September Books and other stories
Okay so the citizenship test was a bit of a laugh - seriously, the questions (multiple choice!!!!!) nearly made me crack up; I think whoever wrote them was a) bored and b) had a sense of humour, not that many of the immigrants would have picked up on it. Being a native English speaker from a country very similar to Canada (and being involved in education, volunteering and work for five years) was definitely an advantage. If I had to take such a test in Brazil or China I'd never pass.
Anyway, I was there for two hours even though the test took me two minutes to finish (20 multiple choice questions!!!), because for the first 1 3/4 hours they had to go through everyone's paperwork one by one, and that was slow going. There was a woman who sat next to me in the front row who was friendly and chatty, but it soon became apparent that she was also a bit odd - she eagerly told me her story, how she'd been living in Canada all her life (since she was 2 months or 2 years, I forget which) and had a life, a family (four kids) here but had never taken the citizenship test, she just kept getting her permanent residency renewed (which I didn't even know you could do, but then I hadn't thought about it). She was born in America, and she kept saying, "but I'm Canadian!" like I was going to tell her she couldn't be Canadian if she wasn't born here or something. She was grinning madly away but seemed to take it all very seriously. I said pleasantly, "Of course, it's up to you which country you identify with." As the first sign of many that she doesn't listen very well, she replies, "No, well I'm Canadian!" To which, I'm sorry, but I couldn't help thinking "Are you sure? Cause you sound really American!"
Later there were a few other instances that made me want to wince, but anyway. The room was hot, I was dehydrated and getting a headache and you weren't allowed to drink any water. As I said, the questions were, for me, easy, being general questions on geology, history, rights and responsibilities, and politics. I was glad I had read the study guide the previous Saturday or I wouldn't have known which province was known for its hydroelectricity and paper pulp mills (Quebec) or what the three branches of government are. But you didn't need to memorise names of you elected representatives or anything.
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Then yesterday I had my audition at CNIB. It went pretty well I think. You couldn't stop during the reading whereas you can when you're doing it for real, so my mouth dried up and a mix of nerves and whatever made it hard for me to breathe. I should find out in a week whether I passed.
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Adam's parents have just been and gone. They dropped off a mammoth new telly - 107cm flat-screen monster. Well, it's definitely a bigger screen than our old telly, but it weighs a lot less! It was quite the surprise gift and I hope we didn't sound ungracious or anything, because it was really nice of them and we certainly had no plans to upgrade ever, but we don't do so well with this kind of thing and while I appreciate having a larger screen so I can actually see, Adam gets a bit annoyed at what he sees as a waste of money. I think I must be more materialistic than he is.
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They've finally started rebuilding our balcony. A couple of uni students are doing it. Don't know what they're studying, and I'm not entirely sure they're doing a good job or not - I'm very much my father's daughter and I like things to be built so well a bulldozer would have a challenge bringing it down! I don't know much about building wooden balconies off the front of a brick house supported on two brick pillars (these are old), but we're wondering if nailing the 2-by-4 cross-beams flush to a long 2-by-4 that's nailed to the bricks - surely that's not a very strong way to attach them?
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So it took me nearly a month to catch up on reviews from September, and I've only just started on reviewing the books I've read this month! I really need to dig myself out of this cycle!
Books Read in September
Books Read in September: 12
Books Read To Date: 111 (by end of September)
Most Enjoyed: Room and Leviathan (I highly recommend both of these!)
Least Enjoyed: The Thin Man, Mockingjay
Read for Book Club: The book for September was Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway; I didn't want to read it though so I didn't participate.
Read for Challenges: Cat's Eye, Room and Blue Covenant for Canadian Lit Challenge; three Roald Dahl books for Roald Dahl month.
Westerfeld, Scott: Leviathan
Collins, Suzanne: Mockingjay
Dahl, Roald: The BFG
Donoghue, Emma: Room
Dahl, Roald: Danny The Champion of the World
Hammett, Dashiell: The Thin Man
Barlow, Maude: Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
Dahl, Roald: The Twits
Anonymous: The Way of a Man With a Maid
Atwood, Margaret: Cat’s Eye
Cole, Kresley: If You Dare
Thomson, Sarah L: Imagine a Day
Anyway, I was there for two hours even though the test took me two minutes to finish (20 multiple choice questions!!!), because for the first 1 3/4 hours they had to go through everyone's paperwork one by one, and that was slow going. There was a woman who sat next to me in the front row who was friendly and chatty, but it soon became apparent that she was also a bit odd - she eagerly told me her story, how she'd been living in Canada all her life (since she was 2 months or 2 years, I forget which) and had a life, a family (four kids) here but had never taken the citizenship test, she just kept getting her permanent residency renewed (which I didn't even know you could do, but then I hadn't thought about it). She was born in America, and she kept saying, "but I'm Canadian!" like I was going to tell her she couldn't be Canadian if she wasn't born here or something. She was grinning madly away but seemed to take it all very seriously. I said pleasantly, "Of course, it's up to you which country you identify with." As the first sign of many that she doesn't listen very well, she replies, "No, well I'm Canadian!" To which, I'm sorry, but I couldn't help thinking "Are you sure? Cause you sound really American!"
Later there were a few other instances that made me want to wince, but anyway. The room was hot, I was dehydrated and getting a headache and you weren't allowed to drink any water. As I said, the questions were, for me, easy, being general questions on geology, history, rights and responsibilities, and politics. I was glad I had read the study guide the previous Saturday or I wouldn't have known which province was known for its hydroelectricity and paper pulp mills (Quebec) or what the three branches of government are. But you didn't need to memorise names of you elected representatives or anything.
___________________________
Then yesterday I had my audition at CNIB. It went pretty well I think. You couldn't stop during the reading whereas you can when you're doing it for real, so my mouth dried up and a mix of nerves and whatever made it hard for me to breathe. I should find out in a week whether I passed.
___________________________
Adam's parents have just been and gone. They dropped off a mammoth new telly - 107cm flat-screen monster. Well, it's definitely a bigger screen than our old telly, but it weighs a lot less! It was quite the surprise gift and I hope we didn't sound ungracious or anything, because it was really nice of them and we certainly had no plans to upgrade ever, but we don't do so well with this kind of thing and while I appreciate having a larger screen so I can actually see, Adam gets a bit annoyed at what he sees as a waste of money. I think I must be more materialistic than he is.
___________________________
They've finally started rebuilding our balcony. A couple of uni students are doing it. Don't know what they're studying, and I'm not entirely sure they're doing a good job or not - I'm very much my father's daughter and I like things to be built so well a bulldozer would have a challenge bringing it down! I don't know much about building wooden balconies off the front of a brick house supported on two brick pillars (these are old), but we're wondering if nailing the 2-by-4 cross-beams flush to a long 2-by-4 that's nailed to the bricks - surely that's not a very strong way to attach them?
___________________________
So it took me nearly a month to catch up on reviews from September, and I've only just started on reviewing the books I've read this month! I really need to dig myself out of this cycle!
Books Read in September
Books Read in September: 12
Books Read To Date: 111 (by end of September)
Most Enjoyed: Room and Leviathan (I highly recommend both of these!)
Least Enjoyed: The Thin Man, Mockingjay
Read for Book Club: The book for September was Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway; I didn't want to read it though so I didn't participate.
Read for Challenges: Cat's Eye, Room and Blue Covenant for Canadian Lit Challenge; three Roald Dahl books for Roald Dahl month.
Westerfeld, Scott: Leviathan
Collins, Suzanne: Mockingjay
Dahl, Roald: The BFG
Donoghue, Emma: Room
Dahl, Roald: Danny The Champion of the World
Hammett, Dashiell: The Thin Man
Barlow, Maude: Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
Dahl, Roald: The Twits
Anonymous: The Way of a Man With a Maid
Atwood, Margaret: Cat’s Eye
Cole, Kresley: If You Dare
Thomson, Sarah L: Imagine a Day