In Which Our Heroine Picks Up the Pace
Things are busy. And things are getting busier. I had a fun weekend, but again a busy one. Movies with Lola on Saturday, where we saw "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" which was spectacularly better than I thought it would be. Personally, I was all for opting for "The Quiet American" which I still want to see anyway, but never mind. It was chick flick time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Really, the movie was so much better than it looked from the previews. A delightful suprise.

THings started to pick up on Sunday. I went to a friend's for brunch, and after a good nosh on french toast, mangos and bacon, we lounged around doing what you do on Sunday afternoons - putting together furniture, moving other furniture and cleaning! Then a quick shopping expedition to Home Depot, from whence I came home and commenced spackling the bedroom. There are a LOT of cracks in the bedroom walls. It was only a small tub, but I am already out of spackle. Never mind, it leaves me more time to figure out the layout of the mural I want to paint on my bedroom wall. I am trying to make an arrangement of my favorite poem ("Your Laughter" by Pablo Neruda), but I can't even decide whether to do it in English or the original Spanish, much less decide my definitive method for laying it out. What I do know is that I am painting it in a pale green (I was thinking something darker, but the paint chips proved that the options were not ideal.) because a) I like green, and b) Neruda wrote the poem in green ink, as he believe that green was the colour of love. Like many great poets and artists, he was a little loopy.

The quest to HD for paint is always an interesting one. I feel that all I have learned about painting, I have learned from Siouxie and Chris. Tip one: make *sure* you take the paint chips out from under the flourescent light of the paint chip display. It really does make a difference. Show no fear. The fact that there are 27 different shades of white by each paint manufacturer should not phase you. Ignore the names. The fact that the paint I chose ("snowdrift") seems to be whiter than the "white on white" chip is not a problem. It is a colour I like. That's what matters. The snowdrift is a softer white. Given the weather this week, if I get my act in gear, there will be all kinds of opportunity to match it up and see if it is a true name.

And then of course it was Monday. Monday is internship day. Now, I love my internship, but it is way the heck out in Bedford, which is a schlep involving the bus to the T to another bus. All in all, it is about an hour and forty minute trek. There's no question it is worth it, but on a cold morning to get up extra early to get ready and make the trek seems daunting. But I did, and got there, finished my memo, and then had some time to kill before getting my next assignment. I busied myself with auction stuff (donations are starting to come in), the e-commerce book (I'm getting a lot of freedom and responsibility, but with this comes a lot of time consuming work), and in fact I managed to get yet another assignment from a friend regarding French Privacy Regulations. All the lines on the resume I can get. And it is all interesting. Throw in homework, trying to get temp work, trying to get paid legal work, and I'm a busy girl. Oops! Forgot Thursday's presentation on the English Legal System. I'm almost ashamed to admit this is taking research. But it is. First of all, since I've graduated, they changed all the terminology. There are no more articled clerks, there are instead trainee solicitors. Barristers don't go to bar school any more, they attend bar vocational training. And so on and so forth. Plus, when actually presented with the opportunity to give a presentation on this subject, it is difficult to see what people are going to want to know about it. Never forgetting, of course, the overriding consideration of actually putting together a cohesive presentation. Last week started off well with a history of Roman law, but then faltered on the introduction to the English legal system. Quick summaries of history, veering off in all directions. I"m more confused than I ever was before. Just because you get a Power Point presentation, it doesn't mean that you have to abuse it. People need to learn better how to use PP, in my opinion. I'm not sure I use my slides enough, actually. To me, they're just reference points. You don't want too much text on them - the goal is to give a presentation, not to read off what you have on the slides. Or at least that's the way I was brought up. And for goodness sakes, make it interesting! Throw people a bone. A little trivia, something they will walk away with, go out and use some day. For my part, if I can discourage people from saying "British Law" (there is no such thing - there are six different jurisdictions within Britain and while most overlap at least a bit, they are far from interchangable) then I feel I will have done something.

People do seem suprised that I am taking this seriously. Maybe too seriously? I do not think so. My grade is at stake, and if I don't put anything into it, I have no one to blame but myself when I come out of it.

I am even, as a handout, putting together a list of weblinks that give more information or might be interesting, and carrying on the tradtion of Di Birch's evidence class, am even trying to put together a list of handy "bedtime" reading sort of books for people with any further interest. Rumpole, that sort of thing. It is a little tricky, actually. Crime barristers get some good reads, but no one has really written the great excitement about a desk bound solicitor talking about trademark applications all day. For good reason! But there has to be some books somewhere with some interesting solicitor characters? If you know of any, please post them here in the comments section - I'm getting desperate.

So I'm swamped. And exhausted, for good reasons. It is a good, mental tired, but there is more work to do! Back to it!
Love,
Anne