New stuff

Yesterday was horrible. Just plain horrible. And I don't mean the studying for the bar part, I mean the lugging the furniture up and down the stairs part. I am not going to bore you with all the gory details of how we had to throw out the old non-functioning air conditioner (which involved carrying it down 3 flights of stairs), buy a new portable (read: GIGANTIC) air conditioner, and carry IT up the 3 flights of stairs. Not to mention the purchase of (what we thought were) black/brown book shelves from IKEA, and the carrying of THEM up 3 flights of stairs, only to open the box and realize that we inadvertantly picked up white book shelves instead of the black/brown ones. That discovery was followed by our return to IKEA (which yes, you guessed it - necessitated carrying the unbelievably heavy shleves down the stairs - yes 3 flights of them), and exchanging for the correct shelves and for the LAST TIME carrying them up the stairs. But, regardless, it was all worth it, and without further adieu, I present our new book shelves:



I realize it's not very exciting from looking at this picture, and perhaps my excitement is a tad heightened by all the manual labor I had to undergo, but I still think that they are much more beautiful in real life.

bye bye

Ok peoples, say goodbye to me and please all pray for me to maintain my mental health (or at least as much of it as I may currently lay claim to), for I am embarking upon the bar studying. That's right, it's all over. My week and a half of freedom has come to its conclusion. No more sleeping till 10, no more incessant shopping for size zero pants, huge earrings and sache belts. (While I am at it - Express and Ann Tailor Loft turned out to carry very lovely size zeros, which are almost as good as custom made). While you're at it - pray that I am still able to fit into all my new pants after this ordeal is over.

Vadim made me log onto the BarBri (the company that conducts review courses) website and prepare for my lecture tomorrow. I had no intention of doing so - I figured I would enjoy my last night and worry about it tomorrow in class. Well, thanks to him, now I know exactly what awaits me: 9am till noon in-class sessions, followed by an additional 5-9 hours of studying each day during the week, and a total of 10-12 hours of studying during the weekend. Also I am self-imposing an hour to hour and a half of exercising each day, otherwise I am certain to go insane. However for the life of me, I cannot figure during which hour this working out business is to take place.

In any case, I am off!

could be even less healthy

Here are one of my absolute favorite foods: fried eggplants. Why favorite? Because they're simply dripping with lovely oil and flour and so melt in your mouth, just like M&M's. What's not to love?



My recipe (which is not as awfully fatty as the recipe found in this cookbook, which I got as a present for my birthday) goes as follows:

- Wash and cut up the eggplant into halfmoons (that term comes right out of the Italian cookbook, because I am certainly not sophisticated enough to come up with it on my own).

- Lay the pieces out on a cutting board. Salt on both sides, and leave it out for about an hour. After the hour is up, pat the eggplants dry with a paper towel (according to my mom - that gets the bitterness out, and it seems to do the trick, because they really are never bitter after that, but I must admit that I never tried this without the patting).

- Heat up olive oil, and prepare flour in a separate dish. Dip each halfmoon in the flour, and fry in the oil, turning when the first side becomes a golden brown color. Eggplants absorb oil like you wouldn't believe, so I keep having to pour more every couple of minutes, otherwise everything burns.

- When eggplants are ready, lay them out on a platter, and allow to cool. Then make the sauce: Mix mayo, mustard, couple of cloves of garlic, and dill. (Honey mustard would work best, but I only had dijon mustard at home, which can do also).

- Spread sauce on the eggplants sparingly. Or, if you're a glutton like me, sread it out generously because the sauce is the best part.


Believe it or not, the Italian cookbook makes you use not just flour, but also egg and bread crumbs to fry up the eggplants. I am not a big fan of bread crumbs, so I wouldn't venture to try it.

This is a sad state of events. Some people don't post, while others have hidden their journal all together! People, what are you doing to me? And on my birthday too! (This was my not-so-subtle segway into the topic of my birthday). So I turned 27 today, or should I say yesterday, since it's after midnight. I am not going to get into this whole reflection of how "oh no, I'm 27! Which is almost 30, which is almost 50, and what do I have to show for myself? What have I really accomplished?" I mean, besides finally putting up curtains.


Yup, nothing much to speak of. But oh well. Why focus on the negative? How about playing up the positive? I finished law school a couple of days ago. I even got 2 A's this semester - shocking really. And ironic, to be getting A's towards the end, when I should have been getting them all along.

So since my mom accidentally gave away all my clothes, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, I have spent pretty much the entire week shopping for clothes, returning the clothes back to the stores the next day, and shopping for more clothes. It has been an incredibly frustrating experience (but not as frustrating as studying law, let me tell you). With this whole weight loss, I am at a complete loss (hehe) as to how I am supposed to buy pants. In most stores that I visited size 2 pants were too big for me. Where size 2 was too small for me, size 4 was way too big. Where size 1 was too small for me, size 2 was way too big. You get the picture. This is perplexing, because I am not thin even though I'm thinner than I used to be, I mean there are so many thinner people out there, how in the world do they buy pants if even I can't find pants that are small enough? In a bout of exasperation, I decided maybe I should venture into the very uncool store called "Petite Sophisticate". I decided - they must know how to clothe me. But to my amazement, all the pants in the petite store were super high wasted. Does this make any sense? This is a store that caters to petite women, so shouldn't they know that petite women need the opposite of high-wasted pants - they need low-rise ones!

I made a retired friend yesterday. Thankfully I made myself get out of the house after being couped up .. yes, you guessed it - studying all day and went jogging around the lake near my house. As an aside, my neighborhood is looking so beautiful now that the weather is nice, that every time I'm outside I wish I had my camera with me so I could take a picture and post it on my blog. But of course, I would probably feel ridiculous walking around with a camera for no reason, so I don't do it. Regardless, I was jogging around the lake, and each time I went around I felt like I just have to stop because I can't take it anymore, but I was reminded of something I read about how you shouldn't stay on the same level in your workouts, and should push yourself - this is the only way to achieve results. So I kept pushing and actually went around 6 times, as opposed to my previous maximum of 5. The 6 laps added up to 4.2 miles, which while not all that impressive since I have been able to run 5 miles on a treadmill, are nevertheless an acomplishment for me since it is the first time I've been able to run 4.2 miles around the lake. And why is it impressive you ask? Well, because it's harder for me to run outside - it's tougher on my legs, there is the wind to overcome, there are hills, etc. Anyway - you must be wondering what the point is - and it is merely that I am proud of myself. I am proud of myself for so very little, but this is one of the things that qualifies.

When I was done with my laps, I decided to reward myself with an additional walking lap. I don't know if it's just me, but I think walking after you run is just about the most pleasurable thing out there, except maybe for obvious exceptions like sex and such. But when you're so exhausted and all you've been wanting to do is stop running, and you finally can stop, but nevertheless you're walking and breathing the fresh air and seeing the trees without your heartrate doing crazy things - well it's just an out of this world feeling. As I was bathing in the joy of this walk, this older guy started talking to me. He was kind enough to keep moving out of my way each time I ran past him, and I had a feeling he was looking for a chance to strike up a converstaion. So once I was not running anymore - he had no reason not to. He asked me if I ran track for one of the local high schools. Ha! It didn't even occur to me to tell him that I'm turning 27 next week. I just said "no, I run for myself". Aside from the absolutely unbelievable idea that I am part of some kind of "official" running enterprise, the fact that I was also mistaken for a 16 year old is highly amusing. We then talked about how I'm new to the neighborhood, and how he is retired and thus has a lot of time to just walk around the lake and do other similarly relaxing things. I asked him if it gets boring. He told me not at all, that he is single (as if that is the KEY to not being bored), and he has many "lady friends" that he can call up at any time so as to relieve his boredom.

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For my birthday, Vadim got me these tahitian pearl earrings.

Yes, he already gave them to me because he cannot keep a secret, and definitely cannot keep a gift from me until my actual birthday if his life depended on it. He was so excited about the earrings, and I could see the look on his face when I was trying them on.. and well it was just awfully sweet. Which brings me to my next point: does it make me a total bitch for making him return them? They are cute, but I didn't love them. And I think considering how pricy they are, I should love them wholeheartedly. I am not a big fan of studs, I prefer earrings that hang down. So I decided that instead we will pick out TOGETHER a pair of white pearl earrings (much more affordable) and a pearl necklace. That way I can wear it to the wedding as well.

I wish I could let out a heart wrenching scream. Maybe I would feel better.
So I took my income tax exam, and I am fairly certain that I passed. And since then I've been sitting home, and studying for a much more relaxed take-home exam in Education Law (one of the few courses that I like). And while there is no similar aspect in Education Law as there was in Income Tax, where I need to actually understand completely abstract concepts and memorize horribly dry facts (I don't need to memorize anything and I have a firm grasp on all the concepts since I did most of the reading throughout the semester), there are nevertheless aspects that make studying MISERABLE!!!!! Such as:

- I am doing it at home, so I don't need to wear anything except home clothes, and I have no occasion to put on make-up or make myself look human (which i find is a very helpful thing to one's sense of normalcy)

- I am hurting all over! Explanation: I am studying on the couch instead of at a desk or a table because well.. I don't own a desk (Vadim is not sharing his, and his huge computer takes up the whole desk anyway). I could, of course, use the dining room table, but I feel that sitting on the couch makes the experience more "relaxing". But due to sitting on the couch for so many hours of the day, while surrounded by books and my laptop is leading to my back hurting. So every time I get up I feel like I am aching all over. Like a broken 90 year old lady. It's ironic, because I am aching in part due to the weight lifting class I took 2 days ago, which should reaffirm that I am not an old lady.

- I have no social life. I don't remember the last time I hung out with people! Ok, it was 2 weeks ago - but that is way too long of a time. I miss human contact and I need a drink. I know, I could drink here, but I am not one of those people that drinks alone. I only eat alone.

- I watch way too much horrible TV. But at the same time, it is making me realize just how many completely sick and wacky people there are out there. For instance (also from Oprah): there are people who have something called a "hoarding syndrome", where they aren't capable of throwing anything away and their house becomes a complete mess. This one woman lives surrounded by her dog's poop (it's all over the shower and the carpets and she doesn't clean it up) and piles of dirty dishes and crap that's been piling up for literally years.. Some other woman has 81 cats and 6 dogs!!!! So now I think how amazingly functional I actually am! I never leave dishes in the sink overnight. I don't see any poop lying around anywhere.

Recent Books
1) "Sophie's Choice" by William Styron. This book must be blamed for my miserable studying experience because I "wasted" days reading it and neglecting my studying because I could not put it down.

2) Just finished "The Actual" by Saul Bellow. It was the only book by Bellow available in my library, and as I could not quite master "Herzog", I figured I would try something a little simpler before attempting it again. I am not sure I completely get "The Actual", but it certainly had an incredibly sweet ending.

3) Recently started another Philip Roth book, "Zuckerman Unbound". As all Philip Roth books that I've read - I am loving it already. But I am only allowing myself a few minutes a day (in a secret location) so as not to disrupt my studying too much.

Well - goodbye everyone. Tomorrow morning I am starting a 48 hour take-home exam, which I only have 24 hours to complete because sunday I have a family function to attend. Wish me luck.

Happy Birthday Vadimkin!

And yes, I actually put up the streamers without any hired help (although the thought crossed my mind). And they do go around the whole room. Turns out it's quite a workout!

Les Invitations - they have been deposited in the mailbox.