Previous: August

Work at Laval University
For three days (4-6 Sept) I had a job at Laval University. With about ten other people I made university cards and bus cards for students. I mostly took photos and plastified cards. In total, we issued a few thousands cards.

For this work I earned 160 CA$ and got a free bus card (this bus card bears one’s photo and gives the right to buy a monthly pass at the student rate).

Photo: An aerial view of Quebec City

In the foreground you can see Laval University. Further back is the centre of Quebec City and the Saint Lawrence River.

Job hunting
I continued to visit the job sites and reply to the offers, but didn’t get any job offers or interview calls.

I also took part in a three-day job-search training at Le Service de placement de l’Université Laval (15 - 17 Sept.).

Course programme:

• Principle axes of the employability
• My project
• Professional and personal summary
• Labour market and its current trends
• Identifying your market
• Job search activities
• Visit to the documentation centre
• CV and the business card
• Cover letter
• Network of acquaintances, business contacts
• Contacting employers
• Job interview (theory)
• Video recording of the interviews
• Correction of the CV and cover letters

It was an interesting training, even though the instructors spoke very fast and somewhat too theoretical. The most valuable element was the video recording of the job interviews of each of the participants and its subsequent analysis. I also found useful the information on the structure of the CV, the visit to documentation centre (at the same placement service), and the training manual which we received.

Later (25 Sept.) I went to the job fair at the university sports complex. There were many companies there (including my old employer, Procter and Gamble), but I didn’t find any potential jobs. Neither of these companies needed multilingual people – they looked for engineers and financial specialists. As for jobs in administration, they required only people with excellent French.

Another French course
In August I signed up for a course of French at the Eastern Quebec Learning Centre.

I asked for an advance level, because I had already finished level 5 at Laval University. They told me to sign up for the course, so that I could be placed in the appropriate group by the teacher.

When the course started on Sept. 15, I saw that it was too easy and the group was too large (20 students). However, the teacher decided not to split the group. I stopped going and asked for refund of my 30 dollars that I paid for the enrolling. I phoned them a few times and sent a few emails, but so far (November) the result has been zero - they either don’t reply or promise to phone me back, but they never do. (P.S. Finally, I got the refund).

Out-of-doors activities
Sara continued to work in the student garden. I also came to help from time to time.

Once we went to pick up apples to the Island of Orleans (on the St. Laurence river).

We also went a couple of times to the Bausse region to visit Sara’s friends and relatives (e.g. her cousin Raphaella who is married to an Italian). Sara’s relatives gave us mushrooms to make kefir and kombucha (a sort of mushroom kvas).

My next diary page is for August-September 2004