Montreal, Baby!

I spent the long Easter weekend in Montreal, which was really nice. On Friday, my friends and I went to a fairly new French bistro called Le St-Urbain. It was really yummy. I had a risotto as I am wont to do in nice restaurants. Some of us also went to the Planetarium before the restaurant, something I hadn't done in years. It's always nice to gaze at the stars. There was a movie about the five great extinctions, which was really interesting.

On Saturday, I spent time with the family. We played Monopoly, and I lost again. I swear, I don't think I've ever won at that game. I also went shopping in the afternoon, and bought a new toaster oven to replace mine that is falling apart. It's all convection ovens out there nowadays. Can't wait to use it!

We went for brunch Sunday at Eggquis, which was really tasty. Then, I spent most of Sunday on the road, driving back to Toronto.

Monday and Tuesday, I was on the road again, in Windsor to go evaluate a patient over there. I stayed at the Hilton, and had a great view on the Michigan River, and Detroit's lakefront silhouette. However, Windsor was cold and rainy.

I'm now back in Toronto and we are having lovely sunny days! I love spring.

While I was in Montreal, I took lovely pictures, which I shall post up soon.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Belated wishes, but nevertheless... I came back from Montreal late last night. My day has been a lovefest with the cat, who won't let me leave her sight and who is purring at the lightest touch. I think she wants to make sure I'll never leave her again.

Life is going okay. I took a few days off of work, but I'm getting back in the saddle tomorrow. I feel a little more rested, but I had so much to do; it didn't feel like too much of a vacation. But as I've said many times, as soon as I graduate, I am going backpacking somewhere far away from here for a while. I have a definite need for escape.

My internship is going well though. I still have a lot to learn, and some parts of it have been though, but I enjoy doing therapy even though I am still trying to find my bearings. It's just a lot of readings and practicing what interactions with clients need to look like. It gets me all anxious, as novelty usually does, but amidst the constructive criticism, I have also gotten some positive feedback on my general performance, which is nice. I have been told though by my supervisors that I have very good clinical skills and that my greatest strengths are being able to work with a variety of clients, being patient, explaining complex things in a palatable fashion, and making remarks in a non-threatening fashion. I must say that last one did make me snicker a bit, since if you were to ask my family, they would say that being diplomatic is not always my strong suit with them.

Speaking of my family, why is it that every time I go home, I feel like I am reverting a little bit to my 15-year-old self? I wasn't overly fond of her in the first place! It's as if I forget that my parents know exactly what buttons to push to get me irked or that there are all these little things I really don't miss about living with them like criticizing what time I go to bed at or what I eat or what my skin looks like. Yes, mom, I have an eczema outbreak on my cheeks; thanks, I hadn't noticed! I know they mean well. I do love them. I just wish I got better at handling it, and that it didn't bug me so much. Although if you ask them, they could tell you that I'm overly sensitive. ;)

Family Love Brain Diva

An Arrested Development reference is always appropriate! I'm going home for 10 days, and I can't wait. I'm happy that I get to spend time with family and friends, and I think the feeling is mutual. However, I just realized that I will be stranded as far as the Internet go. I will have to rely on my parents' crappy dial-up connection. My brother moved out and took with him his fancy computer and high-speed connection. It hasn't happened to me in about 4 years to have to rely on such a stupid connection. It makes me think of one of my techie friends who in 1998, had one of the first high-speed connection in Montreal. At the time, I couldn't understand his disdain for dial-up and he told me he couldn't use one anymore because it was too infuriating. Once you've experienced high speed, it is hard to go back. I guess, it will keep me off the computer for a few days! LOL

It is always weird to go back to suburbia as well. I can't walk anywhere. There is no coffee place around the corner. I have to drive at least 10-15 minutes to get anywhere. Wow, I've become such a city girl.

So Disturbing...

There was a shooting at a school (cegep, which is between high school and university) in downtown Montreal today. I have had shivers up and down my spine all afternoon. It can't help but remind me of the 1989 shooting of 14 women in a Montreal university. I was young then, but it always stayed with me. It was one of the first times I was ever aware incomprehensible acts of hate happened in the world. It is just unbelievably sad. The theme of this week is random acts of hate.

Time Flies By When You're Having Fun...

Or are marking exams. Life has been pretty darn busy recently, which is why I have been so sparse in my presence.

My friend Eve was in TO last week. The weather was total crap but we had a great time. On Saturday, we went to Insomnia for some yummy brunch (I had a lovely mimosa with grapefruit juice and French toast with a citrus batter!), and then went shopping. On Sunday, we went to see Tristram Shandy, and then, vegged with my Office DVD. The rest of the time was spent with my marking and Eve playing videogames! Hee.

This weekend, I came to Montreal for a dentist appointment and to bid my parents farewell. The 'rents are gone to France for 3 weeks. I'm sure they will have a lovely time.

I had a nice time here. Saw lots of friends, ate good food, all that lovely stuff. I don't know if I mentioned this before though, but one of my friends who I have known forever seems to want nothing to do with me anymore. It just saddens me because I don't know why. It started last summer out of the blue. Either she is mad at something that I don't know I've done or she just decided we've moved on. She doesn't return my emails or ever makes the effort to come out with me when I'm in town but then, I've talked to her on her birthday (and today) and she was all: "We should try to meet up." without my prompting it. Talk about mixed messages. Anyway, as much as it saddens me, I'm also fed up to be doing some effort when she doesn't seem to care enough to say if there is something wrong or she doesn't want to see me anymore. So yeah, I guess I'm not going to write or call anymore. 15 years of friendship down the drain. Sad.

In other totally unrelated news, Stephen Colbert was hosting the White House Correspondants' Dinner last night. The man was fearless in his jokes. President Bush was sitting 20 feet from him, and let's just say he didn't exactly spare him or the press corps. Check it out.

Catcalling

I was not aware this was an issue in the US. There is an interesting article about it in Montreal's Mirror.

The Mirror is a free newspaper that I used to read it every week (along with Voir) on the subway & the bus when I lived in Montreal. See, I used to spend an insane amount of time on public transit (on average, 10-15 hours a week) so I needed some distraction. LOL

Yes, I Am Still Alive and Kicking...

Hee. I spent time in Montreal, far, far away from the computer. It was nice to spend time just mucking around with my family. On Friday, I watched the exciting skeleton competition with my dad, and watched crime shows with my mom. We had never realized we both love real crime shows so we spent a few hours on Friday night lounging on the couch. My mom likes to say it's to train for her future as a PI/cop. LOL

I spent Saturday with my friend Eve. We went shopping, which was fun except I got a bit lost driving (Not my fault! The road has been modified recently in a neighbourhood I'm familiar with & the new signs suck badly!) and I broke the necklace I bought ohhh... about 10 seconds after buying it. Yeah, I dropped the shopping bag containing said necklace, and the string of the necklace broke. Anyway, I bought some string, and I was able to fix it. :) Then, we went out for dinner, and went to Eve's with DVDs. It was very cold (like -30 celsius cold) so staying inside (or insane as I first typed it! LOL) was a must.

We rented 2 movies, one in French and then, The Aristocrats. I believe Eve and I are unbelievably twisted because we laughed so much at that latter movie. The Aristocrats is a documentary/retelling by numerous comedians of the filthiest joke ever told. (Trust me, it is pretty much as unspeakable as it gets! Hee.) It's sort of the jazz equivalent of joke telling. The first sentence and the punchline are always the same but the riffing in between is unique to each person who tells it. Bob Saget has by far the most twisted version but my favourite tellings were probably by George Carlin, Steven Wright, Howie Mandel, and Paul Reiser. I know there were other good ones, one by a card magician who used cards to tell the joke. Eric Idle was just riffing and was hilarious. Jon Stewart was there (he was in The Daily Show's makeup chair while being interviewed) but refused to tell the joke! It was cute. Oh, and Eric Idle was funny just because he always is. Anyway, I recommend it only if you have a high tolerance for twisted humour. By the way, you may want to quit 20 minutes into it thinking there possibly be more. Stick with it, it does pick up again!

On Sunday, I did a lot of uninteresting things but then, I went to see my grandma, which is always a nice thing. My grand-maman is going to be 80 this year! Anyway, she gave my mom a big pile of trashy Quebecois star magazines (US Weekly/People-like magazines) to pass along to someone else we know. My brother and I cracked ourselves up so much thumbing through the pile. We love snark.

Monday, I went by my brother's office for some dental treatments. I have spots and bumps on my teeth due to too much fluoride growing up (took care a bit too much of my teeth growing up!) so I've had caps on my front teeth for 15+ years. They were old and needed to be replaced. Anyway, my brother removed them. He did such a good job polishing my teeth to get rid of some of the spots that I may not need new caps. Plus, my brother got me outfitted with this awesome bleaching kit, and if the spots are totally gone after that, no caps! I say wheeeee to that possibility.

Anyway, that is my life in a (long) nutshell! :) I promise not to disappear too much!

Live from Toronto, This is Tuesday Afternoon Live...

Wow. The creativity well is a little bit dry if we consider the title I've given to this post. It's funny for me to have this blog, where I'm basically blabbing on to myself. It's nice though. It's just an outlet I can turn on to blatter on about my non-work thoughts. Considering I spend the bulk of my day doing one of the 4 following things : working on my computer, reading research/teaching material, watching TV when I'm too tired to do anything else(not much of that one) or more work on my computer, I do tend to spend a lot of time alone. Certainly, it depends on the day (sometimes, I spend a lot of time with students or patients) but overall, my work tends to be solitary. Such is the life of the graduate student. The introvert in me likes the time alone working but my extrovert side needs distraction from it every so often, and feels it is communicating with the world somehow. So this is my gift to my extrovert side. Hee.

Friday is St-Jean-Baptiste (for all my non-French-speaking readers, if this blog turns out to have any, it's the celebration of Quebec heritage). Big day! So there are having some French concerts in TO. Paul Piché is the main act. As one of my friends mentioned, what is HE doing out of Québec on the day of St-Jean? No idea! Maybe independentist singers have been exiled under Jean Charest? LOL Anyway, so I'm hoping to go with a fellow grad student friend on Friday night.

Anyway, back to work for me...