Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend
A chaotic week finally ends! There were just too many assignments, papers, presentations and exercises to go through! It felt good to walk home on Friday after class knowing that a long and relatively stressless weekend was awaiting me. On Monday I had a Medieval French exercise to hand in (which virtually takes you all Sunday to make!), on Tuesday I had a very stressful in-class essay on a book by a Canadian author. Standards are high in that class and to quote our professor's guidelines for the essay:
" I shall be grading your performance, not your potential, in this assignment. It is entirly your responsibility to ensure that they are one and the same. Please do so, thereby giving me the delightful prospect of doling out high grades with profligate abandon"
An intimidating piece of encouragement, if you're asking me. On Wednesday, I spent most of my time editing and re-editing my Swift-paper, which I had to hand in on Thursday. Thursday afternoon I had another in-class essay on Moi, Tituba, sorcière... one of the African Literature class books. I don't see why professors want to test how well you can do in artificial circumstances, writing as much as you can in one hour at a deadly pace , making sure that not only the contents is acceptable, but that the language and style exceed that of an average Anglophone. I can assure you that after that one hour, you are completely empty and worn out. On Friday I had to hand in a library assignment for '18th Century Women Writing', which was a totally useless exercise. One part of the assignment made you go into Robarts library - a maze in itself- and look at microfilms till your eyes blur. The good thing about it was that the professor also made us go to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library to look at some genuine 18th Century books. Quite intriguing to hold a copy of the first edition of Anne Finch's poetry in your hands! And then, it was Friday, 4pm and I felt freed of a burden! I was looking forward to the ISC Thanksgiving dinner and to a long weekend (no classes on Monday) of studying and fun.
The Dinner turned out to be great, the food as well as the company. We had everything that is supposed to be there when you celebrate Thanksgiving in North America: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, 'yams', huge potatoes with sour cream and pumpkin, apple or cranberry pie as a dessert. It was great to actually taste what you see in so many films! Nice table decorations, people in a cheerful mood and a bit dressed up, it somehow reminded me of Christmas... After the meal we went to 'Crocodile Rock' (slogan: 'Having a crocking good time'), a club in downtown Toronto, with the European lot. At the entrance, the female part of the group got a pleasant surprise: ladies night, no cover :) The man at the entrance set the mood welcoming me with 'come on in, sweetheart, no paying for you tonight'. We had fun talking and have some drinks. The Canadian beer, by the way, is not a high-flyer, especially when you've got the Belgian examples to compare with. I also get to work on my French quite a lot, as the French part of the group doesn't really mind switching back to their mother tongue ;). It was quite late when I got home, but the amount of fun made up big for the loss of sleep! As soon as Aurélie sends me her pictures I will post them here and on my MSN-space.
Today, I have been reading, writing and keeping up with my correspondence. Laundry this morning and a walk to Hart House Library in the afternoon to have a change in environment. No particular plans for tomorrow or Monday so far, but it appears to be that plans are made up 'as you go' here, which adds to the fun-level I guess!
I have been in Toronto for a month now and I just cannot believe how fast this has gone! A quarter of my precious time here is already over... With school, friends and daily toil, days just seem to pass like hours! I am really enjoying every minute of this unique experience and so far the positive aspects far outnumber the negative ones! It is so different from Leuven and Europe and yet all of us seem to thoroughly enjoy it. Toronto is a great city for people dropping by for a short period in their lives. The city is alive with young and dynamic people, everybody trying to find their own way here. Eventhough you encounter hundreds and hundreds of nationalities, Toronto makes you feel at home in between the mix of colours and the bustling activity typical of a young city. It's great, you should come and see for yourselves!
" I shall be grading your performance, not your potential, in this assignment. It is entirly your responsibility to ensure that they are one and the same. Please do so, thereby giving me the delightful prospect of doling out high grades with profligate abandon"
An intimidating piece of encouragement, if you're asking me. On Wednesday, I spent most of my time editing and re-editing my Swift-paper, which I had to hand in on Thursday. Thursday afternoon I had another in-class essay on Moi, Tituba, sorcière... one of the African Literature class books. I don't see why professors want to test how well you can do in artificial circumstances, writing as much as you can in one hour at a deadly pace , making sure that not only the contents is acceptable, but that the language and style exceed that of an average Anglophone. I can assure you that after that one hour, you are completely empty and worn out. On Friday I had to hand in a library assignment for '18th Century Women Writing', which was a totally useless exercise. One part of the assignment made you go into Robarts library - a maze in itself- and look at microfilms till your eyes blur. The good thing about it was that the professor also made us go to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library to look at some genuine 18th Century books. Quite intriguing to hold a copy of the first edition of Anne Finch's poetry in your hands! And then, it was Friday, 4pm and I felt freed of a burden! I was looking forward to the ISC Thanksgiving dinner and to a long weekend (no classes on Monday) of studying and fun.
The Dinner turned out to be great, the food as well as the company. We had everything that is supposed to be there when you celebrate Thanksgiving in North America: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, 'yams', huge potatoes with sour cream and pumpkin, apple or cranberry pie as a dessert. It was great to actually taste what you see in so many films! Nice table decorations, people in a cheerful mood and a bit dressed up, it somehow reminded me of Christmas... After the meal we went to 'Crocodile Rock' (slogan: 'Having a crocking good time'), a club in downtown Toronto, with the European lot. At the entrance, the female part of the group got a pleasant surprise: ladies night, no cover :) The man at the entrance set the mood welcoming me with 'come on in, sweetheart, no paying for you tonight'. We had fun talking and have some drinks. The Canadian beer, by the way, is not a high-flyer, especially when you've got the Belgian examples to compare with. I also get to work on my French quite a lot, as the French part of the group doesn't really mind switching back to their mother tongue ;). It was quite late when I got home, but the amount of fun made up big for the loss of sleep! As soon as Aurélie sends me her pictures I will post them here and on my MSN-space.
Today, I have been reading, writing and keeping up with my correspondence. Laundry this morning and a walk to Hart House Library in the afternoon to have a change in environment. No particular plans for tomorrow or Monday so far, but it appears to be that plans are made up 'as you go' here, which adds to the fun-level I guess!
I have been in Toronto for a month now and I just cannot believe how fast this has gone! A quarter of my precious time here is already over... With school, friends and daily toil, days just seem to pass like hours! I am really enjoying every minute of this unique experience and so far the positive aspects far outnumber the negative ones! It is so different from Leuven and Europe and yet all of us seem to thoroughly enjoy it. Toronto is a great city for people dropping by for a short period in their lives. The city is alive with young and dynamic people, everybody trying to find their own way here. Eventhough you encounter hundreds and hundreds of nationalities, Toronto makes you feel at home in between the mix of colours and the bustling activity typical of a young city. It's great, you should come and see for yourselves!
posted by Anouk | 4:02 AM
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