Publications, milestones and SlutWalks

It's been a busy month. I've barely had a moment to myself, now that baby-boy is growing up and spring (summer?) finally seems to have arrived in Montreal. That's not to say that our hot days aren't interspersed with the occasional bouts of (days of) rain. In fact, a town not too far from here seems permanently flooded, as we discovered on a recent trip to the U.S.


Yes, we have been out and about. And we've had visitors, with more to come in June. My parents-in-law were here for about 2 weeks and baby-boy thought it was fantastically fun to have them over. Permanent entertainment and attention. To the point where he was actually quite exhausted by the end of the 2 weeks and sleeping more often during the day. I, myself, was suffering from my third cold, this time accompanied by a nasty cough that took about 2 weeks to go away. But, I finally feel a lot better. Of course, once I was on the mend, baby-boy caught it and has been snorting his way through the night and day over the past week. But he too seems a better now.


While our visitors were here, we also picked up our new car. This meant that hubby wanted to test it out: he drove to Quebec city and back, and last holiday weekend (Victoria Day in Canada), we went to the U.S. for a quick shopping day in Burlington. The car was great. Baby-boy's passport worked a treat; the immigration officer thought evidence of his feet sticking out from the car seat was good enough and didn't insist on seeing if his face matched the picture. I bought a pair of pants now that I'm finally lean enough to almost fit back into my old clothes. For the rest, Burlington is a small college town, not unlike Ann Arbor. Cute, but not somewhere I'd like to live for any length of time. 


Then it was back to work for me last week. Mainly because a few weeks ago I had some fantastic news: one of my papers was accepted for publication. Now, writing it here like that doesn't seem too meaningful. But let me assure you that after seven years of hard work based on my thesis, this is amazing news. That paper has been under revision with this particular journal for well over two years. I totally expected it to get rejected in this third round of revise-and-resubmit. Needless to say, I was over the moon to get the word from the editor that it's a go. Of course, some minor changes are still needed, so I set aside a bunch of time (and hubby agreed to babysit) to get it done. It's now with my co-authors for the final touches, and soon I hope to submit it for the last time. I walked on air for about three days with this news, and once it's done, it'll be a huge weight off my shoulders. This thing has been hanging over me for far too long. And because it's my thesis work, it has more emotional value attached to it than any paper has a right to have.


With the paper off my plate for now, I was even able to squeeze in some work on other papers this weekend (hubby still acting as the babysitter). Even more exciting, now that I feel better again, I've been able to get back to my exercise routine with the cardio-poussette class and general walking out in the sun. My tan is working itself up nicely. Baby-boy gets his naps. And my weight is continuing to go in the right direction: down. 


One of the activities we did this weekend was the Montreal SlutWalk. It was baby-boy's first activist walk in support of the right of women to wear whatever they want without fear of being raped or persecuted in other ways. This movement started in Toronto when a cop blamed a woman who got raped for "asking for it" by the way she dressed. Incredible that society can still say and think that way. People should be able to wear whatever they want. I'm an avid supporter of that, never having been in favor of "having to" wear a suit at work (why? I'm not a man!), or "having to" wear heels that kill your feet and back. Nor do I think anyone has a right to call my best friend derogatory names when we lived in South Korea because she died her hair blue, had facial piercings and wore thigh length boots. Or, indeed, having to wear long jackets that cover up your butt so that you don't get touched up inappropriate by some random man on the street. (Yes, this actually happened to me when I was about 15 years old - and I was fully clothed in a pair of jeans, not displaying any naked skin ...). No one should be in danger of being raped, regardless of what they're wearing. So we walked. And it was fun. And baby-boy and I were interviewed by a campus radio.