Cor, that ain't on, innit?

I suppose I could be forgiven for being absent because it's the end of the semester, and it's hairy-carey time, but wow, some strange happenings going on in addition to the end of term madness.

First off, I'll take care of some housekeeping. To follow up on the mysterious assignment post, there was a resolution of sorts.

My class was asked to view a film about the story of Jane Doe, the fifth victim of the Toronto 'Balcony Rapist' Paul Callow. She was essentially left as bait for him, as the Police did not let the women of the neighbourhood know about this danger, and so she successfully sued the Toronto Police Board for negligence, based on the grounds that her constitutional right to protection was violated.

Based on this film, and our studies of sexual assault, we were asked to write a 2 page response to three questions, which I won't share here, because then I'd have to go into a long explanation about permission. One question dealt with harmful stereotypes of rape victims (no problem with this one); one dealt with problems Jane Doe and other victims have had in pursuing justice (Problem); and finally, one asked me to explain why rape was a gendered and feminist issue (HUGE problem).

If there is anything I've learned in this class, it is that I am, and I cannot emphasize this enough, NOT a Feminist. I took offense to the questions because they were so clearly one-sided, and I have objected in every class to the obvious bias of the class towards feminist. It's a course on Gender Relations and Social Issues...and the only time we discuss the other gender (men) is in the context of evil, criminal, dominating sons of bitches. But there's more to this. I've never made any secret of the fact that I was sexually assaulted when I was 17. I went to the police, I went to court, and I went to counselling. I just cannot morally argue that the justice system is this big horrible monster out to devour women, nor can I argue that rape is a gendered issue. It happens to men too, and not only that, I cannot in good conscience argue that a woman's assault does not affect the men around her.

I was so upset every time I tried to look at the assignment, I'd get nauseous and dizzy. I was having a panic attack. Krist, I never, ever thought I'd need to be dosed with Ativan in order to do a simple 6-pg paper. What a mind job! Well, I emailed the prof with my problem and a couple of suggestion. Apparently neither of them were acceptable, and the only option outside of just doing the paper (yeah, right) was to move the assignment value onto my take home final exam. I opted for that. So now, it's just a matter of waiting for the marks to come in I guess.

In other school news, there was a MAD DASH to finish a term paper for Friday, and the reason for this was because I mistook the deadline for Monday, and WOW! I had written about 1.5 pages of 7 total before Friday, but the damn thing was not coming together. I also had a panel discussion/article summary due in another class the same day, so I was MAD busy. On Friday, I went to school, and completely started to re-write and re-edit what I had done so far. I stopped long enough to go turn in my other assignment and beg off of class, then back at it. I wrote the whole thing in 3.5 hours. We'll just have to see how things shake loose, cause wow...that was just a wild ride.

And if you thought the madness ended there...nah-uh!! I had that now-huge take home final due on Tuesday, and a portfolio for another class, AND Rod's birfday to deal with over the weekend. Crap! It was all just a horrid week of typed torture. I know, you are asking yourself, "If she knows this stuff is coming, why doesn't she get on it faster?" Well. I guess my brain likes to mull things over, so in that respect, I'm well on my way, but most of the time, I can't really write anything, because it's crap (see above, for example). It's like the time ticking away is chipping away at the crap floating in my head, and what evolves is a picture of clarity that just needs some touching up. This is not to be confused with exams and such, where the time limit does not help because you don't go in there knowing what you're going to do.

Now, I have some time, not much, but some little time to breathe. I have a term paper due on the 16th, and a final exam on the 20th. Starting on Monday, it's go time all over again.

Just so you know, there has been some little personal time mixed in there too, but those adventures will have to wait to be spoken of later. I'm going shopping.