this little universe between
Apr. 6th, 2008 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenI'm on my way back to London. Pause for deep groaning. It's been a week, and there's another week to go, and I don't want to go back.
My job is stressful in a number of significant ways, but most significant of these is perhaps the pressure to be, er, normal. As I keep bemoaning, mostly for comic effect but with a kernel of sincerity, it is hard, after three years as a undergraduate and many many years of being a geek, to be a respectable member of society; to get up in the morning and go to work and come home after five, yes, but more than that, to not say every sentence that comes into my head, to be respectable and respectful, polite and politic, hidden but not hiding. It's hard to explain, but you all know what I mean.
Several things mitigate this, though. Firstly, most importantly: I enjoy the work. I do. As a student attached to a lawyer who is himself a trainee, it's not like I get particularly vital tasks to do, but when bits of paper land on my desk, usually, I can do it. I've been asked to copy-edit things, to draft things, to summarise and neaten things, and, well, while none of these are particularly important in themselves, I see them outlining the shape of the greater objective. I'm a great believer in good writing, as no one in the world can fail to know at this point, but of two types: of the literary type, the type I look for when I read and write fiction, where the object is the art of it, so you catch your breath at it; and of the everyday, prosaic type that is just prose beautiful in its very effectiveness, so it may only be a notice or an article or a note to a friend, but it serves its purpose absolutely and perfectly without a single word out of place.
Working for a law firm, there is a lot of the second type. Litigation happens when there is a word out of place. So I find myself drafting things and using two sets of instincts at once - the ones that say does this scan right? and is this perfectly understandable? and what are the connotations denoted by this and that adjective?, the ones I use every time I put words down, in other words; but also the ones I use when trying to do philosophy, the ones that pop up at the back of my head and say things like there's a hole in that and there's scope for ambiguity there and why hello there vicious circularity my old friend.
Which is all a lengthy ramble in order to say, yes, I can do this. Not now, maybe, but this is work that would suit my brain, eventually. My being intimidated by the whole thing has far more to with the environment - grown-up work! grown-up clothes! not sure what's going on! etc. - than the nature of the work. And this is a useful thing to have learned in these two weeks. We shall see.
(In the meantime, I am amused to note that my usual trick of absorbing other people's writing styles persists onwards. I'm pretty sure my prose isn't usually this carefully punctuated or legalistic.)
The other significant mitigating factor is the fact that the trainee who's looking after me is frighteningly similar to me in personality. A few days ago, he asked me if I was going to a social evening being put on for the vacation students, and I said, "Um... I'm not sure... I don't like..."
He lit up visibly and said, "Oh, thank god, if you don't want to go I don't have to go either!" and disappeared grinning. He has also discovered that I am having quiet fits over my Finals, and has taken to telling me to go and research X, Y, or Z in the library, when we are both safe in the knowledge that X, Y, and Z don't exist, and what he really means is go and hide in a corner for an hour and read about philosophy of mind.
This suits me fine, naturally. It's a nice enough place. I just am frightened about Finals, and a little lost in a new place, and I'm living in an equally nice enough student room at LSE, which would be just fine if it weren't for the fact the people across the landing keep having domestic disputes in angry Polish, the couple next door either fight a lot or have lots of vigorous sex, I'm not entirely sure (there is much thumping) and just outside the window the council are digging up the road. I haven't been getting much sleep.
Which is one of the reasons I was so very glad to leave London.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shimgray was visiting for a couple of days, and then we went back to Oxford on Friday night - I was exhausted and sleep-deprived; he was snuffling and sounding vaguely consumptive - and fell into bed and slept for twelve hours. It was a joy. And then we spent Saturday buying food - I cooked real food for the first time in months! With vegetables and fresh chillies and forethought! - sleeping, reading philosophy of mind (well, I did that; specifically, the functionalist wars over liberal ascription of mentality, which is one of my favourite parts of philosophy on the threefold grounds that it is incredibly interesting, analytically rigorous and sounds to the uninitiated like a one-way trip to dried-frog-pill-land) and finally, in the evening, watching Doctor Who with jacinthsong (my ex-wife is back from Forn Parts! hurrah, hurrah!), zed92uk, slasheuse and chiasmata.
No detailed review from me on that, I'm afraid. But, ah, it was fun. I love Doctor Who. I do, unashamedly. And Donna is awesome, and Martha is made of awesome, yes she is, this cannot be reiterated enough, and the episode plot was ridiculous and fun, too. We quickly started referring to the little creatures as the Pilsbury Doughboy babies, and there was thwapping of the screen when Rose appeared (urrrrgh), and oh, yes, Donna will be good for the Doctor. There was a tiny wee cheer when he finally picked up her bags and hefted them into the TARDIS. "Planet of the hats? I'm ready!" Yes. I, too, am very ready for new Doctor Who. Hurrah, etc. It's just so very comforting.
And, so, yes. Today,shimgray came running in and said, "Iona, you have to see this, you won't believe me if I tell you."
I followed him to the window, looked out, looked at him, looked out the window again, started to laugh. A sparkling blue day, a bright-lit intensity to the grass, the sky, and on the roofs and trees and garden, a thick coat of snow. Snow. On April 6th, two weeks after Easter, snow. I rangjacinthsong and said, in the voice of one profound and undone, "Laura, it's snowing."
To which her very understandable response was, "Are you just getting up now and realising this?"
Two o'clock, oh dear. I walked back into the city mid-afternoon and watched the snow flurry off branches with the sun sparkling through, piles of it dripping softly into the river by Folly Bridge, people laughing and chucking it at each other at Christ Church. Today was the last day of the literary festival, but it looked like they were just playing in the snow. I went to Wadham, dodged the melting snow-creatures on the lawns, and spent the next five-and-a-half hours on in one ofjacinthsong's armchairs, reading about psychofunctionalism and drinking peppermint tea, because there are, even now, quiet constants in my life.
It's taken me about an hour to write this, with pauses to look out the window at the landscape whipping past, and there was snow left behind at first, showing through the grass in frozen lines, but this is the beginning of London, just about, and it's gone. And, well. I know Oxford by this time; I know it's beautiful in all lights and moods, but I stepped back on Friday night and it slipped back into place as the background to my life, without fanfare. I'm tired of being up north and down south, I'm tired of travelling, I'm tired of missing my own life; I'm ready to go home. I will be back on Saturday, and then my life gets uncomplicated again. Just Finals, and people who are also finalists, and the rhythm of work and sleep and occasional fresh air and blue sky, and Oxford. It's comforting. As well as the beauty of it, walking through snow, there's another layer beneath; I'm tired, I'm a little ill, I have had a weekend in which I have been quietly, uncomplicatedly happy, and it's still there, like a scent that lingers in your hair.
My job is stressful in a number of significant ways, but most significant of these is perhaps the pressure to be, er, normal. As I keep bemoaning, mostly for comic effect but with a kernel of sincerity, it is hard, after three years as a undergraduate and many many years of being a geek, to be a respectable member of society; to get up in the morning and go to work and come home after five, yes, but more than that, to not say every sentence that comes into my head, to be respectable and respectful, polite and politic, hidden but not hiding. It's hard to explain, but you all know what I mean.
Several things mitigate this, though. Firstly, most importantly: I enjoy the work. I do. As a student attached to a lawyer who is himself a trainee, it's not like I get particularly vital tasks to do, but when bits of paper land on my desk, usually, I can do it. I've been asked to copy-edit things, to draft things, to summarise and neaten things, and, well, while none of these are particularly important in themselves, I see them outlining the shape of the greater objective. I'm a great believer in good writing, as no one in the world can fail to know at this point, but of two types: of the literary type, the type I look for when I read and write fiction, where the object is the art of it, so you catch your breath at it; and of the everyday, prosaic type that is just prose beautiful in its very effectiveness, so it may only be a notice or an article or a note to a friend, but it serves its purpose absolutely and perfectly without a single word out of place.
Working for a law firm, there is a lot of the second type. Litigation happens when there is a word out of place. So I find myself drafting things and using two sets of instincts at once - the ones that say does this scan right? and is this perfectly understandable? and what are the connotations denoted by this and that adjective?, the ones I use every time I put words down, in other words; but also the ones I use when trying to do philosophy, the ones that pop up at the back of my head and say things like there's a hole in that and there's scope for ambiguity there and why hello there vicious circularity my old friend.
Which is all a lengthy ramble in order to say, yes, I can do this. Not now, maybe, but this is work that would suit my brain, eventually. My being intimidated by the whole thing has far more to with the environment - grown-up work! grown-up clothes! not sure what's going on! etc. - than the nature of the work. And this is a useful thing to have learned in these two weeks. We shall see.
(In the meantime, I am amused to note that my usual trick of absorbing other people's writing styles persists onwards. I'm pretty sure my prose isn't usually this carefully punctuated or legalistic.)
The other significant mitigating factor is the fact that the trainee who's looking after me is frighteningly similar to me in personality. A few days ago, he asked me if I was going to a social evening being put on for the vacation students, and I said, "Um... I'm not sure... I don't like..."
He lit up visibly and said, "Oh, thank god, if you don't want to go I don't have to go either!" and disappeared grinning. He has also discovered that I am having quiet fits over my Finals, and has taken to telling me to go and research X, Y, or Z in the library, when we are both safe in the knowledge that X, Y, and Z don't exist, and what he really means is go and hide in a corner for an hour and read about philosophy of mind.
This suits me fine, naturally. It's a nice enough place. I just am frightened about Finals, and a little lost in a new place, and I'm living in an equally nice enough student room at LSE, which would be just fine if it weren't for the fact the people across the landing keep having domestic disputes in angry Polish, the couple next door either fight a lot or have lots of vigorous sex, I'm not entirely sure (there is much thumping) and just outside the window the council are digging up the road. I haven't been getting much sleep.
Which is one of the reasons I was so very glad to leave London.
shimgray was visiting for a couple of days, and then we went back to Oxford on Friday night - I was exhausted and sleep-deprived; he was snuffling and sounding vaguely consumptive - and fell into bed and slept for twelve hours. It was a joy. And then we spent Saturday buying food - I cooked real food for the first time in months! With vegetables and fresh chillies and forethought! - sleeping, reading philosophy of mind (well, I did that; specifically, the functionalist wars over liberal ascription of mentality, which is one of my favourite parts of philosophy on the threefold grounds that it is incredibly interesting, analytically rigorous and sounds to the uninitiated like a one-way trip to dried-frog-pill-land) and finally, in the evening, watching Doctor Who with jacinthsong (my ex-wife is back from Forn Parts! hurrah, hurrah!), zed92uk, slasheuse and chiasmata.No detailed review from me on that, I'm afraid. But, ah, it was fun. I love Doctor Who. I do, unashamedly. And Donna is awesome, and Martha is made of awesome, yes she is, this cannot be reiterated enough, and the episode plot was ridiculous and fun, too. We quickly started referring to the little creatures as the Pilsbury Doughboy babies, and there was thwapping of the screen when Rose appeared (urrrrgh), and oh, yes, Donna will be good for the Doctor. There was a tiny wee cheer when he finally picked up her bags and hefted them into the TARDIS. "Planet of the hats? I'm ready!" Yes. I, too, am very ready for new Doctor Who. Hurrah, etc. It's just so very comforting.
And, so, yes. Today,
shimgray came running in and said, "Iona, you have to see this, you won't believe me if I tell you."I followed him to the window, looked out, looked at him, looked out the window again, started to laugh. A sparkling blue day, a bright-lit intensity to the grass, the sky, and on the roofs and trees and garden, a thick coat of snow. Snow. On April 6th, two weeks after Easter, snow. I rang
jacinthsong and said, in the voice of one profound and undone, "Laura, it's snowing."To which her very understandable response was, "Are you just getting up now and realising this?"
Two o'clock, oh dear. I walked back into the city mid-afternoon and watched the snow flurry off branches with the sun sparkling through, piles of it dripping softly into the river by Folly Bridge, people laughing and chucking it at each other at Christ Church. Today was the last day of the literary festival, but it looked like they were just playing in the snow. I went to Wadham, dodged the melting snow-creatures on the lawns, and spent the next five-and-a-half hours on in one of
jacinthsong's armchairs, reading about psychofunctionalism and drinking peppermint tea, because there are, even now, quiet constants in my life. It's taken me about an hour to write this, with pauses to look out the window at the landscape whipping past, and there was snow left behind at first, showing through the grass in frozen lines, but this is the beginning of London, just about, and it's gone. And, well. I know Oxford by this time; I know it's beautiful in all lights and moods, but I stepped back on Friday night and it slipped back into place as the background to my life, without fanfare. I'm tired of being up north and down south, I'm tired of travelling, I'm tired of missing my own life; I'm ready to go home. I will be back on Saturday, and then my life gets uncomplicated again. Just Finals, and people who are also finalists, and the rhythm of work and sleep and occasional fresh air and blue sky, and Oxford. It's comforting. As well as the beauty of it, walking through snow, there's another layer beneath; I'm tired, I'm a little ill, I have had a weekend in which I have been quietly, uncomplicatedly happy, and it's still there, like a scent that lingers in your hair.
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no subject
on 2008-04-06 09:03 pm (UTC)Yes. I do; I really do. Oh goodness. *clings quietly*
no subject
on 2008-04-08 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-06 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-08 05:50 pm (UTC)Have some David Tennant cosplay:
on 2008-04-09 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-07 12:10 am (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
on 2008-04-08 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-07 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-08 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-07 04:06 am (UTC)Oh, THAT'S what she said! Three times watching it, and I totally didn't get it. Yeesh, me and accents.
no subject
on 2008-04-08 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-08 05:58 pm (UTC)I HEART ACCENTS! YAY!
no subject
on 2008-04-08 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-08 06:04 pm (UTC)I'm pretty much standard American, with a little bit of a New York twist. Not the annoying "New Yawwwk" -- that's mostly for people on Long Island and southern New Jersey -- but... I dunno. Pretty standard, I guess. Theatre school will do that to you!
no subject
on 2008-04-07 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-08 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-04-09 06:33 pm (UTC)This strikes me as a marvellous variant on the traditional "send the apprentice for a left-handed spanner".