A Christmas Twofer! (Beats a lump of coal)

It's Christmas time and I'm feeling it even this far away from the place I consider the center of all Christmas: Saint Lambert, Quebec. On Monday I taught my grade 7 all-girl class. They're a blast, some of the best-behaved and brightest students I have. And their headmistress is Ms. Zhang, a jolly little lady who always tells me how much her girls love me. But that's not all (now there's new glow-in-the-dark Yo-Yo Ball!) On Monday their class threw a Christmas party! So I didn't have to teach, and instead spent the 45 minutes watching them act out skits and sing songs in Chinese (I feigned total comprehension, of course). Then they surprised me with Christmas presents! Woah. They're the only presents I got this year, so I took them home and made a little Christmas display in our living room. Everything pictured, including the painting on the wall (but not the T.V.) was given to me by those girls. The painting is amazing, the cards are these intense pop-up display cards, and the presents are still a mystery cause I'm waiting till Christmas to open them.

Now for Christmas songs!
The first is "Old Toy Trains", the third Raffi song to make in onto my blog. It's one of my favourite Christmas songs ever. The second (careful, folks) is religious. It's "Christmas Morn" by Mary Baker Eddy, and it's lyrically happy but tunefully mournful, so I tried to lighten it up mildly. Tell me what you think.

My Christmas eve will probably be quiet and home-aloney. Then, on Christmas morning I'm volunteering to help with the school's Christmas party for private students. Carols and English games, sweet! The last picture is me trying unsuccessfully to get in place for the presents shot. A very Michael Jackson pose, no?

(Hey, if the songs don't load, click here)

I'm not dead! Week 7 in the Chengdizzle.

I'm back! Not back from travels, I'm still living and loving in Chengdu, but I'm back to the internet. I know I've been neglecting you readers. Allow me to shift some of the blame to China's invasive internet policies, which made it temporarily impossible to get to my blog (I figured out a way to skirt the problem, though.) There are 35 new photos on my flickr! And I've thrown a lot of information from the past 3 weeks into the captions for those photos, instead of clogging my blogging, so if you really want to be caught up, go read them.
I've recorded 3 songs for you and that means the next post will be a twofer. For now, this song is "Dead" by They Might Be Giants, one of my favorite muzzikul groups. Soon to be one of your favorites:

The school session is almost over. And so, before winter break, I've taken some photos of my students to show you all. The top one is from the basketball courts at #17, where I teach grade 9. As for "news"... I'm just doing wonderfully and I'm really happy to be here. I love my students and my coworkers, I'm still making friends, and I have probably like a 95% well-being index. I love Chengdu and I couldn't be happier with the city, unless, of course, the smog should lift enough to see the sun once in a while. And wait! It did! Last week, on Sunday. It was a bona fide sunny day (for about 3 hours, anyway). So I took as many pictures as I could, Including this one, taken near the big Mao statue that appeared 2 or 3 posts back. The Chengdizzle is a bizziful city. I'm posting Christmas songs tomorrow, so check back!

Wenshu Temple at the close of week 3

Wenshu temple is a large Zen Buddhist temple inside Chengdu. It's had a rough history, as have many rel*****s institutions in the country but it's open now, still functioning, populated (with monks) and beautiful. My american roommate Zach and I visited it this Friday after work. Zach is the only English speaker I see every day. I have co-workers who are anglo, but we all teach at different schools. As far as making Chinese friends goes, it's coming along. There are the muslim guys (previous post) and Zach and I went to English corner Friday night, which is an informal outdoor gathering of anyone who wants to practice their english, and any English-speaking laowai (foreigners) who want to indulge them. We got asked "where are you from" and "what do you do" by about 50 different people, but we also each met a few cool people and tonight we went out to a Tibetan tea house with 2 of them. so, that's good news. I'm traditionally bad at making friends on purpose.

I've started incorporating guitar into all my classes now. I've taught my seniors about the wild west using "Take a message to Mary" (Bob Dylan) and about the American civil war using "The Night they Drove old Dixie Down" (The Band). Most fun of all, I've taught my primary kids to sing "Thanks a Lot" by Raffi. So to recognize American Thanksgiving, here it is (listen closely for the yells of the neighborhood children):

Finally, if you've been wondering why I haven't been appearing in any pictures recently, it's because I didn't have any of me. But here's a sequence from this weekend: one, two and three.

Muslim Chengdu

I visited Chengdu's mosque yesterday. It wasn't during prayer time, and so the one guy who was there just took care of my guitar for me while I got to roam around the whole place alone. It's the most beautiful building I've seen since I moved here. When I came down, he invited me into his office and we watched T.V. for a while, but I wasn't able to communicate to him that I needed a schedule of prayer times. Afterwards I ate at a Muslim restaurant and got to chat for a long time with the owner about the Muslim community in China. He taught me some Arabic greetings and introduced me to some of his Muslim brothers. One of them, from Xinjiang, played guitar. Xinjiang is the huge province that constitutes the entire West of China, contains 47 minority groups and is mostly Muslim. So we traded off my guitar for a while, just sitting on chairs in front of the restaurant.

In contrast to that awesome night, I was out at one of the foreigner(laowai) bars in Chengdu this week, not having a great time. Going out to bars/clubs occasionally feels kind of like this song (by Valdy):

(I admit it sounds dated, since by now I think folk and rock's differences are water under the bridge, but the feeling is still the joy of "rockin" vs. the real joy of fr****m and love, whatever the music.) Anyway, I left that bar but on my way home stopped by a campfire that some locals were having on the terasse of a bar that had closed up already. We drummed and played guitar around the fire and if you looked straight up, you could see the moon through the Chengdu pollution. So in the end, another wonderful night.

Fashion Trend ni Autumn

Hospitable midsummmer pass by, fresh and co. With what kind of posture will city young women make autumn colurful? Graceful, handsome and dashing ANMANI will beco gic weapons of women in this autumn.

So I know that "haha, China has signs in bad English" isn't really insightful commentary.... but, well, 2 things:
#1. Insightful commentary isn't what I'm here for, is it? It's not an insight blog. It's just news.
#2. I like the picture.

News:
-The classes I'm teaching are going well. I teach mostly grade 7 and 8, but I have other classes that run from grade 2 to grade 9, so that means I spend a lot of time making lesson plans (in my head, if not on paper).
-This week I'm bringing my guitar in to classes and we're going to sing. I'm not sure what, but I'm thinking of just making some songs up. For the youngsters, anyway. The high-schoolers are too cool for things like happy music. Lame.
-One of the schools' regulations is that in class I "Respect the sovereignty on the People's Republic of China and not interfere in the internal affairs of the P.R.C." No comment.
-I'm eating great. Lots of eggplant and spicy tofu.
-I bought 2 persimmons, thinking they were tomatoes. Persimmons??
-Learning Chinese is proceeding apace. It's still going to take a long time. It's hard. But fun.

Now for Andrew Heining's request:

The chorus to Tiny Flashlight was originally written by our friend Ben Doerr, about the flashlight of our camper, Noah, that ran on one AA battery. The verses were later freestyled by Ben, Andrew Heining, me, and my brother Benjamin, all co-counselors together in the incomparable summer of 2001.

Safe and sound in Chengdu

Did I say I'd post again in 12 hours? I must have forgotten that being in China for the first time just might entail some other demands on my time. Like, uh, learning Chinese. Yeah. I'm working on that, though. I know enough phrases now so I can at least get the waiters to bring me something without meat in it. Learning Chinese is the reason I came over here, so I'm making it a priority. To support myself though, I also have a job, teaching high school English. Although it's a foreign language, obviously, so it's not "high school English" as in reading 'Brave New World'. It's as in "What do you like to do? I like to play basketball/I like to play computer games/I like to go shopping..."

For those just joining us, I'm in Chengdu. It's a city of 10-12 million officialy, but the unregistered occupants might make it around 15 million. That's almost half Canada's population just in this city. There's everything here, bright lights, big buildings, lots of people, lots of shopping, eating, clubbing, playing, working, living, dying. You know, the city life. The clubbing and shopping aren't really my thing, though I have been buying a lot of stuff (mostly food) because it's one of the easiest ways for me to practice my fledgling Chinese. Speaking of which, that's another good high school English book: The Fledgling. I did a book report on it (FYI). So there's everything here but English. And caucasians. I'm still adjusting to being stared at everywhere I go. And they don't stare discreetly, either. It's very much like being a monkey in a zoo. And that's actually how I decided that this post's song would be "Like a Monkey in a Zoo" by Daniel Johnston. Enjoy:

(Just click for music)

China!

I'm in ch-ch-ch-China and I've already got an internet hookup!
I just posted the post I wanted to put up right before I left (see below, there's a video!)
A new China post within the next 12 hours, people!

Lake Champlain to Quebec city

I spent my last weekend before moving to China with Jess, a friend from high school, closing up her boat for the winter. We drove down to the marina in Plattsburg, NY and spent the night on her boat, which she bought second hand and fixed up herself (yeah, I'm impressed too). The bottom picture is me on the swings (more pictures). It was freezing but fun, except the squeaking of some mast bit all night long. The next morning dawned cold and sunny and we left Lake Champlain and made the drive up to Quebec city to see a few sights (but mostly to pack up my apartment).

This video was taken by Jess once we got to my apartment in Quebec and realized we were too tired to sightsee, and so lazed around for a while. I'm playing Crazy Love, by Van Morrison. A friend from camp loves it when I play this song and laughs when I sing "kiss and hug her", so though he didn't request it, this song goes out to Mark Clark in Fort Lauderdale, FLA.

It's 2am and in 4 hours I'll be boarding a 23-hour flight to Chengdu, China. Love to all of you and I'll write again once I can get settled in Asia.

Don't Look Back in Anger

I figured out how to get more castpost space, so I'm back with a song for Khris. Since I leave for Chengdu tomorrow morning there might be one more post tonight, so check back, people.

There's the song, now for my evening. I called most of my friends in Montreal and told them "I'm leaving for China in 17 hours, do you want to hang out?" So I've had a hectic evening of meetings and goodbyes. The catch was that I have no real group of friends here, so I had lots of one-on-ones. There was some overlap. Round 6:30pm I was sitting in a chocolate café (mmmmmm) with Anna from France, Steve from high school, and Brendan, my American friend from translation grad school, all strangers to each other. Prior to, I saw Irina from France and afterwards had dinner with Steve at my favorite restaurant ever so I could see Ruru, who works there. I missed out on my former roomate, Rachid, and Rina and Vera, from CEGEP. All this and now I'm packing to move to Chengdu for who knows how long.

The pictures are from this weekend down at the marina in Plattsburg, NY. The flower looked like the last hurrah of summer (on the cusp of November!) so I took its portrait. Geese were flying overhead and it was a crisp sunny morning on Lake Champlain.

Going Through New York

In coming back from new Haven after my last post, I had just enough time to pass through New York before my 12-hour train ride to Montreal. It was 7am and it was sunny and I love New York. There was a year recently where I spent all the time I could in Brooklyn, but that's over now, so it's nice to pass through whenever I can. Back in Montreal, I had a quick sleep before meeting my friend Jessica for a weekend camping and moving my stuff out of Québec city.

Now for today's request, Khris, I finally put together some Britpop for you. Oasis' Don't Look Back in Anger. Tomorrow I'm leaving for China, so you see, I did finish your request before moving! Here's the problem through. My castpost account is over quota so I can't upload it. Anyone with good advice should please let me know, cause otherwise I guess I can't post songs anymore...

Back in New Haven

I'm in beautiful New Haven, CT, visiting Laura before I leave for Chengdu. I've also been boning up on my Mandarin before I leave. I took a class about 4 years ago, but basically.. it didn't stick very well. Bu hao. New Haven is lovely as usual. I spent a couple of hours Thursday climbing trees on the green (it's one of those classic New England cities, built on a grid planned out around a central town green.) And you'll see some pictures from a beautilful maple I went up (more here). Then I visited Shonu, at the DeStefano campaign office, where I interned on a temporary U.S. visa last summer 2004. She invited me to a debate the mayor was in that night, sponsored by the NAACP, which was part of the upcoming mayoral election, not the gubernatorial. I went, and it was good. They talked about IDs for illegal immigrants, economic growth, bike crime, all the good stuff. It was fun. But mostly, I've been spending time with Laura, which is the whole point of being here.

Today's song I recorded a little while ago. I don't have a guitar with me, and Yale's dorms have thin walls anyway, so I haven't been able to give any love to Khris or Lizzie's requests yet. So for today, it's "Black Diamond Bay" by Bob Dylan, a story-song about a mysterious woman on some island resort. There's a love interest, a suicide, and a volcano ends up erupting and sinking the island. Walter Cronkite also figures in peripherally at the end. Hope you like it.

All I really need, plus a plane ticket to China

Today is the day I finally bought my ticket to Chengdu! That's in China, folks, but I'll be referring to "moving to Chengdu" from now on, just so you don't forget the name. November 2nd is the day I leave out of Montreal. Return date: who knows? The picture up top is the official seal of the city, which makes sense, cause it's close to the mountains where most of the world's giant pandas live. I'll give you more details later, and I know it's hard to remember Chinese place names (I couldn't remember the name of the cities my friend Per has been in for 2 years) but for now just remember: Chengdu Chengdu Chengdu! And pandas.

Tonight's song is "All I Really Need" by Raffi, a kid's singer whose records were the soundtrack to my early childhood (up until grade 6, when it was Bryan Adams and C+C Music Factory.) The song wasn't a request, but I'm posting it because of Canadian Thanksgiving, which just passed.

The picture of me is from last night, my very last shift at the souvenir shop here in Quebec. I knew it would be quiet because of the rain, so I brought along my guitar and played Leonard Cohen songs late into the evening to the tourists who wandered in. Does it seem contradictory to hear me singing "All I Really Need" over a picture of me selling shelves-full of touristy junk? Probably. Tomorrow I give my last English class at the National Assembly, and then I'm done my Quebec obligations. Before I fly out to Chengdu, though, I have people I need to say goodbye to, starting with Laura down in New Haven, CT, this Wednesday. Hallelujah it's raining awesome stuff in my life (and men, according to the song.)

Guantanamera

Cam, who requested this song, is going to Antarctica in 2 weeks! So this is my modest send-off to him. The song is Guantanamera, verses taken from "Versos Sencillos" by Cuban poet José Martí.

The picture is from this Thanksgiving, at my Mom's place in Ottawa (my mom took herself and the two youngest of the litter from Montreal to Ottawa in 1997, so they now form the Ontario-immigrant faction of the family.) We took an autumnal stroll in the woods on the old estate of William Lyon Mackenzie King, weird former Prime Minister of Canada. Every so often there would be placards along the path displaying info on the estate and less-than-insightful quotes from King along the lines of "My new estate is truly lovely. Ah, but the woods are a peaceful haven. -1936" Deep. From left to right, we're: Alan, Richard, my mom and her little dog, too, Nicholas-the-Firstborn and me, trying to spell "blood" with my fingers. I'll be looking over my shoulder for crips from now on, I guess. The picture was taken by Karine, Nicholas' girlfriend (and common law wife, thanks to liberal Quebec laws), the first of two francophones to join the family (#2 is my dad's wife, but that's a whole other story.)

Just Wait - Blues Traveller

Here's the weekend edition since I'm leaving for a 35-hour whirlwhind tour of upper and lower Canada tomorrow (Québec-Montréal-Ottawa and back to see my mommy for Thanksgiving.)
Today's song was requested by Jenni who definitely deserves at least one fulfilled request since she's been holed up in a hospital room the past few days. If you listen to the song you'll hear a little surprise (read: mess-up) at the end, but I decided not to record it again, either because I'm keeping it real or because I'm afraid I couldn't do any better. A little bit of both? It also goes out to Seth Anderson because he played it for me in his car while we drove from Ottawa to New York in September.
(Feel better, Jenni.)
Today's picture is from a Saint Roch underpass, where I trek down the hill to get my groceries. That area is a hub of public art in a formerly ugly neighborhood, which is awesome. There are a million more beautiful things I also pass on that walk. Visitors to Quebec are welcome to come strolling with me and I'll show you, but you'd better do it quick, because I want to be out of here and apartment-hunting in China by hallowe'en!
(Latest dilemma: Shanghai or Chengdu? Maybe Chongqing? How to decide?)

Have a good weekend, all you workaholics.

Monday morning rock #1

(The Gare du Palais train station and the industrial port of Québec)

It's Monday morning and you all need to start the week off well, so I'm trying to do my part to help by not playing a depressing song, but rather a pretty kicking song, by the Violent Femmes.
- Happy Monday, you busy bees.

In other news (and speaking of busy) I have a second job as of last Wednesday. I wanted to pick up some more hours working somewhere, and I finally got hired at a souvenir boutique in the old city. Here's a picture. It's minimum wage, but just what I needed cause it's the kind of job I won't feel too bad quitting in a few weeks so I can run off to China. So for now I sell stuff, I mean junk, to tourists, as well as teach English to bureaucrats. I've already gotten to practice some Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese at work. Tourists are fun! (Bureaucrats are ok, too. They'd better be, cause I've got a full day of them today).

Sock it to me,
Matthew

For PinksandRoses

Here we go: my first fulfilled request! This one is for Pinksandroses, who I've never had the pleasure of meeting, but who is still a regular reader, which I'm pretty flattered by, honestly. Basically, the people I don't "know" are pretty much the best contributors to this blog. Which leads me to ask, where are you at, people like... Popester? Betty? Jo? Boat Night? Andrew Heining? Marina? Alexia? Ruru? Eschenroeders? even Hershel, you're not technically a first-hand friend, I know, but I'd still love to play a request for you. So, party people: let me know your requests, and I'll give you crappy versions of them. It's as simple as that. Now, for Pinksandroses (who I'll be referring to as Jessyca from now on) here's my just-learned-this-song rendition of Alive in this Moment, by Starfield. Party on.

DJ Mathematics


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(The picture is me and Karen Prager jamming at family camp in Maine a month ago. Even though it seems like a year ago.)

Here's the deal:
I'm going to bed. It's late and I was really excited about recording something tonight, but I realized the neighbors were probably asleep and so I couldn't exactly rock out. So I had to play something really quiet, and the only thing I could think of at the time was kind of sad and not the celebratory mood I wanted to announce that I finally got internet back in my apartment. But it's all you're getting tonight. The upshot is that it's a story, which is nice, I think. I'll remind you again tomorrow in more words, but quickly: send me song requests and I'll play them and post them for you. No joke. The song is Seven Curses by Bob Dylan. Goodnight, little bedbugs.

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Song 4, Friend of the Devil

Ok, my internet is still down, so I'm doing 2 things: learning patience and not posting much. In the meantime, I'm going to throw this one out there. It's 2 songs I recorded really quickly just now (that means go easy on me) and 2 pictures. While fall quickly moves in here in Québec, these are two shots of some of my favorite places to explore from the summer: the port, where I like to climb down onto the docks and read, and the artillery park. The latter shows my feet standing on a second-story doorway of an old armoury that drops off into space. I liked to climb up there with my guitar and play in the doorway in the air, cause I thought it was neat. At my feet are some tomatoes I bought down in the port market, and my journal (you know, my real journal). That's all for now. I'm busy making plans to go to China for a while at the end of October. I think I'd like to try Guangzhou. The first song is Friend of the Devil by the Grateful Dead.

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Song 3, The Tatler

Here's the second of those 2 songs. It's by Ry Cooder, who I heard playing it on some Saturday Night Live rerun from the 70's when he was the musical guest. I later heard Billy Bragg doing it too. Anyway, the take-home message is: you want a good relationship? Give it a little effort, dummy. That's Ry Cooder's message, I mean. I personally believe good relationships just happen by themselves. You know, luck, or something.

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Daniel Johnston

Tomorrow morning is the end of my first week of teaching at the National Assembly. I have a class of 4 people, a class of 3 and a class of 2. And the the first two days, only one person showed up to each one, making it a little more difficult to hold a conversation class. We got through it, though. I've started putting them through their paces and they'll all be using the past perfect with visiting dignitaries before you know it. Now if I can just get the Secretary General on Parliamentary Affairs to show up to class on time, we'll be all set. Yesterday I walked around town handing out c.v.s, trying to find a part-time job to supplement my teaching hours. I thought about applying at a store called Kama Sutra, but for obvious reasons, chickened out. I did, however, sneak into the Chateau Frontenac, which is a luxurious hotel, and just hang out in the luxurious lobby for a while (pictured here).
This week I'm grateful for:
Being employed
Buildings lit up at night
Talkative students
Having an apartment
The catholic Goodwill (Emmaüs) where I bought a phone, a radio, a bookcase, a book and a poster for 27$.

And to finish up, before I pack for a weekend visiting friends in Montreal, here's me singing a song by Daniel Johnston (thanks to PinksandRoses who showed me how to post it.)

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Love,
Matthew

Back in Québec. New job, new apartment, no food.

I arrived back in Québec after a month out of town that went like this:

Québec,
Boston, MA(2hrs),
Portland, ME(48hrs),
camp in Harrison, ME(2 weeks),
Ottawa(3 days),
New Haven, CT(5 days),
Montréal(24hrs),
back in Québec.

So I arrived Thursay afternoon, immediately started apartment-hunting, and 24 hours later, I'm sitting in my new bedroom in my new apartment on rue Saint-Olivier! Everything just came together. Pictured is the street where I live. Click on it, then on these: (a), (b). Life with my new roommate, Frédéric, should be interesting. He seems very different from me, in that meat-eating, hockey-loving, video-gaming, beer-drinking kind of way. I'm more the tofu-eating, figure-skating, guitar-playing, juice-drinking type. Fortunately, he's really nice, so I'm looking forward to the next months.

Interesting fact: after all that good food in New Haven with Laura and Indian food with Alexia in Montreal, today is my third day eating exclusively Ramen noodles (with the exception of a few stale biscuits). So I'm about to go to the market and get some food. Monday I give my first English class to the bureaucrats. I saw the class list and some of them are big shots, which is kind of funny. We'll see how it goes. I'm trying to decide how to go about testing high-powered civil servants on their verb tenses.

I Heart New Haven

My too-short visit to Laura in New Haven ends tomorrow. I visited the Destefano campaign office today and said hi to some people, specifically, Becky and Lauren (shout out). I love New Haven and I'm glad to visit it again. And by "New Haven", I don't mean "Yale". I mean Yale AND the fair and fascinating world that surrounds that bastion of Academe. And now, the restaurant roster. In the past four days, we've eaten:

-Japanese twice (Haya's on Trumbull)
-Ethiopian (Lalibela on Temple)
-Indian (Zaroka on York)
-Pizza (Pepe's on Wooster)
-Thai (Thai PanAsian on Chapel)
-and bubble tea from a new Vietnamese place.

Tomorrow morning I take a bus to Quebec city to start a new job: teaching English to bureaucrats at the National Assembly! For all the Americans who look at me quizzically and ask, "wait.. English?.. don't they speak English?" The answer is "no". Quebec is a francophone province and only 8.3 percent of its people are English mother-tongue, making me an (invisible) minority and explaining why our civil servants might need some English tutoring. Which works well for me. That's going to take me through October. After that I'm open to ideas or job offers, although I have a fancy that I'd like to go to China...

Ottawa

[Pictured: me in woods, friends Julie and Seth, my brother Benjamin.]
I left Family Camp Monday in the pouring rain, catching a ride up to Montreal with Emmanuelle, the only other Quebecker. From there I decided to take a bus to Ottawa, where my mother and 3 of my brothers now live. Seth Anderson from Nashville was supposed to drive me up after camp in his '89 Lincoln, but had to follow me up instead due to a breakdown. (He's looking to sell, btw...) I also saw Julie Snorek, another american camp friend, who was up here with her mother staying outside of Ottawa in a cabin in the woods that belongs to a church friend. My brother Benjamin and I spent a night there and took a hike in the woods which involved a whole lot of scratched legs and careful stepping. (See picture captions). The 4 of us also saw a light show projected onto the Parliament and listened to Daniel Johnston, who is a trip, I discovered. Today Seth and I take the Lincoln down to NYC. I'll be getting off in New Haven to see Laura (who was kissing a clam in the last post) before going back to Quebec to start a fall job. Quick New Haven story: I lived there with Laura last summer and one day, looking for a job, I went to a temp agency. I mistook the mezzanine for the second floor, though, and ended up walking right into Mayor John Destefano's campaign office (for CT governor). Anyway, we talked, and long story short, I ended up working there all summer. It was pretty cool, I staffed the mayor at some fundraisers and did lots of database stuff. The election still hasn't happened, so if you're in CT, vote Destefano. The End.

Family Camp

I'm in Maine. Which is why I haven't posted in a while. Two weeks ago, my (girl)friend Laura came to see me in Québec, I finished my contract at the Assembly and we spent a fun-filled week seeing the sights (see her blog for details 1, 2, 3). Then we flew to Boston, met friends, including her brother, and drove up to Portland, Maine. We spent a day in Portland with our friend Callie, and took the ferry out to the Casco Bay islands where we swam and played with a live clam.
Then we went to camp. Meaning camps Newfound and Owatonna, where we both not long ago worked as counselors. I didn't this summer, because obviously, I had other things going on, but we both came back to work at Family Camp, and that's where I am now. Family camp is 2 weeks at the end of the regular summer camp where families (usually former campers or staff) bring their children and treat the place more like a very rustic resort than a summer camp, meaning that between meals, they pretty much do whatever they want and the staff just facilitates, lifeguarding, driving ski boats, etc. My job is usually to have fun with the 6-10 year-old kids whose parents are off playing tennis or something. So we play games or go exploring or swim... it's very fun. Much more news from family camp, which ends in one week, but it'll have to wait because I have to get up early to help in the dining hall. I've peppered the post with pictures, hopefully you can figure out what's what. There's one of me and friends on the ferry (Laura in pink, Callie in grey) one of Laura and her brother Martin checking out a clam, one of me stuck in a toy car and one of the sunny and beautiful H-dock at camp.

Scaredy me and the wall

Yesterday was amazing! The old part of Québec is surrounded by a fortified wall, with turrets and cannons. It was built by the French, then conquered by the English, and now, tourists and locals walk along the ramparts and hang out up there. I live inside the old city and for a month now, I've been practicing climbing the wall. The catch? I'm scared of climbing. Tree climbing? Fun! Rock climbing? Pants-wettingly scary. But something about climbing alone seemed to take some pressure off (and something about having no rope makes falling not a great option.) Eventually I found three places I could climb consistently. I started climbing the wall to get home from work, and so if there were people up there they would see this guy in a shirt and tie poke his head up. I always got a kick out of that. Scuffed up my work shoes pretty badly though. Fortunately they cost 2$ at goodwill. Then one day I looked over and saw a taller section that looked doable.... maybe. I tried it, and didn't make it halfway. I tried it 4 more times on different days, and each time I fell. I would get up almost to the top, scared and exhausted, my arms would just start shaking and my feet would slip. I was at the point this week where I couldn't fall asleep because I'd be replaying those last seconds over and over in my mind, and I couldn't concentrate at work cause I knew that at 5 o'clock I'd have to try again. Honestly, my palms would be sweaty just thinking about it. But! Yesterday... I made it. It scared me out of my mind to climb those last few feet, but I finally, finally, finally made it. [Insert take-home message here]

The Bangles at 3:15

Unfortunately, it's actually 3:15 am right now. And I do work tomorrow morning. Stayed up late on the phone with my brother Benjamin (one of several). Mostly about Raffi and Robert Munsch as I recall. (No time to explain, Google can tell you who they are.)
Anyway, I wanted to write a post about how I went swimming tonight, like, swimming-laps swimming, even though that's not my style, even though I was a lifeguard for 6 years, at camp (see picture link to left) and at the Saint Lambert indoor pool. How on my way home I was recognized by a Vietnamese girl I kind of know who had a mouthful of pizza, heard some Irish fiddle, and how prior to all this I saw the sunset on the ramparts in the artillery park. (Not one person reading this knows where that is, don't feel left out.) It's beside my house. Overlooks the lower city. Twinkling lights, red sky, you get the picture. But the problem is just that: I don't have a single picture to show you all. I tried to draw a picture but gave up cause it was ugly. Then I saw the time and decided to just give you all a late-night recording of "Eternal Flame" and get the heck into my bed.
Click to hear. Goodnight.

This old guitar

I invented a strap for my guitar yesterday and so I'm showing it off. The guitar I'm playing nowadays is a classical, and has no knobs anywhere to attach a strap to. So while I can walk and play with it, it's difficult. And last night around 10pm I wanted to stroll and play without the difficulty. So I improvised this strap, using an office clip (courtesy of my job) some duct tape, and a telephone cord. And I walked and played around old Québec to my little heart's delight. During which time I saw three street shows: a comedian-magician, an escape artist, and two loudmouth kids on unicycles and trampolines with a flaming torch finale. I also met a girl in a hammock shop who I kind of know. I really enjoy being able to walk out my door at night and see street performers and crowds of people. I like crowds. Usually. And for when I don't, like this morning, there's a park to the left. I got up late and spent about an hour there today.
P.S.: For those who didn't catch the title, the references are John Denver and Bob Vila.

The boring parts!

So a few of you lovely people have left me sweet comments to the effect of: you look like you're having so much fun!
Annnd... I mean, I am, that's true. But you also make me feel guilty because: am I really going to write a blog about the boring parts? No, that would make me a whiner. So I post about the fun stuff and it makes it seem like it's all I ever do. So now, in the interest of balanced reporting, here's a rundown of the less blog-worthy parts of my summer:

• I work at the Québec National Assembly as a translator (see previous posts). Cool? At first. Now boring? Yes.
• Parliament was in session when I started here, which was cool, but now the politicians are on vacation, along with a lot of the bureaucrats. Too quiet? Yes.
• I've been mostly working on the book "La Procédure Parlementaire", translating chapter 7: "Order and Decorum". Then I get to move on to "Le consentement unanime et les autres moyens de dérogation au règlement". Hard, which is good. But does that sound exciting to anyone? No, it doesn't.

So I'm actually longing for May, when there were still laws coming in. And people, if longing for legislation to translate isn't an indication that my 9-5 could use some spicing up, I don't know what is. I've also included pictures of my office so you can note the marked lack of fun happening in it. (Click on them). See, I don't want to sound ungrateful, cause I'm really grateful for this job. But just to say, let's not get too envious, people. If my after-work time is occasionally interesting, it kind of needs to be for me to be able to make it through the next day at work, you know?

Sunny country hitch-hiking

I'm on a sunny-day hitch-hiking high right now! Quick background: on Friday a friend from work invited me to join her and some friends at her cottage up in Lac-Saint-Joseph. For the Americans: think Maine and you've got the idea. So I went, and it was great. We went swimming at sunset in the warm lake, stood in a freezing spring, made spaghetti, had fun. Today we drove out to a huge waterpark, but I didn't feel like going, so I said goodbye to them at the entrance. Now, though, I was on foot out in the boondocks, so how to get home to Québec? Hitch-hiking, definitely. But with no cardboard to make a sign, how would people know where I wanted to go? Fortunately I had a marker in my bag, so I took off my T-shirt, got a little artsy-fartsy, and quickly solved that problem.
...
Sweet hitch-hiking fashion, I know! Before thumbing it, I walked aways and came to a country craft sale, full of maple products, handmade soaps, pickled turkey eggs, country music and a quilt exhibition to boot! So I walked around the tables and talked to people who taught me all kinds of stuff about beekeeping, maple syrup making and quilting. Strangely enough, as I soon realized, almost everybody there was English. It turns out Saint-Gabriel-de-Val-Cartier is one of those rare anglophone farming communities out in rural Québec. So, bought some honeycomb, some pickled ketchup, an egg sandwich for the road, stuck out my thumb, and within 10 minutes a fireman picked me up. Yes, a fireman. He was going to Québec and brought me right to my front door! Every time I hitch-hike I end up feeling so good about human nature.

If you want to see the cottage and some quilts: 12 pictures here

Peaceful after work time

After work today I took a ramble around the old city. The summer festival just finished, but that hasn't depleted the crowds much. In a park beside Chateau Frontenac, they had set up an outdoor silver-catered buffet among the trees, with dancers dressed up as blue glittery pixies entertaining the guests. No kidding. Pixies. Complete with blue glittery spandex, wings, pointy ears and purple wigs. Most of them were doing dance-y posing, and one tall pixie on stilts was greeting guests "to our magical forest" and doing magic tricks, much to their middle-aged amusement (as opposed to childlike delight). It was weird, because this was a private catered function in a public park. They had hired security to keep passers-by out. So I was unsure as to how upset I should be about that, but mostly I was fascinated at the old-fashioned decadence of hiring actors to amuse the guests! It was like some kind of renaissance court-jester stuff!

From there, I followed a footpath up the cape to a field high up by the Citadel. And from there the whole Saint Lawrence spread out below me. There were maybe 30 white sailboats dotting the shipping lanes, and you could hear the faint drums from the band on a cruise ship reaching up. It was grassy and sunny and deserted and so peaceful. I could hear a flag flapping in the wind above me! Think of that. Not the flag, just the sound. This isn't nationalist imagery, it's a peaceful afternoon. Mmmm.
By the way, I took the picture of the clover blossom last week, not today. But it gives you the idea. I didn't have a camera with me today, which is bad for my blog, but good for my peace of mind. I tend to savour the scenery differently when I'm not trying to fit it all into a frame.

My House, my Job

For Japhet, who asked whether I was wandering around until sunrise because I was homeless. Um, no. This is my house. The bottom right is my apartment. This is my backyard (c'mon, just click on it).
For those of you who want to mapquest it, I'm at #2 rue Saint Angèle, apartment 101, Quebec city, Québec. And not only do I have a house, I also have a job! And that's why I was out so late that night. Because I got home from work on friday totally exhausted. And so I fell asleep at 8pm that evening, and by midnight, I was wide awake and refreshed. So I got resteless and went out walking. The end.
As for where I work, I'm a translator at the National Assembly. That's the Quebec legislature. Why the "National" Assembly? Well, cause Quebec is a nation, as well as a province. That's as much as I'm going to get into it, I think. It's a full-time job, but it's only for this summer, which is good, because I don't think I could handle doing it for much longer. It's good experience, but it's not exactly.. exciting. Not exciting. Especially because all the politicians went on holiday June 20th, so there are no more laws coming in. ZZZ. Most of my time has been spent translating a new book on parliamentary procedure. Is that as boring as it sounds? Pretty much. Although I liked it at first. BUT, there are tons of perks, not least of which, the place is beautiful. Check this picture out. This is where I work, man.