Today�s second entry

The headache that plagued me earlier was a tenacious one. After posting those photos I went upstairs and collapsed for over an hour, dozing, and when I got up I was just as bad or worse as I had been when I went down. This is why acetamoniphen was invented. Except that it always leaves me with a dull veneer after the hurt goes away, almost as though the pain is being masked instead of eradicated. Oh well. Blame it all on getting dehydrated in the hot sun during my walk.

The universities of Quebec are the only ones in Canada that charge differential fees for out-of-province students. This is because there has been a freeze on tuition forever here, and Quebec students pay less than anywhere else. Several years ago the PQ government decided to implement these extras (which strangely enough do not apply to students coming from France or New Brunswick, I can only imagine why) with the justification that non-Quebecois aren�t paying the higher taxes that we are. Okay. Whatever. But that means that everyone admitted to a Quebec university has to prove residency in order to qualify for the lower rate. I have been a part-time student almost since we arrived here, and I had to prove my residency. It was so tough that the university finally put me down as an employee (which I am anyway) to get around it. Today my daughter, who was born in Manitoba but has lived here since the age of one, had to prove her residency in order to get the lower rate, which meant that she needed copies of my and Hubby�s medicare cards and her birth certificate with our names on it.

In order to find the latter, it meant rummaging through a box of stuff that I keep in my closet full of things that I do not want to throw out for sentimental or other reasons. In there is Buddy Boy�s long birth certificate, his certificate of circumcision (ask me about that some other time), both his and his sister�s first locks of hair, and all the cards and projects they made in elementary school. I went through all these things looking for Little Princess� documentation, and it brought back such sweet memories of my teenagers as small children. I wish I had done then what harri3tspy is doing now, documenting their development in a diary. So much is lost.

Her birth certificate was not there. Instead it had been removed to a folder in the filing cabinet in the attic which we started when she began school and we needed that particular document to get her Certificate of Eligibility (this is such a fucked up province) so that she could go to English school, which is exactly why we could send her to French school for primary. It is the legacy of Bill 101 that children of Canadians whose primary language of instruction was English (in Canada) are able to study in that language themselves. All others, including immigrants from English-speaking countries, must send their children to French school (unless they are wealthy enough to afford private school). Now, you all think Canada is such a wonderful country, but at least 1/10 of it is a totalitarian regime conducted on linguistic grounds.

Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest.

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