New Year, New Me

As always, it's a new year and my thoughts tend toward resolutions. But, I'm a little wary of it, given how fruitless my efforts are (and the studies that show that you're unlikely to keep them). I think my TWO resolutions are going to be 1) three pieces of exercise a week (and I mean exercise, not a half-hearted 10 minutes on the wii fit) and 2) a canteen of water a day. TOH got me this for Chrimbo, so I have a lovely new thing to drink from - and that's what I mean by a canteen. I don't think it's accurate or the common use of the word, but still - that's what I mean.

Not that the resolution process is useless. If you think about it properly, it does give you a chance to reflect on what you'd like to do more of, what kind of things might improve your life, rather than just beating yourself up. There are things I want to do. I genuinely am going to give yoga a go, because all my physio has taught me how inflexible I am (so true in general) and also - I want yoga arms. I really do. All my friends with ace arms do yoga. I barely made it to the cinema last year, and I'd like to do that a bit more often. I want to go out dancing more often. Other than that... life wasn't so bad last year. I'll stick with what I was doing.

You're it!

I was tagged at the start of the month, and therefore it's obviously fitting to actually respond a mere month later. Oops. Still, as it gives me a fabulous opportunity to procrastinate, porque no?

Five Things on My To-Do List for Today:
1) Pick up passport from Mozambican Mission and take to Kenyan Consulate to get a transit visa for the summer trip (DUNZO!)
2) Go to the gym - today is a back & cardio day.
3) Sort out my fantasy baseball team for this week - had a bit of a disaster this week, as lost mucho points and Mags got put on the 15 day DL, the git.
4) Watch an episode of The Wire - we've just started Season 3 and am desperate to get home for it!
5) Do many, many, many practice essays in preparation for Wednesday's mock exam. Done thus far: 1. at 4pm. oops.

What are five snacks you enjoy?
1) Wasabi peas
2) Baby tomatoes - grape, whatever you call them - awesome!
3) Wheat Thins
4) Bagel chips
5) Grapes

What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?
1) Buy several aeroplanes' worth of condoms and birth control pills and airdrop them over those countries where they are unavailable thanks to the good old global gag rule.
2) Go to the entire cricket tour when England visit each of Sri Lanka, the West Indies, South Africa, India, NZ and Australia, and take my mum to each - having paid off her mortgage.
3) Buy a house in Covent Garden / Waterloo big enough to have a library with one of those ladders on wheels and built-in shelves. Sigh.
4) Buy holiday homes in Barcelona, Paris and San Sebastian.
5) Fund scholarships for girls who are generally forced to help at home with the younger siblings / household work in Malawi.

What are five of your bad habits?
(I can only have 5? really?)
1) Picking anything I can
2) nailchewing
3) interrupting - constantly
4) snoring, if you believe TOH
5) sleeping like a starfish - again, if you believe TOH

Where are five places you have lived?
1) London
2) Cambridge
3) Barcelona
4) New York
5) San José, Costa Rica

What are five jobs you have held?
1) Merchandise vendor at Wembley Stadium - oh, those acid yellow sweatshirts... such memories
2) Translator for escort ads while in BCN
3) Body Shop Christmas worker - included working on NEW YEAR'S DAY - effers
4) English Language teacher
5) Personal assistant - many, many places for far too much of my life

Five people you'd like to tag
Not sure I have five.
1) Beth
2) Soph
3) Portax
That's about it. I don't know enough bloggers!

Hiatus

It's the Monday of the first week after law school finished.

It's weird. But good. But weird.

So here are my aims for this post-law-school-pre-graduation-and-bar-course limbo:

1. Go to the gym! Seriously, I need some getting in shape to be done.
2. Catch up on my crappy tv.
   
3. Spend time doing stuff I'm not going to be able to do for months - or, at least, without severe pangs of guilt - go to the movies in the afternoon, have a kickaround in the park, that sort of thing
4. READ! For pleasure!

Erm, that's about it, really. Still, not bad eh? That's literally all I have to do for the next couple of weeks.

Tag Team

My lovely Xopo tagged me for this fabulous list - fabulous, because I get to talk about myself. Less fabulous, however, as I reveal just how much tv I watch to thems who I might want to protect from the knowledge (i.e, TOH).

Still, I have finished writing a statute on termination of at-will employment in NYS, and after that monumental achievement, I feel I can a) be a little self-indulgent and b) I should write it down to make myself face the facts.

Books I Have Been Reading: For once, I get to feel a little smug as I have actually done some reading of late, what with me doing Law & Lit. However, now I read them, it's a bit embarrassing I'd not read them before, but beggars can't be choosers and all that.

1. The Stranger. Albert Camus.
2. The Ladies of Grace Adieu. Susanna Clarke (the volume of short stories that is a quasi-follow up to Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell, which I utterly adored).
3. The Poisonwood Bible. Barbara Kingsolver (every American I know seems to have read this, so thought I'd give it a go).
   
4. The Trial. Franz Kafka.
5. Bartleby, Scrivener and Billy Budd, Sailor. Herman Melville.

Music I Have Been Listening To Far Too Much: Fortunately, I have scrobbling to help me determine what I've been listening to a lot of, so here goes:

1. Idealism. Digitalism. I wasn't sure about this at first, but am now a huge fan and extremely peeved I'm not going to the gig here in May.
   
2. Cease to Begin. Band of Horses. Came late to it, not sure I'm overwhelmed by it, but it's interesting, at least.
3. Old School Drum & Bass. Seriously, I've been listening to a lot of J-Majik, Photek, Roni Size, that sort of thing. I'm really back into it, and hoping to get my arse back out on a dancefloor or two for a bit of a dance to it in the very near future.
4. Falling off the Lavender Bridge. Lightspeed Champion. Because it's just lovely.
   
5. The Outsider. DJ Shadow. Endtroducing... remains one of my favourite albums of all time, and I do like the other ones, although less so; this is growing on me.
   
6. Lupe Fiasco's The Cool. Lupe Fiasco. Because the first album was utterly lovely, and this is proving equally so.
7. Love is Hell (pts 1 & 2). Ryan Adams. Again, late coming to this; most of it's pretty good, but his cover of Wonderwall is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.
8. General listening to plenty of LCD, MC Solaar, Jamie Lidell, and a recent downloading of the Cure and Pet Shop Boys, for old times' sake.
   

Movies I've Enjoyed Recently. This is where I really fail. I saw none of the films nominated for Best Picture,* the first time since I was about 14, I imagine. Ugh. But, if I have to, I have seen and enjoyed:

1. Network.
2. The Godfather.
3. It Happened One Night.

TV I Love. This is where it gets nasty. Are we including dvds? I hope so.

1. Veronica Mars. Someone thought I'd not seen the finale of Season 1, and so lent it to me. Unfortunately, she'd misunderstood that I'd seen very few of the first half of the Season. That, however, has changed, as I've now seen nine. Ulp. It's utterly addictive, brilliant, but something I'd forgotten was how great the music is on it. In the first episode alone we have a lot of Air, Weak Become Heroes by the Streets... all good.
2. The Soup. I've now managed to get TOH into this. It's glorious - thanks L, always, for pushing me into obsession - I was frighteningly grumpy when it turned out they'd changed the time last week and so my flipping DVR had recorded a half hour E special on the "troubles" of Amy Wino. Not that I don't love her, but still...
3. Weeds. Genius.
   
4. Coupling. I'm watching re-runs on BBC America and absolutely loving them.
   
5. The Wire. We've been holding off on Season 2, but hopefully tonight is where we re-start.
6. For shows that are STILL not back, I am in mourning for Pushing Daisies - seeing Kristin Chenowith last night made me long for it.
7. Boston Legal. Mostly because it's about lawyers, but a lot has to do with William Shatner and James Spader, and Candice Bergen (she ROCKS).

This has made me realise how no one I know blogs other than the person who tagged me and the people she tagged. But I'll try tagging DR ANDUS and BEAN and PORTAX and LIGHTTRIPPERS/BEAN GROWERS anyway... just to see if they're out there.

* As penance (and for enjoyment, obviously), TOH and I are at least going to the movies on Wednesday to see which of them we can catch.

Restraint

Yesterday the NYCLU released its report on abstinence-only funding, to which I contributed some small support and research. It's excellent, because the people writing it are extremely bright, capable and wonderful.

So many people have written so many things about abstinence-only, brilliantly (see Feministing's section, and RH's sexuality education section, and SIECUS, of course, which is a ROCKING organisation), that I really don't think I have too much to add. It was extremely interesting thinking about this in Malawi, where many many activists, those with HIV themselves, were advocating abstinence-only as the only way to cure the epidemic. I do not want to deny the authenticity or the challenges of those facing the problems on the ground there, but the reasoning disturbed me. Basically, the idea was that learning about condoms made children want to use them. Does anyone know a young person who really needed that excuse to try out their bodies? Really? And it's hard to know how activists would be talking if it weren't for President Bush's insistence on AB - abstinence, be faithful - and if all else fails, use a condom - just make sure that the condoms are twice as expensive as they need to be, if they get mentioned at all.

Bush - and his supporters, as we found out at a debate at school last semester - claim this came from African nations themselves; read this wonderful article by Helen Epstein* to realise that, as per usual, he's full of it. He just MAKES THIS UP as he goes along. In case you doubted it.


* Which reminds me, I need to buy her book. And you should read the article anyway. She's saying incredibly important things which, of course, health officials completely ignore because it doesn't suit them.

Counting Down

I have started the beginning of the end of my summer of work. It has been so much more instructive than I could possibly have hoped for at the start. It has also been an incredibly long summer, what with finishing exams so late, then Malawi, then straight here into work. Therefore I cannot articulate just how much I'm looking forward to some basic R&R and reading of lovely fiction books and just being a slob for a while. Not that I'm not a slob right now - our bedroom currently impeaches me on that point - but the need to laze is becoming increasingly urgent.

However, it really is hitting me that next year is my last year of school and then I don't really have any more excuses for not delving into the world of work. And not just any old work, but one where I am challenged intellectually, where I have to take responsibility for what I produce, that sort of thing.

I'm scared.

This is all a bit much.

So for now, I shall think of the DVD of extras waiting for me at home (First series, finally, after many viewings of the second) and catching up on The Soup. That hopefully will spur me on...

It Comes Before A Fall

I am wont to feeling pleased with myself. I can't help it. Despite the complete hideousness of astrology, I like to blame it on being a Leo. Laziness, failure to take responsibility, egotism - yes, you may accuse me of all these things and more, reasonably accurately.

However, today I have a very good reason to do so - I have a monster seventeen page document, in Spanish. My doing. We went through it this morning, and you know what? It wasn't too hideous, cringe inducing. Given that my Philosophy of Science supervisor used to sit and read aloud our essays, I know how to deal with the horrors of hearing your gauche, inaccurate (laziness again!) and horrible turns of phrase repeated genuinely ad nauseam. After the horrors of legal writing this year, experiencing more red pen than an insecure law student's psyche should have to deal with, I am accustomed to the corrections and while the pain of immense quantities of tracked changes on word continues to cause suffering, it's better than the scarlet biro.

Of course, there were several phrases where I thought, "ooh, that sounds great - I AM clever." Then I realised that the author... well, "No. Fui. Yo." (This is also the translation of Bart Simpson's most famous phrase, "It wasn't me".) Still, if I have achieved nothing else this summer, I can now lay claim to being able to write fairly well a legal document in Spanish. I am learning so so so much - I have already absorbed much more than I thought about a week ago when I started panicking over what on earth I was going to write. WOWSER.

I think my mother was telling me off in my dream last night in Spanish. Not bad - did you know you could do that, Mum? Well, you can.

And enjoy the pictures of the flores and dragonfly (libélula en español) from Mayela & Ricardo's garden in Punta Morales. Yes, Lianne, owe the plant porn idea to you. However, I do find the flora here incredibly interesting - everything is so bright. At the UCR there is an incredible, convulvulus type plant, which isn't covered with white flowers but RED ones. Extraordinary.

Going to do myspace updates, by the way, so please check out the stupefying embarrassment as I try to do "yoof" there.