That man will trick you with his thoughts

My friend Adam has just alerted me to the funniest website I've seen in a while. Perhaps I only find it to be so hilarious because I like practically everything on the list. Ah well.

I've been wicked sick since last week, but have started to feel better. Seriously, though, I thought I was going to die on Saturday. Plus, this big huge writing project for law school was due, so the stress was at an all time high. But, paper's been turned in and things are looking up.

I need a car so badly. Its gotten sort of out of hand. I need a job, which I could only get to by driving. Its a circular problem that has gotten quite tired in the last few months.

Its a big day for primaries, and I have to at least comment on the way these primaries have been going. I just get so frustrated with the way people are making Obama into some kind of hero. Of course this will all be construed as me hating the guy, which I don't, but its just frustrating that the candidate with great speeches but few tangible ideas has garnered so much support from liberals. Its just so hypocritical the way that some people will preach about taking care of the working class, keeping traditional democratic values at the forefront, but then support a person who seems to care little about this group. Clinton is the far better choice for working class people, which is probably why she has been so strong amongst those voters. Rich people, however, LOVE Obama. He's like a rich man's wet dream. You can pretend to be really liberal while still getting to keep all of that hard earned money. Stupid.

Whatever. Maybe there will be some amazing turn of events tonight and my hope for the world will be restored.

You save big money, you save big money

I got P.J. Murphy's this morning for breakfast. I was watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network the other day and the Nook was featured, which was totally awesome. In addition to them gaining national noteriety, I got to learn how to make the juicy lucy. Regardless, they buy their buns from P.J.'s and I've been wanting to go there ever since I watched. I feel like its my own little person bakery considering how much I used to go there. And considering someone I know has touched their front door naked. So, you know, keep that in mind.

I'm trying to keep motivated in school but it's seriously waning lately. Or since I came back this semester, you know, either way. Its not like I'm not doing my work or anything, its just like, honestly? 40 pages for Constitutional Law on Thursday? Really? Okay. I have plenty o' time for that.

When I was writing that I 40 pages to read, I almost wrote that it was for "Conlaw" but thought better of it. While my fellow law students wouldn't even think twice, my friends (and girlfriend) get PISSED at the constant over-abbreviating that occurrs with everything in law school. It's actually pretty hilarious when I get called out on it, considering I don't even really think about it, and it is pretty ridiculous how self-important and pretentious it comes across to other people. Like, I couldn't possibly be bothered to say such long words on a daily basis. I'm shortening Criminal Law to Crim, Civil Procedure to CivPro etc. etc. etc. Oh, this place.

In other news, I had a suberb meal last night. Its restaurant week in Minneapolis, so all the cool restaurants have a special menu (and special prices). We went to Cosmos, which is in the Graves 501 Hotel (which effing rules, ps) and it was delicious.

Okay, I can't procrastinate anymore.

By the 10th time I'm drifting away

Today is one of those days where I completely doubt myself.

My chosen career, namely how much it has and will continue to cost me to obtainin that career, is drowning me today, and I can't quite shake the thought that I would be happier playing guitars with Heidi the rest of my life. I don't even know if I actually know how to play the guitar anymore, and that's a weird weird WEIRD phenomenon.

I also can't figure out why it is apparently impossible for me to keep my house clean, regardless of how many resolutions I make. Merely saying "I'm just a messy person" doesn't really work when you're 25 yet I am at a loss with how to actually change my behavoir. I keep telling myself that I can just get a cleaning service when I'm older but that is
a. a cop out and
2. not going to help me today.

I wish I was good enough to play poker professionally. There's something that I love doing. Think how awesome I would look in aviators, scotch on the rocks and pocket aces. Seriously.

I desperately trying to remember what I used to do, what used to make me happy and how to get that back.

I don't know that I've ever felt this restless.

There's always someone younger, someone with more hunger

Having subsisted in the land of Itakemyselftooseriously for about 6 months now, I'm about at my wits end with how to handle all the boneheads. This isn't a commentary on anyone in particular but on the overall culture of law school that apparently attracts all the people I wanted to beat up while in high school.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certain that there are other reasons for today's overwhelming annoyance with the situation in which I have engulfed myself, but if I have to hear one more self-important blowhard ramble on and on about how much they (don't) know about everything under the sun, I will shoot myself with the shotgun the 2nd Amendment so thoughtfully allows me to have.

Honestly, try to imagine a room full of people, each one thinking they're smarter than the next. Not only that, but each one is on a never ending quest to prove that they are, in fact, the most intelligent person to ever walk the earth. This, combined with the knowledge that the people who are actually the smartest just sort of answer questions when they come up and otherwise act like a normal, nice person, makes me despise the culture of intelligent idocy that law school creates.

I wish I was still in college. What concerns me is that I actually fucking like law school. Now, of course I can't tell anyone this because hating law school is one of the first things you learn when entering law school.

Its a good thing that there's the tiny amount of people that make my days bearable. See, not everyone is a jackass and not everyone thinks that law school is the most important thing on Earth.

Some days I just get sucked in to only hearing the things I hate. Apparently today is one of those days.

In the middle of the street

All the same people that I hung out with in high school still hang out together. I know this because Facebook told me so. I don't know why this surprises me so much, or why it leaves me with such a weird sense of melancholy, but the idea of going "home" for the holidays to a place where the people you grew up with are waiting to see how you've been is a weird, foreign idea that I don't know if I've ever experienced. I guess I never really felt like I was a part of anywhere until I moved back up to Minnesota after high school. Then, all of a sudden, there was community pouring from every bar and coffee shop I walked into. And, of course, St. Kate's. Seriously, that college...

Of course, this will all come across as ungrateful for the people I have in my life now, for the people that mean so much, for the people that I've known in the past that I just seem to have lost track of. Its not as though growing up was a waste (holy shit would that be hard to stomach), or that I don't think about how weird and cool it would be to go back someday. But honestly, I don't know what I'd do once I got there.

Its just pretty weird to turn around one day and be 25 years old and in law school and have more or less everything figured out and placed into a poorly wrapped box. I guess I just thought it would be a lot easier by the time I got here. Or at least easier to figure out.

I fucking hate holidays.

Get over yourself.

I am somewhat concerned about the path the my alma mater is taking these days.

I have always been accused of being not enough of a vigilante, not radical enough to be a real feminist/lesbian/queer/insertliberallabelhere, but at this point I believe it to be a strength not a weakness.

I am certain that I can continue to claim ultra liberalism, can continue to live my life as I am, without persecuting those around me for the inability to understand fully how it is to walk in my shoes.

Because I am fairly certain that if I were to do that, I would, in effect, merely be doing the exact same thing that I purport to be rioting against.

Self-righteousness and hypocrisy are so 1991.

I can feel this heart beating

I'm having one of those days.

I woke up anxious. I'm still anxious. I'm tired but jittery. Its not a good feeling.

Mostly right now I'm panicking that my friends don't like me anymore. This is not meant as a passive aggressive attack on something that someone has done, because no one has done anything. I've just more or less fallen off the face of the earth, and even though I tried to explain that this was going to happen, I feel drastically left out when I hear stories of shenanigans and good times happening all around me.

I'm fairly certain that the only person that can understand this is Mucha. I keep hoping that she'll tell everyone else that I'm not just being an asshole, that really I'm actually busy, and freaking out, and anxious because I can't lose my scholarship.

I'm panicking because I don't want to lose all my friends just because I have to study every moment of every day, and in the moments that I don't, all I want to do is watch T.V. and lay on the couch.

I'm panicking because there's only 6 weeks until exams, and I feel drastically under prepared and every day that goes by I feel like there's more that I could have done and didn't do.

I feel like I'm gonna barf today.

Thank you for your message but I don't understand

I had this initial thought that I would write blogs a couple of times a weeks about all the trials and tribulations of law school but as I've actually gotten caught up with the trials and tribulations of law school, I haven't had much time to write about it.

All the things they warned me about are turning out to me true. Even as I write this, I am acutely aware of the fact that the possibility of each of the 59 other people in my section will read it and know of my growing anxiety about all that is law school. I didn't used to care so much what other people thought of me. I think I'll stick with that theory as long as I can keep it in my grasp.

What's interesting is that I actually really like it. Like, a lot. I like reading the cases. It's like getting to read little stories all day long about how some policy or law came to be. For a political science nerd, it's like a little tiny slice of heaven. But the pressure that surrounds every single little thing, the awareness that fucking up at any moment could be the end of your academic life, is a little more than I had bargained for.

Also, people take themselves WAY too seriously in law school. Like, I'm all about being respectful and being a tactful and classy person (what am I if not classy?) but I am not a serious person. You know this. I'm not a jerk off, but I just don't think that the way to win friends and influence people is to act like you're smarter than them all the time and that you have nothing at all to learn. I feel like I have so much to learn that its obscene. Every day I go to class, I go away learning only that I have so much more to learn. It's a really weird cycle.

Mostly it's the scholarship pressure that's getting to me. Grades = scholarship. Scholarship = continuing law school. I don't know if other people in class are in quite the same situation as I am. It's not like I can just whip up $20,000 from nowhere if I lose my scholarship because I can't get good enough grades. And it's not like getting these grades is just a walk in the park. I've done the math. It's about the top 30%. The amount that I think about this fact is ridiculous.

I have to say, though, that having men in class is way less weird than I thought it would be. One of the closest friends I've met is a guy, which is actually really refreshing. It's weird to have gone from tons of guy friends in high school to a virtually man-free existence in college. I thought it was going to be a much stranger transition but in the end they're just regular old people.

Who knew?

The lack of time is pretty strange. When I'm not doing stuff for school, I'd rather just be doing nothing at all because I'm tired of thinking and interacting and answering and questioning. This is hard to explain to friends, especially when I really want to hang out I just have no energy to do so.

In the end, I know I'll figure it out. What's the alternative, right? That's what I always say to everyone else. Either do it or don't. It's a means to an end. For tonight, I'll just read some more Contracts and sleep past 7 for the first time in too long.

I'm like a lawyer with the way I'm always trying to get you off

And so it begins.

Today is my first day not working at Financial Aid; it is my first day attempting to do law school activities. I'm convinced that those around me are more nervous about it than me, but that may just be my 24 year old naiveté. Or denial.

I'm beginning to think its the latter.

So, I'm sitting in Kopplin's Coffee Shop which, by the way, everyone should visit because its the best coffee in the city by far. Seroiusly. I'd go as far as to offer you reimbursement for your mocha if you get it here and don't like it. I can't tell you why its so much better, exactly, but holy shit. Its worth the trip even if you live in Maple Grove.

Anyways, I'm about to start my orientation homework, which is sort of funny to think about but logical if you understand that during my 4 days of orientation, there is a Legal Methods class.

That's right, class during orientation.

I'm actually really excited about it all. I haven't been without a job since I was 18 years old, which is scary as fuck, but its an amazing opportunity to be able to focus solely on school. I don't feel like I've ever really given anything 100% (personal relationships excluded, I suppose) so I'm pumped to see what I'll be like at full throttle.

Everyone I've talked to that's been in law school has said that the thing they hate about it (or one of the things, depending on who you ask) is how competitive everyone is.

This makes me chuckle.

I am one competitive MFer. I don't care if its hopscotch we're playing, I want to beat you and I want it to be a decided victory. I honestly don't know if this will be a help or hinderance, but I know that its something that isn't gonna change so I might as well go with it.

So, yeah. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Wish me luck.

The life I love is makin' music with my friends

I can't control my excitement any longer.

In t-minus 28 hours, we will be on the road, destined for things unknown and a little town I like to call CHICAGO.

Why, you ask? Well apparently you live UNDER a rock because if you lived TO rock you would know that this weekend is Lollapalooza. For three glorious days, hundreds of bands with tantalize my ear drums and my senses will be shaken with all that is fantastic and wonderful.

Jealous?

You should be.

See, Wanda told me that her and Mucha were going to Lolla a long time ago. I was mildly interested. Then, the day the bands were announced, I got the best email in a long time:

"you must go see who is playing lollapalooza".

And I did.

Ben Harper.
Pearl Jam
Regina Spektor.
G. Love.
About a hundred more fucking amazing musicians.

But seriously, anyone who thought I was going to pass up the chance to see Ben Harper and Pearl Jam headline a festival obviously don't know me in the least. Its as though the acts were specifically designed for my personal taste, and I couldn't snub the music gods by missing out.

Making the trip even more glorious is the team we've compiled to go. In addition to the dashing Kari, Kato, Snooby, Wanda and Mucha will all be making this trip. Me, Kari, Kato and Snoobs leave tomorrow right after work. In my parents' car. Which is way nicer than our car.

I'm sure this is all coming across as somewhat boring or commonplace, but I assure you that if you could just understand the excitement welling inside me, you couldn't help but feel it, too. Not to mention that its like the last hurrah before law school, so I plan to make the most of it.

Fuck yeah.