Chapter 34: Baking Powder and SLS

nerd blog post #39

Monday night at O'Connells is growing and growing. A good trick to include everyone in your life, without stressing yourself out, is to continually invite them to a land where you'll always be on a regular basis. So upper year students want hang outside of class? Come to O'Connells every Monday at 8pm! Random friends in the town? Same thing! How about a random American in my German class who lives with a Torontonian? Suuuure! So Monday night was packed with a variety of people from different pockets of Rennes life. And was very fun.

Owen the bartender wasn't working that night, but came just to hang. He brought his French gf who does publicity for the Theatre National de Bretagne, which is situated in Rennes. The program for this season had been printed that day, and she was excited to talk about it. They invited me over to their place sometime, and we exchanged digits.

I also received a surprise Happy T-Giving phone call from Mane Man - very exciting (many points)! And while I'm on the subject of T-Giving, I would like to remind M.Deeks that I did mention the 295 feast of 2006 a few blogs ago.. How could I forget such a wonderful week-end!

Anyways, Monday night at O'Connells is now rivaling Saturday morning's market.. It's just so fun. But a different genre entirely.

Yesterday was one of the less productive days I've had.. I stayed in all day, except to mail a letter and walk Andorra twice. I love that dog. And it's always good French practice because other peeps want to talk about/to the dog. There's a nice old man who's often walking his dog, too, and we have nice chats.

In the evening, Merrill and Marianne came over for dindins. We made roley poleys and they were, of course, delish. We had ice-cream and fried bananas for desert. I like our dinner parties. We do them two or three times a week and it's a good way to eat a delicious meal and have chats. Plus, not all of us like the same activities all of the time, but we all like eating! RtC bought Cynthia a nice French desert cookbook for her birthday, so everyone leafed through it and talked about it. I'm not that into talking about baking pastries, so I did the dishes.

Cynthia met a Mexican on Saturday night, and he came over for a visit. I told him, in Spanish, that I have a horse. And hello, mister. Then I left them to visit and talk about home.

This morning I taught two classes. One of them is a first year class where I had them give speeches about something they're passionate about. They were really cute, and so varied. After class, some girls wanted a photo with me. It was a reminder that next week is our last class together before they switch to a "real" prof, and I have his group. I'll miss them.. Five of my classes will stay the same, but the two first year ones will switch up. After mastering all of their names, and becoming really comfortable around each other, it will be strange to start again with a new group. Good thing we have Mondays to keep in touch.

This afternoon is cool and rainy. The perfect way to spend time in my favourite kebab stand with my first friend from Rennes..

Tonight, the five lecteurs from the English department were invited over to a prof's house for dinner. It should be nice! She offered that we can sleep over, so I thought that maybe she lives out of town.. But she doesn't, so I think I'll pas on the slumber party and sleep in my own bed.

I thought SLS, my Winter visitor, would be known to my Queen's friends, but perhaps the "Leonard" is not as well known as I thought.. Steven Leonard Schadinger will be here from December 26th until January 11th. His big brother, a good friend and no doubt a valued nerd blog subscriber, will join him, but I think has plans to spend a chunk of time with a French girl he met in TO last year. Steve has been my brother from another mother since 1st year at Queen's, and I am very excited about the visit. Our plans are up in the air right now, but will be adventurous for sure. Steve's claim to fame is to have memorized every nerd blog post, word for word! See him shine as the lead in the upcoming Queen's Drama major, Drums in the Night.

That's it for now. Hope this finds you all well!

With love,
Hincks.