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!
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:
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.
