Antonin turning 21

Last Thursday Antonin had his 21st birthday and neither Lydie nor Aurélie wanted to let that happy event pass without at least having a nice meal and a good glass of (non-Canadian) wine. We arranged to meet up in Little Italy, in the far west of Toronto and as Linas and I live in the far east of the city it took us a 45 minutes' walk through very wintery weather conditions: -3° according to some, 1° according to others; either way it felt cold! I am actually starting to worry about the state of affairs in winter... Anyway, we found a cosy little Italian restaurant and had a good meal with a nice glass (or some nice glasses) of wine. As ever, the atmosphere was good. Somehow, conversations never seem to stop in our little group and we also somehow laugh a lot thanks to some amusing characters among us. After dinner we went to a bar and had a drink, didn't stay too long because everyone except me seems to be troubled with midterms coming up. Linas and I took the streetcar home, endlessly prefering to be a bit lazy to walking all the way back in the cold night! End of a fun evening.

Earlier that day I received my grade for my Swift paper, the one I had worked quite hard on . When I saw my mark (B+) I was not really sure how to feel because I simply didn't know how letter grades translate to percentage grades. B+ turns out to be the equivalent of 78%, which, to me, is a very satisfactory result! I never expected to get more than 70% for a paper, because it is not easy to score higher than that on written assignments, in Leuven. I am starting to like U of T more every day! I also liked the comment Prof. de Quehen wrote next to the B+: A solid piece of writing, Anouk! I am actually relieved that I got a reasonable mark for my first paper, because I worked hard on it and put all my energy in it. The Canadian Literature major paper doesn't seem impossible anymore, although standards appear to be higher for that course... Oh dear!

Apart from that, nothing exciting has happened. Each and every student is preparing for midterms or working on papers or reading lists. I myself have just started Gulliver's Travels and I am working on my Can. Lit paper on two Canadian books about the problems that exist between English and French-speaking Canadians. Some elements look very familiar and sometimes it almost feels as if I am reading a story about Brussels instead of Montréal! I have an appointment with Prof. O'Connor on Monday, so I better get prepared for that!

Oh yes, a quite amusing thing is that I have had several Canadians coming up to me saying how much they like my name! The funniest two instances were a girl in my Swift class (You have my favourite name e-ver! My first daughter is definitely going to be called Anouk!) and Prof. O'Connor (I absolutely love your name! I somehow always picture Anouk Aimée, one of my favourite actresses. Do you know her?) - of course I do. She plays Napoléon's mother in the series. Quite an elegant lady, so I decided to take that as a compliment!