A picture instead of a thousand words My classes are concentrated into Tuesday and Wednesday. I could write about what I've learned the past few days about company law, human rights treaties, enforcement mechanisms, and so on. I'd rather post a photo from our trip last year to the Inishowen Peninsula in County
House sitting Twice in the past week I have visited the house we are buying to meet with contractors. We are waiting for bids from each of them for the long list of projects that need doing. Each time, Hilary, the current owner, invited me to sit and have tea with her
Reading and writing My entire professional career has been about writing as clearly, economically, and compellingly at possible. That is why it is so hard to spend hours and days reading content that goes to great lengths to be as impenetrable as possible. It goes against everything I know about how to communicate
1971 Today consisted of: Reading Church Movie In the reading I learned that the U.S. is the only developed country that doesn't provide the basic human rights of health care and education for its citizens. USA! USA! USA! At church, we heard about Lazarus at the gate of
Pre-Halloween Party We live in a row of four townhouses. At one end are Amy, Kevin, Milo and Charlie. Amy and Kevin are each nurturing a small business (hers is nut butters, his is video games). Milo is a little boy bundle of soccer energy and Charlie is a girl with a
Duck duck goose One of the great things about walking along Belfast Lough is you'll never know what you'll see. Today there were eight Royal Navy ships heading into Belfast harbor. I heard that a cement truck was stopped on Crumlin Road in Belfast because it was feared it
Losing sleep over Downton Abbey A few weeks ago, David and I couldn't sleep, each for our own reasons. He was upset that he had sacrificed an hour of his life watching the first episode this season of Downton Abbey. He wanted that hour back. We had watched it for an hour then
Drone Lately, I've been getting up at 6 a.m., working on quarterly reports for a few hours, reading for an hour, going to class for a few hours, reading for a few hours, going to bed. Since I have nothing interesting to report, I'm going to
Marxism, Feminisim, Utilitarianism We were discussing three critiques of human rights in class today. What was cool was when the two women from Kazakhstan and Lithuania compared notes on the effect of Marxism, and the woman from Sweden discussed abortion rights in her country, and the woman from France discussed corporal punishment in
That's what I'm talking about "Whether progressive efforts to challenge economic arrangements are weakened by the overwhelming strength of the “right to property” in the human rights vocabulary, or by the channelling of emancipatory energy and imagination into the modes of institutional and rhetorical interaction which are described as “public”, the imbalance between civil/
Work and play The morning was work--hours of reading about corporate governance policies. The afternoon was play. We went to a play called Pentecost about four young adults struggling to make it through the strike of 1974, when loyalists brought down the Stormont government over objections to Catholics having any kind of power-sharing
Six years David and I celebrated our anniversary today--we married six years ago. We started with a long walk along Belfast Lough, where we met a Canadian who moved here 30 years ago and his friend, who were walking two labs. Then I got to take a bubble bath with bubbles David
Sticking plaster I listen to BBC Radio Ulster not because I like the music (sometimes country!) but because I love Ulster accents and Ulster idiom. One of the things that cracked me up today was the discussion over how the Ulster government is borrowing $100 million pounds from the U.K. Treasury
Quarterlies I spent most of the day today analyzing fund performance relative to benchmarks and avoiding the trap of confusing relative and absolute performance. This is my quarterly freelance writing gig. Day one went pretty well. One fund down, 30 to go!! 10-9
Ray of light I chose the option that focuses on "Concepts and Institutions" of human rights over the commerce one, which ended up being more about handling trade disputes between private parties rather than about trade policy. The downside of the concepts/institutions class is it is extremely academic--not a real
ex libris I'm taking something like seven classes this semester. It's hard to keep track b/c some are one day (all day), some two-day, some are two hours every week all semester, some are three hours for only two weeks. I'm still not clear about
Helen's Bay I spend a lot of time on the train between Helen's Bay and Queen's University. I'm on the train right now (having figured out how to connect to Translink wifi). Here's our train station (now a salon). And here's our
stress X 3 To recap: Can I learn all the tricks native to any 10-year-old in order to do this degree? Can I plow through readings that are way over my head in the hopes that it all leads somewhere interesting? And, as for stressor No. 3, I worry constantly that, even if
stress X 3 The second thing I'm stressed about is can I do the work? Because I've had SO many problems registering and then changing classes (via two entirely separate systems) once I could actually read the course descriptions, I'm behind in three classes. Each course has
stress X 3 Here are the three things I'm struggling with. 1. Technology. Learning how to use Queen's Online. How to log on when on campus (on MSFT machine with British keyboard) vs. at home (on Mac with U.S. keyboard). How to use my Q drive on campus
Pride We saw Pride tonight. If you blinked, you would have missed that the hero of the film was from Northern Ireland. You would not know, because it wasn't in the film, that he was a communist. That fact was removed so as not to offend American audiences, according
Eenie Meenie I have to choose from among three electives focusing on the laws underpinning human rights, the foundations of environmental law, and the treaties and legal framework governing international commerce. The reading for each class is daunting, as are the essay requirements. My panic attacks are telling me I'm
Hogwarts Today I went to my second wine and hors d'oeuvres reception at Queen's. This one was in the Great Hall. The walls are covered with portraits of famous alumni, such as Seamus Heaney. And other distinguished-looking folk. The vice chancellor went on and on about the
0 to 100 I've been in Northern Ireland on and off since the end of March. Main stressors during that time were making a decision on a house after looking at dozens of houses, and experiencing the loneliness that comes with starting over in a new place. The one friend I&
Talent pool The discussion with Michael Smiley was part of the Aspects writers' festival in Bangor, which highlighted maybe a dozen writers of poetry, journalism, films, and children's books. All of them are from County Down or nearby. At the same time, the Belfast Comedy Festival is on, highlighting