Blame It On The Rain

I'm off to Superior Court today to argue a fake motion for a pretend case for my Pre-Trial Advocacy class. The scary part is the judge, the court room and the grades are real.

Why can't we wear jeans to court? It would make my life so much easier and HELLO why isn't the entire justice system focused on making my life easier.

I have a feeling going to court in Seattle is a little trickier than going to court in other hoods, ahem, I mean geographical locations. I generally love Seattle. And I generally love rain. BUT going to court in Seattle is just no fun. Even if the prediction is clear skies, you STILL have to prepare for the likely probability that it will rain. Because, get real. It's Seattle. Rainy season is September to July.

Why is rain so horrible? Rain = messed up hair, drenched suit, soaking wet breif case and motion papers.

So, not only do I have to lug around a huge umbrella. I have to bring a raincoat. Extra shoes- suited for walking in the rain. Money for the bus so I DON'T have to walk in the rain. And my hair straightener to remedy the fuzz of a humid-infested environment. Do you even know how un-hot your hair is when it is half dry and half wet?

Oh yeah, I have to prepare the SUBSTANCE of my argument as well. Almost forgot about that.

P.S.- If I have to dress up to go to court, why can't I at least wear a fun accessory like a tie? It's not fair- why don't girls get to wear ties? I'd wear one with flames.

Professor [Sexual Fantasy] Evaluations

Please evaluate your sexual fanatsies about this instructor by answering "Excellent", "Good," "Satisfactory," "Fair," or "Poor" to the following questions:

In your fantasies:
1. Does the instructor speak clearly and understandably [in bed]?
Excellent. [His point ALWAYS comes across...if you know what I mean.]
2. Is the professor well prepared and organized [in bed]?
Excellent. [Always has a game plan and always scores the winning point.]
3. Does the instructor incorporate new and current material to the subject?
Satisfactory. [Good use of "material," especially the vibrating variety.]
4. Does the instructor appear to have an adequate grasp of the subject?
Excellent. [No further comment necessary.]
5. Does the instructor cover course material [your body] in adequate depth?
Excellent. [Where no man has gone before!]
6. Does he stimulate thought [you]?
Excellent. [I'm stimulated speechless!]
7. Does the instructor make the subject [it] interesting?
Excellent. [If your definition of interesting involves office hours, strategic placement of casebooks, and spectacles.]
8. Does he make good use of examples and hypotheticals?
Excellent. [You know what they say, "Don't fight the hypo desire."]

What suggestions would you make to this instructor?
MARRY ME!

Horsing Around

I'm doing a ton of things lately. My weekly schedules are jammed packed! And somehow studying does not make my list of weekly activities. Oh well. If law school was a road, I would be a car that has spun out into the ditch. Smoking engine, blown out tires AND unconscious driver- the whole thing. But I'd be a HAPPY unconscious driver. Because instead of freaking out about finals and being a responsible student, I am doing things that make me happy!

Like riding horses. Exhibit A:



This is Jackson, the beautiful horse that I get to ride once a week (soon to be twice a week!). I LOVE riding. It takes so much focus, coordination and communication (with the horse of course) that I can pretty much escape the rest of my life. I thought riding would be 100% thrill. Like boating or going on a carnival ride. I thought I could just hop onto a saddle and ride away into the sunset. But actually, it's really challenging and takes a lot of skill and patience. Some days it's 70% frustration and 30% whatever else. But it's ALWAYS fun. Basically it's what gets me through the week, knowing I have a lesson at the end of it.

I was never one of those "horse" people. You know, the kids who wore screen print horse sweatshirts to school. The ones who collected My Little Ponies and watched Black Beauty a million times. In fact, I was never much of an animal person. I always prefered playing with babies to animals. But now I have a new appreciation and admiration for horses. They really are amazing animals. I can't believe how strong they are. And so stubborn. But I think that's why we get along, I have an affinity for stubborn things and I have a stubborn streak myself.

Damn it. I have to take back what I said about not being one of those "horse" people. I just remembered that, this afternoon, I ordered a sweatshirt from the stables. It has a screen print picture of a horse on the back AND my name on the front. Shhh, don't tell anyone...

P.S. The best part about riding is that I have an excuse to wear my cowboy boots in public. Then I like to make a trip to the grocery store on my way home and leave a trail of dried horse poo behind me. When people make a comment about my boots I get to say, "Oh, I just came back from the stables."

The Cost Of Legal Education

I met with a lawschool financial aid advisor the other day. She gave me the grand total price tag for my legal education. Are you ready for this? You should sit down. Really. My total debt for law school is $119,000.00. And I think I might be on the lower end of the scale because I only paid for one year of rent rather than three (thank you husband for paying the mortgage). AND I don't have any undergraduate debt- thanks to scholarships and the Bank of Dad.

It totally amazes me how much it costs to attend law school. I think education is the greatest equalizer when it comes to socio-economic issues. But how can it be an effective equalizer if only the rich can afford it? Sure, there are a bunch of great public schools. But because of our tax-financed public school system, the good public schools are in the rich neighborhoods. And public colleges aren't even affordable anymore.

Anyway, in addition to owing 120K to financial institutions for my legal education. I now owe Barbri (the bar exam prep people) my soul. Talk about life kicking you when you are down. I just signed away a huge chunk of my paycheck for the next 20 years to pay back my tuition loans and now They want to send me through the ringer one more time. It's like "Are you SURE you don't have some assets or trust fund money stashed away somewhere? Come on now- GIVE IT UP! How about pennies under your bed. I'll settle for your lunch money." The bar exam itself is about $600. Then you have to fork over enough to cover hotel and meal expenses for three days during the bar. But the bar exam prep course is what kills me. The month long course costs $2,700! Plus $500 extra to take advantage of the mobile option (I'm not commuting 5+ hours a day, five days a week to actually SIT IN on the course).

My whole financial outlook is bleak right now. And all of this just to be qualified for a job in which I will be earning less than my engineer brother with an undergrad education? Ridiculous. To make this bleakness a little darker, let's consider all the things I could have bought INSTEAD of my legal education:

• Boob jobs for twelve people
• One Diet Dr. Pepper every day for the next 329 years
• A cozy four bedroom home in Gorst, Washington (with 20K to spare!)
• Two Hummer H2 SUVs
• 9,230 trips up the Space Needle
• Half of a fast food restaurant franchise
• 1/10th of a head of Brittany Spear's hair
• The adoption of 3-12 children
• A necklace once owned by Elvis Presley (sold on juliensauctions.com)
• Clothing and accessories for Sara Palin during the campaign
• 30 average sized engagement rings (about $4000 each)
• I could charter a five room luxury yacht for a week

How is that for perspective?

Cooking Up A Storm

Literally.

I went on a cooking binge this week. I'm pretty much exhausted from measuring, kneading, checking the doneness of meats and WASHING dishes! I swear I used every single one of our dishes at least three times. The best part is that the refrigerator is overflowing with leftovers.

At times, it really did seem like a storm in our kitchen. I think the smoke alarm went of six times this week. But to my credit, the oven is really dirty and smokes easily. Wait- how is that to my credit?

I love to cook. There is just something about having a finished product at the end of all your work. Very unlike reading casebooks, studying or attending class. And the results taste much better too. I got really tired of thumbing through my million cookbooks and trying to remember old recipe websites to find my favorite recipes. So I bought a really nice journal at the local bookstore and I have been transcribing all my favorite, no-fail recipes into ONE BOOK. It's totally awesome. I LOVE my recipe book. I even have false hopes that my kids will pick it up after I'm long gone, make my old recipes and fondly rememberme...ha ha ha- ok, back to reality.

This week I made the following:

Potato Pierogies
Spatzle- German dumplings with ham and Sauerkraut (my great grandma's recipe!)
Homemade pizza bagels- from scratch!
Country fried steak with biscuits and sausage gravy (all from scratch)
Tandoori chicken (a recipe from my Indian friend- but still not as good as hers)
Pecan Pie (times two!)
Teriyaki chicken with homemade sauce
Chicken Sio Pao (phillipino dumplings - like the round chinese dumplings)

Wow, I'm exhausted just thinking about it all. This is going to be one yummy week of leftovers. If I would have just spent a fraction of the time that I spent cooking on doing my law school homework, I could have been ready for tomorrow's 8am class. Sigh.

**Updated to include recipe links!

Not Likely To Become A Doctor

That's how I would describe my son after our failed anatomy lesson yesterday.

Well, if the only job he will qualify for is Burger King Burger Flipper, maybe I get free fries for life?!

Re-Convert

You know how when you ask people what kind of music they listen to many will say, "Anything but country....oh and rap."

As a die hard country music fan, this totally pisses me off. Ok, so country is just not your thAng, I get it- that's fine. But REALLY? You like every other category in the repertoire of worldly music EXCEPT country? How much more of an insult can you give to a down-hown, line-dancing, wanna-be country gal? It's borderline ridiculous!

I mean seriously? You'd prefer to listen to hours of ear splitting mountain yodeling than country music? You would choose whinny teenage emo music over a couple bars of an acoustic accompanied by a fiddle and some lyrics about pick-ups and bud light? How about hokey polky acccordian music in another language? You'd rather listen to THAT too? Well, at least you disclaimed a distate for rap as well, but notice how it is almost an afterthought as if country music where the ultimate in horribleness.

Am I missing somethere here? Is country music THAT horrible? I mean it's a brother to Rock and Blues. And excuse me, but ELVIS PRESLEY was consideres a country music artist as well. I admit a lot of country is "redneck," but that's because country singers know how to HAVE fun and MAKE fun of themselves. Example lyrics:

"She thinks my tractor's sexy."
"I can hotwire your tractor and plow up your land."
"I can take you for a ride on my big green tractor."
"If you gonna learn to farm you gotta learn to drive a truck"
"We all gotta hillbilly bone deep inside."
"I was sittin' there sellin' turnips on a flatbed truck."

Maybe it's genetic. You are born to like country or not. Maybe I just like it because it brings back memories of riding my bike in my garage as my dad worked on his boat and blasted the local country station. Maybe it just speaks to where I am in life right now. Or maybe I'm just a country girl trapped in the city. Oh, and there IS something beautiful about an accoustic or steel guitar that can't be replicated by a synthesizer.

In highschool I claimed that I hated country along with all of my friends. I think I even believed that myself for a while. From highschool to the age of 25, I refused to listen to it because of it's reputation as being "uncool" and "hick." But then, one day, my mom drove my car and left the radio station blaring. I decided to leave it on that channel for my entire 45 minutes drive home. By the time I got home I was singing along to my old favorites and loving some of the new stuff. I could hide no longer- country found me again and it stuck.

If you just don't like country, I respect that. I'm not trying to convert you. I just want people to respect country as a legitimate expression of the values and experiences of people from all across the country. And not just unsophisticated, toothless people, either. Sure it can be as loud an obnoxious as a dirty pickup with monster wheels. It can be as sexy as a shirtless rodeo bronc in boots and a dirty cowbow hat. But it can also be as sweet, romantic and breathtaking as an endless field of wheat and rolling hills.

And if you STILL refuse to respect country, you can take my shit kickers (aka:boots) up your @$$, you dimwitted gooseberry.