Before committee meeting , After committee meeting

Whenever I have a meeting with my supervisor committee, I feel I don’t now anything. I mean it you know. Nima always tells me that I am exaggerating about my weaknesses. I don’t know about exaggeration but that feeling is quite right.

Some times at the middle of the meeting I feel I am among the aliens and they are talking strange language that I don’t understand it. You know, it’s like you stand close to the group of people who are taller than you thus they can see scenes that you can’t. You jump up and down to be able to see and at the end you just feel frustrated.

I hate this feeling, to be suspended in the air and don’t know exactly where you are standing of your research’s path. How much close you are to finish it?

I used to be a good student during my bachelor and master years at university. I can’t become suddenly stupid, can I?

Knowledge is the key to all this lack of understanding, a key to understand the aliens’ language. I have a feeling that I should just carry on, and one day not so far away there would be a flash of light that brightens everything and makes me laugh to this post. I cross my finger for that day.

Montreal Trip-Part III

Nima and I went to Quebec City on July 3rd. It is about 230 km from Montréal to Québec city. This city is one of the oldest settlements in North America. Almost everyone there speak French. I heard that people there are kind of biased toward their language and if you are not be able to speak French they don’t bother to speak English. Anyway we stayed there only for a day and I found those who we were in contact with quite friendly.

Here in Canada, each province distinguished its automobiles’ license plate with a short sentence. For example you can see “Beautiful British Colombia” on those cars got licensed in BC. In Québec the sentence is “ Je me souviens” which means “I remember”. Nima told me that the meaning has something to do with English people overcome French people in Canada. I red in Wikipedia that the full quotation is "Je me souviens que né sous le lys, je croîs sous la rose" ("I remember that born under the lily, I grew under the rose" -- referring to the floral emblems of France and England), but this is undocumented. It is also taken by many to mean "I remember my French history and heritage" or, even, "I remember what the English did to the French".

We visited very beautiful Petit Champlain district, which is considered as Canada’s birth place. The city looks more like European cities, especially along Petit Champlain with narrow streets and hanged flowers on the walls.
For lunch we went to cozy restaurant. The way the waitresses dressed up and the restaurant decorations made us feel that we went back in time for 100 years.

Anyway it was our first trip together, and both of us enjoy our time. I certainly recommend Montreal and Québec city to anyone who has a chance to get there.

Montreal Trip-Part II

One of the most interesting exhibitions I have ever attended was made at Montreal science center. It was an exhibition named BODY WORLD 2, which was about a human anatomy. There were several bodies of men and women who devoted their bodies to science to be used after their death. The exhibition was hold before in Europe and Asia. It was amazing. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take any pictures but I do recommend you to visit the website and look at the documents they provided there. It was kind of strange feeling to think that the body you are looking at by interest was belong to real person who was alive some times ago.

Anyway, Nima and I also went to Montreal botanic garden. The garden was so pretty, including Japanese, Chinese, French, and English Garden. I was astounded buy the miniature scale of Japanese garden. As far as I understood they used to have a lake inside the garden full of the colorful fishes called life flowers. In Chinese garden there were several trees in pot. First I thought these miniature tress can’t grow up furthered but our guide correct me that because they are forced to be grown up in the little pot they formed the miniature copy of their natural size. One of the trees in the pot was about 200 years old. I upload several photos from botanic garden, including miniature trees and life flowers.

Let's see the rest of the pictures in part III.

Montreal Trip-Part I

Nima and I went to Montreal for a week (last long weekend + three days off). It was awesome. Montreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Most of the people there, speak French and you can feel the difference between people behavior in Montreal and Quebec with those who leave in English Canada.

I found Montreal more alive than those cities I used to leave in during these years (St. John’s and Toronto). Some of the shops at downtown are open until 9:00 PM and the downtown’s streets are really crowded. We were lucky since at the same time we were there, 28th Jazz festival was hold in Montreal for 11 nights and day which make the city more crowded and alive. The festival was hold by different musical bands in open spaces all over the main downtown streets.

We made a visit to Old Montreal which is the oldest part of the city. There we visited Notre-Dame Basilica the church which is made in 1672. Inside Notre-Dame there are several beautiful paintings all over the roofs and windows. Several tourists were inside the church and were taking the photos.

Montreal downtown is full of shops and restaurants with tables placed outside in open spaces. We found an Italian restaurant with wonderful pizza, very tasty which is not common here in Canada. Honestly I found Iranian pizza style more delicious than Canadian.

I like to share some of the beautiful photos we have taken from Montréal with you. Here is the part I which shows some photos from Notre-Dame and St Joseph church in Montreal.