Exam Time Again

This blog goes into sleep mode pretty much every exam period. This one will probably be no different. This term was pretty rough scholastically and I don't quite have a handle on the information yet. I so look forward to the end of April, where I will have five whole days to myself before starting my summer job. Five days of enjoying rows of cherry blossoms and shopping at the farmer's markets. Monster says it is my job to do the grocery shopping over the summer and I am planning on visiting one or two farmer's markets over the weekends to do most of it. It is going to be one terrific summer of food, fun and paychecks. But first, exams.

The Daily Squishy

On Gender Roles

I am a woman in law school. Someday (soon!) I will finish being a student and start being a professional in this lovely urban city. And, during this entire time, I will be a woman. What makes me want to unpack this is the gender roles I am constantly faced with. When I tell family and friends outside law school about my plans, I am usually asked about my weight (am I losing too much with the stress?) about my family plans (but surely, I must want to have at least one child?) and about my husband's happiness. As if he cannot be happy with a wife who works herself. As if he needs someone at home, cooking and cleaning for him.

And this is my reply: we are all just people: men and women. We all have different skills and talents and desires for our lives. And, although some people would wish it were so simple, those talents and desires must be splintered into a million little pieces--as many pieces as there are people who walk this earth. Because we are all individual and cannot be splintered into strict gender lines. "If you are a woman, you want X." "If you are a man, you want Y." The very fact that society must work so hard to convince men and women that they belong in pre-constructed gender identities shows how unnatural these binary identities are.

True Romance

I got to spend some time with my grandmother on my father's side this weekend. She is my very last living grandparent and I was excited to learn more about her life. My sister and I peppered her with questions: What was life like when you were a child? What did you like to cook? Where did you live when you were raising children?

We asked her, "How did you meet Grandpy?" And the story she told brought tears to my eyes:

During the Second World War, she signed up to help the allies, though she was only 17. During this time, she was assigned to the morse code division, sending messages to the frontlines. In her office, also sending morse code messages, was a tall, handsome young man. They fell in love, got married. After the War, they moved to a small university town so he could learn forestry and she coudl teach business. Later, they lived in the back woods of Quebec while they had their babies and then raised them. After the kids were gone, they taught forestry in Latin America for a few years.

Grandchildren came along and they enjoyed retirement. And then, her strong, tall husband got sick with throat cancer. It was the end of his life and he could no longer speak. With his wife sitting at his side, he took her hand. Slowly, he tapped out his goodbye message of love to her in the only way he could--in morse code.

"My Feet Won't Touch the Ground"

Life in Technicolor II. Coldplay

Coldplay is coming to Vancouver at the end of May. I am hoping we can go to the show. I love this band live. And this video! It has been a long while since I've watched a music video so creative and funny. This video makes me happy.

Night Off

We only have three weeks of school left before exam season begins, so its been rough. At this time of year, I am constantly trying to squeeze more into my day. But last night, we took the night off and Monster and I went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Banana Leaf. Specialising in Malasian cuisine with a Vancouver twist, TBL never disappoints. Even if we order something we've never had before, it is delicious. Especially the stews.

Not only did we eat good food, we also got the chance to talk together away from the constant pressure. Living on campus, spending so much time on campus, it's hard to get away from the stress of school unless you physically remove yourself. Our next date will probably be after exams, so I am savouring this moment.

West Coast LEAF Equity Breakfast

Since last summer, I have been volunteering as a legal researcher with the Legal Education and Action Fund, a non-profit which intervenes in cases where women's interests are at stake. An 'intervenor' is a 3rd party which asks the court if it can submit a legal argument alongside the original two parties. LEAF's mandate is to ensure women's substantive equality and the work they do is really worthwhile to me because it is done at a macro level--decisions from the court (including the Supreme Court) affect society as a whole. It is shaping law, basically, and I wish there were ten more LEAFs in Vancouver.

Anyway, this morning was their annual fundraising breakfast and I was up at 4 am to volunteer. My sweet, wonderful husband drove me to the hotel where the event was held before 5 A.M. He is just the best. The breakfast was a lot of work. But having 800 lawyers and politicians in the same room talking about universal child care, child support, pay equality and domestic violence protection was pretty great. I know change comes slowly. I am so impatient! But bit by bit, we are increasing privacy protections, establishing equality, pioneering quality childcare outside the home. We are making the world a more liveable place, one case at a time.

...And That Made All the Difference

I have been thinking about what brought me here, to Vancouver, to law school, to my marriage, all the wonderful things in my life. And it was really...nothing. Not anything I can point to. I just woke up one day seven years ago feeling vaguely uneasy and unfocused. I went to Starbucks and decided, "I'll be a lawyer." And that's really all there was to it. Amazing how life works.

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(Robert Frost)

Paradox

I didn't get a fancy, high exposure job I thought was mine for sure. It is very disappointing, especially since I thought it was 'in the bag' as it were. But, with a highly productive weekend behind me and a few more job applications out there, I feel better.

It's a paradox that during the time I am producing work I am most proud of, where I am a taking on leadership roles, I am being rejected from every jobs I apply for. It used to be the opposite: I produced work I knew would get an 'A' but that I was not especially proud of, did very little social justice work or volunteering and get every job I applied for. Go figure.

UPDATE: I just got the job. Wut-wut!

So tired...but my lips look amazing...

Another twelve hour day, eight of them spent on Tax Law. Honestly, who can anyone read tax for eight hours and only get through two chapters?! It is so frustrating how much you have to read to understand this stuff.

I am making a big push for the month of March, my last month of school before exams start in April. Instead of ten hour days, I am putting in two additional hours and my body is aching. But the extra time will be helpful when exams roll around, as they always do.

In other news, I have a new favorite thing: it's Smashbox's 'O' lipgloss. It changes colours to match your skin tone (the shades are all different shades of pink: mine is a medium light pink tone.) I love products that change with your body tempurature, they are always super flattering, look natural and stay put for hours. And this gloss has a secret--it tingles when you first apply it and makes your lips slightly bigger. I am so addicted to the tingle!