Something called an ‘Évaluation comparative des études effectués hors-Québec’ (Comparative Evaluation of Studies Done Outside Quebec) was noted near the section on education. So, I go check this out and am led to Immigration Quebec’s site and some reading reveals that even though you’re Quebecois and Canadian and was born in the province, if you did your education in another province, that counts as “Outside QC” and as my visit to the MICC proved, because I got my high school degree in Alberta and my Bachelors in Ontario, I have to get in line like all the other immigrants and pay the 105$ fee and fill out some forms.

Ridiculous.

The lady who I dealt with, Spanish, kept trying to play down the issue by telling me that “The other provinces do the same” or “Each province is different”. I told her it was unfair that the Quebec gov’t would treat its own residents like immigrants if they got their education done in the province next door. She also kept trying to make it seem like I was an immigrant myself, which I am not and kept trying to repeat to this woman over and over and over again. I even said that this assumes every Quebecer stays boxed in this province. Or something to the effect when in fact some will go out to another province and come back. This agent for Immigration Quebec even tried comparing studying in Scotland to studying in Ottawa. I wanted to quip angrily about not wanting to live in a province that makes its own citizens to go in the same line as someone who studied at SciencePo and has to complete the Évaluation.

And for the record, the only time you would have your education evaluated like this is if you’re trying to teach in another province and you were certified in the other.

In the end, I applied for the position but with all the documentation needed–official copies of my high school diploma, bachelors degree and birth certificate–and the time left in this competition and the out-of-pocket costs needed for this (20$ I think for Alberta, 40-60$ for my bachelor’s degree–more for expedited shipping– and 15$ for my birth certificate–20-30$ for expedited shipping) I might refuse if I get a call. This also means I can’t work for the city or the gov’t now since most jobs require an Évaluation comparative if one of your diplomas was obtained outside the province.

However, having my citizenship and residency questioned to such a degree left me in such a terrible state. I phone my aunt in tears–think I said something like “It’s not fair! I was born here! Why am I being treated like an immigrant? It’s not fair”. Or something. In fact, being a 1st generation Quebecer and Canadian, my parents both immigrants never dealt with this though the MICC/Immigration Quebec didn’t come into existence until a number of years after they settled I do believe and by that point, my mum’s family all had Canadian university degrees (from Ontario and Quebec).

Being treated like an immigrant in your own country is a really terrible feeling.

I admit to almost wanting to call 911 late last night because around 1am when the smell of smoke started wafting into my living room. (There was a house fire a few weeks ago) It’s apparently much worse today as more smoke from the fires burning all over Quebec, especially the one in La Tuque, came over the island and has gone as far west as Ottawa (apparently there’s some fires in the Outaouais), as far east as Maine and New Hampshire in the US and as far south as apparently parts of Vermont.

It’s a little crazy. Granted this isn’t doing wonders for my lungs (I’m a former asthmatic) I have to go out today, but I’m hesitant since I’ve started coughing. The last time I was in the thick of forest fire smoke was way back in the late 90s when I lived in Calgary. Some fire in Swan…Lake(?) got so large that smoke drifted south into Calgary that was so thick, the sun remained deep reddish-orange for a week or so. I remember the first recess, I went out and the scene was reminiscent of a city under threat of a volcano or a ‘Last-days-on-Earth’ thing–ash was falling too, now that I remember. Skies were not blue for a week or more. It was dark/dim out at 11am…I think I might’ve opted to stay indoors for the rest of the smoky haze as this would’ve preceded my asthma diagnosis by a year.

Let’s hope this doesn’t hang over the city too long. (There’s suppose to be rain?) Nor that it brings back my asthma or wheezing…I never liked being on puffers.

(I mean, unless you’re a gangster or a drug dealer which in that case…)

Of course, I’m half-Jamaican and the one thing I learned when I asked what Jamaica was like, was that while Kingston is a lovely city, the slums of West Kingston are dangerous should be avoided at all costs. Jamaica isn’t a huge country, but it’s not like Kingston’s the begining and the end of the island. There’s a ton of other cities (smaller, mind) and places to see. For example: Negril, Ocho Rios, the Northern coast, Western Jamaica, Montego Bay, Lucea, Spanish Town to name a few. I’ll admit, I’m not 100% versed in the country’s politics and only have a general idea of socio-economic conditions via what family and friends have told me.

I got a chuckle though when the reporter with Radio Jamaica quite frankly told the CTV Newsnet anchor that no tourist [in their right mind] would venture into West Kingston and listed a bunch of other cities, towns and areas around the island that are more tourist destinations. This is not Bangkok, folks. Sure, the capital isn’t probably where you should be right now due to the stuff going on in W. Kingston if you’re a foreigner and feel afraid, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid the island all together.

Unfortunately, the media seems to be (ahem, CTV) making it out to be as if you should and that’s really bothering me.

(EDIT: It seems some have backed down a little from the “JAMAICA IS A WARZONE RIGHT NOW.” tone they had when this broke out. Still, some are making a few uninformed assumptions…whatever happened to those factsheet graphics with maps that show the city/district(s) in question? Does CTV need graphic designers who can work/design area maps? I can help.)

Just my two cents.

(points for not saying: “recession” because the job market here is fine)

Oh well, I’ll keep soldiering on then. Wish me luck!

It took me a bit to figure out why I had been feeling that way as of late; in fact, I had a chat with a friend of my mum’s who pointed it out when I had asked about boyfriends and such. It’s kind of a really weird feeling that’s never bothered me much until now. I mean, I went through most secondary/jr high/high school never really paying attention to the guys I knew at school–admitedly, many were cute, just that I viewed them (and still do) as friends. I was never concerned about who dated who, or attracting boys. In fact, I had no care for my appearance. I was very much a “t-shirt or whatever shirt looks ok with my cool jeans” person sometimes.

At one point, my ‘single-ness’ got to be a concern for family and others I knew. People started sounding worried and such that I would pull myself out from relationship-related discussions, and keep quiet about the fact I have never dated. I even keep quiet about my obliviousness to advances. And I truly do mean it when I let it slip that I’m completely oblivious to when a guy is flirting with me. Perhaps I’ve still got a bit of emotional immaturity–it’s been a difficult, rough and emotionally and psychologically draining 9 years for me. I had to face moments as a teen that would require the emotional hardiness and maturity of someone twice or three or more times my age. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a little bit of that 14 year old teenager left in me. The part of me still exploring life, about to dive into the drama-filled world of adolescence, the part wanting to have those late-night chats with a mother where it starts out with “Hey…mum? Can we talk?”. Who knows.

Venturing into this new chapter–which is almost like living the moments and emotions I should’ve had as a teenager–is…scary.

Or maybe it’s a sign of something else. Sucks to be confused. :X

Good to see some other MPs there like Justin Trudeau (who, quite frankly with the way he was semi-casually dressed, could easily pretend to be a university student and no one would question him.), Marc Garneau and a few other MPs or Montreal Liberal candidates.

So, I think it went well. Except for the odd question or two…and someone who wasn’t paying attention and blamed the SU (and the Liberals?) for not letting him/them ask their question regarding a bill, whose number seemed to change every second even though it was asked and answered. (If it’s that environment bill, I kept hearing C11…which I thought was the Arts bill) Said fellow went away later and cornered Trudeau. Interesting debate occurred, but if you remember what I said earlier about his air of “étudiant” he had, onlookers could’ve dismissed it as some squabble between two guys. Mind you, they would probably be wondering about the small crowd with all the camera phones out at the ready (Maybe it’s on youtube). Personally, I thought it was really stupid of him to do that–if he wanted to ask his question, I can inform you that he never once raised his hand. Anyway, it was clear from the fact that he wouldn’t let Trudeau answer, that he was doing this for the hell of it and I suppose in a way to feel like he’s advanced his cause.

Alright. So I’ll try and salvage what’s left of my sleep time and go to bed.

Oh and to conclude, I’ve joined the Cult of Apple and bought myself an iPod nano. I’m absolutely a twitter about the VoiceOver feature at the moment. It tells you what your song is called in different languages (for example, I have Japanese, French, German and Spanish songs in addition to English. When I scroll over each song, I hear the title back in it’s respective language. There are issues, like bilingual titles for one (so maybe English will come up instead of French and your song’s name is mispronounced) but overall, I think it was a good buy.

And if I don’t like it, there is a market for the reselling of these things online at least?

Before you either roll your eyes in frustration or jump in your chair happily, I have a reason for posting about this show. First, I never followed it. I saw clips, a preview here and there but only saw the first episode and even then, I didn’t really watch it to the end. Then school got into full gear and watching any television shows was out of the question. I guess it didn’t click with me at first. (Not that this abstention helped–unfortunately this semester had many more distractions, that I will not get into, that made this year especially difficult)

Fast forward to tonight after watching for the last few months as one by one, my friends and acquaintances in Calgary (mostly) fall for the series and flood their statuses with messages mostly cryptic to me about that night’s episode every week. The only thing I ask is this: Why didn’t I get caught on this series the first time? It’s a series that I would love as a former member of a band and orchestra for 6 years in Jr High and High school. Strange.

Anyway, while watching tonight’s lovely finale almost blind (I don’t know any of the characters, at all.) I found myself picking at moments that I remembered from my time as a band geek. Aside from a teen pregnancy and inter-political affairs of the school, the sense of community among a group of ‘misfits’ dealing with competition and drama and yes, even the moments where other groups have the same pieces as you in the same arrangements with, maybe, the same instrument getting the solo parts are all things I remember in High School. I mean, of course for all intents and purposes of a series like Glee the drama and crazy antics is exaggerated a bit more in my opinion….of course, no band, choir or musical theatre group has the same types of members as the other; my year had mostly people who didn’t really take music seriously after a while and became lazy whereas at one point, when I was in grade 11, the year ahead of us wasn’t super serious but had some members who were and some who were there for the fun of it and took it seriously. We had the slackers, the serious types, the bitchy types, the types who were so good but were either too modest, or just didn’t want to be in band. We even had the bad ones. Each group’s composition is different each year. People leave and join.

All this aside, (and before I delve into some topic about social actors, group compositions or something of that nature) I just have to go make note to find episodes 2-12(?) so that I can catch up.

I’m going to try and update this more and I figure I need something to do to want to update it frequently. Perhaps documenting things I see in the city with photographs. It’s been 13 years since I last lived here and maybe I should document it. Or something.

I’ve been a fan of Pierre Lapointe for a few years now but I’ve never been able to make it out to a concert, big or small (see: Usually on the other end of the country when these things happen). As soon as I learned he was doing a piano solo of pieces from his repretoire, I jumped–though not literally–at the chance to see him live and bought myself tickets as a birthday gift to myself. (Happy birthday to me~)

He did not disappoint. In fact, overall, it was a whole lot of fun. I wish I could’ve had someone come with me. True, the concert featured pieces of Pierre Lapointe’s music in a different arrangement from what one is used to hearing it in, but the musician himself was a pure delight to watch and ‘interact’ with. From the introduction after playing 24-1-14-14 where he claimed he was risking his life to be there on account of he was ‘exposing’ himself to being jumped by fans at any moment, to the moments where he poked fun at TVA and Occupation Double, to when he briefly chatted with an audience member who had visibly snuck back to her seat and thought “Woah, did you just sneak in late? “, to when he had to restart one piece (whose name escapes me right now) because he started in the wrong key. He admitted later that sometimes one has moments where their mind briefly wanders and thinks about “things I cannot say here”, which brought a lot of laughs to the audience and himself.

Speaking of the laughs, I had no idea he was such a funny man. I know the strangers I was with and myself were laughing to tears at one point. (And no, it wasn’t because he was thanking us, the audience, for picking him over watching Occupation Double or discussing how he had initially thought of doing the show ‘naked’* he was actually pretty damn hilarious.) I guess the surprise here for me is how ‘everyday’ he acted (and yes, I am avoiding the use of ‘normal’ because I had three lectures from different classes tell me how bad that is of a label and I’m going through that period where you’re slightly confused on this new meaning and usage of a word has been given for you and you don’t know what to do for a week)–from the stopping mid-sentence to laugh, or making comments in between some pieces about going from unknown to known and discussing about his first record and how the idea to limit the production would be so that years later down the road when he was famous those owners could get together with their ‘trendy gang’ and tell them “Oh, I knew him when he was unknown Oho!”. I got the impression that some musicians wouldn’t be so open or let their defenses down when performing for a small audience. I’m not a regular concert-goer so that might also be why. I mean, he made mistakes, played a wrong note once or twice and started over once when he realized “Ok, this just won’t do” when he started a piece in the wrong key and laughed with the audience about it. I really liked that.

* He took the word dénudé and put it in a literal sense…though it does mean to disrobe, he was just saying that he was presenting himself for everyone to see–ok, no, you had to be there for it to make sense.

(I used to be in a band/symphonic orchestra for 6 years; I know how sucky it can be to start in the wrong key while singing or playing a piece. Everything just becomes extremely skewed and while sometimes you can play through it or try and sneakily change key, sometimes it just becomes too bothersome and you have to restart)

Oh and I was seated just a few metres away from him too; not at the very front, mind, but certainly in the front most area where I could see details of his face and uh…the times when he spat at the mic while singing. (Hahaha……oh, wait.)

Oh and trust me, this concert was supposed to be only an hour long. It just got longer because at the end there was a long ovation, a standing ovation, two more pieces, another standing ovation and finally, one more piece which was Nous n’irons pas which the audience could sing along to…or maybe that was one of the other songs. (And another…forgot which one. Something to do with putting your first in the air is what one of the verses says. EDIT ‘Deux par deux rassemblés’. Aha!)

And an interesting thing to note, much of the audience was made up of 18-40 year olds. In fact, more than a third were over 40. Or perhaps it was where I was sitting? I don’t know, but I thought that that was really interesting–or perhaps it’s those two years of Sociology nagging at me? Oh and there was kid there too and he looked positively delighted to be there. I don’t blame him.

Anyways. I don’t know what else to say. I mean, I’m sure this didn’t sound like a well put together ‘review’. I just had a great time. First time seeing him live too; he needs to do more of these “concerts intimes”, they’re fantastic, and then some. I wish, if I had the money and time, I would go and see the midnight shows later this week. Even though it’ll be the exact same thing, perhaps funnier. I don’t know. I also wish he did re-release his first record, he played two songs from it that I really liked.

To my Anglophone, non-Quebecker, friends, do give this guy a listen–he’s a brilliant composer, pianist and singer. His lyrics are fun, sometimes deep, weird, whacky (I think so.) and sometimes serious. And if you don’t understand a lick of French, give him a listen anyways. (He may be at the Francophonie Zone/Festival/’Expo’ during the Olympics in Vancouver? I might be mistaken there. If I’m not, do check him and many others out too!)

I suppose, in conclusion, I know realize that I should go to his future concerts when he comes back to Montréal again. I’ve been missing out on a lot what with being all cooped up and forced into being in the confinement on the other end of the country that is Calgary, Alberta. I cannot describe how much I wanted to go back to Montréal for the Francopholies to see the Mutantès concert. Had to stop watching the trailer for it because it drove me crazy (Sorry to Calgarians, but really…you have to admit…it kind of is confining. At least for this Easterner it is.)

As for the bakery, (holy change of topic, Batman) I went and bought myself a belated birthday cake at the Première Moisson bakery (raspberry with chocolate mousse. Yum). Don’t feel like eating it yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Excuse me now, I’m going to listen to all my Pierre Lapointe songs while I finish off my assignments for this week.

I couldn’t really think of a good title but right now, what it says is essentially true “ex-Montrealer who has now returned”. Mind, “ex-Montrealer” seems a bit harsh considering that for the 13 years I wasn’t here I always thought of myself as a Montrealer (and I guess Quebecker) first, then adopted city either second, third, fourth or somewhere at the bottom. Anyways, I’m a lot happier here than I ever was while in Calgary (and understandably so.).

I figured this would be a good time to try making a blog again since I actually have reason to actively maintain one. I used to visit Montreal every summer as a kid after we moved–living in Calgary and spending a summer there would drive me insane. It’s interesting that now I have moved back (after a 3 year stint inbetween in Ottawa) how much things have changed–

Le Faubourg on Ste-Catherine is now desolate, empty and abandoned compared to its former self. I know Concordia occupies the uppermost and lowermost (former movie theatre) areas and the recessed area in the food court has been filled in and risen as there is a Dollarama, but it’s not the same. Pretty depressing to go through there on my way to class and remember that this place (an indoor marketplace) used to be so busy 7 days a week and had some unique shops and nice places to go stop for lunch or a snack.

Place Desjardins no longer has the room it did on it’s lower floor to do its Christmas Train activities it did so much in the 80s and 90s;

The Chapters-formerly-known-as-Coles selection among some categories of books seems rather…limited compared to other stores;

The Cumberlands on Queen Mary was replaced by a Jean-Coutu of all things (There’s another one just 2 blocks down!), the Commensal buffet restaurant on Queen Mary and Côte-des-Neiges is gone and the Pharmaprix that was downstairs now occupies the upper level too. (I’m assuming Commensal went under? The downtown one isn’t there either I don’t think)

The old 200yr old (?) Gare Windsor where the company my mum worked for used to occupy finally has tennants after 9 years after we were transferred. And, since the Bell Centre sort of came in and built itself in front of the former STM/AMT station, they ripped out the old rails. At least the building’s mezzanine and former trainyards are being put to use again for events and such.

Oh and an Ethiopian restaurant we went to near where we lived in NDG closed and something whose name would better suit a sex shop has occupied its space;

etc. etc.

See? I have reason to post!