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Hey, sorry about taking so long to respond to this comment.
I lived in Rowell hall freshman year. Back then it was Rowdy Rowell on the decline, a total dump, but totally lovable. The summer after we moved out it was totally remodeled, and is now this fabulously beautiful dorm that is like a swanky hotel. Overall, you can't go wrong, all the dorms are nice, it's the people who make the experience. So make sure to take the time to be honest on the housing placement form, it really does work! I still live with my roommate from freshman year off campus, and we were matched up using this system. Good luck!
I've had a blast watching this new condo being built on my walk to school everyday. In the course of 10 or so weeks, it has risen from two concrete floors to seven! Pretty remarkable rate of growth I should say.
Oh how the world turns!
Aside, from that, there's not much else to report on. I've been cooped up working on final projects for the past two weeks at the academic center. Not a bad place to be stuck, but not a very interesting one. I'll save the details of my journalism ethics paper--nobody deserves to have to be a victim of eye melting dryness.
Good luck with the rest of the semester world!
http://www.rumboalsur2010.com/
If you follow the link above, you will find the giant movement of people flowing from Alaska to the southernmost point of Chile in 2010.
Credit and love to my buddy Adrian who brought this to my attention.
If you have seen and thoroughly enjoy the Showtime show called "Californication" starring David Duchovny, than that is exactly what life is like for Professional Writing majors at Champlain. That, plus snow.
If you find the show chauvinistic, carnal, crude, and any number of other colorful vocabulary to describe distaste for a matter, than "Californicaiton" does not at all reflect the life of Professional Writing majors at Champlain.
Thank you,
Your President,
Your Senator,
Your Congress Person,
Your Mail Carrier.
Dr. Suess is the man. I just thought everyone in internetoramalamdingdongland should know that.
I had a great cultural exchange today. I was nigh on twelve steps out of the fresh snow packed entrance of the residence when a man holding a sign asked me something in French. To which I could only respond as Jack Johnson would have
(c'mon, everyone knows that song):
"Je ne se pas francoise." (I don't know french.)
The man just looked me up and down for a moment like the English he was searching for was written somewhere between my forehead and my shoes.
"Uh...fire?" The cigarillo flapped in the corner of his mouth as he forced unfamiliar contortions of the face. I handed him a book of matches I had in my pocket. I then couldn't help but notice that he was the straggler of a small band of protesters getting ready to set up shop on the opposite entrance of my residence hall! I made my own unfamiliar facial contortions and sloppily forced out whatever was printed on the sign in French.
"What does this mean... on your sign?"
The man paused. Again he made the searching motions from the snow melting off my boots to the frame of the blue hood outlining my face.
He contorted, "Uhh... UQAM correspondence and money."
I retorted, "The University's correspondence classes are too much money?"
He nodded and smiled. I nodded and smiled along. We both knew that our capacities for each others' respective languages had been met. I wanted to dig deeper, but I already know that college is around $3,000 a year, so how much could "correspondence" college be? I wasn't in the mood to have reverse sticker shock ruin my day anyway. As I began to walk away, I tapped his shoulder in a friendly way saying,
"Se sa! Merci." (I understand, thank you.)
Alright. Confession time. I love opera.
That's it, so I said it! I do, I love opera. I may not be a super-buff, I can't sing along with an aria like I can rock with George Harrison, but you get the point.
So the other day when Wes, the program director up here in Montreal, invited Brooke, Kellie, and I to a Metro station to listen to live Opera, I did a double take, then accepted.
It was amazing, the singers from Opera du Montreal performed works from "The Barber Of Seville," and "La Traviata" to name a few. Commuters stopped in their tracks at the spectacle, police officers at the adjacent security booth left their stations... truly a magical moment.
A high-school sophomore just asked in the comment section if Champlain is a good school for writing.
I'd like to answer this question as well as I can. In terms of a general writing major, Champlain's program exposes you to just about every aspect of writing, from full-on creative works--the kind of stuff that you need to reach beyond the depths of your soul to write--to full-on hard news journalism. The professors I've had have been creative and challenging, and the overall curriculum had helped contribute to "world citizen" sense of self.
We don't have a B.F.A--yet, but I can't say that my time in the writing program has been absent of lovely, and creative work. On that same note, my time here hasn't been devoid of extremely helpful classes and advice from professors on how to really live out "the writing life." And I'm not talking about "hey, kid, get a job at Starbucks, you're a writer," I'm talking about lessons in how to take work you believe in to publishers, look them in the eye (virtually or not) and get your work out there.
The professional writing major has put me in the pilot's seat of my life as a writer, now it's up to me to fire up the engines, grab the controls, and let ambition be my map.
Comedy OFF the Main takes place every Wednesday night in the most bar in all of
Montreal. By bar, I mean room. No more the size of the average college classroom, not
lecture hall—classroom, the modestly appointed bar has 1. a bar 2. two kinds of drinks:
cheap local bottles of beer, and rum 3. a flat-screen t.v tuned into the 24 hour Canadian
game show network 3. a touch screen juke-box no one uses 4. some tables and chairs.
At 8:30 pm, or 20h 30, depending on your lingual persuasion—English or French, the
MC takes over the small floor space in front of the door, asks everyone for five bucks,
and someone in the back hits the lights, dimming the beige room to only a single spot on
the mic. The “audience" hems and haws, a few people hack, feet squeak against the gray
tiled floors, wet from melted snow, and the MC gets to know the room.
“You, in the back. What's your name?"
“So and so."
“Hi So and so. Witty remark, (a few people chuckle) Where are you from?"
“Alberta."
“What do you do?"
“Go to school."
“Witty remark, really? How many people here are in university?"
(the crowd moans, a few raise hand begrudgingly.
The cycle repeats itself until the crowd is “warmed up." An act comes on, sips a
beer, gives a schtic, gets laughs. And so it goes. The MC takes drink orders from around
the room while other comedians do their bits.
The door is opening and closing all night as people go out front for a smoke and
come back. People shed layers and put them back on, the heater keeps cycling on and
off between moments of absolute hell-fury and post-apocalyptic, frozen absence. Too
many people for such a small bar. All the windows are heavy with the visible humidity. It
smells like people, not b.o per say—it is a night out after all, most everyone has
showered presumable within the last few hours—it just smells like people.
“O.K. Well it seems as though holocaust jokes have been the theme tonight. Let's
bring up our second to last act for tonight. One of the founders of this room, she's been
working the clubs around Montreal, and was prominently featured last season on NBC's
'Last Comic Standing.' Give it up for DeAnne Smith!"
I don't know if any of you guys have every watched "Last Comic Standing," which is a great show, and if you did, see DeAnne, but she is hilarious. My words don't do her presence justice, try You Tubbing her, it's worth the ten seconds it'll take.
Alright, so I had all but promised myself to make this posting about how much I hate Montreal, that it's because I hate big cities, blah, blah, blah.
But instead of being able to sincerely write that I am displeased with being here, I decided to go for a walk...
My first stop on my walk was going up St. Laurent street, home of some funky hang-outs and the Portuguese Quarter. Whilst there, I found a small boutique that sold what looked like ex-communist bloc army surplus supplies. After that, I needed a cup of coffee, so I hung a right down Rue du Rachel, and not even one block down, a row of windows began to advertise caffeinated beverages. I decided to go in. It ended up being not the funky coffee house I expected at all, but indeed, another dark pool-table bar with an espresso machine.
I ordered a coffee. "No coffee, espresso."
"Okay," I said, thinking to myself, "duh, I did the Italy thing already, I like espresso just fine."
All I have to say about that is, best-cup-of-espresso I've had back in North America.
So I kept walking, and decided not to stop again unless it has something to do with a personal passion. I have many personal passions, so this could have been a very busy walk, but I soon came upon a very "Busy World of Richard Scary" bicycle shop. The only sign advertising that it was a bike shop was a green and yellow giant fiberglass pair of handlebars with a working headlight. Totally sweet.
Inside, I met the lone person in the store, the on call mechanic, and began to have a conversation at length about all things bikes these days--fixed gears and bike theft. I soon noticed that his English was beyond impeccable, it was indeed regional. I asked him if he was from Montreal originally, to which he replied, "Tronno."
Which I understood to be his regional diction for "Toronto."
One block later, I saw the only sign in all of the city practically that had exclusively English written on it. Amazed, I moved in for closer examination, "Comedy OFF the Main. Wednesdays, 8:30, Beer $2.50"
Well this had to be an English stand-up gig, and even if not, there should be some interesting characters there; anyway, $2.50 beers? Why not?
On my walk back, I stopped at a Portuguese bakery and asked for the house specialty, which was a very charming little tort thing with an egg-creme filling--very good.
Back at the UQAM dorms, I settled in for the moment, unsure, but excited for what awaited me "OFF the Main" around 8:30.
Alright. So I'm from Jersey, what am I doing 'Jersying up Vermont?!
Well, let's go back to my thought process way back in 2004...
"Hmm, got to go to college. Let's see here, oh look a big college book!"
"Alright, uhhh, I like snowboarding, a lot, therefore I need to look at colleges in snowy places."
"Ooo, look at that, Vermont eh? I think I have a cousin there. Maybe I could visit a few small colleges up there and crash at his joint."
That very spring break, I took my first road trip. Five hours later, I was in Richmond, VT visiting my long-lost cousin. I hadn't seen him for years, and I had forgot how much of a gas he was! That week we hit the slopes and looked at Champlain and Johnson State.
I ultimately chose Champlain for its location in downtown Burlington, an area of Vermont with an actual population. Don't forget I'm a Jersey boy, whether I like it or not, not Grizzly Adams. Although there can be days when I wish I could just go live in the woods...
Questions? Comments? Concerns?
Shout me a holla if you want more specifics...
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