so, jenya tells me it's time to tell you all whether i'm still alive and well.

and i am. i feel like i've been living in a time warp - i can't believe it's bloody sept. 27th today, a day that marks the almost-one-month mark since i left vancouver for the shivery shores of the saint laurent (well, not that shivery, it's been hot and humid almost constantly since i arrived). i am certainly in the thick of things already - i am working 10 to 15 hours a week, taking five classes, trying to furnish an almost-empty (though not so much anymore) house, trying to visit with a few old friends (well, who am i kidding, eric and isa are my only friends here) and occasionally trying to find time to spend with my partner in crime. (we see each other less living together than we did when living in different cities, i swear!)

so yah. i think i'm happy, but i haven't really had time to sit back and think about it. maybe that's a good thing; maybe busy-ness is the key to happiness, or at least the impression of happiness. but you'll know if yer on facebook (which is of course everyone in the modern world except perhaps jenya and natalie...ahem) that i am also desperately missing my home. even though we could learn a thing or two about nightlife, music and just general joie-de-vivre from the quebecois, there is certainly no view that i've ever seen like the one you get from almost any neighborhood in vancouver. i miss the mountains, (real ones, not the hill that is mount royal) i miss the ocean especially, and even more i miss the people. but that's inevitable; it comes with the territory.

that said, this city is fun. terribly, sinfully fun. on sunday we went to see the medieval times folks at mont royal park... and let me tell you, you don't even know the meaning of the word nerd until you've seen pimply quebec boys, men and geriatrics dressed up in pseudo-medieval outfits (more like samurai/robin hood/god-awful-raver-from-the-nineties/gandhi) poking at each other with duct tape-covered weaponry and home-decorated carboard shields in front of a large portion of one of the most hip cosmopolitan cities in north america.

it was fucking awesome.

and of course there is the drinking. i've done a lot of drinking here, sometimes in dark hipster bars, sometimes in hostile francophone-only dives, and on saturday in some sort of mad metal-head nightclub. the latter was complete with a separate darkened room full of strutting big-boned men dressed all in black shoving and strutting together in some sort of bizarre metal-head mating ritual.

anyways, this town is keeping me busy.