Sunday, we went to see the play “Michel and ti-Jean” at the Centaur Theatre. It was pretty awesome – funny, sad, poignant... it had everything a play needed. The Centaur Theatre is an exclusively English theatre, which are apparently a little hard to come by in Montréal. That's not to say that there wasn't a little French in the play, but it was set up in such a way that contextually you could figure out what was going on.
The play itself centers around Michel Tremblay and Jack Kerouac. The two meet at a bar, and the play goes from there – it's about the two's interactions and their styles of writing. It really let me into the ideas behind both of their writings and the style of writing they employed. Some of the best parts showed the influence in the “beatnik” from jazz.
It also had references galore to Kerouac's ancestry and background, revealing his French-Canadian roots. The play also exposed me to another great writer – Michel Tremblay, who revolutionized the theatre world in Québec and influenced the culture. He introduced “joual” dialect to the mainstream culture, showed the real lives of working class women, and attacked religion (something which comes out very strongly in the play was his dislike of Christianity – and Québec was deeply religious at the time).
In any case, the play has been extended to the 13th, so if anyone's up, I suggest going to see it. It was sold out when we went to see it.
Also, my computer has apparently decided, after I pasted the word « Montréal » into the document to make sure I was getting the accent over the « e » correct, that I am now typing in French. Since all the English words are then being underlined as misspelled in this document, I get to see which words are the same in English as in French! It's pretty interesting, haha. Interaction, culture, style, religion... jazz, even. I looked them up to see if they have the same meanings, and they do, of course. That's kind of cool. I knew how closely related the languages were, but it's interesting to see it laid out so blatantly.
In case anyone wants a good French translation site, this one has always been my favorite (it does Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Russian with links to other language dictionaries as well).
Anyways, my accelerated class has finally ended, so that means I'm refreshed and ready for the rest of the semester! Yaaaay!
More to come soon!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Getting Started
Oh gosh, where to begin? I wasn't expecting Montréal to be so action packed right off the bat. For classes, already we've visiting Bodies: The Exhibit, went to the McCord Museum, saw a hockey game, visited the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, the science class visited the Biodome, and we went skating at the Old Port.
Bodies was an incredible experience. We visited this exhibit with our Communication and Ethics (COM 220) class. The exhibit consists of actual human corpses preserved and displayed for your educational benefit. This was our first class meeting for COM 220, which really got things moving along. I was also happy to learn that the opportunity to visit this place – as well as any other group excursion any of the classes are taking – was open to other students not attending the class (although you have to pay for yourself if that's the case). My two other roommates came along and got the full experience for $20 (Canadian).
At the McCord Museum and Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, we got our first taste of Canadian history. We've been learning a lot about First Nations and their histories. Canada is going to great lengths to preserve its national culture – and all the cultures within it, although that may not have always been the case. The frontal pole that was preserved at the McCord Museum led to an interesting discussion about how the art form was still being passed down in families today, and the controversy between the idea that the pole itself had a “lifetime” that should be respected and the European idea of preserving and sheltering it. The Inuit art at the Museum of Fine Arts was also pretty fantastic, as well as some of the sculptures that caught the classes' eyes near/in the Group of Seven part of the museum. These museums showcased just how much Canada was trying to define itself during those time periods, and how much it's trying to keep hold of its many heritages now.
The hockey game was pretty cool, but we lost 5 to 1. :( We did make a lot of noise, and a lot of the kids were playing a hockey card game before it started. It was really fun to see all the families out together.
I didn't go to the Biodome, but my roommates Ben and Chris had a lot of fun. Chris put his face really close to a huge bird, which was kind of exciting. I'll give it a visit some time.
Skating at the Old Port was... interesting. Haha. Okay, okay. It was fun. Being a southern girl, I'm not used to snow very much (until after I went to Japan and then Burlington), let alone ice. I can barely walk on it, so skating was a little challenging. But a small group of us went, and I wasn't alone in my probably-been-ice-skating-twice-maybe. Luckily Dan (my boyfriend) was decent enough that he could drag me around sometimes. I was at least better than the kindergartener whose dad had a traffic cone to set down when the kid tripped. The Montréalers seemed fairly proficient, and there were a lot of them there. All in all, it was a good time, and we checked out a Pho place near China Town on our way back. :)
That's it so far. We've got a little break in some of our classes, so we get a chance to rest a bit. There's generally no wanting for activities, though. The staff here is awesome and super helpful and always friendly. My teachers are sooooo awesome. And I'm pretty sure I passed my first French test (even though I keep thinking in Japanese in the class, haha).
Montréal's pretty sweet so far.
Bodies was an incredible experience. We visited this exhibit with our Communication and Ethics (COM 220) class. The exhibit consists of actual human corpses preserved and displayed for your educational benefit. This was our first class meeting for COM 220, which really got things moving along. I was also happy to learn that the opportunity to visit this place – as well as any other group excursion any of the classes are taking – was open to other students not attending the class (although you have to pay for yourself if that's the case). My two other roommates came along and got the full experience for $20 (Canadian).
At the McCord Museum and Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, we got our first taste of Canadian history. We've been learning a lot about First Nations and their histories. Canada is going to great lengths to preserve its national culture – and all the cultures within it, although that may not have always been the case. The frontal pole that was preserved at the McCord Museum led to an interesting discussion about how the art form was still being passed down in families today, and the controversy between the idea that the pole itself had a “lifetime” that should be respected and the European idea of preserving and sheltering it. The Inuit art at the Museum of Fine Arts was also pretty fantastic, as well as some of the sculptures that caught the classes' eyes near/in the Group of Seven part of the museum. These museums showcased just how much Canada was trying to define itself during those time periods, and how much it's trying to keep hold of its many heritages now.
The hockey game was pretty cool, but we lost 5 to 1. :( We did make a lot of noise, and a lot of the kids were playing a hockey card game before it started. It was really fun to see all the families out together.
I didn't go to the Biodome, but my roommates Ben and Chris had a lot of fun. Chris put his face really close to a huge bird, which was kind of exciting. I'll give it a visit some time.
Skating at the Old Port was... interesting. Haha. Okay, okay. It was fun. Being a southern girl, I'm not used to snow very much (until after I went to Japan and then Burlington), let alone ice. I can barely walk on it, so skating was a little challenging. But a small group of us went, and I wasn't alone in my probably-been-ice-skating-twice-maybe. Luckily Dan (my boyfriend) was decent enough that he could drag me around sometimes. I was at least better than the kindergartener whose dad had a traffic cone to set down when the kid tripped. The Montréalers seemed fairly proficient, and there were a lot of them there. All in all, it was a good time, and we checked out a Pho place near China Town on our way back. :)
That's it so far. We've got a little break in some of our classes, so we get a chance to rest a bit. There's generally no wanting for activities, though. The staff here is awesome and super helpful and always friendly. My teachers are sooooo awesome. And I'm pretty sure I passed my first French test (even though I keep thinking in Japanese in the class, haha).
Montréal's pretty sweet so far.
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