Mr. Del Maestro

The person that I interviewed is the neighbour of my grandparents living in Montreal-Nord. I know him ever since I can remember. Mr. Del Maestro is the stereotype of the old Italian guy, complaining  all the time, talking loudly with a thick accent and lots of gestures. Last week I called my grandparents to get his phone number and to inform him that I would call. Even if time caught up with him (he's 91 now) and is often confused, he seemed very happy to talk to me again, since he saw me growing up.

He told me that he left Ladispoli, in Italy after World War II with his wife and moved to Montreal-Nord in 1953 and he has been neighbour with my grandparents ever since. They chose Montreal because many other Italians had already moved there. He worked very hard his entire life in the construction industry like many other Italians. They found it hard at first to get used to our American lifestyle and they often had the nostalgia of the Mediterranean way of life, were they lived from fishing and their garden, everyone of their village sharing everything and coming over for supper. The air was very different, ''it's very stinky in Canada, I miss the smell of the sea and gardens'', he told me. As for our food, he ain't a big fan. He told me that everything was flavourless, and fortunately there was the Petit Italie in Montreal where he could buy decent food. Then he ranted over almost everything, the weather, the government, prices, today's youth and the new priest for the parish in a strange French-Italian dialect. After a while he told me that despite all this he was happy here. The Quebecois are ''bon vivants'' and the life along other retired persons what nice, he could give time to his flower and squabble over the news with my grandfather on the balcony.

Before he had to hang up he told me that he appreciated that, like in Italy, the family was very important to us, then he thanked me for the call I made the promise that I would come see his flowers next time I go back to Montreal.

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

Two months have past since the strike has been voted. Back then, I had no idea that it could grow to the events of the past week.

I was against the strike. I was against not because I want an augmentation of the tuition fees, like lots of people may think. I would love that the tuition fees would not increase, but I know that it is not possible .

That does not mean that the strike was useless. I embraced the movement voted by democracy and participated as much as I could. Even though I do not believe that Line Beauchamp will changes her mind, some things had to changes, like the amount of "prêts et bourses"given to students with the increase of the fees and how universities are managed. The strike brought those problems to light and something had to be done. Students working together to change our future is an amazing thing and we had the support of the population.

The Cégep de Rimouski voted no to the strike 3 weeks ago. I was happy to get back to class, hoping that our actions would make a difference and those still on strike would continue their peaceful manifestation.

But now I have the feeling that it went out of control and that we deviated from our goal. People making injunctions to go back to class and thus acting against democracy, people getting intimidated for their choices, heinous messages over the Internet, people not interested in the cause using the manifestations to wreak havoc in the streets, policemen hurting protesters, it has to end.

Yesterday, La CLASSE and Line Beauchamp had a discussion and a truce has been made. Let's hope an agreement will be possible some time soon so the student crusade will end before something really bad happen.

The strike showed me that student still care for their studies and are willing to work together for a noble cause. But starting to act more aggressively as the impatience grows can lead to some dangerous situations, and how quickly those who were in the losing side of a democratic decision are made the bad guys.

The only thing that I know for sure, is that we are shaping the Québec of tomorrow right now, even the French (from France) medias are calling it "Le printemps québecois", so let make the future generations proud of the actions that we made.

I can't find  the French new video about our strike anymore, so here's one of my favorite video. It's taken from the movie Up. 

Back from the Deads.

Uuuuughh. You all though I was gone. Well no I'm back from my grave zombie style for a last post. Nice concept uh? Nah I only though last week's post was the final one.

For this one I'll respond to the question that everyone is asking me: ''Eh! What are you doing during the Christmas Holidays?'' Well I will be pretty busy.I'll be working most of time, even on Christmas Eve and the 25th. I will try to go home to see the family once and go snowboarding, if I find someone with a car willing to go with me. One of my friend got a job in Calgary so I'm organizing a party for him before he leaves. During the few free times that I will have I'll probably play guitar and video games while eating the delicious food that my girlfriend makes. Oh and my roomate got a cat, named Jean-Marie, so I guess I'll try to teach him somes tricks, even if I doubt that it will work. I have to do some exercises in german too, if I want to be ready for next semester.

Here you go, I hope this answered all your questions!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This is the End, my friends, the End.

Hello everybody!

This maybe the last post on this blog. Man time flies. I know most of you are probably crying while reading this (I understand your pain I shaved my moustache, what a lost for mankind) but the semester is over. Maybe I’ll post some other things one day I don't know. I really enjoyed the project though!

I know I didn't really do any justice to the blog's name, since I did not talk about snowboarding even once, so here I go: I love snowboarding and I can't wait to hit the slopes this winter. Voila.

I have two last video to share with you guys. The first one is a really nice Christmas song that I found some days ago. Some of you may already know it since it is pretty popular, but this version is awesome. Even if I'm not the religious type, this song reminds me of the Christmas with my family when I was young where my grand father always gathered us to sing it. Great memories.

Enjoy.

The second video is one of my favourite of all time. It always brings tears of joy to my eyes when I watch it. For everyone who loves traveling like me, this should be a source of inspiration. That guy's my hero.

I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

The 99%.

I’m pretty sure everyone is aware of the "Occupy" movement going on in around the globe. Most major cities, and even smaller towns, have those small camps where people put up tents and signs to protest against the economy and social inequality. Their slogan "We’re the 99%" can be seen everywhere in the medias and on the web, referring to the vast concentration of wealth among the 1% of income earners compared to the other 99%. The first Occupy movement in North America was in Wall Street, New York, and got lot of attention of the media and since then other sites appeared everywhere in the United States and Canada. At first, it seem like a good idea in my opinion and I was happy to see that young people like me were still interested in politics and economy, and that they were for peaceful protestation and open minded discussions.

But four months passed since the first Occupy movement in Kuala Lampur and two months since the now famous "Occupy Wall Street", and I changed my mind about it. The movement doesn’t seem to mean anything for those who are still protesting in the camps. It’s all over the news now that they only seem to bring problems instead of solutions to our world. From altercations with the police to drug overdose (a young girl even died in Victoria), the remaining protesters aren’t the peaceful young people that wish to change the world, but mostly people that saw opportunities to cause trouble and homeless people. Like here in my town, there’s still a small Occupy camp each Saturday full of hippies and signs full of spelling mistakes. I went to the camp once because some girls were doing a gumboot choreography and I wanted to discuss the movement with them. I had a hard time finding someone who wasn’t too drunk or way too high in the camp. I finally found a group in a wild discussion. I was disappointed when I understood that they were discussing about what they should eat at the canteen next to the camp. One of them had puke all over his shirt. I ended up playing soccer with them all the afternoon. I had a great time, yes, but I think it is now time for this movement to end since it ain’t going anywhere now before it gets even worse.



Hehehe. He's ''Shellfish''. And he wears a hat.



Wut.

Hey I don’t know if there’s any fans of Francis Cabrel reading this, but I am. I heard something strange some days ago, and I couldn’t believe it. So I checked on Internet and the rumors ended up to be true. Shakira made a cover of Cabrel‘s song “Je l‘aime à mourir”. My first reaction was to be somewhat angry that she did that (not that I have anything against Shakira, I think she’s very hot) but after listening to the song, I changed my mind. I think it was a good idea to sing it in spanish, even if I am a german student, but for a song like this one, I have to admit that spanish kept most of its strong feeling. I am not sure that english or any other langage could do the same for this specific song. But that's just me.

So check it out and feel free to comments. (I’m looking at you spanish students).

November as Come (almost).

Hell Yeah. It’s Halloween, one of my favorite days of the years. There are zombies and girls in sexy outfits everywhere. My costume is ready, the beer’s in the fridge and ‘‘The Night of the Living Dead’’ is in the DVD player. And when the night will come I’ll be fooling around in the streets with my friends like kids fueled by the Halloween's spirit!

Even though I could write an entire blog only on Halloween and the things to do on this day, I’ve chosen to talk about something else. Starting tomorrow it’s November, or as many are calling it, Movember.

Movember is a fund and awareness campaign for men’s Health, especially for prostate cancer where men let their moustaches free in the gentle breeze. This movement started in Australia in 2004 and now they have 119,000 members only in Canada and they have raised 22,3 millions dollars for Prostate Cancer Canada. All around the globe we should see men showing their facial hair to support the cause and it should a sight to behold. I guess it’s a good idea to make this kind of event to help us men to think about our health and to think about maybe changing our habits. I am proudly growing mine and to be honest, girls are going wild when they see such an example of fine moustachery.

Hey and did you know that the oldest mustache that we are aware of is from 300 BC? Yeah even back then they were rocking it with sweet upper lip facial hair.

So boys, it’s time to let your mustache grow! Let’s make Tom Selleck proud! And it is getting pretty cold outside and a warm fuzz in the middle of our face is always welcome.

If you need any help to find the right style of mustache that fits you, here are some ideas.