As a postscript- this is what happens when you pretend to be 'Katie West' and don't tell the Folkies you're coming.

Today, I will sound like a frog

Right, so why haven't I updated? I'm tempted to list a number of excuses, but it's mainly because I'm lazy. There, that's sorted.

What have I done recently?

Eaten a lot of chicken noodle soup. It seems to be my new thing.

Completed a mid-term on Handyside vs UK and the margin of appreciation. In a very short period of time..

Spectacularly failed to pick a paper topic for Freedom of Speech. Unless "something to do with manipulation and truth in media and the First Amendment and maybe looking at Fox" counts as a topic.

Been fluy. Hence the title. I met Siobhan for lunch the other day and the first thing she said was "wow! Your voice sounds really nice!" Which I think was meant to be a compliment.

Turned old. Or 22, whichever you prefer. Jaapi is older though- he turned 25 the Wednesday before last. In honour of which, the lovely Hartford crew put together a cake and vodka party, with mini chicken cordon bleu, and tzatziki, and chocolate brownies topped with cheesecake. It was wonderful.

Got red highlights in my hair- now I'm much more brunette, and it's all wonderfully exciting!

Still working on and over-excited by my final for Law and Literature- a script adaptation of Emma Zunz. It's only a few scenes in at the moment, but I'm enjoying it.

Oh, I was elected Vice-President of Folk Society to my friend Hannah's President, which is wonderfully exciting- and a little scary when I look at the amount of work involved.

And, of course, I went back to the UK to attend IVFDF (the Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festival) last weekend- which is probably where I picked up this bug - and surprised everyone, from my mum and my brother to pretty much the entirety of Folk Society.
It was an incredible weekend. I barely slept, I didn't really stop dancing, I met some lovely people, and I got to see both my family and the folkies again, which was more than worth it. When on Sunday afternoon I found myself lying on the floor with two other friends just laughing I knew I was home.

And I'm househunting. And it's difficult. And I might be living with a friend of my friend Abbi's, provided he doesn't come away from the last essay I sent him thinking I'm a freak. We shall see.

And I'm trying to improve my French. This is about as hopeless as the househunting, but I live in eternal optimism.

JJ out.

Humourous apology for late posting

There is now more stuff here. And will hopefully be able to provide a full and comprehensive 'law school is fun, I have a fulfilling social life' status sometime tomorrow.

Here's a picture of the law bear, because it makes me giggle:

And another thing

I've been told that this makes about as much sense as my 'We the wheelbarrows' post. From which I can gather that a) I have a warped sense of humour, and b) I should stay away from SoC pieces unless I'm prepared to write a detailed explanatory note.

More cheating

Again, this isn't a real blog post, but in terms of reflecting what I've been doing in class I think it's quite a good example. The novel in question is Camus's The Fall, which I've just finished reading.

Oh, yeah, and it's here, on my other blog. The one that doesn't get updated much.

"We the wheelbarrows."

This post is going firmly under 'bizarre,' as it's a SoC piece cataloging some of the more bizarre aspects of American Law School. No disrespect meant to any of my professors, obviously- this is more of a sideways look at some of the issues thrown up by the Socratic method. The title is a quotation from a speech by Douglas arguing that slavery was unconstitutional. I think it may be this semester's Carbolic Smoke Ball Co.

So we're talking about Glee. OK, I'm sure that's relevant- social change or something - the New York mob? Right. How did we get there? Yes, I think we should shoot 9 out of every ten admissions to the court- are we still on Spencer? Oh, yes, we are. I didn't realise the court was actually in charge of preventing deserters in France - Carolinian seccession would obviously lead to nuking Connecticut. "OK, so you like, go to the court, right, and you, like, need a lawyer" - are we still on Spencer? OK, yes we are- I'm so confused... oh, we're back onto crime bosses now- what is it with New England states? "Guilty of lots of murders," right then.... "Where's Whitey" sounds like a horribly racist game. The courts enforcing their own judgments? Why do I now have a picture of machine-toting judges? You know what, I'm not going to take Philosophy of Law next year ... We're not on Spencer anymore?
OK, new case, Bankovic, jurisdiction - what does the weather report look like? Is that a trick question? No one really wants to answer - no, it's not a hospital. "Killing people is morally wrong," excellent ... is that a legal justification? How do you justify wars anyway? Isn't that the whole point? - OK, swimming through NATO countries, still not on jurisdiction. "Recky-Vick," sounds like a boxer - when did we get on to jailing Belguim? Where would they keep that prison? "Was it legal to hurt these people?" Probably not- oh, we're still on jurisdiction. Siobhan could definitely pass as an English actress- she has the face for it- but why would anyone holiday in Hartford?
"There are no perfect countries," still on Bancovic, I wish I could remember how the Commission decided that it was extra-territorial - oh, wow, quick move to Gaima, now I have a picture of Belgium and the Netherlands pushing this poor guy back and forth across the border- at least the Commission took care of him. I wonder whatever happened to the poor guy? How do you end up without an identifiable originating country? And why did they think that the Netherlands was an ideal place to deport him to? Why not France?
Inexplicable? Yes, I think so...

Words. Words. Words.

This week, in order to be generally difficult, I've decided to post my Freedom of Speech reflection on legal reasoning. If you want to see the assignment title you can click here , but I heartily recommend against it- what I produced has very little to do with enchantment or social change. And yes, I am grossly misusing Shakespeare in my title.

I studied law for 2 years before coming to UConn, and never once did anyone ever think to ask what the law was or why we had it, and certainly not what principle lay at the core of legal reasoning. The questions were laughable- no one, I think, assumed that there was somehow a higher power, an omnipotent, intangible Justification of Law. The law was the law, and it existed because Parliament said so, and we were only interested in learning its rules, its application, and, sometimes, its potential for change. If you really wanted a deeper understanding, you took a theoretical class, marked yourself out as a future research student, and, ultimately, learned that the law is nothing more than rules upon rules, coloured by the moral leanings of distant judges. Things are so much simpler in a Monarchy.

And yet, I think that if you question any lawyer for long enough, and get past the parroting of rules and doctrines and principles, you will ultimately end up in a situation in which they try to explain that at some level law isn’t so much about ‘this rule says that A is wrong’ as ‘we know that A is wrong.’ All lawyers- and, for that matter, laypersons- want there to be some deep-seated meaning behind what we do, some justification for making judgments the way we do. We hope that through legal discussion , through the adversarial system, through dissents and concurrences and law reform and picketing, we can finally uncover just why A is wrong, and follow that shining star to a brighter and better world.

And yet, as we have seen, people don’t change their minds easily, and, more often than not, this fiery exchange of ideas takes place almost exclusively in the lawyer’s head, or within the pages of an obscure journal. Never where we would like it to be, outside in the open, where it can influence the collective mind of ‘the People,’ and lead to true democratic change. When these debates do come to the public’s attention, they are inevitably reduced to the level of short, cant banners, to all-caps YouTube comments, to easy-to-remember slogans. Discussion and debate are thrown out of the window- and it is questionable just how much they would help, even in an ideal world. I know that my views on DOMA and the same-sex marriage issue are right, and while I’ll happily debate them until the sun goes down with anyone foolish enough to volunteer, I also know that I will not change my mind easily. Given that human nature is what it is, and that there are many, many more versions of myself out there on both sides of the debate, the entire operation is rendered worthless.

And so sometimes the law is changed, not through the collective voice of we the People, but according to the personal beliefs of 9- or, more realistically, 5- members of the Supreme Court, through the use of highly persuasive, beautifully drafted, and above all, logical judgments, none of which can withstand a thorough philosophical investigation into its reasoning. Which, it seems, is why we don’t look: it is very scary- close to anarchy- to be reminded that the law is nothing more than words, interpreted by morals.