I knew I should have started taking notes on the important events of the last week and now I'm having difficulty remembering just what to write about. I think from now on I will keep a quick reference guide to events.
After the weekend, I had a Plast meeting at the Ukrainian community center. I was asked to run the "novatstvo" (noh-VAHTS-tvo), 6-12 year old boys and girls, meeting as the regular counsellor had to travel to Sydney on business. I took over and told the kids the differences between Plast in Australia and Plast in Canada. The biggest difference is the level of Ukrainian used, with Canada using much more. Ukrainians in Australia have become more assimilated into Australian culture than Canadian-Ukrainians and fewer of them know Ukrainian very well. Most of my meeting was conducted in English. This phenomenon is partly due to the relative sizes of the Ukrainian communities in each country, Australian with 50 000 and Canada with 1 500 000. It can also be attributed to settlement patterns where in Canada Ukrainians played a large part in the development of the West, in Australia there was no such geographic settlement. More locally, Canberra is a very small community and I had only 5 novaks under my care. The older scouts, "yunatstvo" (yu-NAHTS-tvo), number only another half-dozen.
On Tuesday, I had more goal umpire training and I've been given my first game to officiate, which will be Saturday the 28th. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to get paid for doing something I enjoy.
The next interesting thing that week was my trip to the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. This is what would probably be the equivalent of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, that is to say, criminal matters and the like. In Australia, Supreme Courts are the highest judicial bodies in the particular state or territory, with the Full Court of the Supreme Court being the highest appellate body in same. The highest court in Australia is the High Court of Australia. Anyway, I went with a classmate, Nabilah, and it was our task for a class to sit in on a proceeding and report on it. We arrived in the afternoon and most things were already concluded. However, we managed to get in to a bail application for a young man who was up on some serious charges, possession of a prohibited weapon (knuckle-duster), harbouring a fugitive and 2 others. It was very interesting to see the way the judge handled the matter. The young man was remanded into custody pending a confirmation of his place in a Wollongong drug rehabilitation center.
The long weekend has been a welcome change to the usual routine. With 2 4-day weeks in a row, this has allowed for some breathing room and a bit of time to mentally distance oneself from the rigours of law school. I've spent some time resting but some time reading as well. Still, a few days off never hurt anyone.
Happy Easter.
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