My bro sent me this. If you have ever wondered what the heck IRC is then you are in luck… LOLOL

1337 speak?

How does one choose where to live when there are so many wonderful cities and countries all around the world? By proximity to family and friends? Number of career opportunities? Climate? Nightlife? Culture? Language? Pollution, or rather lack thereof?

These are questions I ask myself sometimes… I have a bit of a love affair with Europe, and it would make me so happy to return to France. The six hour time difference can make it very difficult to keep in touch in loved ones, though, back in Canada. Also, is it better to stick to something you know that you love, or is it better to try a new flavour? Making choices can be so difficult sometimes. For example, if your favourite flavour of ice cream is vanilla, then choosing rocky road is a risk in that it could be amazing, or it could be a disappointment compared to your original, familiar choice. When is it worth taking the chance?

Maybe the solution is to take chances when feeling a bit rebellious, and do as much research as possible beforehand if you are not. To be perfectly honest, I cannot say that I have followed this decision structure… when I decided to apply for my exchange in France the only choice left was Lyon. I barely did any research beforehand, but I suppose that I did speak with friends who had lived there. Sometimes it is more fun to go with your gut feeling, and to take it from there.

Cities I might like to call home (perhaps temporarily):
- Montréal
- Lyon (again)
- Nice
- Québec
- Firenze

Opinions?

These songs are very different from anything that I have recently listened to, and they are all extremely catchy in their own way.

La Roux – Bulletproof

This 2 person band hails from Britain despite the french name! The lead singer reminds me a lot of Molly Ringwald. I sing this while walking my dog

SS501 – Love Like This

Yes, it is a South Korean boy band… love it. The song is Korean, but english is thrown in here and there, too.

Helmut Fritz- Ça m’énerve

This song was really popular in the french clubs last winter. I never really knew what he was singing about until I stumbled upon the video. It is actually pretty funny; the singer recounts everything that bugs him, and he is extremely ridiculous.

I saw this on my Facebook newsfeed. Huge kudos go to the creators of these super cereal instructions.

Hope everyone had an awesome Hallowe’een. A few of my friends and I went on a haunted walk in downtown Ottawa, and I learned a couple of facts that I might have been better off not knowing. And I’ll share some with you! How generous, right? One thing that I never knew before was that when Ottawa (or Bytown) was first being settled, what is now the downtown area was used as a huge cemetery with massive graves dug for those with diseases like cholera. As recently as 40 years ago when the National Arts Centre (NAC) was built bodies had been found emerging in the rain and also where they were to lay the foundation of the new building. The solution was to lay down more dirt and to put a huge stone gazeebo over top. PHEW.

The L4D Group: Louis, Hunter & Zoey

My brother sent me this awesome picture.

Ocean Drive’s “Without You (Perdue sans toi) This song is currently huge in France, and it is a great mix of English and French. It is a sweet and simple song about two lovers who have parted ways, and are hoping to reunite. The double language aspect of the song makes me imagine a situation where two exchange students in love parted ways to return their home countries.

Translation of the main parts of the song – thanks to LetsSingIt for the lyrics

Radio Edit

This week promises to be busy, as it is full of assignments, but luckily I now have a little minion to help me get my work done

Is this not the best gift ev0r?

<3 catchy music… I expect to keep these at the top of my playlist for awhile…

I spent Thanksgiving weekend taking care of a couple of the cutest Scottish Terriers probably outside of Scotland

Me & the Scotties

The park

Link to my Flickr set