losing my mind

it seems i'm losing my mind.

it's connected to having too many details in my mind, i think. i'm used to carrying a lot on my plate, but most of it has been much broader and more predictable. like i'd be taking 5 classes at a time, but they all had similar work, so i was able to keep all my tasks organized in my mind. but now i have tasks & thoughts flying in a hundred different directions, so i'm not really doing any of it well.

case in point. today i had to teach. on my way to school i decided to go to kinko's to shrink down my diploma. i need a copy of it to include with my loan application for the house i'm buying... b/c they're loaning me money based on a job i haven't started yet. so yeah. i went to kinko's & it took about a half an hour to get all the machines working properly to shrink down my ridiculously-sized diploma to a reasonable size to put in the application packet.

as i was leaving kinko's i realized i'd left the other half of the stuff i needed to copy at home. so i'll be making another trip at the end of the week.

so then i go to school to get prepped for class. only then did i realize that i didn't have my powerpoint presentation with me. it was saved on my laptop at home. so i spent about a half hour re-doing the powerpoint. it's now about 30 minutes before class, and i realize that i don't have the book i need for class. they only have it on reserve on the library, so i have to get what i need out of it in the library before going to class. yes... what fun. i brought only the things that i didn't actually need for class and left everything i needed at home.

but i did actually survive the day and the class. and someday i'll have all these tasks completed. i kinda wish i didn't have anything to think about other than studying, b/c i feel like i'd be able to give more attention to it. but that might backfire, b/c i'd be so bored with the stuff that i would be going out of my mind. there are only 62 days or so until the bar exam. i have much to do before then.

and yes, i do have a planner that i use. it seems i just have to be more explicit like "bring this book and don't forget powerpoint..." so i'm working on that.

thankful

i'm sitting in the living room of my new house. my graduation cap & gown are hanging in a closet, just waiting for me to try them on. there are boxes strewn around various places in the many rooms of the house. the books sit on bookshelves, but they have yet to be organized. and i'm sitting here, ready to fall asleep, writing & watching an old movie.

i have so much to be thankful for. my parents made it home for my graduation, the classes i'm teaching are going well, and i am now living in a beautiful house that has so much potential to be used for many different things. tomorrow i'll graduate from law school, and i never have to go back to school if i don't want to (i'll probably want to). and tomorrow i get to celebrate with my whole family the work i've done over the past few years. so i'm just taking a moment to be thankful to God for what i have and where i am, right this moment.

and so it goes

it seems like i should have way more time to write now, since i'm done with school. but it hasn't worked out that way. i've been doing a bar review course from passyourbar.com. i picked the cheaper one that you can just do at home through audio, and i'm kind of going nuts. it's just a lot of hours a day to be sitting in front of a computer taking notes, playing games while trying to pay attention to what he's saying, and taking practice tests. by the time i'm done with studying for the day, i don't want to be anywhere near a computer.

funny the things that stick out when you listen to the same person over & over again. today i was mildly irritated that the speaker kept pronouncing the word "lien" like "lee-in". in my world it's a one syllable word. so yeah. it's been a long week listening to cds...

i've started packing to move. i hate stuff. i really do. if i could throw it all away & do without it, i would. i like books, and don't mind packing them. but those little things that just sit around, that you use maybe once every 5 years... that's the stuff i hate. but it's such a waste to throw it away & then buy it again. so i just pack it away in boxes. what fun. it'll be nice when i've moved everything & can unpack. i love to unpack things & put them away. somehow it's more creative & satisfying to me than packing.

and so it goes.

the close of one chapter

well, law school is over. it's hard to believe that it really is done. it went really fast. yet it feels like such a great accomplishment. i think it's because of how much work i put in. even though college was 4 years, i just didn't have to work as hard to succeed there.

i'm working hard to savor the accomplishment. if i don't, i'm going to just start studying for the bar hard-core, but i'm not going to have the energy to make it through the end. i'm so fatigued. i pushed myself really hard for the last couple of years. this semester was tough, because i didn't have the energy left to push myself anymore. so now i'm taking a break (for like 3 days) so that i'll be at least a little refreshed when i set up my study schedule. we'll see how that works.

so yeah. only one more big thing before i can get back to just living life like a normal person. ok, so that probably won't actually happen... but at least i'll have more freedom to build relationships & spend time with people.

just for fun

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house hunting... again

i found a house today that i want to buy. it's a beautiful old house with the original trim & nice wood floors under carpet that was never nailed down. you come into the house & look through the large living room, through the beautiful dining room, through an arch in the wall (with 2 little arch window-like things) into a sun room. the sun room has built-in book shelves. the back yard runs up against a nature preserve that will never be built on. big bedrooms and an unfinished attic complete its charm. as a bonus, the roof is new & there's a high-efficiency furnace and a new water heater. not sure about the insulation factor or the windows, but i'm going back tomorrow to look at it again before i decide whether to make an offer.

so... after 35-40 houses, i finally found one that i really like. we'll see if i still like it tomorrow & what my friends have to say about it. it's been an adventure though. today i saw some super-cool old houses. they had some awesome woodwork and tons of potential. but they were all located in areas that wouldn't resell for as much as i'd be putting into the house to make it better. they were true money pits. but totally awesome old houses.

some houses have absolutely no charm. i went in one where they finished a basement with the ceilings about 5'9"... so short i felt like i had to duck to be down there. i saw one house that was decorated as if it were on a tropical island & whose bedrooms were all linoleumed (not carpet, not wood). but it's been fun. a nice change of pace from the pressure of studying & producing things all the time.

house hunting

so i decided to buy a house this year. we have quite the buyer's market going on right now, so i'll have a lot of places to choose from. i have a list of 17 properties that i'm going to see with a realtor this friday. it's a little overwhelming, and i hope that i'll be able to keep them all separate in my mind.

but it's kind of fun too. i don't think i've ever really chosen where i was going to live in quite the same way. i always just do the functional thing, or the convenient thing, and then i adapt. i can adapt to anything. so to think of actually choosing a place because i love it or love things about it is kind of new for me.

so right now i'm looking for a place with wood floors & unpainted wood trim, a big open living room area, and 4 bedrooms. i'd love to have an attic that is already finished, or that i could finish.

we'll see if i can find what i'm looking for within my price range. actually, there are tons of possibilities already, i think.

so i'm sitting here looking at properties instead of cleaning my house... so much more fun...

4 more saturdays

i'm a mere 4 saturdays away from the end of law school. one month, and it's history. it's so hard to believe that it is already time to be done. truly it's flown by in such a blur. it was only a little over 2 years ago that i started law school. and now it's done.

but i am ready. i'm excited to be finishing up. i'm looking for a house to buy this summer. i'm planning on opening a non-profit. i'm planning on passing the bar exam, so i've started studying. i'll be teaching at my law school as an adjunct this summer, so i'm planning for that. and i'm looking forward to hanging out with my family and my best friend, who will be visiting this summer. and i've decided to take a week to go camping at the end of the summer, before i start my new job, so i can recover from all this excitement...

the sheer volume of responsibilities and changes are keeping me quite busy, which is why i haven't been writing much. but things are going well, i am doing more than well, and life is good.