Oh my word....

Rahul,
Thank you for submitting your opinion to FRU. I am pleased to inform youthat you have passed and that your work was sufficiently good to waive the requirement to submit a second opinion. You should now observe a tribunal before coming into the office to take on a case.

Oh my goodness.

My case.

My very own.

All mine.

I'm there. 'tis done. I will have one, at the very least.

I'm so happy I could cry.

No matter what happens now, in the near future, and yes, there are days when I feel things are completely hopeless, I will always have this.

I will have this.

'tis enough.

I'm happy. Grateful.

Well.

I hope so anyway.

I still haven't got my visa.

Sigh. Pray for me.

Oh dear God

I can do this. I think so.

Will I ever get the chance?

I need so much luck it's not funny.

Help me.

My visa might be rejected.

My hostel might lose patience with the Home Office shenanigans and throw me out.

No law firm will even look at me. I can't even spell capital markets.

No chamber will give me more than a second's glance.

Why bother? Why even bother?

I should go home.

I think I'm good enough. I'm the only one who thinks so.

And the barrister I've been with.

I'm not stupid. There's a damn decent legal brain in me.

But will anybody give me a chance? Not even this barrister. Certainly not if he sees those grades. First is first. Second is nowhere.

Oh help me.

Hmmm...

I feel like saying something. I'm just too zonked to say it the way it should be said...



I used to be considered a very closed person. A person who trusted very little. But I wonder, how that trust was evaluated. Quantified.



It was linked to how much of me I revealed. Which was interesting.



Then I put this out in public.



It hasn't changed that impression. Which is strange. This is an intensely honest blog. More honest than my social persona is. When I talk I say things I don't mean out of sheer habit. It's a tough thing to shake. I can say that with conviction because I've never really had any incentive to lie.



People still think I'm closed. Very strangely. They want to know me, but they won't do the easiest thing and read the blog?



A perfect stranger could walk by, and know me intimately if he or she read this. I believe that.



But you won't. You don't really value something that's given free, do you? You prefer to evaluate me, judge me i.e. "get to know" me by applying your understanding of the world to me, drawing me out, acquiring more and more information. Like pieces in a jigsaw.



Which makes me believe, that you don't really want to get to know me. All you want to do is see whether you can unravel me. This is about you, and what you can achieve, acquire and understand. And the value you attach to it, is based on how easy it was to do, or how many others have or could have, which is the same thing really.



Does it comfort you, to know that you have "gained" my confidence? Do you feel secure knowing you can hurt me with knowledge of my vulnerability? Is this what you call trust?



My god, what are you?



Hmmm.



I wish to tell you, that I am no puzzle. I come with a map, and an X marking the spot. I offer you none of the satisfaction of finding out who I am.

I refuse to salvage your ego. It does not interest me.

Alert!

Applying this utilitarian balancing test, the Examining division held that the subject matter was patentable. It reasoned that finding a cure for cancer was a highly desirable end, and that the mouse would assist in achieving that end. In contrast, the Examining Division suggested that given that the research would take place anyway, and that it would require vast numbers to locate some which had 'naturally' developed cancer, the invention produced a benefit to mouse-kind in that large numbers of healthy mice would no longer need to be bred and then destroyed.

Hee Haw.

Seeing words like Mouse-Kind in legal texts makes me giggle.

Oh and, the sheer hypocrisy of pretending to care about meeses makes me raise an eyebrow.

To the bestest mummy and daddy in the whole world...

Happy anniversary.

Twenty five years. Sniff. Snort.

Parents can make you so proud.

:D.

The 21st of January

has passed.

A phonecall from the mother.

And one old friend.

:).

Wait just a tick

What's with Aamir Khan's hairdo?

Hmm. I don't watch Hindi movies or follow the tabloids. Never did, so I wouldn't know if he's sported it for a while.

But really, it annoys. Every second guy in London has it, or a variation of it.

I'll hold him personally responsible if I've to come home and have to deal with it as the "latest trend".

I also object to it as an example of an outward manifestation of confidence.

What's with this obsession to look like a peacock? My hair does that anyway, without gel or anything. Hasn't gotten me anywhere.

Teacher's report

That's a strange one.

Thank you to whom? Nobody really mentored me or anything. (I might just be unmentorable, but that apart)

Thank you to a generally lackadaisical student culture? That allowed me to find my feet before it got really competitive?

Thank you to the few teachers who didn't expect me to rote learn? For every three below average grades there'd be one which was above average?

Well it wasn't that bad re the grades.

What if...????

Sigh

Cried all the way through. All the way.

here

More than anything else, it brought back memories.

And no, I had no kind and caring teacher. I just fell into a place that valued the things I could do well.

I grew so much in law school. So, so very much. Personally and professionally.

It took a lot out of me. Dear God, a heck of a lot.

But confidence is a precious gift. Thank you.

PEM

A notable feature of most patent claims is that they are, at least to the non-expert reader, difficult to understand.

You think?

This is not surprising given that patents are not written for the general reader, but for the relevant person skilled in the art. As well as being written for specialists, the drafting and reading of claims build upon well-established and sophisticated techniques and procedures that make them difficult for the uninitiated to understand.

I just made you feel uninitiated. Wheeeee!

Another reason why the claims may be difficult to understand is that they often use expressions not ordinarily employed in everyday speech. For example, while most people commonly talk about 'mice', a claim may refer to 'non-human mammals'. Similarly a door handle may be called a 'rotatable actuating means', and a sleeping car in a train known as 'a communal vehicle for the dormitory accommodation of nocturnal viators.'

Whoever writes these textbooks has a talent for the hideously drab.

Radiohead ~ You And Whose Army

Zis my latest favourite song.

Healthy...???

Nair: Hey, how're you?

Pretty American desk clerk with annoying American accent: Hey, how's it going?

Nair: Meh. OK, I guess. Could I have my locker key please?

PADCWAAA: Sure, one sec.

Nair: Uhhh...this locker is rather close to the showers, isn't it? Right next to them I think? Number 12?

PADCWAAA: Ummm...I don't really know my way around the men's locker room, I'm afraid. (Laughs)

Nair: (Also laughs. Only polite, huh?) Could you give me another locker, like 70, or something?

PADCWAAA: Errr...I don't think I have one. Never had anybody ask me that before?

Nair: Umm...I come from a slightly more conservative culture...

PADCWAAA: But there are separate changing rooms for men and women?

Nair: (Blinks, doesn't know what to say. Thinks to himself. "With the etiquette being what it is in the changing rooms, I don't think I'd complain if it was unisex.")

Sheesh. There are just certain things about life in the west, that take a little more getting used to than others. And these things can never, ever be explained to parents. They might do annoying things like insist you find an Indian gym.(Heh. As if. A grocery store, maybe. But a gym?)

On a not so unrelated note, does the following mean anything to you?

That's not a man, that's a friggin donkey!

Now, now. Don't be naughty.

In a while...

Thayanoor Rahul Janardhanan Nair will look like this...




And if you guess who that is, you're really something, and if you're female(and not English), Nair would like to go out with you.







And in other news, Nair has just discovered Radiohead.

Hurrah for Youtube, and developed country internet speeds.

Ooooh

Sometimes you see fun things where you least expect them

Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind, with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting, even to the happiest among them? As concerned her own individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation, though it may keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her. As a firt step, the whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew. Then, the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified, before woman can be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary reforms, until she herself shall have undergone a still mightier change; in which, perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to have evaporated. A woman never overcomes these problems by any exercise of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one way.

Insomnia

You don't know what it's like, do you? I seriously doubt you do.

Voices screaming across your consciousness, the moment you close your eyes. Thoughts, people, memories that you keep at arms length, just so you can get through the day, putting one foot in front of the other.

It used to be so terrifying.

It's not normal to have been wounded so deeply. Surely these super charged emotions should have been weeded out by evolution long before I ever came into existence.

Try it. See if you can handle it. See if you can prevent yourself from making one last attempt. Any form of attempt at the only cure you see available. Making another phone call, or another message, or pleading with anybody who'll listen. Knowing full well, that you'll get nowhere, and what you're doing is virtually suicide. Delivering yourself into the hands of people who'd just as soon see you beaten to a pulp.

It's scary, I suppose. This intensity.

Only I don't have the liberty of standing on the outside, far far away, and judging.

I have to learn to live with this.

I have to smile, in the face of terror, and say...yep, this is what it's come to. You get tired of terror, eventually. It gets old.

I'm also hungry dammit. Smack bang in the centre of one of the biggest cities in the world, and there isn't even a friggin sandwich for sale.

Pet Peeve alert:
London restauranteurs. Don't understand the economic opportunities and implications of the term "midnight snack".

Hmmm

It might be, too-doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret from herself, and grew pale whenever it struggled out of her heart, like a serpent from its hole- it might be that another feeling kept her within the scene and pathway that had been so fatal. There dwelt, there trode the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union, that, unrecognised on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and over again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon Hester's contemplation, and laughed at the passionate and desperate joy with which she seized, and then strove to cast it from her. She barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar in its dungeon.

Bla

Aristotle once said that "A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall." An Aristotelian tragic hero must possess specific characteristics, five of which are below[2]:

-Nobility (of a noble birth) or wisdom (by virtue of birth).
-Hamartia (translated as flaw or error of judgment). in other words, it is a TRAGIC FLAW.
-A reversal of fortune (peripeteia) brought about because of the hero's Hamartia.
-The discovery or recognition that the reversal was brought about by the hero's own actions (anagnorisis)
-The audience must feel dramatic irony for the character.

Initially, the tragic hero should be neither better nor worse morally than normal people, in order to allow the audience to identify with him. This also introduces pity, which is crucial in tragedy, for if the hero was perfect we would either be outraged with their fate or not especially care due to their ideological superiority. If the hero was evil, then the audience would feel that he had gotten what he deserved. It is important to strike a balance in the hero's character.

Eventually the Aristotelian tragic hero dies a tragic death, having fallen from great heights and having made an irreversible mistake. The hero must courageously accept their death with honor.

It sounds like such fun, no?

Question: Why is there a "must" in the last line? What if Mr. T. Hero sees what's ahead, and is terrified as hell at the thought. No courage whatsoever. Whether he accepts it or not is immaterial. It will happen.

You might see his choice. It is painfully obvious to you. But he does not. Blindness can manifest itself in so many ways. Ways which make him tell you that the choices you see are not choices for him.

Hmm.

Nut!

There's a world out there

For you people, who've spent most of your adult life around lawyers.

It is a good lesson-though it may often be a hard one-for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world's dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognised, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at. I know not that I especially needed that lesson, either in the way of warning or rebuke; but, at any rate, I learned it thoroughly: nor, it gives me pleasure to reflect, did the truth, as it came home to my perception, ever cost me a pang, or require to be thrown off in a sigh.

Here.

Heh.

Nair's been told today, by a very nice person, that he was out of her league.(i.e. above, not below.)

I think it merits reporting.

Nobody's ever said that before. Most of Nair's female acquaintances delight in putting him down.

It feels weird.

On pity

I wonder why it's a negative emotion? By negative, I mean something to be avoided? I don't understand. I don't.

You pity, because you care. If you didn't care, you wouldn't pity. If you didn't pity, you wouldn't help. If you helped, does it make me less of a person? I don't think so.

There is this presumption that I, and you, must be these supermen and women. Able to handle everything life throws at us. And that, any crack, any chink in the armour, must be hidden, and the people who see it made to forget, or cast away.

Everybody needs help. Sometimes. Its not a bad thing.

Asking for it does not make you any less of a person. Its alright. It does not put you under any obligation either.

What I expect from you, I would have expected anyway. It is not because I caught you when you slipped. There is nobody keeping score.

Not with friends. Not with you.

These days...

It's a mixed group of people I live among these days. Some older, with fancy jobs behind them, studying to catapult themselves into the world of the elite. Some younger, finding their feet in the world, on the cusp of some very important decisions in their lives.

Me somewhere in between.

All interesting in their own way. But something's changed about me, and the way I look at them. Especially the boys, when I see different parts of who I was in them.

I sit and listen to them discussing girls. (Is there anything else?)

Perfectly and completely shallow conversations.

Let's put 'em in order. Who's your number one?

Dude, there are no t*** on that one. Completely flat.

Well, the flat ones are usually more intelligent.

Really?

In my opinion, yes.

Yep, it's nature's idea of compensation.

I could talk like this once. I could think like this once. And I envy them. I envy their ability to neatly categorize the opposite sex.

To be able to walk into a class, stare at the girls, fantasize about the prettiest of them, and leave. Go home, finish up whatever work you have to do, play a sport for a little while, and go to sleep exhausted, with no more thought given to that day or the next.

That was life, once.

To somebody like that, what I'm going through looks ridiculous. So very ridiculous. Until you grow, and begin to understand. That there is something that exists on a completely different level.

Most people don't see that kind of growth. They grow very differently, adding layers of complexity to what is a fundamentally simple design. Exchanging breasts for brains, but both with fundamentally the same purpose. Looking for something to do no more than fill a spot. When one vacates, another replaces, and all is right with the world again.

At its most evolved it says Women are meant to be loved, not understood. Ofcourse he was gay. But what a phenomenal prank to play on the heterosexual male. A depth of sarcasm that may never be rivalled. How he must have laughed at every man who nodded sagely in agreement.

And dear god, I wish I was one of them. To be able to replace one with another. How wonderfully free.

For this, and as long as I think like this, I will be considered crazy. Or psycho, or whatever a mildly above average vocabulary can come up with. And frightening, which hurts most of all.

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright.

So much for

the flying spaghetti monster.

As the tribunal had correctly observed, to constitute a belief, there had to be a religious or philosophical viewpoint in which one actually believed; it was not enough "to have an opinion based on some real or perceived logic or based on information or lack of information available".

McKlintock v. Department of Constitutional Affairs,
Employment Appellate Tribunal, 31 October, 2007

Heh.

'tis funny. In so so many ways.