Mischa = Not Cool

04.29.05

Song of the Day: Dannii Minogue - I Begin To Wonder

The newest Keds ads show Mischa Barton wearing some ugly shoes, and the catch phrase is, "Be Cool."

Sorry, neither Mischa nor the Keds are evoking any sort of "coolness" for me.

I tried, I really did. I sat there and looked at the shoes and thought, "Cool...be cool..." It didn't work. Eventually, my brain came back around to the fact that they are, in fact, pretty uncool.

Both Mischa and the shoes.

11:22 PM [link]

No Time for Time

04.28.05

Song of the Day: Full Frontal - You Think You're A Man

Every time I tell myself I'm not going to renew Time since it sucks away all the novel-reading time I have during the day (what happened to the days when I was able to read through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell on the daily commute?), I come across an article in it that just fascinates me so much that I mourn the idea of not getting it anymore.

This week there is one about how people behave during times of crisis, such as the 9/11 attacks. A huge percentage of people just stop functioning. People have died in plane fires simply because they stayed in their seat instead of getting up and leaving the plane. A theory that psychologists suggest that our brains slow down and process information a lot slower when we're stressed, and therefore, if you haven't studied how to survive prior to a crisis, there is more of a chance you'll just freeze and not do anything.

And I just realized I never closed the magazine when class started, even though I haven't been reading it. Oops, I feel like a jackass now.

12:37 PM [link]

H-Day results

04.27.05

Song of the Day: Milk Inc. - Blind

I've never before had a haircut that looked better when I styled than when my uncle did. Amazingly, while I was lukewarm about the new cut before, I'm absolutely loving it now that I've washed it and attacked it myself. Here is a picture I took this morning which is infinitely better than the one I shared with a few people earlier in the week, although this picture definitely does not do the hair justice. I've had to get creative since the only photography equipment I have right now is my cell phone's camera.

My Property prof decided to schedule a make-up class for this afternoon sometime after 3:00. My only class today ended at 11:30. Wait around downtown for four hours to make up a class that he cancelled so he could travel? I do not think so.

12:56 PM [link]

Damn life

04.26.05

Song of the Day: Paul Oakenfold - Starry Eyed Surprise

I wish life was like television, where you can turn to the audience, right in front of someone, and say something snarky in a really loud voice without that person hearing you.

It'd make things really entertaining, that is for sure.

09:55 PM [link]

Changes

04.25.05

Song of the Day: Sylver - Don't Call Me

Today is H-Day, as it's officially been named. Ever since Shannon talked me into doing what I want with my hair, I've been impatiently counting down the hours until I get it cut. Six inches will probably be leaving my head - and it's so long right now that six inches shorter it will still touch my shoulders.

But now, before all that excitement, I need a nap. I just turned in my last Legal Writing II assignment today, what a load off my shoulders. Now it's on to the paper for Justice and all the other 400 things I need to read and understand before exams in two weeks.

12:26 PM [link]

It's all BS

04.21.05

Song of the Day: Sarah Connor - Living To Love You

A quote from a case in my Property reading tonight:

"We have a number of patterns and forms which are regarded as law, and have been so regarded and used for some reason, although I cannot presently recall what that reason is."

That, my friends, completely sums up my life right now. The substance of law school, just like the rules and time-honored practices of law school, is quite often just a bunch of bullshit that has been thrown together over the years and has never been reformed to actually make sense because that's the way it's always been done.

For some strange reason, I thought I came here to learn logic.

Frustratingly, I have brilliant ideas in my head for a new layout, yet 50 pages of illogical crap had to be read before my brain shut down tonight. Of course, like most brilliant ideas bouncing around in my head, it probably won't work out the way I imagined, but I'm sure trying to figure it out would be far more fun than reading about nonreciprocal covenants.

12:42 AM [link]

Time to bitch

04.20.05

Song of the Day: Oceanlab - Sky Falls Down

Time to bitch. Just a warning.

1. Why did the school cafeteria stop carrying light and fat-free salad dressing? I'm not a rabid calorie counter, but I have healthy enough eating habits that the idea of consuming 15 grams of fat in one salad dressing packet makes me cringe. They used to have a wide variety of light and fat-free dressings, but now all they offer is ranch and Italian. Ranch dressing is absolutely vile in its reduced-fat version, and Italian is the last flavor I'd pick if I was actually presented with options. And where the heck did the salad bar's artichokes go? If I'm being charged the atrocious price of $5/pound of veggies, I want some gourmet options.

2. Why is school so horridly boring in the last two weeks of class? My attention span has shrivelled to nothingness and I feel like yelling at the professors, "Stop!! My brain is FULL. Let's stop classes NOW instead of trying to cram more in!"

3. Why is the heat still on in my apartment building? It is April. It was 75 degrees last night, and opening the windows did nothing. My sleep has sucked since the beginning of the week since it's so hot inside. I go to bed exhausted and then...just...lay...there. For hours. I think the management office needs to relinquish their control over whether the heat or the air conditioner is on.

Despite being totally annoyed by everything lately, there have been some good things lately. I just got back in contact with one of my favorite friends from 2nd-grade-through-high-school who I lost touch with when we went to college. My sister has been amusing me with strange rantings about Backstreet Boys wearing masks in one of their music videos. Someone besides me lists gnocci as his favorite Italian entree. My dad is coming to visit me this weekend and he bought the two of us Cubs tickets. My fantastic uncle will also be in town this weekend and he's going to make my hair fabulous again. Maybe I can even score a new pair of shoes somewhere along the way. I need pink heels. That could make up for school beating me to a bloody pulp (You should see the other guy though. He got his ass kicked).

12:59 PM [link]

Pope gossip

04.15.05

Song of the Day: Billie Ray Martin - Your Lovin' Arms

News article commentary for the second day in a row? Is my blog going down the drain? I sure hope not, but this article amused me far, far too much to let it go without comment. I've actually copied the article onto its own HTML document since Yahoo's news links seem to die after awhile.

Click here for stories about Popes with children! Dead Popes forced to sit on trial! Two Popes feuding!

Truth is far, far stranger (and juicier) than fiction.

12:49 PM [link]

Who cares?

04.14.05

Song of the Day: Sylver - Fallin'

THURSDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- Prisoner executions by lethal injection in the United States may not be painless or humane, and may not even meet veterinary standards for putting down animals. (more)

I don't know about anyone else here, but I liked the two dogs I've had to put down in my lifetime a hell of a lot better than any prisoner that's ever been executed.

12:32 PM [link]

Shout out

04.13.05

Song of the Day: Tess - The Second You Sleep

Since I'm sure no one wants to hear horror tales of law school every day, I've decided to write about some people who have been on my mind a lot lately - my four best friends. Having four of them might defeat the meaning of the word "best," but there's no way to elevate any of them above the others.

Shannon has been my best friend since the first day of first grade. For anyone keeping track, that's almost 16 years ago. During that time, we've seen other friends come and go or disappear without explanation (only to come back to brag that they got engaged), but us drifting apart has never been an option. My apartment is filled with random greeting cards that she's sent me to let me know that, even though our lives are both busy, she's still thinking of me.

Melantha is actually my identical twin, despite the fact that we have different parents and that she's 7 inches taller than me and has dark brown hair. I never have to worry that I'm alone in the way I feel about something, because she will agree with me 99.98% of the time. We met online when we were 13, and it's obvious that our meeting was predestined, because we found a God rock when we went to the beach a few years ago. She's the only person who can make me laugh so hard that I actually cry.

Matt is absolutely the biggest dork I know, as well as being an unstoppable ladies' man. He's told me more stories about wooing women than I know what to do with. He seems to have complete and unconditional faith in me that helps me remember that I'm a kick-ass woman who can do whatever the hell she puts her mind to.

Amy is my Sig Kap little sister, and she is Super Woman. She decided she wanted to play the French horn after hearing the instrument in the Jurassic Park score. She ended up having our college pay for her to come play for their band. She decided she wanted to be on the sorority's exec board, on the Panhellenic council, and be the social chair. She ended up doing all three things in the same term. She also holds down two jobs and manages to crank out 4.0s almost every semester. She's truly awe inspiring and I look up to her as a role model.

There you have it: the four people I often owe my sanity to. They don't have to be there, and they don't have to be as good of friends as they are, but they are and that's a blessing.

02:54 AM [link]

People slices

04.11.05

Song of the Day: Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone (Jason Nevins Rhythm Dance Radio Remix)

This weekend, I saw 25 dead bodies. I saw slices of people. I saw spleens and livers.

No, I didn't visit Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment. I went to see the Body Worlds exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. For anyone who hasn't heard about it, it's a display of human bodies and organs that have been preserved with a method called "plastination." There were 25 bodies and over 200 specimen. The bodies were stripped down to their muscles, bones, and organs and often weren't protected by a glass case - the only thing separating you from the bodies was the "do not touch" rule that was repeated over the loud speaker from time to time.

It was entirely morbid, but absolutely breathtaking. The bodies that were comprised of nothing but blood vessels (done with a procedure that hardened the blood vessels so the rest of the body could be stripped away) were absolutely awe inspiring. There was the body of an 8-month-pregnant woman with the baby still inside her. She donated her body to the cause after learning she probably wouldn't survive the length of the pregnancy due to illness. There were about a dozen tubes holding embryos at various stages of the first trimester of pregnancy - the thing doubled in size over a matter of days.

The only explanations of where the bodies came from were from the reproductive area where the pregnant woman and embryos/fetuses were. It was very weird staring at the full-body, cross-sectional slices of a 300-pound body (done to show the effect of obesity on the body - the technique preserved the exact color and visual texture of the fat) and knowing that it was a person that somebody knew. The fact that the plastination technique gave everything a shine made it seem less than real at times, but the visual textures of everything were very intact. As gross as it sounds, the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw a body comprised of nothing but the muscles was, "God, that looks just like the meat that I eat."

I'm not sure which city it stops at next (it's already been in Asia, Europe, and Los Angeles), but if it visits any city near you (I'm speaking to YOU, person sitting at the monitor!), don't miss out on the opportunity. I'm still reeling from what I saw, and words can't even be used to describe some of my thoughts and feelings.

11:51 AM [link]

Looking for a new look

04.08.05

Song of the Day: Rob Dougan - One And The Same (Coda)

I've just been hit with the peer pressure bug.

All three (count 'em: one, two, three) of my Kallurian girls just put up new layouts. I still have this dark, wintry layout that totally clashes with the spring weather. Since they all made spring-y layouts, I must do it too!

Maybe my Justice professor will repeat a prior lecture again today and give me a chance to start brainstorming. (Edit: I was kidding, but dear lord, he IS repeating another one! WTF?)

FYI - Rob is hot. Who is Rob? I don't know, take your pick: we have old favorite tongue-in-cheek pop star Robbie Williams, as well as the hot composer of kick-ass electronic-with-a-classical-edge music, Rob Dougan, and finally the newly-solo Rob Thomas whose hotness increased ten-fold when he cut his hair off.

One thing is for certain: musicians named Rob only enhance our world.

11:51 AM [link]

Fast food...not so good

04.07.05

Song of the Day: Geri Halliwell - Ride It

Today a classmate and I had to go to the Recorder of the Deeds office to do a project for Property. Before we went, we stopped at a food court to fuel up. Food courts obviously are made up primarily of fast food restaurants, which, outside of Chipotle, are places I haven't been in the last six months. It mainly has to do with the facts that Chipotle is the only fast food restaurant in decent walking distance, and that when I spend money to eat out, I'd rather go to one of the hundreds of unique ethnic restaurants in my neighborhood.

At the food court, I made a beeline for Taco Bell, which was my favorite fast food place in college. I ordered my usual - a chicken quesadilla and a nacho cheese chalupa with baja sauce. I don't know if it was the long absence from fast food, or if it was the fact that for the last month I've been eating fruit, veggies, and whole wheat like it's my job, but I could barely stomach it. I made it through the quesadilla and then just stared at the chalupa. I felt like I MUST eat it because I spent $1.39 on it, but it just wasn't going to happen.

I'm sure my arteries and my noticeably-nicer-lately abs thanked me for it, although I felt like I should be able to sell it back to the restaurant - "See? I didn't even unwrap it. You can give it to the next customer and they'll never know."

06:44 PM [link]

Brian's seeking holiness

04.06.05

Song of the Day: Alejandro Sanz - No Es Lo Mismo

I just received a phone call from my little sister, who was in absolute hysterics. After thinking someone had died, I was able to make out the words, "Brian is still wearing my bracelet!"

If you remember back a few entries, my sister joined me in Chicago for a Backstreet Boys concert and also had tickets to see them again in Columbus, Ohio. She, scarily obsessive as she is, went to the venue six hours before the doors opened in order to get a really close seat (she was probably thanking God the entire time that I wasn't with her, since I spent her entire visit rebuking such efforts). With the kind of luck that is usually bestowed on such psychotic adventurers, she was standing right by where their tour bus rolled in. She and the other fans who were there crazy-early got a chance to meet them, get autographs, and presumably scream out their undying love.

My sister, who recently defied family tradition of not being part of organized religion and got baptized over Easter, had one of those mega-popular rubber bracelets - this one was from her youth group and said "Seek Holiness" on it. Knowing that Brian is a devout Christian, she had conspired for weeks in advance to give the bracelet to him. Confronted with this unexpected opportunity, she presented it, and he said, I quote, "Whoa, this is dope! Thanks!" Dope enough for him to wear it through Monday night's concert, and as the momentarily-heartstopping shriek on the phone tonight told me, through the Detroit concert last night, as photos from the event show.

You'll have to thank her for giving me something to write about other than, "The Understanding Property book I dropped $35 on is actually worth the investment, I'm severely beating my ass for not buying the books in the series for last semester's classes."

05:52 PM [link]

Evil professors

04.04.05

Song of the Day: Kylie Minogue - Giving You Up

Professors that send out an email cancelling class after I've already left my apartment and started the trek downtown are evil. EVIL. Surely she knew that she wasn't feeling good an hour prior to that email. A half hour, even.

The kicker is that I almost gave into my half-asleep decision to stay in bed. But no, I decided to be a good little student, and was rewarded with an hour and fifteen minutes spent on the bus for no reason at all.

The good news is that when I got home from that purposeless bus ride, I decided to go to a different grocery store than the normal one I go to, and they had 500 types of hummus and 600 types of exotic cheese (can cheese be exotic?) I picked up a grilled artichoke dip and decided that the other grocery store just isn't going to get my business anymore. You have to have artichoke dip to win my heart.

06:34 PM [link]

Shopping trip

04.02.05

Song of the Day: Rob Thomas - Lonely No More

Rarely do I ever have such really good luck. Today I went to the Gap to spend a gift certificate. My goal was to get a white jacket, since I've been wanting one for the last few summers. I found a fantastic one that rang up $20 less than what the price tag said! Thanks to the price drop, I also decided to get a pair of denim capris. I figured the capris were my reward for doing well on the argument (yes, the Fantastic Oral one) yesterday. Even though I got mostly glowing feedback from the "judges", I didn't get a grade yet because this is law school and everyone else must go so that we can all be ranked against each other.

I also just found out my schedule for summer classes: I can only take two classes, and I'll be in class Monday through Thursday from 6:00 to 8:30 every night. So theoretically I can also work during the day, but I'm not so sure about that. I've spent the last two summers working in law offices without getting paid, I think I need a break.

Unless someone wants to seduce me with something like an iPod again. 'Cause that was really kickass.

07:14 PM [link]

Waiting game

04.01.05

Song of the Day: Madelyne - Beautiful Child

I'm currently at the beginning of a two hour wait until it's time for me to give my Fantastic Oral Argument. Oral arguments are what attorneys give in front of appellate courts - it's basically taking a massive appellate brief and condensing it into a 15 minute argument. While I speak, judges will interrupt me every five seconds to ask questions. It's worth a big chunk of my grade, and while I'm not nervous, I just want it over with. Now. Instead, I'm sitting here for two hours after class waiting for my time slot. At least my time slot is today - most of my classmates go either Saturday or Sunday. I'll be sitting at home cackling gleefully at the fact that I get my entire weekend to myself.

Well, not really, I'll probably be out and about checking out sales at the Gap and at the used bookstore in my neighborhood since the weather is so nice. But I'll still have a gleeful cackle or two.

02:42 PM [link]