Another rainy weekend...

We've been lucky enough to stave off the coming of winter for a couple weeks still. It's been foggy and rainy off and on. Sucks. But, it is good for staying inside and studying. I've started plugging away again at the thesis. I've studied for my French As A Second Language exams for the government. I already have gotten my results for the first two - the expression ecrit and comprehension ecrit: CC. This is good. I did better (barely) on the French grammar test and slightly worse/better on the comprehension. See, originally I had thought comprehension would be easy and I'd get an exemption (I was very close), but when doing the test I had fairly grave misgivings as to my ability to get the E and began to wonder just how badly I would do. So, so far, I am very pleased. Especially given that I did not study as much as I'd like, I've only been in language class (2hrs per week) for 8 weeks, and I really didn't study as efficiently as I could have. I have the oral in a week or so. To show you that studying French can be fun, please check out this hilarious puppet skit stuff my teacher introduced me to: Tetes A Claques.

Needless to say, I have been listening to a lot of CBC and Radio Canada while working. I even managed to hear a couple of the Massey Lecture series this year. Atwood's Payback was the lecture. At first, I was disappointed in her delivery. A bit stiff, and a little too contrived, and not as witty as I expected; however, the last lecture was very fun and as a consequence, I would deem it good. Actually, I laughed out loud quite a bit, so even though it was a bit heavy on the utopian enviro-visionary front, I still really liked it. Atwood was redeemed in my ears - her delivery was much improved from the fourth lecture. Check it out. Now, I have to add that I kinda agree with the Salon review of the book, and that I am still not overly impressed with the work itself, but I did find that last lecture entertaining and a bit thought provoking.
For a Massey though, I felt it was weak.

Anyhoo, I am just very happy for that fact that I am now booked for a flight to NYC. I should have some bonus overtime pay coming in time for the trip, and I am getting my list of yummy food experiences all set up - and I am lucky enough that I don't have to do much regarding evening entertainment as my travel buddy - Papersmith - is takin' care of business. Woohoo.