So, just like that I am DONE first year law school! I am officially no longer a 1L, and there’s a whole new batch of first years heading into orientation this fall. I had no idea what to expect from this time, but the LAST thing I expected was that I would be NOT writing for my blog. A strange thing happened after exams, and I’d be interested in hearing whether other students (especially busy student moms) felt the same way. It’s a bit bi-polar, like I was manic for eight straight months – performing on overdrive with no room for slack. And once that last exam was written, somebody switched a switched, and I was questioning my ability to even get out of bed in the morning. Like a motivation-CRASH. I used up all my motivation a bit too fast during the school year, and spent May pretty much running on empty.
After much anxiety and disappointment over not getting either of the jobs I thought I would DEFINITELY get, I landed a truly awesome position as a research assistant for Professor Jane Bailey. I’m terribly well-suited to the work and I love the project. When appropriate (perhaps when we get a website up?), I’ll fill you in a bit more on the project. I met Professor Bailey in first term Contracts class – yup, my first ever law school exam, which inspired this post. In second term, I chose her Cyberfeminism course as my elective, and I am SO glad that I did!
In a “Miriam’s perspective nutshell”, cyberfeminism is basically what happened when a bunch of radical marxist feminists read Neuromancer and started getting really excited about technology … in, like, the mid- to late- 1980s (does this excite you as much as it does me!?) So, it’s all the best of marxist materialism (completely godless, without any patience for idealism), colliding with radical feminism and the World Wide Web. Maybe I’ll have a chance to share more. The course itself was a run through feminist thinking, with more focus on everything to do with technology and the internet (especially wherever the Law intervenes, could intervene, or maybe shouldn’t intervene …). The research I’m involved with now is looking at how young girls engage with social media, and how parliamentarians and “the law” deal with the “issue” of young girls online (if at all). Right now, I’m researching “how Canadian policy is made” – another something I hope to write more about shortly, although the title would be more like “Why Canada isn’t even the crappy liberal democracy we think it is”.
Anyway, that’s what I’m up to, in addition to pulling off a birthday party for our boy and enjoying a wonderful visit from the in-laws (who we sadly left behind in Vancouver). I’ve felt energetic and motivated the last two days, for the first time since exams ended. This is probably related to the fact that I’ve started both days with exercise – note to self. Hope to be in better touch, and maybe even to share some of the interesting ideas buzzing through my head these days (regarding, for example, the largest demonstrations in Canadian history, currently taking place in Quebec …)
