i'm not stupid, i'm just simple

it's like a post where i don't have to write anything!

2009-02-17T22:05:00.002-05:00

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

i know that not many people visit, but if you haven't taken a look at this yet, i'd recommend it. lexi and i cried b/c that's what we do.

you can learn more and sign a petition here.

and since i'm not prone to really talk about these sorts of things, lest i show that i'm not really very informed, even when i do have an opinion on things, that's all i'm going to say about that.

one for the road

2009-02-06T21:23:00.002-05:00

so i am supposed to be hopping in a cab in less than 7 hours to head to the airport. i still have to do some research and modify a Response to Office Action and get dave a better answer and finish packing, and of course, i'm writing a blog entry.

so my uncle is going to be with us in hawaii, and i am looking forward to having someone to throw a ball around with. no, i'm not particularly active, but throwing a football on a beach is always a good time. til my arm gets tired and i wimp out. but my silly football was a bit deflated, so i went an bought a ball pump today. but when i got home, i couldn't get it to inflate the ball! it really didn't seem to be doing any good. of course, the device is so easy to use that there isn't an instruction manual to tell me what i'm doing wrong. but i found this, which is something. anyways, in the end, i think i figured it out (you have to put the needle in so far that the ball starts to deflate? but once it deflated halfway, i could totally tell that it was inflating. tho i could never get it as full as i wanted it to be, so maybe that is as full as it gets and i bought the pump for nothing.) except in the end,i have decided to deflate the ball for packing and take the empty ball and the pump with me. i'm not actually sure this is a better idea or that it even packs any better, but at this point, i'm going with it. maybe my dad or uncle can at least teach me how to use a ball pump! so that would be something.

anyways, i'm really excited about taking a real vacation! after having made the mistake of trying a few of my summer clothes on, i'm thinking i might wish it wasn't a beach vacation. oh well, i'm too excited to care much, i think!

huzzah for hawaii!!

ok, maybe i'll share one more

2009-02-03T22:55:00.002-05:00

b/c it made me laugh aloud. i still like to see what people used to get here, tho it is certainly way fewer people than it used to be, which is fair b/c i don't ever post anymore and i'm really not delightfully entertaining anymore. recently i actually thought about creating new posts that were really just links to old posts. i thought this would keep the joy alive. i mean, who reads old blog posts, but if they were NEW blog posts, linking to old blog posts....

anyways. search terms used to find me today: what is doc review

loves it. much like i feel about doc review, actually.

nothing really

2009-02-03T22:49:00.002-05:00

(1) yesterday, i found a penny sitting on the metro turnstile thing as i walked out. i didn't even have to bend over to get it! awesome. (and yes, heads up.)

(2) it turns out that i DO have two pairs of winter pants, just as i had initially thought. it's just that the pair i thought was the second pair wasn't winter pants, and there was another pair that i have just completely not noticed all winter, hanging in my closet. on the hanger right next to the pair i wear all the time. oh well.

(3) i told you it wasn't anything, but they seemed like valid followups to recent posts. you know, in case people are reading. hm.

oops

2009-01-29T20:59:00.002-05:00

does everyone remember this?

well, now i present to you, this:

it turns out that i'm not just a disaster in the kitchen when drunk, i'm just a disaster in the kitchen. what's so tragic about this is that i had actually made a decent dinner! not delicious, but not bad. (ok, so i'm not sure how that has any bearing on my burning the pot.) and the even WORSE part is that i HAD turned off the stove! only it turns out i had undershot "off" and turned it to "high." and this picture doesn't really do justice to how bad i seemed to have somehow burned the bejeezus out of a pot in just a few minutes unattended on the stove, but well, i think it's ruined. it is no longer sparkly silver, but is dark and tarnished and all screwed up.

but, i'm going to take a page from jenny's new year's resolution. here are the things i have decided are the bright side of this:
(1) it was a really cheap pot. and one i had bought myself, so at least i don't have to feel guilt.
(2) i now know that when you leave a burner on on the stove, if you walk back into that room, it's really obvious. which gives me way more peace of mind about burning down my house from accidentally leaving my stove on. b/c i don't ever turn it on before i leave for the day, you know. just in the evening. which means i'm right here to catch it if the house burns down. so that's something!

in other news, at about 5 today i was asked if i would want to help out on a doc review that needed to be done by tomorrow. of course i said yes, b/c well, i flippin' love the DR! and my hours have not been up to snuff this month. like really not good. what i was not told was that i would still be sitting around at 9:09 waiting for the documents to be uploaded to the system so that we could start. on a doc review that has to be completed by 9am tomorrow. yup, not just tomorrow. tomorrow about the time i usually get out of bed. and my bedtime is drawing closer with every second. even before i knew that i wouldn't have started by now, i stopped and bought a big old can of red bull. do you guys know how expensive red bull is? it's ridiculous! anyways. i'm hoping that the system goes down and we get told to go to sleep and they ask for an extension. which means i'd be DRing thru the weekend, but at least i'd get to sleep tonight!

just one more

2009-01-28T22:26:00.001-05:00

please comment before the morning if you think adding mushrooms would be a bad idea. i have them all cut up for the alternative recipe, which i had not mentioned b/c it did not have a half cup of butter in it, and i think i should use them lest they go bad, and it doesn't seem like a terrible idea b/c mushrooms go very well with chicken, lemon, herb, garlic, and butter, don't they? maybe a smidge extra water? hm. well, i don't know if anyone can tell, but i'm a little bit psyched. my inner happy monologue is raging again!

i'm sure it'll pass by tomorrow.

they had it!

2009-01-28T22:18:00.001-05:00

i know some of you weren't going to be able to sleep unless you knew the answer. so yes, they had the lemon herb sauce. AND they had fresh lemons, and i would bet i can't fall asleep tonight for debating whether or not i should put it in. compromise--squeeze fresh lemon over final dish? which will be left in crockpot a few extra hours and may taste like rubberized rotten sock chicken anyways? yes, perfection.

dear god, it's happening again

2009-01-28T21:55:00.002-05:00

i'm making real dinner for tomorrow night. i have had a crockpot for many years, but have never used it. but it seems like the perfect solution for someone who gets home late and wants dinner immediately. well, i've still never used it. but this weekend, before going to the grocery store, i picked out a recipe from my crockpot cookbook and bought the ingredients. well, i pretty much bought the ingredients. one of the ingredients is a package of "lemon herb" seasoning. only the stupid grocery store didn't have lemon herb! only garlic herb! which i bought. but now, here i am, cutting up everything for tomorrow's dinner and i'm really thinking that garlic herb is not as delicious as lemon herb. incidentally, i've also cut up the 4 massive cloves of garlic the recipe calls for and put them with the chicken in the fridge. ergo, if i use what i've got, i've got garlic garlic herb chicken. and i love garlic way more than the next guy, but this might be a bit much. so i have decided to bundle up, brave the cold i loathe so much, and see if my totally crappy grocery store down the street, has the lemon herb. my thought was that if it didn't, i would just buy a fresh lemon and use that. and i figure that might be a bad idea. i mean, the recipe doesn't call for a lemon. but if you're going to throw the wrong thing in a recipe, why not let it simmer for 8-10 hours and heighten the terrible flavor even more? yeah, even that sounds like a disaster. the problem is that that whole realization about the double garlic didn't come upon me til i started typing this. which means that my backup plan also fails b/c not only do i have a lemon that has cooked until it is rubberized and tastes like rotten sock, and simmers for 8-10 hours so everything else in the pot tastes like rubberized rotten sock, but i've also realized that there's double the garlic. so when i arrive home tomorrow, i could very well be eating garlic garlic rubberized lemon rotten sock chicken. in an apartment that reeks of garlic.

or, fingers crossed, the safeway has the one packet of seasoning i need.

god, i am on pins and needles right now...

i have made real dinner!

2009-01-28T20:04:00.002-05:00

this is a total triumph and it is only 8:05 and i am eating and well, i'm just so delighted with myself! yes, it is only a salad, but it has two freshly cut up vegetables (mushrooms, green onions), one herb (chives, only b/c i have fresh chives in my fridge and i truly have no idea what to do with them. i know there was a specific reason i bought them, but i'm sure they'll have rotted long before i remember what that is), one thing cooked on the stove (BACON!), fruity flavored blue cheese, and a dressing i made from scratch w/o even measuring the ingredients (like a real chef does! balsamic, olive oil, mustard, and garlic, if you're interested). yes, so far every bite i have had has been nearly 100% spinach leaf, and i'm going to wind up with all of those other ingredients sitting soggily in a big clump in all the dressing left at the bottom of the bowl, but who cares?!?! I MADE DINNER! real dinner!

also, in other news that has nothing to do with my delicious dinner at all, today i was exasperatedly raising my voice at my boss and calling him by his full name (not all three names, just not the shortened version of his first name, like i usually do), when another partner walked by and said i sounded like his mother. i like working with people for whom this is ok. plus, he had totally done something exasperating, and needed to be reprimanded! and now he is leaving for a week and a half, with the deadline in like two weeks, meaning he's leaving me to deal with it. i have really got to get myself on the docketing system for all these cases, so that i can nag him in the time leading up to the time when he finally decides things should be dealt with. but that is all fine b/c we have decided to have a "who is bronzer" contest when we're both back in the office in two and a half weeks and i have realized that i am totally going to have the advantage b/c i will be on the tropical island the week before said contest and he will have been in the office. score!

lucky pennies and other things

2009-01-26T22:36:00.003-05:00

lucky pennies are just the best. i wish i could say that i wasn't someone who stopped to pick up all coinage from the ground, but that would be a blatant lie. one of my friends likes to tell the story (well, it's not really much of a story) of when we were in vegas one night, exiting a casino in a swarm of people, and i thought i heard a coin hit the ground, so i stopped and started looking on the ground. that is perfectly good money! basically, unless there are really very questionable surroundings to a coin on the ground, i'm going to stop and get it. and questionable doesn't mean it's lying in a dirty street. it means in a puddle of dirty water or touching a dead bird or something.

but the point is that it just puts you in a really good mood. first of all, you're like, i found a penny! score! then it's head up! that's a lucky penny! (slight dilemma, some people say they're bad luck if they're tails up. whether or not i follow this line of thought depends on my mood and whether there is someone with me, telling me it's bad luck to pick up a tails up penny. jerks.) anyways, the lucky penny gives you a warm fuzzy. but then, invariably, i just have to laugh aloud at the fact that i am stopping in the middle of the street to pick up a penny. i get a kick out of that nearly ever time. i mean, what can you even buy with a penny these days?

in other news that has nothing to do with lucky pennies, and isn't news at all, i decided to walk home this evening. it started b/c i had to walk around for a while looking for a kinkos that hadn't yet had its last fed ex pickup for the night (don't ask, but let's just say i'm getting more annoyed with my secretary with every passing day), and by the time i found said kinkos, i was already at metro center and decided i was actually plenty warm, and if i had to wait for a metro, it would probably take the same amount of time, and i had really enjoyed walking home in the fall, and i never get any physical activity these days and it would be good for me. so what i realized a couple of blocks later was that the top half of my body, in its sweater and coat and very warm scarf that is literally like another shirt and wraps around my neck twice, and my hat, and my lined leather gloves, my upper body was actually more than toasty. it was downright about to burst into flames. but what this had prevented me from realizing initially was that my winter pants are at the dry cleaner (yes, i only have one pair of winter pants. well, there had been two pairs, but i got too fat for the other pair. most weeks this is what skirts and dresses are for. other weeks, this is what the fact that i'm not ashamed to wear the same pair of pants multiple days in a row is for) and i was wearing what i had previously thought were just less warm winter pants and wore as winter pants all last season (tho i had not been wearing them all season b/c i didn't think they'd be toasty enough). i discovered today that these are more like fall pants, and i discovered this at exactly that point in my 25 degree, 2 mile walk, where i was exactly far enough away from all the right lines of public transportation, that it really only made sense for me to carry on for the remaining mile or so. anyways, by the time i got home, my legs were frozen like icicles, which i know is not at all anything anyone cares about, but well, too bad. i'm trying to work on more interesting stories, but i think i'm going to have to spend less time at the office before i have many of those.

roger schechter! MY roger schechter?!?!

2009-01-23T22:01:00.005-05:00

so the beauty of law firms is how easy it is to find people. generally i do this for personal reasons. xyz law firm is laying people off. i search for UVA grads (associates, if that's a possible function in their search engine) to see who i know might be affected. or such and such a friend has been talking about a guy at her firm. look him up. is he cute? today i actually needed to use this function for work (opposing counsel's email address). so i search for his last name in the firm's attorney directory. in addition to this guy, my search also generates a hit for roger schechter. ROGER SCHECHTER! my FAVORITE bar bri professor! i don't join FB groups willy nilly (seriously, i think joining a FB group is a really big commitment), and even i'm in a roger schechter group. alas, i didn't think the guy looked right and the bio made no mention of him being a torts god, and double alas, a quick google confirmed that it's a totally different roger schecter. but still. i'm not even kidding when i say that my heart stopped for a minute at the excitement of it all. dear god. that's sad.

not a bad night

2009-01-13T19:40:00.003-05:00

so i haven't been working a lot lately. for a long time i was swamped, so i was telling DM that i couldn't take any more work. of course, now that my lit work is done, i'm nearly all caught up and don't have that much to keep me busy. rather than work a few more hours and find myself w/o anything to do the rest of the week, i decided to come home at about 6:30. and b/c...well, no reason, i decided i really wanted a margarita.

so i came home, warmed up the margaritaville for the first time in a long while, and made myself "dinner." yes, that is a bowl of pre-made chicken, cheese, and salsa. it's like a fajita w/o a tortilla. no, that's not for health reasons. that's b/c there aren't any tortillas in my home and i'm too lazy to go to the grocery store. and that is a ginormous mug of margarita. notice dinner is in quotes and margarita isn't. that's the way it should be.

and then i turned on my tv, to find something to watch at this unusually early hour to be home, AND I FOUND BOSTON COLLEGE HOCKEY! which excited me tremendously, except i follow their schedule pretty closely, and was pretty sure they had already played their set against vermont over the weekend. so now i'm watching a hockey game, in which we're up 2-0 at the end of the first, and i know we're going to lose by a score of 4-2. good point. maybe i'll take this opportunity to find something else to watch.

or, as you can tell from the background in the picture, maybe i could use the time to do something more productive. like clean my apartment. tho as you could probably also gather from the picture, there isn't really much chance of that happening. baby steps.

yes, i know my posts are totally lame these days. i swear i'm trying to be less lame, but i'm afraid life isn't giving me much to work with these days.

no promises

2009-01-07T21:54:00.003-05:00

let's be honest, i'm probably not going to start posting frequently. if we were to be honest, the main reason is that i simply don't see the funny little things in life like i did when i was in law school. i'm more of a bitter, sad lawyer these days. but i had something happen today and i wanted to share it. since i've never been one to shy away from talking about personal things in a slightly detached way, my first thought was to post it on a blog i had been keeping for one person. who never read it, but at least i felt like i was sharing. and then at some point, i decided that rather than do that, i could share it with the whole world of people. where, once again, no one was actually reading. but we'll see. maybe i'll start up again. maybe y'all will give me reason to see the silly things that are there every day. or maybe i won't post again for 11 months.

also, for the record, please don't expect much from this post.

so. i'm going to work this morning. not prime going to work time. i wish i could say that's b/c it was one of those rainy gross days, where you wish that the real world had rain days and you didn't have to go to work. but, if i were honest, i'm never out of bed before 9am, so i'm not exactly commuting in with the rush hour crowd. so i'm getting to the metro, i've just picked up my morning express and i notice a man handing catalogues out at the top of the escalator. now i always think this is a pretty bad idea, but it's really really gross today. and he doesn't have an umbrella. and it really really looks like this catalogue (truly, not a brochure. i am totally fine with giving out chinese food menus at the top of the escalator. that seems like a great way to drum up business. but this is like a bona fide catalogue that shows up in your mail. and even when it's addressed to you, you throw it away.)--anyways, point is, it totally looks like a catalogue selling farm equipment.

so there's this amish-looking man (is that wrong to say? he had the beard.), standing in the rain, at a not peak time, in the middle of the city where people are taking public transportation to work. selling farm equipment. well, i'll be honest, i take these things when they're chinese food menus. hell, that could do me good. so i take this one. i feel so bad for this man!

of course, as soon as i take it, i feel bad, b/c this is a nice brochure. it's got thick shiny pages and professional pictures! that's not cheap! and no one is under any delusion that i am going to use these products! they shouldn't be wasting their brochures on me!

anyways, the complete line of products listed on the front of the brochure includes animal nutrition, crop management, roofing systems, and vehicle products. WHY in god's name is this man handing these out in the middle of an urban area?!?! i don't even own a car, let alone farming equipment or livestock!!!

but now, b/c i have flipped thru all the pages of the brochure (seriously, if he wanted to sell farming equipment, i might have been one of his best guesses, despite the fact that i can't even open the back door to my patio (can anyone help me with that?) and now i feel terrible! i wish i could help him! i wish i had livestock that needed something!

BUT if you need rooting systems (yes, that's what it seems like this guy does. there's a card inside my catalogue), i totally have someone to recommend to you.

that was kind of a lame first post in a year, wasn't it? well, maybe i'll at least drum up some business for Conklin.

oh man

2008-02-21T21:52:00.001-05:00

is it wrong that i just saw this commercial

and this man is lamenting his life and all i can think is how jealous i am! literally, the thought in my head was this--"that's awesome! wearing pirate clothes and serving chowder! dude! i wish that was MY job!"

of course, i have had a few glasses of wine tonight.

incidentally, if i call, please pick up your phone. not everyone is.

fortunately, i have the kelly ripa E Hollywood Story to keep me company. man, that girl is cute as a button and i just love her!

missing UVA law

2008-01-29T22:21:00.000-05:00

so i checked earlier for the feb club calendar, and while it wasn't up then, it is now. (of course, i got a new computer and was too cheap to get all the microsoft programs on it, so i had a bit of a time opening up the excel file. also, i want a copy of the fun feb club calendar with all the pictures that hands near scott commons!)

and then, of course, i spent a little time looking at pictures of feb club's past and remembering the good old days and ruing the fact that i will not be partaking this year. sadness. looks like there are some good themes too!

ok, so that's not much of a post, but i just wanted to put it out there that those were some good times!

ahhh, memories...

hee hee

2008-01-29T22:01:00.000-05:00

so i just put the final pair of shoes on and i was going to sign back on and post about HOW HAPPY MY NEW SHOES MAKE ME, but then i decided that might be a little ridiculous.

until i started to walk in the final pair. part of their comfort feature is a cushiony bottom that seems to hide some sort of air pocket. and every time i step on my left foot, and then lift it up, the air refilling the cushion makes a distinctively fart-like sound.

it's funny.

i love zappos!

2008-01-29T21:35:00.000-05:00

now i know that i am late to this party, but i am going to say it anyways. see, i can't buy clothes, especially shoes, w/o trying them out first. so i was never thinking i would get on board with zappos. and i'm still not TOTALLY on board. but i'm modified on board.
i went to the NYC macy's, the largest department store in the world, this weekend to try on shoes. they have an entire separate area for comfortable shoes, which is about 10 times as large as most entire shoe departments and they have all sorts of brands, and every time i go in there (i have been trying to muster the energy to do this for like 4 months), i just get overwhelmed and leave. it's a shit-ton of shoes.

but i could not avoid it any longer. my sneakers are so worn out that they hurt my feet in about a hundred different ways even just based on my walk to and from the metro every day. and ditto with the same pair of flats that are the only really comfortable shoes under my desk at work, so i wind up just putting them on every day. i mean, these things are sad.

anyways, i circled the place like 4 times, taking pictures on my cell phone of contender shoes, and then narrowing it down to 7 pairs to try on.

well, of course they had all of like 2 of the ones i really wanted. but i managed to try on some styles and some brands and one pair in a brown even tho i never wear brown shoes. and i whittled it down to 3 winners (all comfy, one to walk to work, one pair of work flats, and one pair of work heels), jotted down all the info and ordered them from jared's apartment, so they were waiting for me when i got home today!
it might be a little sad how excited i was for all of them. i was running the last two blocks home to get to my new shoes! but they are everything i thought they would be! well, except the one pair might be a bit tight in the toes. and the fact that the pair i wore at work all day rubbed my pinkies the wrong way, so nothing feels good on my feet right now. but oh! i am so sure that they will be perfect!

anyways, i know that isn't really too much to the credit of zappos, but they are who made this joyful moment possible and i appreciate that!

(incidentally, i am totally on board with their "free shipping," despite the fact that each pair of shoes cost $3.95 more than it would have at the macy's.)

so hip hip hooray!

christmas cards

2008-01-06T14:16:00.001-05:00

so every year, i buy christmas cards after christmas. b/c i'm cheap and i love cards and i sure can't resist them when you mark them down that much.

this year, i managed to resist. largely b/c i didn't see any that i liked. and partially b/c i still have the remnants of past year's half-price christmas cards still cluttering up my apartment. and also b/c i wonder if i will ever get my act together enough to send out christmas cards.

but the other day in the office, i saw a christmas card i really liked. (i thought it looked like maybe you could personalize it, choosing different character snowmen to go on it and represent you and your family or things you like. i was mistaken, but it's an awesome idea.) so i got the website off the back of the card.

and here i am, on january 6, looking at hundreds of options of business quality christmas cards for next year. turns out that 25 of these things usually retail for $207.90. which is clearly PREPOSTEROUS! right? that's nearly $10/card!! PREPOSTEROUS! geez louise!

but right now, in the post-christmas slump, where it's pretty tough to sell christmas cards (unless you're marketing to crazy people such as myself), they are having what is maybe the best deal i have ever heard of. 50% off AND $75 off of each order! that is also preposterous! i mean, you knock half of the price off and then, they figured, just for good measure they'd save you an extra $75!

of course, since we're talking about ridiculously expensive christmas cards, we're still far out of the price range of what i usually spend on christmas cards. but i like them! they're so pretty! i bet they are on thick paper! that feels expensive between your fingertips! and above all, they've convinced me i'm saving money! i am a sucker.

so today, i am resisting. but these amazing prices last for the next 3 months! the odds are great that by march 27th, i will have caved. of course, those odds probably aren't as great as the odds that by march 27th, i will have completely forgotten about this.

too many catalogues!

2008-01-04T20:40:00.001-05:00

if you walked into my apartment this evening, you would swear i hadn't picked up my mail in days. here's what i had waiting for me:

Pottery Barn (2 copies)
Pottery Barn Bed and Bath
Pottery Barn Baby
Pottery Barn Kid
Williams Sonoma (2 copies)
Williams Sonoma Home
Ballard Designs, Winter 2008
Ballard Designs, January 2008
West Elm (i also had one yesterday)
Smith & Noble Windoware

i mean, i like to look at pictures of things for my home that i'll never buy as much as the next person does, but this is ridiculous!

tho my favorite day of mail was a couple of weeks ago, when i received 4 identical letters from some court about some Visa settlement. not a single one of them was addressed to me.

what to do!

2008-01-02T19:26:00.000-05:00

my firm picture is in the morning. it is only like 9 blocks away. but my hair!

see, that is too close to take a cab, and it is a bit of a walk and it has been SO windy, which would screw up my hair, but if i put on a hat, THAT will screw up my hair! do you see my dilemma!

i almost feel the need to wear one of those old lady plastic scarf things around my head! unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, i do not own one. unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, this idea had not crossed my mind when i was at the CVS 10 minutes ago and now i am too lazy to leave the house again.

alas.

doc review

2007-11-06T20:17:00.000-05:00

so last week we had this huge doc review, that had to be done ASAP. and i think that's common at most firms, but it seems pretty unusual where i am. and everyone was *SO* apologetic, and all the associates thought it was the worst thing ever, and went out of their way to tell us first years how unusual this was, etc.

well, i tore right into it. i loved it. i put aside all my other work for the week (maybe not the best idea) to work on the doc review. and the associate in charge of the project keeps telling me how appreciative she is and telling partners how great i've been about this and everyone kept coming in to express their appreciation and they all kept saying,"i know that no one likes this and it's the worst part of being an associate and thank you so much for contributing" and i wanted to yellout, "I LOVE THIS! KEEP ME DOING DOC REVIEW!" there's so much less fear about screwing things up and it moves so quickly and it doesn't involve much thinking and the more you do it, the better you get at it, and i also think that i am really made for tasks like this, b/c somehow on a purely technical level, i seem to do it a lot more efficiently than most people. but anyways. i think doc review is heaven.

but this is not what people want to hear when they are paying you $160,000 a year. they do not want you to love the menial mindlesswork. they want you to love the research and the legal thinking and the client contact and the responsibility and the being thrown in headfirst and getting up in front of a court to defend your client. or whatever it is we're supposed to be doing and loving. loving doc review is like a forbidden, shameful love. loving doc review is like jerry lee louis loving his underage cousin.

well, it worked out for him. i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

totally random

2007-11-06T20:15:00.000-05:00

i have decided that the man who did all his work in the law library had the most perfect plan ever. i was thinking the other day about how fabulous it would be to be a lawyer who didn't have to wear shoes or real clothes and could just prop your feet up on another chair and do your work. and i was thinking that home clearly doesn't work for me. (i always go home with the best of plans to do work. it never works out. now would be a very good example.) then i was realizing i could not put my shoeless feet up on a table in the firm library and work. then i remembered that guy. dave whateverhisnamewas. it's a really good environment, particularly if you aren't actually friends with everyone milling about. largely b/c they wonder who the weird old guy always in the library in the UVA sweatshirt is. gosh it's brilliant. i could totally be that guy.

happy halloween!

2007-10-31T20:20:00.000-04:00

you may remember how much i have enjoyed halloweens past. (other doozies include the year i was a pencil and the year i was a fish tank. i am afraid i do not have digital pictures of those years. alas. b/c they were good stuff. as you would expect from someone who has made a ladybug costume out of a child's sled, a permanent marker, and some rope, and who has weaseled her way into a costume designed for those under 70 pounds).

anyways. i was mucho worried about halloween this year b/c i did not have any candy, but i also did not feel like staying late at work. but i did not want the children to knock on my door and think i was a horrible person for not having candy for them. (as a side note, the last time i was in DC, i was made very upset on halloween by all the teenage hoodlums showing up, sans costume, at my door and complaining about my candy. little bastards.) anyways. i literally spent an hour with all the lights out in the front of my apartment and hiding in my bedroom, lest the children knock on my door and think me a terrible person when i broke their little hearts.

only then i remembered! i had candy!

leftover penis pops from lexi's bachelorette party!

just the kind of tasty delicious treat i'm sure any parent would be pleased for their child to receive on halloween!

congratulations!

2007-10-31T20:09:00.001-04:00

our first CONGRATULATIONS to lexi and aaron, who got married this past weekend and are currently escaping the rigors of law firm life in paris on their honeymoon. huzzah for lexi and aaron! wishing you years and years and years and years of joy and happiness together!

and a further WHAT WHAT to lexi for her rousing rendition of "don't stop believing" at her own wedding. awesome.

our second congratulations to the thousand odd now-lawyers who managed to pass the bar and make the trek out to richmond on monday to be sworn in by the VA supreme court.
it was not much of a to-do, but for those of you who are interested, here is the virginia supreme court.

another really great search hit

2007-10-17T22:58:00.000-04:00

someone today, searching from the virginia supreme court computer system, found my blog by entering the search phrase "simple stupid bar exam."

the wait is over....

2007-10-17T22:32:00.001-04:00

and i passed.

yes, i am a big winner in the VA bar exam lottery.

but the day has only made me realize what a crapshoot it is. my mom, who i had told not to do the whole "of course you'll pass" thing sent me an email saying that now it's easy to say they knew i would pass b/c now they know i passed. i wrote back with a bit of an angry diatribe.

because not everyone passed. two of the six people who just started at my firm didn't. which is about the average, since 71.9% passed, meaning that nearly one in three don't. and i am not looking at it as failing. it's not passing.

the one guy at my firm who didn't has already established himself as a superstar. he got put on this thing that was just blowing up in like our second week and he's done an amazing job with filing things and writing motions and doing the kind of legal research that turns up one case from the 1960s that somebody at another firm didn't find and told their client (now our client) it was ok to do, when this case says it's not ok to do. i mean, this guy has been awesome. which is in keeping with what you would expect. he is exactly the last person you would think wouldn't pass.

of course, as sick as it is, i think it's best it was him. he's established himself as someone who does great work and can be relied on in tight situations. if it was me, they'd realize that not only had i f#@!'ed up that memo, but i also hadn't passed the bar, and it would not be looking good for me. plus, he dealt with it so well. the first thing he did was walk into the office managing partner's office. i mean, that takes balls, but it was straightforward and, i think, a great approach that says a lot about him.

the other person is a guy who's not checking the bar results. like the guy who still doesn't know what his law school grades were. a few weeks ago, before the checking had even begun in earnest, he made it clear that he wanted to be left out of the loop and he wasn't going to check. so we left him out of the loop and have refrained from fretting about it in his presence. of course, we all checked for his name today. and it wasn't there. so now i don't even know if he knows! not that it's any of my business.

but anyways. so i have now picked a new profession.

i want to be one of those people who just keeps taking bar exams! like kent sinclair! or that bar-bri guy!

yes, i am serious. i didn't mind studying for it, and i didn't mind taking it. hell, i kinda liked those things. i know, you have all thought i was sick all along. and i think i had even, by the end, reached a real sense of peace with failing, so that even waiting for the results wasn't killing me like i thought it would. anyways, i would keep doing it. i mean, imagine how much less it would suck if it didn't matter if you passed or failed. if it was just a ceaseless effort to take it, just for shits and giggles, and just to see if you passed. oh, it sounds delightful!

of course, my studying for another bar exam might not be a joke. it might be a very exciting and very imminent reality! since it looks like i might be seriously considering a move to NYC in the near future. the thing that's the sickest about that is that i'm pretty sure i would enjoy studying for the bar more than actually living in NYC. (well, with the exception of the boy. the things we do for love, right? i am just not a fan of NYC. maybe some day when i am feeling like being bitter i will go into a whole explanation of that.)

but for now, i am just going to say congrats to those of you who passed! and that i really am sorry to those of you who got screwed in the VA bar lottery. (tho also a bit jealous, especially if you get a month of paid leave to study for it.)

the answer

2007-10-12T20:36:00.000-04:00

not at all today.

the worst part is that sometimes the page lags to load and then you're sure it's up. but you're wrong.

when it wasn't up by 2pm, we all concluded that it seemed like VA board of bar examiners style to wait until the last second before they left the office to put the results up. that way they wouldn't have to deal with any calls. i can't quite figure out whose immediate reaction upon learning that they had either passed or failed the bar would be to immediately call up the board of bar examiners, but it seemed like the sort of thing the VBBE would do.

alas, it was not. they have strung us along with this rumor of "it's always the second friday in october" and we will continue to be strung along. thru monday. which would fit with the other rumor. "it's always two weeks before the swearing in ceremony."

oh, and i forgot the worst part. turns out the assigning partner has been getting questions about when we'll be sworn in and able to go to court. i happened to be in his office this morning and he asked me. well i had to tell him, "the rumor is today." which meant (1) then he knew and was waiting to see the results too and there will be no lag time b/t learning you failed the bar and the whole firm knowing you failed the bar, and (2) i had to listen to the entire story about (both) times he passed the bar and how it's all going to be ok. not that i mind him telling me the story. but this "it's all going to be ok, of course you passed" is everyone's reaction to your nerves. but i don't like it. b/c not everyone does pass. some people fail. and you really have NO idea if you are one of those people. if i am one of those people, i'd really rather that everyone hadn't told me that of course i would be ok and pass.

but i digress. i have places to go and boyfriends to pick up from the train station!

the height of the anxiety

2007-10-11T20:08:00.000-04:00

so some states have gotten their bar exam results. some states even had nice little emails from their boards of bar examiners telling them when theirs would be up. well not us. not a peep from the VA board of bar examiners. but once people started hearing in other states, we started thinking about it and checking and doing the mental math on when it could be. i was checking every few days or so.

and then someone at work did some research and figured out that in the past they have been released on oct. 10, oct. 11 and oct. 15. or some such nonsense. so then i started checking. neurotically. i'd check every time it crossed my mind. and the more you check, and the more the first year associate class emails about it, the more it crosses your mind. i could tell you that bar results had not been posted overnight, that they had not been posted between 9am and 11am, and then at some point it reached the point where i could tell you they had not been posted between 3:14 and 3:16. you know, laura style! i mean, i am the girl who would look for class reviews on lawweb every day and then set my alarm for 5:58 the next day, so i could wake up and be the first person to see the grade was up, and then email the entire section and let them know. it's part of my charm.

anyways. i noticed that diana looked even more nervous than usual at lunch today. turns out she has some friend who works for a judge in virginia. he got the word today that they would be out tomorrow. friday.

but this still leaves me to wonder. when? midnight? the start of the work day? some random time? 6:30, so that most of us are on our way out of work and when we (read:I) lose it, at least i can do it in the privacy of my apartment?

the WORST part is that i am out of the office in a meeting for 3 hours dead smack in the middle of tomorrow. i'll be trying to take down every word spoken at some regulatory meeting where i can't even figure out what's going on and i'll be refreshing my blackberry every four seconds, only to burst out into tears in the middle of some FERC conference. sweet. (actually, i have thought about this and i really don't think i'll cry if i didn't pass. i may however drink on my way back to the office.)

anyways, good luck to everyone!

welcome UVA 1Ls with mimi riley for LR&W

2007-10-11T20:07:00.000-04:00

it never fails. someone always comes looking for roger strawbach.

oh roger, how i miss ye.

moral dilemma

2007-10-11T19:49:00.000-04:00

are you allowed to throw away the crap that the lexis and westlaw reps give you?

in law school, i just reached the point where i told them no thanks on most of the stuff and then loaded up on the highlighters. oh how i loved those highlighters.

but i haven't developed a relationship with these guys like i had with marva and lynn and i couldn't bring myself to tell the man, who prefaced handing me a travel coffee mug with the phrase, "this is the really good stuff," that i have a hundred travel coffee mugs and i don't use any of them and i was really interested in the booklet of search tips (yes, i am a nerd) and not another damned coffee mug.

but those are not as bad as the little tablets. oh how i wish i had taken a picture of them. they're like the ones you take to interviews, only in far smaller sizes. and of course they say westlaw and lexis in huge letters. and of course i work in a law office, where there is no shortage of lined notepads and pens. and really no reason to carry them around in a leather tablet.

i'm thinking, however, that i should keep them in case i quit. the one is the size that really would be perfect if i was a detective.

i would be a great detective.

the up side

2007-09-29T19:44:00.000-04:00

my license picture is actually pretty good.

that's something, right?

today has sucked. a lot.

2007-09-29T17:32:00.001-04:00

i knew it was going to suck. i had anticipated it sucking for weeks. i was not looking forward to it at all. it was the day i had set aside for going to the DC DMV to register my car and get my license.

here is how it all went. which is need to vent, but i probably should not, and you should certainly not bother reading.

i wake up early. i cannot bear to go in. i finally head down there. i get to the metro. there is something wrong with the red line trains and they are single tracking them and we all have to run over to the other side of the station to get our silver spring bound train. i am much aggrieved by the 10 minutes i have to wait, but it turns out, this was nothing.

i make the trek to the DMV. i arrive. i get to the front of the line where you get your number. i realize i have not brought my proof of residency. despite all of my lists and checking the internet and making a folder, i left those things on my couch. shit. i would like to give a big boo hiss to the man who checked me in, telling me i would only need a social security card to get my license and tags. i was tempted not to tell him i had forgotten my proof of residency, but i realized that would only suck for me.

i head home. i wait 10 minutes for the green line. i get to the red line transfer point and the last train is pulling off in the distance. this is when it gets bad. i wind up waiting over 30 minutes for a train. only it never says 30 minutes. it says 18 and ticks down to 12. then it goes up to 17, then 15, then 17 and i am becoming quite sure a train will never come. i am about to get a cab (i had thought about this, but it seemed silly to pay the rate from where i was to home and then i had decided i was going to cab back to the DMV and i have a huge aversion to cabs, so baby steps, guys, baby steps.)

anyways, i get home. i get my paperwork. i get my cab. i get to the DMV.

they are on A137. the number i had previously been given was A135.

i know, i should have tried. but you know i am not like that.

this time, i am given C119. the fact that i was not given an A number will plague me for the next few hours. they TEAR thru the As. they are calling As left and right. i am elated when they jump from C106 or so to C114. but in the next hour, they do not make it to C119.

finally, this woman who has been “pulling people out of line” for special tasks makes it to those of us who are registering and getting licenses. they are at C117. i don’t know which will be faster, but go with her and figure i’ll keep an ear out. she puts the girls with the As in front of the other C girl and i. i later ask, just to know, what time their tickets are stamped. 3:23. mine was 2:31. they let me go in front of them, but our special line is still not going anywhere. finally i see that C119 has been called, and i go to the window, to be reprimanded for having taken so long.

also, only to find out that the rep at window 11 cannot issue registrations. so i wait a bit and she passes me off to window 10. but no one had ever given me the form i was supposed to fill out and i am not allowed to fill it while standing there, which will take me about 2 minutes. i have to sit down while she helps the next person, who of course has problems all their own. and then b/c the man now at window 11 also needs tags, window 10 helps him while i’m just standing there. and then we do everything for me.

only then, she realizes that my car is not only in my name, but in my mom’s name. she had looked at the title about 10 times w/o noticing this. i was hoping it would not be noticed b/c i had already watched a woman be told that she had to get her ex-husband’s signature and the divorce decree.

so i could not get my registration. and now i have to mail the car title to my mom and have her send it back and then go back into the DMV and hope that this time it works. as tho i hadn’t already been paranoid enough about the fact that my tags had expired, now they will continue to be expired and i will continue to fear the arm of the law coming after me and arresting me for my expired tags.

also, the lady in the divorce was going to be taxed an extra $1000 b/c having the ex sign over the title to her was a “taxable event,” unless it was in the divorce settlement. i am now worried the same is going to be true of my mom signing over the title to me and i do not want to pay another $1000. that will piss me off. i am kicking myself for having not asked that. kicking myself.

finally, i would like to say that i showed up, the second time, at 2:30. over 100 people came in after me before the place closed at 4:00. i have no doubt of that.

there were literally 3 people left in the building when i finished.

without my registration.

this has sucked.

as an upper, now i get to do all the reading for our training the next few days. when all i want to do is….i don’t know, i think it’s sleep even tho i’m not tired b/c i think that’s the only way i won’t be so frustrated by the whole thing. but anyways.

today has sucked. i had a better story from yesterday, but instead i went to get my toes painted and now i have forgotten how i had mentally composed it. maybe i’ll try that later. anyways. hope your days didn’t suck so bad!

today's laura moment

2007-09-26T19:44:00.000-04:00

so i have now amassed 7 pairs of shoes under my desk. i'm wishing i hadn't bought a second shoe rack for my apartment, b/c i have nearly emptied it by dragging all its shoes into the office one at a time. well, one pair at a time.

anyways, i had just shoved my feet into the first two shoes down there while i was sitting at my desk, which happened to be a 3 inch heel and my comfy aerosoles flats. well this was all fine and dandy while just sitting at my desk reading documents. only after sitting there for a bit, i had totally forgotten about it, and when i went to go to the printer, it truly took me til i had one foot out the door to realize that i was walking like a pirate with a peg leg on my two totally different shoes. it's funny how i had felt completely normal walking to the door, but on my way back to the desk, i felt like a total idiot.

i made dinner!

2007-09-26T19:39:00.000-04:00

yes, it does just involve seasoning and noodles from a box and the tofu and peppers i bought about 3 1/2 weeks ago. but it still involved one pot, one pan, a heated stove, and a cooking tongs. and i can convince myself it has some nutritional value. IT'S LIKE DINNER!

i did drag home a stack of lexis printouts and i need to have something more than i've got now when i get into work, but i'm taking what i can get.

i'm a happy laura.

but lest you think i no longer have quirky little interior monologues or moments of delight in my life

2007-09-25T20:54:00.000-04:00

so yesterday, at the office, i went to the bathroom. only as soon as i got inside, i was worried that i had turned right when i should have turned left and that i was now in the men's bathroom.

but i didn't want to walk out and have someone see me emerging from the men's bathroom.

but i also didn't want to stay in the men's bathroom.

i looked for clues.

there were all the usual amenities of the women's restroom on the sink.

but men could want to moisturize their hands and make their breath minty fresh during a trip to the restroom.

there were no urinals.

but i've never been in the men's bathrooms at the firm before. maybe they don't have urinals.

so i wasn't making it anywhere w/o actually walking outside and checking the sign.

fortunately no one was waiting outside the restroom to watch me walk out, look at the sign, and turn on my heel and walk right back in. (yes, i was in the women's room.)

update

2007-09-25T20:47:00.000-04:00

my grocery store is so worthless as to render it completely not worth going to.

i still haven't eaten.

my pictures are taking FOREVER to move to the external hard drive. and not the kind of forever where my computer is doing the work, but where it quits doing the work and i have to click open three things all over again and start all over, folder by folder.

i still haven't started the reading i brought home. for the project that is supposed to be turned in "mid-week." tomorrow is wednesday. i have not started. well, i have started a bit. i have not started as much as i would have liked and i have not found anything very helpful.

this better not be happening...

2007-09-25T19:41:00.000-04:00

so we all knew that our computers would die just as soon as we left school and our warranties expired and derek leach was no longer right there waiting to help. i think most of us were glad to make it thru the bar. well, jared's went this weekend, which prompted me to buy an external hard drive, to start storing all my pictures. only (1) it turns out that for some reason, i can't transfer a whole file at a time w/o it stopping and telling me something is not possible to transfer and then it just sputters out and gives up. let alone just tranferring everything at once. which would be like heaven. (2) it is really starting to look suspiciously like my computer is about to die. which might just be me being paranoid (shocker), but if it does happen, i am going to freak out. and call derek leach on the batphone. oh if only i had a derek leach batphone number...

yes, i am still alive

2007-09-25T19:12:00.000-04:00

but now i am a very busy lawyer-type and will not be posting much. if ever. but i had wanted to post the fact that i was very pleased to discover that i enter/exit the dupont metro station on its north end and i exit/enter the gallery place metro station also on its north end. so the point is that at no point do i have to walk the duration of a metro station to get to the side i need to be on. it is very convenient.

but then i decided that i would also post a smidge about my life. i hope this smidge does not violate my very sincere efforts not to post anything that would get me in trouble.

anyways, i started work exactly three weeks ago.

since then i have not made myself a real dinner (or even been to the grocery store, for that matter), or unpacked my apartment (ok, so that is more b/c i am really averse to doing so), or made it to the gym, or met up with friends (tho jared was in town the first weekend and i have been on a train out of town the past two fridays). do you get where i'm going with this?

and i'm not even really busy yet. and i'm at a really life-friendly firm.

all the things that were once an everyday part of your life that you didn't even think about. there just isn't time. i mean, maybe during finals i felt like i was too busy to go to the grocery store, but now it's like not only is it too late to go to the grocery store, but then i can't even figure out what the point is, b/c it's not like i'm ever going to be home in time to make a real dinner. or maybe i will be, but i don't know when that will be and all the meat will be rotten and all the produce gross. i can't even figure out what i'm going to be eating for dinner for the next year.

i mean, say that i get into the office at 8:30 (which really is what i think i can do b/c i was trying to make myself a morning person and it just really didn't go well,) and then i work straight thru, eating lunch at my desk (which i am going to have to start packing b/c getting lunch is so frustrating) and then there's a gym class at 5:45. well, i'll have to leave at about 5:25 to walk the 4 blocks to the gym and change my clothes, then the class is over at 6:45 and i need to shower and whatnot. well, by now it's after 7:00 and do i really want to go back to the office at 7? but i can't just leave the office at 5:15 and be done! and even if i did, i mean, it's 7:30 by the time i get home and i cook dinner and then i eat the dinner and maybe watch an hour of tv and call jared and it's already almost time for bed! do you see this?

oops, this wasn't supposed to end up being a complaint. it's not a complaint. i'm just saying, i think it would be tough enough if we had a normal old 9-5 job, but this isn't a 9-5 job and well, it's not easy.

speaking of which, i brought home a ton of reading to do tonight and i still haven't started that either. (nor have i eaten.) if you've got any pointers (but don't say drop the gym, b/c i feel sooooo gross and i really am serious about going a few days a week), i would really appreciate them. if anyone is still reading. =)

and they lost his bag

2007-07-29T21:05:00.001-04:00

even tho they never left the airport.

public grumbling

2007-07-29T20:09:00.000-04:00

i mean, isn't that what having a blog is all about? and i managed to resist the temptation to do this re: my own frustration the other day (CVS pharmacy. don't even get me started), but this is someone else's hooplah and i feel sooooo bad and i wish i could do something, but since i can't, i'm going to vent on my blog.

so jared went up to NYC after the bar to look for a place to live. and for a number of reasons which i won't go into, the whole thing was a total bust. and that's bad enough b/c but for something totally beyond his control, he could have had a place and now he's got to go back up and deal with it all again.

anyways. so he was flying back today. and was to arrive back at 3:50. until they started delaying and cancelling all the flights. so now it is 8pm and they have just cancelled the last flight. so he has to drive. meaning he will not be here til like 4am.

but he has been at the airport since 11am and if he had known this all those hours ago, he could have just driven and been home already!

and that would suck enough, but it's made worse by the fact that the whole week was a waste and this is just another thing. and the fact that the movers are showing up at 8am to move us. and if it was all going to just be like this, he coulda been here all week doing all the other things he/we could have been doing!

also, i'm a bit bummed b/c i was really excited about having dinner at cassis tonight! ooooh it was going to be so delicious. not that my pasta and four cheese pasta sauce, which is the closest approximation i could come to "protein" in my remaining foodstuffs. anyways.

so it just really really sucks. ugh. being in an airport all day sucks. having to drive 6 hours after you've been in an airport all day really really really sucks. having to do that and then wake up at 8am to do the last minute things involved in moving really really really really sucks.

and i wish i could do something to make it better.

anyways, sorry for that. hope you're all having better days than jared is!

packing breaks my heart

2007-07-28T19:35:00.000-04:00

my house is full of crap. lots and lots of little crap. crap i do not need to drag to a new home to clutter the place up before i've even settled in.

but every single bobby pin, or barrette i haven't ever worn, or chapstick from 1982, i just can't bring myself to throw away. don't get me wrong, i've thrown away bags and bags of trash. but every little thing has tugged at me, and told me not to throw it away.

currently, this is what is tugging at my hearstrings:

it's a plastic dinosaur that once sat atop a chapstick i bought. probably in high school. a chapstick i bought solely b/c this dinosaur sat atop it, i'm quite sure.

i think he's going to win. i just don't think i can get rid of him. LOOK HOW CUTE HE IS!

but if you're interested, i'm almost done. it's pretty much down to packing for australia and just boxing up the clothes that don't make the cut. and then dealing with the one or two boxes of totally random crap that you have no idea what to do with but have to take with you.

bye bye, charlottesville. =(

gar!

2007-07-27T14:39:00.000-04:00

so i tried to sign up for pepco online, but then after doing so, it told me that it would take two business days to process internet orders, so i called so it would be set up by monday when i move.

then it was an automated system. A DEAF AUTOMATED SYSTEM that would get everything i told it wrong. so that i would have to repeat everything like four times and then listen while it would slowly repeat back to me, "i think what you said is [something totally different than what i said.]"

and finally i just couldn't take it anymore and i was like, "THERE ISN'T A SECOND ACCOUNT HOLDER!" (because it hadn't given me a chance to correct that screw-up it had made in discerning between my yes and no. and it said, "i think what you said is that you would like to speak to a customer representative. is that correct?" to which i yelled, "YES!" and it replied, "i cannot understand if you said yes or no."

i guess it is not programmed to understand words thru frustration, which seems like a flaw in an automated system that companies are trying to use to make processes longer and more drawn out and agonizing for consumers.

anyways, i got a nice lady and we set up my account in mere minutes. at the end, i told her that she was much more helpful that the automated system. she got a chuckle out of that. i also think it would have been fair for her to say, "well i would hope so! those systems suck!"

ok people

2007-07-27T14:13:00.001-04:00

those of you who are winding up here by googling things like "2007 virginia bar exam questions," "2007 new york bar exam questions," and "2007 california bar exam questions" REALLY NEED TO RELAX! it's over. breathe deeply. and desperately try to forget about it for the next few months.

out of curiosity, are there people who are posting substantively about their bar-taking experience? like what they thought things were? and is that what y'all are looking for? i suppose i could learn the answer to that if i were better at finding things on the internet (i have said that i am probably the only person who couldn't find porn on the internet) and if my internet connection hadn't been so slow all summer.

anyways, i'm going to go back to sitting on my couch and thinking about the fact that i really should be packing.

this looks like something i'd do

2007-07-26T13:06:00.001-04:00

i found these pictures on cuteoverload.com

my wish

2007-07-25T21:09:00.000-04:00

i wish you could just electro-shock out the part of your brain with the bar questions.

not all that knowledge we've been cramming in there all summer. i kinda like a lot of that stuff. i mean, the eight ways to end an easement are a part of my heart and soul now.

what i mean are the questions they actually asked. hell, i'd even keep those b/c i've gotten pretty good at ignoring them.

but what i would get rid of get rid of get rid of and what makes me cringe at least four times an hour...it's the answers i wrote. the really really wrong ones. i mean, some of my essays might have been wrong, but at least i don't know that b/c i've mostly done an admirable job of not looking things up to figure out how wrong i am.

only not always. i may have looked up a couple of things to figure out how wrong i was. specifically i'm talking about the one where i talked about the doctrine of worthier title. ONLY THERE WAS NO DOCTRINE OF WORTHIER TITLE. and then i quit writing, having based my entire answer on something that was not at all the doctrine of worthier title. or something.

i'm sorry that i tried to post about that.

i'm going to miss the bar

2007-07-25T20:23:00.001-04:00

yes, i know that you'll all call me sick and wonder what's wrong with me. but i will. it's been a good summer. it's four hours of class a day. yes, i know it's early. but still. four hours. and then the rest of the day to do with as you will. i really should have been better about spending that time with my friends and whatnot, but still, that's my fault, not the bar's. and well, i can't explain it, i just didn't think it was really bad. plus, we were working towards something and i liked that. i can't explain it.

and i enjoyed sitting in the big room with 951 other people. it was such camaraderie! all that energy and nerves and a healthy dose of the sheer ridiculousness of it all. i mean, it was funny. the big plastic bags, the suits with sneakers, the 482 times they explained to you what your applicant number was. it was good stuff.

and now it's over and my life is all purposeless! (ok, so i have a month of travel to look forward to and i am uber-excited about that.)

but i think the real thing that makes me sad that the bar is over is what comes after.

the real world.

the real world comes next. and i just don't know if i'm ready for the real world. i have a strong suspicion i'm not really.

my thoughts on the bar

2007-07-24T22:34:00.000-04:00

well, day one is over. and there's not doubt in my mind that today is the worse of the two days. to some degree that's b/c today covered about 18 topics, most of which i'd never had in school, whereas tomorrow is just six, almost all of which we've covered in school (i never took any crim pro. i'm wishing i had.). and to some degree it's probably b/c i had barely managed to sit thru one essay question before today, let alone an entire series of 5 of them.

off the bat, i'd like to say that this summer wasn't at all what i thought it would be. mostly b/c it didn't suck anywhere near as much. well, it actually didn't suck at all. class 4 hours a day isn't so bad. and i got to be in cville with all of my friends for one last summer. but above all, it's b/c i didn't freak out like i thought i would. and when i say "i," i mean all of us. i mean, i rememeber us first year. and i was the worst of them. i was an emotional wreck during finals and i'd be up all the time and i'd cry spontaneously and ooooh, it was just bad. and of course, you barely remember what that's like by third year, when you're just like, "exams schmexams." but i know myself and i was really worried i was going to be like that again, stressed all summer for 3 solid months. crying at the drop of a hat. hating my life. only it wasn't. and i would like to say hurrah for that.

but that's not my point.

so you spend all summer studying for this. diligently going to bar-bri classes while they teach you the law and point out the highlights and tell you the things that are certain to show up. you look at the big books and realize it's impossible to learn everything and you just try to get down what you've got in the 140 page typed file you've saved as "condensed notes" on your computer, focusing on the things that are just sure to be on there.

in the week approaching the exam, you start to feel pretty good. i mean, you know this stuff! you could almost recite this binder!

you feverishly try to read every single bar-bri practice essay. well, you try to answer them, but it's always so disheartening b/c they expect you to know things like the duty of a corporation for snow removal in the state (i mean Commonwealth) of virginia. so you think thru each one and then read the model answers, figuring that maybe if you can read all of them and commit them to memory, maybe you'll learn everything they could possibly ask.

only it turns out that of course they're not going to ask those questions. as a matter of fact, despite the fact that you know hundreds of pages of typewritten notes, they're not going to ask you almost any of those things. they'll ask you questions that will leave you going thru a mental list of every topic you covered in class this summer, trying to figure out if this question fits in that topic. because you really can't figure out what this question is getting at. after all, it's the 9th of 9 questions and you've still got approximately 14 bar-bri topics you still haven't had a question on, and approximately 18 gazillion facts you DO know that they haven't given you any opportunity to tell them. your heart will leap when you start the question with "testator leaves a will," but then fall immediately when the question tells you it was duly executed and dashes all your hopes regarding spouting out the 15 pages of wills knowledge you possess.

so here's what i'm thinking. they tell you all along that law school doesn't prepare you for practicing the law. and then they you spend a summer trying to rote memorize every single aspect of the applicable law in virginia. it doesn't seem like this could possibly prepare you for practicing the law either.

but maybe that isn't what they're really doing. they're throwing out some totally obscure question that there's no way you will have actually learned the law on. but you're going to hopefully have the knowledge of everything else that might possibly lead you to that answer, and you're going to have to think on your feet and piece it all together and get your bearings til you've made up an answer that's going to pass muster. and that does kinda sound like what being a lawyer is. plus, you're wearing a suit and sneakers, and what's more lawyerly than that?

of course, some of you (ahem, me) will just sit there for approximately 2 hours and 49 minutes twirling your hair w/o typing a single thing while wondering why those bastards couldn't give you an f'in wills question.

it's bar time!

2007-07-20T20:36:00.000-04:00

so the bar is in....3 days? i think. and everyone else it seems is freaking out and studying. or something. i just can't bring myself to do it. tho my intel about people freaking out and studying is more from reading a couple of blogs and stuff, b/c it turns out that most of my friends seem to be on my page too. so that's good.

i'm getting worried, but i still haven't written out a single essay answer all summer. keep in mind we're supposed to do about 4 of these per day. ugh. so i'm a bit terrified, but also a bit....well, it's ok. i'm more worried about worrying about things like getting lost on my way to the civic center and if there will be enough parking and what to eat for lunch or where to get breakfast. or my biggest concern--how closely are they really looking at your pants to see if they're bona fide suit pants and not just elastic-waisted black pants that you usually wear to bed.

anyways, the following was forwarded to me by a friend and i found it absolutely hysterical. like i laughed more than probably anyone else will laugh at reading it. but oh how i loved it. so i'm sharing it with you.

and i'm going to put it on the page so you don't have to click a link, but since i'm now a terribly paranoid lawyer-type, let me make it very clear that it came from here and someone else gets all the credit for it.

Trials and Tribulations:What to Expect WhileTaking the Bar Exam
By JEREMY BLACHMAN
Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 13, 2006

True story: my assigned seat for the New York State bar exam last summer -- seat 1734 at Pier 90, if you're curious -- wasn't far from one of the bathrooms. I used it before the test. It wasn't anything special -- no hand soap, no paper towels, a not-entirely-pleasant smell -- but it was all in functioning order. I didn't think much of it. But at some point during the exam, I heard a crash coming from that direction. People looked up for an instant, but no one really reacted. A few hours later, I went to use the bathroom again. The stall door was no longer attached to the stall. I suppose it could have broken on its own, but I prefer to imagine some nervous test-taker came across a particularly thorny set of commercial paper questions, panicked, and in a fit of frustration, went to the bathroom and ripped the door right off its hinges. A little while later, I noticed a uniformed official checking out the bathroom and calling for backup. I don't know if they ever found out who did it. Or, more importantly, if he (or she?) ended up passing the exam.
If only the bathroom assailant had been wearing a catheter, the damage would have been avoided. Seriously. You hear rumors in law school about people wearing catheters to the bar exam so they don't lose precious minutes going to the bathroom. If only he (or she!) had been wearing a catheter, perhaps the stall would still be in one piece.

But no. The assailant couldn't have been wearing a catheter. How do I know this? Because you're not allowed to bring a catheter to the New York state bar exam. It's not on the list of approved items. The examiners are very specific about it. A gallon-sized clear plastic food storage-type bag containing your admission ticket, a government-issued photo ID, your wallet, tissues, pens, number two pencils, a beverage in a plastic container or juice box, a quiet snack or lunch, and hygiene products. No catheter. Unless that counts as a hygiene product. Maybe it should. I have a hunch what they mean by hygiene products -- males probably don't have to worry about them -- but everyone in the test center went to law school, so of course we're all going to wonder where they'd draw the line. What about a couple of q-tips so you can clean your ears in the middle of the exam? A toothbrush? A hair dryer? It says only the snack has to be quiet, not the hygiene products.

New York test-takers are pretty lucky when it comes to the quiet snack. All it needs to be is quiet. Pennsylvania requires that snacks be small -- they give gum and mints as examples -- and unwrapped. It makes me feel sorry for all those folks in Harrisburg who, when hunger hits six hours into the multiple-choice section, have no recourse other than to reach into their pockets for a handful of warm Hershey's Kisses. Other states have fun rules too. Virginia requires test-takers to wear suits (or a tie and jacket) to the exam. And it encourages soft-soled footwear, like tennis shoes. Suits and sneakers: the classic grade-school prom costume. My first inclination was to think the soft-soled policy was for comfort. But this is Virginia, in July. If they wanted the test-takers to be comfortable, in the hundred-degree heat, the suit's a bigger problem than the tennis shoes.

The California Bar provides a list of twenty-three approved items, including "up to two pillows without cases," "silent analog watches, timers and clocks not measuring larger than 4x4 inches or smaller," and "ear plugs or plastic material normally associated with the sport of swimming." Huh? Is there a swimming section on the California bar exam? Maybe that's why so many people fail. Or maybe they fail because the questions are written by the same guy who wrote the "not measuring larger than 4x4 inches or smaller" clause. That leaves clocks measuring… exactly 4x4 inches? I guess so. It must stem from some episode in which a test taker tried to wheel in a "good luck" grandfather clock. Or something.

Even putting aside the hours of enjoyment you can have packing your test-day clear plastic storage bag, preparing for the bar exam isn't a heck of a lot of fun. Most people say the worst part is doing hundreds and hundreds of practice multiple choice questions, but I think the worst part is how doing those multiple choice questions makes you feel about the world. Nothing good ever happens to the people in practice bar exam questions. Everyone who crosses the street gets hit by a car, every doctor botches the surgery, parachutes never open, contracts never get fulfilled, anyone who uses a lawnmower ends up in the hospital, as soon as you write a will your whole family dies, employee benefit plans never pay out their benefits, computers all get viruses, your friends are always intoxicated, stealing your farm equipment, and driving it into the barn, police search you all the time for no good reason, you can never find a good place to hide your weapons, banks never recognize a signature as a forgery, and the forger always flees the country.

Not that it's any better for criminals. Arsonists never burn down what they mean to, thieves always end up murdering someone, conspirators can never convince their fellow criminals to back out, no one is ever given access to their lawyers before questioning, and spring guns go off in everyone's garage, each time killing the neighbor kid who just meant to return the tools he'd borrowed.

On the other hand, the best thing about taking the bar exam is that eventually you get to stop studying. The morning of the exam, I got off the subway and walked over to my test site with some ripped-out pages from the Conviser Mini Review (how is a 900-page book a mini-anything?), trying to cram some last-minute knowledge into my head. I realized as I was about to cross the street that the review pages weren't on the list of approved items (unless I was going to eat them, quietly). So I threw them out. And, of course, they landed on top of pages and pages of other people's study notes. If you're taking the bar exam later this month, and you want free review materials, just go find some garbage cans on the west side at nine in the morning on July 25th. More than you'll ever need.

But I can do even better than telling you where to find review materials. I can give you the answers, despite the stern warning against it. One of the first things you hear when you enter the bar exam test site is a disembodied voice telling you that "revealing any of the answers in any written, oral, electronic, or other medium is a violation of the copyright and grounds for failure of the exam and disqualification in the character and fitness portion of the evaluation." I understand they want to keep the questions secret. But the answers? What good are the answers without the questions?

I've decided to violate the rules. The answers to last year's New York bar exam were, in no particular order: A. B. C. D. A. A. B. C. D. D. D. D. C. B. B. C. D. A. A. D. B. C. A. D. So there you go.

I promise they're as accurate as the Bar/Bri lecturer who thinks he knows what the essay topics will be. Or the tarot card reader who sees "easements, lots of easements" in your future. A few final words: Don't wear a catheter. Unwrap your gum. Make sure you bring your swimming goggles. And you're all ready to pass the bar exam. Good luck.

blargh

2007-07-08T15:36:00.000-04:00

so studying for the bar is....well, i wouldn't really know how it is. i am wholly unmotivated. it's really very sad. at first i thought i would get more motivated once it was july and the test got closer and all that, but no, no i have not. so now i am not only way behind on everything i was supposed to be doing, but i am just as unmotivated to do things now, and as an added problem, it seems that i did just enough work in the first month to be sick of studying.

also as an added problem, they seem to have left all the topics that make no sense at all to me until the last week of class, so not only am i unmotivated, but it just feels fruitless to try to learn secured transactions in two weeks.

oh, and i just keep wanting to plan for my bar trip. i mean, at least i get to still take the bar trip if i fail, but somehow it just doesn't seem right. i thought it was good that we had planned everything a while back, but i hadn't realized that that still left all the fun and excitement of planning and checking the weather for every city we will be in. neurotically.

i'm really not sure how much time two people can spend looking at rain jackets and toiletry bags for travel, but i think that jared and i have spent approximately 5 hours each of the last 3 days doing these things. and approximately 1 each day studying for the bar. if that. but i have a new toiletry bag! and new sneakers! that are light like air, but might pinch my feet. and a growing list of things to buy at target! oh how i long to go to target! target is way better than studying for the bar.

anyways. that is how things are in my life right now. if anyone is still reading. sometimes i still feel like i should post, but mostly i just suppress that b/c i feel like i should be studying. tho that generally degenerates into freecell pretty quickly. so maybe i should start back with the blogging. to keep future generations abreast of what really goes on when you "study for the bar."

save me from myself!

2007-06-03T19:50:00.001-04:00

so my sister is taking some of my furniture tomorrow, meaning i have to empty the drawers and find new places for all of the crap that has been hiding both inside those drawers and on top of my dresser/bookshelves/desk for the past 3 years.

i have decided that the best way to avoid having to throw any of this crap away is to use it, thereby convincing myself that i will use it and don’t need to throw it away. so in addition to the hairpieces from assassins i have put in my hair, i have also added a few decorative barrettes, sprayed my one leg with gold glitter spray (and am thinking about spraying the other with silver glitter spray), lined my left eye with a liquid eyeliner i have never before used, and put on a random lipstick i’ve owned for about a decade. i look very pretty. or something.

also, my right leg shimmers like that of a goddess. altho it is sticky and gross and i'm not sure i would recommend touching it.

does anyone think it's a problem

2007-05-02T20:34:00.000-04:00

that the old fed courts outline i've got is 77 pages and mine is 19? oh, and our margins and fonts are the same, so that can't explain it.

trouble ahead

2007-04-30T23:32:00.000-04:00

so i've picked the two exams i'm going to take first and i've been studying for the one i need to study for and not even thinking about the short one in the only class i've read for all semester. i decided this evening not to take it tomorrow morning, b/c i was doing so well on the fed courts work, so i figured i would just keep plowing thru it and employment law could wait.

no problem.

only a few minutes ago i decided that my head would explode if i looked at another page of fed courts notes, but it didn't seem worth opening employment law, since i'm not taking it tomorrow. i could just go to bed, but for the fact that i took approximately 5 hours off this evening for the gym and dinner and wine on my balcony. oh, after i didn't start studying til about 1pm.

anyways, point being i figured i would start looking at stuff for one of my remaining two classes. so i began by printing out the syllabus. which is probably your first sign that i'm in trouble. then, rather than even making an effort to begin doing the reading from the syllabus, i figured i would just highlight the names of the cases and passages we were supposed to read. in the casebook's table of contents. yes, highlighting the table of contents is what i am now calling "reading." that's how bad it has gotten.

only then it got worse. b/c my name falls early in the alphabet, and he did an alphabetical on-call system. and i NEVER again listened to a word that came out of his mouth, once i had been on call. so for the first half a page of the syllabus, i'm all with it. "oh this isn't going to be so bad! these case names are familiar and i think i even remember some facts!" and then i turn to the second page of the three-page syllabus.

seriously, i have heard maybe a third of these cases even mentioned by name. i have no idea what a single one of them is about. looks like some of them involved railroads. go figure.

the worst part? this isn't even the one of the two remaining classes that terrifies me. this is the one i'm not worried about!

they say no one fails, right? please tell me that's true!

seriously?!?! are you kidding me?!?!!

2007-04-30T10:08:00.000-04:00

ok, so last night i have literally the worst night of sleep ever. it was not a night of sleep. it was a night of things waking me up and of being unable to fall asleep. part of it was one of those weird things where you just can't get to sleep and part of it was all of the noises. i had never noticed all of the noises! i mean, really, what are birds doing chirping at 3am?!!?! aren't they supposed to be asleep?!?!!?

so i soldier thru and still get up at a decent hour to start studying today, only then i have to weigh the 47 factors of what i feel like i need in a study environment today and i really can't come up with anything that matches all of those criteria (example: i want a place where there are people around, so that i don't get lonely, but not so many people and not in the sort of environment where i get distracted.) so finally i just decide i'll stay at home.

only when i get out of the shower, i learn that THEY ARE DRILLING THRU THE BRICK WALL OUTSIDE OF MY APARTMENT!

i'm not sure if you recall that i had a similar problem last semester. do you think they do these things all the time, or is it their sick little way of twisting the knife in our backs?

foxfields wrap-up

2007-04-29T11:44:00.000-04:00

much is still the same about foxfields, since my last review.

mostly the part about being so drunk by early evening that you are convinced it is midnight, and that you are then already hungover by 2am. of course the beauty of this is that you are not hungover all the next day. which is very good b/c i have finals to study for. of course, it is nearly noon and i have not started that effort yet. instead i have uploaded my 154 photos to facebook. 154 pictures! of course, there are large chunks where you can tell that i am not the person taking the photos.

it was not the debacle i anticipated spring foxfields to be, but perhaps that is b/c we did not wander very far from our little plot. i wandered far enough to meet a man named "big nug," who was about 250 pounds, wearing all black to foxfields, had "NUG" tattooed on his calf, and proceeded to discuss with me about how much he also LOVES the movie "ice age 2." alas, i never witnessed the urine trough, but i did manage to see more horses than at all other foxfields combined. the horses account for about 20 of my pictures.

but most importantly, lexi and i got to wear some fabulous hats.
god, those are some hats.

product endorsement: bisquick complete

2007-04-29T11:38:00.000-04:00

mmmmmm! tasty and delicious! i made the honey-butter variety on friday, and proceeded to eat 3 biscuits w/in about 5 minutes, only waiting until jared had left to devour the other two. and then i made the three-cheese variety to go with egg strada before foxfields yesterday, and was complimented widely for what everyone thought were homemade biscuits. p-shaw! i made it quite clear that they were not, but that you too can have such delicious homemade-tasting biscuits in just 8-11 minutes! fabulous! according to the website, you can also have them in cheese-garlic and cinnamon swirl. i bet they are amazing too! i most heartily recommend the honey-butter flavor, which is sweet and perfect. mmmmm!!

addendum #2: real men love amaretto

2007-04-24T22:14:00.000-04:00

not that i am a man, but i think this is a tasty and delicious beverage, and it sounds silly to say "real women love amaretto." for what it's worth, jared also thinks this drink is gross. i am not sure if this is a statement about his manhood or if the reality is that real men don't love amaretto.

but i am going to recommend it highly.

italian margarita
1 oz amaretto
2 oz sour mix
1/2 oz tequila
1/2 oz triple sec

addendum

2007-04-24T21:48:00.000-04:00

is it alcoholism if you have someone else to drink in your apartment with you? perhaps heavily at times?

someone just brought home lemons and powdered sugar (for bona fide whiskey sours) and a cocktail strainer (b/c i said i should add one to my kitchen collection) and grenadine (b/c sometimes i look wistfully at it in the grocery store).

in addition, it is 10pm on a tuesday night, i have not started studying for finals and i am debating b/t a drink that consists of tequila, triple sec, amaretto and sour mix, and one that consists of vodka, triple sec, amaretto and a lemon wedge.

no one would recommend me for counseling, right?

if i'm going to be a lawyer, i've got to learn how to hang.

things to do when you're not studying: aquire a taste for alcohol

2007-04-24T21:25:00.000-04:00

i don't mean become an alcoholic b/c it's not like i'm drinking a lot. or in public. (shit, that doesn't help my case.) rather i'm trying to find ways to use these alcohols in my apartment. not only do i have all of the usual suspects, which i have always had, but i have also found myself in position of an inordinate amount of triple sec and a newly acquired bottle of amaretto. so currently i am trying to figure out how to use those ingredients, with lemon juice and lime juice and whatever else and create a tasty drink. maybe with whiskey. the thing is that i have the worst sense ever of what goes together. as you may have already ascertained. pretty much, if i make a drink, i will have to drink it b/c no one else ever will. generally their first sip is accompanied by the phrase, "whatever made you think to put these flavors together?!?!!?" generally said with disgust.

and don't direct me to webtender.com. it has not fulfilled my needs adequately. then again, i kinda want a time-intensive process that will produce minimal results. otherwise i would have to start studying.

[jared was a little shocked when i told him i was still planning on taking my first exam next monday, despite the fact that i have not started studying anything, nor have i done the reading for the semester in anything, and that i am going to foxfields. "you mean in less than a week?" he said. to which i replied that i have to have all four of them taken in two weeks. what is so outlandish with having taken one of them 6 days from now?]

i have commenced the studying!

2007-04-23T12:50:00.000-04:00

by which i mean that i have printed out previous year's outlines for 2 of my 4 classes.

this was spurred on by having made the mistake of having lunch with a studying 3L who is in 2 of my classes and was talking about all of the things she has done to prepare for the exam, and then i started wishing that i could read in the hour before my next class only none of my books are at the law school, so all i can really do is send email. and print out old outlines! done! it's like i'm ready for half of my exams now!

things to do when you're not studying: go to a drive-in movie

2007-04-22T22:05:00.000-04:00

one of the things that recently found its way to my list of things i want to do before i leave cville/ dates to go on was a trip to a drive-in movie theater. there is one out in lexington, about an hour away--hull's drive in. interesting tidbit--it's the nation's only non-profit community-owned drive in.

well, to make a real night of it, we decided to start things off at the cracker barrel. there isn't one here in cville, but there is one about 30 minutes away in waynesboro (where, handily, you can pick up a map of all cracker barrel locations in the us, for use in planning your next road trip.)

anyways, after that we headed further down the road, to hull's drive in. now, i am going to admit that watching a movie in your car is not as comfortable as you might think. but it still is a lot of fun, and it's a great little community gem, and you get to see both movies for $5 if you can sit in your car that long! and i think it will be great once the weather gets nice and you can take yourself some chairs and support their very reasonably priced snack bar and sit outside in the fresh air to watch your movie. anyways, i'm just going to recommend it as a little side trip from cville for those of you who are looking for something a little different to do. and the people are uber-friendly. i loved them. i have decided that if i move back to VA at some point, i want to live close enough to be one of hull's angels and help out at the snack bar on weekends. it's going to be the best.

things to do when you're not studying: try new things in the kitchen

2007-04-22T21:53:00.000-04:00

this is the most recent of the things i have done in the past 12 hours, none of which have been read. mostly i have screwed around looking for a place in DC, even tho you can't really do that w/o looking and the realtor is really in charge of that and well, it's all fruitless except that it gets you all excited and then you realize that you live 2 hours away and should have gone and looked at places today, only you didn't and you really don't even know how to look for a place and well, that is very frustrating and now you've just upset yourself more when really you were just supposed to be telling the world about cottage cheese pancakes.

also, i have spent many hours screwing around on online picture sites, all of which just eat my pictures and are very frustrating and will not just make me a damned picture book to save my life and now i am going to be upset about that too, when all i meant to do was tell the world about cottage cheese pancakes.

anyways, on to the cottage cheese pancakes, which only took up 10 minutes of my life and produced far more fruitful results than all things previously mentioned that were not catching up on a semester's worth of reading.

so jared's men's health recently had an article about healthier breakfast options and one of them was cottage cheese pancakes. i mean, cottage cheese pancakes! i know that not everyone is a fan of cottage cheese, but i say to all of those people--you are wrong. I LOVE COTTAGE CHEESE! AND I LOVE CARBOHYDRATES! so what could be better than taking cottage cheese and making it into a carbohydrate?!?!?!

well it turns out, not much. i love them! they aren't really like pancakes. but they are like creamy pancakes made of cottage cheese and i found them to be tasty and delicious. and easy! even i couldn't screw them up! and they only have 8 carbs per pancake and 97 calories.

anyways, i decided that i would share the recipe with all of you, in case you are interested in trying them out and avoiding reading all that reading you have not done all semester. or if you are some kind of loser, i suppose that you could just make them after "finals" are over. or as a "study break." i don't need to take those b/c i am not studying. anyways, courtesy of the april 2007 edition of men's health and their resident chef matt goulding, here is the recipe--

1 cup cottage cheese
2 eggs
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg (optional) (but tasty and delicious!)

in a large bowl, stirl t/g the cheese, eggs, butter, and milk. add the flour, baking powder, sugar, sale and nutmeg, and blend lightly until just mixed. grease a griddle with cooking spray and place over medium heat. put a large scoop of batter on the griddle and use the back of a spoon to spread it out evenly. the pancake is ready to flip when you begin to see small air bubbles form, about 3-4 minutes. flip and cook for another minute or two. makes about 12 4-inch pancakes.

oh yes

2007-04-18T13:20:00.000-04:00

and other things i have done recently include corrupt the youth of america.
this is the only picture i have of baby madden, but i just had to put it up to provide some proof that he is maybe the cutest baby ever. i'm even one of those people who doesn't think all babies are cute. i mean, i wouldn't tell you that your baby wasn't cute, but well, your baby might not be cute. this one is. overwhelmingly so.

also, quite a lover of the pina colada!

kidding, kidding. please don't send social services after either me or the maddens. it was a joke!

aw sh**!

2007-04-18T13:16:00.000-04:00

so i wander to the upstairs of the library today. this was a smidge inadvertent. see, i had been in the library for lexis training, which i was going to do for an hour and a half b/c you know how i love my points, and then skip my class to write this paper that is due at 5. well, halfway thru the second training i mention this and marva pretty much kicks me out of the final training, b/c she doesn’t want to enable me. well, that’s fine. anyways, i decide i’ll probably skip class anyways, but i won’t let myself leave the library til i have submitted the paper. only i can’t stand the library parts of the library, so i have to go to one of the two rooms with the comfy chairs upstairs.

well on my way to the comfy chairs, THERE ARE PEOPLE EVERYWHERE IN THE LIBRARY!

and then it dawns on me—finals start in something like 10 days. i don’t know exactly b/c even now, i refuse to go look at count. i mean, any other year, i would have started my stressing and my catching up and my working on outlines a week or two ago. instead i have had friends over for drinking in the mid-afternoon, and i have been ticking off items on my list of things i want to do b/f leaving cville, and i have been sleeping in and blumping around and generally not at all concerning myself with the fact that i have read for one of my four classes all semester.

anyways, i go sit in the one room, which i promptly have to evacuate b/c this group of kids has reserved it for a study group! A STUDY GROUP?!?!!? geez louise.

i’m screwed. and yet, still not really concerned.

which is why i am posting on my blog despite the fact that i have a paper due in 3 hours. a paper which pretty much currently says nothing. i doubt it will really say anything when i turn it in either, but if i think about that, i start to worry a bit. so i should probably avoid that.

god bless the people who make hats

2007-04-11T23:41:00.000-04:00

today lexi and i decided to reprise last september's hat extravaganza. after all, those hats didn't go to waste. and foxfield is right around the corner. we all know how much i love foxfield!

and lexi and i never met a ridiculous looking hat we didn't love to put on our heads.

turns out rob is of our ilk too.
but with hats like these! who could resist? this one nearly won me over, but my dress isn't white, it's more of an off-white. alas!

the one lexi is wearing tickles her nose. the one i am wearing makes me wish i had a different life. the kind of life where i had occassion to wear such hats. i imagine there would be many garden parties in this life. and afternoon teas.

and this one makes me wish i had a big ole' southern wedding to attend sometime in the near future. preferably one where gaudy is an asset.

but in the end, here is the hat i will be donning at foxfield this spring:

the last great reward of online legal database training

2007-04-10T15:02:00.000-04:00

has arrived today. the PicnicTime Pioneer Picnic Basket. i say the last great reward, b/c from here on out i will only be able to amass enough points for a $25 gift certificate, maybe another $10. but gone are the days of westlaw and lexis sending me hundreds plus dollars worth of goods thru the mail. without the oppression of shipping charges! which is probably my favorite thing.

well, i have always had problems finding suitable rewards on westlaw, given the sparse pickings. in the end, i was debating between an aerobed and this fabulous picnic basket. at rob's urging, i concluded that indeed, lexis/westlaw points were for fun, and the picnic basket won out.

it really is one heck of a picnic basket too. it's got salt and pepper shakers and wine glasses, and coordinated plaid napkins and plates and a tablecloth and blanket. oh! and a cheese board and cheese knife! b/c you cannnot have a picnic without an assortment of cheeses! so true.

the only remaining problem is that i'm not sure i'll be able to pick it up once it's full of foods.

oh, and that i'm not sure i can really come up with a suitable meal with which to fill it. i mean, this warrants more than sandwiches and chips! but what exactly? please submit your suggestions for perfect picnic meals, that are bona fide meals, that actually involve being moderately domestic, tho not so domestic that i would screw them up horribly.

i did a terrible thing

2007-04-10T00:11:00.000-04:00

last year, at lexi's xmas party, i received a whoopie cushion as part of a bag of gag gifts. i never thru it away. i found it while cleaning today. i offered it to jared, who had expressed interest in the whoopie cushion when i had mentioned it a month or so ago.

my aparment has been filled for 10 minutes with the sounds of jared inflating the whoopie cushion, deploying the whoopie cushion, and then solid minutes of giggling like an 8-year old boy.

ahhhhh, adorable.

then again, he did do my taxes yesterday. i suppose this is a fair trade.

crawfish: tasty and delicious. and cute.

2007-04-08T21:19:00.000-04:00

every year brent has a crawfish boil, where he orders 35 pounds of fresh crawfish from louisiana and boils them up, true cajun style, in his backyard for friends. and this year, b/c i am now attached to someone on the invite list, i got to go and have a taste of home! (i have been looking forward to this for over a month, and i think that jared may have some concerns that now that it's over, he's getting kicked to the curb.)

well, despite the beautiful weather that we had last week, it managed to snow yesterday morning, but that did not dissuade us. we all bundled up, and warmed ourselves with the keg of harp, to enjoy brent's annual crawfish boil.

which did not disappoint.

unfortunately, i made the mistake of befriending one of the crawfish. i didn't actually realize they would still be alive after their journey from louisiana on ice, so i was a bit surprised to see them start to move around. well, i picked one up and decided he would be mine. i would save him! they were all totally disoriented from the ice, so i tried to warm him up by breathing on him. and then i let him sit on my chest like you would do with a cat, or some sort of small mammalian pet. and of course, i named him. b/c that's how i roll. humphrey.

only at some point, they made me put him in the boiling water and i didn't really protest too much b/c what was i going to do with a live crawfish? but it still broke my heart, and i knew that i would be able to find humphrey again. i was sure that even though he would look like all the other crawfish spread out before us, i would recognize him b/c of his spirit.

and i did.

so i insisted on taking him home with us. and now humphrey lives in my fridge. he would live outside of the fridge, but my apartment kinda starts to smell when you leave him out for too long.
tho we do take him out to play with sampson. they get along like peas and carrots. sampson seems to think humphrey is pretty funny. so jared and i are beginning a bona fide family here in ivy gardens. a family who can sit down around a palm tree at night.

a palm tree that holds 60 beers. what more could a girl ask for?

the things we do for those we love

2007-03-29T16:28:00.000-04:00

so today, a very popular question has been, "did you go to 3L bar night?" well no, no i did not. and i'll tell you why.

jared happens to be a bit of a NASCAR fan. ok, jared is a lot of a NASCAR fan. he has that same ability that all boys have to remember every freakish little detail of whatever sport it is that he loves, but he doesn't use it for basketball or football or baseball or any of those sports that would allow him to interact with anyone else i know. (it's really irrelevant to me, b/c i don't get it with any sport.) instead, he knows nearly every detail of every race since like 1978.

and he is the hugest dale earnhardt fan ever. like 3 has been his lucky number since he was born and he sometimes gets choked up when he talks about his death and he remembers every race dale was ever in and...well, he's a fan.

which is why we drove the 2 hours each way to danville last night to watch dale: the movie, which was playing there.

both the 7:00 and 9:30 showings.

only that's not the best part. see, about 3 weeks ago he had ordered tickets to a theater about an hour away that was showing it. only last week he got news that the theater had closed, so we would have to go all the way to danville to see it. and he was CONVINCED that the movie would be sold out. so after calling on friday, to ensure that their were still ticket's for this wednesday's showing available, we drove the 2 hours down, and the two hours back, on saturday to buy tickets. to both the 7:00 and 9:30 showings.

but that's still not the best part. the best part is that after we drove the 2 hours to danville to get our seats early enough to have good seats, b/c we were sure the theater was going to be packed, there were approximately 30 people at the 7:00 showing. and exactly 9 at the 9:30 showing.

(as a side note--jared would like to express his extreme disapproval to all NASCAR fans in the greater danville area. and i'd like to say that we could even extend that to all NASCAR fans within at least a two hour radius of danville. i mean, i'm asking what "pole position means" and i managed to make it out! poor showing, "fans!")

but it was a good movie and it meant a lot to jared and gave me some more appreciation for NASCAR and dale earnhardt was a pretty cool guy. so for as hard a time as i've been giving him (and as hard a time as my friends have been giving me), it was worth it. let us know if you want to see it when it plays in richmond in a couple of months!

oh, and other things about the trip that i can get behind include the fact that i got my first-ever trip to bojangles. and my second. and third. in addition, i learned that there is a restaurant called "biscuitville." how could you go wrong? i may insist on driving to danville every other night and i may weigh 300 pounds very shortly. that is some good stuff.

finally, a certain someone was so good as to remember which historic marker i wanted to stop at on our first drive down, and even remembered to stop at it yesterday, so i could learn about the wreck of the old '97. the historic marker didn't tell me much (actually, i thought, "9 people died and they're calling this a 'train wreck?'"), but the wikipedia entry informs me that there was a copyright lawsuit involving the resulting ballad! a copyright suit! i love me some copyright law!

so all in all, i'm saying it was a good trip. i mean, what could i have done at bar night? get drunk with 3Ls? well, there's always tonight.

welcome to the newest additions to MY family

2007-03-29T16:09:00.000-04:00

matt and trish may have decided they were ready for a baby, but i've been making some pretty big additions to my home recently too.

about a week ago, i finally decided that i was ready to commit to a lexis prize. now, as you know, this had been a problem for a while. i had been accruing points like a madwoman, with no end in sight, b/c i was unable to commit to what i wanted. i had seen this frozen drink machine last year, and it had tickled my fancy, but it was about 24,000 and it seemed totally frivolous and did i really need another large device to sit, unused, in my kitchen. i mean, the cuisinart i got earlier this year is still sitting in its box, unopened, in my entryway. from december. but i decided to make a frozen drink last week, and i remembered that every time i try to use my blender to do so, the thing smokes. which is exactly how my last blender died. AND then the very next day, rob sent an email heralding this device, saying it was what he wanted, as tho he had found it and was the first person to think about using lexis points to buy it. so sunday, marva deposited 300 points in my account, and i decided it was time. so i ordered the margaritaville. and with that great amazon shipping, it arrived yesterday. and here it is:

as you can see, it did not sit for 6 months, clogging the entryway to my apartment. i plan to use it tonight. reviews should be up shortly. it should be amazing!

secondly, jared and i decided that we were ready for a garden gnome. on our drives to danville (posting about this little excursion next), i was overwhelmed by the variety of garden gnomes out there, and i started to think i needed one. i had seen them on my visit to big lots and had been very tempted, but they were pricier than what i thought i needed to spend on a garden gnome. but today, we went to target to scope them out. well, they are far pricier at target than at big lots. we then went to big lots, where i grappled with the decision for a while. i mean, i loved him, but was he worth $8? well, that decision was made as jared looked up while i was cradling the garden gnome like an infant. it might have been too much for me to spend on a garden gnome, but it was not too much for jared to spend on my happiness.

so i am proud to introduce you to sampson:

feel free to visit my home to visit either sampson or to enjoy a tasty frozen beverage. mmmmm, i don't know why i'd ever leave again.

CONGRATULATIONS to the maddens!

2007-03-27T20:26:00.000-04:00

ok, so that is probably overkill on pictures of the maddens, but you know how bad i am at making decisions and so i didn't! i figured this way you could see that they were both pretty and fun.

anyways, noticeably missing from the pictures is the big news--

matt and trish are the proud new parents of a baby boy, colin michael madden (a name of which i heartily approve. love it, love it, love it). he was born this morning at 10:16am, weighing 7 pounds, 9 ounces, meaning (for those of you keeping track), his birth weight is three ounces more than mine.

we're all really excited that the big day has finally come and that everyone is doing well and yay for baby madden!!! congratulations matt and trish!!!

dammit

2007-03-15T21:38:00.000-04:00

and i woulda picked VCU over duke!

tho i suppose that wasn't a very uncommon pick with how duke has been playing lately.

of course, i'm now being forced to support jared's picks, and he sure didn't pick VCU over duke. what am i supposed to do with that! oh, and he picked old dominion over butler. i would never have let butler lose in the first round. only b/c i remember them being the 12 end of a 5/12 upset a couple of years ago and that will forever get them thru the first round in my book.

not that i actually have any idea what i'm talking about.

S*@$!

2007-03-15T14:34:00.000-04:00

it is 2:30. i just got an email saying that BC had won its first round game (in the NCAA tournament).

then it hit me.

I NEVER FILLED OUT MY BRACKETS!

my plan was to do it when i got home from pong for PILA last night. well, maybe you shouldn't make plans to do something after you complete hours of heavy drinking. well, it wasn't supposed to be hours of heavy drinking, but that's what it was. so all that happened afterwards was passing out. the kind of passing out that involves not brushing your teeth or taking your contacts out even.

now this is very disturbing for a number of reasons.

the first is that i will not care at all what happens during march madness. and i LOVE march madness. but only when i have $10 to motivate me to care. i mean, what about march madness am i supposed to love now? the sport of basketball? puh-leeze.

secondly, i always love the false hope of the big win. and the thing is, i'm usually really pretty good at brackets. and when i say "really pretty good," what i mean is that i am the first person in every pool who does not get money. so if the pool gives money to the top 3 people, i'll come in 4th. and if it gives money to the top 5, i'll come in 6th. the first year i ever entered a pool (i actually did not know march madness existed until after i graduated from college), i would win in something like 4 of the final 6 scenarios. and i would have won everything were it not for the fact that maryland won the whole shebang. and i was living in DC where there are lots of terps fans, so of course they had that picked. and then there was the year i had the final four exactly right and not one of the final two at all. so i'm good but not good enough. that's my point. but i do derive some sense of dignity from it.

and i'll just sound totally uninformed all month. not like i was ever informed in the past, but the fact that i didn't spend 3 days scouring the internet, only to make my final decision by flipping a coin, means that i don't even know who's in and who the upsets are and all that stuff that is what makes the tournament so much fun.

boooooo for laura not filling out her brackets!

mi dushi aruba

2007-03-14T13:04:00.000-04:00

so i've decided to make another quick and brief spring break post b/c i had been meaning to do so, but i never did, and the time is probably past, since i've been back to griping about law school things, but this is going to be a public service, so you'll thank me for it, i'm sure of it.

first of all, our culture lesson. "mi dushi" is how you say "i love" in papiamento.

second of all, we loved the bar at la cabana far more than the bar at the marriott. the second time we showed up, they knew us. of course, that's probably not very difficult, since the first two times we went to the bar, the five of us were the only ones there. plus, we're f$!#in' delights, as i'm sure you can imagine. plus their drink specials were on everything, not just a specific drink, and they had two happy hours per day. oh! and they had great music! i don't even like to dance, but somehow the music at the bar compelled me to move every time i heard it! it was like it wasn't even me!

but the best thing they did was introduce us to the "mi dushi."

essentially, it's a pina colada colored with blue curacao. then you put creme de banana in the bottom of the glass, fill the glass with your blue pina colada, and top it off with some coecoei. now i don't know what this coecoei is, but in the interest of informed journalism, i had the man show me the bottle, so i could get the spelling correct. not that jen and i could find it in the liquor aisles in aruba, so i'm not sure that bodes very well for finding it here, and none of us could really discern what flavor it is, but we would guess cherry, and really isn't what's most important that it is red? actually that is what's most important b/c the drink is intended to resemble the aruban flag.
so now you have learned something new today. a few something news. and one of them is a tasty beverage. you are welcome!!

i have found my life's greatest aspiration

2007-03-14T13:00:00.000-04:00

greater even then being the keeper of the documents at the supreme court.

i want to be the source of a lexis fact or fiction question!

today's question is essentially, did chris chauvin graduate from UT? no! he graduated from LSU!

but even more fascinatingly to me, he graduated in 2004. he's a 2001 college grad! he's my age (hell, we were probably both even in baton rouge high schools at the same time) and he has already become a lexis fact or fiction question!

of course he's also written a law review article and clerked for the 5th circuit, but neither of those things really incite my envy.

but golly, LEXIS FACT OR FICTION! my heart kinda stopped just thinking about it.

another boo

2007-03-11T12:12:00.000-04:00

so my final cite check is supposed to be out of my hands by mid-week. i'm not sure if you recall that b/c of delays in getting my last one, it was in my hands during finals first semester and the christmas break. and now this one came to me the day before spring break! booooooo.

anyways, i'm the articles editor, so my job is to make sure that everyone else's cite checks are turned in and accurate and that the changes are entered. well, it turns out that fixing 300 footnotes sucks way more than fixing 20 and every time one of these comes my way, i kick myself for having signed up for the job. but the kicker is some of the ed board. i'm sure you can imagine that every cite check team has one or two people that make my job WAY harder than it would normally have to be.

my group has one girl that is AWFUL. she has never turned anything in at all on time, and will then email every few days to apologize and say that she'll have it in to me by "tonight," which invariably means that 3 days later i'll have to email her again and ask her where it is.

anyways, the last cite check was due 9 1/2 days ago. BEFORE spring break. there were a series of about 30 emails among the whole group the week leading up to that date b/c there were lots of problems getting some of the books, etc etc. i worked with everyone to make sure they had what they could get and we would work out the rest of the kinks after break. people were offering to come back early and crap, and i told them that was just crazy b/c this is a cite check whose author couldn't get back to us on time and we're not hurrying back from tropical dessert islands for that.

but anyways.

so on sunday, four days after the cite check is due (and the first time i have internet access), i learn that the usual suspect has not sent in her cite check. not even the usual explanation that "she's working on it" and is "so sorry" and will have it to me "by the end of the day." so i send an email asking her about the status.

which she has just replied to, 7 days later (fine, i suppose not everyone has internet access on spring break, but i'm not 100% willing to believe that is the case)--

Wow, I left for spring break and totally forgot about this. Cross my
heart that i'll send it to you by the end of the day, and apologies for being
the big pain during your last cite check duties...

yes, that makes TOTAL sense. i mean, the slew of 30 emails the previous week probably didn't tip you off to the fact that you had a cite check due. fair enough.

NO! NOT FAIR ENOUGH! you are a lazy cretin who has now done this for EVERY SINGLE cite check in the last year. AND she applied for the managing board! in a position that would involve timeliness! and promptness! and not screwing things up for other people to make their lives more of a pain!

anyways, i realize that this is one of those things that could get me in trouble, but i kinda figure that if you've now done this AGAIN, it's fair for me to anonymously rant about it, even if you can figure out who you are. anyways, so that's what i have to do today. deal with 300 footnotes. and want to shoot myself. mmmmm, sweet. at least i'll be really tan while doing so.

boooooo

2007-03-11T12:09:00.000-04:00

so i have just received my firm's stipend and start date in the mail. our stipend for the bar and moving expenses and all that other stuff is $10,000, which is at least a significant increase from the $5,000 we were initially told it would be. which would cover just about nothing. particularly when you factor in that it is $10,000 minus taxes. and it turns out the taxes on $10,000 are $4,000! how is that even true?!!?! yick.

oh, and my start date is SEPTEMBER 5! so much for needing to worry about where to go on my bar trip, since that has been cut about 3 weeks shorter than anticipated. not that i would have traveled all that time, but still. it's the principle of the thing. boo for my real world not holding off until october, like everyone else's real world.

la cabana

2007-03-10T18:07:00.000-05:00

(i would like to apologize in advance for the fact that this is the most out of sorts post ever, BUT i did manage to get EIGHT pictures up at once! i mean, yeah they're all screwy and the text is all out of sorts, but whatever. they should still take you on a journey thru gaudy resort decor.)

the first two days we stayed a lovely little resort called "la cabana," which i absolutely must share pictures of b/c it is...well, hysterical. the second we walked in, we felt like we were in an episode of the golden girls.

(which was fitting, b/c last year while we were in aruba, we would play a drinking game to the golden girls about 4 times a day when it was on lifetime.)

this impression was only confirmed when we made our way upstairs, to what could only be described as a room blanche devereaux would be proud to occupy.

and i don’t know what the golden girls’ bathrooms looked like, but let me assure you that la cabana’s are worth taking note of.

oh aren't those something!

i don't know which i like more--

the fact that they’ve got their name printed on the tubs.

or the soap that leaves you wondering if they’re supposed to be making you feel totally sketched out by the things you could catch at their resort. (even best case scenario, they're trying to herald the fact that they're providing you with soap. yet i'm not sure i've ever been to a hotel that hasn't provided me with soap. but anyways.)

or that this is the hair dryer they’ve got! love it.

oh! or the fact that there is a bedet. because that’s always funny.

so really, there was just too much to choose from.

one final spring break tip

2007-03-10T17:55:00.000-05:00

i'm back, but i can't believe i didn't remember this one.

shriek "SPRING BREAK!" loudly and enthusiastically very frequently. wave your arms around a lot, and leave people wondering if you are 20 years old, wildly drunk, and about to stir up lots of trouble at their nice resort. no one needs to know that you're really a bunch of 45-year olds at heart. it keeps the old people on their toes.

spring break!

2007-03-06T15:05:00.000-05:00

well, i should be outside basking in the sun some more, but i seem to have turned bright red on some of my extremities today, so i'm hiding inside for the rest of the day. i thought i was napping in the shade, but the coloration of my arms leaves me with a sneaking suspicion that the shade moved on me. bastard sun.

anyways, we've been in aruba for 4 days and it's been grand times. i was going to post all of my reviews and things for you to know, but it turns out that the world's slowest internet will not allow me to upload pictures and these stories are nothing w/o pictures. i guess you'll just have to wait another 4 days for the scoop. alas.

i suppose this means i should go figure out something else vacation-y to do with my time. i tried to take a bath, but i was bored by the time the tub was half filled up. i would say i could work on my cite check but HAHA THAT IS THE WORST IDEA EVER. i suppose that just leaves trashy magazines and drinking rum. hm. yeah, i can probably handle that. i'll be on the patio if anyone needs me!!

oops

2007-03-01T17:35:00.000-05:00

i have made a fatal mistake. after having spent a year looking forward to going to aruba, and two weeks making fun of the group of boys who are going to cancun (we are, after all, nearly 30), i went to their resort's website.

now i want to go on their spring break.

for starters, it's all-inclusive, which is pretty nice when you think about the fact that you'll never have to pay for a meal and you can just eat whenever you want and ooooh, that does sound nice.

but they've also got recreational activities included! one free scuba diving lesson! kayaking! windsurfing! snorkeling! aerobics classes! geez, that would be awesome.

but not as awesome as the idea of knowing that you can just roll on up to the swim-up bar and have your pina colada for free. i mean, if i could just swim up to a bar and get pina coladas 24 hours a day, well i would. and the thing is, i'm not even someone who really wants to just go and drink myself to death on spring break. but this! this sounds like heaven somehow! maybe because my cheap outweighs everything else. so that i could be someone who wanted to get drunk on spring break, if it wouldn't cost so damned much money. i have a feeling that every time we swim on up to the marriott ocean club's pool bar and order our 2-for-1 happy hour specials (the only time we allow ourselves drinks at the swim-up bar), i will think about the boys in cancun and cry a little.

anyways, none of that is my favorite thing about where they are staying. my favorite thing is that there are in-room liquor dispensers. but even better than that is that this is mentioned, as tho it is a perfectly common amenity, about seven times on every single one of the hotel's pages.

it sounds like heaven. i mean, a heaven that is probably littered with very drunk and very obnoxious frat boys and girls who look so good in their bikinis that i would just wind up inside suckling from the teat of the in-room liquor dispenser, but heaven nonetheless.

anyways, since i am leaving in 45 minutes and i'm still not exactly done packing, i must be off. enjoy your spring break!!

cheap!

2007-03-01T17:33:00.000-05:00

so it is now march. CVS still has valentines out. they are now 90% off. i did the math. 19 cents. well how could i resist? i have a supicion that despite their ridiculously cheap price, everyone else's reaction is, "are you kidding me? why would i buy valentines in march?"

so if you happen to get a valentine in your mailbox a solid month after valentine's day, just consider it part of my charm.

excess, perhaps

2007-02-28T22:36:00.000-05:00

i'm taking 7 swimsuits to aruba. SEVEN! that might be a bit ridiculous. ok, that IS a bit ridiculous. fair point.

final tip

2007-02-27T21:03:00.000-05:00

this would have been #10, but blogger wouldn't let me get the picture in and well i wouldn't include it, but it's too crucial a part of my spring break success from last year to not share with you all. plus i love this picture.
go with a good group of people. include someone that you can all pick on and make fun of for the entire week w/o him ever noticing. this ensures that the rest of you won't get on one another's nerves.

as an even further tip, perhaps you should choose a spring break destination that has a large billboard in the middle of its main square, detailing the fatal traffic accidents. but that's up to you.

laura gives you helpful spring break tips!

2007-02-27T20:23:00.000-05:00

in no particular order (but for the fact that the order was somewhat dictated by my usual problems uploading pictures)--

1. BYO intertube. they're cheaper and easier to find at your local target then at some hotel. also, this way you can avoid the uncomfortable encounter that is sure to result when you and your friends presume the intertube you saw flying off a balcony was being given away to the first comer and taker b/c surely that's how the family conveyed that they were leaving for home tomorrow and no longer needed an intertube, so that you went treking thru brush to pick it up, which it turns out is not so true, and the family later finds you having adopted the intertube, clearly marked with their name in huge letters with black permanent marker, considering it a member of your own family and lounging on the lazy river with it. oops. also, you will probably learn that a pack of solidarity to fend off said family members in the event that they come looking for their intertube, will probably leave you all alone and your friends cowering in silence, with eyes that clearly say, "yes, this is your intetube," and then you'll be left with nothing to ride along the lazy river on. RIP pendleton, we loved you as one of our own.

2. sun care is very important! pack a hat, take sunscreen! i say take two SPFs, so that you can slather it on early in the week while your sensitive cville skin is getting used to the fact that aruba has the most freakishly powerful sun you've ever seen, and then, if you're not already bright red, you can tone it down later in the week.

3. don't forget your passport! i say this only b/c it hadn't crossed my mind til today and that could have been disaster.

4. try the local beer. it may be gross, but you can always call it a "cultural experience."

5. don't take a textbook. they weigh a lot and you won't open it. of course, i'm pretty sure i'll take one again this year, but i have a far more guilty conscience than most people, and also one of those unique guilty consciences that is appeased to some degree by empty gestures.

6. have your mail held while you're out of town for the week.

7. see how many of your friends you can fit in a bathtub. just trust me on this one. you can't go wrong.

8. if the cruel hand of fate has ensured that you and your SO will not be in the same spring break destination, remember that while you may ogle the scantily-clad 19-year olds from afar (b/c your SO is very generous like that), those girls surely possess not a bit of the wit and charm that certain someone does. also, if you try to approach them, they will probably laugh in your face b/c you are an old man.

9. if you are not in the sort of relationship that makes those 19-year olds off limits, go on up, say hello, see how far you can get. your friends will enjoy the opportunity to laugh at your expense.

10. if you're a 1L and you're hanging around to do journal tryouts, remember that law review does care if those periods are italicized when they're supposed to be. i'm not sure when that is, and i have never been able to figure out how you would know if a period was italicized, but that's just the way they roll.

but most importantly, whether you're in some far-flung land with great sun, some far-flung land where it's still 40 degrees, or still in cville "catching up" on the semester and getting a "head start" on outlining, just make sure to take some time to appreciate the fact that you've got the week off. i'm sure i'll post again before i go, but have a great spring break!

speaking of feb club

2007-02-27T13:32:00.000-05:00

speaking of feb club (which i have not been attending with any frequency), i would just like to draw your attention to what was the best idea of my feb club, rivalling lexi's brilliant idea. and i can't take any credit for the idea, but the gist is this--there was no edward 40hands theme this year. i mean, this is another reason that this year's feb club paled in comparison to past feb clubs. sure, try out new themes and have random fun ones, but give the people what they want! no edward 40hands?!?! no 80s party?!?!! oh don't even get me started.

anyways, back when i posed the idea of wearing the dinosaur to every party, jared decided he wanted to be edward 40hands for every party. now let's just say that i did not want to be upstaged by hanging out with some guy with 40s attached to his hands at every party. ix-nay on that idea-hay. but that didn't mean we couldn't find an appropriate night for this brilliant idea.

enter TOGA 40HANDS! brilliant!

well, only it turned out to be not so brilliant. fine for me, whose toga ran no risk of falling off. but if you're wearing a toga that may fall down every time you try to walk thru a crowd of people on the dance floor, revealing your ass for all to see, well maybe you shouldn't have 40s strapped to your hands that same night. especially if you don't actually have any idea how to tie a toga. just in hindsight.

essentially, the first hour and a half of my night went like this--duct tape 40s to hands. go to dance floor. notice that someone's toga has fallen down to his knees, after he insisted on not wearing real shorts under it. shuttle said someone off to other room. wiggle right hand out of layers of duct tape. revel in the fact that you attended a decade of latin conventions and only need one hand to tie a very bona fide toga. finagle hand back into duct tape and 40. ease thru crowd back to other room onto the dance floor. notice that someone's toga has fallen down to his knees....well you get the point. but it was good times.

of course

2007-02-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

you are in luck b/c i have a midterm tomorrow, which means that i have all the incentive in the world to post! a midterm! criminey!

at the time i signed up for the class with other assignments due thru/out the semester, it seemed like a good thing. it seemed like this meant two things, (1) maybe sucking at law school finals wouldn't kill me, (2) the final was going to be less time-consuming.

however, i think my reaction last wednesday when he mentioned that we would be having a final in a week was, "F&*! ME!!!" i mean, how was i to know it was coming up??!!?! oh i suppose i could have paid more attention to the syllabus or to the fact that i had it on my calendar or whatnot, but those all seem like silly options compared to having it sprung on you when all you can think about is spring break and some boy and which feb club parties you want to go to. i would totally choose this way.

of course, a week is plenty enough time to get ready for a midterm. unfortunately, that's not exactly how i did things. instead, i opted to say i was going to work on it all day sunday. then to nap all day sunday. then to say i would work on it monday night. only to have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner monday, and sleep monday night. only to say that i would work on it from noon onwards on tuesday. only to start posting to my blog again and doing laundry.

but i'm sure that 6 hours is more than enough time to study for a midterm. oh, a closed-book midterm.

yeah, F&*! ME!!!

i know, i know, i know

2007-02-27T12:56:00.000-05:00

i have not posted in 13 days. i know this b/c you people are keeping track. you're sending me emails, you're posting comments, you're stopping me in the hallways. and i am sorry. i apologize heartily. i always imagined that my public only existed in my own head, and it turns out that now that there really is a public, well it is very demanding! tho i understand your concern. i usually post 87 times a day. and now this.

i've decided that what i really need to get over this is a 2-pronged approach. the first would be for there to be anything worthy of posting. the second would be to get over the hurdle of not posting in class. of my 10 scheduled classes in the past week, i have attended 8 (someone talked me into skipping the extra friday sessions). however, i have taken notes in, i believe, 3 of those. probably more like 2 classes and 2 half classes. my point is that showing up for class is utterly pointless. yesterday's fed courts notes went on for about 10 minutes before devolving into a typical laura notes-concluding note--"LAURA YOU ARE NOT PAYING ANY ATTENTION TODAY. YOU WILL REALLY NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON IN THESE CASES." and that was it.

while in ED this morning, i realized that this might be a problem. i mean, in theory, you're supposed to pay attention to what they're saying, and those are the things they're going to test you on. i mean, it would probably be handy to have some record of those things. or at least to have at some point known that they said those things. BUT THEN i realized that i'm not sure this puts me in any different position than i've been in since first semester. maybe it is worse this semester, but haven't i been saying this all along? fortunately, this semester, i have previous semesters' notes for 2 of my 4 classes! so the question becomes, can i skip? can my guilty conscience overcome that? because when i show up, i am just saddled by the guilty conscience of not paying attention. i think the answer is that i will continue to show up to class.

but now i am faced with a very interesting dilemma--can you skip one class to attend another? a class for which you are not even enrolled. is that legit? because here is an email rob received from his 1st amendment prof--

At our session tomorrow afternoon, we have in store another special treat. I've invited Professor James Ryan to join us, and to share his insight and wisdom on issues of school policy and constitutional law...I know you'll find this a most engaging and rewarding session.

um, YES I WOULD!

so now the question is if i'm allowed to skip fed courts for the opportunity to leer creepily at jim ryan from the back row of a class i'm not even enrolled in. i mean, i had been thinking about skipping fed courts anyways. of course, i'm not sure i'm allowed to now, b/c i had gone on monday solely so that i could feel not bad about not going on wednesday, and then there was the whole "LAURA YOU ARE NOT PAYING ANY ATTENTION TODAY. YOU WILL REALLY NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON IN THESE CASES." thing. oops.

ok, so i know that this is not a very good post, but you're going to have to be patient with me as i ease back into this.

valentine's day is for reminding those close to you why they aren't loved by someone more special

2007-02-14T17:06:00.000-05:00

my father took a subtle approach. his card is supposed to be funny. it's a heart-shaped box with only one candy left in it, surrounded by a bunch of empty wrappers. and the candy is saying, "i bet they just can't see me in all these wrappers." and the caption is, "what the maple nougat tells himself, day #24." I MEAN, MAYBE I AM THE MAPLE NOUGAT! MAYBE THAT WASN'T THE RIGHT WAY TO SAY HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! AND WHO DOESN'T LIKE MAPLE NOUGAT ANYWAYS?!?! IT IS A TASTY CONFECTION! (actually, i don't think my dad would have ever even thought of that interpretation, but i thought it, and it's my blog.)

but my grandmother went with a far less subtle tact. a nice hallmark card that says all sorts of sweet things, and then a nice handwritten note (which cutely even asks, "will there be a party or dance?") but then, across the card, in a different color, and clearly written at a different time, is the following handwritten note--"don't take this as a criticism, but a spot on TV said that people who sleep more lose weight more easily."

so do you think she's saying i don't sleep enough or that i need to lose weight? either way, i'm pretty sure my mom will get a kick out of it.

and HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO YOU! if you're the sort of person who cares about such things at all. and even if you're not.

caveat emptor

2007-02-12T23:20:00.000-05:00

so i bought underwear online the other week and i opened a pair of them to wear today, and they are this really cute pink pair, only they say “THANKS” in huge letters all across the butt! i mean, what is the point of that?!?! and why was that not made clearer on the internet before i bought them? criminey. i don’t even know what to make of it. i am too naive to be buying underwear these days. and now i'm going to have to look into return policies!

[ok, i have just looked again, and even knowing that they say THANKS across the ass, there is NO way you would ever be able to discern that from what they are showing you online when they sell you this underwear. i think i might be irate! not about the mix-up, just about the fact that their ruining an entire line of really cute pink underwear with this obnoxious "THANKS." boo to that! feel my ire, victoria's secret.]

for the 1Ls

2007-02-12T22:28:00.000-05:00

so as many of you are no doubt aware, briefs are due this week. or so i think. i wouldn't really know. i just mentioned to someone that i had the flu the week that my brief was due, and he mentioned that my life must have really sucked that week. well, i tell you what i did, and what generations of students before you have done--actually, let me just give you a song from the libel show two years ago, lest i be accused of poisoning the youth.

Memo to a Brief
(to the tune of "Beauty and the Beast"—Beauty and the Beast)

Legal Research Class
Have to write a Brief.
I just want to pass.
Make it through this class.
With my required "P".

Just a little change
Small to say the least.
Cut and paste that crap
Entire paragraphs.
Memo to a Brief.

Almost just the same!
Add some underlines.
Add some bold and then
Be sure to indent.
It’s almost like I tried…

Tale as old as time
My peer advisor swore
This will be the way to
Get the passing grade
Without writing anymore.

Just a little change
Small to say the least.
Cut and paste that crap
Entire paragraphs.
Memo to a Brief.

[as a caveat, lest i get in too much trouble, i think that my memo made a really easy transition to the brief b/c i had TOTALLY been on roger's side from day one. so that my memo basically read as a brief for the opposing side. which is exactly what i needed second semester. all the things that had driven my dillard crazy first semester were suddenly subject to "great tone!" notations in the margins. please don't get me in trouble with mimi and ruthie and karen!]

mmmmm, drugs!

2007-02-12T21:23:00.000-05:00

so even tho i was getting better, after my weekend of being convinced that i had to go out and have a good time, i managed to not only fail to have a good time (too much pressure, i think), but i also managed to get myself even sicker than i had been last week. so when i talked to my mom yesterday, she said it was time to get my butt to student health and get some antibiotics. now, if you know anything about my mother, it should be this: drugs fix everything.

and i love student health for how they dole out drugs. i mean, they'll throw meds at anything! our favorite student health story is from my roommate at BC, where they would give you handfuls of individually wrapped pills in little envelopes. so shaina opens a couple of the envelopes at once, and realizes that none of the envelopes contain the same pill!

but today i met the first-ever student health employee in the history of all student healths who was not willing to just give me what i asked for. (yes, this is how i deal with most doctors. i consult my mother and/or myself before going in and then just tell them what prescriptions i need and then i'm happy to get out of there.) well she looks me over and tells me that i've got nothing an antibiotic is going to help. i was discouraged.

fortunately, this woman was no match for me. did she know who she was dealing with? she was asking me if i had nyquil, in case my cough kept me up one of these nights. woman, i've got prescription cough medicine with codeine! you don't need to worry about my cough keeping me up at night! crazy talk! in the end, we got it all straightened away and i'm going to be fit as a fiddle in time for barrister's!

regret

2007-02-11T18:52:00.000-05:00

so i'm sure you remember all of last spring, when i was playing the best game of assassins ever played. god i was great. well, they are doing it again this year, and not a single person from last year's final five is playing again. i really thought about it, but i was just terrified that i wouldn't do as well, and those of us who all did so well last year have become friends in the past year, and we've also become much more aware of each other and things like where we all live, etc etc. plus i was not sure i was ready to tap into the crazy again, so i figured i would just stay out of it.

only as i watch other people, it's starting to kill me.

for example, jared said he would play and i could serve as his coach. and then he said that he wouldn't wear any of the immunities. THAT'S NO WAY TO PLAY! YOU'LL BE DEAD IN NO TIME FLAT! i just refuse to associate with someone who would play that kind of game. losers, we would call them. and weak of heart. hell, i think we all know that the immunities were my favorite part of the game.

well then there is lexi, who really is playing. and last night she was saying that she will play a purely defensive game (only wearing immunities and never killing anyone). i also loathe that kind of player. you're not doing any good for the game if you're just going to loiter around and not take anyone out! that's why i was wearing all that crap for over 2 months last year! people like that! people without heart! criminey.

only i just looked at lexi's away msg and she is saying that she is going to throw the game on the first day b/c she can't bring herself to leave the house to get a nametag. THE FIRST IMMUNITY IS A NAMETAG AND SHE CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT WITH THE THINGS IN HER HOUSE?!!? "hi my name is lexi." done. "how will i attach it?" she asks. "paper, marker, safety pin," i say. who needs to leave the house? seriously, you can't come up with that on your own, i think you might as well throw the game on the first day. you're never making it anywhere! the faint of heart bowed out at sunglasses and hats last year. those of us with savvy wore party hats (eliminating the sweaty head problem) and clear sunglasses that wouldn't drive us crazy indoors.

so now not only am i crushed by the general lack of assassins savvy out there (no offense, lex), but i also think i'm going to want to take over lexi's game. see, i find this really sad b/c lexi had such potential. and now i wonder, could i just pretend i AM lexi for the next two months, or do i have to just coach her thru everything? find their schedules, their home addresses, meet their friends, and then just walk her thru everything?

see? oh my god. now i just can't decide if the crazy brought out by NOT playing is more or less than the crazy brought out by playing.

how tempted am i to just wear a nametag tomorrow?

REALLY tempted.

BEST FRIEND EVER!!

2007-02-09T12:50:00.000-05:00

LEXI IS GOING TO DO MY TAXES!!!!

where has she been all my life?

every boy in my life is going to be very relieved. my taxes generally involve me and a team of 10 boys, to whom i alternate asking all of my dumb questions. for example, there was the year when i received a W2 that was explained as "either for owners of farms or independent small businesses." i think my question that year was, "WTF?!?!"

one (of many) things i will miss about law school

2007-02-07T13:14:00.000-05:00

i will miss law school jokes and the fact that first year will never ever ever die.

at a lexis training today, marva mentioned the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was the crux of our first year major memo and brief. and pai IMs:

ajeet: ROGER, is that you?!
ajeet: You little genetically challenged champion

i mean, that is good stuff. and i've only got another 3 months with an audience for that sort of material. =( the worst part is that law school jokes are my BEST material.

IT'S THE END OF AN ERA!

2007-02-06T17:41:00.000-05:00

and i am very upset! i do not deal will with change! particularly not when that change is TAKING DEREK LEACH AWAY FROM ME!!!!

i am sure that many of you did not see this b/c it was embedded late in one of those generic little UVA Law School emails that none of us read. well, i don't read them, so i'm going to assume you don't either, b/c i'm the girl who still reads the entirety of the weekly events email and most people quit doing that in about the second week. anyways, i usually read the first line. enough to know that it's crap that i don't need to worry about. pro bono! ha! (kidding! that was a joke!) but somehow, i was not turned away by the talk of expanded billing code printing in the WB lab. looking back, i’m not quite sure how. i suppose my subconscious knew there was something more important, lurking later in the email.

anyways, the point is that derek leach is taking on more support responsibility at the law school and that he will no longer be our computer guy. they're hiring us a new computer guy. someone who is not derek leach! can you hear my heart breaking?!?! well, at least the new guy won't be hired by tomorrow. and since my computer has been giving me the blue screen this week, and refusing to start at times, i have already slated my visit to derek for tomorrow after class. i know he'll miss me most of all. a girl who gives you a dumbstruck look when you use the phrase "back up your data" is surely every tech guy's dream. especially if you get the same dumbstruck look after you've been saying it to her for 3 years.

but anyways, everyone should wish derek well, and if you find out where his new office is, let me know so i can drop by and keep him up to date on the minutiae of my life.

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN!

2007-02-04T23:42:00.000-05:00

TIME FOR THE PILA LOVE MATCH!!!

GO NOW! FILL OUT THE SURVEY ONLINE!!!

ONLY NOW CAN YOU FIND OUT THAT OF ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE LAW SCHOOL, YOUR LOATHING OF JOHN HARRISON MAKES YOU MOST COMPATIBLE WITH THE ONLY KID IN YOUR SECTION YOU CAN'T STAND AS A HUMAN BEING!

or maybe you could find out something better. like that kid you've always had your eye on really IS your perfect match.

but this can pretty much be nothing but fun in a community where everyone knows each other.

AND, i've just looked at the questions and they look way less retarded than in years past. as a matter of fact, with a quick perusal, i think this year's questions might really help me find that special someone!

anyways, go do it b/c it doesn't work unless i've got all possible boys to choose from. help a girl out.

trouble

2007-02-04T20:34:00.001-05:00

it is not even a week into feb club and i have both gotten sick AND gained about 8 pounds. of course, as someone else pointed out, this is probably b/c we geared up for feb club with two solid weeks of fun and drinking and not eating well and whatnot, and the reality is that this semester is just going to be no good.

but i have additional cause for concern. for me, feb club always brings with it the fear of the flu. see, my first year, probably about a week and a half into february, i got the flu. only i had had a flu shot, so i was quite determined that it was not the flu and i come from a family of doctors where you do not skip school or work unless you are truly dying (my mom once sent me to school when i was about 8 b/c she did not think i was really sick, and then i threw up on the girl next to me on the bus, which is why i figure i was not popular for the next decade of schooling in baton rouge, tho maybe i was doomed before that), and it was my first year of law school and i figured i should suck it up, so i soldiered thru the weekend and then resumed going to class on tuesday. where ajeet informed me that i had the flu and i should get the hell away from all of my sectionmates and get myself to health services as soon as possible.

i have a feeling that i'm the first person who has ever burst into tears in health services when they tell you that you're going to have to miss class. but in the end, i really took to having the flu. they gave me a miracle drug that had me cured in like a day and a half, but that still left me with 4 days of sleeping all day and not leaving my apartment. i'll be honest, it was a little difficult to get back into the groove of class the next week.

so the point was initially that i was hoping i wasn't really sick. but now that i've remembered that week in my bed w/o any guilt. hm. maybe it's the flu!

super steals!

2007-02-04T20:16:00.000-05:00

so yesterday i decided it was finally time to suck it up and head to the grocery store. one cannot live on sausage, egg and cheese lean pockets once she has eaten all of them from her freezer. so off to the kroger i head. and i am greeted by the most fabulous bargains ever! i mean, it's the kroger, so i know that i'm going to be elated with the pricing! BUT YESTERDAY?!!? oh, it was better than usual. i can't figure out why, but there were 5 for $10 signs all over the place! now this was perfectly delightful when it was printed all over the lean pockets (sustenance!), but that is only a savings of 49¢ and that isn't all that fabulous.

not like the 5 for $10 ALL OVER THE CEREAL AISLE! this week, laura was able to buy name brand cereal! and i am all about the generic cereals, mostly b/c i get all irate when you try to charge me $5 for a box of cereal that tastes exactly the same as a $2 box of cereal. but not all cereals come in generic and some of those cereals are wonderful and tasty. for example, quaker oatmeal squares which are one of the best cereals ever and oh how i love them and they are perfect to just sit with a box and eat them straight out of the box, tho i have to warn you, after a bit, you will start to feel ill. so watch out for that. anyways, they were $2! as was the cinnamon life! WHAT WHAT!

well then i got all worked up. i love price comparisons between the kroger and the teeter! it's one of my endearing quirks. or one of my weird things. or just another indicator of the fact that i am what some people might call "cheap." whatever. so i was very excited about the prospect of heading to the teeter today and doing a little price comparision. which did prove that the kroger is less expensive than the teeter, but i have to say that i have just checked and the boxes at the teeter are larger and it seems unfair to compare the two w/o doing the price per ounce comparison, but i am too lazy to do that math and also, i think at that point, well i'm getting carried away.

so that is my full disclosure, but i went to a lot of effort, and i made poor jared stop at the teeter, and i would not want all of that effort to be in vain. so the usual price for 15 ounces of life is $3.09 and for 16 ounces of quaker oatmeal squares is $3.49, while at the teeter you get 21 ounces of life for $5.19 and 24 ounces of the oatmeal squares for $4.59 and i just did the math and it is cheaper, but i suppose not as dramatically as i had thought, but none of that changes the entire point of this post, and i apologize for how long it has taken for me to get that--

but cereal at the kroger this week. you're welcome.

oh lexi

2007-02-02T21:06:00.000-05:00

sometimes, as lexi's friend, i am particularly concerned. particularly about her wardrobe. for example, what would you think when you found out that your best friend owned a leopard print sweater set. and pants. and a scarf. and a hat. and a PURSE?!!?!

hell, i'm willing to overlook the robe. but socks? AND SHOES?!?!!? i mean, there is no end in sight.

and then, at other times, lexi's wardrobe makes me very happy. for example, when the spate of leopard print in her wardrobe means that she can also outfit YOU for the "welcome to the jungle" party. not that you look like any fraction of the leopard that lexi does, but well, that's probably ok.

he may be on to something

2007-02-02T21:02:00.000-05:00

ajeet: Suggestion
ajeet: Wear the dinosaur costume
ajeet: to ALL REMAINING FEB CLUB PARTIES
ajeet: I guarantee it will only get funnier

alas, i will not be wearing the dinosaur costume tonight, tho i am pretty pleased with having been able to wear it twice in my life, let alone in the last 3 months. i have already composed a post about tonight's outfit, but it won't be done justice w/o pictures. so hold your breath.