Two things for a Tuesday afternoon:

[raven]

1. Tomorrow, I am off at the crack of dawn for an interview for a training contract. This week's Big Legal Issue is definitely the Carter-Ruck/Trafigura kerfuffle, but I'm not as up on it as I ought to be - can anyone recommend interesting/comprehensive blog posts on the subject? Bonus points if they're written by lawyers and not laypeople, but anything is good.

And, while I spend a quiet afternoon addressing myself about my own good qualities in the mirror (yay, interview preparation; I think I am also going to eat a lot of cake), a meme for occasional distraction, from absinthe_shadow:

2. The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Right, to work, to work.

Comments

[beachlass.livejournal.com]

What area of law are you passionate about?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Mostly, I like the law that deals with individuals - employment law, family law, criminal law, even things like residential conveyancing. Intellectually it makes no difference - I like drafting, and I like applying precedents, and all that sort of thing where it's immaterial what bit of law you're actually dealing with - but I think I would find it very difficult to be really really enthused about a client that was actually a company, or a corporation. It's much more fun to take instructions from one person, and see how the work I do changes one life - gets them their job back, gets them out of prison, gets them into the pretty little cottage they always wanted. I really am an incurable romantic.

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Very best of louck for tomorrow. Afraid I've not really been following the Trafigura thing at all so can't help there, but from my experiences of training contract interviews if there was a question on current legal issues, which I think I only had once, it was very brief.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and hurrah, that's reassuring. I'm always afraid they're going to ask about Current Legal Issue I have no idea about.

[sir-rosealot.livejournal.com]

Best of luck with the interview!

I will ask you the same question I asked someone else, as I can never remember unless people talk about it a lot and we're getting to an age where it's more likely to be an issue: do you want to have children?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

And that's a good question. The quick answer is, probably not, but I'm not sure. I don't like children very much - I am an only child, so I've never spent much time around them, but what little time I have done, I haven't enjoyed! I'm one of those horribly awkward adults who just doesn't know how to treat people aged less than about ten. So, on balance, my opinions would have to change substantially for me to want them.

And in addition to that, well, the way things are, it seems as though any children I would have would be mixed-race, and that thought just fills me with horror - mixed-race children would face such struggles of identity and heritage, they'd face racism from one side and you're-not-really-one-of-us from the other, and I would just live in fear that I wouldn't a good enough parent to help them navigate that, that I just wouldn't be up to that task, you know? So that's another thing.

[lauds.livejournal.com]

Random passer-by comment: please don't let the mixed race issue have any impact on your decision to have kids! I am mixed and wouldn't have it any other way. It can be confusing but I think my life is actually much richer for it.

(Disclaimer: I know each individual situation is different but since my experience of being mixed has been a v.happy one, despite initial racism on both sides for my poor parents, felt the need to say something.)

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

Best of luck with the interview! Dazzle them with your brilliance! :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you! :) :)

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

Good luck!! ♥

I can never think of any questions...um, tell me about a favourite book from your childhood?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I liked school stories as a child - Malory Towers, Chalet School, etc. - but mostly I didn't read much fiction. (I liked Books With Diagrams.)

Oh, no, wait - have you ever come across Anastasia Krupnik, by Lois Lowry? It, and its sequels, are these delightful books about a girl called Anastasia living with her poet-and-artist parents in Cambridge, MA, in the late seventies. I love them so much, I nominated them for yuletide. :)

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think I read the Anastasia books! I read so many British and American books (and Australian, and Canadian, and even South African) growing up. There are New Zealand books written for children and teens, of course, but not enough to satisfy a bibliophile like me. And I liked reading about other places and other times, although I always preferred books about 'real' people to scifi or fantasy.

And I still have a soft spot for the Enid Blyton school stories, despite their utter ridiculousness.

Good luck for your interview!

ack, I am so late replying to comments

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, you've read it! I have such trouble finding anyone who's read those books. And yes, Blyton is ridiculous - but it bears up to re-reading, I find.

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

Why is there a two pence coin? What deeper philosophy does this speak to about the British people?

(If that is not as funny as I think it is - how about your favorite alcoholic beverage?)

Good luck!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

The question, my dear Mary, is why there isn't a two-cent coin. (You guys even talk about putting in your two cents!) Also, why don't you have a twenty-cent coin? That you have also named confusingly in a manner bearing no relation to its denomination? The mind, it boggles.

The reason why there is a two-pence coin, however, is simple. It is so small children can get it stuck in their oesophaguses.

:P My favourite alcoholic beverage is rosé. Sometimes I drink good stuff, sometimes I drink white zinfandel that smells of cherries, but mostly, if it is wine and it is pink it is all right by me.

(And thank you!)

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

Because it is a TWENTY-FIVE cent coin, and one QUARTER of a good old fashioned, AMERICAN DOLLAR!

If I knew enough HTML to make this comment in red, white, and blue font, I would have done it.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

The question, my dear Mary, is why there isn't a two-cent coin. (You guys even talk about putting in your two cents!)
THIS USED TO CONFUSE ME SO MUCH.

[speccygeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Best luck with the interview! And the cake, hope it's good. :D

What was the first fandom you got involved in?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The cake is Mr. Kipling's angel cake. It is good, yes. :)

My first fandom was Stargate SG-1, back before the Stargate franchise took over the world! Seriously, I was into it when it was this little hippie sci-fi show with a couple of seasons under its belt and actors no one had heard of. Oh, my dim and distant past. Did I meet you in M*A*S*H fandom? I think I did, but I honestly don't recall... anyway, that, in 2002, was the one after that.

[speccygeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, we met on the M*A*S*H Slash Yahoo Group! xD

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

1) GOOD LUCK.

2) ARE YOU GOING TO LONDON/WOULD YOU LIKE CAKE AFTERWARDS.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

1. thank you I need it;

2. No, alas! The interview is in Northampton for a job in Cambridge. But I appreciate thoughts of cake. Mmm, cake. I think I shall have some more cake.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Bah. Oh well. DELICIOUS CAKE. Have you eaten your umbrella yet.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

YES I HAVE. It was kind of awesome.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

What's your favorite ice cream flavor?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

The more boring, the better. Vanilla, or better yet, creme anglaise, and better than that, Mackie's, a Scottish ice-cream company, make a type of ice-cream that has no flavour at all, it's just... cream with sugar. For some reason I have issues.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Good luck for tomorrow.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Good luck for tomorrow.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly!

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Good luck for tomorrow! And, oh, a question... how about, where do you want to be living in ten years? Geographically, I mean. Although if you have a dream house too, do share. :)

am answering comments incredibly late because I fail

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Seriously, my ability to do anything in a timely fashion is just shot lately. Sigh. Anyway, that is a good question and one which I wish I could answer. In ten years I will be, what, thirty-two - oh lord - so first of all, I want to be living somewhere real, somewhere with a kitchen and a bathroom and no housemates. As for where, I have no clue! I'd like it to be in a nice city-that-is-not-London-or-the-north, so Oxford or Cambridge or Edinburgh, but I'm so all over the place right now, I'm going to be as surprised as everyone else by wherever it is.

(How 'bout you, by the way? Still the Bay Area? Or some nice tree-lined college town somewhere? :P)

Re: am answering comments incredibly late because I fail

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

IONA IN TEN YEARS WE WILL BE IN OUR THIRTIES. I HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT. SHIT.

I want to be living somewhere real, somewhere with a kitchen and a bathroom and no housemates

Oh, hear hear. That's all I ask for, too. A place with affordable rent where I have my own kitchen, bathroom, and living space. Housemates, ugh.

That is the thing, isn't it-- it's really hard to plan on where you want to be when you're not sure what you're going to be. Adulthood, also ugh.

(For my part, I'm about as clueless as you. I'd love to stay in the Bay Area, but (a) it'll be hard to get a place at a school out here if I stay in academia, and (b) I'm still not 100% okay with living quite so far from my entire family for the rest of my life. It probably will not be some nice little college town, though, since I much prefer research to teaching and so can only hope I land at a large university and not a liberal-arts college. *g*)

[selenay]

Totally unconnected to anything in your post (sorry!), but I love that icon :-)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* Thank you! I forget how pretty Kira is when they get her out of that dreadful Bajoran uniform.

[tau_sigma]

A belated good luck, or, I hope it went well. *hugs* Also I hope you had nice cake. Mmm, cake.

I want to ask you a question, but I'm really struggling to think of a good one. Even thinking of a really lame one is kind of difficult. So I might come back to this.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Well, I feel very silly replying to comments quite this late - fail, Iona, fail - but heh, you can ask me anything, any time. :)