Tuesday, March 28, 2006

all work and no play makes erin bitchy

So, on Sunday, I pulled the first non-drinking related all-nighter in approximately 7 years. It was not fun. I however, was funny that morning and had the mind of a pea brained bird that afternoon. I could barely accomplish the task of doing my laundry. That is not a good thing. However, I was cheerful for the majority of the day, even if I couldn't remember why I had walked into the kitchen for the third time (it was to eat, each time).

Today, however, is actually worse. Since I spent the afternoon yesterday not getting anything done while trying to remember to get stuff done and falling asleep for short periods of time, I could not fall asleep until after 1am. I got "up" at 7 got to school by 8:15 to do the stuff I hadn't accomplished yesterday and proceded to fall asleep at a desk at the library for five minutes. There was a tiny bit of drool, which is always amusing. However I am not easily amused today. Instead, I am not fond of people and their annoying traits are highlighted in gross exageration. I do not like people today. Unfortunately, people are necessary. Stupid necessary things.

I had something else to say....

OH, I remember, did everyone else out there know that the Golden Girls Theme song actually was a song? I keep hearing it on the radio (I listen to a radio station that plays a lot of variety of music from the 60s to today and you can go from Captin and Tennile to Jack Johnson to ACDC in fifteen minutes which is very much up my alley) and there are a bunch of verses and the chorus is longer than the TV show indicated. I always thought the song was written for the show, but aparrently it was release like a real song (sort of like the Friends theme). I really wish that I had known that earlier in life for some reason. I also enjoy the fact that it startles me everytime I hear it and then episodes go through my mind...ah, to have cable someday...

Declaring that you're funny inherently means that you're not that funny. I should know, I do it all the time.

Monday, March 20, 2006

What I did over my spring break...

Well, well, well, one more week of my life I will never get back. What do I have to show for it?

I did work for pay at the library for 20 hours. This means I will get paid for those 20 hours. Too bad I've already spent that money.

I submitted 9 applications to intern for judges. So far, only one rejection letter (which by the way was recieved four days after the application was dropped off, now that's efficient). Still don't have a job. I am expecting the rest of the rejections soon.

I spent too many waking hours re-reading everything I've read for the last two months. This is a very slow way to go about getting stuff learned. However, in criminal law I am about 3 weeks in, in constitutional law I am about 2 weeks in, in civil procedure I am about 4 weeks in and for property law I am 1 week in. This may seem like quite an achievement until you put in the fact that I still have to go to class and do the whole reading thing for my current assignments, not just get caught up on the last two weeks. I am at a loss as to how to qualify this work product for the week.

My apartment is shiny clean. Except the kitchen, which has a large counter space full of paper. This is the only part of cleaning that I have to do. Except that I will need to clean everything again next week and I need to laundry again. Woe is me.

So, in conclusion Spring Break was a wash. But, I did go to Costco which always brings me joy, if not samplings of some bomb ass cheese.

Now, I have no time left to spare and must being the ridge schedule that is my afternoon's persuit of getting further caught up and not behind. Plus I just got lotsa work along with a bitch slap when I got my brief back. Must go soak in the misery.

Why isn't there a magic job fairy who grants us all our wish of finding a job that we want to do?

Saturday, March 11, 2006

One more thing

For those of you who loved the Dark Crystal, Labryinth, and Never Ending Story movies of your youth, I highly recommend Mirrormask. It is really cool and you should watch it.

Clearly I am concentrating very hard.

What I plan to do with my Spring Break

Well, since I am back at school I now have the luxury of what is called "spring break." It's been so long since I had one, I don't think that I properly know what to do with it. This is my plan:

Get caught up on the non-reading part of law school, i.e. take reading notes on everything I've read so far and/or brief cases read for class thus far, type up notes (I'm so old that I don't type in class, it's all hand written), start class outlines, edit my brief (which is a very law school thing to do).

Continue the hunt for summer employment. I never realized how happy I would be to get a job I wouldn't be paid for till now. Also, going to summer school simply to finance that unpaid work seems, well, particularly nerdy.

Try to get stuff together to put in for judicial internships. This is where coming to San Diego helps me. Since this is the largest city in the southern California area (LA is technically central) and the county seat, there are many, many courts and judges here. I want one of them to hire me.

Work at the library. I am working 20 hours, mostly in the morning, because that's the most number of hours I'm allowed to work according to the ABA. Why they care how much I work is beyond me, but supposedly it's to prevent law firms from working students to death during the school year. However, summer associates can be put through the ringer. It helps with billing 27 hours in one day.

Clean my apartment. Still needing to dust. Perhaps my laundry should be properly put in drawers as well.

Here's a sampling of what other people from my section are doing for spring break:
Going to Vegas
Going to Mexico
Going home
Going on a cruise
Going to visit friends in other cities

I think there is a distinct difference in approaches that is due to my lack of recent experiences with spring break. Also, many of my breaks were planned for me by the softball team. They made us go places where it was (usually) warmer than Iowa to play softball in polyester pants. So, I really don't have any experience in the whole "plan a spring break" area.

Thinking about it did bring back the happy memory of being stuck at Grinnell House for a week because I lived too far from home to go back for a week. Fortunately, I had a cohort to be stuck with and we had complete run of the place because there was NO ONE there -- this included the kitchen where there was a big fridge made of stainless steel. We went to Perkins and bought pies -- one for her and one for me (I think I got one anyway). We ate them for every meal. It was great. We also laughed a lot. I miss that level of friendship.

Right now I am procrastinating and not doing my non-reading work. I am at the library. I am always at the library.

I also keep forgetting that it is only Saturday of spring break. I keep thinking it is Monday. So sad.

Oh, and for those of you who can count, which obviously I can't, the fifth favorite snack is goldfish crackers (see below). They make me sing. Not that anyone cares enough that it was pressing to get that information out there; I just can't let some things go.

I think powerbars should be more filing.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Melinda Made me

Melinda has forced my hand by calling me out. Thusly, I respond (also I just don't want to do my homework).

What Were You Doing Ten Years Ago?
I couldn't even remember when 10 years ago was, but because Melinda and Laurie both reminded me we were sophmore's in college, it's vaguely familiar. I was living in a house full of women who were not perfectly compatable. I think I was speaking to only a few of them at the time (who both knowledge of this blog and I love them both to this day). It's possibile that I had just instituted the mandatory dish night rule and was trying to block the smell of celery from ever reaching me. I was also determining that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and writing pretentious short story/free style poetry that is better left unshared. Oh, and I was playing softball in the pretty, blue floored PEC, looking forward to traveling to Florida with a group of girls I didn't think that I'd like (execpt for the three or four girls that were cool in the same geeky way I was).

What Were You Doing One Year Ago?
Oddly enough, still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. However, instead of being in school at the time, I was looking to go back. So, I had just finished scrambling to apply to a bunch of schools and getting my financial aid information together. So, I was sitting on my thumbs waiting to hear how my life would play out. And here I am now, still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.

Five Snacks You Enjoy-
Cheezits -- all time greatest!!! good with peanut butter and humus or plain
Ice cream -- yummmmmmm
Red Vines licorice -- which occassionally is not a snack but a meal
apples with peanut butter -- mostly it's for the peanut butter which I have been known to eat by the spoonful. Or maybe no one knew and I'm finally admitting


Five Songs To Which You Know The Lyrics-
I don't really recognize that I know all the words to a song (or many songs back to back) until I realize that I've sung along to the whole song, but I do know that I know these because I've been able to sing them in public into a microphone (with some liquid courage, of course):
Hit me with your best shot -- Pat Benatar
Fancy -- Reba McIntyre
I will survive -- Gloria Gaynor (which I almost attributed to Gloria Steinum, hmm)
Outside the karaoke nightmare, I know:
A bunch of country songs (I will not admit to knowing them outside of the safe and private space that is a blog)
Also many songs by The Who, Bare Naked Ladies, Black Eyed Peas, Dar Williams, and a whole bunch on the radio now because when I listen they aren't hard to get stuck in your head and they are exactly "complicated" to remember
Don't ask me what kind of music I like because I like music, except some stuff.

Five Things You Would Do If You Were a Millionaire-
Pay off my parent's mortgage
Buy a house so that I could decorate it how I wanted. I wish to paint walls.
Pay for law school.
Force many of my friends to go on vacation somewhere cool with me by paying for it. I'm thinking Brazil sounds neat.
Start some sort of trust that grows my millions into billions and gives it all to good people who are trying to make bad stuff stop happening in their neighborhood. Oh, and they would buy one big peace of land needing conservation and find a way to turn it into a place for kids to come and learn about that ecosystem. Possibly, one in every state, if the trust handlers were good enough.
Five Folks I'm Tagging for This Beeotch
I don't know enough people who blog, so um, Dan, you're it. Everyone else should start a blog (or tell me about theirs) and start with this.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

...but I'm feeling much better now

I have often repeated that line and am referencing Judge Harry Stone's father (as in Night Court) who was crazy but got better. He remained a highly unusual man, and you didn't actually know that he was Harry's father until the character had been around for about 2 seasons or so. People never get the reference which leads me to believe either I was a very advanced grade schooler who watched a grown up show that no one else watched, or I have wasted much of my brain power storing random trivia from my grade school days that others don't care about or remember. But, I digress.

So, as noted in my last update over a week ago, I haven't been getting a lot of sleep. I can add to that now that the sleep that I do get is of two types: 1) the sleep of the dead in which you put your head down and instantly you realized that the alarm clock has been snoozing for 30 minutes and you need to get up, or 2) the sleep of the nightmare where you have nightmares about everything that is stressing you out and some of it is absurd but you wake up unsure if you just had a dream about arguing a point of law from a case you've read twice in the middle of a psychedelic flashback or if it really did happen. In the case of the second sleep, I never can determine if I am more disturbed by the fact that I have the brain that dreams so vividly about case law or that I can't distinguish between the dream and the reality. I think it's the first part.

I have also noted that I have formed opinions about Olympic athlete’s as individuals I have no right to make because I don't know them outside of their interviews. Still, they annoy me and I stand by my dislike. (It is also interesting to note that I am much more likely that my dislike will be strong and my appreciation and amazement will be fleeting. So fickle am I.)

I am also allergic to everything in the whole world. I know this because I have been dealing with a rash on my face for the last week. I think I got it from being alive. Actually, I am pretty sure that I got it from my towel. That sounds really gross, but I am fairly certain that the towel had not been in use for an excessive period of time because I have four towels plus some extra "I won't use them for me but I'll keep them around just in case towels" so I change them with regularity. It appears that I become hypersensitive to the towel at some point and now I must deal with a rash for the next week and a half. This didn't used to happen in college at which time I lacked the plethora of towels and did my laundry at a shame-able rate. This I find dumb. As I get older I am supposed to get better not worse. That's how the saying goes and it wouldn't be a saying if it wasn't true.

But, more to the allergy point, I have also discovered that the single place that I have not had an allergic reaction to something is the deserts of the southwest. Instead, I got what I call the heat flu because it was worse than heat sickness but not so life threatening or rapid onset as heat stroke. I am also certain that if I stayed in the deserts I would find I am allergic to something there too. Especially since my towel seems to the cause in this case. (I also haven't dusted in a while and it's always pollinating season in San Diego, so I doubt it's just the towel.)

That is sadly all that I have to talk about because no one out there probably cares about the distinctiveness requirement for proof of fame in a trademark case. Unfortunately, my professor does so I must too.

I long for normalcy. Supposedly...