En anglais s’il vous plait?

Have you ever walked into a store or a restaurant in downtown Montreal and seen this sticker on the front door?

“Here we do business in French,” is basically how you get greeted at may retail outlets. Now, of course, you may think -as I do- that having these stickers on the doors of Montreal businesses is absolutely unnecessary. After all, it’s Montreal, I know you speak French. What I would really want to know is if I’m going to be able to order my cheeseburger in English. How about a “we speak English here” kind of thing? You know, just so I can feel more welcome. I looked for a “we speak English” sticker the other day as I walked into a clothing store. It must be somewhere, I thought, but in smaller print of course. But no, I couldn’t find it.

The “Ici on commerce en français” stickers are part of the Office québécois de la langue française’s (better known by anglos as the language police) latest campaign against the English language. And yes, I say against the English language because it is exactly that. It is more an attempt to suppress English than to encourage French. The message is very clear: here we do business in French, deal with it, if you want to get served in English, go to Toronto.

Well, surprisingly, in Toronto they’d be more than happy to serve me in French. A recent article in the highly acclaimed 24 Heures explains how Toronto is increasingly becoming French friendly. There are roughly 200 thousand francophones living in Toronto, the article states, and the population of French-speaking Torontonians seems to be on a rise. But unlike us Montrealers, our anglophone friends in Toronto aren’t putting up “here we do business in English” stickers in an effort to protect the English language. On the contrary, they’ll do anything it takes in order to make francophone customers feel welcome, including serving them in French.

Why then do francophone Quebecers insist in making anglos feel like strangers in their own home? Of course I’ve never had any problem  getting served in English in downtown Montreal, but those blue stickers, along with some other French-language campaigns, seem to me almost confrontational. And let’s not mention the fact that you can get fined if the language police finds that your business is breaking one of the absurd language laws. Better make sure your English signs are smaller than the French ones!

What’s going on in Toronto is an example of how things should be done. Rather than confronting people, we should make them feel welcome. Anglophones are an important part of Quebec and they feel as proud of being Quebecers as francophones do. It is of course very important to protect the French language, but not at the expense of alienating others.

Ten tips to be a better student

School has been a part of my life since I was 4 years old and my mother had to endure my everyday crying each time she dropped me off at pre-school. Nearly 20 years later, I now have to face an imminent new reality: that of becoming the worker instead of the student. The thought that I will soon have to face a world relatively unknown to me is frightening, perhaps even more frightening than my first day of pre-school. Because let’s face it, being a student is easy, the real challenge begins when you can no longer depend on the comforts of the academic system. Having said that, getting your way through school can often seem like an ordeal to many students. The papers, the exams, the oral presentations, they all can be hard to handle and create a lot of stress. For that reason (and at the risk of committing premature professional suicide as a result of my unorthodox methods), I have decided to give students, particularly those who are or will be attending university, some useful tips that helped me deal with school with less stress while still getting good grades:

1. Go to class

Going to class is probably one of the most important keys to academic success. Whether your teacher is good or bad, fun or boring, nice or mean, young or old, or hot or not, there is always something to gain from going to class. Does your teacher simply repeat what’s on the book? Does he or she post all the notes on the course website? It doesn’t matter. I can assure you that attending class and listening – or half listening- to your teacher while you go on Facebook, text your boyfriend or girlfriend, or fall asleep, will dramatically increase the chance of that information getting in your head. “Should I then not skip class?” you may ask. Not quite. Skipping class is essential to staying sane during the term, but do not skip more than two classes on any given course and you’ll do fine.

2. Learn how to write properly

There is nothing teachers hate more then than bad writing. Please, please do yourself a favour and learn how to wright write properly. Watch out for spelling and grammar mistakes, especially very obvious ones. You might want to start by learning how to use Word’s spellcheck function properly, but that’s not all their there is to it. Buy or download a dictionary and get yourself a copy of a writing style handbook (The Elements of Style is highly recommended). But most of all, familiarize yourself with the basic rules of grammar, and identify your common mistakes in order to avoid making them again. On this note, the most common mistakes include the use of their/there/they’re, its/it’s then/than, etc. Learning how to write properly doesn’t mean you can’t make mistakes at all, there are probably a few mistakes in this blog entry itself, but reducing the amount of grammatical and spelling errors will definitely increase your chances of academic success. Trust me, teachers tend to prefer well-written papers that may lack some depth to badly-written papers with a lot of substance.

3. Learn how to cite your sources

It is really not that hard. You can find many online resources that will tell  you how to cite your sources in any given style. Proper citation not only guarantees a better grade, it also spares you from potential plagiarism accusations.

4. Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate

Relax, take it easy. It’s not worth it to stress out about a paper that’s due in two or three weeks. Procrastination has been my motto all throughout my school years, particularly in university. Why would you start writing a paper two weeks before it’s due and go through all the stress and work that it entails when you can do it the day before the due date? In other words, it’s better to have a full day -and more often than not a full night- of stress than a full two weeks. Trust me, one or two nights is all you need to write that paper. Once you learn to write properly you won’t even need to write first, second, or third drafts anyway. Your first draft is good. Just give it a quick read before printing it and you’re good to go. Don’t obsess over it but remember to check for spelling and grammar mistakes as well as typos. As a side note, the only negative aspect I have found about procrastinating is the lack of books at the library. I have often faced the problem of searching for books on whatever topic I need to write about only to find that they all have been already checked out by other students in my class. Two simple solutions: first,  even though you won’t start writing your paper until the due date is fairly close, gather your research materials in advance, and second, turn to other sources of information such as your local library or the internet (use only scholarly sources and whatever you do avoid Wikipedia because teachers look down on it).

5. Don’t waste your time reading all those pages

Every term I end up with a couple hundred dollars of unread books and course-packs that only create more clutter in my room. The fact that I don’t read all those books does not mean you shouldn’t buy them. It is always good to have them around. Also, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do the required readings at all but you need to adopt reading techniques that will help you avoid all that bullshit unnecessary information in academic writings. After all these years of reading scholarly articles, I have noticed a thing or two about the way academics write. They usually begin with two or three pages telling you what they will be talking about, followed by ten pages of rambling, french, german, and latin words and phrases, and English words you’ve never heard of and will probably never use, to finally end with  one or two pages telling you what they just wrote about. My advice? read the first two or three pages and the last page or two (also known as the introduction and the conclusion, which in shorter pieces of writing might simply be the first and last paragraphs) and make sure you understand them well enough. Then proceed to reading the middle pages in the following way: read the first two and last sentences of every paragraph, read any sentence that has something in bold or italics, and avoid all the foreign-language and unknown English words (these are just meant for the author to show off how smart he/she is or at least thinks he/she is). Whatever you didn’t grasp by skimming through the readings will probably come up in class, hence the importance of going to class.

6. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit

In your papers and exams (the ones with essay-type questions) make sure you give a general understanding of the topic (whatever you got from skimming through the readings and half-listening to your teacher) followed by a bunch of bullshit additional insight. In other words, do what those scholars do in their academic writings but without sounding as pretentious as them. But above all, and I can’t stress this enough, write well!

7. Hand everything in on time.

I already mentioned the importance of procrastination in order to live a less stressful academic experience, but this doesn’t mean you don’t have to meet the deadlines. Handing stuff in on time is highly important because it gives your teachers the impression that you’re a responsible student, and you won’t suffer from lateness penalties. However, if for some reason you can’t meet the deadline, I have found that simply contacting the teacher and telling him/her you’re aware your work is late and that you’ll be penalized works more in your favour than coming up with far-fetched excuses.

8. Sleep, don’t study

Where as it is totally fine (and in my case, imperative) to pull an all-nighter while writing that paper you postponed until the last minute, it is not OK to spend the night before an exam studying. Nights before exams are meant to get proper sleep. Make sure you get a full 8-hour sleep (at least) so that you will be  well-rested when it’s time to take that test. Trust me, all that studying will be worthless if by the time you get to the exam you’re half asleep or under the influence of five energy drinks. If you want to study -and I’m not a big fan of it- do it during the day. Personally, I don’t study per se. Rather, if I feel the need, I skim through the readings (even more quickly than the first time around) and through whatever notes I have just to refresh my memory. I also find it highly effective to get to the exam room at least 15 minutes in advance and just stand or sit near the inevitable group of people discussing frantically the course material.

9. Focus on what the teacher is saying, not on taking notes

I do take notes sometimes but I find it’s better just to sit back, relax, and enjoy the lecture. I might write some key concepts down from time to time, wonder off to Facebook, check my email, and send a few text messages along the way but I don’t take huge amounts of notes. I find it distracting and useless for I seldom read my notes afterwards. The bottom line is, if you’re focused on writing down everything the teacher says, you’re probably not paying attention to the meaning of what you’re writing. My suggestion: first listen, if you hear something worth writing down do it, but don’t simply write everything down as if you were a freaking stenographer.

10. Have fun

Your school years might be stressful and tiresome at times, but just think it might be worse. You might be an employee with an actual full-time job, a parent, or even worse, a recent unemployed graduate lost in the immensity of the professional world.

Federal election..part deux???

It seems it was only last month that Canadians went to the polls to elect the same federal government we had before. Oh wait..it WAS only last month! Now brace yourselves, sharpen your pencils, have your photo ID at hand, and remove your veils my fellow Canadians because this is no joke, we might be heading towards yet another federal election.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced his much anticipated economic update this afternoon, and the three opposition parties didn’t like it one bit.

Among other things, Flaherty’s plan includes cutting the $30-million public subsidy granted to political parties on a per vote basis and limiting public-sector salariesincreases to 1.5 per cent. But what pleased opposition parties the least was in fact something that’s missing in Flaherty’s update: a stimulus package.

So the Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc have made up their mind: there is no way they will vote for this plan. And this being a confidence vote, we’re facing and imminate dissolution of parliament.

But wait, it turns out we might be spared the agony of all those campaign rallies and debates since there are some rumours of a coalition government between the opposition parties. For now these are just rumours but the possiblity is there and if you ask me, it’s a pretty good idea.

Although the idea of a coalition government might seem a bit abstract for us, it’s a formula that has been used quite frequently in Europe. The opposition parties understand that Canadians don’t want another election, and a coalition government seems like the best option if they are not willing to support the Conservative’s economic plan.

Let’s hope Dion, Layton, and Duceppe can come to an agreement in order to form a new government without sending us back to the polls.

CBC report on Flaherty\’s economic update

Divided they stand

November 4 was a night of contradictions in the United States. That night, while Americans made history as they elected their first African-American president, millions of people in California were stripped of their right to marry simply because they are gay.

And while Americans from many different ethnic backgrounds, religions, and sexual orientations came together to elect Barack Obama and enter an era of change, they stood divided on whether to allow two people of the same sex to get married or not.

Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment meant to define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman, was approved by 52 per cent of Californians. On the days that followed, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community organized mass protests, showing their discontent towards two main groups: the Mormons and African-Americans.

It was in fact the Mormon Church that was behind Proposition 8. Its members contributed to the yes on Prop 8 campaign with more that $20 million. The church ran a campaign in which they made gay marriage a religious issue, and not a civil rights one. It was the Mormons’ effectiveness in convincing people that this was a religious matter that won them most of the African-American vote.

Seventy per cent of African-American voters supported Proposition 8, and for many gays and lesbians, this is a reflection of the widespread homophobia among blacks. But blaming African-Americans also brought up the inherent racism among some homosexuals.

“Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, ‘Black people did this, I hope you are happy!’” wrote A. Ronald on Rod 2.0, a blog targeted at gay African-Americans. Ronald wasn’t the only blogger that reported such attacks, and the irony is that most of those African-Americans verbally abused by gay men and women at anti-Prop 8 rallies were gay too.

The passage of Proposition 8 is indeed a sad episode in a time where people seem so eager about political and social change. Not only does banning same-sex marriage constitute an enormous step backwards in terms of equality, but it has also brought to the surface once again the division between the different minority groups in the United States.

What this demonstrates is not that a majority of African-Americans are homophobic or that many white homosexuals are racist, but that an issue like gay marriage can still profoundly divide people.
Not everything is lost in the battle for equality, but minorities should work together if they want real change to happen. Pointing fingers at each other and blaming the “others” for their failures will only perpetuate the unhealthy tension that exists now between them.

Fortunately, people from different minority groups are starting to realize that they need to seal this wound. In a letter addressed to the LGTB community, the members of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center say that blaming other minority groups for the passage of Proposition 8 “only serves to divide [their] community and hinder [their] ability to create a stronger and more diverse coalition to help [them] overturn Proposition 8 and restore full equality and human rights to LGBT people,” and that “there are many allied communities—straight, African-American, Asian Pacific Islander, Latino, Native American, white, people of faith, and secular people—who are energized to join with [them] as never before.”

African-American journalist Raymond Leon Roker also wrote in The Huffington Post about the importance of working together. “In the coming weeks, those of us who are standing against Proposition 8 — including, I’m sure, millions of blacks nationwide — are all going to need unity as we lobby, fight and advocate for either a reversal of this amendment or a new battle in 2010,” he said.

Gays and lesbians need to stop blaming blacks for what happened on Nov. 4. Instead, they need to reach out and form coalitions with other communities. They need to show blacks, Hispanics, and even Mormons that gay marriage is a civil rights issue that has nothing to do with religion. Most importantly, all Americans need to realize that if they really want change they need to stop living in a country of contradictions where an African-American can become president but two people who love each other can’t get married because they are of the same sex.

Dear candidates

Dear Jean, Pauline, and Mario,

Seeing that you’re going around Quebec making promises in order to get votes, here’s a short list of things I would like (not in any particular order):

1. When I’m sick, I want to be able to see a doctor before either of these two things happens:

a) My body heals itself

b) I die

2. I want to be able to get a job so I can pay for my student loans once I finish school in a few months.

3. I want that woman I saw on the bus with three babies and a huge baby carriage to be able to send all her kids to daycare so she can work..or relax…or make more babies.

4. I want to afford getting on the bus!

5. I want you to stop ignoring Anglophones

6. I want Bill 101 gone (ok that was wishful thinking but hey, it’s the holiday season)

7. I want to be able to see all those packs of cigarettes at the depanneur even if I don’t smoke, because in case you didn’t realize it, we still know they are there!

8. If immigrants are forced to learn French, I want Quebecers to be forced to learn about immigrants.

I think that’s it. I wanted to add yellow margarine to the list but I just remembered we got that last July.

Shamie on you

On November 2004 Gemma Raeburn and two of her friends were cleaning up her garage when six police officers arrived at the scene and drew their guns at them. Their crime? Being black.

Because when you see three black people taking stuff out from a Dollard-des-Ormeaux garage it’s gotta be a break-in right? Well, it turns out the six white cops were wrong and when Raeburn told them that it wouldn’t had happened if she and her friends were white, two of the cops replied with comments such as “bullets don’t see colour” and “why don’t you go back to your own country?”

Completely racist? A Quebec Court judge doesn’t think so. Last month he reversed a 2007 decision by the police ethics committee that gave a one-day and three-day suspension to constables Roger Carbonneau and Isabelle Nault respectively. Judge Mark Shamie seems to think that although the remarks were unfortunate, they weren’t discriminatory.

You’re wrong Judge Shamie. “Why don’t you go back to your own country” is one of the most discriminatory remarks a person can make. By making that comment, these two cops were telling Raeburn and her friends that they were different, that this isn’t really their country because they’re not white and that if they don’t like the way they’re treated they should go back to whatever country they came from.

Judge Shamie’s ruling sends people the wrong message. It says that it’s not a big deal for police officers and other public officials to make discriminatory remarks. And if the police can get away with it, why can’t everyone else?

What Judge Shamie did is nothing else but to condone discrimination. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t judges, the police, politicians, and everyone else in society for that matter fight against discrimination in this country?

People from all over the world come to Canada because they believe they will have a better life here. And yet many of them have to face constant discrimination because of their skin colour, their religion, the way they dress or the way they talk. This is their country as much as it is everyone else’s.

This is our country no matter our colour or the language we speak.

This is our country no matter if we were born here nor not, if we’re children of immigrants or if our family got here 400 years ago.

No one has the right to tell us to go back to our country because we are already there.

Judge Shamie’s ruling is a setback in the fight against discrimination in this country of ours. What a shame.

Marketing 101

Everything’s bigger in America; their burgers, their malls, their movie stars and, of course, their election day. Tuesday was a historical day for our southern neighbours. Not only did they elect the first African-American president in the history of their country, but they also had the highest voter turnout since 1908.

Sixty-four per cent of eligible voters showed up at the polls on Nov. 4, the equivalent of almost 137 million Americans. Meanwhile, three weeks ago only 59 per cent of eligible Canadian voters cast their vote in our federal election, marking a record-low voter turnout in Canadian history.

So why is it that while south of the border people voted in record numbers, we preferred to stay home and let someone else decide for us? It’s simple: Americans are good at marketing their products.

Like hamburgers and blue jeans, democracy is a product that needs proper marketing in order to work, and Americans understood that very well. It takes more than hanging posters from street signs and a lot of handshaking to get people excited about an election. While the Canadian campaign consisted of two debates, a few ads, and a lot of repetitive speeches, John McCain and Barack Obama attended popular talk-shows from The View to Saturday Night Live, bought prime-time television slots, and even had the support of stars like Oprah and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Both sides knew exactly who their target audience was, and they did everything they could to market their product. Only in America would a plumber become an overnight celebrity just because the candidates decided to make him a symbol of the average hard-working middle-class person. If Stephane Dion had found his personal Joe the plumber for instance, maybe he would have made a better job at selling his precious green plan.

There was a very important factor in last Tuesday’s record turnout: the youth vote was stronger than ever. Good marketers as they are, Americans did everything they could to get young people to vote. Many Hollywood stars participated in a campaign designed to attract young voters, and the candidates used innovative ways such as Facebook in order to get their message across. And it worked. As much as 54 per cent of eligible voters aged 18 to 29 cast their ballot on Nov. 4, a 19 per cent increase from 2004. In Canada young voters seemed to be more interested in what was going on south of the border than in voting for their prime minister.

It’s not a good sign when Canadians start getting more interested in American politics than in who we send to Ottawa. Maybe it’s time that we learn a thing or two from the Americans and start thinking about new ways to make our elections more appealing, particularly to young voters. After all, when a product isn’t selling well, there must be a change in the marketing strategy.

Lunch for two

Have you ever had one of those random conversations with a stranger while waiting for the bus or standing at the checkout line at the grocery store? I have, and to be honest, I don’t like them very much. They’re just awkward and I never really know what to say, so I’ll do anything to avoid having to listen to that old lady behind me. Because they’re almost always old ladies.

So you can imagine that when an elderly woman asked me to sit down with her during lunch a few weeks ago, I wasn’t very thrilled. But seeing that there weren’t any other seats available, I thanked her and sat down at her table.

I learned quite a few things during my lunch with Thérèse. She’s retired, she worked as a waitress her whole life, she lives alone in a small but comfy apartment, she enjoys having her coffee at McDonald’s everyday, and she likes watching reality TV shows where participants get paired up in the hope that they’ll find their other half.

“They should do one of those shows for people my age,” she told me.

But the most important thing I learned was the reason why old ladies tend to have conversations with random people like me: they are just lonely.

Like Thérèse, there are more than four million Canadians over the age of 65, and with baby boomers soon to hit the 65-year-old mark, that number will double by 2026.
Although some Canadian seniors try to keep themselves busy by joining volunteer groups or organizations, there is no doubt that many of them live a pretty lonely life. Take Thérèse for example, who spends most of her day watching TV and only dares to go out as far as her local McDonald’s for fear that something will happen to her while she walks alone on the street, or the elderly man in my neighbourhood whose hobby consists of taking the bus back and forth all day long.

Should it then come as a surprise that the percentage of seniors aged 65 to 74 using the Internet more than doubled between 2000 and 2003? Twenty-eight per cent of them are now Internet users, and those aged 75 and up are also catching up on their mouse use. Perhaps the Internet helps them feel a little more connected to the world that seems to have forgotten them.

Maybe if we weren’t so focused on our own lives we would realize that there’s people like Thérèse out there that need some of our time and care. Why is it that we think it’s ok to simply abandon our parents at a retirement home or a small apartment? Are we too busy to take care of them like they took care of us when we were kids?

Granted some seniors still like their privacy and will insist on living on their own while they are still capable of doing so, but that is no excuse for not visiting them, taking them out for lunch, or simply calling them so they have someone to talk to.

Being lonely and having nothing to do aren’t exactly the greatest things in life, and senior citizens could use some of our company. So what can we do? You might have parents or grandparents you might consider seeing more often, or you might want to start volunteering at a retirement home. But most importantly, when the old lady waiting in line behind you starts talking, listen to her. I know next time I will.