Old blog back

My old blog is back up and I'll be posting there from now on.

Whaaaat?

The other day I told my aunt* that I could tutor her 15 year old daughter (my cousin) in math this coming school year. She informed me that my cousin might not be taking math again until March. It amazes me that a high school student would go from June to March without taking any math. Are the people who choose this kind of schedule really that out of touch with teenagers? I remember how much I would forget after two month of summer holidays. I can't imagine how much I would forget if I took 9 months off of math. From grade 1 to grade 11 (grade 11 is the final year of high school in Quebec), I had math class every day. The only year that it was optional at my high school was grade 11.

Sometimes I think schools set kids up to fail.


*Why is it that some people pronouce the word aunt like 'ant' and others say 'on-t'? I say the former. It wasn't until I went to university that I heard anyone other than Will Smith on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air say 'on-t' (well I probably heard it on other TV shows or movies but I only specifically recall Will Smith saying 'on-t'). Is it just within Quebec's english communities (I have lived in two of them; the west island of Montreal and the Pontiac, north of Hull) or is it more widespread that people say 'ant'?

Le 9 ah-oooo

My roommate is away for 3 weeks in Borden, Ontario doing some military training (she's a medic in the reserves) and so I've been paying her bills, checking her phone messages and checking her email. The other day I checked her messages and there was one in french about an interview on August 17th. But the woman said aout in such an awful way that it was like nails on a chalkboard. She said "ah-ooo" instead of "oo" (as in moo). I admit I'm not a francophone but there are certain things I know about the french language (at least Quebec french) having lived in Quebec all my life and having taken french from age 5 to age 20, and ah-ooo just sounded so so wrong to me. So does anyone know is this some Franco-Ontarian thing or something else entirely?

Who killed the electric car?

Along with An Inconvenient Truth, I want to see Who killed the electric car? I'm putting my money on big oil as being the culprit.