I completely forgot to post last week, so I am doing that now! Last week was largely defined by two cases I supported the refugee center with, as well as helping another placement student organize various paper resources into an online database. The cases were very different in many ways regarding the circumstances of each asylum seeker, as well as the ways in which I was supporting the case, although they both involve a lot of writing and collaboration. For one of them, I wrote an analysis of the conditions of where the applicant came from that FCJ's lawyer can use during the applicant's court hearing. It was surprisingly difficult for reasons I cannot quite put my finger on, but I think it has something to do with the lack of straightforward information I could find on the subject? I also struggle with writing when the parameters are vague and there are so many directions I can take the argument.

The other case was a written humanitarian and compassionate application that I am still working on. I spent a lot of time with one of FCJ's case managers organizing information and discussing legal concepts to use in my argument. It felt like a somewhat monumental task to begin an application from scratch since I have only been editing and expanding on applications until then. I was rather nervous about it by the end of the week, and honestly a little lost. How do I write when I do not personally know the individual making the decision, and when it's so critical to someone's life? Luckily, there is no set deadline for this application so I was able to take my time and complete other tasks like the database organizing when I could not work on it.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Toronto was hit with wildfire smoke from fires in the north of the province, which put a damper on the whole week. I had a headache that lasted until Saturday, and am mostly just grateful that the air quality is normal now. It genuinely looked like an apocalypse movie outside. Still, I was able to explore several different museums and tourist sites with two friends who came into town for the weekend - the post banner is of the view from the top of the CN Tower! I was exhausted by the time my friends left but had a lot of fun.