Happy New Year all!

On New Year's Eve, I like to think back to all the things I've done in that year that were momentous (or that I did for the first time). Here's a portion of that list:

1. Got married
   
2. Visited Italy
   • spent two days trying to find the Spanish Steps
     
   • ate real bistecca alla fiorentina and it was GOOD
     
   • found "our" wine while having a snack in the Piazza della Signoria, which we now buy whenever possible
3. Gave two weeks notice and started a new job (all my other job switches before have been preceded by other factors, like moving)
   
4. Said goodbye to my mom when she moved several hundred miles away
   
5. Saw a Wagner opera
   
6. Was a bridesmaid to one of my bridesmaids
   
7. Went to a "feting" (NOT a wedding)
   
8. Decided to go to law school
   
9. Visited Sedona and saw the red rocks
   
10. Had my wisdom teeth out, five years late
    
11. Said goodbye to my best friend when she moved several hundred miles away for culinary school
    
12. Took the LSAT
    
13. Debauched in Las Vegas for four days
    
14. Applied to law school
    
15. Hosted Thanksgiving at my house
    
16. Found out I'm going to be an aunt next summer
    
17. Got accepted to GWU, where I know I'd enjoy being a law student

Wow! That's a lot! There are some good things in there, and some sad ones, and some that will shape the direction of the next several years of my life. I'm a little scared when I realize that, YES, I have been accepted to law school and this whole adventure is no longer just a flight of fancy. It's actually going to happen. And you know what? I'm thrilled. Best of all, I have my soulmate with me and we're on this rollercoaster together.

Happy New Year!

absurdity

By the way, have I mentioned that tomorrow is New Year's Eve and I have been wearing flip flops and a t-shirt all day? Really ridiculous, and makes it not feel like New Year's Eve is tomorrow.

It also makes the menu planning I did this week sort of unusable. Nevertheless, tonight we are having osso buco. Hey, I've been craving some sort of braise. I may need to jack up the AC so the temperature is appopriate for digging into all that goodness, though.

celebration and relaxation

Yesterday, after my good news from GW, I drove about an hour to see my best friend. She recently moved away for culinary school, but came back to visit friends. Seeing her was the perfect topping to yesterday. We ate good food (tomato basil bisque, yum); had pedicures (and I had a manicure, also)—good girly fun; and then we had cocktails. The visit was too short, but they always are, and I think we're going to try for a spring trip to New Orleans, just to get some more good girly time in.

I also took my sister to dinner and gave her her Christmas present. She showed me her new apartment—her first all-by-herself apartment— and her tax ID number: my little sib is starting a business on the side. Her own apartment, her own business, and even a new friend-boy...these kids today, they grow up fast! I'm so proud of her.

This morning, as a treat to Mr. Angst, I got up early and made us breakfast: buttermilk pancakes. As an extra-special treat, I frothed up some milk for our coffee with my new milk frother, the best Christmas present ever. When we went to Italy on our honeymoon, breakfast at our hotels always included excellent coffee and warm, foamy milk. We've been trying to recreate that ever since, but I hadn't been able to accurately duplicate the foam. Now I can have foam whenever I want it! Hurrah!

My vacation is almost over, so I'm going to have to make the most of these last two days. Excuse me, I have a new book to read. (NOT the Glannon, though. Sorry.)

whahoo vahoo yippety skippety!!

Just found out I got into George Washington! It's a good day in the Angst household.

UPDATE: It only took me an hour to realize that I probably don't need to apply to American anymore. I think I'll save my $65 and focus on Chicago-Kent Honors.

devastation

I haven't written about the horrors in southeast Asia yet because, frankly, I'm still absorbing all of it. It is almost impossible, at such a removed distance (and from my extremely advantaged standpoint), to grasp not just the numbers—CNN says the death toll could top 60,000—but also the difficulties of getting information, traveling to remote locales, beginning to distribute aid, and rebuilding in that part of the world.

I know that it's terribly un-PC nowadays to ask strangers and psuedo-strangers to pray for anything—and I certainly don't want to offend my readers—but I really do ask that if you pray, pray for the people who are still waiting to be rescued, who are looking for their families, who are without shelter and food. And if you want to help, Larry has some links to aid organizations, as does Janine.

no more traveling!

I had my Northwestern interview this morning. I had to drive to a nearby city for it, so I was on the road again. Despite having to travel again so soon after coming back from a week away (and I am sure that sentence could read better, but I don't feel like working on it), the interview went off pretty much without a hitch. She was very nice and personable and made me feel very comfortable; we talked quite a bit about the environment at Northwestern, which I was starting to think might be too corporate or business-oriented (she disabused me of that notion, so hurrah!). Somewhere in the midst of it all, she told me that she felt I would fit in quite well at Northwestern, that my experience, etc., would make me a good match.

I hope the adcoms feel the same way! I'd be thrilled to get into Northwestern; it would take some of the pressure off of me if we end up going to Chicago for Mr. Angst.

So now I've finished everything I needed to do for my top five apps; they're all just waiting to be read, I guess. I suppose I should get cracking on that Chicago-Kent essay, and maybe send in my American application. :-) I have the week off—theoretically, I have plenty of time to do both. We'll see how realistic that is, though!

oh, yes

I almost forgot! How exciting that Jeremy ended up in the New York Times (still on the front page, no less!) and yet even more exciting that AL and Jeremy are one and the same.

I admit it, I am one of those people who blogrolled both Jeremy and AL. I read both pretty regularly, and, nope, didn't pick up that they were one and the same. (I wonder what that says about my powers of observation.) I've always wondered, though, how real AL could be. Well written, definitely; fictional, absolutely.

Anyhoo, I think I just want to give a big "Hooray!" to Jeremy for landing in the Big Paper—and another "Hooray!" for keeping AL "secret" for as long as he did. He definitely deserves that book deal.

many things

In the last three days, so many things have happened, and I have not written about any of them. No, nothing momentously life-changing; just lots of events.

Christmas Eve with the Angst-in-laws was lovely. They have an old tradition of having fondue for dinner, so we all happily dunked into cheese and broth. We played Pictionary, and the men's team won (despite the women being more talented. We had harder cards). We opened gifts and giggled a lot and took pictures.

My sister-in-law (the soon-to-be-mom) gave me a copy of Civil Procedure by Joseph Glannon. I chuckled at the gift—it was humorous!—but she was dead serious. (She is an attorney and went to Harvard, so it wasn't too random a gift.) She gave me a smile and told me I held the key to understanding CivPro right in my very hands and that I'd be glad to have it next year. It was still a little funny—such a strange thing to receive, essentially, a textbook for Christmas, and be very happy about it!

On Christmas Day, we attended church, watched some football, and ate turkey, ham, potatoes, asparagus, and...something else....I can't remember, but the table was covered with food. Oh, and bread pudding. A true holiday feast. The meal sort of exemplified what I love about this season: it's a chance to gather together and eat, drink, talk, and enjoy being with each other. That's really what's most special about Christmas.

Of course, after lunch, we had to make our way to the airport—where the line to check in on Delta was longer than I've ever seen a line, anywhere. We opted to check in at the SkyCap, only to wait another half hour while they cleared up the security flag on our tickets. (I think it's because we flew into one city and out of another.)

By the way, Christmas Day is the day to travel if you love being on airplanes with LOTS of small children. I've never seen so many young ones in the airport, including on little girl who was draped atop her father's rollling suitcase, sound asleep.

By 11:35 pm, we were home again, home again, jiggety jig. Asleep by 12:30; up by 8 for choir, and now I'm heading off to Houston for the night: Northwestern interview in the morning. Not sure what to expect.

making my list and checking it twice

1. Christmas cards written and mailed: check and check
   
2. Gifts wrapped and under the tree: 3/4 check and check
   
3. Biscotti in the oven: check

We also saw Meet the Fockers which was, to be honest, pretty good. Babs really stole the show, and Dustin held his own (despite his skin resembling shoe leather). Good clean family fun.

Tomorrow:

1. Finish wrapping gifts
   
2. Start to pack up (we leave Saturday evening)
   
3. Make fondue (Christmas Eve tradition)

A good day planned, all in all.

shopping

All Christmas gifts needed for this portion of the holiday festivities have been purchased. I still need to buy 8, maybe 9 gifts, but those can wait until we've returned home.

Also, I note on weather.com that the weather at home is unusually cold. This means that my plants are dead, sadly. Why would I have covered them before we left? It never gets cold before Christmas. Plus, they'd have died from lack of sunlight. Well, now they'll be dead from freezing. I'm a bad plant mom.

I have finished my American application, but not submitted it yet. I need to print it out and review it before I send it off. After I do that, I'll work on my Chicago-Kent essay. (Seeing as all Christmas shopping is done, I don't have anything to do tomorrow and Friday morning.) Oh, and I am going to help my mother-in-law set up a recipe website. And write and mail Christmas, er, Holiday cards.

OK, so I do still have a lot to do and little time in which to do it. Sigh. Vacation always goes by too quickly, especially when I spend so much of it sleeping in.

last post of the day, i promise

TV times on the East Coast confuse me. I'm a mid-country kind of girl, and ten o'clock is the hour for TV dramas. But not over here, apparently.

How do people get any rest over here? Good TV isn't over until 11pm, and then they have the news to watch!

It's a good thing I'm on vacation.

lack, serious lack, of motivation

I need to work on SOMETHING. Either my Chicago-Kent essay or my Christmas cards. I am not doing either. Or I could work on my American application, but I need to do that on Mr. Angst's computer, and he's using it.

Instead of working, in fact, I am watching Gilmore Girls with my inlaws and my husband and generally enjoying not doing anything else. (Of course, Gilmore Girls is currently showing an extra-marital post-sex scene, which is moderately uncomfortable with the inlaws being across the room from me. Urk.)

I could also wrap Christmas gifts.

Nah. I think I will go take my shoes off, though.

confusion

Northwestern's online status check is finally back up, but the information is moderately incorrect.

For instance, my status shows that my application was received on October 15. This is completely wrong, since I didn't start work on my apps till the beginning of November.

It also lists me as being complete, but I haven't had my interview yet. So I can only hope that their system upgrades are causing some glitches. I didn't go through all the waiting to get my interview set up only to have it not count for squat!

Meanwhile, I haven't been working on my two additional apps as I promised myself I would this week. I haven't even been working on my Christmas cards, which I also said I'd get done this week. I've been basically lazing about like, well, like a woman on vacation. I can't really complain. At least I've bought 3.5 Christmas presents. A little productivity is better than none.

everybody's havin' babies but me

I am going to be an aunt next summer. I am VERY excited!

Also, it might snow tomorrow.

Days left till Christmas: 5
Gifts I've bought: .5
Gifts left to buy/make/assemble: 14

I am in deep poo.

one more for the evening

I know, I'm on vacation. Blogging shouldn't be a priority. But I would like to say that our mini-trip to DC has been great fun so far. I am having a very good time. I have seen a good friend from college (who I didn't see for five years, saw two months ago at our reunion and again tonight, but you'd never know that and we picked up just as if we talked every week, and that's kind of weird but also very cool), visited some beautiful campuses, eaten good food and drunk good drink. Mr. Angst has had good interviews, and the weather has been lovely.

So nice has our trip been, in fact, that we may stay an extra day. (This is the Angst-in-laws doing—they are bringing an overnight bag when they come up tomorrow, "just in case.") I'd be happy to do that and have the chance to go see American tomorrow.

In any case, this has been a lovely beginning to my winter vacation. If only I had gotten more sleep last night.

this post brought to you by the letters D and C and the number 4

Four being how many hours of sleep I got last night in our trek to the city of D and C: Washington.

Or, actually, Baltimore. Last night. Tonight, DC. It's sort of confusing.

Anyway, if you were one of the GULC or GWU students madly studying (or actually taking) for exams while I poked around in your cherished study spots, I send you (1) big apologies and (2) waves of good luck.

Also, I'm complete at GWU! Yahoo!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

something I learned about myself today

I am not really a phone person.

I like having phone conversations with friends and family when I need to catch up. I even like MAKING those calls. But I am not so much a fan of my phone ringing off the hook with calls from friends and family who just want to chat at all hours of the day. It frustrates me when I look at my caller ID and see that X, who I have talked to three times in the last two days, is calling AGAIN, and I know the conversation will take forever because X will go off on tangents every third word.

huh?

It's 40-something degrees outside, and the AIR-CONDITIONING just blew on in my office.

Come on, people, figure it out.

Meh! &#*%@*$

I should be happy—UT has finally ordered my LSDAS report. However, they have somehow managed to LOSE the copy of my resume that I sent them when I sent my application.

See, I submitted my app electronically via LSAC, but forgot to attach my resume. So I just sent my resume in an envelope with their "race-gender affirmation" letter.

And I guarantee I know what happened. Some $8 an hour employee opened my envelope, saw my affirmation letter and some extra paper, and didn't know what the extra paper was and probably threw it away.

Now I have to scramble to get a my resume together—by which I mean find the file on my computer that is the CORRECT resume for UT—put it in the mail TODAY before we LEAVE TOWN, and HOPE and PRAY UT gets it this time.

I'd call, but I'm not sure I woulnd't end up talking to a moron on the phone. Or at the very least, someone who is too excited about their impending Christmas vacation to bother helping me.

Grrrr.

UPDATE: OK, I was a little peeved when I wrote that. I did call, the woman I spoke to was helpful, and informed me that the only stuff that shows on their online information page right away is the stuff they got with my application. Since I sent my resume under separate cover, it's not yet been associated with my application. She even took my name and will make a note on my file that my resume is around there, somewhere.

When I get back from the holidays, I'll follow up to make sure all is well.

NOW I can be happy about this! Yay! UT requested my report!!

this makes me all mushy

happy fun plus arrogance

Tonight, I have been madly helping Mr. Angst with his personal statement. That is to say, in the grandest tradition of writing instructors, I have been gently (but swiftly, since he has to fax it tomorrow) guiding his very good core statement toward a clean and precise written document.

I have had such fun! I love the red pen, the molding of language; I so enjoy seeing what can be and encouraging it to come out.

Yes, I know, this makes it sound like I should be a writing teacher. And I'll admit that a big part of my law school personal statement was about eventually hoping to teach lawyers the importance and impact of language. But I also know that just teaching kids and adults to be more effective writers wouldn't satisfy me quite enough. I think I need more than that, I need to know something better is coming from what I do.

Maybe that's why I've enjoyed tonight so much. Mr. Angst's plan is to go into a program that has a great deal of moral merit; he wants to do something great and wonderful and important and I am so proud of him for that. And I know that the writing I am helping him with will help with that goal. So it makes me very happy. Also, I love him, so that contributes to my good mood.

I feel good right now. Very good. Proud, and happy, and (a little) arrogant about how good I am. ::::sizzle::::

Look, I know that, as far as many people are concerned, Lemony Snicket is Harry Potter's bastard stepchild (and I'll admit, I have not read the Lemony Snicket books), but could the producers of the new movie NOT use the same font on teasers as they did for the Harry Potter movies?

hoot!

I've been in meetings all day and no one really wants to read about them, so I'll just give you the funniest thing I've read in about a week.

I only laugh because I recognize myself in this story. Thanks for the giggle, Milbarge.

it IS going to be a good week!

My dear friend from college who I am excited to see on Friday in DC just got engaged. And suddenly (well, not suddenly, but again) I realize that I am at that age where my friends are growing up and getting married. Every time I get a wedding invitation or birth announcement in the mail, I go through this same sense of anomie: How can we have grown so far, so fast?

I do not think of myself as particularly old. Of course I am not old—I have not even passed 30—so I use the word "old" in a more metaphysical sense. I always seem to think of myself as younger than I am. For instance, my family thought I had waited a really long time to get married; I thought I was almost not old enough. I still sometimes think it's OK to shop in the juniors section at the mall, not because of sizes but because the clothes are cuter.

The other day, I looked at my refrigerator door and noticed that, instead of crazy pictures from bars and parties that have always decorated my kitchen, my magnets hold wedding pictures and, even more shockingly, pictures of my friends' kids. Oh my God, I thought, I have become my parents.

I have crossed the threshold. I am an adult. When we get together, my friends and I talk about home repair and taxes; we talk about the rising cost of insurance and whether or not Horizon milk in the paper box lasts longer than the store brand in the plastic jug. We don't gossip about who is sleeping with who, because everyone has a significant other. We watch our language because, chances are, someone's kids are in the next room.

So, even while I am thrilled and oh-so-excited for my friend, who deserves this happiness so much, I am also a bit wistful for the days when she and I were young and foolish, living on yogurt and ice cream in a small apartment in New York City. I feel a twinge of some indescribable loss, knowing that we really have left that life behind, in favor of the great adult unknown.

I never was one of those people who thought my youth would be "the best time of my life," so I know this will pass. But for the moment, I just can't help but feel a bit sad.

maybe it will be a good week

This morning, I got a call from my Northwestern interviewer (finally! yay!). Apparently, in my last email to her, I transposed some numbers in my phone number, so she couldn't get a hold of me. Thankfully, she took a look at my signature, saw the correct number, and tried again.

I'm set to meet with her two days after Christmas. We'll be returning from the Angst-in-laws' on Christmas night, I'll sing at church on the 26th, then I'll drive to Houston and stay with my brother. He lives five minutes from her office—better and better! She sounds quite friendly, so I am heartened. I've read (on the boards) a few horror stories, so I've been a little nervous.

By the by, the trip home was lovely. I spent oodles of quality time with my grandparents, saw my aunts and uncles who still live in that town, and attended the funeral of the young man I knew who was killed in Iraq. The funeral was packed, and the local paper did a number of stories on him and his family. Part of me was bothered by all of that—there were people at the funeral who didn't even know him!—and part of me was glad for it. See, on the one hand, it felt a little exploitative, particularly of his family, for this very personal tragedy to be all over the news. But on the other hand, the entire city seemed to be celebrating this young man's life, and that's a wonderful thing. So I am still sort of mixed up about it all.

My sister was also there for the funeral, and we had a very nice afternoon together, something that is quite rare. I was glad for that, too.

All in all, the weekend was nice, Monday morning is turning out pretty good, and best of all, I start my vacation in four days! Now, if only I could get rid of the low-grade headache I've had for three days, things would be perfect.

something ALWAYS goes wrong

I realized at 11:45 am today that I left my debit/check card in the ATM machine last night.

Since I'm set to leave town in a few hours, this was not good news. I have had to cancel the card, order a new one, and procure a "temporary" ATM-only card so I can get money this weekend if and when I need it.

This means I now will have to interact with cashiers at gas stations, the one thing I always hate doing. Paying cash anywhere else is fine, but at gas stations, I have to go inside, stand in line behind the guy buying a quart of oil and a case of beer, and the cigarettes that just happen to still be in the stockroom instead of above the counter. And then I have to say, "I want to fill up my tank. Here's a $20; I'll come back for my change." And then I have to go back inside and wait in line AGAIN after I've filled up.

The best thing that ever happened to gas stations was pay-at-the-pump.

OOPS: OK, I apparently can use my temporary ATM card at gas stations. This fact, though, does not ameliorate (50¢ word!) my annoyance with losing my check card.

on the road again

Mr. Angst is camping this weekend with some of his college friends/fraternity brothers, so I am taking the opportunity to road trip to the coast to see my grandparents. I can do some pre-Christmas visiting, go to a funeral I didn't want to miss, and see the water.

I grew up on the coast—hence this trip is also a trip back "home" though none of my parents still live there—and adore the ocean. There's something about being able to gaze out at a seemingly endless expanse of water that really soothes me. I don't necessarily like getting in the water (which is to say, I could happily live in a place where the water was too cold or dirty or dangerous to get into, as long as I could still stand on the beach or a cliff or a shore of some kind and look at the water).

This is noticeably distinct from the way Mr. Angst sees water. He grew up in a lake-and-river-ridden place, and his joy is not in looking at water, but at standing in it. Preferably with a beer. I can live without that, so usually he stands and I sun when we trip to the lake. As a water source, the lake doesn't do much for me—I can always see the other side, and that other side is always only half a mile away.

No, give me wide stretches of blue, gray, green, with or without waves. I particularly like it when the sky and the sea are the same color and you can barely tell where one ends and the other begins. I also like the sunrises and sunsets when the clouds are fluffy and full but rest right on the horizon. And even the less-than-beautiful days, with scudding clouds and choppy water, make me happy.

So this weekend will be a treat. Expect no posting from me, though, as a trip home is somehow always a trip backwards, technologically. No computers and no internet access at my grandparents'. Somehow, even that is a bit of a treat.

grades

Last night Mr. Angst and I sat at one of our favorite local restaurants and did math. We were trying to figure out how it was that he needed to get an 88 on yesterday's final exam to get an A in that class. He didn't—it turns out he did his math wrong and only needed a 72, which means his post-BA 4.0 streak is probably holding—but I think our waiter was startled by the page of numbers I was scribbling on when he came to take our orders.

At any rate, it got me thinking about grades. Mr. Angst had what I would consider the typical undergraduate experience at a big state university. He enjoyed himself and did the bare minimum for a while, only realizing in his last few semesters that grades do matter. His final degree GPA is not stellar, but it's not awful. It's...average. He, however, is not average, and has spent a lot of time since then proving it. Hence the 4.0 streak since he got his BA.

Last night, when he thought he was going to end up with a B in this one class because the exam was stupid (it was, believe me), he was really bummed. And on one level, I get that. But another part of me was thinking, hey, a B isn't bad.

I have a lot of ambivalence about grades. On the one hand, I am intensely competitive and hate to do poorly. But on the other hand, if I don't do as well as everyone else because everyone else is just plain smarter than I am, I can handle it. This explains my own GPA trend. I started out OK. Everyone told me that I would leave my rather small high school, where I was a big fish in a little pond, and get into college and discover that I was now in the middle of a pond with a bunch of other fish exactly as big as me, and some that were bigger. I took that to heart and wasn't really upset with myself for not acing my freshman year. My relative mediocrity was fine with me—everyone else was just better at those subjects than I was, or smarter, or a better writer. As I meandered through my major coursework, though, my GPA went up and up and up, proving to me that I had found my niche. My instincts were spot on: at some things I was better than others, and I just happened to be good enough at many things to end up with what I thought was a really amazing GPA.

Of course now, with applying to law school, I wish I had aced my freshman year. And my sophomore year, too. My GPA is good, and in fact remarkable for my school which has absolutely no grade inflation, thanks guys. But compared to the competition, it's just OK again. And I have a problem with that. Because I know my GPA is probably better than it looks. I'm not getting shunted down the admissions ladder because everyone else is better than me, or smarter, or a better writer. I'm getting shunted down because GPAs, despite LSACs claims, are NOT normalized. And that really bothers me. It hurts. It sucks. I admit it, I'm pissed about it.

(I'm even more pissed when people with my same GPA apologize for their grades, like it's something to be ashamed of. Seriously? Look around you and be thankful for your abilities.)

All I can do is hope and pray that when my apps get reviewed, the readers take the time to actually look up my alma mater and see what kind of place it is, and put my grades in perspective. Because I really believe that, everytime some prof on the admissions committee tosses my stuff in the "ding" pile for no other reason than my numbers, her law school loses something. (No, not just me as a student.) The "numbers game" is absurd—particularly because it's driven by the "rankings game"—and the eventual losers aren't the schools who drop in rank, it's the schools that give up good students because their numbers don't fit the model.

lunch

Dear National Deli Restaurant Chain,

Look, I know you guys at the To-Go counter were in the weeds when I walked in at 1:20. I tried to be respectful of that, and ordered clearly and quickly. And then I stood back because I was in no big rush. I knew I'd just end up eating my sandwich at my desk.

But somehow, my order must have had "Rush" written on it in invisible-only-to-me ink. I know this because the girl who packed up my bag was throwing things in it so fast that she tipped the container of au jus—just enough to dampen the bottom of the bag. And then she shoved my sandwich and chips on top of the container—crushing my chips, by the way—compounding the problem, and what happened then? Poof! went the bottom of the bag and Splash! went the au jus all over my pants. Glad I'm wearing black, machine washable pants today!

I can't complain too much; after all she was very apologetic and gave me lots of extra napkins and a sturdier, albeit ginormously large, new bag with handles. No, the big problem was the sandwich itself. And for this, I have to look at the sandwich assembly line guys.

Guys. I know, I know, how much it sucks to be swamped with the lunch crowd. All those people, grumbling because they're hungry. The phone ringing off the hook. Cashier girl screeching about waiting To-Go orders. I know you were probably flustered when you made my food, and that's how you managed to stack all the lettuce on one side of my bun and all of the roast beef on the other. And I know you were stressed when you flopped the tomato on top of it all so it would stick halfway out of the lettuce side of the sandwich. I sense that you were probably pissed off at someone, too, maybe your ex-girlfriend, because you wrapped my round sandwich into a baguette shape. I feel ya, man. I do. But for the love, please don't take it out on the food! Oh, my poor sandwich, reduced to a soggy, mushy, couldn't-dip-you-in-the-jus-if-I-wanted-to heap of sadness!

For my sake, and for the sake of the poor, innocent sandwiches, take a few deep breaths, relax your shoulders, and chill. We'll all be a lot happier, with you and with our sandwiches.

trip planning

I've been busily making hotel reservations and checking out transportation options for next weekend's jaunt to DC. We start in Baltimore, where I've been searching for a decent hotel next to Johns Hopkins that we'll actually be able to get to in the middle of the night when our plane arrives. Needless to say, we don't want to spend $50 on a taxi, so I'm thinking SuperShuttle.

Being the semi-anal woman that I am, I desperately want to know NOW exactly how I am going to get from whatever hotel we stay at near Johns Hopkins to the train station in downtown Baltimore so I can zip into DC for an info session at GULC on Friday morning. Somehow I think I'll end up asking the front desk at whatever hotel we stay at. Locals always know best. It doesn't calm me down to know that I'll have to wait, though.

Of course, once we get into DC, it seems everything will be cake. We have a hotel in DC already (in Foggy Bottom), I have a couple of friends to get in touch with for meals, and I can definitely find my way around on the Metro. When we leave, we just have to figure out where to meet the Angst-in-laws, who will be driving into the city to get us and whisk us away for Christmas week.

I'm excited to be planning my first (real) campus visits.

refreshed

I did not go to work yesterday. The alarm went off and I sort of felt like the guy in Office Space—I just couldn't comprehend that I might need to get out of bed. Of course, in my case, this was due to exhaustion, not weird, leftover hypnosis.

At any rate, I spent the day being a vegetable (more or less). I worked on my grandmother's newsletter some, and got it 98% finished. On schedule to go to the printer Thursday and go out in the mail sometime mid-next week. Thank God! I was starting to worry that I'd have to trek it to my in-laws with us for the holidays and send it from there.

Also yesterday, I thought I'd put up the Christmas tree. I started working at that around 1pm. I pulled the boxes out of storage and that very minor task—we don't have that much Christmas stuff—completely wore me out. So I lay back down on the couch and read a good book, The Grey King. A quick book, too, since it's about 100 pages long. I recommend it, as long as you won't feel silly buying fiction in the "young adults" section of the bookstore. I don't, so I own the entire Dark is Rising Sequence. I bought mine at Half Price Books.

Moving on, I did eventually finish getting our tree put together and somewhat decorated. Mr. Angst brought home Chinese, and I recuperated from whatever had laid me low.

I also received two emails from schools in Chicago informing me that they've received my stuff. Thank God! Now if only Texas would see its way to requesting my report, I'd feel much more comfortable. On deck: additional essay for Chicago-Kent honors program. Deadline: sometime in the week before Christmas, when I'll be starved for stuff to do while at the in-laws.

I wish I could say I allowed myself to take the weekend off following two days of bad news. Unfortunately, life tends to interfere when you least want it to, and I had things to take care of.

I spent Saturday morning teaching my father how to download pictures from his camera—a task I hope no one else ever has to repeat. I only succumbed to his request because I knew if I didn't, someone else would have to do it, and they probably wouldn't be as nice about it. The end result was good—I mean, I've never seen someone get so excited by rotating pictures and organizing them into subfolders—but it was still a chore. Today, I've pounded away at my grandmother's Christmas newsletter. Thankfully, since this is my third year to do it, I found it pretty easy to fall into a rhythm and get half of it done in a couple of hours. I'll finish up the rest tomorrow or Tuesday.

It seems, then, that I've been terribly productive even while feeling of out of sorts. I always seem to fall into that trap—being idle usually only makes me feel worse. Sometimes I wish I could just take a day off of being a responsible young woman, though, and not feel guilty for eating ice cream and drinking wine and watching bad movies.

On two good notes, I am going to visit my grandparents next weekend (or this weekend, I am never sure which adjective to use when referring to the weekend coming up that is not the weekend we are in the midst of). It's always nice to see them, especially when there aren't dozens of other relatives around. I'll also get lots of other visiting in while I'm there, and since it will be before Christmas, people won't be as stressed out and busy. I might even score some peanut butter chocolate bonbons from my aunt.

The other good note is that Mr. Angst and I have cancelled what was going to be a 48-hour jaunt to Lake Tahoe on New Year's Day (to quickie-visit family). Who needs to hop on a plane at 7 am with a wicked hangover? Instead, we rescheduled those plane tickets for use on our first anniversary in late January. We'll be travelling to Chicago to visit campuses and explore the city. I figure the weather can't be any worse than at the end of January, so if I can make it through that weekend, I can figure out a way to tolerate the cold for a whole season. I hope.

it's a banner week around here

My strength is really being tested this week; I just found out that a young man I grew up with (whose mother was my art teacher in elementary school) was killed in Iraq on Wednesday. He was 23 and withdrew from business school in the spring when he found out he was going to be deployed. He had a beautiful young wife, and a tremendous future.

I know he was proud to serve his country, but I can't help but feel angry at the loss waste of a beautiful life.

More: In looking up information about this, I discovered that at least three more young men I grew up with or babysat for—we all grew up in the same church—are also serving, most overseas. It's not surprising to me that they are serving, since we grew up in a military town, but somehow it's all hitting home for me right now.

divine angst

This makes me very sad. I've been sort of moderately following this case, and I was hoping for a different (though admittedlu rather unlikely) outcome.

I know that churches are institutions that must answer to their constituents, much like politicians. But I always hold out hope that the leadership will hear the call of their faith and make the difficult decision (as this Episcopal priest did in the summer of 2003 when that church voted on gay clergy).

Back to the original news story. The minister on trial said it better than I could: "God is still going to call qualified gay and lesbian people into ministry at our church and other denominations." And the more those qualified gay and lesbian Christians hear the call, the harder it will be to deny their callings and the value of their ministries. At least, that is what my faith tells me must happen.

bad news, bad habits

I received some unsettling family news today. In response, I am coping the worst way I know how: copious amounts of good, French red wine, leftover braised chicken, and a frightening amount of fluffy arborio rice.

I am watching Law & Order, alternating during commercials with CSI. I am ignoring the other family obligations I have—my grandmother's Christmas letter—because, frankly, I can't really deal with it right now.

As bad news goes, this piece wasn't all that dreadful or even surprising. But the impact of it has left me pretty mentally incapacitated. I mean, I can think fine, and I even did several hours of work after hearing the news. But I don't really have any brain left to finagle with Christmas newsletters, outline additional essays for applications I haven't submitted, or even read a good novel. It's a TV and overindulgence kind of night.

Cheers.

commentary redux

Richard Ames commented below about my social commentary post:

Actually, most of our public officials compromise quite a bit. Perhaps you see what you think you should see, but in reality it's just not there...I know it's the in-thing to be negative about government and politics, but to say pols are uncompromising simple ignores the facts. They are extremely compromising.

Frankly, I did say "at least publicly and in the media" that pols don't compromise. I know a great deal of compromise goes on in government, but it's also very much the in thing for politicians to put a face of non-compromise out to the public. Denise got it:

"...our politicians use the public forum to articulate seemingly intractable positions..."

And that's the problem with politics in our country. It doesn't matter that compromise is going on in the offices and conference rooms. The public view is of Party A and Party B fighting to be in control. We see our elected officials playing schoolyard bullies, and therefore we think it's OK to do it, too. I haven't had a civil conversation about politics with anyone in my family for close to ten years. Why? Because they are all convinced their side is "right" and my side is "wrong." Why? Because their side tells them so! (My side does the same thing. If it's even accurate to say I have a "side.") Whether their side and my side are actually meeting in the middle to do good work appears to be irrelevant.

The American people are treating politics as black and white (red and blue)—and these ideas are fattened by our ridiculous, sensationalist media—but the politicians aren't trying to disabuse them of the notion by clarifying what really goes on. Instead, as an example, John Kerry gets lambasted for his senatorial voting record because it seems to "flip-flop." Yet all he's been doing is that good work of compromise! It's really no-win in the public eye.

NB: Politics causes me the most ambivalence about going to law school in DC. I really don't want to be in an environment where politics is the currency and if you don't want any, you're out in the cold.

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