Back to school

Can’t believe it – less than five weeks to left!!!

I want to give you my latest news before I’m precipitating into my studies… Yes, after 6 very relaxed weeks, I have to start working now cause the strike is over, courses restarted on Monday. I’m quite lucky because I will be able to finish all my courses though. I want to mention that the helpless students considered themselves as hostages and fought against the annulations of their courses, with success!

Originally, I thought that I would be on holidays after my last exam on April 22^nd but “zu früh gefreut”! The exam on April 22^nd is now the first one, followed by two others plus two assignments. Normally, I would have had three exams in four days and I would be already in the middle of my revision but now they are spread over two weeks.

My biostatistics exam is on 26^th instead of 19^th and my teacher tries to explain the content of six lectures in two times three hours. I can tell you that this is really intense!! Had 5 ½ hours of biostatistics on Monday including the lab on the computer and I was overwrought afterwards. I thought some swimming would be good, hadn’t been to the pool for a while and it made me feel happy until I noticed that someone had taken my goggles while I’ve been to the sauna =(

The plans of my English teacher are more vague. Either I’m going to write my final exam on May 4^th at night, just in time before I’m going to New York with Bine in the morning of May 5^th or we get a take-home-exam few days before and have to do it till May 4^th.

Tomorrow, I’ll get the topic for my Neuropathology assignment. It’s kind of annoying that we didn’t get our topics earlier because I had a lot of time during the last weeks and now, everything comes together. I hope that I can write it in English because this would give me the possibility to use the same text as assignment for my English writing class.

Sounds all kind of dramatic but it’s not that bad, there will still be some time to go to places in Montreal I didn’t go yet (like the Museum of Fine Arts I’m going to visit on Friday). And the advantage of studying is that I’ll have less time to spend my money and save it for my trip to New York, Toronto and Niagara Falls in May. I finally found an easy and legal way to earn money: participating in studies. Last week, I got 15 $ for filling in a survey about health that took me about 1 hour and tomorrow I’m going to do a study of the lab of “Vision, integration and cognition” for 10 $.

Last Thursday, I participated in an evening at a “Cabane à sucre” organized by the university with a couple of my friends. “Cabane à sucre” is the place where maple syrup – the most famous typical Canadian product – is produced or in the broader sense a restaurant of typical Quebecer dishes containing maple syrup or garnished with lots of maple syrup. The place was about one hour from Montreal, we went there with two of these yellow school buses and spent four hours at the restaurant. After everyone had eaten a lot too much on the buffet, we had some karaoke and dancing to songs like “The ketchup song” or “Macarena” ;-) And I took the chance to buy a tin of maple syrup, the inevitable souvenir to share with my family…

My last weekend was full of music… On Friday I finally went to the PolyPub for the first time, a regular event at the Ecole Polytechnique taking place every Friday. Enjoying beer for only 1,75$, you get prepared for the rest of the evening. I went there because a guy I know from the competition “UniversCité” (see last post) was playing with his band. Once their performance was finished, I went to an Haitian restaurant in the Old Montreal where Yves, who went to my music course last term, was playing with his guitar teacher and others. I was happy that I didn’t went earlier to have dinner there because I already paid 20 $ for a little cocktail!!

On Saturday, we had a jam session at Frantz’s house where we played the jazz songs we had worked on during our music course. I made a video of the Bag’s Groove that I don’t want to keep back from you! You can see Yannick (French) on the guitar, Ketlyn (Belgian-Haitian) playing the saxophone, Genia (Russian) with the violin, Yves (Haitian) on the drums. And Frantz (also Haitian), whom you can’t see, is playing the bass and provided his house for our meeting. Here is the link: http://www.4shared.com/video/-ac7Svux/MOV08888.html Enjoy!

Take care and get prepared for my returning ;-)

Kisses,

geli

Frohe Ostern - Happy Easter - Joyeuses Pâques

Easter Sunday, kitchen, 2:14 am... a cup of tea, 2 hours of battery and 73 min until I have to catch my bus. Should be fine to write a little post for Easter ;-)

You wonder why I’m still awake? Well, it’s Saturday night, so what? My friend Yannick had the chance to participate in the final competition of “UniversCité – Va te faire Voir”. This event encourages students that make music or dance to participate in a competition at first in their university and afterwards on the “national” level of the province of Quebec. Last night, the finalists of eleven universities showed their talents on stage and Yannick was one of them. It was a very interesting program reaching from contemporary dance over rap and singer songwriters to jazz. And it kind of represented the multicultural society of Quebec – a mixture of African, Latin, Indigenous, European and Quebecer influences… As I just discussed with my roommate two days ago: no one has to feel like a foreigner here!

After the official concert and award ceremony, we went to the after-party for a beer. So I just came home half an hour ago and as I want to go to the Easter vigil at 4:15, it doesn’t make sense to sleep now ;-) So I just use the occasion to send you my latest news.

During the last couple of days, I went to Yoga classes nearly each day as I have a one-week-membership for 20 $. I never did Yoga before but I had to find something to do with all my spare time (teachers are still on strike). This makes me get out more often instead of watching stupid shows on TV and is good for my body. After four practices, I started to manage synchronization of respiration and movements…

What else is going on? Friday was my last music class, the others are going to continue in four weeks but without me =( But we plan to meet for dinner and improvisation sessions before I leave and I already found a similar course in Munich (but I have to wait till October).

Last weekend, Marie-Claude from Rivière-du-Loup finally came to Montreal to visit me (and her cousins and former co-workers). She wanted to go shopping, a challenge for me who decided to stop shopping because enough is enough (budget and space in suitcases is limited!!) but I didn’t buy anything although I tried at least five pieces… I have to mention that I got a sweatshirt from Marie-Claude because of “Buy one, get one free”-offers. At least I control my money but not the space in my suitcase ;-) Of course, I showed her my lovely apartment and we cooked dinner together – Quiche, yummie!

Let’s get back to Easter… No Easter without Easter eggs!! As I didn’t see any colored egg in grocery stores (only chocolate eggs and gold bunnies), I decided to color eggs myself. Tania from Ukraine was very happy that I bought a coloring kit a couple of weeks ago, thus we boiled 19 eggs today and painted them. Emilie, our French roommate, was laughing because she doesn’t know the tradition of real Easter eggs… Let’s see what my French friends will say on Monday when they come to my place for an Easter brunch. Of course with Easter eggs and I plan to make “Schnittlauchquark” because it reminds me of Easter holidays I spent a my Grandparents house many many years ago…

I hope you spend an excellent Easter weekend as well. We in Montreal have temperatures around 20 °C!!! The whole city seems to wake up, people are playing the guitar on their balconies, restaurants and cafes install tables on the sidewalk, a lot more people on bikes are on the streets – I like Montreal in spring!

So once again, HAPPY EASTER EVERYBODY!

A big hug,

geli