No Biggie

Well, hello again. Since the last time I posted I've:

• Finished Finals and final hearings. So I could..
• Graduate from law school
• Done the DC tourist blitz with my family
• Done the DC favorite thing blitz with my Zach
• Packed up every last little thing I own, stuck it in a truck and drove for 24+ hours, unpacked it and crammed it into a little bedroom and a big closet in Zach's parents house in Oklahoma.
• Started studying for the bar

So, you know nothing big. I'd like to say that this means I'll be blogging more, catching up and what not, but apparently I'm supposed to be studying in my sleep. Of course, I was also supposed to do that in law school, so we'll see. I do enjoy procrastination more than property.

Oklahoma :( Edition

Thanks for all of your support and well wishes! It kind of makes me feel bad to go on complaining about Oklahoma, but if I can't discuss my fears/complaints on my blog, what's the point?

I didn't use to have strong feelings about Oklahoma. And then I met Zach. Zach moved to Oklahoma in the middle of High School and hates that place like only an irrational teenager yanked away from all his friends and home can. He took summer school classes to graduate a year early so he could get out of dodge, and even almost 10 years latter I don't think he's quite forgiven the entire state. For years we would make jokes about Oklahoma. It's not really an actual place to me, just where hopes and dreams go to die in a flat pile of dirt and football.

And now we're going back. And I'm very nervous? apprehensive?

The easiest and most vaguely concrete thing to grumble about is all the things that aren't there that I've gotten spoiled by in DC. It's really nice being able to just go, eh, I'm bored, lets go to a free museum or walk around and look at giant monuments or pretty houses or explore a new neighborhood or any one of the million easily accessible things here. Oklahoma has a cowboy museum. I've heard it's ok.

Not just fun things, but even stores that I think of as being normal, or have enjoyed window shopping in. I like meandering around Filene's Basement or Anthropologie if I'm feeling fancy and picking up produce from Whole Foods. Oklahoma doesn't even have Costco.

However, while we certainly can do all those fun things here, most of the time we are boring homebodies. Most of the time I browse the internet. We can probably do that in Oklahoma.

I'm also a little concerned about being so close to his family. We'll be living with his parents this summer, and will probably stay in the same town, as that's where the University is. I genuinely like Zach's parents. They're not only good people, but they make a real effort to be good parents and good in-laws. I know that they try to be supportive and loving and not controlling at all.

I'm still nervous. I don't quite know how things are supposed to be living so close to family as a married couple. And while they aren't pushy, they are people, and they do have opinions. Mostly, I worry about how this will change the dynamic of our relationship. I worry about Zach changing or reverting, or us being pulled in different directions, or some sort of subtle 3 against 1. I know that they are my family too, but it mostly feels like my family is mine, Zach's is his, and we're a whole new and separate thing. That's pretty much how things have worked long distance, and I just don't know how things will work all in one place and I'm not looking forward to a baptism by fire of moving into one house right away.

Family fears are just one part of my general, overarching screaming panic. I'm afraid that we just won't fit. I understand things here. We have a routine and a life and it's the only one I've really known since being married and I like it. And I feel like that's all going away all at once.

I worry about me being able to find a job. I worry about finding friends, or always feeling like weird outsiders. I worry about us and our lives and every little thing just not fitting, because nothing about how I think of Oklahoma feels remotely like me or like home. I've always lived in someplace that had something familiar. I grew up in Oregon, so the whole NW feels like part of my soul. Utah was odd, but having grown up Mormon it was just a super-sized version of the Church culture I already knew. DC was different, but I had already tried it for a safety run when I did a semester internship in undergrad.

Nothing about Oklahoma feels that way. It is a Red Cowboy Football Oil Rural Southern/vaguely Texan fly-over state, and I'm a super liberal coastal elitist snob. I'm not so sure I beleive in great big American culture wars, but if I did me and my stereotyped version of Oklahoma would be on opposite sides of the spectrum.

It's not the different I'm afraid of, it's the idea that we'll never fit and this will never feel like home. I don't want to spend 3-5 years as a fish out of water, gasping for air.

I'm sure it will be fine. Awkward at first, but then things will slide into place and by the time we're ready to move, I'll be writing another post about how I can't stand the thought of leaving my home. It's just that right now I can't imagine how that could possibly happen.

Almost Done (again)

I'm almost done! Of course, I felt like I was almost done when classes were over. And after I finished my last formal final. And yet again when I turned in my last paper. And I still have a hearing and plenty of other clinic goodies/stress. But I'd still rather think of myself as almost done. Huzzah.

And that's a pure huzzah, without a trace of nostalgia or sadness over the end of an era.

I am not going to miss law school one bit. DC, yes. People I met in law school, yes. The actual law school stuff? Not so much. Maybe I'm just old and cranky, or maybe law school just wasn't a good choice for me, but I am so over compulsorily learning for the sake of learning.  From now on if I'm going to study something, I want it to either be because I'm genuinely interested and excited, or because it has some sort of direct, practical application (preferably a cash-earning practical application, because apparently that free money that paid my tuition and rent for the past 3 years wasn't as free as it felt). Reading a long article on a subject I don't care about for a class I'm only in because it fit in my schedule and seemed marginally better than other options, but will probably never use for legal practice or the bar or even trivia games, oh please never again. Yes, I haven't forgotten about bar prep, but that falls under practical money making exception. Because in theory, that will help get me a job.

Oh, and speaking of bar prep, have I complained yet about how no one does bar prep for Oklahoma, because Oklahoma is a wasteland where no one takes the bar? Because it is, and no one does. Well, except barbri. But I really don't want to pay 3k for a fancy bar prep course where I wouldn't even be able to attend the in person classes due to transport issues. So I'm sort of hoping I can locate used materials or cobble something together. On the plus side, something like 90% of people pass to OK bar, at least since 2002 when a huge percentage failed, and since then I think they've overcompensated. So I'm not as worried as I probably should be. Besides, that's future me's problem. And present me should probably go be worried about hearing prep now anyways. Or finally write that why Oklahoma gives me sad, nervous face post I keep talking about. Definitely one of the two.

Oklahoma - In with the good

So back to that whole moving to Oklahoma thing. Have I mentioned that I have mixed feelings about that? Because I do. I so do. In an effort to not sound like a complete and total whiner, I'll start with the good. Which is pretty good, but as I said, complicated, mixed feelings.

The biggest and bestest part of Oklahoma is that Zach was accepted into the Political Science Ph.D. program! Horray! Very, very good and happy news. And he has decent odds of getting full funding (tuition, 1k a month stipend, oh yah, baby, we're living large). Also fantastic.

It's a decent program, but more importantly it means that Zach does not have to give up on his dream, that he gets to move forward on to hopefully awesome things. 

The second best part is that Zach's parents live there. Fortunately, Zach loves his parents. I like them quite well, and am moving closer to the love. It will be nice for everyone to get to know each other better. And I do kind of mean everyone. Zach and his family are close, but anytime people have lived so far apart for so long, that can't help but change things.

Also, it will be really, really nice to have a support network. There have been a few times out here where I've realized that if something was wrong, something beyond what Zach and I could handle, we don't really have anyone we could call. Which is entirely our own fault and the natural result of a hermit lifestyle and subpar interpersonal skills. Still, the idea that we could call people to help us move furniture or pick up some pepto-bismal in an emergency is going to be fantastic. And if they need us, it will be nice to be right there and able to do something.

Compared to DC, we will be able to live like Kings. The cost of living is crazy inexpensive. It's become my new hobby to look of real estate in the university town we'll be relocating to. I've found cute little houses that we could buy for less than I spent on law school tuition in a year. More realistically, I've found several lovely little houses and duplex that we could rent for 1/3 of what we currently spend. Twice the room for 1/3 the cost sounds heavenly. Ooo, and we could even paint! Or enjoy such luxuries as multiple rooms. Ah, the indulgence.

Really, it would be tight, but with Zach's stipend we could probably cover our bare living expenses. And that's nice.

And uh, those are the only 3 good things I can think of. Which leads me to the things I'm not crazy about post...

Last week of classes

Holy mother of pete dancing on a dead pirates nose while playing a ukulele (I've always been fond of colorful swearing, despite my obvious inability to do so). This is my last week of law school classes.

I'm one half, hallelujah, one half, don't make me go, the real world is scary. 

where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain

Oklahoma. Setting of both a mediocre musical and one of my favorite Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman movies (also the only Cruise/Kidman movie I've seen). A state where the 5th image result on Google is a lovely shot of presumably authentic Sooner cleavage. It also has an average of 54 tornadoes a year - one of the highest rates in the world. The state vegetable is a watermelon.

It is also the place where Zach and I will be moving to in May and living for the next few years. 

I'll say more when I have a better understanding of how I feel about this. Or at least a way to better articulate how I feel.

At the very least, it feels amazing to have an actual destination and plan for after graduation.

I don't mind dentists - just my dentist

The less fun part about Spring Break was getting screwed by my Dentist.

We used to go to this bad-ass old school dentist. She worked out of this kind of creepy basement office in some random apartment building. It was a one-woman show, none of that frilly receptionist hygienist stuff.  Not even x-rays. She would just look at you and know what was going on, and then dive in for the most painful and most thorough cleanings I've ever experienced. I was a little scared of her, but my teeth were great, and most of all the co-pay was always $20.

And then insurance changed things around and suddenly I had to go to new fancy dentist. Fancy dentist apparently works in a dental spa with little fountains and fancy laser x-ray's that show up on flatscreen tvs. Unsurprisingly fancy dentist's fancy machines found some very fancy gum infection that probably might just go away - but could also kill me unless I had a deep cleaning right now! Deep cleaning apparently would be a $70 co-pay, $90 total with some extra anti-bacterial rinse. Not wanting to maybe die, I figured I could do $90. So I hung out for $20 minutes, did the deep clean thing (What is the difference between a deep clean and a regular clean besides $70? They use different instruments, that get slightly deeper.) swished around some minty stuff, and went up to pay.

Whereupon I was told that special fancy deep cleaning chemical combo was actually $70+$90. Which being $70 more than I had agreed to, didn't sit right with me.

Fortunately I've been trying to get better at the whole responsible, assertive adult who is not cowed by authority things, so got up all my courage to  do the adult thing and very politely said that I had been told it would be $90 total, so would they please go and double check? They would, and they did. And came back and just as nicely told me that it was actually $160 per quadrant. As in not just $160, but $160 four times. $640 - which is about $550 more than I agreed to, and about $300 more than I really care about my teeth being fancy extra special clean.

I really wanted to argue some more, to use my fancy lawyer powers for good, or at least my own good. But my fear based on past precedent that I'd somehow end up with a $2400 20-minute cleaning won out so instead I signed the papers and went home to cry and call my Mommy.

Spontenaity

It's Spring Break a few weeks ago, and oh, I tried my nardest to enjoy it. Pretty well succeeded too.

Tuesday began with a much-needed haircut, and then we decided, out of the blue with no planning or foresight, to finally go and explore one of the little corners of the DC area that we've always meant to go down to, but never quite managed to work up the will power to actually go and do. (Old Town Alexandria, if you're curious).

We must have been giddy with spontaneity or something, because spur of the moment is so not how I roll. I plan. I love my plans, and spreadsheets. Generally any out of the ordinary excursion only happens after a few hours of googling and the creation of detailed spreadsheets of various sites to see and a host of dining options, complete with transportation timetables, a detailed map and a rough itinerary. I wish I was kidding. Well, kind of.

You see, my crazy planning apparently does have value. This value became very apparent about 10 minutes into our metro ride when it became very obvious that in our regularly routine lives, this was lunch time. Suddenly all the cute little shops and row houses and water front whatever really didn't matter. We needed food, and we needed it now. It's not hard to tell when we're hungry. We walk quicker, scanning the area like hawks. Our sentences become quick and staccato as we try to communicate as little as possible, because we know any extra syllables will only be hunger induced head ripping. All we needed to do was find some good fast food favorite. Like a 5 Guys or a Chipotle.

After about 5 blocks we found a Subway.

I have no problem with Subway. They are very adequate. They definitely give you food that is edible and tastes ok and is certainly worth $5. It's a perfect quick lunch. But this was spontaneous date day of love. And clearly that was much better suited by yummy but still budget friendly burgers or burritos.

I continued to feel that way for another two blocks. At which point it became very clear that a spontaneous date day of love depended much more on friendly, fed people that still liked each other than it did on the perfect meal. We went back and had Subway. It was very adequate.

One block past where we had previously stopped we saw a Five Guys. A few blocks latter, a Chipotle. What else was there to do but laugh?

All because one person was comfortable with profanity

Zach asked me out on our first date exactly four years ago. At the time I wasn't even sure of his name.

Supposedly we actually had two classes together in my first few years at BYU, but we didn't really meet until we were both members and officers in the BYU Democrats. I had started getting involved the past fall semester, while he was living in Germany. I was comfy with the group dynamic, and then all of a sudden there was this weird new guy who started coming and talking like he belonged. Which, having been involved for years, he did, but I didn't know that. I was just kind of annoyed by him. He had apparently noticed me a little more favorably than I noticed him, and more importantly, he thought he had noticed one of the other guys noticing me and felt the need to step things up. If I was more into economics I'd say something clever about scarcity or supply and demand or something. But I'm not, so I won't. Point is, he finally decided to do more than just hang out and get somewhat annoyed looks from me.

For one of our Dem meetings, we were pretty much just hanging out and writing letters to various legislative people. Zach sat next to me and quickly struck up a conversation. I wasn't particularly thrilled. Having purposely chosen my seat because it was near the club's official hot guy, being obligated to talk to the guy I didn't really know but was vaguely annoyed by was a little frustrating. But he kept talking to me, I kept replying, and before I knew it we had spent an hour chatting away. It was almost fun. The meeting ended, but we kept right on talking as he walked home with me (I thought it was on his way home, it was actually the exact opposite direction from his apartment). Even with all the easy flowing conversation, I still didn't have any interest in him. I was having fun, but the idea of this guy as a possible romance hadn't really crossed my mind.

And then, in the middle of chatting away on my doorstep, he swore. And hot damn, I swear I had to fight to keep myself from falling into a classic old movie swoon. Those four little letters were just about the sexiest thing I'd ever heard. Just a little thing, a damn or a hell, but nothing but a handful of awkward first dates and flirtations with some very nice but painfully bland guys, and me generally feeling like I didn't fit in, that one little word turned him from some random guy, into a person of interest.

Anyone whose ever met Zach would laugh at the idea of him being considered a "bad boy". But this was BYU and that one little word may as well have been . It was damn sexy and all of a sudden he wasn't some random guy who was kind of fun to talk to, he was a free thinking rebel who I wanted to push against the wall and have my way with (I was also not a sweet little BYU girl). So when he suggested getting together and watching a movie on Friday, I was all over it.

And that's the story about how swearing led to my marriage.

Back

So, apparently I decided to just abandon my blog for almost a month, leaving a filler post of puppets as my last known words to the internets. Oops.

Well, to update in brief - law school scary stress blah blah soul crushing etc. Not the most fun couple of weeks, and while I certainly support keeping the realism in blogging, sometimes even I don't want to just listen to me complain and freak out. Fortunately life is back to normal levels, and I really miss blogging. Life just isn't as fun without text based interactions between internet people.

I do feel a little sheepish for coming so close to making my blog every day for a year goal, and just kind of letting go. Oh well. Life happens. I keep telling myself that if I just go back and post things back dated, I can kind of still make it, but that's just not going to happen. What will hopefully happen is that I'll keep right on writing, only hopefully more for the sake of wanting to than an artificial goal. So, hopefully less puppet filler. I'm going to finally finish up my Europe vacation recaps, get back in the habit of commenting elsewhere and just generally have a grand time. 

The Internet Knows Everything About Me, Meh.

I don't really care about my privacy on the internet. At all. And I don't understand those who freak out. Oh no, facebook can take the things that you typed for all to see and tell people! Or today, when living social was doing that great $20 Amazon card for $10, a few people on facebook scoffed at those taking advantage of that deal for not reading the fine print where livingsocial can now sell your soul to the devil. Or do whatever they want with the stuff you told them. Whatever. (I didn't read the fine print)

Please. If I wasn't already giving it away for free, I would totally sell my privacy for $10 on Amazon. Because what no one has been able to show me is how anything that is done with the fairly generic information that I willingly put out into the internet is bad for me.

Now, if the internet could turn on my webcam and broadcast my oh so exciting sexcapades, or as is more likely me sitting in front of the computer  eating jo-jos, that would be bothersome. Or selling my credit card number to the highest bidder, that would also be bad. But telling someone what I bought? Or even what my age and address are? Who cares.

It's not like the stuff is being sold wholesale to the highest bidders on stalkersandserialkillers.com. It's pretty much just being compiled to give to advertisers so they can more specifically target their ads. Not that big of a deal. I'd rather see ads for Zappos than penis enhancement anyways. Besides, this type of data has always been gathered. I spent an entire internship doing regressions of consumer databases to see which company was most useful for campaigns. While it is a little crazy to see how much they can tell about people (diseases, income, party affiliation, donations, pets, favorite vacation spots, and almost everything else) it's not used for anything that nefarious. Just selling things (politicians kind of count as things). And they were going to so that anyways. I don't see how helping them do it slightly better really hurts me. And come on, $10.

Texts

I woke up at 3am last night, when my phone that I forgot to silence and was far to close to my head beeped very loudly as it got a text. Assuming that no one who actually cared about me would text at such an hour, I rolled over and went back to sleep for the next few hours. It wasn't particularly enjoyable after that rude interruption, but I still got up at the normal time and got all nice and ready for the day. Before leaving to catch the bus I had a few minutes to sat down to check e-mail, etc. Which was bittersweet, as the first message was informing me that due to icy roads, morning classes were canceled. Ordinarily a nice thing, an invitation to sleep in and enjoy, but when you're already wide awake and likely to stay that way it just feels mocking.

And that text message, that horrid sleep wreaking text message I didn't check? That was a message giving me early warning about the school closure.

Back to slightly more normal

Whew. It seems silly to say, because not only has school been going on for about a week, and I've been home from the great big vacation for longer than that, but I think I finally feel a little more integrated back into normal life. Last week felt like a horrible dream. What do you mean, I'm expected to actually be doing things and functioning like a responsible adult? Read stuff? Actually turn things in? What kind of nonsense are you talking about. Ah, it was a bitter, unproductive week were I felt very put upon by all the people and things expecting me to actually do stuff. I think I'm ready to just be back to regular levels of laziness. Which still means I don't want to do actual work sometimes, but I recognize that is a problem with me, not the work, and so I actually do stuff.

So far today I have successfully done the reading for one class,  cleaned up the pile of laundry that has been on my desk for weeks, put away dishes, load pictures to facebook, finally got my g-reader down to 100 from way too many (it kind of felt like work). And now I'm writing this. A few more clinic things before bed, and I am so ready to be normal this week.

Tree

We still have our itsy-bitsy Christmas tree up. Even though the lights have died. But, it still makes me happy every time I see it, so it'll probably stay up until it starts inspiring feelings of guilt instead.

My Mess is Lonely

Zach has been really fantastic in the housekeeping department lately. Not that that is new, he's generally been way better than lazy bones me. I walk in every day to find not just the normal stuff, dishes, vacuuming, etc, taken care of, but also some new big thing that we've put off forever. And clutter? Forget it, that's nowhere to be seen.

Except for the part where my my desk and other places that stuff just gathers until I put it where I go look twice as worth when contrasted with a sparkling shoebox. The obvious solution would be to pick up my crap, but right now I'm going with the wistfully hoping just a little of Zach's mess will come back to keep mine company.

Never let a job stand in the way of you time

So, I think I got to go along with my bus driver while she ran errands today. So few people are able to find a good work/life balance, but she didn't let the 20 people riding behind her hinder her from running errands to a random apartment building and a shopping center that houses a Starbucks, a dentist and a liquor store. No guesses as to which of those she went in to. I just know that twice she pulled over, turned off the bus, hopped out for a few minutes, hopped back on and kept driving without a word.

Scheduling

Classes started up again today, and I still have no idea what I'm going to be taking. As in, I've completely changed my schedule twice just today, and depending on how wait listing goes, I may change it all again tomorrow. It's all a weird mix of "oh goodness, this is my last chance to learn anything! what are the most important classes whose absence will haunt me forever" and "meh. last semester. who care. just don't pick anything too hard." So far I'm trying to strike a balance things by branching out and taking classes that are interesting but not family law or gender related, but that will also avoid 9am classes, late nights, and will hopefully give me the dream TWTh class schedule.

I also have no textbooks (what with the ever changing class line up) and am already stressed out by a mile high list of things to do for clinic. Oh what fun. I'd be so excited to be in my last semester of school, ever, if I wasn't so terrified of what was waiting on the other side.

Words Matter

“Are you afraid? Are you fearful today?”

“You know, I’m not. We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of protesters over the course of the last several months. Our office corner has really become an area where the Tea Party movement congregates. And the rhetoric is incredibly heated. Not just the calls, but the emails, the slurs. So things have really gotten spun up. But you gotta think about it. Our democracy is a light, a beacon really around the world, because we effect change at the ballot box, and not because of these outbursts — of violence in certain cases, and the yelling, and it’s just … you know, change is important, it’s a part of our process, but it’s really important that we focus on the fact that we have a democratic process.”

“I think it’s important for all leaders, not just leaders of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party … community leaders, figures in our community to say, ‘Look, we can’t stand for this.’ I mean, this is a situation where people really need to realize that the rhetoric, and firing people up, and even things … For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district. And when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there’s consequences to that action.”

“In the years that some of my colleagues have served, twenty, thirty years, they’ve never seen it like this. We have to work out our problems by negotiating, working together, hopefully Democrats and Republicans.”

–Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, March 25, 2010.

The shooting of Rep. Giffords and the murder of at least 5 others today is a tragedy. And it is my opinion that it is a tragedy that got it's start in the way we speak. I don't seriously think that Sarah Palin or any other politician who used violent imagery and metaphors seriously intends or desires anyone to actually act violently. The vast, vast majority of people from any political persuasion get understandably angry over things that matter to them, but not to the point of violence. That's normal. Not everyone is normal. And when we talk in ways that make other people seem like an enemy that needs to be targeted and destroyed, not a person whose ideas you disagree with, and that dehumanization is coupled with metaphors of war, violence and murder, I think that creates an environment that incites and in some ways even supports violent acts by the small minority of people who are not normal or rational. I think how we talk to and about one another can make a difference in how we treat each other. It's usually in small ways, but today it was a very big way. Words matter.

3/4

I am apparently incapable of finishing up my vacation posts. I have a post set out, pictures included and all for each day of the glorious trip. They're all about 3/4 of the way written, because instead of just writing one at a time and posting it, I apparently prefer to hope around and finish nothing. Oh well. Here's a pretty picture until I can get my act together.

My little hobgoblin

Sometimes I think of my seizures as being a 3rd party. It's not a chronic condition, or even a real part of my body, it's this mischievous little elf that likes to hang around me and cause mischief. Sort of a green and purple character, with a silly hat and eyes just to the mischievous side of devious.

If I have a seizure at a bad time, well it's just that little critter being a pain again. A good time, is an act of mercy, because bad as he can be, we're somewhat close and he doesn't really want things to be bad for me, he just has to do this, it's his nature. If I go for a period of being good for longer than I expect, I start to wonder what kind of trouble he's planning for the future.

I don't know why it's comforting to think of seizures as an outside entity, but it is. It's not me, not my body betraying me, its something else. It gives them a certain reason or pattern, instead of just being something random. Like this week, which has been particularly bad. It feels like I'm just getting all my seizures out of the way for the new semester. Which can't possibly be true, but it makes me feel better, like they serve some kind of a purpose and are almost an act of mercy from my little companion who is not a friend but I'm still stuck with.

Practice Makes Perfect

For the past few months Spider Solitaire - advanced level has been my go to play around with while I'm waiting for a page to load or just want to do something incredibly mindless thing. Part of what made it fun and not so serious was that I was somewhat sure that it was an impossible game to win unless you got dealt a perfect hand. Thus, it was absolutely pressure free, just me moving cards around and seeing how long I could go before losing.

And then I won. Surely a fluke. Until I won again a few weeks latter. And then again. And now I've won twice today, for a grand total of 6 wins (out of about 500 games). I think my hours and hours of practice may have actually made me good at this mindless game. Practice may actually have some bearing on success.

Sometimes I wonder how amazing of a lawyer I could be if I spent as much time studying as I did moving around imaginary cards on a screen.

My 2011 Stuff to Hopefully Get Better On

I don't really care for New Years goals or resolutions. I don't like setting myself up for failure. But, it's just such a natural time to take a look around and see what you want to be different next year, that I do want to do a little bit of reflection and improvement assisted by kind of sort of goals. For me, its more of a way to take all the things I want to do or think I should do, and turn that into a much more manageable list of a few things to focus on more than others. If I don't make it 100%, oh well, so long as I get a little better I'll call it a win. That said, here's what I'll be working towards in 2011.

• Getting into better spending habits. It seems silly to think of grad school as a time when we were flush with cash, but somehow knowing that 10k was going to magically show up in my bank account twice a year has gotten me to be a little to free with cash flow. I get my last big deposit this month, and that's it until we get jobs. Ergo, why this is a very important goal. 
• Get a job. Or at least try very, very hard. Kind of an obvious one, but I hate job hunting and this economy is going to make it quite the hunt, so I really need to be focused.
• Study for the bar. (Note, I didn't say pass. I want to pass, I do, that's the whole point of studying. I just feel like I can control how well I study much better than I can control passing.)
• Eat better/Maybe exercise every now and again. This is kind of perpetual for most people. Still, it would be good to just be sure to eat one serving of veggies a day, and maybe exercise once or twice a week. Totally small, totally doable, and the nice thing is even if I don't do it consistently, every little bit matters. Plus, I can't help but think this could really help to give me another totally different thing to work on while studying. And maybe all those studies about more attractive people being better employed are true, better safe than sorry.
• Make the bed most mornings. I'm actually pretty good at this, and especially in this small space it makes a huge difference. But I also know that if I miss just one day, the whole thing dies and takes so much more effort to get started again.

Nothing amazing, or even that un-cliched. But even though I'm not calling it one, it's a New Years Resolutions list, what do you expect?