Fab Long Weekend!

So this weekend was one of the best I have had in awhile (excluding Europe)! It kicked off on Thursday with my roomie's bachelorette extravaganza - Gervais & Vine for a yummy dinner then off to PT's Caberet for the drag show. I wasn't even aware that Columbia had a drag club till last week but I must say there is only one way to describe it "Fab-u-lous, dahling!" It was a hella good time and fun was had by all (especially the bride who was more than a little worse for wear when I poured her into bed at about 2:30) . Friday was a bunch of last minute wedding running around complete with a brunch at Motor Supply Company, which was lovely- the food scrumptious and the company hilarious (it was good times even if the groom didn't manage to make it after the bachelor party funness and the bride was still rather hungover and thus forced to only eat toast). Because of all the last minute wedding stuff (and the partying of Thursday night), I played hooky from work so I actually got a chance to kinda chill for a little while which was great cause I have been feeling like I have been constantly on the go for the last couple of weeks.
Saturday was the wedding and it was absolutely beautiful. The bride was stunning and the ceremony was so touching that I will admit to crying a bit. There is nothing more amazing then seeing two people that you totally love and know that are completely perfect for each other celebrating that love in front of friends and family. It was good times, but the true good times came at the reception. This was hands-down the most fun I have ever had at a wedding. Seriously the reception was such a great time that I half expected Owen Wilson or Vince Vaughn to crash! Alas that did not happen and the closest brush with celebrity was Sam Pancake (yes that is his real name) who is on Lovespring, International . I danced my little heart out along with everyone else till about 11:30 (and now have the aching legs and feet to prove it) and had a fab time. Luckily I managed to escape the bouquet during the toss, although I did have to do a bit of a dive to avoid it. And the best part of the whole night. . . not a single person asked me "Are you dating anyone?" or "Is that (points to bride) going to be you soon?" Talk about magical!
Sunday rounded out the great weekend by me getting to hang out with my best friend from high school who is in town from New Mexico. I hadn't seen her in over 3 years as she has been living overseas with her Air Force husband, so it was absolutely wonderful to see her. We have kept in touch through email and now that she is back in the states by phone but nothing beats getting to see someone you love in person.

All in all, a fantabulous weekend. After a week or two of self-doubt mixed with a pinch of self-pity at time it was just what the doctor ordered. I am now totally and completely exhausted but it was so worth it!

Sigh

So it has been less than 24 hours since I made my pledge to try to complain less about the little things in my life and instead focus on how lucky I am not to be involved in all the crap things happening in the world, and I have to say its really quiet hard. Currently the world is going to hell in a handbasket with the Middle East trying to blow each other up, earthquakes and a tsunami in Indonesia, floods in China, and a severe drought in Eastern Africa that has 11 million people facing starvation, yet still I find myself thinking "woe is me" thoughts throughout the day. Does it make me a bad person that I am already having trouble not thinking whiny thoughts about being stuck on an assignment I don't particularly enjoy at work or about how I feel like I need to get away and escape reality for a day or two? Cause it sure makes me have a not so fuzzy feeling about myself. I know you can't go around constantly worrying about all the world or you will be constantly miserable (I did it for awhile as a child when I used to cry myself to sleep thinking about all the little kids in Africa who were starving. All that happened is me ending up being depressed and sleep deprived. And before you ask, Yes, I do acknowledge I was a strange child), but I'm feeling that I need to step it up and stop being so me-centric and maybe become a bit more positive about all the great things in my life instead of focusing on the few things that annoy me about it.

A moment of somewhat preachy outrage

So I have somehow managed to go for about a week without getting all political but that is about to change. I just have to take this moment to say WTF?! What the hell is freakin wrong with Fox News?!!! Well actually there are zillions of things wrong with it (Fair and Balanced, my ass! More like the Bush Propaganda machine ), but I disgress. Normally I just avoid it like the plague so I don't get so freakin angry but as I was flipping I happened to see something that caught my eye. What you ask? Well, Fox was analysis the impending implosion of the Middle East and announced that what we as American's should be worrying about is how it will effect gas prices!!
Now I am all about saving some money cause God knows I am freakin poor and I would be the first one to do the happy dance if gas prices fell below $2.50, but damn! I mean seriously. . . Bigger issues here people! Hezbollah and Israel are bombing the hell out of one another and now Israel has troops entering Lebanon. Currently at least 200 Lebanese civilians and 12 Israeli civilians have been reported as dying as a result of the violence. This is about so much more than freakin gas prices! This is being described as one of the largest mass evacuations since World War II. Tens of thousands of people are trying to flee the area. Currently 25,000 Americans alone are trapped waiting for the American government to get around to helping them. (Oh side note on that, another WTF, the American government is freakin' making these citizens sign a promissory note before they are being evacuated!!)
I'm sorry this whole thing just pisses me off. I realize that its much easier to worry about things that are directly effecting you, and rising gas prices are definitely scary and important , but damn. It frightens me that instead of focusing on the human suffering and potential WWIII level violence that could erupt as a result of this, a major national news source tells me to freak out about how much gas prices may rise. Have we as a nation grown that uncaring about the plight of others? Have we grown so jaded that we look at innocent people dying and mass destruction and see only dollar signs? I desperately hope not.
So yes I am eventually going to worry about how gas prices are going to crush me, but for now I am going to instead take some time to think about all those innocent people who wish their biggest problem was paying 3 bucks for a gallon of gas. And yes in a day or two I am going to go back to bitching about all the stupid little stuff that ticks me off about my life but for now I am going to try to just be grateful. Tonight I am going to be going to bed without the worry that my apartment will get bombed during the middle of the night and the knowledge that my family is safe, and that is more than enough reason to feel good.

The Dangers of Procrastination

Its its 8 in the morning and aside from the 1.5 hour nap I took I have been up all night because I am a moron. Once again I let procrastination and zero motivation kick my ass. Instead of just freakin' buckling down and pounding out my exam, I slacked and procrastinated. And because I of this sucky behavior, I spent the night working on this stupid exam instead of sleeping. Why, oh why, do I make these stupid self-destructive decisions. Do I secretly hate myself or have some dormant desire to not succeed?

Grey's Anatomy wisdom to go with my lack thereof:
"A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I'd have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong? What if you're making a mistake you can't undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we hadn't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying."

Sigh, back to working. On another note I found a new favorite song its "Waiting on my Real Life to Begin" by Colin Hay and it is absolutely beautiful. Only 99 cents on iTunes.

Music for Your Crisis - Avenue Q

If you need some music for your quarter life crisis, I highly recommend Avenue Q. Its a awesome music (won the 2004 Tony) about being 20 something and struggling to find jobs, dates, and the ever-elusive purpose of your life. I very much recommend. Oh and did I mention it has puppets and is very much an homage to the Sesame Street style show. Puppets and people who struggle with all the issues you do set to music with songs like "The Internet is For Porn" and "It Sucks to be Me". . . awesome!

Quarter Life Crisis

I am convinced that there is an epidemic of quarter life crises occurring in our country or at least among the people I know. What do I define as a quarter life crisis? Well, I think its 25 to 29 year olds who are getting out of college and graduate school and joining the workforce only to realize that their jobs or lack there of (and in some cases much of their life) falls considerably short of what they though they signed up for. We feel that we were lied to and sold a bill of goods that was inherently damaged. We were all told go to college and then maybe you will be virtually guaranteed a great job. I distinctly remember being told by a college advisor that I could "get a job doing anything" with my undergrad degree in sociology evidently I missed the part where she said "of course that is only if you go to law school, med school or some other graduate school and even then 'anything' might be limited to working at Wendy's or the Gap." Not that there is anything wrong with working at either of those places but I did not spend 7 years of higher education and hundreds of thousands of dollars to say "Would you like to make that a combo" or "Would you like to apply for your Gap card and save an extra 10%"

Lately I have been struggling with the feeling that maybe somewhere along the way I made a horrible mistake that sent me down the wrong life path. Not a bad path, but just one that is not for me. I am thinking that maybe I should have just gone to tech and saved myself the pain of higher education and its woes. And I know that I am not alone! This week I chatted with my aunt (27) about my uncle who is in his late 20s with a masters degree and he is one of the youngest assistant principals in his school district and pretty much their shining star. Currently he is daydreaming of running away from his job and starting up his own lawn mowing or pool cleaning and repair company (in fact I was offered a spot in this new venture). He most likely won't ever do it but just that fact that he fantasizes about walking away from a career that took him 6 years of higher education and about the same in work experience to achieve is disturbing. A few more of my friends each went to college and spent 2 years getting masters only to spend the past few months temping, being unemployed, or working retain at the mall. What the hell is up with that?

What is wrong with this picture? Is it worse for us because we went into our higher education in one of the best job markets for employment seekers and came out in some of the worst? Is it worse for use because of the horrible economy and that we are the first generation predicted to be less financially secure than our parents generation? Some have said that that we are just spoiled and overly sensitive about "paying our dues" and in reality every generation of college/graduate school grads has this crash with reality. Are we really just sitting in our ivory towers and complaining about how high it is? I'm inclined to say no and that we are entering a brand new age that has us facing a brand new set of problems, but if I'm wrong why the hell didn't our parents warn us?

Hypocrisy and Intellectual Snobbery

So after my first post I got a comment about how maybe the things I hate about my fellow law students are the things that I secretly hate about myself. And since I did just announce that I think of myself as an honest person I feel the need to examine this idea. Well, in some ways that is completely off base such as me hating them such as blind ambition and willingness to do anything and everything for a spot at a top law firm (top = highest salary) because I really am not that type of girl. What I want in a job is not a corner office and tons of frantic law clerks to order around but instead one that pays the bills, has decent hours, doesn't make me feel like I sold my soul to the corporate whores, and don't make me feel like I have to watch out for a knife in my back.

Now on to the things that probably do describe me. I hate to say it but I am a hypocrite. Not in all aspects of life but in some. I firmly believe that we all are in our own way. Do I like that I am, no not really. Do I think that I can realistically change, no not really. My biggest moments of hypocrisy usually involve me saying something that is passing a judgment on those who judge others. On numerous occasions I hear myself saying, "I just don't like X, he/she is always so intolerant of people unlike him/her. X is always making judgments and criticizing those people." Then I have to be like What do you think you are doing right freakin now? Yes I know its hypocritical but I justify it to myself as somehow being morally superior because well I am only condemning those who do it to others already. I am intolerant of others people's intolerance.

My other big offense: Intellectual snobbery. All throughout my childhood I went to crap schools where I was the smartest kid in my year and probably top 5 for the whole school. This is not because I was so freakishly brilliant but instead I was above average and blessed with supportive and educated parents in a school system where most of my classmates had parents with a middle-school/ partial high school education. I had parents who pushed for excellence and knew how to nurture and support me to get there - my homework was monitored, report cards checked, and spelling vocabulary quizzes in the car on the way to school. Unfortunately that was not all I had, I had the constant adoration of my teachers. Although my parents were proud of me and complemented me on a job well done they were sure to try to instill in me humility and the idea that someone out there always knew more, but my teachers looked at me as sent from heaven. I was worse than a teacher's pet. I was someone they put on a pedestal for all to marvel at my greatness. When everyone around you tells you how amazing you are you start to believe it. I was insufferable I truly believed that being smart equaled being better than someone else. At 15, I transferred to a much more challenging school, but I still skated through with little to no effort and found myself going to a top 20 university. In college I did truly understand that I was not the smartest kid there but still a little voice inside me head (and many outside voices of classmates) said "even if you are only slightly above average here that still means you are better than 98% of the rest of the population" I was so smug in my intellectual superiority. "Oh, you went to state school . . . Well that's nice. Me? Oh I go to ABC" Looking back its a wonder no one decked me. Then came law school. I realized that everyone around me is "one of the smartest kids in their class" and as I watched my class (me included) I realized that education does not equal better. How can you be the "better" person if you are so self-involved and self-important that you worship at the alter of yourself? Better people are the people who give so much of themselves and then apologize for not giving more. Better people are the people who remain humble and generous and who make others around them feel better about themselves.

I spent the first 20ish years of my life making myself feel better by putting others down and marveling at my own intellectual superiority. I refuse to continue. I wont lie and say that I am now totally reformed. I still shy away from dating anyone that isn't at least college educated and I still catch myself getting a little zing when I take on online intelligence test that puts me in a high percentile, but hey I'm human. Everyone likes to feel special and above the cut at times, the important thing is not to use that feeling as a weapon against others.

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For those of you in the audience wondering if I realize that this blog will most likely cast me in the light of a less than nice person (some would even say a bitch) the answer is yes. I am completely aware of it. I have never made any promises or proclamations that I am or have ever been a nice person. I mean I think I have nice moments but for the most part I think that I am rather jaded and sometimes more than a bit harsh to others. Of course I try to work on it and be nicer and more forgiving but honestly when you have a semi-anonymous blog (ie only your close friends who already know what type of person you are know you are the author) its more than a little alluring to go back over to the dark side and speak your mind 100%. I don't think this makes me a bad person. I think it makes me an honest one.

Confession 1

I pretty much hate everyone at law school. There I have said it. I hate them with their smugness and their attitude that they are so much better then everyone else. I hate them for their snobbery and for this hypocrisy. I hate them for their uniform of a polo, a pair of khaki pants, and mirrored sunglasses hanging around their necks on croakies for the guys and a cute skirt, cut too low top, and a pound of makeup for the girls. I hate them for their willingness to run-over everyone and everything in their way of making top dollar in a corner office at the much touted Nelson Mullins. They are all willing to sell their souls to the devil to make it to the top. But what I hate about them even more is that every once in a while I find myself envying them. How can that be you gasp. Well its simple I envy how they can easily shrug off the misery of law school 'cause in their minds its worth it when they can be the one to torture the next generation of law clerks with summarization of 200+ page depositions or spend days researching only to be told that the project is shelved, while I trudge along thinking that maybe I don't belong here in the first place.