Dominique Michaud, my colleague

Quebec is a province where there are a lot of immigrants. They are mostly in Montreal, known to be a multicultural city with a lot of activities and festivals from different cultures. Here in Rimouski, we don't have a lot of ethnic groups yet, but more and more have been coming over the years. Just like my colleague, Dominique Michaud, she is an immigrant from Reunion Island, she is 29 years old and she arrived in Quebec 6 years ago.

She came to study in Quebec because life here was better and, in Matane, there was a multimedia program that really interested her. She moved to Rimouski to be with her fiancé and she now has a little girl of 3 years old. The first thing she noticed of Quebec was the weather, in the Reunion Island, there is snow but like once every 5 years, so, when she saw the big amount of snow that we had she was pretty shocked. She is still not used to the cold, she always wears too much clothes until it's 15° outside.

She really likes Quebec and its people, she wants to have the same accent that we have, but unfortunately for her, she still has her accent from Reunion Island. She adapted well to our style of life, even if sometimes, she still has difficulties to understand us when we talk too fast or when we talk with a really strong accent. Last time, when she was cold, I told her that she should buy a “casque de poil”, but with my accent it sounded more like “cass de poual” and she didn't know what it was until I described it to her, she calls it a “chapeau russe”. It is a really popular expression here in Quebec and even after 6 years here she didn't know it. Except from the cold and the language, I believe that she is well adapted to Quebec.

She will take the exam to be a Canadian citizen in a few days and she needs to study all of our history. After that, it will make it obvious that she is well adapted to Quebec.

Québec, my beautiful country, was hit with the Charest syndrome. We all have a cold now.

The strike here in Rimouski started on February 29^th 2012, a day, I will always remember since it was the start of the “school of life”. I think I changed a lot during those 5 weeks and I’m still changing. Many things happened during those 5 weeks and it was such an amazing experience in my life. I really liked to go to demonstrations and to sing slogans with my friends and other students that I didn’t know and that had the same goal as me.

It feels nice to think that I was part of history, because we made history. We were 200 000 in the streets of Montreal on March 22^nd, it was the biggest demonstration in the history of Canada. In Rimouski, we had the longest strike of the history of the Cégep of Rimouski, in the past, the strike only lasted for 2 weeks.

I’m proud of what we did and if I could change only one think, it would be to be more involved in the strike and the actions that were planned. I’ve met so many people during the strike, all of us were joining hands to achieve our goal: stop the increase. Now, we have a new goal, we still want to stop the increase, but we also want to change our society and our government who is corrupted and unable to govern.

I strongly believe that everybody who was involved in the strike have learned many things, because it was my case, I’ve learned a lot.

I’ve learned a lot about life.

I’ve learned a lot about myself.

I’ve learned a lot about our society.

I’ve learned a lot about politics.

I’ve learned how to speak my mind about something and to give my opinion.

I’ve learned what real respect is.

I’ve learned to think as a citizen of the province of Quebec.

I was like that a few years ago...

"Bullying consists of the least competent most aggressive employee projecting their incompetence on to the least aggressive most competent employee and winning." - Anonymous

Last week, on November 28, Marjorie Raymond killed herself due to bullying. Even if her death is really sad and she should’ve look for another way to deal with her problems than suicide, I think it’s wrong of people to get back at Jade, the one who bullied Marjorie, because defending bullying by bullying is not the right way to deal with the problem. People are just doing exactly what they are criticizing. There is something that most people don’t understand. They shouldn’t bully Jade for what she have done, because we don’t really know if she is the only cause of Marjorie’s suicide. Before killing herself Marjorie wrote a letter to her family, she was saying that it was not her mother’s fault and that “it’s the fault of life, of jealous people who want to ruin their happiness”. It’s the kind of letter that no one wants to receive from their daughter.

"I've been actually really very pleased to see how much awareness was raised around bullying, and how deeply it affects everyone. You know, you don't have to be the loser kid in high school to be bullied. Bullying and being picked on comes in so many different forms." - Lady Gaga

I find it unfair that people are talking so much about Marjorie when she is just one of many others! 5000 teens are killing themselves every year and we don’t hear about them. Why? Because a little boy who is overweight or a teen who’s gay have reasons to be bullied, but Marjorie a girl who doesn’t seem different from any other teens doesn’t have a reason to be bullied. That’s how most people think and I hate it.

"The things that make me very angry are injustice and bullying. If I see someone bullying a woman or child in the street, or kicking a dog, I go completely mad." - Susannah York

Right now, a lot of people are posting videos on Youtube where they talk about intimidation and some of them are also sharing their secrets, the way they were bullied, how they got through it, etc. Every video I watched was really sad and made me angry and I really want to do something so that bullying will stop, but what can I do?

Here is my favorite video I watched last week. Please listen to it and tell me what you think. ( Sorry it's in french)

 

99%, that's what we are.

What is Occupy Wall Street?

OWS was created by an activist group called Adbusters and it started on September 17, 2011. It was inspired by the demonstrations that happened this spring in other countries, like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.  It’s a movement by a mass of people against the capitalism that started in Zuccotti Park of New York’s Wall Street district. The demonstrators are basically doing camping in the different cities at strategic places, like the Wall Street district. Their slogan is “We are the 99%” and it refers to the distribution of the wealth since only 1% of the population own the country’s wealth. In Canada, the cities of Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg and Moncton are involved  in the demonstration.

Right now, in one of my courses, we are listening to a movie about Jimi Hendrix and it talks a lot about the hippies and the society at that time. It makes me think of what is happening right now in a lot of cities all over the world with Occupy Wall Street. I don’t think that the movement will have the same impact that the hippies had back in the days when they were about to change the world. First of all, the hippies were the majority of the society. In 2011, it’s completely the opposite, the population is really old compared to the 60s. Right now, in the streets of New York there are 20 000 demonstrators and the city counts 8,175,133 people. What I see is that most people just don’t care about it or they don’t want to do something against it. The movement at that time and the movement now, they both have the same goal: change the world. But let’s face it; it’s not going to happen anytime soon. Capitalism is there to stay.



University - Université - Universität - Universidad - 대학 - 大学 - มหาวิทยาลัย ...

“The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one.” - Buddha

“We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience. We must do that which we think we cannot.” - Eleanor Roosevelt 

No matter what language I use it's still the same word. The same meaning. The same fear. The fear of the unknown. Last year, university seemed so far away that never really thought about it, but now it’s almost time for the inscription and, next year, for a lot of students all around the world, university will begin. Am I the only one who is scared of it? Of course, it will be a great moment in my life, but what if…

What if I fail my classes?

What if I’m not good enough?

What if I don’t have enough money?

What if I make the wrong choice?

What if I cannot take care of myself?

What if I lose all my friends?

What if …

There are so many “if”, but there are still no answers to them. Do I have to jump into the adventure that is university without knowing those answers? I’m scared of going to another city alone, without my friends. I’m scared to live without my parents for the first time. I’m scared that I will lose my friends, because we are to far away. Even if I’m scared of a lot of things, I’m also really exited to go to university, make new friends and to finally answer those unanswered questions.

Sometimes I wish that I could stop time and just live like right now for a long time. I’m surrounded by amazing friends, real friends and I don’t have to worry about money or my grades. I’m also positive that I made the right choice by choosing Languages as my program. All I have to do is to live fully every minutes of my life.

I have no inspiration for a title

"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music."  -Gustav Mahler

"Music was my refuge.  I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."  -Maya Angelou

"Music is what feelings sound like."  -Author Unknown

Honestly, I had no inspiration for this post so I decided to talk about music. Again... (I hope you’re not tired of it yet! That’s my passion so bear with me for now.) I wanted to introduce to you my favorite CDs OF ALL TIME!!!

Let’s start with the newest!

Panic! At the Disco – Vices and virtues

This album has ten songs and all of them are just marvelous. My favorite song is called Memories and I often put it on replay. Right now, it’s that CD that wakes me up every morning, it always puts me in a good mood! There is no need to say that I like it, right? I’ve been a fan of Panic! At the Disco since I’m in high school, so it’s been 5 years already! The only negative thing about this album is that it only has ten songs…

Jay Park – Take a deeper look

You might not know who Jay Park is, so let me introduce him to you! He is my future husband. Or not. Seriously, he is a Korean artist, he was in a group before but he left in 2009 and launched his solo album in April 2011. He produces R&B and Hip-Hop songs. His solo album is really good, I don’t have the chance to have it with me but I have all of his songs and I love every single one of them.

I talked about my two favorite CD so now let’s talk about the one in my collection that I really don’t like anymore and I don’t even understand why I was listening to that. I changed a lot since then.

Camp Rock – The soundtrack

At that time, I was a big fan of the Jonas Brothers. No, that’s wrong I was not a big fan, I was OBSESSED with them. I wanted to know every little thing about them and what they were doing every hour of the day. That album is just full of songs that sound phony. It’s pop music, 100%! The worst part was that I had a poster of Joe Jonas on my wall to go with my CD.

Anyway, I moved on now and I’m not obsessed with any other artist. I realize that what was important was the music they produce and not how they look or act.

Never be ashamed of you musical choices! It just makes you feel bad for absolutely nothing.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." - Edgar Allan Poe

"Hope is a waking dream" - Aristotle

What is your dream? To be famous? To have success in your life? To travel around the world?

My dream is to go the South Korea. Why you ask? Because, to me, it's the most beautiful country on earth. I want to learn all about their culture, their lifestyle and, mostly, about their artists. I love music so when I want to learn more about a country the first thing I do is to look for music, but in Korea's case I heard the music before knowing the country, I never had any interest in Korea before I heard what they call "K-Pop". After that, I became crazy about Korea, I couldn't believe I lived my life without knowing K-Pop. Even right now, while I'm writing this post I'm listening to the song above. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that I was a big fan of N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys right? K-Pop is like the 2011 version of boy bands to me.

I'm telling you this because yesterday, October 9th, in New York there was a free concert of Korean artists, all those that I love and I couldn't go. Do you know what it feels like to have your dream so close to you? And because of money and time it got destroyed? Well, that's how I feel today. The hope of living me dream keeps me going because I know that one day I will be in the most beautiful country of the world.