are you ready, boots?

I am a train from King's Cross to Edinburgh, having just had a lovely quick afternoon coffee in the British Library café with anotherusedpage and sent off happy to the far far north. I do love this journey; I suppose that in some way it's a privilege to live in a country that you can see the whole of in one afternoon. (Quite apart from anything, this train is going to Aberdeen. King's Cross to Aberdeen. Wow.) Livejournal's "detect" function thinks I am in Sweden - er, no. I am in Doncaster. The landscape was London suburbs, then it was rural, trees and houseboats, and now it's getting an industrial cast, with the occasional pylon to break up the verdant tameness of it all. Eventually you can see the sea for long stretches across the border. It makes me happy.

(The other people on the train make me less happy. The guy across from me finds me a great imposition; his very large feet are directly in the place where my very large feet ought to be, and I think he's stolen my biscuits. It is a battle of wills.)

(Also, the couple across the aisle actually are the world's most nauseating people. They have spent the two hours of the journey thus far in an artistic embrace, which has to be carefully sustained against the vagaries of stilleto heels and a moving train. They tilt from point to precarious point like human gyroscopes. I hope it's as uncomfortable as it looks.)

This has been a strange week. By the end, it was gaining rather a mini-pupillage air; I was shadowing a barrister around the Crown Court, and was, admittedly, a little tempted by the Bar. It's the ritual that's tempting, of course; the wigs - which are amazing, incidentally; I never did muster the courage to ask how they stay on - and robes and ceremony, which occasionally play the role that architectural solemnity does in other places (the Old Bailey, for all its venerability, is a little grimy on the inside), that have the appeal. I do wish, actually, that England and Wales had a fused profession, like they do in the US - it would make my life a lot easier. (In the meantime, I will never be anybody's learned friend.) Part of the reason I want to be a lawyer is because I want to be grounded by something: by a tradition, by a profession. Something to be, as well as something to do. I won't ever stop writing. Maybe I'll get a novel published before I die. But I need the day job for there to be peace in my head.

So, yes, after my adventures in the Crown Court, I spent the weekend with jacinthsong and vampire_kitten, who are their usual selves (Shim called me on Saturday morning; they both looked up, favoured me with identical smiles, and chorused, "Iona, come back to bed...") and we mostly did nothing at all, broken up with watching things. For some reason, I had not previously seen Imagine Me & You, a delightful, slight little romantic comedy about lesbians. It's a joy, everyone should watch it. Also, after some racking-of-brains we figured out that it has a cameo by the very lovely Angel Coulby at the end (Gwen from Merlin, to save anyone else the same brain-racking - she is all smiley and beautiful and really, everyone ought to see it).

This morning, I had an interview for a training contract with a nice City firm who have taken up residence in a converted Georgian house. The interview was... good. Yes, it was. I had prepared the usual questions, why do I want to be a lawyer, why this firm, etc., but wasn't asked any of them. It was an interesting interview, touched on politics, fandom and why it is a good idea to google yourself before any job interview, and it ran 15 minutes over, which I am told is a good sign, and... yes. I think nothing negative or positive, but I keep my fingers crossed. In further news of the career-related, I have another placement and training contract interview with a firm in Bristol in September. I have my fingers crossed about that, too.

(My mother informs me that at home, my postgraduate certificate has arrived. Despite everything - despite the crazy, despite the hideousness, despite enormous amounts of shouting about mitigating circumstances, I passed everything and graduated with commendation. In honour of the academic stage being over, I think it's time to inaugurate a new tag for my lawyerly adventures.)

...reading over, this post seems to be about nothing other than My Legal Career^TM and, er, trees. I do apologise. I have nothing much to do this week and may perhaps have the time to make interesting posts. I'm wondering how this can all be the same day - how this can all be the same life - but I will be in Edinburgh in an hour, where I plan to drape self loopily over Shim, and go gently into the night.