Can't go home again

This about sums it up for my state of mind of right now:

On Monsieur's Departure
(Elizabeth I)

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly to prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned.
Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.

Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

On a happier and woolier note...the back of the Starburst Sweater is coming along nicely and I am less offended by the crazy bright purple of it the larger it gets. I think with dark jeans and either a flesh toned or black top underneath, it will be quite reasonable. The yarn is very soft at any rate, and quite nice to work with. If I really can't stand the purple, I could always try to over-dye it with some grey or something. I think my problem is that I tend to gravitate towards more subdued, dusty shades, and this is definantly not that. Also, it isn't quite what I was expecting but that's ok. The odd surprise now and again isn't a bad thing and I'm starting to warm up to it. Funny how that can work sometimes.

Lots of smug-marrieds

Spending a whole week with familial smug-marrieds was probably a bad plan in my current state of mind. Oh well. At least I'm getting this rape and homicide stuff figured out, that has to count for something.

I just wish they would stop asking me about the ex and my love life. This is why I don't bring boys home. For any reason. Ever. What was I thinking?

Oh, yeah...I am/was in love. feh.

Anyway, I finished knitting the little tweed jacket. Today I need to block it out, sew on the buttons, and decide which shoes to wear it with for the luncheon thing I am getting dragged to on Saturday. Hurray for a new jacket thing to wear though!

I think I am going to make the Prairie Tunic from the latest Interweave Knits next. I got some nice red cotton and tencel yarn from KnitPicks to do it with, which I think will make a nice spring/summer top. Either that, or Startburst sweater from KnitPicks. KnitPicks seems to be making me happy these days, they have nice yarns at really good prices, and interesting patterns, plus they ship really quickly. Hurray for KnitPicks! The Starburst Sweater would probably be more useful for the early part of the spring. I ordered the yarn in Iris, and it's way more purple than I had thought it would be, bordering on annoying, but I think once it's knit up it'll be ok. It's just a bit brighter than I normally wear. Branching into other colors might be a good idea though, and the purple/lavender will look good with most anything. I'm trying to resist knitting yet another white or cream colors sweater.

Quick update

I made it back to CA, without any terrible mishaps though I did almost miss my connecting flight in Dallas. For some reason, my flights out of Norfolk are always at least a half hour late, which makes life interesting when you have to make a connecting flight and only had 40 minutes between flights to begin with. But I made it, and the power only went out in the second plane for 5 minutes or so, at we had already landed, so it was ok.

Dad and I spent Saturday with my aunt wandering around SF. I was pretty much half-asleep, but did manage to pick up non-nipple like buttons for my little tweed jacket. Hurray! I love Britex. My button lady (I have a Button Lady, how strange is that?) remembered me and was very helpful and excited about my jacket thing, which was nice.

We ate dinner at my most favorite Italian place in the whole world, and the host was all excited to see me and I think he might have been flirting with me, which is a nice thing actually, he's tall and cute and has a wonderful Italian accent. After that, we went back to my aunts and I passed out at about 7:30, which is just plain sad but probably understandable.

Now I am at home, typing up notes from the reading I did on the plane, and trying not to reflect too much on the life I've left behind. I feel very apart somehow, like I don't really belong here anymore, which would be ok if I felt like I belonged back in Virginia.

Madness!

Ever since I slept through my boarding call back in September and missed my flight home for my brothers wedding, the very idea of having to go the airport and get on a plane fills me panic and dread. Huge cold knots of fear take over my stomach just thinking about it. Somehow, that might flight leaves at 5:30 tonight is no comfort at the moment. As long as I leave here no later than 3 I will be fine, but still, the panic. And what if the plane is late and I miss my connecting flight? I hate air travel. It should not produce this sort of overwhelming anxiety.

At least I am totally packed. I have 2 new knitting projects, one I've had on needles for awhile, and the last sleeve of my tweed jacket to work on over break. I should be able to get the sleeve done on the drive from San Jose to Santa Barbara without any trouble, which means I can focus on fun knitting and new projects after that. Hurray!

Of course, break is mostly going to be about homework and outlining. If I stay focused I should be able to get totally caught up and my outlines up to date by the end of break, which is a very good thing. I'll be a really good position for the last half the semester. I wish I could just take a break though, go to a spa, something, but that will have to wait for the summer or possibly some time after I take the bar...

Not wasting the pretty

Now for a mini-update on the sad affair that is my love life...

The short version is that it is no love life. As usual, He's Just Not That Into Me, in that he's not sure if he wants to get back with his ex. A situation somewhere between chapter 9 and chapter 10 of The Book. I hate dating. But, again following the HJNTIY approach, I must brush myself off and not waste the pretty.

For those of you who missed the HJNTIY thing, my mom, bless her, got me an autographed copy of this book last year at an authors luncheon. I am sad to say, it's the only dating advice book I have ever read that made any sense. The capsule summary is that ambiguity and fuckwittage are bad, and if a guy is that into you there will be no ambiguity or fuckwittage. So, yeah. Girls, read it and giggle but take at least one or two notes. Guys, read it, these are the new rules of engagement. And you all know how much I loath self-help books in general.

Resisting the urge to stay at home and wallow with girlie movies while wandering around the house in flannel pants and a sweater shirt is proving to be rather difficult this morning, but I will get up, I will put on pants, and I will go out to class and learn about homicide and substantive due process while being pretty and fabulous. Hurray!

On the knitting front...
I know I need to post pictures. I suck. What can I say? But the current project is a tweed jacket from Knitscene (pattern is available for freehere). My version is done with a reddish brown suri alpaca from knitpicks and the pine forest looking yarn I handspun and used for the last major sweater project. The colors sounds a little weird, but the effect is quite nice and not like anything else I have, so I'm happy. Venturing out of my usual palate is always kind of exciting. I like the design, but I really detest the way the collar shaping is done. It's all jagged and lumpy along the edge if you follow their directions. I should be able to block out the weirdness, but it annoyes me. Really, not a major problem and the jacket is otherwise cute so it's not a major gripe, just use your common sense with the collar shaping if you decide to use the pattern. I'm on the second sleeve, and hope to either have it done by the end of the week or shortly after getting home so I can search for buttons while I'm in the vicinity of good fabric stores with nice button selections.

5 more days

until I leave for spring break that is. Few things are as attractive to me right now as the idea of getting the hell out of here for a week. Of course, I get to go back to my parents and do homework for an entire week, but still, I won't be doing it here.

I'm still really cranky about the Heffalump-Bitch-Who-Stole-My-Job. I know I need to let this go, but I am really sick of being made to feel as though I am complete rubbish all the time. Law school sucks that way.

Anyhow, I had a tolerable weekend. My neighbor had people over Friday to send up hot air balloons, and we freaked out some of the people in the complex, who were very drunk, and thought our balloon was a UFO. It was pretty funny watching these two dumb girls freak out over a trash bag and some birthday candles. I did a lot of homework, and had some people over for chocolate and crepes on Saturday, which turned into more or less a wake for poor old Hobbs. That was actually kind of fun, but I sort of overdid it on the whole wake concept and spent of Sunday feeling more like rubbish than usual and napping before I met Someone's mother for dinner. Now that was a freak show. Having dinner with your ex's mother and her neighbor is just strange, but it ended up being rather nice for all that.

I'm totally sick of school though. All I want to do at this point is sit at home, drink tea, knit, and wait for it all to end. I just don't see the point in any of this right now, and I really am sick of not having anyone much to talk to it all about. Is it so wrong to need someone to tell me I'm not total rubbish once in awhile?

Rest in Peace

Hobbs, Sept. 6 1992 to Feb. 23 2006. A good cat and a good friend. Hobbit, I'll miss you.

Oh hell no

NASA called. They gave my job to the school Heffalump. I hate this girl. I mean, seriously hate, as I never hated before. She stole my goddamned job. And she's dumb as a rock and disgusting and loud and has no class and lies and backstabs and I hate her. hate hate hate.

Just what I need today. I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll tattoo it on my ass one of these days, but law school is seriously not calculated to make you feel good about yourself. It's days like this when I start to wonder if anything in my life is calculated to make me feel good about myself. I'm coming down pretty heavily on the side of "no" at this point.

I have another interview this afternoon, which considering that I've already accepted the research assistant job, is a bit irrelevant, but it'll at least be useful experience. In so far as more rejection is useful experience...

Random thoughts

It just occured to me that I really need a new suit. Not so much becasue I anticiapte wearing suits all summer, but mainly becasue I am tired of wearing the same suit all the time to interviews and school functions.

I also would like it if someone bought me diamond earrings. Just nice studs, something I can wear all the time.

It's good to dream I suppose.

Good thing redux

I have yet to hear anything back from NASA beyond the 9 page application they wanted me to fill out. It's a bit annoying, but since I had to let the professor who wants me to help him out this summer know what I was going to do this week, I've decided NASA can wait. I'll be working on campus as a research assistant and helping out with god knows what sort of techno-law stuff for the Courtroom 21 project. (Which you can read about here if you are so inclined) It should be interesting, and it'll give me at least one person on campus who is on my side and knows me.

Other than that, not much is going on. I'm looking forward to spring break. After all the drama with the stupid plane tickets, I worked something out with my parents and will be spending beak with them, camped out in the dining room doing outlines and getting caught up on my reading. Which is all good, I want desperately to get out of here and be someplace where I am not so alone and people are pulling for me. Law school is just not calculated to make you feel good about yourself. At least my social life is starting to take some sort of shape. It's been difficult, since most of the people I knew outside law school were Someone's friends, but I seem to be making progress finding other people to socialize and go out with. I'm still pathetically lonely, but at least I'm starting to understand what the source of that is and how to get around it.

Of superheros and snow

Yesterday I got to see my first real snow and my first real client. How it can go from the high 60's on Friday, to over an inch of snow on Saturday, is totally beyond my comprehension but there it is. The cat was not impressed, and driving was a little scary, but the world looked beautiful and soft, and somehow comforting, all covered over in snow. The snow is gone today, but there are chunks of ice and frozen puddles all over.

Had it not been for the legal aid clinic yesterday, I would not have been out in the snow at all. A bunch of lawyers in the area volunteered yesterday morning to take on pro bono work for low income people in the community, and a bunch of law students helped with client intake and basic screening. Actually interviewing a real client, with a real problem, was pretty amazing. We do client interviews at school, but the clients are other students who are roleplaying. These people had real fear in their eyes, real problems, that impacted real lives. I got to sit in on the actual attorney meeting with a couple that I screened, and when they left, they thanked me just as profusely and with just as much gratitude and relief in their eyes as they had when they thanked the attorney.

Hopefully I will get to continue working on this case. These people need help, and as little as I can do for them at this point, I want to do it. They placed their trust in me, a first year law student who knows next to nothing about their problem, and that is a precious and somewhat frightening thing. This is what my life will be, I know that, but I don't think I was really expecting this profound sense of awe when faced with the reality and responsibility of a client who is afraid and yet trusts me enough to hand their problem over to me. It's a very humbling experience.

Of course, I am a little afraid myself. Afraid I will not live up to that trust and responsibility, afraid I will let them down and in so doing make a bad situation worse for people who are already struggling. To be given that kind of power over some one else's life and wellbeing is just plain frightening. But they have faith in me. The attorney who took their case has faith in me and wants my help. My brother, who called me a superhero once, has faith in me. Somehow, reminding myself of that and being reminded of that makes all the difference as I struggle through the day to day process of becoming worthy of that trust.

One good thing

I still have not heard back for certain about NASA, but I have a job offer! Hurray! They want me to work on a project on campus over the summer doing all kinds of things, including research assistant stuff and some course development and web development. Yeah! It's nice to know that I for sure have a job lined up.

Now back to your regularly scheduled con law...

So bitter

Not so much as a post card or piece of junk mail today. What gives?

Right now, I'm sitting in flannel pants listening to my personal theme song and doing property reading. How romantic.

I was a fool to think this valentines day would be any better than the last 29 of them have been.

Oh so bitter today!

I hate today. Stupid contrived Hallmark holidays. I'm very bitter. Being alone today is bad enough, but why must the stupid bimbo girls at school be all giggly and annoying about their lame-assed boyfriends? It's just enraging.

And deeply depressing and lonely and sad.

At least I have plenty of exciting homework to keep me busy. On top of the usual pile of reading, I have to get through a huge stack of Pennsylvania employment and whistleblower law cases for my skills class. None of them seem to be on point for the case we've got either. Yippie. What a way to spend Valentines Day.

Oh dear...

Only a few hours later and I have completed my grocery shopping, failed to find a double boiler, vacuumed the entire house from top to bottom, including the stairs, mopped the bathroom, cleaned the sink, and changed and washed my bed sheets.

This is very bad indeed. What is my problem today?

Focus?

I am so hideously unfocused today! This is bad. The huge heap of reading is one thing, but I actually some motivation to get a bit ahead this weekend so I can play after school next week, if I could only concentrate!! I'm so distracted and jumpy I actually mopped my kitchen last night and organized the under-sink cabinet in the bathroom this morning. Cleaning is always a bad sign, but at least my house isn't such a sty anymore.

Maybe I should go to the grocery store...I'm making dinner for a friend tomorrow, getting all the parts together for that today might be a good idea. Especially since I can't quite decide if I should make a pie or tart of some kind or chocolate dipped strawberries for desert. The strawberries will require getting a double boiler...which I need anyway since some of the people from school and I are planning on a chocolate making party sometime in the next week or so. And I can't quite decide what to do about a vegetable. So far I'm planning to make grilled salmon and roasted garlic potatoes, and salad? or spinach? or something else? I need a green thing. Asparagus would be good if it wasn't $5 a pound.

Can you tell I have about 200 pages of reading to do?

Law school, the zen approach

I am trying to be philosophical about school this semester. Grades are important, but they aren't everything. I need to maintain some sort of outside, normal life. This is not easy. Saying that I'm under a lot of stress is sort of life saying the Titanic had a tiny little leak. There are moments, lots of them, when I just want to bury my head in whatever casebook I have in front of me and weep.

But then I find someone on the outside world who seems to appreciate what I'm going through, who respects it, accepts it, and is supportive. Someone who, like my brother, makes me feel like what I'm doing is worthwhile, and more than that, almost heroic. I need more of those kind of people in my life to keep me focused, directed, grounded. People who take an interest and care and won't let me lose myself in this thing I am doing.

I have to simply let go, allow this whole experience to unfold, and not fight against it. Last semester I think I fought too much with myself, with school, with the environment, trying to force everything to fit into some mold I had in my head. It got me nothing really, except exhaustion and frustration, neither of which I need. I must simply do, or do not. It's a very binary sort of thing and there is no use in trying to resist that. Somehow that seems to be helping with my focus and perspective.

Such a geek

I am torn. Should I go to a friends house and watch Stargate on Friday, or the Olympics? Why oh why do I not have cable and a TiVo?

Maybe I should start dating only guys who have TiVo? How sad is that...will date for TiVo and sushi. But as they say, a girl has to eat, and I'm po'.

Updated to say woo! I got another interview! For a job that pays even! Hurray! We're still keeping our fingers crossed about NASA though...

Life goes on

I have very little to report today. School seems to be sucking up most of my life right now, which I suppose is just as well. If I keep busy I don't have time to think about some of the larger questions in life, questions about my future and what I really want to accomplish with my life. That old tension between career and family just seems to keep rearing its ugly heady. And there just aren't any answers.

I'm still lonely here...lonelier than I was last semester, or even a few weeks ago actually. But I'm starting to either find the courage to express my own true self, or finding people who accept me for what I am. Probably the truth is someplace in between. I've made a goal for myself to meet people outside of school, and so far that seems to be working out fairly well. It's jut hard to find the time some weeks.

I've decided that somehow or another I really need to start sewing again. Since I need suits, I'm going to make a suit. I have some good patterns from Vogue that should be good, I just need to find some good fabric. I was thinking a linen would be nice, especially for the summer and fall interview season. It gets so hot here, wearing wool or some synthetic is going to kill me. I just can't quite work out what to use for lining in a linen suit. More linen? Cotton? Silk or rayon seems like it would be too hot, and defeat the whole purpose of making a linen suit.

More later when I have something meaningful to say...meanwhile, it's back to the con law reading and hiding

Death and Taxes

My taxes are done. The good news is I get a nice refund. The bad news is that I also had to do my FAFSA for next years financial aid, and my net assets are 0. How depressing. In fact, according to their calculus (which leaves out money from financial aid) I have nothing in my checking account either. How thrilling. Hopefully I will either qualify for in-state tuition or get a stipend or something for next year. Another $40 grand or so in loans does not sound like fun to me.

On January 24th, I found out one of the ladies from my OES group died, and I lost my best friend. Rest well Dena, you will be missed. M...what more can I say? I loved you.

Got geek?

Woo! I had an interview this morning for an internship at NASA. I think I nailed it. Hurray! I'll know for sure in two weeks anyway. The idea of some practical application for what I'm doing in class makes the reading so much easier to get through. Though I still don't understand how it's possible that for twenty pages I read, seventy-five more seem to appear out of nowhere. Ugh.

Last night I finished my mittens and started on the matching hat. I just need to finish the hat, weave in the ends, take pictures, and type up the pattern. That's some kind of progress anyway.

It seems like school is getting easier, not exactly in the sense that the workload is any less, it's actually a lot more, but I'm understanding things and putting it together faster, and seem to be doing well when I get grilled by my professors. I was the daily Socratic victim in Con Law on Monday, and managed to hold my own for most of the class on a case we didn't actually read directly, and have managed to have intelligent conversations with potential employers about the vagaries of contract, tort and property theories, so I think it's starting to click.

Of course, it feels like the rest of my life is falling to pieces...I never have been able to maintain professional/academic success along with a personal and emotional life. Too many of my ambitions and goals seem to be mutually exclusive these days.

Cold and alone

Because I have no one else to share this with...

I got a letter in yesterdays mail from a federal judge in Norfolk I had sent a resume too. I sort of assumed it was yet another "thanks but no" letter, a growing collection of which I have stuck to my fridge. But upon closer reading, he wants to talk to me! Hurray! A judicial clerkship would be pretty cool. I don't think it would pay, but I can get funding through the school and since it's in Norfolk, I wouldn't have to move so the crap pay would be more or less do-able.

I made a mitten last night. This time, I promise, a picture and pattern will follow. I love knitting mittens. A friend back in CA gave me the yarn back in the summer when we went up to this hippie hot-spring place, it's really beautiful yarn and I think it might actually be hand-spun. It's nicely heathered and still has lots of lanolin in it, perfect for outer-wear in a genuinely cold environment, so I'm making mittens and a hat for myself.

Now, back to contracts. We're still working on parol evidence, which my prof characterizes as "a sick rule." If he means sick in the sense that there are so many exceptions that the exceptions have exceptions, rendering the rule nearly pointless, I quite agree. But I find it oddly interesting, and there's an internal logic to the sickness that I'm starting to understand. Maybe I'm sick...I'm also the only person I know who doesn't break out in a cold sweat when someone brings up the rule against perpetuites...

Sittin' alone

I think my blog is turning in to a replacement for someone to really talk to...

Anyway, I did this mock interview program at school today put on by the career services people and some alums. My interview was at 2, and my last class got out at 11, so I was kind of bitter about having gone home, got in the lawyer-drag, hose and heels, and then driving back to campus for some fake interview that wouldn't have any hope of landing me a job, but it actually went really well and I feel strangely better about this whole job search/career thing. The lawyer I met with was really nice, said I comported myself very well and would be fine, reassured me about my grades, told me I should find a good job cuz I was good candidate, and then suggested I go in to litigation because I was very self-possessed, poised, and spoke well. That was kind of a nice bit of ego-boosting, and one I sadly needed.

I could use some advice about my summer plans though. The one promising job bite I had is back in CA, I have heard nothing back from them, and the situation just isn't going to be as comfortable as I had thought it would be. So probably, even if I get the offer, I'll end up turning it down if I manage to come up with some alternatives. I was invited to apply to a study abroad program run by one of the other law schools I was admitted to, they have a comparative law program in Oxford and an IP law program in Munich that both look really good and worth applying too. So, what do I do? CA, Oxford, Munich, or stay in VA? What would be the best career choice?

The sourdough bread turned out really well. My peel maneuvering is still somewhat lacking, so the loaf got a little deformed and developed a goiter, but it has the best crust I've ever produced, a great tang, and is nice and chewy and moist. I'm quite pleased.

Thinking is bad for my health

At least my mental health...I realized this afternoon that in 29 Februaries the only people to ever give me a real V-Day card or present have been family members*. That's pretty sad.

Other things I should avoid thinking about include summer plans, my career prospects, spring break, non-refundable airline tickets and my bank account, financial aid applications, and why my cat has suddenly decided that breaking out of the house sounds like a grand idea.

To avoid thinking, I've decided to attempt sour dough bread. Ok, I decided this several days ago, it takes awhile to get the starter going, but this afternoon I got the dough together and I am currently avoiding my crim law reading while waiting for the dough to rise. One nice thing about law school is that the good people over at LexisNexis and WestLaw give you free accounts. If you are not a legal person, this means nothing, but it's sort of like lawyer crack. They offer you prizes and cash and free online research and printing for 3 years, then send you out to a firm, a confirmed online research junkie, to run up astronomical bills you first year as an associate. To give you some idea, a single search can cost as much as $100. Anyway, I had a bunch of points on Lexis and was able to redeem them for Alton Brown's baking book, which got here earlier this week (see how this ties back to the bread? I'm not totally insane!). I've been lusting after this book for months, so I was quite excited that I was able to get it for free, as a byproduct of obsessive case reading, and as an added bonus is has a nice, non-scary recipe for a sourdough starter. We'll see how it turns out in a few hours, but I love the way this book is written. It satisfies all of the geek/science nerd parts of my brain without getting so technical that my law school addled brain can still follow it. He actually explains how everything works, which is important to understand in baking, and something that most baking (and bread in particular) books overlook. If you've ever seen GoodEats on the food network, you know what I'm talking about. Plus the recipes are interesting, and if the other recipes of his I've tried are any indication, tasty.

I just need to get an actual pizza stone. My terracotta tiles cracked with last batch of bread I baked. Not a huge deal, but it's a pain to work with cracked tiles. Unless someone knows where I can get refractory tiles or kiln shelves in the Tidewater area?

*Actually, last year, M. did give me a package of cherry chocolate cordials, but he gave me those a day late and they were in a Safeway bag. And those stupid cards with the nasty candy people are forced to leave on your desk in 3rd grade hardly count.

The geese have returned

I have no idea where my neighbor-geese went off too, I assume someplace further south and warmer than it is was in these parts back in December, but the crazy Canadians are back, and just as suicidal as ever. Clearly, they do not suffer under the burden of non-refundable airline tickets like the rest of us.

As evidence that I have gone, or am beginning to go, over to the dark side, I'm starting to wonder if those non-refundable airline tickets might actually be a contract of adhesion and thus not actually enforceable, and if it's really worth arguing this point over a $308 plane ticket. I figure this means one of two things: 1 - I've lost my mind or 2 - I'm actually starting to understand this contract stuff. If it's option 2, I only wish this had happened before I took my final last semester, but c'est la vie. I'll do better this term, and if I can successfully recover my $308 from the airline that will surely be worth something.

Time marches on

It hardly seems possible that I left San Francisco just six months ago. Somehow it seems like I've been out here much much longer than that. At the same time, it's all gone so fast…at time I feel as though I've barely had time to blink. But here I am, a half a year later, a semester behind me, and well in to the last half of my first year.

For some reason I've been sick pretty much since I got back from the winter break. First it was an awful cold/flu from hell, and now I've got some messed up stomach bug and a fever. The main problem is the exhaustion, afternoon naps are all well and good but if I sleep for 4 hours in the afternoon I really would like to be awake later than 9:30 in the evening. I seem to be getting better though, so with any luck I'll be back to normal by the end of the week.

I've been knitting a pair of socks for Someone, and have decided to try the 2 socks on 2 circular needles method. So far, it seems to be working pretty well but can get quite confusing. I think the confusion is worth it though, I have a bad habit of knitting one sock and then never getting around to the second one, or not getting the second one done for 3 or 4 years. This way, both socks are in the same state of unfinishedness, both will be at the same gauge, and both will actually be the same length. All good things I thing. Size 0 needles though are a bit much…it must be love if I'm knitting the man socks on size 0's.

Must get back to my criminal law class. For some reason, this class is really offending my sense of justice and right and wrong. I'm really starting to think Hammurabi had the right of it.

Superhero School

My baby brother sent me this the other day:

Just think, one day you will be protecting the lives of the innocent and helping to punish the evil doers. Sound like a superhero to me. So I guess when you think about it superhero school can't be easy or else everyone would be doing it.

Crisis of confidence, over.

The knitting and weaving carry on, in between reading cases about all the usual things. I'm making socks for Someone (toe up, from Brownsheep Wildefoot, with a simple 2X2 rib instep and cuff). In a few days, it will be 6 months that we have been together. Not a perfect 6 months, that much I will grant, but somehow, it's been...I don't even know. Perfect isn't the right thing (and the part of me that knows he will read this won't let me say as much), but it's been exactly what I needed, exactly what I've wanted. He makes me a better person, he lets me see the superhero my brother thinks I can be.

Moving...

Well, my blog is moving anyway. Please update bookmarks and links! As of now, I will no longer be updating to this page at the rcn.com address. The new URL is:

http://members.cox.net/heidigrace

Now back to fixing all the links I am sure I have broken...

How could I resist?

With applogies to Jen...

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

"Corporal punishment in a public school may involve a constitutionally protected liberty."

Brought to you by the good people who wrote the Gilbert's on Constitutional Law. Nice.

Doom, doom!!

Grades come out today. I already saw 2. Hopefully Contracts is, as I expected, my worst grade, but I did manage to score an honors grade in my legal skills class, so that's something. I'm not sure what exactly, as it does nothing for my GPA (which I think sucks the big one but oh well, it'll still look good on the resume).

Now I'm waiting for Crim Law to start, which I am woefully unprepared for, as I passed out last night while I was trying to do my reading. Stupid flu plague.

A few points I'd forgotten

1 - The food here seriously sucks.
2 - Don't get me started on the "produce," if you can call it that
3 - For the most part, I loath my classmates. It's very sad.
4 - Studying at school is hopeless (see #3)

Day 1 of Semester 2 went ok. Contracts got cancelled, which had me all irrationally annoyed, but was probably ok. I just got out of my first ever criminal law class, which was scary. The prof just launched into the lecture and discussion without so much as saying hello. She scares me a little, but I think it'll be an ok class.

Must try to get my Con Law reading done now. I passed out on the couch yesterday after I got home. This cold thing sucks, and not I have a fever blister to go with it. Nice. I feel like crap and I look deformed. What a way to start the new year.

So wrong

Starting the semester with the beginnings of a cold is just unfair and wrong on so many levels. I feel like crap. I blame this entirely on the whole airport odyssey getting back out here. Stupid airport.

Anyhow, aside from feeling like crap and being generally exhausted, and considering that I have not actually had a class yet, the semester has officially begun and so far so good. Or at least, so far, no new surprises. Classmates are still immature and annoying (why do I loath them so much? why?!), I still don't understand anything in my contracts book, and the homework load is already a bit scary. But oh well, I'm actually kind of excited about this. Torts and Civ Pro are over, and I get Criminal and Constitutional law this semester to replace them. Con law should be interesting, I'm excited about that one.

Last night, instead of doing the rest of my property reading, I warped my loom and wove a few sample rag coasters. I'm quite happy with how they turned out actually, and I think I have a better idea of how the warp colors interact with the rag colors, so that's something. Plus they are really fast to weave. Hurray! I think warping the loom took longer than the weaving, but I can put enough warp on by myself to do about 10 coasters at least, if not 12, so that should keep me busy for awhile.

In other news, I bought a scale yesterday at Cost Co. Eep. That was a scary wake up call, but looking back on it it's not really as bad as all that. I've managed to keep off nearly 40 pounds from my all time high, and seem to be within the new range of fluctuation, which is not to say I don't have some work to do, but it's manageable. My goal is really to get the range of fluctuation down a bit, the high end needs to be at least 10 pounds lower than it is now, and I'd like the range to be narrower, but that's an achievable goal. I've pretty much got to the point though where I'm doing this on my own. The leader at the one and only WW meeting that fits into my schedule is really irritating. She just grates on my every last nerve, and I can't bring myself to pay the weekly meeting fee to get that annoyed. Everyone there is really very nice, but so far away from my point in life that I don't relate to anyone in the least, which is sort of the whole point of going to the meetings anyway.

Must get myself ready for contracts class. Ugh.

Standing on my own two feet

Sadly, I have no pictures to show for my break and trip back to CA, but I got enough rest that I don't really care. I can't say it was the most blissful and idyllic of vacations, but it was good to be back home, to be with Someone, to work through some stuff, and end up feeling like I'm starting the year more or less on my feet with a good idea of where I'm going and how I'm going to get there.

All of my knit Christmas gifts went over well, which made me feel a lot better about having made everything. I don't know why I have this idea that handmade gifts are of less value and worth than bought things, I should know better by now than to devalue the work of my hands, but I still tend to assume that other people will see a handmade gift as something of less value. Everyone liked their hats and scarves and mittens and wine glass charm things, so that's good.

Somehow or other I've gotten inspired to weave for next year. I visited my favorite wool shop while I was at mom and dad's and they had some little woven rag rug coasters sitting on the counter which gave me all kinds of ideas. God knows I have enough fabric scraps to make a good pile of these for gifts next year. Maybe coasters, trivets, and table runners will be the project of choice. It's something different anyway, and will give me a chance to experiment with some new things.

I had two interviews for internships while I was out in CA, both of which went really well. One was with a company that does not actually have an internship program, but wants to try to put something together for me. Hurray! I really liked that group, by the end they were asking me if I wanted to come work with them and giving me all kinds of great tips for picking classes next term, so I think it went well. The best part is the office is about 5 miles down the road from Someone's house, which is convenient.

I've also been baking a lot of bread. Mom got me a great bread book for Christmas, which has been really helpful. I didn't have all the equipment I need at Someone's house, but I was able to apply some of the methods from the book and it improved the bread tremendously. I'm getting much better texture, nice crusts, and I think I'm starting to understand what's going on with the whole bread making process better so I've been able to adapt a few recipes quite successfully.

For now, it's back to school work, financial insolvency (where the hell is my loan refund check?! I have rent to pay people!), and the never ending battle to adjust to the weather out here, but somehow I feel like I'm able to stand again. The fear and terror of everything that I've been dealing with has been taking a toll on every aspect of my life, and I'm tired of it. As I was telling Someone the other night, we both of us have taken a huge leap, picking up and moving to new places and starting new and difficult things. We just didn't figure on what would happen when we landed in the new place, how broken and battered we'd be by the fall. I know it'll never be at hard as last semester was again, and that is a very comforting thought.

One down...

and five more semesters to go! Hurray! I must say, it's a very feeble kind of hurray, but there it is. I don't think I felt this mentally and physically drained in a really long time, if ever. Somehow, I'm actually looking forward to next semester though. I get to start con law, and carry on with property, both of which really interest me.

Anyhow, I made it back to CA without too much trouble, the flight out ended up being delayed but I made my connection, barely, and here I am. Tired, somewhat beat up feeling, but here. It's sort of nice not having anything to do but rest and visit and relax, but I feel like I should be studying something still. This will pass I am sure, especially since I have an interview for a summer internship up in Marin next week. Eck. Hopefully I will be able to speak coherently by then.

Will post more later when I have something sensible to say and hopefully pictures to post...

Schedule for the Week

Monday:
7:00 - get up, get dressed, get somewhat presentable
7:45 - make coffee and toast
8:00 - Work on torts
11:00 - Take a break and eat lunch, relax
12:30 - Drive to campus, try to avoid other students, try not to hurl
1:00 - Contracts exam
4:00 - Go home, try to recover sense of dignity and self
5:00 - Attempt to clean kitchen, eat something
6:00 - Back to torts
7:30 - Visit with S. and relax
10:00 - bed

Tuesday:
7:30 - get up, shower
8:30 - make coffee and toast
9:00 - start on torts
12:00 - break time, have lunch
1:00 - back to torts
6:30 - Dinner, knit, relax
8:00 - review torts outline and notes
10:00 - bed

Wednesday:
7:00 - get up, get dressed, get somewhat presentable
7:45 - make coffee and toast, relax
8:30 - drive to campus, try not to hurl
9:00 - Torts exam
12:00 - Go to bookstore to sell torts and civ pro books back
1:00 - Go home. Stare at ceiling and bond with cat
2:00 - Eat lunch
2:30 - Laundry, packing, house cleaning, and general recovery
6:30 - drinks with L in celebration of the end of exams
10:30 - Bed

Thursday:
Noon: get out of bed, shower, and finish packing
3:00 - drive to E's
3:30 - Leave E's for airport
5:20 - Plane leaves for CA

Not dead yet/Happy 200

Or at least not quite...two exams down, two more to go. Half-way done is a nice thing, when I can remember to stick my head up above the mess of papers and notes and see how far I've really come anyway. Thinking about how far I have yet to go makes me want to cry.

This time next week I'll be back in California, finals will be over, and I will not have to do anything except sit around, relax, knit, and try to get back into some sort of exercise routine. If only I wasn't so utterly broke, it would be a nice break. Money sucks. Rather, the total lack of money sucks. I was less broke than this when I was unemployed. Of course, I also had people who would take me out and feed me and didn't have to worry about exams on top of it all, but still, the sad reality of it at this point is that I had to ask Daddy to bail me out for December rent, I have no idea how I am going to make January rent, never mind pay the power and phone bills, and I get the spend the whole break sponging off my boyfriend. I'm grateful that I have such a kind and supportive daddy and boyfriend, but I feel like shit having to be so reliant on them.

Anyway, enough of my school and financial woes...this is my 200th post. Huh. Not sure what to make of that exactly, but there it is. If I were a TV show I'd have gone into syndication 100 posts ago!

In between exams, outlines, and bread baking, I've actually been get a bit of therapeutic knitting done. I know, I need pictures, I should have time to get them uploaded and posted after exams are done. I made a pair of felted boot things for my dad for Christmas (here is the patters) and a moebius scarf thing for myself out of a skein of really beautiful manos yarn a friend gave me before I came out here. Moebius scarves are my new favorite knitting trick. Plus it's a great way to get something useful out of a single skein of yarn! I also finished a pair of fingerless mits I've had on needles for 100 years at least, one is knit looser than the other, but that's ok. I designed the pattern myself, and at least now I know it works. Being able to follow my own cryptic instructions is the first step I guess.

Anyhow, back to contracts. Hopefully I can get this outline done today so I can spend tomorrow on torts.

The end is nigh

My first exam, ie phase one of the apocalypse, is Tuesday at 1 PM EST. Sweet lord save me now. At least it's a subject I sort of think I might understand, which for law school is saying a whole lot.

And it's going to snow. Soon. Within hours even, and will certainly snow tomorrow afternoon, which leaves me wondering if I will be able to drive to campus on Tuesday to take the exam, or if the world will have turned to one scary slick, frozen carnival of scary roads and ice. Probably not, but I'm from California, where cold is 52, and we have none of this ice stuff I've been trying to figure out.

Actually, winter is kind of cool. I like sweaters, I like hot drinks, and I get to have as much of these things as I want right now. Hurray! Probably I'll get sick of all this eventually but for now I'm really having a good time. I just would rather be decorating a Christmas tree and knitting warm cozy sweaters than reading about landlord tenant law and whatever the hell we've been doing in contracts for the last 3 months.

In other news, I found both my camera and the cable, so as soon as I can I promise there will be pictures of various knitting projects.

For now, I need to make some tea and get back to these holdover things.

What a difference a day makes

I'm feel much better today for some reason. Last night, I baked bread, worked on my property outline, read torts, knit, squashed a huge spider, watched trashy TV shows, and had a wired dream in which someone stole my TV. For whatever reason, this all resulted in me waking up feeling much more focused and less terrified this morning. I was able to get some more torts reading done and put together the first 48 of my resumes and cover letters, 22 of which I was able to send out on my way to class. Hurray! I hope someone hires me. And pays me. It's the paying part that I'm most concerned with actually, working for free just isn't going to work.

Now I just need to pick my new knitting project. I'm sick of scarves. Getting back to the little lace bed jacket I started awhile back might be a good plan. Either that or getting some of the patterns I have designed into a presentable state so I can finally *gasp* publish them. What an idea.

Exam time horror show

There's the usual kind of anxiety and panic that comes from stuff I can silence for the most part. Things like school, getting lost, and not being eaten by wild turkeys because I have failed all of my exams. Then there's the other stuff, the real stuff that I can't deal with in a practical sense and that is just get more and more horrific the longer you ignore it. This would be stuff like paying rent, keeping the heat turned on, and figuring out how to feed myself and the cat (though I have enough leftovers from Thanksgiving I should be fed for awhile at least).

I suck at being poor. I suck at not knowing how I am going to manage to get through the next month, and I really suck at being in a position where there is no room for a misstep. Right now, I have no safety net at all. If I get sick, or hurt, or the car dies, or my laptop or printer takes a nosedive, I am completely screwed. And I cannot deal with this. It's driving me nuts. There is not one little thing I can do about any of it, but I have to do something, because the rent won't pay itself and neither will the power or phone bill. The stress of looming exams just makes it harder to cope and keep the terror at bay.

I just wish I knew what to do. I wish I knew how to focus on exams and studying when I am so terrified of these other things.

Nothing much else is going on, I actually got some decent studying done yesterday, which felt like a bit of a miracle. I'm no where near where I wanted to be at this stage, but at least I took some decent steps forward last night. It's just a matter of keeping that momentum going and trying to set aside my money worries until I have time and bandwidth to figure out some solutions.

Off Center

Last night I was asleep by 8:30. I woke up briefly to log off the computer and haul myself upstairs, and slept like the dead until 7 this morning. I wish I could say I feel more rested and relaxed for having slept so much, but I don't. I don't exactly feel worse though, so I guess that's something. These exams are really freaking me out a lot more than I want to admit to myself.

Trying to avoid the whole I'm-going-to-fail-and-live-in-a-box-and-freeze thought spiral isn't working out too well, but I'm really trying. It's just exhausting. I know this will get better, exams will be over soon, I'll live through it, and then I'll be home for a few weeks to do nothing but rest and knit. It's just hard to get rid of the niggling fear that I will fail or do really badly and I have no back-up plan, no safety net. If I fail, then what? There's no one to catch me if I fall out here. I'm just stuck and broke and it's really scary.

I have been knitting though. The Charm sweater turned out really well, and got lots of compliments, even though it remains unphotographed. I'm working on a feather-and-fan scarf for my mom for Christmas, using some handspun I had from when I got my drum carder. It's a really fun blend of silk and wools, originally dyed red and purple, but I carded it all together so it's more uniform and tweedy looking. I'm quite happy with it and I think she'll like it. I'm not getting anywhere on the weaving project for my grandma. Mom said she likes blues, but I have no blue yarns in my stash. Part of my doesn't give a rat's ass and wants to just use whatever I have, but there is still a part of me that wants to please her. A futile goal, but there it is. I think I'll just pack up whatever I have and work on that the first week of break. I can do the machine sewing part at mom and dad's, or just handsew the back of the pillow on, or I could crochet it together, that might look neat. We'll see.

Must get back to torts. We're reading about proximate cause. Anything with the phrase "in the bosom of time" has to be interesting. I wish all my case books were as much fun as this one.

Oh Sweet Jebuzz

I have a week left of class. Then exams. Somewhere in there I have to send out several dozen resumes so I can hopefully get some interviews lined up while I'm in California for the holiday. And take exams. And I did no outlining at all this weekend.

I feel woefully unprepared for this. It's just overwhelming at the moment, and I hate to admit it but the whole holiday break really didn't help much. It was all for the best really, but I wasn't able to relax and regroup like I'd hoped. I didn't get any real studying done, didn't really sleep enough, and somehow feel even less safe and more uncertain than I did before.

On the plus side, I got my second memo back and did really well on it, and I just met with the career center people and they were pleased with my resume so far and had lots of helpful things to say about my job search for the summer.

I just feel really overwhelmed, terrified, and a bit sad, if not a little hopeless. This whole being poor and cold and lonely thing is really more than I can take right now, what with school related stress building up so much because of finals, having to find a job, and everything else. I have some hope for the Christmas break, but after this last "break" I'm not so sure it'll be as restful as I need it to be. We'll see.

The turkey has landed

I'm getting far too excited about cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Mom and dad got in on Saturday and we went and picked up the turkey last night. I've named him Bob, and he is resting in the refrigerator while I decide exactly which method of roasting him I will go with. There seems to be some debate between use tin foil or wine-soaked cheesecloth to protect the breast in the first half of the roasting process. I've done the foil hat method, I might get creative and try the cheese cloth. We'll see.

because I'm insane, I have decided to bake the bread for dinner myself. I love baking bread. Something about the yeast and the dough in my hands as I knead it seems almost like magic to me. It's the same sort of thing I get when I spin actually, the joy of creating something so full of life and energy from nothing, with just the strength in my own hands. There's something elemental about it that I find very satisfying.

The Charm sweater is done, washed, blocked, and ready to be worn and photographed. I am really happy with how it turned out. It's nice and light and warm, perfect for these cool autumn days. As long as it doesn't get too windy anyway...

I've been working on a few scarves for Christmas gifts, and have decided to weave a pillow cover for my grandmother. She doesn't seem to like anything I give her, or use it, which really bothers me. I made her some knit washcloths a couple years ago, and she never used them. She never uses the chain for her glasses that she said she wanted and I got her either, so I fail to see the point in even trying but one has to do something. The plan is to use the small diagonal looms I got at Stitches West last year and make a sort of quilted cover out of scrap yarns, kind of a crazy quilt look but woven. It should be a fun little project.

Now if I could just channel some of the weaving and breadmaking enthusiasm over to my homework, I'd be in good shape. Motivating myself to read is just not working. I fall asleep whenever I open my casebooks. Is situational narcolepsy a real thing?

What I've learned so far

I've been trying to review and outline for final exams, which are in 2 weeks. Ack. How did that happen? This is what I've leared so far, for two of my classes:

Torts:
1. Stay far, far away from rail road tracks
2. Learn to swim, especially if you plan to work on barges or tug boats
3. Don’t mess with Texas
4. In Texas, it is not necessarily a bad idea to shoot your neighbor's mad boar.
5. Texas scares me
6. People in California like to throw furnature out windows. This I cannot explain.

Property:
1. Never get into a land deal with relatives
2. If you own a house with a ghost
a. The house isn’t vacant when you sell it.
b. Haunting is a latent defect. Disclose it.
3. My family is far more functional that I had thought (for example, my inheritance, such as it is, is not contingent upon changing my name, marrying some guy I've never met, or naming my first child after the family dog)

Knitting progress, finally!

My homework avoidance project the last couple of weeks has been a snuggly warm sweater from Knitscene (the Charm Wrap if you really care), using some of my handspun yarn. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but it's done! Mostly. I still have to sew it all together and do a few more inches of belt, but the knitting is done. Assuming that all goes well this week, I should be able to wear it next week. Hurray! I'm really happy with how it's turned out. The pattern was easy to do, though I don't like they way they wrote or formatted the directions for the side shaping. It was really hard to follow, mostly because it was impossible to read. The end result is nice though, and looks like it should fit well. I did a size larger than I actually need because the yarn worked up at a slightly tighter gauge, so it'll be a little roomy but that's ok for this sort of thing I think. I'll post pictures once I get it sewn together, and find the ever elusive cable for the camera.

In other news, school carries on. Being a grad student seriously sucks. I had yet another panic attack last night after catching site of the latest pile of bills I have to pay. The being in school part isn't so bad, it's the whole not having any money and having to eat beans and rice and ramen noodles that I can't quite get over. It's scary. I'm more frightened than I have been since I was out of work and my unemployment ran out. That was an all-time low point in my life so far, and I keep finding myself back in the same head space these days, which does not help things at all. I know intellectually that this is all just temporary, it'll get better soon, and that I won't starve, but I hate the feeling that the bills are piling up, the debt is mounting, and for every bill I can pay there are 2 others waiting someplace that I've either forgotten about or simply don't have the ability to deal with. Objectively, it's probably not as bad as all that, but I'm seriously looking perspective when it comes to the whole money thing.

I am at least adjusting to life in Virginia. I've fallen completely in love with the fall colors. They tell me this year is rather drab, but to my eyes it's spectacular. Every day on my way to school, I marvel at the changing shades of red and amber. The trees near my house look like every shade of amber there is right now, not brown, but rich gold's and bronzes and dusky reds and fiery orange. It amazes me to see these colors on living things.

Now I must go and write a lease. For parking spaces. Which, given that I moved here from San Francisco, where there is no parking to be had for love or money, seems rather appropriate. But still, a lease? I have no idea what to put in a lease.

Well there you go

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Danger Monkey Your Superpower is Demonic Your Weakness is Water Your Weapon is Your Turbo Stinger Your Mode of Transportation is Cable

What's your Superhero Name?

Now if only I could use my fabulous demonic superpower to get out of this civ pro class and back to knitting my sweater...

We've got major grad school burn out going on here. That and some sort of freakish flu. blegh.

Poopy

It's been a crap week for some reason. Maybe I'm just having a hard time adjusting to the time change and all the darkness, but I've been feeling really low energy and just blagh.

Yesterday hardly helped, but I think I have identified a huge source of my law school related anxiety. We had a negotiation practice, and the opposing council we went against flat out lied about some material facts. The first thought I had when I found this out was "well, you'll make great lawyers." I don't want to be that kind of person. I don't want to be lumped together with that kind of person. It's unprofessional, unethical, and goes against everything I hold to be true and sacred. And part of me is terrified that law school is going to turn me in to that kind of person, one I wouldn't want to sit down over a beer with, nevermind be forced to maintain a professional relationship with, or trust.

Have I changed? I know I have become busy and stressed in new ways, but has this all changed the core of who I am and what I believe? I hope not. Lawyers do not need to be, and in fact should not be, the kind of people who lie. In negotiations, sometimes information is not shared, that is understandable, but when a direct question is asked, isn't the honest and ethical response to answer the question truthfully? I still think that it is, but I realized that I had this knot of cold fear, terror really, someplace in the pit of my stomach that 2 years from now when I graduate, I won't think so, that I will have become one of the deceitful, dishonest, and corrupt people who lie and cheat and steal.

I simply lack adversarial motivation. To my mind, a negotiation is supposed to be a meeting of the minds, both parties should walk away feeling good about the deal struck, not that they fleeced the other side or were in some way cheated. For one thing, I will never negotiate again with a lawyer who I feel has lied and cheated me. For another, what could possibly be served by such an antagonistic relationship?

Anyway, I'm bitter and angry about this, and need to let it go. grr.

Instead, I get to spend the weekend studying. blegh. I think I'm going to drive out to Yorktown after class this afternoon for lunch, just to get out of here.

Where did the month go?!

This whole being a law student thing is doing strange things to my sense of time. What the hell happened to October? How in the world did it get be to Halloween already? Ack!

I had a very dull weekend doing lots and lots of homework and outlining, but I did manage to start another knitting project. Really, I need to finish some projects, but all of the other UFO's I have going are on tiny needles and I wanted something on big needles that would go fast. Plus, it's cold, and I need a new cuddly sweater. I'm knitting a sweater coat thing that looks something like a bathrobe out of Knitscene but I'm using some of my handspun. I have the back just about finished, and so far and very happy with it. I even have an outfit planned for it. It's a fairly mindless pattern, perfect for an overwhelmed student.

I'm getting very excited about the holidays. Someone and my parents are coming out here for Thanksgiving, and then I am going to back to California for winter break. Hurray! I'm going to be in the Bay Area with Someone for most of the vacation, down at my parents for Christmas, and just relaxing and visiting friends and not reading law books for 3 whole weeks. Yay! And I've already found someone to look after the cat for me. It's good to be on good terms with your neighbors.

Lots of Llamas!

I meant to post this awhile ago, but what with one thing and another I forgot.

(sound warning) - Llamas!

Some people have far far too much time on their hands...including me it would seem.

In other random news, it's spitting down wetness and the fire alarm went off at school this morning so we got to stand out in the wet for an hour while the police made sure the building wasn't about to fall down or whatever. Excitement I could do without, but it gives form to the day I suppose.

Now, I must stop getting distracted by llamas, fire alarms, red leaves, rain, and small shiny flecks in the carpet and work on this damned memo.

Yeah. Right.

A few observations

1 - My backpack is wider than my ass. I really have no idea what to do with this revelation.

2 - Autumn. We don't have this back in California. I now know and understand why that is true. There is a tree near campus that is the most amazing fire orange and red, like no tree I have ever seen. It's pretty amazing.

3 - Actual Mexican food does not involve anything called "cheese sauce." Anyone telling you otherwise needs to lay off the crack.

4 - Plastic surgery freaks me out.

5 - It disturbs me deeply that one can assume that someone around here has "a patch of woods" in their yard and be right 99.9% of the time.

Sleeeeepyyyyy

It is enough to say at this point that I have finished two Christmas stockings and felted 18 mice. I even took pictures, and I swear I will post them, but right now I am freakishly tired. Ever so tired...which sucks because I have a lot of torts and property reading to do, and a memo on adverse possession and easements to write.

We seem to be reading a lot of very strange cases from California just now in torts. We have one where some enthusiastic revilers decided it would be a swell idea to throw an arm chair out a window and injured a pedestrian, which is interesting, because this is not the first defenestration of furniture case we've seen. Then there was a whole line of cases about drunks in California, including one in which, as best I can tell, the judge decided San Francisco streets should be kept safe for the average drunk. It entertaining being asked to explain my home state, but some of this stuff has me mystified.

I just wish I wasn't so tired.

I also wish I was not having strange nightmares about contracts and future property interests and failing out of law school or getting crap grades and being unable to find a job. I'm not kidding either. It's awful. But it'll get better, it's already getting easier.

What this woman wants

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want, in a meta sense, lately. Negative lists of all the things I don't want aren't that helpful, or healthy. I want a family, I want companionship, I want time to spin and create things, I want to cloth the people I love, I want the means to care for myself and my family and enough left over to feel secure and maybe take nice vacations. I want to feel like these things are in reach, like I am not sabotaging it somehow, like I am moving towards them and not farther away...

In the short term, I want a suit, new glasses, and a larger financial aid check so I can fix the car, eat and pay rent all at the same time. I want a weekend to spin, and friends to spin with. I need people around me, and damn it I want a child. So much for being some liberated independent woman.

On the iPod

Ewww!

For those of you with a weak stomach, run now...

Harold popped. Well, more like exploded. It's gross. I figured he'd blow sooner or latter, he never did stop getting bigger and more deformed looking.

So, now what do I do? My medical expertise sort of falls apart at this point. And my mom isn't at home. How sad is that? I'm nearly 30, and I still call my mommy when I get a boo-boo.

Puffendorf and Barbeyrac, meet Harold

I'm working on property outlines today, and had forgotten how entertaining some of these legal philosopher guys names can be. A few of these cases read more like something from a Harry Potter book than anything else.

My wrist is killing me. Somehow, the blister is actually getting bigger, which makes no sense, and has got to the point where I really feel I need some way to refer to it. I've been calling it Harold. Harold is massive and more misshapen then he used to be, but mom claims he will settle down eventually and go away. I can only hope. He's making it hard to do things like type and pick up books, two critical features of my daily life right now.

In actual fiber news, I finally made my first trip over to my local yarn shop. Oh hurray! It was lovely! They have a great selection, a nice open space with good places to sit and look at books or work on your project, plenty of light, and a nice classroom space. They two women I talked to were really nice and welcoming and immediately offered me a job teaching classes at some point after I mentioned that I used to teach. Even better! Hopefully I'll be able to get on the class and workshop schedule in a month or two, it would be a nice bit of extra income and keep me in contact with people other than law students. I'm getting excited about starting this Christmas stocking now, it should be fun.

Maimed!

I should not be allowed to cook. In a sad attempt to make soup yesterday afternoon, I not only broke my stock pot, but sustained a large 2nd degree burn on the inside of my left wrist. Ouch. The blister is large and disgusting, and T (who came for dinner with his wife H last night, hence the cooking) said it looked "like a snow-globe." Nice. All I know is that this hurts in a dull achy kind of way and keeps getting bigger.

Other than that, it was not a bad weekend. I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, but I did accomplish things, got some rest, and should be in good shape to kick the ass of the second half the semester. I'm just trying to focus on the process of learning the law, and not worry about anything else (like grades or jobs or children or impending barren-spinsterhood a la Bridget Jones).

Tomorrow I get to make the trip over to the yarn shop to pick up stuff for this Christmas stocking project, which should be fun. I'm actually looking forward to it, strangely enough. I'll get to work on intarsia, which I have not really explored much as a technique, so that should be useful. I really want to make argyle socks for Someone for some reason, so this will be a good introduction to the techniques I'll need for that.

Why state the obvious?

So, aside from having nightmares about property interests and defeasance, and getting somewhat annoyed about consideration doctrine in general, school isn't really that bad. It's not easy by any stretch, but I'm feeling pretty ok with myself at this point. We're on fall break this weekend, so I'm spending today and tomorrow working on my outlines for the first half of the semester, and for the most part I feel like I'm starting to see some patterns and direction. All of which are good things.

It's all a matter of staying focused on the process, and not getting too freaked out about my actual grades. That and studiously avoiding the Big Questions, like is this going to cost me my chances of having a family? Will it cost me the people I care about? Will I ever be able to retire? Is this a price I am willing to pay? I've been trying really hard to keep those issues at bay and not freak out about my impending barren spinster-hood, trying not to second-guess myself and every decision that has led me to this point. When I can do that, I can focus and get my work done and feel pretty good about this thing, but when I can't, which has been most of the time recently, it's impossible.

Anyhow, since I got back from my brothers wedding, I've been doing pretty well with Big Question Avoidance, I think seeing my family and spending some time with Someone really helped with that. Those people love me and support me and believe in me, it makes it easier to have confidence and faith in myself in that environment. But yesterday I was talking to a second year student, and he suddenly had this revelation that I would be 32 when I graduated, and had I thought about whether or not I wanted to have a family and if giving that up was something I was willing to do for this? Yeah. Thanks guy, that was really helpful. I really need to hang out with the older women, they don't ask questions like that, they already know the answer (which in most cases isn't an answer at all, and that's why it's such a difficult thing).

So last night was a bit rough, and today has been kind of tenuous. I'm getting a lot done, I have gotten my Civ Pro outline well under way, I have a skeleton for Contracts, and I have a whole day and a half left to work on this, but the panic is there, just on the edge, waiting to pull me into the crazy place if I don't keep a close reign on myself. This is the point at which I start to question and doubt and wonder, and I just haven't got time for that right now.

Maybe I need to go for a walk...

Fee simple subject to a condition subsequent?

So the general consensus seems to be that I am too hard on myself and overly self-critical and that this is leading to or contributing to a great deal of my current stress and anxiety. Dad says I've been like this since I was kid. He likes to remind me that I came home from my first day of kindergarden in tears because I hadn't learned how to read yet. Not "they didn't teach me to read yet" but "I didn't learn how to read yet" which is a subtle difference but I suppose makes all the difference in the world. I do kind of feel like whatever I do is never really enough, however hard I work or try, it's never good enough. Good enough for whom exactly I don't quite know, but it seems like I could, and should, do better. Classic over-achiever perfectionist type stuff I guess, but it's a bit strange to have people who have known you for 2 days point this out.

Anyway, it turns out I am not as caught up with my reading as I thought I was. I'm up to date with contracts, will be up to date with stupid old civ pro after lunch today, and am pretty much up to date with torts, assuming I don't fall asleep at my desk this afternoon. But property, oye vey. I missed a bad lecture, with lots of definitions and things, and in trying to get cought up with that I got behind on what I needed to read for today, so I now have 3 days worth of reading to get done for Friday's class, as well as some supplimental stuff to clarify what I missed last week, so I can ask intellegent questions when I go talk to the professor during office hours next week, as opposed to something like "So, what's the deal with this whole defeasible thing? and what about those future interests?" Certain parts of this class are very painful, but for some reason I actually find it really interesting. They just seem to use far too many words.

At least we have a long weekend coming up. It's fall break, so I have no class Monday or Tuesday. The current plan is to do some cheesy tourist stuff with a friend (H, who Someone introduced me to, she's a grad student in the CS department and her husband is from the Bay Area and hates it here too so we all rant and bitch about ignorant hillbillies together, it's very therapeutic), then lock myself in the undergraduate library and start outlining.

Somewhere in there I need to find the local yarn store. I have a commission to knit a Christmas sock for an old Dickens Faire friend and will need to track down the yarn for it. It should be fun, and it'll give me a bit of extra cash. Anything to keep me in latte money. Hell, if anyone else wants something knitted, let me know.

Home again

I just got back from my baby brother wedding back in sunny and not too hot California. Between getting a sister, spending some quality time with Someone, and catching up with a bunch of family, it was busy but quite nice.

Of course, it didn't exactly start off right. I had a 6:40 AM flight out of an airport about an hour from house. Which means that I had to get up at 3:45. I set my alarm, got to bed early, and woke up all nice and gently only to realize it was 6:17. Ack! Several minute of blind shrieking panic latter, I pulled it together long enough to call the airline, find out about stand by options, and race out to the car where I called first Someone, to tell him I would be coming in latter, and them my parents, to tell them I would be missing the rehearsal diner. Of course I was hysterical, and it was only 3:45 in the morning on the West Coast, but what else was I going to do? I'll never this one down, that's for sure.

It all worked out ok, I made it, I got picked up ok, and it was all fine, but I had a really hard time sleeping for the rest of the weekend, terrified as I was that I would oversleep and missing the wedding/family BBQ/plane back/whatever. Oh well.

Anyhow, I must get unpacked and unwound. I'm starting a new little lace bedjacket/sweater thing for myself, the pattern got here while I was gone and I can hardly wait to start. I love lace knitting. And this bedjacket thing looks like it has some serious potential.

Suicidal Canadians

Canadian geese that is. There's a whole flock of them living in a pond down the road from my house that I drive by every morning on my way to campus. Lately, they have taken to spending the earlier part of the morning, when the road is busiest (which isn't that busy by San Francisco standards, but is a near traffic jam for these parts), hanging out in the middle of the road. Stupid geese. You can pull up within a foot of them and just sit there, and they won't budge at all. They just stare you, all creepy like, until you figure out how to get around them.

I actually like the geese. I hear them honking in the early morning, when the light is still misty, and there is something comforting in that. Of course, it makes harder to get out of bed. That time of morning always makes me a little sad when I am sleeping alone. The world is still, my mind is as calm as it will be for the day, and I drift into thoughts of the people who are far away. The longing is gentle and soft, but somehow worse when I want to be held so badly I can almost feel it.

Anyhow, I'm still behind with my school work but I'm slowly getting caught up. I have to catch up with torts and then all I have left today is the reading I need to do for tomorrow. With any luck I'll be able to get it all done this afternoon and tonight. Luckily my skills class got moved back to 5 tonight so I should have just enough steam left when that gets out to get another 20 pages or so done tonight before falling asleep. I've decided that taking RSI breaks is a good thing, just like it was when I was doing tech work, and that I can use my spinning wheel as incentive. I may move her up to the office, right now I'm doing my work at the kitchen table and I don't like that, having my school books all over the living room just isn't a happy thing. Confining my schoolwork to one room in the house seems like a better idea than having it scattered all over so I can never escape it.

Besides, if I'm downstairs near the kitchen I get up every 10 minutes to find a snack of some sort, just to get away from the books. No good for the WW thing. So far, that's been going quite well. I'm not so sure about this week though, it's been a bit difficult the last few days to stick with core foods, and my brothers wedding is this weekend, so the food situation is going to be a bit sketchy. Oh well. I'll do the best I can, that's all I can do.

Just breath

Some actual fiber content! Sort of...


You are Shetland Wool.
You are a traditional sort who can sometimes be a
little on the harsh side. Though you look
delicate you are tough as nails and prone to
intricacies. Despite your acerbic ways you are
widely respected and even revered.


What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

The whole inability to focus thing has not been getting much better. It's actually been getting much worse, but I have some hope that things will improve there some in the next few weeks.

I did manage to sit at my wheel a bit in the last few days, and I found out that there is a Trader Joes in Charlottesville, only a 2 hour drive away! Only two hours, how sad is it that I have to drive 2 hours to get to my favorite store? I just need to find some kind of half-assed excuse to head out there, then I can get my tea and tasty hippie foods in peace.

School work is getting interesting. I've been trying to write a legal memo for my sills class for days and days, and it's turning out to be far more difficult than I had thought. I can't seem to separate my own ideas about the issue from the decisions I'm reading. I'm trying really hard not to put too much of my own interpretation into it, but it's difficult. I guess you can't help coming at an issue from your own particular angle, this is why we have judges and appeals courts after all, but when they don;t actually tell you what the question is, it's difficult to find the answer to the problem without putting too many of your ideas in there.

Collateral damage

I don't think this whole school thing is worth the price...maybe I'm just not so willing to pay it at this point. I don't know. All I do know is that my options are drifting away one by one, I can't focus on anything, and I have no safe place to run to.

I can't even spin. You know it's bad when not even my wheel can hold my attention, when I can't find that simple, elemental rhythm.

More obsessive knitting

I finished the little neckwarmer thing from Knitty last night. Hurray! It's actually quite cute, but I am not altogether happy with the way the flower is designed. I've worked out a different way, crocheting the center instead of using the stupid looped and twisted stitches which will pull out all over the place the moment you snag the scarf on something, like your jacket. These things are quick and fun to knit, so I've started another one and will continue figuring out modifications for the center of the flower.

Knitting flowers is way too much fun, sort of like knitting the little felt mice for the cat. I found a few other flower patterns on line last night, if nothing else this should be a good way to get some scraps of yarn used up. I think I'm going to try felting some of them too, and work out a few alternate neckwarmer designs.

I need to find a job. Maybe I'll write up some of the patterns I've worked out and see if I can segue that into some kind of small business. It's more labor intensive than I would like but I think once I get things up and running a web based business should be pretty easy to manage. Having no income at all is just exacerbating the stress I'm under as it is. Last night, as exhausted as I was, I ended up unable to sleep after talking to Someone and nearly falling asleep on the phone. It's not good. I have some hope that I get some sort of income producing venture to work out but without compromising what's left of my dignity, but if I keep having these restless panic filled nights, I'm not sure how long that will last.

Avast!

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day! How could I forget! I should go home and make myself a cabin-boy/girl outfit and figure out to hoist the mizzen or something. Arg!

My pirate name is:

Bloody Bess Flint

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Lots of blaghs

Not much to report today...last week was kind of rough. I didn't so much have a lot to do as I had zero motivation to do anything. I seem to lack focus in a really profound sort of way. I wish I understood what that I was about.

I feel very isolated and alone here for some reason. I miss Someone. I feel silenced. I have a lot of work to do, but I just can't seem to focus on it. You would think that focusing on school work would keep my mind too busy to worry about everything else, but it isn't. Maybe I need a job. Having some sort of income would be really nice, I'm just not sure I can bring myself to work in a crappy retail job for minimum wage. Somehow it feels as though doing that would rob me of my dignity. Which is just absurd, but there it is. Part time consulting work for my old job would have been ideal, but oh well.

Anyhow, I finished the crocheted scarf, knit another scarf, and have started on a little neckwarmer thing from the latest Knitty (the pattern is here) out of some left over yarn from my stash. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few other small things knit so I have less Christmas shopping to do. Being able to make most of the gifts for this year will be a very good thing, seeing as I can't really afford to buy any.

Being a student sucks. Well, ok, being a student is ok, but living off loans sucks. Maybe that's my problem, I feel very insecure and uncertain whenever I have to spend any money on even the stupidest things, and I don't know if I can deal with this for all 3 years.

Fiber lust

The Bellwether, my favorite place to get spindles, is having huge fleece sale! Oh how I wish I still had income!

The fleece sale has got me thinking about a special project I've had swimming around in the back of my mind for ages. One of those things best not to talk about, if you are a fiber junkie who runs towards the superstitious, but all the fleeces on sale have got me wondering and planning and thinking and that's never good.

I've utterly failed to finish knitting a gift for my soon-to-be-SIL. The wedding is at the end of this month and I haven't got anything to show for it, but oh well. Maybe I can get one project or the other finished in time for Christmas, that might work out better anyway since neither one is exactly right for the wedding dress.

Not so very bad?

Well, the WW meeting wasn't so bad. Not so good either, but considering that I'm all bloated from PMS, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it might be. I still feel like an old lady with a wide ass, but at least I'm doing something about it. I've decided to try the Core plan this time, I think it might be easier to measure less, and I still think it's easier to maintain on the Core plan. Or at least it should be in theory. We'll see. I'll give it a few weeks. That's probably the best thing about the program right now, having a choice between plans is nice and gives you a lot of flexibility. I realized this morning that part of my issue with the whole weight-loss thing lately is tied into the general inability to finish anything recently. I feel like I left everything half done at work, my knitting projects are getting nowhere, why should I do any better with WW? It's a bit absurd, I have the ability to finish this if I just stay focused and don't let myself get into a fug about it, and would probably help with the feeling of incompletion.

Anyhow, it occurred to me this morning that WW meetings were also a good time to do some knitting. I brought my scarf with me and got the first lace panel done and a decent start on the second. Having some time to really focus on myself and my state of being is a good thing. My No Law Friday Afternoon's probably won't last now that I have No Law Saturday Morning, but that's ok. The idea is to have time to do things that aren't related to school, it doesn't really matter what day I pick to do it.

In school related news, my loan finally got straightened out and the check is supposedly on it's way. Hurray! I have to call the loan people on Monday to find out what the exact deal is, but I should be ok in a few weeks. It's nice to know that that's worked out for now at least. I'll worry about the loans for next year in the spring. With any luck I'll be able to establish residency or get a fellowship and my tuition will be less. I can only hope. Now I just need to decide what to do with myself over the summer. It seems silly to worry about this now, but from what I've been told if you want to get paid over your 1L summer, you have to start the hunt early.

I still feel like crap, but the cold seems to be more or less manageable. As long as I don't move to quickly it's ok. Hopefully it'll be better by Monday, and Ophelia will go someplace else and I'll be able to ride my bike to school next week. Getting some physical activity in will help my state of mind tremendously. And it certainly won't hurt the WW thing either.

Happy Blue Pills

I love the blue pills. I can sort of breath now, and should be able to make it through my property class without too much nose-blowing. Hurray. Having a cold sucks. Really, I am an embarrassment of a sick person. All I want is someone to tuck me in, bring me tea and soup, and rub my head. Instead, I have to go to lecture and the cat keeps trying to sit on me, and I whine.

Anyhow, I have finished one lace panel of my crochets seamans scarf, and have decided it is too short so I'm putting on a couple extra rows at some point today, then I can start on panel two. Hurray for progress! It'll be nice to have finished something. I've been suffering a pretty major case of Project Interuptus lately, both at work and with my knitting and fiver stuff, so it'll be nice to have something to put in the Finished pile.

After I'm done with this scarf I think I'm going to start on some baby things. My legal skills professor is having a baby in March, so I thought I would make her something. Might as well get started now while I'm all motivated and inspired.

I have this song stuck in my head for some reason. Not terribly applicable, but there you go.

Drained

I seem to fighting off either a cold, allergies, or possibly West Nile. Ugh. I hate being sick. Stuffed up and sort of warm is the worst kind of sick there is too, if you ask me. Oh well. At least today and tomorrow I just have one class, so I can sleep in a bit. Not that I slept in this morning or anything, but I did go to bed relatively early and will be able to rest some this afternoon.

Somehow, in spite of being totally unmotivated to do homework, I have not fallen horribly behind. I'm not as far ahead in Torts as I would like to be, but I should be caught up for today's class, then I can get ahead over the weekend.

My birthday was a bit depressing, but I did go to the one and only pub in town with a couple of people from skills class after we got out. That was kind of nice, certainly better than pouting at home and eating every single piece of chocolate in the house.

Progress on my little crocheted scarf is slow, but steady. Getting used to a slower pace of project completion is going to be difficult but I think I'll manage. Not having chunks of time to sit and work is a big adjustment. Or at least chunks of time I can sit and work and not feel like I should be reading property cases or civil procedure or something.

I'm a bit ashamed to admit this, but I have totally fallen off the WW wagon and I feel like crap about it. I seriously need to get my widening ass in to a center this weekend. I think I'm just embarrassed to do it. Which is patently absurd, and I know it. Of course, part of me is also terrified that I won't be able to stay on plan while in school, but again, this is a bit absurd. If anything, it might actually be easier. It's not like we have any really tempting food on campus, the one cafe place with food does have salads, and I can (and really should) pack my lunch. In fact, that might save me money in the long run. Besides, taking a bit of time on Sunday to plan out my meals for the week might be a good study break. Paying attention to my body can only be good for my mind.

Yeah. So I am going to screw up the courage to face the scale again on Saturday and go back. Again. Sigh. I just want to be thin and able to maintain. Is that so much to ask?

But this I vow, I will be at goal by my next birthday. So there.

A weekend not without Fiber!

Finally, I was able to do something fiber-related this weekend. In between shopping for a suitcase, working on the courtroom relief website, and homework, I managed to make some really good progress on a crocheted seamans scarf that I started a really long time ago. I think my problem with making progress has been the smallness of the yarn and interminable single-crochet ribbing section. That's finally done, and I'm on the lace panels. I like doing the lace part. It's fun, it goes quickly, and it looks really impressive even though it's a very simple stitch pattern. I'll post pictures once I have something reasonable to show for it.

I got to school this morning early to do some reading in the student lounge, only to find that the place has been plastered with asinine student elections posters. It looks slightly less dignified than class elections in junior high. As if I needed anything else to make me feel more out of place with the student body here. Whatever. I view the student bar association as a big joke. All they do is plaster the place with moronic posters and sponsor weekly drinking binges at local bars. Surely, there is more to life than that, it's just the SBA hasn't figured that out yet. Oh well. Whatever happened to dignity?

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm not at all looking forward to it. Maybe I'll get lucky and kind of forget about the whole thing. Surely I can come up with enough extra homework to do to keep me distracted.

What more can I say?

This rant just about covers it.

Getting better all the time...

Well, in light of everything that's going on the world, it seems silly to start off a post with that sort of thing. But at least I'm able to help in my own way. I'm working with the Courtroom 21 project at school, and we've been asked to put together a website so that state courts from all over the country can enter in whatever resources, equipment, people or money they have available so that it can be redistributed to the courts in the affected areas. I'm really excited about getting to work on this, it'll give me a lot of really great visibility with the administration and faculty, and I get to do something for the rebuilding effort. I'm just a bit nervous. My web building skills are somewhat rusty, but I think I'll be ok once I get going.

Anyway, the 1L trip to Colonial Williamsburg was quite fun. I talked to a guy who is in my torts class and an actual adult for awhile, and he's, dare I hope, not a Republican! Hurray! It was nice to have a politically un-guarded conversation for a chance. After that tour, there was a little reception, and I talked to another woman who is my age, and it turns out we're both having the same sort of "issues" with the 22 year old bubble-heads. Yay again! It's not been easy but I think I'm starting to find some people with similar outlooks and backgrounds, which is a very good thing.

This weekend I have maybe 6 hours worth of homework to do, and depending on how much I have to do for this website, I should have time to knit something. I don't even know where my knitting projects are at this point, it's sad. I sort of want to make socks for some reason. Not like I need more knit socks or anything, but they might be a good Christmas gift for somebody. Actually, doing some gift projects would be a good idea. I have a stash of hat and mitten sets I've been working on for that. Might as well get a few more things done. I've found several patterns for knit and crochet flowers that might be kind of fun to do with some scraps. They look cute on hats, but would also be cute as little pins for sweaters or blazers.

By the way, if anyone is looking for a new project and a chance to help with the relief efforts, KnitWhits is donating 20% of the proceeds from all sales between now and the 10th to the Red Cross. Tina has some great patterns and wonderful kits, and she's a reall wonderful person to boot.

Know a mechanic?

So, I have become the proud owner of a 1996 Pontiac Grand Am. Which is wonderful, I'm very glad not to have to walk and bike everywhere in the insane heat, and I get to feel like an actual grown up with a car, and insurance, and registration and all that other good car-owner stuff. Except that there is a mysterious puddle on the floor in the front seats. Nice. I posted a question to the Car Talk website and the theory is that the AC evaporation drain tube is clogged up and that this is a trivial and inexpensive thing to fix. Great news, except now I to find a mechanic who will not screw me over, or find some mechanically minded person who can help me fix this in exchange for a beer.

The funny thing is, if it were an electrical problem, I'd be more or less ok with figuring out the problem on my own. But AC mystifies me.

School is moving along. I had drinks with another grad student from the CS department and her husband last night, and we bemoaned the high rate of scary conservatism in the area and the general lack of decent ethnic food (except, oddly enough, Indian and Japanese food. Go figure). I'm actually done with my homework through tomorrow, so tonight I'm going on a tour of colonial Williamsburg with the law school dean, and I should have time to, gasp, knit and/or spin this weekend. Hurray! That'll be the best birthday present to myself ever. This afternoon I'm going to start on my reading for Monday, I'll try to get everything for Monday and Tuesday done by the end of the day tomorrow, and then I can have a halfway decent semi-celebratory weekend.

Which would be a lot more fun had I not just balanced my check book. Yeesh. Buying Clovis was a huge financial disaster, but what choice did I really have? I wonder if my landlady will take a constructive rent check?