The Law and the Gaze...nope this time its actually the Gays.

It's my first blog post from bed! Which means it should be chiller than its going to be. Because inevitably its not a happy one since I was immersed in Criminal Law all day. First, marijuana laws are found to be proportional since imprisonment is only an option for possession. Next, up the police force people to incriminate a Cree man for killing a person. Finally, a bookstore specializing in selling gay and lesbian materials is discriminated against at the border over a period of a number of years based solely on sexual orientation. My favourite line in the judgment says something to the tune of...since being homosexual inherently involves sex (as its central theme or something) and the materials you are importing are about homosexuals and thus sex, then blah blah blah. It was awesome. But they won...so now I can go get all the homosexual books I want at my local Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium in Vancouver's Davie Village. I'm not gonna lie...I already did buy books there. These are the books I purchased there in September:

1. Fall on Your Knees by Ann Marie MacDonald
2. The Way the Crow Flies by Ann Marie MacDonald, which is now autographed by her from the West Coast LEAF Person's Day Wine and Cheese Equality Fundraiser
3. Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood

Its a pretty effin solid list if I do say so myself. I love that Jenna took me there, and that I bought them, and because she knew that I would love that I had gone there when we talked about them in Crim and Constitutional. An intersection of my nerdy love for literature and law. And things related to gay people...

Ew the law gets you down a lot of the time. I have to switch it up between the hard to read classes like crim and torts and the boring classes that couldn't trigger anything in life like property or i guess if I had ever read contracts it would go in that category. The word on the street is no more law talk.

Hmmm....things related to gay people. I could go back to that. Things related to gay people are so interesting and diverse and there are so many different experiences of life...and everyone has a story that is like...necessarily a story. People will ask you your story. Everyone has a story even if its nothing much, it exists and becomes a question like where are you from or what are you studying. I think its so interesting. It would be a cool project to just get people's coming out stories and compare and contrast different experiences in a widespread way. People's stories become rehearsed somewhat, but its a very fundamental event and people's eyes take on a special glint when they are narrating it. The first time I was asked what my story was, I had no response. I had to think of what that could possibly entail. Its different for different audiences, but its a standard story. Different phases will be added or excluded based on who's asking...its perpetually ongoing...I'm inarticulate and tired. there's my first gay blog rant too. An evening of firsts.

rach...peacing out from a warmish and cloudy, previously freezing and clear, victoria night.

Christmas on Cowichan.

Today I did not spend 12.5 hours at Begbie high. Today I spent 7 hours only. Awesome! Then I went to get Christmas decorations at Zellers, and I bought a coffee grinder...like an early Christmas present to myself. My apartment is full of Christmas cheer. I will never want to ruin it with studying here again. My mom would prolly say its a weak decorating job, but we have high standards and I think its gonna have to do and I think its lovely. There are lights and silver and red garland. Yeah! I love Christmas.

It was a long and intense day at schoolio and I just couldn't stand another all consuming eve in the library. I was school burnt out. I needed a night of rejuvenation. So I had one. Hooray. Um I feel this blog is really unexciting today too. I will tell a humerous anecdote from a brilliantly complex event that occured to me recently.....

On friday night one Jeff W. and I went to purchase beer at the local beer store near the Safeway. On our way back, I was carrying the 12 pack, and we were walking down Foul Bay Road, where I have wandered many times smoking before. Luckily we had done that before we left for the store. And ate Thai. So...a police officer pulled out of a side street, and rolled down the passenger window to speak with us.

"What kind of a gentleman are you?!" the police officer asks Jeff. And keeps on driving.

Awesome.....that is freaking fantastic. Thank you officers of the law in this fine nation of ours.

12.5 hours at Begbie High

Today I was at the Fraser Law Building aka Begbie High for 12.5 hours. That makes me want to vomit. It would make any reasonable person want to vomit. Tomorrow I will only stay for 9.5 hours. That seems a little more humane, but just barely...really.

I haven't even been outside tonight.


I feel like there needs to be a redeeming aspect to this otherwise complaint of a rant. It will be a list.

Top five movies I have watched in the last week:
1. Paris, Je T'aime
2. Love Actually
3. Little Miss Sunshine
4. The Family Stone
5. Bridget Jones Diary (the original) and Elf tie for fifth

Rach
It was effing cold when I had to carry milk home from the Safeway tonight b/c I was going to make muffins but then i didn't...kind of victorian night.

Today (Nov 26/07), at the age of 74, former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Lamer died. I have read some of his judgments, and don't remember most of them, but I remember one, and I didn't like it. I don't have a very strong opinion on him yet, but I'm sure I will by the end of my law career, and at least I will have commented on him in some form upon his death. You don't get to be a Supreme Court Justice without deserving a props of some sort. And...about 3 people who read this blog will ever care about this, but every professor talked about it today at law school, so seems like it should be important to me in this world I exist in most hours of most days. So in closing...
Lamer-I look foreward to getting to know this man's judgments better over the next few years...

The Law School Version of Me

Christmas in London and Snow in Victoria

I called home sometime last week to check in the the ol' fam as I like to do from time to time, and I began to ask about the Christmas decorating. Exterior Illumination is go big or go home style in my immediate family. Christmas is serious. There have been awards won in the past. When pressed, my father responded, sounding only mildly convinced,

"Your mother says she's going to boycott this year."

I don't believe it for a second. I ask my mom about it later, and she says the same, but not with quite the conviction I would expect from a full-out boycotter. All she needed was a little pressing encouragement...."Mom it just won't be the same if you can't see our house from the bottom of the Byron hill," I noted. And it wouldn't be the same if I didn't have to battle an inflatable Santa on the one side and Penguin on the other to enter my front door. And it really wouldn't be the same to not see the ever-expanding line-up of light-covered wire figures, and the magenta-lights which have been there ever since I can remember. They have been there for 23 Christmases now, and I'm not one to break consistency. Why stop now. And why stop covering every bush and tree and inch of deck space in the backyard with lights.

But why stop now. Why boycott holiday illumination after all these years? Why, when it makes people happy. When families go on walks and slow and stop in front of our house and just watch for a while. Or when cars slow down as they drive by. Its nice. I mean, despite the hydro bill, and the waste of electricity, its lovely. It makes my mom happy to do it. It brings warm comforting thoughts to know that things are going on as normal, as they should be, back in ol' London, Ontario. Christmas would NOT be Christmas without the Santa and Penguin, the blinding lights, and the garland-covered railings with soft while lights, and the snowman head everyone affectionately calls Cool-io, and the fiberglass christmas tree Heather and I decorated blazed last year. Don't tell my mom that for sure. And it would be the same without watching Christmas Vacation or the Santa Clause on Christmas Eve, and without watching the Disney Christmas Day Parade on Christmas morning with the gas fireplace going, and without the Christmas dinner that always smells amazing while its cooking all day. Mmmmm.

So Christmas in London will be a wonderful thing. It will be a beautiful, relaxing time with friends and family. No matter the potential obstacles and challenges that inherently lie with being at home for a couple of weeks with a family that, well....that's another post entirely.

A bientot mes amours,
Rach
pee ess: IT SNOWED in Victoria tonight. Jess and I ran out of the library to go see it snow. And we had to wipe off the car when we left the library at 9. It Snowed!!!! But tonight was SUCH a brilliantly clear night! It was stunning. The moon was sooo bright, 3/4 full, and the starts were bright too. There werea few clouds off in the distance, but wow was it cold! Brrrr! Oh I love these nights...they each have a different persona.

Summer Nostalgia

With nothing but the most reckless of abandon, I embraced this weekend visit of a close friend from London. From the moment we entered the warm apartment on Friday evening until I saw him off at the bus stop this afternoon, we were under the relaxing, often euphoric, in this case nostalgic grips of, well.... this one time I went to law school....no I will not censor....blazedness. It reminded me of summer so much, and I had one fabulous summer. In the madness of outlines, exam prep and catch-up-readings, I got to step out of the chaos, and return to a time and feeling of ...i dunno...that feeling that you have in the summer. No responsibilities, no deadlines, no readings; just time spent with friends, beautiful weather, pub nights, and chilling. And all that chilling entails. We watched great movies (summer notable mention: Paris, Je t'aime), spent lots of time on the beach, watched sunsets, ate delicious food, took photos, talked, sat in silence, explored inner coves of the downtown, reminisced, made future plans and ate in the harbour. The weather was beautiful both days, but today it was especially bright and sunny. This weekend was wonderfully refreshing, restorative, and leaves me looking forward to Christmas like no other. It was so so wonderful to have Jeff here this weekend.

This evening, alone again, I sat out on my steps and did what I do out on the steps and listened to summer music, but it was really cold. They're calling for snow. Maybe my weekend will be extended another day. But it wouldn't be the same. Jeff wouldn't be here. I have no one with whom to reminisce (*do you remember that party where we ate 9 boxes of girl guide cookies? and do you remember when we almost got signed up for a walking marathon?*). The real world begins again tomorrow, and likely won't end until the day of my last exam on Dec 19, but I have this weekend to remember what I have to look forward to at the end when I get home.

Mmmm bliss.
from an effing cold, yet blissfully relaxing, Victoria night.

I made a blog.

I made a blog. I don't know why I didn't make a blog before, but I realise its kind of a good thing for the creative writter side in me to just get thoughts flowing and personalise my time here. So the name is because no matter where I go in the interms or for how many months or weeks I am there, Victoria will be my main scene for the next few years or so. Which is fantasitcally wonderful because I really do love this city. And the night is my time here. Every day I stay and attampt to be productive and then after 8 is my time for being prodcutive at home or for doing whatever I want.

This was a good day at school...maybe because I slept through Contracts and Torts, (no not actually in the class, but in my bed at home. I hove broken bad habits) but also because there was the community social which involved everyone coming out, staff and students and others, to eat free snacks, have a few drinks if they wanted from the cash bar, and sing some kareoke. It was actaully a great time. There were some pretty fab randitions of Total Ecilpse of the Heart, and everyone's favourite Disney (tm??-oh god...insert vomit noise here) ballad " A Whole New World" sung only by two of the finest: Josh K. and David C.. There were country tunes, old school tunes like Don't Worry Be Happy and a particuarly interesting randition of (this is when I decided to leave. nothing intended in any way) Red Red Wine. I kind of love it though that this is where I go to law school. Where in the heat of November cramming, everyone takes a few hours to take a load off and make a potential fool out of them selves to destress and like...bond. *We're making memories.* Ah....but u know I kinda like it....

So thus is my blog. I will often rant. I envision lists occurring. I envision random thoughts a plenty. One liners. Days with nothing but nerdiness, and thus, nothing to say. But actually, most days, actually all days, end in the same way. With a little time outside with the Victorian night. Some times I go to the beach and have a long evening date with Victoria, and other nights its just about..well 20 minutes or so...So maybe this will join the evening routine. I'm not making any promises either way.

Please enjoy. Or don't I guess. It's really up to you.

My love to all who are likely reading at his point.
Rachael
from a lovely crisp COLD Victorian night. Where the moon was bright but hidden behind the clouds.