a penny for your thoughts

ius divinum

Ria Ria — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:56:30 +0000

I have spent my entire saturday morning drinking coffee, eating rice crackers, listening to gimmeindie and surfing through my new tumblr love.

Yes, I have 2 exams this week, but so far it has been a bliss.

Until the day I die, I am invincible. Only God can bring me down and same applies to you.

Cheers to that!

the game of thrones and other battles

Ria Ria — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:40:27 +0000

“Do you even reread what you write?” the lawyer asked me. Well, that is the thing, that is all I ever do, write and read, work, studies, free time.. That might be the reason why I no longer notice the details, nor do I care to notice them. And I am tired of all the writing. Having 2 managers to function as editors to all of our writing not only makes us lazy, it is also tiring. Being between the grindstones, he said, she said, hairsplitting. And I wonder about the point of it all, what significance my writing has. Sometimes it solves someone’s problem, sometimes the other way round, but most of the time – none. But I know that, if not me, someone else would write it all, that is how this society functions, how the aparatus works. We write things down not so much to remember or to inform, but to make it legally binding, to have a proof usable in court.

The peasants revolted (1525) and one of their main demands was for “all Juris Doctors to be banished from the country”.

- I. Birziņa “Roman Law”

I am loosing my mentors one after another. First, my senior manager is gone, hence the game of thrones that I don’t like one bit. It takes more than a loud voice and a backbone to be a leader. A lot more. And it is hard to take someone seriously, to listen to their critique, when one knows they bought their diploma. I wish I didn’t know that, would be easier. And my BA is done and I am not happy about it either, even with getting a higher evaluation than I hoped for or think I deserve. I would rather like to exchange it for a degree in law or something, so I can go back and enroll in Eng.phil. again.

But as it is, I am where I am. Tired. With too many blank pages to fill. I want to write less and read more. And sleep.

thesis defense

Ria Ria — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:17:15 +0000

Since I can’t avoid this unfortunate event called defense, I might as well make the most of it, eh? XD I am really considering taking into account some of these pointers.

Especially:

#28 filling the room with laughing gas

#30 asking to phrase the questions in the form of an answer

#32 presenting my entire talk in iambic pentameter

#77 using a Greek Chorus to highlight important points

#92 making everyone pose for a group photo (trolllolloll, I would certainly love this one)

#125 flashing ”APPLAUSE” and “LAUGHTER” signs

#22 end the thesis defense with “And it would have worked if it weren’t for those meddling kids…”

Oh, and I could address the committee as “brothers and sisters” and give them Helquist’s illustrations to colour during my speech

the Grim Greeting Card by Brett Helquist

sunday music love

Ria Ria — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:36:39 +0000

[via chai]

quote of the day

Ria Ria — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:48:39 +0000

“What? If the government can read the budget proposal, discuss and vote on it during just one night, you think I won’t manage to read through your research and exam papers till tomorrow evening?”

-our professor of law just before the exam-

saturday brunch nonsense

Ria Ria — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:41:00 +0000

‘You actually joined twitter way before any of us did,” said the Agi (professional social media expert). “If you hadn’t left it, you could have been social media expert.”

Except that, as Chai pointed out, twitter was terribly boring when it started.

And except that I am not social, though my best friends seem to think I am. Even worse, today they said that from us three (the fourth one was sailing the seas again), I seem to have the highest self-esteem. Utter nonsense.

At least we all agreed on one thing – neither of us has any ambition. Except having a good computer, decent internet connection, tasty and healthy food, spacious apartment and good shoes (keds in my case, pretty torture devices in their’s).

Anyway, as a could-have-been-expert in social media, here are my prognosis for the unforeseeable future – google buzz was a fiasco, so twitter will continue to be a time-stealer; tumblr will still be crowded with hipsters and artists and attract copycats and everyone else in between, pinterest will gain more followers, facebook will go down and will be replaced with google+, blogger and wordpress will still be around, and people will still talk nonsense.

Unless the world ends this year, that is.

the things i have made

Ria Ria — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:46:56 +0000

DECEMBER/JANUARY

Click to view slideshow.

a complete idiot’s guide to office etiquette

Ria Ria — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:05:00 +0000

Over the past, what, almost 6 years I have spent working in one office or another, here are the 2 basic rules everyone, and I do mean every-effin-one of you should follow regarding office etiquette.

Rule #1: you take your private conversations in the hallway, the kitchen, the smoking area or just put on that coat and go outside.

I don’t wish to know what nickname you have given to your hubby, or that your kid has vomited all over the nanny’s shoes again. You have a work-unrelated phone call? Go outside. Or, if you know it will be a short one, you whisper, you don’t talk for half an hour in a raised voice. Yes, I find it hard to concentrate on my work, when you are talking about what you’ll make for dinner. OUT!

Rule# 2 If you’re ill, you stay home.

First of all, it is obvious, no one will give you a golden medal for dragging yourself out of the bed with a fever. You will, however, get angry stares from me, if you take that flu-head of yours to the office. Especially, if you have no crucial, life-or-death cases to work on. I mean, I get it, there are times when staying at home and drinking tea is not an option, the world sometimes stops spinning when we are not there to help it, but, seriously, you can play video games at home. You don’t need to take your microbes to the workplace and get me ill. If I catch flu when I have 6 exams and thesis defense in front of me, you bet I will hate you forever. I am not kidding. OUT!

Us and the Universe

Ria Ria — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:44:46 +0000

“Pardon me, girls,” an old, old lady interrupted our conversation on the bus, “but I thought it was only my childhood. Turns out it was also yours.”
“Of course it was, all is one,” I answered and, while she seated herself in front of us, and tried to find the lost thread in both, the conversation and the scarf I was crocheting. And we resumed the discussion about people and trees.

“Ziedonis and the Universe”.

A million, tiny threads from one thing to another, one person to another suddenly took over the foreground of my thoughts. I had forgotten, for a bit, just how closely, how strongly everything is connected.

Life should not be taken seriously exactly because we cannot grasp the big picture, the whole system of connections. Because we cannot comprehend the meaning of it all. Or maybe the other way round?

the right waves

Ria Ria — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 23:45:56 +0000

We meet the right people when we need them most and when it is the right wavelength for all.

Hence, today I, hopefully, sort of got my friend back on feet by putting some carbs and vitamins in her system. And realized for the up-tenth time that I am not alone with my insignificant problems.

So, when I am done with my thesis, I won’t start hunting for an apartment again. A home is what I need and what I will put my energy in making. Enough with the temporary.

And I want to make Sunday brunches at least once a month, and invite all my friends and good acquaintances, cook, drink tea and play board games.

A girl can dream.

For now, let it be Raw Garden once a week.