Not so fun part of snow: Frozen windshield!!

SNOW!

SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! LIKE FOR REAL!!!

I've come to the conclusion that going on exchange is a most unhealthy experience. Think about it. You're taken from all that is close, familiar and comfortable and thrown headfirst into the freezing cold wilderness of everything that is distant, faraway and altogether very strange. You make friends, first out of necessity more than anything else, then subsequently form relationships that arise from common suffering and mutual empathy, last minute grocery runs because you need eggs for pancakes, late night adventures through the library and at the end of a year, just when you've ironed out the kinks and rubbed the uncomfortable corners off each other and when you've finally gotten past the awkwardness of being friends to being friends, you're expected to just drop everything and sever all ties. I know I know one can always keep in touch via email and whathaveyounots but you and I and everyone else knows that that simply isn't the same. Words on a screen and a distant voice do not a friendship make. It's cruel inhuman treatment that's what it is. Sigh.

Mistake me not friends, I do miss all you guys back home and all over the globe but I also love love love all my friends here. Gah. Enough of this rubbish, there will be more than a fair share of this angsting come June, I promise.

Oh, and proof I've put on weight:

I AM SO PASTY PALE WHITE UNDERSIDE OF FISHBELLY DIAMETRIC OPPOSITION OF HEALTHY GLOWING TAN IT IS NOT FUNNY.

Why oh why did I ever think taking environmental law was a good idea?

Egad. It is 1.43 in the morning and I am on question 3 of 10 for the class later today. I am also on call which means I will be picked on and apart mercilessly for an hour and a half until I throw my arms up in despair and declare shamefully that I am a dunce and a know nothing fraud!

What kind of statute defines a term by referring to another statute? What kind praytell, what kind?!!

“Liability” is defined in §101(32) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation And Liability Act, as the standard of liability which obtains under section 1321 of Title 33 (§311 of CWA).

If any of you think that you've gotten the grasp of statutory interpretation and research, you know nothing of the true horrors that the legislature can wreck upon your miserable uncomplicated, straightforward, lawnet-searching lives.

O woe is me!

Updated!

Ok yes, it's been a long while. But you know what they say. About time. and being on exchange. and work. and the cow that jumps over the moon.

Oh, you don't?

Well, I'm most certainly not going to tell you if something quite so simple as what they say about time and being on exchange and work and the cow that jumps over the moon is something you are unfamiliar with.

But in any event, whoever said that exchange is a bed of non-work, all play roses is a Big Fat Liar. The Biggest Fattest Liarest Big Fat Liar you will ever set eyes on. Ever. Even if you lived past a million and survived dear ol Harry.

Because between running errands (PHONE BILLS! INTERNET BILLS! TRAFFIC TICKET BILLS! BUYING GROCERIES! PAYING RENT!), reading (oh don't tell me you guys don't read at all and don't care a smidgen about screwing up in class.), writing papers, briefs and memos, COOKING and CLEANING (It didn't strike me until about a month after I arrived that I spend on average, 12 hours a week cooking and at least another 4 cleaning up after cooking), eating what I've cooked in the apartment that I've cleaned, laundry (i've given up ironing. Don't even ask) I manage to take about 2 deep breaths before the week ends.

So. that's really what I've been up to. I guess my philosophy towards exchange isn't so much that I need to spend as much time travelling and having fun and exploring as it is to take advantage, to as great an extent as possible, the plentiful academic resources available and pick as many brilliant minds as possible. With that in mind, I've been running after every seminar bandwagon and brown bag lunch crowd with an almost-embarassing enthusiasm and fervour. It is beginning to wear me down though but well, as long as it lasts I suppose.

Update: brasil is NOT looking good. School withdrew funds so each of us have to cough up 900USD to go and after that nasty piece of news, 9 withdrew leaving 6 of us, myself and 5 girls. Not what I'm looking forward to. Christmas and winter break however is looking good, tickets have been booked and I'll be off to NY from the 18th Dec to 2 Jan (have to be back early for damn Jessup. Ask me about that another time, that's a whole other ball game. involving various sharp implements. And tonnes of self-torture). So, if any of you Americanos are there, give me a holler. My number's 314-583-5616.