| Bar minus 18 days and counting. |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|07:07 pm] |
How do you know I've finally lost it?
"Hrm... this Diet Coke doesn't taste so bad..."
People who know me well are prolly recoiling, aghast about now.
Not to worry. I only drank less than half a can.
Today when I got off work Mom asked me to change the faucet in her bathroom. I actually succeeded, but there's just some bit of plumber voodoo that I don't know that will let me complete the job. :( So I wasted two hours on that. And now I'm beat.
Fuck it I'm going to bed.
Oh, and I didn't cheat on my diet. Breakfast was an egg and a slice of bacon, lunch was a spinach salad, and supper was a piece of salmon and left over broccoli. |
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| BarBri Day 23 and 24, South Beach Diet days two and three. Also, work. |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|08:00 pm] |
Bar Bri: I skipped last night's session on Bankruptcy. Did I come home and work questions? No. I slept. Tonight was Professor Penguin's Ethics class. All he was doing was reading from the Rules of Professional Conduct and having us fill in the blanks. I can do that on my own. So I came home after an hour and a half.
Tonight was the last night of BarBri. I do not at all feel any smarter, with good reason; I haven't had time to DO anything. :(
At least my boss is giving me the week off before the Bar. With that, and with the end of Bar Bri, that leaves me the rest of this week and next week after work to study, and the the entirety of the NEXT week to study. This is going to be tight. Do I have it in me to pull one last rabbit out of the hat? I hope so.
In diet news, yesterday I had bacon and eggs for breakfast, baked chicken and black eyed peas for lunch, and baked chicken breast and asparagus for supper. Today was a slice of bacon and a scrambled egg for breakfast, baked beans and brocolli for lunch, and catfish with brocolli for supper. I have not cheated at all, despite being hella stressed right now.
I got lectured at work today about being too argumentative to the people who are trying to help me learn my job. THis concerns rating cases and making decisions based on the federal regulations. I'm not being argumentative, I'm being a zealous advocate for the veteran, and I'm interpreting the regs the way they're written or the way I've been told to interpret them. My coach said I'm running the risk of turning off my coworkers, and I certainly do NOT want to do that. But sometimes I don't see why I'm wrong and they're right; they've got years of experience, but when that conflicts with my work training in specific and legal training in general, it puts me in a difficult spot. :(
Not. Happy. |
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| BarBri Day 22 and South Beach Day One. |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|09:00 pm] |
Family Law.
Short night tonight. Got home by 9PM.
I am so ready for this to be OVER.
In other news, today I completed my first day of not eating ANY refined sugars. Nothing with sugar or white flour or other things like that. Breakfast was bacon and eggs, lunch was baked chicken and blackeyed peas, and supper was spinach and catfish. I am *full*. I am not "hungry" but I really really want a coke right now.
It was a weird feeling being full, but for some reason wanting more to eat. It's apparently a blood sugar chemistry thing that will work itself out as I wean myself off the processed sugars. |
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| Cool. |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|07:35 am] |
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No nightmares. |
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| Oh yeah, those blood test results... |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|09:09 pm] |
I'm not infected with anything. My sugar is just a bit over the top end of the normal range, despite having fasted since 6PM the night before my blood was drawn. My cholesterol number was 221, which is apparently not good.
The employee health nurse told me that I was pre-diabetic and she wanted me to cut out the sugars and simple carbohydrates such as foods derived from white rice and white flour and potatoes. "You're basicly eating glue," she explained. She kept writing down the things I couldn't eat, right there on the lab results.
Me: "Whoah, you're going to run out of room there if you keep writing down things I like to eat!"
Nurse Ratchet: "Oh, that's okay. I can keep going on the back side of the page."
She wants me to eat lean meats and green leafy vegetables. I happen to like salmon and tuna and meat in general, lean or not, and I have developed quite a taste for spinach, and have always liked asparagus and brocolli. So there's that.
Everybody on Dad's side of the family died of heart disease, Dad included. Dana told me that the diet the nurse described sounded like the South Beach diet, which I always assumed was some kind of Atkins-esque fad diet. On the other hand, I think my buddy ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) makovette slimmed WAY the hell down on it. It turns out that the so called "South Beach diet" is just eating low fat proteins and non-junk carbs. It was invented by a cardiologist as a heart healthy diet, not as a weight loss diet.
Anyway, I've felt like crap since I stopped exercising and been eating junk while studying for the bar. I dont' see any reason why I can't at least eat better.
In other news, Mom's boyfriend is coming next weekend, to stay for the next two weeks. Guess I'll hole up in my room.
I can not WAIT until I finish the Bar and find a place of my own, whether it's the long distance commute from The Lair or some place else. |
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| The general looked over the battle map... |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|10:10 am] |
It had been two days of bloody fighting across two fronts. The battles had been very costly, but at least they had been decisive. Exactly what territory would remain under friendly control was fairly well established now.
All that remained was the large contingent of enemy forces that would not arrive for three more weeks, giving him time to get his troops regrouped and prepared for the coming battle.
(Ok, so I got my room back, Mom's plumbing situation straightened out, and I'm single again. My "things I don't have to worry about" column is getting bigger. Good. Off to study Constitutional Law... which for some reason I keep guessing the right answers, which is Not Good. I don't want an intuitive feel for the area of law so that I know the right answer... I want to KNOW the area of law so that I know the right answer, the wrong answers, and why each are right or wrong and what the test writer was thinking when he wrote it.) |
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| Plumbing problem fixed. |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|12:55 pm] |
The valve at the wall was corroded. Replaced with a higher quality valve. He also cannibalized a new toilet tank on the trunk for parts to replace the old parts in our tank. Plumber Guy turned out to be Executive Plumber Guy; he has 50 men working for him, and their bread and butter is plumbing entire subdivisions, apartment complexes, and office buildings. He's got three guys that he sends for residential jobs like this one, as well as doing them for himself. There was about 30 dollars in parts, then labor and Holiday Rate. Came to abou $325, but he knocked off $50 if I wrote the check to him as opposed to his plumbing company. Hey, it's his company, so it works for me.
So ouch. :) It needed doing though, and it wasn't something I could do myself (note to self; in the future when I'm not doing anything else, look into a night class at a local junior college on basic plumbing). Mom was pretty frazzled by the fact that the water was constantly running and that toilet was unusable, but it's all better now.
Continuing Constitutional Law now... |
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| I think I figured out my dream. |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|11:04 am] |
I'm not one much to believe that dreams mean things. But sometimes they do, at least inasmuch as they are reflections of what you're thinking about, possibly even subconciously.
My life is the MASH unit. Constantly under pressure, with high stakes, and with no fixed base of operations. It goes from place to place, solving problems, but doesn't get to stay in one place.
The North Koreans represent the various stressors in my life. Bar, girlfriend, family. The forward elements of the unit that are under threat represent my interests that are adversely affected (time, freedom, security) by the aforementioned stressors. The General Of The Week is the part of me that wants to confront the problems and find a solution, with extreme prejudice if necessary.
Meanwhile, I'm the guy stuck having to drive the damn truck through congested traffic, and in violation of the ordinary rules of the road (skipping some BarBri lectures?) if I'm to have any hope of saving the day.
Here in the real world, I just got "home" such as home is, and for however long it's home THIS time.
Mom: "Welcome home. It's good to see you. You can't use your toilet."
Me: "Oh what fresh hell is this?" It turns out Mav's idiot boyfriend (who at least seems to mean well) attempted to "fix" the toilet. It would "run" if you didn't jiggle the handle just right. I would jiggle the handle, and there would not be a problem. But I've been out of the house for the past WEEK AND A HALF while Mav was being nursed back to health. So, on the Fourth of July AND a Saturday, he attmpts to "fix" the toilet using dollar store parts (Ace Hardware was closed). The part was the wrong size, and the water shutoff valve won't actually shutoff the water, despite being closed all the way.
Me: "Hello Plumber Guy? Yeah. I know it's not only Saturday, but also the Fourth of July, but of course my Mom has a plumbing emergency that I am incapable of handling myself." I explained the problem, and he said he'd be over in about 45 minutes or so. It should be a very quick fix for a plumber who knows what he's doing, requiring at most a replacement of things that are meant to be replaced.
Mom is frazzled as hell, because when Idiot Boyfriend messed up the toilet, Mav went ballistic and started screaming. Mom finally told them to leave NOW, not after while. But, I'm doing what I do, which is solve problems.
Now I need to get back to studying Constitutional Law. |
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| Happy 4th of July everyone. |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|07:52 am] |
I had a dream last night... I was part of a MASH unit (actually THE MASH unit, the 4077th)in Korea. The General Of The Week was visiting and the camp was trying to change locations. Word came that forward elements of our train were in dangerous proximity to Northern forces and in danger of being attacked. The GOTW told Burns that he was in charge of the camp from his seat in the deuce-and-a-half I was driving (I guess I was his driver). Then he turns to me and tells me to punch it, we're heading out there to where my friends are trapped. I floor it, but those trucks don't go very fast. Also, my dream supplied inappropriate road and traffic imagery, so I was fighting modern day traffic and running red lights and getting onto an interstate rather than negotiating the treacherous mountain roads of Korea circa 1950whatever. Weird.
In other news I got 87 percent correct on my last Evidence practice test, and I'm answering the questions in a minute flat, faster than the minute forty two seconds that we will have. This is good news. Now on to Con Law.
Maverick is moving out of my room at Mom's; she has apparently gotten some sort of place. As soon as I'm done with the bar, getting a place of my own where I call the shots is going to be my top priority. I wish The Lair were closer, but it's 100 miles from Jackson (and if it were closer it wouldn't really make a good fortified survivalist compound, now would it?). I could put a cabin out there. But a 90 minute commute each way... and six gallons of gas a day, 5 days a week... Well I'd still spend way less in gas than I would pay in rent. I will revisit this idea after I have passed the Bar. |
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| I have been approved to sit for the Bar Exam! |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|10:59 am] |
There was some doubt, because I filed after the deadline for automatic eligibility, but before the final deadline. They could have made me wait, but they did not.
"The Mississippi Board of Bar Admissions staff and the Committee on Character and Fitness have not completed processing your application and/or have not received the Report from the National Conference of Bar Examiners. However, the Board has determined that you should be permitted to sit for the July 2009 Bar Examination. This approval will allow you to take the Bar Examination; however, your final certification to practice law upon passing the examination is subject to rec eipt of a favorable Character Report and/or your application receiving a final approval from the Character and Fitness Committee and the Board. As of this time and with the information available, the committee has found no reason not to recommend your application to the Board for final action."
Ok, the universe is doing its part by not blocking me entirely (although my living arrangment situations and family/friends obligations are in the way) so now I've got to do MY part and PASS this damn thing. |
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| gwagh.... |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|05:38 pm] |
Helped girlfriend move from her apartment to her new house.
Worn out.
Studied Bar stuff.
Worn out.
Did go by the Amateur Radio Field Day festivities for an hour or so to get my geek on.
Have been getting headaches and short of breath. Cheapo blood pressure monitor from the drugstore says 140s/110s. Went to employee health today at the VA. 140/83 which is no big deal. Got an EKG (normal) and chest xray and told to come back tomorrow for some blood work, and by the way go get a damn physical.
Tomorrow is also a zoning hearing. Fence Guy wants to deal with me, and I think he's got something else in the works. More detail later.
Maverick is doing what Maverick does best; fucking up where people live. She's frightfully ill, and Mom asked me to let her (and her boyfriend!) have my room. Fine, whatever. Now, it seems that her boyfriend and his son were living in some church parsonage rent free, which is a good deal... until Mav comes along and they start shacking in sin, and they get told leave. Bwahahaha! Except now they're back in my room again, and I'm stuck at my girlfriends. Not that I mind, and my girlfriend wants me around, but it wasn't want I'd PLANNED on, and I do NOT like my domicile being fucked with. It's one of the few sensitive spots I have.
I'm about to dust off my buy-a-cheap-RV plans, know what I mean?
Grrr.
Am waiting for BarBri to start up again afer a few days of other stuff going on. I still think I should be working questions, but here I am. I will try to do questions tonight.
So no, I'm not dead. Yet. |
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| Some friends of mine created a Tarot deck... |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|10:19 pm] |
...and on a whim I decided to ask it a question.
You asked: Will I Pass The Bar? The Basis:
Klutz, reversed
A harlequin is trying to juggle mystical symbols: a pentacle, an ankh, a crescent moon, a wand. Most of them lie scattered around his feet. He is reaching for one that is outside his grasp, and about to trip on the pentacle.
Meaning: Your carelessness is your greatest liability. The Situation:
The Unfindable
A miserable cyclops is surrounded by his flocks. He is patting the ground, desperately seeking his lost contact lens. In the corner of the picture, a stealthy Greek sailor is sneaking off, carrying a one-chambered contact lens case.
Meaning: You are putting too much trust in a single thing. The Outcome:
Icosahedron (Alpha of Forms)
An RPG player smirks as she rolls a 20 on a 20 sided die.
Meaning: Critical success! Things are about to go much better than you imagined. You may ask another question. Reading from The Crowdsource Tarot.
LOL!!!!! Boy does THAT ring true! Ok, NOW I'm ready for bed. |
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| BarBri Day 20 and 21 |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|09:53 pm] |
Some day I am going to look back at all this and *laugh*.
But not today.
Yesterday was Corporations. I know Corporations. Besides which, I evaluated my current progress in my current subject. After 120 Evidence questions, I was getting around 56% correct. Okay, no problem, I'm just getting started good, and passing is really only a bit better than 50%, so I'm not really in too bad shape... and then I checked my performance against the performance of five thousand OTHER law students studying for the Bar.
I was in the bottom 25%. Yeeeeaaaahhh... O.o
So, I paniced, and skipped Corporations and studied more Evidence.
Tonight was the Multistate Performance Test lecture. Professor Property's Case File Method is pretty much the same thing, so I'm prolly good to go there, although I think the tips the lecture pointed out will be useful (keep in mind the audience you're writing for, look for them to tell you how they want it answered because that's the only way they can hope to grade a whole bunch of answers, etc).
There is no BarBri for me for the next week or so. Therefore, I'll be studying at the library or something when I get off work.
In work news, tomorrow I'm taking a Skills Certification Test that I'm really not worried about passing. I haven't been trained sufficiently yet, so I kind of hope I don't pass, lest they try to use the fact that I passed to justify calling me fully trained and hold me fully accountable to a production standard. If I *do* pass it, it'll be a 500 dollar bonus on an upcoming check... which would be nice, cuz it would go a long way toward paying for my hotel room that i'm going to need when it comes Bar time.
Oh, and speaking of actually TAKING the Bar, I don't have confirmation yet that I'll actually be sitting for the Bar. I expect I will. They took my money. I turned my application in, completed this time, after the first deadline that lets you automatically sit for the bar, but before the second deadline where they may or may not let you sit this go-round. I have done literally all I could do. The Board of Bar Admissions meets day after tomorrow where they'll make their decisions about people who filed late. If they don't let me sit for it this go-round, I'm going to be rather cross. :)
In totally unrelated news, this weekend is Amateur Radio Field Day. Go to your public parks and look for 80 year old nerds playing with radios and antennae. I plan on shooting a short Youtube video about the local ham radio folks on Saturday. It'll be my extracurricular activity. It's sort of a radio nerd holiday, where everybody takes their radio gear and they practice setting up somewhere, simulating a disaster response (operating off of generators, setting up temporary antennae, seeing what equipment works and how far they can communicate). It's practice. The great thing about ham radio is that when the phone lines and cable television and cell phones and even over-the-air television stop working, the amateur's gear still works and they can deploy a complete communication network worldwide if they have to.
Ok, I'm exhausted and starting to ramble. BED! |
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| Happy Father's Day |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|08:16 am] |
This will be the fifth Father's Day since Dad died.
I am still mightily pissed about it, too.
In other news, Mom's boyfriend is coming up with his family to visit Mom today. I'm evacuating so I don't have to deal with them or Maverick and her new boyfriend (who actually seems to be a decent enough fellow).
Mom likes her new computer, an HP1116 netbook. "Oh, it's so CUTE!" It weighs next to nothing and has a long battery life, so she can take it to bed with her if she wants.
I'm goingn to make some flashcards and study MBE questions now. |
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| BarBri Day 19: Agency and Partnerships |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|05:33 pm] |
Wow. I still remember ofa lot of what Professor WhatTheHellAreYouTalkingAbout tested us on. :)
When I got out of class last night, I decided I wantted a Happy, so I bought a book and went to Lonestar and had a steak. I miissed my turn, and parked in the Cracker Barrel restraunt's lot, which was right next door to Lonestar. A security guard started yelling at me that I couldn't park there, it was for Cracker Barrel customers only.
I resisted the urge to get in his face and yell at him, because well, yeah, I was technically parked on Cracker Barrel's parking lot, albeit waaaaaay away from the restraunt where nobody else parked. If they want to exercise control over who can park there, it is sort of their business; I'm all about private property rights. Also, I had done his job once upon a very very dark time ago.
"Fine. I am now a Cracker Barrel customer." I stalked inside to the Country Store side of the business, picked up a giant Hershey's Special Dark candy bar for three bucks, and asked to talk to the manager on duty. "Hi. I'm buying this candy bar. I wish to have a steak next door. May I leave my car parked where it is on your lot?" The manager assured me it was fine.
I started reading on my book, a 300 page hardback called Fragment, about a super remote island in the South Pacific whose evolutionary path diverged from the rest of the world 150 millions years ago. For reference, Australia only had 20 million years of seperate evolution, and look how weird THEIR stuff is. Contrary to how things work in reality where mainland plants and animals conquer island species, the plants and animals on Henders Island are badder than anything we've got. The plants outcompete kudzu, and the animals outcompete cockroaches. It's a constant riot of Everything Eating Everythign Else Constantly.
Expect it to be a movie soon. It had a very Jurassic Park feel. It wasn't bad for a first novel. I don't think it was worth the hardback price, though. Borrow a copy or wait for it on paperback.
My steak was stringy, but tasted okay. While I was there, a manager interrupted my reading to give a Father'd Day promotional; a free entree up to 15 bucks, good for the next month only, with no other conditions. Cool.
I went home, and finished the book by 3:30 AM. I had intended on using the book as a reward for doing the next bit of studying; work X number of MBE questions, then read a chapter.
Yeah, that worked. *rolls eyes*. I have no discipline. I just kept turning page after page. It was like cotton candy; light and fluffy and I just plowed through it.
I think I'm going to buy mom a netbook... her linux aircraft carrier sized lappie is being fractious and I don't have time to mess with it. |
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| BarBri Day 18: Evidence Part Two |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|10:10 pm] |
Ok so I went anyway.
And maybe I'll keep going.
But I don't have to like it.
I'll figure something out.
People came up with workable solutions to The Cold Equations after all. |
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| BarBri Day 17: Evidence Part One. |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|09:42 pm] |
Ok. That's it. I'm done.
From here on I'm going to find some place that closes at midnight and just work on questions during the week after I get off work, and do essays on the weekends.
Or something.
Grrr.
Had strange dreams last night. Dreamed I went to some kind of high end combination steakhouse and optical dispensary.
They had some kind of crystal square lenses that did something funky and quantum mechanical with the light, and it let you see better, farther, in all a wider spectrum of frequencies, in bright light or pitch dark, and for all I know around corners.
After our (I have no idea who I was with) meal, they tried to rip me off by charging me two grand instead of the agreed upon eight hundred bucks. At which time all the rules of contract formation and defenses crashed down on me and woke me the hell up.
::EDIT:: It's not the end of the course. I'm stopping going to the recorded lectures, choosing instead to study on my own. |
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| BarBri Day 16: Crim Pro. |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|09:50 pm] |
That's "Procedure" not "Professional".
I am so frazzled. On my last nerve. About ready to lay about me with the jawbone of an ass. I don' wanna do this no more.
Tomorrow and the day after are Evidence parts One and Two, lectured by our very own Professor Evidence. After that, I'm going to bail on the rest of the classes. It's all essay stuff that I already have the model answers for, and I really REALLY need the time to practice my MBE questions and practice essay answers... I think my time would be more useful spent doing that while I still have some functional brain cells. Mr. Black is correct in that if my brain is no good, it does no good to even TRY studying.
I am fatigued and bitchy right now.
Imani, I'd love to hear about how your new job is going. |
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