Lulu le loup

I am so shattered right now. Eek. I can't even begin to think what I've been doing with myself these past few days. I know that in between lectures on Thursday I was trying to finish all the work I should have been doing. Perhaps it was Thursday when the whole corridor seemed to be going somewhere and I was unable to go. Darn 7pm class. I was incredibly tired during the class though, eyelids drooping, stifling yawns and all the rest of it to boot. Not the best for goo concentration levels!
Friday has disappeared from my memory. At least up until 6pm it has. Clearly not an interesting day! That evening though, the girls and I had decided to go for a meal. About half 6 the four of us got the bus into town and started sniffing out restaurants. We ended up in Laqueda - the allure of bailey's cheesecake won out over anything else. I really enjoyed the meal. We had a cocktail to go with it. I was so incredibly full by the end, though this is not surprising as I'd chosen the table d'hote. Basically I had 4 course plus a hot drink. Canadian food portions are not small!! I did however eat all of it and was incredibly proud of the resulting food baby :)
We had a bit of a gander before returning to the uni, including a trip to a supermarket and dancing in the rain. Ok that last part was just Hannah and I but phht. We were all so incredibly hyper by the time we got back. We found some of the boys in the games room and promptly invaded. We were being very very loud and playing terrible, terrible pool. Who cares? We were enjoying ourselves! Apparently it was funny to watch us pratting around. Ah what a fun evening!
Yesterday was split into working away like a beaver and an alcohol hunt (I'm not entirely sure where this phrase has come from but it's what came to mind :S ). The latter was much more successful than my first attempt since I actually knew where to find an SAQ. I went with Hannah and Nicole. We must have spent at least half an hour in the shop looking at all the different alcohols and deliberating what to buy. I got so excited upon finding a bottle of maple syrop liquer which had thus far eluded me. That's bottle number 2 put away for my final year! It was a little more expensive than I had thought it would be, serves me right for not checking the price due to my excitement. Oh well! I'm sure it will be worth it!
Last night was a lot of fun. Gaston had been asking when my next birthday would be (I assume he meant the party not my actual birthday) so last night seemed like the obvious choice especially after the afternoon's activities. A few of the quebecois had also opted to play centurion (100 shots of beer done at intervals of 1 minute)
The girls and I kicked things off after dinner in the kitchen with a game of idiot. Hilarity ensued. There were lots of people still around cooking and just hanging in the kitchen who tried to work out the rules and laughed at us getting it completely wrong. The game is oddly simple but designed to make you look like an idiot. I think it worked. After a while everyone shifted downstairs to the lounge area so naturally we followed. What a riot! Turned out to be quite the evening I'll give you that. This time I kept hold of most of my vodka and it wasn't shared round the masses. Somehow I ended up participating in the last 3rd of centurion. Well, someone was offering me free beer, I could hardly say no. Julian was intent on stopping me from drinking until someone called him my guardian, then he gave up. After everybody started drifting to bed, I was the last one to leave the lounge, deciding to try and clear up a bit. This consisted of gathering up all the empty bottles and taking away all the rubbish. I checked this morning too and clearly my idea of tidy last night wasn't quite up to standard as there were bottle caps everywhere!
Oh well. It was a very enjoyable night, although today I am super tired. No-one to blame but myself! I have spent today doing very little, a bit of skype, a bit of tv and the like. There wasn't even any cooking to be done because I still had one of the lasagnes I'd made on Saturday. Yes one of. I made lots.
Definitely time for an early bed now.

Butterscotch and time-wasting (aka socialising)

Just to reiterate, I am fine; Hannah is fine. The only downside was a complete lack of motivation to do any work. This continued into Tuesday where I found many ways to prevent myself from working for long periods of time. I went and collected my post. Katie's birthday present arrived and I immediately donned my new eskimo-esque slippers. Well not immediately but as soon as I was back indoors They keep my toes toasty warm. :D Then I had washing to do and of course the done thing whilst waiting an hour and a half (drying included) is to play the piano. Well, the rooms are adjacent.
Following creating my own methods of procrastination, Garlic (real name Mihai which sounds like half-garlic in French) came in for a chat which turned out to take up like an hour and a half. Had this been in French I wouldn't so much put it down as procastination but sadly, talking almost completely in English can in no way be justified.
After hearing about my lack of concentration, Victoria insisted that we cook and ate in her kitchen which is far quieter and less likely to be full of people with whom to socialise. This was all very well, after our swift dinner I plonked myself on my bed with my reading and got out a tub of ice-cream and s spoon. It wasn't long before a few of the boys popped their heads round the door. Apparently the sight of me in jeggings, eating ice-cream from the tub with the internet open (this was actually for academic purposes) is very very British. It was to their great amusement. I didn't get very far after that, especially as everyone seemed to congregate on the corridor outside my room. I could have shut the door, put in some ear phones and finished the last 6 pages but no, I'm far too sociable and naturally before long found myself on the corridor having a good giggle with everyone else.
Still this did not leave me too far behind. I was all prepared for this morning's class, even being up and awake before Victoria'a wake-up call. The class was mostly revision as we have an exam coming up. I was pretty tired so I planned to have a quick nap, then eat lunch and use the remainder of my lunch break to finish the reading. That quick nap? Yeah, it turned into a four hour sleep. My bad! Despite having not finished the reading the lecture wasn't too bad and we cleared up one of our worries. French has a past tense that is used only in literature. It's recognisable but we don't know how to use it but since the professor keeps talking about writing in uni level French we wondered whether he might mean this. Apparently not. It's barely used here. Score! Don't have to teach myself a tense now.
This evening I have fared a little better with my work. I even opted not to go out as invited but to stay in and do some reading.  Victoria says we're keeping each others social lives in tact. She's reigning me in and I'm dragging her out. She's doing a good job so far, except when I just amble out of my room and waste time doing absolutely nothing. It's quite the talent you know :D

Part 2 (it seems more fitting to call this one hospitals)

Where was I up to??  Oh the icing on the faces I believe. It was probably the most interesting part of the night thought I did have a minor panic after Mihai managed to spill a whole glass of wine over my camera. KNowing my luck, I was terrified to would be broken but luckily it is not. Most people headed up to bed around half 2 or 3 ish but I stayed playing pool with a few of the guys and generally chatting baout all sorts of stuff until the wee hours before ragging myself to bed. This late night meant that I was half asleep thoughout our meeting with a tutor but luckily I didn't need to say very much and Victoria kindly relayed the information to me.
I don't think I did anything of interest on Friday except collect a few more cards from the post box. Oh and listen to the phonecall from the responsable saying that there was too much noise from the night before and could everyone respect others and keep doors closed. Ooopsy! There were lots of tires, potentially hungover people which is all being blamed on me, in a friendky kind of way. I'm glad - it means my birthday was celebtrated!
I think our Saturday class is going to be the easiest. No reading to do, barely any homework - it's all done in class. Score. We followed up this class with a trip to the supermarket where we bought quite the mountain of meat. Who would have though that this former veggie would be buying meat for a month?? I still won't touch the stuff raw so Victoria had to separate it into portions.
After passing the afternoon attempting to work through replying to many birthday wishes and perhaps doing some work we went to Siboire in the evening. With the exception of Marc being a bit of a predator and succeeding in making every girl at the table feel uncomfortable it was an enjoyable evening. Had it ended shortly before the end that would be all I have to say on the matter but no, a hospital trip ensued. Nothing serious but Victoria and I spent the night there and came back in the morning. It was for my wrist, which I was complaining about a lot but due to having been drinking they kept me in overnight. Complete waste of time and money and they didn't even look at my wrist :( They handed Victoria some medication for the pain,  but it looks like a tampon. It also came with lubricating jelly and a rubber glove. They said it was a tablet but I didn't take it, instead relied on my own pharmacy. As a result of a massive lack of sleep, sunday was passed in the laziest way possible with an early night.
I wish I could say that this was all for the hospitals. Alas no. I settled myself into doing plenty of reading when I received a phonecall from my friend saying that she was in hospital and could I come and get her. She had nothing with her, not even clothes or shoes. Panicking I rang up Victoria and we arranged to go to the hospital, got info and directions out of Andrejean and finally found Nicole on the corridor and set off. It took us a long time to find where our friend was being kept, we stopped for directions many many times but finally! found her. We tried asking the hospital staff what had happened but they were reluctant to share details (patient confidentiality and all that jazz) but we also couldn't get Hannah to tell us what happened because she didn't really know. We checked her out and came back to the uni. Panic over.
I know that all this talk of hospitals will probably make some people worry, but DON'T! Everybody is ok, and though dramatic, nothing serious on either occasion.
We made a really late lunch and passed some time in Andrejean's room, who was disappointed in the lack of gossip. I tried to facebook rape him but he noticed to quickly. Darn. I should do some work but I have lost all motivation for today. Boo.

BIRTHDAY!!

I didn't finish my reading. Not even close. I don't think it would have made much difference; how on earth he was talking about volcanoes, tornados and grocery shopping I'll never know - totally irrelevant. I was being a good student and doing my work that evening but I got a knock on my door and an invitation for some drinking games. How could I say no?? Nicole came too and I had to translate all the rules for her. It got rather ridiculous with all the random things thrown in but it was pretty fun, even if we did get a visit from the security guard asking us to quiet down. Oops! Late on in the night Cedric asked if I thought the soul and the body stay attached after transportation (like beam me up scotty). Can't say I have an answer for that one. I think that's what he wanted to know :S

Thursday was my birthday!!! I got up quite late and collected stuff from my post box. I also had a message telling me to ring the florist to receive my flowers. They told me sometime before 4 (oh they're that specific here too) so I had to miss my lecture. They arrived half an hour into it so i guess I could have gone for the second half but well it was my birthday and I was quite happy chilling out in my Bonne Fete rosette. Look at my pretty flowers!! >>>>>> These are from Sally. You can also see the little wolf that Victoria got for me :) For those who didn't know (including my own MOTHER!) this is my favourite animal. I don't know why it just is!
We had to have dinner pretty early because we were meeting Precieux to put the final touches to our presentation. We were a tad late because for the second time somebody stole Victoria's pan. It must be a very desirable pan! It has again been returned though. How bizarre.
The presentation, apart from not having enough time to finish, went quite well. Since classes are 3 hours long we always have a pause, during which Victoria disappeared and came back with a cake and candles! Everybody sang happy birthday to me and I dished out some cake. Made me wish I hadn't eaten the pop tarts as a snack!

As soon as class was over we headed straight back to mine where most people had already gathered on the corridor. We were ushered into the kitchen and before I knew it, the lights were off and a second cake was being brought it - complete with 22 candles stuck in at any angle. I didn't quite manage to blow them all out at once but I tried! I also dished out this cake. I was called for a speech which I didn't realise and asked if anybody didn't yet have cake. It still garnered a cheer as did any thing I said for the next few minutes. Quite the raucous cheer coming from about 12 boys might I add. There were girls present before anyone asks!!

The evening was passed enjoyably with my new friends, playing games, being loud, smearing icing on each other's face and generally just having a great time (in the case of many a little bit more than tipsy - I didn't get the chance since I was sharing all my alcohol perhaps a little too liberally!) So here you go, some icing-y faces! It was all in the name of good fun. Although some of the boys stole all the name tags from a neighbouring corridor. Oh dear.
I would finish off my story but I'm being called on to go out so... TBC

Tailgating the Sherbrooke machine

Friday evening was livened up by many of us sitting outside, most drinking beer and plenty of it. I insisted Victoria stayed and practically forced wine down her throat with the result that she became a lot more chatty! Ah the wonder of alcohol. It started getting a bit cold so I went to put my hoody on. I have never cause such a fuss with a single item of clothing before in my life!! The only hoody I brought was my uni cheer one so it has cheerleading, the uni of sheffield logo and my name emblazoned across it, much to the delight of everyone. I don't even know which bit was most interesting to them, but I ended up twirling round and round so everyone could get a good look (it was easier than being dragged round). It also called for a demonstration of some cheering, not so simple on my own!
We stayed up really rather late which didn't bode well for our Saturday morning class. However, there wasn't an awful lot going on and I managed to concentrate enough even if by the end of it I was tired and hungry and therefore grumpy. I think the grumpiness turned to deleriousness at one point - I was acting even stranger than usual!

I may have had a quick nap but by 3ish we were off to the tailgate party. Uni sports are really rather big here, so in preparation for the american football match, there were bbqs, bars, games, music and all sorts going on. It was also beautifully warm and sunny again and made the whole day rather pleasant. It included Nicole and I belting out the lyrics to "California Gurls" over the top of the strange French version. The game itself was pretty poor (verging on a humiliating loss to Laval) however it was good spirit. Watching Sheffield Sabres was good practice, I actually know the rules and and what's going on. This amused the boys greatly (probably because I understood better than they did and a girl can't do that :O ) but did mean I could explain it to Victoria. Oh yes, there was face paint involved. From left to right this is Julian, Florian (totally off his face by this point, bless him) and Andrejean. Florian wasn't the only one who was drunk, most were to be fair. Oh and you can just about see the t-shirt. It says "I rule the Sherbrooke Machine". Each faculty has a different verb. That one's law. I want one! I think mine would say " I humanize the Sherbrooke machine" but I'm not entirely sure. Watch an ice-hockey match and I'm all done on the sporting/cultural events :D
Recalling the past few days is now causing me some difficulty, for what reason I cannot say. Probably because they have been lost in working, sleeping, wasting time with the guys and probably some ping-pong and pool in there as well. I say probably - definitely, because one of those days Nicole and I made an impressive comeback - we're just that good (or lucky, probably the latter). Our presentation for tomorrow is coming together nicely, we've pretty much pieced it all together now. I just need to check my speech and practise it. Oh and perhaps time it. That would be helpful!
Oh yes, Monday was our late night trip to the supermarket. We'll I did kinda need to top up the food in my fridge and we set off with a few requests. Sadly I couldn't find an alarm clock for Julien (oh yes, different one) and since his is broken I've lent him mine for now. I'm just that nice. That and it doesn't wake me up anymore and I rely on my phones anyway.
Last night we caused a bit of mischief with some chalk, which is what everyone but me used to write their names on the doors. We have 2 Vincents on our floor so I decided to label them L'habillé (the dressed one) and Le demi-habillé (the half-naked one). L'habillé was in fact there when we wrote this so he didn't mind, the other one's reaction when he returned was absolutely classic. Victoria and I also doodled all over Nicole's door. She did want it to be more interesting! Vic. drew a rose which reminded us of Beauty and The Beast. Nicole and I had spent a large amount of time on the corridor previously belting out the words to the Gaston song. I think he might get a bit paranoid about the over use of his name. Anyway this caused us to want to write the lyric "Noone bites like Gaston" on her door but opted to write it in Russian so only the 3 of us knew what it meant (or any other passersby who can read Russian and who happens to spend long enough examining such a decorative door). This use of russian exasperated the boys who went to many lengths to work out what it meant. Failed. With enough clues, eventually Andrejean clocked on. Epic :D
I'm currently procrastinating. I have reading to do before next class in 50 minutes. I won't get it all done now. Bleurgh. This is my fault for a)not buy the reading materials until today and b) for using my 4 hour lunch break to search out alcohol that isn't beer or really expensive wine. On the bright side it was semi successful :D All prepared for birthday celebrations now. Whoopah.

Bisous

So this university malarky doesn't really afford the exciting opportunities to regale hilarious stories. However, I shall try. :)
The temperature has now dropped below 20 degrees and I even had to resort to wearing a cardigan. Oh and also it's been raining. At least there was a spell of beautiful weather to dispell the myths of eternal Winter in Canada!
Mondays and Tuesdays are class free for me so although I probably should have gotten on with some reading of the hugely entertaining books that I have been forced to purchase, well I procrastinated instead. The most exciting thing I did those 2 days was without a doubt going down to the games room with the Frenchies. I should probably explain that when I say Frenchies, I mean from France, not French Canada - they are the quebecois. Oh and they are all  boys. I have spoken to girls, but with the exception of Victoria, I spend my time with the opposite sex. This is probably due to the high proportion of males on my corridor, which they have already complained about a lack of girls. Haha. Although this does seem to mean that they are quite happy wandering around half-naked. I honestly think yesterday was the first time I've seen Vincent with a top on.

Some people seem to have slight problems getting my name right, so I told them that at home I often get called Sho or ShoSho (apparently this sounds Chinese). This has caught on and is even written on my door. It's catching! 
I've also discovered that the piano room that I thought was soundproof is most definitely not, after someone commented on my playing.
Wednesday took us back to our grammar lesson. I spent quite a lot of it in a bit of a daze since we were going through the homework which we already had the autocorrector. Having got most of it right first time (geniuses that we are) it didn't keep my attention very well. The afternoon class (the one with all the books) was interesting when I could follow it. Feeling a little drained, mostly from a bad night's sleep, I opted to make brownies. In the middle of whisking my eggs and sugar, Victoria appeared looking quite upset so I abandoned everything in the kitchen and took her to my room for a chat. Her corridor isn't as sociable as mine and I think the work as well is getting to her. After a while we returned to the kitchen to finish off the brownies. Everyone coming in and out of the kitchen seemed very interested asking if I was making cake. Well the ovens are used mostly for making pasta so actual baking - well - that's just pushing the boat out! Sadly I was a little unprepared and ended up borrowing knives, forks, plates, spatulas, you name it, much to the amusement of the boys who not so subtly hung around the kitchen until they were done. Oh and at the same time we tried to cook dinner. This had to be pizza - minimum effort. I know my brownies weren't the best, but everyone else enjoyed them. I can blame not measuring things out and guessing at cup sizes. They didn't turn out badly I have to admit :)
After all this baking, Victoria and I joined Florian and Julian in going to a free concert by some one I've never heard of and still have no idea who it was, somewhere on campus. In the rain. It was quite fun. I threw some shapes. Even did the macarena. The boys decided that I'm mad. Apparently this was just proof and Julian had had his doubts beforehand. Well, they cottoned on quickly! We came back and there were lots of people hanging out on the corridor so guess what we did next! We ended up in Nicole's room trying to work out why instead of the video from her webcam, Skype seemed intent upon showing a picture of a cat. Most baffling, even for the guy studying some computer related thing.
Thursday should have been a super long day, with 9 hours of classes and a meeting. However, I need to drop a class anyway so I didn't go to the first one and the meeting just didn't happen bgecause everyone seemed to be in different places! Oh dear. Even so, I didn't have much free time yesterdat between classes. It was our first literature class, which I was slightly dreading but I don't think it's going to be so bad after all that :)
Yet again I went down to the games room last night (it's becoming a common past time - by the time I return I'll be a pool pro) I somehow got compared to a James Bond girl, which I am going to take as a compliment. I don't know how that came up either, however I do know why Mihai was singing for me! He was getting rather arrogant about winning at pool for which I said I refused to forgive him until he sang for me The result was a variation of O Sole Mio without lyrics and occasionally "will you pardon me?" thrown in. Cue laughter. Oh they entertain me so!
We had a meeting today with our presentation group (which will be on my birthday of all days!). We've got a plan and have assigned tasks so we can make a good start on that over the weekend. My first birthday card arrived today. I got really excited by it. It's propped up on my shelf waiting to be opened.

I should do some work, buuut I don't want to. Instead I'll include some photos of my campus. Just because.
So it isn't a full tour of the campus but it's a start. I shall now find some other way to occupy myself for a while :)

I'll have a cocktail to celebrate my godfoetus please

Friday, for the most part, was uninteresting. I bought books, skyped and packed. I know delightful! Well I did get very exciting news that my friend is expecting. :D Not only that (which is good enough news) but I'll be godmother again! Victoria laughed as I refered to my god-foetus. Many congratulations to Nina and Tim.
Early evening we got on a bus destined for Montreal. At first it seemed we might miss it, but luck was on our side and by 7pm we were arriving. The hostel, luckily was not far from the bus station. We checked in and headed out for dinner. Mine was accompanied by a cocktail, just for the hell of it. Following dinner we explored a little. Though we hadn't known where we were going, we found ourselves at Place des Arts, where there was an outdoor showing of a Japanese film, which seemed to be a reproduction of Shall We Dance. We moved on after a while and stopped to play in the fountains. It was  a great way to cool down!
Finding our way back to the hostel, we encountered a group of Irish lads sitting in the communal area (right outside our dorm room door). We must have scared them away because they immediately moved into their dorm room. It soon became obvious that they were preparing for a night out as they wandered in and out with beer bottles, toothbrushes and occasionally in a towel on the way to the shower. Victoria and I found it generally hilarious that none of them would look at us until one of them said hello and asked where we came from and then after that it was like they were allowed to talk to us and they all started saying hi. The girls we were sharing our dorm with turned up as did some other men so it was fairly social.
In the morning, the girls dorm all got up reasonably early to get in lots of sightseeing and opened the door to find one of the irish guys sprawled on the sofa and a second across 2 chairs, blocking the door. It took some agility to get past them. By all accounts they had a good night, but neither remembers sleeping in the lounge. Bless.
We went for breakfast and headed for the Old town. I didn't mind going there again. On the way, it started to rain quite heavily so we ducked into a shop which turned out to be a bookshop (perfect for Victoria) and a music shop (perfect for me). As the rain stopped we continued. Not before being distracted by a hotel's souvenir shop where we overheard an exchange between a disgruntled American who had been caught smoking and the man behind the desk who was clearly fed up of her ranting. Highly entertaining, especially when she accused the hotel of forging her signature to pay her room bill. Massive LOL!
Our first stop was the Basilica. Not all of it was open due to a wedding, but it was still worth a second visit. We got caught out by the rain again, though by this time we were heading to the shops and so stayed in the one we had just entered. We ran out of things to look out and ended up playing a game of chess. I won! I was so proud of myself, especially as I didn't realise I'd won until after I moved the last piece. What can I say, I'm no budding chess champion!
We shopped for souvenirs before realising the time and went for lunch. Through a slip of the tongue I found myself ordering milk instead of water and couldn't be bothered to correct myself. Ah well. 
I found a t-shirt that I really, really wanted to buy for Abbie, but I couldn't find it in a size smaller than 6 years. Darn. I will keep up the search though.
Hmm, how else did we spend Saturday? We mooched through Bonsecours Market which houses lots of arty things among other things.

I set about finding a church which was visited by many sailors who prayed for safe travel and hung boats from the ceiling. Sadly there was a service in progress so we couldn't really go in. From there we went to the docks and visited the clock tower. We took shelter from the wind and climbed all the way to the top. Most of it was fine buy the very top stairs were very narrow and seemed a little rickety, it that's possible to say of metal stairs? It afforded a good view of the city despite the clouds. We found a park there and played on the swings before investigating the rock festival going on nearby. However, the wind was picking up and it was getting chilly so we went back to the hostel.
Yet again the Irish boys were getting ready for a night out. I chatted away to a few of them for a while. They tried to convince us to join them out but we declined. Instead we went out for dinner. It took us a while to find somewhere. We opted for starters and pudding. Good choice if you ask me. I got free tea out of it too. Not bad ey!
The hostel was empty when we got back and we settled for bed. A few hours later though I was woken up by people returning. At first it was some guys I hadn't seen before, but I asked if they could talk a little quieter. One of the Irish boys was yet again asleep on the sofa. He must have come back on his own because no-one could have missed the arrival of his friends. They were so loud. Since I was awake I decided I need the loo. Normally I wouldn't share this kinda of detail except I forgot to take the key and found myself locked out of the dorm! I knocked, but got no answer so found myself sitting in the lounge with most of the Irish guys. Slowly they drifted into their dorm room. One was intent on sleeping in a chair, despite my many attempts to get him to go to bed, it wasn't happening. Well I had nothing better to do! Around 8ish i finally managed to get back into the dorm. We had to check out at 10 so I didn't get much sleep overall :(

The aim of the day was Parc Mont-Royal. From there we went to the contemporary art museum which was weird. Contemporary art is hit and miss at best but some of this stuff was just plain weird. There was a video of a man washing windows. What's that about??
We we're going to go to the planetarium but we didn't have time before the bus so we ambled through the old town again in the direction of the bus station. On the way we called in at the music shop again and I happily spent lots of money on sheet music.
I snoozed a little on the bus but before long we were back in Sherbrooke. My mind was mostly on dinner and sleep. There were quite a few people in the kitchen but my brain was too tired to process the French. Food however, slowly re-energised me. I opted to stay and listen, as if I force myself to practise when tired I've got to get better right?
I get the impression that the boys think I like Gaston. I mean I didn't understand the whole thing but I got enough of it and I when I said 'Oi' they looked sufficiently sheepish and so "oh so you understood some of that". I wonder where this idea came from, unless one of them overheard and understood me telling Victoria that I wanted to be his friend because he's called Gaston like out of Beauty and the Beast. Just a throwaway comment, based on a love of Disney rather than anything else, but I guess it could be misconstrued. After dinner, we went down to the games room and started a pairs' pool tournament. I was paired with Andrejean and we successfully won 2 matches. Pure Skills man. I think that placed us third. It was good fun anyway. I somehow managed to keep my eyes open until midnight before retiring to bed.
Understandably I slept for a long time! Today is labour day, so not a lot going on. I've done some washing and some reading and well that sums up my day so far. The weather is no longer glorious sunshine and it saddens me slightly that I have to go back to leggings and trousers. Oh bare legs was so much better!

The myth of French cuisine

Though we started off in the kitchen for the birthday celebrations, it got far too hot as more people wandered in so once again we moved outside. There were lots of people which makes it hard for me to join in conversations so I was happily following the flow and answering things addressed to me. Before long one of the French guys, who so my sister can learn more names is called Julian (one of 2), asked me if I understood what people were saying because I was keeping very quiet. Me, quiet! I know! He's a quiet one himself so he can hardly talk, nor does he have my excuse! Despite protests of an early class I was forced into a can or 2 of beer but I managed to slip away around midnight and hop into bed for my 40 winks.
That didn't stop me oversleeping, though I do blame my phone, aka alarm, for not making noise. It's fine today so was clearly just tempermental. However, I was up and dressed and ready to go in 15 minutes breakfast in hand. Our first class was French grammar, the one for francophones who failed the grammar test. It went right back to basics. It was quite strange, because we know all this grammar ( the 8 classifications of words and basic sentence structure) but some of the other students clearly didn't and asked questions that we knew the answers to. It just highlights how ignorant we get about the grammar of our mother tongue since we never really need to know it, just how to use it.
Over lunch we headed to the cultural centre to register properly and get our student cards. Everyone else looks really grumpy but I asked if I was allowed to smile. Despite my most charming smile it's not the best of photos but I can blame the bouffant, 80's style-perm-gone-wrong hair. Oh well, at least it's only for 4 months!
Later we headed to our culture, literature and society module. Well, weren't we in for a pretty shock! It was the second 3 hour block of french. This requires some concentration I have to say and it was hard to follow everything the lecturer was saying. At one point, we were handed a sign up sheet, for which we duly picked a group and wrote our names but had absolutely no idea what it was for. This module involves lots of reading as well. There are 3 books to read over the semester and lots of other things to read every week, which in most cases you might get away with not reading all of them but with 20% of the module being on the quality of language, which as the only non-francophones in the class Vic. and I can kiss goodbye to, we are left with only a 20% margin to pass. As I said, a little bit of a shock which sent us to get ice-cream. I'm not that stressed about it though, probably because I'm pretty laid back. Maybe the day before either of the exams when I still don't know anything, but I'm an eternal optimist. I can't say the same for Victoria who is rather stressed, a little discouraged and still suffering with her sun burn. Oh dear. She'd barely eaten and after our class today (which finished at 10pm)  she was proposing just pop tarts for dinner. I'll have none of that so I sent her off with a frozen portion of chilli so she didn't have to cook. (I might wish I'd never written that as it's quite a motherly thing to say and the type of thing that will make people tell me I'm bound to want children one day!)
Today was some sort of holiday [already I know!] so that was our only class of the day. I had a fairly lazy day, chilling out in the kitchen with the frenchies. I laughed at their idea of cooking. So far it has included frozen meals, plain pasta with bacon and toast. Today was the oddest, tomatoes, sweetcorn, plain pasta and toast. None of it together, just 4 separate things. And they say the French know how to cook. Lies, I tell you, all lies! Eventually I settled to some academic work, even hitting the library to get out the prescibed reading for next week. I haven't started it yet but there's always tomorrow!
I've just killed an ant. I really hope it was an ant. I will not be happy if it was a spider. Oh and one more wildlife update since I'm at it; there are skunks on campus. I thought I'd seen one on my meanderings last night but wasn't sure. My decision as to it's species was based on a comparison to the skunk in Bambi, which isn't the most legitimate source of knowledge, but I asked about it today and clearly Disney is educational.

Since when was Scotland famed for making beer?

I found out what all that noise was about the other night. Quite a collection of people had gathered on the corridor and we're planning to go for a late night picnic. It's the only way I can describe it really! I joined them with my cup of tea, which was allowed because it was in a Quebec mug. It was nice to sit in the cool night air, enjoying the banter flying around. Since most of the group came from France there was often explaining to each other what a phrase meant which was really helpful for me! Sometimes the conversation went right over my head but it was good to socialise.
Yesterday, oooh what did I do? Oh yes, I went shopping. I needed some international stamps and some aftersun. I also bought sun block which I've appreciated greatly today! I tried to get a sim card but that proved problematic and in the end I just gave up.
In the afternoon there was a welcome event for international students, which we got to quite early. However we did beat the rush since there are far more international students than we realised. The first part was a mixture of a slideshow and videos followed by a few speeches. The former was understandable - even we could spot the humour but the speakers spoke far too fast and they mostly aimed the speeches at african students. Not so useful for us! After this introduction which took well over 1.5 hours they provided us with a meal, comprising of pâte chinois (chinese pasta - nothing chinese about it. It's basically sheperd's/cottage pie with a layer of sweetcorn) and pouding chomeur (poor man's pudding). Whilst queuing up some of the French guys from the late night picnic spotted me and invited me to join them. So we did. We by this point was not just Victoria and myself but Nicole, the american from my corridor, and her friend, Hannah. We ended up right in the middle of their group so we were straight in with the French conversation. I particularly like that one of the guys regularly corrected us when we made mistakes and explained it- most useful indeed! Somehow the topic of beer came up and one guy wanted to know the names of some scottish beers. While I may be able to reel off a fair few beer brands, this doesn't extend to the location of the brewery. Newcastle ale is made in Newcastle is the best I can do in that respect so I text my dad, who came to the rescue.
Last night was so hot that it was difficult to sleep. I chatted to some people briefly on the corridor but tiredness and heat stripped me of any desire to attempt any French. This is coming more naturally now though at least.
Victoria and I made plans to go to Lac Magog this morning but we missed the bus which was entirely my fault. The next one was 3 hours later so there was some pratting around doing not an awful lot! 
                  It only saved up to here and deleted the rest :(  alors, on y va!
We got on a bus soon after midday ish, without a map or an idea of which bus stop we needed. Oh how well prepared we are! Although we recognised the name we definitely got off at the wrong place, because although we were by the lake, we were also in the middle of suburbia, with homes and private land right across the lake side. We started walking, which in the midday heat was incredibly hot. I was practically melting and my face gradually turned a plum shade of red. Nice. However, I was well equipped with my sun cream which I did offer to share but it was declined. With her bright pink shoulders I bet Vicky's wishing she put some on now! After walking quite far, we stopped, trespassed and rested under the shade of some trees. Eventually we asked a nice couple to point us in the right direction. They were very helpful and even offered to drive us to the beach if we would wait a while. We declined the offer on the grounds that we wouldn't know how to get back! They sent us on our way instead with a hand-drawn map indicating a park and a bus stop. We found the park, which included 2 jetties so we had a bit of a swing before paddling in the lake. It was so refreshing! Possibly because I soaked all but my torso, I was much cooler for it. I tried skimming stones, but clearly it is not one of my many talents.
The fish crowding round my toes and the spider spinning a web from Victoria's toe clearly entertained us far too much and we easily passed a large amount of time there. It made the whole adventure worth it. After we dried ourselves off a bit and replaced our shoes we headed for the bus stop. Bearing in mind that we had no idea of the timetable, we were in for a long wait. Just as we were giving up hope and pondering how to get a taxi, lo and behold, there appeared our rickety bus which took us back to the uni.
Following this, we visited the uni shop, first of all to get Victoria some food and then to find our course books. Well some of them, darn expensive they are too. With my new books safely packed in my bag I headed to the poste d'acceuil  where I procured a key to the piano room. Excitedly I then rushed back to my room, collected my music and dashed down to have a play. Sadly the soundproof room lacked any ventilation and was like a sauna, so much so that it was unbearable and I couldn't stay very long. However I have the key for future use, not when I want to sweat out any toxins though!
Just as I was wrapping up my blog I have been rudely interrupted. Well not so much. It's Tino's birthday (a guy from upstairs) so everyone is congregating in the kitchen to celebrate. Andrejean is tempting me out promising that I'll learn more French chatting to people than in a lesson. While he may be right I'm not sure whether swear words will arise in any of my exams! A social butterfly I shall remain so  à bientôt!