Ah, the staggered start.  The applying, the finding out, the meeting, the retreating, the rehearsing the first day while putting away groceries.

And it’s here.

Teaching at my new school is imminent. Teachers in tomorrow officially (although I’ve been in already, tonight giving tours to families), and after the weekend students arrive.

High School English.  Literature and communication.

The energy is palpable.  More excited than nervous.  Everyone so far, so so great!

It begins.

11:30 a.m. – Lunch & Read PSYC 220 Text at Lazy Loaf & Kettle  (the remaining half of reading from before Montreal)

1:00 p.m. - Read PSYC 220 Text on patio

4:00 p.m. - Read PSYC 220 Text at Starbucks

6:15 p.m. – Begin Assignment 3 of 5 with pen and paper

9:00 p.m. – Finish Assignment 3 of 5 with pen and paper

Tomorrow, type up and spend half my time looking up mathematics symbols, which seems to take me 3x longer on my MacBook than it would on a PC, but I don’t have one right now.

Ah, Introduction to Statistics in the Behavio(u)ral Sciences.  I CANNOT imagine doing this and 4 other courses.  How did we do it before?

Welcome back.

I was searching for a bit of an intention for Montreal, and I departed without really putting any of that into words.

Monday, I arrived.  The summer humidity, the smell, the mountain, the buildings, and even the 747 bus stop (and yes, of course the bixi stands) hit me as familiar, as some sort of home-coming.

Tuesday evening, after a candle light vigil,  I’m asked, by an expert Montrealer, what my Montreal intention ended up being and like at departing time, I couldn’t put it into words.  I share my irrational desire to see the new Leed Platinum Planetarium (which we later get to see) instead.

Week turns into weekend, and I’m laughing with my closest friends.  We’re eating too much, we’re exploring terraces, hearing about each other’s new cities and careers.  We’re staying out dancing, and we’re getting up breakfasting.  Bixi keys get plugged into stands, and we’re given bikes to see sculptures, and lights, and fountains.  We cross Pont Jauque-Cartier, which my first trip to Montreal, I would have guessed was too long to bike across.

The planetarium is better than I imagine.  We sit in bean bags and in a strange cross between science and symphony are reminded that we are, well, alive–and pretty equal parts significant and insignificant.

The contemporary art makes me smirk.  The 5k run humbles me.  We actually get an old enough metro car to have engines dou-dou-dou in tones that resemble the first three notes of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.

I remind myself again that smoked meat is beef and not pork even though I’m sometimes tempted to think the reverse.  I bonjour and merci with as much of a rolled r as I can muster, which is quite a bit, considering in 2006 I couldn’t roll an r to save getting angalaised back.  We dance.  I see favourite places and this round get to capture them with Instagram.  I think often of my school year ahead.

I notice every single change, and since it’s been three year’s there have been a few.  In both the city, and in me.

And I realize my intention.

It was to be inspired.  Sounds cheesy.  But it was.  And I was (inspired, not cheesy).

And Montreal does that for me, it leaves me feeling bigger, better, and brighter.  In great part, it turns, out that’s why I go.  It’s why probably why it won’t be long until I return, and why when I left it felt, like I wasn’t actually leaving at all.

Assignment 2 is in.

Don’t congratulate me.  I should be on Assignment 4 or 5.  It’s going to be a small miracle if I can get the next 3 in before October (my new deadline, initially June).

Oy yoy yoy.

My plan is to kick Assignment 3 into overdrive.  Reading and highlighting most of tomorrow.  Doing and submitting the remainder of the week.

I have a hunch a new school, teaching assignment, and all-things-fall will make 4 and 5 nothing less than interesting.

The next time I’m signing up for a statistics class, slap the keyboard out of my hand with a firm, “No!”

If I can get through it, it will be good to have.  Yet again, a “nice to have done” rather than a “nice to do”.

Oh well.  That’s how learning goes sometimes.