So. At long last, an update. It's March now. There are four weeks left to my undergraduate university career. That's kind of exciting, don't you think? If by exciting you mean deathly terrifying, I'm afraid I'd be inclined to agree with you.

I still haven't heard about any jobs or grad school and I must admit that this makes me somewhat edgy, although since I haven't actually checked the mail yet today, this could change.

The house is finally reasonably clean (necessitated by people coming by to look at the house, which is a very scary thing--every little scratch, dent, or mark on the walls is suddenly magnified a hundredfold and one feels as though one ought to be apologizing a lot for things that happened before one's time). My closet door is shut for the first time in about three years and it's funny how big my room is when there is nothing on the floor. It would be nice if it could stay this way but I doubt it will, the next few weeks bring much in the way of paperwork and schoolwork.

Kori's stepmom is teaching a Pilates class for family and friends on Mondays and Wednesdays. It's actually a pretty cool thing, and very relaxing. It feels good to be doing stuff. And speaking of Miss K, we finally bought our dresses for her wedding, which is also pretty exciting. They're black and pink (very daring) but very formal and just lovely. There were a couple of other dresses I saw that I would have liked to have bought (although not for the wedding) but unfortunately there is a definite dearth of formal occasions requiring dresses in my life.

It is International Women's Week once again, and this year our school had a former Supreme Court justice come to speak to us on the subjects of equality and human rights. Madame Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé was the second woman appointed to the Canadian Supreme Court (in 1987, I think) and it is a bit ironic that she was appointed by Brian Mulroney, who was, of course, a very conservative leader; especially since Madame Justice is still a very well known and very progressive human rights activist.

We were lucky enough to see her lecture on Tuesday night (500 people were there, which is a HUGE accomplishment for Nipissing's usually apathetic demographic) and then again on Wednesday afternoon in one of the Gender Equality and Social Justice classes. It was a neat experience, especially since her first lecture dealt with the ideas of "equality vs. difference" and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and stuff like that, and Kori and I had just done a seminar for our Feminist Theory class dealing with the same issues that day.

One of the most interesting things that she told us was about three judges who have (historically speaking) been noted for publishing the most dissents during their time on the Supreme Court, and how over tiem, the Supreme Court has reversed its decision on every single one of those issues, so that the dissent is now the opinion of the majority. She put a lot of emphasis on how legislation is living, not static, and how it had to grow and change along with society.

It was really cool.

In two weeks, the History department is doing its major guest lecture with a prof from U of T who has published (very) controversial articles that question how much the Vatican knew about the Halocaust during World War II. I am told he isn't a great speaker, but it will be interesting nonetheless, and certainly worth attending.

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