| Monday June 17th 2002 Just finished my french written exam; have the oral exam in two weeks on July 2nd. Je suis jusque un �tudiant pour maintenant. J'ai pris beacoup de fran�ais dans �cole, mais apr�s �a je ne pratique rien, parce qu'il �tait tr�s peu fran�ais dans mon ville, dans nord d'Ontario. Now that I'm in Ottawa, however, I encounter it all the time (naturallement). I don't really need it for my job but I think it would help, and the classes do seem to work provided I get the right instructor. Some of them just make me shake my head; I think the language school needs to raise its bar for teaching applications a little. Remembered to call my dad yesterday, for which I'm very proud of myself. Not so proud that when my uncle picked up the phone I got them confused, but I didn't know he was visiting my parents so it wasn't a fair test! I never realized they sounded so alike on the phone before. Okay, now I'm just making excuses :) This was a rather blah sort of weekend, consisting mostly of hanging out a friend's apartment or my own, but I think I can safely blame the weather for that one. Did catch a good movie last night with a good-luck-charm friend (all the movies I see with her have been winners so far; check out my review of Amelie, for instance). We saw 'Insomnia', with Al Pacino and Robin Williams. Not your average detective movie, and not your average Robin Williams. Normally if a comedian plays a serious role like that, I'm waiting for the punchline, but this time I never once thought about it. Maybe because the first time you hear Robin's voice is over the phone, so he gets to establish his character before you see his face and jump to conclusions. My only criticisms would be the Alaskan teenagers who acted like they lived in LA, and the rookie cop whose novice enthusiasm wasn't dampened in the slightest when a fellow officer got shot. Otherwise, c'est tr�s beau. Next weekend another friend is participating in the Dragon Boat races, so I figure that'll be worth checking out. I'm not sure what the cause is, but if you don't know about the races here's the summary: a bunch of volunteers practice for a couple of weeks on board a leaky rowboat (well, they're a bit fancier than that) and then participate in races over the course of a weekend, raising money for ... something or other. Okay, so I won't get a job covering the event, granted. But I'm thinking now that I would have liked to volunteer, myself. If you form a team next year, let me know :) |