This afternoon, I visited my friend Sabine Walser's English 103 class at Marianopolis College here in Montreal. Ms. Walser invited me in to talk to students about writing book reviews. I told them everything I know about the book review business -- how book reviewers need to read every word of a book, how they should take careful notes and keep track of their responses, how they should express a forceful opinion early on in their review and support their major points with quotes from the book. Anyway, the students had many good questions -- and best of all for me, they got me back in the mood to be a teacher!! (I'll be back at Marianopolis full-time in January.)
On another note, I wanted to talk a little today about coincidences. You may remember that I wrote about a student named Mary, who lived in Akulivik, Nunavik, and who died unexpectedly early this summer. Mary was a star student involved in the Quebec Roots program -- which is how I got to meet her. I wrote a note to Mary's mum in Nunavik, expressing my condolences. Last week, I was visiting a friend at the Montreal General Hospital and I saw two Inuit women. I said hello to them in Inuktitut. (My Inuktitut isn't very good.) Something about one of the women's faces made me keep talking to her. She told me she was from Akulivik; I said I knew Mary -- and guess what? IT WAS MARY'S MUM!!! Guess what else? She's coming here for supper tonight. I think some coincidences are more than just coincidences -- and this was one.