Hats

Okay, I'm probably saying exactly the same thing that every other royal wedding-obsessed American girl is saying, but I'm going to say it anyway.

Why don't Americans wear hats?  And, whatever the reason, let's forget it.  Can we please start?

I feel like my life is not complete because I haven't had the opportunity to put one of these beautiful creations on my head.  In fact, ever since I got up at 4 am to watch the wedding, I have become slightly obsessed with hats and have spent countless hours looking at websites that sell hats.  Nothing I have found comes anywhere close to the beautiful creations I saw on heads at the wedding.  I love the colors and the style and the drama it adds and I am so, so jealous of all the high class British women who wear them.  The only hats I have had occasion to try on have been super tacky, most likely found on the heads of fifty or sixty-something church going women.  Since I meet neither of those two categories, I have not seriously had the opportunity to wear one.

Sometimes I think I may venture to Kentucky just so that I can have an occasion to wear a hat.  But wouldn't I just look silly?  I'm not sure.

Still, I've compiled a couple pictures of various British women (with an emphasis, of course, on the Middletons because, let's face it, I am cliche and I just love them) just for funsies.  I hope one day I get to wear something similar.

Here's Momma Middleton...  She's soo pretty!

Okay, I have to admit, I'm not sure if I like this hat or not.  But still.  I can't imagine designing that and being like, "I know where I'll wear it!"  To me, that looks totally random.  Not to mention uncomfortable.  Does she feel like it's going to fall off when she turns her head?  It looks like it might.  Still, she's a princess, and I'm not, so what she says is fashion probably goes.

I wish Kate would teach me her ways.  I love these feathers.  How did she know she could wear this?  I can't imagine wearing that anywhere in the United States without getting a lot of weird looks.  So jealous!

Once again, I'm not sure if I like this.  But this is art!  I mean, I don't ever think of millinery shops--except, of course, when I watch Hello, Dolly! but there is some serious artistry that goes into hat-making.  It's kind of a lost art, too, because people just don't wear hats anymore--unless, of course, you're British and royal, or at least an aspiring-royal.  What a shame.

I love the pillbox hat and birdcage veil look.  Also love the jacket.  So adorable and form fitting and perfect.  Yup, still jealous.

I love Pippa, too.  And what a cool little hat! 

One day, I will wear a hat like that.  Even though I know it's not really appropriate for every day, I will make a point to do it at least once--maybe for my wedding!  (Which, by the way, for those of you who--like me--are waiting with baited breath for an update on my marital situation, may be sooner than I was starting to think.)

It is a lifetime goal to wear a hat like that and not look ridiculous.  If they can do it, I can do it.  Right?

Groupon, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

Okay, maybe it's silly.  But I'm a bargain shopper.  And lately all of these websites that you can sign up for to get daily deals make me super excited.  In fact, in the mornings I wake up like a kid at Christmas almost every single day--and run to my computer (okay, not RUN, because I prefer not to run unless someone is chasing me with something very sharp) to check out what the deals are today.  Usually, I don't buy them--because I don't have $150 to pay for teeth whitening right now, no matter how good of a deal it is--but sometimes, like today, I do.

So one of the deals wasn't groupon, but "GetMyPerks.com" doesn't fit quite as neatly into my title, so please excuse me for my little misrepresentation.  Today a deal came in for a one hour massage and a manicure for $47.  I wasn't going to buy it because I am poor (it is the end of the semester, after all) and I haven't started to work yet.  But my sister called this morning and asked if she could buy it for me for a graduation present.  Very touched, I said yes.  FYI: I accept presents at all times and for all occasions, however trivial.

So she bought one, too, and we planned a weekend for her to come down from NOVA where she lives (only temporarily while she's in school, we're definitely not NOVA people by nature).  I have to admit, I'm super excited.  The salon is in Virginia Beach, so it'll be a little day trip for us.  Massages, manicures, lunch on the boardwalk and a walk on the beach, and then back home for some afternoon wine tasting with our mom (we pretty much do that every Saturday) and our Saturday night family dinner.  It'll be a wonderful day and I totally can't wait.

I also found a Groupon (yes, actually a Groupon) for two tickets to see our local AAA baseball team, the Norfolk Tides, for $9!  Regularly they're $9 each plus a bunch of convenience charges.  And what says summer like a baseball game, a beer and a hot dog with your boyfriend? 

I try not to use these coupon sites to buy anything that I wasn't already planning on buying because then it's not really a good deal, its something extra that they convinced me to spend my money on.  But these were two things I planned to do, and I'm really excited about it.  You know, sometimes I think half the fun in doing anything is the anticipation and the planning.

Can't wait for all these fun things!  It's SO nice to not be in law school! 

Happy to be Home

Yesterday was the first day in seven years that I have returned home, knowing that no academic calendar would take me away in a few days, weeks or even months. 

Andy invited me to go fishing, but I decided to spend the day with my parents at our new farm on the Eastern Shore.  (Mostly because I was tired and knew my parents couldn't leave before noon at the earliest and with the royal wedding on Friday morning and driving home on Saturday morning, I was super stressed and totally exhausted.)  But I took some pictures!


Don't you just love springtime?  I love all the wildflowers. 

I definitely fancy myself a bit of a wildlife photographer, with a specialization in labrador retrievers.  Doesn't Emerson look pretty with yellow flowers around him? 

Everything here is so green!  In WV, it's still not QUITE spring and everything is awfully brown.  But back home, everything is so many different dappled shades of green! 

I don't have much to say, because, let's face it, life is pretty slow at the moment.  I'm just trying to take some time to savor being finished with finals and waiting for law school to really feel like its over--right now, it feels a little surreal and more than a little anticlimactic.  Once my BarBri shipment gets here and I have to start studying for the bar exam, I will get a much-needed jolt back to reality!

It's so hard to believe I'm home for good, and that so many good things are about to happen! 

Changes Are Afoot

Since I am no longer a law student, I can no longer boast that my blog provides to its readers tales of a (somewhat) regretful law student.  I am no longer a law student, but not yet an attorney so, for now, I am "in medias res," which is my academic and somewhat snooty way of saying that I am stuck in the middle of a lot of things.

Maybe I'll come up with a cleverer title in a little while, but for now, this is it.

I finished my last final, turned it in, went to the post office to get a (PERMANENT) change of address form, came back and cleaned my apartment with a violent ferocity I did not think myself capable of.  Everything is pretty much clean now (or at least, the stuff I can get to for now) and my landlord is coming tomorrow at 12:30 to do my pre-move out check which will hopefully demonstrate that I am deserving of a full refund of my security deposit.

I'm also planning on setting my alarm promptly for 4 am tomorrow so I don't miss a second of royal wedding mania.  Silly?  Probably.  Unrelated to my real life?  Definitely.  But I've never been the kind of girl to miss out on some good-natured frivolity.  I love weddings, I love British history, and really, really love this whole fairy tale thing.

I'm not loving the new title.  But maybe that's just a function of missing my law student identity, which has been gone for all of four and a half hours.

We'll see what happens as my life develops. 

Identity Crisis

This morning is the last time that I ever write anything as a law student.

My last exam, a take home for Employment Law, is due today by 3:30.  And once it's turned it, that's the end of my law school career.  

It's hard to believe.  I feel like I'm stalling because I'm not really sure how much I want it to be over.  As much as I've complained about it (and as much as sometimes I've genuinely hated it), it's hard to face the end of one phase and truly feel prepared for what the next will bring--when you're not even sure what that means.  I've been a student for a really long time.  Some of my friends have taken years off, but I'm not one of those people.  I'm 25, and I have been in school every single year since four year old preschool started.  That's more than two decades worth of school--and the time of my life where I wasn't in school, I don't even remember.  

The whole bar exam thing is really pretty inconvenient, because it means that I have several months of limbo where I'm nobody--not a student, not a working person.  But I guess being a bar studier is a respectable thing.  And I'll work for my dad sometimes, and part time bait girl is a part of my identity that has existed since I was 15.

I'll keep blogging, but I'm going to have to be something more than a (somewhat) regretful law student, since I'm only a law student for a couple more hours.

And it's funny that it turns out that maybe I'm not so regretful after all.  This may have been the best choice I've ever made.  After all, I have never been so excited about the prospect of any kind of job as I am about the one I have back home.  People keep telling me how many hours I'll have to work, and I respond with, "OMG, I hope so!"  I can't wait to make my mark, can't wait to belong to this firm, can't wait to decorate an office and make my case in court and make my own money and prove to everyone (including myself) that I can hold my own in this setting.  It's the most exciting, the most intimidating, and the most rewarding thing I have ever faced and, right this minute, I sort of feel like every tear I shed, every time I was worried I'd fail, every single time a professor Socratic-method-ed me---was totally worth it.

Of course, I am viewing the world through the rose colored lens of the newly employed (but yet to start working).  Still, I really don't think that my opinion will change.  I was so deeply impressed with the people from the firm that I met at my interview, and I eagerly anticipate the next time I get to have contact with them--they're that cool.  Who gets to work with people that they'd totally want to hang out with anyway?  Yeah--this girl.

If I didn't have a job, I wouldn't be nearly so eagerly anticipating being finished.  It's hard to believe that, out of all the promising talent and impressive resumes that I have been surrounded by for the past three years, I was one of the elite few to have been singled out for employment pre-graduation.  It's not like I'm more talented that my classmates.  Certainly not smarter.  In fact, in many situations, I'm much, much dumber.  I got lucky.  That's the truth.  I found someone who appreciated me for my personality and was able to interrogate me and got what he wanted out of it, and I got hired more because of my emails and quirky personality than because of my law school career.  I guess he figures, as I have long suspected, that we're all really pretty even anyway.  Even the ones who are good at law school may not be good at being a lawyer--or maybe we're all equally good at being lawyers, once we get going.  But law school doesn't teach you how to be a lawyer--I saw that when I worked in clinic.  Law school teaches you where to find stuff, but many of the things that you have to do in real practice are not anything like what you get taught in class.  And, it has to be said, legal research and writing is the biggest crock of shit I have ever heard of in my life.  

I hope that all my classmates find the kind of job I've found: one that is exactly what they want.  I know how scary it is to be unemployed, especially if you feel unconnected to the profession as a whole (because your daddy isn't a lawyer).  I really do hope that my closest friends, especially, find something soon that eases their mind and makes them look forward to the transition.  They deserve it.  We all deserve it.  We're pretty awesome, it has to be said.

In a few hours, I will be done with law school.  I wonder how that will feel.  I've always said that turning in an exam, and then turning around to walk out the door of the classroom--is one of the most rewarding experiences there is.  I love the feeling that you've done something, done it well, turned it in...and now you're free.  You can walk away and, tonight, you won't even have to study for it.  You can set that book aside, because you've been there, done that.  I've always relished that feeling and looked forward to the next time I'd experience it.  Today, for me, is the last time.

Yesterday I also found out that my landlord will be replacing my carpet in my apartment, so I don't need to have it cleaned, which means three things.

1. I save $80.  Sweet.

2. I can watch the royal wedding and related television programs all day in the privacy of my own home without being disturbed.

3. I can go home early instead of waiting.

Although number 2 is probably the most important of the three, number 3 is also interesting.  I planned originally to have my landlord come look over my apartment with me on Monday morning, because on Friday it'd take like 4 hours for my carpets to dry and stuff and I was afraid I wouldn't have enough time to get everything really clean before Monday (since I figured I'd be working on exams through today).  But that's not the case.  I've been pretty free, and even had time to go shopping on Tuesday and get a pedi yesterday.  So I'm going to call my landlord today and see if she'll come look my apartment over tomorrow (afternoon, of course, I don't want to miss any of the wedding).  And then I can leave on Saturday morning.

Can you believe it?  Two days and I can be gone.  It's bittersweet.  

In a few hours, I won't be a law student anymore.

My Perfect Plan

I finally found a breeder in my general area that has yellow lab puppies available on May 30th, which is conveniently the weekend after I begin studying for the bar.  I'm thinking that's a good time because (1) I will be so miserable that I will need a fun, puppy-filled break and (2) I deserve it, damn it.

I can't think of anything else I want so much as a puppy.  This puppy.

Look how cute she is, with her little six week old mouth too small to hold a little tennis ball.  She's so perfect.  Unfortunately, this one is taken--but she came from the breeder I'm looking at (sorry, I want her to be purebred, it's important to me)--but the parents are different. 

Here's another from the same litter...  look how little her nose is!  When I see these pictures, I am overwhelmed with a desire to pick them up and hug them and never, ever put them down.  It makes my heart hurt I want one so badly.

This one's a boy (obviously) and I'm in the market for a little girl, I think, but look how freaking cute!  He's like, "I'm gonna be soooo bad!  Just wait til I get hold of your shoessssssss!"

Now, here's the pictures of the puppies I COULD actually adopt.  This is the most recent litter.  They're like 3 weeks old now and will be available in another 5 or so.  Pretty soon, the breeder will start separating them--each one gets a little collar with a number so you can see them grow and tell which one is which.  I like that.  Look at the little nose and teeny tiny little ears!! 

I don't know why, but I love the little puppy butts.  Little bitty fat tails.  Ahhh, my heart hurts.

Look how FAT the one on the bottom is!  What a little porker.  The other ones are like "mmm, this humongous pillow is so comfy!"  Is it bad that I think the fatter the puppy, the cuter? 

I am so in love.  Okay, so maybe I should have talked sense before I started posting pictures that make making legitimate, unbiased decisions virtually impossible.  

Anyway, the breeder is from a place that is about 3 hours away from me.  You want to know what ELSE is three hours away from me?  My best friend, Erin.  Now, technically, these things aren't in exactly the same place--the breeder is about 45 minutes away from where Erin lives.  But I was planning on taking a weekend before the bar started to visit with Erin and it is possible to go visit the breeder and pick a puppy when I go.

I also need to visit Erin because my friend, Adam, who graduated law school last year, passed the bar on his first try and is now practicing as a public defender, conveniently in the same city as Erin, has promised to give me some bar prep materials.  So, not only is this useful for (1) my social life, (2) because there's a J. Crew factory store there and I need a dress for my friend's bridal shower, (3) I need bar prep materials, (4) I need to celebrate my graduation, and (5) I could pick out a puppy.

Does it sound like a good plan?  Because I think it might just be.  

I need a little puppy that is too small to fit a tennis ball in her mouth.

After all, employed people can afford puppies.  And I will be an employed person very, very soon.  Employed people deserve puppies.  And employed people who graduate law school in like three weeks deserve puppies even more.

Gregor

In other, unrelated news, there is a many legged insect of some kind that is currently residing on my wall, past the point where I can reach, and just above my bed.

I think this is about the most uncool news I've had in a very long time. 

I would give him 24 hours to vacate the premises, but since he is above both the point where I can realistically reach and my bed, jumping and trying to kill him seems like a very foolhardy plan.  In fact, that seems like the way to end up with a many legged insect (1) in my hair, (2) down my shirt, or (3) hiding maliciously in my bed.  Since I really dislike all of these options, I am forced to leave him where he sits, though I do tell him every time I look up at him that I do not like him and it would be better for both of us if he found another corner in another apartment to hide in. 

Even though I have no furniture and am mostly alone, a buggy friend is not one I wish to have.

I think he may be the same many legged insect that ran across my floor the other day.  I did not like him any more then than I do now and I am going to be very distressed if he continues to reside in his current spot. 

I will call him Gregor, but only because it takes too many syllables to say, "damn you, many legged insect!"  Not being an insect expert, I can't identify him and, even if I could, it would probably be a word with a lot of syllables, too.  Though I do find the name Gregor somewhat humorous, I would not find it at all humorous if it turned out that Gregor was a member of the human-turned bug variety.  I have walked naked past him too many times for that to be a comforting thought. 

I don't like bugs with too many legs, like this one, but I also dislike ones that can fly, particularly when they fly haphazardly and don't seem to have much motor control.  The thought of them flying into me, and then walking over me with their creepy little legs give me the heebie jeebies.

I believe he is a centipede of some kind.  His presence is making me very unhappy, and I just thought you needed to know.

Gregor, you have to go.