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.