i'm a law slave and i've gone country. i know, it's all so overwhelming. i'll explain. (oh, and i have pictures, too, because i know you all all voyeurs)

things that changed since we last spoke:

i got a macbook pro.  in case you aren't aware, this automatically means i'm cool.  like really cool.  and really popular.  that's what steve job told me when he welcomed me to the super secret society of cool.  it's apparently a "no-pcs-allowed" kind of club.  discriminatory, i know.  oh, and her name is "lola."  "her" being being new macbook.  lola just sounded sassy and fierce.  just go with it.

i got a new car.  my mom got a new car, so that means i did, too.  (thanks, mom.  and of course, dad, who pays for it all.)  sweet gig.  good thing i'm in love with the car because it looks like i'll be driving the thing until the wheels fall off.  that'll probably be around the time i pay off my law school debt.  (i hope and pray.)  oh, and i named her (the car), too.  snowball.  her name is snowball.  well, that's her nickname.

i was really blessed to get an awesome legal internship for the summer.  sure, i'll be working for free and watching my bank account dwindle even further, but hey, it's a great position, and i'm stoked i got it.

i've gone country.  well, not really, but i go out dancing -- two-stepping, to be precise -- at least once a week now.  and i've been wearing cowgirl boots.  for those of you who aren't from texas, particularly houston, houston has its HLSR (houston livestock show and rodeo) at this time every year.  and lemme tell you, it's AH.MAZING.  so freaking fun.  starts off with BBQs and cook-offs, then has concerts every night for two weeks straight.  oh yeah, and there are lots of animals, and barrel races, and bull riding, and bronco riding, and a calf scramble when a hundred calves are set loose and these little country kids all run out into the arena and try to catch them.  (wow, explaining that makes me sound real texan.)  anyways, it's amazing and i love it and around these parts it's like christmas.  honestly, i just like dancing and wearing the boots and cute dresses.

{"don't stop believing"}

i'm not as crazy as i was last semester.  last semester, i don't know how i wasn't locked up.  seriously.  first semester of law school made me crazy.  like britney crazy.  i even cut three inches off my own hair one night at 3am while i was studying for a final.  see?  britney crazy.  anyways, now i'm better; by that i mean, i'm managing things better and the vast abyss of law school that was once so unknown and uncharted territory isn't quite so scary anymore.  in fact, i'm actually semi-normal now and my friends don't think i'm dead.

i will probably be crazy again in about a month.  probably less.  finals start in two months.  studying for finals starts like yesterday.  and i have a appellate brief due in a month as well.  law school finals are like college finals on HGH, steroids, and the machine that the dad used in that movie, "honey, i blew up the kids" all multiplied by a million.  and then multiplied by a million again.  

i still read a lot of your blogs, i just don't comment because i'm normally reading them on my phone and i guess i have fat fingers or something, but it's kind of hard to type out comments on my iphone.  i miss you all, too.  thanks for sticking around even when i'm lamesauce.

hearts.

i won't say 'happy new year' since i'm 11 days late, so hello there

good news is: i'm still alive.  first semester of law school didn't kill me - though it tried its hardest.

bad news is: round two starts back tomorrow.  i've heard from thousands and thousands of people that "it gets better."  well, you thousands and thousands of people, you better be right or i'm coming after each and every one of you.

i had an amazing month off of rest and relaxation with family and friends who had listed me as a missing person.  here's what i did in bullet points (because let's be honest, no one wants to read):

- took pictures with santa with my siblings and santa said we were the oldest three siblings who had ever come to take their picture with him.  i told him he could thank our mother.

- i read more non-law school books than i can count.  ahhh, how i missed reading for enjoyment.  scarpetta, by patricia cornwell, the lincoln lawyer by michael connelly, and the mockingjay by suzanne collins were probably my top three that i read.

- i watched every episode of law and order ever made as well as every episode of HGTV's house hunters.  i can now predict with 100% accuracy who the killer is or what house the people will choose.  not sure what that says about me.  i think i'm psychic.

- i had an amazing time getting to spend time and going out with my friends.  they surprisingly still loved me despite my lack of existing in the real world.

- this was one of the first year's my family didn't travel over the holidays and it was so great being home and having family come to us.

- i've recently started zumba where i'm learning to shake what my momma gave me and sculpt rock hard abs.  at least, that's what my gay instructor tells me.  and i believe him because i've seen him shake what his momma gave him and he has rock hard abs.

i've missed the blogging world and check in on a lot of you now and then to see what's going on in everyone's lives.  hugs and kisses.

if these people made it through law school, so can i. oh, and i'm getting old. like really old.

the following people actually went to law school and subsequently passed the bar.  scary, i know.

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor , isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep , he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son , the 20-year-old , how old is he?
WITNESS: He's 20 , much like your IQ.
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shi**ing me?
_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death..
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them.. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral , OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral...
_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not , he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

i died laughing reading this and i died laughing posting it.  in other good news, i am stressed beyond anything i ever thought possible.  and i'm pretty sure law school is making me irrational and crazy.  and forgetful.  well, i was crazy before, now i'm CUHRAZZZY.  i keep putting the orange juice back in the cabinet where my glasses go. and the other day i microwaved my car keys instead of my green tea.  oh, and i still haven't shaved my legs.  i think my body feels sorry for me because my leg hair hasn't even grown back yet since i got them waxed.

also, i will be a quarter of a century come monday, the 15th.  (un)fortunately, my very happy birthday comes smack dab in the middle of writing my final legal memorandum as well as studying for finals.  yuck.  hugs and kisses, lovers.

law school = hairy legs, lots of sugar, and charlie is back

first year of law school forces you to neglect a variety of things.  things you once held sacred and dear are taken over by the blob that is law school.

to give you an idea of how i'm doing (although i'm sure 97% of you don't care, i'm just narcissistic and am going to pretend that you do), i'm going to tell you a little bit about myself these days:

- i've stopped shaving my legs.  it takes time and i'm lazy.  so my vietnamese bff, ann, at my nail salon waxes them while i sit there and read contracts.  she talks the entire time, too.  as if her talking is going to distract me from ripping hair from my legs.

- my diet consists solely of sugar cookies and sweet potatoes.  please don't be like my doctor and judge.  she's convinced i'm going to turn myself into a diabetic before too long.  i like sugar and i like sweet.  what can i say.

- lest you have forgotten about charlie, he's baaaaaaaaaack!!!  i see him almost nightly now, and he has been in a MOOD lately.  for those of you who have forgotten charlie, or who didn't have the great pleasure of reading about charlie, here he is in all his pride and glory:

i've told him if he hasn't stopped scaring the bejeebies out of me, i'm going to turn him into one of these:

love and miss you all like a barnacle loves being on a humpback whale.

hugs and kisses.

things i do instead of studying: if facebook existed long ago...

i'm a hairless cow. or that's what google told me.

hokay, so here's the deal.  i just finished week deux of law school (law school is also know as - i'm going to not only take all of your money, but i am going to deprive you of any and all sleep, make you carry 4.36 million pound case books, stand up in class and recite one of the 7.83 million cases i assigned you the night before all while making you develop a stomach ulcer and hair loss due to stress). 

i'm essentially going to school six days a week, thanks to these "highly recommended/basically mandatory" saturday seminars.  let's just say i've gone from having a very limited life to a non-existent life.  my limited human interaction involves teaching my 11th grade girls sunday school class sunday mornings.  (p.s. do any of y'all have 16-17 year old girls or know any 16-17 year old girls?  they are hysterical.  and chatty.  like even more chatty than i get when i ramble on to you guys in my post.  i've been blessed with a great group of about ten girls this school year, so i'm excited to see how the year goes.)

i guess i can't say it's all bad, though.  i'm really, really loving the actual content of what i'm learning and how to actually apply the law.  my passion for the law and and understanding it has only increased, so thank sweet Jesus i'm good at identifying my own interests.  you'd be shocked to know, quite a few people start law school and quit after the first week or semester saying, "this crap wasn't what i signed up for."  it's intense, suffice it to say.

that being said, i miss you all like cuhrazy.  i'll try to make the rounds when i can and i hope everyone is doing well.

let me leave you with this - when i typed in the word "stress" in google images, this is what i came up with.  weird.  i think google is trying to tell me something, and i'd be stupid not to listen since google and wikipedia are pretty much geniuses and right all the time.

i feel google may be predicting what i'm going to look like by the end of the year - a cow with no hair.

paying $100,000 to read, write, and not sleep. excellent choice.

at the request of hotpantsTM, i'm interrupting my regularly scheduled case briefing and reading to bring you this blog post.  brief as it may be, it's still a post (with pictures, mind you) nonetheless.*

so here's the deal: my life is cuh-razy and i am bizzzay (that's crazy and busy, just in case you had trouble discerning my dirty street lingo).  let me break it down like this - i recently posted this on surferwoman's facebook wall:

yes, i already know - there is a disgusting typo in there.  the word "about" is supposed to be "AMOUNT" as in "amount of reading."  gahhh, i'm a failure.

so that's it in a grammatically incorrect facebook post - i've been ridic busy reading my life away.  kind of weird that i'm paying over $100,000 to read for hours on end (somehow have to remember and apply, more importantly, all of it).

and just because i know how much all of you freaky voyeurs like pictures, here's my desk - in shambles and unorganized omg:

and this is what bailey does while i study:

see, so there you have it, i'm a busy busy bee!  a busy bee who misses and loves all of you and will definitely make the rounds to read your blogs and catch up in y'all's lives in my "spare" time!

in other news, i start teaching 11th grade girls sunday school tomorrow which i'm super stoked about!  and quasi has an MMA fight tonight in vegas.  i'm a littttle nervous to say the least.  i'll let you know how it all goes down.  i'm bummed i couldn't be there to watch and support him, but mandatory law school orientation kind of cramped my style.

*have you ever thought it's weird that "nonetheless" is all one word?  i mean really, it's three separate words in one to build one mega run-on word.  weird.  or maybe not.

while my birthday is still four months away...

...i already know what i want:

omg i'm freaking in love.

p.s. it's a hedgehog, not a porcupine. 
and i've unofficially named him trevor.  trevor the hedgehog.