A week in the life of Noemi in Montreal

I've wanted to write an 'outline' of a typical week for a long time, so you could get an impression of what my life is like here in Montreal, now, during the winter semester. So, here goes...

My new Irish room mates! On the left is Katie, and on the right is Niamh.

Note: I don't know if I mentioned this, but I have 2 new room mates! Katie and Niamh are both exchange students from Ireland. They have lovely accents, and are lots of fun. We've been getting along really well, and I'm so happy to have 2 more people in the house again. It's nice when people are around when you come home. :)

Note 2: My classes! I'm taking 2 Sociology classes (both required courses), and 3 Geography classes (one is a statistics course, one is a required course, and one is a GIS class - Geographic Information Systems, a.k.a Nightmare!). :) Actually, all my courses this semester are requirements. In a way, I can't wait until they're over (especially in the case of GIS). :) Generally, you have classes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, or Tuesdays and Thursdays. So, those days my class schedule is similar, though my 'social' schedule is different every day. ;)

Sundays:
I usually don't get up too late (9.30ish at the latest) so I can talk to my family in Singapore, and just generally start work earlier.
I do as much homework as I can (though unfortunately it usually isn't much). The other main reason I get up 'early' (i.e. set my alarm clock on Sunday morning!) to work is because at 7pm, I have to be at Ryan's house for Singapore Night. Like I said in my previous post, Ryan loves to cook, loves to have people over, and loves Phua Chu Kang (PCK: Singaporean TV series), and so every Sunday night Jenny, Nithum, Sulin and I, plus Tiffany Chiu and sometimes Dan get together at his house, eat the delicious food he prepares and watch PCK. And if 'Amazing Race' is showing, we watch that from 8pm to 9pm, and then we watch one or two PCKs before going home.

Here's a picture of a typical Singapore Night (except Sulin wasn't there! Plus Jonathan isn't here anymore) :(

Mondays:
I get up at around 6.45am, get ready real quick (that includes making lunch - usually a simple sandwich), and am out of the house by 7.30am (ideally! Usually it's more like 7.35-7.40am). I take the metro to the McGill station and walk 12 minutes up a hill to the McGill Gym to meet Corinna and Marlise. Marlise is a Swiss girl who's a good friend of Jonathan's. She just started swimming with us a few weeks ago, and it's great! :) We tend to swim around 1km (it's usually a bit more), after which we take a shower and head to campus. I'm usually in the Geography library by 10am, and do work until 11.30am, which is when I have my first class: Sociology! Natasha is in that class, which is great. :D After that, I have a 1/2 hour to eat lunch, and then I have my GIS class. :( I'm done at 2.30pm, and usually head to the library to do some work. Then I generally go grocery shopping on my way home, and then spend the evening doing school work and studying (that's the ideal scenario - often I don't get that much done).

Tuesdays:

Tuesday is my longest day. I get up just before 7am, and am out of the house just after 8am, because my statistics class is at 8.30am. Fortunately, the professor makes it interactive (she gives us 'self tests' to practise the new things we just learned), so it's not too hard to focus - unless I went to bed too late the night before). Then, I go to my other Sociology class straight after, and when I'm done with that I have lunch with a friend, Kim, and then we go to a study room in the library to work. Lately, we really haven't been able to work much because we've been talking too much, so we have to change that. :) Then, I have my last Geography class in the afternoon and am done at 4pm. After that, I have half an hour to spare (today I started writing a letter), before my choir practise starts at 4.30pm. When that's done at 6.30pm, Corinna and I rush to gulp down some dinner (she's in choir with me), and then we head to Salsa lessons at 7pm (fortunately they're on campus, close by). :) Salsa lessons are great! This has only been the second week we've had them, but they're so much fun, and they're a great hour to de-stress. After that, I head over to Jenny's place (also right around the corner) for Crepe Night, where she makes crepes, and we eat them, plus we play games. Then, I head home and fall into bed completely exhausted (or, like tonight, I waste time on the computer, for example by writing a blog post!). ;)

Wednesdays

This is the only morning I could sleep in, as we don't go swimming and class starts at 11.30am. However, because it's one of the only times I'm at home in the morning (which is evening in Singapore), it's one of the only times I can talk to Tamar on Skype, so I usually end up having to get up quite early anyway (7.30am) if I want to talk to her (which, of course, I do!). I also usually do my laundry on Wednesday mornings, as nobody else does theirs then (they all do theirs on weekends). :) After my class at 11.30am, I usually have lunch with Lauren (which I always love!), and we talk until I have to go to my GIS lab at 2.30pm (lab, as in work on the computer). After that, I generally stay on the computer and do work until I've had enough and go home (I've realised I work better when I'm on campus, so I don't mind staying on campus longer). Sometimes, though, Lauren and I don't meet for lunch, and instead meet around 5pm for a hot chocolate. In either case, I generally get home around 6.30pm, and I cook dinner, after which I attempt to get some school work / studying done.

Thursdays

Bible study! (L to R): Lauren, Naomie, Anna, Ariel

Thursdays are generally the same as Tuesdays (get up early for my 8.30am class), except when my 3rd class of the day finishes at 4pm I only spend a bit of time doing work in the library, after which I go home, and have dinner before I head to Anna's place for Bible study at 7pm. Thursday evenings are thus always evenings that I can relax, and I always look forward to them!

Fridays

Corinna, Marlise and I meet to swim at 8am, just like on Monday. However, I have a statistics lab at 10am, after which I go straight to my 11.30am Sociology class. After that, at 12.30pm, I'm done for the week! I generally run errands (like buy socks, groceries, etc.) on Friday afternoons, and / or bake, and / or clean the apartment (i.e. vacuum, tidy up the kitchen and living room, and clean my bathroom - I'm not so great in doing these on a regular basis because I'm the only one in the house who cleans...), and / or try to do school work / study, until about 5pm (sunset), which is when I stop! In the evenings I usually meet up with my friends, or we go to MCF (McGill Christian Fellowship).

Saturdays

Because Friday nights can go late, I usually sleep until roughly 9.30am before getting ready for church. I church hop a lot (I've gone to the Westmount, Filipino and South Shore SDA churches so far), and like / dislike things about each place. If I go to Westmount, I'm usually invited for lunch at Jean's place. I met Jean the first Saturday I went to church, and she immediately invited me home. She is really sweet, and so is her niece Wendy. They've basically adopted me, and take me home whenever they can. There, I enjoy a delicious meal, and after that I generally play the piano while they sing, or we talk. When I go to their house, I usually spend the whole afternoon there (until 5-6pm), but I don't mind. It's wonderful being a part of their family (so to speak), and I would only sit around all alone at home if I wasn't at Jean's place). In the evening, I usually have a movie night with my friends, or something else. Usually we meet somewhere else, but on several occasions my friends have come here to Solin. I love Saturday nights, though they can get very late, too.

...And that's my week at a glance. I might have forgotten a few things, but I think that's basically it. Let me know if you have questions. :) I hope you enjoyed this post! It's past midnight, and I'm really, really tired, but I wanted to finish this post for you all because I haven't written in so long. :)

Singapore vs Canada :)

Wow, Canada really is the complete opposite of Singapore. :) These are the views of my rooms in Singapore and Montreal:



Rain in Singapore. Typical.




Snow in Montreal (more like 'snowstorm'; it's going on right now). Typical.