so i`m an undergrad

from the outside looking in: one more time at myriade cafe in the concordia ghetto

at concordia, which will surprise no one. it doesn`t even feel new to me by now. i was looking at this programe (it`s a one-year-thing, don`t worry) 2 years ago. i`ve always had people who were dear to me involved with concordia. first i visited it on account of sonja. then my ex went there. my friends mel and natalya had gone/went there, out of the grand total number of 5 people i know in montreal. i`ve been to the library there, to the roof garden there, spent countless time and coffees around the ghetto. so here we are still.

i entered this place on a snowy spring night and somebody told me i looked like a princess in a russian fairytale. i`m a sucker for flattery, so this goes on record and into my concordia file. 

this building will probably be the headquarters of the whole experience. 

i can`t help noticing a certain fascination with words around here

clearly looks like a serious learning institution

and it`s not like i`m going in with wild hopes for the experience. i`m seriously weary of getting more degrees at this point in time. but everybody else i tell seems to be very enthusiastic on my account, so there is that. and i know it will be good for me to be in an academic environment again, at least on the sorry fringes of it. but this program is supposed to be a practical step for me, more than a hobby, you know.

the right to not pay high tuition, for which we paraded on the streets two years ago. when i went every night, thinking "i`ll be a student here when i return". the thing to keep in mind from all this being that, if i only tell myself something on and on for a number of years, it has a knack of coming true. 

but still i`m in a weird mood about it. about starting this one little thing, which people outside of me see as the serious act of an adult. i want to be serious about it. i want to not have just done it on a whim. 

this is waiting in line for the ID card. my ID pic, not shown here, (nor anywhere else if i could help it) is a rather unfortunate impression of  mostly my neck. so i dunno, concordia, it`s not a very professional first step. i took it anyway. 

after which, of course, armed with my new ID, i went very decisively to become a member of the co-op bookstore. 

free book shelf at the bookstore. i stared and perused, and then, full of  the positivest thoughts and resolutions, i went on to buy a bunch of quirky postcards and metro stop buttons and giggle at "wuthering heights", "the bell jar" and "brothers karamazov" T-shirts. 

so it hasn`t started yet. so this is my "before" thing.