philosophy supernatural nude

Firstly: I am taking medical leave for the rest of the academic year. This is less extravagantly melodramatic than it sounds - the rest of the academic year is, after all, about a month, followed by exams and research-project submission. I could try and stick it out, I suppose, but, in the end it comes to the question of whether I should use my limited energy to be a functional depressed person who, you know, eats, and washes her clothes, and whatnot, or use it for... um... law school. Given that I still have about 5000 words to research and write on special measures directions, plus the end of the equity and public law syllabuses, and revision for the last three exams, Not Dealing is my preferred strategy right now.

(edited to add: okaaaay, there is a case at the Old Bailey today that is going to necessitate re-writes of my baby-dissertation. Why do I insist on being interested in current affairs?

Note: it is a very horrible case, about abuse of a child. Don't click, if you'd rather not.)

So through some bureaucratic jiggery-pokery, I am going to be a sort-of law student at Liverpool for a bit, and I was very impressed by the efficiency and kindness with which Brookes have achieved this. forthwritten has already promised me company and good things, and my parents were remarkably unfazed by this whole revelation. (My father noted that when he was my age, he had a similar revelation whilst reading for his MD exams. "Of course, in my case I was only six miles from home and I came on the Vespa. But it's the same principle without the Vespa.")

I'm pleased, or at least, as pleased as you can be about these things. I'll miss shimgray, but other than that, I think, this is a good plan for the time being.

In other news. Justice Souter is stepping down from the Supreme Court... two days after the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority. Souter has generally tended to baffle me, but he seems to be a liberal now, sort of. The make-up of the court may not change all that much, but I'm actually hopeful about the potential nominees for once. One hundred days, and the novelty hasn't worn off. I hope it doesn't.

Amd so this post is not all a) law and b) my broken brain, I say my obligatory Dreamwidth bit. foreverdirt bought me paid time over there! I am still not sure what I am going to do with the account, but we shall see. My username, by the way, has changed (due to aforementioned crazy, please don't ask) - I'm now raven, and if you should wish to give me a poke over there, please please do.

Small Cat has just arrived on my desk, and is investigating The Perks of Being a Wallflower with hir little nose. She is actually cat-sized now, but continues to lack morals. As evidence: small cat nose in my small-human small-glass of orange juice. The one thing that cat will not touch is whisky. Everything else is fair game, up to and including black coffee and fresh chillies.

I am tired. Deep, in-my-bones, want-to-sleep-for-a-week tired - and a little wary of the thought that the Oxford term is about to end when there is still four weeks of mine to go. I miss being an undergraduate, oh, so much, but that above all: the thought that it was sometimes all over, and you could go home. I am in the not-unenviable position where there are three calendar months until it is all over, but when I consider that those three months have a coursework assignment, five exams and a legal research project in it, as well as being the only time I have to find a job, I kind of quail a bit. The trick, I think, is to not hold it all in my head at once, and apply blissful ignorance to the various bits.

I do still love law, though. In case anyone was in any doubt. My research topic is, briefly, how to reconcile Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing...) with the needs of witnesses: disabled witnesses, Deaf witnesses, child witnesses, those who would rather not testify in public, etc., etc. Most likely I will not look at all of these, and narrow it to just one category - I'm tempted to pick child witnesses, right now, but will see - but all of this is contingent on my, er, actually starting the thing. Argh. First comes coursework, which is about the creation of express trusts and the mechanism of proprietary estoppel, and then it will soon be exam-time - criminal and land - and maybe then I might get as far as actually facing the blank page.

Like I said, I am tired. Last night, shimgray and a baby lawyer friend and I went to see the term's OULES shows, which were Robin Hood and Indiana Jones and were delightful, particularly the latter, which was notable for the way the Nazis kept on edging to the side of the stage, picking up saxophone and guitar and becoming an impromptu back-up band. robette_wild was the lead, and was kind of utterly adorable, and the comedy swordfighting cracked me up. It was an utterly joyous production. (Also worth the price of admission: sccye in a succession of beautiful dresses, and darwinian_woman being faaar too scary as Death. She has a certain aptitude for gliding. It's very unnerving.) I decided then and there, actually, that I must, absolutely must, be in the next OULES play. I'll play a tree. Maybe a corpse again. Possibly a comic piece of furniture. But for something that made me so, so happy, to have stopped doing it was stupid and self-destructive, even if it does take up time I don't have. I mean... OULES. I was in four plays, played a corpse, a dork, a pirate, a goddess and Nymphadora Tonks, and I never didn't have a wonderful time, I was dropped on my head, beaten with a baguette, tortured by a cheese and watched the world go past from a college roof. It was kind of magical.

Tonight, I ended up watching Dimensions in Time (oh dear, oh dear), courtesy of DocSoc, and should very definitely be in bed now, I think. Tomorrow I ought to do a lot of work, and there is an All Souls open evening that I thought about going to but, on reflection, shouldn't. The appeal is getting to see inside All Souls, and I've done that - for the beating the bounds ceremonies last May - and seeing it a second time isn't worth the horror of what it would do to my non-existent academic confidence. I hate explaining to people about my not-a-real-degree as it is, because, well, it's just a thing, a kind of anodyne thing that isn't a job or letters after my name. I know, I know, I was not made for academia, and I would hate it, but living in Oxford, it's kind of difficult to remember that doing anything else has value. I'm just... not that bright. Not the way academics are, that way they have of being breathlessly confident about things, because, well, I don't have that wiring in my head. All Souls will just make me sad.

Bedtime.

Previously on Raven's Exciting Life, she was trying very hard not to fall into traffic. I am pleased to report that this did not transpire, that frosty cold weather is very uplifting, so is shepherding your forever directionally-challenged mother around London on one of the last weekends before Christmas, and surprisingly, SSRIs can be kinder and sweeter on your body than they seem to be on TV.

It's funny, the difference a week can make. This time last week I was tending towards the entirely-insane, and thank you, you people who were calming and soothing and threatened to pick me up and carry me to the doctor's themselves. Thank you. Because, I went, and my GP said, well. If they make you feel this bad, and you actually are this ridiculously stubborn and bloody-minded (note: she did not actually say this; she merely looked at me in a resigned sort of a way) then maybe I'd better just come off every drug I was on and we could see how that went. So I went home and didn't take my pills. On Thursday, I went to school. I went to a criminal law class where the main theme was the murders, assaults and rapes that are committed by depressed people, and I was angry, but fine. And on Thursday night jacinthsong and I rolled up to OULES on a tipsy cloud of joy. (OULES, for those new to the party - the Oxford amateur drama group that has, in its own special way, eaten me and spat me out in its own, gin-drinking, bad-punning, raucously-singing image.) The Michalemas pantomime was Beauty and the Beast, complete with mysterious men in black and a Belle who engages in genetic engineering on the side and a Beast who was, I believe, supposed to be, er, beastly. Unfortunately it was played by sccye, who was all pretty and furry and said "raaargh!" a lot, which led to the audience all exclaiming "Awww!" whenever he came on, much to his distinct chagrin. In short, it was a delight. And then jacinthsong and I, who are respectfully employed and respectfully postgraduate respectively, did not go to the cast party but went home, ate an entire fruit strudel and went to bed early. Ah, my advancing years.

And so to the weekend, wherein I went to school again, went to London, and met my parents, who are on good form, if mostly looking like surprised deep-sea fishermen at the Christmas lights and people and shoppers and other things one does not generally find in hospitals. (My mother is at it again: on our way out, she asked me, or at least thought to ask me, have you taken the water bottle. Unfortunately, what came out was, "Have you taken the blood?" She later explained it with "It's an important fluid! It's the same thing!" I still think she's working too hard.

And, later, she got lost, she reported. She was supposed to be walking to Euston, and asking policemen and going on abortive detours and at one point, asking what she described as, "A man in a funny costume. A funny hat. And a pipe. He said I should get the number 27 bus."

"Man in a funny hat," I said. "Were you by any chance on Baker Street?"

Apparently my mother is the only person in the world who can ask Sherlock Holmes for directions and still be lost.)

And so we get to Sunday, and there are no traces of either fluoxetine or citalopram left in my body. And my god, I can tell. I have my short-term memory back. I'm not sleeping every hour the universe sends. And, er, I had the usual, er, disagreement with my mother over the weekend ("No, I am not fat. Look, really. I'm not. See, my jeans fit. See, you can put two fingers between the denim and my hips. No, I do not need to 'bring myself in hand!'") and managed not to say, um, I have been on appetite-suppressant drugs for five months, but now I want to eat. I actually do feel fatter, but I suspect that's my body reacting to such horrors as bread and pasta and cheese and lentils and all the other things it ritually disdained for all that time. Mmmm, food. I like it. In short, I am smarter, hungrier and perkier. If I get depressed again, I get depressed again. In the meantime, my braaaain, how I missed you, darling. I am glad, also, to have been spared the discontinuation effects. Long half-life, I guess, or just me being bloody-minded.

(The only side-effect that hasn't vanished has been my Technicolor dreamscape; I might get used to that, in time, complete with melodramatic thrashing about and creaking bedsprings. We shall see.)

And so, and so. In other news, I have a baby-dissertation supervisor - who thinks I have a topic that could actually work and be interesting and topical and other such things - and I have all the homework in the world to be catching up on, but am feeling zen about it, because I can catch up, I will not fail all my exams. Things to do over the next week include said homework, going to a few pro bono meetings and applying for jobs, which will need me to do something about my crazed-dilletante CV, but yes. Am working on all of that. And enjoying being awake, too.

And in yet other news: still haven't started yuletide fic. Several pages of Merlin/Arthur pr0n progressing nicely.

edit: Also! Was in London, saw this dress. Fell in love. Do not have money, do need not another dress. But... love. I wish to record my love.