Quick Update

Yes, I’m still alive.  We still don’t have all our grades back from last quarter yet.  I’m still running around like a chicken with my head cut off (but this time it’s mainly because I’m doing more extracurricular events and social things around Waco and still going to Austin on most weekends to visit the boyfriend). This quarter is going by much faster than last, and I’m actually more worried about these finals than ones from last quarter.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’ll try and update more often.  Hope everyone’s summer is going well.

 

Numb

I’ve finished two of my three law school exams for my first quarter of law school.  Honestly, it was not as bad as I thought it would be (though, the contracts final on Friday may make me change my mind).  I took the torts final on Saturday and the civil procedure final this morning.  I’m extremely glad that they allowed us to take our test on our laptops.  I can’t imagine writing by hand as much information as I did on my laptop.  As it was, I could have kept typing on my torts final for another two hours had they given me the chance. I still got through basically with what I had to say, though.  My last final is for contracts, and it’s at 8am on Friday.  Then I get a week off and then back to the grinding stone.

I’m currently taking a break and watching Stardust and drinking hot tea. I bought a new teapot that is glass and made for the blossom tea thingies.  (Something like this.) I was really excited until I realized I couldn’t actually boil water in this teapot… so I still don’t have a functioning teapot.  It looks cool, though.

Oh, and some of the best advice I could ever give to someone starting law school – get used to exercising a LOT before you start so when you get to law school you can exercise a little and not gain a thousand pounds.  That being said, I’m off to do some yoga (to take off the 7 lbs finals have packed on — thanks) and then on to study for contracts.

 

An update with photos

And here’s the front of the tshirt:

And here’s the back of the shirt (he said “And when we get to LAPP” 117 times since spring break — that was the official tally.)

 

Real quick

Finals are coming up.  That’s stressful.  If I had money, I’d schedule a spa day in Austin once I’m done on May 1st.  It’s a great idea, anyway.

I just wanted to mention that my civpro prof is probably the nicest and most awesome professor I’ve ever had.  A lot of students really like this guy (myself included), but he has a very interesting teaching technique.  He’s quite… active. That’s the best way to put it, I think.  He’s a rather thin man who literally bounces around flailing his arms during most of the class.

He doesn’t normally teach civpro, so the class syllabus has been changed about eight times, but I think we all have a pretty good grasp of the material and it worked out just fine.  Nobody had any complaints about how the class was conducted or felt like the material wasn’t explained well or anything like that.  Regardless, he felt the need to do the coolest thing ever.

He made everyone t-shirts. They had caricatures of him that previous students had doodled on final exams, along with a few quotes that he’s said over 150 times this quarter.  As soon as I get my camera working, I’ll post a few pictures.  It really made my day.

Tomorrow is the last day of class.  Finals start on Saturday.  Wish me luck.

 

Wow.

Two things happened today while I was at Wal-Mart.  I usually avoid Wal-Mart like the plague because there are always too many people with too many screaming children running around.  Normally, I would refuse to go in that place during holidays.  Today, I made an exception because I’ve decided that I’m not going to do a tradition typed up outline for my classes because that just doesn’t work for me.  My outline involves markers and posters.  So off to Wallyworld I went.

Anyway, I parked my car and incident numero uno happened.  I look over and the scariest vehicle I’ve ever seen was sitting next to me.  I even took a picture:

The only thing this van is missing is a sign that says “Free Candy”.  It’s hard to tell because I took this with my camera phone, but there’s even an old squirrel tail hanging on the rear view  mirror.  And yeah, those are shrunken zombie-like heads impaled on the antenna. And a scary clown head. Yeah.

So I ran inside.

I managed to get my few little things and got in line.  Ah, Wal-Mart check out lines.  The place where magic happens… or in this situation, a really bad case of blondness.  The girl behind me went to the little coolers of drinks near the checkout and brought back two bottles of Big Blue. It’s made by the same company as Big Red.

Big Red: Big Blue:

So after this girl puts her Big Blue on the checkout counter, the guy behind her asks what it tastes like because he’s always been curious.  So she says, “Well… it’s like, kind of like Big Red. Only instead of a red flavor it has more of a blue flavor.”

…

You don’t say.

 

A Quick Break

Yesterday, I went to the Cameron Park Zoo with my friend K.  It was possibly the happiest day I’ve had in Waco so far. For starters, I LOVE giraffes. So much so, that K was really glad that there wasn’t a baby giraffe because he was quite certain he wouldn’t have been able to prevent me from jumping over the fence to go hug it. The zoo was really nice, though.  It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be.  It’s actually right across the river from my apartment, and I never knew it.  The really strange thing is that it’s literally right in the middle of a bunch of houses.  Waco is an odd place. But regardless, it was a lot of fun.

Before I get back to work, I wanted to share two of the most ridiculous/funny articles I’ve found in a long time.  The first: Woody Harrelson apparently thought a photog was a zombie and attacked him.  You just can’t make up that stuff.  http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/10/woody.harrelson.zombie/index.html

And this was actually published a few months ago, but it’s still hilarious.  It’s a complaint letter that was written to Sir Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin. http://timesnews.typepad.com/news/2009/01/apparently-sir-richard-branson-thevirgin-bossthought-this-was-the-funniestletter-of-complaint-hed-ever-received——dear.html

Well that’s enough break for me, I’m going back to work.  Happy Easter.

 

Hmmph.

Well I’ve officially had the worst week of law school thus far.  Is it normal to reach a point during the first year when you hate life? I did last week.  In fact, I just went to bed at 6pm on Friday because I was scared something else awful would happen and maybe if I was sleeping, I wouldn’t notice.

The good news is that I’m feeling a lot better and life moves on because the world doesn’t revolve around me (as much as I hate to admit it). I still need to work on outlines.  I still need to do some reading for Contracts.  But I’m still kicking. I redecorated my patio this weekend. I bought some flowers thinking that would cheer me up, and I found a really interesting huge rug at Big Lots for $15.  And today my Southeast Texas redneck roots started to show a bit, and I found a random but perfectly good bar stool sitting next to the dumpster today… Yep, that’s right. It’s on my porch now, too. And yes, I cleaned it.

I wish I had more time to update, but it seems that in my spare time I’ve been sleeping or painting or just trying to keep in touch with friends.  I’m hoping the summer quarter will be a little better because I’ll have a better idea of what I need to do from day to day.  Anyway, I’m off to the library to work on a research project.  Hope everyone has a good week.

 

Guinness Cupcakes?

I made Guinness Cupcakes. It sounded like a great idea. Not so great, actually. Imagine chewing on a tootsie roll and then chugging a Guinness… with green sprinkles.
At any rate, I’m writing the last bit of my memo that is due tomorrow, so those cupcakes and my green shirt are about as festive as I’m going to get today. It’s sad, really. St. Patrick’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. I’m going to attempt to recelebrate this weekend in Austin, maybe. Anyway, back to writing. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

Air

It’s spring break.

Finally.

I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m taking time to breathe and relax a little bit.  I’m in Austin for a few days, though I don’t really have any set plans, and I’m actually at Mozart’s drinking coffee and attempting to read torts.  The amusing thing about sitting outside at a coffee shop is watching how karma must be real.  A guy in front of me earlier was throwing things at birds because he didn’t want them pooping on him.  Apparently one was stealthy enough to still do so.  All down his back.  It was a nice shirt, too.  And he has no idea.  (Mind you, I’ve sat on this deck a thousand times and never once had to deal with bird poo. I don’t throw things at birds, though.)

I did go see Watchmen on Saturday, though I still haven’t had a chance to see Coraline.  Watchmen, I thought, was really good despite all the negative reviews and people walking out of our theater.  It was a bit long, but I never really got bored with it.  I did have a few minor complaints, like the women in the movie.  These women are supposed to be voluptuous amazon women who can kick the crap out of anyone who messes with them, but the original Silk Spectre (Sally Jupiter) weighed maybe 110 lbs and was no more than 5′6″ (and that’s being generous).  Laurie looked a lot better, but it still kind of bugged me.  Granted, it’s not like they put Keira Knightley in there or anything, but I was really hoping for Hollywood to branch out a bit more.  I’m not surprised.  I think it still worked, though.  The choice of music in one particular scene was absolutely awful, but the rest of the music seemed to fit well.  I thought overall, the movie looked really good.

I know a lot of people had complaints about the ending because it was so different from the graphic novel/comics.  I, however, only got through about half the book, so I had no opinion one way or the other.  I think it was a movie definitely worth seeing, though it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Aside from that, I really want to see Coraline.  The only thing that I’m irritated about is that I started reading Coraline about two weeks before I found out that the movie was coming out (weird coincidence).  The problem is that I saw one preview.  So even though I started reading the book with a little girl (who was an actual little girl), about halfway through after seeing the preview, she became animation in my head – if that makes any sense. And I couldn’t change it.  What I’m curious about now is if my animated imagesof the other characters is similar to the ones in the movie (I really only saw Coraline’s character in the preview, so the visuals of all the other characters I was able to make up in my own head… just animated unfortunately.)

Which brings me to the question – should you read the book before or after watching the movie?  I’ve come to my own conclusion that it depends on what kind of movie/book it is.  For fantasy, imaginative, or story telling movies, I think you have to read the book first, because there’s no way to recreate that world in your own mind after seeing the movie because the characters and images will already be set.  But I’ve heard some people who like to read the book second because the book is almost always better.  That way you’re never disappointed.  Watchmen and other graphic novel movies are a bit different because you’re already given the images.

Anyway, I should get back to torts.  Sometimes while reading too much law stuff, for some reason I get into an odd mindset that makes me not always a pleasant person around non-law people.  Since I’m about to meet a friend for lunch, I figured I needed the break.  Happy spring break-ing everyone.

 

Arg.

Why am I the only person who always answers my phone?