... literally, I mean.

It's snowing?!?
And yes, although I live in a different time zone than many of my friends, it's not the time for winter yet. ;)

But seeing that this could be my last real winter for a couple of years, I'm looking forward to the first really thick flakes! :)

(title borrowed from one of my Bilingualism lectures :P)

OMG, I'm speaking French. Like... all day long - heeeee, this is soooo much fun. :)
For some reason ever since I came back from Germany, I have this urge to speak French to everybody here.
I guess I kind of started transitioning during the last couple of weeks in July when every other sentence I said (in English) started with "Ben..." and every other answer was "Ouais, d'accord...".
And there was this one day when I was buying souvenirs for people in Germany (ya know, stuffed moose, maple syrup candy, etc.), the saleslady seemed kind of distracted and kept talking to me in French. So, I answered in French and it was fine and she understood me and I understood her and I was just so very psyched. :)

So it seems like the (metaphorical and literal) fog has lifted. When I came here, I felt coerced to speak French because it is "the right thing to do". Now it's fun, taxi drivers laugh at my funny way to speak (because I have this heavy German accent, use French pronunciation and Québécois vocabulary) and people seem to appreciate that I make an effort to speak their language instead of assuming that they can accommodate to me.

YAY - la joie de vivre... ou de parler Français/Québécois. :)

Liane sent me a message to tell me that I finally got a letter containing my visa. For two more years. Kind of ironic...

I'm a bit surprised, to be honest, that the electronic process went so smoothly - just scanning all the stuff (financial proofs, passport, letter of acceptance from McGill (which I never received)), filling out some dynamic PDFs and 6 weeks later, everything was settled. (Mind you, part of this was probably that Québec had already accepted me which made the rest of this red-taped tohu-bohu a lot easier.)

I knew I'd come to miss Canada soon. I just didn't know it would be after only 10 days back in Germany. ;)

(Also, but that is more for me and my musings, I'm thinking of closing this journal and transferring all the entries to my original LJ (that needs an update, too, I guess) - it seems odd to separate something that used to be so essential from the rest of my life. Although I kind of like my maple leaf-y layout. Oh well... I'll think about it.)

Okay, I've been really bouncy all day - I hope this keeps up for a while:

- Last night I found out that I do not need a security clearance for my Quebecois visa (for the record: It's almost impossible apply for such a thing from abroad... :P)
- My classes are going really really well :)
- It seems like not only will I be able to graduate next spring, but I can also choose the Behavioral Science minor that I wanted so badly
- I just got a big letter, containing my Final transcript from Leipzig (which means I can hopefully finalize my transfer - weeee!) and my bank statement from Germany (which means I can finally apply for my visa - weeee²)

It is still kind of unsure whether I'll be able to make it to Germany in August but right now I'm way too psyched to get all worried.

Apparently it's the 175th "anniversary" and I'm looking forward to lots of celebrations all over Montreal. :)

In other news, I'm not really making progress concerning my visa because the documents to prove my financial capacity to spend another year here are still in Germany in the process of being translated - why is this always taking soooo loooooong? *sighs* The main issue is that I was planning on going back to Germany for about 3 weeks in August... but with my visa not being issued yet I don't dare to leave the country, let alone the continent without any legal representation in case something happens. So that leaves me (and Québec and Canada) about 1.5 months to get me my CAQ and my visa... good thing I haven't booked the flight yet.

As for school, things look fine. I still have no official admission but I hope that this is just a matter of time. I finally started getting credit for my Stats classes from Germany, I'm doing really well in Linguistics. YAY! :)
Next step is grad school... frightening thought.

Welcome to another episode of "Sorry, I'm not responsible for this, ask XYZ.", this time starring my Faculty Advisor who, as anyone else here, is nice but clueless. I'm too tired and frustrated to elaborate much more than:

McGill is red tape all over the place. I forgot why I wanted to transfer here...

/looks around in her room
/spots the flag and the pictures on her wall

Oh, right... there was something... ;)

In the meantime: summer school is exhausting. I wish there was a way to get good and cheap coffee on campus.

My Linguistics prof from Austria... to me:

"Well, you're from Québec, I don't blame you for not speaking proper French."

For a moment I felt offended. I wondered whether that is because she thinks that my French sucks or whether it was because she thinks that's just normal for people here.
Then I was amused because while I find Quebecois way more endearing, my own French still sounds very European (not just with a French but clearly with a German accent, too). ;)
I decided to smile politely, make a comment about Austrians and their ability to speak "proper" German (which made her grin) and left.

I spontaneously met up with my advisor today, trying to clarify how and whether I would be able to transfer classes I've taken in Germany to here. She had already told me that they'd only acknowledge 1/3 of the credits from abroad. Which is understandable in a way - a degree from McGill should entail McGill education and not from some obscure school abroad, I get that. But it still sucks because it means losing a lot of stuff that I did in Germany. Well, obviously it's not exactly "losing" anything... except for time. It means having done 2 years for "nothing" but knowledge and lost money in Leipzig because these classes won't count here.

The advisor made it pretty clear that she thinks transferring is a gamble for me and that I better have a good reason for that. Apparently she was impressed by my plans to take over the world get my PhD and by the fact that I have a pretty clear view of what I'm gonna do in the future. (I just wish I could make up my mind where I wanna do this).

Oddly enough, the progress of my feelings concerning this decision are exactly opposite to how it all went down last year: 
When I sent in my application in January 2008, I was full of hope and excitement. And by the time I had to make real efforts to fight for my visa in June and July I was hugely depressed and the only reason not to give up was because I had already spent so much money.
When I sent in this year's application in January 2009, I was full of doubts and insecurities, I talked to a lot of my friends, asked for advice because I feared it would be the wrong decision. And now that the time to fight has come again, I'm feeling all good about this and smile at the thought of possibly spending the next couple of years here. :)

So: No real progress but a lot more optimism.
Which comes in handy as school starts again in about 10 days and classes from 8:30 - 4 will require a lot of energy. ;)

I'm off to Toronto for a couple of days.

Coming back in the early morning (4 am...) on Saturday.
I'm not looking forward to that 9 hour bus ride but I suppose some time for myself is gonna be useful after having spent a 24/7 week with my parents - especially since I don't expect the next week to be much calmer.

There will probably be a longer entry upon my return about how much my love for Montreal grew stronger in the last couple of weeks - I took a lot of pictures and it really is so incredibly beautiful if you take the time to discover it :)

And if you can spare some thoughts: I still have no admission from McGill for next year, so crossed fingers would be appreciated... especially since I need to re-new my visa - which means the whole ordeal of last year all over again...

I know I keep saying that but this was seriously the worst exam period. Ever! Then again, I had a warm meal and lots of coffee every day (<3), so that was nice :)

And for the next month I'm gonna don nothing but fun stuff - HA! (Well, and work, but that's nice, too.)

To start off the fun, I'm leaving for New Jersey and New York (and whatever's on the way there) on Wednesday for about 5 days or so... depending on how things go. We have a car and I don't need to be back before the 7th (when judosas is coming - weee!). Sometime later in May my parents and my aunt and uncle are coming for about a week. Some short trips to Toronto and maybe Ottawa later and May will be over and I'll hopefully be back in school.

Other news?

Liane and I signed the lease for our new apartment! It's in Verdun, just 2 metro stations further from our old place. My room's gonna be a lot bigger (well, you wouldn't really find anything smaller...) and the rent is still about the same. I'd give you the address but for some reason I'm too stupid to find the postal code.

And now I'm going outside for the remainder of the day because it soooo nice and sunny* - YAY! :)

*That and because I don't have my laptop with me and wrote this on a school's PC - booo! :P