Merry Christmas to All and To All a Good Night

The Omen of the Night Owls

Owls are important symbolically in many cultures. In ancient Greece and Rome, they were linked to Athena and considered symbols of knowledge and wisdom.  In Arthurian legend,  Merlin is often depicted with an owl on his shoulder and again, the owl is linked to wisdom.  In Japan,  owl statues are said to ward off plague and illness.  In some Native American cultures owls are linked to knowledge and magic.  I knew all these things when I chose owls as the decorative theme for my new baby's nursery.   I didn't know the darker side of owls.  In many cultures, especially the Apache culture, owls portend death and are associated with the dead.  The Apaches are not alone.  Many other cultures see owls as linked death.    Of course, I choose to ignore all the cultures that see owls as ill omens in the same way I have ignored the ill omens associated with black dogs and cats.  Some of my favorite pets have been black dogs and cats and they've only brought good luck to me.

Therefore, as I sat in my owl themed nursery late at night just before my son was born,   I saw owls only as good omens.  They have become a symbol of my baby boy.   They are wise and beautiful creatures of the night. 

My neighborhood and my house have no trees.   So birds of any sort are a rare commodity in my neighborhood.  The lake brings geese and goose poop, but owls are never seen in my neck of the woods.   However,  the night before my baby was born,   as I sat in the nursery, unable to sleep and very pregnant, the call of three owls filled the night air.  I sat up and listened to them hoot back and forth to each other with their distinct calls for over an hour before I drifted off to sleep.  The next day I held my baby in my arms, making owls forever a good omen for me.  I'm not sure if there was any real significance to the presence of the owls, but to me there was something mystical to their presence that night.  They were omens of life to come.

No Nudity On My Watch

Well that's the end of my stint as a student supervisor at the local college. Just looking forward to a few days next month as exam invigilator. It has been an interesting experience. I've loved every minute and I've learned a lot.

The corridors are full of posters. Many of these posters display academic information which has been put together by students of the different faculties. Therefore I've managed to get a bit of an education merely by patrolling past the classrooms. For example I've learned about chemicals associated with death. Poisons such as cyanide, strychnine and arsenic. Gases associated with dying – cadaverine and putrescine. Chemicals used in forensics such as formaldehyde. I have read articles on philosophy, psychology sociology, art and literature. I have discovered what career options are open to students of music, dance and media studies. I found out what the college does to support students with various disabilities and it came as a shock to me that a student can arrive there, having struggled to gain several GCSEs, only to be diagnosed with dyslexia. Surely, in this day and age, it should have been picked up sooner? I now know what mobile phones can do to the capillaries in the brain (something to do with breaking down proteins) and I understand that scientists now think they know what causes ME (something to do with retroviruses – whatever they are).

I've also learned never to underestimate the stupidity of youth. Here is where I explain The Bilborough Challenge. There are four floors and two lifts. The idea of the challenge is that a student gets in one lift on the bottom floor and makes their way to the top while removing all their clothes. They then run along the top landing, past the student lounge, while carrying their clothes. They get into the other lift and get dressed on the way down. It seems harmless fun but if anyone is caught it will go down on their record. We managed to discourage it this Christmas but they got up to other things instead.

Many of the misdemeanours are trivial. Dropping litter, feet on the tables, paper planes off the balcony – stuff like that. Some infractions are more serious and have to be dealt with appropriately. A lot of the time we are trying to stop them injuring themselves. They seem to think it's o.k. to take short cuts across the furniture until one of them slips off a table top and sprains their ankle. They think it's macho to take swigs from a bottle of chilli sauce until several of them get it in their eyes and we have a first aid room full of kids needing treatment.

Fridays are always sexual health day. There are various items they can pick up for free in addition to the opportunity to get checked out. This results in the staff having to clean out the student lounge of inflated condoms, tables covered in spermicidal cream and underwear with 'I've been screened' printed on. In my day they just told us not to do it until we were married.

Having said all this, they are capable of channelling their energy into more productive activities. Just in the few weeks I have been there they have raised hundreds of pounds for various charities via a Santa fun run, a sponsored head shave and selling cakes. Despite the usual stereotype image of idle students, many of them work extremely hard. Even on the final day of term, when Christmassy-type activities were going on all around, I saw many in the refectory, in study areas and sitting under stairwells with their books out. They were either reading, testing each other or scribbling notes. I sincerely wish that they achieve all that they deserve.

A Merry Christmas to them all. And of course to you, my fellow bloggers.

The Naming of Lucien

Naming a child is always a challenge.  It involves months of debate and reviewing long lists of names.  There are fights with family members and long discussions.  Usually, this is not a very haunting process.  It can be tedious, but rarely haunting.  When you find that perfect name,  it is like a revelation.    The name feels right.   When we named our son, Lucien, we went through all these things and I felt that moment of revelation while I laid in my bed listening to my husband recite names from some Internet site about naming your child.  Lucien was right and I couldn't say why.  My husband and I were set.  The name spoke to us.  Everyone else thought the name was odd.    Many people said we were weird for choosing it, but the name called to us and it was ours and there was no changing it.

Those of you who have followed my blog for a long time know that my mother-in- law died over a year ago.  Since that time, we have felt haunted by her.   It isn't a negative haunting.   We just feel her sometimes.   Shadows move and the children hear her calling their names.  There are quiet whispers in the dark.   My mother-in-law was French and she died in France.  We keep her ashes on our fireplace.  Some time after we decided on naming Lucien, we cleaned out some old things and found my mother-in-law's favorite movie with her favorite name in it.    I had never heard of the movie before and my husband had completely forgotten about it.    The movie was Lacombe Lucien.   So, as I hold my little boy in my arms, I can't help but wonder if it wasn't her ghost whispering in our ear as we named our little boy.   I have to wonder if she didn't find a way of making sure her last grandson would know her even if he never knew her.  

Wish I Was Here...

I've done this in a bit of a rush because I've only just read about Janice Horton's Reaching for the Stars book launch day and Wish I Was Here... event on Angela's blog.

The pictures are all places in Singapore. First is Raffle's Hotel. Couldn't afford to stay there but it is open for the public to walk around and go in the shops and bars. Second is the Pan Pacific hotel which is down the road from Raffles and where I actually stayed. Third is a view of Chinatown.

I've been there five times and it's my favourite destination.

Your guide to an open-book law final.....

Law students like to make a big deal over not having to study as hard for open book/notes-allowable finals. To them I say "Are you FUCKING NUTS?????"


You see, it has been my experience that professors with those types of finals take this as a challenge.

A challenge to cram as much material possible into a three and a half hour long exam.
A challenge to make it into a 60 multiple choice exam with 3 long essay questions.
A challenge to cram eleventy billion issues into a 30 page essay question.

These professors are ruthless. They have no conscience. They consider torturing poor law students during the holiday season to be the star on top of their damn Christmas trees (or the candles in their menorahs, if you will....)

But there is hope. If, at the beginning of the school year, you actually read their syllabus, there are certain techniques you can utilize to beat these sadists at their own game. Behold the glory:

1) Highlight anything they discuss at length in class. Yes, this requires you to listen. But if they go over it and over it in class, you can pick their favorite shit and regurgitate it during the exam. They love this.

2) Tab the important cases. If they EVER say "this is a landmark case," then you can bet your sweet bippy it will be on the exam. Be prepared. Brief that shit (Westlaw should suffice), write it in the columns, and write a few cases that may also be relevant after it's over. You'll be glad you did.

3) Be aware of the notes. After the cases are the true test landminds--hypos and cases that didn't make it to front and center. These are dangerous, and much more likely to show up in an exam than the cases you were required to brief. Take an interest in these cases. Fuck the real reading--read this instead.

4) When creating your outline, make a table of contents. A lot of these exams depend on how well you can cross-reference, not how well you can write. This means to number your pages, be able to go from one topic to the other in a pinch, and GET THERE QUICKLY. Table of contents enable this.

5) Write page numbers in your outlines. You know how you highlighted your shit earlier? PUT PAGE NUMBERS THROUGHOUT YOUR OUTLINES--that way you can open your book to the information, your notes to the information, and cross-reference to your little heart's desire.

6) Prepare your answers. This is good for any final, but especially for those finals you can bring materials to. Write your CRuPAC, or whatever weird mnemonic device you've been taught, and then fill in the rest. This saved my ass in Civ Pro.

Yeah, this isn't rocket science, but it's also not necessarily things you think about until you're under the gun in the test you walked into with the mindset that it won't be that bad. Guess what? IT IS THAT BAD. As State Farm commercials say, don't be a Jerry. 15 minutes or less could save you from cold sweats later (okay, I used Geico commercials too). All's I know is I don't want to be the guy who drove his car up a fucking pole.

It's embarrassing.

And completely unnecessary.

Contest Winners and Other Announcements

A couple weeks ago, I had a contest to celebrate the release of my new novel, Circe.   I was giving away  2 amazon.com gift cards to those that helped me spread the word about my book.  I was happy and excited by all those who participated.  Janice and Chris were the winners of the Amazon.com cards and I'm happy to send them their gifts.  I thank everyone who helped with this contest.

On a side note, I may be slow in getting the prizes out and in blogging over the next few weeks.    I am recovering from a particularly difficult delivery and c-section and am not able to keep up with my blogging or blog related duties.   I would like to thank all the wonderful guest bloggers and writers that have helped me keep the blog up and running through all of this.   Despite my physical problems,  I have a beautiful baby boy and am enjoying reading everyone else's blogs in bed.  I couldn't be happier   I hope you all have a ghostly week and look forward to catching up soon.