Friday, 1 June 2012

Moose Schmoose


So I’m in the airport, my multiple bags are on their way to the airplane (the extra weight waived through thanks to the nice lady), sipping on a rather expensive beer while still trying to come to terms with leaving. In classic Elspeth style I am unable to cry at things that are actually sad, apparently saving my tears for trivial things like uncontrollable laughing fits and physio appointments and not understanding card games. The fact that my corona cost 70 cents less than normal because I didn’t have the change is a good feeling, I probably looked desperate.

Let’s start with April. Ahhh April, a whirlwind of exams, finishing my project, planning for fieldwork, packing up, moving out, sorting out modules for next year, hanging out with friends, and not much sleep. The sun arrived but the huge pile of snow on campus refused to melt for at least two weeks, partly because the +20 temperatures rapidly dropped to a nifty 10 degrees Celsius as I continued to wear my English-winter-coat as a Canada-spring-coat. With the end of the semester, my belongings and everything I have accumulated throughout the year deposited with various accommodating friends around Montreal, off I trotted to BC…
Four of us and Rosie the truck drove for 6 days across 3 time zones, winding through the boreal forest of Quebec and Ontario, across the prairies of Manitoba and Saskatchewan where the sky was enormous and constantly changing, up through the Rockies of British Columbia, over the Georgia strait, and up to the logging towns of Campbell River and Port McNeill on Vancouver Island. It was stunning, but alas, we saw not a single moose. NOT ONE. I came the conclusion that Canadians have eaten them all, and actually it’s all a ruse to bring in tourists. We did see caribou, golden eagles, bald-headed eagles, various deer, mountain goats, and many brown bears though. Although the bear spray I carried with me religiously was never needed, I did merrily talk to myself when I went for runs just in case one got fresh. Or angry. Either one.


 Fieldwork was hard work. I have beefed up for sure. It involved pulling up on the side of the highway (or tentatively using the logging roads avoiding the terrifying logging trucks by trying to understand the island accent through the radio), crashing through almost impenetrable forest while wearing waders and carrying minnow traps and other gear, leaping gracefully between swampy parts of streams to throw the traps in before leaping back to retrieve them later and carrying any stickleback back to the makeshift processing station under a tarpaulin to take photos of them and make fish babies/caviar. Naturally the graceful part was not my forte, and after falling in a few times we invested in some life jackets. I also arranged a code word for “I’m drowning please come help me” as opposed to the familiar splash and cackling laughter after falling in the water, down a hole, or getting stuck in the swamp, which was always hilarious and so difficult to know when it was real. It really made me appreciate how much effort one data point takes, especially since my project used some of the photos the previous year’s fieldwork team took (which was pretty much my life for much of January and February).
I returned to Montreal pretty bruised and bitten, rather disorientated, and very grubby, yet was welcomed with a cup of tea, catch ups, a shower, and a bed. I spent an enjoyable day running errands in the sun wearing the same dress that I wore for my first day in Montreal, running the same errands in the opposite direction. With everything sorted I spent my last night in the city watching the sun set from my favourite roof, going to a gig, trying to find fries, finding fries, trying to find friends, and finding friends. I had a lovely last day. So much love.

I also returned to the 40th night of thousands of Montrealers communally banging saucepans in defiance of the new Bill 78. My time here started with the support workers of McGill striking (which lasted all semester and my labs were ‘interesting’ without the lab technicians) and continued throughout my stay. To cut a very long story very short, students from CEGEP (equivalent to Year 13) and universities across Quebec have been protesting the planned rise in tuition fees by street marches, boycotting school and picketing classes since September, but have upped the ante this past semester. After the annual Anti Police Brutality March became unnecessarily violent as usual (ironic much!?? I narrowly avoided being kettled in), the student protests also seemed to turn sour (or the police reacted more strongly perhaps?). Talks between the student unions and the government remain at a standstill. However, in attempting to curb the protests the Quebec government quickly passed a bill stating that gatherings of more than 50 (I think) people counted as a protests and can therefore be arrested or heavily fined, along with anyone wearing masks, and also that the police should be informed of the route of any protests. The initial outrage resulted in the police phonelines jamming because everyone rang them to tell them their individual route from home to join the protest, a genius way of mocking the bill. Despite this, the law hasn’t budged, and every night at 8pm people take to the streets to make an awful lot of noise in the name of freedom of speech. People who didn’t support the students striking (a few reasons being that the Quebec student fees are the lowest in Canada, are much lower than England, and tuition freezes applied to universities elsewhere in Canada are quickly seeing dilapidated and unsafe buildings…the money must come from somewhere, jus’ sayin’) are in full support of contending this bill 78, deemed officially horrific by top judges in North America. Well that story wasn’t quite as short as I thought, and quite possibly a bit wrong, but I do think it is valuable to put such issues in perspective.

As ever, it will take some time to adjust to my homeland. I will miss the bilingual surroundings, the switching languages mid-conversation, and the funny anglaisms mixed into Quebecois French. I will not miss the accent. I will miss the people – Canadians, especially the islanders on Vancouver Island, really are the friendliest people I have ever met. And I will miss being a foreigner, I had forgotten how much freer I feel when completely lost and constantly appreciating how different people can be.

Some time later…
I have arrived in England! Hurrah for roundabouts and fifty pence pieces. I am looking forward to visits and trips, and am also already planning a return trip to the Americas. I am also SUPER LOOKING FORWARD to seeing my wonderful family and friends on this side of the pond. I hope they can help me learn to say trousers and trainers again rather than pants and sneakers. Tomato tomato.

Bises in the general direction of you wonderful people on both sides of the Atlantic. Do do do come visit 

Sunday, 11 March 2012

Jolly January, Fishy February, and Marching through March


Spring is almost here! Look! Greeeeeeen!
This is greatly exciting. Yesterday we went to Mont Saint-Hilaire for a field trip to measure (hug) trees and snowshoe around in the forest. As much as I love Montreal, it was once again lovely to get out of the city and get a gurt bit o' nature in me soul.

January flew by in a still-recovering-from-fall-semester-and-Christmas way, starting with a wonderfully relaxing time in Toronto with Alanna and her delightful family. I taught them racing demons - a dramatic, quakerly-competitive card game with silly additions that is always played when my fam get together - so it definitely felt like a family holiday to me. They taught me an equally silly game which I impolitely and accidentally won, but I paid them back with flapjack, which here means pancake, as in american pancake not a crepe pancake, and which they call oatmeal, but it's oh so much more than just oatmeal....The conclusion was that they must come visit England, and test out their impressive cockney accents on real live Londoners. I also popped over to Niagara Falls (very impressive but also insanely cold) and experienced Igloo Fest. It's an outdoor club in Montreal for 4 weekends in January, which we passed on the night that was -34 degrees in favour of a tropical temperature of -8 degrees the following weekend. Drinks served are mulled wine and hot chocolate with unidentifiable alcohol, and, as ever, dance to get warm. Freakin awesome.

February flew by, or should I say 'swam by' *snort laughs*, in a flurry of fish as my research project got underway. Photos of stickleback followed me everywhere: I felt awkward if I ate tuna in front of them. But now the data is collected and collated and cleaned nicely, ready to put it into some sort of legible scientificness, very exciting. Midterms also came and went within 4 days which, while technically wasn't the most fun I've ever had, did involve long hours in library with fellow biologists, and I bagged me some brand new shiny friends. It's all about bonding over the characteristics of cnidarians and calculating entropy values.

And in between all that, I went to Arizona! I cannot express the pleasure of stepping outside wearing but one layer of clothing after so many weeks of double layers of socks and leggings and various scalp-warming accessories. Alanna and I stayed with her incredibly welcoming and generous grandparents (yes I think this post should be dedicated to Alanna and her incredible family!) for a week of sun, eating, museuming, safari-park visiting, sun, shopping, eating, wandering, sun, swimming, eating, sun, and appreciating the incredible views. I had never before seen surroundings like that: rust coloured mountains against the bright cloudless sky, with cacti three times the height of me piercing the desert. Sunset turned the mountains pink and the sky truly purple. Boulders perched precariously on top of one another, so you are almost convinced they will crash down as you drive underneath them, even though they have presumably been there since the glacial retreat around 18 million years ago. I was, if you can believe it, rendered speechless by the beauty, which is in no way reflected in the following photographs.
Arizona science centre is possible the best one I have ever been to, with more hands on stuff than @Bristol, video clips of brain surgery, and a multi sensory stage mimicking extreme weather including rain, earthquake trembles, wind, and heat lamps. At the safari I saw a large portion of a horse being thrown to a resuscitated lion, and two tigers playing with three humans as a house moggie would. A super musical instrument centre where you can listen to clips of music and see instruments from all over the world could have kept me entertained for hours, if we didn't also want to go home and whip up some macarons. And an incredible Van Gogh exhibition (look out for it because it is travelling everywhere) portrayed in a truly original and stimulating way. Nevertheless, the roads rarely smaller than 5 lanes wide, the enormous distances between anywhere meaning that it really is necessary to drive everywhere, and the huge amount of polystyrene still used where, it seems, most other places use cardboard to attempt to save the planet a wee bit, means that the US of A continues to boggle me. I returned slightly less pale, with my mind blown from the kindness, culture and a lot of fun.

I have been wanting to share my thoughts on differences in education systems, but that will have to wait for another time. It is a beautiful day out, and I must go run around. It seems like the an-awful-lot-below-freezing temperatures of January are behind us, and we are up into the positive temperatures. This has supposedly been the mildest Canadian winter for many years, although it still seemed pretty cold to me. You can tell I'm foreign because I still wear my snowboots and fat coat when it is above -5.

Huge love, hope all is fun wherever you are and whatever you're up to. Bisous.

Tuesday, 27 December 2011

End of Term Frolics

It has been a while! Sorry! Will update, but first Merry Christmas and I wish you all a marvellous New Year! Thank you for the thoughtful messages, via physical, cyberspace, and telepathic means: all were gratefully received! I hope everyone enjoyed the run up to the festivities, that nobody got trampled when Christmas shopping, and that fun with family and friends is being had by all. I also hope that everybody is catching up on sleep, home cooking, free heating, pet petting, and home friend gossip!
Christmas over here has been alot of fun. Of course I have missed everyone heaps, but Freya and I decided to distract ourselves with extreme Christmas crafts. I basically moved into the International House as soon as everyone else left, and we made a Christmas tree out of wrapping paper before settling down to painting, baking, film watching, festive musicking, sledging, cheese and bagel eating, Mike-the-eccentric-landlord avoiding and subsequent assertive-yet-cheeky sign making, and excessive talking and snort laughing. We took Freya's tradition of new matching pjamas for Christmas Eve, walked to a lovely eve carol service at minus 19 degrees celsius where our nostrils froze (not in our pjamas), and provided the cheese course at a Christmas dinner organised by some Aussie friends of Freya. We spent today at the Biodome (Montreal's nature ecosystem museum zoo) and are going snowshoeing at Mont Tremblant tomorrow. I'll let you know what it is when I understand it!

Since I last indulged in blog-writing, I have been to the big fat US of A! The first time was to explore the lights of New York, which just so happened to be hosting the 2011 Quidditch World Cup. (Ok, so my priorities were the other way around.) After an overnight coach trip, I spent 12 hours walking around the city with three lovlies who had also tagged along for the cheap trip and fun of it. We did Central Park, Ground Zero, China Town, Broadway, Time Square, Occupy Wall Street and probably misidentified various uber famous buildings inbetween eating pancakes, hotdogs, pretzels, pizza and cwaffee NY style. The next day we watched McGill play more fantastic games, retaining their position of 7th in the world. The final, played on the pitch where Usain Bolt broke the 100m sprint record in 2008, was won by Middlebury (as always) againt Florida (who McGill went out to), and saw a red card and two players stretchered off - oh the violence! As you can tell, I will never make a sports reporter, but it was a very exciting weekend all round. And yes I got the T-shirt.
The second time was for American Thanksgiving in Boston with a friend's family. The Thanksgiving dinner was incredible, we (I) pretty much ate my weight in pecan pie and a delicious sweet potato and cream concoction, yum. It was a day of familyness on a farm and frolicking in the orchard, followed by braving Macy's on Black Friday. Humungous sales start at midnight the day after Thanksgiving, causing a frenzy of frantic people to storm shopping malls across the country, all elbows and handbags to claw others out of the way of the best bargains. (One year a pregnant woman was trampled; who would step on a pregnant woman!?) Despite this, we neatly sidestepped the mania, grabbing some wafflemakers and winter boots before it got messy. We spent the next few days wandering around Boston city, with nice food, nice wine, and even nicer hilarious company. I was sad to leave, it was a great wee holiday, I hope I can show the same incredible open-armed hospitality when those legends come to visit me in England!
Our return to Montreal was a slap in the face, as the slight lull after midterms was well and truly over. I am very glad the semester is now done and dusted - 15 weeks without a break was a slog. Study days at Alanna's interrupted with microwave mug cakes and episodes of True Blood helped. My last exam was the day of 'frozen rain' - cold, wet, and ridiculously slippy - and I celebrated with eggnog, a karaoke machine and friends. Moving apartments the next day required alot of salt to de-ice the front steps and alot of suitcases. It is incredible how much I have acquired since arriving here...

I've moved! I have loved where I have lived this semester, but my priorities have now changed. I had been thinking about moving closer to campus but couldn't face looking, when a small apartment complete with a super comfortable armchair, desk, cookie jar and blender metaphorically fell into my lap. Not literally, that would have been awkward. I will miss the french speaking at home, being brought Irish coffees when revising, my flatmates, and the market, among many aspects of that apartment. My new place is much nearer campus which will be great for my increased contact time next semester, and also walking distance from friends' places so I will not be so isolated in the depths of winter.

In other news, as a very cool birthday present, I have had the crazy experience of a real live Canadian hockey match! I think I understood the crossing-the-line rule by the end. It was a very dramatic game, Montreal won hands down and there was a slight scuffle so I was happy. Thank you!
General news! It only snowed sufficiently enough to maintain a carpet a week ago - super unusual. I am in love with my coat (basically a sleeping bag) and my boots (not unlike how I imagine sheep hugging my feet to feel) and my hat. The nostril-freezing experience on Christmas Eve is yet to be repeated, but I think I am suitably prepared. I have learned to not change the song on my ipod or answer my phone when outside because frostbite may occur. My collar bone has been pronounced to be healing, relief! My osteoblasts finally came up trumps with the help of my wonderful physio, and I do not need surgery. There are more Canadian-English translations required than I thought. My favourite one being when I said I needed a wee, and Alanna said 'Errr...I have a game cube'.
I wish you all a fabulous end to 2011, health, happiness and peace for 2012, and recommend a frisbee as a sledge for any snowbased activities. Much love to all, from a much more chilled (in both senses of the word) lass than a month ago!
Thinking of y'all, bisous a tous.

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

A successful search for trees

Once upon a time there was a lady called Helen and a man called Nick and a lady called Elspeth and a man called Ewan. They lived in Montreal. They loved Montreal very much because it had bagels and poutine and frenchness. But it didn't have enough trees. So one day they went to find some more trees. They hired a blue car. Elspeth was happy because it was an automatic. It was like being in a video game.
They drove for a while. They asked for directions from a nice lady and a nice man in a car park. They had a minor detour along a windy lane with colourful pretty houses. They wondered what happened to the people living in them when it snowed.

After a pretty drive listening to nice music they found some trees. They were big trees. There were lots. They walked up a hill of trees to look at the trees.
Some trees wanted to be dinosaurs.They saw some chipmunks. And red squirrels. And deer. And a smiley moose. (Well they thought they did, but it might have been Nick pretending, so here is a picture of what they thought they might possibly potentially have seen. It probably was a moose.)
When they reached the top of the hill, they could see LOTS of trees. It was beautiful. Then they had a picnic. They ate lots and were happy.
Then they walked down the hill and saw a stream and a waterfall.
Nick said it was cold. Then he jumped in. Then Ewan jumped in. Then Helen jumped in. Then Elspeth jumped in. They all said it was cold. Then they jumped back out and ran down the hill to get warm again. At the bottom of the hill was a lake. It was beautiful. It was very quiet. Then they saw a bear. Elspeth threw a leftover chocolate brownie at it. Nick pretended to be a moose. Helen and Ewan did an interpretive dance at it so it went away.

Then they drove to Timmy Horton's for a hot chocolate and an apple and cinnamon loaf. Then they drove home. Well, they would have driven home if it was their car. Instead, they drove round and round the one way system after battling with a petrol pump, before finally managing to put the car back where they found it. It was a good day.

Friday, 4 November 2011

A red coat and green man

So midterms are over, hurrah, and I handed in a fat paper that I've been working on since the beginning, so I am feeling CHILL today. I should also say that the week that I wrote the last blog entry moaning about how I had no social life, I then proceeded to go out on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday night... I definitely do have a social life, and will endevour to not bang on about it anymore!

Halloween was an excellent excuse to dress up. I can't believe I thought that my wolf costume was not a necessary component of my Canadian wardrobe, rooky error. I thought I managed quite well with just some green paint though. For a pre-halloween party I was Princess Fiona from Shrek, and for an actual halloween (but technically still pre-halloween party) I was green giant sweetcorn man. I am still finding bits of leaf around my room, and my scarf definitely has a slight green tinge. Marie and her friend dressed as the black and white swans from the film complete with homemade tutus and red contact lenses, it was scary...

Unfortunately Marie has to return to France at the end of the month because Quebec has reached the limit of work permits that it gives out, so she is unable to get a job and is running out of money. This is officially pants. Of the english variety. There is a small possibility of studying here to stay here, but after spending days on hold and being redirected to more unhelpful embassies etc I think we may have to accept it. Pff.

Winter is coming, it was really trying to snow today although it doesn't quite seem cold enough yet. I found a brand new fat coat on craigslist for half the retail price, so am super looking forward to wearing it, check out the hood! Apparently this is the way to wear a coat over here, furry ET style. Just need boots and I'm good to go. People continue to tell me horror stories, like that there is still snow in April. I hope they are joking.The friendliness and openness of people continues to amaze me. I am still pleasantly surprised when people instantly respond to an 'excuse me...' with a smile before anything else. I may well be selectively exaggerating this slightly (I have now witnessed road rage, apparently this is universal) but I am sure that the average genuinely-pleased-to-help-you attitude level is higher here than in England. Even more than this are the invites from people I've met once to their flatmates sisters babysitters boyfriends birthday party, and I really am genuinely welcome. Well maybe I'm exaggerating this too, in which case I have forced my company on many kind-hearted/pitying people, but I like to think it's the former! The city really is a mash up of so many different people, but after talking to a Canadian friend about this apparently this is the 'Montreal bubble' and doesn't reflect the rest of Canada.

I am gradually learning the basic politics behind the country, where each province seems to be divided into people who want to separate from the rest of Canada and those who want to stay as one country. The establishment of whether you are a 'separatist' or not can lead to an animated discussion... I like to think that these always end in a hug though. C'mon, it's Canada. Mind you, the strike of the McGill support staff which has been going on since September 1st continues, which I find so sad. Alot of my labs have been disorganised, not worked and half of the length that they should be because our lab technician is on strike, so the lecturers are trying to set everything up (even though they don't know how) as well as do their own jobs. There is alot of support for the staff from students and lecturers, and alot of anger and frustration directed at the administration. There is the general feeling that the university is being run as a company to make money, especially for the few topdogs, rather than for education and research for the sake of improving lives. I have the impression that people have been unhappy for a long time about the few at the top getting all the money and renown, while taking away benefits from the people at the bottom who really keep the university ticking along. Sound familiar!? This hasn't been helped by various injunctions against the strikers forcing them to move further away from the uni gates and quieten down. After over two months of striking, I really hope it gets sorted soon, especially before they are forced to continue in the snow.

Even public toilets are a soul-boosting experience, with the grafitti telling you that you are a beautiful and wonderful person. I tried to end one of my crap stories with the classic '...and then I found twenty quid', but I forgot to say 'bucks' instead and noone knew what a quid was. They thought I said 'squid', giving a slightly different mental picture. The french for 'booty call' is literally 'ass project'. A 'jumper' is someone who jumps, rather than a sweater, again giving an odd mental picture when you say you are going to put one on. Canadians do not put kisses on texts, meaning I have been pretty full on with everyone for the last 2 months. I definitely have to fight to maintain my english accent when talking to certain people, and enjoy practising saying 'ey' in the right context - I still don't think I've quite got it.

Huge love out there, I think of you all often :)

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

I would like a social life please




Not lots to report since the last time...autumn is looking beautiful, the workload is bordering on ridiculous, McGill is insane. Unfortunately I seem to have lost my storming motivation in favour of regaining my naming 185-out-of-195-countries-of-the-world status on sporcle.com. Nightmare. I have 2 more exam-paper-labreport-essayful weeks and then it should slow down a wee bit before finals...humph.

Collar bone is getting better: after a four and a half hour hospital check up they decided to do leave it to do it's own thang. The fact that the long experience ending in a nothing could potentially have cost me over $200 but didn't, did make me feel a bit better. Alas, without the sling I am no longer given a seat on the metro, but I can now wear T-shirts and wash my hair using both arms; a win overall I feel.

Despite the insane amount of work, McGill isn't as cut-throat as some people had made out to be, which is a massive relief. Someone from my genetics class started a study group to prepare for our midterm on Thursday, and I was pretty scared that it was going to be horrific and everyone would know twice more than me but pretend not to and just give me scathing looks everytime I opened my english mouth to say something simple...but actually it's great! A really lovely bunch of people, all helping each other out and having a laugh at the same time, jolly hockey sticks. The Keen Team (what else would we call ourselves, really) has been a lush way to meet more people too. I now don't know why I was so apprehensive as absolutely everyone I've met so far has been a nice bean... I guess it's just the classic misjudgement of a group, and as soon as you look at the group as individuals you realise you're all in the same boat :) or same gene pool! No. Ok.

The odd glimpses of a social life have been delightful. Canadian thanksgiving weekend involved learning differentiation on the mountain by a lake in the sun with a picnic and nice people, as well as a proper bo thanksgiving dinner. Thanks to the wonderful Freya and Jenny, we had a full roast dinner including home-made cranberry sauce, cauliflower cheese, roast veggies and yorkshire pudding (we wanted to show the non-englishes a bit of Yorksire action, they were very well received), followed by brownies, apple and raspberry crumble, custard, cream and Rachel's incredible pumpkin pie. Nom indeed.
I also accidently had a social life the night of Max's birthday party...we still have paint on the walls.

Humungous love to all you beautiful people, keep sending me your news, I miss you.

Monday, 26 September 2011

An ex-clavicle

The general response to quidditch as a sport has been laughter, dismay, and sometimes a slightly pitying look at my obvious lack of coolness, before I try to steer the conversation back to something more mutual, like love for bagels. This has been enhanced since I have been sporting a sling due to a quidditch based incident. The first credit (house point!?) goes to Nick for his quick-witted comment 'Bad luck Madame Pomfrey wasn't there'. Other points for 'Did you fall off your broom?', 'Rogue bludger ey', 'Good job Lockhart wasn't there' and 'Say hi to the Longbottoms when you're at St Mungo's'...brilliant. I have tried to come up with other explanations involving ninjas, sharks, free running etc, but it generally comes back the even less believable story, especially for non-HP fans.

It started when an opposing beater and I were both sprinting after a bludger, and he simply shouldered me out of the way (I found it very refreshing that he wasn't afraid to do that to a girl). Needless to say I went absolutely flying, off my broom, and he got the bludger. Just before the next practice I was asking the same lad how I could avoid this situation in the future, and he was kind enough to teach me how to rugby tackle him. After the fifth or so time of merrily running at each other and a few head-thigh collisions, I succeeded in taking out this 6ft guy, score. Unfortunately I didn't know about the whole turning away so the other person doesn't land on your shoulder part, and he landed on my shoulder. I didn't want to look like a wimp so when practice started a few minutes later I joined in with running around the field and stretching, before deciding actually it really did hurt. I went to the English House for a cry, some paracetamol and some frozen peas which I accidently spilt all over the floor. I eventually went home to shower, which required some quite aggressive pep talks from myself to get my tshirt off, followed by a less-than-ideal sleep.

Friday was then the lowest point since being here, starting with a 3 hour computer lab involving alot of ugly algebra. It was the first time I'd been bored since being here, but I told myself that it was high time I had a bad day, and it would be over within about 20 hours. Later on the doctor took one look at me and told me my collar bone was for sure broken, before asking me how on earth quidditch worked. Once we'd got that straight I hiked up to casaulty where a nice girl taught me the greek alphabet, I called security to stop a creepy guy from creeping, and a nice lady later gave me a much needed one-armed hug. My left clavicle is snapped in two, with a nice big gap between the two parts, which occasionally grate against each other. That night I was bouncing off the walls on painkillers, it was amazing. Walls were moving, manic laughing, my dreams had gold faces.

I'm not sure how I feel about the medication; feeling high is great, albeit possibly annoying for other people, but it's slightly worrying how I think of them as happy pills already. Except actually I've been on a bit of a rollercoaster, from chatting incessantly and possibly slightly too loudly, to being a bit verbally aggressive, to just crying for no reason. Earlier I picked up Jenny's physics paper on the limit of intelligence and just welled up when I got to the summary. I'm pretty sure this wasn't reflecting Jenny's writing abilities, or the content; neurons as a subject don't generally make me emotional.

Anyway, I can't fault their effectiveness, as yesterday afternoon I finally made it to Piknic Electronik! It was freaking amazebeans. It's on one of the islands of Montreal, in a park next to the river. A picnic in the sun, attempting to skim stones, watching the sunset over the Montreal skyline on the other side of the water, dancing with the masses under a huge sculpture, all to sweet tunes of a mint DJ with some lovely lovely people...just fantastic. I was very much looked after, and the lovelies protected me from being bashed by wild dancing wonderfully. Great times.
The two dollar coin is called a Toony and the one dollar coin is called a Loony, so if you hand over five bucks in change, you can say you gave 'Two toonies and a loony'; I find this hilarious. Casualty is a person, not 'the emergency room'. Canadians are pretty hot on recycling, there are water fountains everywhere and several places to fill up water bottles on campus. Public toilets flush automatically which I find slightly disconcerting. Everyone asks so many questions in lectures (compared to next to none at Sheffield). We were given the option of leaving labs early last week and NO-ONE MOVED.

My mum's delivery of english teabags arrived, perfect.

Huge love, that I would give you even if I wasn't floating right now... xxx