101

1. It took me almost a week to come up with this list.
2. I would consider myself an animal rights activist.  I'm not a member of PETA though.  Yet.
   
3. I think my fingernails and toes are my best features.
4. I want to be a writer.  There, I said it!
   
5. I'm in the process of trying to kick a really bad Diet Coke habit.
   
6. I don’t know the parts of speech. I can actually remember the day in second grade when they were taught and I was absent.
7. I once heard someone say, "plagiarizing is sacrilegious."  My response?  Word.  Up.
   
8. I’ll stop conversations mid-sentence if my favorite line in a song is about to be sung.
9. I’m an OCD kind of organized person. But only with certain things. Like my desk, bookshelf, and the kitchen cabinets.
   
10. I want to be artsy and poetic and am just so not.
11. I read cheesy romance novels.
12. I like cheesy pop songs to go along with my cheesy romance novels.
13. I never learned to drive on freeways.
    
14. I want to live abroad again. Desperately.
15. I can't hang with racism, rudeness, and incompetency. I worry that it’s because I see those things in myself.
16. For most things I have the attention span of a 5-year-old girl. But I also have the stubborn streak of 70-year-old man, so it balances out quite nicely.
17. I’m painfully shy.
18. I’m more lyrical than I am musical.
19. I think indigenous peoples deserve all the special programs/benefits that they can get.
20. I’m really very silly. And excitable. It only gets worse with alcohol.
    
21. I own more sweatpants than jeans.  I see nothing wrong with that.
22. In my honest and seriously unbiased opinion my nephew is the cutest kid I have ever seen in my life.
23. It's hard for me to be dependent on anyone else. It makes me edgy.
24. I love rainstorms.  There's just something so clean about them.
    
25. I'm Portuguese, Native Hawaiian, Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and French.  People usually just think I'm Mexican.  Works for me.
26. I rarely get through arguments without crying. Which embarrasses me. Which makes me cry even more.
27. I had a pen pal in the 5th grade who asked me if I used a canoe to get to school. I think I told her yes.
28. One of my prized possessions is a poem my boyfriend wrote for me on our first anniversary that he put in a box filled with origami paper cranes.
29. I’m horribly indecisive. I can’t even decide what to eat for dinner most nights.
30. I get unbelievably infatuated with celebrities. Like, 14-year-old-girl-staring-at-a-Backstreet-Boys-poster kind of infatuated.
31. I wonder what happened to the boy I was obsessed with liked in high school. And I don’t always hope he’s doing well.
32. I hate beans, multiple choice exams, and public speaking.
33. I have to read the ending of books before I start them. I have to. It’s a sickness.
34. I often buy those big variety bags of candy just so I can pick out and eat the bite-sized Mr. Goodbars.
35. I have weight issues. I’ve pretty much been trying to lose 50lbs since I was ten years old.
36. I used to wear really thick glasses and was made fun of a lot.  Kids can be mean.
    
37. I think an entire half of my family are pastors. I grew up really Christian. And have fallen in love with a Buddhist.
38. In law school I specialized in federal Indian law. It's ridiculously interesting.
39. I reread books right after I finish them. I literally start them over again as soon as I finish the last page. I feel like they’re always better the second time around.
40. I'm a slippers (versus flip-flops) and soda (versus pop) kind of girl.
    
41. I’m vain about tan lines.
42. My mother has green eyes. So when I’m in an exceptionally good mood, my usually brown eyes turn a little green too.
43. I have a tattoo.  Will have 2 more soon.
44. I have no hand-eye-foot coordination. As a result, I can't really play sports and I'm not the best dancer you've ever seen.
45. Apologies make me cry.
46. I graduated from the University of Washington with a major no one understands.
47. I’m not as smart as people think I am. But I think I may be smarter than I think I am.
48. I want an iPhone like it's going out of style.
49. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Indiana Jones with breasts.
50. I’m a product of the *NSYNC generation. JC all the way.
51. I attended boarding school from age 12 until I graduated high school. I think it made me a private school snob.
52. The smell in bookstores and libraries makes my stomach ache. But I still want to own one. A bookstore, not a library.  Though that would be kind of cool too...
    
53. Hot coffee and hot chocolate also makes my stomach ache. I don't know why.
54. My best friend and I met for a week at "camp" in the 5th grade (though I'm not sure we ever spoke), then began living together in our 7th grade dorm.  We still talk every day.
    
55. In high school I was given "unlimited detention" for sneaking out of my dorm to go to a Britney Spears concert.  So.  Not. Worth it.
56. I’m deathly allergic to shellfish.
57. I have the memory of an elephant. It drives my boyfriend absolutely nuts most of the time.
58. I usually don't watch or read the news.  I hear about current affairs through word of mouth.
59. I'm terrible at calculating tips at restaurants.
60. Upon seeing Yosemite Valley in real life, my first words were, "Are you f**cking kidding me?!"  I still can't believe how beautiful it is.
61. I curse, sometimes a lot.  But never in front of my parents.
62. My magazine subscriptions: Women's Health, Sunset, Saveur, In Style.
63. I like country music and know the lyrics to most Garth Brooks songs.
64. Seattle is probably my favorite city.  I would love to live there again, but the boy can't deal with the gray.
65. Team Edward.
    
66. Is there such a thing as selective dyslexia?  Because if given a set of number, chances are I'll read/write them down backwards.
67. At age 25 I began developing a fear of commitment.  Says the girl going into year 6 of her relationship.
68. Kahea (short for Kahealani) is one of my middle names.  It means "call of heaven."
    
69. If it's a bad movie I probably already love it.
70. I don't eat lamb, duck, venison and veal because they're cute animals.  I wish I could stop eating beef, pork and chicken in general.
71. My dog probably hates your dog.  It's his one flaw.
72. I hate cold-calling people.  Even the pizza delivery place.
73. Retail therapy is my favorite kind, and I have the credit card debt to prove it.
74. My first concert ever was Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.  I was 9.
    
75. I absolutely cannot watch something if Tyra Banks is in it.
76. My fingers are double-jointed.  I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of gross.
    
77. I don't understand the obsession people have with Prince. It baffles me. He's a little man who sounds like a woman. Am I missing something?
78. My first "language" was Hawaiian Pidgin English. I still speak it when talking to family, and my mainland friends never understand a word I'm saying.
79. I love going to sporting events regardless of whether or not I like/understand the sport itself.
    
80. I think the Dos Equis guy really does seem like The Most Interesting Man in the World.  They're my favorite commercials.
    
81. I love to travel. I’ve been to Canada, Ireland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore so far. I get travel fever every 7 months or so.
82. I'm a sucker for accessories.  Earrings and necklaces preferred.
    
83. I cry when I listen to Death Cab’s “I Will Follow You into the Dark”. Every single time.
    
84. I believe that everything happens for a reason, though things may not necessarily be "meant to be".
85. I've never lived alone.
    
86. I hate The Daily Show.  I love The Colbert Report.
87. I think John Muir has written some of the most beautiful things I've ever read.
    
88. I quote lines from “My So-Called Life” in my head on a regular basis.
89. My boyfriend, his brother (his ex-girlfriend), their cousin, my last piano teacher, my childhood friends' grandmother and I all have the same birthday, different years. It's okay, I know it's weird.
    
90. I rearrange my furniture every five months or so. I can’t stand when things stay the same too long.
91. I have a bracelet I've worn every single day since I was 18.  In that time, I think I've taken it off for probably less than an hour, total.
    
92. I often think of Coldplay as the soundtrack of my life.
93. I tend to be an introvert, but I love friendly people and am usually really friendly as well. I want people to feel as comfortable as I can make them.
94. I love ghost stories.  I watch all of those paranormal TV shows too.  But I hate horror movies with a deep, burning passion.
95. I like going to places I've read about in novels.  I've planned entire trips with this in mind.
96. I don't own any lipstick.
97. I’m often told to stop trying to please everyone.
98. Fall-going-into-winter is hands down my favorite time of year.  I'm pretty much giddy during the stretch between Halloween and Christmas.
99. Those in the know have developed the ability to make me feel bad for inanimate objects.  Like the broom.  Or a sock.  Apparently, my bleeding heart doesn't discriminate. 
100. I'm really bad about procrastinating.  If it were a sport, I'd be the world champ.
     
101. I’m extremely surprised that I was able to think of 101 things about myself. It’s difficult to be this honest sometimes.

today's obsession

feels like a set-up book, and didn't make me particularly happy, but just as interesting and important as the other books.

we're going to start this off by saying whose "team" i'm on, since that will probably influence the way i felt about the book, and hence my review. i'm on team edward. as i told K., i'm probably the head friggin cheerleader of team edward. that does not, however, mean that i dislike jacob. in fact, i kind of like him. not for bella, but still. lets just make that clear.

so i think i'm going to tackle this review by discussing what issues i had with the book. the first being that it goes against the grain for me that edward constantly thinks he knows what's best for bella. he was just so overprotective of her throughout the first half of the book. it irritated me. he rarely gave her choices, and in fact told her that she had no choices in a lot of situations. i wanted to punch him. and then i wanted to cheer for bella when she would do things like go to la push when edward was out of town. and i reveled when she came back and had to deal with a pissed off edward because it was like a slap in the face for him. (though there are some great bella/edward moments that i definitely reread a few times).

my second issue, which may seem to be in stark contrast to my attitude regarding edward in the previous section, is with bella and jacob being soulmates. eeew. i hated what she put edward through. i hated that she tried to have it both ways. i mean, i understand that, if given a choice, she would never have put any of them through any of it, and that she probably would have backed away from jacob before their friendship ever took of, but i think she should have had a little more sense once it was apparent how jacob felt (though if she could do that, the whole "soulmates" theory would have been trashed, i guess). i really hated when bella, edward, and jacob were up on the mountainside and jacob had to play "space heater" for bella. it was wrong. to be fair, edward's self-sacrificing was part of the problem, but still. i didn't like the fact that jacob made it so difficult for bella throughout the book by constantly throwing himself in her face. at a certain point, i feel like he should have just respected her feelings for edward, much like edward, in the end, respected her feelings for jacob.

now, what i liked. i loved that we got more of a glimpse into alice and jaspers lives. alice is one of my favorite characters, and jasper has always been slightly mysterious, so i really enjoyed them getting their spotlights. in particular, when she helped him with the training scene, and we got to see just how powerful her gift could be in a practical sense. i loved when a truce, however tenuous, was struck between the pack and the cullens. it was about damn time. and i am obviously thrilled that victoria is out of the picture. although to be honest she seemed like a very cardboard villain. she just never seemed to be as big a threat as they all made her out to be. i did enjoy the "big confrontation" in this book though, with the newborns and the attack in the clearing. even though we weren't able to be present at the attack, it kept me really interested through that entire section. i know that a lot of people were somewhat bored with the background info on newborns, etc., but i appreciated it, both because again it gave us a glimpse at jasper, and because i always like a good "set-up" book, since it has me on edge anticipating the next book to come.

and finally, i loved that, though there's the elephant of jacob and his soulmate status in the room, bella's choice is edward. the self-sacrificy aspect of it all got somewhat tedious, but if i love nothing else, it's a couple willing to go to the extremes for one another. i read some review where someone said she was annoying in her love for him. and it's almost true. but i feel like, for those of us who are rooting for bella and edward, that's the only thing saving us from throwing this book against the nearest wall. if bella wasn't so completely and visibly obsessed with edward, then there really would be reason to doubt that they belonged together.

and that just cannot happen.

alright, enough cheesy-ness for now!

weekend in review

took a short trip to seattle this passed weekend and miss it more now then ever. i always forget how green washington is. when you fly out of oakland, every piece of land you see that isn't covered in cement is a yellowish-brown. then when you fly into sea-tac, everything that isn't covered in cement is trees. and things are starting to change color there, so its extra-beautiful. fall is my favorite time of year. it just makes me want to bundle up, walk in boots over wet, reflective sidewalks to the nearest starbucks and get a pumpkin spice latte that i probably won't drink. i just like the smell of it.

it was weird being back in the udistrict though. as we drove through (heading to hawaiian bbq - woo!), i realized that i'm older than practically everyone i saw! and it was sad in a way, because for the most part, none of my friends really lived in the udistrict any more. areas around university districts are so transient. you'll never be able to come back in ten years and think, "hey, my friend joe schmoe lives there," because the fact is that there have probably been dozens of kids who have lived there after joe.

and seattle, on a rainy night, can seem oddly lonely too. not a bad lonely, just...lonely.

visiting also made me think of how people change, and don't change, at the same time. for example, i haven't seen my freshman/sophomore roommate kina since i moved down to the bay two and half years ago. and yet, it's like we've talked every day the whole time. i mean, give or take the fact that we're catching each other up on our lives. and i got to see anthony, kina's fiance, and another of my first washington-friends. we hugged and it was like being enveloped in a big brother.

i saw other friends too, of course. my junior/senior roommate will be moving down to the bay this weekend, so there's no real reason to miss her. but it's still stunning to realize that she's getting married soon. she has this amazingly beautiful wedding dress (and i'm picky about what wedding dresses i find pretty), that she's going to wear with these awesome red peep-toes. she has her wedding planned out and i feel so out of touch with everything. we talked about her best friend (who happens to be one of mine as well) and the fact that i know next to nothing about that girls life anymore. i can't even remember that last time we talked. there was just a...losing touch...that happened. it made me so sad.

and i saw one of my best friends from back home who's moved up there and has this new, amazing life working for an indie record label and being friends with interesting people and band members, etc. sometimes i feel so out of touch with her life as well. like we have so little in common anymore. but there are ties there that i refuse to let sever. she's been in my life too long to ever let her be out of it, you know?

i guess i've realized that the changes in myself i didn't see happening were happening just the same. for example, this passed summer, one of the quints got married, so it was the first time we all got together since graduation night of highschool. and these girls - women, now - are my best friends. absolute rocks in my life. one in particular. and yet, we have to work to keep the conversations going and to find things to talk about. it was so unnerving that i actually had to bring it up with them so we could talk about the awkwardness. i'd never felt that before, but then again, i hadn't seen them since i was 18. so this is sort of how it felt a little this passed weekend. and M. is the one to point out that it's because we've changed so much. so much.

it was sad to realize. but nice too, because we were still there, trying to meet on common ground. trying to find something to discuss the way we used to discuss the most trivial things. it's reassuring to know that we value each other that much.

on that note, my mom did me a HUGE favor this passed weekend and rummaged through storage to find some of my things from high school. she's sent me my yearbook from senior year, complete with signatures and goodbye notes. and she found my diaries. OMG. the diaries of a 16 year old! it's incredible how hard and wonderful at the same time it is to read these thoughts. we're so invincible at 16. so sure and unsure of ourselves at the same time. so confident in our friends, and so engrossed in our little intrigues. and it's just interesting to read what i wrote when i was that girl.

The sky is so beautiful right now. The lights of the island end so quickly, then the horizon goes from red to pink to orange and yellow before fading into a light blue. The mountains are so darkly silhouetted against that yellow. Then it's nothing but a cloudless dark blue expanse with a crescent moon and the north star accessorizing such a beautiful night. Definitely one of the prettiest nights of the year. Far to pretty for me to feel so...discontent. - Oct. 29. 2000

What exactly is destiny? I mean, do we really control our own? Because if we do, then how can we be "meant to be" with one person? How do you know that this one person is...your destiny? Does that mean that all your life you were just waiting for them? All the while you were feeling so strongly about other people, were you really just waiting for someone better to walk into your life? - Nov. 28, 2000

i'm not going to lie. the diaries from my junior and senior year are full of a boy. but i have a feeling that's not atypical. it's just so entertaining/embarrassing to see what i put myself through over something so...not real. i wasn't an adult and i thought i was. i wasn't mature and i thought i was. but i think the funniest and scariest thing of all is that the person that 17 year old was isn't as far as the person i am now thought she was. i can still see myself. i still do some of the same things. and now, years later, i can look at what i did and see patterns, see myself and my habits forming. see my defense mechanisms refining and my ideas on life and love taking shape.

it's an educational experience to realize that you've grown up, but not so much that who you are is a stranger to who you were.

i have this favorite line from "jane austen's book club" that i always think about when i think about those years. it's when prudie and her husband are fighting in their hotel room because she thinks he was flirting with her high school nemesis. and she tells him that this woman was terrible to her in high school. and he says that high schools over. and she just looks at him, crying, and says "high schools never over."

so true in some ways. and i'm so glad it's not true in so many others.

top songs ever

As requested, here is my list of top songs ever.

Some of the songs that didn't make it to the top 20, but came very close:

- finch: what it is to burn
- david gray: sail away
- brooke fraser: hymn
- kymani marley: warriors
- james brown: try me
- brand new: the quiet things that no one every knows
- coldplay: trouble
- dido: white flag
- gin blossoms: until i fall away
- lauryn hill: tell him
- matchbox 20: kody
- taking back sunday: you're so last summer
- van morrison: crazy love

and seeing this list you should know 2 things about me:

1) these are not random choices. most, if not all, of these songs are my favorite for a very specific reason, whether it be what i was doing the first time i heard it, or what i was doing the last time i heard it.

2) yes, i do realize that, apparently, many of the songs i like are depressing! my sister was right! i'm just so never going to live that down...

today's obsession

second book in the series. didn't like it as much as "twilight" at first, but love it in retrospect.

i say i didn't like it at first because our vamp hero wasn't in most of it. and let's face it, that does take one whole huge aspect of interest in the book out of it.

but in the week since i've read the book, i've had time to mull it over, re-read sections as i do, and think about the story-line more as a whole than as little bits and pieces of "when will our hero appear?!" and i've realized that this is actually a really great second installment.

i mean, it's unquestionably dark. homegirl is just absolutely obsessed with our hero, and his absence is fair to killing her. i mean that literally. she's suicidal. and there's something about peeking into this 17 year olds mind when she's just so...depressed that feels very familiar. and she just goes about plugging along, getting through the motions, and not even realizing that she's slowly learning to live again when she just thinks she can't.

the book isn't deep. it doesn't delve into her psyche to a huge extent or anything. but it's still good. and you still feel for her.

but then, then, our hero makes an appearance. so yeah, he's about ready to kill himself to, but the fact is that he left her. he up and left her. we can all understand the reasoning he used and maybe sympathize with him, but still. he left her.

and she can't even attempt to be indifferent when he comes back! where is her self-preservation? where is her pride? yes, yes, good, good, she loves him. so?! don't get me wrong, i'm all for this couple, and i wouldn't finish this series if i didn't know how it ended. but again, still.

then i guess they sort of work it out. sort of. he's back, he's with her, but there's still this huge elephant in the room, which i guess becomes a bigger issue in the next 2 books. which i can't read yet because if i start them i won't be able to put them down and i just honestly don't have the time to read anything other than school stuff right now.

oh, and i also can't read them because i won't buy them in hardcover. it's what N. refers to as my ocd kicking in. i have the first 2 books in paperback, so the last 2 books have to be in paperback as well. since they just came out, they're only available in hardcover.

it's weird, i know. i can't help it!

but i do highly suggest reading this book.

dark hour

**DISCLAIMER: i get like this every once in a while. it passes. like right now for example? i'm feeling pretty okay... so don't let this convince you that i'm dropping out of school. i am NOT dropping out of school, people!**

i actually think i touched on rock bottom yesterday.

mentally, at least.

i mean, on the way home from my night class, and from being "on" the entire day long dealing with these massive bouts of anxiety, i actually felt every ounce of adrenaline leaving my body. i was on BART and realized that i just had nothing left.

nothing.

and i got home and my brain just...quit. i didn't want to do anything anymore. i didn't want to study. i didn't want to take a shower. i didn't want to be a law student. i didn't want to change out of my school clothes and into home clothes. i didn't want to eat dinner. i didn't want to think about what i wanted to drink. i didn't want to work up the energy to care about the next day. i definitely didn't want to be a law student anymore. i didn't even want to be lawyer. i didn't want to take the bar. i didn't want to be in the bay area. i didn't want to be anywhere else. i didn't want to go to work or write memos or think about legal issues.

i mean, and i literally mean, that i just...stopped working.

and then i got up this morning and the feeling was still there. so i vaguely remember changing into my friday uniform of jeans i wore at some point that week, a tank, my uw hoodie from freshman year, no make-up, and my hair (unbrushed) in a pony tail. the only thing i could think to do was put on earrings, and that's just because they were already out on my dresser and i didn't have to actually choose them.

so i went to class in a blur, took a 3 HOUR exam in drafting, and went to lunch with M. and L. i felt like i was floating through the day on auto-pilot. you know, like when you're there but you're not really? i mean, i sat there, and i tried to talk, but i felt really...punchy. like everything i said was way more exaggerated than i meant it to be. it all sounded foreign coming out of my mouth, like my brain was slightly in the background just trying to cope with the day to day. like i was scraping the bottom of the barrel for energy to form sentences and get them out, and because i knew that i was trying to overcompensate and it all just came out...forced. and not only was everything i said overloud, but also negative, which usually isn't the case for me (at least i don't think it is). i couldn't get my self over the fact that i hated being here. i didn't want to go through another week or month or , God forbid, another entire semester. i just didn't have it in me to do it.

and i was angry that i was going to do it anyway.

i was thinking about that a lot today as i was listening to muse's "absolution," which is amazing btw.

i was thinking about why i'm here, trying to be a lawyer, and whether or not i still want to do it. or if i ever wanted to do it. it all comes down to your parents, doesn't it? i mean, my parents are amazing. they're great parents. and i can honestly say that if it wasnt' for them, specifically, i wouldn't be here. because i've seen too many childhood friends and neighbors, who were so similarly situated to me, go absolutely no where because they didn't have my parents.

i asked my dad when he visited how he and my mom managed to raise 3 fairly well-adjusted girls. and he said it worked because he and my mom almost had a silent agreement that one of them played the heavy while the other was more nurturing. and while i know that they both probably have some criticisms of each other and they way they parented us as individuals, i wish i could just tell that whatever they did worked. it may not seem that way sometimes, especially when you look at the problems in me and my sisters and you nit-pick at all the flaws, but everyone has flaws. we can't be perfect. but we're not bad. and that's because whatever they did worked.

but what i've noticed is that i whenever i get into moods like the one i'm in now, i tend to blame them. or my dad, i guess i should say, more specifically. i blamed him because, instead of fists in faces, he used the phrases, "i'm so disappointed in you," or, "you know that's unacceptable, right?" i guess he never realized that we probably would have preferred the fists.

but those words shaped us. me, most of all, out of my sisters. i couldn't stand hearing them, couldn't stomach it. and sometimes, even now when he hasn't said that in so many years, i still get shaky when i make myself hear his voice in my head biting out those five little words.

"i'm so disappointed in you."

"you know that's unacceptable, right?"

and it was mostly about grades. there was a time when i was in highschool, and my dad would call, when before even asking me how i was he'd ask how school was. that was the priority. school. me.

but i can't cast blame elsewhere anymore, and i don't really...haven't for a long time. i love my dad, he's one of my absolute favorite people in the world. and i can stand back and realize now that i was/am lucky to have him, and to have had him balanced out by my mother. because i have so much now that i wouldn't have without them. and i'm so lucky. so lucky.

i just bring this up now more as a criticism of myself than of him. because it think he's come to understand, if only a little, what these words did to us. maybe not to me, but i've fought for him to understand what they did to my little sister. and i hope that he's got that.

it was a little too late for me, i'd already come to internalize them. so when i was in college, and my grades were slipping, i'd hear that voice in my head.

"i'm so disappointed in you."

"you know that's unacceptable, right?"

and i'd pick those grades right back up. this mentality transferred over to different parts of my life as well, but i don't really want to get into that now. i'm trying to stay focused here.

anyway, then i got to lawschool. and his voice has become my voice, saying that i'm not going to disappoint anyone, i'm going to be something that they call be proud of. i'm going to be a lawyer. i'm going to go to school and be smart and get a good job.

even if i'm hating every single second of it. now that's work ethic. (N. calls it being the most stubborn person he's ever met).

but if i'm honest, then i'll admit that i'm not really hating every single second of law school. i love working for tribes. i find the work rewarding. but it's the thought of being "on" every single second of every single day for the foreseeable future that just has me feeling so trapped. because i have to stick this out. i've started. i'll finish. i have to stick it out.

i'm just not sure i want to. at least not right at this second, which is all i can really speak for since my moods have just been chaotic lately.

i tell myself that i need a vacation. it's true, but truth means so very little. my friends tell me i need sleep. can't i sleep when i'm dead? i tell myself that i won't take the bar, i'll take a year off instead and trying to just live normally and see if that works for me. but then i hear the voice and i chicken out.

i need to do something with my life.

i guess i just don't know what yet. and that's probably what terrifies me the most sometimes.

ulgh. what can i say, it's been a really bad couple of weeks.

i was thinking that most of my blogs just seem so...depressing. isn't that an indication of my life? or is it just that when life is good i'm out living it instead of blogging it? who knows.

this got way longer than i intended it to.

music to live by

This album has been seeing me through the last week or so.
I adore every single song.

floodgates

i think i have reached new and impressive levels of exhaustion.

much in keeping with the way i deal with most aspects of my life, i've managed, thus far, to compartmentalize my law school career. meaning that, in the general day to day sense of things, i try not to look too far in advance. the idea is that today, tomorrow (and perhaps even the rest of the week) is far too much to deal with as it is, so lets just shove everything else that's going to happen into little compartments in the attic of my mind. it's sort of like christmas decorations; i'll get them out when the season gets closer.

and this method has worked for me fairly well these last 2 and half years (though there have been moments of mental incapacitation where the compartments broke down and all my christmas decorations came spilling out). we don't like to talk about those moments.

HOWEVER. last night, i made the gargantuan mistake of attempting to organize the rest of my semester. this came up because i have a few things to look forward too. i'm going to visit seattle for the weekend in october, M.'s moving down to the bay in october, she and i are going to the carrie underwood concert in november, and both A. and K. are visiting in november for A.'s bday and the premiere of the twilight movie.

so yay! things to look forward to! BUT, then i had to look at the weeks in between those days to see how they would all fit in to my schedule. well. i should have just jumped off a cliff and saved myself the trouble.

between trial practice (i.e. coming up with and "performing" a mock trial), legal drafting practice exams, work work work, revising and finishing my writing requirement, making some headway on my hawaiian independence article, and taking the MPRE's, i somehow have to find the time to actually breathe.

i mean, october is okay. i'm gone the first weekend, have a work thing to do the second weekend, and the rest is generally unbooked. so i guess i can make any real moves i was planning on making for my writing requirement during that time. although i'll also be working on my trial practice case as well. and hopefully i'll come back from seattle reenergized rather than wishing i wasn't here.

november, however... well, november just blows. the first weekend is the MPRE, which means that before than i have to somehow find the time to study for it. because, after all, it's just the bar, right? the next weekend (i think, though i may have my scheduling messed up), i'll be busy both saturday and sunday during the day watching our final mock trials for trial practice. hopefully, i'll be able to convince my "firm" to do our trial that past thursday (aka, the first day of trials), because saturday night is also the carrie underwood concert. which, i know, is lame and something i can easily not go to, but i've already got the tickets and convinced M. to go to with me, so i'm sort of committed, you know? anyway, the next week K. and A. both get here, we're gonna watch the movie, and are supposed to go to the cal v. stanford game, although i can't at the moment find an extra ticket, so we'll see. and the weekend after that is thanksgiving, which means that my final deadlines (for perhaps everything school related aside from ethics, which might be due earlier, gotta check...shit) is just around the corner. by this point, my writing requirement should be all but done.

and so i'm just a little stressed.

this is why i have compartmentalized my life.

and lets not discuss the fact that my grandpa's been in the hospital for the passed week, and my brother in law was in an accident last week as well.

PLUS, i'm disenchanted with the bay area, am missing washington like crazy, and my bf doesn't really want to move back there. which is understandable. he feels about there the way i feel about here. but then, where does that leave us?

so yeah. stressed.

someone give me a damn cookie.

today's obsession

it's like being in high school all over again. read it.

i literally started the book on the bus-part of my commute to school this morning (got 25 minutes of reading in), continued it on the BART-part of my commute back home this afternoon (another 30 minutes of wordage), and then changed into my favorite sweats and tank, got myself a diet coke, and plopped my rear in the most comfortable position i've ever felt on the couch and read.

i finished the book by 7pm. it's that interesting.

did you ever read L.J. Smith's "Vampire Diaries" when you were in highschool? it's like that. angsty and teenager, with concepts of love no 17 year old could possibly understand... but i think it's that forbidden aspect of it that makes it all the better.

i've always enjoyed these types of books. the ones that take complete fantasy and blend it into the mundane. and this book is also set in washington, which was another huge plus for me. it's funny because i've been wanting to go hiking in the olympic national forest, and was briefly considering doing that during my trip up to seattle in 2 weeks, and then i read this book, where that's most of what they do is hike in the olympics. made me miss washington all the more.

and you've just got to love that stephenie meyers was basically unheard of by the reading world before this series. and then one day, bam, she's the newest j.k. rowling. amazing.

anyhow, substance wise, hey, it's a teenage book, okay? it's not the next piece of great american literature. if you want entertainment and a good love story, pick it up. if you're looking for deep characters and huge personality development, probably not your bag.

i will mention that they're turning this in to a movie. and the actor who plays cedric diggory in harry potter and the goblet of fire will be playing our vampire hero.

dreamy.

finding balance

first question: can someone please explain to me how guys can just throw on whatever, run their fingers through their need-a-haircut 'dos, grin, and still be completely photogenic? (search carter oosterhouse - yes, of HGTV green living fame). i mean, shouldn't they have to apply eye-liner and mascara like the rest of us?!

*sigh* anyway. that was my pointless question for the day.

so after my mini-meltdown this passed weekend, i decided to just take the week as it came. i compartmentalized my days and dealt. monday sucked other than the 2 hours of mindlessness i spent glued to the tube watching - wait for it - GOSSIP GIRL and OTH premiere night!

dear gossip girl: what's with the cougar? as if they need anymore beautiful people with zero to nothing morals in this small slice of heaven? and can i just say that this show has managed, in a matter of minutes, to redeem social-climbing-back-stabbing J for me? awesome. S and D irritated me as usual. B was great, even when she was getting a verbal ass kicking from mr. british. and eww, chuck. there's my review, nutshelled.

as for oth: soooo glad it was peyton. sooooooo glad. ... that's actually all i have to say about that episode. oh, except what's with the return of psycho nannie carrie and the crimes against humanity?! hello oth, kids are watching this crap!

*huff*

my 2 days of class so far has been okay. you know all that reading i mentioned for ethics? totally pointless. didn't pay one single like of attention in that entire class. and one of my authors (christine feehan - paranormal romance with a twist) just came out with the latest installment of a series i read, so i of course had to go and buy that and finish it before i could concentrate on school again. buy federal indian law went great today, as usual. i love that class. i actually feel like i'm learning something worth my while, and interesting to boot!

and i started work again at the firm! yay! talk about the perfect place to be employed. i'm not gonna lie, i'm a little worried about the work load, but i can handle it...right?

RIGHT?!