EU law, and then a not-very-neat segue into blogging against racism

The European Court of Justice once described British Gas as "an emanation of the state". I do not find this at all hilarious. No. I did not giggle. Emanation of the state. Not at ALL funny.

Also, the key case establishing the doctrine of supremacy was Costa v. ENEL. "What happened in this case?" asked my EU tutor. "We all know, yes? An Italian man did not wish to pay for his electricity! This is correct!"

Yeah... I kind of love that major principles of law arise because one very stubborn man did not wish to pay eighty thousand lire for his electricity bill. I also kind of love my EU tutor, who is an affable Greek dude with a very funky lip piercing and a very resolutely pragmatic approach to teaching. "You do not understand? I explain it from now until tomorrow morning. Yes." I do not love EU law, having failed on numerous occasions to explain exactly how deeply, fundamentally, viscerally boring the law of the European Union is, because I sort of run out of adverbs and start babbling incoherently about the seventeenth boring secretariat of the boring Administrative Agency for Utter Tedium. So boring I literally cannot tell you.

From all of this, it may perhaps be deduced that today, I went to class. I didn't go in the morning - small steps, small steps! - but I went in this afternoon and worked and read and participated. It was almost fun. I put up my hand at one point and said, to the gentleman who was talking, that his comment was facile and unsophisticated and reflected a naive faith in the incorruptibility of EU institutions. Well, what I actually said was, "I keep feeling like there should be stirring music playing in the background of you talking."

And, it was amazing, people did not laugh at me or tell me I am thick or awful. Instead a couple of guys launched into an impromptu chorus of "Land of Hope and Glory". And then I said something else not very profound, to whit, the textbook author, whom people keep referring to as "he" is in fact a woman. Go me, etc. I went to class! What an achievement.

Mmmn, what else. My doctor is suggesting I change my meds at some unspecified point in the future, but we're working on that. Small steps. Tonight, I am going to see the Vagina Monologues. Tomorrow I get talk-therapied. None of these things are very interesting. What else.

Oh, yes, forthwritten and I are once again a two-women crusade trying to explain to the world that white people don't really have it that hard when they're excluded from discussions about race. It's come up in connection to ibarw, which has less white contributors this time around than it did last time. And... well. You know when you're very tired of making the same point over and over? Well, here it is again: I am a brown person, and I do not need white approval for my opinions on race. When I blog against racism, I don't care all that much about including white people in the discussion. Yeah, sometimes - sometimes education is the purpose of what I say and write, and sometimes, no, often, inclusion is best. But no one talking about race from the brown side of the paradigm has to set out the red carpet for white people, and they're crass to demand it. (As I said to forthwritten earlier, I must be feeling better! I'm picking fights with people on the internet!)

And... peripherally related to that. A small thing that I keep meaning to write about, because I am mildly crazy. When you see someone peering through a sheet with eyeholes in it, what do you think? I know what I think. One of my housemates has acquired from somewhere a Beanie Baby toy of a panda covered in a sheet with eyeholes. It is sitting on our mantelpiece and is scary as fuck. Well, it's supposed to be a Hallowe'en toy, I later discovered. It has a little basket that says "trick or treat". But. Yeah. I have so far resisted calling it "Ku Klux Klanda" out loud...

In good news, ghd hair straighteners are no longer explicitly racist. Hurrah. I think.

I go away to read contract, yesyes.