Nika's Thoughts

For those who weren’t paying attention…

2010-06-01T22:05:00.001-04:00

A nice article about Souter’s commencement speech.

Getting Psyched

2010-05-25T23:15:00.001-04:00

Harvard is getting carried away with the tenting for graduation. My window faces a small parking lot and yard that is not near anything graduation-related, and yet this is the view from my window:

How many extra tuition dollars did I pay for these??

Our Wedding Website…

2010-05-10T12:38:00.001-04:00

…is up! Only took about 5 months to put the thing together, too. Visit it!

It took me 5 minutes this morning...

2010-04-24T05:45:00.000-04:00

...to totally brick a new-with-factory-settings Macbook Pro. See, I was borrowing a Macbook Pro to do some work on this weekend, and I thought that I would see if I could watch the BarBri lectures I'm supposed to be watching on it. So I went to the website and clicked "Test my Mac!" to see if the computer could play BarBri lectures. Instead, it froze. Completely. Couldn't move the mouse.

So we powered-down by holding down the power button. Now you have to give it a lot of nudging to get it to turn on, and when it does, it will only give you an apple screen. If you ask it what operating systems it has on it, it doesn't think you have any. So I guess my new project for the day is reinstalling Snow Leopard.

My opinion of Apple products has always been that they do a very good job of doing what they want you to do with them, but if you want to do something else (BarBri lectures are supposed to use WMP), or something goes wrong, there's not a lot you can do about it. That was clearly on display today...

Nika [Still] in England

2010-04-21T06:04:00.001-04:00

So, still here in southern England. Updates on what I've been doing:

1. Trying to figure out how I will go home. If your flight gets cancelled you get pushed to the "next available day" on the less-than-fantastic Aer Lingus site. Which I've now experienced twice. I am currently hoping that I will be travelling back to Boston via Shannon on Monday, April 26 (the Shannon-Boston leg is supposedly business-class(!)). But anything could happen.
2. Learning about jet engines, volcanic eruptions, wind patterns, and EU politics. Self-explanatory.
3. Pondering internet-as-human-right. Okay, there have been debates for years over whether internet access should be a human right, and it's going to get more serious with developments like HADOPI and the Digital Economy Act. (Intriguingly, the French court has declared internet access a human right, but that doesn't seem to be stopping modified versions of HADOPI from coming down the pipes.) (Oh, and my favorite Digital Economy Act story is this one.) And I've decided that it definitely must be.

See, the problem is that this is Nick's internet connection:

His telecommunication services are provided by Virgin Media. They're in his housemate's name. On March 8th or 9th, construction on the street outside of Nick's house accidentally cut telecommunication wires to his house. Within a day or two, Nick's phone service had been restored by BT. However, it is now April 21st and Virgin has failed to send out a technician to repair the cable, which is part of a legacy network (which makes Nick think that they don't have anyone capable of fixing it). This means that, for more than a month and a half, Nick hasn't had internet access at his house except when he can occasionally pick up a weak signal from an unsecured nearby network (which is probably now violating the Digital Economy Act...).

This means more than just being unable to watch TV shows (you can't get the good U.S. ones legally from the internet here, anyways -- I am so far behind on Lost right now that it's making me antsy). It means that Nick and I are unable to talk to each other when I'm in the US without it being prohibitively expensive. It means that Nick was unable to make travel plans for our trip to France or logistical plans for our pre-wedding party in the Peak District. It means that he has to spend more time at work researching how he can communicate his problems to Virgin and what rights he has. And it means that now that I'm stuck living here for an extra week, I have to walk 4 - 5 miles a day to Nick's friends' house to do as much work for my job as I can remotely, where I suspect I am wearing out my welcome (even their Roomba has escaped into the kitchen, away from me), to use their internet and laptop. (The house is 1.1 miles away from Nick's, but I have to walk there and back twice since the grocery store with lunch is next to Nick's house.)

Internet is so crucial for so much of what we do on a day-to-day basis. When flights were cancelled throughout the UK, passengers were told that they couldn't be helped at the airport, and that they had to return home and rebook their flight using the internet. It was assumed that they would be able to do so. Internet access needs to become a human right; it has become much more than a time-wasting luxury.
4. Trying to get internet access. I go to his friends' house during the day, and at night I sometimes attempt to connect to a weak-but-unsecured nearby network from Nick's house. I also come up with elaborate plans and schemes for acquiring laptops and internet access.
5. Doing a bit of work. I really am becoming knowledgeable on African colonial history, which is an interesting side-effect of my research for my job.
6. Drinking gin and tonics. Everyone here loves gin and tonics.
7. Missing Rumney, MetroRock, and Vertical Pilates.

Eyjafjallajökull!

2010-04-18T08:29:00.000-04:00

So, I'm stuck in England. For what might be a long time. The Icelandic volcano is still shooting a lot of ash in the air and, as everyone keeps telling me, the last time it did this in the 1800s it went on for two years.

I need a boat.

Nick in America

2010-03-24T09:21:00.002-04:00

Woo-Hoo! Nick has passed his visa interview; his K-1 visa is being issued! He is on track for actually getting married in August!

More on Lost!

2010-03-21T16:46:00.001-04:00

I’m catching up!

Episode 6: Sundown

Thoughts:

The episode is trying to start by tricking you into thinking that Sayid has babies, just like Jack, but nope!
I got psyched when Keamy showed up again. He’s such a bad guy.
Meanwhile, we all still think of Sayid as a good guy even though he perpetually claims “I am so done with torturing” before he goes and tortures/kills again. I know that Dogen thought that Sayid had been “infected” and that was why he was so far on the “bad” end of the scale…but what if he’s been that way all along?
When Kate jumps out at Sayid from the edge of the jungle, the same way she did with Jack and Hurley last week, I wonder if she’s just going to become a perpetual presence popping out at people for the rest of their time on the island, because that would be funny. But nope, she seems to be back in on the adventures now that she’s found Claire.
For a second I was worried that Sayid was going to totally kill Kate (I said “Oh NO!” to the TV when she came out of the bushes) because Dogen said that the Nemesis was going to come along looking like someone he knew, but thankfully Sayid for whatever reason did not assume that Kate had died, unbeknownst to him. Which is good, because it means she’s still alive now.
Considering how all the original Losties (and lots of other characters too) generally like to shoot first and ask questions later, I’m surprised that there haven’t been a lot more of them killed by friendly fire. The only one I can think of who was is Shannon.
I like when Kate and Miles bond about how tough it is to be Sawyer-groupies. I also like how Miles seems to often play the role of recapper to other confused Losties. “What did I miss?” says Kate, “Go ask Miles,” says Sayid.
When Nemesis hands the knife back to Sayid, he’s totally cool about things. As I’ve said before, this new incarnation of Locke is way better.
Okay, as I predicted, Nemesis is totally not stuck in Locke’s body. But I was hoping that this would lead to some sort of big fight between Nemesis/Ilana/Ben, which hasn’t happened yet. But episode 7 (which I haven’t seen yet) appears to be Ben-focused so maybe it’s still coming.
Claire-in-the-hole is very Silence of the Lambs-y.
Umm, my favorite moment of the episode is when Ben runs off to get Sayid, has a brief discussion, and then runs away. Poor Ben has gone from being pretty evil to being, like, a comic foil. Which I like.
Kate looks a little wary when she follows the possibly possessed Claire and Sayid out at the end. Nemesis doesn’t try to explicitly recruit her the way he seems to have done with Sayid, Sawyer, and Claire, which is interesting.
Do we think that Dogen’s son in the on-island timeline is going to be an older character that we know? We’re assuming everyone on the island is living in 2007, while in the alternate timelines the plane landed at LAX in 2004 – but in actuality (this has been pointed out several times), we don’t know if the year is really 2007 on the island or not. What if it’s, say, 2010? Then Dogen’s son would probably be about 18 (because he was presumably about 12 when he showed up in the alternate timeline in 2004). I’d say Dogen’s son is at least 15 now and it’s possible he’ll become important.

Theories:

I don’t really have any new theories from this one, but I’m sticking by the earlier theory that I came up with that in the alternate, plane-crash-free world, the biggest difference is that all the characters seem to have much stronger, but also more complex, ties to people who weren’t on the plane.
I’m also wondering about Nemesis going around promising everyone what they want when they got off the island – I’m wondering if what is being promised is what is being shown in the alternate timelines. If that is the case, I’m wondering about the fact that everyone who is signing up for Team Nemesis has alternate timelines that are different, but not necessarily superior, than their on-island ones. Locke is still paralyzed, Jack has a son but a bad relationship with him, Kate is still running away, and Sayid is best buddies with Nadia but not married to her. Just a thought…

Epidsode 7: Dr. Linus

Thoughts:

So this time Ben sacrificed himself for Alex, rather than the other way around in the original timeline. Curious.
Similarly, while the original Ben gassed his father to death, new Ben is keeping his father alive with oxygen tanks. Clever.
Btw, that's really cool that they managed to use the same actor for Ben's really old dad.
Seeing Locke in the teacher's lounge reminded me again how annoying he is and how much cooler Nemesis is.
Richard Alpert has gotten totally whacky. Jack seems to be on board with being whacky too.
Why does Ben run when Ilana is watching him? She hasn't been paying attention the whole time he was talking to Nemesis -- wait until she looks away again!
Team Jacob has a lot of my favorite minor characters (Miles, Frank, Hurley), but Team Nemesis has lots of my favorite major characters (mainly Kate and Sawyer). Who do I root for??

Theories:

Hah, my theory from Episode 6 may have some more support now: Somehow Nemesis might be giving people the other people that they want in these sideways timelines, but in a different way from how they want them. So now Nadia is Sayid's sister-in-law instead of wife, and now Alex is Ben's student instead of daughter. Tricky Nemesis!

Lost Thoughts…

2010-03-06T20:53:00.001-05:00

Note: I wrote this whole thing before watching Episode 6, even though it’s already aired. I still haven’t watched it. Don’t tell me what happens! And if some of my theories turn out to be particularly right or wrong, don’t tell me that, either. I’ll write more theories after I watch Episode 6!!

So, I’ve decided to become as boring as everyone else and start blogging about Lost. First of all, I love Lost! But second, it seems like not a lot of people are watching the sixth season, so I have no one to give all my theories and feedback to. I keep trying, unsuccessfully, to make Nick watch it. (Nick hates watching it because the only times he’s seen it has been when we’ve watched together and I’ve already seen the episodes and so I spend the whole time we’re watching it giving him background information on what’s going on.)

So, we’re already about a quarter of the way through the final season, depending on how you count, which is so sad! But I have all sorts of random thoughts on episodes 1-4. So I figured I’d post them. Then, if any of my theories turn out to be right, I can very much do an “I told you so” to anyone who will listen. Oh, also, if you don’t want to know what’s going on in Season 6, you probably shouldn’t read this. Duh.

Episodes 1 and 2: LA X

Thoughts:

In the sideways timeline, I got a kick out of all the old characters coming back on the plane, and all the current characters acting a bit more like their old selves.
When the new John Locke (I don’t know what to call him – online people are calling him Man-in-Black, Esau, FLocke, Nemesis, Lockeness Monster, etc. – maybe I’ll go with “Nemesis” – it’s simplest) says “Sorry you had to see me like that” to Ben, that so became one of my favorite Lost lines. It also confirmed to me that I far prefer the new inhabitant of John Locke’s form to the old one. Everyone knows I thought old John Locke was whiney and annoying; I was never a fan. New John Locke is funny and awesome, even if he’s a bad guy!
When Kate can’t hear anything and everyone wonders if their TVs are broken, it makes me wonder if that’s what everything sounds like to Daddy and his plugged up ears all the time.
Ugh, I am a much bigger fan of Sawyer-and-Kate than Sawyer-and-Juliet. (Sawyer and Kate are like two of my most favorite people ever!) I’m hoping that now that Juliet (finally) died it’s going to eventually clear the way for Sawyer-and-Kate to reunite.
However, things were not looking good for a Sawyer-and-Kate match when Sawyer tells Kate to “hold back” when he goes off to bury Juliet – especially because you can tell that she was about to run after him and comfort him. Then, he passive-aggressively tells Miles to come with him instead, which he totally knows will get to Kate. (It turned out he had a good reason for taking Miles, but still!)
I’d still like to know why, precisely, the old flight attendant Cindy and the two kids joined up with the others so early on.
Why doesn’t anyone try to take Juliet to the Temple? Especially since she seems to be, like, less dead than Sayid for a little while?

Theories:

Okay, when Juliet was down in the hole being all like “help help!” before she died, and we couldn’t see her, I did not have a good feeling about how things were going to turn out for Sawyer and Co. I was having major flashbacks to Montand being sucked under the Temple by the Monster in Season 5, and him seemingly calling out to the rest of the French team “help help!” Jin and Rousseau were all like “that is totally a trap” but the rest of the French team crawled down to try and help – and then next thing we knew, they were all killed by Rousseau because she was convinced they were crazy (which they probably were, since her husband did try to shoot her after she put her gun down). It appeared that it really was quite possible that the Monster had “infected” the rest of the team while they were underground in the Temple. Which is totally what I thought was going to happen when Sawyer and Co. dug “Juliet” out – I was sure it was going to be the Monster doing a Juliet impression. I was doubly convinced when the digging-out was juxtaposed next to a scene where Jack and Co. found armless-Montand’s skeleton under the Temple – I was like, they’re giving us hints! That’s going to be Sawyer next! But then, when they finally dug out Juliet, it did truly appear to be Juliet and everyone was very emotional when she died. So I guess maybe it wasn’t the Monster after all. But I think it would have been a cooler resolve if, say, dying-Juliet was really the Monster, infecting Sawyer. Oh well.

Episode 3: What Kate Does

Thoughts:

Yay, it’s a Kate episode! She’s my favorite.
Sawyer runs away and Kate chases him – go get him Kate! They bond a bit, too, before he runs away, which is promising.
I like the whole Jack-Kate dynamic when she goes to run after Sawyer – he (Jack) is totally more into her than she is into him, it’s funny. She scoots away when she thinks he might try to kiss her. This bodes well for Sawyer-and-Kate, too.
I really liked when one of the others who went with Jin and Kate when they chased Sawyer was like “She better not slow us down” and Kate was like, to herself, “You better not slow me down.” First of all, because she was totally going to be faster than the rest of them, and second of all, because that’s a pretty sucky comeback and thus something I could totally relate to. If anyone said that to me that’s probably about the best I’d be able to come up with. Excellent. And then Kate throws him into one of Rousseau’s/Claire’s traps later on.
Sawyer and Kate bond on the dock, which is good, but then he totally sends her off on her own and keeps sulking. Also, some people online were complaining that Sawyer threw his engagement ring in the water, just like Desmond did a long time ago: “Why can’t the writers be more creative? And why does everyone keep being almost-dead and then coming back to life?” This sort of whining totally misses the point – there are supposed to be major parallels. At this point you might as well ask “Why do the writers keep using the same numbers over and over? Why can’t they come up with any new ones? There are infinitely many numbers!”
I totally don’t blame sideways-Clare getting back in the car with sideways-carjacking Kate. Anything beats having to deal with buses.

Theories:

Well, my biggest theory regarding the Claire/Rousseau parallels only really fully developed in Episode 4, so scroll down for that one.

Episode 4: The Substitute

Thoughts:

Okay, I soo like Monster-version-of-Locke way more than normal-version-of-Locke. Sawyer seems to, too – I’m on board with that, Sawyer.
Ha, Ben in the teacher’s lounge is so annoying. Which is just about right.
I appreciate Frank’s presence on the island – he’s funny.
Richard seems like he’s going kind of crazy.
When Sawyer’s ladder snapped off the cliff, just watching that made my rotator cuffs wince. In real life, his shoulders would have exploded into a million pieces and then he would have fallen into the sea and been eaten by a Dharma shark. But I guess I can’t start “real-lifing” this too much.
Where is Kate on the cave ceiling?!?! I am on Team Kate.
But honestly if the teams are lining up with a Team Jacob-Jack-Hurley and a Team Nemesis-Sawyer, I’m probably on board with Nemesis-Sawyer, particularly because Nemesis is so much less annoying than Locke.

Theories:

Okay, you know how Ilana thinks that the Monster has made the Locke-face so long that he’s now stuck like that? Well, all the commentary I’ve read online has taken that statement of hers at face value – everyone’s discussion why he’s stuck like that. But I think Ilana may be totally wrong. She didn’t say where she was getting her intel from, but I’m worried that she may have derived her “he’s stuck like that” theory from Ben’s sneaky little statement to her that he [Nemesis] killed Jacob, glossing over the fact that Ben was responsible for the mechanics of that deal. Has no one ever read stories/books/fairytales where someone can’t do some crucial act themselves without dire consequences, so they need to trick someone else into doing it for them? My theory is that, had Nemesis actually killed Jacob in the form of Locke’s body, he would have been stuck as Locke. Instead, Nemesis discovered a “loophole” where, if he got someone else (Ben) to do it for him, he’s not stuck. But because Ilana doesn’t have all the beta, she’s under the impression that Nemesis is stuck. And I suspect that the outcome of this misconception will probably not go well for her.
Backing up that theory is the fact that we saw POV Monster at the beginning of the episode. I didn’t see anything happen to Nemesis since that point that would have been transformative enough to get him stuck in Locke’s body – certainly nothing that Ilana would have been aware of. I think the point of sticking would have been when he killed Jacob, but because Ben was the killer, the Nemesis isn’t as stuck as Ilana thinks. This is going to end in tears…

Episode 5: Lighthouse

Thoughts:

Jack has a kid! When I first saw the dynamics between Jack and David, I thought for a second that they might have somehow inherited the Michael/Walt plot in this version of the world. Maybe David’s mom has just died and this is Jack’s first interaction with him. But it appears that that’s not the case.
Jacob is so much more annoying than Nemesis. He’s sort of like a Locke with an “I think I know it all” look – although his might be somewhat more justified than the ones Locke sometimes got.
I enjoy the Jack-Kate dynamics when she tries to shoot him at the river; she is so not into him which makes things kind of awkward for him. Hurley’s not helping.
Okay, I was sort of remembering the Lamppost Dharma station out in California under the church, and for some reason my brain was confused and thinking that this Lighthouse they were going to had the same name as that and must be related, especially since they both appeared to have to do with bringing people to the island. But it turns out that I was just misremembering and they both just happen to be compound words beginning with L that have to do with luminescence. Now maybe they’re related after all, but I was disappointed when I realized my brain made a false connection when I was convinced that they were like linked stations somehow.
Oh man, Jin is totally messing things up for Kate with Claire. By the time Kate finds her, Jin is totally going to have accidentally convinced her [Claire] to kill her [Kate]. Whoopsies.
Just like I like the new Nemesised version of Locke, I like the new Rousseaued version of Claire. She’s still sort of baby-obsessed, but now she’s way more nutty. Improvement!

Theories:

Alright, so I’ve got several theories with this episode. The first sort of goes back to a lot of commentary that originally showed up asking why the Losties were the ones who crashed on the island in the first place. Several people theorized that the people who crashed on the island on the original Oceanic 813 were all people who didn’t seem to have close connections in the real world. Some wanted to go back anyways, others didn’t. But they all didn’t have close people (spouses or children) to go back to. When there were spouses, they crashed together (Bernard and Rose; Jin and Sun), and same with children (Claire and Aaron (still attached!) and Michael and Walt). There were no parents who crashed on the island without their children. But now I’m noticing that in the new off-island world, the characters do have connections to people not on the plane. Now Locke has Helen and Jack has David. Perhaps, even, Kate has her mom; apparently, a Lost extra video was aired over the summer implying that in this world, Kate didn’t blow up her dad but instead accidentally blew up one of his employees instead – so presumably her mom wouldn’t be quite so mad at her. I haven’t seen anyone commenting on this – which is strange, because it seems to me to be the biggest difference between the original crash timeline and the reset non-crash timeline. Maybe somehow, the off-plane connections the passengers had managed to keep this version of the plane from crashing?
Another big theory of mine: Okay, this theory developed out of all the “Sayid is possessed” theories. People all seem to think Sayid might be possessed by Jacob since they both sort of died around the same time. Which is why Dogan seems to think that Sayid is infected. (He called Claire infected, too….) And Claire certainly seems to be channeling Rousseau – but I haven’t seen anyone explicitly explain this mechanism. But here’s my thoughts: If an infection/possession somehow happens when people die in close chronological proximity to each other, then it turns out it makes total sense that Claire is channeling Rousseau. I looked up when Rousseau died – it turns out that she died right before Claire’s house gets blown up in Season 4. Now, when Claire’s house got blown up back during that episode and it went straight to commercial, I totally thought that that was it for Claire. It was flattened. And yet she came out of it more-or-less totally fine with just a few scrapes – but just a little bit dazed. And then she went whacko, moved into Jacob’s cabin with Christian, and disappeared for a whole season. It seems to me that maybe Claire wasn’t as alive as we thought after that house explosion. And if she died, it was in awful close chronological proximity to Rousseau, who she now seems to be channeling…hmm.
Speaking of Jacob’s cabin, everyone seemed to be assuming that it ended up being inherited by someone bad (Nemesis/the Monster?) who was held in by the line of ash. When Ilana discovered it was broken, commentators seemed to assume that whatever was holding it had escaped. But I always assumed that the ash was to protect someone inside of it (like when Bram attempted to save himself from the Monster when it was going after him), and the broken line meant that someone had got to whoever was being protected. So I’m not sure who’s right on that front, me or everyone else.
Okay, so according to various screenshots and lists, it looks like there was some overlap between the names/numbers on the cave ceiling and those on the lighthouse wheel. (Jacob loves making lists; I respect that.) However, they’re not identical. (Happily, Kate appears at a non-significant number on the lighthouse wheel – uncrossed out. Which is good.) Some people think that one list is Jacob’s and the other is an imperfect copy by the Nemesis; whether it’s intentionally imperfect or not is up for debate. But I think that it’s possible that both lists are Jacob’s at different times. As people go around making lists, they sometimes update and make changes. And if they’re not all synced in the cloud, some of them might reflect more accurately what Jacob is thinking than others. Just something to think about.

So those are my most updated Lost thoughts! Gotta go to bed soon; Rumney tomorrow!

More Bad Buzz

2010-02-13T20:34:00.001-05:00

So, I’ve finally done a little bit of research into Google Buzz, which launched earlier this week. I haven’t paid much attention to it because (1) I don’t use my Gmail account all that much to start with, and have relatively few contacts there anyway, and (2) I don’t really use other Google services for things I want kept particularly secret. But I could see that it was probably going to have all kinds of privacy problems.

So, I did some reading up today on the various inevitable privacy issues. Further research has indicated that, according to Google, “Your Google Reader shared items, Picasa Web public albums, and Google Chat status messages automatically appear as posts in Buzz.” “Well,” I thought to myself, “I don’t really use any of those three, so I guess I personally don’t have anything to worry about.” I don’t use Google Reader, the only stuff that goes into my Picasa Web albums are the photos that also go in my blog because Blogger automatically stores them there – and they don’t go up as public there anyway, and Google Chat has always been way overrated.

But then I thought to myself, wait! I actually was using Picasa majorly, all week (starting last Saturday) to discuss wedding dress options with lots of people. I used their public albums to upload hundreds of photos of me in various dresses and didn’t mention it to Nick, because he’s the last one to go poking around online when he’s bored, and, like I said, I hardly ever use Picasa. (The albums are locked down now that I’ve finally chosen a dress.)

But it turns out that Nick is actually one of my few automatic followers on Buzz, and had I waited just a handful of days to upload all those wedding dress photos to Picasa, he would have gotten emails about all of them. Which would have sucked; both he and Zeb have specifically requested that my dress be a surprise to Nick.

Some people complain that concerns about web privacy are overwrought (and sometimes they’re not wrong). They think that if you need privacy online that means that you’re doing something bad. But I don’t think that going over my wedding dress options was something bad, and I still would have been bummed if Nick had seen all the photos.

Latest Cause

2010-02-13T15:50:00.001-05:00

So, if Nick ever gets his interview at the U.S. Embassy in London for his K-1 Visa, he’s going to need to provide a notarized letter of intent from me that basically says that we’re still planning to get married and our status hasn’t changed.

Normally I get things notarized at the Town Hall in Westborough, which is actually really great – I always get things done successfully there without much hassle. However, the Cambridge Town Hall is far away and only open inconvenient hours, so I did some research, saw that UPS notarizes things, and went to Store 1520 at 1770 Mass Ave.

I also did some more research, and saw that pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 262, § 41, notaries, as public servants, definitely cannot charge more than $1.25 for signing that my signature is authentic on a single sheet of paper that is about me marrying Nick.

So, that’s where the trouble starts. At the UPS today, all they did was check that my driver’s license identified me correctly when I signed the form. They also recorded my name in a little book (the “official journal” that notaries have to keep under Executive Order 455 § 11). That was it. I’m pretty sure the guy didn’t even look at the letter he notarized, other than to check that the name matched my driver’s license.

But they charged me $5! I paid, but looked at the receipt later. There was a charge for $1.25 for “Notary,” and a charge for $3.75 for “Notary Service Fee.” What is a “Notary Service Fee,” and why do I have to pay it? (For that matter, why did I pay $1.25 for “Notary” – I didn’t buy a notary, did I?)

So, I’ve sent them a stroppy email pointing out that they’re systematically violating Massachusetts State Law, and saying that I want them to either (1) give me a detailed explanation of what I got for my “Notary Service Fee” or (2) give me my $3.75 back. (Okay I really want 2. But curiosity would lead me to accept 1 as an alternative.) I’m not expecting a response but I might get one – you never know.

Unfortunately, there’s no place on the MA website, or on the MA Secretary of State website, to report misbehaving notaries (some states do give you a place to report right online). If I get more wound up maybe I’ll write them a letter.

So now this is my latest campaign (not that I expect much to come of it). If I end up getting fired from all my jobs, my new plan is to initiate a class action suit against UPS for their totally illegal “Notary Service Fees” (which I think they use in other states, too – not just MA). Stay tuned for that…

I have a dress!

2010-02-11T15:15:00.000-05:00

Good news. After subjecting many people to many emails, I have finally chosen a wedding dress. It wasn't the one that both Hannah and Sage called "elegant" -- but it was the one that probably inspired the most conversation overall. Zeb "put all [his] money on it," and also thought it was most likely to make me cry (because it will immobilize me, according to him). Mombie concurs that I will be unable to move. Sage calls it "the peacock," and considers me choosing it to be "doing things the hard way." Krissy calls it "a lot of look." Hannah and Rachel concur that while they certainly wouldn't do it themselves, it might be just about right for me. I figure anything that gets that much attention is probably going to be fun. So I'm doing it the hard way. We'll see how it works out. Stay tuned!

LOST

2010-02-01T23:31:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow night is the premier of the final season of LOST. SO excited. I won’t actually have time to watch it until Wednesday particularly because it takes me like three hours to watch an episode. I watch it, and then spend another 2+ hours reading articles on Lostpedia and various blogs analyzing it. Everyone else should watch it, too, so that I can tell everyone all my thoughts and theories about it.

For example, one small thing I’d like to see resolved in a particular way: The Numbers. Now, Hurley thinks the numbers are cursed, right, because after he won the lottery using them a lot of bad stuff started happening to him. But how did he come up with the Numbers to use for the lottery? By listening to a crazy guy at the hospital repeat them over and over. Why was the crazy guy repeating them? Because they had been transmitted to him over and over while he was out stranded on the ocean somewhere near the island radio tower that was broadcasting them. The way I’d like to see this resolved would be for time-traveling Hurley to be the one who had left them broadcasting from the radio tower to begin with. That way, the Numbers would truly have been a monster of his own creation.

Unfortunately, it looks like that’s probably not happening since signs say that there will be no more time traveling this season. Which is too bad, because I feel like that would be a particularly satisfying resolution of the Numbers.

Anyways, I have all sorts of theories and ideas about LOST and am so excited to watch on Wednesday!

Heart of Stupid

2010-02-01T23:25:00.001-05:00

This weekend was the Heart of Steel comp, which was pretty overpriced and crowded. The consensus was that the organizers put a lot of effort into promoting the comp and not enough into setting/organization – all the subsequent problems (I can give you a complete list…) seemed to stem from that.

The finals were more tricksy than satisfying, but people seemed to like watching them. I was trying to see if anyone was going to lose a finger or a head to the stupid power crystal. Zeb climbed in a “prefinal superfinal,” which he lost by public opinion (everyone said “aww” when he fell off), but which he actually tied on by standard bouldering competition “control is what matters” rules. Public opinion won and he didn’t climb in finals.

In other, unrelated news, the wedding invitations are now in sealed, addressed envelopes. They just need dragging to the post office. So, if you don’t get yours within the next week or two, quiz me because it might have gotten lost in the mail.

Wexis enters the 21st Century

2010-01-26T22:25:00.001-05:00

So, I spotted an article today about how Lexis and Westlaw are finally getting their acts together and offering better search capabilities since so many free competitors are rivaling their services. The best thing would be if they started charging some sort of flat fee for all-you-can-search the way it works in law school, but that’s probably unlikely.

The article talks about how, I believe, they’re going to improve their “natural language” search capabilities. Which is good – but I actually hope that they keep their old, complicated Boolean search functionality too. It gives highly precise results and makes sure you don’t miss anything if every single document within certain parameters comes up. Sometimes I wish I was better at giving Google more precise search parameters, too.

In unrelated news, I’m probably doing Heart of Steel this Saturday. But first of all, it’s expensive, and second of all, they keep spamming my Facebook every day…which is annoying. But I’m probably doing it anyways.

Final piece of news: I heard a rumor that OUMC and CUMC might finally start offering half-blues to climbers. Which would be exciting but also extremely frustrating because I competed [and won] for both teams. I want my two half-blues…then I’ll add them up and make a whole one!

Success

2010-01-24T10:35:00.001-05:00

Look at this pot:

Last night, there was about half a centimeter of very burnt rice stuck to the bottom (I didn’t turn down the heat when the water started boiling…). And it was really stuck. Letting it soak in water in the sink and then rubbing with a sponge, and then scraping with a spatula, got nowhere. Occasionally a black fleck would come off – but at that pace it would have taken years of continuous scrubbing to get it clean.

So, after searching on the internet, I tried several approaches. I boiled water in the pot. I boiled water, ketchup, salt, and baking soda. I boiled just salt and baking soda. I boiled just baking soda. I let the pot full of baking-soda-boiled-water sit for several hours. Finally, things were looking uphill, so I boiled more baking soda and water in the pot and then let it sit overnight. Finally, this morning, with the help of a spatula, I was able to get it clean. Success! I used like half a box of baking soda, though.

Cooking and Food

2010-01-10T21:26:00.001-05:00

Excitingly, I got a lot of food-making items for Christmas. From Krissy, I got a set of bowls and measuring cups that I’m excited about. From Nana and Grampy, I got a Target gift certificate that let me get a wok and a blender (after Daddy and I literally drove around in circles for a while trying to find the Target). And, from Mom and Dad I got a “24 piece” (12 lids and 12 jars of varying sizes – including some small ones that Mom made fun of) Tupperware set. (On this I compared notes with Rachel; she got one third of a 40 piece Tupperware set.) So I’m pretty excited about all of this.

I’ve also been trying to eat a lot of salads for lunch lately, and also trying to run. One of the “wedding checklists” Nick showed me told me that I’m supposed to be beginning my “health and beauty regime” right about now. Uh huh. Meanwhile Zeb has been theorizing that the fatter you are the more committed to the relationship you are. Anyways, I put lettuce, carrots, peppers (of several colors), cucumbers, apples, sometimes cheese (either cheddar or goat’s), and croutons. They’ve been coming out pretty good!

Yum yum.

Wedding and Other Updates

2010-01-10T21:02:00.001-05:00

So, good news: After a slow search, Nick and I now have a wedding date and venue! It’s going to be on Friday, August 13, 2010 (unsurprisingly, you get extra discounts for booking on Friday the 13th) at Harrington Farm. Invitations are now under works and should hopefully be out in the next month or so. I’m sure everyone who reads this blog is getting one so if you don’t get one in the next few months check in and make sure that it hasn’t gotten lost! We’re also working on a website with wedding info, but that is obviously very much under construction. Check back soon!

In other news, I’m starting work tomorrow at the law school library, doing copyright research and other related tasks. In preparation, I did six loads of laundry today. So my room is the main drying area right now. It was one of my less successful laundry days; I lost two socks (one of mine and one of Nick’s) and broke a pair of flip flops. Oh well.

Least Annoying

2009-12-20T16:23:00.001-05:00

I bet no one expected that I would be considered to be the least annoying family member in any situation. But I recently saw this old YouTube video of Zeb climbing in the Gunks:

You can hear us all commenting annoyingly, in our own ways, in the background. The funny thing that I discovered, though, was the first comment on the video:

leftystrat62

Nice vote of confidence about the integrity of the rock from your balayers as you go thru the crux. And of course we have the guy at the belay who is NOT leading(doohh) saying how it's easier to heel hook to the left. I think you should keep the encouraging female climber and drop the other dudes.

Most people who experience climbing with me in real life do not have that reaction.

For fun, another angle:

Milk

2009-12-20T16:07:00.001-05:00

Now that me and my siblings have (mostly) moved out of my parents’ house, there are far fewer milk crises. They have gone from going through a gallon or more per day to a half gallon every few weeks. Meanwhile, though, I have to supply my own milk.

Before I left for England (Fall 2008), milk prices had been climbing for a while. It wasn’t hard to pay over $5/gallon. I was pretty shocked when I got back this summer, then, and was paying only half that at not-cheap supermarkets. It turns out that while I was gone, there was a “dairy crisis” marked by falling milk prices. More delicious milk for me!

Annual Milk Prices (from “Understanding Dairy Markets”):

2008 Milk Prices:

It looks like now I can drink twice as much milk!

Don’t Worry, They’ll Learn

2009-12-20T15:56:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, I came across this article in the NYT. The general premise is that the author took a climbing class with IME at Cathedral Ledge with his children, who consequently behaved better. The first paragraph of the article, though, is 180 degrees opposite from how things work in our family:

For three days last month I had a break from family squabbles and smart-alecky retorts. My adolescent children didn’t tell me to “wait a minute” when I needed something done. Phones were shut off, for the most part, and neither a DVD player nor a computer was turned on.

We do nothing but squabble, smart-aleck, and tell each other “hold on, wait a minute,” usually while we’re on the phone. Oh well.

Student ID Adventures

2009-12-20T15:48:00.001-05:00

So, when I was in England last year, the Harvard ID that I got as a 1L expired in June. Which was a problem that I had anticipated well in advance – in the summer of 2008, before I left for England, I spent some time trying to track down the new ID that I would need to have upon returning in Fall 2009. The ID office told me authoritatively that the law school registrar would have my ID ready and waiting for me at “registration” in Fall 2009, and not to worry.

So, over a year later, “registration” for my final semester of classes happened online with no discussion of my ID. No problem; I went to the registrar’s office. They acted particularly clueless, but told me not to go back to the ID office, and instead just wait. It would come over from the ID office eventually. So myself, and the other three HLS students who did the Cambridge program with me, waited. For about two weeks. Meanwhile, we had to go through complex negotiations to get into the library and the gym; we learned the secret codes that we had to say to the desk guards to get them to let us in without our working IDs. Every so often, one of us would get motivated and go bug either the registrar or the ID office, but they would just say, quite authoritatively, that the other office must have them. A few of us managed to get some “old-style” IDs missing one of the magnetic stripes they were supposed to have, but that was about it.

Finally, one of us went to the ID office and lucked out – he got a new one printed on the spot. Inspired, I marched in there, waited in a 10+ person long line, and was then sent to sit in a chair when I explained my situation. At first, the guy who I spoke to wanted to send me to the registrar’s office, but I told him very authoritatively that “they sent me here.” After a number of phone calls, he finally located all of our IDs (which had actually already been printed after all). They were hidden “in the red box.”

So, fourteen months after I first tried to get my new student ID, I finally managed to get it out of the red box. (I directed the other HLS/Cambridge students looking for their IDs to go to the ID office and demand the Red Box.)

This is still vaguely concerning to me, because I expect that I’ll need another new ID printed in the spring if I continue to do research here at the Harvard Law Library. And that will be a whole new adventure. Stay tuned!

Blogging Again

2009-12-20T14:19:00.001-05:00

So, now that I’m done with finals (and pretty much done with law school!) I can start blogging again. At the moment, though, things are pretty much up in the air. This spring, I might be doing copyright research work with the Harvard Law library – but maybe not. I might be living in Westborough, I might be in Cambridge. I might have tons of free time, I might be extra busy (especially when it comes time to take the bar exam in the summer). Stay tuned!

I also have lots of old things I never got around to blogging about – so expect more to come!

Rumney and Puppies

2009-11-09T10:23:00.001-05:00

I haven’t been blogging much lately; it’s been a busy semester. This spring, though, when I’m totally unemployed, I’ll probably be blogging a lot.

Yesterday, I went to Rumney and climbed with Eugene and Hannah and Daddy and Rachel (and saw Zeb for a little bit). Rachel has a new puppy, Rufus, who was the star of the show even though he was a little bit boring with a lot of sleeping. Here’s a video of Rufus, taken in my most annoying voice.

Rufus and Annoying Nika

It was a nice day, and I felt like I was climbing okay, until my foot slipped off a giant hold on Short Wave. The problem was that the hold was so giant that I couldn’t help slamming my knee into it, too. So I’m still limping around today.

NOA 2 Soon

2009-10-26T23:18:00.001-04:00

Ack! So, Nick and I are tentatively planning on an August 2010 wedding, but this depends on when his “Fiancé visa” (K-1 Visa) comes through. We sent off the application for this back in mid-September, figuring that that would position us well for a summer 2010 wedding in terms of timing.

The problem is that USCIS is moving incredibly fast. They are supposed to issue two notices of action (“NOA”s). NOA1 is supposed to take a month to issue, and it just indicates that they have received your application. USCIS sent it out to me within a week, though. Then, there is supposed to be a gap of five months between the issuing of NOA1 and NOA2 (which indicates that USCIS has approved the application – although there are still many other hurdles that have to be gone through before the actual fiancé visa issues). However, our NOA2 came today – just under a month after NOA1 arrived.

This is a slight problem for several reasons. The visa is only good for a certain amount of time, and it’s a single-entry visa, which means that once it issues, Nick will no longer be able to enter the U.S. until it’s time for him to get married. So if it issues before he comes to visit in January, we’re going to have problems.

Also, as we move further along in the application process, he may face further hurdles in terms of entering the U.S. before the visa actually issues. I guess he’ll find out tomorrow whether he’s going to have any issues this time around – he flies to Nevada for work tomorrow. Stay tuned…

Oh well, I suppose an early approval is still a much better alternative than, say, an early rejection.

Where do I live?

2009-10-16T18:28:00.001-04:00

Well, in the spirit of this old post of mine, I’ve taken some pictures of my dorm room set up this year. It’s similar to how I’ve set it up in previous years – basically, everything has a spot, and if you bring one extraneous item into the room the whole system falls apart – because all spots are already allocated.

Since the last photo was taken, one of the plants in it has already died (when I got back from Las Vegas it was flat as a pancake). The other one still seems to be alive, though, despite minimal watering. So that’s good.

Tomorrow I’m going up to Rumney to freeze. Forecast doesn’t look good:

Stay tuned…

More Wedding Planning

2009-10-16T01:00:00.001-04:00

So, it turns out that wedding planning kind of sucks. I’m just trying to find a venue, but every suggestion I come up with results in Nick saying “that is way too large, we don’t have enough people” and Mombie saying “that is way too expensive, we don’t have enough money.” The effects of this are exaggerated when Nick interprets venue maximums as de facto minimums and Mombie comes up with arbitrary inflated figures (“Alcohol is going to cost $10,000 alone, you know”). And I found a list on a caterer’s website of things I’m supposed to do for a wedding – I’m already hopelessly behind (am I really supposed to be ordering a wedding dress seven months in advance?), and I’d say that about 30-40% of the things on that list are things that I didn’t even know you were supposed to do.

But, the silver lining is that I’m also finding some fun stuff. I was aware of Cake Wrecks long before the recent NYT article on it, but the article was a good excuse to go back to this page, and particularly enjoy this photo. This is starting to confirm my suspicious that I’d rather have cupcakes and ice cream…

Oh, and I also found this website specializing in funny engagement photos.

In other news, I have a lot of other stories to blog on that I’ve been piling up – I may post more this weekend.

Facebook Could be my Wedding Planner

2009-10-04T17:11:00.001-04:00

So, as predicted, the ads on Facebook have been very excited for me getting engaged. Current ads include:

Wedding Weightloss
Engaged? Get a free gift
Planning your Wedding
New England Brides
Custom Wedding Stationery
Boston Wedding Photo
Pros Wedding Photography
Save the Dates
Free Wedding Photography
Preparing for a Wedding?
Cambridge Weddings
Getting Hitched?

Etc. Nick isn’t doing as well – he only has one “Getting Married?” one, and one for flowers. He also has one for “Luxury Florida Villas” – so I’m not sure if the advertisers have as clear a grasp on him as they do on me.

In other good news, I have sent off the I-129F form, the form we have to file to get Nick a visa to move here and marry me. So far the immigration office has indicated they’ve received it, but the next step of approving it could take up to five months. Stay tuned!

Fall Classes

2009-09-27T21:21:00.001-04:00

So, everyone has asked me for details on what classes I’m taking this fall and how they’re going. Without further ado, here’s the schedule:

Copyright and Trademark Litigation

This class meets once a week on Thursday mornings for two hours. It’s taught by Dale Cendali, who’s best known for being J.K. Rowling’s lawyer and has been involved in a lot of interesting IP cases, including not only Harry Potter ones, but also the Shepard Fairey lawsuit and some of the Barbie-Bratz disputes. She’s clearly very big into strong IP rights, which is interesting. The class has only met a couple times so far, but it has been good.

Sex Equality

This class has a complicated schedule. During September and October, we meet for three hours on Monday and Tuesday mornings, and another hour and 45 minutes on Wednesday mornings, for almost eight class hours a week. However, after October, we don’t have any more class meetings. So I’m particularly busy right now because of this, and will have a lot more free time in November.

The professor for this class is Catherine MacKinnon, which also makes this class really interesting and good – I really like her. So that’s a good class, too.

Communications and Internet Law and Policy

This class meets for an hour and a half on Monday and Tuesday afternoons, and is taught by Yochai Benkler. So far, we’ve been focusing more on the history of early- and mid-20th century communications issues with respect to radio and television, but we’re getting into more modern things soon. This will be interesting with respect to the latest net neutrality developments.

Legal Profession

This class meets for an hour and a half on Monday and Tuesday evenings, and is taught by Annette Gordon-Reed. It’s a required class for graduating, and hasn’t been all that interesting so far, but I think will start to pick up a little bit. But I’m still more excited about my other three classes than this one.

So, those are my classes – they’re generally pretty interesting with a good mix of teachers.

Rumney Yesterday

2009-09-27T20:25:00.001-04:00

So yesterday was a good climbing day – there was nice weather, and I went up to Rumney with a loosely-organized HMC group. I climbed mostly at the Main Cliff and Orange Crush, and led a bunch of long 5.11s I had never led before. It’s definitely getting cold, though – next weekend I bet I will be freezing.

Las Vegas and Red Rocks Photos

2009-09-25T16:43:00.001-04:00

They’re online! Here.

Left Las Vegas

2009-09-21T23:04:00.001-04:00

So, I’m back from my flyout week trip (no classes for 2Ls or 3Ls at the law school – or, presumably, 3.5Ls like me). I was climbing at Red Rocks, right outside of Las Vegas, NV, with Nick.

We didn’t do anything super exciting, but we sport climbed a handful of easy 5.11s and a ton of 5.10s. The weather was unseasonably hot – most days in Las Vegas it got above 100F, but up around Red Rocks it was probably only above 90 in the sun, and really quite pleasant in the shade. We spent a disproportionate amount of time in the Black Corridor (a.k.a. Gong Show Ground Zero – I don’t know where those people come from) because it was really the only area with consistent shade and lots of sport routes in a good range for us. Unfortunately, we never made it to the Gallery when it was shaded, so my big project of Yak Crack didn’t happen. We also did a “trad day,” climbing the first four pitches of Dark Shadows, a 5.8 (Nick did all the hard leading, but I led a 5.6 pitch that Nick thought was tricky when he seconded it – and I felt like I did a really good job with the protection on it, which made me happy).

In Las Vegas, we stayed at the Stratosphere on the weekends and at the Luxor on the weekdays. We didn’t actually spend that much time at the hotels (although we did manage to acquire free tickets to the Criss Angel show at the Luxor), but we did pop our heads into a bunch of the other casinos to see all their big features at night, which was fun.

Photos will be forthcoming on FB – but not until I catch up on email and manage to get groceries!

Thinking…

2009-09-10T22:48:00.001-04:00

So, this is the start of a whole new blog for me! My old blog, about my year studying abroad in England, was here, but since I’m now back at Harvard Law School here in the U.S., the old one was less applicable. Thus, the new one!

I expect that this blog will be about all sorts of stuff that happens to me. Topics will probably include law, intellectual property, Harvard and HLS, technology, rock climbing, travel, wedding planning, England, feminist issues (per Zeb’s request), and general rants, fussing, and strops. I already have a little list of things and stories I want to blog about.

So, as I like to say, stay tuned!