Tuesday, July 11, 2017

ROYGBIV

Rainbow equals happy Javaria

Pooja and I saw a rainbow in the Law School building before class today and decided to take pictures with it. It was the highlight of my day. The photos turned out really nice as well. I would have disappointed if they hadn't considering I got on the floor to take them. 

In class, we talked about human trafficking and the rights of refugees in International Law. It was an interesting topic, mainly because there are so many inconsistencies within both of those portions of the law, despite the fact that they still manage to offer so much protection for individuals.

The definition of the term refugee and what makes a person a refugee within the law was also talked about. People that aren’t facing a fear of persecution in the nation that they are already living in do not qualify for refugee status. The topic fascinated me. Our professor encouraged us to look into being immigration lawyers because the work is especially rewarding. You can have an actual direct impact on the lives of people. I’m not saying that this is something I would definitely want to do, but I might be willing to look into it.


The second portion of the class, we conducted interviews and gave them as well. J’nai and I were partners and we were both given specific roles. The role that I got was on behalf of Maria Mbake, a widow whose in-laws had been through many hardships including being accused by in-laws of having killed her husband with AIDS through witchcraft and getting her son and land taken away from her. It was a difficult role to play not only because I’m not the greatest actor especially when it comes to portraying emotion, but also because I was advised not to cooperate. Overall, I feel like it reminded me of the fact that I do need to work on my interviewing skills more and provided me with that opportunity.

Chevron patterned Friendship Bracelet that I started
I stayed for office hours afterward. Robson, Pooja, Sultana, and I have come up with this amazing idea for a website/organization promoting international human rights. We thought about doing local work and then having chapters for each state that we were in. Our professor was very excited about the idea and encouraged us a lot. She also said that she would write about it and tell her colleagues. I can’t wait for this plan to take off and make a change in the world!

Everyone else left afterward, but I chose to ask for help from Professor Brundige in internship and job searching with law clinics and NGOs in and around Berkeley. She made great suggestions and offered a lot of help and guidance. We also talked and got to know each other a little bit better, which was great. She has done a great deal, and I want to be able to learn from her as much as I possibly can. 

 Around 9:00 PM we had a friendship bracelet-making event in the lounge at Balch. Before that, I had been studying the whole time and catching up with Noor in the lounge. The event itself wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. I have been making bracelets for a very long time, so the basic chevron pattern seemed a little bit too repetitive and I had a lot of work to focus on instead. So, I went up to my dorm, J’nai joined me, and we worked on classwork for the rest of the day.

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