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

One month anniversary

I've been here for one month today! It has gone uber quickly...

I have finally done some touristy things, including passing by the 'tam tams' at Parc du Mont-Royal. Every Sunday people go with djembes, bongo drums, rubbish bins, drum kits, and anything else vaguely resembling a drum, and just dance around all afternoon to some homemade beatz. I then decided to go for a walk in the forest, which ended up being a scramble to the top of the mountain wearing a dress and flipflops. The view of the park, the city and the port was stunning. I stayed chatting with the guys who had made a perch up there for a while. After reaching the conclusion that the best power a pet could have would be mind-reading, the scramble down was also interesting; one of the guys managed to get all the way down while playing guitar and singing at the same time. Nice.

The international student soceity had a free barbeque on top of the mountain, thanks very much, and I finally tried out the bike rent system to get there. It was so nice to be back on a bike, despite the numerous potholes that go unnoticed as a pedestrian, and despite having only 3 gears. I would love to buy a bike, but with only a month left before it gets too cold and snowy, I think I would rather put my money towards buying the fattest coat I can find. I have been hearing very mixed stories about the winter here. I have noticed that the people who tell me that 'it isn't too bad' generally end up coming from colder parts of Canada though...

After going to the uni activities fair, I am now a real live convert to Quidditch. I know I'm going to have threats of friend disownment (in fact I more or less already have), but it literally is the most fun sport I have ever played. Apart from mini-olympics at Beauchamp maybe. But seriously! You have to keep a broomstick between your legs at all times, even in the warmup laps around the field that we share with the football team. Yes there are always people watching and laughing but there's at least 40 of us so I only felt silly for the first ten minutes or so. If you 'dismount' your broom it's like you have fallen off, and you are obliged to run around your goal hoops as a time penalty. I'm a beater, which means I spent 2 hours on Thursday and Saturday running around on a broomstick, scooping up a 'bludger' (a big squashy ball) out of the wet mud and throwing at members of the other team, while avoiding getting hit myself. It's a full contact sport, so it can end up in a half-violent scuffle on the floor over a ball, while avoiding falling off your broom of course. The snitch is a long distance cross country runner wearing all yellow with a tail, which the seekers have to find and grab. The snitch is allowed all over campus; Saturday's snitch grabbed somebody's bike and cycled off. After Thursday's practice I got in the shower in my trainers I was so muddy. It's hilarious and brilliant and I'm getting the T-shirt tomorrow; I hope you will all still be my friends!

I am the official 11th housemate of Rue Hutchinson! I have been given an actual key to the actual front door, so I can now wander in to the English House (as I've started calling it, despite the very much international presence) at my leisure. I haven't quite put a spare toothbrush in their bathroom, but it could definitely happen. They haven't changed the locks yet, even after they made me demonstrate how to run with a broomstick. Oh dear, I love it but I may well keep this new found interest on the dl when meeting new people! Particularly when they make the association that I'm British, and apparently quidditch is British...I am quick to inform them that it is not at all common in England, and that just because a British person came up with the idea it is actually a fictional sport. OR IS IT?!

I made my first cake this side of the Atlantic Ocean, with Max throwing in anything he found in the cupboard. It ended up being a pretty good banana, peanut, coconut, sunflower seed and chocolate chip cake, although I have to say I was pretty doubtful at first. The french phrase for fainting is to say 'I fell in the apples'. A fire hydrant on the main street of McGill campus burst, creating an impressive flood for 24 hours. I tried the Montreal version of a kebab called poutine - fried potatoes and cheese curds in gravy. The first time I had it was in a proper restaurant where the dish was called La crise cardiaque - a heart attack. Beer is sold from a refridgerated room at the back of a dépanneur (like a Select and Save). When you take the empty bottles back to be recycled you are reimbursed some dollar.

Finally putting some photos up. My flatmates Marie, Max, Firmin and I.

Peace

starting school

hokay, so...
Last sunday we had the tail end of Irene, it was just really windy and bucketed down for 24 hours...pretty much an english summer! Max and I ran to an all-you-can-eat sushi place to eat large amounts of blooming good sushi complete with intermittent dramatic powercuts, before rolling home to watch almost an entire series of How I met Your Mother with Marie - very Canadian I know. The weather is just extreme England - hotter with bluer skies for a few days, followed by greyer and rainier for a few days.

Orientation on Monday was horrific: 9.30 am on a sunny Monday morning, the ominous gates of McGill's football stadium eventually opened to the tune of Katy Perry's 'Firework' at club-level of noise, and our 'frosh masters' in matching t-shirts expected us to dance around. Now that is a tune, but I am never going to be able to listen to it again without reliving that terrible feeling of awkwardness. Eurgh. This went on for about an hour, us froshers just standing clumped in the middle of an enormous football stadium, in the sun, on a Monday morning, unable to talk to anyone because the music was so loud, every now and again a 'frosh master' would just run up and yell in your face, with nothing to start off a conversation with other than the classic 'What's your name where are you from what are you studying'. Maybe I should have tried 'So do you believe in God?' I went for the classic 'Well this is awkward'...

Eventually we were made to sit on the floor to listen to some supposedly inspiring speeches from various chairs and presidents. Absolute cringe. One of them actually said 'You! Are going! To change! The world!' while pumping the air with her fist, before everyone cheered. I resisted putting my head in my hands until another hour later, when we, all 4500 of us, were supposed to be playing various getting-to-know-each-other games. Now I'm always up for silly games, but what is the point of trying to learn the NAMES of 4499 people? I went along with it for a while of course, I didn't want to be the grumpy one in the corner, and besides you never know what can happen...nothing. Other than me beginning to feel sick with uncomfortable-ness. We play similar sorts of games at Beauchamp with the kids, but I dearly hope we don't make it that bad. I like to think that we recognise that not everyone has the confidence/wants to just go and jump around with random people while wearing a backpack.

Well eventually, 3 hours later of going up down the bleachers (tiered seats) because noone knew what we were supposed to be doing, we were free to go...and play more getting-to-know-you games with a group of 50-odd science faculty froshers and frosh masters (frosh masters? really!?). I stuck around for the 'campus tour' - we just walked back to campus - before running away to open a bank account with a swiss guy I'd been chatting to. All in all, I spoke to a lot of nice people, none of whom I have spoken to since. Freaking love freshers. We all know how I feel about Sheffield freshers, and I think this was worse. I spent the afternoon with 2 people I met when wandering back from the bank, and we have been out together since. THAT's the way I like it, meeting people while doing things I like doing. Like walking away from banks.

Rant over! I went home and ranted away to the others, was given a delicious canadian beer, and calmed down. Phew. Classes started on Thursday but my courses were still all up in the air. Registration is just ridiculously complicated, but, as always, the advisors I have spoken to have all been uber nice and helpful. I should officially get on to my final class tonight; I'm taking insect biology and control, human genetics applied, methods in biology of organisms, ecological dynamics and medical anthropology (well I find them all interesting!). They all have various mid-terms, papers, reports, presentations, write ups and conferences, but as long as I keep my head down I should still have hair on my head by Christmas...I hope. The general atmosphere here seems alot more competitive and workaholic than Shefshef, as explained to me by my very lovely 'buddy' who I met through the international welcoming scheme. Tara is in her second year at McGill and is going to take me shopping for winter boots and be my library friend, woop!

I also have my supportive fellow english buddies on Rue Hutchinson! I am pretty much the 11th housemate of Nick's house, it's amazebeans. I love where I live for many reasons, but I also love going to Nick's for a bit of englishness and more people :) There are 6 english, 2 french, 1 german and 1 colombian, all students, all nice, all (currently) putting up with me just knocking on their door, or even just walking straight on in when their crazy landlord lets me in.

Other than starting on the paper (essay) I have already been set, I haven't really done anything crazy. Firmin took us to a bar with a gorgeous terrace outside, all lit up and full of trees. I queued for an hour to buy one expensive textbook, then for 2 hours to buy my travel card. Since I've been here I have eaten, for the first time, shrimp, eel, acorn squash, bison, and smoked veal. Max and I found an amazing second hand clothes shop where they give you a free shot, you can buy samosas, and it has an actual swimming pool of clothes, where you dive in and anything is $1. I am now the proud owner of some purple jeans. Vegetable shopping is fun; I live near a huge farmer's market where you can taste the fruit, and there are yellow and purple cauliflowers and white aubergines and unidentifiable veggies. Jay-walking is only jay-walking if you get caught. People don't understand if I say 'half eight'; it has to be 'eight thirty'. I live right near a restaurant that does The Best breakfast ever - think of a fry up, make it pretty, add more meat, exotic fruit, a crepe, weird-but-nice pate stuff and unlimited coffee, and boom, $10. I took the lightly named 'french toast with fresh fruit'; I couldn't see the wonderful french toast underneath the astoundingly constructed tower of strawbs, papaya, mango, blueberries etc and an artfully placed banana. Amazebeans.

Please send tea bags. And newsie gossip.

Lots of love