monster

The meaning behind behind the title of this post is three-fold:

Monster - as in the size of this post. A lot of stuff has happened since I last wrote. Thursday night I went to check out my guilty pleasure The Stills. They played a free show at La Fleche d'Or. My feelings towards this band are pretty ambiguous. While I find their lyrics completely unremarkable (although progress has been made since the first album), I just can't get enough of their music in general and I will always go see them if they come through town, especially when it's free. Here are some pictures:

We decided to stick around to check out the last act on the bill because we were intrigued by the laptop setup. It turned out to be the highlight of the night. Vitamins for You, aka: Bryce. Isn't it ironic that I had to come all the way to Paris to discover my new favourite canadian live act? Think Final Fantasy's adorable stage presence, MSTRKRFT's heavy beats and hand claps and Postal Service minus Ben Gibbard's annoying voice. Does that make sense? This guy was amazing and had the sparse crowd dancing like crazy...AND he was high on cold medicine but managed to get through most of his on-stage banter in French. He finished his set off with two covers, one of a Dough Boys song, and the other, Arcade Fire's No Cars Go. I bought a CD off of him after the show and have been dancing to it ever since. Unfortunately, the tunes on his myspace are not at all indicative of what this guy does live. And I was not able to capture on film the energy he exudes on stage.

Monster - as in monster news: next Tuesday I'm going to Kosovo via military aircraft with a couple of my classmates and my professor. She managed to secure us some free spots in a Belgian plane. We are landing in Pristina, and meeting the head of UN operations for an hour and a half, and then heading back to Belgium. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.

Other monster news: As part of my degree I have to do a group project. I applied for a project directly related to the French presidential elections happening in Spring 2007. After what I was told was a very arduous selection process, I made the cut! This is pretty amazing, in a nerdy kind of way.

Monster - as in what school has become. Because of my being selected for this project, I have seen my workload double in the span of 24 hours. And because I'm going to London next weekend, I do not forsee stepping out of my appartment for any other reason than to go to the library for the next 6 days. Ain't life grand.