...which is a bit sad, because a lot of stuff happened...
so Thursday, woke up at 6:30 ish to get ready for work. Yes I know I am a house manager, and I am not supposed to work, but Claudie told me about this giant event in the cafe where there is a debate/discussion between the candidates of the election in the Lac St. Jean area and they would need help. Not wanting to miss out on this cultural discovery event I got my ass up and worked from 7 to 10. Didn`t need to work too hard, the event was interesting even though I don`t really understand all the French (by the way the most charistmatic candidate there, Alexandre Cloutier, is unfortunately from Parti Quebecois and is leading in the polls...this should be interesting), and in fact I made TIPS! Yes tips...$7.50 I think. Even though I am not supposed to and Claudie knows this.
Went home, asked Valerie for money to buy groceries to make food to freeze in the freezer so when we all came back from billeting, we won`t need to panic for having no food like last time (although I put a stop to this in Blind River before it happened). After 3 hours of chaotic work between me/Stephen/later on Cheryl (she stayed home because she caught something from the kids at work and threw up Wednesday night) plus a slight panic attack on my part because I haven`t packed by 3 pm and my billeting family comes to pick me up at 4. But all worked out and at 4 pm a car with a man smoking inside comes driving in. Everyone panicked because no one is really ready and they all thought the man is here to pick them up. Me...smoking man? no....but turns out the man is here to pick me up. A quick bye bye, and off I go.
The man - a 25 year old man named Billy Lemieux who has a beautiful girlfriend, a young child (1 year old) named Noah-Kim (very funky name even for French, in my opinion), and a cute dog named Paul He works as an insurance seller. Unfortunately, he lives relatively far from Alma...in a small village/town named Labrecque, 20 minutes outside of Alma. The closest person to me is Stephen, who probably lives a 15 minutes walk from my house right now. Billy reminds me of my uncle, goofy and good-natured, good sense of humor.
This should be an interesting experience...the family is really nice and full of love at the moment, but they have 3 things that I don`t like in life - 1) kids (and my room is next door to the baby`s room, and I have been told he wails at night, as I have tasted on Friday morning) 2) dogs (although the dog is cute, he climbs onto me all the time) 3) smoking - both Billy and Sabrina are heavy smokers, yuck.
That night after supper they brought me to their friends who leaves nearby...another young and unmarried couple with a baby, plus the guy`s sister. Hung out a bit, tried to understand the French conversations, they offered me beer, I declined, then went home because baby needs to sleep. That`s when I found out Billy knows Alexandre Cloutier and dislikes him as a person...and therefore would not vote for him despite the fact that Billy is a separatist.
Watched A Good Year with Sabrina...really a good movie. Went to bed, baby woke me up at 5 am Friday morning. Got out of bed at 6 am.
Friday - Went to work and found the cafe much busier than usual...damn and I was thinking of playing hooky since Claudie thought I was still doing house-managing. So after 3-4 hours of working (with me sometimes being in the way of Claudie, in my opinion), all was done...and man I made tips again???? $5.00. Claudie said if I wasn`t there, she couldn`t have served all the people by herself (I disagree). I think I am going to save my tips and see how much I earned at the end. Right now it`s $12 something. Billy came in and had coffee...apparently he was a regular and Claudie was extremely surprised to find out that I was doing billeting with him.
Returned to billeting after work...oh yes wait Sabrina picked up me from work with Noah-Kim, and on the way she saw a hitch-hiker...and picked her up! Yes. First time in my life where I saw that happening, I guess it`s a small town thing. The lady Sabrina picked up thought I was Sabrina`s daughter....?!?!?!?!?! Um...let`s see...she is 24 (and looks like that), I am 20, she is white, and I am Chinese...hello????? But it was quite funny...and in the evening we went to another one of Billy and Sabrina`s young and unmarried friends with babies (Jonathan and Majorie)...and had dinner there....raquette (kind of like fondue, very fun and yummy), red wine (had some, mixed it with 7 Up)...it was fun despite that I can`t really understand all the French plus lots of drinking and smoking. The red wine made me very very sleepy and lethargic...so I had to ask Sabrina to drive me home at 11:40 pm (more like a convenience ride since she and Majorie were doing their routine smoking drive). A bit of Jay Leno in the house, didn`t bother to brush my teeth and shower, went to bed...
...and got woken up by the biggest stomachache. Ran into the washroom, ended up puking, took a shower, brushed my teeth, felt better...and found Billy outside with a questioning look..."are you ok?" "Yup, bonne nuit.." Went back to bed.
Saturday...woke up at 11 pm, thought I felt better. Was going to go shopping with Sabrina but my stomachache came back. Had to cancel dinner and slept for 12 hours. At the end I ended up loafing on the couch and watching The Simpsons in French.
Sunday...did feel better, wrote a bit in my journal and in the afternoon Billy`s brother brought me to do ski-dooing (like snowmobiling)...a lot of fun, went through a couple of villages around, hung out in this ski-doo bar and chatted with him (both using franglais) and got to drove for a bit at the end. Went out for dinner to eat poutine in Alma with family, learnt a bit about real poutine, and spent the whole night watching TV. Fun stuff...
Now...gotta go back to work! Tata! Elections today...fun stuff.
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