La Pocatiere

It is such a blessing to travel throughout Canada and discover little corners of the country. This summer I spent some time in La Pocatiere, Quebec, a 5000-person town on the south bank of the St. Lawrence.

It was all good times. Despite its comparatively tiny population, La Poc is actually quite spread out, and one definitely needs a car to get around. Unless of course you're a single person who doesn't have heavy loads and only lives there in the summer, in which case you can probably get away with a bike.

This entry's going to be basically another installement in my "travel blog", so if it smacks of "come, sit through my vacation photos!"...well, that's exactly what it is.

• One thing that confused me for a while when I first got there were the names of the meals. In Quebec, breakfast is dejeuner, lunch is diner, and dinner is souper. I was used to the France model, where breakfast is petit dejeuner, lunch is dejeuner, and dinner is diner.
• I lived in residence with about 150 anglophones of varying French fluency levels. I was quite amused that there was created in that speech community a dialect specific to the French learners. That is, people made mistakes, but they tended to make the same kinds of mistakes, and after a while some of these mistakes even got entrenched as the norm (that's not to say that people weren't good or didn't try - it was just a normal part of the second language acquisition process). One example of this that readily comes to mind is when people would say c'est d'accord, intended with the meaning of This phrase would never be uttered by a Francophone, even if their French did contain a large number of borrowings from English. The reason is that d'accord, in French, is used to mean ok, but only with the meaning of I agree, not with the meaning of I excuse you. And d'accord would never take the subject it (c', from c'est), but only ever I, you, she, we, etc.
  

Quotes and advice

The weather's awesome, school has almost restarted, but today is one of the last remaining vestiges of freedom...

• Someone's a little too obsessed with their image...

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
P J O'Rourke

• This one speaks for itself:

Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
Anonymous

Lastly, some excellent advice dispensed by my brother, but never actually practiced by him (or by me, really):

Sebi: Go to sleep early. Wake up early, and give yourself half an hour to do nothing in the morning. Then maybe you'll start doing stretches and other exercises.

This actually reminds me of a fitness instructor early riser that I knew. One day she brought in a pan of baklava that she had made because she had some extra time in the morning. Imagine that; I don't even have time to feed myself, some mornings.

It also reminds me of Seraphim, a 6 year old boy whose family visited our parish this week. His question left me impressed with his understanding of God, and wishing that if I have kids, they will say stuff like this too.

Seraphim: Do you know how my daddy serves God? [or the Church, I forget which]
Me: How?
Him: He gets up at 5 am, and gathers all the ingredients, and makes the prosphora.

Tuning your voice

Years ago I asked a music student what instrument she played, and the response I got was,

"My voice is my instrument".

I nodded politely, but had a curious and bemused feeling inside me. At first sight I thought it sounded quite pretentious, but now I see that she was completely right. *

We think that because singing is such a natural thing, and because some people are good at it that it's basically a quality that some people just have, sort of like blonde hair. This leads to laziness and people saying "I can't sing" and leaving it at that. Not true. You can sing. You have a voice, and with patience and hard work you can learn to master it and sound just as good as the best of 'em - and a thousand times better than you thought you could. No one is born knowing how to sing. You have to find your voice, and the more you engage in singing, the more likely you are to stumble across it.

For some people it comes easier than others, but ultimately it comes down to concentration and practice. Of course you need a qualified teacher to guide you, but even then you'll mostly end up doing a lot of plain (and even boring and tedious) voice exercises to improve - the equivalent of dribbling for 15 minutes around a gym, or spending two hours just taking shots, so that you can learn to be a good basketball player.

To master an instrument takes book learning of music theory, training at mechanical techniques, practice of the techniques, and of the songs, and especially, unending hard work in the form of practice, practice, practice. The voice is exactly the same. To be a successful singer, such that people will enjoy listening to, you have to first settle down and get the nitty-gritty:

• How to breath properly.
  
• What position to hold your body in.
  
• How to tell if you're singing the right note.
  
• How to sing the right note.
  
• How to get a clear sound.
  
• Etc, etc, etc...

And at the end, you have to keep all these in mind at the same time. I even think that in some ways it's harder to sing than to play an instrument - I mean, when your voice is your instrument, unlike with all other instruments, you cannot peer into your vocal folds while you're singing and check out what's happening.

As daunting as I think I've made this sound right now, I feel I have to point out that it's TOTALLY doable, and completely worth it. Singing is so much fun, and (this may surprise some people) highly therapeutic. After you've been in choir practice you are left with a feeling of headiness and wellbeing. Then you want to do it more and more. It's like an addictive drug, but with positive side effects instead of detrimental ones.

Hmm, I guess I'll end this with a song I like, which may or may not lead you to want to sing:

* As an aside, I distinctly remember this conversation happening, but have no idea anymore who the girl was or when or where I met her.