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Billet avec le mot-clef ‘english’

18 nov

2 échos

Souffle

Jour de repos. Retour au français maternel. Une respiration avant de plonger en immersion pour une dernière semaine. Ici, le temps est à la fois trop court et sournoisement long. Prisonnier de mon isolement, coincé dans la foule affairée, je tourne en rond comme un fauve en cage, obstiné, obsédé, excédé. Et pendant que je tourne, les dates, les heures et les minutes s’égrènent à une vitesse folle. Le corps, encore une fois, m’oblige à m’arrêter. Je ne suis pas fait fort, faut croire. Et comme toujours, je veux trop en faire. Une toux de 18e siècle, accompagné de fièvre. Du coin de l’oeil, j’ai envisagé d’acheter un billet de retour pour Montréal, courir retrouver le silence et l’espace et tout ce qui me manque. Je dors mal dans cette tour qui tremble sous le cri incessant des ambulances. (J’entends constamment des ambulances, on dirait une fin du monde perpétuelle.)

Mais j’ai baissé les yeux et j’ai laissé passer la nuit. J’ai même manqué l’école le lendemain. Après un courriel d’excuse à Hanna, mon principal professeur, j’ai rattrapé quelques heures de sommeil qui m’avaient échappé. Sur l’heure du lunch, je suis allé voir le Manhattan String Quartet dans une salle de concert de Midtown avec Peter. C’est à cause de sa cravate que j’ai remarqué ce garçon. (Un de mes fantasmes tordus.) « I like your tie », ai-je lancé. Il s’est révélé extraordinairement intéressant. À 29 ans, il a terminé une maîtrise en ingénierie, mais c’est dans le milieu de l’édition qu’il a choisi de travailler, une maison d’édition dans la Cité, spécialisée dans les romans de genre : policiers, suspense, science-fiction.

J’ai fait mes premières armes en anglais en m’attachant à une série télévisée où le personnage principal, Erica Strange devenait « Junior Editor ». C’est exactement cet emploi qu’il occupe. Il travaille en ce moment à tenter de rescaper un roman bancal. L’auteur est sous contrat pour trois ou quatre livres. Celui-ci est son deuxième. L’idée de départ semblait intéressante. Un polar sur le pouvoir des amis d’enfance, les dérives et les dangers du Web. Mais le suspense ne tient pas la route. On devine clairement la fin dès les premiers chapitres. Le personnage est coincé entre deux vérités et reste passif. Deux éditeurs ont parcouru le roman pour en arriver à la même conclusion. Ils essaient de trouver un moyen de sauver le roman sans avoir à demander à l’auteur de tout reprendre à zéro, ce qui représenterait une année de travail.

Nous avons entendu le quatuor à corde No 1 op. 7 d’Arnold Schoenberg et l’Adagio et fugue en ut mineur de Mozart. J’ai trouvé le concert un peu cérébral, pas inintéressant, mais je n’ai pas été complètement happé par la musique. Je suis resté sagement sur mon fauteuil. Et c’était agréable de passer une heure avec Peter dans cette salle toute de bois blond. La salle était à demi remplie, principalement de retraités. Le concept de concert à l’heure du lunch ne semble pas rejoindre les travailleurs. À un moment je me suis tourné et j’ai vu Peter sourire. Un vieux monsieur derrière nous ronflait doucement. J’aime collectionner les coïncidences, j’aime me faire croire qu’elles ont un sens et qu’elles m’indiquent quelque chose. Que ce soit vrai ou pas, je m’en fous. L’important c’est ce qu’elles allument en moi. Un air entendu dans le métro, une citation qui tombe à point nommé, un coyote qui apparaît dans un champ alors que le train s’engage dans un virage. Je cherche à débusquer la magie, je cherche le vent. Je cherche le vent qui emportera mon âme.

16 nov

3 échos

Success

Now, I can find my way everywhere in NYC. But I feel lost and I wonder why I came here. Sometimes in the class, my eyes stick to the second hand and I have one word in my head: escape. I dream of silence and space. I imagine that it’s normal after a few weeks in the City. Une immense fourmilière qui travaille à un train d’enfer pour n’édifier qu’un vide monstrueux et des milliards de solitudes, quelque chose comme The Matrix. French and English languages are fighting constantly in my head. And I miss Montreal and its relaxed way of life. I miss my friends even they are rare. (I miss the using of comas to colour a sentence!) Today my Teacher of Business English asked me what was my favourite comfort food. My only answer was the Boston Market on Austin Street (a kind of local St-Hubert BBQ). I lost my references. My second homework was about my own definition of success:

« First, I think the notion of success is overrated. For North American people and maybe all the westerners success is something coming from outside themselves, something you can buy. That vision of success as a thing to obtain is related to our economic system. Maybe funky advertisers, who need eternal unsatisfied consumers, invented it. Our present economic system needs it to stay in constant growing. It is difficult to resist the incessant brainwash of publicity.

My definition of success has changed with time and has become more personal. From a goal to reach, it became a state of mind. Like many authors had proposed, I try to see success as a journey, not a final destination. I think that each moment can be successful and you can live this success, or not, only in the present moment. That could seem very simple, but actually it is very hard. For me the success is related to happiness. By being happy, I don’t mean smiling all the time and never feeling pain or sadness, I mean a profound sentiment to be at the right place, at the right time. »

Sometimes, I read myself and feel the frustration. I’m so good to write things; so bad to live them. I had big expectations about this trip. One month without working, the cost of the course and the trip was a big investment. The classes are more about conversation and communication skills than grammar, which is not bad. But I think I won’t come back as fluent in English as a thought.

« With this view on success, the first characteristic a person needs to be successful is good self-knowledge. It is probably the most difficult thing. Sometimes it’s a lifetime program. I think that self-knowledge needs courage. Courage to be true to yourself is probably the most important. Living the present and seeing the success as a journey needs a kind of humility and patience. It also needs an optimistic vision of life.

I have no precise plan to success. If the success is more a journey than a destination, I want to learn to enjoy each step of this journey. Learn to live with the victory and the failure, learn to live the questions; even there are no answers. It is something like art craft; a humble work that you had to re-begin each day. Winston Churchill said with humour: « Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. » »

This is what I want, but it’s so hard, now. My roommate is going to leave for about six days tomorrow. His mother is dying in Seattle. Maybe a little bit more solitude will help me to adapt to my life in the City. I run much in the last days. There is a park bigger than Central Park near my place. It’s called Forest Park. Running is a kind of a refuge. And it’s by the running that I met most of the interesting peoples I met in New York.


Black Out 2003, New York by AleDolce

12 nov

1 écho

Religion

After my birth, I was baptized in a Catholic church. Historically, Catholic religion has been very important in Quebec. Religious institutions are the places where Francophone peoples kept a part of power after the Britannic conquest in Canada. After a few centuries, Catholic religion used to control education, health and social services. This power increased and became pervasive in many aspects of life until there was some excess. By example, priests refrained the using of contraception for women (my grandmother had fourteen children) and discouraged unionization in shops. Priest and nuns was in charge of the education and their discipline with children was very strict, there was many cases of children abuses. In the Seventies, Quebecers rejected all the religious precepts. That was called the Quiet Revolution. The government of Quebec declared the equality of men and women. Quebec was the first province in Canada to enact a Human Rights and Liberty Chart, which insured equality to each person whatever gender, race, sexual orientation or disabilities. All this explains why my parents, who were raised in the Catholic religion, and grew up in the Sixties, dislike the religion. When I was child, my school was catholic, but my parents refused my going to church.

Recently, I took the last step to get out of the Catholic religion. After a few declarations of the Pope Benedict XVI about women rape, abortion and homosexuality, I decided to ask for apostasy. Apostasy is the annulment of my Christian baptism. I had to write a letter to the Montreal archdiocese and explain my reasons to want to quit the Catholic religion. In the past, apostasy was very difficult but in the last years, the request for apostasy was so numerous that the Catholic Institutions had to made it easier.

In short, I have no more religion, even if I respect a few Catholic traditions, like the holidays. I feel totally comfortable with this. Like anyone, I feel the need to find the meaning of my presence in this world, find answers to my questions about life and death and finally reach a kind of well being. But I don’t think that religion it’s what I need for it. I don’t believe in any divine authority. I prefer to foster a more personal spirituality. I read a lot about this questions. I engage myself for the community. I practice a kind of meditation inspired by the Buddhism tradition.

Montréal 1852. >Nord-Ouest, entre Craig et La Gauchetière.

This short essay about religion was my first homework. The photography was published by DubyDub2009 on Flickr.

3 nov

2 échos

Reality check

The night of Halloween, the cold arrived in New York. I saw the Halloween parade on the 6th avenue while shivering. The day before, I got lost in Manhattan. The E train didn’t work. I had to walk two blocks to reach the next station. That was enough to got lost among the giant avenues. I ended up in the crazy crowd of Broadway street with my huge luggage. Many drunken people, false blood and screams. Everywhere in the stations, there is warning about pickpockets and terrorists. « If you see something, tell something. » I think New Yorker might love be afraid. Maybe that’s why they really love Halloween. (In Montreal, Halloween is a kind of tacky.) About an hour later, I emerged from the subway in Queens, just in front of T-Bone Dinner, as Google Map promised me.

The apartment is pretty small, but it’s a great size for New York. Forest Hills in Queens is one of the quietest places around, but there is always the sound of sirens and horns. The district brown brick building dates of the Thirties. There is small and very cute Commercial Avenue where I can find everything I want. Finally, my roommate seems not to be a psychopath and there is no bed bugs in the beds.

P1020935

When I bought online this course in September, the « education advisor » of Kaplan (who is actually a sales representative) told me that, as Canadian citizen, I didn’t need a visa. At my first day, the director of the Midtown School told me that it would be impossible for me to attend the full-time course without a visa. (That was false, the sales representative was right.) That night, I come back at the apartment very angry. I passed a few hours writing a letter to Kaplan explaining the entire situation with a few new words like « dishonest », « unprofessional », « misleading ». The guy I live with helped me a lot after he came back from work. He rewrited almost everything and made my letter more relevant and persuasive. You’re in NY, he said, you need to be more assertive and a little bit more aggressive. The day after, the director apologizes me.

The little brick building of the school seems lost among skyscrapers of 56th street. It is a kind of Babylon. The languages I heard the most right now it’s Korean and Portuguese (from Brazil). It’s pretty interesting to see people from all around the world try to communicate. And it’s charming to hear all the different accents. I’m the only Canadian in the place but I’m really comfortable with that. It’s fun to see how the reality foils our scenarios. No dramas or catastrophes happen, just the sun of a pretty cold fall in New York City. That disturbs me at first, as crazy as it seems, but it relieves at the same time. All days seem like a new horizon, full of possibility.

P1020969

27 oct

7 échos

Wicked

When I was child, the world was divided in two kinds of people : The French people (catholic, poor and good, of course) and the English people (protestant, rich, greedy and wicked). There were scuffles between Anglophone and Francophone children in the streets. I grew up with the impression that speaking English was a betrayal. French is threatened in Quebec and in a few generations, may disappear, as in Louisiana. The reflex of Quebec culture has long been to shut itself off from the rest of the world or to turn to France, a country with that we had fewer and fewer things in common.

I saw my parents, my uncles and my aunts crying after the defeat of the referendum of 1980. They cried for the lost of hope of seeing the birth of a country where the French would be cherished and protected for centuries.

I was twenty, when I arrived in Montréal, Quebec’s major city. Montreal is divided in two parts, North to South, by the main street, Saint-Laurent Boulevard, called the main (in English and French). Traditionally, this street was the border between the French East and the English West. Several community of immigrants chose to settle in the area of the Main : Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Jewish, Latin American.That created a cultural bubbling, an effervescence. I was, at the same time, scared and attracted by the main and its area. Little by little, I tried to get closer and tame this world, impossible to avoid if you live in Montreal. Then some anglophone friends appeared in my life.

To be next to them made me realize that the beauty, inventiveness and immense strength of Quebecer’s French came from the proximity of Anglophones, in this blend of ideas and traditions unique to Montreal. The French of Quebec is rooted in the threat of assimilation and the need of affirmation. But despite wars and conflicts, there is a collusion and complicity in which the two languages have evolved in time. In the same way, originality, openness and the unique color of the English culture of Montreal came from the strong influence of French. Under the hate, I discovered interdependence, much admiration and love somehow. And I’m sure that’s what makes Montreal a city so interesting and full of life. If I don’t speak better English, I feel I could miss a part of my culture.

Dépanneur du Mile-End
Dépanneur du Mile-End par le calmar, sur Flickr

First post in English ever. Probably full of mistakes. Any corrections are welcome. Be indulgent.

15 sept

Rebondir
3 échos

Rebondir

Si rebondir est une faculté qui s’acquiert avec le temps, un muscle qui s’entraîne dans l’épreuve, je pense que je passe le test, haut la main.

D’expérience, je connais le chemin. Le premier pas est de lâcher-prise. Ça ne demande aucun effort et pourtant c’est la chose la plus difficile qui soit. Presque impossible, en fait, lorsqu’on est un angoissé qui se rassure en tenant serré les rênes de sa vie. C’est d’abord le corps qui doit se relâcher, s’abandonner, puis la tête qui doit accepter ce qui est. Finalement, le cœur exige d’être écouté et d’occuper tout l’espace jusqu’à ce qu’il se calme à son tour. Il a fallu que je baisse mes exigences. J’ai mis de côté l’entraînement et ma discipline. Les objets se sont accumulés un peu partout dans l’appartement. Je me suis couché trop tard. J’ai mangé trop de crème glacée au sucre d’érable. J’ai passé trop de temps à végéter devant la télévision ou sur le Web à regarder des comédies stupides.

Pour m’aider à accepter que mes plans de voyage à New York s’enlisait, je me suis laissé aller à imaginer des plans B. New York semble inaccessible : pourquoi pas Toronto ? Les prix sont comparables sauf que j’ai plus de contacts qui ont des contacts là-bas. Et à force d’y penser, de chercher, j’ai fini par trouver des charmes et des avantages à cette ville qui m’intéressait moins. La sage ville reine est beaucoup moins intimidante que la pomme gigantesque qui me fait terriblement peur. J’ai aussi envisagé que ce séjour linguistique pourrait être remis au printemps ou à l’an prochain. Ce n’était pas vraiment important, l’essentiel étant d’être en vie et de tenir debout.

Je sais, les rêves doivent être jardinés. Une fois le terreau préparé, les images engrangées, une fois que l’on s’est laissé émouvoir, il faut que le temps passe. Il faut laisser entrer l’hiver, malgré les frissons, si l’on veut espérer le printemps. Puis, au fil du temps, s’éveillent des tout petits plaisirs, comme des éclaircies dans le gris de septembre. La chaleur du lit dans l’obscurité au petit matin, des riffs de guitare échevelés dans mes écouteurs en lavant la vaisselle, une brise tiède dans un après-midi d’automne. Par intermittence, le sourire réapparaît et c’est un nouveau cycle qui s’amorce. Peut-être que lorsque l’on est au fond du baril, on ne peut que remonter. Une fois dégagé de toutes les exigences, je peux me permettre d’être juste bien. Et alors que j’avais fait le deuil du voyage à New York, faute de trouver une chambre, je reçois un courriel puis un second. Des propositions qui semblent intéressantes par des gens qui ont l’air sympathique, à des prix raisonnables.

De prime abord, cela m’irrite. Je m’étais fait à l’idée, j’en avais fait mon deuil. Puis je me dis que j’avais peut-être besoin de passer par là. L’épreuve de la réalité. Peut-être que ce projet de voyage à New York est encore possible. Un des New-Yorkais qui m’a écrit pratique le « urban rebound ». Une sorte de work-out sur trampoline. Ça doit être assez drôle et excitant. Un jour, j’aimerais bien l’essayer.

Photographie : Resounding Rebound par CarbonNYC, sur Flickr

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