Snip, snip....ahhhh!!

I got my hair cut. It is MUCH too short. So short I feel kind of bald. It's my own fault...I told the girl to go shorter, and next thing I knew...BAM!  Fortunately, I get to live in a hole for the next 3 weeks so 1) it's okay I look awful, and 2) hopefully by the time I resurface, it will be somewhat presentable. Ick.

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I'm kind of devoid of things to post right now.  It seems my mind has been wiped of anything creative to say the past couple days, so I will just post random thoughts that will hopefully be entertaining.

-  The career services lady (Laverta, for those of you who know her) is hosting a 4th of July Ice Cream Social in the law school in about 10 minutes.  She has her whole waiting area decorated (balloons, wall decorations, tablecloths, themed utensils, etc...) and has been playing patriotic marches all day.  She's so cute.

- I love Bowl Appetite Three Cheese Rotini.

- I made it to DogDays at 6 a.m. on Tuesday. The friend I promised to go with didn't show up. boo.  Now it's Thursday, and although the exercise itself wasn't too killer at the time, my hammies are still sore.

- I saw my new house on Tuesday.  I'm a little nervous about moving, but i think it's gonna be great.

- Ice Cream is also delicious.

- I have been able to get my contacts in to my eyes on the first try for the past 4 days I've worn them. Yippie!!

Okay, my random thoughts are now also exhausted.

A blessing in disguise

This weekend, most of us received our packets telling us that we have officially been approved to take the Kansas Bar Exam on July 29-30.  A bunch of papers came enclosed, and one of them listed all the topics that are going to be tested on the exam.  I put all those papers aside to read the week before the exam, but one of my friends examined the documents a little more closely than I and noticed that two of the topics we all thought were going to be on the exam were not listed.

I e-mailed the attorney admissions people who told me the following:  "Rule 704 states the topics which can be covered, however,  the letter from the Board for the July 2008 examination states the specific topics which will be covered."  Using my analytical reasoning skills that I so keenly developed in law school, I determined that those two subjects that were omitted from the list will NOT be on the exam.

Since I'm the representative for our bar review class, I asked the bar review company to check into this and see what they found.  They received the same answer.  Basically, something happened with the bar examiners that caused them to slip up and not make them available for testing next month.  Now, why they tell us this is beyond me.  Don't get me wrong, I'm more than grateful, but commercial paper has consistently been listed as one of the topics that could potentially be tested, and was not tested for many years, until this past exam.  If I were the bar examiners, I would have just let it go.  But lucky for me and the rest of my classmates, I'm not on the Board, and we know that conflicts and corporations aren't on there.

Don't interpret my joy about this situation to mean that I'm not going to study them; truthfully, I'm nervous that they may somehow appear and then I'll be screwed (especially with conflicts...I never took that course and don't know the first thing about conflicts of laws except that the supremacy clause beats everything else.)  It's a big thing to just throw out two topics, but it will certainly help me focus my studying a little better.

On a completely different note, before my stress fracture, I promised my friend Matt that I would do Dog Days with him the summer.  (For those of you who aren't familiar, Dog Days is a fitness camp--kinda-- run by an ex-marine.  He does it for free to whip Lawrence into shape.)  Well, I'm fully healed and am sticking by my promise: I will attend (and most likely get my butt kicked by) my first Dog Days Session tomorrow morning.....at 6 a.m.

It's coming....

Today and tomorrow mark one month until the bar. Doomsday approaches.


On another note, I haven't talked about my contacts for a while. You probably thought that I had mastered the finicky pieces of plastic, but you thought wrong. There was a delay in between the time that I did the trial run to the time that I actually acquired the pair(s) I am supposed to use regularly. In that time, my aptitude for putting in my contacts completely left me. When I finally got my "regular" contacts last week, it again took me at least 20 minutes to put them in. That time has since gradually decreased, culminating with me successfully placing my contacts on the FIRST try on BOTH eyes today. It was definitely a feeling of accomplishment.

Other than fiddling with my contacts, I spent the majority of today packing up my room. There is still a lot of crap strewn all around, but a lot of the big things that I don't use on a daily basis are in boxes and ready to be moved to my soon-to-be new residence. Fortunately, my soon-to-be roommate gets possession of our abode Tuesday, so even though I'm not moving in until after the bar, I'll be able to move a bunch of my stuff (which will help eliminate a lot of stress in the 24-hours we have after the bar to be out of our house).

Tonight, I'm working a shift for someone at the library. I have no energy (even writing this entry is draining), and if I"m this exhausted with still a month to go, I can't imagine how indecipherable my sentences will be after a month of even more intense studying and the actual test. On the bright side (and pulling it all together now...), because I was prescribed daily lenses, I was able to take my contacts out at school. Because I carry a toothbrush/toothpaste with me almost everywhere I go, my teeth are also brushed, and thus, I am half way to my bed already. :)

Things that make you go HMMMMM.....

I had one of those moments today where I heard about something, something I was "involved" in, and wonder if I should have taken a different route.  Let me back up, a few weeks ago, a situation happened that caused me to be very upset with a friend of mine, along with many other of my friends.  I've been contemplating  what/if I should do something to confront the situation, when today I heard that people who were both directly and indirectly involved have confronted our mutual friend about what happened. I'm sorry to be so vague, but the details are really irrelevant.  This caused me to step back and wonder WHY I didn't do anything. 

Generally, I'm a non-confrontational person. I don't like fights, arguments, or even disagreements.  That doesn't mean I sit by and let people walk all over me, but I certainly choose my battles. Often times, even when I choose to confront the issue, I will take the easier way out by talking to the person in a less direct manner.  I know this isn't always the most appropriate, but it's either that method or none at all.  I've certainly learned to become more confrontational over the past couple years having lived with the roommates that I do (not to say that they are bad roommates by any means.  In fact, I think we've worked out pretty well together. Just one roommate responds best to facing things directly and I've learned and --at least I think-- improved upon that.)

Is the less non-confrontational way better? Do I need to be more confrontational and say what's on my mind? What I'm upset about?  Or is that not me?  By changing that style, will I significantly change who I am and how I handle the ways of the world?  Obviously this isn't going to be settled by one post here, and it will take some development over time, if things are to change at all, but they are interesting questions to pose.

On a side note, I'm much more sore from running yesterday than I ever anticipated.  Guess I lost more of my running aptitudes than I thought.

And I was runn-ing!

Today was the day: the first day in 6 weeks I have put my feet to the pavement and taken off running.  I ran the Lawrence Half-marathon in April, and as a result of my training, suffered a very minor stress fracture.  I went to the doctor and he told me to stay off of it for 6-8 weeks. Because I got booted off of my parent's insurance and only have "major medical" coverage, I haven't been able to go back to the doctor (unless I want to pay for the entire visit...probably close to $300 or more if you count in the x-ray they would have to take). That being said, I haven't gone back. But it's been 8 weeks since the race and 6 weeks since the doctors appointment, so I self-diagnosed myself as "healthy" again.  I ran about 3.25 miles in 30 minutes.  Not too bad, but I will definitely aim to improve that. :)

Last night I got to play games again!  My friends and I gathered for a rousing rendition of "Scategories", probably my favorite game (which shouldn't be too surprising considering my soon-to-be profession and how you spent a lot of the time playing advocating that your answer fits the category).  I made some brownies to share with everyone, but much to my dismay, my box of Betty Crocker Fudge Brownies turned out to be Betty Crocker chocolate cake!  EEK!  I've drafted a letter which I intend to send them asking for a refund of my money because they have breached the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose in not supplying me the correct mix.  We'll see what happens with that.... :)

It's 9:30 on a Friday night, and I'm off to bed. Lame? Yes. Necessary? Yes. How it will feel: AWESOME. 

Cilantro: God's gift to taste buds

One of the few things I am still finding pleasure in during these bleak days of bar preparation is food.  Although fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon how you look at it), the higher summer temperature is sufficiently keeping my body temperature up, and is thus decreasing my appetite, I still have (and make) plenty of opportunities to indulge in the delectable dishes I enjoy so much.  Tonight I made some black bean mango salsa. Since it's supposed to be refrigerated for an hour before eating, and I literally just finished, I have only gotten a small taste of its potential...but if that one bite says anything, I won't have any problem eating all of that...very quickly. 

One of the other things that brings me joy is getting a latte in the morning. Fortunately, I have not developed an addiction to caffeine...I can go an entire day without having a headache from no caffeine...but I just love the taste of them.  And as elitist and wrong as it may sound, no one makes a better latte than Starbucks.  Sorry you local coffee shops...I will patronize you when I can, but sometimes (most of the time) you just don't cute it.  My staple: skinny latte with sugar-free hazelnut syrup. Mmmm.

Some of the other things (read: food) that are getting me through the bar exam: lots and lots of propel mix packets, bowl appetite, bagel bites, wing and yummy's nights, ice cream in general, almond and cranberry trail mix, banana chocolate chip bread,  gummy bears, and frontega chicken sandwiches.

Yes, that is a lot of junk food. yes, my diet isn't super great right now.  Yes, I work out a fair amount to keep off the extra poundage.  Yes, you're going to have to deal with it. :)