So much for 1L Prep...I didn't do any and school starts next week! I can't believe I only have a week to move in, get acquainted, and get myself ready for the next three years of my life. Talk about last minute...as always. I'm more nervous than excited at this point. Although now, as long as I can get all my good shoved in the truck and make it to Chicago, I will be alllll good.

1L Prep?

OK, perhaps I'm reading way too many gunner threads at top-law-schools.com's forums. Now I feel like I should go out and take LEEWS (which is incidentally started by a guy named Wentworth Miller, which reminds me of Wentworth Miller from Prison Break instead of success on law school written exams...), or read E&Es, as my summer regimen instead of...chick lit, NYT bestsellers, and a whole lotta fun. Probably won't end up doing the former anyway...since I'm a true procrastinator and terrible at prepping for long term. I just hope 1L doesn't slam me in the face for not having been in class in two years... I noticed that most of my future classmates (future being only 3 months! How time flies...), at least 50%, are straight out of undergrad. Now I feel old. Recent discussion with friends -- I feel closer to 30 than I do to 20. Isn't that scary?

Reading all the forum posts has me paranoid...people taking TYPING CLASSES so that they improve their WPMs so that they can write more on their law school finals. The funny thing is, typing 100+ WPMs doesn't really help if you don't have your shit together, regardless. It's not like typing fast = writing more, if you don't know what you're writing about. Although many years of chatting online has my WPM at about 110...so dayuuuum, I'm good =P Three to four hour written exams makes those Polisci finals on rural peasants in China seem like cake in comparison... Here's to hoping that a liberal arts education actually helped my analytical writing skills.

Currently reading: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. First recommended to me last year by Wendy. Finally got my hands on a copy, and the first twenty pages are good! The entire book is written in letter format, which took me a bit to get used to, since the characters are introduced via Dear _____, instead of traditional "Here's _____, she's tall, ambitious, blonde, blahblahblah". Hard to keep them straight, I had to keep flipping back and forth to figure out who was who. But this book is right up my literary alley -- based in England, about books, historical (post-WW2), and a lot of wit and fun.

Recently had an urge to reread the Harry Potter series. Particular favorites? Prizoner and Azkaban and Goblet of Fire...maybe Order of the Phoenix. I didn't like the last two quite as much, too much rambling. Or maybe I should reread The Half-Blood Prince before the movie comes out this summer.

Twitter?

I'm trying to convince my friends to join twitter. It's been going around for a while, but I've never succumbed to joining. Until today. Because for some strange odd reason, I felt the need to have an outlet to scream what I know, and an outlet to track what my friends are up to without always having to ask.

I see this as a sort of social experiment -- will people actually update their twitters? As one friend mentioned, it seems like selling out to join. I agree on some level -- some people take it way overboard and "tweeting" sounds awfully like something I don't want to be doing. And it seems narcissistic to think that people actually want to know what you're doing 24/7. But on some level it seems like an awfully convenient way of just keeping track of things for yourself, too. For someone with a terrible memory like me, this can be a good thing -- I never seem to remember when I did something.

The whole 140 character thing does seem limited...as a wordy person, this seems like it'll just be a project in concision.

On ordering flowers online

Now that the most flowerful holiday of the year's around the corner...aka Mother's Day, I was handed the task of ordering flowers online for my grandmother, who's currently visiting my uncle in Shanghai. Small problem with that -- I didn't even know you could order flowers online and send them to China! Sure, I've done the 1-800-Flowers thing and used FTD at some point to send my own mother flowers while I was 3000 miles away in California, but flowers across oceans?

Little research revealed that I had a few options -- order using 1-800-Flowers or FTD and be charged a minimum of $90 for a shoddy bouquet, order using a shady Chinese website with flowers around $20, order using a shady Chinese website that has English on it for flowers around $50, or shamelessly beg my uncle to do the honors instead.

I went with the shady Chinese website that has English on it. Needless to say, the next problem was actually inputting the address in. Two options -- address in English, albeit badly translated, or address in Chinese, albeit badly typed. I opted for entering both and hoping for the best.

So...here's to hoping that my grandmother gets her huge bouquet of roses/lilies on Mother's Day.

Just re-starting...

Oyyyy, I've started so many of these they seem so fragmented over the years. Angsty Xanga, Blogger, Wordpress, Blogger...I think I just need a new slate. I was reading some of the things I've written in the past and thought, hmm. I had some insights that I've forgotten about. Seems like I keep learning the same lessons over and over, but don't seem to always register... I'm pretty sure this inspired moment of blogging won't last for long -- it never does. There's something about writing all your thoughts down in a journal, with the tip of the pen scratching along neatly lined paper, that invokes an inner feeling unlike seeing words mechanically appear on a screen. Sort of like you're writing a secret down that nobody will ever know, and that makes it all the more deliciously sacred.

So I was telling a friend today that writing is strangely therapeutic, yes, but at the same time, it's hard for me to do if I'm not in a good mood. I think a lot of people are inspired by pain, regret, bitterness, to voice those words and see them form. It gives them clarity and insight. Not for me though. Somehow seeing it written down makes it all the more real and more troublesome to deal with.

Quite honestly, I've never really liked blogging before because I don't have much that I want to share or disseminate. The good writing, the kind that takes effort, I like to save for creative pieces. And those usually come when I'm inspired, in a good place. Somehow blogging about "life" seems mundane after a while. After all, how many times can you really write about the same things before it becomes way overplayed?

Current thoughts -- I've decided I need to be more decisive. Haha -- a good way to start? I mean...in terms of large issues, I suppose I can be decisive. But the little every day things, I really just let slide. Seems that having the power to make up your mind quickly would be useful, especially in the direction I'm heading.

We'll see how long this streak lasts!

Meanwhile, a good quote I've stumbled upon, "The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." - Blaise Pascal.