::maiden court appearance::
last tuesday, i had to go to the provincial court for a plea for sentencing hearing. my client had been charged with assaulting his wife under the canadian criminal code. it ended well - or at least we got the verdict that was best under the circumstances. my client obtained a conditional discharge, which means that he's sorta acquitted (w/o a criminal record) but he will be on probation for 2 years.
initially, i had a lot of misgivings about taking on this case because im really against domestic violence, and i didn't really want to represent someone who was guilty of spousal abuse. however, i still went ahead to do it coz i wanted to experience trial work in the vancouver courts, and my client really needed help coz he cldnt speak english and didnt have the financial means to afford legal advice/representation. to make matters worse, it didnt really help that my client lied to me twice (another long story), and it made me quite mad about it actually. how was i gonna do my job if i can't even be sure what he has been telling me, was the truth? but i realized why he did that eventually, and as the case progressed, the whole picture became clearer to me and i saw his side of the story. in fact, i now deeply empathize with him and his predicament. i really learnt a lot from this experience, especially concerning the ethical dilemmas (i shant go into detail. haha) that a lawyer will often find himself/herself facing. i am also ashamed that i held on to my prejudices, when i handled the matter (until the last part). nevertheless, im just glad that i did what i could for him, to the best of my ability and it ended well! being able to contribute my small bit to the realization of compassion in justice has given me a great sense of satisfaction:)
after dinner, we played chinese checkers - over beer, vodka, jelly and cake! it was a close battle between karen and i - but i got 'betrayed' by my dear hiroko!! who would have known?;) haha. karen should have won - but huiping sorta helped me block karen so i finished 1st. thanks babe!haha.
while awaiting deb's arrival- some of us hid along the stairway. steve was supposed to give us the signal before we would jump in on debs to surprise her! after the party, we decided to go to stanley park for the xmas train ride! at least part of our fake plan did materialize after all;) at stanley park - gen, me, matt, debs and claudia! we arrived 1st coz we got a lift from claudia! thanks babe! thk God for the warm car ride coz it was really freezing cold that evening:( debs and me - with santa! ho ho ho. we will definitely miss u debs! make sure u come back to ubc, once in a while to visit us yeah?:) haha. i made matt pose as the shorter fireman - even though he's really much bigger than me in real life! this photo-taking apparatus was part of some fund-raising event organized by the vancouver fire department at stanley park! all of us on the miniature train!! with nice xmas carols playing on the background and the beautiful multi-colored lighting display all around, the spirit of xmas was certainly in the air!! too bad most of the photos i took of the lighting displays didnt turn out well..and these certainly do not do them justice..
10:30 PM
last saturday, karen huiping hiroko saori gil dav and jo came over to my place for a farewell potluck dinner! we ordered greek food; huiping and jo brought COOKIES, icecream and jelly; and, karen (with the help of gil+dav) and i cooked fried rice and vegtanghoon respectively.
everyone busy getting ready to eat!
yayy the feast before us:) really enjoyed the food and company!! 
a closer and better view of the assorted greek food! although there are quite alot of greek restaurants in vancouver, this is the 1st time im having greek food here. cant really remember the name of each dish though. hmm. i can only remember the greek salad, lasagne and soulvaki..there was some greek pie too!
the girls:) 
all of us - i love being with this bunch of people (plus the visibly absent dav who went home 1st coz he had to churn out 3 essays by the next day) :) will miss those who will be leaving this dec..
thank God that karen hiroko & saori will still be around next sem:)2:35 PM
Sunday, December 03, 2006
last friday, we had a surprise farewell party organized for deb, at steve's place. it was great that everything went smoothly and deb had absolutely no inkling what was in stored for her! haha. kudos to adrian (the organizer) and matt (deb's escort for that evening!)! it was quite amazing that debs didnt get suspicious at all! when we were having biblestudy at my place that afternoon, everyone took turns going into my kitchen on the pretext of getting some snacks - but we were actually finalizing the plan for the evening!! haha. the plan was getting debs to think that we were gonna have dinner at the spaghetti factory and then going to stanley park for the xmas trainride that evening! but the real plan was that steve would ask debs to come to his place to collect some ivcf materials, and all of us would be at his place to surprise debs.
in cahoots - me, charis and bora at steve's place!
bora and i along the stairway!
debs in a state of shock!! heh.. yayy mission accomplished:)
all of us:) we had a dessert potluck! i cooked green bean soup with tangyuan (white sesame and peanut fillings) ! adrian and larissa took care of the main meal - perrogis, lasagne and french loaf with some exotic spinach dressing! yummy:) one thing i realized about ivcf gatherings is that there's always an abundance of good food. heh:) 
10:18 PM