Deus Ex machina

Is it possible to be reassured and completely freaked out at the same time? Well that's what happened to me this morning during our jurisprudence revision seminar. Martha-Marie actually did a very good job of calming our nerves, and yet strangely it also made me a bit worried- as if I had only just realized that I will in fact do this exam. Ironically this is the only exam for which we have been given the questions in advance, but only three of the eight we got will appear so you could get seriously screwed preparing for the wrong ones. It's a delicate situation. Still, it's the only module I am really worried about so I guess things could be worse.

Meanwhile I received the following curious email from someone a few days ago:

Dear Minega,
I was so excited by your newspaper article about Horse
racing in the Sunday Times newspaper of 16th April
2006 on page 13.Please kindly send any information
about Horse breeding/rearing,as I believe they can be
reared like cattle and goats.This is commonly done in
Texas,USA.Also do click on my profile in the attached
message,then Solar-powered...,Summary,Plan
details,Needs,Photos to see what Iam doing.
Yours truly,
Ssengooba Ismail,
P.O.BOX 11783,
KAMPALA,
UGANDA.
Now please keep in mind that at no point in the article did I even suggest I was any kind of expert on horses. The whole point of the article was to poke fun at the English obsession with horse-racing, and indeed to show-off my ignorance on horses and horse-racing so you can imagine how high my eyebrow was while reading that email. You write an article specifically making it clear how little you know about something and then you find yourself in the midst of someone's business plans. Life is full of suprises.

Random things overheard at the dining table:
"No, what I said was that I've got a friend who thinks vegetables have feelings..."
"This guy I know actually tried to hibernate. Didn't do too badly- managed to sleep for two straight days. He was hallucinating for a few days after that"

And what is it with people talking on the phone in the library? On Sunday, this girl called up someone and began a very loud conversation right there in the library even though it was so quiet before you could hear spiders running around. Some guy in a reading booth near me hissed "Shut the fuck up!" (a very un-English thing to do) she either didnt hear him, or ignored him and carried on merrily. About two minutes later, he said quite loudly "ARE YOU BRAIN DEAD!?" and again she just carried on- she was talking so loudly she probably couldnt even hear him. Everyone was getting pretty agitated. I was afraid she would be attacked by a mob and get thrown out of the window. Today afternoon, it was two girls about ten minutes apart from each other. How can you just start chatting away sitting at your desk when everyone right down the room can hear you clearly and your voice is the only one cutting through the silence? And why are these people all female? The last one today got warned by a librarian and it was a big relief to everyone who was thinking evil thoughts.

I was watching the demonstrations in Nepal the other night and I was thinking: What kind of country is it where 10,000 people violate a SHOOT-TO-KILL curfew? Nuts.