Am I the only one who likes free stuff?

Sitting on top of the mailboxes at my apartment yesterday was a coupon for free underwear from Victoria's Secret, no purchase necessary. I love when I get those in the mail. This one wasn't addressed to me, though. It was addressed to someone in one of the other apartments, but Victoria must have got it wrong, because whoever lives in that apartment had written "no such person lives here" and set the coupon to be picked up by the postal carrier.

WTF? Of course, as you might expect, I immediately swooped this up, and will be redeeming MY free pair of underwear this weekend. Why would someone write "no such person" on a mass-mailer. I am not picky about my free stuff. I mean, let's not go overboard: for example, I wouldn't take free underwear from the garbage. But when it's brand-spanking-new at $14.00 a pair and someone rejects a free pair, you better believe that I'll, in the words of Sir Mix a Lot, pull up quick to retrieve it.

Why it's worth it to spend a sleepless weekend (once in awhile)

On the left is Jaylen. He is the one who likes to sleep on Eduardo's face. He is naughty naughty naughty but very snuggly when he's not trying to eat money or break large pieces of furniture.

The top two pictures are of Ramire. He is witty and smart and gentle and kind. He is also a phenomenal gymnast.

Freud can take the day off

I am taking the bar exam in July. Big deal, yes, but I am not the sort who stresses and freaks out about tests. I know what I know, I study, I get good night's sleep, and things work out. But apparently my subconscious has other ideas this time around. This weekend, I had thinly veiled spazzy dreams about the bar exam.

1) On Friday night I dreamed that I was charged with 1st Degree Assault. I have no idea who I had assaulted, or why. I didn't seem to care about the possibility of jail time or hefty fines. In negotiating with the prosecutor and requesting that the charges be dropped to disorderly conduct, I just kept saying "But you don't understand! I have a continuing duty to update my application with the Minnesota Board of Law Examiners and I can't have an assault on my record to report!"

2) On Saturday night, I dreamed that I was enrolled in a bar review-style course, but it wasn't to review for the bar exam. It was to review for my high school IB courses. Everyone from high school was there at ages 25 and 26 to take tests on material we haven't studied for at least 7 years. In the English review, I had to work with a classmate who I never thought to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. We were to give a presentation on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. This girl's idea of a good review presentation was to read aloud to the class from Canterbury Tales in a middle English accent. I was irate by this idea, and screamed at her "Are you an idiot? Don't you get that people actually need to pass this test if they want to get anywhere in life?"

It's going to be a long 4 months...

Control

I like being in control. It's no secret. Ever since I was a kid, I have been bossy. Mostly it's because I have better ideas and ways to implement them...uhhh.....ahem. Yeah. Sometimes things happen that are completely out of my control, and I get very agitated. My palms sweat, I curse, and I feel like I am moving really fast without doing anything.

A friend of mine is in not-great situation and is going to be in the hospital for quite awhile. There is nothing I can do about it. That means I am not in control. Even though this is her and her family's "thing," I have been really worked up about not being able to change anything to make it better. I've done a few incidental and minor tasks like informing professors etc., but it sure doesn't seem enough.

Also, yesterday, while trying to grapple with this situation, a bunch of people from one of my classes refused to cooperate and change schedules in an effort to accommodate my friend's health. I was angrier than I have been in a long time. I was ashamed to be associated with these law students and the legal profession. What good is it to be a good lawyer if you can't be a good person? I tend to think that you can't be a good lawyer without also being a good person. While my friend's predicament was scary,awful and overwhelming, the scheduling mayhem was infuriating and ridiculous. I can handle infuriating and ridiculous. That was one little piece that I could still control. I could be my friend's champion-of-minutiae and think that, in a world that felt like it was spinning out of control in injustice, I could still keep my hands around something.

Today I am calmer. Things are still up in the air, scary, and out of my control. Each day is it's battle. A chance to find something to control. A chance to keep myself in control by letting go, just a little bit.

1989 is so 80s

I am sitting in the law library (a rare occasion for me) and the book shelf I am facing has a book on it called "Political Handbook of the World: 1989." Uhhh....premier law school with supposedly 1 million volumes in the library? Are they counting this volume?

I can't imagine a book more out of date than a political snapshot of the world from 1989. The USSR is gone and there are about a million more countries in the world. Russia has a PRESIDENT, for chrissake. 1989 was before 9/11. Before the 1st Iraq war. Before Bosnia. Before Clinton. Before Hong Kong went back to China. The same year the Berlin Wall came down and the same year as Tienanmen Square, and I bet the book went to press before the Germans reunited or the tanks ran over the Chinese students.

Why is this book in the law library? Looking for a perspective on politics at that time? Seems like there must be better sources for the world political climate of the late 80s than something called a "political handbook." Newspaper articles, for example. Or Howard Zinn.

This is very weird to me. If I didn't hate carrying around books so much, I would check it out. I love the 80s as much as the next girl, but what a bizarre book to be front and center at the law library.

The Boredom of Murder 1

So, I finally got to see some trial action. Murder 1 case. You would think it would be very sexy, and while I'm sure there were some good parts, I only got to watch the Defense case-in-chief. And it was lame and boring. Only one witness- a DNA expert. It was all very technical and dry, with no "a-ha!" moments. And I am a criminal law junkie who has worked with the Innocence Project and find the downfalls of forensic science to be fascinating, so I can only imagine how bored the jury must have been.

Then I started thinking more about forensics. Since shows like CSI have become popular, I have heard that enrollment in forensic science programs at colleges and universities have grown exponentially. They want to do sexy science like on TV. I wonder if they feel jilted when they realize that the day-to-day of almost any field (even one that involves Murder 1 and blood splatters) is boring and way less fascinating than the tidbits we see of CSI or Law and Order. Or maybe forensics really is brilliantly interesting all the time and this expert witness was just a boring person.

One thing I know for sure is that crime-related TV shows are never boring. Maybe a Law and Order or CSI video game is in the works?

several shorts

This is my spring break. After a weekend of very little sleep (2 nights was too much for Jaylen away from his momma), I am pulling 10+ hour days at the office. Where's my wet t-shirt contest? Where's my week of sun and splash?

For my trial practice class, I am supposed to watch 3 hours of a trial this week. Not hard, right? Turns out it is. All these trials "scheduled" keep getting postponed and stayed and so far, have yet to see any real action. Plea deals are so not sexy. Anyway, PCW and I are heading down to the Government Center shortly to try, yet again, to observe a trial.

Girl Scout cookies are evil. I love peanut butter. I love oatmeal. Put them together and you get a Tag-along. Put them at my desk and they are gone.

This weekend my wife is coming home. It's been 2 months since we've seen each other, which is a long time to go without seeing a spouse, but is a testament to the relationship, no?

The city buses are free here on Saturday for St. Patrick's Day. I rarely ride the bus, but feel like I should, just to get the free ride. I love free stuff. But maybe the free rides should just be for Irish people. It's their day, not mine, after all.

Playing House

This weekend I have volunteered to take care of my two nephews, 6-year-old Ramire and 15-month-old Jaylen. They will be with Eduardo and me from Friday to Sunday. Ramire has stayed with us many times before, but we have never had the baby overnight. I'm no fool when it comes to kids-- 8+ years working at a Montessori school makes me a self-declared expert. But babies are a whole other matter. Eduardo and I are messy. We leave papers on the floor. Sometimes pennies and dimes turn up on the carpet. We have candles in glass jars on the coffee table. We are not "baby-proofed," as it were. I am going to try to make some modifications to our living space before Jaylen arrives, but this could prove to be a very interesting weekend. Much harder than taking care of a sack of flour or a raw egg for sex ed class, but I anticipate just as much of a learning experience/incentive to keep one's knees shut.

This is not to say I don't love these kids. They are wonderful, smart, funny, cuddly, and gorgeous. Ramire is also very responsible and a great big-brother-helper. If I am unable to locate all the things in my apartment which Jaylen may find appetizing, I know that my Ramire, in all of his 6 years of glory, will step up to the plate and make sure all of my loose change is secured away so that it does not become Jaylen's bedtime snack. Here goes nothing...

Medical Update

Today I drank 4 cups of coffee before noon. My head does not hurt. I guess I could say problem solved, but that doesn't seem quite right. I have 74 pages of reading for class tomorrow. I have not started. May be another 4 cups before the evening is over.

Pain in the Head

For the past few weeks, I have been getting headaches consistently in the afternoons, between 3 and 5 pm. They aren't migraines and they aren't particularly debilitating, but they are annoying. I am starting to suspect that they may be caffeine-related. If I have 2-3 cups of coffee in the morning, I don't get a headache. If I have less, my head hurts and then it's too late to remedy altogether with a diet coke. This is bothersome to me for at least 2 reasons. 1) It's a pain in the ass (and head) to get headaches. 2) I love caffeine and I don't like that something I love would hurt me just because I didn't consume enough. It wouldn't be very nice for your good friend to hit you over the head just because you couldn't hang out with her for the morning, right, right? Addiction sucks, man.

Presidential Theses

You don't have to know me very well to know that I have an infallible fondness, love, and respect for the Clintons. Both of them. I have Bill Clinton's autobiography on audio CD. There is nothing I would rather listen to.

But, Hillary is the news-maker these days. And this article is fascinating, and particularly in-depth and well-written for a mainstream news source.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/

I wonder how much insight her college thesis can really provide to indicate what sort of president she would be? I mean, this was 40 years ago. I wrote a senior thesis only four years ago and I can hardly remember what it was about. Since my thesis involved literature and critical gender studies, two things I have not studied since defending my thesis, I certainly could not still defend it or speak with authority on it. I cannot even imagine having people ask me to do so 36 years from now. But, as she always does, I'm sure Hillary will rise to the occasion.

On a related note, does anyone know what GWB wrote his senior thesis on? My guess is there was no senior thesis. And if he had to write one, I bet it was horribly written, barely defended, and on a stupid topic like how the mediocre rise to power.

Out of Our Hands

I have always liked extreme weather (as long as no one gets hurt). Blizzards, black-sky-at-10am thunderstorms, rain that floods the streets. Snow that makes it impossible to tell the ground from the sky. The electricity in the air before that first clap of deafening thunder. Last summer I went outside and did some yoga stretches right before the weather service announced a tornado warning. It's weird, maybe, but I love severe weather, summer and winter.

In a strange way it comforts and relaxes me, in my exceedingly controlled and scheduled life, to be forced to acknowledge that some things are out of my control and truly beyond human control. When it decides to snow and snow and keep snowing and the wind decides to blow 30 MPH, it's out of our hands. Schools, businesses, and courts close. Everyone stays or goes home. No one goes out for dinner. No one goes shopping. The roads become deserted. And, for just a little while, it feels like the world stands still. I find this to be very peaceful.

So, tonight we cuddle up, enjoy the out-of-our-hands feeling and hope that March really will go out like a lamb in a few weeks.