Hi there guys, I hope you're all doing well.
Welcome back to Speaking Canadian with Nick.
I hope that you're pursuing personal ambitions spending time with friends and family, staying safe, having fun.
I think that a perfect combination of all these things in an ideal world is what we need to maintain our sanity in this time of great uncertainty.
In today's episode I want to talk a little bit more spontaneously about my current situation, where I'm going to be moving to in the next coming months and how that's going to affect my rate of publication for this podcast.
So as many of you don't know, I'm an upcoming university student.
I'm going to be studying modern languages and cultures at the University of Ottawa this upcoming semester.
So, in order to get there, to ensure that I don't miss any of my classes, even though the majority of them will likely be online, which is very frustrating because I'm not very tech savvy I'm going to have to move.
So the current city that I live in is London, which I talked very briefly about in a past podcast.
If you're interested in knowing a little bit more about me and my very exciting life, you should definitely go check out the second podcast that I made.
I believe it's called A Brief Story or A Little Bit About My Language Learning and A Backstory About Me, or something like that.
You can find it on Anchor or Spotify the two platforms that I'm currently on that are the most popular.
There are also episodes diffused on other platforms, such as Podbean, I believe, and there is another one that I forget that honestly I don't use, and I'm sure that there are people out there that use it, but I don't, so I don't remember the name of it.
Anyway, so yeah, I'm going to have to move in order to go to university.
Because the current city that I live in does have a university.
And in fact I was accepted to the University of Western, which is a somewhat popular university here in Canada.
But after being accepted to both universities, I decided that Ottawa was the right choice for me.
You may be asking yourself why would you move to another city and spend all this money when you could simply stay at home and go to university in your city?
And that is a very logical question to ask yourself because honestly, i'm still pondering on the idea of moving to a new city.
There's always these thoughts of anxiety or, you know, certain uncertainties that arise when moving to a new city and changing your lifestyle in a rather dramatic way.
But i decided that this was going to be the right choice for me, because Moving to a new city gives you a new perspective on life.
I believe that it's also going to give me a great opportunity to grow as a person.
I know that sounds kind of cliche, but it is true.
When you get out of your comfort zone, when you talk with other people, when you expose yourself to new ideas, you can grow and learn from those experiences and ideas of other people.
So why did I choose Ottawa University?
Well, there are many reasons for that.
In fact, Ottawa is the capital of Canada, if you didn't know.
Maybe I'll make another episode on the geography of Canada so you can better understand our major cities and where the most beautiful regions, in my opinion, are located.
I must say that I really love Ottawa as a city.
It's a very unique city in the sense that it feels like a small town when you get there.
It's not that your typical big city capital, big city like a capital city that you can find in a lot of other countries like say Japan, for example, where Tokyo, this major metropolitan city, is the capital of the country.
But when you come to canada and you come to ottawa, you kind of realize that hey, i mean, the city doesn't seem that technologically advanced, it doesn't seem like a huge city.
You know what i mean.
It's a very small town vibe for a big city.
In fact, let's go back a bit.
So last summer i actually took a road trip with my family with my mom actually and we went to check out mcgill, which is another famous university, in canada at least.
It's quite well known and renowned around the world.
Um, mcgill is located in montreal.
Mcgill has a beautiful campus i really loved it when i was there and montreal is a very dynamic city.
I actually much prefer montreal to ottawa in terms of there being things to do and it being a very entertaining city.
Yeah, it would be a very interesting place to live, i think, especially for foreigners.
It's very, like i said, dynamic.
It has a lot to offer Lots of great restaurants, lots of things to do, lots of nightclubs, if you're into that kind of thing.
But there's also the traditional side of Montreal.
There's old Montreal where you can go and admire the architecture.
There really is a little bit for everyone.
And it's known to be a very welcoming city, in contrast to Quebec City which stereotypically, is more conservative.
I don't mean to say that in Quebec you won't find conservatives everywhere, or people that are maybe a little more traditionalist in the sense that they want to maintain their local culture, which is kind of a stereotype that we have here in Canada, that in French Canada they're more conservative.
But I don't want to get into the details of that today.
Anyways, Quebec City is also a very beautiful city and I really recommend going there.
But typically the consensus is that in Montreal there's a lot more to do and it's a lot more modern city.
So anyway, back to our road trip.
So we went to Montreal and Ottawa.
And even though Montreal is an incredible city, the fees to go to school there as an Ontarian student, meaning a student from Ontario, are almost the same as that of an international student.
By almost the same I mean that they're double the tuition is double the price for international than for a Quebec student.
So I believe for one year at McGill tuition is 5000 for a Quebecer student, 10000 for an Ontarian student, so an out-of-province student that could be any province actually and then 25000 a year for an international student.
So there is a huge gap in between each tier, each level of tuition, depending on which one is best suited for you in your situation.
Ridiculous, right?
That's a lot of moolah.
So, after having visited both universities, uh well, in advance, i decided that ottawa would be the best suited university for me, because ottawa is a very bilingual city and, as many of you may know, i'm very much into languages.
I love learning different languages, and french is one of my favorites, even if i feel like i have to relearn french because i don't speak canadian french.
I speak grecian french, And that may pose me some problems in the near future in terms of making friends, because I have a feeling, I have a very strong feeling, that a lot of them are going to be like who's this guy speaking all snobby and be like I'm Canadian dude.
And they're going to be quite surprised by that.
But nevertheless I decided to choose Ottawa University because for my major it made the most sense, because I can combine French.
They offer the courses that i'm going to be taking also in french, which is great.
I want to definitely include some french into my courses, which i actually have already chosen, so that's perfect.
And the only obstacle, so to speak, standing between me and being an ottawa student is moving.
Yes, you heard right, my friends.
I have to move into residence because i'll be staying in res, which is slang for residence for four years that i'll be studying at university which, of course, is super exciting, a little bit nerve-wracking, but not really.
It's just the process of moving that is always a little bit daunting and time consuming, and also i feel like there is a sentimental attachment to where you've always lived and then picking up and moving to a new place, you kind of have this feeling of it's.
It's almost inexplicable, really.
It's like you're moving, you're turning a new page in your life and you're going To explore new things in a new city.
It's really hard to describe.
And, of course, during this period in which no one really knows what's going to happen with the coronavirus, just being in the midst of this pandemic has really heightened the level of uncertainties with regards to residents, where I'm going to be staying, with whom I'm going to be staying, whether classes will be online or not, whether I have to prepare for that or not, because the university really hasn't given us any definitive answers.
But amidst all this doubt and uncertainty, I'll be moving the last week of August.
And then classes will start about two weeks from then.
And of course, in this time, it's really hard to predict how things will pan out.
I just hope that my classes won't be online, because I really want to get the in-class experience and be able to talk and build connections with people and my teachers.
And I really do hope that the residence buildings aren't too secluded and secularized, because I want to be open to meeting new people and have more chance to make friends and make connections and find study buddies and do things that university students do.
I want to join clubs.
I want to join sports and stuff like that, be a part of the university community, and i know that that's going to be a rather difficult process understandably, for the university itself to be able to put all that in place by the time september rolls around, but hopefully by then my doubts will be resolved and we can move past this whole situation collectively as a human race and be more prepared if anything like this ever happens again.
So of course, in the upcoming months I can't really promise any rate of publication in terms of this podcast.
I've been trying to stock up on materials, making more and more podcasts for you guys in my free time, because I know that in months to come it's gonna be rather difficult to prioritize podcasts over my studies.
And I think that the majority of you can understand that.
But nevertheless, I definitely want to see this project grow and I want to help more and more of you around the world to learn English.
I really do get a lot out of making these podcasts.
I think that it's a really fun pastime and that I really recommend some of you who speak other languages to make these kinds of podcasts yourselves, because in fact, it's not all that difficult.
It's not super complicated on a technological level.
You just have to have the content, something to talk about, you know, a cell phone.
Because the more content that we make available for learners especially, I find, in this format is particularly important because there is always a lack of intermediate content in language learning.
But anyway, that's my situation.
That's the life that I'm living for the next couple months.
I'm in this period of transition between moving cities, starting to study again, which I haven't been studying previously, formally for the last eight months or so, because I finished in January.
I actually did an extra semester of high school so I could catch up on some university credits in order to even apply, because in Canada it's actually quite complicated and they're very particular about you having the right amount of university credits, in other words, having taken enough um university level classes in order to be able to apply to universities, even be able to give yourself a chance to be accepted if that makes sense.
But hey, that part of my life is over with.
I'm done.
High school.
I've been done for a while now and i've had a good six months between work to rest and think about life and what i really want to achieve and get out of this life, at least in the short term, and try to convince myself that i have somewhat of a direction in life and where i want to go with this podcast, for example, and other personal ambitions that I want to pursue in the near future, whether they be scholastic or not.
Well, that's it for today, guys.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
I know the format was a little bit different and I want to do more spontaneous episodes in the future.
There will definitely be a lot more interviews on my podcast.
And as always, I want to get more feedback from you guys.
I think that the interviews you will definitely like, because I know for me whenever I listen to podcasts, interview style.
I really get a good idea of how different structures are formed in terms of asking questions, responding to questions.
What is a natural way to ask a question?
Because typically the structures vary greatly depending on the formality of the situation, and the difference between a dialogue and a monologue is significant in language learning.
So I think it's important to have both components.
For today's episode.
I'm going to provide a partial transcription, meaning I'm going to write down a list of all the key expressions that I used in this episode, but I'm not going to give you an entire transcription of this episode, because I think that it's more important that I focus on the most essential vocabulary to not overwhelm you because an episode that is somewhat longer in length and in which I don't really articulate as much as I would in say, a planned episode.
I think that it's more important to pick out the key words and expressions that you don't understand and focus on the most essential.
Thank you again for listening, my friends, and we'll see you next time.
Take care.
