What I Like to Do in My "Spare Time"--be Humiliated in Front of the World

Back in February, I was growing weary of leading the feminist groups at the law school. I was exhausted by club duties and wanted to expand my sphere of influence outside the law school. So, it seemed logical to run for a position for the entire university's student body.

Here, I thought, I could make a difference on issues that were important to students. Silly me, thinking I would be consulted! Our president, Blake Frederick, filed a human rights complaint to the United Nations today against the governments of Canada and British Columbia for failing to remove financial barriers in the form of tuition to entrance into post secondary institutions.

Pretty much alone, in association with Tristan Markle, he demanded that the UN investigate the matter and hold the government accountable to Article 13 (c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. This Article commits the government to provide accessible higher education, but which further stipulates that this is “on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means”.

I, nor the rest of the AMS Council, was not consulted in any way. No UBC students were consulted. In fact, the only person who may have been consulted was VP External Tim Chu.

Oh, the backlash! This resolution was a ridiculous waste of student funds and makes us look by spoiled brats by equating human rights abuses like slavery, traffiking, and hunger with tuition increases! Tomorrow, I am attending an emergency Council meeting where Frederick will be served with a notice of impeachment, as well as separate motions requesting his resignation, and a motion to retract the complaint to the UN.

Wish me luck. My constituants are livid, I am humiliated and angry.

We were making the news. check out more here.

Oh, and looky here, we made it to the fail blog.

Ooh! I Just Realized that I have a Week's Worth of Daily Shows to Watch!

Since moving, I have not had time to watch my favorite show, "The Daily Show." I will have to catch up tonight but I found this cute poster online.


see more Political Pictures

Perched in Our Nest on Top of the City

We live here now. On one of the top floors! When we spent our first night in the apartment, Monster looked out our ceiling to floor windows and declared that we have a $2M view! And I concur! From our living room, we can see the waterway and bridges in the east, then a full scan of downtown Vancouver (and Richmond in the far distance), then the snow-capped mountains on the west.

Our space is small but so cozy. Right now, we are waiting for our couch to be delivered and haven't determined if we want to put a table and chairs or an island in the open concept space around the kitchen. So, its just us and our bed. Monster called our situation a nest on top of the city. It is! Just a little perch by which to observe the world.

And so accessible to everything we need and want! Yesterday, after cleaning and organizing our little home, we walked a few blocks over to see Jim Carrey's "A Christmas Carol" in 3-D. On our walk home, we stopped at the grocery store and bought french bread, Havarti cheese, raspberries, grapes, nuts and chocolate. I had some champagne from the retreat that I was saving for a special occasion. We spread our bounty out upon our bedspread and had a picnic while looking down on the busy streets below. Christmas lights are going up everywhere and the view is festive!

Last night, we even slept with the blinds up and woke up periodically to watch the sky turn from clear to foggy to clear again, with a full moon sweeping through the window.

This apartment is a symbol for us of the rewards for following our dreams. We started out in a very suburban area in the Southern U.S. We knew we were unhappy as homeowners in the 'burbs but didn't know how to fix it. Driving to work, driving to the grocery store, driving everywhere was normal--everyone did it. So much driving that Monster and I each had cars and car payments and it seemed we were always on the road.

Then, I spent some time in England and travelled to London every weekend. I feel in love with London and I knew that I wanted to live a city life, where all the best shops and cafes are right at your disposal and you can walk to work and to activities instead of driving. Monster felt the same way after visiting me.

So, we decided to move to a city--but which one? It took some time to come up with what we now know was the most logical choice all along--Vancouver.

Our move to Vancouver was hard--so hard--and so many, many things went wrong. For awhile, we were the poorest we had ever been: living in a run-down apartment, me in law school, Monster not even able to enter the country, sending money back. The U.S. dollar was worth less than Canadian and we seemed to lose out at every turn. But we stuck it out.

Now, here we are, two and a half years later, living our dream of urban dwelling. I am so proud of us for sticking it out, for following our hearts and going through all the disasters and heartbreaks it took to get us here in our little nest uptop the city.

Gah! This Dress! Love!

This is pretty much my favorite dress ever. I wish I had a fancy enough event to go to so I could copy every detail. From the earrings, to the dress (with the silver sequens sewn on to make a floral pattern), to the shawl, to the arms to the updo. I want it all!

One of My Role Models: Hillary Clinton

Yes, it is exam time. But even the most studious law student needs a brain break every few hours. I spent one such brain break reading Vogue's online article on Hillary Clinton. You can find the article here.

What I loved about this article is the way the author (a dude!) was able to understand and successfully articulate how Madam Secretary Clinton could be both a strong leader and a feminine care-giver, without each role taking away from the other.

This really spoke to me as someone who aspires to leadership myself. While my leadership positions will always be modest, I stil struggle with how to appear strong and in control and also be myself. I am afraid of looking "weak" by being too personal, too open in communication, too interested in the comfort and happiness of those around me.

But lately, even before reading this article, I have been asking myself, "What would Hillary do?" The first time I ever did this was a few weeks ago when I was communicating with someone over a misunderstanding. The other person was openly derisive and rude and it startled me. I wasn't sure how to react. But, cliched as it may sound, I did ask myself how Hillary would react and all in all, I handled myself very well. Later, when looking back at this exchange, I chortled to myself about how unprofessional this other person was but didn't let it get to me because I knew I handled myself like a competent adult.

That is just one small example, and a rather silly example at that, but it shows me how important role models are in our day to day goal-setting and interactions. I am lucky enough to live at a time when more and more women are taking on leadership roles and I can look to them. Not because male leadership isn't valuable--it is very vaulable--but there is something about life experience as it relates to someone of your same gender that impacts you in a whole different way.

Flu is Interupting My Life

I have some kind of weird virus I caught yesterday. I've been so tired, dizzy and unable to work these last two days. And dammit! Exams are rolling around soon, I have two papers to finish and we are moving on Wednesday. I don't have time to be sick.

But I have set up a life trajectory where that is always going to be true, so I might as well rest and concentrate on getting better. My guess is I will be able to put a few hours work into my papers this weekend and maybe even finish one.

All in good time. Happy, positive thoughts are going to get me through this.

Day in Review

I have been working all day on my magical term paper--that is, a paper that, no matter how many hours I devote to it (and I have spent entire weekends in the library working on it, weekend after weekend) never gets longer than 30 pages. I write and revise, write and revise. Rinse and repeat.

And the sad thing is, I have no interest in the topic of my paper. Oh sure, I was interested in succession issues when I thought I would be able to get my hands on substantive social justice statistics. But now that I realize those juicy statistics literally do not exists and I'm left with flimsy journal artices that I'm trying to cobble together into an analysis--it's F'ing torture!

After working from 9 - 4 today (and 8 - 6 yesterday), I finally put the Term Paper of Doom aside. When I get stressed, I make risotto! I decided to make four veggie shrimp risotto and experimented with cayenne pepper. It was delicious--subtlely spicy and cheesy, rich and warm.

Now, I am watching Al Gore on Larry King live while I sip the Miller Genuine Draft my sweet Monster brought home, so thankful that the day is nearly done.

Tomorrow, I take my grad pictures! I have the obligatory white blouse (but with glorious box pleats around a high neckline--thank you Banana Republic!) pressed and ready in my bedroom I don' have time to go to the salon tomorrow but I'll be getting up early to book my personal training program and style my hair (I'm thinking soft waves). Then, after pictures (when I see my classmates all dressed up in regalia, I'll know we really, truly are graduating next year) its back home to work on a practice exam for Evidence.

Exams are coming closer! I am trying to learn to love the hum of anxiety that fills my soul!

Score for Me!

No one else came to boot camp class this morning, so I got a one-on-one session. So good! And, to top it off, my trainer rewarded me with another free training session. I think I'll do it next week. It will be really good for my form to have another personal session.

At the same time, I'm excited about finding a gym downtown, maybe one with a pilates studio! When I'm a busy lawyer, I still want to get my workouts in--even if it means working out at 6 AM!

Why Are You So Interested?

I just returned from a fantastic women trial lawyers retreat. I have only one complaint--why did so many older women deeply and thoroughly question my decision not to have children? It started in the shuttle from the ferry to the resort and continued in slightly different forms all weekend.

I would like to ask these women a few questions, if they are finished asking questions of me. First of all, do you believe all women make great mothers? Do you believe that every woman's life is enhanced by motherhood to the exclusion of all else?

Because there are a lot of problems with unhappy children who do not get enough attention from their parents. It seems to me that happy children come from happy parents. And if two people fall in love, get married and decide they are not those happy parents, isn't it better they don't procreate?

And finally, in a world of over-population, where environmental damage makes resources short, how is it selfish of me not to have kids? Aren't I freeing up resources for you and your future generations? Aren't I stepping aside so that your decendants can profit from available natural resources?

What the hell is going on with these women?

America & The Freedom to Torture Uninhibited

A decision came down yesterday in Arar v Ashcroft from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal. This case was about an innocent Canadian man (of Syrian descent) who was detained in the U.S. while changing planes at J.F.K. airport.

Apparently, the story is that TAA got word from the Canadian goverment that this man was a member of Al Qaeda (he wasn't), so the U.S. detained him for eleven days--tortured him--then sent him to Syria by way of Jordan for another few months of torture before finally releasing him.

Arar successfully sued the Canadian goverment for $9M for its role in the torture. The Canadian goverment owned up to its culpability and the Canadian courts have determined they have a role in overseeing the goverment's response to supposed terrorists.

The U.S. goverment, on the other hand, not so much.

Not only will the U.S. government not admit any wrongdoing in torturing an innocent man but the Circuit court, in its reasoning, decided that since there were no specific laws against torture, it would not intervene on this victim's behalf. "Not withstanding prolonged public debate, Congress has not prohibited the practice [of torture], imposed limits on its use, or created a cause of action for those who allege they have suffered constitutional injury as a consequence."

Outrageous! So, not only is the U.S. in a situation where its legislators deliberately and criminally deny victims' relief against their torturers, but the courts are looking to the neglect of Congress to determine that they, too, are not obligated to regulate how the U.S. treats torture victims!

The Court determined that, in theory, there was a right under the Constitution to allow victims denied habeas corpus (and subjected to heinous abuses) to claim relief, but they set the bar so high as to effectivly cut off anyone ever being successful at court.

The Court determined a victim must KNOW THE NAMES OF HER/HIS TORTURES in order to establish a claim against tortures. As the only dissenting judge pointed out, effectively the court was telling tortures to not disclose their identities to their victims in order to protect themselves from a civil claim. What a sad, sick, horrible decision. And yet, so abt to describe where America is at these days in terms of its priorities and its commitment to human rights.

Glenn Greenwald has more.

Ever Learning, Hopefully Eventually Coming to a Knowledge of the Truth

Today, on the way home from the drugstore, I texted Monster that our fridge was pretty much empty and asked him what he wanted to do about dinner. While waiting for his reply, I suddenly noticed that I didn't tell him that I preferred going grocery shopping tonight. Why couldn't I just tell him what I wanted to do instead of hoping that he'd mention it?

This has caused a lot of frustration in our marriage as I often don't approach things head on but rather try to manipulate my husband. And the thing is, I often don't even realize I'm doing it.

Why am I like this? I think it stems from all the years I spent living communally where I didn't feel I could ask for the things I needed or wanted, so I would try to create a situation amenable to getting that thing in a roundabout way. It's really sad that I still do this, though, and I wanted to be present in the moment so I can recognize and stop it,

Presidents

While watching the Kennedy assassination episode on this week's Mad Men, I thought about the men who have been my presidents. That is, presidents while I lived in their country.

1. Gerald Ford (President of the United States for a bit more than a year).
2. Jimmy Carter (I have a vague memory of my mother taking me to a polling station in Georgia to vote to re-elect Carter. I remember her trying to explain to me the idea of voting for him over Reagan. Of course, Reagan won.)
3. Ronald Reagan.
4. A bunch of Canadian Prime Ministers (a Prime Minister is not a President.)\
5. Bill Clinton
6. Boris Yeltsin
7. Nelson Mandela
8. George W. Bush