The Rest of Everything

Well, continued.... I shall now tell you about the last week and a half that I spent in Jonquière. At this point, I am fairly certain that most people will have given up reading this, since I am back at home and can tell you most of my adventures face to face. But for posterity's sake, I will finish things. Leave it nice and tidily wrapped up. No loose threads, no leaving anyone hanging...

July 26th to 30th. To summarize the week:

I sadly have already forgotten so much, but I think that could be positive - less writing. I will just lay out the events that stood out.

Monday evening definitely stood out. My mandatory group activity was les Danses folkloriques, (folk dancing) which to be honest, I wasn't looking forward to. My friends Bronwyn, Rong, Emily, Morgan, Sarah, and Anita were all in the same group as me, and we were all curious as to what the evening would hold. What it held was this: The dance teacher had apparently been captured by extra-terrestrials (that is truly the excuse we were given), and so we had a choice, of either doing sports activities in the gym, or learning the dance moves to Lady Gaga's "Telephone" with one of the students, named Ryan. He knows the moves to nearly all of her songs. Or maybe all of them. Either way, it is very impressive. I decided to break out of my comfort zone and go for the Lady Gaga. It was such a good choice! We all had such a ridiculously fun time, knowing that we looked hilarious, feeling stupid, but also feeling pleased that we were actually learning something worthwhile.

Wednesday was the last full day for our class's Spanish student, Gabriel. We were all sad to see him, and the rest of the Spanish students, leave. He was also my seat buddy, which made things even worse. Thursday's class felt so lonely.The departure also started the rest of us thinking about the final departure, and how we only had a little over a week left together. That night was also La soirée chansonnier, a mandatory activity where a musician came in to sing and play Québecois songs with us. Each class was paired with another class, and together we had been learning a designated Québecois song for the past few weeks. My class's song was "Les ailes d'un ange" by Robert Charlesbois.The evening was pretty fun overall, but it was hard to get into some of the songs... seeing as none of us knew the words. (Although, we were given lyrics, so it was fun to try and sing along!) After the soirée, there was much hugging, good-byeing and almost crying.

Thursday involved painting a somewhat gastly design on a glass, and an unexpected and nerve-wracking audition for La soirée des talents/La défilé de mode with my teacher's cello. (How wonderful is that, that of all the teachers, I ended up with one who was currently learning the cello?! And was willing to let me borrow it? Merci Dieu!)

Friday's main points:

Found out I was going to play at the soirée.

Practiced in the Cégep's music room, which was basically in the very pit of the school. But the solitude was nice. I had really been missing my cello. And thank goodness for scanners and emailing and computers and printers and helpful parents who emailed me some music to play!

Described our class's model's outfit with another classmate for the fashion show (La défilé de mode) in front of everybody. Public speaking... always a bit intimidating, especially when it is in French!

Played the cello... in front of everybody. So incredibly scary. It is one thing to play a classical piece at a recital, in front of a bunch of people who are there to hear classical music. It is another thing to play a classical piece in front of 300 of your peers, a bunch of teenagers, most of whom you know at least a little bit. It is again something else to play said piece after having just gone to the washroom, only to re-enter the theatre and hear your name being announced, and so struggling not to panic while frantically taking out your cello and trying to explain in French to non-musical people that you need their help to carry out your music stand and cello peg belt so that you can play. That is something else entirely.

Thankfully, I still played okay, and received many accolades after the show!

Poutine followed this evening, at Chez Pauline. Mmm... delicious.It tastes better than it looks.

That weekend (described briefly):

Québec City!!!! (Saturday)

Just like everyone says... so beautiful. So European. I even bought some art there! And so historical. For those who say that the Plains of Abraham are overrated: They are not.Although it was my first time going, so I am rather biased. I also enjoy history. But truly, they are lovely and sweeping and a really cool shade of greenish-yellow. It is weird to think that about 250 years ago, those plains were soaked with blood.

La Château Frontenac is also gorgeous.

Journée à la plage - Day at the beach (Sunday):

Sunny - lovely weather, very nice water. Relaxing.

One of the monitors, François, also found a skull. That was very cool!

August 2-7

Highlights:

Ice cream on Monday - After our evening activity, Rong, Bronwyn, and I ran through the rain to Pinocchio's, one of the most popular ice cream shops. We got very wet, but had a lot of fun.

Jumpaï on Tuesday - A bungee jumping sort of thing, that is a ridiculous amount of fun. It is also surprisingly tiring, but apparently Explore made me more fit than I had expected, because I actually was a decent jumper! In fact, I almost did three flips in a row! I certainly was able to do two, both forwards and backwards. It was so amusing. I would like one in my backyard; I think that would be my preferred way to work out. It really does tire the arms!

Class on Wednesday - We combined with another class to write a speech/poem to be presented by two people, one from each class, at the ceremony the next day. We paired up and each pair had to contribute at least two lines to the poem. My friend Erica and I came up with some pretty good stuff! Here are the lines we wrote:

Chaque jour de cet été

La crême glacée était mangé

Les Halles, Pinocchio et IGA

Nous ont beaucoup rempli de gras

Translation:

Each day of this summer

Ice cream was eaten

The Halles (market hall), Pinocchio, and IGA

Filled us with a lot of fat

Somehow the English translation isn't quite as poetic.

Les aventures d'un Flo on Wednesday - I can't quite remember if it was a musical, but I seem to think it was. Either way, it was so much fun to watch live theatre in French, and see how vastly our French comprehension had expanded. After the show, all of us who had come from Explore walked around and talked with the actors, and took pictures with them. At the end, it was funny because the main actor seemed to think he knew me from somewhere, but we both agreed that that was rather unlikely after I told him that I was from British Columbia!

La remise des diplômes (closing ceremony) on Thursday - We all dressed up nicely and were taken by buses to a hotel, where the ceremony took place that afternoon. It was so weird that it was all over. We were given a sort of mini newspaper, for which Emily, a friend named Tovi, and I had written an interview. It contained all sorts of anecdotes and pictures and articles.

We all got our friends to sign them, and it was like the end of the school year, only a lot worse, because we knew that we would likely never see most of the people from the program again.

The evening was filled with time spent with friends. Emily, Morgan, Anita, Erica, Sarah, and I went to the college for a little while to say goodbye to as many people as possible. Afterwards, we went out for ice cream, one last time.

I took a taxi home because it had gotten so late, and getting into that cab, staring out the back window as they all disappeared from view, was unbelievably sad.

The next day, Emily, Rong, Bronwyn, Tatiana (another friend, one of Rong and Bronwyn's roommates), and I went to Chicoutimi. We explored the festival, Rhythmes du monde, (Rhythms of the World), which took up several city blocks, and was lined with booths showcasing wares from various nations. It was a fun, cultural experience! Much better than simply taking the bus to the mall.

Apparently the festival is the biggest outdoor cultural and tourism-oriented event to ever come to the region of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. It was interesting to hear the different accents with which people spoke French; a man from Argentina had a particularly interesting one.

That evening, Emily and I went to Rong, Bronwyn, and Tatiana's home for one last hang-out and goodbye. It was awful saying goodbye to a final group of friends. Then I went home, and made a card for my host mom. I stayed up much too late, and had about two hours, or perhaps it was only 40 minutes, of sleep, before I got up to be driven to the airport at four or five AM. My host mom was so kind to drive me there that early. We never became extraordinarily close, but we did bond a little bit. She helped me check in my bags, and made sure I was all ready to go. It seemed to me that as she drove away, she was trying not to cry.

Sitting in the tiny airport in Bagotville was disheartening. There was a large group of what seemed to be Explore students from Chicoutimi, all together, reminiscing... thankfully a few students from the program in Jonquière were on the same flight as me to Montréal. We chatted, and felt sad together. That was nice.

I flew from Montréal to Calgary, and the waiting in the Calgary airport was the worst. I was close to home, yet miles and miles from all my friends. I wanted people to cry and reminisce with, but instead I was alone, sitting in the terminal, waiting for my flight to Kelowna. It made me think of Thailand, and the awfulness of saying goodbye to everyone, but at least we were all in it together. Thank God for friendship. I was texting my friend Emily, who was still in Jonquière for one more day. It was so odd, my sitting in an almost entirely Anglophone environment, while she was still completely immersed in that small Francophone city. And there we were, texting, just as we had on countless other days in Jonquière, yet we were nearly 4000 kilometres apart.

I arrived home, in Kelowna, walking off the flight alone, excited to see my family but missing French already.

My incredible cousins Talina and Conrad were there with my (real, no longer host!) mom and brother. My mom and I left them at camp, where I was to join them as a cabin leader in a week. What a dramatic shift. From Québec, a relatively secular environment, to the wonderful Gardom Lake Bible Camp, all in the space of one day. From complete submersion in French to an environment where hardly anyone spoke it. So it began. Life went back to normal. And it honestly wasn't as bad as I had expected. I love my family and friends, and thankfully, they love me too. It was good to get back to normalcy, in a way. Amazing friends, family, my own bed, and delicious food! But even taking the time to finally write this all out has been hard, as I have relived certain moments of my Québec experience. I miss it. One cannot live in the past however, and as François put it:

Ainsi va la vie qui va.

Which loosely translates to:

And so life goes on.

Almost Everything

Wow. I have really done an awful job of keeping everyone up to date on what I have been doing these last few weeks, and for that I apologize. You see, the problem is this: that I am doing and have done so many things worth blogging about that I have not had the time to blog. I suppose you shall just have to speak with me in person. But, that will take a LOT of talking. So, to give you at least an idea of some of the things that have transpired over these past few weeks, I will try to create a summary. I will also try to limit myself to one photo for each event, but that could be difficult. I hardly know where to begin, but I will try to be brief and to the point. The last events I have written about include my rafting experience and Cap Trinité. Ha, when I look at that, I am overwhelmed by the number of events that I have not written about.

After Cap Trinité, on Sunday, July 18th, I went whale watching. Tadoussac. What a beautiful little touristy town. We ate lunch on the beach and explored the town while waiting for our time to go out on the water.

Lunch included the leftover Nanaimo bars from the movie night before... delicious. The whale watching was fun, but not overly thrilling for me, as I have already seen whales. Nevertheless, they are incredible creatures, and I was very happy to have seen a few up close again.

We also got to wear ridiculously large red suits, which is always a plus. However, the weather was freezing cold. The sky was stormy, and for some reason, our guide seemed to keep steering us into the rain rather than out of it. But despite the frigid wind and pouring rain, I enjoyed the experience, particularly when our guide took us into a sort of inlet. We saw a gorgeous waterfall and beautiful green hills and mountains; I was very happy to have brought my camera.

The following week, from July 19-23 was La Semaine des Amis Secrets - Secret Friend Week. Those of us who wanted to participate, teachers and monitors included, drew names to find out to whom we would be a secret friend. Throughout the week, your secret friend was to give you challenges and rewards, and you were to do the same for the person whose name you drew.

I drew the name of somebody with whom I was already friends, Rong, so it was a lot of fun to think up challenges for her. It was my final challenge to her that I liked the most - a scavenger hunt, in which she was given a page of a sticker story book for Alice in Wonderland - Alice au Pays des Merveilles, with a clue to follow that took her to the next clue, and so on and so forth, thereby taking her through her walk to school and then all over the college, finding pages of the book. Once she had found them all, she had to put together the book and follow the last clue to find her prizes - candy and a journal.

At the bottom of the pages of Alice in Wonderland, I had written a code that revealed who I was, and in the journal, I gave her the key to unlock the code. It was so much fun!

As for the challenges that I received, I did everything to laugh loudly and awkwardly in class, to dress up as a baby. It was a fun experience, and mon amie secrète gave me very good prizes.

At the end of the week, we always have a réunion générale, an assembly during which we draw names for prizes, find out who won tournaments or contests, watch the monitors perform a skit, and discover La Personnalité de la Semaine - The Personality of the Week, for each class. In each class, the students vote for this person, and it is generally based on participation, effort to speak in French, or any other noticeable and appreciable personality traits. Well that week, I won in my class! I was pretty excited, because it meant that I got a lanyard from the college :) Haha. As my teacher called my name, she also revealed that she had been mon amie secrète! I was entirely surprised. She really is an amazing teacher!

Another fun happening that took place during the July 19-23 week was, well, my marvelous brother's birthday on Monday, and also a mandatory movie night that same day. We watched À vos marques, partez! 2. It was a lot easier to understand than the first movie we watched - La grande séduction, as this one revolved around an international teenage swim competition. There were a couple lines in English, and the story was easier to follow, as it involved teenage love. It was a fun cheesy movie.

To finish off the week, we had a Soirée Costumée. Everyone chose "teams", and so my friends and I went as animals. We had Anita as le chat noir, Erica as le lion Québecois (she had a blue boa tail), Sarah as le zèbre, Emily as un guépard... or perhaps it was un léopard, Morgan as le lapin blanc, and myself as un oiseau multicoloré.

The event was a lot of fun, and it was cool to see all of the different costumes! There were two Pacman teams, a team that dressed up as the monitors, a Koodo group, Crayons, and many others. This is us on the bus to the college. We got a lot of curious stares and comments!

On Saturday, I went with Emily and Sarah to the mall in Chicoutimi, because we had not signed up for the zoo activity. Emily was thrilled to find a Tim Hortons, as she had been missing her Ice Caps. We shopped, and saw many other Explore students who had nothing better to do than hang out at the mall in Chicoutimi. It was a nice relaxing day, a good break from having things on the go all the time.

Timeline wise, I have now brought you to my "Le vent et le rafting" post. Sunday was the day of our rafting adventure, which I have already told you about. Which brings me to our last full week in Jonquière! To be continued....