10 Clues I Became Canadian

I know that I’m still a lit­tle bit French, but as time went by, I also adapted to my new home.
Like many in Canada, I embrace the North Amer­i­can way of life while keep­ing some of my cul­ture. Cul­tural inte­gra­tion, not assimilation.

The Sweets, The Fat And The Scale

The scale in the cor­ner of the kitchen was taunt­ing me, and one morn­ing, I finally climbed on it. I was just curi­ous, I guess. Barely awake, my eyes still out-of-focus, I blinked sev­eral times, try­ing to bring the scale’s nee­dle into focus. And I gasped.

Lost In Franglais

I occa­sion­ally miss not speak­ing Eng­lish flu­ently. Trust me, life was a lot of fun when I could only under­stand half of what peo­ple were say­ing. My mind was work­ing fast, per­pet­u­ally try­ing to make sense of things. Could that be that?

Chatting Is Cultural

When I first came to Canada, my Eng­lish wasn’t good at all. I hated talk­ing to peo­ple, espe­cially strangers. I’d go to the stores and try to keep the con­ver­sa­tion to a minimum.

I soon real­ized I just couldn’t do that. No mat­ter how hur­ried I tried to look, or how clue­less I may have seemed, peo­ple would always talk to me. Cana­di­ans love small talk.

Unpleasant Realities of American Life

I think prospec­tive immi­grants should be given the whole pic­ture and I don’t believe wear­ing pink-colored glasses really helps on the long run.

This is not about bash­ing Canada or North Amer­ica, or say­ing that other coun­tries on earth are by com­par­i­son much bet­ter. This is about giv­ing some other facts, for once a bit on the “minus” side.

Things I Love/ Hate About Canadian Food

A while ago, I was invited by The Writer to talk about Cana­dian food I like…or hate.
This was actu­ally hard. Canada is such a mul­ti­cul­tural coun­try, we all tend to eat eth­nic food. I could list Chi­nese, Indian, Viet­namese dishes I loved or hate, but Cana­dian? I needed to think. Over­all, the food here is quite straight­for­ward. No insects, no blood sausage, noth­ing too weird. Yet, I have my pet peeves!

National Aboriginal Day

National Abo­rig­i­nal Day is a day for all Cana­di­ans to cel­e­brate the cul­tures and con­tri­bu­tions to Canada of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples

Nightmarish Bureaucracy

I have never been lucky with bureau­cracy in France. But mov­ing to Canada had turned my luck around… until I decided to take some classes at university.

Damn, I Wish I Had Known That...!

I Have just received the pre­cious let­ter from Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion: on June 11^th, I’m invited to write my cit­i­zen­ship test.

Do You Speak Canadian...Eh?

Just like every­thing in Canada, it started with a long harsh win­ter. I was watch­ing T.V when I sud­denly real­ized that my weather vocab­u­lary had expanded quite a lot