Week 4; i have different weeks than you

The man. The man looked to be in his 70's; grey-white hair, a little too much weight, a number oflaugh lines. He was in the music section of a bookstore in Quebec City, 9:30 in the evening. So was I. I was looking for information about Jean Leloup, and other French singers. I sidle past him glancing over his shoulder for a sign of French musicians on the rack. Nothing. Without turning to look at me, he talks.
"Conaissez-vous Neil Young?"
I'm a bit perturbed. "Ouais, un peu."
"Je cherche pour Neil Young.. aucun. Hmmmm."
I laugh a bit. He is friendly, open. So far, I've been able to follow his French. His accent is clear (unlike many Quebecois! gah hehe), and he so far hasn't used any difficult words.
Suddenly he turns and asks me a question and I don't know what he has said. I don't know what to say.. "Je sais pas."
He looks at me oddly. Then in English, "Are you a student?"
"Yes! I'm learning French!" It is so easy to step back into English when you know someone understands.
"Ahh une etudiante francaise, oui? You should be speaking French then," I laugh, and embarressed, study the carpet on the floor. " I learned all my English by listening to CBC. To the radio."
I tell him(in French) that his English is excellent.
We talk a bit about why I'm in Quebec City. No, I'm not a university student. Still in high school. I want to travel.
He finds his book, I am unlucky, and a friend is waiting for me outside anyways. Before we part ways, he leaves with one piece of advice,
"Tu dois ecouter a la Radio Canada. Je vais ecouter a CBC encore, et tu peut ecouter a la version francaise."
As things seem fairly hopeful for me landing a summer job in montreal, I've been listening more to Radio Canada to help catch up on my French. I keep thinking of this man. It is weird how a couple simple sentences from a stranger can stay firm in your mind for almost a year. It was one of those moments, I guess. One of those unforgettable romantic evenings (romantic novel-wise, not romantic kissy kissy-wise. I love romantic novels.. Tolstoy, etc.). There aren't many, but they're beautiful.

ps. i'm aware my written french here is pretty bad. lol.

Week 3

My character this week is a man named Gordon Cleland. He plays the cello. He teaches at Brock U. He gets nervous in front of groups of people, and shows it expressively. He believes in expression of the player more than the expression of the sound. He plays the cello like a violinist. He has bad breath. He was my adjudicator at the Peel Music Fest yesterday.
It surprised me to see a professional performer so nervous in front of mere students. I played at 2:30 PM, and his hands were shaking as he handed out the awards and adjudications, his voice shook when he talked, he spoke abruptly, and he refused to look anyone in the eye. His eyes had that deer-in-the-headlights look. I played again at 7:30 PM, and the same thing! How can a person go an entire day an utter wreck? And he'd been adjudicating the whole week! A whole week of nervousness? Gahhh!
I don't understand... not showing your nerves is one of the first things a performer is taught. You need to look confident in front of people, no matter what the circumstance, or they will not take you seriously. There are so many techniques to hiding what you're actually feeling from the audience, I find it hard to believe he hasn't come across them at one time or another.
So my other theory is that he was on drugs.

Week 2; nice to know people are watching

Andy this is for you.... I wrote this one a couple days ago, but never posted it, so there. The commitments still there, man, even if you can't see it.
Again, I seem to have come up with two characters this week. These two are from books. Sort of. One a character, one an author.
1) Adrian Mole - character, age 24, male, prospective writer, from the book Adrian Mole; The Wilderness Years. Very true to life, I think. He is a believable character, and the author, Sue Townsend doesn't shy away from making her characters lovable hypocrites. Adrian Mole seems to me, like a typical guy.. which begs the question, how did a woman write so clearly and truthfully about the male sex? Is it really truthful, or does it just seem truthful to me, a girl reading a woman's idea of what a guy is like growing up? Anyways, I like Adrian. I love his cynicism and slightly odd way of looking at life. I think the book portrays humans truthfully - thoughts I have that I would never think to write down on paper, thinking them too arbitrary or odd, are written down here.

2) Henri Nouwen - author of Here and Now which I am reading at the moment. So clear, so simple, so obvious, so many OH, OF COURSE! moments. I'll write one of his passages here:
To pray is to listen to that voice of love. That is what obedience is all about. The word "obedience" comes from the Latin word ob-audire, which means to listen with great atentiveness. Without listening, we become "deaf" to the voice of love. The Latin word for deaf is surdus. To be completely deaf is to be absurdus, yes, absurd. When we no longer pray, no longer listen to the voice of love that speaks to us in the moment, our lives become absurd lives in which we are thrown back and forth between the past and the future.
If we could just be, for a few minutes each day, fully where we are, we would indeed discover that we are not alone and that the One who is with us wants only one thing: to give us love.
For me, this is important, because I have a hard time really praying.. really setting aside a special time to listen to God. Terpstra this week also brought up the idea of living a life of prayer, everything that we do should be in prayer. So I've been trying the past couple of days to remember that and to be prayerful(?) in everything that I do. Not necessarily praying about EVERYTHING, but making sure I'm in that.. accepting state of mind instead of thinking "I don't want God to be a part of this part of my life." Also I think for me the idea of listening is so important. I normally just throw all my troubles, and the troubles of people I know at God's feet, say "please?" and get on with life. I forget to hear what God has to tell me, and I expect its much more important than what I have to tell him. He already knows what I have to say.
I notice that Henri Nouwen makes things lovingly clear. Throughout the book, he does not point fingers, he merely nudges in the right directions and I find my brain doing the rest. I can't wait to finish the book!! yay