Oops!... I lied.

I know I said at the end of my last entry that it would most likely be the last post I made while in the U.S. for quite a while, but... I lied.  I realized that all I did was babble about the process of getting my CAQ which was, admittedly, pretty cathartic, but I'm aware that that's not in the least bit interesting to anyone but me.  (Granted, that's probably the case for my entire blog, but that's beside the point.)  Since the whole point of this blog is to keep my friends and family up-to-date about my life since I'm so far from most of them and will soon be even farther, I should probably have an entry that's actually about that, right?  Right.

JBA ended in early August.  I can honestly say that it was an amazing session filled with amazing kids and staff.  I feel so lucky to have been able to get to know all of them.  Those three weeks are filled with great memories that I wouldn't change for anything - the lip sync competition, being "in charge" of Team 10 a.k.a. Danalicious with Nixi, Beach Ottumwa, two crazy Wal-Mart trips, a knee injury (yaaay), having the best housing group in the history of housing groups, being gifted an adorable T. rex named Roger from said amazing housing group, having a super crazy class with a super crazy professor filled with super crazy kids, three dances, lots of chilli... it was awesome.  It makes me sad to know that it was most likely my last session.  I was told that I could technically do it one more year, but I don't know what I'll be doing next summer - working, taking classes... no idea.  But it was an awesome way to go out!

But yeah... about my knee.  On the second day of staff training, we were at Thousand Hills (the local state park) for a barbecue, games, and more training.  We were playing a game called Stick in which one person competed against another person by spinning rapidly in a circle, staring up at a plastic baseball bat that we were holding.  We had to spin ten times and then try to drop the bat onto the ground and jump over it.  I found myself against the formidable Austin.  I was actually winning until, somehow, my foot remained planted while the rest of my turned, and I was suddenly on the ground.  It hurt.  A lot.  I was helped over to the picnic tables, got some ice and ibuprofen, and thought I was fine.  Indeed, I was able to walk around with no problems for a while.  Then, as I stood up to go swing, my knee suddenly gave out and I found myself down on the cement.  Ow.  The preceptors and staff took good care of me, helping me ice it some more and wrap it up, but I was mainly annoyed since I'd never really been injured before, and I don't like having to be taken care of.  It got better and I was able to hobble around for the next few days, though I wore a wrap for the rest of training.  I stopped wearing after a while when it seemed to get better, but then it started to twinge a bit, so I went to Wal-Greens to buy one that was more heavy duty.  (Mainly so I could play dodgeball that evening.  I love dodgeball.)  Admittedly, playing dodgeball was not a good idea.  However, it was also my moment of glory.

I hadn't been playing that hard, so when we got to the second-to-last game, I told myself that I was actually going to throw the ball and really try since it was almost over.  I wasn't exerting myself too much, making sure not to really pivot or turn my left knee too much.  Suddenly I realized that it was three against three.  Then three against two.  And three against one with me being that little one.  Oh dear.  Now, you might think that it's easy for a twenty-three-year-old to throw a ball at three fourteen-year-olds, but it's not.  Those kids are fast and much more agile than I am.  However, since I was the last one standing, I had the ability to go anywhere in the court while they stayed on their half.  In an attempt to get me out, they threw all the balls at me, meaning I had all of them on my side where they couldn't get to them.  I had all the power.  Muwahaha.  So I took one ball and ran to the other side and got one girl out, then another.  Then it was just me and one another girl, who now also had the ability to go anywhere in the court.  Having a lot of kids in my class and in my housing group on the sidelines, I heard a group of people chanting my name, which is definitely not something that's ever happened, and it certainly made me feel quite fuzzy!  As I was running, I'm not quite sure what happened, but my knee gave out, and I crashed to the floor.  Ow.  Everyone went dead silent as Dan and Cory came over to help me up.  I was far too aware of eighty people watching me as they helped me up, cheering when I was on my feet.  I found myself able to walk, so I asked Dan, "Can I keep playing?"  He looked surprised, but replied, "If you want."  More cheers.  (Yay!)  So my opponent and I went back to our sides and we started again.  I took the offensive again, wanting to get it over with and knowing I couldn't run worth a damn.  I threw the ball and it hit her in the ankle.  And I won!  Yay!  I got lots of hugs and high fives. It was the greatest moment of my life, and not even getting married or having kids will top it.  Teehee.

So yeah, long story short, I hurt myself again.  So I took it easy over the next week and thought it would be okay for me to play dodgeball again the following Saturday.  Well, I'm stupid.  It was actually the second-to-last game again when I was walking backwards, quite calmly, and my knee gave out.  I managed to scoot to the sidelines to get out of the way, but I was furious with the whole situation and myself.  Luckily a couple other preceptors and some girls from my housing group took care of me.

That night, I had trouble getting the swelling to go down, so when I called my mom the next day, she ordered me to go to the doctor.  I did, and he said he thought I had torn my meniscus ligament and had me go to the hospital to get an x-ray done and gave me an anti-inflammation prescription.  However, at my followup, I was told that I had not torn a ligament and that it was just sprained.  Cool.  Either way, I spent all of JBA hobbling around.  Oh well.

So now I'm in Kentucky with my mom, aunt, and sister.  I've been here for a week-and-a-half and I'll be here for another two weeks until we drive back to Louisville for me to fly up to Montréal!  Exciting stuff!

Enfin, c'est toi, enfin

Happy very belated birthday to my blog!  This little guy, who's changed names more than I can count, and who's changed his face even more times than that, turned four this past June, but I was in too much of a tizzy to really notice.  Oops.  Seriously, it's a huge accomplishment for me to have stuck to writing in this thing after four years.  Not only that, but writing in it at least once a month consistently for four years is also impressive by my standards; usually I start a blog and give up on it a couple weeks later.  But this thing has seen me through my entire career at Truman, study abroad, applying for grad school, the horrid waiting on responses, the other horrid waiting on news about my visa, and now it will see me through grad school itself!  Pretty nifty, I think.

Speaking of horrid waiting, that finally came to an end the other day.  I was actually more open about the process of applying for my CAQ and Canadian Study Permit than I usually am about such things, posting about it a couple months ago when my head was about ready to explode.  However, things have shifted since then, I was mistaken about some things, etc.  So let's explain the whole process!

I applied to the different grad schools in January.  Because I submitted my applications very late, it was natural that I didn't receive responses for quite a while.  Truman gave a timeframe of three weeks when I applied, but neither Concordia, McGill, or Laval had one.  TAPIF was the only one who said when they would be sending responses: the first week of April.  By the time that first week of April arrived, I hadn't received any response from any of the three schools.  I was, however, accepted for TAPIF, and I managed to convince myself that, even if I was accepted to one of the schools, I would defer my admission and go to France for seven months.  My rejection from McGill solidified this idea.  By this point, I realized that something had gone wrong in my application for Laval and that it had never been properly submitted.  This really solidified the plan to forgo any grad school admission since Concordia was my only option left and, even though it was my top choice in schools, I really did not expect to be admitted.  So I began telling people when they asked that I planned on going to France, specifically to the Lille area in the north.

Then it happened.  On April 28, I received my acceptance letter from Concordia.  As I wrote earlier, I had a big decision to make, and most of you knew that I would always choose Concordia.  Living and studying in Québec has been my dream for nearly seven years.  I've never felt more at home anywhere than I do there.  As much as I would love to visit France one day, I couldn't postpone my dream of living in Québec any longer.

Unfortunately, it was as easy as saying yes to the dress.  (What?)  The first step was applying for my CAQ, which stands for "Certificat d'acceptation du Québec," which is, essentially, a visa to allow me to study in Québec specifically.  Once I had that, I needed to apply for, basically, the same thing except it was to study in Canada as a whole.  I couldn't apply for the latter without having the former.

Now, you all know I'm poor.  Obviously I need financial aid of some sort.  And luckily for me, the U.S. government does provide financial aid to American grad students who want to attend an international school.  However, the system isn't as automatic when it's an international school; while the FAFSA automatically sent my info to Truman every year, I had to do this myself.  I had to apply for the FAFSA and then send a boat load of paperwork to Concordia for them to process.  This process, I was told, would take about three to four weeks.  This was in early June.

Simultaneously, my application for a CAQ (which also required a boat load of paperwork) was halted because I had not provided an official letter from Concordia saying how much financial aid I would receive, not just an estimate.  They gave me until August 3 to send it to them which, I thought, was plenty of time.

However, I was worried because even if the financial aid office at Concordia took a minimal amount of time to process my application, I wasn't entirely sure how long it would take to have my CAQ awarded.  If that took too long, I wasn't sure how I was going to apply for my Canadian Study Permit right after since that process, apparently, takes a lot longer.  In a panic, I emailed the International Student Office at Concordia, who has been extremely helpful throughout this whole process, and it was explained to me that, as an American citizen I was able to bypass the entire application process for the Canadian Study Permit, that I was able to apply for it upon arriving in the Montréal airport.  This was a huge lift from my shoulders, as that was one less monumental thing for me to do.  Now I just had to wait for my financial aid to be processed.

Heh.

After the four weeks passed, I emailed the woman at the financial aid office, with whom I'd been corresponding.  I asked what the deal was.  I had to send the email twice because she didn't respond after a week.  She said that, due to technical difficulties, they'd been unable to process it yet but that they were hoping to have the issues resolved soon.

So I waited.

By the end of July, I still hadn't received anything.  Remember: I was told to have this information sent by August 3.  So, now panicking, I called the office and spoke directly to the woman I had been emailing.  She told me that she was planning on processing my file that day and would then express mail it to me.  I explained about my deadline, adding that absolutely none of this was my fault, that I had been waiting on them, and that if I didn't get the paperwork in by the deadline, then I wouldn't be able to go to Concordia.  (This was all with the utmost politeness, I must add.)  She then agreed to get the paper stamped by all these official offices and scan it, allowing me to print it and mail it to the Ministère while waiting for the official copy in the mail.  I agreed and thanked her.

From what I understand, though both letters to the Ministère were postmarked by the end of July, they didn't arrive there until August 4.  Hence my terror that they wouldn't be accepted.  So even though I had gotten them in, I was still befret with worry that they were either too late or that the application would simply be rejected.  It had been over two months since I began the process and I was terrified that it would all be for naught.

Then, finally, finally, I received the email saying that I had awarded a CAQ.  On August 11, over two months after I started the process, it was finally over.  I could at last say officially that I would be studying in Montréal, that I was preparing to go there in two weeks.

Which I am!  This will most likely be the last blog post I write in the U.S. for a while.  As of August 28, I'll be in Québec!  EEEEE!!!