GRACE GOES ABROAD!

MYSPACE

All the kids have them, I'm told.

Autumn Semester 2005

Pre-Spring Break Semester 2006

Well, it's nearly a fortnight since the last posting, and I am sat in my dressing gown at home having almost completed the writing competition and therefore first year of law school - hurrah and, indeed, huzzah!  Good news, what?  Good news indeed.  Therefore tonight, leaving on a jet plane to London Town for a couple of weeks in the bosom of fair Albion, then back here for a lengthy 8 hours or so before, for some reason I've not yet fathomed, I'm getting on a plane at SIX IN THE MORNING headed for the Rica.  Not much to say, really, and yet, so much to say.  I've had so many thoughts to post and now they've all disappeared.  So I'm going to get me an egg sarnie and head into the shower and school for the last time this year - hooooooray!  Let's just hope that my cheque has turned up.  Otherwise there may be a bit of a ruckus...

16/20 credits done (and, undoubtedly, at a GPA of less than 3.0...).  No, I shall be less pessimistic.  Just less than 3.3 - muahahahhhaha.  Actually, I am feeling upbeat, for no really good reason - I am SCREWED because there is NO WAY I will remember all this Con Law before Tuesday (open book is CRAZY for this stuff when it's so fact-based rather than method-based - damn you other sections who don't have to deal with this), but I have ordered my guidebooks for CR, am looking forward to spending a night in with my lovely neighbours, the cricket is going unbelievably well, the end of VM was amazing (fingers crossed for a new series) and all is looking up.  Other than the miserable weather.

But seriously, I am now happy because I have let myself realise that I am going to Costa Rica very soon (despite calling it by the wrong name repeatedly - made a bit of an arse of myself yesterday...) and so am going to get myself very excited about that. 

However, a little bit of a retrospective is required.  After all, a monumental thing happened yesterday - Contracts was the first class that I ever sat in at law school (Legal Process does NOT count), and now it's done.  Therefore, I've been thinking a bit about songs that go with Contracts... results will go on myspace - not that I'm abandoning you folks, but this site is for more... important stuff, essentially.

BREAKTHROUGH - maybe too little too late, but I am pleased to have worked my way through it.  It's not school that stresses me out per se, not the library (although that may be because I'm in my nice little cubby right now), but it's the cafeteria.  Just went down there due to carb cravings (I cannot wait to be free of this and get fit again and look after myself) and listened to people talking about the practice contracts exam they'd just done - it was annoying and they all sounded so certain and smug I wanted to deck them because... well for several reasons.  One, I don't feel that myself, I am wracked with nerves as to how badly I am going to do on this - if I get a B+ it will be the happiest day of my life.  Two, they were loud and obnoxious and taking over the entire cafeteria with their volume.  And three, most realistic, I suppose, is that I imagine it's exactly what I sound like when asserting my answers: smug, certain, and yet I'm pretty sure I know nothing.  That's not very... healthy.  You hate the things you resemble most, no?

Onto another (profound?  surely not) epiphany last week about swimming, which had me torn and confused.  Basically, I rush through swimming in a pool, because I'm terrified I'll "fail" by not getting to the end, by being beaten, by people judging how fast I go, how well I swim (which for me is equivalent to going fast).  Whereas in the sea, I'm free - without the artificial restraints, I don't panic but instead relax, whereas for some I know the vastness and uncertainty as to where the bottom is panics them.  I'm not sure why that is - haven't got that far in my thinking yet.  The confusion and tearing is because the person advising me basically did so because I was a young woman - if I'd been a man, of almost any age, there's NO WAY he'd have told me how to swim better.  Feminist paranoia?  Perhaps, perhaps, but I think almost every woman has had that tone of voice, that experience where we've been told what to do or how to do something - it's normally sport, money, car or technology related - in a way that you know wouldn't happen if you were a man, because you could be trusted to get on with it yourself.  I hate those assumptions, and I can't imagine what it must be like to have so many of those made about you on a daily basis because you're not white.  It must be horrific.

The torn part comes in because it helped me - I really, really enjoyed becoming "at one" with the water, feeling it more closely and learning about our relationship, it keeping me buoyant, me using it and respecting its properties.  And I really really really wish I could just hate that guy for patronising me.  Yet, and yet... he's given me an insight about myself I probably wouldn't have reached without him, and I enjoyed my swimming so much more afterwards.  What do I do with that?

Another question floating around my mind (reminding me of a discussion about Heart of Darkness on the Beeb bookgroup site): what do we do about older books that use racial epithets in a way that is simply not acceptable today, and if written now (and set now) we wouldn't continue to read them?  Dorothy "not afraid of the n-word" L Sayers is the reason for my musings on this.  I'm so horrified by it, and moreover, that someone else on the subway will look over my shoulder and see me reading that.  It's somehow different reading a book set in a time or a place that has racism like that; where it's just a phrase to indicate how hard someone works... it makes my blood chill and boil, simultaneously.  It's qualitatively different for me to experience, yet I can't articulate precisely as to why.  It reminds me of the horrors of seeing it in Thomas the Tank Engine - I nearly died when I realised exactly what I was reading, particularly as the edition I was reading was from, I think, the late 70s/early 80s.  Enid Blyton I expect it from - I always imagine her as an imperialistic old cow.  Certainly misogynistic and racist.  Wikipedia, that ever reliable fact source, agrees with me at least.

Things seem to have calmed down here, or maybe that's just me, given that I am now halfway through finals and not quite so stressed.  The outside world moves on without giving a monkey's as to our situation here in the state of Fordham: David Blaine is currently ensconced in media madness right now in the Lincoln Center (I went out to look, but couldn't be arsed to wait TWO HOURS for him to come out - if you're coming out at 8, don't be late - some of us want to at least pretend to be doing contracts revision), and we got out to the Shake Shack for burgers at lunch, which were glorious, then spotted a paparazzi... if not mob, then small gathering outside the Hudson.  AT made the astute observation that we should check gawker stalker to see who it be.  That's why she's going to be on Jeopardy and we're in awe...

Other than that, a mixed weekend for the sport fanatic in me: Carlisle promoted as Champions, the Mets beat Atlanta in a series, which is amazing and not like normal, but the mighty Spurs missed out on Champions League football after a pathetic performance and huge bout of food poisoning.  Still, if we'd finished fourth then the Arse would clearly have won the Champions League and we would be even more gutted.  Bugger.  However, the Tigers gained our first point not through default!  We were fabulous, strong in the back and improving hugely throughout and should have beaten the Harps, who were top of the league last season and in our two encounters beat us 12-0 and 5-1...  They were extremely disgruntled to draw with us.  Great!  Plus, that was our first clean sheet, and the adrenaline from that result has kept me going throughout the weekend.  Now just going to finish some contracts malarkey, then head home for Chinese takeaway, wine and Desperate Housewives, which I'm seriously backed up on...

The insanity continued today - both the heinous exam we sat this morning and multo-stressing afterwards, and the ridiculous aftermath of the coffee incident.  I've had enough of it all - my blog obsession is over, and people... they're not vultures, they're hyenas - laughing while stripping the carcass.  And that's all I will say on the matter from now on.

Done the glorious removing of the FRCP from my toolbar on the old browser, and am trying to stay awake for supper tonight.  NOT easy.  Too much sugar and a headache ensues, but I'm glad there's one down, three to go.  It was a glorious day today, and I'm looking forward to having something to study other than the rules, bizarrely.

Holy flashers Batman, I've just remembered what I left off from last night - the entirely naked man drinking beer and throwing it over himself at the back end of the uptown platform last night at 145th station.  That's something you just don't get at Hither Green.  Q: is it that people are genuinely crazier in NYC, or that they're freer with their emotions and expression of those emotions?  I think that while the latter is true, it does not preclude the former (and, in fact, that's true...)

This on murder rates is definitely unnerving and macabre...but fascinating.  click on the google mapping - you can find out who was killed, when, how, by whom, and for what reason...grim.  good to know domestic violence is alive & kicking about 5 buildings away from me...

That's it - classes are over for the year...  and what have we learned, people?  There is no social utility to spite, that's a definite.  Other than that, a jumble of things: it all feels rather fuzzy and vague in my head.  I'm fairly sure that I'm a worse person than when I started, but almost certainly a better thinker.  Is that good or bad?  Socially useful?  Something that sits with my conscience?  That I'm becoming harder and possibly crueller in order to save the world?  Even Alanis Morrissette might be able to recognise the irony in that.

I look like death warmed up, as my Mum would say.  Dad would tell me off for burning the candle at both ends, as I always do.  I am pallid and my shadows are extremely dark; it wouldn't take much to make me look like a smackhead for a film, that's certain, given how spotty I've got due to lack of sleep, lack of vitamins and lack of sunlight.  Yep, nothing's changed - everything's still last minute, I still need to organise millions of other things to distract myself, make me feel wanted and with which to avoid work.  At least I'm not trying to revise by sitting on the Backs with a bottle of cava and some strawberries, a la King's.  I also appear to have stopped ending sentences with prepositions.  But it does frighten me that I convince myself that this term/semester/year of school will be different and I'll work hard throughout the year, pay attention, not be cramming last minute.  And that I refuse to let myself change, that I continue to be lazy and that I then blame it on my determinate nature.

This week, Grace discovered the joy of Woman's Hour podcasts - "truly inspiring, informative and interesting".  She listened to podcasts on the spread and contraction of the commercial use of the Playboy Bunny image (with guilt, given her pants and jacket...), the hype around Herceptin and the definition of rape.  They were all extraordinary and I urge any woman who takes political issues vaguely seriously and who has itunes to subscribe.

I had to miss free cone day for this.  For school.  For the vague hope that I'm not going to cock up exams and make the excitingly obnoxious world of law review.  I'm just drowning in despair.  Left everything to last minute again.  How on earth am I going to get this all done?  And why, therefore, am I blogging instead of working?  AAAAARGH.  I despair as to when I'm going to get a full night's sleep again.  When will that happen?  So just to let you know that I HATE SCHOOL.  But I am booking my ticket to CR tonight, so that's something to look forward to...

I must work on my thoughts about it, the overall analyses, but I have been inspired, moved, repulsed, horrified and exhilarated by the documentary Sisters In Law, which was incredible - it's hard to sum it up, really.  Please, please, please see this film.  It was intriguing on so many levels, incredibly difficult to watch at times, brutal and crude in many ways, and completely honest.  It was... incredible.  Wonderful. 

If you live in the UK, please please please donate to this worthy cause that is utterly distressing.  Tampons = 4 quid in Zimbabwe.  Average woman's wage in Zimbabwe per month = 12 quid.  These women need help, now.  It is an outrage to their dignity and rights as humans that this is allowed to happen, but given that this is a country where the women are expected to only live to the age of 34.

Stuck at home most of the day nursing what are clearly the beginnings of a cold, negotiating the maze of an organisation that is the USPS, and scrubbing the bathroom.  Disappointingly that meant that I could not attend the rally at Fordham against JAG today, but the kids REPRESENTED for me.  See over on the right...

Nevertheless, glumness clearing in a way because the Goonies is on, so nostalgia-fest ahoy.  What prompted the webbing is my realisation, thanks to the tv guide, that Romeo and Juliet is ten years old.  TEN YEARS OLD.  How much has changed in that time: lived in three different countries, am a mere 23 pounds heavier (crap, that's nearly TWO STONE).  And yet, the acne remains - joy.  I'm much happier now, though.  Which can only be a good thing.

All this is a prelude to how annoyed I am, yet again, with the US government.  The Solomon Amendment is a disgrace.  And if this is harassment, goodness knows what wouldn't be characterised as harassment.  Probably a man menacing and threatening his female ex-partner, because after all, it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to regulate that. 

The sun is shining, it's supposed to be 78F today, and therefore of course I am in the library, wondering whether to put my jacket back on because it's really not that warm in here.  I am also starting to panic about the lack of work I've done but, more importantly, the weather on Saturday morning - THUNDER AND RAIN FORECAST.  Outrage.  Looks like I'll play two games all season.  Great.

In more exciting news, AT is nearly through to being on Jeopardy, so hopefully I'll get to coach her - how good is that?  Free Cone Day on Tuesday, although not for Black & Tan ice-cream - seriously people, do your research: find out whether your name is anything that's likely to cause massive offence in the country you're launching it in; MD is HERE!!!!  Well, he's got to get dinero, but who hasn't?  It'll be fine.  Therefore, a v cute picture of him and the future Mrs D on the right.  And big joyous shouts to the Wednesday for staying up, for Carlisle for nearly being up, and to Pedro for being the bomb and Pujols for keeping my fantasy league baseball team in the running...

This week, Grace has failed to read anything of significance, has failed to go to the cinema and so on it goes.  She's hoping to go next week.  However, she has done a lot of exercise.

Tiredness, too much football, too much procrastination, not enough preparation for exams which start in less than THREE WEEKS.  However, it is sunny.  IT'S SUNNY.  Yesterday it was 80F, 26C - unbelievable.

Weekend a weird mixture - messed up my metrocard by putting it in my shoe and then screwing it up - MTA, why can't you just exchange my card?  YOU ARE A WASTE OF SPACE.  I hate the MTA.  The one month I don't get a receipt... aaarghhhh!!!  Also lost the monthly fat competition - trying to lose it, yet gaining it.  But it was sunny, I have managed to do some useful work, and slept a lot and going out for a quiet night out - and friends who can really cook will be doing so tomorrow - fabulous...

The eyes.  They hurt, oh my, how they hurt.  I've developed a nasty habit of sleeping very badly before I have to be up early.  So before swimming lessons on Sunday - didn't end up going because alarm clock was broken but also didn't really sleep more than four hours - and before this morning for registration.  I must have woken up six or seven times.  I have no problem with falling asleep, just staying asleep.  It's miserable, and now I'm in a lot of pain - head and eyes - and have got to somehow exercise judgement over another couple of applications.  Ugh.

We have been doing a lot of the reproductive rights cases and fundamental rights cases which has brought me a greater understanding of where the right to abortion can be protected - more about that later!

It's nearly half midnight and I'm still up, watching unbelievably bad repeats of The Fresh Prince.  What is it with my slightly self-destructive streak at the moment?  I'm not doing my reading, not doing enough work... My malaise is strong right now.  I had a very bad, disillusioned and grumpy week last week.  Today, however, the sun was shining at least a little on my career - I got a fellowship for the summer and I went for a run.  So not completely wasted.  I suppose.  So, as a certain someone keeps singing: I'm going to Costa Rica!!!  Hurrah and huzzah.  Indeed.  And we won our indoor league... yet more huzzahs!  But now to bed with my beloved (he's reading over my shoulder and insisting on editorial control)... fortunately a little bit of a lie-in tomorrow, then MORE WORK.  Only bad thing: damn Australians.  STOP WINNING EVERYTHING.

My, what a week it has been.  Actually, that's probably a lie.  I can barely remember the start of the week.  This week has been chaotic, tiring, and a strange mixture of the sublime and the grumpy.

Where to begin?  We won the cricket, which always makes me joyful and particularly in a series where we played much the better cricket, despite being severely depleted by injuries, and Fred is just a legend.  A kind, warm, big-hearted man who is a gloriously gifted cricketer - not just as a batsman and bowler but, it turns out, as a motivator and thinker.  Wonderful.

I'm trying, I really am.  I have been reading Wikipedia for the past thirty minutes, trying to work out the positions and strategies on a basketball team, so that I have a vague idea of what's going on in March Madness, and so that I understand what Dennis Rodman was good at other than being a sexy, tattoed and madonna-baiting, carmen electra-marrying mofo.  Apparently we've got some good left-handers in this year's tournament - they're rare...  Oh, honestly, I do not know what I'm talking about.  I'm not sure I care, either.

This week has not been the most productive - still fighting my way through outlining contracts.  I have gained some folks on friendster, though... so not completely wasted.  In all seriousness, I have got some stuff done.

Spring break!  It's great!  You get to sleep, walk up mountains, see deer and vultures in the wild, see your writing professor on Law and Order, go to Hamilton Park and see the Manhattan skyline, go and see films you've meant to see for ages, read, walk around the park...

Genuinely, it's been amazing.  I saw turkey vultures today, soaring all over the forests.  I saw a group of six white-tailed deer bounding around the forests around Bear Mountain.  We found again the park where I took some of my favourite photos of all time - see right and left for them.  I've seen signs of Spring, of warmth arriving, and possibly even some green - hallelujah.  M and I were discussing our favourite seasons - admittedly, the others are good, but the whole having crocus flowers out, bluebells, daffodils, magnolia trees - I miss them and April is just too, too late for that.  For all the talk of Britain not having proper seasons in comparison to the US, we have a decent spring, at least: Here, we (in my limited experience) seem to have a looooong, cold winter followed by two weeks of Spring starting in April then Summer's here with barely time to breathe in and enjoy the joys of Spring.

This week, Grace saw Caché, the Michael Haneke film: creepy and disturbing - Daniel Auteil's Georges was truly unpleasant - but not as scary as Funny Games, thank goodness; she watched episode 3 of Conviction, the compelling and utterly amazing BBC drama - it is astonishingly good and she just does not not know where it is going.

Spring Break!  Spring Break!

Finally, it's here!  And only a Kilimanjaro-sized amount of work to do.  Bloody hell.  Still, it's here, we're going away for a couple of days, and I'm so looking forward to it, it's frightening.  Now, if someone could stop me doing things like drinking too much at the Student Sponsored Auction last night (casualties, luckily, just my old make up - favourite, yes, but old, so not much left; managed to avoid bidding three thousand dollars on anything - although there was $10 in that purse - dagnammit), everything would be fine and dandy.

So there we go.  Nothing useful to say, otherwise.  At least Legal Writing is over!!!!  So that's about it.  Parties tonight.  Parties tomorrow.  Parties at lunchtime.  THIS MUST CEASE.