News: From Katrina to Oliver

I got some good news today: I passed the Contracts Exam! That’s 1 down, and 5 to go.

Of course I'm still working on my paper, too, which is progressing slowly - there's always another case or article to read. Plus I’ve got a lot of technology to catch up on, from e-books and e-journals to Endnotes – amazing software that automatically creates footnotes and bibliographies. Back in the day (that is, when I was in law school the first time), it was usually easier to just go to the stacks and find what you wanted in a book. Westlaw and Lexis were only available in DOS - Windows wasn’t around yet. (I feel like such a dinosaur.) Now a lot of stuff isn't even available in hard copy, just on-line. But that means U of A has nearly the same range of materials as U of C, which is pretty amazing in itself.

I woke up this morning from a dream about being in a flood. I was trying to rescue the child of an old friend whose name I didn't recognize, but that didn't matter, the kid needed help. Weird, like most dreams, but then I thought it’s likely that people all over the world are having more or less the same dream. It's being called American's tsunami, but I don't recall hearing such stories of anarchy in the Third World. This morning's paper said children were raped in the Superdome and shots fired at relief workers. Hard to imagine New Orleans will ever be the same. And the effect on oil has already reached us here: petrol is up to NZ$1.53 per litre - about US$4.25 per gallon. Sure glad we only need the car for discretionary use.

Such as: last Sunday I took a day off to go hiking with Ali in the Waitakere Range again. We spent five hours on the Kauri Grove Trail. It wasn’t all that steep, but trying to go around the muddy spots – which was nearly the whole trail – presented a different kind of challenge. Fortunately, NZ bush is full of these long ropey things that make great handles; we were practically swinging from them at times. And the payoff: in addition to seeing that lovely waterfall, we got to walk among kauri trees. They’re a bit like California Redwoods, since they grow enormously big – up to 50 meters tall – and they live for thousands of years, sustaining entire ecosystems beneath their canopy. They remind me of the tree in “My Neighbor Totoro” (one of my all-time favorite movies). Like the tree in the movie, they’re absolutely magical. Kauris once covered the North Island, but the European settlers found them useful, so there aren’t a lot of them left. It’s a privilege to walk among them.

On a different note: I’ve got a little friend in Colorado, his name is Oliver. He just started school. Oliver’s Mom, Terri, is one of my oldest and dearest friends (we went to different high schools together). Both of Oliver’s parents are photographers. Consequently, Oliver's First Day was thoroughly documented, and if you take a minute or two to for it to download, you'll see a great slide show.

Cheers,
Sandie