So what is it about Québec that keeps me going back?

When I first did my summer study program in Trois-Rivières, Québec in 2017, I tried to figure out how long it had been since I'd been anywhere in Québec. I wasn't even sure. I knew it was pre-9/11. I finally decided it was probably 1999 or 2000. I used to enjoy going to performances of the Montréal West Operatic Society (now sadly defunct). I'm not sure why I stopped going to Québec. The first few years after 1999-2000 I was newly divorced and just keeping my head above water financially.  Eventually I got picked up full-time at Freeport H.S., so got back to getting my French on during the summers of 2005 and 2006 through a summer immersion program at Université Sainte-Anne in Pointe-de-l'Église, Nouvelle-Écosse (also known as Church Point, Nova Scotia). It was an absolutely fantastic fun program where I learned a lot. It's a tiny campus right on the ocean in the middle of freaking nowhere -- a beautiful part of freaking nowhere. So it was ideal for an immersion experience; no distractions. There were 400 of us if I recall correctly, ages 13 to 70's, and there was something to do in French every waking hour; classes in the morning and constant activity in the afternoon and evening and on the weekends.

Summer 2017 was coming up, and I wanted to get my French on again. But as much as I had loved my two Université Sainte-Anne summers, I had already worked through all the levels of French they offered. There was nothing left for me to do. So I looked elsewhere, and Google searching called my attention to the Road Scholar program at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Exact same immersion model as Université Sainte-Anne; class in the morning, excursions and activities in the afternoon and evenings, and out-of-town excursions on the weekends. I didn't know the city of Trois-Rivières but noted that it was exactly at the midpoint between Montréal and the city of Québec. Sounded good.

And it was. - so much that I repeated the program in 2018 and 2019. I've had the same fantastic teacher for all three years, and he has taught us as much about Québec culture, history, and life as he has about the French language. Outside of class, it hasn't strictly been an immersion experience as a lot of English has been spoken by participants, and the organizers have sort of looked the other way. This is a trip sponsored by a for-profit company, so they were inclined to give people what they wanted, as opposed to Université Sainte-Anne which was an academic program with credits granted so they had standing to enforce the all-French rule.

So even if the program wasn't in French as much, why have I fallen in love with Québec over the course of this program? First, I've had great French learning experiences my whole life thanks to fantastic teachers and professors, so I was predisposed to love a place right over the Maine border which is all French-speaking. Second, the people really are different in more qualities than the language they speak. Québec people are more physical and warm than their anglo counterparts. People kiss on both cheeks when they meet. People seem to be a little more direct in their communications too. Over my years in education I've learned to filter every word that comes out of my mouth or my keyboard lest someone take something the wrong way. It's so refreshing to just say what needs to be said and know that it will be received as intended, even if I'm saying it in my second language.

There is music everywhere, and people appreciate Québec folk music as much as whatever is popular at the moment. And the folk music is up-tempo and lively. I've heard very little English-language popular music when I've been there over the past three years. Finally, there is overt pride in their culture and language, and a certain strength of character and resilience that comes from the fact that they have had to fight to maintain French as their language. I truly did not understand that at first. I thought the French and English-speaking communities co-existed peacefully kind of on the scale of a Coke-or-Pepsi preference. Not so. My teacher over the past three years and the grad student who was my online tutor over the past school year have taught me a lot about the social history of Québec. It's more than just hockey and snow. There is rich literature and folklore borne out of their struggle to maintain their language and culture. And for a province / culture of 8 million people, there is a LOT of art-music-literature. Fun fact from my teacher who is an author and singer-songwriter (fun fact about the fun fact: I played on two tracks for his new album!): 3000 sales is considered a best-seller in Québec.

Here's a live video of the big hit of 2015 from the annual Québec music awards ceremony. When I asked my tutor for suggestions for Québec songs to learn to sing and play on guitar, this was the first one she mentioned. The group is the super-popular Les Cowboys Fringants, which means "The Frisky Cowboys." Their music is a mix of folk rock and Québec traditional. Note the violin and accordion in the band. The song is "Marine marchande," which means "Merchant Marine." In the tune, a man and woman in a couple are calling each other horrible names, the man says he has signed up for the merchant marine to get away from her, he goes and he's miserable, he says he wants to come back to her, and she says forget it, she has a new girlfriend who lives upstairs and is keeping his side of the bed warm. The refrain says "Let's drink, let's drink, let's drink, my throat is on fire, let's drink, let's drink, let's drink for all the unhappy couples, let's drink, let's drink, let's drink, just one more, babe, I've enlisted in the merchant marine." A cultural note about the "couple" thing particular to Québec: a much higher percentage of man-woman couples never get married in Québec than in English Canada or the USA. Something like one-third. People are in decades-long committed relationships, have kids even, and never get married. Québec French has something American English doesn't and really needs: a word for a committed non-married partner, any gender person or couple. It's "conjoint / conjointe" (in its grammatical masculine / feminine forms). And people also use it for their partner they're married to. So calling someone your "conjoint/e" means they're your partner with the marital status or lack thereof irrelevant. Pretty cool. O.k., here's the video!
Les Cowboys Fringants, "Marine marchande"

As for Trois-Rivières itself, it's a city of 137,000 and I'm not really a city person. Portland is plenty big enough. But what I like about Trois-Rivières compared to Montréal and Québec is that, in fact, I have to do everything in French. Montréal has a large English-speaking community and Québec has a ton of tourists. Trois-Rivières has neither. So I never, ever, ever hear or see English when I'm out and about. I'm learning more because of that. And as cities go, it's clean, it's safe, and it has a nice riverfront downtown area and a cool music and theater scene -- needless to say, right up my alley. I told someone once that the only thing I missed when I'm there (besides family and friends) was living less than 200 yards from the ocean as I do in Portland.

Corollary to that, I love that I'm learning all the time. Every day I pick up lots of new stuff: vocabulary words, conversational expressions, info I need for daily living, cultural or current events references. Sometimes it's a challenge; I find that when I have to interact with someone out in the city as opposed to on campus, I kind of steel myself before the interaction. I make sure I know the vocabulary I need to ask for what I need, and I hope like crazy that I'll understand what they say back to me. I don't always. But I can almost always get the gist. Once in a great while someone will switch to English; that's discouraging for me because it means that I wasn't successful at executing the interaction in French. But I just remind myself that they're doing it out of courtesy. And the longer I'm there, the less it happens, and the less it will continue to happen.

As I write this, I'll be back and forth between Portland/Freeport and Ellsworth for most of the rest of the summer. After that, still up in the air at present, but I'm checking out a few options. I should know soon. But I'm following news from up there, corresponding with a couple of new friends, and playing lots of lively Québec music on my phone through my car speakers whenever I'm driving anywhere. I'm lucky to have three places where I feel like I'm at home.

The colorful world of Québec swear words

I'm going to start this post the same way I did the last one: I have wonderful friends. The news from my last post about my program being cancelled for fall was a downer, and I so appreciate the messages of support I've gotten from folks. Thank you soooooo much. I'm working on a Plan B; nothing is settled yet.

I'm coming home for the weekend. Anyone going to be around? This weekend trip home was already planned before anything hit the fan, but the opportunity to spend time on my home turf and think about stuff will be good too. The reason for the trip: two of my former students directed an independent film, "Invisible Things." I was a financial patron and an extra in a few scenes, so I got invited to the première Sunday night, and I'm not missing it. So I'll be home sometime Saturday and heading back to Québec Monday morning.

Now to the topic of this post: "the colorful world of Québec swear words." Definitely not for delicate ears and far from school-appropriate. Being retired, I can survive a breach of professionalism. :)

In all cultures, the most taboo language reflects the cultural taboos. Québec culture was very strongly influenced by the Catholic Church for most of the last few centuries. So the most taboo words are words from the church. So it follows that words that are completely innocuous to us are highly offensive when used as expletives. It cracks me up!

Now to the illustration that I'm still cracking up over. There is an excellent museum here in Trois-Rivières devoted to Québec popular culture. Part of one exhibit is devoted to, sure enough, these swear words which are unique in the French-speaking world. Check out this photo of the exhibit:

I walked around the corner and saw this and started cracking up laughing. This is the unhibited nature of the Québécois! Now I want to spell out an equivalency for you just to illustrate how startling and how hysterical this was. Imagine that you are attending a museum exhibit on American culture. You walk into a room, and there in huge block letters on the wall you read: "Fuck, Shit, Goddammit, Son of a Bitch, Asshole, Dickhead, Jesus Christ." This is exactly what you are looking at in the photo: Québec swear words with that level of offensiveness! They started with "tabarnak," which is the big kahuna of swear words which is why I started my list with "Fuck." Coming out swinging!!

What do they mean literally? In order of the photo, it's "tabernacle" or church; "host" like the communion host or wafer; "ciborium" which is the box that holds the host; "chalice" which is the communion drinking cup; "sacrement" which is the same in English; "viarge" which is "virgin" referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus; and "Christ." Yes, indeed, those are Québec's most taboo swear words.

You do hear people say "Fuck" up here but it has no power to them. They think they're saying something with about the offensiveness level of "damn it."

I wanted to make a funny post after my last super-serious one. I hope you find this as hilarious as I do!

the honeymoon is over, the challenges begin ...

I have wonderful friends. Two people checked in on Sunday: "hey, haven't seen any posts from you, all o.k. up there?"

Welllll, let's start with this story ... I found out during a meeting with my advisor today that my academic program for fall is going to be cancelled due to low enrollment. They typically get the majority of their students from China, and due to tensions and problems, no Chinese students will be enrolled. There was something about students from Brazil dropping off, too, but I didn't catch all of that. It's not unusual for me to miss information when someone's talking. I can follow TV and radio news, lectures, etc., because people are trained to speak clearly, but in casual conversation people are more, well, casual. -- especially in my case. Because I speak with confidence (I stop short of saying "I speak well"), people assume I understand everything they're saying. Ha.

I'd been wondering why I hadn't gotten a tuition bill yet. Now I know.

So, my choices:
1. Enroll in classes for francophones. My advisor suggested it. It will be twice as expensive and 1,000,000 times more challenging. I don't know if I'm capable of doing college-level work for native French speakers.
2. The French school has a two-week private tutoring option. Five hours of one-on-one instruction a day. I know one of the instructors who does that and would really enjoy working with him. I wouldn't be able to come on my Canada study permit (like a student visa) since I wouldn't be a full-time student.  (UPDATE: Turns out that's not true. I can be a part-time student on a study permit. Whew...) Without the study permit, I would have a six-month time limit after which I would have to come home. (UPDATE: I can renew the study permit. Turns out part-time is o.k. Whew again ...)
3. Cut my losses and come home now.

So there's that.

Plus I've been dealing with plumbing problems in my apartment, specifically a shower that only ran hot water, no cold. And it was HOT. Took a week to resolve that. I was fretting wondering whether I had made myself clear to the landlord what the problem was. I contacted my landlord again yesterday morning and he came right over and fixed it. He thought his plumber had taken care of it. Message to me: don't wait a week next time I have a problem. Plumbing or home problems suck anyway, and layering a language barrier onto that just compounds the stress.

I'm not going to lie: I hit kind of a low before the weekend. The plumbing thing sucked. I went to a hotel for a few days just to get away from it. Even though I'm in (and halfway through) a three-week Road Scholar class with mostly Americans studying French, I'd been feeling a little isolated and questioning my decision to do this. I saw lots of fun photos of family and friends online doing their thing on the Fourth and missed what was apparently a fantastic family gathering. Even though family and friends are only a social media post or a text away, I miss people. I live alone and am happy living like that, but that doesn't mean I want to be alone all the time.

So I made sure to have an awesome weekend. I got out of town and went to the Mauricie national park about a 40-minute drive due north of here. I did that both Saturday and Sunday. Two beautiful days. I took my journal to write in to sort some stuff out, and also took my guitar just to hang out outdoors and play and replay the small list of songs I know (I've only been playing for eight months).  Here's where I sat and played for a really long time on Sunday. There is a beautiful small lake behind the gazebo.

There are many beautiful spots in the park which is actually pretty small. It never ceases to amaze me that Canadian national and provincial parks are never, ever, ever crowded.

Then at night I went to the last two nights of the Festivoix music festival. Saturday night I heard a group that is really popular up here, Kaïn (check them out on YouTube). They're billed as folk rock but I'd call it country rock. The crowd was having a blast and so was the band. Everyone recognized all the tunes and was singing along -- except me, but I was having fun watching people have fun! Sunday night, the closing night of the festival, I went to the performance by Jean-Michel Blais, a pianist who accompanies his piano playing with electronic sounds. (Check him out too.) I had my doubts about that before I heard it, but I really liked it. The common thread between the two very different performances was that the performers engaged with the audience a lot and kept expressing how appreciative they were of people's attendance and support. Cool.

So I've come out of the funk I was in. I very, very rarely get in a funk so it was weird. I didn't enjoy that. Well, I guess no one does or it wouldn't be called a funk.

I have no idea how I'm going to resolve the academic problem. I'm not going to decide tonight. It's late and I have the All-Star game on in the background. I'll focus on that for a few innings. The American League is ahead. As it should be. I'll watch baseball for awhile tonight, and tomorrow I'll start figuring out how to play the academic curve ball I've just been thrown. With thought, planning, and a little luck, I'll knock it out of the park.