Administration of justice.

I had my Criminology final last night. It was rough. See, you are allowed to use the Criminal Code and your notes to find answers. Which sounds awesome, but it doesn’t really help if you don’t know where to look as the Criminal Code of Canada is a death wish.

There was a choice of two essays we had to do. Basically they give you a scenario of a crime and you have to lay down a lawful sentencing. Well I got totally distracted reading the first one as the criminals being described were named Mr. Jones and Ms. Smith.

I honestly thought it was a joke, but then I realized those names were probably chosen because they’re so common. But the next scenario had a Mr. Willybottom (or something like that) and Wild Bill. FREAK-EH.

I honestly have no idea how I did on that exam, but I’m averaging an 88% going in so I have a lot of room to work with.

A couple people have mentioned that I didn’t do a love list yesterday; well to be honest I wasn’t feeling the love. I do love lists to help me focus on the positive things of the week because I tend to be consumed with the negative. I just couldn’t pull myself out of the sludge yesterday.

But who knows, Enrique Iglesias might find his was into TLBTC to share some lovin’…

Casus belli.

For those who’ve got their heads stuck really far up their... toques, I thought I would mention that today is National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women.

Now you might be thinking “Wow Sarah, that sure is a really long name for just one little day. Jesus only gets one word (Christmas) to describe His day, what makes this so important?” Well let me tell you without going into detail about what really happens because apparently truth makes everyone uncomfortable!

National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women began almost twenty years ago here in Canada.

Before Columbine there was École Polytechnique. 18 years later flags still sit at half mass on this day, mourning the fourteen women who lost their live.

“Lépine then separated the nine women from the approximately fifty men and ordered the men to leave. Speaking in French, he asked the remaining women whether they knew why they were there, and when one student replied “no”, he answered: “I am fighting feminism”.

One of the students, Nathalie Provost, said, “Look, we are just women studying engineering, not necessarily feminists ready to march on the streets to shout we are against men, just students intent on leading a normal life.”

Lépine responded that “You're women, you're going to be engineers. You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists.” He then opened fire on the students from left to right, killing six and wounding three others, including Provost…”

First off, doesn’t this sound like it could be out of some archaic book describing a scene taking place in like the Middle East? But it was almost the nineties, just west of us in Montreal.

You guys know how I feel about gender-bias, in any form. This just seems unfathomable.

I just want everyone to remember for a second. All of this, just for a second.

Still rockin' and sockin' after all these years.

These are the magical things I do/use to help calm myself down during finals. Anyone who is acquainted with me knows that I become mega-super-don't-talk-to-me-lest-you-die-bitch during finals. These are my helpful remedies that sometimes aid the mental pain.

SARAH'S TEN TIPS TO REDUCE EXAM STRESS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

1) Brightly Coloured Hi-Liters
These are like the Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots of studying. Nothing encourages me more when trudging through Canadian government policies and legislation like a shiny pink line! Seriously. Throw out that yellow no-good-doer and pick up a rainbow pack of loveee.

2) Low-Key Christmas Tunes
Nothing inspires a person to keep going like the reminder of Christmas break. I choose to do this through different methods. The first being, low-key Christmas tunes. And by low-key I mean no ROCKIN’ AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE WITH ALICE COOPER, but a lovely, reminiscent, thought-provoking album like Songs of Christmas by Sufjan Stevens. O Come, O Come Emmanuel!

3) Christmas Trees: The New Study Buddies?
The other motivating Christmas factor is studying around the Christmas tree (or Menorah for all my Jewish homies). I am so focused when the bright lights of my family’s tree are shining down on my WHY NATIONS GO TO WAR text. Makes me feel tingly.

4) Tea!
I loves my tea, but during exams I go from a couple cups of tea a week to at least three a day. It keeps me warm from this new winter cold, and the five or so minutes it takes to make a nice steeped cup is the perfect amount of time to clear my brain of study-fuzzies (without forgetting where I left off).

5) Snackage
It’s nighttime and you’ve been studying all day. Those nachos have been calling your name. Don’t be scared to answer back [Meagan]! I always keep Nutra-Grain bars on hand for both yuminess and easiness. And my popcorn machine has been working overdrive lately. Meals never really exist for me during exams, just random snatches of food.

6) Stay off the MSN
Not that this is any sort of challenge for me anymore. I swear to God if one person signs on with a personal message as long as a novel describing their whole effing day in detail, I will find them, and I will shoot them. But yeah, I know a lot of people find MSN to be exceptionally distracting so quit it. Cold turkey. Take up letter writing on fancy stationary instead.

7) Cue Cards
Yup. I’m a loser. I willingly (and happily!) use cue cards any chance I get. Marland’s classes are usually definition-heavy, so nothing helps more than having little hand sized cards that tell me what things like “Crown Agencies” or “Brokerage Theories” are. It’s unbelievably helpful (especially for the people who get them after I’m done with them! My POSC 2711 ones are library worthy, so if any of you out there ever take that class, you could pass with studying my cue cards alone, seriously).

8) Ze Frank
I’m sure some can recall my complete and total mental breakdown that I had last year during exams. I went frigging crazy. It was the first time in my life where I actually had to study my little heart out if I wanted to pass a class. Ze Frank was my three-minutes-a-day-break-from-reality. And wasn’t I just giddy when he posted a vlog with tips on how to study better. Ze always helps.

9) Warm Slippers
So I have the coldest feet in the history of the world. It’s kind of pathetic. Nothing distracts me more than when my cold feet are radiating cold while I’m trying to study. I go with the classic Nanny-knit-me-these slippers, though really any kind will help.

10) BREATHE
I lose focus sometimes when I think about all the things I don’t know rather than the things I do. I actually know a lot.

I can tell you how many years you’d spend in prison for breaking into a dwelling home. I can tell you what section of the Canadian Criminal Code you’ll find the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in. I can tell you what pork-barreling is. What party Gilles Duceppe leads. What happened during the Sponsorship Scandal. I can tell you facts about many different mass murderers and serial killers. I can almost tell you about radical theories and constructivist theories and liberal theories, though not very well.

We’re smart! All of us. I can’t think of a single person who reads this blog who isn’t. So cut yourself some slack and breathe. Will you really be on your death bed thinking: “I can’t believe I missed the question on gerrymandering!” Doubt it.

Sea lion woman.

Sun. Sun. Grass. Grass. Nice. Nice. WINTER.

Wow. Yesterday’s explosion of weather was seriously intense. I can’t recall a time when we’ve entered the winter season with such suddenness.

Friday night we walked to the concert downtown and skipped about on all the hilly roads. Saturday morning we all just gaped from our windows at the 20cm of snow that sat (unplowed) on our streets.

The lights were flicking on and off all day yesterday, so it wasn’t a surprise when around nine it went out with a beep of the fire alarms.

My aunt (who was stranded here the whole weekend because the TCH was a death wish), my Mom and I broke out the candles and played Scattergories by candle light. Yeah, awesomeness runs in the family.

FEIST NIGHT.

Bucharest, Romania.

Just a fun thing to do on the crappiest day EVER. Try and beat my awesome score (and I want proof!).