“Is Our Other Teacher Coming Back?”

I’m not really going to talk about my experience in this post, so I’m not putting this post on private and I’m writing in English.

Yeah, a kid asked me that randomly today. That was pretty funny, actually.

I don’t feel like writing stuff about my experience at all. This weekend I just forgot to do it (and I didn’t really have time anyway) and today I just don’t feel like it and I’m very tired.

Oh, last night I had dinner with a few friends from university who are also doing their field experience, so we talked A LOT. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel like talking about it again, because I did it too much in the last 24 hours. Because today I had my first supervision with my teacher from uni and I got comments and talked… kind of sick of it at the moment.

I think I’ll go take a short nap before dinner. Needed.

Protégé : Journal de stage 2 – épisode 1

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Journaux de stage, again

I finally started my field experience yesterday. No more observations. Yayy!

This also means that my blog will turn into a diary where I recount my experiences so that I can look back at it at the end when I have to write my report. These posts will be hidden under a password, obviously, because I’ll talk about my students and, tech-savvy as they are, they could easily find this blog and read everything. I’m also most likely going to write these in French, because it’ll be easier to write my report if my thoughts are already in French than having to switch.

If you want the password, just ask.

Also, I don’t think I’ll write a post for every day like I did for the last one. I’m only teaching one or two periods a day, and that’s for 25 days. I’ll probably write every two or three days.

Yule Ball

Yesterday, my boss asked me if I was interested to work for the winter camp, which takes place from December 21st to January 2nd or something, except for Christmas day and New Year. As much as I need the money, especially since I wouldn’t be working at all during this time, I’m not sure I want to work during the holidays.

And I just found out that the Fifth Annual Yule Ball, which I’d really like to attend since last year’s was SO awesome, is going to be on December 20th, the day before the first day of the camp. Which means that if I decide to work for the camp, I can’t go to Boston for the show. And one of the reasons why I wanted to work was to get money to go to that Yule Ball.

So I’m torn between what’s good for my wallet, or what’s good for myself. And what’s good for my wallet is also good for myself, that’s what’s hard about it.

Last Exam!

I’m leaving in a few minutes to take my last exam of the semester. Because I’m a procrastinator and one of my teachers extended the deadline for a paper, I’ll still have that to do after tonight, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Hopefully, because the exam in that class didn’t go too well yesterday.

This semester, the last exam also means that I’m going to start my field experience fairly soon. I’m going to the Centre des Sciences de Montréal tomorrow – it’ll be my first time meeting with the students. Then Friday, and a few other days next week, I’m going to the school to observe them and plan what I’m going to do with them. I’m pretty nervous.

And field experience means that I’m going to be living at my mum’s again, at least during the week. I’ll miss my own bed.

I’m leaving now. Wish me luck!

Good Day, Average Night

Today started and I didn’t even notice it, too absorbed doing the presentation of a big paper done in team. I went to sleep at 3:30, which isn’t so good, but I didn’t have any class this morning so I could sleep in a bit. I was meeting a teammate at 12:30 and we went to get it binded and handed it in. Then I had a class at 2:00, but since it was the last class of the semester, it was mostly to answer our questions. It ended at 3:00, so my uni friends and I stayed a bit to chat. It was cool. End-of-term sillyness and fun (and one of my friends started to make Triforces out of torn agenda corners and a Zelda fangirl moment ensued). Then I went to watch hockey at my mum’s and the Canadiens won 5-1.

I’d decided to come back to sleep at my appartment even if it was kind of late (was tired because of the short night), for many reasons that would be too boring to enumerate here. So I took the 10:08 bus. It arrived a few minutes late at the stop – I was afraid I had missed it. There was a lot of traffic on the bridge (I think only one lane was open or something), so I arrived at the station 10 minutes later than planned. Then I walk to the metro – it’s down. Half the orange line isn’t working. How am I supposed to get home at this hour?? A security agent (I think?) gave me some basic directions to walk to the green line. I started to follow them, but very quickly outside I knew I would get lost, and I didn’t want to be lost, alone, downtown Montreal, at 11:30. I went back to the bus station and called home, but my cellphone battery didn’t have enough life. I used the old way – public phone. I thought nobody would be asleep yet – turns out they were, but my brother picked up anyways. He Googled the directions for me. Now, my brother is very, very bad at giving any kind of explanation. I was getting angry at him when we were younger and he was trying to explain a math problem to me. Imagine how good it can be over the phone, when I can’t walk along with his directions (being stuck at the public phone booth), and he’s half-asleep. I think I made him repeat five times. Then I went outside again, and saw that I kind of recognised the place. I didn’t follow my brother’s directions because I wasn’t sure I could walk on a street he’d told me to take, and I was sure I’d already taken another path that was way more welcoming. I ended up finding the other street I was supposed to take after the other one, so I continued from there. I walked. Some places were familiar (Peel Pub!!), but I never pay attention to the directions when I’m with people who know where they’re going, so I had no idea if I was close to the station or not. Then I came across the Cinéma Banque Scotia, where there’s always the midnight showing of the HP movies. I knew how to get to the station from the underground there! I tried some doors by the cinema to the underground and they were locked. Then I went in the cinema, since I knew it would still be open at this hour, to ask for directions. After that, I finally managed to find the station (thanks, cinema guy!). After the ride, there was still the 10-minutes walk to the appartment that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. I think the neighbourhood is relatively safe, but I’m still very new to this living-in-the-city thing. I was not feeling safe. I tried to make as little noise as possible to be unnoticed. Fall being fall, there were obvisouly a lot of very noise-making leaves on the sidewalk. I was afraid the weird guy from the other day would be there and talk to me again. I think I saw someone sitting in the stairs close to the KFC, but I didn’t want to stare, that may just be my imagination. I also imagined that an electricity post was a person…

I finally arrived here safely. Germain was awake, lights were still on. It was midnight. Not that late, after all. Everything is so much worse when you’re on your own.

Matt Lewis Likes Hockey!

A follow-up of this article from a looong time ago (BEDA!). The title was “Matt Lewis Watched Heroes!!” and I was talking about Twitter and its power over the fans, etc.

So I was checking Twitter and I saw this :

Mattdavelewis Tonight I shall be attending the Boston Bruins vs. Nashville Predators NHL game. I support Lowell Devils so haven’t picked a team yet.
about 4 hours ago from web

Mattdavelewis I kinda follow LA Kings too since I saw them smash the Blackhawks in January. But the Devils were the first team I ever saw so it’s them.
about 5 hours ago from web

Mattdavelewis I was in Calgary during the playoffs a few months ago. I think they got beat. Badly. And yes I mean Minor League Lowell Devils!
about 4 hours ago from web

Mattdavelewis It’s gotta be the Bruins! http://yfrog.com/5mekaj
5 minutes ago from Tweetie

…..I got super excited that he was talking about the NHL, but then he picked the Bruins. Evil, Matt Lewis, evil.

This Early Is Still Late

I was so much into a not-going-to-finish-this-paper-until-2-am mind that, when I finished it a few minutes ago, I was all happy, thinking I still had a few hours to myself (because I was obviously not going to start working on anything else tonight). It’s 11. I should probably be happy to get to sleep “early”, but it’s still a disappointment that I can’t do other stuff, because this early is still late.

I don’t even know what I would have done with those few hours.

Rejected

Anyone knows how Facebook works for accepting friend requests? Does the ”Add as friend” friend come back after some time if the person hasn’t replied, or does the person have to ignore the request for it to appear again?

I tried to add someone (you might guess who it is) a few weeks ago, and whenever I went to check his profile (which is private, by the way, *sigh*), it said “Awaiting reply” or something like that. I just went to look and the “Add as friend” is available again, like I’d never tried to add him. Either he rejected me, or Facebook gives me the right to request again because it’s been a long time. I honestly think it’s not Facebook, but I can’t see how he would still ignore me on purpose. Like, in public, you can ignore someone by pretending you didn’t see them, but to ignore someone on Facebook, you have to click a button that says “Ignore”. It’s not as easy. He chose not to ignore the “Ignore” button.

On a totally unrelated note (well, it’s related to Facebook, but other than that…), there’s something that’s kind of awkward. There’s a girl from uni that added me as a friend. I’ve never spoken to her (maybe a “hi!” or two, but no conversation). I accepted her request because I know who she is and she seems nice, but I still don’t talk to her at school. This week-end she posted some pictures and they’d been taken in the city where my mum was born, so I had to comment on them.

Is it weird that I don’t find it awkward to meet someone IRL when I’ve met them online before, but it’s awkward to talk to someone online when you’ve only met them IRL? You know we, Internet people, see the web differently than those who only use it casually. When you meet someone IRL and they ask for your e-mail address or add you on Facebook, do you write to them the same way you would write to someone you’ve met online? I’m always shy when I use the first “lol” on a web convo with someone I know IRL. They’ll probably know what it means (hopefully), but what does “lol” mean to them? I mean, for some people, “lol” is a real geek word and they might stereotype my as a real geek. I’m not ashamed of being a geek, but I don’t want to be stereotyped. Also, I use “lol” sort-of as punctuation sometimes, a bad habit I got back when I was a pre-teen. Will they think I’m really laughing out loud (maybe at them?) or do they use it the same way as I do? What I mean by all of this is that, when you speak online to someone you’ve met IRL, you never know if they, too, are an “Internet person”. It’s also like that when you meet someone who says they’re a Harry Potter fan. Most of the time, I get excited for nothing because they just like HP. They’re still Muggles.

(I’m not sure any of that made sense, but I really have to get some work done so I can’t re-read. Sorry.)

That Was Supposed to Be Posted on Twitter

When it happened, I was walking and I didn’t want to text as I was walking, and then I was on the metro where I have no reception. And then I forgot. Now it’s a bit too late, because Twitter is supposed to be “What-I’m-doing-RIGHT-NOW”, so I’m posting it here instead.

So yeah, last night I was walking on the street to the metro, it was dark but only 7:00 or 7:30. A random guy, on the other side of the street, starts asking me, in English, if I have a cigarette. I say no, of course, because I don’t smoke and even if I did, I’m not sure I’d have given one to a stranger like this. By the time I’d answered, he’d crossed the street, so I walked right past him, and after a few seconds, he says, behind my back: “Why don’t you talk to me? You never talk to me…” I stopped, a bit panicking because it was dark, I was alone and I had a lot of money on me (what I never do, by the way). When he finished his speech saying how I was never talking to him (wtf, I don’t talk to you because I don’t know you! I don’t even remember seeing you anywhere before!), I looked at him in puzzlement, and all I thought of saying was: “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English.” HA. He continued, even with a few words of French that I could hardly understand, by saying that nobody liked him and he didn’t have any friends… I repeated again that I didn’t understand. I started moving again, not turning around until I was sure he wasn’t going to follow me, and then a lady that was passing by asked me (in French) if I was okay. I said that I was, and then the guy left. So I walked towards the metro again, not daring to look back to see where he’d gone.

Sometimes I’m really glad to live in a bilingual city and to speak both languages.

That was a bit sad, though.  He was not all there, for sure, and didn’t have anyone to talk to. He must be really lonely.