beboots

 Today was a lovely day! ... Not the least of which was because I did next to no homework! (I may pay for it in stress later on, but man if it doesn't feel good right now. <3 )

The sun is shining! I feel that spring is on the way. After a long dark winter, the snow seems to be consistently melting. You get these lovely patches of crackly ice on the sidewalks that make a satisfying crunching noise as you walk over them in the morning just after the sun has risen. I've loved doing that ever since I was a child. 

( Last class with my research supervisor. Feeling melancholy, but at least there were cookies. ) 

( Happy news about pretty dresses at Fort Edmonton! )( Job interview for the Quebec program - definitely nailed it! )

("What would you say if I shaved my mustache?")
Quote = the first line of Emmanuel Carrère's trippy novel, "La Moustache". Essentially, it is about an unnamed man who has a wonderful mustache, and who, one day, decides to shave it off, just for a lark. But nobody notices. Not even his wife. At first, he thinks that it's a joke, but then when he confronts his wife about it, she's all like "You never had a mustache!" Then, he has existential problems. It gets worse, because all of his co-workers, even people his wife doesn't know and couldn't have told about the joke say that he's never had a mustache. A few days later, at a restaurant, the man must show his photo ID, and his wife sees and is all like "You know it's illegal to deface your ID." and scraches off the "marker" that was his mustache. He's disturbed, and when he gets home that evening, searches for the photographs from his vacation in Java, feeling the need to save further irrefutable proof that he once had a mustache, but can't find them. Then his wife's all like "We've never been to Java" and the ex-mustache man is all like D: . Pretty much he starts going insane, and thinks that his wife's out to get him, or maybe that she's insane, not him, or both, and ends up running away to Hong Kong after she claims that his father has been dead for a year when he knew that they were supposed to have supper like, that week. It ends with him killing himself with his razor.

Um. Yeah. That's what I read over reading week. I promise you that I absolutely positively did NOT make that story up. Someone actually writes stuff like this. ;)


Fleur De Lis In A Blue Sky by ~Beboots on deviantART

Anyway, other than that, my Reading Week went well! :D I went to Quebec City and Montreal with my friend Maialen. It was awesome. :) We arrived in Quebec City the last day of the Winter Festival, so we witnessed the closing ceremonies. There were also uber-awesome ice sculptures scattered all across the city, so you could be walking along, thinking on how beautiful and quaint the street is, then turn a corner and see two giant ice fish kissing each other. I am not making this up.

Oh, and if you're staying in Quebec City, don't go to La Belle Planète backpackers hostel. It is... a little bit scary. Mostly because of Skee-pee - the scary dog belonging to the hostel owner. The place is really just a renovated appartment... which kind of looks like it's under renovations, even when it isn't. Skee-pee also goes nutso if you try to pet it, frequently jumps on the bed - even, or maybe even especially, if there's someone sleeping there. It also bites. Just so you know.

We stayed in Montreal-Alexendrie hostel, which was AWESOME, in Montreal. It's really close to both the Metro station and the bus station, so if you want to bus in from Quebec City like us, or bus to the airport, it works out really well. Plus, compared to La Belle Planète, it was so much nicer and more professional and more awesome all around. :)

The Festival of Lights began while we were there - can you say ice slides, camp fires with marshmallows, tire à érable, Quebecois bands and fireworks? :D

For the uninitiated, tire à érable = a delicious French Canadian treat involving dripping really hot maple syrup onto crushed ice, and rolling it as it cools into taffy onto a popscicle stick. OMNOMNOM, delicious and patriotic... <3

I think that I shall write more about my trip, later on, when I'm not procrastinating and avoiding doing my homework... ;)