"I'm gonna be asking the questions around here..."

At the practice interviewing assessment I had yesterday, I was given a dvd of my, ahem, performance in order to correct any mistakes.

So I finally brought myself to watch that ridiculous video of me conducting this client interview and here are my thoughts in no particular order:

• I have never been one to proclaim that an examiner, assessor, invigilator or plain teacher has it in for me because honestly, I think it's bollocks. But fuck, she had it in for me. The condescending tone with which she spoke to me and the envious look on her face upon glancing my shoes all go to prove that.
• Her grading and subsequent comments were unnecessarily harsh. She told me I'd not done a few things which I'd clearly done (honey, the recording doesn't lie).
  
• I never realised I was quite so feminine. Which sounds utterly ridiculous. But I always thought I was a bit rough around the edges. I certainly don't eat my hamburgers with a knife and fork as do an alarming number of Bahraini girls and I'm actually unafraid to wear a man-style shirt, pull my hair back or do without jewellery (apart from my Teta's ring). Seeing myself in motion, all delicate and frail. Very odd.
  
• I need to stop saying "Fantastic". What a ludicrous, arbitrary, useless word to say. Where the hell did I pick it up from? Who do I think I am anyway? Joe England?
• Did I mention my shoes? Word.
  
• If I don't smile, I am haughty, aloof, serious and completely humourless. I wouldn't want to be my friend if I don't smile.
• Black really is my colour.
  
• Jesus my hair is so dark. So are my eyes.
  
• Only I know when I'm nervous. The rest of the world wouldn't be able to tell. Only I can see the imperceptible shake of the hand as I'm making notes.
• The "client" was an organic foods store owner who was in a huff about one of his partners buying salad leaves from a supplier at less than stellar prices without his consent. How ridiculous does one feel when one asks, "So you didn't know about the salad leaves?" at a client interview?
• The English urge to be condescending outweighs every other instinct they have. "Oh you did really well!" said the peer who was interviewing me. "Well done!" Har-umph.

Anyhoo today was quite cool as we all sipped cava and orange juice out of plastic cups and stuffed our faces with cookies and crisps in civil litigation. It made our cross-examination session with the resident class noob all the more vindictive somehow.

Post script: I'm reading A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz. Started yesterday and jeez louise I'm loving it and can't put it down. It's fast paced, it's intriguing and it's written with vast amounts of humour. Worth a shot.

Neglect

Turns everything shabby no? Every two minutes though I have a new thing I feel like writing about but then I get distracted by a bag of crisps, Dope Wars, cookies, the Wii, a cup of tea, old Seinfeld episodes or Adonis. My life has deteriorated to a nutshell of domesticity of the worst kind where dirty laundry piles on and mornings are a frantic rush to make class on time coupled with a hurling of the bag with wild abandon as I hurl myself on to the bed at 3 when I hit home.

Not feeling particularly great these days either. A momentary lapse into self-doubt has me wondering why the fuck I'm doing law anyway and whether my firm was insane to grant me this training contract. So I can have a semi-decent conversation in a few languages. So what? I just feel so bloody mediocre. Following my LLM I had a massive shot of confidence, the giddy type that makes you smile at strangers, teeth a-glintin', eyebrow raised saying, "Yeah I just did my master's degree. And passed it." Piece of piss in hindsight. Then the GDL came along and my swagger subsided until I got my results. Beam beam beam. Then Dewey & LeBoeuf hired little ol' me and had I been taller, more ample-chested and blonde, I'd have been unstoppable. But then a few rejections came piling in and this was after I'd had a chance to dazzle them with my wit and charm. Whatevs, thought I. You lose some right? And anyway, I liked D&L best. And now here comes the LPC with their "practice" tests designed to make you feel like a twat, telling you things like you're borderline competent because your writing style is too formal and you use too much legal jargon. Maybe I should just write in the preferred style of yoof today wid bad speling and sum fuked up gramer rite lol? Ah they're right those LPC people. I need to do summink and fast. I need to get me back on top o' de class, pronto.

And I can't say I'm looking forward to going home for the 2 weeks of Christmas what with this wave of religiosity sweeping my family. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Reading back over what I just wrote I sound supremely self-congratulatory. Clap clap June. Pat on back. Well done me. It actually isn't self-congratulatory at all. It's just that my supreme ego can't self-deprecate without sneaking in some self-praise. And if I can't cheer myself on in my own blog, where can I?

To you readers out there (all 2 and a half of you), please don't feel alienated. Please do come back and leave me comments and brighten my day. I'm off to do my last civil litigation workshop prep ever ever. And drown my sorrows in some Walkers salt 'n' vinegar crisps.

Ray of sunshine in this dreary dreary world #2

Adonis: the love of my life, the reason London is the island paradise I've made it out to be, the loveliest of lovelies, the constant, the source of all that is good in the world, the koala bear to my Australia.

Adonis is in Stockholm and sent me roses. A lot of roses. Pink roses with lots of love.

Now tell me, how did I manage to find this one again?

Ray of sunshine in this dreary dreary world #1

I emailed Nestle to ask them about Fruit Gums and put to rest my concerns once and for all about the whole pork gelatine debacle. Imagine my delight when I got this email back:

Dear Miss X

Thank you for getting in touch about Fruit Gums.

The gelatine used in our Fruit Gums and Fruit Pastilles is a beef gelatine. For further information about our products please visit our website www.nestle.co.uk and http://www.rowntrees.co.uk/home/

I trust this information will be of help to you and may I take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in our products.


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!!

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I have nothing to say but word. Word playa.

Lit Chat

I have to say this. I am so disappointed by Jenny Diski's first effort (Nothing Natural), I feel like I could cry.

Trawling the Oxfam bookstore on St. John's Wood High Street the other day, after I'd told Adonis he could go and post whatever it is he needs to post, I decided maybe I could find a bargain book or two and get that sense of elation one usually has after finding a treasure for nothing. I was in my element. Amongst all those hideous crime thrillers that are the preferred choice of many forty-somethings on the tube, I found a couple of books for under three quid which made me squeal.

Now Jenny Diski had always been a favourite. I'd read Only Human a zillion times, intrigued by the relationship (love triangle?) between Abraham, Sarah and God. The concept blew me away at the tender age of early 20-something and I was at a total loss at the woman's imagination. To conceive of a story where God is jealous, competing with Sarah over Abraham's affections? Jesus on a Nazareth what kind of heresy was this? Attempting to explain my fascination to Muncle (my uncle) he shrugged it off as sensationalist literature combined with bad taste in books. But I know this isn't so.

So back to the bookstore, I saw Diski's name and immediately remembered the biblical rewrites of Only Human and After These Things. However, Nothing Natural seemed to me like a shallow amble into sado-masochism, much of it not really as shocking, taboo or controversial as it is made out to be. The character annoyed me. Her depression felt fake and contrived and in direct contrast with her excessive, unfamiliar sense of self-assurance. She was not as intelligent as the writer proclaimed her to be, rather sheltered with her shocked, outraged fascination with S&M*. I appreciate that it was written in the 80s. Still. Spankings? Sodomy? Beatings with a leather strap? Humiliation, pain and rape fantasies? They are all so yawningly passe, non?

But anyway, what do I know? I'm no literary critic. I don't proclaim myself to be above any form of literature.

On to the next book. I'm about to start Philip Roth's Zuckerman novels. I'm so excited about it, I can't bring myself to focus on property law for two seconds.

*S&M always reminds me of Slaughter & May, a leading UK law firm whose methods are not unlike a little mental S&M themselves. Rumour has it that a trainee missed a comma after pulling an all-nighter drafting an important document and promptly got fired when it fell into the hands of the powers that be. Ouchies.

Gay is the word

Last night's conversations as the tipple flowed like tipple and the cigarettes were chained. I was out with my friends, 1 girl (R) and two gay boys (H and L) checking out dingy Freud then meandering the streets of Soho.

#1 - On sexuality
H: R wants to know if you've ever done anal.
(Much squealing from R)
Me: Haha! Err no. God I don't know how you guys do it. It must hurt like hell.
R: H is a giver not a taker. And L has never slept with a man.
Me: Honey, where I come from, you both wouldn't be considered gay.

#2 - On measurements
(Flipping through a gay magazine in a gay club)
H: Oh my god! This guy is supposed to be 10.5 inches!
(We all stare at the picture of the penis)
Me: That's not 10.5 definitely. It's too small.
R: My boyfriend's about 7 to 8 inches.
Me: Did you measure it?
R: No but I know the size of my own hand (making a fist)
Me: Ah yes... (pause) One potato, two potato...

#3 - On flirtation
(Still in the gay club)
Me: I'm not used to not being approached on a night out.
R: I know it's great isn't it?
Me: (sulk sulk)

#4 - On acronyms
(Staring at the magazine personal ads)
H: Look at him! Jesus.
Me: "Latino dream lover". Can it get any worse? What's UC?
H: Ultra large cock?
Me: That would be ULC though.
H: Ultra... Hmm
(pause while we ponder)
H: UNCUT! UNCUT!
Me: Clever boy!

#5 - On art
(We were all cleverly drawn by a street artist for a pound each, manga style)
R: L you look like a girl!
Me: R you look like Bardot!
H: June you look like you!
Me: Haha I look so manga. Look how massive my eyes are!
R: Your eyes really ARE that big.

Saturday Night

So with my Aussie Adonis out of the house, gone for a piss-up with his Aussie mates, drinking Aussie drinks and playing Aussie games I was home on a Saturday night with no prior plans and feeling restless as fuck. I texted my friend, the very beautiful blonde Blondski with the following proposition: "Come round to mine for wine in front of the tv?" She was so there.

Then when she arrives, I am all hyperactive and overcompensatory. Whereas I love her plenty, I feel it is difficult to be completely at ease except for with a handful of people. Blue being one, MSB another and Churchill yet another. Conversation only flows naturally with a few since I can be the meanest bitch in the world and it would just work. With everyone else I hold my tongue. I hold back ever so slightly and I come off as stilted and child-like.

I break the barrier and crack open the merlot I'd bought Adonis on an impulse. Struggle with the cork and we fall about laughing then sip the wine tentatively. She nods in approval. I nod along having no idea what constitutes "good" wine and what doesn't. As long as it's not vinegary it's fine by me.

A few finger taps and scans of the room later I ask if she'd like to play the Wii. A split second look of horror until she realises I mean the computer game. We head to Adonis's room and engage in some highly competitive bowling, then tennis. We kick each others asses intermittently and I feel this is the most fun I've had staying in on a Saturday night. Then it's monopoly time. By the time we're done (and she's won) it's late and the last tube was ages back. Sleepover time. But not before watching some dodgy Queen videos and gyrating along to Crazy Little Thing Called Love much to the amusement of Blondeski.

I head off to bed and she goes to my room to sleep. I curl up and before I know it, Adonis strolls in and puts his hands on my face. He says, "Promise me one thing. Don't go out on your own at night. The streets are filled with freaks and weirdos and all these girls dressed slutty and you're here playing the Wii. So beautiful."

I love him so much sometimes I feel that my heart will explode.