i felt like blogging even though i had intended to get up early to some learning for my laywer's exam in april. 
the part about my backache
let's start wit the backache part. my back started hurting on monday evening. i had a lousy night because as soon as i went to bed, it started aching like hell and i woke up all the time. the next day i found out that sitting was okay, standing and walking and escpecially lying were not at all. i hardly could find any sleep the next night either so i decided to go to the pharmacy even though i thought it would only be sore muscles. the pharmacist soon found out that that possibility was out of the game since it hurts the most when i'm lying and sore muscles would stop hurting while they're relaxing. so i went to see my doctor. he found out, that i've got an inflammation of the muscles in my back. at least he found out that my back hurting didn't have its sources in my hips, which was good news and gave me some pills, but during the next night they didn't work at all and only seemed to make the pain worse. you can imagine what three sleepless nights in a row did to my ability to concentrate on the subject of private law (a subject i'm not interested in anyway, but still have to learn about) and i was really getting scared that my back hurting might become something permanent. 
yesterday, i spent a lot of time sitting and trying to study (which didn't go too well since i'm still too tired) and in the evening my backache was almost gone and i was looking forward to a good night's sleep. during the night though, the aching came back though so i didn't really sleep very well again.
you might imagine that i'm slightly pissed and worried, but then again, i had a good day yesterday and part of good night now so i guess, it's going to go away pretty soon. i don't know where it comes from all of a sudden. i've been carrying around a lot of stuff on monday, the day it started, but i've been carrying a lot more during the 10 weeks before that and never had any problems. so i guess after all i'm lucky it didn't happen earlier because i couldn't have gone to my great work at the trade union and if i weren't having all this pain, i'd be tempted to go to work right now (i can go there whenever i want to) and i would have postponed learning again. so i guess if i was due having my back hurting, this is the right moment with no fix job and a lot of studying to do (maybe you have noticed that i tend to find something good in almost everything ... 
).
i'm sorry for all the ranting 
, but i had to let it out somehow and while i was writing all of this down, i realized the "good" part about it ...
the part about atticus finch
i'm not much of a book reader. i read quite a lot but mainly news magazines and i'm stuck in several books like "the time machine" by h.g. wells and the great "we're all in this together" by own king and "grapes of wrath" by john steinbeck right now. i prefer to read my books in english but i don't like to look up too many words so they have to go down quite easily. i think i've read all the books by nick hornby (they're quite fluent to read) and right now i'm at the wonderful novel "the no. 1 adies' detective agency" by alexander mccall smith and i didn't feel the need to look up one single word so far.
one book i've finished lately though is "to kill a mockingbird" by harper lee and i just loved it.
for those of you who are not familar with "to kill a mockingbird" (which has been made into a great movie starring the brilliant gregory peck as well): it is the story of a widowed laywer named atticus finch and his son jeremy called "jem" and his daughter jean louise called "scout". it is told through the eyes of scout who is six years old when it starts. the story covers a period of three years in maycomb, a fictional town in alabama and is set in the time of the great depression in the thirties of the last century. it evolves a lot around the lives of jem and scout and their friend dill (who is said to have been influenced by harper's childhood friend and late writer truman capote) who is a regular guest in maycomb during the summer holidays and their discoveries around the neighbourhood. it also is a great story about their relationship with their father and what they are taught by him. this book is incredibly heart-warming and even quite funny at times but really tragic and sad at others.
atticus finch is one of the greatest characters i've ever met in a book. he's very caring, he would never use any force against his children (even that sure must have been common in the time the novel is set at) and he's most intelligent and modest with very high ethical standards.
atticus finch is appointed to defend an african american man called tom robbinson who has been accused of the alledged rape of a white woman. while most other laywers would refuse a job like that or not give a rat's backend to do it right, atticus is -- despite the fact that a case like that is almost impossible to win and despite all the hostility brought on him and his family by a lot of people in the town -- investing all his heart and mind into the case .
to be honest, even though i'm preparing for the laywer's exam right now, i don't intend to ever work as one, but rather in the administration. i know that there are some honest laywers out there but i've seen a lot of crap and dishonesty provided by some of them and that really put me off.
there is this great speech given by atticus finch though that reminded me of how much good can be done by defending justice in court. this is a sequence with the speech from the great movie. i'm aware that it is pretty long, but if you should give it a chance, it's worth is it (as is the movie as a whole). of course some of the words used would not be considered politically correct these days anymore but please remember, that this movie was shot in the sixties (with the language used back in the time) and it still is a great piece about racism and prejudice and trying to overcome it and to reach justice for a human being who happened to be born with was considered the "wrong" colour of skin in a racist, hypocrite environment.
