Dear Bro,
I know, I know; I've been like a stranger for awhile. Well, let's face it, I'm terrible at multi-tasking. I mean I've been dating Helga (who's pretty amazing by the way, if I haven't mentioned it) and over the Summer I was in Montreal working (sort of) and I am now back to school studying again. Basically, I want you know that even though I'm not telling you about what's going on very often:
I'm still here, I'm still alive, I'm still thinking about you; and I'm hoping you understand when I'm inconsistent with writing to you! It's been ohh....3 months or so this time. What a consistent and amazingly dedicated brother I am to write to you so often! Sorry. Well, despite how often I've been writing, I do love you, and figure I should let you know.
SO, quick recap of the past 3 months or so.
CRARR (the center for research-action on race relations) or (le centre de recherche-action sur les relations raciales):
Officially i was a "legal intern" and did mountains and mountains of legal research in French and in English. Officially, I'm now incredibly well versed in the complexities of Quebec Criminal and Civil Law and am adroit at helping the underrepresented minorities who have been discriminated against. Officially these may be a bit of an exaggeration.
I lived, for all intent and purposes, kitty-corner from where I worked--right downtown.
It was very convenient and all...although the temptation to buy video games was intense because I passed the 'futureshop' (a Best Buy sort of store) and 'gamebuzz' a video game shop in the 50 steps from my apartment building to work. Plus they had Dr. Mario for the N64 in the window and I wanted to buy it but I didn't really want to spend $50 for a game to a system that is nearly a decade old and two video game generations in the past; plus I don't have the N64 anymore and would buy it only to play on others' game systems (which I still seriously considered 'cause I love me some Dr. Mario puzzle action). Aside from the temptations of everyday life, I did go to work and did do legal research in French and English. I mainly focused on 4 different cases (with a little bit of other research here and there). Here's the gist, despite a very open charter that gives rights and freedoms to everyone within Montreal and Quebec, there is a lot of tape to get through in order to get any compensation for an alleged abuse of those rights. So yeah, that's 3 months of Montreal in a nutshell: CRARR, research, video game shop, oh and I went to the Y fairly regularly.
I tried Poutine. In case you're wondering what Poutine is, or you're thinking to yourself, "Hmmmm, I've never had poutine but the people I've met from Canada love the stuff so maybe I should give it a try." Don't worry about it, you are not missing much. Despite the sound of the recipe (french fries, brown sauce and cheese curds) it was edible. So i tried it and would like to say that I don't ever need to eat it again...nor do you. Trust me, it's not all that exciting. (I got mine with "Spicy Italian Sausage" from Montreal Poutine which was in the Old Port area of town...the "spicy italian sausage" resembled thick sliced bologna with a hint of pepperoni. Uh......yum.)
More exciting then Montreal and my time spent there, were the few times I got to visit Helga in New York City. Okay, I'll admit it, though I'm not the biggest proponent of the Big Apple, I had a good time and there are a TON of cultural things to do there. I'm still not comfortable to say that I would want to live there or anything, but then again, The Cuban Roasted Corn was so good that I wouldn't have a problem eating it every day. ....
WOH! I just got hit hard by 100 pages of reading....okay. I was probably supposed to start sometime last week, but I was reading other stuff. Okay, Maybe I wasn't reading-reading, but I did a little bit of reading...for other classes. It's just that, well, sometimes a delicious crab boil gets in the delicious way and you have to spend time with your good friends. You understand, right? So....5 classes: Juvenile Law, Trafficking in Persons, Environmental Law, International Organizations and Multinational Institutions, and Criminal Procedure. ... That 100 pages or so for tomorrow, yeah, Ishould probably get on that.
I'll try to update you and the others a little more frequently, it's just important that you know even though I'm not writing tons and tons, I'm still thinking and sending my love your way! Promise!
Love
Law
