California

During the remembrance day weekend, my mother decided that we should go to Los Angeles because it was also her birthday that day and she wanted to see some of her American friends. The trip started pretty well for me because I got to ride our car from Vancouver to Seattle where we were to take the airplane on the following day. These 300 kilometers probably were some of the best of my life. The reason for that is that up to now, I always had to sit and wait, bored. But this time, I got to take full control of the car on the Highway 405 South while my mother was worried to death, especially when I did any sudden move, which considerably increased my share of fun. Once in Seattle, we slept at some of my mother's friends' house and finally left the next morning towards our airplane to California. After a normal trip, we landed in L.A. where the heat struck us as soon as we left the plane, for we were still used to the Canadian weather. The first day we did a bit of tourism and went to the Universal Studios which, althought they are despicable because of their habit of pushing you to consumme more and more at every footstep, but I must admit it was an experience I enjoyed a lot, in particular the rides. I enjoyed the next day more as we were invited in Yvon Chouinard's ranch, yes I am indeed talking about the owner of Patagonia, whom my mother had become friends with when she worked there. Therefore, we were on our way to the Hollister ranch which I must admit, is awesome. The Hollister ranch is a huge property owned once by a family called the Hollisters but who could not afford to keep such a large piece of land and therefore divided it into 130 parcels of 1 acre each and sold them to rather rich people. But the beauty of it is that all the 130 acres are somehow private and no one except the owners and their friends can go in. It is so gigantic that there even is a private road inside which goes on for kilometers. Once we were there, we not only saw Yvon but also another former Patagonia employee and friend of my mother who offered me to go surfing with him. Since I rarely have the occasion to practice one of my favorite, if not m favorite sport, I jumped on the occasion and went surfing with this stranger. Well I did not regret it at all for the waves were huge that day and Yvon Chouinard had lent me some really good gear which his son's surfing equipement company made (outdoors must run in the blood of that family). Therefore, when I left the ranch, I was very satisfied of my trip to L.A. and decided I should come back to California as soon as possible. During the trip back, nothing particular occured except the fact that during the airplane ride, I had the misfortune to be stuck between two specimens of exceptionally large pachyderms, by which I mean of course two fat guys who made my ride quite uncomfortable, not to mention that one of them was constantly taking the liberty of letting go flatulences.

Why is holding on to a car with a bike not a great idea

If you are a teenager or an adult who remembers his youth well enough (very rare), you might know that during that certain period of our lives, we devellop that typical teenager ability to believe we are invicible and above all sorts of comments from anybody because we are smarter than everybody. And because I develloped that mentality myself, I decided it would be fun and also quite a show in front of my friends to get pulled by a friend's car while on a bike. We had already done it before and in all sincerity, we had become quite good at it, and it was almost a habit for my friend to tow me to my house back from school. However, it is important to know that we had never gone any faster than 60 km/h, because I had felt that the bike was getting hard to control at this speed already. But as usual, and as a teenager, I decided that you did not know what your limits are until you reach them. Therefore, on a sunny friday afternoon, I let my friend push the pedal to 70km/h. Of course, when confronted to such a high speed, my bike got out of control so I yelled to my friend driving to stop but it was too late. He had started to slow down so I fell at 55km/h instead of 70, with no helmet on of course. I skid on the road's rough and hard concrete on 5 metres. Luckily, I had managed to push myself away from the car and my bagpack had taken the worst of my skidding. But I still got enormous bruises and scabs on my knees, arm, hip and back, not to mention the small ones. Those hurt a lot but I was very happy I was alive because I knew this type of accident could have ended in much more of a tragic manner. But in the end, I am able to look upon this accident as an experience because after all, only those who do nothing get nothing, and that includes scabs and experience. Therefore, I am able to say that I wont hold on to a car while on a bike anymore, or at least not for a while and not as fast. So we can say that I have gained not only experience but also a good story to tell my friends which will allow me to show off even more than if I had not fallen.

Quebecers

When I first came to Canada, I was just an ignorant French kid who thought Canada was just a gigantic country with snow and bears everywhere. Also, like most of my people, I believed that Quebecers spoke a ridiculous type of French and ought to be made fun of. During my first two years in Canada, I learnt that Canada was much more than just snow and bears but, being surrounded by anglophone Canadians, I stuck with my belief of the stupidity of the Quebec culture, like so many other French people who, althought are a great nation, have the ability to judge and think of themselves as better than cultures they know nothing about, which is quite stupid. On my third year in Canada on the other hand, I moved from Lord Byng Secondary school to l'Ecole Secondaire Jules Verne, in order to do the International Baccalaureate. That school was a French school, like so many others which are built all around Canada because of the pressure people who want the French language and culture to be preserved put on the government. In that school, I met Quebecers for the first time in my life and it turned out they were'nt bad at all. Sure, they spoke with a funny accent which was hard for me to understand at first, but most importantly, they are some of the friendliest people I have met in my life, and their funny accent gives them a predisposition to be people with a great sense of humour. In short, they are warm people in a cold country. Unfortunaly, I had to go back to leave Jules Verne and go back to Byng for my last year of high school because I thought the IB (International Baccalaureate, remember?) was too much work, but I still hang out with what I call, my francophone buddies and I will never forget that special year.

Using social networks to show off

In the past two or three decades, the world has witnessed the arrival of an invention entirely different to anything invented before: the Internet. The Internet was very special because it was not something physical which one could touch, and yet it soon became one of the biggest sources of money ever. In a few years, all the developed countries acquired it and it soon became the main source of communication, thus making quite a number of industries such as the press or the post old-fashioned and obsolete but who cared? The number of possibilities the computers' white and shiny screens offered seemed endless. Soon, men became unable to function properly without their precious internet. But the addiction was pushed to its peak when a few years ago, social networks were invented. Suddenly, everyone felt the need to talk to people they so every day and became curious about what those people had done in the past hour, and started uploading hundreds of photos of various things which, let's face it, are often rather pointless, because one photo of a dog is cute, but two hundred photos of the same dog in different shades or angles get boring. But of course there are some good sides to the fact that websites like Facebook or Twitter are now the center of any normally formed teenager. Of course there is the whole we-can-stay-in-contact-no-matter-where-you-go side of it but most importantly, we are now able to show off to all of friends without even talking to them. How? you might ask. Well for that, there are a few techniques, which I will graciously share with those who take the time to read this, so that they might not feel like they have wasted their time. Using Facebook, you can have a lot of friends (about 400 is the minimum, but it does not matter whether you know them or not) and thus show off your "social skills" to all those people and in fact it is now possible to see people argue about who has more virtual friends, an activity about which I choose not to comment. On the other hand, you can also go for the less popular choice of only adding a few people and then saying: " I don't want to be like all those lame people who add strangers for the vanity of having friends on facebook, I know all the people I add." If this works, you can kill two birds with one stone because not only do you prove that you are not conformist and therefore better than everyone, but you can still show off your social skills by having slightly less virtual friends than your acquaintances by implying that you truly know your "small" circle of friends (in this case, about 200 to 300 friends is recommended.) Lastly, a good way to show off using social networks is uploading photos of you and your friends doing something judged cool by the teenage society or just you doing something cool or being somewhere cool. Now of course, I would be a hypocrite if I said I never did any of the things I am judging right now because otherwise, how would I be able to talk about it. I use Facebook to show off like everybody as you can see in my next post and for that, I say: thank you Facebook for making us all addicted to you.