Today was a beautiful day. Started it off by walking to work and literally just entered in some confidential information and worked a bit on my project.
Earlier that day, someone had messaged the whole intern group and asked if anyone wanted to go out for lunch (since it was honestly GORGEOUS) out and I agreed. I walked over to the building where we were supposed to be meeting up and awkwardly stood there by myself before I walked up to a group of people who also had A badges and finally found my group. It was really cool, I met interns from all over the UN as well as 3 new Canadian friends, one from Japan, one from France, one from China and one from Belgium. We sat and talked while having lunch together and I accidentally let it slip that I go to walking tours all the time and because of that I know a lot of info about the city. I told everyone about what I knew and, amazingly enough, people kept listening and were really interested!
Guess I'm not as boring as I thought.
We ended up staying a bit later than lunch entails (I talk too much when I get excited about history and fun facts) and I headed back over to work.
I finished up my project and then after work, headed into the Subway and metro'd all the way down to Cooper Union Frederick P. Rose Auditorium to attend an event hosted by the Canadian HIV/AIDS legal network called, "Consent: HIV Non-Disclosure and Sexual Assault law, Under the law, what does saying yes to sex really mean?" It was made up of a reception and then a screening of two documentaries:
http://www.consentfilm.org/watch-the-film-discussion-guide/ and http://positivewomenthemovie.org/video.html. As this was a Canadian legal network, I learn a lot about how being HIV positive may impact how the law sees them. For example, the Canadian laws in place state that if you are HIV positive and you do not tell your partner before having sex with them, it is aggravated assault. Makes sense at first glance right? It's not as black and white as that. I've heard about cases where even if they did have consensual sex and the person did disclose their HIV status, they have to have something to prove that they were having safe sex. So the case I heard was that sometimes, they'll freeze a condom to prove that they had protected sex.
That's ridiculous.
There was also one case in Canada of a woman who was HIV positive in a long term relationship where she said that she disclosed her status from the start. The relationship was abusive, and every time she tried to get out of it, he would threaten to bring her to court for aggravated assault, which is a charge that would carry a life sentence as well as being put down as a sex offender. She ended up staying in that relationship for almost 4 years before she got out and was charged with aggravated assault.
Like I said, things aren't always black and white. On top of that, it is a cycle. Even though these people are bring challenges against those with HIV, what do they think they'll be in the future? The victim will become the perpetrator one day. It's actually quite sad and frustrating to think about since it feels like our system is so broken.
Anyway, back onto the event. When I got out of the subway, I was 100% not going the right way and even though I was definitely in the right area (btw the subway only took me like 9 minutes to get all the way downtown) I wandered and took the wrong turns and stops quite often. It took me about 10 minutes to finally find the right place to go...after being given the wrong directions by a security officer. Whoops.
When I finally got there, the venue itself was quite nice. It had very high ceilings, it was modern,
sleek and had this very cold but technological vibe to it. I liked it. We went downstairs where we were greeted by catered Indian food and drinks (How is my life like this, seriously) as a reception before we headed into the theatre. The theatre was also really nice, the walls were beautiful with this wavy patter and it was just in general a really cool place to go! The chairs were comfy and there was loads of space between my chair and the one in front for leg room. It had a slope down, which meant that even though people were taller than me sitting in front of me, I could still see everything that was happening.
First we watched two screenings and then afterwards, there was a panel discussion with four advocates, one from New Zealand, one from France, one From Canada and one from the US. It was really interesting hearing about the comments that everyone had up there, coming from someone like me who is so ignorant to these issues and listening to the questions and answers from the audience/panel.
At the end of the night, there was another reception with more drinks and leftover food and I ended up making friends with the students behind the counter who were attending college nearby and told me that their club usually sponsors and hosts events like this all year round! Hardworking youngin's. I actually ended up making such good friends with them that they asked me if I wanted to take the rest of the uneaten food home.
Uh.
Yes.
I caught an uber with my friend (who was the one who originally told em about this event) heading in somewhat the same direction as me and brought my literal tray of food home.
All in all, great day for a learning experience.
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