Know what you're talking about before you run your mouth.

Can I just say something?

This has happened way too many times, starting the day that I committed to going to Brown.  I get that we have the hippie reputation of the Ivies, a hippie reputation in general, and we do quite a bit to encourage that.  We generally like our progressive rep, our lack of a core curriculum, our focus on the undergrad part of the school, etc.  But this still really, really bugs me.

WE STILL DO WORK.

We have grades, people, okay?  Yeah, you can take every single class pass/fail, but if you do that grad schools will laugh at you.  You can find "easy" majors, but then a lack of connections will screw you, hugely, in the real world.  You can just not attend classes, but you'll fail them.  You can drop a class the day before the final, but that generally still means you have to make it up, AND you used up a ton of time studying for it.  We don't have pluses or minuses, but you can still get a C.  When you fail, the class doesn't show up, but you'll probs still have to retake it and you won't get credit for it and that sucks. 

Seriously, you can make your life really easy at Brown, but many (most?) of the students there choose to work their butts off.  I can say from experience that nearly all the science classes I took were not "cut up this frog lol," and they had labs that were basically the length of all the Land Before Time movies back-to-back.  My poor engineering friends would disappear for weeks at a time and God knows where they went.  Math people?  God bless with those problem sets that you seemed to have due every 12 hours.  And for those who wrote papers: no, those aren't exams, but they take a TON of time if you care about them.  And once again, most people care, wrote well, and tried to say something more original than "Huck Finn is pretty racist if you think about it.  AMIRITE?" 

If you weren't in class, you were probably devoting your time to about 8 extra-curriculars at once, or only one that took over your life.  People were raising money, tutoring, inviting speakers, writing for newspapers, playing music, running organizations.  Fine, some were left-wing, progressive, weird, whatever... but they STILL TAKE EFFORT TO RUN.  If your activity was the notorious "underwater basket weaving" of lore, you would still need to take scuba classes, pass the exam, collect organic, local, fair-trade, basket-making supplies, petition for a budget, recruit members, and probably sell your baskets and donate the money to a homeless shelter.  This weird shit takes TIME, MONEY, AND EFFORT.

While most people I know realize that I, personally, would not have spent four years barefoot in a swirly skirt, ribbon-dancing across the Main Green with flowers in my hair, many people seem to think that most Brown students fall into two camps: high for four straight years, and Emma Watson.  This is a lie.  Brown regularly kicked my butt and handed it to me, and if you think this is easy, show up and I'll throw you in an orgo lab, make you write a history paper, and tutor 80 underprivileged fourth-graders AT ONCE.  Good luck. 

If that doesn't sound super fun, shut your mouth.  You know nothing.   

...is singing loud for all to hear.

Christmas is a time for extremes.  Really, really awesome stuff happens in the month of December, and really uncool stuff happens.  If there were a movie pack of December, it would contain When Harry Met Sally and Jersey Girl, for like 10 dollars.  You know it's a pretty decent deal at 5 dollars for each movie, but you also know that you're basically paying 10 dollars for WHMS.  You ain't gon' watch Jersey Girl.  (Aside: if you like that movie, we're done.)  Summary, you buy it anyway because OH MA GAH When Harry Met Sally is so boss.

I think Christmas music is the best example of this.

Best and worst in all of us.  The Baby Jesus Music is my fave, mostly because a lot of it is old, classical type stuff with powerful lyrics.  "O Holy Night" reinforces my belief in God like no other not just because of the lyrics, but because of the power and beauty in the sustained notes.  "Joy to the World" is just good times, "Silent Night" is so pretty and a positive reinforcement loop with the music and lyrics, and if you can hear TSO's version of "Carol of the Bells" and not start playing air guitar, you're a better person than I am.
Non-Baby Jesus Music is also pretty cool.  I dare you not to smile when "All I Want For Christmas Is You" comes on, and "Sleigh Ride" makes me feel like a 3-year-old.

My holiday time at Kohl's can also tell me exactly how wrong Christmas music can go.

The timeless *NSYNC ballad "Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays." I shouldn't have to walk you through this one.

"Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time."  I DARE you to not get this stuck in your head.  It's hard to decide what my favorite part is: the electronic echoes or the repetitive chorus.

"Baby It's Cold Outside": yes, the song's kind of cute in Elf, but you know that slightly off, uncomfortable feeling you get during that scene?  Multiply it by like a million if you listen to the lyrics.  Chick keeps drinking and decides not to leave.  Romantic? UR DOIN IT WAY RONG.
One of the lines is "Say, what's in this drink?"  Really.  That's a line.  That should never, EVER be a question after you've started drinking. 

"Santa Baby": this song is a human rights violation (look it up) and we had TWO versions.  I'm legit gonna go through every line of this song because each and every one is the equivalent of an eardrum Chernobyl.
Santa baby
Slip a sable under the tree
What is this.  Siriusly.  I have no clue.  Should I know?  Can it fit under the tree?
For me
I've been an awful good girl
You sing this (whoever "you" are, it's like a requirement or something) in a cutesy, nauseating voice that's a combination of Shirley Temple and the people I hated in middle school.  Can you have daddy issues with Santa?  Is that even allowed?
So hurry down the chimney tonight
I'm uncomfortable.
Santa baby
A '54 convertible too
Light blue
Can you drive?  I doubt it.  And don't you have to be more specific?  Santa could show up with an 1854 carriage painted boy-baby's-room-blue.
I'll wait up for you dear
Santa baby
So hurry down the chimney tonight
You were so busy dreaming of stuff you can't use you missed the rules.  Don't wait up for Santa.  You have to go to sleep.  Also, if Santa's the good guy I imagine him to be, he will scurry back on up that chimney as fast as possible because you seem creepy AND bat-shit insane.  Santa, RUN.  THE COOKIES AREN'T WORTH IT AND SHE PROBABLY SPIKED THE MILK.
Think of all the fun I've missed
Think of all the boys I haven't kissed
Santa, really, I've been SUPER not-skanky this year.  Give me things plz.  We read a dissenting opinion (on attempted crimes) this week in school that discussed how it's not really okay to look at what a potential criminal hasn't done, but instead what he has done.  I'ma send that one to this chick.
Next year I could be just as good
If you check off my Christmas list
Dammit, Santa, I've been a NUN now give me my PRESENTS.  Whiiiiiiiine.
Santa honey, I want a yacht
And really that's not a lot
Really?  Nothing else rhymed with yacht?  Also: now coming in for "baby," it's "honey": a 6'1" sophomore endearment used only by women who want things!  He's had a good start to the season, Phil, there's been a retail spike across the nation, but let's see if he can keep it up, especially since "sweetie" has been riding the bench and is looking for some time on the court!
I've been an angel all year
False.  Skipping the next part as it's a repeat, and then back to the next verse.
There's one thing I really do need
The deed
To a platinum mine 
Does she want the platinum, or the money from the mine?  Based on the collective lyrics, I'm going with this scenario:  she'll pass off the deed to Daddy and ask why the platinum doesn't come out of the ground in the form of large dangly earrings.  Favorite line's coming up.
Santa cutie
Fill my stocking with a duplex, and checks
Sign your X on the line
Oh my God I can write songs too.  "Santa bab...ew, he's old.  Wait, wait, I got this: Santa baby/ fill my stocking with subpar housing/ and out-of-date-payment methods/ Too dumb to ask for some cash/ Santa baby, I like making unnecessary trips to the bank."
Come and trim my Christmas tree
With some decorations bought at Tiffany
But you already have the platinum mine, doll!
I really do believe in you 
Let's see if you believe in me
HAHAHAHAHAHA.  Can't say I do.
Santa baby
Forgot to mention one little thing, a ring
And I don't mean on the phone
Santa baby
So hurry down the chimney tonight
Dear Lord Jesus.  No one thought that's what you meant.  Again, you have the platinum mine!  Unless you want Santa to propose, and then that's about 10 pounds of crazy in a 5 pound bag.  Mrs. Claus gon' be piiiiissed.

Taylor Swift has a version of this and I don't care how much you love her DON'T go looking for it because you're better than that and honestly so is she I don't even know why she made a version of that song with her occasional adorable southern accent but she leaves out the duplex verse so she's at least got that going for her.  Liking Taylor Swift: legit.  Liking this song, even when sung by Taylor Swift: not legit.

Disney gets real.

This is not a legit post, but I caught part of Beauty and the Beast this long weekend, and noticed something I've never noticed before.  She's my favorite Disney princess (books, duh, and she's awkward, hence, me), so I've seen the movie quite a few times.  Favorite part is obviously when he unveils the library.  That'd be game over for me.  You imprisoned my fathe-DON'T CARE BOOKSBOOKSBOOKS. 

However, I noticed one part I'd never noticed before.  The Beast is asking Cogsworth for advice on a gesture he can make to Belle in thanks for everything she's done or whatever, and I never quite registered Cogsworth's response.  It's "Hmm, there's the usual... flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep..."

Wow, Disney.  Wow.  Not sure if a writer just got dumped, or wanted to make some adults in the audience laugh, or what.  I love it, and it's hilarious, but jeez, the previous scene is Pretty Girl Plays With Dog-Turned-Footstool. 

Anyone else notice this?  Or did everyone and I was just blinded by the ten-story library right after that scene to notice the line?

Giving thanks and getting fat.

I plan to eat tomorrow until I cannot move and hate myself, nap for several hours, and then begin again.  My family already broke into a pie.  I ate two pieces.  My attitude for Thanksgiving eating is let those of you without sin cast the first stone.  I try to enforce that in my behavior elsewhere, but I MEAN IT when it comes to food.  I ate a pile of mashed potatoes the size of K-2?  Whatever, I saw you eat both drumsticks and enough stuffing to fill a silo.  Don't hate, appreciate.

I'm thankful for a lot of things, always, but trying to catalogue them is difficult.  You, dear readers, have the luxury of getting to hear all of my brilliant thoughts!  (Times like this I could honestly propose to and live a happy life with the narcissism that made blogs exist.  Internet, you da best.)  To come back to my original thought, I'm making a list, and please do not feel obligated to read it like any other post.  Those at least occassionally address common problems: this is straight-up me loving the sound of my own keyboard.

I'm thankful for:

• My little sister.  She's a ridiculous human being, but she's kind of my hero.  She's so grounded, tough, and not afraid to speak her mind, and I envy that about her.  I think she's currently blasting music in her room which is totally normal.
• Books.  Ultimate escape that gives me the ultimate high.  
• Catching every green light on the way to school
• Laughing until I cry and not even trying to stop it
• Going to kids' movies
• When the congregation sings along to the closing song at Mass
• When you bake earlier in the day, leave, completely forget that you baked, come home, and get super excited that your house or apartment smells really good and you have delicious food
• Unexpected happy mail
• Big envelopes (okay, so I've been a student forever and these still mean something to me)
• My parents, for being overall tough as hell on me but determined to make my life better than theirs.  Doubt they'll read this, but just in case: you guys didn't "screw me up."  You're not perfect, but no one is.  You care, and that's the most important part.
• All of my friends who may disagree with me on religious or political grounds but are happy to discuss, take it seriously, and still love me.  Y'all rock.
• Cardigans
• Nice conversations with cashiers and sales clerks
• The 3/4 measure in Livin' On a Prayer
• The characterization of Keladry of Mindelan in the Protector of the Small series
• People letting me pet their dogs
• Snow
• The release you get from spitting a verse of rap correctly and angrily
• Quoting a movie and having just one person recognize it and laugh
• Andrew Marshall.  You like me for all the reasons I like me, and you make me happy.  Even though you're a nerd and a half, and I'm pretty sure you might marry a rat and the Brown Band will play at your rat wedding.
• Chocolate
• Finally playing correctly a passage you've been practicing forever and having to stop right after the measures are over because you're smiling and fist pumping too hard to continue
• Pandora being brilliant
• (Watch me get all enigmatic and Livejournal-y) The ten or so people who have let me share my personal garbage and haven't run away from me
• Not working Black Friday for the first time in four years
• My hair behaving on a day I want it to
• A homily that says exactly what I need to hear
• Brown
• Villanova
• Life.  It's pretty awesome.

D'awwww.  I know.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Extended camping trip part 1.

I don't know whether or not to say SPOILER ALERT but the book's been out for a while.  I guess if you haven't seen the movie and actually care about the differences between the book and movie (join us, we've got jackets and the derision of our peers), then don't read this.

I'ma break this down into things I liked and things I didn't: seems simplest.

Things I liked.

• The entire scene with Bathilda's house.  When I say I liked it, I don't mean I enjoyed the scene, just that it was as pants-wettingly terrifying as when I read it in the book.  Beautifully creepy and awful.  
• Xenophilius Lovegood.  He was nicely wacky at the wedding, and his terror and desperation were very well portrayed in his second scene.  
• The scene where Ron gets Splinched.  Really good job by E-Wats there, pretty much exactly how I pictured it in the book.  Hermione's still being her brilliant, efficient self, but also flipping out a little and crying and scared and the whole thing just felt very, very real. 
• Story of the Deathly Hallows.  I was a little worried when I saw the animation start, but I didn't think it was cheesy: something about it made it the perfect combination of fantastical and morbid.  
• Every scene with Fred and George.  Actors do a perfect job, and the writers, too.  
• The interaction between Ron and Hermione.  I was hoping for more, I guess, but I think they got the dynamic well, especially after Ron returns (his apologetic nonsense).  There were also two extra lines that I kind of loved: when Harry's trying to run away, Ron's response of "we can't leave Hermione, we wouldn't last two days without her" was so sweet and SO TRUE.  She's saving their collective rears the entire last book.  I also really liked her response to Harry's question of "are you still mad at him?" - "I'm always mad at him."  TRUTH.  Both seemed like little self-aware inside jokes for dorks like me who got too invested in thinking about the books. 
• Rupert Grint.  Dude's been one of my faves since the first movie, but he did a really good job in this one.  Knows how to convey emotion in his face, and every scene with Hermione (especially those when he's trying to get back in her good graces) were quite well done.
• Charity Burbage.  All the chills from reading it the first time around showed up, and I more fully appreciated Snape being absolutely unable to do anything for her.
• The scene in the frozen pond with the sword.  I was actively shivering watching Harry, and that scene was also pretty much exactly how I pictured it.
• Frickin' Dobby.  Wept.  And I don't cry in movies.   

Things I did not like.

• Harry and Hermione dancing.  Really?  That was the most awkward thing ever, mostly because I'm not sure that was Harry attempting to be awkward, but actually how Daniel Radcliffe functions normally.  Not that I don't love the kid, but seriously watch an interview or two.  Yes, I laughed, no, it did not need to be in the movie.
• Voldemort's scene with needing a different Death Eater's wand.  Voldemort doesn't ask for volunteers; he commands.  He doesn't reference the amount of praise a follower would get for volunteering his wand.  And when he chooses Lucius, and he responds with "My Lord?" Voldemort does not do a mocking voice of "My Lord?"  No.  He's not a petty, sassy bully.  He's pure, straight evil and power.
• Mad-Eye's death.  Specifically the little time they spent on it.  And, in general, that battle, and how it's poorly done.  Harry using the Disarming Charm is a huge point in the book: he refuses to sink to his enemy's level to fight.  That whole battle is a big, huge, THIS IS SIRIUS (yeah I did it, shut it) moment of doom and they were kinda like "poor Hedwig, lawlz Hagrid landing in a pond, btdubs Mad-Eye's dead."
• Ron's bloodlust in the cafe.  I originally really disliked his desire to kill Dolohov and ...Rowle?  (slipping on the names), but my friend Jack pointed out that he actually liked it.  It showed that Ron, growing up in the Wizarding world, had seen and heard about just how evil these people are, while Harry and Hermione did not.  I was pissed because Ron is super nervous about even thinking about having to kill them in the book, so to me, the movie "messed it up," but Jack's take is a cool one.  
• The end of the Horcrux's fantasy scene.  You were doing so well at staying true to the books until you made the whole audience uncomfortable.  The words were supposed to be what hurt Ron, not super awk H/Hr macking. 
• They best be showing Dobby's effing headstone next movie, that's all I'm saying.
• The eye in Umbridge's door.  He let her keep it!  Not okay!
• This isn't really this movie's fault, but I actually laughed at the beginning when Bill Weasley has to be like "yeah, werewolf."  That's because the last movie was Harry Potter and the Whoopsie We Decided to Leave Out the Whole Damn Battle Scene and Replace It With Helena Bonham Carter Acting Wacky and Alan Rickman Refusing to Shout His Lines.  And I love both of them, I do.  She plays a very convincing Bellatrix.  And his voice sounds like chocolates on a pillow made of velvet.  But there's supposed to be shouting and a battle scene.  

Probably will add edits at some point, but if you've got an opinion on it, please comment!  I'm always curious about what other people think.

Poor Loko.

Just tried to type "memo" and actually typed "mofo" which is a pretty clear indication of how my life is going right now.  Law school is good until it keeps me from Harry Potter.  No midnight showing for me because of law school.  Once that happens I start yelling Unforgivable Curses in my head at my assignments and I wish I could actually make this memo writhe in pain: so worth the lifetime in Azkaban.  To sum up: I'M IN A RAGE!  This is the maddest I've ever been! (If you get this reference there is a monster high-five and a cookie waiting for you).  This is just some background for my everyone-never-talk-again post below.   

If I see one more post/article/tear-stained-face bemoaning the fact that everyone's favorite Bad Decision In A Can is gonna get nixed by that wet blanket, the FDA, I'm going to lose it.  People are complaining like a government agency banned fun, and the entire country has suddenly become that town from Footloose.

Unpopular/my opinion: it needed to be banned.

I've never been one for drinking in excess.  I didn't start drinking at all until my junior year of college, and to this day I've never been drunk.  I can't stand the feeling of losing control, and I don't feel safe when I've lost it, in any sense.  I don't mind being the designated driver, I can enjoy the occasional beer or gin and tonic, and I do not feel like my life has been compromised significantly because I don't get trashed.  So yes, I do realize I'm coming into this with an inherently biased opinion, as I have nothing I would lose if the fruity gasoline got yanked from shelves.  Hopefully you can look past this bias and see that I'm making sense anyway.  If not, oh well.  I'm aware I act like a 35-year-old and your being the 87th person telling me this fact ain't gonna do a damn thing.

I'ma break this down based on the arguments I've heard other people and the Loko lovelies themselves make for why lemonade-flavored tar should be sold.

1. Bars sell rum and cokes and vodka and Redbulls, and they aren't banned.
For one, Four Loko cuts out the middle man.  It's pre-mixed, so the company deliberately added caffeine to alcohol.  Two, have you watched the bartender make you a rum and coke?  (It's always a good call anyway if you can peek, so you know how much alcohol just went into the drink.)  You've got one, maybe two, tops, "drinks" in there, and about half of a can of Coke in that cup.  In a can of Four Loko, you've got 4 times the alcohol and probably about 8 times the caffeine.  Also a rum and coke has an actually decent chance of tasting good.  Same argument goes for Irish Coffee.  Three, saying that vodka and Redbulls exist is not a strong argument.  That drink is 'Roid Rage avec Deux Straws Petits and looks like battery acid made a baby with a 4-year-old Green Apple Jolly Rancher.  And that drink still has less caffeine and alcohol than a can of Four Loko.

2. The people who make Four Loko aren't making all these kids drink irresponsibly.  That's on them.
There is no way to drink this garbage responsibly.  The can it comes in is 23.5 ounces, and you can't reseal it.  Drink it down.  A fine wine or good beer may take a while for you to drink, because your tongue is enjoying it.  With Four Loko, your tongue is saying GET BEHIND ME, SATAN, so you swallow it as quickly as possible.  A product designed so you must drink a lot of it, and quickly?  Call me old-fashioned and take away my knitting needles, but back in MY day, we called that irresponsible drinking.  In this day, I'll also call it "a waste of money,"  "immature," "how dumb can you possibly be, seriously?" and "this can't possibly be enjoyable, can it? Don't lie." 

3. Their marketing is not dangerous: kids don't get fooled by a brightly-colored can.
Really?  You think this is the only issue?  How about the fact that it's malt liquor, and the statute of limitations on when it's legit to drink malt liquor expires within about 18 months of you being legally allowed to drink because that stuff is FOUL.  (Yes, I just made up that law.  Should be a real one.)  The whole can only costs a couple of dollars, and since we've already established that your taste buds are not part of the decision-making here, broke students are the only ones buying this liquefied Staten Island to get drunk.  

4. Caffeine's a stimulant and alcohol's a depressant, they, like, cancel each other out, right?
NO, NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO.  Yeah, I was a bio major, but this is not even something that needs to get into detail.  This is also why drinking coffee will not sober you up to drive.  The only thing that makes you less drunk is time.  Don't be an idiot, seriously: if you're drunk, the only thing a stimulant will do to your system is convince your wasted brain that it's NOT drunk, it's FIIIINE.  Your motor skills are at the same terrible level they were at ten minutes ago, but now, instead of realizing that you couldn't fold a shirt if your future happiness depended on it, you think that you could fold a shirt so good that the creases could cut steel.  Yeah, funny, until you actually try to do something more dangerous.  Like walk.  Or drive.  Or DRINK MORE.  Yes, this happens.  You're really drunk and don't know it so you go after more alcohol.  Summary: they do NOT cancel each other out.  They build on each other like blowing up a planet with Doctor Device and lots of bad stuff happens.  

5. Lawls, we should just ban all alcohol then!  Since Prohibition worked SOOOO well LAWLZZZZ.
Shut up.  Seriously.  There are like a dozen fails in this argument.  The first is that this is a legitimate debate, and dropping sarcastic nuggets of facts-everyone-knows doesn't improve the debate: it just makes you look like a sassy high school junior who's probs in the top 15 in his class but is too cool to work harder, calls women "overly sensitive," and quotes Family Guy a lot and thinks he's really funny.  Yeah, I just generalized, and I'm doing it better than you do.
No one's trying to ban alcohol.  This is not a "slippery slope," since this is a really specific drink with really specific bad properties.  The Gambini Family will not start Four Loko speakeasies and whacking people over this "beverage."  They're just gonna take the caffeine out of the drink.  It's gonna be okay.
Also, to those saying kids will just find another way to get alcoholic energy drinks: I'm not so sure.  There are definitely people just drinking this to "see what happens" and not because they like it or drinks similar to it.  I think the extra effort will keep caffeine+alcohol out of lots of people's bodies.

 This is all I've got so far, but I may add to it.

If you're an offender of being a defender of this nationwide drink-choosing fail, do the world a favor and fight for something that matters.  Not only matters, but actually creates some kind of positive effect on anything, anywhere.  Like hating on memos with me. 

Bye, Loko.

You think you're smart, huh?

May I just share, first of all, the fact that few things in life can make me as childishly happy as the jazzy section in the middle of "Sleigh Ride."  Yes, Christmas songs are on the radio.  Yes, Starbucks has peppermint mochas again.  Whether you like it or not, the two month long period during which I belt out "O Holy Night" and "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is upon us.  Please don't tease me TOO much, and in exchange, I'll try to keep it down and limit the Mariah-ness.

I've noticed recently that regardless of how intelligent you are, life will make you feel like an idiot on a daily basis.  In the past few days, I have: sliced my finger open on a piece of aluminum foil, tripped over flat ground, and panicked that I had forgotten my car keys while I was driving my car.  I regularly make my own life more difficult, and I can complicate things better than a Facebook relationship.  Don't even act like this stuff doesn't happen to you.

1. Usually minor, completely self-caused stupid-hurts.
Yes, I gave them a name: stupid-hurts.  I call them this because this is the order of emotions you feel after they happen.  First is "I'm SO DUMB" and only second is "...hey, OW!"  Paper cuts are under this list.  So is *ahem* slicing your finger open on aluminum foil while trying to put pizza away.  Getting any appendage stuck in clothing.  Pulling on tangled hair too hard.  Slamming your hand in a car door (or trying to catch the trunk door on a station wagon from shutting... so maybe I did this when I was 6 IT HURT, OKAY).  Having stuff fly into your eye when you're outside and then trying to explain to people why it looks like you're doing a new event in rhythmic gymnastics to try to get it out.  After these happen, you look at the object that hurt you like "why would you do that to me?!" because you're trying to distance yourself from the fact that it's one hundred percent your own stupid fault.  The paper didn't grow little teeth and bite you.  It's your own fault you can't tell the difference between a sleeve and the opening for your head.  It's a GOOD thing that car doors shut - otherwise we'd all be hanging our feet and arms outside of the car and during the winter it gets nippy.  I like my fingers and do not want to lose them to frostbite.

2. Solid object fails.
There is NO WAY to make these types of screw-ups look like anything but your fault.  They are your fault, obviously, but everyone knows this already.  Tripping when the ground is even and flat.  Hipchecking corners.  Banging your head on a low door frame or a car.  The I'm-an-idiot part of this is that this stuff does not suddenly decide to move.  The door doesn't suddenly decide to Get Low (3-6-9, damn she's fine) and smack you in the dome.  The wall didn't decide to test its boundaries into your liver.  There was no earthquake, and the floor didn't suddenly become Great Adventure's Nitro and grow giant hills.  That bruise is YO' FAULT.  Also there's an excellent chance that when thi happens, you will be both 1) carrying everything you own, and 2) everyone you know will see you do this.  Expert level?  A professor, a crush, a future employer sees you.  Winner of the House Cup?  All three see you do it.  Winner of the Triwizard Tournament?  You drop or spill something as you go down.  You spin my head right round, right round...


3. OBLIVIATE.

Yes, I'm upping the HP references: the movie comes out soon, okay?  This describes when you forget things that you are using, wearing, touching, etc.  The stereotype is forgetting your glasses when they are on your head, but watch me one-up: ever forget you're wearing your glasses when they're actually on your face?  I HAVE!  I've also forgotten that I'm wearing contacts, put my glasses on my face and then flipped out because my corrective eyewear is making my eyesight WORSE.  What's going on?!?!?!?!?! How could this HAPP-oh, I'm an idiot, that's how.  I've mentioned how I panicked at a red light because I thought I forgot my car keys and they were obviously in the ignition, making my car hum away and ensuring that I could listen to "Hot Toddy" at reasonable volume (22 on my volume setting is clutch to be representin' for them gangsters all across the world).  I've gone looking for my phone when I'm conducting a phone call, searched for a pen when it's in my hand, and thought I lost my fleece when it was presently keeping me toasty.  I'm pretty sure this is where my aversion to telling people what I've lost when I'm looking for it came from: this way, if I'm an idiot, people don't find out when I send them on a wild goose chase for the purse I'm holding in my hand. 

Oh no.  They'll find out tomorrow when I give myself a paper cut and then stumble over a tile floor because it hurt, dropping all three of my civil procedure textbooks at once. 

I'm publishing this in the hopes that I'm not the only person who treats her brain as a fair weather friend when it comes to not acting like a clumsy tool, so if this stuff DOESN'T happen to you, can you keep it on the DL?  I got a reputation to maintain.  The Ruff Ryders are already pissed at me because I faceplanted getting out of the Escalade. 

Much love.

One third of your life? Lies. It's all you think about.

Sidenote: they just opened a Chipotle about 5 minutes from me, which means I'ma be spherical by Christmas (think Violet Beauregarde but instead of juice, full of burrito).  

I'm in law school, but I don't pretend like I'm the only person whose sleep schedule is messed up.  (More like my life schedule: whatever, dinner can totally happen at 9:30 when I take a death nap from 6 to 9.) Most students seem to suffer from this, grad school, undergrad, whatever, and I love watching the articles and news reports showing that students aren't getting enough sleep.  This is because I know every person between the ages of 15 and 29 is staring at the screen going "Say it ain't so!  Next thing you know you'll be telling us that Lindsay Lohan has done un-Disney-like things and Soulja Boy isn't a good rapper!"  We KNOW, people.  EVERYONE knows.  We don't sleep correctly. 

I've never been a morning person, but I'm pretty sure most young people aren't.  Waking up to an alarm, I've figured out, is retribution for the fact that you don't remember being born and what a rude awakening that must have been.  It doesn't matter if it's 6:15 or 10 AM, if you don't want to wake up, the first emotion you feel in the morning is rage.

The alarm noise (I'm convinced they develop it by walking around and recruiting people you found irritating in highschool, bagpipers, and any one related by fewer than three degrees of separation to Fran Drescher) is basically a giant IHATEYOUIHATEYOU every morning, and if you have a comfortable bed, good luck.  Snooze button?  Let's put off life for a bit longer.  Is it raining?  Hit it once.  Cold?  Hit it twice.  Raining AND cold?  Three times.  If you hit the trifecta of rain, cold, and still dark outside...sorry guys, not gonna make it in today.  Bed is better than the frickin' Mount Doom outside.  Except at least Mount Doom would be warm.

The rest of the morning is a blast and a half.  I don't know what my favorite part is, since it's so hard to choose.  The lines left on my face because I had the bad luck to sleep on a crease of my pillow?  The fact that my muscles are so weak that a six-year-old could take me in a playground fight and I'm anticipating being defeated by the orange juice lid?  The fact that my eyes are doing a sultry half-closed look due to puffiness and dark circles that might attract a raccoon but no other organism?  The fact that I have to drink a cup of coffee just to hit equilibrium?  Yeah mornings, that's how I like it.  On Mondays and Wednesdays I get to go to torts and get shouted at for a while because our professor (while totally competent and clear) is a little WACKY so she SHOUTS some of her POINTS and at 8:15 in the Goddamn MORNING it's like having another ALARM so I just want to PUNCH IT but "it" is a PROFESSOR so that's probably a bad CALL but this goes on for two HOURS and by the end of it I'm like LESS LURNING MOAR SLEEPING PLZ.  And seriously, she's a good professor, I'm getting the material, but still.

Other than your supposedly main body of sleep done during the night, there are these things called "naps."  Naps are kind of like a deal with the devil, or eating at Coldstone: at the moment, it's wonderful, but not worth the price you pay in the long run.  
There are rules to napping.

1. You will nap longer than you wanted to.
20-minute power naps become hour-long dozes.  45 minutes becomes an hour and a half.  Didn't set an alarm for your nap?  Rookie mistake, and you gon' be out for three hours.  Why you gotta be like that, bed.

2. You will feel like an idiot when you wake up.
If you didn't mean to nap, you'll feel like an idiot because you gave into sleep, but even if you meant to nap, you will feel silly upon waking.  You may look at the clock, see that it's 7:45 and assume you'll be late for class/work.  You may rise and fall, not realizing one of your legs is asleep.  You make wake up with a feeling I can only describe as HUNNNHHH?  which, defined, means "I have forgotten everything that has ever happened to me and am very confused right now."  The Goldfish State, as it were. 

3. You will waste time at either end of the nap preparing for and recovering from it.
Changing clothes, closing blinds, listening to music, whatever.  Attempting to fall asleep however it works best for you.  Then, on the other end, you will take wayyyyy too much time getting yourself out of bed, adjusting to the light, and remembering how to make words with your mouth again.

4. You'll tell everyone about your nap.

One other hard and fast rule about sleeping: instead of using the "fall back" extra hour to your advantage, you will waste that hour on YouTube and Facebook or decide laundry needs to get done instead of actually going to bed.  And Spring Forward?  Kiss that hour of sleep goodbye; you're not gonna adjust your schedule.  Am I RIGHT? Is that just me?....nevermind. 

Not my best work here, I know, but I had this post mostly crafted a few days ago and haven't posted in a while, so here you go!

Not checking you out, trust me.

Use me to procrastinate, baby.  I don't mind.

I was in the library for a bit today, and for once, it was actually a good experience: I was relatively productive and nothing about my fellow human beings bugged me to much. (Aside: I do actually like people, despite the somewhat misanthropic nature of most of my posts.  It's really more that things are hilarious than awful, and it's better to laugh than watch your blood pressure go up, right?  Hypertension's no fun.)

This positive experience cannot be attributed to each library excursion.  The Villanova law library is pretty boss, overall, but I have plenty of collected stories from undergrad and a few from here that have enabled me to collect a set of rules for what you should and should not do in a library.  My lovely friend Amy was there for last spring's disaster in the Rock at Brown.

Amy had lovingly saved me a desk so I could study for my comparative animal physio exam the next morning, and we were just outside the Absolute Quiet room.  The first pair of ridic peeps was on the other side of the room, "studying" economics but really studying other things: the girl attempting to figure out if the boy wanted her, and if she could possibly talk about more shallow, pointless things. (Answer: no.  The conversation revolved around "So at the party last weekend, she was totally wasted.  And so was he.  And they totally maybe hooked up.  But there were other drunk people too and I think people we both know may have had sex.  You know?  *hair toss*")  The boy was trying to discover if he could appear more uninterested in life. (Answer: yes, but only if he became a barnacle.)

The gem of the evening was sitting behind me, and I swear, every person she's ever met decided that was THE time and THE place to go find her, catch up, tell her how cute she was, bring her food, give her an abridged lap dance (I'm not kidding with the last one), etc.  The only thing separating the action behind me and a rave is that there were no glowing parts and no one offered me drugs. Which is unfortunate.

I tried headphones, gave her the benefit of the doubt, and continued working.  When her cackling over something stupid breached even the loudest section of Cannonball Adderley's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" that's when I snapped.  Lightly, like a tiny twig.  I turned around and said, "I'm sorry to do this, but do you think you could be a bit quieter? I can hear you through my headphones."  She apologized and promised to quiet down.  Roughly twelve minutes later, another of her friends (who were apparently budding off of each other and growing to sexual, yet not actual, maturity in the next room) came in and cackled like the offspring of a donkey with bronchitis and Ed the hyena from The Lion King.  Amy and I were e-mailing and gchatting the whole time, along the lines of HOW CAN YOU BE THIS OBLIVIOUS TO THE WORLD and I'MA HURT SOMEBODY.  She stuck it out longer than I did, because I figured I wouldn't be allowed to take my Bio 118 final if my bail was set at several million dollars.  Y'know, for when I stabbed the girl through the neck with my pencil.  Also, when I got up, she had apparently written two sentences in 3 and a half hours.

This was the worst library experience I've had, but there have been others, ranging from minor ridiculousness to full-on selfishness to the point of wanting to wave my hand in front of the person's face to see if she could see me or legit thought she was alone.  So, therefore, some rules.


Dress appropriately.
This isn't really applying to the temperature of the library, though Brownies know that the SciLi basement can get icebox cold, and my fellow 1Ls realize that whoever controls the temperature in the VLS library is under the impression that if the average temperature is 65, and that's accomplished by making it alternate between 50 and 80, that's good enough.  What I mean by this, actually, is don't come to the library like you're hitting Clutch later. (Jersey Shore reference, check.)  It's a goshdarn library.  You do not need heels and a miniskirt to get in.  Also, is there a reason why you're in makeup that would benefit significantly from dimmer light? How many minutes did it take you to flat iron your hair?  Are those sequins?!  You get my point.  Show up in sweats, for the love of God: it's not a mating ritual. 


Stop claiming desks like they're the New World.
If you need to run to the bathroom, or go upstairs/downstairs for a cup of coffee, or even if you need to disappear for 15 minutes to go get food or run to your car, I won't hate you for leaving your stuff on a desk.  I might not leave my stuff unattended in a library for that long, but I understand the value of hanging on to your desk.  However, when it's reading period, and I got to the library 90 minutes ago, and your unopened books, sweatshirt, and Starbucks cup are taking up prime real estate and I have yet to see you, I hate you.  I really do.  Queen Isabella didn't finance your trip to this carrell, and I'd really appreciate if you moved your stuff, otherwise you gon' find it in the trash can.  I'm climbin' in yo' desk space, snatchin' yo' textbooks up.  This goes for napping in the library: I feel you, it gets tiring sometimes, but when a 20-minute power nap turns into "Gosh dang, I'm guessing a Draught of Living Death was in that coffee, whoopsies" (Harry Potter ref, CHECK), I may start tickling your face with a feather.  


This ain't no mouth marathon, so stop runnin' it.
For serious, SHUT UP.  Short conversations are totally fine, as were project discussions in undergrad in the places you were supposed to be doing it, but I don't want a color commentary on every. single. drink. you had this weekend and every. single. hominid. you spoke to after consuming them.  Yes, there's drama in the world: save it for the stage, honey.  I don't care about it, I don't need to hear it, and this is not the place for it.  Go try out for The Real World and leave the learning to us.  Really, we'll take it from here, since you've clearly dropped it and have no intention of looking for it.  And if this sounded unfair to girls, I'm sorry.  Bros?  Please stop verbally flexing your Y chromosome and put some knowledge into your brick head, because no one except the clone of yourself you're talking to cares how hot that girl was whom you "got with" last night.  If the sentence starts with "Dude, she was..." or if you feel the need to crouch so that your head is below your shoulders while saying it, REEL IT BACK IN, FELLAS.  Your time is your time, but when your stupid time cuts into my learnin' time, somethin' else is gon' get cut.

Commit it to memory. 

I'm a mouse, duh!

Oh my goodness, could my title be any more clever?  Anyway, instead of editing my court observation exercise, I'm taking a break to update.  I'm in a good mood, because my lovely mommy's birthday is tomorrow (along with some other cool people), by this time tomorrow I'll be done with my citations exam, I get to see the Brown Band this weekend at Penn (and hopefully watch Brown kick some Oatmeal butt), and I'm going as Snooki for Halloween.  I know, I know, pictures or it didn't happen.

Yes, I'm going as Snooki.  I really do not care if it's stupid or overdone, I love her and I found out recently that I can do the pouf with my hair.  I'm going to shake my moneymaker along with the rest of my law school.  (Technically, that would mean waving a casebook around at the bar... try not to laugh at this image, I DARE you.)

This is a segue to my actual point: The Slut Rule.  This rule is defined by Mean Girls and this conversation:
Girl 1: "What are you going as for Halloween?"
Girl 2: "Sexy/slutty ________"

Before I get people getting angry at me, can I just say: while I personally do not feel comfortable dressing that way, it is absolutely up to you if you want to.  Go ahead.  You're allowed.  I really, truly, don't care, and if you did a kickass job with your makeup I will tell you.  I've seen absolutely stunning girls with gorgeous makeup and sweet (though tiny) outfits on Halloween, and I give them props.  Additionally, if you are able to make yourself into something creative in this category (I believe my fave suggestion last year was "Sexy Civil War Reenactor"... come on, how many "The South Will Rise Again" puns could you make out of that?), I will give you MAD props.

So which ones do bother me?  Three main groups:
1. Laziness.
This is often the Mean Girls category: buying a pair of ears and intentionally misusing eyeliner to give yourself whiskers doesn't make you a cat, it makes you lazy.  Which might work for the cat, actually... but yeah, basically, if what you're wearing is what you'd wear out on any given night o' clubbin', and all you've added are ears, come ON.  DO MORE.  WORK for those free drinks.  Otherwise I will be bringing a spray bottle of water to get you when you start claw-attacking the bar furniture, and harass you the whole evening with a fake mouse the whole night, trying to get you to chase it.  You get upset?  But, but... I thought you were a KITTY?! (Even better if the mouse is another girl who got lazy and is dressed just like you but in a GREY shirt). 

2. WTF.
These are "sexy" costumes that aren't so the-back-o'-yo'-head-is-Riddikulus (TWO POP CULTURE REFERENCES, GET SOME) that they're funny: that's the Civil War Reenactor type.  These types are generally sold, not put together, and clearly someone, somewhere, thought they'd legit be sexy.  I stalked Spirit, a Halloween store that's got a whole category of "Sexy Women's Costumes," and some of my faves were:

• Sexy Robin Hood (labeled "Robyn Da Hood")

• Sexy Mad Hatter

• Sexy Border Patrol

• Sexy Taxi Driver

• Sexy Hermione Granger (I know, I know, but she's 11 in the first frickin' book, people!)

• Sexy Marie Antoinette

• Sexy Nun (also, I know, but can this one die?  It wasn't funny to begin with.  Also stop naming the costume Bad Habit - Sister Act 2 was better and funnier than this costume.)
• Sexy Bumblebee from Transformers

• Sexy Snowman

• Sexy Female Elvis

 AND MY FAVORITE!!!!

• SEXY PHD CANDIDATE!

There are more, but I think you get the idea.  If it's that much of a stretch to make it sexy AND it's not funny, it's WTF and don't buy it.

3. Borderline racist/generally insulting.
Many, many of the "sexy" costumes have gone way past politically incorrect right up into "No." First of all, I'd say don't dress up as a Native American or a Bollywood dancer or a Mexican bandit or whatever else is sold just because you can.  You're better than that, and you're reducing someone's culture to a stereotype, and a tired one at that.
What actually gets me angry instead of just perturbed are the ones who take a cultural thing and try to work it into a double entendre.  Examples: "Taj My Hall" for a vaguely Indian outfit.  "Pocahottie" for an American Indian outift.  "Saki (sic) Sweetie" for a kimono-ish thing.  And, my personal favorite, "Makin' Reservations" for another American Indian dress.  not bein offensiv: ur doin it rong.

So, sorry for the long post, but hopefully you can prep for my reactions to your costume based ono what I've written here.  You can also avoid all of this and be funny and/or nerdy: my boyfriend is going as a t test for Halloween.

Off to the tanning salon.

Why would you turn against me?

My body is mutiny-ing.  Nothing awful, just a cold that got (law-)schooled and turned into SUPER COLD.  Watch as I make you regret every handshake you've performed, every doorknob you've touched, and every hour of sleep you've missed, because I'mma make you SICK.  And because I'm a pansy and can't man up I've been dragging myself through the last few days as if I'm consumptive and on my way out.  I'm not.  I'm just whiny.  Call Whine-One-One, not 911.  Waaaahmbulance, not ambulance.   

Colds are not the only thing that makes me bow down to the germ theory and pain receptors and tell them I've given up and will pay reparations and sign the Fourteen Points.  I'm pathetic in lots of other disease formats, don't you worry.  I've tried to compile a list.

Blisters: seriously, go die.  There is no good way to complain about a blister unless you're discussing how complications from it are forcing the doctors to consider amputation.  Otherwise you sound like a little girl who just let go of the balloon that a chain restaurant gave her for her birthday.  One little liquid-filled result of uncomfortable shoes and I can't walk anymore.  Whine whine whiiiiine.

Eyelash under a contact lens: this is a new level of miserable.  If this hasn't happened to you, just trust me when I say that you no joke want to claw your eye out.  Combine the discomfort of a middle-school slow dance when you have no partner and the urgency of the last two minutes of a final when you still have a paragraph to write and your hand is cramping and you've got the basics.  I get really mad at my eyelashes when this happens because they are doing the exact opposite of what they're supposed to be doing.  Protect my eye, hairs, or I will wear bright green mascara to spite you and you will never be pretty again.  Bwahaha.

Migraines: these are difficult to quantify unless you've experienced one, but since there are no outward symptoms, it's rough to get people to believe you.  Especially since, when you break it down, what you're saying is "I have a headache."  I get these maybe once every two months or so, and there's very little I can do about them.  Light hurts.  Sound hurts.  I'm pretty sure I can feel individual air molecules bouncing off of my forehead... and they're laughing at me.  Wipes me out.

That kind of leads me into my last one: tummy aches.  I am deathly afraid of throwing up.  For reals, shots, blood, whatever else is better than feeling sick to my stomach.  I will blubber if I feel even the least bit nauseous.  Movies I watched when I was little and sick can no longer be seen because I associate them with feeling ill.  Certain foods are out if I felt ill after eating them.  I cover my eyes and ears during that scene in Mean Girls when she's like "Aaron Samuels I am so not Regina George, since she would never decide a pink bra was acceptable with a strapless dress."  
My friend Alex has the same problem, and she thinks it happens to bio people more often: if you know the details, it's worse.  I fully agree.  But for reals, if you're sick from drinking, I will put you in the rescue position and get someone else to deal with it.

For the record, this post took me about two hours because I was talking about The Hunger Games series with the lovely Adrienne because I just finished the last book in the series and it ripped my heart out and put it back in.  I want to be a lawyer, but what I want more than anything is to get a job reading fantasy and science fiction and talking about it forever.

I live off of comments, and also: recommend books.  Oddly enough, being able to escape in books grounds me in law school.  Don't ask me to explain any further because I'm pretty frickin' proud of that sentence.    

Reckless and negligent.

The future legal minds of southeastern Pennsylvania were out in force on Friday night... and they were ridiculously sloppy.  Gosh dang I love you guys, but y'all were ridiculous.

I'm completely aware of my own bias when it comes to the effects of alcohol, as I've never been a big drinker, ever.  I was on the substance-free floor my first year of college, and spent most of my time going to church choir and playing French horn.  Glory days, fo' sho'. 

Aaaaanyway.  Friday night was Red Mass, a big ol' celebration for law people everywhere, and people told me they overheard people discussing pre-gaming Red Mass.  Yeah I'ma shoot that one down.  Still church.  After the service, there was a reception at the law school (most people were like FREE ALCOHOL) and then another thing at a bar.  I don't think the bar was prepared for several hundred well-dressed young people so everything got a little crazy.  The following list was inspired by Friday night, but it's definitely been a series of data collections over several years. 

1. PDA = Just say NO.
No, I don't mean act like your significant other has smallpox: I won't light you on fire if you're holding hands.  However, if I see you sword-fighting with your tongues and I can't see your hands, I will be uncomfortable.  There are very few moments where macking in public is acceptable to me: an airport arrivals gate, a wedding, mistletoe, maybe a few others.  Things that don't count? "Oh, babe, you look sa-MOKING tonight, you're so hot!" and "giggle I'm pretty drunk,can... can I have 'nother drink?  Pleeeeease?"  Generally you're too far away for me to do much, but if you're in my way, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will pull you apart like you're at a middle school dance on my way to the bathroom.  Save it for later kiddies.

2. This is my dance space, this is your dance space.
Yeah I just quoted Dirty Dancing and you love it.  But yes, for the record, your inebriation does not grant you 6 times the dance space that my sobriety grants me.  This is directed mostly at dudes doing what I like to call the "RNC delegates dropped into a house-music club" dance which consists of alternating the angle your elbow is held at and punching the air.  Expert moves include incorporating your legs and fnding the beat.  If you hit me with your chicken arm, or back up into me, I will shove you.  It will happen.  I don't like to be touched all that much to begin with, and since I already had to get super-friendly with about 45 people just because I was trying to reach the bar I really, really don't want you to bump into me.  No touching. 

3. The staff don't hate you. 
If you're missing your ID and the bouncer gives you a hard time, don't get shocked or try to fight him.  The waitress is not a "bitch" bcause she won't serve you.  It's okay to get mad at the system, but these people are just following directions from their bosses.  Friday night I asked the under-staffed bartender if I could tack on my drink to a larger order, and apologized to her for bothering her.  The girl next to me said that I didn't need to apologize because it's her job.  I responded with, "It's not her fault that the bar under-staffed tonight."  So maybe I get a little worked up when I see people treating someone in a service industry poorly, but seriously, don't take out your I-haven't-had-nearly-enough-alcohol-tonight issues (or worse, I've-had-too-much) on some chick whose trying to fill an order for 6 Irish car bombs.

4. Don't wear heels if you can't handle them.
I know that I can't, so I avoid wearing them at all costs.  Therefore, when you are stumbling around on your stilettos in front of my car and I really, really want you to move, I super-hate your footwear choice of the evening.  If you can't handle the strappies without eating it on the slippery bar floor by the end of the night, maybe don't wear them.  I can generally pick these girls out before they even start drinking because instead of actually rolling their feet when they walk, Top Model-style, they put their whole foot down on the ground at once like a Budweiser Clydesdale.  There's no shame in flats, ladies, and I might decide to NOT run you over with my car if you can book. 

I'm sure I'll think of more, but this is what I've got so far.  Pray for me and my abandoned and malignant heart, but gosh darn do drunk people get me mad. 

Ridin' dirty.

Sorry for the delay.  I love all of you, I just had a midterm and assignments and I slept through most of my break.  Whaddup. 

Also, I did in fact read about 1500 pages of fiction this past weekend, and I am very happy with that.  I re-read some of Unseen Academicals (Terry Pratchett, my homeboy, READ HIS STUFF), and then I went to Barnes and Noble.  It's not good when I go into a bookstore, as it's like taking a chocoholic into Godiva, or Snooki into Ed Hardy, or Bill Clinton into a strip club: I want all of it and the only thing that keeps me from taking it all is a potential lawsuit. Too far?

Anyway, I bought the new Ken Follett book Fall of Giants, and I am super pleased with my purchase.  It's an epic like The Pillars of the Earth or World Without End but with many main characters and a setting in World War I.  I haven't read anything but those epics, but the dude did not disappoint.  Book was a thousand pages.

I also bought The Hunger Games which people have been recommending to me for a while and HOLY GOD this book was AMAZING.  I'm going to get the second and third as soon as I can.  It's written for teens, but it's seriously one of the best books I've read in a while.  Violent and complicated and perfectly paced and stays with you after you've put it down.  If you like science fiction go get it NAO KTHNX BAI.

Real reason for this post: I just drove the longest I've ever driven and the most states in one drive.  As anyone who was in New Orleans with me this past January can attest to (oh hey Silver Bullet, heyyy), I'm a bit of a nervous driver.  The part that most people don't see is the road rage going on in my head, and the combination of a desire to be safe and a wish that idiots would avoid my highway combines into a thought process like this:

**Aight, sweet, I found the entrance to the highway... hellooo I'm coming in and moving a lane over would definitely be awesome since there are no cars there... frickin' MOVE okay thank you!.... dammit I hate trucks why are there two trucks here OHMYGOD THEY'RE SURROUNDING ME PASSPASSPASS JESUS okay thank you God!.... I really don't like this Nicki Minaj song, can I look down and change the dial without crashing into someone? of course you can it's like an eighth of a second just do it FRICKIN' A WHAT WAS THAT oh a motorcycle I HATE YOU you can't just make up your own lane!  I will drop-kick your dog off of a bridge... no I'll just slice up your tool-ish leather jacket JUST PASS ME, DAMMIT I'm doing ten over the speed limit! did I ask for a colonoscopy from your front bumper I THINK NOT aight doing well, doing well, good song, good song SHIT was that the EXIT no, no, calm down, the exit is not for another like, 25 miles, you're an idiot... and the A/C in the car is making my eyes water, I'll turn it down... aaaand now it's a hundred degrees in here, A/C back on DAMMIT TRUCK I HATE YOU... wait why are we breaking the truck is gonna crush me OHGOD PLEASE STOP... oh, it's a toll.  I love you, EZ Pass!***

That's about 3 minutes worth.  Today's drive was 3 hours.  I spend pretty much all of it bouncing back and forth between I'mgonnadie/you'retoodumbtodrive/I'mgonnadie/you'retoodumbtodrive.  So if you're ever with me in the car and wondering why my hands are turning white gripping the wheel and I seem really focused, this is why.

They see me rollin', they hatin'...

Likable quirky.

Don't get me wrong, I love good AND terrible romantic comedies as much as the next girl.  When Harry Met Sally is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I can still curl up on the couch at home and watch The Jane Austen Book Club whenever it's on TV.

However, I recently stumbled upon an xkcd cartoon (that frickin' Random button can get you SO EASILY) that made me think: 

http://xkcd.com/122/

Yes, a lot of my favorite romantic comedies, or just plot lines in general, have "quirky" heroines, or heros, but this is the thing: they're the right kind of quirky. 

Sally's character is "high-maintenance," and she can't sing, but that's really okay because she's successful and gorgeous.  Grigg's character in JABC is super into science fiction and really awkward, but that's okay because he's really nice, has money but doesn't flaunt it, and OH WAIT is gorgeous. 

Seriously, I love Grigg's character, but people who read science fiction just simply do not look like that.  The ladies spend most of the movie pretending to overlook the fact that he's frickin' Hugh Dancy and just go "aww poor awkward computer dude, thought the books were sequels!"  This is not how the world works.  Sally can't sing and she's difficult in restaurants, but she's stunning and fun and she'd be single for roughly two days.  She's the right kind of quirky. 

I have the 7th Harry Potter book and an Orson Scott Card short story collection on my bookshelf, along with the MST3K movie.  I read fantasy like it's nobody's business, and I'm not talking like "I read Ella Enchanted when I was little and stopped" I'm talking like, full-on, let's-go-meet-Tamora-Pierce, Terry-Goodkind's-a-boss, read-books-designed-for-25-year-old-socially-inept-single-dudes I read fantasy.  I can sing, but what I sing is church hymns and Biggie and A Goofy Movie's soundtrack.  I can quote things like nobody's business, but it's things like Arrested Development and Anchorman.  None of these things is entertaining to an outside viewer, and thus none of these things would make me a good romantic comedy heroine.

This REALLY bothers me.  Somehow we've decided that these, and only these, forms of quirkiness (preferably accompanied by veela-level good looks) are acceptable ranges of human.  They're always a lack of coordination, filter, or skill and/or entertaining to a potential significant other.  (Twilight, I'm looking at you and HATING YOU for making a shell of a character).  Would seriously no one watch a movie or TV show or read a book that has an average-looking fantasy nerd guy/girl with a personality?  I love these romantic comedies, but I can name about a hundred friends of mine who fit into none of the characteristics of these heroines and heros and would totally watch something more relatable.  There's GOT to be a market for that.

Or I'm wrong, and no one in Hollywood finds my never-ending search for gorgeous harmony lines in Catholic hymns and my adamant opinion that while both are awesome, Speaker for the Dead is better than Ender's Game and my hopes to be able to spit Twista's verse in Let's Go before I die REMOTELY interesting.

In that case, movie people: suck it.  You're missing out.

Christina fail.

I'm sick.  I'm sorry.  Post soon.

I have a fever (that's going down, thank God) and some achy-headachy-congestion shenanigans, but honestly, what I've got is "hyperlawschoolism."  I crashed, so I'm restarting.

Apparently the only thing I missed today was a kid talking about a hypothetical pet dolphin in civil procedure.  Not crying over it.

Cashier killin'.

I worked at Kohl's for almost 5 years on and off.  Y'all know this.  And while you all know my hate for many, many aspects of the job, I really think everyone should work in the service industry for some period of time: it makes you nicer.  Be a waitress, be a cashier, work in customer service, whatever.  Do something that makes it abundantly clear how you come across to people, so you can adjust and make the world a better place.

People are rude, it happens.  Rude people exist, and they've decided what's going wrong in their lives is completely up to you and your desire to keep them down, or if they haven't, they're gonna make your life miserable anyway.  My worst experience with this type of person was actually when I was in line, not working, and she had a little something extra going for her: she was completely lovely to me, and chewed out the cashier like the girl was a duck and she was a rumor about Patrick Verona.  Everything but the beak and feet.

This happened when I was grocery shopping back at Brown in March or April.  I was behind Nondescript 40-Something who was struggling with her groceries.  I offered to help her, to be nice and also to, you know, speed up the line.  She turned around and said, "Oh no, sweetie, thank you!  I'm just clumsy right now."  Fair enough, I'll wait.

In the next moment, everything changed.  She went from normal, sweet lady (she looked like a Paula...) to Angry Lion Denied A Wildebeest.  ALDAW turned around after I offered to help, grew out her canines (maybe not) and snapped, "Is there a reason this is taking so long?"  I swear I looked at the back of her head for Voldemort.

The cashier apologized, and instead of separating the groceries like she had been doing to keep cold things together and fragile things together, she began throwing things randomly into bags to keep up.  ALDAW either looked away or decided she didn't need to supervise for a moment, turned around and snapped "Why would you do that?! You need to SEPARATE things!"

The manager finally saw what was going on, and came over to help bag things, and ALDAW mentioned the poor cashier's "incomptence" to the manager, and also insulted her hiring practices by stating that she didn't know where the manager found her cashiers.  She stood there like a 13-year-old being told she couldn't wear shiny lipgloss because it gives the boys the wrong idea, paid, and then stomped off to find another victim, presumably.  She also requested a carrying service to her car. 

When my turn came, I apologized to the cashier, and not that she needed to hear it from me to know it was true, but I told her that the ALDAW was being ridiculous, and that you just sometimes get people you can't please.  There are just people who turn into a pissier version of the Hulk because they had a bad morning/week/year/life and they take it out on the lowest rung.

What made me actually angry instead of just resigned was the fact that she was openly kind to me, and full-on Fenrir Greyback at the wrong time of the month to the girl behind the register.  That's unacceptable.  You're nice to people who are in your spot, waiting on line, but you've decided that since this girl is just a cashier, you can verbally abuse her?  She knows how to do her job, trust me.  Not only are you rude, you're awful as well.  I've overheard people at my job stating that "they really hire dummies here" and I'm lucky enough to have the trump card of "I'm in college/going to law school."  But even if that weren't true, I'm still doing my job competently, and most people in retail are.  Just because it's a simple job doesn't mean you know how to do it, and it doesn't mean the person doing it is capable of nothing more.

We try to do our retail jobs, the least you can do is do your job being a decent human being.

Stress baking.

It's kind of my thing.

There are positives and negatives to this trait of mine.  It's a study in contrasts: I'm productive, but I'm making cookies or brownies or cake.  I'm not wallowing in misery, but I'm not making any progress on things I need to do.  I can give them to my friends, but many have a reflex emotion or concern rather than elation when I hand them delicious melty chocolate chips.

I do other things to dodge stress.  Not that it works, but I guess it helps.  I take an exceptionally long shower.  I watch (or re-watch) a scene of A Very Potter Musical.  I pick up any of my Terry Pratchett books and choose a page at random to start reading.  I go to Wikipedia and study up on the past cycles of Top Model.  But when it gets REALLY bad, I decide I have to incorporate whatever I'm learning about with my other passion: hip-hop.

I'm combining it with criminal law.

I started to re-write Kelis' "Milkshake," and I got through the first chorus:

My homicide brings all D.A.'s to the yard
And they're like,
"Is this depraved heart?"
Manslaughter?
No, it's depraved heart.
I could free you, but I'd rather charge.

I got through a bit of "Hey Ya," as well:

My D.A. don't mess around
Because she does her job
And this I know fo' sho....
But did he really want to
Kill that dude with that knife
Which degree should go?.....
Do try to fight the villain
'Cause mens rea alone is killin' guys just now...
Thank God that MPC [Model Penal Code for all of y'all]
did stick degrees together 'cause we don't know how....

Aaaaaactus..... reaaaaaaaas (etc. etc. like 80 times)


This is as far as I've gotten.  Help me if you can, if not; pray for me.

Feelin' no remorse, feelin' like my hand was forced,

-Christina

Sleep fighting.

I need it, I can't get it, I'm tired at the wrong times.

From here on out, in order to combine analysis of my three major classes, I'm going to try to apply every new issue to the lyrics of DMX's "Up In Here."  Crim is an obvious one, I think we could definitely argue for a tort or two, and for civil procedure?  Well, he does accuse the guy of being an "up North type," so maybe we can throw jurisdiction in there too.

I've lost my mind, officially.  I'm worn out, I look like hell, I feel poor and ugly when the tiredness catches up to me and I'm going to school with a bunch of Abercrombie models, and I don't even know how I'm doing.

Hence, Up In Here.  I AM wack and twisted.  Your old man say you stupid, you be like, "so? I love my baby mother, I never let her go..."

Don't disrespect.

Break from my memo, and a reward for finishing citations, which are dozens of tiny devils.

I don't want to beat on my fellow classmates here at law school, but there's definitely a need for some one to say KLASSROOMZ ETIKIT: ur doin it rong for some of them.

Pretty Pretty Princess Mac user, for example, does in fact have to spend a lot of her time trying to collect jewelry and avoid getting the black ring, but in between her quests for that gray plastic crown, she likes to look at Facebook.  During class.  While sitting directly in front of me.  She often Facebook chats people during crim law, but she also likes to browse through photos at random intervals.  Unfortunately, this results in my classroom experience turning into something like this:

Professor:......."There are several problems with the concept of felony murder, and we will examine them..."

PPP Mac: ......*FB chat...chat...Photo of friends...photophotophotophoto...FB chat.... look at manicure..*

My thoughts:...*Felony murder.... GAHHHH DUCKFACE... what? what problems? what happened?.....*

I HATE this.  We have assigned seats, and therefore she can't even move to the back row.  Not only is this super distracting for everyone behind you (her, plus the dude who checks his fantasy football league like something's gonna change at 11:15 AM on a Wednesday, ensure that I will be challenged to focus every day), but it's ridiculously rude to the professor.  Trust me, sweetie, he knows more than you do, even if you spent 90 minutes flat ironing your hair and he's balding.  People would kill for your spot in that seat, start acting like this matters.

The second major group that has classroom management problems is the Gunners, also known as the Classholes, also known as That Guy/Girl.  Must raise his hand for every question, even the rhetorical ones.  Likes to answer the questions everyone knows the answer to.  Must share personal stories and feelings in the answers.  If he doesn't know, he's gonna guess, doggone it! 

The absolute BEST thing they do, though, is ask questions that begin with "What if....?"  This beginning guaran-frickin'-tees that the question will be barely remotely related to the issue at hand, not be for the benefit of the class, attempt to make them look smarter and fail miserably, and waste limited classroom time.  Today's example was discussing a homicide that occured when a drunk expert skiier ran someone else over and the dude died.  Gunners-R-Us asked every possible question, from the somewhat reasonable "Is a ski slope similar to a road?" to "some inane thing we've already addressed and isn't important."

"What if the skiier did shots instead of drank 40s?"
"What if one of his skis was actually a badger?"
"What if the snow suddenly turned into powdered cocaine?"
"What if I cut off your arms and beat you with them every time you look a little bit pensive so you need to rethink every dumb, stupid thing that even has the potential to come out of your dumb, stupid mouth for the rest of the semest- oh wait, that one was me, in my head.

If you don't know who That Guy is in your classroom, it's you.

Seriously, guys, this education thing is pretty legit, your professors in general deserve your respect, and so do your clasmates.  This is a shared experience; let's not make it miserable, kay?

Postponing crim law.  We haven't had the class in over a week because of cancellations and other shenanigans so God knows where we are.  Probably in homicide.  Possibly manslaughter.  Possibly I just flipped to a page trying to find where we were starting to find a hypo case in which the victim's name is "Tyvester."  This is my life, folks.

And I have realized recently that my life is a sham.  Lots of people think I am a fuctional adult, and that is simply not true.  I am in "professional" school, and the only step I have taken it that direction is buying a blazer and not plagiarizing.  I pay rent, but my checks occasionally have cute puppies on them.  I cook for myself, but my greatest culinary accomplishment is making chicken parm and not setting myself on fire.  I drive a car to school, but I still get flustered pumping gas and I play the "try to get it to the closest dollar" game with the nozzle pouring highly flammable liquid into my car.  (My most recent attempt yielded $25.02, and I pouted for the next half hour.)

The worst part is some part of my brain has decided that I deserve a Congressional Medal of Honor for fueling my car and making tacos.  I'm constantly looking around, wanting people to tell me I did a good job, pat me on the back, and give me a cookie.  I want my parents to be impressed with me, and that is probably the most ridiculous part - I'll call Mommy and Daddy to tell them what a boss job I did turning in my rent check and asking a question in class.

I'm 22 gosh-darn years old, and I'm nowhere near being Miss Independent.  I'm A Moment Like This, maybe.  I'm probably still stuck in Texas.  If you don't like Kelly Clarkson, you did not understand those last few lines, and you are fooling yourself. 

My go-tos for rough days are childish, too.  Sad? Re-read Harry Potter.  Need a break?  Watch the first season of Arrested Development or attempt to learn the Single Ladies dance.  My most "intelligent moments" are when I turn to the Bible or Sporcle. 

Don't tell my professors (or my mommy), but I am pushing 13, maybe.  And give me a high-five if you see I've done my laundry.

Strength training.

I've been having a rough couple of days.

I haven't been sleeping, which is partially due to my recently developed sensitivity to the lights in the parking lot of my apartment (there is no good reason for their brightness other than the landing of a plane... curtain shopping is happening soon), but also due to the overall stress of being in a completely different situation.  Law school is a LOT of work, I'm away from Brown friends, I'm away from my family, and I'm in a completely new location.  What I've found in the past week or so is that my biggest problem is being away from my church.

This is not in the sense that I haven't been able to see God in what I'm doing, or in the people around me: I'm at an Augustinian university, so there be mad churches everywhere and a cross in every classroom.  The people I've met have nearly all been kind, friendly, and helpful, and it's very easy to see God at work in them.  I'm talking more about the fact that I built a community at Brown, which I'm now distanced from.

The choir here is maybe 7 or 8  times as large as the one at Brown, and the church (and its attendance) are about 5 times as large as Brown's.  They hold 5 Sunday Masses there, there are three priests, tons of Villanova students, families, stained glass windows, full pews, more than one tenor, half a dozen EMs, a busy parking lot...

And.  I. Feel.  So.  Alone.

I think it's because I don't feel "needed" at this church.  I'm one of like, 2 dozen altos that can sing decently,  and if I'm not singing I'm sitting by myself, getting there a little too early, praying a little too intensely, sitting uncomfortably close to the lovely people next to me, accidentally belting out harmony parts because I've forgotten melodies.

God's there, He's everywhere, but the point of church for me is a gathering of souls to pray and praise Him and just generally get happier because you've got this awesome thing in common.  But when I can't connect to a church, I get frustrated and figure I might as well be praying in bed and singing in the shower. 

The choir here is great, and there is an activities fair for the law school that will showcase a Catholic law student group (among other things, obviously), but right now I'm kind of pushing on alone.  Of course, with my brain, I immediately go into the spiral of "this is pathetic, He's still there, why are you complaining?  There are people across the world and across time who have been in situations that are actually HOSTILE to their faith, and they stuck it out.  You're complaining because the church is full, and so you're not necessary? Please.  Grow up."

I eventually remember that even though I'm in this pathetic state, God loves me and thinks I'm worth it, and it's not like he's not there; I'm just selfish. 

Anybody else had this problem?  It doesn't even have to be a religious organization.  It's just an odd feeling of not feeling at home in a place where I'm used to safety and confidence, simply because I don't have responsibilities.  Does this even make sense?  If Christina be crazy, tell her.

You and everyone else around you.

I should stop posting that I'm taking a break from my legal studies, because at this point, everything I do is a break from my legal studies.  Today, I am sick of doing torts.

Since I started law school, I wa kind of banking on not having to deal with the same difficulties as those I dealt with in undergrad: most importantly, the difficulties people around me seemed to have with spatial awareness.  I hoped, stupidly, that gone were the days where some dude decided that the main hallway of the mailroom was a perfect spot to stop to read the reminder he had gotten about the blood drive, or girls decided that a cellphone meant walking in straight lines no longer applied to them.

I was wrong.

I now have to deal with girls who cross areas of our parking garage without looking, and then stare me down as I leave like I am doing something inappropriate by attempting to drive 5 MPH over the speedbump and exit the garage.  My personal favorite is a girl who likes to walk in the middle of the lanes in a parking garage, which makes me look like a predator because I have to follow her path back to her car because she's blocking the exit.  No, I'm not stalking you because you're pretty and look like you stepped out of the pages of a Vineyard Vines ad: there is only one way to get out of this concrete monstrosity and you, your polo, and your Blackberry are blocking it.

I have to deal with three girls who walk in the main entrance of our law building and stop two feet in the door to look at each other and state, "I love your pink computer!"  Me too, princess, me too, but you'd still love it if you took 3 steps forward.  You don't even have to ask "Mother, may I?"  Just do it.  And for the record, Elle Woods did the pink Mac way better than you ever will.  If you don't move I will trip you and you will land on the tile floor and your Pretty Pretty Princess computer will crash into pieces and you will weep and I will give you the coldest stare you have ever seen enabling me to skate to class on your frozen TEARS.  MOVE. 

I have to deal with girls who plan their weekends on Tuesday blocking my locker and about 3 dozen others because they are discussing how "the guys so want to party like, like ALL of this week.  I think I could like, you know, join them for some of it, but I don't like, I don't know.  That's a LOT of going out and, you know, we still have like, stuff to do!  And you know how they like to, like, play beer pong and like just be totally wasted and like, I have to DRIVE back to my apartment, you know?  I can't just like, crash on their couch, that's gross.  CACKLECACKLECACKLE."
One, that conversation could just not have happened and absolutely no part of the world would be different.  None.  Two, we are taught about brevity and clarity in our legal writing class and therefore I have to assume you slept through the whole thing.  Three, my civ pro book weighs a lot and your foot is fragile.  Four, I hate you and everything you stand for and I will record this conversation and discover your name and send it to every last one of your potential employers including surrounding restaurants looking for waitresses if you do not MOVE IMMEDIATELY because I've had 5 straight hours of class before this and I am hungry and would gnaw off your arm right now if I were sure I couldn't get kuru and also alcohol poisoning because your behavior can only suggest that you are still drunk from last night partying with your boyzzz because you could not be THIS IGNORANT for ANY OTHER REASON.  (My patience and my hunger have an inverse relationship.)

Spatial awareness: it saves lives. 

Jersey Shore.

I'm straight up avoiding my civil procedure reading. 

For the past two weeks, my roommates and I have crashed in front of the TV with beer (or in my case, a gin and tonic... I drink like a male retiree, I'm aware) and enjoyed the witty repartee of these 8 crazy kids.  One roommate came in with a love of the show, while the other, while aware of it, had never seen an episode.  Now she's quoting Snooki and getting sick of the Sammi-Ronnie drama.  She's hooked.

I'm just going to say it: I LOVE this show.  It's entertaining as heck, and for me, a bit of schadenfreude every week.  No matter how poorly my life is going, I am not nearly thirty, spending two hours on my hair, and using words like "smoosh."  I'm looking at you, DJ Pauly D.

For those who haven't seen the show, here's a quick breakdown: MTV found 8 exemplary members of society and stuck them in a house on the Jersey Shore, and it was so frickin' entertaining that they did it again, but in Miami.  The show's cast must work for a few hours at entry-level jobs (a T-shirt store and a gelato shop), but they spend most of their time prepping to go out, going out, and then being hungover from going out.  They are all of the "guido" and "guidette" persuasion, and use a very specific vocabulary to talk amongst themselves and others like them.  I did not intend this, but this paragraph looks very David Attenborough plus Steve Irwin-narrated.  My B.

Some of the vocabulary:

GTL: Gym, Tan, Laundry.  It's a lifestyle.  I personally call it Steroids, Melanoma, Febreeze.

Smoosh: to have sex/hook up.

"Insclude": Not a real word, but this is what one character sounds like when trying to say "exclude."

Grenade: an ugly girl, generally a friend of the girl one is trying to hook up with.  The name originates from the need for your wingman to "take one for the team" and throw himself on this girl in order to let you hook up.  Synonyms: Zoo creature, hippo, hyena, landmine (if the girl is thin, but ugly).  Plural: The Bronx Zoo.

Etc., etc.  I have a very difficult time with the fact that I like this show, because some of the behavior on it is absolutely horrendous.  And I'm not talking about pearl-clutching, overreacting, dear,-that-neckline's-a-LITTLE-low horrendous, I'm talking disrespectful to humanity horrendous.  And then there are times people are actually very nice.

In the first season, one of the girls, Snooki, was a bit of an outcast on the show for the first bunch of episodes.  On one outing, she attempted to stop a guy from stealing drinks from her friends, and she got punched in the face for it.  Several of the guys from the show immediately launched themselves at him, the girls took care of her, and collectively, they were very supportive of her, cheered her up, and let her know she was part of the "family."  They went out of their way to make sure she was taken care of, and they didn't need to do that. 

Another girl in the house, Jenni (or JWOWW, as she goes by... it's apparently what the guys say when she walks into the club, I... I don't even...just...ANYWAY) was out with Snooki, when another girl started to harrass them, asking Jenni "Who's your fat friend?"  JWOWW started a fight with the girl and got tossed out of the club.  When Snooki later asked her what happened, she said, "The girl was calling both of us fat." (emphasis mine)  Jenni is not a girl you would look at and say, "Now that is a classy human being" based solely on her appearance.  She gave herself enormous implants as a present, had blond streaks in her black hair for a time, has the unfortunate voice of a 90-year-old chain smoker, and her clothing can best be described as "costume-y" (her outfit on the evening of the fight included a teal bra and a pink, sparkly corset, if I remember correctly).  However, telling Snooki that the girl was calling both of them fat was a classy thing to do.  She was a good friend at that moment, and there are plenty of girls who walk around looking like a million dollars but treat their friends like a non-funny version of the Plastics.  I'd say to her, keep wearing the rhinestone-encrusted clubbing tops, JWOWW: you've got more class than most.

And then we come to the not-fun part of how they act.  I don't mean to pick on only the guys, and this could be MTV encouraging or filming this behavior in some way, but the guys, in particular Mike (also known as the Situation... don't even ask, really, don't), are straight-up misogynists.  The "grenade" aspect of the show seems to be more prominent this season, but the guys spend quite a bit of their time proclaiming certain girls hot enough and the rest grenades (and I for the life of me cannot tell the difference).  Any girl over about a hundred pounds is almost certainly a "grenade," but other than that, I can't tell who is and who isn't.  My favorite time is when they bring girls home, and then pretend to sober up quickly (my interpretation), and then act as if they've suddenly realized they've brought large African mammals into their hot tub.  MTV helps by occasionally inserting a sound bite of an elephant trumpeting at the moment one realizes "We got grenades, man!"

Part of why this is so difficult for me to watch is that I'm 100% positive I would be immediately rejected and labeled a grenade by these guys.  Part of this knowledge is due to a little vignette: several girls who walked into the gelato shop while two of the guys were working attempted to give them their numbers, but as soon as they found out the girls were in law school, they wanted none of it.  That's MEEEEE!  However, even if I were at a club and law school didn't come up (for the love of Jesus why is the music always so loud in those places), I'm not skinny.  I can't even attempt to define their standard of what a grenade is or isn't, but I do know if you ain't thin, you out.  Also, probably, if you're not impressed by their abs or their helmet hair (not hair that looks like it's been under a helmet, but hair that actually is hard enough to double as a helmet), you're probably also a grenade.

I've come to the conclusion that I can watch this show for its entertainment value, but I've also justified watching the misogyny.  These guys have impossible-to-meet standards.  They insult girls who have done nothing wrong to them.  They reject intelligence as a flaw.  They invite girls to their house and then reject them.  One of them regularly cheats on his girlfriend.  They lead girls to their bedrooms past a sign that says "no one's ugly after 2 AM."  They call girls on the cast variations on "fat" when they're disagreeing over something, despite the fact that one girl (Snooki) has openly shared her history with eating disorders.

I may be a grenade, and I may not be on TV, but I am not a sociopath.  I call that a win. 

Ego stroking.

Hey everyone.

So, after enough positive feedback that's not from my mommy, I've decided to start a blog.  When I'm lying to myself, I say that I'm doing this so that others can easily keep track of what I'm doing with my life.  When I'm being honest, I say that I'm doing this because I totally have a TON of stuff people want to hear about and I'm BRILLIANT and FUNNY and a combination of DAVE BARRY and VALENTINE WIGGIN'S DEMOSTHENES and just an all around GODDESS.

No.  I'm a huge nerd, and one way this manifests itself is the meticulous observations I make on the world around me.  75 percent of that skill is used to see if I can make a Mean Girls reference for each moment, but the rest of it is because the world is ridiculously entertaining. 

Past topics of mine revolved mostly around my retail job (I worked at a Kohl's on and off for nearly 5 years), but anything that whips me into a verbal frenzy (not my fenders) is fair game. 

I am not on of those people who doesn't care about what other people think.  I so do.  I live off of feedback ("feed" is in there for a reason), so tell me how I'm doing.  I'ma try to keep the legal jokes and shenanigans to a minimum, but my life is in the process of changing, and I spend between 4 and 10 hours a day reading cases about murder and battery and negligence and jurisdiction and I'm expected to throw around those words like I know what they mean (battery? like the thing in that pink bunny? I LOVE that guy!) so they might slip in.  Forgive me.  If you don't I can sue you in three years. 

Throw yo' hands in the air, if you's a true playa,

Christina