divine angst

After a whirlwind few days, my family have all gone back home and I am officially a law school graduate. I’m looking around at the detritus from the commencement festivities—a kitchen full of dirty dishes from brunch, a broken china cup and a missing vertical blind^[1], a slightly wigged out dog, and an exhausted husband.

It still doesn’t feel quite real, and maybe that’s because I spent most of the graduation festivities trying to introduce my family to the law school (metaphorically speaking) instead of reveling in my accomplishment and celebrating with my friends. I’m not sure how that could have been any different, though. In a lot of ways, law school has been, for me, about the relationships I’ve formed at school, and I kind of feel like I haven’t gotten a chance to really say goodbye to a lot of my friends. (Luckily, I don’t really have to yet—most of my friends will be staying here this summer, even if they’re off to other cities and states this fall, so we’ll have plenty of time to hang out and enjoy being graduates.) But I still feel a bit cheated out of celebrating my graduation with my friends. The tradeoff—celebrating my graduation with my family—is a good one, but also sort of difficult. My family don’t really know what this experience has been like for me, though I’ve tried to share some of it with them (I haven’t, I admit, been terribly good about it). But I wanted them to enjoy the trip up here, and so I maybe spent more time stressed out about making their time here fun and enjoyable (and accessible, honestly) than relaxed and excited about graduating.

Moreover, this week is my week to finish catching up on the last few academic duties still on my plate—I have to finish revising The Task and complete the edits on the last few journal articles—so maybe I don’t feel graduated yet because I’m actually Not Done. So here I sit, sort of at a loss, knowing I should take the rest of the day to actually relax before I jump back into work tomorrow, but edgy and antsy enough to feel like I need to be working now.

1. The vertical blind fell and knocked the cup onto the floor. There may have been human assistance in its falling. It’s OK—turns out that, despite the pattern being discontinued, replacements.com had a replacement cup in stock. I’ll end up with an extra saucer, but that’s less of a big deal than missing a cup. ↩

This weather makes my skin dry, which usually manifests in an itchy back or ankles. Until today. My fingers were itching, so I took off my rings to discover dry, peeling skin underneath. Ack! My rings are platinum, so I’m pretty sure this isn’t an allergic reaction, so I’m hoping it’s just the weather. Even so, it’s pretty pissy that my rings are rubbing my finger in a way that LOOKS like I’m allergic to them.

Yucky.

And there I went, disappearing on you for another long stretch! This blogging thing is getting harder and harder!

I want to write something on the difference between how I study now versus how I studied two years ago, but I’m also kind of afraid to sit down and think about how I study now versus how I studied two years ago. My grades are, basically, the same as they were then (with the exception of one semester that Shall Never Be Spoken Of), so I’m not really sure how valuable such a post would be—either for anyone reading or for myself. Because the basic gist is that I spend much less time outlining (I do still outline, I just do it more quickly) and much more time zoning out in class (but I do still go to class, only missing when I absolutely can’t help it), but I end up getting the same basic grades.

Or maybe not. My most unexpected (good) grade from last semester was in the class I went to every time but one, paid attention every day, and outlined earliest. My most unexpected (bad) grade was in the class I missed several of, outlined last, and took last. Hm. Maybe I’m wrong about how I study.

In any case, I am super busy right now, finishing up some last-minute stuff for the semester, so I don’t really have the time to give such a post the treatment it deserves. So I’ll make do with this cheery message:

Your grades are what they are. Do your best. Prepare as fully as you can. Take the exam. And then forget about it. If the grade isn’t good, deal with it. Play up your other strengths when you’re interviewing—get involved in a student organization or volunteer with a local legal aid group. Take a clinic. Just remember that you ≠ grades. You’re in law school for a reason. Remember that reason.

By the way, I know I’m supposed to get the Law School Roundup posted at some point, but I’m having trouble pulling it together. Frankly, the only thing I’ve been paying much attention to in the law-student-blogosphere this week has been the nightmare Lag Liv, her husband, and son have been going through.

It’s times like these the anonymity of blogging really gets to me. Luckily, not everyone is anonymous, but, face it, most of us are. Anonymity is just fine when we’re all griping about the work, the work, and, oh yeah, the work—or the gunners, the administration, the feeling of being completely lost—but every once in a while, real life comes crashing down and I realize we are NOT just floating along in a bubble called law school.

Perhaps I’m just a little introspective right now because my grand plans for next year didn’t turn out the way I thought they would. Don’t get me wrong—my “Plan B” is just fine, and might, in fact, end up better than the plan I originally pursued. But I’m actually staring Real Life in the face here, when I’m actually not really ready not to be a student any more.

The lesson to be learned is that you can’t manage your life. Oh, you can keep your ducks lined up, and make sure you cross your t’s and dot your i’s, but every now and then someone will come along with some birdseed, and the ducks will scatter, or you’ll knock over the pot of ink, and your t’s and i’s will merge with a sea of messy. I’m having to just let go lately—get through the day, and then get through the next day, and get through the following day—and the only crappy thing about that is knowing that there will always be another day, even when I’ve caught up or finished my work.

I know this hardly counts as a Roundup, but it’s the best I can manage right now.

Mr. Angst bought me this, even though it’s not really an appropriate birthday card from a spouse, just because it’s so damn funny—and so me. Had to share.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently, my readers like my food posts. How do I know? I get more comments on them. I can’t really blame you—everything else I’ve written lately has been pathetic.

At any rate, for everyone’s culinary pleasure, here’s another food post. We had some pork chops in the freezer and Mr. Angst wanted me to do something roasty and Italiany with them. I went a-searching, and came across this , which I’m pretty sure I remember reading back in 2004 when it was originally posted but never made. It seemed to fit the bill quite nicely, so I dove right in. (OK, I had to go buy some sage first, but the grocery is only a few blocks away. It would have been better if this was Tuesday, when I could have scampered over to the farmer’s market, though.)

With no further ado, then, here’s how to make it.

Important with this recipe: get everything set first. Sometimes you can prep as you go, but it’s easier with this one if you get your mise en place ready.

Collect ten or so sage leaves, and pull the stems off. Then thinly slice a large garlic clove or two medium cloves. Juice a large lemon. Then salt and pepper about a pound of pork chops. I used three boneless “America’s cut” chops.

Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. You could use pure olive oil, but lately I’ve been using something called Olivextra, which is basically olive oil mixed with some canola oil. It raises the smoke point of the olive oil so it doesn’t burn so easily. You’re not getting a lot of that olive oil flavor when you heat olive oil, so you might as well make your life easier and not risk the burning.

When the oil is shimmering, lay the sage leaves in the oil. When they start to curl around the edges and the edges are getting just a little brown, pull them out. I used tongs, and that worked fine, though you could use a slotted spoon or a spider skmmer. Then lay the garlic in, and saute it until it starts to turn golden brown. Be careful here—you don’t want the garlic to burn. Pull it out as soon as it starts to get some color!

Now that your oil is all infused with lovely sage and garlic flavors, place the pork chops in the pan. Mine were a little under an inch thick, and I cooked them for four minutes on each side, which was a little too long (I like my pork medium to medium rare, and they turned out a little closer to medium well). Next time I’ll probably do three minutes on each side.

Once the chops are cooked, pour in the lemon juice and then add the sage and garlic back to the pan. Stir everything in together. If there are any browned bits in your pan, scrape them up and mix into the sauce. I had no fond because I was using a very non-stick non-stick pan, but it still turned out excellent, so no worries if you don’t need to deglaze. Let the juice and all the other good stuff in the pan come together, but don’t overcook it. Once the sauce starts to look a little thickened, pull the pan off the heat.

Place the pork chops on your plates, pour the sauce over them, making sure to equally allocate the sage and garlic, and serve with roasted potato wedges and a nice salad.

Welcome to this week’s (slightly belated and somewhat unfortunately numbered) Law School Roundup, in which I present posts by law students and soon to be law students full of advice and funniness during exams. (Except for those people on quarters. I don’t know what to do about you guys.)

Enjoy!

• Good tips for managing the load. (Reasonable Expectations)
• Bad choice for landscaping. (A Little Fish in Law School)
• The tiniest handwriting. (Above Supra)
• Seriously. It’s exams. SHHHH. (Cella Bellum)
• Last minute shopping. (Frequent Citations)
• Professors can be funny. Weird, but funny. (katlet)
• During exams, advice of a different stripe. (Magic Cookie)
• Sort of funny apologies. (Peanut Butter Burrito)
• Things it would be helpful to know in advance. (Shelley’s Case)
• Further proof that the law school exam is a perverse pedagogical tool. (Think Like a Woman. Act Like a Man.)
• Yet it’s STILL the only game in town. (Amicus Curiae)
• Remembering old favorites. (Ceteris Paribus)
• Just remember your ID next time! (Clever WoT)
• Listing things just makes it harder. (Equal Process. Due Protection)
• Here’s her! (Transmogriflaw)
• She’s a real, live lawyer now! (Life, Law, Gender)
• But he’s so CUTE. (The Namby Pamby Law Student)

And that’s it for this week’s Roundup. Look for it next week at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground and then back here in two weeks. Good luck on exams if you’ve got ‘em!

It’s been a busy 24 hours. Yesterday, after work, Mr. Angst and I drove to Nearby City in a rented pickup truck with a bunch of stuff to store at my dad’s house and a bookshelf for my sister. Between loading up the truck and driving down there, I’m surprised we’re still talking to each other.

This morning we came back to Our City and took our car to the dealership to see what they’d give us for it. Their offer was paltry, but that’s OK, because we have a private buyer who wants to buy at a better price. (That buyer is a family member. I have good family members.) We also came back with an extra vehicle from my dad—a small SUV, something we thought would be mucho helpful for moving stuff from our cluttered apartment into our storage unit down the street. We can use this vehicle all summer, since we’ll be short a car. I’ll probably still take the bus a lot, but the extra car will be nice for those times when we really need two sets of wheels.

Anyway, the SUV, which is a great car—I drove it in college some—does have some issues. The spare tire, for instance, is on the back of the car and the mount that holds it won’t swing open, so we can’t put the tailgate down, and thusly can’t load any of the big stuff that we actually needed the SUV to move.

Urgh.

But all is well. We’re being patient, and later this week we’ll take our car to the relative who is going to buy it; while there, we’ll have my dad check out the SUV and figure out why the mount won’t open. We also may get to go to a playoff basketball game! It should be fun.

Tonight, we’re going to walk down the street to one of our favorite sushi restaurants and have a lovely dinner. My office voted me as Employee of the Quarter this week (a big, lovely surprise—it’s nice to feel valued, even if my job isn’t always perfect) so I have a gift card—a Visa cash card thingy—and we’ll be using that to gorge ourselves on tasty raw fish and rice. Mmmmmm.

I made a mistake when I titled this post.

So for anyone who got here looking for information on Apple’s newest music player, the small, svelte one that mixes your music up, sorry. Nothing here to help you.