Clearly I did grow up

I just had one of those, "Oh dear, I am getting old" moments. Watching stand up comedy, I discovered that I no longer find someone skulling a beer inherently funny.

I think it was the kids... an enforced new perspective. Very strange. Or maybe enforced sobriety.

Incidentally, it wasn't me that wrote that last entry, at least it wasn't me until I got a comment about it, at which point I remembered writing it, and it suddenly became me again. I'm sure I haven't learned anything useful in this philosophy course, but I will never forget Locke's insane definition of self...

It's midnight, I'm drunk and the kids'll be up in 6 hours. I don't think I wanted to grow up. Mim, did you mean to grow up?

Do most people know what they want in life?

I've been reading some amazing bulshit about what philosophers have believed the self to be. It's mostly ridiculous. If you want a laugh, go look at Locke's account of personal identity. It's completelty insane. Unfortunately you may find strong resonances with our legal system...

Oh well, according to Locke, this isn't me anyway, because odds are i won't remember this in the morning....

Well that pregnancy didn't last long, had a miscarriage at 5 weeks. Apparently even numbered pregnancies don't work for me. !.!. Oh well...

It was very unpleasant actually. My mother kindly pointed out that in the old days I wouldn't have known I was pregnant and would have thought it was a week late period. Hmmm... well I reckon the agonising pain and projectile vomiting would have given it away, but what would I know?

I've been single parenting for 2 weeks with hubby away. He's away for another 5 days.... I am really over this, it is very exhausting. Not to mention the fact that I am not qualified to live on my own. This morning I had to ring a friend at 6:50am (she has kids, she was awake) to come and rescue me because there was an enormous spider in the bathroom. I noticed it when I was in the shower, and it was next to the door. Since I am a teensy weensy bit arachniphobic, I had to climb out the window to get out of the bathroom (towel clad, to add to the fun). Thank the gods I was too tired to remember to lock the verandah doors last night...

Anyway, I couldn't even vacuum it up, I tried, but I just froze and couldn't do it. It's pathetic. I know it is just an 8 legged bug, but... I guess that's why they call it a phobia...

So come on Thursday when my big strong man type comes home. Sad, I know, but there you go.

So this week I discovered I am pregnant. Only just - 4 weeks. Still very doubtful as to whether there will be a baby. I figure there is no point attempting to keep it a secret, this Saturday I am going out with friends for dinner. The fact that I will be consuming no alcohol should result in the conclusion being reached within 35 seconds.

I guess I may as well log this one, I have bascially no record of the others... :)

Week 5: Got nausea the day my period was due. Got positive pregnancy test the day after. Currently in denial and grappling with whether to go back to the obstetrician. Tummy feels bloated.

Oh well, let's see if it continues....

Who'da thought people who seem otherwise intelligent enough could hold the most mind-bogglingly prejudiced ideas? I was talking to someone the other day and when the subject of Israel's (disgusting in my opinion) war with Lebanon came up, she remarked that she hopes our government doesn't open our doors to refugees from Lebanon because "they are all rude and offensive".

Sheesh. It's bad enough that people might privately believe this, it's way worse that they feel it's acceptable to present it in public. I'm not disputing that there is a social problem with at least some second generation Lebanese boys, but it is jut a sub-culture, like plenty of other troublesome sub-cultures and I don't believe it reflects Lebanon as a nation, and I know that this person in particular has no evidence that it does.

We had an old fashioned pub night the other night (mental masturbation I used to call it) which mostly consists of Tim posing deliberately contrary political views and the rest of us attempting to shoot it down. It lead to the age old question (well, 50-odd year old question) of how to fix the middle east, most especially the Israeli bit of it. Of course, 4 or 5 half pissed people in a pub will be able to resolve this issue, when the diplomats and statesmen of the world have not. After having seen the raving looney behaviour of all factions living in the old city of Jerusalem, I think there is only one hope for long term peace and that is to remove that area from the control of any of the interested parties. To be fair, the Christians are the most looney, followed by the Jews and then the Muslims as it happens, but that probably has more to do with their relative levels of power than anything to do with the people or the religions themselves. I have no idea how we achieve this, perhaps while the Dalai Lama still has nowhere to call his own, we could give it to him. :)

Oh well, I should go back to sorting out my costume for Rock!

I'm studying for an exam (can't you tell) on the common law tradition. I've never been any good at history and have managed to avoid learning about it up until now. Strange how legal history was what finally gave me an understanding of European history from the Greeks to now-ish...

But between that and the sociology bits and pieces I've been learning about, I have started to think that the world really looks like it is at the end of an era. By this I don't mean economic collapse and chaos and lawlessness in the next few years, I just mean that I think we are some way into perhaps a 200 year transition. Our legal systems are looking inadequate, some of the principles they were predicated on (at least in the western world) are no longer being observed. The most obvious of which is equality before the law. There are some good motivations for why this is not being observed - specific treatment for indigenous people would be one example. Others are not so great.

I'm not suggesting there was some golden age when these things were all good, women were never equal before the law, but that used to match with society, now it doesn't. Our society is changing faster than traditional mechanisms for handling change can cope with.

There are more doom and gloom predictions about our economic system than you can poke a stick at, but I think they are all summed up in the mind boggling statement "We can't afford to look after the environment". I mean, has there ever been a more insane assessment?

So now I am pondering what the new world order will be. I think clearly that jurisdiction must become global. In what form I am not sure, but I do think that whilst understanding of all cultures is necessary, tolerance of all aspects of all cultures is not.

I often wonder why economists study economics as though it was a found science. To me, at least some of their efforts should be going towards finding a new system with a better appreciation for our current requirements. Clearly capitalism was a great step forward from feudalism, but I don't understand why we think it is the final solution. Surely it is time the human race moved on from slavery to money. It was created as a tool, how did we let it become an end in itself, and how do we restructure the world to put it back in its place?

Oh well, if I have any great inspiration, I'll post it. Of course, if you have the solution, I'd like to hear it!