I usually sleep with a sleep mask and I am really good at losing them. I’ve lost all of them since I’ve moved to Baltimore so tonight I decided it is time to buy a new one. Now that Daylight Savings is over the sun comes up earlier and earlier, which is cramping my style. I usually don’t notice it on the weekdays, but this makes it impossible for me to sleep in on the weekends. I decided that getting a good night’s sleep is important enough for me to make this purchase even though I am pretty broke right now.

I am a typical girl so i like pretty things. Even practical every day things like sleep masks should be pretty if possible. Mary Green makes a bunch of really pretty sleep masks so i decided to buy one of hers. I’ve had literally every single type of sleep mask that is on the market and I like variety so I prefer to try new things all the time. I got the Cloud Nine sleep mask that you see pictured above which i think is the prettiest! I can’t wait to get it and use it!

in an effort to balance the doom and gloom that has been the common theme in all my recent posts and in another effort to blog more often, today’s post is about something that brings me great happiness: potbelly’s!

me: how did you get a free potbelly lunch?
friend: that healthcare policy debate that was held during the noon lunch period
me: [expletive]
i missed it
friend: ya unlike most free lunch events, there plenty to go around
me: [more expletives]
i’m addicted to potbelly’s
you don’t understand
friend: lol
why’s that?
me: it tastes good
friend: haha

i was feeling down tonight and had some con law reading to do. the funniest thing ever is that something i read in justice holmes’ dissent actually comforted me. lol. yeah, it’s super weird and i probably should’ve just kept this to myself but oh well.obviously, this is out of context since i am not upset about free speech and the first amendment but here it is anyway: “…all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.” i think this resonated with me because i have been somewhat emotionally battered after the last couple of weeks. i feel like i’ve been clinging to the safe side of the road more than ever. this quote just reminds me that we’re all in the same boat. no one really knows what they’re doing, not even the justices of the highest court in america. everyone just tries the best that they can with what they have and hope it all works out okay. it’s good for me to remember that. i have to get back to reading.

sorry i couldn’t come up with a more creative (or interesting) title. these last couple weeks have been really intense in every single way.

first my cat got really sick. like, emergency room, humongous vet bill, life and death sick. in addition to her hyperthyroidism, she also has heart disease. i don’t think i handled it very well. and i was also thing about how there are some things that you can’t really prepare for no matter how much you try. i know she’s 13 and her body’s breaking down, and death is inevitable but it’s just never easy. trying to mentally prepare myself for losing my cat was completely futile because when i came face to face with losing her, i almost lost it in general. luckily, coco survived the crisis albeit not the same cat. i’ve had time to really digest the reality of the situation and i talked to my mom about it tonight and she really helped me feel better. like it or not, death is a part of life and for once, i feel like i know what it means to live with that understanding. i will cherish these last few days with my cat and when her time comes, i will (hopefully) be able to celebrate the beauty of her life instead of mourn the tragedy of her death.

so i’ve had a little more time to spend with my computer since my last post and i have a more thorough review.

hardware:
Pros:
1. beautiful screen. i don’t know how else to describe it but the colors just jump off the screen and i actually like how it doesn’t automatically dim like my mac did. it doesn’t feel like a 13″ computer because the screen doesn’t leave anything to be desired. i find that i can look at this screen a lot longer than my macbook pro without my eyes feelings strained.
2. i like the chiclets keyboard.
3. i can turn the trackpad on and off. there is a little light indicator to let me know if the trackpad is on or off which is actually really cool because i am one of those people who always forget.
4. there are light indicators for mute and caps lock which is seriously one of my favorite functions just because it takes the guess work out of whether you have those options on.
5. sturdy metal casing which is a really nice surprise considering the price
6. the trackpad is more usable than i thought. i’m using the trackpad almost 25% of the time now.

Cons
1. crappy speakers. i thought my macbook pro speakers were weak but these speakers are about half as good. they are tinny and are place underneath the keypad, on a slope which i feel directly hurts the sound volume and quality.
2. no optical drive – this turned out to be a much bigger pain in the ass than i anticipated. as progressive as i’d like to consider myself, a lot of information is still be transferred on cds. i tried to use my brother’s external optical drive to play civ 4 but it didn’t work. that sucked.
3. battery life – the advertised 6 hours is a complete joke. even after the first full charge i barely got 3. to date, it’s more between 2-3, closer to 3. the only good is the relatively quick charge up times.

software
pros –
1. applications – i am not hurting for my mac applications as much as i thought i would. first of all, i rediscovered pandora. dare i say it, i like it more than itunes! first of all, it’s free and more interactive. i love it and it’s kinda my favorite thing right now. also, with all of google’s progams (calendar, documents, igoogle, gmail, gchat, chrome), i am not really missing any of mac’s applications at all.
2. startup – startup and shutdown times are good and i have no complaints!

cons
1. sometimes my computer freezes when i wake it back up from hybernation/sleep (i still don’t know the difference). another time, my screen kept jumping around and the fonts got smaller and smaller every time. it was weird but it’s only happened once so far. usually, it’s pretty stable and reliable.

i have been a mac user since 2003 and it had always been a more or less symbiotic relationship. however, after my two thousand dollar macbook pro died on me after only two and half years of use, and after talking with other mac users who say that the life of macs aren’t as long as they used to be, i didn’t buy a mac again for the first time in six years. my main reason for buying a pc is because i am a student and have limited funds and i can’t afford to drop a grand on another laptop. in all honestly, my macbook pro started feeling obsolete after i had it for a year to a year and a half. anyway, i plan on buying apple computers again one day when i have a job but in the meantime, i can’t afford to spend that much on computers that i’m not sure will last me the next 3 years. if they’re all gonna break down anyway, i might as well get a pc.

i got an hp pavillion entertainment pc from best buy. i did a fair amount of research and i decided i wanted something small, but has more processing power and memory than a netbook. my computer is 4.3 pounds and have great specs and comes with windows 7. it has a 13.3″ screen and 6 hour battery life. however, that claim is probably only true if the computer’s not being used and on the dimmest setting or something because i don’t think it will come very close to six real hours based on what i’ve seen so far. the only things i don’t like about it so far are all the dumb stickers they put on the computer that i had to peel off and had varying success. i could have also done without all the stupid software that it came with. i seriously have like, 50 dumb games on my computer when i first turned it on. finally, the trackpad is a joke. it’s hard to use because i don’t like how it feels and it is just really small. i bought a pink wireless Microsoft mouse because i cannot survive with that trackpad.

i’ve had windows 7 for only a day now but i love it so far. it’s (facially) similar to os x. they even have a doc now! however the dock is optional and since i’ve never been a huge fan of the dock, i got rid of it. the taskbar can be moved to the right, left, or top of the screen now. i put it on top because i am used to apple’s menubar. however, it’s very dock-like because you can “pin” application icons to the taskbar (like a dock)! it’s awesome. the only thing that’s not great is that while my computer is fast, i expected it to be faster.

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i am now using google chrome as my web browser since i’ve always been a fan i don’t have safari anymore. i like firefox, but i don’t like the clunky interface. i loved all of apple’s software. i miss them all but i am doing okay.

(click to enlarge)

has been pretty awful.

first a disclaimer. i try not to complain because i remind myself that things could always be worse and i try not to let myself overreact to things that aren’t worth the trouble.

that said, about 24 hours ago (10:30 last night) i was frantically working on a paper which due at noon the next day when my computer froze. it was a little worrisome because that was the second time that day that my computer froze and it usually never freezes. long story short, my computer was never able to successfully boot back up and i spent 3 hours trying to troubleshoot the problem and sought the help of over five people. i went from telling myself that there’s no use in freaking out over things you can’t control and totally breaking down into tears. if you repeat that over and over again, that was basically how I spent the hours between 10:30 and 1:30. I went to bed at 2 and woke up and 6 and resumed the sections of the paper that i hadn’t written yet on my boyfriend’s laptop.

I went to school around 9 and had the IT department look at my laptop which did not even turn on at that point. I cried in my professor’s office and she gave me an extension. i was pretty sure she would’ve given me an extension anyway since she indicated it in an email she wrote me earlier that day but i cried just because i was so miserable i couldn’t help it. i tried to drive after that but was barely able to due to the lack of sleep and emotional torture of the last 12 hours or so. i heard the song “bad day” on the radio and while i usually find that song annoying, it was comforting today.

i went to the apple store and had them look at it. it took three hours. at this point in time, i had gone 9 hours without food. it was so busy, just one thing after the other. basically, they were not sure about my computer but it looks grim. i’m afraid to use it but it worked long enough for me to get my files and install snow leopard. i think the bottom line is that my computer’s broken and i need a new one.

then, i had to scramble to get my cat to the vet. she peed on me in the car on the way to the vet and i smelled like cat urine for the rest of the lovely afternoon. i still hadn’t eaten. i spent 3 hours at the vet and cried there too. anyway, bad news from the vet. first he scared the shit out of me saying that he thinks my cat might die of kidney failure. after an enormous vet bill that i can’t afford, i find out that she has a thyroid problem and i will have to medicate her the rest of my life. this was actually great news because i thought she was gonna die. one funny thing that came out of that was when i said “the flies are attracted to me because i smell like pee” and didn’t realize how i sounded until my boyfriend made fun of me.

since then, i rushed home and spent the last 3 hours frantically finishing up my paper which i promised to my professor by tonight. i took bites of an old sandwich in my fridge in between typing sprees. now i feel exhausted. i should feel relieved but i don’t. i feel like the quality of my paper has gone down drastically due to the fact that i had to write it while experiencing my own unique hell with my computer crashing, sick cat, getting peed on then having to smell it, having this deadline looming over my head, and not enough food or sleep.

tomorrow’s sure to be busy too but at least i can sleep tonight and i won’t have this stupid paper hanging over my head.

finally, to end on a positive note, all these bad events did help me see the good in a lot of things: all the people who came to my aid when my computer crashed on the worse night of the year, my cat isn’t gonna die, i didn’t have to rewrite my entire paper, and my professor allowed me an extension.

p.s. there are probably a lot of typos in this blog entry since my brain is working at a much lower capacity than it normally does.

i hate to be the stereotypical girl with a shopping compulsion but i have to admit i have been much too reliant on retail therapy to make me happy these days. today i was going to shop some more but then i thought better of it and talked to my boyfriend about it who told me what i already knew: i have too many sweaters and i shouldn’t buy anymore. to distract me from shopping he suggested i write a blog post about what we did this weekend. i thought it was a good idea with except i’d rather blog about why i like to shop online:

1. zappos has free overnight shipping and returns – any girl who loves shoes knows how this totally makes or breaks the online shopping experience. it’s as close to instant gratification as you can get.
2. i don’t have a car but with online shopping, all i need is plastic or paypal!
3. you can read reviews about almost everything before you buy it. before, it was only electronics that i could do this for but now i can review everything from moisturizers to leggings. i have to admit, if i’m reading the reviews, there’s a 75% chance that they already have my money. i tend to focus on the positive reviews and read the negative ones with a skeptical eye which i know defeats the whole purpose of reading the reviews.
4.i love the huge selection of everything in the world!!!! (i think that basically says it all)
5. i especially love picking out colors. it is just so fun. i can get creative and ponder the possibilities of each of the color choices!
6. sometimes there is no sales tax! it’s practically like getting the stuff for free (especially when there’s free shipping in it too). okay, maybe not, but this is just one of the many lies i tell myself to ease the guilt of shopping. geez, i sound like a freak.
7. seeing how things look on models is so much better than seeing how they look on me in dressing room mirrors and ugly dressing room lighting.
8. packages, boxes, or slips on my door telling me that ups has a package for me is a great thing to come home to.
9. shopping online allows me to shop from anywhere! great for class or study breaks, or any time i have time and want to completely consume my mind with something else.
10. sephora deluxe samples. just when i thought i was done shopping… i get to shop some more!

this music video is full of ugly people that i don’t care about but i like this song:

my favorite line: “yours is the first face that i saw / think i was blind before i met you”

honorable mention: “this is the first day of life / i’m glad i didn’t die before i met you.”

while my life is not perfect, i am happy to say that i am happier than i’ve ever been. my first month of being 30 has been one of the best months of my life.

today i celebrated a semiversary with my boyfriend. it’s our six month “anniversary” and to celebrate we went to the restaurant that we went to on our first date. i had such a good, happy, and relaxing time. i also ate red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting – my favorite!

on a different note, lately i’ve been thinking about how to make more out of the time that i spend in class. i’ve been trying to avoid caffeine this semester since my load has lightened but i am not as energetic as i need to be to get the most out of class. i don’t NEED caffeine, but i’m wondering if drinking it will make me a better student. i don’t know, maybe i’ll try it with the caffeine this week.

so i was surfing the interwebs researching to see if jennifer anniston has an eating disorder since kathy griffin made a joke about it on the view when i got sidetracked by an ad from the onion store. long story short, i was really amused by some of their stuff and HAD to buy the following junk:

i probably shouldn’t be spending money right now since i am half asleep, in a bad mood, and kind of depressed but oh well. the damage as been done. it started out with me buying suits out of necessity since i have to for school. that is ironic because i was just thinking today how much i hate wearing suits and how dumb i am for entering this profession where i’m going to have to wear suits all the time. then i thought about how even dumber i was to think that i would like to wear suits. basically, i feel like a huge tool walking around ghetto-ass baltimore in a suit… but i digress.

anyway, i bought two suits out of necessity. then i thought about how i need some back to school shoes so i bought two pairs of shoes.

anyway, the overall damage for tonight: 2 suits, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 mugs, and a tote bag.

this is what i wrote on my old spanish teacher’s facebook wall on his birthday: “feliz cumpleanos! (i probably spelled that wrong)” i said that b/c i was too lazy to find the “ñ” character and he replied with: No that’s right, except without the ñ in años, you’re saying “happy fulfilled anuses” It’s the thought that counts! Thanks. :)”

HAHHAAH!!!

1) am i the only person who thinks the clinic file room smells like frosting?
2) i ate the most disgusting soup ever today (chicken noodle WITH squash that taste like pickles). disgusting but i was so hungry i didn’t care. also, i’ve never eaten soup i didn’t like until today.
3) i got an email at the beginning of class for an offer to buy girl scout cookies. after i emailed my order half an hour ago, i still can’t stop thinking about the girl scout cookies!

ahh, what a great weekend i had. it was everything i had hoped it would be and more. however, my weekend ends here and i did not prepare of the case of the sunday blues that i am currently experiencing. i’m not looking forward to tomorrow’s class because it’s 50% class participation and it’s just kind of an extreme swing from the mindless fun i’ve been having all weekend. however, i have to suck it up and prepare for it somehow. hopefully, i will finish the reading tonight with enough time to catch some tv shows before going to bed.

was great! i started celebrating last night and will continue tomorrow! haha! it’s a labor day weekend birthday fest for me! i had a wonderful time celebrating and ate and danced all night with some of my closest friends! they all made me feel really loved and took great care of me. i am an extremely lucky person and i feel like my life just keeps getting better and better every year.

the main reason for this post is because i got one of the best presents ever: Monopoly board game, the MEGA edition! when i was a kid, i was always CRAZY about monopoly. i loved board games and monopoly was my favorite! when i got this present, i felt like a kid again, which is something i haven’t experienced in years. :D what’s even better, this is game is like the regular monopoly, but there are a bunch of new dimensions to the game: more property, buildings, a new die, and new options that makes the game less of a game of chance and more of a game of strategy! it’s awesome. a must-have for all monopoly fans.

i got a surprising number of great presents (i said surprising because i wasn’t expecting anyone to get me anything) including makeup, money, gift certificates, dvds, and a trip to india with my boyfriend! wow! i still can’t believe i’m going! :D

i don’t “feel” thirty. however, i have come to the conclusion that i define what it is to be thirty and not the other way around. i make thirty feel as young or old as i want. right now, i feel great and if this is what it means to be thirty than i am a very lucky (and happy) person!

of reading blogs of other law school students. more specifically, of people who are blogging about their law school experiences. for some reason, they annoy me more than most bloggers. it’s funny how i blog and go to law school and i usually hate people who blog and i usually hate people who go to law school and i especially hate people who blog about going to law school.

let me tell how this happened.

this all started because i recently signed up for a wefollow account in my continuous journey to be on the cutting edge of the digital world and i had to list five of my current interests. i sat there and tried to come up with five of my interests. fantasy football and the nfl took up two spaces. food took up one (”foodie” came up as an option but i’d rather have a blog about my law school experiences than call myself a “foodie”). after blogger, i couldn’t think of another interest other than “lawstudent.” today, i looked at other “lawstudent” people on wefollow and found some okay sites, but a disturbingly high number of really annoying, self aggrandizing law school blogs and bloggers. they even have their own special name for their blogging subculture: blawgs or some embarrassing ass shit like that.

these people are pathetic because they think they’re special just because they go to law school and know how to use wordpress. no one cares that you’re afraid to talk in class. no one cares about your self absorbed “1L experience.” i can already tell you it’s gonna suck and it only took me three words to sum it up for you.

sorry if i’m being mean. i’m stressed out and i needed to vent and seeing this stuff only annoyed me.

okay. now that i got that off my chest, i will sleep like a baby. :)

i have no idea what i want to do for my 30th birthday!!!

tonight while i was on facebook that people who were born in 1991 are beginning college this fall.

other than that, i’m having a pretty great night. :)

as i’ve already said, turning 30 has made me more introspective. i’ve met up with old high school friends and read some of my old blog posts from 2003. wow! i was such an idiot! i was really ignorant, close-minded, and full of myself. i was also really bad at faking modesty. in light of the person i was throughout most of my twenties, i’m kind of glad that i’m so different. my twenties was actually a pretty hard decade for me. i never partied and i was always working. however, i learned a lot along the way and all the trials i went through are invaluable to me now. i am really happy that i am not the person who wrote those blog entries anymore. i know i still have a long way to go but at least i have a slightly more accurate view of myself.

another reason why it’s good that i read my old blog entries is that it helped me to be more patient with people who are in their early to mid twenties. like seriously, when i was that age, i was not that different from them. anyway, growing older has all these negative social connotations but as i am seeing things from all these different facets, turning thirty doesn’t signal an ending to anything more than confusion, youthful ignorance, and untested self-boasting.

in addition to the the men who give you compliments, the streets of baltimore are teeming with beggars. they come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and situations. i’ve heard so many sad stories just trying to walk the streets.

today, i was particularly happy while walking to my tutoring job and i said hello to some man walking past me because i am friendly. he says hello and asks me how i’m doing. i tell him i’m good as i quickly was past him. then he stops and asks for fifty cents to buy water because he’s thirsty. i say “i don’t have fifty cents” because i don’t. i spent all my change this morning buying coffee to stay awake for my first job. then he asks for a dollar. i open up my wallet because i thought i had a dollar and i felt too guilty to say no. i noticed i didn’t have a dollar, i only had a five. i say that i’m sorry but i don’t have a dollar and he’s like, can you buy me a sandwich? okay, this is an abled -body man who knows english and can talk and walk and was actually walking his bike. like, i’m hot and sweaty and going to my second job. i work really hard for my money and i don’t even buy myself sandwiches because there are cheaper alternatives. i don’t remember how i said no but i said no. then he asks me for change. i give him all my change and walk away annoyed and angry. i felt manipulated and i don’t know where this man comes off expecting me to give him my hard earned money. i am so annoyed.