Movies...
I watched a documentary Sunday night on CBC called "The Control Room". It's about Al Jazeera's coverage of the War in Iraq, which the American's called Iraqi propaganda, and the Iraqi's called American propaganda. I thought that it was an excellent look at both the Arab news network and the war, from a relatively unbiased view (which is hard to find in North America).
At uni tonight, they showed "L'Auberge Espagnole", a French film that I first saw in France, and loved. I've tried to find it at movie rental places here, but they don't have a big selection of foreign films (I could probably find it in Vancouver), so I was thrilled to see that the Modern Languages department at my uni showed it. It was hilarious -better than I remembered it.
I took my sister along, and met up with Nick, Leah, and Lindsay at uni. After the movie was over, Sheila and her bf said hi, which was a surprise. I didn't think that they'd come out, but it was good to see them.
If you haven't L'Auberge Espagnole yet, I highly recommend it.

A Real-Life Horror Story...
I was recently reading the blog of an American girl heading to France to work as an English assistant in France, like I did last year. She mailed in an application for her visa, along with her passport as the visa must be placed in the passport. In short, the French consulate lost her passport, and yet they claim the American postal system lost it. The thing is that you're supposed to mail your passport by registered mail, so the American postal system probably didn't loose the passport and other documents.
Did I mention that she's supposed to leave for France in under a week?
You can check it out in her own words here.

Who's A Nerd?
If you guessed me, you're right. I came to the realisation the other day that I'm a nerd. I may not dress like one (OK, I sort of dressed like one way back when, but not anymore), but I'm a science nerd.
I was on the internet at school, looking up stuff on the Green Fluorescent Protein for a biochem term paper, when I said to Jenn who was sitting beside me, "look at this! This is so cool; they're manipulating the protein to make it able to give readings of concentrations of pH or various ions..." At that point, I realised that anyone else listening would think that I'm a total nerd.
My nerdity was confimed today when I signed up for BOSS (Bunch of Science Students), which is a science club at my uni. We don't really do anything, except get money from the Student Union Society for "fieldtrips" and pizza.
Then I went to the upper level science student social tonight, for free pizza, pop, and tacky door prizes (although I came away with a free personal sized pizza and drink from the cafeteria, so that was cool). Yah, I'll admit it. I'm becoming a nerd...

Raspberry Harvester...
I just got a hit on my blog from someone in the Ukraine looking up "raspberry harvester". How sad is that?
Not that the person is from the Ukraine, but that they found my blog by typing up raspberry harvester. Before this post, I must have mentioned it once, maybe twice, when I was working in the raspberry fields this summer.
If you try typing "raspberry harvester video" into Google, you'll find that this blog comes up as number 6 (SIX) on the list!
Anyway, enough of that. I'm off to go tutoring now.

One Year...
It's hard to believe, but exactly one year ago I boarded a plane from Vancouver to Paris. In some ways, it seems like I never left, but in other ways, it seems like I was gone for a lot longer than 8 months.
I made some great friends over there, that I hope I'll stay in touch with for a long time to come. I was also able to visit some old friends, and was lucky to be able to do a lot of travelling while I was in Europe. Paris, Lille, Arras, Lyon, Cannes, Nice, Brussels, Florence, Rome, Naples, London, Amsterdam, Lausanne, Zurich, Stockholm, and the list goes on. I can't wait to get back travelling again. But at the same time I realize that I've got to do something "productive". (Why does life have to be productive anyway?). I'm back at school, looking at my life options. That's really quite scary. I had a meeting at my uni with the science advisor yesterday. It went well, except for the question that everyone asks (including me)
What are you going to be when you "grow up"?
My answer, "I don't know..."
Will I ever know? I hope so. Just don't ask me in the next few days, weeks, months, years. You get the picture.

Canada Wins!
Just in case you haven't heard, Canada beat Finland in the World Cup Hockey Championship, by a score of 3 to 2!
Go Canada Go!

Hello...
Well, there's not a heck of a lot of new news. I'm tutoring at my old high school, for the international student programme. I started yesterday, worked for fifteen minutes, then I got to leave (and get paid for 1.5 hours), because all of the international students left. That was easy!
School is going well, more or less. I'm going to be challenging a second year French course, which should be fairly easy.
Yah, that's about it. I'm trying to think of something else, but I can't.

Here's a comedic interlude to the American Presidential Elections, featuring both Bush and Kerry in their cartoon forms. A must-see.

First Week Back to School...
Well, today ends the last day of my first week back to school. Actually, I'm at school right now, avoiding going to work this morning. I had a statistics class this morning (yawn), and now I'm supposed to head to work. But I'll delay that for a bit to let you know how my week went.
Tuesday, the first day back at uni in a year, went really well. It was warm and sunny, and there was free hamburgers and pop. Not to mention the fact that I got to see some uni friends that I haven't seen in a year or so. And, to top it all off, the three hour "Anatomy and Physiology of Plants" lab was cancelled for the first day back!
The second day back (Wednesday) is when reality sunk in. I'm back at school, and have to spend time studying... It started to rain, which helped me get back into the student mode. I found out I have to give a seminar in a few weeks, in my Molecular Biology lecture. I should probably pick something soon.
Thursday I only had one hour of lecture (we got out early!), then I got to spend a fortune on text books. One text cost me $190 (Canadian, or $125 US), which I'm only going to use for one semester, and won't be able to re-sell because a new edition will be out in two years when the course is offered again. Of course I have to buy it new, because there are no used editions up for sale, and even if they were, it's an old edition. It's all about the money I tell you.
Anyway, it's now the weekend (well, after work it is), and today is payday!

An interesting link...
Here is a cool link that gives translations into major languages of blogging words.

Vancouver Visit...
I went into Vancouver on Wednesday, to visit Adeline, Stephanie, and Marianne who were in town. I really love that city, it's so beautiful. The city is green with trees and flowers, there are mountains to the north, east, and south, and it's got water all around.
Anyway, the four of us met up around the Burrard SkyTrain station, then walked to Stanley Park, and around the sea wall a bit. We had lunch in the park, and looked at photos from France and Vimy Ridge. Then it started to sprinkle, so we got on the free trolley that goes around the park, and rode around it twice until it stopped raining.
Then we walked up Robson, and did some window shopping, before stopping at Blenz for something to drink. I tried an ice matcha latte. I've been wanting to try matcha for a long time, and I really liked it. It's like a strong green tea, which is too be expected, since it's made from ground green tea leaves.
We were getting hungry, so we went to The Old Spaghetti Factory, where we met up with Stephanie's parents and sister, and had dinner. Mmmmmm, I love the Spaghetti Factory.
Then we had to say goodbye, which is always hard. We're all off in separate directions, once again.