I'm DONE!!!
Done with this semester's work, done with finals. Done with this year of school. Done with law school. Done with my formal education forever.

And now I don't know what to do with myself but sleeping for about a year or so sounds good... ;-)

Missing Smith and all my Smithies because graduation- from no matter what school-- will always remind me of the good old alma mater.

Yes, yes, I know I dropped off the face of the LJ-earth. In my defense, I blame classes-- and the stupid job search-- for eating my life and my brain. But, today, have a little window of time and am avoiding work because I'm not feeling all that great today-- except, oddly enough, it's not in that 'I'm getting sick' sort of way but more of a generalized malaise and not helped by the fact that I have several cold sores, which basically means my entire mouth hurts.

Went out last night for dinner and a movie for a friend's birthday. Watched 'Megamind' which was very amusing-- loved the way they were spoofing Superman-- and quite cute too. Would just like to say that I'm really loving this new spate of snarky, animated movies coming out. Of course, during the trailers, I was also semi-traumatized by finding out that they're making a movie on the life of Justin Bieber, who is all of 16-- and worse, the movie will be in 3D. There are no words for the utter wrong-ness of that.

Have actually been writing some this week-- my muses returning for the first time all semester-- and I had almost forgotten how much I missed writing for fun. Will enjoy it while it lasts since I have no doubt my muses will do a flit and go AWOL again soon, I predict by Monday. Yet another thing to add to my list of 'Why I Hate Law School.'

Am still unemployed. Am still stressed about it. And am starting to hear rumbles on the ground-- so to speak-- about the bar exam. Which I'm really trying not to think about.

Am amused (and somewhat confused by) the flub made by Korea at the G-20 summit, where someone had the bright idea to create larger-than-life doll representations of the leaders of the G-20 countries who were coming-- and then proceeded to have the Australian doll dressed in a dierndl, i.e. traditional Austrian clothing, altho' they did get the Australian flag right. Even assuming this Austria/Australia thing is understandable in English (I don't really think it is because it displays horrifying ignorance), I am utterly confused by how this mistake could be made in Korea because the Korean words for Australia and Austria don't sound AT ALL alike. I suppose we can just chalk it up as another display in the 'Never underestimate the stupidity of people' museum. Incidentally, apparently George W. made the same mistake of confusing Austria and Australia in a speech. Although, really, that's just par for the course for him.

Still not over the absolute joy of having an intelligent, articulate president.
Even if Congress is being remarkably stupid. And why oh why can John McCain not retire already?

In more positive news, am very excited for: (1) Josh Groban's new album-- and it's about damn time!! (2) the 25th Anniversary of 'Les Mis in Concert' event, next week, (3) Thanksgiving break (even if finals will be looming up uncomfortably close), and (4) 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' finally coming out- and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they won't have butchered my favorite book of the series.

Hurray for Judge Susan R. Bolton for blocking certain parts of the stupid AZ law! A new hero of the day. (And a female federal judge at that, which is just icing on the cake.)

( Losing respect for AZ Governor Brewer by the dayCollapse )

As a result of reading this op-ed piece in the NY Times about Elena Kagan's statement of judicial philosophy on how the courts need to "recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people."

( On so-called judicial moderation and, tangentially, gay marriageCollapse )

- The Catholic Church is depressing me.
- The Red Sox are depressing me.
- Smith- and the thought of what it's doing to the Chapel- is depressing me.
- Law school is depressing me-- and stressing me out-- and ensuring that I don't sleep well. In the past couple nights, my dreams have been about studying, class, and writing my seminar paper. I'm stressed in my sleep.

About the only thing that's not depressing me... um, wait, at the moment, I can't really think of anything... At this point, I think the only thing keeping me from curling up in bed and not getting up ever again is having to go to classes and the (depressing) knowledge that it's not like my taking a leave of absence from life is going to solve anything.

Don't mind me. I'll be fine. Eventually. This, too, shall pass. Or whatever.

I'm turning into a lawyer.
Truly frightening thought.

I saw a journal article somewhere arguing that the state should recognize and create a legal status for friends, with legal rights and obligations attached to the status, sort of like the state does for marriage. At the time (pre-law school), I thought it was a ridiculous idea.
Now... I can actually see the logic in it. Any day now, I'm going to use my spare time to draft a legal, enforceable contract (it won't involve a meretricious relationship and I'll make sure it includes mutual consideration) regarding my expectations from a friendship and circulate it amongst my friends. (At which point I expect I will probably alienate all the friends I have...) It makes sense. Really it does! To a lawyer, that is. Which, I suppose, is the equivalent of saying it only makes sense to an insane person since law school is not conducive to promoting or preserving sanity.

I'm turning into a lawyer.
Foreseeable consequence-- but I didn't know what it meant before I started this whole thing! Talk about caveat emptor.

(Admittedly, part of my lack of sanity may be explained away by the fact that I got about 4 hours of sleep last night.)

But I never seem to learn.
Watched 'Becoming Jane' finally and was, predictably, angered. The only thing that saved me from wanting to burn the dvd was James McAvoy, who was very cute and did very well. Beyond that...

( Cut for rant- because I can't help itCollapse )

Going to watch some 'Pride and Prejudice' to calm my soul and then going to attempt to get some more work done.

I'm aliiiiiivvee!!
Or just barely. Assuming anyone (a)cares or (b) remembers my existence in LJ-land.
am bored and figured I'd kill time before my weekly Wednesday meeting that I've mentally termed the 'waiting for the DoT bureaucracy to get off its ass' meeting. And since doing anything remotely productive is just not happening...

Random notes:
- The Oscars. Did not watch but yay for Kathryn Bigelow. Boo for Christopher Plummer not winning (even if I never really expected he would.) He deserves it for his decades of brilliant acting.

- Got a Blackberry. I will not get addicted. I will not get addicted.

- It's warm outside!

- Going to NYC this weekend to see my dear mangamango and dianthe. Yay for mini-vacations.

- I'm apparently doomed to be a sleazy lawyer.

- Spring Training! Red Sox!!! Beyond happy to have something other than law school to think about.

- Want to watch 'Alice in Wonderland.' Maybe over spring break.

So the Oscar nominations are out-
glad 'Up' was nominated for Best Picture.
And Christopher Plummer has finally been nominated and it's about damn time. I'm going to spend the next month until the Oscars hoping and praying that Christopher Plummer wins for Best Supporting Actor because it is a travesty that he has never been nominated, let alone won, before now. The Oscars may be unfair-- they are-- but they're still Hollywood's biggest, most prestigious award, and if any actor deserves one Oscar for a lifetime's work, it has to be him. I want to see him win one-- and have this fantasy in my head of it being a presentation much like when Robin Williams won his- a massive standing ovation and all the previous Actor Oscar-winners on stage to welcome him into their ranks. It's a matter of justice.

Just over 2 weeks until Spring Training... Counting down the days (and I'm still amazed when I think about it that I've come to this.)

Back to work- and the Law Governing Lawyers.

There's something really wrong when Massachusetts of all states elects a Republican Senator to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. Oh shit.

It occurs to me that being a whole-hearted supporter of the President is not a good thing; it makes the low-class political protest, of which there is so much of these days, personally offensive to me. I suppose this is poetic justice for the years of Bush-hating-- but really, even trying to be as impartial as possible, I don't think Obama's to blame. The Democratic party is full of bs, yes, but I don't think it's his fault and anyway, anyone who thought that he would miraculously bring about the end of the recession and the two wars in the blink of an eye was idiotic. Recessions don't end that quickly; for God's sake, it took FDR and the New Deal the better part of a decade and even so, the only thing that really ended the Great Depression was the onset of WWII. To say nothing of the fact that Bush had 8 years to screw over this country and it'll take at least that long and probably longer to fix it again since it's much easier to destroy than to fix.

In more cheerful news, finished reading Dan Brown's latest, 'The Lost Symbol', which I actually liked. Taking away the skeleton plot that was Dan Brown's typical, I thought it was pretty good. I liked 'Da Vinci Code' and 'Angels and Demons' too for the ideas it teased out of the history and the artwork and I like 'Lost Symbol' for the same reason. And at the very least, Dan Brown is not a bad writer.

T-6 days until classes start and the second half of my law school career officially begins-- and it's all down-hill from here...