Thought patterns

08.31.05

Song of the Day: Robbie Williams - Hot Fudge

If I could pick one thing about law school that drives me up the wall more than anything else, it's the fondness for phrases such as "fact patterns" and "thought patterns." Professors frequently say, "Here is the fact pattern for this case," or, "Here is my thought pattern, what do you think about this?"

I want to run up to them and shake all of their patterns right out of their brains. It sounds so silly, repetitive, and highly pretentious. Honestly, just say, "Here are the facts. Here are my thoughts." I'd never heard these stupid phrases before coming to law school, and now, for the last year, I've heard them at least once or twice a week.

I should start a law school drinking game. That would make everything SO much more enjoyable.

02:58 PM [link]

One week down...

08.28.05

Song of the Day: Amanda Marshall - Fall From Grace

Three day weekends are wonderful, but they are not nearly long enough. Something tells me that I'm impossible to satisfy.

Classes seem decent, except for my "Business Orgs" class which ends up being "Intro to Corporate Law." The book is written in a very laidback, hilarious tone, but the prof drives me up the wall since he pauses four times in the middle of every sentence, making him very impossible to follow. His bio says, "Prior to joining the Chicago-Kent faculty in 1990, he was staff assistant to the chief counsel for the Internal Revenue Service, a senior partner in the Chicago law firm of Arnstein & Lehr, and senior vice president and chief financial officer of a publicly-held corporation." He certainly didn't use his public speaking skills to get that far.

I've sadly been taking care of a dying hamster. I really need to get an animal that lives longer than two years.

And, to my readers who are not J and D, don't let them scare you off from commenting. I need SOMETHING in my comments other than their bickering.

03:17 PM [link]

Martha Stewart livin'

08.23.05

Song of the Day: Lara Fabian - I Will Love Again

I've become Martha Stewart lately, minus the ankle bracelet.

I've been making quiche with a homemade pie crust (although that's only because my grocery store doesn't carry pre-made pie crusts), tacos out of fresh seasonings instead of store-bought mixes, and curry chicken salad that I made on a recipe-less whim after having it in a restaurant. Even when I do use a recipe, I only follow it halfway and mess around with the ingredients to my liking. This did lead to a very goopy loaf of banana bread at one point, but for the most part I've been pleased with the results. I figure my increasingly excellent cooking skills should make me more marketable in the dating pool. I mean, men like good food, right?

Then again, I'd most likely bitch at them to make their own damn food and stop eating mine. 'Cause I'm so nice like that.

Two days of the new semester have gone by, and everything is pretty decent. I'll post more tomorrow, after I've experienced all four of my classes.

11:46 PM [link]

Saturday exams

08.20.05

Song of the Day: U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name

My sister and I were in the 3rd row at the Chicago Backstreet Boys concert last night (for those of you counting, that makes it my 5th BSB concert). AJ (one of the Backstreet Boys, for those of you who don't have guilty pleasures) had on a shirt that said, "Backstreet's Whack Alright." I do so admire people who can make fun of themselves.

I have an exam on a Saturday this semester. What's up with that? The good news is (or bad news, since this means I have less time to study for each exam than normal) that all my exams are in the first week of the two-week exam period, so I have an extra week of winter break. Awesome.

04:38 PM [link]

Diddy

08.18.05

Song of the Day: Jurgen Vries feat. Charlotte Church - Brave New World

In ever-so-important news today, P. Diddy has dropped the "P" from his name, and will now only answer to "Diddy."

How do people think this guy is cool?

01:23 PM [link]

New mindless fun

08.16.05

Song of the Day: Jennifer Paige - Always You

The complete lack of entries for the month of August so far is a reflection of how non-eventful things have been lately. That's about to change next week, when school starts up again, already. I feel like I was just celebrating the end of summer classes yesterday, rather than three weeks ago.

My professors have already pissed me off - an entire week ago, the list of book assignments was posted, and I thought, "Oh good, I have two weeks to order these off half.com so I don't shell out half my life savings at the school bookstore." Well, guess who still hasn't submitted to the list yet? All of my professors. From looking at the list, it seems like every single other professor in the school has. Here I am now, with six days left before classes start, and there's no way I'll be able to get books online and read the assignments for the first day in time to be prepared for class. I'm already nursing a passionate loathing for my professors for being so damn irresponsible and/or unsympathetic, as I will now have to rip out my still-beating heart and offer it as a sacrifice to the school bookstore.

J (or, for my readers who don't know her, the artiste formally known as Melantha) has gotten me hooked on some majorly addicting time-wasting websites: Audioscrobbler/last.fm, where you can see what's been playing on my iTunes, along with other oh-so-useful features, and bibliophil.org, where you can see a list of all the books I've ever read. Granted I've read hundreds and hundreds of books in my lifetime, so it will take a long while before it's anywhere near complete, and I doubt I'll be adding all of the Baby-Sitter's Club and Sweet Valley High books I read before moving onto John Grisham and Michael Crichton at the age of 11, but I'm pumped because I've been looking for a way to catalogue what I've read for a long time. Go make your own profiles and join me in this mindless fun!

07:25 AM [link]

Ally! Now!

08.11.05

Song of the Day: Nelly Furtado - Turn Off The Light

I'm not very exciting lately (although I did find out I got a B+ in my Criminal Procedure class, and while anything below an A would have been disappointing in normal school, in law school, a B+ is definitely cause for celebration!), so I thought I would rant about something I've ranted about before, in hopes that someone with Power hears it and does something about it:

WHY isn't Ally McBeal on DVD yet? What kind of cruel world do we live in?

And just so we're all on the same page here, it's entirely Robert Downey Jr.'s fault that that show went downhill. Larry NEVER would have left Ally, but Downey Jr. had to go do some drugs, and thus ensured that the series hit the deathbed. And people wonder why I'm anti-drug.

10:47 PM [link]

Weekend update

08.08.05

Song of the Day: Garbage - Temptation Waits

Totally random comments about this weekend:

Saw March of the Penguins. My thoughts? "Don't eat the baby penguin. Oh my god, DON'T EAT THE BABY PENGUIN. DON'T EAT THE BABY PENGUIN! OH MY GOD, YOU ATE THE BABY PENGUIN!"

Having my boobs grabbed by a naked man who lets out a fit of giggles afterwards is totally charming and endearing. Of course, this only works if you're a two-year-old who I love to bits.

That same two-year-old is the only person who can get away with saying "it was tight" when someone asks him what he thought of something without me glaring at him. His dad is SO taking advantage of the fact that he'll repeat anything.

I bought new shoes!! Again!!

Thank god for both my cousin and J, because these two women always understand exactly what I mean and always completely agree with me. It's a little scary how I'm always on the exact same wavelength as them, but it's reassuring to know I'm not the only sane (insane?) person out there.

I definitely need to visit my family on the east coast more often.

01:17 AM [link]

Vacation #2

08.04.05

Song of the Day: Faith Hill - Mississippi Girl

I'm off (way too) early tomorrow morning to head to Washington DC for the weekend. I'll be visiting family, including my cousin's 2-year-old son, who is the most adorable creature ever to walk this planet.

I'm hoping I'll be able to get to sleep at a decent time tonight, but it's doubtful since I woke up at 3 this afternoon after sleeping for 12 hours straight. I did something painful to a muscle behind one of my shoulder blades yesterday morning, and by the end of the day, all I could do was lay flat on my back. This lead to copious amounts of sleeping - but hey, I can move again, so it's all good.

I probably won't be online much, if at all, until Sunday night.

07:11 PM [link]

I'm a poodle

08.02.05

Song of the Day: The Go-Go's - Unforgiven

At the beginning of the summer, I tried on one of those peasant skirts that everyone is wearing right now. Everyone else looked really good in them, and I figured a white one would go with everything in my closet.

Once I got in the dressing room with one though, I quickly changed my mind. One look in the mirror, and I burst out laughing and thought, "AHAHAHAHAHA, look at me in the flouncy skirt! I LOOK LIKE A POODLE!"

Yeah, there went my attempt at being trendy this summer. Those little half-length jacket-like things that are suddenly appearing everywhere don't do it for me either. I can't even figure out what I'd wear them with. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you will soon enough; every store I go into has five hundred to pick from.

09:23 PM [link]

Three day weekends again!

08.01.05

Song of the Day: Rockell - What U Did 2 Me

I woke up this morning and almost had a heart attack - I received an email saying that my Legal Writing 3 class had changed; the Friday class meeting had moved to Thursday.

A few people might remember just how difficult of a time I'd had originally trying to put together my fall semester schedule, and the fact that I'd originally had three-day weekends, but had to change to this Legal Writing class, which screwed up that happy fact.

After a few heart stopping moments when I thought it wasn't going to work, I realized that the new Thursday class time fits nicely right in between the two other Thursday morning classes I have. After moaning about how long Thursdays are going to be, I realized two things:

1. Assigning a professor to the class and moving its meeting time probably means they're not cancelling it (at the time I signed up for it, there were only three other people in it, and I thought for sure they were going to screw me over by cancelling it).
2. Three-day weekends, baby!!

I wish all seemingly-bad news was, in reality, this good.

12:43 PM [link]