Something in the Water?

I got back from my Romania "roots" trip a little more than a week ago, and I have at least ten ideas circling in my brain currently as to what I will blog about in the near future. The reason for my delay in actually blogging has generally stemmed from my laziness to go through thousands of pictures from my trip to find suitable ones for posting, as well as an overall intensive schedule I am attempting to set for this summer vacation. But really, at the core, basically I have been slacking on this whole blogging thing. My bad!

So this will just be a short post until I actually get some good pictures on my computer and decide to share some interesting thoughts and things about Romania. Right now, however, what's on my mind is something that my family has been pondering about ever since we got back from Romania: why did we not feel sick after eating so much food (we ate so much it's unbelievable), and why didn't any of us gain weight.

Blog Update - I'm in Romania!

So I left for Romania a few days ago, and I am currently in the capital city of Bucharest in the very beautiful downtown area. I have also visited the countryside, and over the next two weeks my family and I will also be visiting some interesting castles and some spectacular mountains (Vlad the Impaler!) It has been very interesting so far, and it was nice to meet and catch up with some family and friends. And don't even get me started about the food....Romanian people can definitely cook.

I will be posting some pictures at the very end of this trip, perhaps in a collection or maybe as individual blog posts where I write a little bit about some of the places I have been to and seen. I'm not too sure yet, and right now I'm just more interested in doing things than writing about them. I know this update is somewhat hasty and a little unorganized, but we don't get to sit down much and that is just how these trips should be!

Anyway, here is a cool picture I saw on the sidewalk today in the older part of town. It reminded me of the Banksy stuff, even though there isn't anything political about it.

The Polyglot's Quest?

Learning another language...For years and years, all throughout elementary school and most of high school, this concept was synonymous with "ya right", or "impossible" for myself and many others. Being Canadian and Ontarian and therefore having the worst quality of French lessons possible crammed down our throats since grade five (coloring, coloring, cutting and pasting...coloring), it is somewhat understandable that learning our second language has been daunting and unpleasant. Now, that is not to say I was the star student in my classes. I take my fair and all too large share of the blame for my horrid French capabilities and my poor acceptance of Canadian bilingualism. I was too lazy, too bored, and too confident that French would not ever help me and that I was justified in slacking. In short, I dropped French as of grade nine as most do, and have never looked back or spoken the language but on the rarest of occasions (like when I was in France and I dropped the odd bonjour. That still counts).

Then I went to Encounters with Canada, and needless to say the week changed my outlook on things, most significantly what it meant to be Canadian and how important it was to embrace our bilingual culture and history. Now, I will not go on to write an in depth blog post about how and why this change in me came to be. I met some wonderful Quebec folk, had some great discussions with their strong English skills and my watered down French, and finally had the realization that perhaps there was meaning in learning a second language. Poutine and other things helped me arrive to this conclusion and appreciation for French, but you understand my point.

The Return

Well, I am back home from camp. Good ol' Burlington Ontario...Very lackluster when compared with Ottawa and all of the wonderful things and places I saw, but whatever, that is a good problem to have (I suppose, it sure doesn't feel like it). Also, excuse the writing. Sleep has been a rarity.

Anyways, as I wrote before I left, I said that upon my return I would write a post summarizing my trip. Sure enough, for the first few days of my stay in Ottawa my brain was slowly concocting ideas and jokes about what such a post would be like. After all, I would see so much during that single week, how could my blog post fail to be interesting?. The list is indeed impressive. I saw the questioning period during the House of Commons (or something like that), where the room resembled more of a group of monkeys hurling poop at each other rather than the leaders of this country debating (it was quite the spectacle). I visited the Canadian War Museum, went to the CBC radio-television location in Montreal for a mock radio show (again, something like that), and spent a morning in downtown Ottawa in the Redeau Center and prowling the streets in search of a bakery. I learned more about my country's history, and most importantly learned about the provinces and territories and their inhabitants, who are responsible for making this great land what it is. I also discovered the beauty and importance of French, which I will now focus my efforts towards so that I may become bilingual, and through a series of mixed English and French along with ridiculous hand gestures, I was able to communicate (somewhat) with the amazing Canadians from Quebec; something that would have otherwise been impossible (except they all speak English because they are true Canadians so we would have been fine anyways). Overall, at times I was humbled, touched, thankful, amused, sad, proud...Or almost any other emotion possible, it seemed.

Encounters with Canada

Well, I'm leaving tomorrow for our capital Ottawa (not Toronto! For those of you that have seen the movie Canadian Bacon this will be even more funny.) Anyways, I'm going to be gone for a week, and I thought I would just post to say so, despite the fact that this blog really doesn't have an enduring reader base as far as my stats page is telling me (the stats page is my most depressing page, especially when it glitches and starts tracking my own views... Nothing worse than realizing those ten views over the last week belonged to you!)

I don't really have time right now since I need to pack (a poor excuse as I will most likely just throw my things into a soccer bag tomorrow morning), but when I get back I will be sure to make a post explaining the Encounters with Canada camp and all of the wonderful things that no doubt await me. My schooling and marks will of course suffer over this absence, but with March Break coming up I don't have to think about the doomsday of Physics and Biology that is sure to come after I have missed a week of school and forgotten everything they taught me. I think I'll just pretend school is over...Yes, that will trick my brain. So long as I don't do homework the blog posts can continued, hopefully. And now that I'm ignorant I can have my bliss. Goodbye for a week!

-Tom