240° South- Unst to Lerwick - A Prelude

Another gust of wind, and another wave of stinging sensation as the raindrops pelted against my face. There seemed to be no end to the onslaught from the downpour accompanied by howling winds capable of knocking me off balance. All I could hear was the pitter-patter of raindrops descending on my helmet - every drop wearing down my morale and appreciation of whatever wonderful natural landscape I was in. My waterproof (so I thought) windbreaker had failed me and I was thoroughly wet. The merciless cold was a perfect icing to the cake of misery - my limbs numbed and nearly cramping, celebrated by the acting up of a muscle injury at my thigh. The ride from Saxa Vord, of which I had expected to be an easy one felt otherwise due to the strong headwind and stretches of uphill ride. The walk at Hermaness National Nature Reserve was no better. Limping along, the sight of Great Skuas taking off and circling about in the air merely served to introduce the depressing thoughts of being dive-bombed by them. My fingers were so numb from the cold that I did not even want to take out my camera to capture the Puffins sighted along the cliff. Any hope of seeing Muckle Flugga lighthouse diminished with every step as low clouds enshrouded upon us. True to my silent prediction, the poor visibility forced my fellow traveller and I to turn back. Sounding the retreat bell, we aborted our mission of seeing the lighthouse and concluded our first day of 'adventure' for our much anticipated post-exam summer break in Shetland, where we'd envisaged cycling in sunshine and relatively comfortable temperature. For now, the hope and enthusiasm in my heart for the remaining days of cycling and journeying were as dull as the grey skies and as cold as the weather. 

To be continued... 

End of Life - to treat or not to treat?

Having done a module on medical law in my last academic year which involved a fair amount dealing with end of life decision-making, I found the article in the below link to be rather interesting, and definitely thought-provoking on issues pertaining to quality/quantity vis sanctity of life.

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/08/06/how-doctors-die/

Just for laughs

Purely just for a good laugh (perhaps at how miserable law students/lawyers can become); please don't believe or (worse still) follow what is quoted here - although certain parts may contain some elements of truth. 

Written by Melvyn in http://melvynfoo.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/17-date-a-guy-who-reads-law/

Date a guy who reads law. Date a guy whose money you can spend because he has no time to spend it for himself. He has no problems with closet space because his books are too many and too heavy to buy. So he simply goes to the library instead. (Or asks his brother to borrow them from the library for him.)

 Find a guy who reads law. You’ll know that he does from the way he talks. He’ll use words that you have never heard before like ‘estoppel’ and ‘privity’, or spout random latin phrases like ‘noscitur a sociis’ and ‘ratio decidendi’. He’s the one that can write in impossibly long convoluted sentences such that no one else but a lawyer can understand him, because that’s the way that he learned to understand his readings, which are also written in that same impossibly long convoluted way, like the way most statutes are written – not that he gives a damn about the way statutes are written. Or he can write in plain English. You see the guy who is too rational to be a jock, but too exciting to be a nerd? That’s the lawyer. They can never resist rationalizing their excitement, nor can they resist exciting their rationality.

He’s the one that you don’t really see in a suit because he wears it too often to bother to wear it just to impress you. If you talk to him about love, he’ll tell you that love is both a defense to the crime and an element of the crime itself. Challenge him. He will be impressed because he knows how difficult it is to even take the stand.

Ask him more about the law. He’ll tell you about the duty to care for each other in relationships. He’ll tell you that in special relationships, it’s not just about what people do, but also about what people omit to do for each other. He’ll tell you that you can never exclude liability for personal hurts, no matter what kind of relationship you have.

It’s easy to date a guy who reads law. Give him simple things like new socks and new ties for his birthday, because he’ll never find the time to buy any for himself. Give him books. Give him time. Understand that he knows how to win an argument; but he may not know how to win anything else – a lottery, a vote or a heart.

But he will try to win anyway.

Lie to him. If he’s a lawyer at all, he’ll know that most things that people say are not the truth. And he’ll be able to discern what you really mean when you say “I’m sorry”. Then he will reply, “I love you too.” But make no mistake, a guy who reads law speaks the truth - not because he says what he believes, but because he believes what he says.

Fail him. Because the first lesson that a guy learns in law school is to laugh at failure. The second lesson he learns is to just keep going. So if you fail him, he’ll laugh at you (and perhaps himself), and then carry on.

If you find a guy who reads law, keep him close. Because if you don’t, he’ll lose himself in his work. He’ll need you to call him to come home for dinner. He’ll need you to love him, to remind him that he does not really love his work.

He will fight for you – not in the brutish ungentlemanly way – but in the way that matters. He will fight for your rights. In fact, he will fight so much – in the courtroom – that he won’t want to fight at home. He knows that the truth of who is to blame isn’t a hard-liner to be shoved in each other’s faces, but something softer and more malleable. He knows that the question isn’t so much of “who is right”, as it is of “who is left”.

Date a guy who reads law because you deserve him. If you can only give him one night, or worse still, a divorce, then you’re better off alone. Because he’ll sue you. If you want responsibility and commitment and duties and rights and security, and also, love, date a guy who reads law.

Or better yet, date a lawyer who reads.

Disclaimer 1: This is fiction. Lawyers may tell the truth, but writers are liars. 

Disclaimer 2: The writer disclaims a personal interest in the post. It was inspired by the quote here:http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/437516.  

Trust

Struck by C.S. Lewis' passage while reading A Grief Observed the other day.

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?

Contentment

Because greed and covetousness know no end.

"If I keep myself from covetousness, content with the things I have, I remain within the frontiers of God. If I have the spirit of covetousness in my heart I have no right to say, "The Lord is my helper" - He is not, He is my destroyer. I have no right to say I am content and yet have a mood that is not contented." The Highest Good, Oswald Chambers 

I Desire Jesus

"I desire Jesus, Precious Lamb Who ransomed me
Unto You an offering Will my life forever be"

This song has been playing in my mind for the past 2 nights since I came down from Mount Kerinci. It is such a beautiful song and the last verse really sums up my gratitude.