mile
As the 2004 hockey season drew to a close, Calgarians flooded 17th Ave SW in an effort to show the country that they didn't always leave downtown after 5pm. The Flames made it to the semi-finals, which as far as I can remember had not happened since they won the Stanley Cup in 1989.
Montreal: Richard Riots
Montrealers are passionate about hockey. So passionate that riots have insued in the streets of Montreal for wins, loses, and even discipline of players. The 1955 hockey season saw the rise of tensions involving the suspension of Rocket Richard. Though Montrealers fill the streets excitedly after wins, there has not been much cause to celebrate their success since 1993.
Round 7: Licence Plate
Alberta licence plate
I'm sure wild roses are beautiful, but I don't think roses when I think Alberta. Perhaps they should try Rat-Free Country instead. Or Move Here and We'll Send You Cheques!
Quebec licence plate
Ask ten people from Quebec what 'Je me souviens' refers to, and they'll all give you a different answer. I recently read that it is part of a French poem that begins, Je me souviens, que ne sous le lys, je crois sous la rose (I remember, born under the lily, raised under the rose).
Round 8: Premier vs Premier Ministre
Albertan Premier Ralph Klein
Stupid is as stupid does. Charming, isn't he?
Premier Ministre du Quebec- Jean Charest
Coincidentally, there is no French word for Premier, so Jean Charest is the Prime Minister of Quebec. I expect Jean Charest will be not remembered for leading the Liberals to a victory in Quebec for the first time in nearly thirty years. Instead, he will be remembered as the man who ensured it would be another thirty years before they were re-elected. And for driving a record number of Anglophones to vote for the coke-head running the Parti Quebecois. Among his ever-so well thought out changes, he cut 100 million dollars from the student loans and bursaries program- an act which led to student strikes across the province.
Round 9: Beer
Calgary- Big Rock & Molson Canadian
Beer is an important part of any Canadian province. My memories of Big Rock products are a little hazy, but at least you can buy Canadian beer in Alberta.
Quebec: Boreale & Molson Export
Mmm... Boreale Doree... I wonder what my chances are of finding Boreale Doree in Korea? I guess the Molson family didn't want to provoke anyone, so Canadian beer is widely referred to as Export in Quebec, and that's just no good.
Round 10: Relaxation
Kananaskis Country, Alberta
Winter, spring, summer or fall Calgarians head out to the mountains to rest on week-ends. Personally, I'm not so into the winter camping, but there's nothing better than snowboarding in a t-shirt during a chinook.
Montreal- Sunday Tam-tams
Out with the old and in with the new. Montrealers used to flock to Churches on Sundays, but now young and old, English and French, drunk and sober- everyone meets at the base of the mountain to relax, dance, play football and listen to the drums.
That's it for introductions. Montreal has met Calgary, and Calgary has met Montreal. I have recently been accused of being hard on Alberta, but let's face it- Alberta can take it. I moved to Calgary at nine years old, and have few memories of Grande Prairie (5 hours north of Edmonton). As I remember it, my brothers and I experienced culture shock in moving to the big city. Our first trip to South Center was one I'll never forget. My brothers, never having seen as escalator before, thought it was part of an amusement park and spent a good half hour riding it up and down. In Calgary, everything seemed so far away, and I wondered why trips to the doctor no longer included West Edmonton Mall. When we'd lived in Grande Prairie, we would have to make the trip to Edmonton to see specialists, which happened often enough with my bad feet and Tyler's epilepsy. But when we moved to Calgary, the trips to Edmonton came to a sudden stop. Calgary had swimming pools with waves and a Stampede that my parents never really got into, and thus neither did I. Up until I was fourteen, my Calgary was restricted to the SW. Everything I needed to do and all the people I knew could be visited without venturing across the river to the North. I had heard tales of horrible drug busts, murders and muggings in the NE. At fifteen, when I started high school at Bishop Carroll, my Calgary was forced to include some of these far off areas. I suddenly had friends who lived in Bowness and Forest Lawn. I soon discovered downtown Calgary, which had largely been a mystery until that year. I soon became an expert on all things downtown, a natural meeting place when your friends are scattered across a sprawling city. I discovered the little shops of Stephen Avenue, the cafes of Kensington and the diversity of 17th Ave. I enjoyed discovering Calgary, but quickly enough, things would start to get to me. My friends and I soon realized that Calgary Transit sucked. And it still does. None of us had ridiculously early curfews, but Calgary Transit did it's part to impose one on us. I wanted a car, needed a car- and it was the first sign of frustrations to come. My first apartment was close to my parents houses, in the relative safety of SW Calgary. I had signed the lease for the first apartment I saw, fearful of this housing crises I had heard so much about. After that year, I moved downtown and I loved it. I felt at home. There was nowhere I couldn't rollerblade and I didn't need a bus pass. By this time, I had been scooping popcorn under the alias of Phelixx for over a year (an alias acquired both to maintain my sanity and to provoke my boss who was forever subject to my rants about the inhumanity of being forced to wear a name tag). I was living with two IMAXers + one of their boyfriend's, + one of my creepy ex-boyfriends, and all was well for a time. Then things changed. Things became heated with my roomates, even disturbing if you will. Proof of their sexual escapades was evident throughout the house. The house swayed ever so slightly at night, accompanied by loud banging noises from above. The bathroom we shared played host to mysteries I wished I had never discovered. Our arrangement lasted one month and soon one IMAXer + boyfriend moved out of the house, and they were replaced by one 'Rageful Scott'. Suddenly it seemed we had an open door policy at the house, and people began to approach me at the bar, asking if they lived with me. And usually they did. In any case, I was well established downtown at this point and I had started hanging out with the infamous Rob. So Rob and I got an apartment and moved in together- downtown of course. We had our spots- the Night Gallery, Vicious Circle and VanGogh's among the favourites. I left Calgary shortly there after, and when I go back, things just aren't the same. Maybe this is why I feel some resentment towards Calgary. The Night Gallery, the Republik, VanGogh's, the Loose Moose Theatre, even the IMAX have shut down. For me, Calgary is not Calgary without the Night Gallery. And of course, we've gotten older. People have moved away, gotten married, had kids. But my Calgary just isn't the same. I feel out of place when I'm back. A city I knew so well has changed so much. Highways have been moved, new train stations built. Communities I've never heard of have sprung up on what used to be the outskirts of the city, but now seems relatively close to downtown. Aspen Estates, Cougar Ridge, Clear Water Point- these are not part of my Calgary. The train line for my Calgary only goes as far south as Anderson and as far north as Brentwood. Though Dalhousie exists in my Calgary, there is no train station there. I resent the fact that Calgary has grown and changed so much. I wonder what right it has. I've met two people here in Korea who had recently lived in Calgary, and both of them lived in communities I had never heard of. This is not my Calgary. It's hard to feel at home in a city that has shut down everything you loved about it. But it goes deeper than the infrastruture, it affects the way we think and the way we live. But I'll get to that.
In order for me to see how Calgary no longer fit, I needed some distance. Montreal to Calgary was a pretty safe distance, so there I went. And again, within my own country, I experienced culture shock. I spoke the language and I had visited Montreal before, but this was different. Everything was different. There was an air to the city that I had never felt in a western Canadian city. Being the sort of person who strives to keep her life as difficult as possible, this move was no exception. I arrived in Montreal and began acting in a show at the Fringe Festival. I had it all planned out. I was living with the producer of the show, who I had met during my time at the University of Calgary. I was staying on his couch, and would sublet his room for the summer when he went to Ireland the following week. But of course, it didn't unfold this way. There was a very complicated falling out when his craziness got us booted from the festival and the entire cast blacklisted. The Montreal Gazette covered the story with great interest and soon I received an email from my friend Kenny informing me that a google search of my name had turned up some interesting material. Crazy man had taken the show to the internet and had set up sites slandering his actors for not supporting his insanities. He emailed my professors at Concordia to warn them about me. He began stalking us. By my third day in Montreal, I moved in with the director of the show, who I had known only three days. I failed to put my parents' minds at ease when I called them both asking for legal advise, less than a week into my stay in Montreal. The follow-up on their advise was even more shocking. As I placed the first of many calls to the Montreal police, the receptionist asked me what my call was concerning. I started to explain, but she interrupted and said, "Car Stories? Ooooh, hold the line." They had dedicated an officer to dealing with the Car Stories ordeal. To make a long story a little shorter, I had a quick and painful introduction to Montreal and the theatre community. I pressed on, if for no other reason than the fact that I was broke and couldn't afford a plane ticket home. I was applying for jobs, but having trouble securing one. On my resume, I had indicated that I had worked in Calgary, and without fail, I would see people cast aside my resume after asking me about my time in Calgary. Though I had just completed the interview in French without a problem, I was being told that if I was from Calgary it was impossible I would speak French well enough to work in Montreal. So I experimented. The name on my resume was altered to Stephanie Bogue and all references to Calgary were removed. Lone behold, I got the first job I applied for. But there were other issues. As bad as the housing crisis was (and continues to be) in Calgary, it's still nothing compared to trying to find an apartment after Moving Day. To be fair, I had been warned about this Montreal phenomenon, but it was simply the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard and I refused to believe it was true. Having now experience four Moving Days, I assure you- the tradition lives on. After weeks of calling and having no luck finding an apartment, I finally had the chance to see one in St-Henri. The landlord was in the middle of renovations (renovations that would never be completed), but I had no choice. I was starting school in five days and had nowhere to live. I spent the better part of this year argueing with the landlord, who had removed the bathroom sink and took two months to put it back. He also felt that doors were superfluous and had removed most of them with little consideration for the fact I was living with two men. The time I wasn't spending fighting my landlord, I was is the student loans centre. Both Concordia and the Quebec Government are infamous for their love of red tape, so you can just imagine the combination of the two of them. It was a nightmare. At last the school year ended and I took to the streets to find a job. And had horrible luck at it that summer. But all was not lost, I had taken on two new roomates, Fajer and Lucas, both actors at Concordia, and it was looking like it would be an interesting year. A few weeks following my first Moving Day experience, Fajer introduced me to Fred. I still haven't forgiven him. Montreal changed for me after that. I had people to lean on and help me out. Fred stood by me and helped me out at every turn. Fajer and Lucas helped out as well- listening to my rants and feeding me. Were it not for the three of them, it would have been another year of 99 cent pizza.
My introduction to the two cities was as different as they are and says alot about each of them. With the economic boom in Alberta, I had never wanted for a job. I thought it was the same anywhere. The idea of struggling to find a job was so foreign to me, I was in complete shock when I arrived in Montreal. But it's easier to be a broke and struggling student in Montreal. You can walk everywhere you need to go. There are resources set up at the University to help you. Many people are in the same situation as you. In Calgary it's hard to struggle. You are surrounded by money- it oozes out from all around you and many have lost touch with what it means to have it, or not to have it. Because rent is still quite expensive in Calgary and a car is a necessity, not a luxury, many of my friends stayed at home until they completed their University, or after. Nothing wrong with that, of course- and sometimes I wonder if I would have done the same had I seen the road that lay ahead. But University is a different experience if you're not worried about making 20$ last two weeks. Or wondering when and if your student loans will come through. Most students in Montreal have come from other parts of the country, or the world. Few students live at home during their education, so many understand money troubles. Concordia provides a hot free vegan lunch every day, for anyone who shows up. The student centre provides emergency loans on a regular basis. These services are necessary in Montreal, but unheard of in Calgary. Because students in Calgary stay at home for school, they graduate largely debt-free. Tuition is not the expensive part, really- it's the living expenses. And so Calgarians get a bit of a head start- graduate debt free, save some money and then buy a condo, or a car. Montrealers graduate and get a break for six months before they start paying back their students loans. I wouldn't trade the experiences I've had and the things that I've learned, but it is difficult all the same. There is nothing that makes you feel as though you're losing the money game like a trip to Calgary. The issue of money is a big one, but again, it goes deeper than that. Values. Montreal used to be the business centre of Canada. It was home to many head offices and all was well. But along came the infamous Bill 101, and things changed. Business left, people left and now Montreal's biggest industries are the sex trade and telemarketing. It's easy to shake your head and wonder why they would make such a sacrifice, but I think it's admirable. Culture over cash. Montreal has culture, and Calgary has cash. Montreal could have had the cash, but didn't want to lose it's culture. It had different values. Complain as we might about the state of affairs in Montreal, fact is it wouldn't be such a great city without the culture. That's what makes it Montreal. Calgary is still such a young city. Perhaps in years to come values will be examined and things will eventually change. Calgary is a beautiful city, but I would love to see a play that is not supported by big business. I want to see the re-opening of the world famous Loose Moose theatre before I could ever call Calgary home. How could a city let their most famous artistic contribution close down because they couldn't afford the rent in their over-priced neighbourhood, that they helped revive?
For all the pros and cons of both cities, my ideal home rests somewhere in between (no, not Winnipeg). I need the culture of Montreal alongside the Rockies. I need to hear English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Korean, Greek and Russian when I wander the streets, but I want to pay Alberta tax. I want to hear Church bells when I leave my apartment, but I want to see the mountains on my way to work. I want to buy my beer at the depanneur, but after 11pm I want to call dial-a-bottle. I want to get frequent buyer points on the pot that's delivered to my door, but I don't want to buy from the Hells' Angels. I want to spend more than a week a year with my friends in Calgary, but I don't want to be subject to the manners (or lack there of) of the average Calgarian man. I want to enjoy the freedom of being young, but I don't want to be judged because I don't have a car, a career, a condo or kids. I don't want my tax money to support the operation of the Office de la Langue Francaise, I want it to go to health care so we don't have to wait six months for an MRI to be performed in the hallway of a crowded hospital. I don't want to marry a woman, but I don't want to live in a province that believes it's wrong. I don't want to have children, and I don't want to live in a province that still believes encouraging women to reproduce will eventually lead to the separation of Quebec. I want to speak French in Calgary without being called a separatist. My national holiday is Canada Day and I don't want to spend it moving.
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