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Entry tags:
Meme
I have been meaning to do this meme for a while now: I always like it when other people do it.
Name: Iona. It's not actually my name; like most women of my background I have a proper Sanskrit name stowed away for special occasions. I never used to like it, but it's grown on me over the years; it's pretty, and although I have never been to the island, I am determined that this will be the year I actually do go.
Age: 22 and a substantial chunk.
Location: Oxford, England. Specifically, my desk by my window in my pretty little flat with the terrible heating. I'm very fond of it.
Occupation: When I'm feeling optimistic, I say I'm a lawyer. When I'm not, I tend to make noises about PENNILESS STUDENT UNEMPLOYED FOREVER OMG etc, etc. Truthfully, I am in the last year of training as an English lawyer, and ideally I would like to qualify into the jurisdiction, but we shall see.
Also: yes, I am a lawyer. I am corporate, soulless and inherently unethical, and I should probably pack it all in and renounce my evil. If you are never accused of a crime, never bullied at work, never married, never civil-partnered, never divorced, never make a will, never sell a house, never made incapacitated, never abused, never in debt, never want to go into business, never need someone who can stand and speak for you when you have no voice - you, too, can be untainted by the legal profession!
...sorry. That's a leeetle bit of a hobby horse of mine. But I really believe that what I do is important: not just in the ways listed above, but in terms of democratic, liberal, generic post-Englightenment society. How we are governed, how we share our resources, what our rights and responsibilities are, these things are important and perhaps more in the ambit of political philosophy, but once we've decided what sort of a political society we are, then it's lawyers who take the responsibility for those choices. I've seen it argued that there's something wrong with the way a judge presides over a court and applies objective law to subjective facts, seeing as how the former always falls short of the complexities of motivation and human behaviour, and I agree, the match isn't perfect, sometimes people are wrong and so sometimes courts make the wrong decisions. But someone has to step forward and take the responsibility and say, I am flawed and the system is flawed, but I am here now and I will do the best I can. I think that's important.
I'll shut up now.
Partner:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shimgray. He's Scottish, a geek, a librarian, and the kindest person I know. He's teaching me to like sad folk music; I'm teaching him to eat spicy food. We've been getting along for almost two years, now, and there's a quiet, bone-deep ease in my life because of it. He will be very embarrassed when he reads this. I love him dearly.
Kids: No, and not something I'm interested in right now, if ever.
Parents: I adore my parents. They are both doctors who emigrated here from India in the early eighties, and live up in Liverpool. My mother is occasionally the bane of my life - she's very small-C conservative, has a tendency to overreact dreadfully to everything, and I sometimes wonder if she knows me very well at all. But at the same time, she's funny, strong, dedicated and when she's on my side, mountains move and oceans fall. My father is gentle, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, has a wicked sense of humour, and has this quiet tendency to always assume that I can do anything. Both of them support me lovingly, endlessly, unconditionally, and both of think I am much smarter than I am. I do adore them.
Siblings: None. I don't regret this at all, mostly, but it does sometimes concern me when I think about what I will do when my parents die. Apart from them, I have no relatives within six thousand miles, and I've lived in this country all my life - the thought has a kind of inescapable loneliness to it.
Pets: Nope. Shim and I have more or less decided to redress this once we finally settle down - but he likes cats, I like dogs, we're both intrigued by house rabbits and neither of has yet been convinced that getting an elephant is at all impracticable.
3 things going on in my life:
-I haven't talked about this much on here yet, but I am applying to graduate law programmes in the United States. I wasn't very well for almost-two years - ill inna head, mostly - and my world kind of constricted a bit. I'm a lot better now, but for a while I did only things I could cope with, which is how I'm in this odd place of being a nearly-qualified lawyer who isn't sure she wants to be one. My academic interests are actually in philosophy - my first degree is in philosophy, politics and economics - and I'm applying to legal philosophy degree programmes at NYU and Chicago among others. We'll see, I suppose. I really don't think of myself as smart enough to be able to make a go of it, but I have promised myself I will try and only have these thoughts after I've applied.
-On that note, I am feeling well. As things to go on in your life, it's not very profound: but since about September, I have been stuffing my waking hours with school and friends and pro bono and evenings out and concerts and grad school apps and fanfiction and posting inanities to LJ and standing by the river at midnight twirling flames above my head. I have energy again; I feel good.
-In a bit, I am going to put away my ironing-board, give the room a quick tidy, fill my hot-water bottle (oh, the bloody heating in this flat) and get into bed and finish The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and sleep in tomorrow. I have been looking forward to this all day. It's going to be so great.
Close friends: I don't think anyone can read this journal for long and not tumble to the fact that my closest friend in the world isjacinthsong. We were at university together, which is factually true but does not begin to encompass the substance of how we are friends: we used to drop in on each other at lunchtime and stay till 2am, we used to invent a new dessert every week, it was a kind of epic co-dependency. Now that we do not live a couple of minutes apart, we're reduced to newfangled nonsense like PHONE and EMAIL and OCCASIONAL VISITS. It's terrible. Well, it's not, but I miss the other half of my brain.
My oldest friend ishathy_col, whom I don't see much, but we always can pick up exactly where we left off - usually, we left off somewhere with vampires and Star Trek - so seeing her is always a little like coming home, wherever home may be these days.
Other than that, though, I sort of have friends for every part of me. Some of them are in Oxford and some of them are in my computer and some are both. It's good.
(Oh, and to complete the picture for people who don't know me well: that is me in the icon.)
Bedtime.
Name: Iona. It's not actually my name; like most women of my background I have a proper Sanskrit name stowed away for special occasions. I never used to like it, but it's grown on me over the years; it's pretty, and although I have never been to the island, I am determined that this will be the year I actually do go.
Age: 22 and a substantial chunk.
Location: Oxford, England. Specifically, my desk by my window in my pretty little flat with the terrible heating. I'm very fond of it.
Occupation: When I'm feeling optimistic, I say I'm a lawyer. When I'm not, I tend to make noises about PENNILESS STUDENT UNEMPLOYED FOREVER OMG etc, etc. Truthfully, I am in the last year of training as an English lawyer, and ideally I would like to qualify into the jurisdiction, but we shall see.
Also: yes, I am a lawyer. I am corporate, soulless and inherently unethical, and I should probably pack it all in and renounce my evil. If you are never accused of a crime, never bullied at work, never married, never civil-partnered, never divorced, never make a will, never sell a house, never made incapacitated, never abused, never in debt, never want to go into business, never need someone who can stand and speak for you when you have no voice - you, too, can be untainted by the legal profession!
...sorry. That's a leeetle bit of a hobby horse of mine. But I really believe that what I do is important: not just in the ways listed above, but in terms of democratic, liberal, generic post-Englightenment society. How we are governed, how we share our resources, what our rights and responsibilities are, these things are important and perhaps more in the ambit of political philosophy, but once we've decided what sort of a political society we are, then it's lawyers who take the responsibility for those choices. I've seen it argued that there's something wrong with the way a judge presides over a court and applies objective law to subjective facts, seeing as how the former always falls short of the complexities of motivation and human behaviour, and I agree, the match isn't perfect, sometimes people are wrong and so sometimes courts make the wrong decisions. But someone has to step forward and take the responsibility and say, I am flawed and the system is flawed, but I am here now and I will do the best I can. I think that's important.
I'll shut up now.
Partner:
shimgray. He's Scottish, a geek, a librarian, and the kindest person I know. He's teaching me to like sad folk music; I'm teaching him to eat spicy food. We've been getting along for almost two years, now, and there's a quiet, bone-deep ease in my life because of it. He will be very embarrassed when he reads this. I love him dearly.Kids: No, and not something I'm interested in right now, if ever.
Parents: I adore my parents. They are both doctors who emigrated here from India in the early eighties, and live up in Liverpool. My mother is occasionally the bane of my life - she's very small-C conservative, has a tendency to overreact dreadfully to everything, and I sometimes wonder if she knows me very well at all. But at the same time, she's funny, strong, dedicated and when she's on my side, mountains move and oceans fall. My father is gentle, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, has a wicked sense of humour, and has this quiet tendency to always assume that I can do anything. Both of them support me lovingly, endlessly, unconditionally, and both of think I am much smarter than I am. I do adore them.
Siblings: None. I don't regret this at all, mostly, but it does sometimes concern me when I think about what I will do when my parents die. Apart from them, I have no relatives within six thousand miles, and I've lived in this country all my life - the thought has a kind of inescapable loneliness to it.
Pets: Nope. Shim and I have more or less decided to redress this once we finally settle down - but he likes cats, I like dogs, we're both intrigued by house rabbits and neither of has yet been convinced that getting an elephant is at all impracticable.
3 things going on in my life:
-I haven't talked about this much on here yet, but I am applying to graduate law programmes in the United States. I wasn't very well for almost-two years - ill inna head, mostly - and my world kind of constricted a bit. I'm a lot better now, but for a while I did only things I could cope with, which is how I'm in this odd place of being a nearly-qualified lawyer who isn't sure she wants to be one. My academic interests are actually in philosophy - my first degree is in philosophy, politics and economics - and I'm applying to legal philosophy degree programmes at NYU and Chicago among others. We'll see, I suppose. I really don't think of myself as smart enough to be able to make a go of it, but I have promised myself I will try and only have these thoughts after I've applied.
-On that note, I am feeling well. As things to go on in your life, it's not very profound: but since about September, I have been stuffing my waking hours with school and friends and pro bono and evenings out and concerts and grad school apps and fanfiction and posting inanities to LJ and standing by the river at midnight twirling flames above my head. I have energy again; I feel good.
-In a bit, I am going to put away my ironing-board, give the room a quick tidy, fill my hot-water bottle (oh, the bloody heating in this flat) and get into bed and finish The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and sleep in tomorrow. I have been looking forward to this all day. It's going to be so great.
Close friends: I don't think anyone can read this journal for long and not tumble to the fact that my closest friend in the world is
jacinthsong. We were at university together, which is factually true but does not begin to encompass the substance of how we are friends: we used to drop in on each other at lunchtime and stay till 2am, we used to invent a new dessert every week, it was a kind of epic co-dependency. Now that we do not live a couple of minutes apart, we're reduced to newfangled nonsense like PHONE and EMAIL and OCCASIONAL VISITS. It's terrible. Well, it's not, but I miss the other half of my brain.My oldest friend is
hathy_col, whom I don't see much, but we always can pick up exactly where we left off - usually, we left off somewhere with vampires and Star Trek - so seeing her is always a little like coming home, wherever home may be these days.Other than that, though, I sort of have friends for every part of me. Some of them are in Oxford and some of them are in my computer and some are both. It's good.
(Oh, and to complete the picture for people who don't know me well: that is me in the icon.)
Bedtime.
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HOUSE RABBIT. Omg omg. I have always kind of wanted one of those, but you do have to remove any and all chewable cables from reach of little rabbit teeth.
I am glad you feel well; and well done on the applications. You are very much clever enough; you are one of the brightest people I know, and I chose the word 'bright' very carefully, because you are not just academically intelligent, you are also caring and thoughtful and you use your intelligence to enrich your everyday life, and I very much admire you.
*Can NRI be used as both a noun and an adjective, or is it just one? *is confused*
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NRI - can be either an adjective or a noun, I'd say! In your example I'd probably say I was an NRI.
And, you know, your saying that gives me a lot of hope for what may come of all this. Thank you, dear.
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Also, you are the best.
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I am sorry things have been Argh! I hope they are now less Argh.
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I already commented on the other entry, but :D!!!! Training contract!
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I may have absorbed this belief off my Dad by osmosis.
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BTW, totally easy to have a dog and cat in the same household. Just make sure the cat is a kitten when you introduce it to the dog -- kittens who grow up with dogs don't fear them the way an adult cat suddenly introduced to one can. Get the dog first or get them both at about the same time.
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I can understand your loneliness thing. I'm three thousand miles from everyone I knew for the first 30 years of my life. I have an aunt here, but she won't be around forever and her new gentleman friend is consuming most of her time right now. If my parents don't emigrate, there will be a time when I'll be three thousand miles from everyone related to me barring a few rarely-met cousins. Friends are wonderful and I love my friends here to bits, but it's not the same as parents and sisters. {{hugs}}
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I read this and I teared up a little. I'm in a similar situation and it has been on my mind rather a lot recently.
Also Congratulations on the training contract!
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