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Yet another reason why Feministing is quite often quite idiotic:

"...I appreciate that the White House's interaction with the press corp is beginning to reflect the bilingualism of our country, but also the world...."

..ahahaha, seriously? 'Cause in America they only speak English and Spanish, you know. The rest of the world just speaks Foreign.

Let's see, what else? Things learned at two in the afternoon, flat on your back in a flat-bottomed boat, feet in the air: the English summer is rightly the mockery of the world at large, but sometimes, sometimes it's all perfect. Sometimes it lingers the right side of twenty degrees for a blissful couple of hours, sometimes the grass is immaculate green and the flowers droop handsomely into the clear river, sometimes it's two in the afternoon and you're drunk on champagne.

...from which it may, perhaps, be deduced that I finished my exams on Monday morning, having dispensed with land and then criminal law, emerged into the sunshine with my baby lawyer friends and the party adjourned to a punt, with two boxes of strawberries and a bottle of sparkling pink bubbly, and eight very classy plastic champagne flutes. Apparently every woman in the world other than me can punt competently, even the Norwegian friend who never stepped in a punt before in her life (apparently it's not a real boat without a figurehead and a few axes sticking out of the prow), so I lay in the bottom and looked up at the sky and got tipsy. It was heavenly, in just the Malory Towers meaning of the word, perhaps with the strategic addition of alchohol.

Criminal went better than land, I think. My land exam was rushed, because for a lot of the problem questions I knew I could do a decent answer if given twice the time, but as it was I was just sitting there thinking "easements! covenants! Wheeldon v Burrows! shit!" and scribbling. In the end, my answer hinged on the vital point of llamas. If you have covenanted not to keep cattle on your land, are you in breach if you subsequently start a llama farm? The jury, consisting of yours truly, is out.

I related this somewhat incoherently to

teh_elb and

dr_biscuit at the weekend, having been invited to a barbecue at Untold Blessings and being somewhat bemused throughout at the thought of a successful barbecue in England. It was bright and summery and very civilised. And then I went home and read about fraud, blackmail, assault and murder in preparation for Monday, which did, yes, go a lot better. I wrote a long and rambly essay about liability accruing for omissions, and two disparate problem questions about A's liability for murder when he throws itching powder at C while meaning to hit B, and then liability accruing for theft when D and E go out to the shops and nefariously acquire photos, flowers, mushrooms and too much change that they subsequently spend on drink.

So... four exams done, if, please god, I have passed these two, and three, plus the legal research project, to go. I can do this, yes. No going mad here. (We'll carefully not talk about the last couple of weeks, or today. Yes.)

In the meantime, I am still reading Lois McMaster Bujold, and have just got through Young Miles and half of Cetaganda. And, um, yay. They're really great. Really, really great. I love the complexity of the world-building, and the politics, and the way the characters are all real people rather than ray-gun-wielding desperadoes, and yes, I have a lot of love. Which is not what I was saying at the end of The Warrior's Apprentice, because, um, I am not as fond of Miles as I ought to be, I think. I loved Cordelia's narrative voice, and Miles is great fun in a lot of the same ways, but unlike Cordelia... okay. How to put it? Everything goes right for Miles. Of course, he has the crippling disability to mark him out, and that is such an interesting idea - Miles, who has every privilege, the little Vor lordling with money, prestige, education, boundlesss intelligence and energy, everything he wants, and yet, he's not like Ivan, because of his very visible and relevant disability. And in the beginning this is a factor, yes, and it's interesting and it makes him human rather than perfect. But when he becomes Admiral Naismith, and runs around the galaxy balancing everything on a thread, and fights the battle and solves the plot and saves his father and the emperor and comes back to get into the Academy just like he wanted in the first place - I was thinking, but, but, where's the punchline to this? Isn't the house of cards collapsing a narrative imperative? Especially when Miles, you know, treats Elena horribly, and has this tendency to treat other people like pawns anyway, and... yeah. The happy ending didn't sit right for me.

I liked The Mountains of Mourning much better, partly because, I must say, I was sort of geekily excited to see how Barryaran legal procedure works. (Shut up.) But also, you get to see Miles thoughtful and discomfited and interesting, not magic wunderkind, so, yes. And The Vor Game is a lot better in this regard, especially as there is lots of Gregor and I like him a lot better than Miles. I really like him, actually, because he's so plausibly done: obviously, he cannot be a mad emperor, because that would just derail the series; but equally, he can't be just and sane and, er, perfect, look at his life and circumstances. So instead he becomes the quiet, withdrawn, just and good man, but who gets up one night and steps off a balcony, because he's no magical wunderkind either. (And he and Miles make a nice pair, then: Miles with his physical impairments, Gregor with his mental ones, his depression and fear that his sanity is pasted on yay. And, this is getting to be a long parenthesis but how much do I love that Gregor's depression is not given moral value? It doesn't make him a hero or villain - it's just a thing. They're also, um, really cute. They threaten to stuff cream pies up each other's noses. Awww.)

I am now reading Cetaganda, and, well, so far I like it, Ivan is adorable. But. Um. Okay. I was kind of hoping this was not a, um, pale universe? But so far it seems suspiciously... less than chromatic. Yeah.

Okay, now I shall go and do some work.

Oh, no, wait, no I won't. About Gregor, whom I think I am going to just continue to fangirl.

shimgray and I are having a ~~fight~~ ~~shouting match~~ reasonable debate about how you pronounce his name. Shim thinks like Gregory without the Y; I think with a long E as in "evil", because it's a Russian name and Barrayar's cultural landscape does seem to be heavily derived from imperial Russia. I am interested to hear your thoughts, dear flist, especially as last time I asked I discovered that no two of you pronounce "Vorkosigan" the same way, so.

Anyway! Infinite diversity in infinite combinations! I return to public law!

eta: I recommend you read

emily_shore's comment below; she kindly addresses my fail.

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After that conversation I did my own research into the question, and came to the conclusion that llamas are cute.

Having not read a page of the Vorkosigan saga, I vote for "Grigor", because that's how you say "Grigori", meaning "The Watchers", which are cool for all sorts of non-Buffy related reasons.

Is that your exams over, or do you have more to go? *hugs and holds back celebratory huzzah*

They are, aren't they? The question was about Tristan and Isolde retiring to the countryside to start a llama farm. I like this idea, somehow.

My exams... are over, sort of. This batch, yes, but the next batch are all of six weeks away, so maybe not a celebratory huzzah. Maybe a celebratory huzzah. Thank you for hugs!

I've always pronounced it Shim's way, but you make a reasonable point about the Barrayaran heritage.

Vorkosigan I've always pronounced with a short 'o' - I guess that's the major dispute? Unless people say 'koseegan', hmm. Kosigan with a long 'o' doesn't sound quite right.

I've just finished Barrayar - at some point I need to read whatever comes after Miles, Mystery and Mayhem.

I have just discovered that Dreamweaver's Dilemma (a random collection of essays, etc) has a pronunciation guide in the back.

vohr-KOH-sih-gn

vohr-BAA-ruh, GREH-gohr

I was just about to email you to make sure exams hadn't killed you! Your brief interlude of no-exams sounds lovely, and I'm sort of jealous that in Oxford one seems to casually go punting all the time. :)

No exams killing me! It is awesome. There are more soon but we don't talk about that.

See, now, theoretically one can go punting here whenever one likes. But it's only fun in the summer, and we only have that every couple of years. :P

My favourite (for given values of "favourite") Sun headline of recent months: ONE IN FOUR PRIMARY CHILDREN SPEAK FOREIGN. No irony, I'm afraid.

That was the actual wording? (Come on, it's the Sun, I can't be sure) That's possibly even better than FATTIES CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING this week...

That was driving me around the bend. Because if you're size 10 and drive to the gym to spend half an hour on a crosstrainer, your carbon emissions smell of roses!

Thin people emit the good kind of carbon. They leave a shower of tiny diamonds in their wake.

I really loved the Mountains of Mourning. The warrior's apprentice was my first LMB, and it was very fun, and I enjoyed the narrative of a primary character with a(n actual rather than just social) disability and the way she explored that. But MoM was when I sat up and and said 'ooh'.

Well done on beating those exams ded!

MoM is lovely, isn't it? I love the slow pace of it, too... no explosions, for once! (well, only a little one.) Just a really good plot, and good characters to put in it.

Congrats on finishing your exams! I can't punt either, by the way. I think it's much better to get other people to do it for me. :)

With regard to Bujold, you're absolutely right about the chromatic thing. Bah.

On the other hand, I think you're coming across as a bit, shall we say, less than clueful when discussing the issue of Miles' disability. I was discussing this with

vescoiya and the thing is that disabled characters usually have the whole tragic woeful angst-ridden thing in spades. Just like the whole Tragic Doomed Lesbian cliche. So wanting it all to collapse like a house of cards seems rather unfair to a group of people who almost never see themselves positively represented in literature. So Miles is a bit wildly lucky in the first book. His life as a whole is incredibly non-easy and his disability means that he *has* to prove himself over and over again in his own society.

Of course, he has the crippling disability to mark him out, and that is such an interesting idea - Miles, who has every privilege, the little Vor lordling with money, prestige, education, boundlesss intelligence and energy, everything he wants, and yet, he's not like Ivan, because of his very visible and relevant disability. And in the beginning this is a factor, yes, and it's interesting and it makes him human rather than perfect.

And this sounds a bit like you're treating his disability as a sort of accessory that has no meaning beyond making him more entertaining. Like taking a white male character and making him a woman or a person of color just to add to the diversity quotient. I actually think that Bujold thought it out a lot more than that. His disability is a factor all through the series and she actually makes it fundamental to his identity, personality, and how he approaches the world. He's not a token disabled person and he's not, you know, able-bodied on the inside.

So I'm sorry to have to be critical but I was actually a bit surprised by this because you're usually so insightful in your commentary.

On your second point, I think you're absolutely right. I certainly didn't mean to assert that his disability is token or meaningless, but on re-reading it does come across that way. Thank you for calling me on it.

About the house of cards thing, it's that Miles gets away with treating people badly that bothers me, not that I want "angst in spades". I didn't split the two issues out so, again, your comment is appreciated, thank you; the thought of an anti-trope narrative hadn't occurred to me and I appreciate the thwap. I did want to see some fallout from how Miles treats Elena, though, and how he manipulates everyone around him. Does that make sense? He doesn't treat people well, and there doesn't seem to be any acknowledgement in the narrative of that.

I did want to see some fallout from how Miles treats Elena, though, and how he manipulates everyone around him.

For fallout from the second half of that sentence, wait until you get to A Civil Campaign (and possibly Komarr as well--but the bits I'm remembering are more in ACC, I think). It will come.

My shameful Vorkosigan fangirl secret is that I'm pretty sure I've never finished Cetaganda. It's definitely my least favorite of the series.

Oh, and I've always preferred Cordelia's voice to Miles's as well. I wish she showed up more in the later books--I mean, she does, but not enough for my taste. I would actually like to see LMB go back and write some stuff to fill in the gaps between Barrayar and Warrior's Apprentice.

My mental pronounciation of "Gregor" tends to be something like GRAY-gore, and I probably sound like a campy vampire when I say it out loud. Um, yeah, refer to LMB's pronounciation guide that

shimgray posted.

I did want to see some fallout from how Miles treats Elena, though, and how he manipulates everyone around him. Does that make sense? He doesn't treat people well, and there doesn't seem to be any acknowledgement in the narrative of that.

Yeah, that does make sense.

vescoiya (the secret source of all my good ideas) had some thoughts about his experience of his disability possibly having contributed to his need to control the people and situations around him. I'm not sure I'm expressing it very well, though. It's an interesting idea.

As

icepixie says, Miles does grow a lot in later books and have some of the arrogance (or surface bravado, more accurately) knocked out of him.

And thanks for taking my comment on board. Much appreciated.

He doesn't treat people well, and there doesn't seem to be any acknowledgement in the narrative of that.

You have to wait until there is a veiwpoint that isn't miles to get acknowledgement of this (because _of course_ miles doesn't think he treats anyone badly). Ivan in a civil campaign, and Ekaterin, but you have to wait ages for it. I think Quinn picks him up on it too.

There's a second viewpoint in Brothers in Arms, but I can't remember if this realisation shows up there or not.

Oh, and thank you for exam-finishing congratulations! It is a great relief to me, I must say. And, er, didn't you help punt to Islip? That indicates a certain level of punting competence to me...

Hahahahahaha. I *organized* the trip to Islip. This involved lying in the bottom of the boat with a chocolate bar and a map, going "watch out for that tree." Actually I paddled a bit but that was it.

Sitting by the river just now, I just saw a one-man kayak collide with a passenger boat. I tried so hard not to laugh. Nevertheless I dismally failed.

Yay for finishing exams!

Also I, too, am in the middle of the Vorkosigan saga (just started Brothers in Arms today) and it is so awesomely awesome. I like the fact that there's a disabled character (for obvious reasons, and he does get less annoying as you progress through the books).

Also, I pronounce Gregor like Gregory, but this is probably because I don't have the books in braille and am using text-to-speech to read them.

Yaaaay! It is made of win. I like how many of my friends seem to be reading these at the same time as me. And you seem to be in the majority about Gregor's name! I confess myself corrected.

Mile's happy endings are.... not always allowed to be as unproblematic as the early ones. The further through the series you get, the more things have consequences that come back to bite people. I... gah, there are some things later in the series I can't wait to share thoughts with you on; and how the different characters deal differently with depression/mental-health issues throughout the series is one of my favourite things about the saga.

But yes. Gregor! Ivan!

(I pronounce it to rhyme with Gregory, but with a... non-english-R; but then all my russian pronounciation is left-of-centre because of the yiddish :D)

The universe is not exclusively white; but it is definitely a suspiciously palish-colour. I definitely remember characters of south asian descent and appearance in Falling Free; and I seem to remember that in Brothers In Arms, which is the one set on Future Earth, things are a bit more chromatic. I think it's something she gets more conscious of the fact that she's doing wrong as she goes along, and then tries to fix, which does end up with a slightly pasted-on-yey feel. I don't remember any inverted-commas-main-characters being specifically chromatic; but I don't remember any dead bros walking, either. Which is... yeah, a real shame; considering how great she gets at neurodiversity; body-diversity and body issues of all types; non-binary-gender; sexuality and a whole host of other issues.

Their are characters of colour in her fantasy series. There are even queer characters of colour.

Dude, the current rate of reading means it won't be long before I grab you and make you Talk To Me About This Stuff. Unfortunately you don't get much choice in the matter. :)

Yeah... I was surprised, really, because the universe is so well-realised in other ways. It's nice to know that at least she doesn't fall into the tired old white-or-dead clichés, at least; I've been thinking about race in relation to SFF a lot more recently because I just re-read Earthsea, and had forgotten about the world-spanning awesome.

how the different characters deal differently with depression/mental-health issues throughout the series is one of my favourite things about the saga.

Particularly how the little Admiral isn't a happy fairy tale, and Cordelia/Aral arguing about how miles is the sane one vs. he split his personality just to cope.

See, my yay at the end of The Warrior's Apprentice was SO much based on Elena not shagging Miles, I can't even tell you. I was totally worried it would go that way, and it didn't! But yeah, I have not read a lot of LMB yet but Miles-actually-having-trouble is a lot more interesting than totally-winning-cause-he's-MILES-Miles (although I like a combination of both). Cordelia, in my experience so far, rocks Miles' socks off.

(Also I don't know of any chromatic characters either, which is sad and odd in a series that is otherwise so ace on these points, even if Falling Free has some sliiightly dubious sex in.)

Oh and also also: YAY YOU FINISHED EXAMS AND ARE STILL ALIVE. Well done!

OK, going by previous comment there may be chromatic characters in Falling Free that I missed... which I am torn between feeling bad about as a personal flaw and seeing as an example of how those characters didn't have a discernable culture or identity that wasn't fundamentally the same white cultural identity that the rest of the characters have. I am too tired to figure that out right now, but I am leaning towards 'a bit of both'.

Oh, dude, I totally agree with you on that point! Elena being awesome despite Miles is... well, awesome. And kind of Cordeliaesque. Er, yeah.

Thank you! The fact of my still being alive is of continuous amazement to me...

I wouldn't say Miles won decisively in The Warrior's Apprentice. He did lose Elena to Baz. He lost Bothari. He was almost executed upon his return and inadvertently forced his father to beg for his life. With those things to give balance, I didn't find his victory so...unbelievable or undeserved.

I cannot remember enough about Barrayar, and seek to avoid saying the names of SFF characters unless someone else says them first, and know nothing about law, so I'm going to be terribly British and talk about the weather. Hasn't it been lovely? The sunshine makes it seem like such a shame that one has to, you know, study, and write dissertations, and stuff.

I just spent a nice and entirely unproductive hour watching the ducks. And the geese. And the nice elderly man in the one-man kayak hitting a passenger boat amidships. Lovely day! :)

Watching ducks and geese is wonderful. It's one of the things I love most about Nottingham's campus--a couple of friends and I came out of a terribly technical lecture on Philosophy of Mathematics today and bought lunch and sat by the lake and mocked our lecturer and debated Godel and enjoyed the sunshine, and it was wonderful.

That does sound lovely. I love Nottingham's campus - my abiding memory of it is grass, flowers, more grass, more flowers, how about a water feature, more flowers - and you're making me think longingly about academic philosophy again! Nofaaaaaair, etc. :)

Heh. maybe I can help with that, with the following observation:

Conducted with friends while strewn over freshly cut grass by the lakeside, with sunshine warming your thoughts, academic philosophy is the best way to spend an afternoon. Sadly, it is deeply marred as a longer term activity by the requirements to read other people's papers, pass exams, write essays, and know what you're talking about.

Yay, you finished exams! When are your last three exams? Your timetable confuses me, I'm not used to there being exams quite at this time of year; exams come in January or May/June, not April!

And hurrah for punting and champagne. *g* You should try punting in Cambridge one day (sacreligious, I know, I'm sorry); I found it a lot easier there than in Oxford. I can't remember what the difference is, but I know there is one...

Exams definitely don't come at this time of year unless you have eleventy million exams in the one year. :) I have the last three in the first week of June.

Also? I am convinced I would fail at punting in Cambridge too. I fail at punting everywhere. I think the difference there is the person doing the punting is at the front of the boat rather than the back. It is on such points that wars have been fought.

I have brainfail, but I am adoring reading everyone's thoughts on the Vorkosigan Saga.

Dude, I have such immense brainfail I couldn't read my LJ comments today. This, I think, is a first.

Since I have no idea what any of this is about, I'll talk about something that I do vaguely understand, the White House Briefing.

Talking about the USA as a bilingual country is rather wishful thinking. I was amazed to find out the other day that only 10% of the population speak Spanish (admittedly, that probably doesn't count illegal immigrants). And 95% of the population speak English.

One of the US' great myths about itself is that it's this great melting pot. In a way it's true, because there are all sorts of different influences on American culture, but the USA is also so insular culturally, unlike even Britain, which has always had interaction with European culture (plus, you know, all those colonies), and of course the influx of American culture.

So what I'm trying to say is, yes,it's a nice gesture and a sizeable minority of Americans have Spanish as their first or even only language (mainly in the South West), the place is far more homogeneous than many would like to believe (on both right and left). English is the de facto language for almost all Americans; Wales is more of a bilingual place

Yay for finishing exams!

It is interesting that you mentioned language and the use of the term "Foreign" because it's something my English teacher brought up just this morning. He was teaching a class one time and explaining what bilingual meant. He said "So if someone is bilingual, they speak two languages. What do we call someone who only speaks one language?" A kid put up his hand and said "English." Hahahahahahaha and that is a TRUE STORY.

*unrelated to the post*

I am having a moment of not-being-able-to-remember-something-that-doesn't-actually-matter-in-my-life, and you can help. What is your cat's name?

My sentence to Mole started, "Yeah, my friend had a cat which was a girl and turned out to be a boy, but it was still called...
...
Um. It was called. Hmm."

Harriet! Harriet Jones-Vane-Taylor-Mill, to be more specific.

I had a thought in the shower this morning related to you and Mole, and that thought was this: you should come to next year's Taruithorn Banquet. yes.

*giggles* When I googled it to find out what it is, the first result was a photo-album owned by Mole. XD

ETA: Forgot important bit - yes! Yes, would love to.

Edited 2009-04-24 05:39 (UTC)

I ordered Shards of Honour yesterday!

If you have covenanted not to keep cattle on your land, are you in breach if you subsequently start a llama farm? The jury, consisting of yours truly, is out.

I always think llamas and their ilk are closer to sheep than cattle, being wool-producing creatures (does anyone drink llama milk in the UK?).

Enjoy your between-exams time.

Just to say, having spent the first two months of this year reading ALL THE VORKOSIGAN I am coming back to these tags and am SUDDENLY DELIGHTED.

Also: THERE IS YULETIDE? SHIT, THERE GO EXAMS

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