Real Lawyers Don't Wear Suits

So I had another job interview today. I have to say it's a little disconcerting to show up to an interview on a Friday in my oh-so-conservative-and-ladylike business suit when half the office is in jeans. Literally, 1 out of 8 attorneys I met today had a suit on and that's because he went to court! I can't freaking wait until I can walk into a law office in something other than pantyhose and a jacket (and the other stuff too, just those would be awkward). I'm going on this rant because this morning, as I'm getting into the taxi which will take me to my interview (with no time to spare of course), I ripped my suit, making the slit in the back longer than it was meant to be. It could have been a lot worse, luckily that was not really noticeable, at least I hope not. I was freaking out though.
Other than wardrobe malfunctions, my interview went really well. Maybe I'm just a sucker for marketing or maybe they really are that awesome but with both firms I've interviewed at, I was really impressed. I had good days, met nice people and just all-around liked the atmosphere at both. Maybe that's a good sign, maybe I'll be happy anywhere I work. I am very glad that I'm staying at the number of callbacks I have now, any more and I would B.S. myself to death. I have 3 interviews in Salt Lake in less than 2 weeks and thank goodness Danny will be there, because 3 interviews in 2 days will be exhausting. I'll need to come home to someone after those, not to mention I'll only have one left after that, so I'll be just about burned out. Ugh. Job searching is the coolest...PSYCH! Soon it will be done. And then I still have almost 2 full years until I really have to be an adult. Gross.

Busy, busy, busy

So I haven't posted in a little over a month, which is bad of me because I really do want to continue this blog thing, it's a good release for me and it forces me to think a little bit even in my downtime, which is when I usually become a zombie. What I've been up to the past month has been settling back in to my Chicago home, interviewing on-campus and starting classes. This semester I'm taking Trial Advocacy, which I'm super excited about because we actually get to DO things, by that I mean we're actually performing our own trials. I'm such a dork I know but I am so excited to get started with questioning witnesses this week! I'm also doing Negotiations, Legal Ethics and a Clinic helping women and children get asylum in the US. It will be an intense semester but I'll actually feel like I'm getting to learn things that I'll actually use in 2 years when I'm a lawyer. That statement, by the way, freaks me out to no end. I have wanted to be a lawyer since I was 9 years old and the fact that I actually will be one so soon is both exciting and terrifying.

I'm sure part of the reason I'm also somewhat scared is because I'm now in the middle of callback interviews, I actually just had my first one today. It's just crazy that the future of my career will be pretty much determined before this semester's even over. I don't know just how ready I am to have a career, but I guess I will have one soon enough! Luckily in the midst of the stress and madness from classes and job searching, I have fun things going on too.

Danny has been in town the past two weekends and we went to Indiana this weekend with lots of our friends from college, including 4 of my 5 senior year roommates. Being there on a football weekend is a lot of fun but I also realized that I'm definitely not a college kid anymore, I can't keep up the pace. After going out Friday and tailgating all day Saturday, I was pretty much down for the count. I feel bad that I am not so good at the all-weekend party anymore but what can I do? It was still a good weekend but I now know that they'll be good in a different way than they were in college.

But I'm going back for a few more football weekends this fall and I'm going out to see Danny twice too. One of the weekends we're going to another wedding and I am really excited for that because, as mentioned before, I love weddings :) It's another couple he went to high school with and most of his HS friends will be there so I know it will be a good time, especially because I'm doing 4 job interviews the week before, I'll need it!

Anyway, now that I'm back into a routine, I'll be much better about posting. A lot of exciting things are happening this semester, so I'll obviously have lots to say. And if all else fails, there's always celebrity gossip. I can't believe they're letting Britney "Trainwreck" Spears open the VMAs, MTV is taking a huge risk! And don't even get me started on the Hills...seriously Heidi and Spencer are HEINOUS. More about that next week :)

TGI-Thursday

I am so so so happy it's finally Thursday this week, since it's my last day of work for the week, I am acting like it's Friday, aka getting no work done and contemplating a long lunch. Tomorrow is Danny's BIRTHDAY and I am so so so excited to celebrate with him. I'm going into Chicago to pick him up from the airport tomorrow and then it's out on the town! Then we're coming back home and celebrating some more, basically it's another birthday extravaganza weekend! I plan on spoiling him rotten but not before I rub it in his face a couple times that he is 3 months older than me, practically ancient! Obviously, I am ridiculously excited to see him, as it's been 3 weeks since the last time. The great thing about Danny weekends is that we both go out of our way to plan extra fun things to do with each other so we can make our visits even more special, so I am trying to make this weekend no exception! We'll go out in Chicago on Friday, then come home and hang out by the pool for awhile, then have a special birthday dinner on Saturday, then go out again, then Sunday I'm sure we'll be nursing a double-hangover so it might be back to the pool and then Sunday night we're going to cook out! Such a fun weekend! I am definitely ready to go out and dance the night away :)

I <3 Hairspray!

Melissa and I went to see Hairspray Monday night and as a musical nerd, I was in heaven. The songs are great, in an awesome Broadway kind of way, the dancing is great and I can honestly say there wasn't a character I didn't love. My only small foible with the movie was John Travolta in drag. To be honest, I think he did a great job of embracing the character of Edna, and when he was speaking, he pulled off a decent Baltimore accent to make me forget even further that it was actually John Travolta on the scene. However, when he sang, the accent was gone and it was all John Travolta's voice coming out of that big lady and it freaked me out a little.

I was sooo impressed with Nikki Blonsky, who plays Tracy Turnblad. You would never know she was a newcomer to the business because she did such an amazing job. Zac Efron is obviously adorable, as is James Marsden. Ever since What a Girl Wants, in all it's teeny-bopper glory, I've loved Amanda Bynes, and this was no exception. Seriously everyone was good, even the villains, Michelle Pfeiffer and Brittany Snow. Oh and I have to mention Elijah Kelley, who plays Seaweed. He's one of the few less corny characters in the movie (nothing wrong with corny though) and he was excellent, I really hope he continues to get parts that have him singing and dancing because he was exceptional at both.

This movie was not afraid to be corny, after all, a large portion of it takes place on the set of the Corny Collins Show! No matter what though, the movie sends a great message about accepting people of all sizes, shapes, colors and backgrounds and it is so much fun to watch. I can't wait to own it on DVD, I have a feeling it will be one that I will watch over and over again!

My super rockin' weekend!

This weekend was great. First and foremost, it was Jenny's birthday and we had such a good time and it was so fun to see her! We went to Sheffield's which is this awesome bar on Sheffield (weird) that has a great outdoor beer garden and is really chill and fun. Luckily my family friends, the Flynns, happened to be there and so I managed to weasle out of the constant shot-taking by talking to them for awhile and I didn't get to hammered. I can't say the same for the birthday girl, but it was her birthday after all, so she was pretty much required to take them.

I have to say, it's a good thing that I love Jenny so much, and fear her wrath if I had missed anything, because Jenny's birthday (Saturday) was the same day that Harry Potter 7 came out. I got my book late by Potter-fan standards, at 12:30 pm and literally read for 5 hours without stopping, seriously, I took it with me when I had to pee even! Then I had to tear myself away and get ready for Jenny's birthday extravaganza. Still obsessed though, I got home a little after 1 and even in my mildly tipsy state, read HP for another hour. Of course I still wasn't done, being 758 pages and all, so when I woke up in the morning, instead of vegging at my apartment for awhile before heading back to South Bend, I got on the road pretty much immediately and then read until I was done, some of the time at Melissa's pool, thank god I saw some sunlight. Since Danny reads this and I know he's not done, I'm not saying anything about liking or not liking the book. All I will say is that J.K. Rowling is brilliant in how she ties everything together, seriously brilliant. I can't imagine having the attention span to keep track of 7 books worth of information and make it all piece together, hence why I can't do puzzles either.

Also, my other happy thing of the weekend was falling in love with Kelly Clarkson's new album, My December and new artist, Colbie Caillat's album Coco. As far as Miss Kelly is concerned, I had actually purchased her album when it came out and knew that I liked at least 2 songs but didn't really truly listen to the rest of it much at the time. So for my roadtrip, I burned both CDs to listen to in my car and I have to say, anyone who is trashing this album and her talent are completely close-minded. It is definitely not Breakaway, not nearly so poppy, but even though I love pop music, I was so impressed with her growth as a musician. She has great variety on this album, which is clearly a break-up record by the way, and I am sad that people like Perez Hilton, who I usually like, are giving her such a hard time. It's sad that her record label wasn't willing to foster her talent instead of trying to force her into one particular style that wasn't her own. As for Colbie, the iTunes review is true, she is very much like a female Jack Johnson, I love her. Her style is light and pretty and she had a great voice and good lyrics. I would definitely love to see her in concert.

So those are the things that made my weekend grand. Danny's coming in next weekend for his birthday, so I'm sure that weekend will be even better, yay! This summer has been great, and I'm glad I'm ending it on such high notes!

I tried so hard to fight it

But I couldn't. With my love of celebrity gossip, sarcasm and poo jokes, it was inevitable that I would someday become an avid reader of Perezhilton.com, and alas, I have. So many of my fellow celebrity gossip-addicts would talk about reading Perez daily and I just kind of thought he was too bitchy and everyone reads him and I was trying not to conform I guess. I am a rebel without a cause. But one day at work, I was bored, and I just typed it in and after laughing out loud 3 times in 5 minutes, I knew I'd found a winner. Aside from his bitchy comments and drawings of penises and poo on people's pictures, here are the reasons why Perezhilton.com is actually a semi-decent celebrity website:

1) He does not take himself seriously at all. He has no problem making fun of himself or taking it like a man when people make fun of him. I respect that.
2) He's always making an effort to introduce his readers to new music and really supports unique and talented artists.
3) Yeah he's mean to some choice celebrities, but let's be honest, with some of the ridiculous stuff they pull, they deserved to get a little poo drawing thrown their way occasionally.
4) He posts new entries alllll the time, which for someone like me who gets bored every 10 minutes and has the attention span of a chihuahua, is perfect because I can check it several times a day.

So there you go. You win Perez, I like you. In fact, I like you better than thesuperficial.com now and that's saying something. Don't worry, I'm still reading the New York Times every day and trying to be an intelligent human being, but what can I say? It's a guilty pleasure that I don't really feel guilty about and after talking about my stupid job search for an entire week, it was time to talk about something fun! If only I could insert a poo drawing to really finish this off...

Monday grateful journal

I need to do one of these at least every Monday because it will definitely keep me going the rest of the day to focus on happy things. So here's what I'm most grateful for today:

1) almost being done with OCI (on-campus interviewing) scheduling
2) Danny being back safe from his trip
3) working on interesting things at work
4) buying new books to read
5) having a nice, quiet weekend

Actually, this Monday hasn't even been that bad. Once I figured out all of the firms I was trying to get interviews with for OCI next month, my day got much less stressful. I still have a lot to do with the job search, since smaller trial firms don't always come to OCI, especially firms from Salt Lake, but I'm checking things off day by day and that's all I can do.

I'm really looking forward to the December 1 deadline to be honest, because at that point, God willing, I will be accepting an offer and I will hopefully know where I am headed after I graduate. It will be a giant sigh of relief. Of course I'll have to work my butt off to make sure I get a permanent offer, but I'm not nearly as worried about that once I get my foot in the door. It's really weird to think about how much of my life is going to be determined in the next 6 months. Where I'll live, where I'll work, what my finances will be like, that's a lot! I'm excited to take this big step even if the process of getting there is stressful. After working full-time and doing all this time-consuming job searching, I'm looking forward to getting back to school too. It will be nice to have a schedule that is more my own doing and to be back in my apartment and to see people again. I'm excited about all of it. Things are good :)

I suck at posting, but life has been boring these past few days.

These have been the exciting points of my life this week: yoga on tuesday and thursday, laying out with mel on wednesday and going out to dinner with the parents on wednesday. Not that any of those things were bad, they were great, but I'm so bored I could weep. Work has been busy, but with stupid busy-work crap and I even took a "sick" day on Wednesday to get stuff done at home but mostly because I just couldn't take it anymore. TGIF. Danny's on some camping trip with his lab this weekend, which I can't WAIT to hear stories about because I just really can't picture some of the people in his lab being real handy in the woods. But the bad part of that is that he's out of cell phone range, so I can't even talk to him at all until Sunday. You'd be surprised how much this bums me out, I mean it's only a half an hour a day max right? But talking to Danny every day calms me down, especially when I have stuff I'm having trouble thinking through, for example my current job search. The whole process of the 2L summer job search is painful. I'm currently "bidding" on on-campus interviews that will take place in August for jobs that aren't until NEXT SUMMER. So this of course requires resume updates and revisions, figuring out my schedule, blah blah blah. It's going to be a big old mess. But whatever, as long as I hopefully get a job out of it, I don't really care, I just want it to be over with as little stress as possible, HA!

So that's been the bulk of my life recently, job searches, being bored, yoga. I am probably the coolest person you'll ever meet. Oh and I've also been filling up time by re-reading Harry Potter 6, since the 7th book is coming out in a week. Maybe after I'm done with that I'll achieve my lifelong dream of solving the Rubix Cube, just kidding, I may be cool enough for that but I'm not smart enough for sure. Melissa wants to go out this weekend, and thank goodness for her because otherwise I wouldn't motivate myself to do anything but watch movies and go running. Also thank goodness it's Jenny's birthday next week. Maybe soon I'll find it in myself to be social again and remember that I can still go out and have a good time. Well, I better, or Jenny will kick my butt Texas-style.

Yoga Rocks!!

Today is Yoga Day, well Tuesdays and Thursdays are Yoga Days. My mom is actually getting certified to be a yoga instructor and as part of the certification process she has to teach free classes. Since my mom has been doing yoga religiously for quite some time, she's already an excellent teacher, which means Melissa and I get sweet personalized yoga classes for free every week. It's kind of an amazing deal. Also, if it's nice out, we'll do it outside on our deck and I have to say it almost feels like it's working better when you can hear the birds singing and the trees blowing in the wind, very hippie circle of life touchy feely stuff.

I'm not kidding though, yoga is addictive. Melissa and I both admitted to doing it on our own outside of class now. I love Sun Salutes, even when we have to hold Downward Dog, yes, it's just a yoga position, for way too long of a time. You just feel good after yoga class is over, or even now, after my own little practice sessions are over. I am definitely getting more flexible and stronger and seriously, I am/was the weakest person in the world, aside from maybe infants under 3 months. Now I actually feel like I can lift small things, so yoga is doing wonders for me. I really want to take a hot yoga class but I'm afraid I would pass out because I get hot during normal yoga, let alone a class that's over 100 degrees inside! But you supposedly can get into crazy positions when your body's all warm like that, and I'd love to see if I could do some of the positions I can't quite get into now. Right now though, my goal is simply to get my heels all the way down in Downward Dog, sounds small and silly but I will be thrilled when I can do it and I'm so close!

I definitely need to get myself into some yoga classes when I'm back in Chicago. I'm just too used to it now to give it up and it really does chill me out when I'm overwhelmed, hence why it would be good during school. Once I get my Downward Dog right I guess I won't be too nervous to take a real class :)

Back to the Grind

Today was the hardest day to come to work ever. The weekend in Salt Lake with Danny was soooo good, and then yesterday was a long travel day and I couldn't go to bed early because I was still hyped up from the weekend and I was awful at getting up this morning and it's Monday and I had lots of work on my desk and I'm tired and I wish I could take a nap and whine, whine, whine. I have to admit, the day has gotten better as it's gone on because one of my cases, the one I like the least, has gotten continued so I don't have to work the file anymore and I had delicious carry out for lunch, but it is still Monday, a very sticky, sleepy Monday. It is crazy though that I move back to Chicago in 4 and 1/2 weeks! I'm excited to get back to the city, but there is so much to do before then! I have to finish applying for jobs, choose this semester's classes, pack and the two most fun things, celebrate first Jenny's birthday and then Danny's!

Speaking of Danny, I am having a really hard time getting over my post-visit mope. Yesterday was awful, I seriously think I got teary a dozen times over the course of my journey home. I think it's because the weekend was so good though, so I'm just trying to focus on that. It was so great being with him. And the "camping" thing? Actually it was awesome, I made a big deal out of nothing. It was so incredibly beautiful up there I can't believe it isn't an area that Hollywood has discovered yet. It was a good 20-25 degrees cooler than the 100 degree valley, so sometimes you could almost feel chilly. It was nice to hang out with Danny's family too, I'm really comfortable with them now, whereas when we first started doing the visits, I would get way more nervous because his family just didn't know me as well as mine knew Danny, just because they were so far away. Anyway, we also got to make dinner together, watched Wedding Crashers, one of our all-time favorite sources of quotes, went to the pool, just lots of fun stuff together. I know it's stupid to say, but I missed him the second I walked through security at the airport (he's sweet and always waits until I make it through before he leaves), seriously though, I immediately felt blue. I would guess that's the main reason being at work is so hard today. This seems like the perfect time to do my grateful journal, to cheer me up for the afternoon. Today I am grateful for:

1) Having a boyfriend who is so great I miss him like crazy already (feel free to gag)
2) Looking forward to 2 yoga classes this week
3) Re-reading Harry Potter 6, pre-7th book
4) My silly little kitty
5) Officially renewing my apartment lease! I'm not homeless!

Thank goodness for Harry Potter, I may be a "serious law student," to quote my hero, Elle Woods, but I will probably start reading HP 6 and not put it down until I fall asleep on its open pages, what a good way to get over the mopes. :)

Weekend in Utah!

Today I leave for Salt Lake City to visit Danny, and I'm so excited I can barely sit still. I'm definitely ripping off my law firm right now because even though I'll be at work for the morning and getting paid for it, I already know I'm going to get next to nothing done. Whatever, I work hard some days :)

So Danny and I haven't talked a whole lot about what we're going to do over the weekend, but one thing (really two, but they're similar) has been thrown out there by Danny for Saturday's activity. His family is going to be camping up in the mountains while I'm there and we can either go meet up with them for the day and hike and canoe and do various other outdoorsy things or we can go to the ski resort where his brother works and ride the ski lift to the top of the mountain and hike there. I have to admit, I wasn't initially so warm to either idea because I am not exactly "Nature Girl." I don't really like getting dirty, I don't like bugs, I don't like being outside if it doesn't involve laying out or running because I have to. But then, I decided to have an open mind about both options. Because there are two things about these activities that I already know I love, spending time with Danny doing something new and the unbelievable beauty of the Wasatch Mountains. So I figure, I can suck it up for a day, give up my prissiness and just do something cool that I definitely can't do in the Midwest at all, with the person I love being with so much. Of course to balance out the sweaty, nature-y activity of Saturday, I'll probably insist that we go to the pool or the mall on Friday just so I can feel like myself ;)

I also realized because yesterday was the 4th of July (Happy 4th!) I neglected my grateful journal, and I'll probably neglect it all weekend, but I can assure you that I will be grateful for more than 5 things every day that I get to spend with Danny, so I guess I don't need it to cheer me up then. So for yesterday, I was very grateful for:

1) hilariously puny fireworks, which were actually still pretty
2) sleeping in for the first time in a long time
3) John Krasinski in License to Wed (he's just so lovable!)
4) Eat Pray Love being such a good book
5) My dad talking like a cowboy when watching Lonesome Dove

And today, well today just started, but I bet I can still come up with 5:

1) My kitty snuggling with me this morning instead of meowing in my face
2) picking out cute outfits to wear for the weekend
3) knowing I'm going to see Danny in mere hours!
4) a tasty breakfast
5) a quiet office for the day, where not much is expected of me, thank goodness!

Ok, that's about all the concentration capacity I had, so I'm going to go back to "working," which is code for bouncing in my chair!

Grateful Journal

When I was younger, like in middle school, I used to keep a "grateful journal" and every day before I went to bed, I'd write down 5 things I was grateful for. My friend Esther told me about it and it was such a great thing to do because even if I'd had a bad day (oh the woes of middle school) it would always force me to think of good things before I went to bed. And I hate going to bed angry or upset, which backfires sometimes. But anyway, I've decided I want to start doing it again, but doing it here is so much easier because 1) my handwriting stinks, 2) I like the pretty pink color of my font and 3) it's really better now to do it at the end of the work day because that is when I am at my most gloomy. So here I go, today I am grateful for:

1) Yoga on the deck tonight
2) My friends and family
3) Danny submitting his first Chicago secondary
4) Last full day of work for the week
5) Taking a long lunch

I'm in a good mood already! What a great thing! I think everyone should do it, the world would be a better place if people did that every day.

My biggest guilty pleasure

Danny, sweetie, you may not want to read this post. My guiltiest pleasure in the whole world is wedding magazines. And honestly, it doesn't stop there, I love going to weddings, I love looking at wedding pictures from friends and family, I love looking at the Vows section of the paper, which is, in fact, what prompted this particular post today. It's not even because I'm in a super big rush to have a wedding of my own (ok, Danny, you can breathe now), it's probably just because I have watched way too many romantic comedies in my life and I have been going to a lot of weddings since I was little, even being the world's best and cutest flower girl in one, if I do say so myself. My dad is from a family of 12, so most of my aunts and uncles got married after I was born. I cry at every wedding I've ever been to also, even some particularly touching weddings in movies or on TV. There is something that gets me every time and I can't even pinpoint it, but the feeling of weddings is so great.

I guess part of it is that a wedding is one giant theme party. Everything always looks beautiful, everyone is always happy and all dressed up, to quote Wedding Crashers, "There's music in the air!" I mean really, what's not great about seeing two people you know and care about ridiculously happy to be together and then celebrating by eating and drinking and dancing all night? That's the perfect party! The other really great part about weddings is that the couple have gone to such great lengths to put themselves into this great party. It's better than your average backyard bbq because every single detail has been planned to both reflect their personalities and to make the guests happy.

I think my love of pretty clothes has also heightened my giddy enjoyment of weddings/wedding magazines. The clothes for weddings, the dresses, the tuxes, the veils, the matching outfits for the attendants, they are the prettiest clothes ever. (Ok, there are some heinous choices out there, but for the most part, they're great.) They all have beautiful added details and they've all been fitted so they look great on. The wedding dress is especially so awesome, because as an incredibly girly girl, there's something so cool about knowing that the bride is wearing what is probably her favorite dress in the whole world. I know guys just don't get that, but trust me, if you're a girl, there is not much that is more exciting to you than that. Except of course, diamonds. And what do you know? That's another great part of weddings! You get to openly gawk at the bride's beautiful engagement and wedding rings. Well, maybe you're not supposed to, but I clearly do. I can't help it, I like sparkly things!

Thankfully Danny's friends from home are quicker to get to the alter than any of my friends because we have already gone to one wedding this year, which Danny was in (he is SO cute in a tux) and we're going to another in the fall, thank goodness! I haven't gotten enough of my fix yet this summer. My friends really need to step up, because I'm ready to partayyyy ;)

Happy Birthday Melissa!

Yesterday was Melissa's birthday, so this post should technically have been written then, but I was so tired from Melissa's birthday festivities of the night before, it wasn't going to happen. I love celebrating birthdays with my friends because the evening always begins with a nice dinner where we are very grown-up and sophisticated and ends in a divey bar with us screaming "Proud to be an American" at the top of our lungs. As my card to Melissa pointed out, no matter how old we get, our immaturity never really goes away, and I like it that way to be honest.

Melissa has been my very best friend since high school and then we went to the same college, studied in London together and lived together our final 2 years of college. This is the first time we haven't been in the same city in quite some time, but we've done a really good job of staying in touch, especially because we're not too far away from each other. Mel is in medical school and even though she'd never actually admit it, she's incredibly smart and really good at what she's doing. Despite the fact that she participates in idiotic displays of stupid dance moves and bad singing with me, I am positive she will be an amazing doctor.

We definitely have some very specific differences between us, but lately I have been realizing how similar we are. Well for starters, we are both blonde, we dress the same and we love the color pink, so if it's your first time meeting us, it might be a little hard to tell us apart. We're both incredibly girly and more importantly, we're definitely both Midwestern girls. We're friendly (Melissa more than me though), we're close with our families, we both love corn, you know the standard Midwestern personality traits. One striking difference between us is that I am confrontational and Mel is not. Both are advantages and disadvantages and I wish we could both be both at appropriate times, but even that I think we're both getting better at. We definitely balance each other out. I guess another very important similarity between us is that we're both very loyal to our friends and to each other. We're definitely there for the people we care about and I know without Melissa, there would definitely have been times that I wouldn't have been able to pick myself up again. We've seen each other at our worst and our best and have still been there no matter what, so I think that's pretty great.

OH and probably the most important thing that we have in common, we have brother and sister cats, Zac Morris and Kelly Capowski and we LOVE them. Yes, we named our cats after Saved by the Bell, the show had a really big impact on us, what can I say? They are the prettiest cats ever and we both dote on them a ridiculous amount. Anyway, that's just a little bit about Melissa, my very best friend. Happy Birthday Mel, now you're as old as me for 3 and 1/2 months, HA! (I had to end on something sarcastic, that's something we do too, tell jokes when things get sappy.)

My thoughts are in London today

Last night police found a potential car bomb outside Tiger Tiger, a popular bar/restaurant on Haymarket St. just off of Piccadilly Circus. I was so shocked to find out the location of this near-bombing because it was around the corner from the building in which I studied during the fall semester of my junior year of college. Tiger Tiger was a place we would go for 3-pound lunches (that's price, not weight) or where we would stop and have a drink at happy hour before going to a show because it was right in the heart of the theatre district. I am just very glad that the police were able to identify the threat and remedy it before anyone was hurt. I remember during orientation for my semester abroad there, the head of our program, a very dapper British gentleman, talked to us about how the threat of terrorism was a way of life for Londoners, long before 9/11 and how they have learned not to live in fear. I think that is so remarkable how even though they have been victims of terrorist attacks for years (although none as ghastly as 9/11) the people of London do not approach their lives with fear of another attack. Of course the government is doing what they can to curb those attacks, but the people of London truly enjoy their lives and do not alter their habits or daily lives despite this potential threat.

London is probably my favorite big city in the whole world (that I've visited at least) and even though I've lived in Chicago for a full year, I can honestly say I know the city of London better after living there for a mere 4 months, 3 years ago. I was saying to Danny how even though this incident was scary, when I saw all the images of London on the news this morning my immediate feeling was how much I miss that city. If I had to choose a place to go live for a year I would choose London in a heartbeat, no hesitation whatsoever. I love that I know it well but still feel as though there is so much more I want to experience and explore there. I've already decided that the next time I travel abroad I have to go back to London. I know I'll always have other places I want to go too, but I feel like London is a place I'll always have to go back to every few years, I don't think I'll ever be able to shake the feeling of wanting to go back time and time again.

I'm sure the other reason I love London so much is because that's where Danny and I met. I think it will always be special to me because of that. It's just a wonderful place and there is no other big city in the world that feels like it. I know people say all big cities have a unique character and I guess they do, but they're all big cities. I almost feel like London should be in its own category, it is truly that extraordinary.

Late Afternoon Musings

Just a few things I've been thinking about this late afternoon, being very tired of working with an hour to go:

Dick Lugar, Republican senator from Indiana (yeah, Hoosiers) stepped up to the plate yesterday. He publicly announced, as ranking Republican for the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, that President Bush was running out of time to make very necessary changes to his policy/strategy for the war in Iraq. As a senator who has voted with Bush on everything regarding the war, this is a big step. I always thought I liked him, even if he was a Republican...

The season finale of this past season of the Office makes me so happy. I just watched it last night and can't get the last 5 minutes out of my head. I am literally going to be on the edge of my seat until Season 4 starts. Ok fine, not literally, but figuratively for sure, all summer long.

When I go to Salt Lake City next weekend, Danny's going to show me the salt flats, like in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, when Jack is alone (at World's End) in what appears to be a giant, snowy white desert. It's pretty much going to be sweet.

I am going to see Ocean's Thirteen tonight and I have to say, most of the members of that cast are enjoyable to look at, but I long for the days when my feelings about Brad Pitt were so much less conflicted. He is very good looking, yes, but I still hate the way he ended things with Jen, no matter how good of a dad he is now. Watching this movie would be so much less complicated if he had just kept it in his pants.

I am in grave need of sunlight. If I don't spend time outside this weekend and get some color on my face, I swear I won't go out in public anymore all summer long. I look like I'm on my death bed right now, seriously.

Ok, I should end on a less shallow note. It's my friend Melissa's birthday this weekend, and she's "sad" about turning 23 (which I've been for 9 months now), so I am bound and determined to make it a fabulous birthday celebration for her. I'm calling it the Melissa's 23rd Birthday Extravaganza Walking Tour 2K7, catchy, huh? Hopefully we'll have lots of fun and she'll forget all about the fact that she is officially mid-20s, HA! It's really perfect because after Melissa's birthday this weekend, Jenny's birthday later this month and Danny's birthday at the end of the month, they can all really put their energies into planning MY birthday, and only 3 months to do it! Come to think of it, I should remind them to start brainstorming ;)

All Danny, All the Time

Now that I'm starting to get the hang of this thing, I guess I can write some stuff that, believe it or not, is a little more important to me than foodnetwork.com. I can't think of any topic better to start with than Danny (and he complained to me last night that he wasn't mentioned in yesterday's Italy post). Danny is half-Italian, but by the looks of him after a few days in the sun, he might as well be straight off a beach in Positano. Yes, I, the very fair Midwestern blonde, have managed to snag a guy who is quintessentially tall, dark and handsome.

Danny lives in Salt Lake City currently and we have probably one of the most successful long distance relationships in history. We've been together for almost 2 years now and been long distance a full year of that, which I find astounding, because we do not act like a couple who has not been in the same city for a full year (minus the airplane tickets and nightly phone calls). Danny is doing research in a genetics lab in Salt Lake in preparation for applying to medical school, and he actually just began the almost year-long application process. He'll think I'm just sucking up to him by saying this, but Danny seriously is the smartest person I know and not in an annoying or dorky way either, he just gets things. I said before, he is very well-read and he is the guy who buys the Economist and can't wait to devour it, which I understand if I'm talking about an US Weekly with a good cover story. Beyond that though, the research he does in his lab, it's honestly incredible. He doesn't just do what he's told, he figures out how it all relates together and what the meaning of the experiment is. I honestly believe that if I wasn't dating Danny, I would be much less intelligent because he does a really good job of keeping me on my toes.

Danny is also hilarious and I owe his sense of humor a lot because it has introduced me to Dane Cook, who seriously makes me laugh so hard I almost choke and The Office, a show which I am now so addicted to I actually just re-watched all of Season 3 over the past few days. People who didn't know the Office would get lost during some of Danny and my conversations because we quote and reference the show so much. Sometimes we literally fill up a whole half hour with talking just about the most recent Office episode. We are that cool.

Danny also has a great family, which is nice for me because it makes my visits to Salt Lake much less stressful. He is the oldest of 4 kids, and he has 2 younger brothers and a sister. He's such a good brother it almost makes me wish I wasn't an only child, almost. But seriously, he really is so great with his family and you can tell a lot about a person by the way they interact with their family, so I can tell I've got a good one.

I'm realizing I have pretty much just bragged about Danny and inflated his ego this entire post, so I'll also mention one flaw. Danny is TERRIBLE about doing the dishes. Even if I have spent an hour cooking a 3-course meal for him, he doesn't agree with me that he should do the 15 minute chore of the dishes. I HATE doing dishes, I really think it's one of the reasons I got so into cooking because in my house, if you cooked most of the meal, you don't have to do the dishes, or at least all you do is dry. I think part of the reason Danny refuses to do the dishes is because he knows it drives me crazy. I can nag him into doing them eventually, but even then, I usually have to dry so that I can watch and make sure he scrubs well enough, etc. Oh well, I suppose if that's the most significant flaw I can think of, I should count my lucky stars. Maybe I'll just have to invest in a heavy duty dishwasher...

Wishing I could visit Italy soon...

I'm currently reading the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and although I'm only a hundred pages into it, I can already tell it's a book that will leave a lasting impression on me. The title refers to the main focus of Ms. Gilbert's 4 months of travel each in the following places: Italy (Eat), India (Pray), and Indonesia (Love). So far I am still in the Eat portion of the book, meaning the author's 4 months spent mostly in Rome, eating the food and immersing herself in the language.

I took Italian for 2 semesters in college and I would love so much to go back to Italian classes because it is such a gorgeous language and it really isn't horribly difficult to learn, especially since I took Latin in high school. (That makes me sound totally hip doesn't it?) Every time an Italian word or phrase is mentioned in the book, I can't help but say it out loud because Italian is just so melodic. Maybe after law school I'll find that time to take a class again? HA. PSYCH!

I have to say though, the part of the book that makes me miss Italy the most is the very colorful descriptions of the food in which she is indulging during her stay in Italy. I love Italian food that I can get in America, but there's just something about the way they cook in Italy. All the fresh ingredients and the olive oil that has such flavor and ohhhh the bread and pasta, I'm feeling faint just thinking about it. If it's possible to reach a state of nirvana from food, I'm pretty sure you could do it in Italy. Unfortunately, since I've learned that less carbs in my diet means less love handle, it's almost cruel torture to hear about the things she is eating in this book, full well knowing that not only can I not have this food because I am not in Italy, but even if I was or if I attempted to make or get something like it here, I would be racked with guilt at eating something that is basically pure carbohydrate. Ugh. I probably deserve a new outfit or something to inspire me to not eat badly, somehow that always makes me feel better.

The Supreme Court Is Ruining Our Country

Ok, so this is a little more serious than most of my posts but I need to vent big time. I just got done with my daily NY Times perusal and Oh. My. God. Most liberals are so busy bashing our essentially lame duck president that they're not looking at the real potential cancer of our country, the only branch whose power is much more solidified than any other, the Supreme Court. Why Sandra Day O'Connor, why why why did you retire? Now that Roberts and Alito have joined the Conservative ranks of Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas, the Conservative majority is on an animal-killing, freedom of speech and religion-stripping, big business-supporting, precedent-overturning rampage!

The most recent decisions that are just KILLING me are the decision which essentially ruins the McCain-Feingold law on Campaign Spending Reform and the decision in National Association of Home Builders and Environmental Protection Agency v. Defenders of Wildlife. What the first decision basically did was overturn a piece of the McCain-Feingold law which prevents companies and unions from paying for ads that even mention the name of a candidate for federal office in the 60 days before the general election and 30 days before the primary. Because the ads in question were "issue-focused," the Conservative majority ruled that they should be allowed even though they mention the names of 2 Democratic candidates and lead viewers to a website disparaging one such candidate. It kind of seems to me like these companies, you know like oil companies, insurance companies, big business in general, who ironically tend to support the Republican party, will be able to use this loophole to pay for many many "issue-focused" ads which basically support their candidate of choice or disparage the candidates in opposition. This has created a slippery slope to ruin all the progress that was made in the area of campaign finance reform, once again promoting platforms chosen only by those with money, a very small minority, and ignoring the wishes of the people. I am frightened for what this could do.

I can't honestly decide which I'm more frightened about honestly because the second decision I mentioned has decided that it is more important for the EPA to allow states to hand out water pollution permits to developers than to protect the endangered species that this development will inevitably kill. So once again, the Conservative majority in the Court favors big business at the expense of possible extinction of some species. Isn't it ironic that the Environmental Protection Agency is actually supporting the developers? Kind of seems like a conflict of interest to be called the Environmental Protection Agency and then allow corporate developers to pollute water sources causing actual entire species to go extinct...huh. GRRRRR, please please please, let a liberal or even just a moderate candidate get elected in '08 and let a conservative justice retire so a moderate or liberal can replace him, please please God. For the sake of our country and it's Constitution, because some serious constitutional rights are going to start getting stomped on by this Court soon if changes aren't made.

Hi, my name is Carly and I am addicted to foodnetwork.com

Ok, so it's true. I am completely addicted to foodnetwork.com. I really do love cooking, but it's fairly unlikely that I will get around to cooking all the recipes I have taken from the Food Network's website and yet still, every day, I look at the day's TV schedule and save the recipes that 1) sound good and 2) are actually possible for me to make. I do at least realize I have limitations when it comes to cooking, but still, when I first discovered this magical website, I didn't realize that, so I even have recipes saved from months ago that require more time and equipment and expertise than I will probably ever have in my lifetime.

Still, though, I looooove cooking, especially now that there are certain things I've gotten quite good at. I even have a few dishes that I can honestly say I make well, Danny's favorite being my linguine with clam sauce, ironically not even a recipe from the Food Network, but it is sooo good. Thank goodness for Danny that I have gotten better at cooking because he has been my guinea pig and when I was first starting out, it was not pretty. I made a chicken parmesan once that I swear was twice as much parmesan as it was chicken, and even though I love cheese, nothing should ever be this cheesy and poor Danny choked it down even though it was definitely not my best work. By now I've learned things like how to alter recipes to people's tastes and how to time my cooking so that I don't have one dish done an hour before the rest, but it's taken a few years of experimenting, at the expense of some people's stomachs.

Today I found a recipe for Chicken Potstickers and I've been on an Asian food kick, so maybe my next experiment (with Danny as my victim of course) will be some kind of Asian meal, I could do a whole theme! And here I go again...:)

Rainy Days in Chicago

Well, I'm fresh back in Indiana from my weekend in Chicago and it was a great weekend just because hanging out with the girls was great. Of course though, when Melissa, Tamara and I arrived in Chicago, it was 65 degrees and raining and all we had packed were teensy summer dresses in the spirit of the beachy boat bar. So then we all put on leggings underneath and we looked like the Three Musketeers but we were obviously very cute. Tamara got immediately tipsy and was saying the most hilarious things, but many were inappropriate to publish online. Let's just say Tam has no filter when she's had a few cocktails ;)

Anyway, Jenny and Mike met up with us and I was sooo excited to see them, they're the best married couple ever. They are so fun and in love and hilarious and wonderful, I hope I'm like that when I'm married someday. It's so weird how you don't realize how much you miss someone until you're with them. Jenny and I have both been busy and out of town a lot so far this summer so we haven't talked a ton and getting to talk and hang out with her last night, it was just great. Even with Danny, even though I talk to him every single day, on our weekends together it is so wonderful to be with him that there's almost a bittersweet element to it because I realize what I'm missing when I don't get to be around him. Luckily I am going out to Salt Lake City in 12 short days! This summer has been great because I get to see him every 3 weeks and I love visiting Salt Lake because he always shows me something cool. As a girl from Indiana, everything about mountains and mountainous areas is mind-boggling to me :) I only hope for that trip I pack appropriately because teensy sundresses just do not cut it in 60 degree weather...

Signs I'm Becoming a Grown-Up

I have started reading the paper every single day. This is huge for me. For some reason, even though I was fairly politically aware and passionate about certain causes I always shied away from the newspaper. It could have been because my hometown's newspaper is so abysmal in comparison to the NY Times or even the Chicago Trib or it could be that, quite honestly, it made me sad to read the paper most days, as shallow and childlike as that sounds. With the war in Iraq and the constantly terrible things in the news, it was really difficult to see all those horrible headlines and actually want to read the story underneath.

But thanks to a combination of boredom at the office and a desire to really be politically informed and motivated to act for the upcoming elections next year, I have made it my business to read the NY Times online every day, even the sad stories. I kind of do it throughout the day too, making sure to read at least one hard-hitting news piece and at least one softer piece like a movie review or a travel article. It's got to be doing some good and at the very least I have semi-interesting things to talk about with Danny, my boyfriend, who loves reading the paper and very serious magazines like The Economist. He's so well-informed it makes me feel very unintelligent sometimes, so this is helping me keep up with him. Now when it comes to the lighter stuff, I can tell you about all the actors' upcoming projects, who's dating who and of course, what they're wearing on the red carpet, but I think I need to add a little intellect to my repertoire.

So far today I've learned that the Japanese population is declining so much that it is hurting enrollment numbers at their universities; A Mighty Heart is a movie that, despite its commercial star-power is actually very evocative and well-done; and the government is beginning to release reports rating hospitals in various areas of care, most recently its care of heart attack and heart failure patients. So there you go, consider my horizons expanded.

drama, drama, drama in the office

Today there is serious drama in my office. All week I have been preparing for a trial for one of the partners, it's a really sad battery case where our client just got the crap beat out of him. Anyway, the defendants didn't have an attorney so they were defending themselves. The case is supposed to go to trial on Monday and the Court just called to let us know an attorney is trying to appear on behalf of the defendants, which means he'll file a continuance which means the case might not even go to trial on Monday after all this work! Ugh! The partner is not happy at ALL. He's on conference call with them now, so hopefully this will get cleared up shortly.

In other news, I'm leaving work early today to go to Chicago and I'm so excited b/c another of my roommates from college is meeting us there. Tamara is seriously the most random and funny person in the whole world so anytime she meets up with us for things, hilarity ensues. I really have to remember to bring my camera because Tam always throws out some great poses. The great thing about this trip is that it's so summer, you know? Taking a road trip, going to a bar on the beach, having cocktails with friends, it's just the perfect summer activity and I will defffffffinitely need a cocktail or four after the office drama. :) Hopefully I can call Jenny and her hubby Mike too. Jenny is my heterosexual life partner from law school, we're together all the time and I love her to death and on top of that her husband is awesome and they're always down for fun things to do, so obviously they will L-O-V-E the Boat bar, I mean who wouldn't?

My first post!

Yay! I'm so excited to start a blog because it gives me something to do when I just CANNOT handle some of my boring tasks at work. The thing is, there are parts of my job that I really like, I love most of the people in my office and I really do love learning about the practice of law, I know for sure that's what I want to do. The problem, however, with working for a small firm in a small town is that there isn't as much of the really exciting stuff to do. Everyone in a small firm has to do their fair share of crap work and I shouldnt' complain because obviously the secretaries have way way more of it, but I definitely get some stuff that is so boring I could fall asleep on my desk.

But anyway, enough complaining, I'm very lucky actually that my job pays pretty well and is giving me the opportunity to have one last summer in my hometown. Having a summer here after my first year of law school is incredibly comforting and the advantage of my building in Chicago not allowing subletting is that I have a place to stay if I feel like I can't handle the small town life for a weekend.

In fact, that's what I'm doing this weekend. My very best friend and I are going into Chicago because one of our roommates from college is having a get-together in honor of the longest day of the year! We're going to one of my new favorite Chicago watering holes, Castaways, or as I call it, "The Boat Bar." If you've ever driven or run down Lake Shore Drive, it is the giant fake boat about a half mile north of the Hancock building. There is really nothing exceptional about its drinks or prices or anything, but it's a GIANT BOAT, what's not fun about that? And, I must say, the beer garden up top is a great place to sit in the sun and enjoy some cocktails. It kind of reminds me of the Sex and the City when they have the roof party with the trannies, except no trannies. Well, there could be, I just didn't spot any last time I was there. Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to that and I'm sure I'll post all about it soon!