Yesterday the vote was to continue the student strike (i.e., grève), so that’s not good news for the UQAM campus. The photo below briefly describes this…I took it from this morning’s paper (it even focuses on the 5000 social sciences’ students). The mood on campus was somber when I arrived today. I haven’t observed any protests, and I have heard that they have been well controlled, but is isn’t good news for the community. I hope both sides can work out their differences and find common ground soon. I guess there was a similar strike in 2012 that lasted 8 months!

I ventured out to complete my remaining surveys after working in the office awhile. It was good to touch base with Bob, Ariane, and two of the students (both named Jérémie). They all asked how my data collection was going, and they were so pleased by my report. I think us research nerds are the same around the world – super excited for data-gathering success!

I struck out at Desjardins…it was overwhelming during lunchtime. Imagine the Lloyd Mall food court packed full of people conversing at small tables. I did a couple of laps and chickened out…I almost approached a table of three women until I saw that they were conversing via sign language! So, I went back over to the campus food court…familiar territory. It was about 1:30 by this point, so most had finished lunch. However, there were two tables of non-students (my target audience) who were willing to help. Three who started surveys discontinued midway through, so that was kind of a bummer, but I was pleased to have a few responses from people outside of the 18- to 22-year-old range.

I stopped at the market on my way back “home” for a few last provisions to cover the next two days (I don’t like eating out alone, and I have a fridge, toaster, etc. in my room). It feels good to have finished my research here in Montréal and to have made some new connections in academia. Tomorrow I will go to campus one last time to be among my new “colleagues.” I will have some time for site-seeing in the warm sunshine as well. It should be a nice way to wrap up sabbatical research trip #2!