Silmarillion

Despite so many years of resistance, the circumstances have finally converged and I have a cell phone. It was either a cell phone or spend the same amount on a landline. From experience I know that the cordless phone doesn’t work much more than 50 feet away from the house, so instead of getting fuzzy calls that fade out as soon as I start making my way to class I opted for the cell phone.

I’m having a little trouble trying to practice my French. I start out saying “Bonjour” or answering “oui” to the question “ça tout?”. If it so happens that I am talking to a fellow non-native French speaker I continue the conversation with the opportunity to say things like “d’accord” and “bonne journée”. However, if I happen to be facing a real quebecois, they have this incredible skill of discovering from the first half syllable that comes through my mouth that I am in fact a stupid Anglophone. I’m not saying I think I sound like a native speaker, but seriously, my pronunciation isn’t that bad. Give me a chance people! It just makes me nervous for subsequent times trying to speak French again. The reason I am not yet fluent is because of my crippling embarrassment of saying something wrong why I try – this is so not helping. I’ve been told my comprehension is very good, so I’m not a total lost cause. I’m not sure where I’m going to be able to construct comfortable environments to hone my skills in this area unless the Quebecers give me a chance.

There is no Grand and Toy anywhere within the normal limits of Montreal. I checked, the closest one is way out by the airport. Similarly, the only “business supply” places that show up on a yellow pages search for the downtown area are pen stores. And I was hopeful that “Pens Ltd” and “Stylo’s R-us” would actually have binders and paper and, call me crazy, pencils, but no dice. No, I had to go to the undergrond central rail station where this is a Bureau en gros (that’s French for Staples, well, kinda, a direct translation would be Egraffeuse… sp… actually, that’s stapler, give me a break). There they sell binders for like $6.50 for some reason. Just cuz you print heavy duty on the side doesn’t justify a 237% markup. But I bought them, because I wasn’t going to trek out to the airport to get the ones I really wanted.

It also took me a long time to find a drugstore so I could buy some conditioner. There’s no Shoppers around, there’s this place called something like Jean Coutou instead. I just don’t automatically think drugstore when I hear Coutou, must be a sound meaning association lost on me in the early stages of my language development.

Anyway, if you want to call me, email me and I’ll give you the number.