I have been back in Canada for less than a month now and am getting settled in with my bar course, what I need to pass before I can become a full-fledged lawyer. Man, I can’t wait to be the butt of all bad lawyer jokes! How can you tell a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving! Get it?! Lawyers always lie!!! To be honest, a lot of the bar course so far has been about not lying to your clients, not stealing money, and writing good apology letters. I’m really not sure what the actual bar exam is going to look like, based on the mindless crap we’re being fed right now. The pass rate, I’ve been told, was 57% last year, which is not so good. However, many students get an adjudicated pass, which basically means you aren’t too big of a moron and can at least write a good apology letter should you screw up. An adjudicated pass probably won’t be looked upon too highly at your law firm, though.

I got my first pay cheque yesterday for a week’s worth of “work.” (Oh, I forgot to mention that I am actually getting paid to learn how not to be a moron.) I’ve decided to treat my family to a nice dinner tomorrow to celebrate my graduation from broke-ass student to moderately-high-salary-earning articled student. I can already picture my father selecting the most expensive bottle of wine.

Since I was in Paris at the end of my law school studies, I didn’t get to graduate with all of my law school buddies, throwing hats into the air, giving high fives, and other crap that usually mental children are seen doing. It was thus a somewhat anticlimactic end to my university career. I did, however, get to travel a shitload while studying in Europe (France, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and England) and in Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, and Kenya). So I guess I can’t complain. But I have and most likely will continue to do so.

Right after Africa, I spent some time in Hong Kong with friends and then jetted off to Halifax, Nova Scotia to visit my new baby niece. This is the first baby in my immediate family. The lead-up to her birth was unreal, for lack of a better word. My older sister has always been just that to me. So, to see her all preggers with her bellybutton popping out unattractively and then shoving her nipple into her newborn baby’s crying mouth was crazy weird. Not to mention her nipple was huge, like tea saucer-huge. (Pictures can be found below—of the baby, not the nipple.) Once I saw my baby niece, though, I fell in love with her. Yes, everyone says their babies are the cutest, but I can admit that my niece can look cross-eyed sometimes (let’s hope that straightens out) and the top of her head is bald exactly like my grandfather’s. But everything little thing about her makes her her, which is just perfect.

In the last months before I returned home, each day seemed to move by so slowly, allowing me to enjoy every new city, new friendship, new experience. Now my days have been whizzing by. I have been feeling less of a call to post here, though I know I still want to keep writing.