Morris Men and Madness

I have been told that it would be much easier on everyone involved were I to post 1 short entry a week rather than a monthly wall of rambling text. In fact, my dearest darling Dad went further, to the point of providing me with a template for the ultimate concise and effortless blog entry. As such, in order to to prove myself a dutiful daughter (and comply with my student advisor's advice that I develop more structure in my day-to-day activities), I have decided to give it a go and see how it works out.

So:

In the past week I:

- Returned safely from NYC, where I had spent the weekend at the annual International Law Convention at Fordham Law School, and of course, engaged
in sightseeing and general touristy-ness. NY is definitely something else, and the experience should by all accounts be on everyone's to do list. As great a time as I had, though, I don't know that I could ever live there permanently- though I can cope with (and work!) the subway and the grid system, it is simply too big, too busy- too consumerist.
It did give me an excellent opportunity to play with reflections and other fun photographic whatnots though, so I guess I can't be too hard on it- this time ...



- In direct contrast, I also took a solo trip to Amherst, MA, from Wednesday until Friday. In a bizarre situation my 'Sidmouth friend' Martin had been invited with his rapper team to compete and do other high-class dance team stuff in and around Boston, and part of their tour involved a few nights staying with a wonderful folky family in Amherst.



Suffice it to say that I has a wonderful visit, drank probably one too many pints (sorry, Sallyport), took far too many pictures, sang, danced (while avoiding chairs and holding a beer), climbed a mountain, and had far, far, too much fun with the side's decapitated rubber hand. Facebook is now flooded with pictures and videos, and I think it will be some time before I stop telling people that I have been invited to dance with the 'Ladies in Green,' an Amherst cotswold and border side whose name I cannot for the life of me remember.

- I also dressed up as Alice in Wonderland (the Burton version, obviously), went to the SBA Halloween party, gave out sweets to children trick-or-treating, and enjoyed it for the most part, although the party had to end after one poor lad reportedly broke his leg (although I think the truth is that he twisted his knee), and jumping up and down every three minutes to grab the sweet bowl is exhausting- especially when the teenagers don't even say thank you.

- Finally, I got into a debate about original intent theory in class when I said that to my mind it was the weakest out of a number of constitutional arguments in a certain case. This was in complete opposition to the American students, all of whom were aided by the knowledge that- bizarrely- it was one of the arguments most likely to be accepted by today's Supreme Court. I found this very odd when compared with the UK system, where Parliamentary intent is only considered as a last resort, and then only in the context of the interpretation of one particular stautory provision. Bizarre. After all, the Framers were only men- clever men, yes, but not infallible.

And that's a rather long summing up. Hopefully, this time next week will produce something rather more concise- as yet I have no plans!

A very folked-up
JJ