We had karaoke

in school, opposite the room that we usually practice in.

Which is nice, being a bunch of choristers singing for our break time – no it really isn’t ironic.

It’s about the being able to sing what you want and however you want, with an audience.

A captive audience, only captive in rapture.

The live music playing to one side as we finally have a slow moment to catch up with each other.

I am sorry that A wasn’t feeling the greatest today, and we don’t know if talking about it made it worse or better.

But I want to listen to you, I hope that I can convey that much emotion to you.

–

The soft trails of your hair fall

on my shoulder, not unlike the way you reached your hand

out to me and I bent down.

How warm the night is, and how warm you are.

Your complaint that it’s too hot as you settle down –

I know.

We’ll leave the windows open,

for wind, for dust, for mosquitoes,

all these things in up in the air.

It is too hot and then too cold.

Kicking up a fuss reminds me

that we know ( ).

Centering us,

pushing up daisies.

–

I was also late because I did a spot of extra work – which as my cubbyhole-mate and her visitor explain, is probably not necessary.

It bothered me, having to leave the office because the tap cards would stop working, to reach school and to continue working at the benches so that I wouldn’t feel like I was being chased by a deadline.

It’s Wednesday, and by lunch, half the week will be gone, but there’s more work and also the offer of a hearing on Friday.

So that leaves us with not much time to tie up any of our loose strings. We don’t want to leave things hanging and we like the idea of completing things.

If nothing could be completed (and as will probably be the case), what shall we do if not just stay and work until we complete?

If there is no ‘end’ to the work, and the deadlines lined up will never clear up, then what are we waiting for?

‘ah, we are too slow’ being the first thought.

I regret our brain that blames ourselves first. Or that our brain looks for a reason, something to blame, something to justify like it has to be.

–

I liked that today’s work has a connection with my past set of submissions. Being related, but specifically on a point that was not substantiated enough.

I also liked that I was told what my boss wanted to see, what was helpful, and what was not useful.

The feedback was straightforward, and the metric is pretty reasonable, we feel –

“Huh but this doesn’t help our case, does it?” – don’t just give me a pile of adverse authority, or general principles when it turns out the facts from which they cometh are not good to our case.

“If I read ( ) I don’t even know what the case is about” over zoom translates to the follow-up email which says “include the brief facts and holding” which sounds like preparing for exams, if I made case briefs to study.

Five minutes later, the reminder to keep a soft copy of the cases that I am citing – unironically, if I knew they wanted to use those pdfs, then I wouldn’t have highlighted inside them, since now it’s streaked with blue.

Since he is a straightforward person, and at any rate, the goals set have been clear, ‘tell me how we can do this’, I can’t say that it’s <hard> to understand.

But I can say that with fair frequency, it is <hard> to give the answer they want to hear. I don’t have enough energy to resist their interpretations / but equally, I can’t swallow my own doubts and say anything better than “I see where you’re coming from… (with the ‘but’ swallowed.)”

I should be firmer, but it does make me question my own position more than I would like.

Because it’s not Wednesday evening, I’m not in my moot mode with Y by my side, I haven’t zoomed M following our routine to run the arguments by each other to have a back-forth.

There’s just… us. And I don’t mean to be overly stubborn but it weighs on me like an exam paper with no grade in sight.

What a lonely feeling it is, if efficient.

Was it confidence or companionship that we were looking for?

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