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Every time I see her, my heart skips a beat. Here she comes again. The six-foot-tall, gorgeous young Black woman with the dreadlocks and mesmerizing smile. Today she's wearing a blue sweatshirt with the words Carleton University Ravens scrawled all over it, along with bright red sweatpants and Black leather boots. The gal looks like she just left her dorm but she looks better than most of the young women walking around the campus library. On this cold November day in Ottawa, Ontario, I feel...warmth, just from looking at her. Her name is Janine Lansbury. She's in my criminology class, and we sit two rows apart on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Of course, she doesn't know that I exist.

My name is Clarence Hawkins Jeunesse. I'll be your nerd for the day. I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Last year, I attended Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. This year I'm at Carleton University in Ottawa, the Capital of Canada. Spending a year studying abroad seemed like a good idea. Especially given how tough the situation in Detroit has been the past couple of years. Carleton University's criminology program is one of the best in North America. That's why my African-American ass ended up here. I want to attend Wayne State University's School of Law someday but it's kind of tough to get in. I thought they would be impressed by a year of studying abroad. I came to the province of Ontario with high expectations. I had been to Canada couple of times. My family is originally from the Republic of Haiti, though. My father, Edmond Jeunesse and his brother Armand left Haiti in the 1980s. my dad settled in Michigan, married my Haitian-born and naturalized U.S. citizen mother Jasmine Joseph, and had little old me and my brother Harold. As for my uncle, Armand Jeunesse, he left the U.S. for Canada. Uncle Armand moved to Ottawa, Ontario, where he married a Chinese national named Anne Ming Lee and sired my cousins Ashley and Henry.

I visited my uncle Armand and his family in Ottawa a few times growing up so I wasn't completely new to the City. I knew my way around the Canadian capital long before I enrolled at Carleton University. Life at school was quite dull, especially since I didn't know anybody. I'm six-foot-one, slightly chubby, and prematurely bald so I keep my head perpetually shaved. My brother Harold, whom I mentioned earlier, is also studying in Canada. He's at the University of Toronto, having a blast. We're both tall and big, but he's got all his hair. Oh, and he recently got engaged to Maeve O'Connor, an Irish chick he met in Ajax, near Toronto. Best of luck to them both. I'm still trying to make my way in the Confederation. Being an American hasn't made my life in Canada any easier. The Canadian government makes you wait for everything. I had to get a study permit and a work permit before I could make my way through the tricky world of work and higher education in Canada. I work at the Call Center of Bell Canada in downtown Ottawa. I'm fluent in French because my parents are both Haitian-American, and taught it to me while we lived in Grand Rapids. I never thought it would come in handy until I moved to Canada. I make decent money at the Call Center. Twenty dollars an hour isn't bad when you're a broke student at Carleton University who's stuck paying international rates because you weren't born and raised in Canada. Like I said, this country isn't exactly kind to ambitious foreigners, especially Americans.

You wouldn't pick up on this if you met my friends at Carleton University, though. My buddy Raphael Feinstein was born and raised in the City of Tel Aviv, in the State of Israel. He moved with his mother Anna James Feinstein to Ottawa, Ontario, three and a half years ago. He's still an Israeli national but he's a permanent resident of Canada. That means he's paying regular rates at school instead of national. Isn't life grand for the guy I affectionately refer to as "The Hebrew Rapper". Raphael is tall and thin, with bronze skin, curly Black hair and dark brown eyes. He's in the criminology program too and aspires to become a cop after obtaining Canadian citizenship. Somehow, he is friends with mostly young Black guys and has taken up rapping. I flat out told him that I was clueless about rap music, hip hop and sports the day we met. Growing up, I watched Law