Today's the day, huh? I woke up to find my room cramped with two huge travel bags and my carry on luggage, adrenalin pumping for the 1 hour 3 minute flight to the beautiful and historic city of Québec, in the province I had visited just the previous summer. Although the dawn of the day had passed, the dawn of the program had just unveiled itself and as I gathered my thoughts, had breakfast near my computer for the last time until the next month, I realized that it wasn’t only the flight I was excited about. Granted, I am in love with flying and nothing excited me more than boarding a plane to arrive in a destination you can call home for at least a few days, however, underneath that warm blanket was the Shad Valley program. Skipping past the airport security (who took away my water bottle for safety purposes, even before I drank it), I arrived at Université Laval with friends I already knew I’d remain lifelong friends with. There to greet us were four lovely P.A’s (NOT personal assistants, but program assistants as I later learned) who presented us with university lanyards, our room keys and a magnificent French smile (many agree that the Quebecois smile is very distinguishable).

Many ‘Shads’, as they will undoubtedly be called multiple times in this blog, managed to get acquainted with their room mates and no one seemed to be complaining – all the Shads seem like fantastic individuals with versatile backgrounds and a myriad of personality traits. This diverse spectrum of names, backgrounds and faces seemed to really get everyone’s memories jogging and almost everywhere you could find Shads asking for names and inquiring about where everyone is from. Nonetheless, it seemed that Shad Valley had a lot to teach us on the first day since all the newly arrived Shads were taken on a tour of the Laval campus and others were taken to the local centre d’achats for a snack to help with the wait for dinner at 5:30pm. Speaking of dinner, as most large educational institutions have in common, Laval has its very own dinner system and the Shads were provided with cards which allow a total of 12 items from the cafeteria with one twist – you CANNOT, under ANY circumstances, have a salad and a ‘hot plate’ together! NEVER! Hence, after a satisfactory meal and some energy to continue for the night, everyone was summoned into a huge circle and the program director, Daniel Dupuis, with the help of the rest of the staff put together a demonstration about the rules, values and the aims of the Shad Valley program. Even though most students carried these core values with them every day, everyone listened attentively and participated enthusiastically – which was in fact one of the values listed!

Finally, the night started coming to a close with announcements. For those Shads who thought that they would be doing all the activities in a large group, there was the huge surprise of being split off into different pre-assigned houses. These houses would be competing in a competition that was yet to be announced for an opportunity to represent Laval at yet another un-announced competition. In addition to this, there would also be committees throughout the weeks here at Shad, ranging from T-shirt design – my personal favorite – to decorations for the underground ‘Murales’, which are painted walls in the network of pathways found underneath the university.

As with any other blog, I cannot capture the essence of my first day at Shad Laval. I cannot demonstrate my huge affection for the city, the language, the university, the program and the people to whom I am only a stranger. Nevertheless, I have described above, in as much detail as I could muster in a half an hour of free time before dinner, the highlights of my day. Hopefully, through the mere words I have been able to shine some light on just how much excitement there is on campus for the activities that the P.A’s are secretly smiling about and activities that I hope will at least make everyone here at Shad Laval smile and keep them smiling for the entire day.

As someone confided to me today; We are extremely lucky to be here, but we are also very grateful. So thank you for reading up on today’s blog and keep tuned for future, probably more exciting days for us right here at Shad Laval.

Amit Unadkat
Shad Valley Université Laval
Hometown: Mississauga, Ontario