Birthday Bits

I got my birthday card from my family today. My mother wrote: “Live with responsibility; walk in love.”

Given that I’ve attended 0 out of 6 possible hours of classes this week, and had to struggle today to restrain myself from shouting “Thar she blows!” after a fat bitch waddling on the pavement who nearly shoved me into the path of a speeding bus, those words are rather chastening.

Nick and I have reached an extremely convenient and mutually beneficial agreement about our respective birthday presents to each other. We somehow realized that we were both giving each other CDs that we also wanted for ourselves, in the shockingly conniving hope that after gift-giving, gift-borrowing would soon follow. So to make things easier and more efficient, we gave each other permission in advance to rip the CDs before giving them.

Commonwealth Day / Director of Debates

It’s been a reasonably eventful day. Made it downstairs for breakfast (a remarkable event in itself). Went to the Foreign Office and did the Commonwealth debate. Went to Westminster Abbey for the Commonwealth Day Observance Ceremony. Saw the Queen. She was in green (hat, suit, bag). Saw Tony and Cherie. He really does look like a car salesman. She really does look like a walking set of teeth.

Went to my debating Annual General Meeting. Got elected Director of Debates. Yay. :)

Man, I’m exhausted. I think I need to go home and cook. Or do anything else which involves slapping around raw meat. It’s incredibly therapeutic.

Earliest Bird

Around 5 am this morning I tore myself away (note: not really because it’s all that fantastic, more because I’m trying to finish it) from The Ground Beneath Her Feet to go to the toilet. So I was in there, at 5 am, and I heard birdsong outside the window. I wanted to draw back the curtains and look out, but there was this sudden irrational fear that that was exactly the thing not to do. Sort of like how hearing children’s laughter in horror movies while walking in creepy houses late at night is never a good thing. My overactive imagination conjured up images of me opening the curtains to see a face pressed against the glass, eyeballing me. A small tape player, on the eaves outside, trilling birdsong. Wedged securely, so that it doesn’t fall as I am dragged through the window and gorily killed.

I skittered back to my room.

Back in there, and with the sense of security you get from being in your own space rather than a toilet, I looked out of my window, still hearing birdsong. I didn’t see anyone, or anything. Snuggled back into bed with Salman, Ormus and Vina, laughing at myself for getting spooked out so easily. When I finally turned out the lights, put on some Nick Drake, and tried to fall asleep, I could still hear that bird, keeping its solitary vigil, singing to a dawn that hadn’t come yet.

Commonwealth Cognitive Dissonance

Of all the worst ways I’ve ever spent a Saturday night, I can safely say that reading about the Commonwealth, as I spent most of last night trying to do, probably features quite high on the list. On Monday (Commonwealth Day, woo hoo) I have to go to the Foreign Office and pretend, by supporting the motion This House Believes That The Commonwealth Matters, that I both know and care about this organisation in front of its Secretary-General and, of course, the huge Internet audience of schoolchildren that will be forced to watch.

I am now a fount of knowledge about this wondrous organisation. If I am ever on holiday in Lahore and another military coup erupts, I will walk through its turbulent and strife-ridden streets, past Uzi-toting gunmen at military blockades, and demand an audience with whichever General is in charge. I will tell him that this is a blow at the heart of democracy which the Commonwealth will not stand for, and apprise him of the numerous mechanisms through which it will make its displeasure felt. The latter task will take all of five seconds. He will listen attentively, only occasionally twiddling the ends of his moustache. He will then have me summarily executed.

Perhaps this is overdoing it a bit, but I really don’t enjoy doing debates where at the very moment my mouth is saying “Truly, the Commonwealth is a unique and valuable organisation which has much to contribute in bettering the lives of its peoples”, my brain is saying “MY ARSE”.

Tooting My Moot Horn

Okay. Some positivity just scampered up and blew a raspberry at some of the stuff I wrote below.

I won the moot, despite having to argue an unwinnable point of law. I’m now in the finals of the competition.

This is exceptionally sweet, firstly because I did actually spend the past couple of days killing myself for this moot. I might try this advance preparation thang again in future. It was hell while it lasted, but once the moot itself began, and the judge started asking me how I had the audacity to argue against all existing authority, the fun began. Confrontations and battles of wits are my fetish. They give me mojo.

It also makes my entire effort in this competition worthwhile. I don’t actually like mooting, but I had to take part in the competition again this year, because I lost in the quarter-finals last year to people I didn’t respect intellectually, judged by a judge I didn’t respect intellectually either. She didn’t ask me any questions during my speech, and chucked me out of the competition without ever giving me the chance to show that I could stand up to questioning, which is a crucial requirement of successful mooting.

Well. You were wrong, bitch. Don’t come watch me in the finals, because you’re not invited.

Other (and less nastily expressed) sources of positivity are people who did give a damn. Oliver abandoned his own work to help me last night, replying to my guilty “Oh, please don’t bother with this if you’re busy” protestations with “Fuck my company law essay, this is much more important.” Esther took on the job of moot clerk, which involves two hours of incredible tedium, requires brute strength in hefting musty law reports around, and can only be a labour of love for anyone who subjects themself to it. Nick text messaged support and good wishes.

I might well feel depressed again some time soon, but for now I’m gonna go back to my room, read e.e. cummings and listen to Built To Spill. Yeah.

Watching Snow

It snowed again last night. I’d been preparing for my moot, but when I saw it coming down outside, I switched off the lights, opened the window, and sat on the sill to watch.

You know what I love most about watching snow? It’s how when you start paying attention to individual flakes, you can see them responding to eddies and swirls of currents in the air; some do rebellious dizzying spirals even as they plunge groundwards, others do leisurely meanders along some invisible skyway, and some just fall up. Sometimes you can see an influential current at work, and a flurry of flakes bank and swoop and waft as one, caught up in a fleeting dance we’re not allowed to be part of, to music we cannot hear.

I’m entranced by the idea of being at the mercy of the wind, swept along in a blinding headlong surge where you don’t know where the next heartbeat will be. A fairground ride without the comforting solidity of the seat beneath you or the restraint holding you down, just some crazy zephyr laughing maniacally as he writes words in the air with a capricious finger, and you radiant in his wake like the residual trail of a sparkler.

Constructing Commonwealth Credibility

I’ve never quite understood why people needed drugs to make them feel happier, but I have to say that if there existed a drug that made you more organized and disciplined, I’d be shooting up every hour.

My mooting semi-finals are on Monday. On the same day, I have to go to the English-Speaking Union and discuss a debate I have to do for Commonwealth Day.

Given my history of real-time mooting i.e. I only come up with most of the arguments as the moot’s actually in progress, which is Really Not Fun, I do think I should put a bit more trouble into preparing for these, since they’re semi-finals, and I’m not into public humiliation. The problem is that the Commonwealth Day debate is sort of important, because it involves going to the Foreign Office and Westminster Abbey and meeting ministerial types, and they’re broadcasting it over the Internet. So I think I should try and bridge the rather large gap between my current ignorance and apathy in matters Commonwealthy, and the paragon of post-colonial, politically informed, politically correct, Commonwealth youth which I’ll have to be on the day.

Bit of a tall order for a rather small girl.

But I said I’d do it, so I guess I should then do my best to make it a successful event. Anything less just wouldn’t be cricket, as my past colonial masters would say.

But musings on a dying (some would say dead) Empire making vain attempts at clutching tattered shreds of dignity around it as it shivers in the cold winds of a unipolarized world in which it crouches, lapdog-like, at the heels of a speech-impaired elephant wearing a rodeo hat aside, this all means that I really should get started on things today.

Middle Temple IV / Snow! / Spring!

(Sunday 1.36 PM)

It takes a hellish week to appreciate a heavenly weekend.

I was at the Inner Temple intervarsity debating tournament over Friday and all of Saturday. As a team, we came 11th out of 33, which we’re not too satisfied with, given that we’d convincingly whooped three teams ranked above us on speaker points. It also wasn’t great to come out of debates where every other team said we’d clearly won and then be told by the judges that we’d come second or third. I came 9th out of 66 on the individual speaker rankings, which was at least some consolation. Anyway, after one and a half debating years of regular shit happenings, I generally accept bad judging decisions with a shrug and a middle finger.

We’d decided that we wouldn’t follow our occasional tradition of post-IV clubbing, and passed up the guest list at the Ministry Of Sound’s Subliminal Sessions for vodka, lemonade and Kettle Chips at Nick’s place.

We (Nick, Josh and me) came out of the tube at Kings Cross, and it was snowing! It was a strange combination of weather and location – something as pretty as snow, falling on the sleaze and cheerlessness of Kings Cross. You look up, and it’s breathtaking and beautiful as it falls, and then you look down and around you, and it’s slush mixed with corner piss puddles. Within minutes we were covered. I looked at Josh’s frosty eyebrows and noted the huge difference between real snow and the sort that dusts the branches of artificial Christmas trees. I crossed my eyes and tried to watch snow fall past my nose. I stuck my tongue out and collected a flake. Then stuck it out again at Nick, who was laughing at my fascination.

I love falling snow.

After half an hour at Nick’s place, we were joined by his rather drunk flatmates, John and JP, back from the pub. JP heaved a huge snowball into the middle of Nick’s room. Nick wasn’t pleased. JP cleared it up, totteringly.

Josh was interested in listening to Xen Cuts. Nick put in disc 1. I came back from the bathroom, recognized what was on, and said “You have to play track 10!” (DJ Vadim featuring Sarah Jones, Your Revolution). It was exactly what he’d been just about to play.

Later, we were reminiscing about being 14, and Nick put a Nirvana bootleg on. I was saying something about my Nirvana listening times these days being times when I’m not in the mood to have to actively think about appreciating the music, but just want something on with simple tunes, lots of guitar, and some hoarse-voiced guy screaming every now and then. Nirvana fans might see that as a travesty, but that’s what I listen to Nirvana for – mildly rawking accessibility.

So anyway, I was saying all this, and:
Nick: Don’t tell me Aneurysm’s your favourite Nirvana song.
Me: It is, actually. What, don’t you like it?
Nick: This is getting spooky.

At some point during the night all of us were jumping around going wild to Pearl Jam. At some point we were squashed together in the best spot in the room for maximum speaker effect, listening to Teardrop (Massive Attack) and The Box (Orbital) with eyes closed.

At some point we fell asleep.

I’ve only just got back. We dawdled over tea and Kruder & Dorfmeister after waking up around noon. I’d taken my contact lenses off during the night, and the walk home was a blurred but interesting experience. Colours ordinarily seem muted when I can’t see properly, but the sky seemed to be that sort of amazingly vibrant blue that you only get in faked postcard photos. I looked at the sun in an oil-rainbowed puddle for too long, and my eyes started watering. I don’t know what the meteorologists say, but I think I’ll remember that stark transition from last night’s snow in Kings Cross to this morning’s sun in Bloomsbury as the moment my spring began.

This Ulp Goes To Eleven

I went into the library to get a book on land law. I came out of the library with no book on land law.

I came out of the library with Kafka’s The Trial, Don DeLillo’s Underworld, and Adrienne Rich’s Your Native Land, Your Life.

I have an essay tomorrow which I haven’t started. A tutorial tomorrow which I haven’t started. The Inner Temple intervarsity debating tournament which I haven’t prepared for.

Ulp.

Best Laid Plans

I really did think I had it all planned out yesterday. I’d go do a debate for the UCL law faculty against KCL law faculty, go for the UCL Debating Society Monday night debate after that, and then get home in time for the Goodness Gracious Me special, a late dinner, and then tackling of the study deficit.

You know what they say about the best laid plans.

The annual UCL/KCL mudwrestle went well. During the course of my speech, I said the prime entry criteria for admission into Kings was fellatio ability, called one of the male speakers sexually incapable, and the other a walking vibrator advertisement. We won. :)

I then made the mistake of walking into the Debating Society debate “This House Believes That A Woman’s Intelligence Is Proportional To The Length Of Her Skirt” wearing the rather short one that I’d been wearing at the earlier debate, where we were all in suits. The usual wisecracks followed.

After the debate the planned TV dinner and studying suddenly sounded far less of an attractive proposition than an excursion to Flutes, which is a great wine bar on Goodge Street. The next thing I knew, it was a rather unearthly hour, the wine had flowed a bit too freely, and delving into the intricacies of personal injury litigation was distinctly unappealing, as well as pretty much impossible.