I must be insane, or just a bad person, but this issue has come up over and over again, and here I go reacting the same way. Except NOW there is some little indication that I am not the only one with this insanity.

Every morning we have lectures, and everybody sits there and tries to type every word that the lecturer says. It is not because this is the ONLY place to get the information - but because the beauty (if you can call it that) of the lectures is that they have done the work and have gotten for us the material that's most likely to be tested out of the hundreds and hunderds of pages of material that there exists generally about a particular topic. So theoretically - we don't really NEED the lectures - all the material (and much more) is contained in gigantic volumes of books that we all have on our bookshelves at home, but the lectures put it in a more or less digestible form, and cut it down significantly. Yeah.. i'm sure you all care. so anyway.

This guy (and there's always some guy) sits next to me. We chat, we're on friendly terms, he's a nice guy as far as guys go. Usually he takes handwritten notes, but recently he started bringing his laptop like the rest of us. He knows how to type - so it's not an issue of slow typing. But for some reason, he takes notes off of MY computer screen, and NOT from listening to the lecturer. And it's not just a matter of looking over to my screen to catch a sentence that he happened to have missed. Oh no. He just sits there, and even though we're BOTH exposed to identical material - while I write it down from listening to it, he invariably copies it off of my computer. Word for word. Everything! I've checked. I thought maybe I am crazy. So i've stopped typing mid-sentence to see if he'll stop - and he does. And when I continue - he'll copy the last half of the sentence that I just wrote down. It is driving me CRAZY!!! I want to choke him, I almost want to sabotage my own note-taking so that he'll get something wrong. Often, I'll just start playing solitaire, so that the game will cover up my word document as soon as I'm done typing), and do you know what he does then? He just looks over to the girl on his left, and coppies off of HER screen in that case.

Please, somebody - explain to me WHY!!! How did he get thru law school if he is incapable of paying attention for even a second, and incapable of synthesizing what is said into written form? What the fuck is going on here?

So we get 10 minute breaks after each hour, and when I came back from the break, the guy must've still been in the bathroom. And you're not going to believe this, but I noticed a couple of seats next to me there was a new guy, who wasn't there before the break. And I overheard him talking to his friends, and he was saying that HE SWITCHED SEATS BECAUSE HIS FRIEND WAS COPYING THE ENTIRE LECTURE OFF OF HIS SCREEN AND IT WAS DRIVING HIM CRAZY. I was so excited, that I immediately owned up to eavesdropping, and told him that I am having the exact same issue with my neighbor. So what is the moral story here - I am not the only insane person who this bothers. Or perhaps that there are tons of people around who are too lazy to bother even attempting to listen and instead are perfectly content mooching off of others.

Ok, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming - which is studying.
Ciao.

question

Does anybody know what's the distance (in miles) around your average track - like the kind they have in all high schools, colleges, etc.? It's something I thought would be easy to find out by googling, but apparently it's not.

Today I received 3 boxes of beautifully fresh food, which were delivered by two able-bodied men direcly to my apartment from Fresh Direct. You simply cannot imagine how cool that is, unless you have food delivered to your apartment on a regular basis, and in that case - well I have nothing to impress you with. This was of course Vadim's idea, as a response to my refusal to do any housework now that my life is being poisoned by Bar Exam studying. And what a great idea it was! Now, all we need for total laziness (hmm... I meant to say total happiness) is a pick-up and drop-off laundry service. And if the price also included them putting all the clothes into their proper drawers, and changing the sheets - that would be just top notch.

As mentioned above, studying for the bar is poisoning my life, and also sucking out my soul. I hope I am being expressive enough. There is simply no joy in things anymore. And although the process itself is tedious enough, my feelings are augmented by the thought that there is not likely to be any reward once it is all done. It's not like I can say "my gosh! All I ever wanted out of my life is to become an attorney, so once I am done with this hellish stage, I will be so happy!" When the reality is, I am probably never going to be happy with anything that I do. Thus, the necessity of doing this is that much more grim. Also, I just don't seem to have any desire for... well anything. Whenever anybody mentions my wedding, I just want to roll my eyes. I don't care about the wedding, and what's even crazier is I've lost my sex drive. And while it might be "normal" for most women blah blah blah, I have never suffered from this affliction, so this is a biggie.

Although there are certain memorable moments during my lectures which make the process bearable. Today, for instance, our contracts lecturer was about to come to an end of his notes. He kept repeating that this was our last hour together after 8 hours of contracts, and we have finally gotten to the last subject that he was going to go over. Then he said "what's with all the page shuffling? Are you looking towards the end to see how many pages we have left? And this after all the hours we have spent together! Here I thought we had formed a bond. But I see that I was wrong. Well.. you can calm down. We're going to be done on page 55..." Then he took a long pause, and finished off with "Assholes!" There was an erruption of laughter, followed by a round of applause. Very cute.

Today I skipped a part of my bar review lecture and instead went to have my legs waxed. I made the horrible mistake of being too lazy last time to do this, and shaved instead. As a result - the utter torture that I experienced during this prolonged process was indescribable. So either I am never waxing again, or I am never shaving again.. not sure which one.

Not because I have anything to say (or any time to say it), but merely to oblige a certain someone's request not to have to keep staring at Christian Bale's likeness, I will impart the following information upon you:

Having a functioning air conditioning ROCKS. And people, please learn from our mistake: a "portable" air conditioner is the worst invention on earth. Not to mention that it is not strong enough to cool your less-than-averaged sized living room, but the pain-in-the-assness of having to haul it over from the bedroom into the living room, and thus the need to re-install it over and over again makes it soooo much more difficult than just dealing with the unpleasant task of putting in 2 AC's into windows! Ugh!!

Also, a probably very self-evident and trite note on human nature. When you are lacking something (in this case, a comfortable temperature at which your body parts don't stick to furniture), it is all you can think about and happiness seems to consist of getting that something that you're missing. But once you get it (and are perfectly comfortable temperature-wise in your home), the whole elation over it recedes after a very short time period. I suppose it's that whole "taking for granted" thing, which we must learn to not do..

Ok, back to the bar exam crapola.

The Machinist

I am afraid that I have never, in my entire life, seen anything as disturbing as the sight of Christian Bale in "The Machinist".


The movie itself is very good I thought, although the premise is not that much different from "Memento" or a couple of other movies, which I suppose fit under the rubric of psychological thrillers and which make you sit there all confused and disturbed throughout the whole thing, but only at the end (if ever) do they make any sense. But the mere sight of him was absolutely riveting and I could not get over it during the whole 2 hours. I can't fathom that somebody would voluntarily turn themselves into a replica of a holocaust survivor, it is insane! And as far as the sex scene in the beginning - horrendous! Like somebody going down on a cadaver! The only thing that made me feel a little better is that I happened to catch a glimpse of Christian Bale on Good Morning America the same morning as I saw the movie, and was satisfied that he looked as healthy as ever. And I suppose all the millions that he is earning should make me feel better to.

Here's another shot for your viewing pleasure, in case that first one didn't do it justice:

May I Complain please (I mean what else would I do?)

A couple of days ago I made some ribs for dinner, and on a whim I put several cut up apples into the baking dish as well. I did nothing to the apples, other than placing them into the oven, but after baking there for about 2 hours they came out tasting so unbelievably good that I ate every single slice of apple that I made, and completely forgot about the ribs. So I was all excited about this revelation about how delicious baked apples are, and how they're just like a desert, but healthy. So today, since who wants to turn on the oven when it's freaking 90 degrees out, I figured I'd try the express method and attempted "baking" the applies in the microwave. Well, what do you know, but they are NOTHING compared to the oven-baked apples! Thus, I am terribly dejected over this. Anybody have any suggestions for a speedy way to prepare baked apples?

I know you all expected me to whine about studying, but just because I am feeling a tad gracious today, I have decided to spare you. But please don't think for a moment that there is no complaining to be done on that account, for there certainly is plenty.

Today, after my lecture, I was sitting in a law school cafeteria and indulging myself by reading David Copperfield, because besides Oliver Twist and Domby & Sons when I was much younger, I haven't read anything else by Dickens. So even though I am an adult and way too old for this book, you cannot imagine the pleasure that can be derrived from reading it a bit at a time, when all the rest of your waking hours are spent reading about law. So what I am trying to awkwardly express here is that the few moments that I am able to read the book are precious. And then, this guy who went to law school with me came up to me and asked if he could join me, to which, of course I very heartily replied that he could, because I don't want to make the same mistake as I did in law school and not make any friends.

He asked me what I was reading, and when I told him he said (as could be expected): "wow!". I have this sneaking suspicion that he said "wow" because he's never heard of David Copperfield and because it is a thick book, he thinks that it is impressive that I am reading it, or just plain impressive that I am reading voluntarily, and NOT because he is wowed by how I'm way too old to be reading Dickens. Maybe I am totally off as far as jumping to that conclusion, but something tells me I am right.. And so he sat there and was blabbering on and on about something, and I guess I was appropriately annimated and nodded and smiled at all the right points of emphasis, because he just kept going and going. And unfortunately, what kept going and going in my head was that I was wondering what it is about me that makes him think that I am interested in all this stuff that he has to say? And also how I am so weird for having that in my head, and that instead I should just be sociable and have a conversation and not wish that he would leave so that I could get back to my book.

But at some point something he said triggered some kind of positive response in me (I mean genuinely, because I was outwardly positively responding the whole time), and I actually began to enjoy our conversation, thinking "phew! at least some normalcy here!" And during our conversation, he told me how his impression of me was that of a very sociable person, how while he never spoke to me in law school, he saw me around and always thought of me as the girl "who must know every single person in our class and is friends with everybody." How ironic, when it is the absolute opposite of the truth, and when even the beginning of this very conversation was too much for my law-school-related anti-social nature to bear. So I don't know why I am writing all of this, except that on some level this exchange made me happy. Because I know that I AM actually a sociable person, but just haven't been able to be comfortable enough in law school to allow that personality trait to come through.

On an entirely different subject matter, yesterday I underwent my first cosmetic procedure. I was going to post some before and after shots, but I never took any before shots, and my "during" (as in bruised) shots (which I took today) didn't come out that scary, so I am afraid the effect would be lost. And as for "after" shots - we'll need to see in about a week or so. But without any further mystery, I had some very visible blood vessels under and around my nose removed by laser. Well, granted they weren't REALLY visible to anyone unless I pointed them out, but the doctor right away knew what the problem was. And they've been bugging me for a long time. I was feeling pretty guilty for finally deciding to spend so much money for such a vain thing, but miraculously the doctor did it free of charge. Not because he thought I was cute or anything, but because my future sister-in-law is his assistant. So I feel as if I found around $500 lying on the street, which made me giddy for several hours, until I saw just how aweful my face looks (but supposedly that will go away, as mentioned earlier). For anybody who is curious - it did not hurt, in fact it was not scary at all! It was like being shocked, and every time it happened I would jump a little from being startled, but there was hardly any pain. So perhaps this is my entry into the world of plastic surgery, although I strongly doubt it because this is probably the scariest voluntary medical thing I would ever have the nerve to undergo.