from across the world: quand ca nous chante

What an awesome weekend full of music with an awesome bunch of people! I have literally lived on music the four days. Emma and I are watching all the videos and pictures right now and I am already getting shivers. Thursday after school we drove to Timmins to spend a weekend at a music festival called: "Quand ca nous chante". Bands or just groups of people from French schools all over Ontario were there to perform and so I spent hours and hours watching all kind of performances this weekend. There was rap, pop, heavy metal, rock, country, rock opera, you name it!

I am not sure how many people there were in total, but if I had to guess I'd say over 300, and that is not counting the teachers that were with the students. The festival was organized at a school in Timmins and so I ended up sleeping on the floor of a gym for the first time. It actually wasn't too bad since we got to borrow a pretty comfortable air mattress, that really in the end turned out to be a double even though it looked like a single when it was empty. When we got to the gym with the girls from our school all the sides were filled with mattresses and bags so we decided to right in the middle of the gym.

On Thursday we just had supper at the cafeteria and then we watched the opening concert of the festival. All three nights we had concerts with many different French Canadian artists and bands and they were all actually really good. I love the fact that we are getting to know French Canadian music, because I really knew none when I first got here.

In the morning we had an early wake up call, 6.30 AM to be exact, to get ready for our show. We were the second school to perform out of many, many schools and that made me a little nervous. But afterwards I realized that it was the best time to perform, because after it all the stress was gone and we didn't have to worry about anything for the rest of the time. We performed five songs in total, all of them were French of course since the event was fully French. I sang "L'amour existe encore" by Celine Dion with one of my classmates. She had already sang this song before, so it was easy for her to teach me the lyrics and everything. The morning of the show I was literally all over the place. I couldn't focus on what people were saying, I was a little snappy and I really could not eat breakfast. And right before our turn to go on stage, while Riley was singing his song I was almost hyperventilating. It's strange though how it is easier to sing in front of 300 strangers than for example 30 people you know. It was amazing to sing together with such an amazing singer. I hope Sara gets discovered, because she really has a beautiful voice. The song went well and I felt so happy after it. Even though I made a small screw-up, it was still good.

On Saturday and Sunday we watched other schools perform and had an "Atelier". I don't know what to call it in English really, an activity I guess? It was called: "Théatre Musical" and we made a small scene using the song "In the jungle". For some reason we didn't feel like going to the activity at first and we almost ditched it, but I am glad we went because it ended up being lots of fun. We sang lots of "Awimbawes", danced waltz and acted a little bit too. It was cool to see that you can really build up a whole scene just around a simple song like that.

In the evening we went out to eat at East Side Mario's with our group and after the evenings concert we went into boys side of the gym to just jam for a while. One of my favorite things about the festival was the atmosphere at the school. Where ever you went in the school you were sure to see someone sing or play something. You would walk around the school and just see groups of people around someone playing the guitar just casually jamming and you could literally just go join a group and sing with them. The atmosphere was just generally so carefree. Saturday night we actually did that. Our group just joined another, and we just sang and played together. I have heard the saying that music brings people together and now I really got to experience it and it really is true.

I had so much fun this weekend. We sang, we laughed (I cannot remember the last time I would have laughed so much and so hard) and we danced. This weekend was truly and unforgettable one.

Tonight is the big night for many actors and actresses. Its the Oscars! I remember last years Oscar night.. We stayed up with Kat, Ville and Ad to watch the whole show, which was a lot of fun, but going to school after no sleep at all was torture. This time I don't have to stay up all night to watch them, but I also don't have the same people here with me to stay up with me.

I am really not excited to go to school tomorrow and I have been procrastinating with my homework. I should really go do it now. Bye dear readers.