Title 6 (Taxation) is staring at me, just begging to have its headings checked. But I'm tired of the Indiana Code for now. And I get to go home in 15 minutes.

The amazing thing is that we actually have work to do again...lots and lots of it in orderly piles. I love this kind of thing: there is a very specific order to the steps that need to be taken in order to make sure that the Code is ready to go. You don't have to figure out what to do, because it's very simple. Once in awhile (well, more often than that), my brain loves not having to work very hard and this work satisfies my inner anal-ness. The question is: do you get to list the Indiana Code on a CV as a publication?

I also, at Julesapunk's suggestion, bought Emergency Sex at lunch. I've only read a few pages into it, but I can already tell that I'm going to have to make hard choices between reading it and finishing her graduation present. I think I need to call that punk tonight, because she's going to be the designated Peace Corps volunteer for my godmother's sixth graders. They'll send her letters and learn all about Niger...I think it's going to be awesome, as it has been in the past with other volunteers. Anyway, she wants a poster for the classroom!

And in a final wrap-up, I think I got lucky and inherited my mother's cholesterol. Given my family history, this is a very, very good thing. But, I'm getting tired of going running and I need to find another form of physical activity in which I can participate, considering that I don't own a membership to any sort of health facility or own a bike (although I may borrow one). Maybe I should start the skating again. I miss it.

Thbbbbb, blogger.

Thanks to Ryan, I now know that this whole template thing wasn't my fault!

Actually it's all bloggers fault, for some reason they have introduced "div style="clear:both;" (ed: I've had to mess up the formatting to make this show up as text) to the start of every post. The only reason I believe is to ensure that when people use their new image uploader is doesn't make the blogs have the posts continuely aligning left of the image, however they've managed to break more blogs because of it. Hopefully blogger will remove this code shortly and let people choose to have it if they want.

Chicago

Ok, so the trip to Chicago was a complete success and I didn't get killed on the way up or the way back! Woot! We left at noon from Indianapolis and managed to get stuck in the middle of the rush hour. Which sucked. And I kept wanting (and sometimes actually going for it) to get off the interstate and take my chances on the streets of Chicago. I made Duchess nervous. Anyway, the trip home took and hour and a half less time than the trip up and I even took Lake Shore Drive! Go me! And the toll road wasn't scary. I'm not saying that its a trip that I'd do everyday, but it was fun.

So, dropped off Duchie and made the easy trip to j00j's house where I got to meet Robbie! The exciting greyhound! Who I should have taken a photo of! But he is soft and huge and very sweet and it was exciting to finally meet him. And j00j's family is very cool. Her brother was someone I hadn't met, but he has very good taste in DVDs. He also enjoys British shows and has Yes, Prime Minister (which I do not). Evanston is not as snooty as Summit, NJ (home of Diana, the college roommate), but way cuter and more trendy. And right on the lake! I really enjoyed wandering around the downtown, which is within a very easy walking distance of j00j's house.

On Saturday we went downtown to the Art Institute, where I had never been before. I really liked its accessibility and I'm going to give them mad props for their huge impressionist collection. (One of the most famous is the Sunday in the Park with George painting and they had a whole room of Monets.) Sadly, I feel like I've moved on from just needing to see Impressionists (unlike two years ago when I dragged Diana to the Met) and their collection of older European art wasn't "sock blowing." They did have lots of El Greco work (with their amazing neon colors, but no "anti-Spock" hands") and a few of the sort of Caravaggio-ish paintings with the amazing and dramatic light, which I really love. Ooooh, and some great portraits. I didn't used to like portraits, but now I've come to realize how amazing they can be if done well. The Art Institute also had several sketches for larger paintings, which are always fascinating. Anyway, the long and short of this blathering paragraphs is that we had a really great time! That evening we met up with Duchess and her boyfriend to have dinner in Evanston and hear about their adventures at the Taste of Chicago, which was in the park right next to the Art Institute (I had also wanted to go see the new Gehry bandstand, but there was no way that we were fighting those crowds.)

Sunday we went to the Baha'i House of Worship, the North American incarnation of the Baha'i houses that are scattered around the world. This is a pretty amazing building, decorating inside and out with elaborate carving that is at one time Persian and Celtic and incorporates both Baha'i motifs and symbols from the other major world religions. When you see it, it's no wonder that it took nearly 50 years to build. We sat upstairs for awhile to read a prayer for Jules before she leaves for Niger (only the secondmost unliveable country in the world!) and I wanted to center, as well. (I miss my Quakers!) There were so many visitors, too, which suprised me. We went downstairs later and joined a tour, which turned out to be "An Introduction to Baha'is 101." We wandered the gardens a bit afterwards, too. And took pictures for our Jules. Here are a few and the rest are at the other link:




Complete Set

Afterwards we went to the camping store in downtown Evanston and I ended up buying a pack. It wasn't the one that I originally thought I'd get, but that one didn't fit me all that well. I'm pleased to have the whole bag buying thing out of the way! Came home, crashed in bed and didn't wake up until after I should have already been at work...a great way to start the week.

Did I win?

I still haven't got a clue what was wrong and I even tried writing my own template (that attempt did, I will confirm, go down in flames. But, I've adapted one of the Blogger templates and have gotten to mostly look like the old one. I'll probably be tweaking, but this is good enough for now (am I the only one who thinks that the "leave a comment" bar does not need to be that big?) I like using the percents for widths, though, because it doesn't leave too much blank space, no matter how big your window. I know, I'm late to the css party.

I heard on NPR this morning that Apple's released a new version of iTunes. Luckily, I had already decided to bring my computer to work so that I could go to the coffeeship after work to upload the photos from the Baha'i House of Worship this weekend. I'll try and put some of them up tomorrow, along with the massively overdue update from the great trip to Chicago.

This isn't perfect, but it's closer to my old look. I still don't know what happened and I'll use any free time I have this afternoon to reinsert the links. Thanks for your help, Kristine!

This is still under reconstruction. Despite Kristine's help, I couldn't figure it out (and it happened with lots of the ready-made Blogger templates, too.

Huh?

I can't figure out why the gaps.

Ok, here's the airplane dilemma:

• Stick with the current ticket and arrive in London after both my registration date and my course induction meeting, or
• Buy a new set of tickets (total cost~$900+) in order to arrive in time for both of these events, which seem fairly important.
• Stop being the idiot who screws up plane tickets. I don't know what it is with this flight.

In other news, I'm leaving work early today in order to drive up to Chicago with Duchess. j00j and I are going to tear up the town, quite literally, I'm sure. Preliminary plans: Baha'i House of Worship, Art Institute (to think that I've never visited!), Viennese coffee & desserts. Others, I'm sure will follow. Anyway, I think it'll be a fun weekend!

Yesterday was a lazy day. I walked about a mile at lunch, two (pretty slowly) at night with my godmother (who, btw, keeps running into my high school/middle school friends or their parents at random points in the day), then a few lunges and a very short jog as I caught back up after said lunges. Oh well, I think we're going to be doing a lot of walking this weekend (why drive to the HoW when it's only two miles away?)!

Eeeeks!

Today almost ended before it started.

I walked into work, turned on my computer and tried to access the internets. Upon several failures, I was made aware that the air conditioning had failed in the server room overnight and fried parts of the server. Another division got sent home entirely (which I was soooo ready to happen here, although we haven't been working all week, anyway). I had even decided to drive to Richmond and get my stuff!

But then the internets were resurrected, although I guess the important bits of the network are still down (i.e. the randomly-lettered drives where things are saved).

I forgot the best news of yesterday. My godsister (I live with her parents) has a nine-month-old baby boy and she was very recently diagnosed with stage IV metatastic melonoma. She had treatments last Monday through Thursday and then had to stay in the hospital until she was stable enough to come home. Which she did last night, so she gets to spend some quality time with little Sam, I hope. It's also going to mean that my godparents will get to have something of a normal schedule. I did worry about them last week.

There was talk of her hiding out at our house today. She's got a million wonderful friends and they all want to help and cheer her up, etc. They don't quite seem to understand that she's literally too exhausted to feed herself, let alone give Sam a bottle. The last thing she can handle is 10,000 people calling and stopping by, no matter how wonderful they or their intentions are at heart. That's tough and it's hard to turn people away. Hence, the hiding. On the upside, I haven't seen her (or Sam) since the Sunday before Father's Day and I wouldn't mind saying hi if she's at our house.

Anyway, just wanted to note my "yay"-ness.

The plane ticket thing is getting just plain silly. I can't seem to figure out when I'm supposed to be in London. My ticket is for September 27, but admittedly I picked that date myself and made an educated guess. Some things say that I should be there for registration a week earlier, others that induction doesn't start until the 28th. So I'd be there, just very jetlagged. It is all very confusing and I can't figure things out. For now, I'm just going to wait for the packet that LSE appears to have sent to other people (at least). Hopefully that will come soon and I will have some solid information on hand so that I can make a decision.

I've also changed the template on the blog. Or, really, I've sort of kept the template, but changed all the colors, the picture and the background (which I'm sure is fairly obvious if you're looking at the page). Nevertheless, this seems to be the thing that I do when I get bored and the old template was getting tiresome, especially after I changed the text colors so they no longer matched the little square thingees in the sidebar. Paddington seemed appropriate because I blame part of my comfort with things British on the British kids literature that my parents exposed me to as a child. Plus, I adore Paddington because he makes me laugh so hard (still!). And anytime that I want to go visit Newbury, I have to leave from Paddington station. But, the statue of him there is pretty ugly.

For my favorite Peace Corps voluteer and Baha'i, her roommate and I are going to visit the House of Worship in Chicago this weekend. She's given us a prayer to read and we're going to take pictures of the gardens. If I'm really committed, I could finish JT's graduation present before going to have it be "infused" with Baha'iness. Apparently, the House of Worship in Chicago is the oldest of the Houses of Worship around the world (the first was in Russia and had issues with Communism) and the most holy because the son of Baha'u'llah (Abdu'l Baha) laid the cornerstone himself. (Just so everyone knows, I can speak conversational Baha'i, but I certainly can't spell it.) I think this should be really neat and I just hope it works, so that she is safe during the next 27 months.

Note: it is hard to know how to refer to one's friends on a blog. Are initials and/or nicknames ok? Real names are probably bad, but I'm never sure. Former residents of Bundy 224, this does mostly mean you guys. Let me know.

The US Grand Prix

Whell, I've only got a few minutes before leaving for an afternoon of doctor and dentist appointments.

This weekend was the US Grand Prix, as referenced in my previously entry. European spotting was, well, spotty downtown on Friday and I was disappointed. However, Duchess and I went to the Fashion/Snooty/Facist Mall on Saturday (it's just across from Old Navy) and saw lots of them wearing Ferarri t-shirts. So I managed after all.

The race itself was a complete disaster. Because of some stupid tire dispute only 6 cars actually participated...the other 14 pulled into their pits after the parade lap. I feel really bad for the fans, especially the ones who flew from all over the world (although I hope the shopping was still good). But mostly, I feel really bad for the IMS (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) because they had nothing to do with it. Yet the demands for ticket refunds are only going to hurt the IMS, not F1. No one in Indianapolis has ever cared about the F1 race anyway and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't come back again. Which sort of stinks after the IMS did all that work to build a course, but oh, well. At least I got to Eurotrash watch!

Work is uneventful, if still very slow. My Peace Corp friend has posted her address in Niger and I'm going to Chicago with the aforementioned Duchess to visit another college friend (while Duchess visits her very-nearby boyfriend). I can't wait! Oh, and I finally found a bag that I like after visiting an outfitters in Broad Ripple (the trendy part of Indianapolis). I hadn't even thought to look there, but they've got all the kinds of things that our new massive sporting goods store stopped carrying after it got bought out. Small but mighty! Woot!

Off to be medically examined....

And tomorrow I'll give an update on the suckiness of airline ticketing.

Two things.

On the LSE front (that no one else cares about), I've revised my proposed course list to include Human Rights of Women and International Law & the Protection of Refugees, Displaced Persons & Migrants. I'll have to beg into the second one because it's really only for LLM students, but hopefully I can manage. Yay.

Two other pieces of news, which are probably more exciting:
1) the people who own the office building in which I live had an "ice cream social" today. Or, they had Ben & Jerry's (and other) ice creams on a stick in a conference room that everyone picked up and ate in their anti-social offices. But, still, I'm not going to complain when someone gives me free (and high quality) ice cream!

2) Europeans! No, I'll explain. This weekend is Indianapolis' F1 race, the US Grand Prix. So, we get Europeans. I was on my way to the City-County Building at lunch to re-register to vote and saw some prime targets sitting outside Starbucks, which reminded me to be Euro-watching. So, on the way back I tried to be more observant. Only a few, but I'm totally going to the mall tomorrow during lunch! This probably should excite me so much, considering that I'm moving to Europe for a year (or more) very soon, but it does. Sadly, a previously promised eurotrash watching party at our best approximation of a pub was cancelled.

3) I lied and there are three exciting things, because one happened when I got up and left for a moment. Someone cut the cows out of the box that the Ben & Jerry's came in and taped them above my desk. This makes me deleriously happy and amused. (Because, as you may have noticed, it takes very little to amuse me.)

Still pondering classes...

I (still) realize that this stuff is of no interest to anyone who isn't me.

It was looking like my optional modules would be:
AN439 Anthropology & Human Rights (H)
LL454 Human Rights of Women
LL469 The Theory, History and Practice of Human Rights Law (H)

but, AN439 doesn't seem to be offered, according to the timetables that I was able to find online. I am sure, however, that I want to take language classes. But here's the question: continue working on the Spanish (which is the only other language I can even suggest that I might speak) or something new and interesting? Turkish sounds fun, if only because I could go visit Tanyel and put it to use (and is also similar to Albanian for visiting Behar). And, I've always wanted to learn German. I could have taken it at the high school in eighth grade if I hadn't had to take geometry instead. And, yes, I am still a bit bitter. Plus, a trip to Germany wouldn't be hard to arrange (especially if we do all make it to the Model UN conference over spring break!).

I'm going to keep looking for another half-unit class to replace the Anthropology one. I start to wish that I had a better idea of what I wanted to do eventually. I mean, I know in general, but specific details would probably make this easier!

Classes for the LSE

I can't really think of anything to write about, hence the not-updating of this blog. Although, I am amused that someone came around in our office and distributed stickers with the American flag on them for Flag Day. This marks the first flag day that I have ever noticed in my life, then. And I feel a little weird wearing a flag sticker...which is so not me.

Instead, I think I'm going to use this space to try and figure out which modules I want to take at LSE next year. Yeah, there's really nothing to do right now. From this list, I have to take Foundations and Key Issues in Human Rights, among the others I have to choose the equivilent of two units (the "H" ones are each half a unit, the others are one). I'd love to take more, but there's going to be ton of reading, probably volunteer work (and not just for the Lib Dems), and continued attempts to learn to speak a second language).

(Ones in Black are still under consideration; Blue is a definite yes. Grey ones are a no)

+ Foundations and Key Issues in Human Rights (required)

+ AN439 Anthropology & Human Rights (H) (understandings of cultural relativism within a broader framework of social justice; relativism & "universal" rights)
+ AN406 Political and Legal Institutions (anthropological development of political & legal institutions)
+ AN407 Anthropology of Economic Institutions and Social Transformation ("The anthropological analysis of economic institutions cross-culturally and of their transformation as a result of their incorporation into a wider capitalist market and of state policies and development initiatives.")

+ DV417 Global Civil Society (H) (classic theories of civil society, civil society in different cultural contexts and the relationship to war and sovereignty, actors of global civil society)
+ DV418 African Development (H) (political economy of African development, economic, anthropological and sociological approaches to examine African responses to social change)
+ DV420 Complex Emergencies (H) (The course looks at social, economic, psychological and political processes accompanying humanitarian disasters, at the effects of interventions, and at the prospects for peace.)

+ EU411 Ethnic Diversity and International Society (how states (well, all of Europe) deal with ethnic minorities, self-determination issues)

+ GV436 National and Ethnic Conflict Regulation (H) (basically, how to solve ethnic conflicts)
+ GV443 The State and Political Institutions in Latin America (H) (see course title)
+ GV465 Democracy & the Politics of Self-Determination (H) (relationship between the problem of national self-determination and prospects of democracy and democratisation in a cross-national, cross-regional framework)
+ GV4A7 Russia and the Post-Soviet States: Politics and Policy (democracy in post-soviet states)

+ IR405 Sovereignty, Rights & Justice (interesting, but it sounds a whole lot like the core class)
+ IR412 International Institutions III (development of the League of Nations & the UN)
+ IR422 Conflict and Peace Studies (*thinks PAGS and shudders, ew*)

+ LL409 Human Rights in the Developing World (application of global human rights standards through the national legal systems of post-colonial states with an emphasis upon the judicial application of constitutional bills of rights)
+ LL445 International Criminal Law (kinda what the title says it is)
+ LL452 The International Law of Armed Conflict and the Use of Force (again with the obvious titles; interesting, but not enough so when I only get to take two(-ish) classes)
+ LL453 The International Protection of Human Rights (maybe)
+ LL454 Human Rights of Women (considering my fascination with CEDAW....)
+ LL461 United Nations Law (if wonder if I haven't already done a lot of this stuff....)
+ LL469 The Theory, History and Practice of Human Rights Law (H) (this one is less "pure" law and includes philosophy and history)
+ LL468 Law of Human Rights in the UK (H) (no)
+ LL475 Terrorism and the Rule of Law (part of me says no, but a big part says "this is going to be a pretty big human rights battle in the years to come)

+ SA4B4 Child Rights, Child Poverty & Development (important, but another victim to having to choose very carefully)

I'm going to publish this now, but mostly so I can look over it again in a non-html-infused way.

Comments?

Waaahooo!

Right now, I'm enjoying my work far too much! And what are we doing? We're taking copies of the Indiana Code, in their nice red-bound books and writing over every section that was affected by something this session: either amended, repealed or added.

What was weird was putting a huge red R (for repealed) over our exemption from Daylight Savings Time. How I'll miss thee, IC 1-1-8.1-1. *mumbles evil things under breath*

And, finally, I re-registered for the LSATs yesterday. I'm taking them December 3 in London, again. (No! Taking them in London, once wasn't dorky enough...twice is better.) And I was bequeathed a copy of Powerscore's Logic Games Bible from the Monday sitting of the LSAT, so that might be helpful. I know I can do better than the last time, but I'm also starting to realize that I might still have some of those standardized test skills, if I pulled off a halfway decent score with the pretty minimal amount of studying that I put into it. Anyway, that's that.

Stupid Earlham Hippies

This is what's bothering me at the moment. On Saturday, a group of protestors took a break from a lawful, if noisy, protest to deface the Indiana State Capitol building. They were protesting against the proposed extension of I-69, a road that will provide a more direct route from Indianapolis to Evansville (in the southwest corner of the state) and be part of one of the Canada to Mexico NAFTA interstates. So, there are environmental concerns and there are anti-NAFTA globalization concerns, all of which are quite valid.

It's the method that these protestors used that I am really, really upset about. And its especially troubling given the target. I love the Statehouse. My mom worked there for over 30 years, I've worked there myself for two summers (now working on #3), we had a huge memorial service for my mom in the vast south atrium, and I've never wanted to get married anywhere else. I have so many memories of that building that are seperate from me thinking that it is the most beautiful building in the entire world. Even the Palace of Westminster and all the amazing European churchs get (unfavorably) compared to the Indiana Statehouse. And now someone has defaced it.

What makes it worse is that I actually know some of the people who took part. The Indianapolis Star published a convenient list of everyone who was arrested for their role in the vandalism. (To be fair, my immediate reaction upon seeing the news item on tv was, "I bet Hugh was there.") I identified three people immediately as current Earlham students or alumni and a search of WebDB this morning revealed that of the 24 arrested, 6 are current students of my alma mater (including Hugh, of course, who I also went to high school with) and I'm pretty sure that at least one more is an alum. One of the "current" students was none other than Josh Medlin, the "pie guy" who has previously starred in the anals of law enforcement as the guy who threw the pie at William Kristol.

Anyway, that's my thing today.

In other news, the Tony Awards were very exciting, other than a West Side Story duet between Aretha Franklin and Hugh Jackman. I put that on mute. At lunch I purchased the CDs for Light in the Piazza and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (plus the oldest Great Big Sea CD, because I didn't have it). And then I missed living in London and going to the National all over again. But, cheer up, because I'll be back in London soon! Yay!

I know this is getting sporadic...

But I still haven't found a very good way to have internet(s) access. I did get the hotspot to work, but that's kind of useless when you a) have lunch plans or b) get sick and go home after being at work for two hours (yesterday). In retrospect, I think it might have been a light case of food poisoning because I simply don't get sick (*knocks on wood*). The past two weeks have been a roller-coaster because Tricia, my godparent's (who I live with) youngest daughter has been diagnosed with stage IV melanoma. That's why we spent so much time playing with Sam last week. The other set of grandparents were in town for most of last week and Valerie (the other daughter) has been here as well. And through it all, I'm still trying to figure out what I should be doing to help. And its hard to keep my own feelings in check because I've been through this before and I know how it can end.

The other news of the week, as many other bloggers have already noted, is the unmasking of Deep Throat. Now I know that many older people are observing that anyone under 30 doesn't care, but I really do! I wrote my senior paper in high school on comparative newspaper coverage of Watergate and I was pretty fascinated by the idea of Deep Throat. So, to have the story sort of leak out across the cybersphere was really disappointing. I don't know what I expected, probably some dramatic news conference by W & B announcing in somber tones (and maybe with fireworks) that Deep Throat had died and that he was....! I recognize that the guy is a hero, but I hate how meh the disclosure of this huge secret turned out to be in the end. Such a let down, especially because it turned out to be someone that I'd never heard of before.