Monthly Archives: February 2003

Franglais? Frenglish?

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The little battle between French and English Canadians is quite amusing. They criticize each other as a sport, political, social, cultural bashing. “We’re better than you and you’re worse than me”. You can see it in the language issue, especially here in Québec where people are so protective of their Langue Française and if you speak a little bit of it, you better make your best efforts in order NOT to offend any of these Quebecois blurting some English words. And it goes the other way around, the English Canadians that won’t accept French is the other official language of this country.

I don’t know if I’m getting the whole picture wrong, but that’s what I’ve been feeling since I got here. Originally, Canada (except BC) was a French colony, then France lost a war and the English took the territories; Québec maintained its French culture until these days and people here are proud of that. Just ask my neighbor, an Italian descendant, that picked a fight at the local deli because the owners answered in English when she spoke to them in French… ha ha! And she understands English! Isn’t it silly? Entertainer? The deli owners are Italian (Bon Giorno is the name of the deli, ha ha!); they could’ve used their mother language. Anyway!

I have no idea what brings me to write this entry. I was discussing this with Elisa the other day; the whole culture-absorbing issue (we were even having Greek dessert). I guess it’s because I think if this is a country, then live as a country. Or heck… We can have a Republic of Québec without being picked by the ROC. Even better, to solve the language issue, let’s just use the before-colony language of the Aboriginals. That would be truly Canadian.

Duct Tape Thoughts

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Clay Bennett has some kind of idea for using that famous Duct Tape and I have mine too… he he he!

I feel the stupidest person in the world. Just last night I learned that Rumsfie, Dicky and the Oreo Girl were all related to the oil industry. I’d been missing some important pieces of information. I’ll leave the rest of the reflecting to you because I’m not feeling very bright today for political discussions.

On other news: Mini-nukes. That sounds just lovely… Like Mini-me and Dr. Evil. Oh wait! Evil… yes, new generation of nuclear weapons. Ahhh! All this techonogy, how the world advances to “better” times. Somebody, please, stop them! My stomach hurts at the thought of their double standards wanting to disarm others, but making plans to build/improve their WMD.

Relief # 1

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I went to see my Ophtalmo today. As always, I just love Dr. Tremblay for being so nice and talking to me in Spanish. He’s got a nice smile, fatherly, trusting. Bonjour Madame Dominguez! I’m going to make you blind for a while with pupil dilating drops… Cool… NOT. But hey! Good news, everything’s just fine with my eyes and I only have to go back in October (if nothing else comes up with my Pituitary Tumor).

After the appointment I was blurried out, couldn’t see very well, but thank God Patrice went with me because I was seeing s*** in the Metro, ha ha! Nice, very nice… I watched T.V. with my sunglasses on because the lights were blinding me. A dilated pupil is like a camera diaphragm totally open, go figure. :tongue:

I’m relieved with the good news from the Ophtalmo. Knowing the toll of Diabetes and the “wonders” of Retinopathy is always great to hear your eyes are doing fine. Next step is blood tests and then checking with the Endocrino in March, and I guess I’ll have to go through another MRI to see how things are in my head. This is sure a rollercoaster, but I have to be patient.

Now it’s time to relax and laugh a little watching the “Best of the Worst in American Idol“. Good God! Don’t those people realize how bad they are? I feel sorry for them. But hey! Gilmore Girls is on. Time to change the channel.

Watch out!

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If you are in Canada and hold an Amex, Visa or Mastercard, you will want to watch out for weird activity in your credit card account. An “unauthorized intruder” has accessed a third-party computer system holding information on up to 8 million accounts.

Stop the Tree Killers

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I’m faxing credit reports to the clients and I discovered a scandalous pile of wasted paper. Felt like screaming and came up with a discourse on how we can just use the other side of those sheets in good ways to protect the environment. Of course some idiots told me there was no point because no one was going to use them and I replied that “there is always time to educate people”.

What have I been doing during the last hour? Cutting the sheets in pieces so the people here at the office will use them to take notes and stop wasting sticky notes. It drives me nuts to think of all the waste. I even made piles and put a little note on top: “The environment. Does that ring a bell? It’s easy to protect it. Please help me by using this paper here. Thank you! BD“. With a little :) and everything.

Hopefully they’ll get the message.