done!

So this is what I've been working on for the last couple of days:

divineangst.com

a.k.a. divineangst.blawgcoop.com

You'll be automatically redirected in just a few seconds, so bookmark "http://divineangst.com." Don't forget to update your feeds!

Big thanks to blawgcoop (that's the blawg co-op) for hosting my new Movable Type blog.

oops!

I seem to have forgotten to post today!

So I give you this:

One of the things I do in my job is deal with online classes. I am currently working on a class titled Human Sexuality.

Now, I am not a prude, not one bit, but in the course of my editing, I keep having to load one particular page, on which is an assignment that involves labeling parts of the anatomy. The parts belong to the female of the human species, and they are presented from an external view. (How's that for vague? I don't need those kinds of Google searches bringing people here.)

At any rate, every time I scroll past this image—which is GIANT—I blush. How can I help it? I feel like I'm violating this poor drawing. There she is, all by herself, without even the comfort of a torso or the portion of the legs below the hips. She doesn't even really have a bottom. She's just all [blank].

God, I'm blushing now. It's awful.

aggregation or aggravation?

Fitz-Hume at BTQ has a post about aggregators. I started to reply in comments, but my reply got really long. So here it is.

I use an aggregator; it's great. It keeps my blogreading streamlined and I don't comment frivolously.

Fitz seems to like aggregators, too, but he mentions the possible drawbacks:

...a couple of other issues came to mind as I tried to imagine BTQ as a RSS-only experience. The first is that some bloggers rely on in-text links to convey humor or even information - think of them as sorta like the prop-comics of the blogosphere. However, RSS feeds do not always display in-text links....Without links let's face it - SMP? is not that great (see here for example). It's like taking away Gallagher's hammers and watermelons - it's just not funny. With links, however, SMP? kills. Kills, Jerry! Until aggregators successfully display in-text links, I think this factor will inhibit a RSS-only evolution of blogs.

The same is true for images. Feed aggregators don't display images. We don't post images as often as some people, but we post pictures often enough that our posts would suffer from a RSS-only environment. We might survive, but some blogs rely on images as heavily as others rely on in-text links. Can you imagine Go Fug Yourself without images? Neither can I.

OK, so first I want to say that some feeds show links and some don't, and that's primarily due to competing protocols for feeds. Most blogger or blogspot blogs use atom, a protocol that generally does display a more rich content, including links and images. For example, I generally have no problem seeing the images on Go Fug Yourself via Bloglines—likely because Heather and Jessica are using Blogger with a default atom feed.

No, I think the bigger issue with RSS feeds and aggregators isn't what content is viewable—the protocols will start coverging rapidly and they'll all be about the same soon—it's what actual content is available on a feed.

Some bloggers choose not to include entire posts in their feed. This can have the effect of drawing a reader to the actual site (thereby increasing page views) but only if—and this is a big if—the title or the blurb that is available is sufficiently interesting. As a reader, though, sometimes I'm not hooked enough to visit—and maybe I miss out on something interesting. Some of the blogs I read truncate in their feeds and I'm torn on whether or not I care for it. Quite frankly, it can be highly annoying if I'm short on time and don't want to click through to read the rest of the post. Of course, if the tag is good, it serves the purpose of keeping me from wasting time on a post I'm not interested in. Unfortunately, that's not always the case.

Conversely, the teaser model makes sense for news sites—they operate on ad revenue, and news content isn't always appropriate for an aggregator. I'm thinking particularly of The New York Times Magazine—often the articles in the Magazine are so lengthy that reading them in an aggregator would be more difficult, rather than less. Also, I think (for the most part) journalists are used to writing to the headline-reader: lots of people won't bother picking up a paper at 40¢ unless the headline catches their eye. That's not to say every headline in the NYT is great—they're not—but at least they are informative and I know what I'll be getting if I click through. And I don't spend so much time clicking around news sites to see where the good stories are.

Look, I used to spend hours each day, interrupting my workflow to click through my blogroll and visit all my news bookmarks, hoping for new content. It was a major time suck. I won't say my aggregator keeps me from wasting time reading blogs—God knows it doesn't!—but it keeps me from idly wasting my time. I know when there's new stuff for me to read and I can read it at my leisure.

the circle of school

Classes have started again for Mr. Angst—he's taking some math classes that are prereqs for graduate school—which means two nights a week I am left to my own devices. Much the same as last semester.

I'll repeat it—I think it's great that he's taking classes and working full time and doing well (all A's so far). But I miss our regular schedule. I miss knowing that he'll be home for dinner; I miss menu planning for two people. It's a bad spiral, because now I'll start eating out, eating junk, or just not eating. That's bad for my health.

And I'll also end up sitting on the couch like a complete waste, just waiting for him to get home so I can have someone to talk to.

Wow. This post makes me sound like a totally pathetic loser! I'm not—I promise! I've just gotten used to life with Mr. Angst. I guess last semester should have prepared me, but it didn't. (It doesn't help that, the entire semester, I sat around thinking, But there are only x more weeks of school, and then things will be back to normal! Hah!)

At any rate, if anyone has suggestions of things I can do to keep busy—that don't include cleaning house—I'm all ears. I have some books to read, but when I read at home, sometimes I get distracted by the computer, the TV, or the refrigerator.

hey now!

I have evolved. I am now a Slithering Reptile.

Mr. Angst won't like that—he hates snakes.

I'm working on some bloggy-type stuff, so posting may be light this week while I figure a few things out.

Until then, anything you want me to tell you about? I guess this is my own version of an all-request week.

bad dates ≠ dating is bad

Stag has this post about a recent bad date she went on.

Now, I'm married, and Mr. Angst and I have been a couple for almost five years, so I haven't had to date in a while. And reading stag's story, I'm glad I haven't had to date. I remember the dread in my stomach when I'd go on a date with someone. I always hoped he would be compatible with me, interesting, fun, and funny; but I always knew there would be something wrong with him. (And there always was something wrong with him until my first date with Mr. Angst. Seriously—that date was about as perfect as a first date can get.)

So I don't envy stag her bad dates because I wish I were still dating.

I do, though, feel a tiny bit of jealousy. And it has to do with meeting new people.

Look, I admit it, dating sucks, but dating is also a way to get out and meet people, people you might become friends with even if you don't match up romantically. (This has never happened to me, because the people I went on dates with before Mr. Angst were all profoundly unlikeable people; this has, however, happened to my best friend—a lot.)

There's something so nice about the possibility of meeting someone in a class or at the gym or even (though not as nice) at a bar and then striking up an actual friendship that extends beyond the original common ground. But for some reason, the people you meet in class, at the gym, or in bars don't want to strike up friendships with you when you're married. They just want to date, and married people are pretty much off-limits. (Again, I am generalizing; I took a class where almost everyone in it became good friends, but that was an unusual situation and a quite rare result. I'm also generalizing about married people being off-limits; there are some people who don't seem to mind that situation, but for the sake of argument...)

This sounds really stupid and petulant, and it's probably at least a little erroneous, but I miss the spontaneity of going on dates with people I haven't gotten to know yet. It's exciting, it's new, it has so much promise for what might happen. It's sort of like when people say they're afraid to get married because they'll never have another first kiss, and they'll miss the rush of kissing someone for the first time. I don't feel that way—married kisses are awesome—but I understand the feeling.

And I kind of feel the same way about dates. I don't want to date anymore, but I kind of miss the excitement of meeting new people that way. Once you're married, there's not really a corollary way of making new friendships.

Oh, and of having good stories to tell about how awful the date was.

funny story...

See this? The Reno-Tahoe area has received 19 feet of snow at higher (+7000 feet) elevations and up to 6-1/2 feet at lower elevations since December 28.

My dad was caught in some of that early snow. See, it all started when he went out there for a few days of R&R before the Rose Bowl. He was leaving from Reno on New Year's Eve, but staying in Tahoe.

Now, if you know anything about the Lake Tahoe area, you'll know that the only commercial airport that serves it is in Reno, and Reno is a bit of a haul away from Tahoe—particularly South Lake Tahoe.

Back to our protagonist. Smart man that he is, seeing that four feet of snow has fallen on the 30th, he changes his 6:00 am flight to 10:30 am. He orders a cab for 6:00 am, goes to sleep, and figures he'll get woken up by the snowplows when they come by at 5:15 am, as they have all week.

But the snowplows do not come. (He does, however, wake up.) He hopes they'll come and passes the time shoveling the stairs down to the road. It takes him 45 minutes to clear a path down the stairs that is approximately 1-1/2" wide. The snowplows still have not come.

At 6:00 am the cabbie calls and says he can't get up the road to where my dad is staying. That road is covered in four feet of snow. So my dad—remember, he's smart!—puts on his heavy coat, then his waterproof ski shell, and his snow boots. He somehow leaves his gloves behind. He throws his carry-on over one shoulder and his hanging bag over the other, and starts walking. Through chest high snow. For about a third of a mile.

It is, by the way, still snowing. About 200 feet out, he stops and looks back and cannot see his tracks. He can't even really see the house. So he keeps going. He makes it another few hundred feet and is pretty sure he's going to die. His chest is pounding. He's breathing in snow. HE IS NOT WEARING GLOVES.

It takes him another 45 minutes to get down to the road where the cabbie is. (What a great cabbie, waiting for him!) He is soaked and he cannot feel his hands. The cab drops him off at one of the casinos so he can catch a shuttle to the airport.

He's soaked, remember, so he treks to a bathroom, where they are mopping the floors. He asks the cleaning guy to hold off a few minutes mopping so he can change clothes, but the guy doesn't listen. My dad stands on his wet jeans—hey, they were wet already—and does the clothes-changing dance. He wrings out his heavy wool socks, which appear to have been dunked in Lake Tahoe (average water temp: 50˚). At the front desk, he asks for three laundry bags, into which go his wet jeans and shirt, his sodden socks and boots, and his dripping coat. He checks them with the bellhop for the weekend and scurries out to the shuttle deck.

Then he waits. The shuttle is almost an hour late, so he gets to the airport a scant 30 minutes before his flight. Then his flight is delayed another 45 minutes. He is shaking and coughing—and still can't feel his right thumb—but he makes it to LA.

Why, you ask, would he do this? I asked the same thing. The answer? "I had everyone's tickets to the football game—all eight of them—and they'd have missed the Rose Bowl if I hadn't made it." Was it worth it? "Oh, yeah. The game was great! And I got the feeling back in my thumb later that night. Of course, I was coughing up snow for three days. And sort of shaky all weekend. But the game was great!"

The moral of the story is: always wear your gloves. Also: don't be stupid and walk out into record snowfall in the cold, dark, early morning. Especially if that record snowfall is chest high. Even if you have eight tickets to the Rose Bowl in your pocket. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a football game.

further evidence of my bad taste in movies

Last week it was Volcano, tonight it's Twister.

I admit it, I watch all the Discovery Channel shows about tornados and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. These movies are just an extension of that interest, I guess. And it's not like I think they're good movies or anything. I am fully aware of their badness. But they are, in fact, craptastic—total garbage, but completely watchable garbage.

Think poorly of me now. I know you will.

geeking out

Yesterday, Mr. Angst and I finally celebrated Christmas with my dad. Yes, yes, very belated, but also very enjoyable. (My stepmother makes a wicked tenderloin....so yum.)

Amongst the tchotchkes I received were a few gifts I was thrilled to get: a stovetop espresso maker, some capuccino mugs, and two books I've been hoping someone would buy for me: Garner's Modern American Usage and A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (also by Garner). (I received earlier The Elements of Legal Style, a third book by Garner. Yeah, I have a bit of an obsession, but the man is a genius at this stuff. He also edits Black's Law Dictionary.)

I was so thrilled to get these books that I immediately opened up one and started perusing. My stepmother, who bought them based on my Amazon.com wishlist, had no idea what kind of books they were and asked why I wanted them, and what value they had.

So I started talking about the differences in usage between British and American English, the misuses of over-complex constructions, and finally flipped to an entry to make my point. I started reading from "toward/towards."

Mr. Angst burst out laughing.

Apparently, I was geeking out. I looked up to see that my stepmother's eyes were sort of glazed over. I also noted that my father had tuned out completely and was inspecting the golf range finder we'd bought him.

Um. OK. I closed the books, put them down, and smoothed over my geek attack by mumbling, "Well, they're just really good reference books, since I do so much editing at work, and I'll be doing so much writing next year..." I think I did a pretty good job of redeeming my cool factor to the 'rents. We had coffee, talked about playoff football and I managed to pass myself off for the rest of the night as a relatively normal human being.

But tonight, at home with Mr. Angst, I feel no need to hide my wordlove. I hauled out my prizes and promptly began reading the prefaces. Hey—everyone has a vice. This one is mine.

The question is, can these books count toward the 50 Book Challenge?

holy crap

I've never been so glad to have stopped watching 24 as when I saw that the season premiere is going to be four hours, on two nights. Excessive, much?

all the little details

Now that I have officially been accepted to law schools in both of our target cities, I am starting to think about the details: housing, transportation, buying a new laptop.

Because I'm a total geek, the laptop question is the one I'm really spending time thinking about. It's very exciting for me to contemplate getting a new computer. My current machine is about five years old and, while it runs fine, it's slow, a bit temperamental when I ask too much of it, the battery is shot, and it's damn heavy.

It's also a Mac.

I would like to stay with a Mac in law school. Mr. Angst is a PC person and I believe I'll always have access to his laptop for exams. But for class, the library, research, note-taking, and any other task that will benefit from utter familiarity with my computer, I'd prefer a Mac.

So I have a question for all of you current students. Do you use a machine that was not "recommended" by your school (a Mac)? Do you have problems using such a machine? If you use a machine recommended by your school (a PC, probably a Dell), do many of your classmates use Macs? What things do you use your computer for, daily, that would be difficult if you had chosen a Mac? (Note that I'm not particularly worried about not having tech support from the school. I can troubleshoot myself in getting connected a network or figuring out how to print over the network.)

I am fully aware that this question is so premature it's ridiculous. But if I'm going to have to switch to a PC, I want to start getting used to the idea now, and start building up my speed on a PC. (I'm capable on a PC, but not speedy. I'm a big keyboard-shortcut person, and my lack of practice with shortcuts on a PC definitely slows me down.)

one of the better shows on TV is getting a new season

Tonight, a new season of MI-5 starts on A&E.

If you haven't watched it, you should. All day today, A&E is airing previous episodes (I love these kinds of marathons) and the new season starts at 10/9 Central.

I'll admit it, I am a sucker for the spy shows. It helps that Alias and MI-5 are also well-produced and (mostly, in the case of Alias) well-written. (I say mostly because the season premiere of Alias, while conveying what it needed to convey, was a little too expository for me and glossed over some plots that were set up last season that now will apparently be forgotten. I guess JJ Abrams just couldn't get Lena Olin back.)

So, OK, back to MI-5. It's a British show, if the title didn't give that away. The actors are talented and, wonderfully, actually resemble normal people. The main female character actually has a nice, normal figure. I LOVE that, especially after watching Jennifer Garner look like a gay man in drag sometimes.

So, if you're bored today, sitting around on the couch for a few hours, tune in and catch some of the back episodes. If you can, watch the last old episode, because it sets up this coming season with a big cliffhanger.

What am I going to do next year (or, God, this fall) when I have to study and don't have time for TV—or money for Tivo. I'll have to become good friends with my VCR and learn to accept its shoddy recordings.

cool...or is it?

Annie Liebowitz is at it again.

I have let my Vanity Fair subscription expire, so I don't have a hard copy to inspect. I'd like to know, though, how they got Jar-Jar in there; I also note that Carrie Fisher is hiding behind Harrison Ford. Lucas seems to be posing as the pater familias.

I'm actually not sure what my opinion is of this. I may hold my judgment till Episode 3 actually comes out.

OH MY GOD.

I just got into Northwestern!!!

To be honest, I didn't think I'd get in. And I did. Oh my God.

Two acceptances! Oh my good golly. I'm giddy.

MORE: I'm still sort of stunned. My numbers are pretty weak for Northwestern, and I wasn't sure my work experience would make up for my not-as-good-as-I-hoped LSAT. In fact, yesterday, I was having a daydream moment where I got into all the schools I applied to. And then I stopped wishing on a star and realized that getting into GW was a good accomplishment, and that I'd be fine going there and in fact might have no other choice because I might not get into my other top schools. My daydream moment morphed into me contemplating how I'd feel if that happened. You know what? I knew I'd be fine—I'd be enrolled in an excellent school on my way to a terrific job and career.

All of this I thought yesterday. In the time it took me to walk from the house to the mailbox.

And now I have an acceptance to a school I thought would be far beyond my reach once I got my LSAT score back in October.

I try to be an optimist, and I've been repeating to myself, over and over, If LSAC says less than x% get into this school with my numbers, well, someone has to be in that x%. Why not me? It's become a mantra of sorts: Why not me?

Today I found out. Yes, me. Me. If it doesn't get any better than this, the entire adventure will have been worth it.

not law related at all.

When someone has done something to hurt someone you love, the natural reaction is to be pissed, right? Pissed at that person, and perhaps cold, and distrustful. What, then, do you do when the person who was hurt (the person you love) tells you to be kind to the hurter, because that person is working through their own difficulties?

I am dealing with this situation in the literal, not the hypothetical, and I am not pleased about it. Frankly, I want nothing to do with the situation on the whole, but I have been asked to insert myself into it, in the hopes of helping along this person, as they work through their "issues."

(By the way, grammar purists, I am deliberately using the third-person plural to indicate gender neutrality, so don't get on my case. In fact, there is a historical case to be made for such use, but I won't get into that right now. And I refuse to use "em" which is about as contrived a usage as I can imagine.)

Returning to the topic, I can't help but wonder if the hurter acted as they did in order to push people away, and thus fulfill their deep belief that they are not worthy of love. OK, I don't wonder about this—I know, in fact, that this is the case—but it still infuriates me.

I'm being unfair this morning, of course, mostly because I am annoyed and feel put upon for being thrust into a position I am uncomfortable with. Deep down inside, of course, I know that being kind and open to this person is the right thing to do at this point. But what about the next time? And the time after that? How many times can you forgive? How long can you continue to support someone who isn't willing to do the work necessary to change behavior?

The hypotheticals are killing me this morning.

i LOVE books

I want to do this (also here, and here).

My first book: The Years of Rice and Salt.

I'm still working through it, but I'll say this: I'm about 100 pages in, and it's just getting interesting. But really, really interesting.

This challenge could be fun. We'll see how much people will enjoy hearing about my 1L reading when school starts, though.

oh boy

The car has officially rolled over to 100,000 miles. Pictures (and video!) coming soon. I am a dork.

need comments? check this out

I love this idea.

Now taking suggestions of whose blog I should harrass. Who wants to harrass my blog?

A list

1. OU got spanked by the Trojans. Go USC! OU sucks.
   
2. My car is about to roll over to 100,000 miles. I am keeping the camera in the car for the occasion.
   
3. Another car-related note: I had the air filter changed with my last oil change, and suddenly my gas goes a lot further/farther. Note to self: buy five air filters at $10 each and change them whenever you are convinced the neighbors are siphoning gas from your car.
   
4. Those little cans of Diet Coke? Cute, yes? Also slippery. Especially when trying to hold on to one as you are juggling a
   briefcase-sized purse, two sets of keys, and sunglasses when getting in the car. (Somehow this item became car related, too. Sucky.)
   
5. Cold front on the way. Hurrah!
   
6. First week back at work. Number of hours worked so far: 20. Number of hours spent in meetings: 3. Number of hours of meetings planned for this afternoon: 2. I predict 10 hours of meetings by the end of the week.

rant over

OK, after a full day of directly addressing my many fears relating to educational debt, I feel much better. Sometimes I just need to get it all off my chest, you know?

And, honestly, it's just this portion of the journey that is freaking me out. I know that once all the loan papers are signed, the money is disbursed, and I am actually living on borrowed money, I will forget all about how scary it is. I'll be a law student! Everything will be OK! Right now, though, it's looming over me—it hasn't happened yet, all that debt, and, somehow, a part of me thinks it can be avoided. (It can't. I don't have $150K floating around to pay for my education.)

So here it is, my great revelation: law school is expensive (whether rightly or not). Everyone in law school ends up with some debt. (I'm currently pretending those full scholarship plus stipend people don't exist. It helps.) I will end up with debt. Mr. Angst will also end up with debt. But at the end of the tunnel is a good job with a high salary, or a public interest job with a loan repayment assistance plan. We will survive.

So if my parents refuse to fill out the stupid forms, I'll have to take out private loans for my entire education. Oh well. S**t happens. If they do fill out the forms, I'll probably still have to take out private loans for my entire education (or at least the first year). Hey, that's life. Either way, I get a JD, and that's really the big goal.

My fatalistic streak is out in full force today.

who writes this stuff?

"It is one thing to contact the dead. You are just meddling!"

Ah, White Noise was looking mildly interesting until that teaser.

ay me

Seriously? Why am I such a sap? I'm sitting on my couch getting choked up watching Volcano. Over the holidays, I nearly cried every time that "A Diamond is Forever" commercial came on. (You know the one—he says, I'd marry you all over again, and she says, Oh, come on.... and then, Mom? Dad? And he gets down on one knee and everyone sitting on the steps gets up and claps....God, it gets me every time; I'm tearing up just writing it.)

grudging respect

I'm pleased to note that Northwestern does not require parental information for financial aid.

One out of five ain't bad. (Actually, it should be two out of six, since UT doesn't require parental information, either, being a public university. But since I probably won't be going to UT, it's almost irrelevant.)

OK, this is just not right

Not only am I expected to pay out the nose for the LSAT, the LSDAS, law school reports, law school application fees, and, of course, transcripts, but I am also now expected to pay for the financial aid service the law schools REQUIRE me to use?

The College Board charges a registration fee plus $18 for each school I want to have my financial information sent to. So, let me get this straight: I'm applying for financial aid, but to do so, I have to shell out money? Isn't that sort of ridiculous?

This crap is really starting to piss me off.

Financial Foolery

I mentioned in my last post some of my frustration with the financial aid process for law school.

Big frustration #1: Most law schools that I am applying to require my parents' income tax information as well as my own and that of my husband.

I am...well, just slightly shy of 30, how about that?...and married. My husband and I own a home. I have been completely and 100% on my own since I graduated from college. I bought my first car without parental help (except that my dad drove me to the dealership and sat with me while I argued with the salesman). I rented my first apartment without parental help. I pay my bills on my own, get into debt and pay it off on my own, and somehow (gasp!) manage not to starve or go without clothing—on my own.

This does not seem to matter to law schools. GW allows you to waive the parental forms if you are over 30, but, again, I am not quite there. Another school has an option which requires you to sign an affidavit that you have not received money or gifts in kind of more than a certain amount from your parents in the last three years. That's a nice thing, particularly for those who are perhaps estranged from their parents. But I am not estranged from my parents, and my parents are generous. My parents paid for most of my wedding. My parents offer to buy us plane tickets for family events we otherwise would miss. So I wouldn't be able to sign that affidavit.

All of this is sort of moot, anyway, because even if my parents were helping me out right now by giving me money and supporting me, I still wouldn't be able to apply for need-based aid from these schools because my parents simply will not fill out the forms. My mother might, if I ask nicely enough. But my father won't. He didn't when I was an undergrad, and I guarantee he won't now.

My frustration with this aspect of law school financial aid knows no boundaries. It's unfair in so many ways. It prevents students from even applying, whether or not they will actually qualify for aid. See, the fact is that, at least for next year, I probably wouldn't qualify for any need-based aid anyway, just because of our current income. But I am locked out of even applying for it because my parents will likely refuse to fill out the forms.

A little voice in my head says, "Everyone takes out loans. Everyone pays them off. You can too!" And that's a nice, reasonable statement. But another voice keeps whispering to me that debt is bad, and that anything I can do to reduce my debt or take on less debt, I must do. Oh, but the Catch-22? I can't. Because, remember? My parents won't fill out the forms.

And they shouldn't have to. I'm sure some people are saying, "Well, just convince them to fill out the forms." But, see, this is the real problem! That law schools require married, older, self-supporting, self-sufficient adults to petition their parents for their income tax information. It's wrong! The only purpose to it is to reduce the financial aid applicant pool, and that's wrong, too. Law schools should come up with some other way to weed out the students whose parents are going to pay for their education and stop requiring those of us whose parents won't to subsidize someone else's education at the expense of our own financial solvency.

I'm just getting warmed up here, and if I keep going, I'll land on the subject of exorbitant law school tuition. I don't really want to go there right now, so I'll stop ranting. But good golly, I get hot under the collar over this. It makes me sick to my stomach—with both anger and nerves.

hi ho, hi ho

...it's off to work I go—tomorrow. Two weeks of vacation, and I'm definitely not quite ready to get back in the saddle. Sigh.

We visited some family this weekend, and they are all pretty excited for me getting into GW. Heck, I'm still pretty excited. I'm just really pleased to know that my lower-than-expected LSAT score hasn't shut me out of schools I actually think I'll be happy at.

I think the next step is to start my financial aid documents. I have some rather harsh words about law school financial aid (including a very heated rant about some schools' requiring my parents' income tax forms), but I won't throw those out right now. I'm in a pretty good mood, and thinking about all that will just stress me out.

Funniest thing heard in college football today:

Announcer #1: One of these teams will leave here tonight and be able to say, "Veni, vidi, vici."
Announcer #2: Ah, yes, that sweet wine.
Announcer #1: Um, not..no...
Me: :::snort:::

New Year's Resolutions

Last year, I had two resolutions. One was sort of unfair as a resolution: it was to get married, which was definitely going to happen, so probably shouldn't count.

The other was to find a new job, which I did within the first six weeks of the year. So by mid-February, I had achieved all my resolutions.

But if I dig a little deeper, I can acknowledge that the "find a new job" resolution was less about finding a new job and more about finding a path to happiness. My new job is good—and I am much happier than I was in my last job. But it's not the panacea I thought it would be. What I was really looking for was my own personal Renaissance. I took a remarkable writing seminar in the fall of 2003 and it sort of showed me what I was capable of, and how much I missed being that challenged in the rest of my life. The new job hinted at providing an outlet for the parts of me that were yearning to come out.

The new job, again, is worlds better for my mental health and allows me to be more creative and responsible than my old job. But my inner me still isn't getting the chance to fly. I still need a greater challenge.

Enter Law School. In some ways, deciding to go to law school was the real fulfillment of that New Year's Resolution. I had resolved not to find a new way to make a living, but to find a new path for my life. The job was a step in the right direction, but not the solution. I can't say for certain that going to law school will be the solution, either, but it's definitely another step in the right direction.

So for 2005, I have some resolutions. Some will be slightly unfair: they're the ones that are going to happen, probably no matter what. Others will be dependent on forces beyond my control. But these resolutions will hopefully shape this year for me.

• I will start law school.
  
• I will not fret about paying for law school, no matter how petrified I am about the debt.
  
• I will be happy where I land, whether it's the highest ranked school I get into, or the highest ranked school I get into in the same city as the program Mr. Angst goes to.
  
• I will remember that every city we are considering moving to has an airport and my family will always only be a short flight away.
  
• I will make friends in our new home, and not get stuck spending all my free time (what little there will be) with Mr. Angst or in front of the TV.
  
• I will also remember to spend quality time with my husband, when we are not both studying or working.
  
• I will remember to stay in touch with the friends we leave behind, by emailing regularly, inviting them to read my blog, and making phone calls.

So these resolutions aren't really concrete (like, "I will lose 10 pounds," which I'd like to do but which I cannot ever resolve to do, so I won't resolve it), but they are important and will make 2005 a much happier year for me. If there's a resolution I could make that would encompass all of these, that would be it: I will be happy in 2005, knowing that I am making the right decisions for me.