lagomorph

So I'm fairly technology-challenged and I'm sure someone here has to know this. I was thinking about getting one of those unlocked cell phones you can buy on Amazon. It says you can just stick in the SIM card you already have and start using it, but I remember the last time I got a new phone it wouldn't work, and it turned out the reason why was I had the wrong kind of card. (This might have had something to do with the fact that the "new" phone was really cheap and crappy and presumably a much older model, I don't know.) So how do I know if the one I have will actually work?

Well, I didn't flunk out of law school. I just got my last grade today, even though my exams ended Dec. 22. I've been such a stress case (well okay, even more than usual) for an entire month. My grades seem horrible to me, but there's this dumbass curve and I think the average for a class isn't allowed to be above like 2.6, so I suppose it's all sort of relative. At any rate, I'm just glad I'm still here. Also, it's 12 degrees here. Twelve. Two days ago I had my window open.

I'd sort of given up on writing here, but no one seems to be awake for me to talk to. I went to this party a girl in my classes was throwing, she pretty much invited everyone in our section and I guess 20-25 people showed up. It was fun, finally having a conversation with people I've sort of know for 6 months but never really talked to. I actually know people's first names now (the professors call us Mr. and Ms. whatever, so everyone knows each others last name.) Let me say no, I am not drunk, I still haven't gotten over the October debacle yet. Our hostess kept handing me drinks and I kept sitting them down. I had this completely atrocious vanilla pepsi and vodka and decided I was done. There was a tiny bit of excitement but it was more funny than anything. I guess some of the neighbors called the police because we were getting so loud, so this cop knocks on the door, and he's young and not ugly, and the girl who opens the door goes "Well hello, look at you!" and then immediately looks completely horrified and sort of backs away. So the girl who actually lived there starts telling him, "I swear we're all over 21, we're law students" and he just sort of shakes his head and says "well, future lawyers of America, just keep it down" and leaves. I'm pretty sure he didn't hear when someone tried to offer him a beer. All in all not nearly as rock and roll as my last story, but still, there does always seem to be a cop involved somehow.

Well, three exams down and a take-home one to go. I'm fairly sure I completely blew the first one but the other two I feel okay about. I got really lucky and found another girl who has a flight leaving about an hour before mine, so she's driving me to the airport tomorrow morning. I was going to have to walk about a mile with my bags at 4 am and get on this shuttle that a taxi company runs, so I'm definitely pleased to be picked up by car at 5 instead. I hate flying, hate the whole ordeal with the crowds and not knowing where I'm going in the airport, hate the taking off and the landing and everything in between. Also I have to change planes at O'Hare...blegh. It's been a pretty long time since I've flown, the tag on my luggage still had the address I lived at 3 places ago. I had a conversation about Star Trek with a cute guy this morning. Just saying...weird. We're not exactly friends but we've studied together a few times and we talk when we see each other. Anyway, he told me about this rumor that Matt Damon is playing Kirk in some kind of prequel movie (I looked this up on and he said he hadn't even been contacted about it, otherwise I'd probably be ranting about that right now) and we expressed much irritation and disbelief and wondering how Ben Affleck would end up in it. I hate cute guys with girlfriends who are nice and talk about Star Trek. *sigh* I Netflixed this Henry Rollins comedy/spoken word thing (did I mention I just gave up and bought Buffy? so I can get movies from Netflix again.) It was absolutely hilarious, he's just so huge and loud and angry, and I love it. I've been listening to angry music a lot lately, somehow it helps get me in the mood for finals. This morning on the bus to school I was listening to Pantera, it's a great way to wake up. I just don't get people who can listen to talk radio and stuff in the mornings. In the morning I'm pissed off and I feel like death, and I need loud music. Anyway, here's to two weeks of no work and being able to sleep whenever I want, and maybe even some real food.

Oh, using me for my baked goods. And yeah, I intend to make it as small as I can read it.

It's 20 degrees right now, and I have the heat on but I'm still freezing because the top of the window in my bedroom is open about an inch. I close it, it slides right back down. And it was extremely windy last night, so thanks to the open window my door was slamming in its frame all night long. I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in days. I haven't been able to fall asleep at night, and then there's this building being constructed practically right outside my window, and they start with the sawing and hammering at 7 am every day. I actually wish this weekend would hurry up and be over. I just want to get my finals done and get out of here. I'm flying home on the 19th, and then I have a take-home final due on the 22nd that I can email in. For this coming Monday's exam, we're allowed to take in one sheet of paper, written on one side, and that's it. The *insert long string of expletives* people in my classes actually voted for this, rather than being allowed our books and all our notes. This sounded okay at first, until I went though my notes to try to get them down to something manageable and they're still a quarter inch thick. I think having this whole week to study did me no good at all, because I actually work better under time pressure. There's been a lot of "why'd that person leave" and "I haven't seen this person in forever" going on around here lately. I've actually thought about just staying away from the internet several times. It's nothing to do with GA in particular, really, it's just...people. There's been more than one person who I'd known for years who just stopped talking to me and disappeared suddenly. Somehow disagreements never get talked out, one person just blocks the other or always pretends to be away or whatever, and that's that. I probably get way more offended than I should when stuff like that happens, but there are people here on GA who I feel know me a lot better than anyone in "real life," and it always hurts to be dismissed. OK, if anyone's still with me, I do have less bitchy stuff to talk about. I got this insane package from my aunt the other day. There was 1) all this homemade yummy fattening stuff, chocolate chip walnut cookies, molasses cookies, some kind of potato, pecan, and white chocolate candy that sounds weird but is really good, and these cherry chocolate bars, 2) a can of hot chocolate mix, a box of dry milk, and a bag of marshmallows, 3) a packet of this cherry cocoa in a christmas mug and a ceramic spoon with a snowman head, 4) two boxes of tea and a bottle of honey, 5) a sweatshirt and pants, 6) a singing card with $25 inside, and 7) a calendar that i'll never use because it's ugly and has angels on it. So I was altogether quite pleased. Also, I ordered the complete Buffy on DVD. I found it for $93 and just couldn't resist.

Yay for getting into Firefly! And I think it's funny that you think 56 is freezing. My roommate is from Vegas and she tries to turn the heat on when it's 60, meanwhile I have the windows open when it's 45.

I agree that I can't wait until this comes out. And I am SO glad that they finally cut Harry's hair, between that and just being older he looks much better now. Although I keep wondering what's up with how Sirius looks so bad. I mean, isn't he supposed to still be really handsome, even if he is all unkempt? There's a video of this sneak peek thing from HBO, it's got scenes from the trailer but also little snippets of interviews and "making of" type stuff. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7...dfeed&hl=en Val

Wow, that's...horrifying. I had no idea what earwigs are so I looked it up, and now I seriously wish I hadn't, because I'm a little bug-phobic anyway, and those things are scary looking. Val

I'm done with the evil paper. Imagine me dancing around like a fool. All it took was a nice long string of cursing and throwing a book across the room. Now I just have one class tomorrow morning (and yeah, it's the worst one and the professor has taken to calling on me practically every day), but then I'm free for the rest of the week. And my mom mailed me a pumpkin roll today..whoo hoo. Although no one up here has the faintest idea what that is, which just puzzles me because my mom makes like 10 of them every thanksgiving and gives them to people. http://southernfood.about.com/od/pumpkins/r/blbb465.htm in case no one here knows what I'm talking about either. My mother is freaking about no one coming to visit her for the holiday. My brother just moved like 2 days ago, I'm too far away, and my sister is staying home because one of her kids' birthday is on or around Thanksgiving and every year he has a tantrum about how he has to eat turkey and doesn't get to have a party, so this year they're going to stay home and do his birthday thing. So yeah, I'm off to be slothful and watch TV and not do any work.

Wow, I forgot I started this. I have to agree the series is better than the movie, but I think that's mostly because they had to cram in all this exposition for people who'd never seen the series. The movie depressed the hell out of me. It also a threw me off a little at the beginning, how Mal was suddenly much more of a jerk, but as I understand it that's how Joss wanted him to be in the first place. I did love his "Somebody has to speak for these people" speech. It was sort of dramatic and moving, but still a little clumsy and...Mal. Val

I just have to say, there is no Bond but Sean Connery. All the rest are imposters. Val

Yeah, it's 10 am and I should be in class. I actually went to school this morning, and got the crap I needed to do over the weekend out of my locker, and got on a bus and came home. I am so completely exhausted and burned out, and this weekend I have to re-write this freaking legal memo. I cant think of a strong enough word for that memo. Scourge, plague, bane of my existance? Anyway, I decided I deserved a Friday, damnit. Especially considering I'm not going to have a Thanksgiving break, because I'm not going home (too expensive/far and the break isn't long enough) and I'll be frantically trying to get all my class notes in order so I can start thinking about finals. I'm having these wild mood swings between "I can do this, I'm smart, I'll be fine" and "oh dear god how am I going to tell my parents when I fail out of law school?" The weather here is pissing me off, it's been rainy and between like 60 and 65 degrees. What the hell? It's already snowed in WV! I know I'm pretty much the only person in the world who loves the cold, but it's mid November, isn't it?. Of course my roommate wants to turn the heat on, so we do this thing where we keep going behind each other and adjusting the temperature. The ex and I have been managing to do this civil friend thing lately, which is surprisingly easy. I guess after we both had the whole summer to calm down we realized that we know absolutely everything about each other and sometimes you really need someone like that to talk to. No, there's not going to be any getting back together or anything, it's just this is much better than sitting around being bitter. I can't remember if I mentioned before that I've been getting episodes of Buffy from netflix, but I'm so addicted now. I feel bad for all the people I used to mock for watching it. I'm most of the way through the second season, but netflix just screwed up and sent me two movies from the bottom of my list instead of the next episodes, and I am SO mad. It's quickly ranking right up there with Firefly for me. (That's the only reason I gave it a chance, because I thought, it's Joss Whedon, how bad could it be?) And Joe's already made fun of me several times for this, but I think Spike is unbelievably hot. Clearly there's no point whatsoever to this entry, except that I wish I could take a nap but I can never sleep during the day and anyway there's all this construction going on across the street. I'm really not even sure if I've been writing in coherent sentences, so my apologies to anyone who actually read this.

Die Trying [book] in my pants. Dirty Jobs [tv show] in my pants.

Can I just say your metaphors always crack me up? But I thought you did a really good job painting a mental picture here, I felt like I was inside the story watching it happen. Nice one. And no, it's not dumb to post it, I don't think many people around here are into delayed gratification (when it comes to stories, anyway.) Val

Ok, I just talked to my roommate and found out that a whole bunch of stuff happened that I didn't remember. It's quite humiliating but for the sake of a good story, I'll tell you. First of all, we lost one of our party last night. I mean, he wasn't in the club, he was just somewhere in Providence, and we had to go because our time was gonna be up for the limo, so we just left him. (That sounds so awful!) This morning he called my roommate to come get him and it turned out that he had been puking on a street corner and this cop saw him and made him go to the hospital. Then he kept trying to escape from the hospital so they restrained him! But here's the best part, we actually got kicked out of the club. Three people, including, much to my astonishment, myself, had thrown up all over our little VIP area, and the host and the bouncer kicked us out. I dont remember throwing up, or anyone else throwing up, or getting kicked out, at all. Then those of us who were puking went outside and we were supposed to stay put while someone did one last check for the missing guy, but we wandered off instead and by the time the others found us we'd sobered up a little from all the walking around in the cold, which I guess is why I remember the big argument in the limo. Although apparently the girl went so psycho that she started screaming at the driver for some reason and they had to close the partition. I wonder if we're allowed back at that club ever again....The whole thing was on one guy's credit card and we were going to just pay him back, and as my roommate put it "I'm sure we're going to be charged for the vomit."

Well I'm sure no one is surprised to hear that I'm swearing off drinking on another Sunday morning. Although it had been several weeks. It was someone's birthday, so we did this whole thing with a limo and a VIP room at some really nice club. Honestly, I was sort of uncomfortable, because I hate clubs, I don't do dancing, and I'm used to hanging out in complete dives. But we had a host named Rico (hehe) who showed us to our little private area, and then we had a waitress who kept coming back and being an enabler. I've decided that hanging around people who buy all your drinks for you is a really, really bad thing. If I was paying I'd stop after one or two just because I'm cheap. I think the night ended badly for everyone, because a girl and her boyfriend got into a huge fight on the way home and there was a lot of screaming and hysterical crying and the rest of us being really uncomfortable. I lost the bit of the night where I actually got home, I just know I woke up in bed at 9 am fully dressed and with my glasses still on. I also seemed to have ripped off a fingernail, it's all bloody and painful. I know, gross, sorry. I'm really confused because my computer and the clock on the cable box say it's an hour earlier than the other clocks do and I thought the time wasn't supposed to change until tonight. It's really not helping with the general disoriented feeling, And now for something completely random, Jeff ordered me to blog about the fact that when I was 11 I had a poster of Jonathan Brandis on the ceiling over my bed, because apparently this makes me kinky. Oh yeah, and about the English Patient. All I know is that when it ended I was quite confused and felt like I needed to watch it again, but there was no way in hell I was watching it again because it's three hours long. Somehow I managed to miss the point of how Ralph Fiennes and that Caravaggio guy knew each other. Maybe I just wasnt paying attention anymore by the end.

Okay, so I just have two things to say. One, I'm completely, hopelessly addicted to facebook. I always made fun of all those people who were on there, and on MySpace and stuff, and even though I spend way too much time online I said I'd never be one of them. Yeah, well. I did find a bunch of people I went to high school with, which is sort of cool and sort of pointless, cause it's not like we've kept in touch or I can think of much to say to them besides "wow, it's been a long time." Two, Star Trek IV is the funniest movie I've ever seen. Of course, I should've been studying for my criminal law class tomorrow. I knew getting netflix was gonna be a bad idea. I've also got the English Patient sitting here, sort of accidentally. I always thought it sounded like the most boring movie ever, but everyone always says it's so good, and I had it sort of toward the middle of my list thinking, well, maybe I'll watch it some day, and then the next few things in line to come had a wait and I ended up with the English Patient. So I guess I'll watch it this weekend. I mean, you can't go too wrong with Ralph Fiennes, right?

Actually left the house tonight for the first time all weekend. I was starting to walk to Walgreens to go get more cold medicine (I have been sick for over a week!) and ran into one of the guys I usually hang out with on weekends, and 4 of us ended up going to a movie. We saw The Departed, which apart from the fact that it felt really long because we got there late and had to sit in the second row and look straight up at the screen for 2 1/2 hours, was really good. I still can't take Mark Wahlberg seriously though. I don't think it's ever gonna happen. I love this place where I'm too tired/lazy to do any work and too panicked about the fact that I haven't done any work to sleep. This class that I have tomorrow is the source of probably 85% of my anxiety. It's hard and boring and we're not allowed to just not know the answer sometimes. Seriously, if you don't know, she'll assume you didn't read, yell at you in front of everyone for it, and then you get counted absent, which can only happen like 3 times (total- being absent for real or for not being prepared) and then you automatically fail. I get that if you're honestly not prepared, but come on, no one knows the answer all the time! i actually did try to do the work and realized I had no frigging clue what half the answers were, and I have to tell you I feel pretty stupid at the moment. And completely freaked that I might get called on. Ok, just spaced out for about 10 mins, so maybe it's time to go to bed. I love having a cold.

Happy Birthday Jared! Val

I thought you were making up that Kinky Boots thing! And Joe, it's a quote from dirty dancing...jeez, catch up on your pop culture already.

OK, I'm bored (watching Dirty Dancing for the 100th time, if that says anything) so you guys get to listen to me ramble. Against my better judgment, I just signed up for Netflix. I know I'm always on about how I don't have any free time, but I've actually started doing a lot of my studying in the middle of the day (one day a week I have a 4 hour gap between classes, one day I have 3 hours, and one day I don't have class till 2 but I go in at 10 and sit in the library and work, because that's when my roommate has class and I'd rather do that than take the bus.) So I've spent a couple hours rating movies and adding things to my queue. Anybody seen anything really good lately? That's out on DVD already, that is. So, things are going pretty good for me. I don't have any huge complaints, there's the usual crap that comes along with having a roommate, but I figure by now I've had time to discover all the little annoyances and there's nothing I can't deal with. I wouldn't go so far as to say I've made any really good friends yet, but there's a least a group of people that I think I'm getting there with. Part of the problem is that we really only have time to hang out on Friday and sometimes Saturday nights. Last night we had a cookout and sat around and asked questions out of this stupid book (of course they were mostly about sex), but as it turns out we really did get to know each other a little better because of it. One thing that I really hate is that I have to keep asking people for rides. I CAN take the bus to class, but I have to get up like an hour and a half earlier, and like with the grocery store, I could walk it, but it'd be a couple miles and I wouldn't be able to carry much home so I'd have to go constantly. The biggest thing is that it does sort of impede the whole making-friends process. It's hard to call someone and say "You want to go to the movies? Great, you have to drive." I feel like someone's little sister, just tagging along everywhere. There's no way I can get a car, though, at least not anytime soon. The weirdest thing is that I sort of miss my parents. I was so glad to get away from them when I went off to college, and I lived away from them for 5 years and never really looked back, and then I spent this past summer with them and got used to being around them again. Don't get me wrong, my mom still annoys the hell out of me and I'm glad I don't live there full time, but I do wish they lived a little nearer so that I could at least visit for Thanksgiving. They did a lot for me this summer and there's no way I'd be here right now if they hadn't helped me out so much. I also feel like I rediscovered some people just in time to move away from them again. I really got to know my uncle, who was always sort of estranged from my mother until a couple years ago, my brother (who is much older than me and I was never close to) moved at least temporarily back to WV and we vistited him a few times, and I started hanging out with an old friend who I'd known since I was 9 or so. Sometimes I think that if I'd known the whole breakup/moving away from PA thing was going to happen, I would've gone to law school in WV, and then sometimes I think I must be crazy for thinking that. But, what's done is done, and I do like it here. Well I actually did have a rant planned about something I watched on the news, but this thing is already long enough so I'll save that for next time. Val

Definitely finish Spinning! I'm starting to wish I hadn't given in and read it because now I really want to know what happens next. Val

Another Friday gone but no hangover. Yippee. Not that there wasn't drinking. We actually got started around 5 pm, but mostly stayed away from anything other than beer, so no one really ended up in ridiculously bad shape. Like 9 of us had decided to have a little cookout, and of course it rained all day, but that didn't stop us. There was a balcony overhead blocking most of the rain, so it worked okay. If anyone's wondering, I had a veggie burger and they're really good done over charcoal. We also made s'mores, which was awesome. I haven't had those in years and years. Then there was a drinking game with ridiculously complicated rules, and I guess we started getting a bit loud, because these other people (all in our program, I think, although I only knew two of them) just come walking right into the apartment! The door was unlocked, I guess, and suddenly there's these people standing there and I'm wondering if I'm hallucinating, and it turns out they heard us from a few houses down and decided to come check out the party. Sooo then all 16 of us end up walking to this restaurant/bar and some people played pool and yada yada, and I talked to this pretty cool guy who was hanging out with us for the first time (don't even bother thinking it, it wasn't like that!) Anyway, after that the "others" went back to wherever and my roommate got it into her head that we just had to watch Top Gun, so some people came back to our apartment and some others got lost along the way, I guess, so there were just 4 of us by then. All I can say is it's a good thing everyone in our building had been out with us, cause every time "Danger Zone" came on my roommate turned the volume up so the house was practically shaking and everyone started singing along. I stuck around until the volleyball scene and then went to bed. So yeah, all in all not bad. I decided to stay home tonight so I could "get some work done" and of course I haven't done shit, and seeing as it's almost 9 pm I have a feeling I'll be working all day tomorrow, but that's okay.

I feel like total crap today, and I can't even exactly remember if it was worth it. There were like 8 of us that went to this bar, which was unbelievably crowded and loud. There was this band playing and I don't think I heard a thing anyone said to me all night. I just sort of started pretending I knew what was going on and shaking my head. It's hard to tell what I might've agreed to. It's been a loooong time since I had that much to drink, and now I remember why I'm always swearing I'll never do it again. I think I had two beers, a Jager bomb, a long island iced tea, some other mixed drink that someone gave me and I have no idea what it was, and at least 4 shots. The guys kept bringing shots and passing them out, and we'd ask what they were, and they'd just go "it's good, drink it!" So yeah, I have no idea. Then the bar closed and we all came back to my apartment and kept going, and I think I had two more beers then. And (fair warning, this is sort of gross) in case anyone is wondering, yes I did pay for it, the bathroom rug is in the washing machine as we speak. I have no idea when everyone left, because after that I went to bed and passed out. There was some hard liquor sitting out on the table this morning, so I have a feeling that there's at least one person in much worse shape than me right now. That's right folks, we're all future lawyers. Scary, isn't it? Oh, and I'm pretty sure I called Joe at some point (hopefully he's the only one I called...you know those buttons are tricky when the room won't stay still) and he made fun of me a lot. So, sorry Joe.