Sunday, April 01, 2007

::friday morning babysitting::

here's what i have been doing every friday morning this semester! i love my babysitting job - even with its many many many chaotic and messy moments!! haha. the kids (all below 3 years of age) are soooo adorable but can be quite a handful when they get cranky/hungry/grumpy! when we were at our busiest, we had to handle 7 boys and 2 girls! babysitting is very tiring but it was still fun to have these sweetie pies around and im glad i babysit with dear karen:) thanks to the kids, we are now fans of arrowroot biscuits eh?;) (private joke)

::lslap ends::

for the past 7 months, i would spend a couple of hours on (every alternate) wednesday evenings at a legal clinic in chinatown - to do pro bono work. it has been a such a great experience so far:) i have learnt so much and it felt good to be able to help those people who really needed legal aid but could not afford it. because of their language difficulties/barriers, most of my clients (who can only speak mandarin/cantonese) had felt really helpless and marginalized by the canadians/western legal system here. i cant help but wonder how they can be so confident and brave (bordering on foolhardy perhaps?) to migrate to a western country without proper planning and not being able to speak english? it was sad to see them suffering in their various predicaments - many of which could have been avoided if they had known how to protect their legal rights in the first place. not being able to speak english in a western country like vancouver is also a major handicap too. it was also a very humbling experience for me because my spoken mandarin/cantonese is really very terrible:/ haha. i felt so constipated just trying to communicate with them sometimes (but i do fully understand them though). but all in all, i really enjoyed this eye-opening experience:)

my last assignment - just last monday, at the bc provincial courts in downtown, where i had to attend a settlement conference with my client. in the end, it was quite a waste of time because the other party was quite nasty coz the defendant company's representative refused to enter into any dialogue with my client - and expectedly, he refused to compromise on any ground too. in fact, he wasnt even courteous enough to inform us beforehand that he was going to make a counterclaim - until he told the judge during the settlement conference that he just filed a writ and was going to serve my client there and then. wth. but i was glad the judge told him off too! yayy. so now, the other party's applying for leave to bring the case to the supreme court - which i personally think is just a tactic to scare my client into giving up this lawsuit. oh well. since i wouldnt be here during the next hearing, i had to transfer the case to a schoolmate. it's a pity i cant follow through for this matter, but i hope justice will prevail:)


anyway look who's in town?
the other half will be in vancouver until the 21 april:) i will probably be kept very busy until then! i will update on the rest of my eastcoastadventure/outings then too! updates on our trip to victoria later! to the rockies next weekend:) woohoo!!