Ouf, I'm tired

Being a day camp tutor is HARD. Long days, lots of physical activity, hot sun, annoying kids... But it's also rewarding. I've learned to find the good in the bad. Long days: more experience for my job. Lots of physical activity: I'll get in shape. Hot sun: maybe a tan. Annoying kids: they're using the correct verb tense to mouth off to me.

I have two particularly difficult students for two very different reasons. One is a 13 year old boy with the maturity of a 5 year old. He's very smart but refuses to do any work. The other is 12 and I'm convinced he's got undiagnosed... something. He freaks out of what seems to us to be no reason, he shows ODC tendencies, he eats his glue and pencil shavings.... I really don't know what to do with him. He's okay during actual lessons, but refuses to socialize at breaks or at lunch time... So I just let him be. I include him (in what I hope to be a non-aggressive/non-scary way) during the lessons and simply make sure he isn't doing anything dangerous during the breaks. So yeah.

Today was a lot of fun. This morning, we played a version of tag. What was great was that the tutors were "it" and I had a chance to go after some of my students. Sadly (and hilariously) this backfired on me. A kid sidestepped me, out -maneuvered me and I ended up face-planting into a wall. I was a huge (but not deep) scrape on my right arm that'll bruise up nicely. War scar, I think lol.

Tonight was my last night with this host family. They had never hosted a tutor before and requested to only have one week with me. The host mother assures me that the next host family is fantastic, so I'm optimistic. My host family had guests for dinner and it was so much fun. The mother spent almost 5 years living in England and relished the idea of practicing her English. I was also treated to stories about how the fathers met, gossip about other host families and the families of other students and a plethora (well, 2) of suggestions of where to go out tonight. They were so understanding of my desire to spend for English adult time (as they called it) with some fellow tutors, minus host families and students. We ended up at this sketchy bar called Area 51. It was sketch going in, but once out back it was great. There were BBQ pits going where people were cooking food (smelled AWESOME), a great patio type getup and a good 10€ bottle of red wime for the three of us. My host mom didn't even think twice about "letting" me go out: she gave me the house keys, walked me out and showed me exactly where to go. Fantastic!

Well, it's 1:33am and, guess what? I'M EXHAUSTED! I barely slept last night and I seem to have allergies.

Good night.

I do miss you <3

Boone St-Jean!!

What a day

Today, I:

• helped my students write a really random story about Casper the ghost, his dog Jimmy and their trip to the Manchester United stadium. *SPOILER ALERT* Jimmy got robbed and casper screamed "BANANA!!"
• finally started to get some colour on my arms... and perhaps even a slight sun burn: sunscreen tomorrow!
• pretended to be a platypus, worth 4 points
• was chased around the school grounds by 65 kids, or so, trying to get said 4 points for their team
• was a penguin who drank tea
• helped a 15 year old by correcting her pronunciation for her English oral exam: a report on the book Out of Africa
• was entertained by 5 Italian kids at supper
• babysat said Italian kids for an hour
• ate freshly made gelato: strawberry, chocolate, straciatella, vanilla and pistachio
• watched Disney's Tarzan in Italian
• sang along to the songs in English
• tried to convince myself I'd only be online for 30 mins (90 mins ago).

Good night!

And then the morning comes...

One thing I somehow managed to forget about last year: there are not enough hours in the night to wake up feeling rested. I stayed up until 1am last night and woke up at 8:30am this morning. That's still 7.5 hours of sleep, but I'm exhausted.

The family is going to a birthday party in an other town today. I'm staying home because they might not be back in time for the Camp Meeting (which I feel is important since we divide the groups and plan out two weeks worth of activities). The meeting is a 6:20pm... maybe I'll catch a nap after the family leaves.

I've been reading my book (Barney's Version) for the last hour or so. It's very funny and I can't wait to rent the movie.

Yeah... Maybe a nap now isn't such a bad idea...

In Italia!

Hey y'all! I'm in Bella Italia! My plane landed in Nice (France) yesterday at 6:30am my time (12:30am Montreal time). I ate an "American breakfast" (3 eggs sunny side up cooked on ham) at a cafe at hopped on the 9:30am train to Ventimiglia (Italy). From there, I got on the 10:30ish am train to Milan. I was on the train a good 4.5hrs: my ass hurt by the end of my ride! From Milan Central Station, I bought a 48hrs Urban Metro pass and took the underground to my hotel for the night. What a nice placed! It was 3 stars, small but very comfortable and clean. Cleaner than some 3.5 or 4 star hotels I've stayed in. The woman at the reception was very nice in answering my 7000000000000 questions about where to find certain things: a phone shop, a supermarket, a good and cheap restaurant (I ended up at McDonald's because I couldn't find it and was mega hungry)... I tried really hard to stay up so that I wouldn't be too jet-lagged today: it didn't really work. I conked out at 9:30ish... and woke up at 5am.

After tossing and turning and drifting in and out of sleep until 9am, I got up, showered, shoved everything from my carry-on into my suitcase and checked out for 11:30am. I hopped back on the underground, back to Milan Central Station to store my luggage... and had to divide my luggage and my carry-on once more (because everything together was more than 20kg which was the storing luggage max weight). I was meeting my camp director at the train station at 2:50pm, so back on the underground I went to kill some time.

Last year, I spent a weekend in Milan with some fellow tutors. One of the tutors' host moms told us about Luini, a hole in the wall restaurant near the Duomo in Milan. We went, we ate, we were happy. I decided to go back this year: why not? It was just as good this time around! I also got some postcards (despite the Post Canada strike (I meant lockout. My dad asked me to correct this.), haha) and some lemon granite (like an Italian slushy). Effing yum, by the way.

At 2:30, I headed back to the train station, picked up my luggage, shoved my carry-on back in my suitcase and headed up to meet my camp director. After a minor miscommunication, she found me and I met the 5 other tutors (3 camp from a camp last week and 2 are straight out of orientation) and my host mom. She's so nice.

I'm staying in a gated community 10mins south of Milan. She works in HR for a telecommunications company. Her husband is a physiotherapist. Both speak English very well. They have 2 kids: and 8 year old girl (who is going to the camp) and a 13 year old boy (who went to camp last year but is not going this year). The little girl is really shy and is always whispering, asking her mom what we're saying. The boy asked me to correct his English homework (yep, they have summer homework) and was very proud of himself when I said it looked good. He's trying to practice his English with me.

Alright, so it's almost 1am here. We just finished watching a movie as a family (Apocalypto!!) and I'm exhausted. Good night!

What a Day!

Yesterday was just about as perfect as a day can get. The only thing that could have made it better was actually seeing Bradley Cooper.

My bff PM came over Monday night and we chilled a bit before going to bed. Tuesday, we got up pretty early and went for an AWESOME breakfast. Then she helped me move some boxes around and we were finally off for our official "Stalking Bradley Cooper" day.

We went straight to the Old Port, seeing as how BC was spotted there this weekend. We walked around a bit and decided to stop at a terrasse for some drinks. The terrasse made me think I was in LA or Miami or something. Wicker furniture, by the water, blue skies, people conducting business meetings... By the way can I say YUM about the drinks? I was a little disappointed that the bar didn't have a blender (no margaritas!) but I decided to have an apple martini. PM had a litchi martini. They were fantastic! So freaking good. As we were sitting there, basking in the beautiful, warm sunlight, we had a great conversation. We talked about EVERYTHING. I've come to realize that I may have only known PM for 2 or 3 years but she's one of my best and closest friends. Lord knows what I'd do without her now.

After the awesome martinis, we spotted geese along the water. I swear to God, I spent a good 20 minutes laughing my ass off about the geese. I don't know why: they were relatively normal. It was just too funny! And these geese were HUGE. I was sad that none of them honked, but they did flap their wings. And stood all in a row. What's up with that? Why were they in a row, just looking at the water. Just staring at it as if trying to decide if they wanted to swim or not. So what was our natural reaction? DO THE CREEP! BEST DANCE MOVE EVER! Yeah, we creeped a bit... and then we got bored and kept walking.

Since we were out and had a camera, we decided to do the tourist thing a bit. You know, pose in front of the scenery. A couple asked us to take a picture of them and then took one of us together. They asked us where we were from and were surprised to here us answer "Uhh, we're from Montreal." You want to know where they were from? CALIFORNIA! They were a really nice couple. So, PM and I kept wandering, taking pictures in front of random scenery. I also snapped a shot of my future condo at Habitat 67. Multi-million dollar condos, but I hope to live in one, one day. When I was little, my dad took me to one of them once. He was installing the tiles for the owner and I had a day off from school. I fell in love with the view at 7 years old.

So we kept walking, hoping to run into BC, but we had no luck. Finally, we were hot and tired so we tried driving by his rumoured hotel, the St-James. We drove by twice and didn't see him, so we decided to head home. In the evening, we went to see the 4th installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean films: it was good! Yesterday was just about the perfect day.

Thanks, P!

It is done.

HOLY MOFO I FINALLY FINISHED CLEANING MY ROOM. Everything is either in my upstairs, in boxes to be sorted when I come back in August or in bags to be dropped off at the Salvation Army. And it only took... what 4 years? Holy shit. Whatever will I do with my spare time? Oh yeah, a TON of laundry before I leave...

But not tomorrow. Tomorrow, my bff PM and I will be spending the day together. Our plan is to stalk Bradley Cooper. He's in town shooting a film and PM's mom saw him (she thinks) in the film crew that set up outside her work, so we're starting there. Holy effing 8 pound baby Jesus is this boy ever HOT. Like, really hot. Like, he speaks perfect fucking French, hot. Yeah. That hot.

Star of The Hangover, Limitless and The Hangover 2, he's been the subject of my most creative fantasies since 2009. His character in The Hangover, Phil, is also who I think I'd be if the situation ever presented itself. Phil is calm, Phil is cool, Phil is sexy, Phil is the voice of reason (or something like it). He's a school teacher who knows how to separate his career from his "down time" (by ignoring kids after school ends or making sure every one understands that a drunken night of debauchery mus remain secret). He's the guy every one wants to be. He's the one who keeps his head in the game and tries to solve the problem before admitting defeat. Yeah. I'm totally Phil and not at all full of myself (haha).

30 Day Movie Challenge, part 2

Day 2 - Favorite Death Scene

A death scene is someone dying, right? So here it is. By far the funniest accidental on screen death!

30 Day Movie Challenge, part 2

I LOVED the first 30 day movie challenge and, lo! there's a second one out now! I'll try to do it every day, but I'll be in Europe so I might not be able to.

Day 1 - A movie by your favorite director

Baz Lurhmann is one of my favourite directors. I loved Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, and Strictly Ballroom. The clip I chose is the trailer for Romeo + Juliet. Such a fantastic adaptation.

Random Thoughts This Morning.

I'm leaving in 10 days and I've yet to buy my plane tickets.

I'm scared of traveling alone for a long time after camp, so I'm opting for a Monday flight home: I can either finish camp on the Friday immediately before or the previous one and use the week to travel if I'm not too chicken.

I think with another good 6 hours, my room will be clean and everything will be packed away, ready to be relocated or unpacked.

Some people who have known me many, many, many years have yet to figure out that my name isn't Michelle.


I saw Bridesmaids yesterday. It was good! Not quite as good as it was made out to be, in my opinion, but good none the less.

I think I'll be able to pack everything into my carry on sized suitcase.

I miss Jody. Her visit here was GREAT and we reconnected and rebonded and she bonded with of my best friends and I'm happy they got along.

I miss Ana, even though I text her all the time and she only lives in Laval which isn't really that far... But we're both busy a lot. And I miss her. And I'm proud of her!

I miss my grandmother. People kept coming up to me at the viewings and asking how I was because they knew we were close. I didn't think we were that close until I barely made it through the eulogy. And now I miss her more than before.

I miss Cara. There's no excuse for my laziness in doing things with her.

Jimmy Kimmel has A LOT of great clips on YouTube

I'm craving St-Hubert ribs and poutine.

I've realized in the last 10 days or so that one of my newest friends is also one of the best friends I've ever had.

I think I'll go make myself bacon and eggs....