1 - 10 April

Orientation
On 1 April I had an individual professional / scholastic orientation at SOIIT, which was very informative. They gave me a report on short, medium and long-term objectives, based on my interests, personality type (Holland code), as well as the local labour market and university programmes.

For the short-term, it was suggested that after the French course I should pick up a manual job where would be able to practise spoken French and train my comprehension of the Quebec ascent. At the same time, I would be able to gain a local work experience.

Then, when my spoken French improves, I might go over to work in customer service. In this sphere, English language skills are especially sought after.

Finally, when my French becomes really fluent, I might study again. (As I said before, now I’m interested in social sciences.) I got information on the employment prospects in this area as well.

I'm going to discuss this plan further at SOIIT, and after the course of French I’ll be able to join a job-finding workshop at SOIIT (preparation for interviews, etc).

Equivalence of education
On 2 April I visited MRCI (immigration authority) about the equivalence of my education. I decided not to do it now, because it costs 161 CAD and I'm not going to work as translator of French in the near future. On the other hand, when I start a university programme, the university will make their own equivalence, and then it will be free.

News in the media
Now the main issues in the news here are war in Iraq, election campaign in Quebec (14 April), and atypical pneumonia (mainly in Ontario). There is practically no news from Russia coming here, only a couple of times they briefly showed the Russian parliament and Putin condemning the war in Iraq.

I've bought a TV set: the smallest and cheapest model (118 CAD + tax), yet it’s a good one. With the room aerial it receives well 3 channels (in French): Télé-Québec (culture and education), TQS (news, films, etc.), Radio-Canada (news...), and a bit of others: TVA (news..., in French), Global (the only one in English).

I’ve looked for a short-wave radio set, here they are here are much too expensive (150 CAD and more). I'll wait till I buy a computer and then I'll will be listening to radio broadcasts in the Internet.

French course (COFI)
It started on 3 April. On the first day there was only a long organisational meeting: we got the course programme, schedule, and the list of do's and do not's. There I met a two Russians: a young woman, Svetlana, who will be in a higher group (she arrived to Canada on the same plane with me!), and a translator, Andrei, who was there to help us (he'd lived in Canada for 10 years).

Next day we had classes: French and Integration. There are 16 people in our group, which is of course a bit too many, but we will be working also individually in the language lab and for the Integration class the group size does not matter that much.

The participants are mainly from Latin America (esp. Mexico); there are also some East Europeans (2 from Bulgaria, 2 from Romania) and one person from Tunis.

Our group studies level 4 (classes held from 3 April until 22 May) and we'll most probably continue with level 5 (27 May - 17 July).

During the first French class we made oral presentations of ourselves, did a written test and wrote short autobiographies. Then at the Integration class we made an excursion around the university campus.

Russians
On Saturday (5 April) I visited again the Russian family which I met last month (Anna and Felix) and also a family from Moldavia, whom they had invited. We had a good dinner and then played table games.

Photo: Quebec City at night

11 - 20 April

French (COFI)
Every day from Monday till Friday (from 8.30 - 12.30 or 16.30) we have classes at the university.

The French course is not very efficient. One reason is that the group is quite large, and the other - the programme is not well-structured. The exercises are sometimes too easy, vocabulary is given somewhat unsystematically, and in the language lab, in my opinion, we are just losing time. Still, on the whole, the course is useful: here we have an environment to practice our oral skills and we have many spontaneous discussions.

With the student card, I was able to borrow some useful self-study books from the university library. I also bought a monthly bus card at a discounted price (42.60 CAD instead of 59.90) and now I can ride buses all over the city.

Linguaphone
I've been looking for an advanced course of French with audiocassettes in the local libraries, including Laval University, but, strange as it may seem, they don't have anything, and it's not possible to order audio-visual materials from libraries in other cities. Therefore, I started to look where I can buy such a course.

In my opinion, the courses by Linguaphone Institute (UK) are the best. I bought the first course (Intermediate English Course) in Moscow in 1984 and it literally changed my life, because after studying it I entered the Linguistic University.

In Sweden I studied Fransk Kurs, a beginner's course of French for Swedish speakers by the same publisher; I borrowed from a local library.

Now I'd like to study the next stage - Deuxieme etape, but a new edition from Linguaphone.com costs USD 395. In Russia in costs half as much (from www.ling.ru), but sending it from Russia is expensive and unreliable. Fortunately, I found an older edition of this course in a small bookshop in the USA via Amazon.com. On 17 April I sent the bookshop a cheque for USD 61, and now I'm looking forward to getting this course.

News in the media
I've been following the Quebec elections, although I wasn't able to learn about the political programs in detail. I like Jean Charest, the leader of the Liberal Party that has won, and the other candidates were also good, at least they are better than almost all Russian politicians.

In Russia there are only a handful of leaders with whom I sympathised, and this week they got even fewer - after the assassination of Sergey Yushenkov, the leader of the Liberal Russia, the most anti-Kremlin party. Yushenkov followed the fate of another Liberal Russia's leader, Golovlyev, killed last year. If FSB (= Putin) didn't do it, then who?

Environment
On 17 April I watched a TV interview by David Suzuki, a Canadian environmental scientist. He said that the environmental situation is getting worse. 16 000 of Canadians are dying each year of air pollution, the environment is degrading all over the planet. A few environmental scientists have committed suicides, because they saw what awaits our civilisation, but the general public is not aware of the full scale of the danger, because via the media people get a very fragmented picture of the world. We must reverse this process.

I've been trying to do what I can: living without a car, economising energy, recycling my rubbish (I put it in separate containers at the University), and click daily on the www.therainforestsite.org to save some rainforest.

There are more ways to help the Nature. Do like me: visit David Suzuki’s site and sign a 10-action promise that will help our Nature and all of us to survive. From this site you can also send a fax urging Canadian politicians to join this initiative.

Pastimes
One of the university buildings is a faculty of music. After class, I sometimes practice the piano there.

I also went swimming to a swimming pool. The pool is good, not expensive (CAD 27 for 20 times), and only 5 minutes' walk from home.

Other events

• Got the social security number. It's a white plastic card with 9-digits. The number is not easy to remember: it has nothing to do with the date of birth (as in Sweden). I could have got it in 3 weeks, the letter was just waiting for me at the Post Restante.
• Jobs fair - Le foire d'emploi (12 April): I got help with the structure of my CV, visited stands of a few companies and picked up their materials. The jobs were mostly industrial. All the office jobs required good French.
• Book fair - Salon international du livre de Québec (13 April): I wrote out a few titles from catalogues (on Quebec and the French language), and I'm going to look for them in the libraries.
• Visited the family of my acquaintance, Amélie. They invited me for their Easter dinner. That was the first time that I visited them, so I had to do a lot of talking in French. Then we watched a French film on video La gloire de mon pиre.
• I also saw Jesus de Montreal by Arcand, the most well-known Quebec film director. I liked this film and I’m going to see more of his films in the library.

Photo: Chateau Frontenac (world's most photographed hotel :)

21 - 30 April

As for Integration, most of the time we are left to search information on the internet. At one of the classes, though, we got a short, yet useful initiation to PowerPoint. For this course we have also been told to prepare PowerPoint presentations; here it’s various regions of the Quebec province. My region is Gaspesie, I am due to present it with a Columbian student on 9 May.

Shopping
I’m getting used to the prices, though it’s still a bit difficult because the prices are normally indicated per pound (there’s also the price per kg. in small font, but not always). I buy food mostly at “Maxi”, sometimes “Intermarché” (meat), and try to avoid “Metro”, which is the closest to my home, but it’s also the most expensive of these three shops.

Othodox Easter
I visited the Greek orthodox church at the Easter night. This is the only orthodox church here and so Russians also go there. Three priests were chanting psalms in Greek and French and the audinece was sitting on the banks, like in a Protestant church, but at certain moments everybody stood up. The ceremony seemed monotonous, except for one occasion when, at 10 min. to midnight, all the light was put out and one of priests brought in a candle and let others to lit theirs from this its flame. There was about 300 people in the church and some of them had Russian appearance, but I didn’t have a chance to speak to them, because the service went on without interruption. At half past midnight I went home.

Photos from http://www.aboutcanada.info

Next: May