And so wags away a weary world...

I hate blogger. Just ate my post.

Anyway, I have risen from the ashes and find myself in Phoenix. Hopefully this summer with go better, though the weather is not exactly up to a fabulous start-- 60s and rain the whole time I've been home. Being home, graduation has obviously happened and I have joined the ranks of Thomas More Alumni. Comps went well, A all the way despite being up until 5am the night before with food poisoning from morte mussles (they're on the verboten list next to the morte noodles now). The exam itself was easy, got out an hour and a half early both times.

And the party? Party is painting it a little strong to be honest. We went to Portsmouth, stayed in a little hotel, and hit the beach. Beach is painting it a little strong too. It was more of a rocky overhang, but it was beautiful. We got there just after the sun set, when the sky was all cerulean and lavendar and deep deep blue. Against the dark water and the rocky ledge, it was like some sort of painting or a little piece of heaven. I'm an ocean girl, I always have been. I hadn't been back to an ocean for over a year, and I was suffering mightily from it. The same way that some people need to be in a physical church building every week, or need to see the sunset, I need the ocean. That's not to say it replaces God, but there is something so magnificent in the deep blue that buoys my very soul. I wish we'd spent three weeks on Moby Dick. One and a half is just not enough; Melville is too complex, his images to indirect and precise in the same instant. Oh well. Such is the way of things.

After comps came theses defenses, which went well as well. Hey, I got to mention King Arthur, Monty Python, and make everyone-- even Mr. Shea-- laugh. My personal favorite line of the night? [regarding a border fence]: "I think we can be open to people and not be open to cocaine. I don't know, it's just a theory I have." In the driest of deadpans. Oh yes, that would be MY sense of humor. Mikey wins the day though: "Can America form an Arthurian character? Is Jimmy Carter going to come back to save us?" also in the driest of deadpans.

And then, graduation. Sure, there was two weeks between theses and grad, but I had an incredibly busy schedule of Chick Flick Tuesday, Gossip Girl Wednesday, and Buffy Friday. So yes, I totally did no work after comps. So it goes, it's time honored. I swear. Graduation left me wanting. It was so typical, trite, normal. My education, my time at TMC was so atypical, like being trapped in a real life character study-- everything is magnified and examined and reexamined. And graduation was... just like everyone else. Well, not totally. I was able to see the faces of certain of TPTB during the ceremony, and never have a seen more sour faces-- perhaps we interrupted their tee time. Then there was the moment we were told "Partings are usually sorrowful, but not really today. Out plz, k thx." by the administration. I mean honestly, how dare you say that to me in front of my parents on MY DAY? Perhaps he meant well, but it sounded so crass and mean I couldn't help but be upset.

There was a point in the graduation, however, that I will remember all the days of my life. Dr. Mumbach stepped down as dean officially on graduation, after 30 years. She wasn't scheduled, but she gave a small speech anyway. She talked about how honored she was to have spent those thirty years doing everything, how she couldn't even take all the credit because look at where they had lured the rest of the faculty from. It was from her heart, and she was tearing as she said it, and when the juniors jumped to their feet in a thundering ovation everyone followed suit, and then she really did cry. We joke about her lectures, complain about her style,wonder what she was thinking sometimes, but we do love her, and I don't think she quite realized it. So I'm glad we gave her that.

So now home, and Starbucks, and Library Science. At least it's distance learning-- I will finally come up for review and get a raise! Maybe I can make shift, we'll see. I don't know that I really want to be a shift though. I feel like the go to barista-- I'm one of the only people who doesn't have a "zone"-- I bop around everywhere in the schedule. So we'll see.

Also, I don't care if he's my senator, I'm not voting for McCain. Not voting for Obama. Not voting for Hilary. I can't aid and abet any of these people in their quest for the White House. Ugh.

Perhaps the funniest thing about the primary system is how into it everyone gets, and how upset people get that they don't get to vote in both. It's a PARTY election. It's a little aggravating because it's been coming up a lot, along with the scads of emails I get encouraging me to vote in the New Hampshire primary tomorrow. I appreciate that they want a high turnout and that, as a college kid I am the hardest demographic to get to vote. However, I'd need to be, you know, in New Hampshire to make that happen. *shakes head*

I've been thinking a lot about my senior thesis. I'm still really in love with the idea, which I guess is rare. However, I have NO idea how to go about researching it. I know I want to include Coke, Blackstone, Thomas More, Pufendorf, Badgeot, The Once and Future King, Le Morte d'Arthur, and Magna Carta, as well as the 2003 Parliamentary Bill that was a list of the top 20 English common law documents ever. It's there that I have issues. I'm considering Joseph Campbell for his work on myth, and I'm pretty sure Voegelin has stuff too, and I'm sure there's a bunch of commentary; after all, this is the second oldest law system in the WORLD after the civis juris of Justinian (Roman law). But how do you find the good stuff? The library is woefully deficient, and not that many people I know actually know what common law IS, let alone who's good on it.

I guess in the end, this thing is becoming three fold in purpose (oh dear...). First, to show that English common law, itself a wonderful system that has worked for a long long time is too bound up with the English political myth and ideal to be successfully transplanted outside of England. Second, that the common law is so versatile that it has gone through ALL of Aristotle's good governmental phases with little time spent in the three bad ones. Third, it's a justification of the "peculiar institutions" that exist in American law-- like that pesky stare decisis people abide by in court decisions. Oh dear, this is gonna be a tome and there's no way around it.