In which I consider bestiality

So much for those brave little remnants of the skin of my teeth.

Now I acknowledge that in deciding to study 5 topics for an exam (Law and Institutions of the European Community, huzzah) where I had to write four essays, I should have been mentally prepared for the prospects of sudden, acute and involuntary incontinence when I looked at my exam paper.

But there I was all the same, staring wildly at an exam paper with no question on gender discrimination, a question on institutional reforms in the Treaty of Nice (Nice? That’s so current it’s actually relevant, so of course I didn’t study it…), and three questions on topics I had actually studied which I suddenly couldn’t remember anything about, and voiding seemed imminent, both of my bladder and my prospects of passing the exam.

I gritted my teeth, and decided to try the three I had some hazy recollection of, and then start making up some law for the fourth essay. Hey, if the European Court of Justice’s been getting away with it for decades, I figured I might as well give it a try.

So I was halfway through my second pile of crap (the essay, I mean the essay), and then the stereotypically bizarre invigilator (think Christopher Lloyd in Back To The Future) said that our lecturer had an announcement to make.

Oh, Margot. I’m sorry for skipping almost every lecture you’ve given. I’m sorry for muttering under my breath about cud regurgitation in the two I did attend. Because when you modified that question to ‘ “The Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam or Nice did not achieve its aim of institutional reform.” Discuss’, I could have made passionate love to you at that very moment, laws against bestiality be damned.

I might just have passed this exam. Fingers crossed.

Exam Apologies

There are oodles of reasons I can’t wait for these damn exams to be over, but the prime one is probably that I’d rather like to be an interesting person again.

I’m not particularly fond of myself at exam time. I get whiny, and disconsolate, and I’m generally so absorbed in personal misery at the disaster I anticipate that I can’t really think of very much else. It shows the most in my inability to carry on a conversation, I think. In trying too hard to avoid talking about exams and boring people with my moaning, I somehow find myself making comments I wouldn’t normally make – usually stuff which is either too offensive or too uninteresting to share – and to make things worse, I tend to drift off while other people are talking, which means I then have no idea what they’ve just said and no means of responding intelligently.

So to all who have had the misfortune of having to talk to me recently, and especially to anyone in my hall (which I’ve hardly ventured out from over the past few weeks) who ever reads this: please believe I’m not actually a stupid, boring, dour socially dysfunctional narcissist obsessed with studying. It’s just the fallout from spending a wonderful but study-free year as an intelligent, interesting, effervescent and socially successful narcissist. :P

Days Like This

Days like this are for using words like peachy-keen! and minty-fresh! and sunny-d! without adopting tones of hipster irony.

Days like this my Irish hallmate Alec tells our chaplain to “Feck off!” and Father John smiles benignly in return.

Days like this I want to dive headlong into cliche and sit in the park delicately, sipping iced tea and reading Wordsworth. Wearing something suitably floral, and embarassing in hindsight.

Days like this I wish I could blast Pavement’s Summer Babe from the top of the BT tower and then rappel down, with glorious boinging motion.

Days like this I feel incredibly tempted to start laughing hysterically and interminably in a public place, and see if anyone joins in.

Days like this I contain multitudes.

Days like this, and I’m cooped up in my hall library, studying the law of land registration.

Exams Are So Not Me

Two exams down, two to go.

My life over the past couple of weeks has been…uncharacteristic.

Normal sleeping hours, adopted in desperation and self-loathing after my essay debacle. Now I walk into breakfast and no one bats an eyelid.

An almost exclusively classical playlist, mostly provided by Classic FM and my new Elgar CD (Enigma Variations/Pomp And Circumstance Marches/Crown Of India Suite, Daniel Barenboim, London Phil), also kindly supplemented by two Vaughan-Williams CDs borrowed from hallmate Michael.

I haven’t got out much, apart from Saturday’s surreal excursion to Beano (regular cheese night at ULU) after taking part in (and winning!) my first ever pub quiz.

There’s a slice of Gower Street I gaze out at from my table in the library, through sterile veiled curtains and a window that needs washing. There’s people, and movement, and the flash of sunlight on car windows, but it all seems distant and not quite real, somehow. Like watching closed-circuit TV. You know it’s really happening, but the colours are flat, and however nearby you know you are, no one knows you’re watching.

Sometimes in the evenings I venture out in search of food. McDonalds. KFC. Takeaway pizza. Not much in the way of nutrition. Yesterday I got myself some spinach, which will hopefully stave off scurvy for the time being.

Exceptions

Everything is a bitch.

Except Russ and Nick, and Ninja Tune, with whom Thursday night was happily spent experiencing Xen at Cargo.

Except Ken, with whom Friday night was absorbingly spent exploring the terra incognita that is outer London. And Tom Stoppard, for writing the lovely Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, which I probably didn’t do justice to as a member of the audience after an entire day of studying and an incredibly tedious debate committee meeting, but enjoyed immensely nonetheless.

Except lovely people in my hall, with whom most other nights are satisfyingly whiled away with bad TV and strange conversations and Aftershock. Which is 80p at our bar. :)~

Okay. Suddenly I feel better. Back to contract law.

Brit TV / Dumb E-Business Moments

Slate thinks the Brits do TV better. I suppose they haven’t seen the Richard Blackwood Show then.

Some favourites from the 101 Dumbest Moments in E-Business History:

4: In November 2000, the Internet Underground Music Archive — a.k.a. IUMA.com — posts the following on its website: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are overjoyed to present you with the ten winners of our ‘Name Your Baby IUMA’ Contest. Congratulations to these bold, beautiful babies — Iuma Thornhill, Iuma Ross, Iuma Becht, Iuma Carlton, Iuma Farish, Iuma Devi, Iuma Godfrey, Iuma Daigre, Iuma Radnedge and Iuma Hebert!” Each baby is guaranteed $5,000 (and, presumably, a childhood full of schoolyard beatings).

12: In October 1998, an e-commerce software vendor launches with the name Accompany, which, when said aloud, sounds exactly like “a company.” As in “Hi, I’m calling from Accompany.” “Which company?” “Accompany.” And so forth.

31:Boo, Part III: Founders Ernst Malmsten and Kajsa Leander begin spending their venture capital booty. The New York Times later breaks down their expenditures, which include $150,000 annual salaries for the founders, plus $100,000 apiece to rent apartments in London and another $100,000 to redecorate them; $654,100 on promotional giveaways like disposable cameras and snow globes; $600,000 in public relations fees to the firm of Hill & Knowlton (mostly for setting up lunches with fashion editors); a $42 million ad campaign; a staff of 420 people, a.k.a the boocrew, housed in offices spanning from New York to Paris to Munich to Stockholm; and $5,000 per day to a crew of fashion consultants and hairstylists to perfect the look of Miss Boo, the site’s computer-animated mascot …

59: Utek, a business development company that finds, acquires, develops, and finances university technology for its customers, issues the following warning in its prospectus: “Our management has limited experience operating a business, has had no experience in managing and operating a business development company, and has little or no experience in corporate finance and corporate mergers.”

62: An uninhabitable, fire-damaged Silicon Valley house sells for more than $1.5 million.

90: Beenz.

Happy Birthday Russ

Those of you who’ve been reading this site for a while will have come across references to Russ, my best friend in this country, and a prominent feature on my worldwide list as well. It’s his birthday today.

Most of what I’ve written here about Russ doesn’t really do much to sum him up in any substantial way, but what I think it does reflect is the fact that he’s a constant in my life in this country, a touchstone of sorts. A listener. A confider. An honest but understanding critic. A renderer of invaluable practical assistance. A source of comfortable companionship. A crucial causative factor in my future death from mobile phone overuse-induced brain cancer…

Due to my general uselessness these past few days, I haven’t managed to get him anything yet. But what I can manage for today, which admittedly isn’t much, is this:

Various Aspects Of Russ As Seen In This Blog:

Tech Support Russ

Moral Support Russ

Rower Russ

Christmas at Russ’s.

Russ Invades.

Addiction Warner Russ

Freaky Telepathic Russ

Paris with Russ

Photographer Russ

Reassuring Presence Russ

Very Tired Russ (on my 21st birthday)

Giver Of Wonderful Birthday Presents Russ

Miscellaneous Time Wasting With Russ

Happy birthday, Russ. :)

Never Again

Never again. Never again. I just walked such a fine line between skin-of-my-teeth punctuality and disastrous tardiness for handing in my course essay that the soles of my feet are still bleeding, and I have to go return the lamp post I stole for a balancing pole.

I’m obviously exaggerating, and not in a particularly amusing way, but I’m still reeling from the experience. With this essay, I would have taken procrastination and apathy to new heights, but I never got round to bothering. Five days just got wasted producing an essay I’m not at all satisfied with, and I still ended up making a desperate, panting and flailing entrance into the law faculty at three minutes past five, which meant I then had to grovel before they’d accept it.

This is not how an intelligent person does things.