Pot-au-Feu

So you know how my Mom asked me if I'd had anything culturally-specific when I was in Quebec, and I said no? (She mentioned this in an email). Yeah, well, I was wrong.

My second host mother's specialty dish was something called Pot-au-Feu. It's a French (I think more traditionally France French) dish consisting of beef and other meats of choice, along with vegetables such as carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, and onion, stewed in a pot.

I think Pot-au-Feu means "Pot of fire" in French. More literally, it means "Pot-to-fire" which I guess also kind of makes sense.

Here's an image:

Oddly, my family called it "couscous", which is why I didn't immediately recognize it as an exotic dish. In Mali, we had this grainy substance that was also called "couscous". My Counterpart called the Quebec dish "Couscous Arabic" and the grainy stuff "Couscous Malian". Confusing to me, because they seem like completely different dishes.

Here's a pic of "Couscous Malian"

The Pot-au-Feu was served with the couscous grain, but it wasn't the main focus, so I don't know why both the Quebecois and the Malians would put the most emphasis on it.

Reading Week

Well, I got someone to fill out my volunteer forms. I now have all the requirements for my info session. I also have letters of recommendation from all three of my Katimavik supervisors, my CWY supervisor, both my Katimavik work supervisors, and a guidance counsellor from high school. I'm also bringing my W2W, Katimavik and CWY certificates, and I'm bringing three more certificates that I earned in W2W (but not the one that expired).

I'm home for reading week. I was excited that in college we get an extra break. But then I realized that reading week is just Spring Break with a new name and place, I think, a month early.

Haircut Pics

I got requested to send some pics of my new haircut, so here's some before and after images.

Before

 After

As you can see, I did like a teenage girl on Facebook and took a shot of myself in the mirror.  Don't know how those girls do it.  Look into the camera and you're looking down. Look at the mirror and your gaze is never level. Probably just practice. This was the best pic I came out with.

The person who cut my hair was the same age as me, and she went to the same highschool as me.Knew a bunch of people I know.  Pretty cool.

So almost everyone transferred to the March info session for SSW, leaving mine the only slot not filled. Procrastinators.

I might turn this blog temporarily private during their selection process. Don't  want to risk them looking me up and thinking that I'm the kinda guy that slathers his info all over the web.

Haircut

I got  my hair cut last weekend. Soon after, I bumped my head. First thing I thought was that if I hadn't cut my hair, the blow would have been cushioned. Then I started worrying about internal bleeding. I thought this because my head felt different, which, in retrospect, was because of the haircut.

You know how  Billy Mays died from internal bleeding after getting hit on the head? He felt fine, went to sleep, and died. So I was thinking that if I just didn't sleep, I wouldn't die. Didn't  pan out. I decided that if I just took naps but avoided going into REM sleep, then maybe I could avoid dying. Started getting headaches, which I attributed to bleeding. Finally passed out and woke up the next day feeling fresh. Turns out the headaches came from sleep deprivation.

Got my beard trimmed, too. I never had it professionally done before. Looks good. Went over real well with my colleagues. Fives months without cutting my hair, and I'd been growing out my beard with minimal trimming for a few months. Went from full mountain man to something that'll look professional for my SSW interview.

Spent an extra $5 for the beard trim, meaning this is the most I've ever spent on my hair ($20). Was listening to the girls talking about their hair, and the prices they pay are disturbing. The lowest I heard was $60, and the highest was $250! I don't play with those numbers, yo.

Saw Justin Trudeau

Today, Justin Trudeau came to our school.  Remember me talking about that boxing match between politicians a ways back? Yeah, well, the guy that won, the smaller one, who was debating in favour of Katimavik, spoke in The Sanctuary. If you'll recall, The Sanctuary is that second, classier cafeteria we have that serves beer on Tuesday mornings.

I somehow got pushed to the front of the crowd, so I was up-front-and-centre. If his speech got televised, I bet you I'm in it, predominantly in the background. There were a lot of cameras, but I guess that doesn't necessarily  mean it will be televised. There are probably cameras everywhere he goes.

I was literally a foot and a half  away from him for most of his speech. I made an effort to make an educated guess on this.

Also, randomly, today I also heard of his boxing opponent, Brazeau, getting charged for sexual and physical assault. He may lose his position as Senator.

I have been accepted into two Social Service Worker programs, still waiting on the other three. The ones I've been accepted into are both in Toronto. I've got my info session on this coming 27th for my first choice. They added another slot, so I could put it off to March, but I don't feel like it. However, in Psyche today, we learned that Long Term vs. Short Term memory causes people to have a better shot at getting hired if they are the first or last to be interviewed. And since the first info session was yesterday, and the last one is March, that puts mine right in the middle. Wondering if I should transfer to the other session. On the other hand, my teachers have also said that the sooner you do it, the better your chances, so I don't know...

SSW Info Session Acceptance

Well, I've been accepted into the Conestoga program up to the information session stage. I'll need to go in and write a personal statement and provide them with a list of credentials that they have requested, including a letter of recommendation from someone in the social services that I've volunteered for, and an autobiographical statement,  which is kind of like a resume, but a little bit more flexible.

Massive competition for this spot. My session is on the 27th of next month. Right after Reading Week.

Went into the First Nations office today. Met a guy who graduated Social Service Worker. Had a good good long talk.

First Two Assignments Back

I  played badminton at the college gym today. Doesn't seem like something I'd do, eh? Yeah, well, I did.

I want to go back to the First Nations office. I meant to do it today, because they have free lunches on Wednesdays, and I mooched off them every Wednesday last semester since I learned they did that. Thought I'd better reestablish my relationship with them before I started taking  their food. But some people wanted to hang out at lunch, and then I played badminton after class. Only got one class on Wednesdays, and it ends right around lunch time...

Got my first two assignments back. Want to know what my average for this semester is right now? 100%.  The prof told us to read a certain amount of the textbook, and it turned out to be quite difficult. Lot of people just answered the questions without reading the text. He asked us if we'd heard of the concept of SOLER (Solid, Open, Lean, Eye contact, Relax. A counseling stance) and I was the only one who raised my hand. I felt like a tool. But then, tons of people only scraped passes and I got 100%. So whatever.

The other assignment was a Personal Statement. For a lot of people, we have to write an essay on-the-spot which will determine who gets in and who doesn't, so this was a practice version of that. We also had to peer-edit five other students, but it was randomly selected who edited who, and we weren't allowed to know who we were editing. We then had to rate them from best to worst, so basically, we had to eliminate some of our peers.

I got back a bunch of really good reviews, but we weren't graded based on that. We were graded based on participation. Still kind of an intimidating assignment.

Now I'm working on a 12-dimensions cultural reflection paper, where I talk about my culture from 12 different perspectives. I've  got a an essay to write on maladaptive eating disorders. I've got to write a critical situation report, and I got some more textbook questions