Something inane, i am sure

It snowed here yesterday, so I'm finally feeling like it's December. I think everything still feels so weird to me because this is the first fall/winter I remember where I wasn't in school. It's just not the holidays without finals to dread.

There's also been some additional hoiday fun-ness. On Saturday we went to the Star City Holiday Parade...it was the first time I had been since I was in it in high school, and the first time I had been a spectator since I was maybe 11. We went with our friends Marianne and Dave and a bunch of their friends from the English Grad program. They're all new to Lincoln and wanted to do something festive and local. I'm glad we went! After that, they were showing "A Christmas Story" for free at the Grand. Josh and I had never seen it and it's one of Marianne's all-time faves, so we all went to that. Of course, it was geared to post-parade families, so the theatre was packed with tired, cold, cranky kids (some of which OBVIOUSLY should have just been taken home and had their diapers changed...poor babies!)...but if you sort of expect that kids will be jumping around the whole time, it's not nearly as annoying as it would be normally. Plus, it was a free movie - not gonna complain! The movie was really weird, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We also went over to Marianne and Dave's last night for more holiday fun. We were way late because of the snow (and because I forgot the pie when we first left - d'oh!), but when we got there, their place was all decorated with a full-sized real tree and stockings and warm curry tofu scramble on the (actually dining) table. *Sigh* I wish we could get a house. But for now, I'll just be happy having friends with a nice house. Anyway, Marianne made us dinner, Josh and I brought over wine and a gingerbread house kit and (the movie) Gremlins. We all put ourselves into a sugar coma with gingerbread and icing "toothpaste" and watched the movie (Dave's holiday favourite). It was fun.

And for the first time yesterday, I voluntarily started listening to Christmas music. I think it was the snow. As I was leaving derby practice (more on that), they were cranking "sleigh ride" (which is my secular favourite) and I started doing my little head bob and thought - "yup, time for Christmas music!" We listened to the Charlie Brown Christmas CD and the Rat Pack Christmas at Marianne and Dave's. :)

So yeah, Derby. I'm trying out for roller derby. I am really, really pscyhed because I have always wanted to do derby. As Marianne put it, if I can't have my dream job, I might as well have my dream hobby. I won't know if I'm on the team until next month, but I have been enjoying the practices immensely!

And the job search.... Yeah, nothin'. There's nothing to apply for and the things I do apply for never work out. Finally, I got a huge wake-up call in the form of a notification from US Bank, and I realized I can't just wait around for a job. I am just digging myself deeper and deeper into debt. So after a minor crisis, Josh and I are making a few changes: we cancelled all our non-"essential" bills (e.g. cable but not internet), we told everyone we are having a no-gift Christmas, I got back my old (OLD) job waiting tables at Village Inn, and we are moving back into the old house on South 18th - the ground floor with only one bedroom, in fact. That last one was a big deal for us. It's really too small, but how do you say no to cutting your rent in half? Actually, more than half off! So we're moving sometime between Christmas and New Year's. Not great timing, but what can you do? When you're broke, you're broke! And, honestly, even though I'm not exactly thrilled to be slingin' pie again, it feels better to be doing *something.* Part of the reason I had been so horribly depressed was just that I felt so useless. At least now I'm helping to pay the bills AND keeping busier. Who knows, maybe I'll get a customer some day that's a big time lawyer looking for a new associate. Hey, it's a long shot, but it could happen ;)

Well, I ought to get a move on...I have an independent contractor project due on the 18th (which I haven't done much on), I'm trying to help some friends put together some legal documents, we're moving soon, and there's a charity skate and derby practice tonight from 6-10:30. Well, I'd rather be busy than the alternative!

Happy holidays! :)

...to be a big, green-smoothie-makin' weirdo!

No -- well, yes actually, it's true.  I think I've gotten a handle on making green smoothies, once I figured out to look for the packet (which turned out to be not silica gel, but coupons...helpful).  In fact, I'm so confident in my smoothie abilities, that I have started to make really weird ones.  Today I made a "holiday" smoothie, like this:

-2 small jonathan apples, sliced and cored, but with the skin on
-1/2 c. pureed pumpkin
-1/2 c. soy yogurt
-3 c. raw baby spinach
-enough ocean spray no-calorie cranberry pomegranate drink to make it blendable
-splenda, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice to taste

I know, I know, it sounds sooo gross...but once blended, all you can taste is the apple and spice.  In fact, the only thing I would change is to add less splenda, because it's a little sweet.  I'd never made a smoothie with apples before, and they are much sweeter than I was anticipating.  The end result is tasty but not so beautiful.  It's sage green with little red flecks of apple skin.  Still keeping with the holiday theme at least.  It's probably not my favourite concoctions, but it's good.  In fact, out of all the weird smoothies I've made, the only one that was gross was the one with the packet in it!!  Probably my favourite, though, is canned pears, frozen strawberries, almond breeze brand almond milk and spinach.  It is creamy and wonderful.

Okay, so enough of that weirdness!

In other news, it's November and it's starting to get dark at roughly noon, but to make up for that, Nebraska decided to be 70 degrees and sunny.  Hurrah!  I'm psyched because Josh and I are going to the Husker (football) game tomorrow and it's a night game.  Normally a November night game would be a recipe for Lydia misery, but I'm actually very much looking forward to it.  Josh, however, was actually COMPLAINING that it would be TOO warm and it ruined his plans to wear his husker hoodie.  DARN, don't mind me while I shed an invisible tear.

Another thing is that last night we went to this awesome Nature Conservancy presentation at the Center for Great Plains Studies.  It was for the release of Michael Forsberg's (http://www.michaelforsberg.com/) newest book.  He was there to talk, as were Ted Kooser, Nebraskan and former US poet laureate, and David Wishart (who is possibly THE great plains historian).  The program was AMAZING.  The behind the scenes stories were really funny and the conservation part of the discussion was so inspiring --I got all misty eyed more than once.  It was just what I needed to hear.  I've been so miserable not being able to find a job.  My school keeps sending postings of great jobs that I am super qualified for in other parts of the country, and I had just resolved to give up looking here and start applying for those...since I have a less than nil chance of finding a good job here now that the governor and state senate have decided to fill the 300 million dollar budget gap by firing people from agencies and firing lawyers.  I was feeling so frustrated and downtrodden that I was going to give up and apply for a clerkship in the Virgin Islands, but then I went to see Michael talk and he said something about the beauty of the plains and how it isn't so obvious like the mountains or the beach and how it takes more than 5 minutes at a roadside pull off to appreciate and love it...and I decided I was being an idiot.  I've long said that if I won't stay and protect this land, no one will.  So I guess I'm stuck in job limbo a while longer.  I'll find something...I just hope it's sooner rather than later.  Anyway, point is that Micheal Forsberg is amazing and you should check out his photographs.

..and finally, plans for today:  I need to work on some contract work and drop off some resumes, but I am really hoping to get outside for maybe a bike ride.  Then tonight is happy hour with the meetup, 1st fridays with other meetup buddies, and then crappy bar crawl with Marianne and Dave ending with Kareoke at the Beacon and Hi Way Diner after.  Man, it's gonna be awesome :)

Do internet interactions get you hyped up?  Oh, they do to me.  I try to not get too involved in discussions on the internet, because, hey, why bother wasting the energy?  But sometimes I get sucked in.  I used to be really involved in this online health community, but maybe 8 or 9 months ago, a whole group of people berated me for being vegan and urging others to be vegan, too, and the result is that I don't use that site anymore.  And even on LJ, some poor girl in a vegan community said something about wanting to lose weight and she got run out of there on a rail (I was mostly a spectator to that one).  So, it must be vegan+internet=drama.

Today I got into an internet discussion with some very vegan-y vegans about abolishionism versus welfarism.  To normal folks, that means someone who thinks that the only way to improve animals lives is for everyone to go vegan and release all animals from any kind of captivity, etc., etc., versus someone who thinks laws should be instituted to make animal slaughter and testing and such more "humane."  Let me be honest here and say that I am a HUGE hippy.  If I had my way, we would all go back to being hunters and gatherers and fight for survival, Darwin-style.  That said, I am not an abolishionist because I think that it's so ridiculously unrealistic to the point of being silly, but I'm not a welfarist either because welfarism does little to actually prevent animal suffering and even less to address the source of the problem, which is that humans think of animal life as lesser in value and use that as an excuse for terrible acts against animals.

Aaaanyway, a very vegan-y guy I know posted something on facebook about "why fight for better slaughterhouses?  That's like fighting for better segregated bathrooms..."  There was a whole inter-vegan war on the comments about why welfarism is so bad, and how welfarists are sell-outs and how it is worse than nothing to compromise your morals by promoting "humane slaughter."  Eventually, I did chime in, saying something about how something is always better than nothing, about how all this in-fighting is pathetic and to look at the bigger picture, and about how I'm more than willing to compromise my morals if it means people will listen to me and take me seriously when I suggest smaller changes.  However, the substance of my comment and the subsequent flame war is not really the issue.  What is the issue are the observations that I made about internet discussions.  And here they are:

-No argument was ever won through derision or sarcasm...or, god forbid, caps lock
-It isn't nearly as helpful the say "you just don't get it" as one might think
-when people incorporate things such as "Ha!" and "*sigh*", that is the sign that communication has totally broken down.

So, what can we learn from this?  Well, I've busted out my good ol' John Morely quote: "Even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in the broad, intelligent, and spacious way."   I've decided that I'm proud of my ability to listen and compromise because, not only are these the hallmarks of reason, but they're the only thing separating me from Bill O'Reilly.  I think in real discussions, as well as on the internet, it's really invaluable to try and truly understand what the other person is saying and try to express what you think they mean to the best of your understanding before you try to make them understand your perspective. 

So yeah...should I go forth and try to make the internet a more civil place.  Nah, I'm going to go to bed and try to forget it ever happened.
*sigh*

Wow.  I'm still recovering from Halloween.  I guess one of the "benefits" of being unemployed is that you get to do that.  It's really not so much fun as you might think, though.

I posted a bunch of photos on flikr of the goings-on, and if you want to check them out, here's a link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiafiedler/

I have a lot of contract work to do (which I should be doing instead of "recovering") but still no job.  *Sigh*

So I keep hearing everyone raving about "green smoothies" and I hate being the only person who hasn't tried something, so I made my first green smoothie for breakfast this morning.  I thought I'd try it "poor man's style" first, so I put in the blender: a can of fruit cocktail, a huge handful of baby spinach, a shot of flax oil, and a couple of splashes of almond milk and let 'er rip.  But my blender was running weirdly.  It was going slowly and catching on things.  I was so confused, what could be hard about blending spinach and fruit cocktail?  So I poured it in a big glass and took a huge gulp and...pulled a piece of PLASTIC out of my mouth?  WTF?  I stood there for a while, just staring like an idiot, and found a bunch more pieces of plastic in my smoothie, so I dumped it out to start over.  It was then that I realized that the fine people at Dole include a silica packet in the bag of spinach.  YUM!  Silica gel smoothie with extra plastic!  Yeah, so this led to a quick google search to see just why you're not supposed to eat silica.  Apparently it's harmless, so phew, but that was a waste of a good smoothie!  I made another with a can of apricots instead.  My verdict is that it tastes fine.  Mostly fruity, but the sage-green color is a little off-putting and it smells a little funny.  I bought some frozen peaches and strawberries, so I'll probably make another tomorrow with those and see if it's better.  I'll try to leave the silica gel out. :/

In other news, it's only a week until Halloween.  YAY!  I'm already amping myself up.  Last night, Josh, our friend Jeremy, and I went to see Paranormal Activity, which I will probably reflect upon later as lame, but which totally impressed me and freaked me out!  I was so tense during the whole movie.  When it was over, I was too scared to even stand until they turned on the lights and I was literally shaking as I left the theatre!  It's no secret that I like almost all scary movies.  The bad ones I like to make fun of, the good ones I relish the feeling of being manipulated by the movie maker - to be made to feel scared of nothing.  And that's how I felt during this movie.  I was sitting there thinking, "Oh god, I know what's coming and I am going to be so scared!  This is AWESOME!"  I love movies that do something to me without my permission.

So yeah, after that we went to VI with Jeremy and I ate sooooo much crappy food.  Between having a nauseatingly full belly at 11PM and watching a scary movie, I had a really terrible night of sleep last night.  Oh, and right before I went to bed I was looking at http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ (funniest blog EVAR - check it out) and reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, so I kept having dreams about corpse-shaped cakes.  Not helpful.

Later tonight I'm going to a Halloween party, so maybe I'll take a nap so I don't turn into a pumpkin before midnight.  I have a few costume options.  For my real costume, which I'll be wearing to a party next weekend on Halloween, I'm going as the bee girl from the blind melon video "no rain."  I kinda like to save my main costume for the actual holiday, though.  I also have a ninja costume that I got last year and never wore, and of course I have a stock pile of devil horns and cat ears and wings and feather boas and such, so I'll find something. 

And tomorrow we're having Marianne and Dave over to watch Rosemary's Baby and carve pumpkins.  I'm trying to think of what to make for dinner.  I have recently found a few recipes I want to try - one for sweet rosemary glazed acorn squash and one for pumpkin cream pie...but I also have a load of apples I need to get eaten, so maybe some kind of apple crisp?  Or I could make the apple into a main dish, like apple chili or carrot-ginger-apple soup...hmmm.  Fall is my favorites season to experiment with flavors.  The other day I made an awesome curry soup with barley, okra, and acorn squash.  Yay, fall!

Well, there's not much more to tell.  I'm still very, very depressed about not having a job, but I am doing contract work for a few people, and I'm making some effort to actually pick up the house, just to keep myself from falling into utter collapse.  I'm glad it's Halloween and I have fun things to look forward to, because otherwise I think I would feel very bleak.  Well, let's not think about that.  Let's just drink this freaky green smothie, put on some tunes, and get something done.

I think part of the reason I haven't posted much lately is because life has just been really hard and I've been pretty depressed.  It's hard to tell the whole world what's going on in my life when I can barely share it with the ones closest to me or even admit it to myself.  I haven't had anything funny or happy to share, so I just decided not to share at all.

However, now, despite having the flu, I'm feeling somewhat better.  I'd love to share what's going on in my life, but after I typed out a big, long entry spewing my guts, livejournal ate it, and I take that as a sign that maybe I shouldn't share so much right now.  So here's the cliff's notes version:

-I still don't have a job
-I am not dying, as far as I know
-I am trying to make choices that will make my happy

Yeah...I keep forgetting to update.  I guess it's because I originally got this journal as a way to keep in touch with my friends when we were all scattered across the country...but now I'm the only one who checks in regularly (read: at all) and then I guess that means that the only people that I interact with on here are now my "lj friends" - meaning people I have never actually met.  I always like reading their (your) entries, but my updating has trailed off because I think I'm just cluttering up people's flists with stuff they don't care about...so when I do finally post, it's just so that I can go back and read it in 3 years or something.  But I should update because I do like rereading about my life.  I'll say I'm going to post more, but maybe I won't who knows?

But yes: life.
Still no job, BUT I DID PASS THE BAR!  I was admitted in a funny ceremony at the capitol on Tuesday.  I'm looking for a job, in between online procrastination.  I have some leads...but as they say, I could put "leads" in one hand and poo in the other and see which one fills first.  (Who says that?  Maybe I'm actually the first one.)  So my days are filled with a lot of "trying"...trying to get a job, trying to get insurance, trying to meet people who can help me get a job...and it's been hard having no schedule for all of this.  I've really fallen off in my exercise, I been eating everything in sight...and therefore gained about 10 pounds in a month or so.  It's really hard for me to be so bored and desperate.  I'm kind of miserable.  BUT, I've been trying to regain control by making lists and going to aerobics.

Today I'm going rollerskating with Josh and our new BFFs, Marianne and Dave.  I'm looking forward to it.  Provided, of course, that I can get in a workout and finish some job apps first.  Hmm, maybe I'd better turn off CSI...

Okay, so the last post makes things seems a bit more dire than they are.  I mean, yes, it sucks that I don't have a job, but I am not so discouraged that I think I won't ever find one.  And it probably was a bit silly to essentially take 2 weeks off from even looking...but hey, I was doing fun stuff.  Josh and I had our nice mini vacation in KC.  We relaxed in excelsior springs, I went swimming many times, I stuffed my face with everything in sight...including delish vegan food from Eden Alley and dark-chocolate-dipped-everything from a place called ooey gooey chocolates (MM!).  My birthday was fun: basically everyone I know came over and had fun drinks and played SingStar.  Chandra brought over the fixin's for the requisite jagerbombs and I finally made a real pina colada out of coconut milk, pineapple, and the last of the Flor de Cana rum.  Oh, and before that, I went to see inglourious basterds (yes, I don't know why it's spelled that way, but it is...).  And it was good.  And the day after my birthday Mom and I went to the farmer's market and she got me a cute apron with owls, a cute bag, 2 cute bracelets, and a bag of salad with pea shoots!  And later we went to James Arthur with the meetup group and had sangria.  And on Sunday, my family took me to Blue Orchid...so all in all, it was an awesome birthday weekend.  And since Grady was in town, not only for my b-day, but for the following week, the fun didn't stop there!  We had awesome hangout times at the zoo and morril hall and the god-forsaken coffee house...not to mention watching 3 bad horror movies with wildly-varying levels of watchability (Black Sheep=awesomely bad, Prom night = predictable but entertaining, The legend of bloody mary=truly painful in every way and barely tolerable, even for a horror movie).  Today THE final destination is coming out, and I wish she was still here to watch it with me.  *le sigh*

So yeah, I "wasted" a good couple of weeks with all this, but I'm making up for the summer of social-ness that I missed out on by studying for the bar.  I deserve some fun time, I think.  Plus, I feel a little held back in my job hunt by the fact that I don't have my bar results yet.  Now is probably the best time to be screwing around.  And as multiple people have pointed out to me, sometimes taking a break from the desperate job search is good because it gives you time to clear your head and refocus, as well as time for jobs to actually be posted!

So yesterday was my pity party.  I went out for coffee with Andrea and we cried over not having jobs.  Then I watch TV with Josh and he let me be mopey.  Then we took out Marianne and Dave for Mexican at Mazatlan...which put me in a much better mood because we talked about more fun things...plus it's always just nice to hang out with them.  After dinner, we went to Ivanna Cone and to Doc's, which was also fun.  Yay! 

So today I'm going to try to get some things in order before the weekend.  Actually, first I'm meeting Mom for lunch and having coffee with a local water lawyer.  That might be helpful.  I'll just try to keep positive and work on the little projects that I can do, and take it one day at a time.  That sounds like a plan, right?

I'm in idiocy limbo.

I've been waiting to find out if I passed the bar.  And waiting to hear on a few jobs. 
Just found out that they picked someone else for the most promising job lead.  Suck.  Still holding my breath on the bar.  Another job lead may not even be decided until January, another may never pan out into anything at all.

Now I feel like a fucking moron for just sitting around and wasting the whole week not applying for jobs.  I feel like an idiot for letting 3 job opportunities pass by without even applying because they technically aren't what I should be doing.  Shit, who cares what I'm doing, I just need a damn paycheck!!!!  ARG!  So much for maybe still getting a house this year.  And I spent all my birthday money on bullshit instead of bills.  And I'm officially spending the rest on two of our friends tonight taking them out for their birthdays.

And I haven't worked out yet today, either.

So this has just turned into a bitch fest.

Honestly, I was scared about this job.  But I wanted it.  I'm disappointed.  And now I'm probably going to eat a pint of ice cream and feel even worse about life.  Wah.

So, it's been a couple weeks since the bar...and I've been applying for a few jobs, doing my "networking" thing...  Still no job, of course, but I have a meeting Monday that might lead to something.  Maybe not a real job, but perhaps some kinda freelance gig.

Mostly, though, what I've been doing for the last few weeks is going out and doing stuff!  I missed being social while I was cloistered studying, so I've been making up for it, big time.  Unfortunately, this also means I've been spending ridiculous amounts of money and stuffing my fat face for every meal.  The other night we went to see Greenday in Omaha, which was awesome (front row - woot!).  But we also went out to Upstream before, and dinner was more expensive than another ticket would have been.  Granted, it was really yummy.  I love beer samplers!  But there was also lunch with my new internet buddy Derek, drinks with my pal Andrea, Indian buffet with Luke, District 9 and beers after with Jeremy and Kris last night (the movie was AWESOME, by the way)...  Oh, AND I'm meeting my book club for coffee in a couple hours, then we're going to dinner and drinks tonight with some new friends, a matinee tomorrow with Lanette and Rob, on Monday I have that meeting, and we're going to wrestling, (oh, AND my cousin is having her baby).  THEN it's off to Kansas City for a little vacation, complete with plenty of shopping and eating out, of course, and when I get back, it's my birthday!! 

So yeah.  Can you tell that I'm busy?  And my wallet (and waistline) are suffering.  Maybe I need to find a way to better channel my social needs without spending so much money and eating 14 times a day.

Oh, and right now I'm watching the Degrassi movie.  YAY! 

So this is all fun and games, but when I have to go crawling to my parents next month for rent money and I STILL don't have a job, it's not going to seem so great.  *Sigh*  So let's just not think about that right now.

( Here's a survey. ). 

Thanks, Colleen, for giving me something to talk about!

The bar is over.  It's over.  I'm done.

It was truly horrible.  I spent so much time studying, especially that last week, my brain started to t turn to mush.  As I stuffed in the rules for applying the "significantly related" 2d restatement test for choice of law, I could actually feel the rules for admissibility of prior consistent statements leaking out.  I developed an EYE TWITCH!

The essays were awful, but, mercy be, there wasn't a question about commercial paper OR secured transactions.  And I totally pwn'd the civil procedure question.  Take THAT professor Gardina!  The very worst part, however, was the night before the MBE.  I wasn't too stressed.  I watched some CSI and went to bed early.  But an hour after I fell asleep, CHESTER WOKE ME UP!!!!!!!  I has to chase him around the bedroom for 5 minutes before Josh finally helped me get him OUT of the bedroom.  And of course, after that, I couldn't sleep.  I kept thinking about how much I NEEDED to sleep, and that just made it worse.  I tossed and turned, I read, I paced, I cried, I called my mom...and all in all, I slept for about 3 more hours.  That. Sucked.  I was nauseous and jittery for the MBE (terrific!) but I didn't fall asleep and I didn't run out of time.  And now it's over and out of my hands.  Now all I have to do is wait 2 months for the results.  ...  ...  ...  Nice.

Oh, and get a job.

But first: I relax!  Last night Josh and I went to Lazlo's for a beer.  Today we're having lunch at Blue Orchid.  Then Chandra is coming to town and we're gonna have drinks.  OH, and tomorrow I'm getting a MASSAGE!  And I'm going to dinner with the parents and Luke and Sarah.  Saturday I might run a 5K, we're going to the farmer's market and having Maggies for lunch...and Saturday night we're having people over to have drinks and play singstar and stuff.  WOO HOO!  ...ooooh, for the next week or so there is going to be a LOT of netflix, sleeping, working out, catching up on recreational reading...  ahhh.  I'm psyched.

And then, the job search.  We'll just cross that bridge when we get to it, right?

So, the bar is in 3 weeks.  3 weeks from tomorrow.  I have been getting progressively more frantic and impossible to be around because I am so freaked out.  I know it's one of those "control" things...the less in control I feel, the more of my horrible neuroses sneak out.  But I realized that I still have some modicum of control.  3 weeks is still a long time.  From now on, I'm going to try to ask myself "WWHLD - What would *happy* Lydia do?"  ...And I know if I want to be happy, I've gotta use these last 3 weeks well.  So "adios, internet", for at least the next 3 weeks.  I'll "see" you all after the 29th...and if you live within a 3 state radius of me, you'd better set aside time to have a drink (or 6) with me in the near future.

Oh, and one other thing I want to mention:  our 5 year anniversary is this Friday.  I wish we could be doing something fun or taking a trip.  For me, though, I am just so grateful to be with such a wonderful guy.  We'll have plenty of years to take nice trips (especially if I pass the bar and get a sweet job making plentiful bank...).

The bar is in one month.  I am not psyched.

I'm eating cucumbers and onions and sippin' on sunkist sparkling lemonade!  So much for studying...but I love summer. <3

Oh, and I ate my whole pint of purely decadent coconut milk cookie dough ice cream earlier, and it was amaaaazing!

Okay, fine, I'll do some practice questions!

So getting the tattoo was awesome.  Tyson, the artist, is great.  We talked about tattoos, fads, "yo mamma" brand candy, lawyers and cocaine, rickshaws, pets, vernal pools... plus the placement of my new tattoo was not very painful, which is good, because it ended up being huge and taking over 2 hours, and if it had been very painful, there's no way I could have sat through it. 

Speaking of it being huge...yeah, apparently my body is wimpier than I thought...because I guess I kind of went into shock after I got home.  The tattoo kept bleeding and bleeding and I got chills and felt nauseous, so I just went to bed (should have known there was a problem, it was 83 degrees in the apartment and I had to find extra blankets...) I couldn't stop shaking and I couldn't focus my mind on my book.  After I finally fell asleep, I woke up an hour later, heart racing and with a fever of 101.  By this point I was pretty freaked out, especially because I have no insurance.  I called my mom (as always) and had Josh look up "tattoo" and "fever" on google...After we were all satisfied that it was nothing serious (and I had interrupted the sleep of no less than 2 of my loved ones), and after I had taken some tylenol, we went back to bed.  I woke up several times drenched in sweat, but by this morning I felt much better.  Yeah, I'm SUPER embarrased about this.  I can't believe I woke up my Mom to cry about my tattoo...  *blush*  ...but anyway, now I know I am not totally incinvible when it comes to body mods.  Interesting.

So, do you want to see a photo?  If so, check out my flickr site:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiafiedler/3655254761/in/photostream/

I noticed that I've been pretty MIA again, so I wanted to make a quick post before I go off to get my next TATTOO!!

I wish I could say that I've been absent because I've been studying so hard for the bar, but that is so far from the truth!  I've acutally been doing everything but!

Josh and volunteered at a fundraiser at the children's zoo and got to eat fancy food and watch rich people spend tons of money in an auction.  We went out to Blue Orchid with Ryan and Jasmine (YUM! We're going again with Luke and Sarah this Thursday...)  We've been going for bike rides, going to farmers' markets...On Friday we went to the Lincoln international festival with Jen and her new (awesome) boyfriend Bill.  I ate a whole plate of African food and a sesame doughnut.  Oh, and some kind of Jimmy's Italian Ice, which was awesome.  Then on Saturday, Josh and I ran a 5K at Pioneer's Park for the American Cancer Society.  It was Josh's first 5K and it was pretty rough, since there were a fair amoung of hills, but we both powered through and in fact I got a new personal best time of 28:41 (yes, I am a newb).  Then we went to the farmer's market and got more awesome pepper jam from the jam lady and bread and all sorts of licorice and other goodies.  For dinner, we got to hang out with Jen and Bill again and went to Fireworks.  It was yummy and I finally tried their beer flight...Hey, 9 tiny beers is a lot for me!!!   ...junior *zoo*keeper

Yesterday was the solstice.  It was also Father's Day.  We went to the breakfast buffet at -- where else but -- the Golden Corral with Josh's parents.  After stuffing our guts, we went out to James Arthur vinyard.  Josh's parents had never been and we thought it would be fun to sample wine and just sit and chat...plus I got to be outside, which is imperative on the solstice.  We all had a fun time sampling sweet Nebraska wine and petting Hobo, the friendly winery cat.  Josh and I got a bottle of Traminette.  Then we discovered the "Nebraska Winery Passport" --- If you visit 17 of the 28 Nebraska wineries by the end of the year, you get $50 in winery bucks...  So *obviously* we had to try!!!  We went to another winery in Raymond (Windcrest, which was meh) and the wine tasting room at the Nebraska Gift Store in the haymarket.  We ended up getting another bottle (of Mac's Creek Brianna) and by the end I had tried maybe 40 wines...and I was *toasted.*  Haaaaa.  It was really fun, though.

I barely had time to recover by the time we went to dinner at wilderness ridge with my parents (and Luke and Sarah).  Jasmine, who is a manager there, really hooked me up with the awesomest vegan meal.  I had a killer salad with beets and radishes and pumpkin seeds, my entree was this portabella and veggie medley in some kind of balsamic reduction over grits, and I even had berry sorbet for dessert!  Awesome!  Oh, and josh shared some of the best sweet potato fries I have ever had!

So, you may have noticed that a lot of what has kept me busy lately has involved FOOD.  Yeah, my clothes have noticed that, too.  I need to get serious about not being a piglet and also about studying more for the bar.  It's in barely over a month.  EEEP!  So I'm taking this opportunity to rededicate myself a bit and get on track with *good* habits. 

So yeah, wish me luck with that...and also my tattoo!  I had better go take a shower and prepare myself (eat;) )...I want to be there in about an hour to go over the design with the artist.  I'm getting a snail darter, the cite to TVA v. Hill, and a gingko tree/branch.  I'll aim to post some pictures, maybe...

So I'm settling into life.  I'm watching Degrassi.  That's normal.

I'm starting to get into little life routines here.  Our main routine right now involves eating at Golden Corral every 5 minutes, but we're trying to curb that because eating out costs money...even eating at cheap, crappy buffets.  It's hard to say no to endless fruit, salad, and veggies, though.  So last night, to force myself to actually cook for once, I went to the Pentzer Park "farmer's market" instead and got some veggies to make for dinner.  I made mushroom, spring garlic, and rainbow chard tacos.  They were good. 

Another routine I'm getting into is riding my new bike.  It's not very hardcore, but it's mine.  I ride it to east campus every weekday, and to run little errands (like going to the farmer's market).   It's great because I feel like a big hippy (in my mind I'm making up for all the crap I buy at Wal*Mart...) and it gives me a base workout for the day so if I don't get another workout in, I don't freak out.  On Sunday, Josh and I are going to go for a ride with my parents (after bruch at the Golden Corral, of course!)

And speaking of workouts, tomorrow is the Havelock 3K!  Josh's first run!  Hurrah!  I'm looking forward to it.

After that, we're going to a party at Denise and Falla's.  They're friends of Josh.  It's been fun being social.  YAY!  Last week we had a housewarming, which was fun.  Denise and Falla were there, and so were Lanette and Rob, Stef and Andy, and Luke and Sarah.  We played SingStar and I ate a shocking amount of gelato and chips and salsa.  As far as being social, I also had coffee with Karen last weekend.  It was nuts...fun and nostalgic and awkward.  We're gonna have coffee again this sunday.  Also last weekend Josh and I went to Omaha and had lunch at the Ethiopian restaurant with his cousin Carrie and her family and then went to Wicked - which was exceptionally good.  And a little over a week ago I went to lunch at McFoster's with Chandra.  YAY!  It was no $1.75 margarita, but it was delicious anyway.  And she drove me by the HOUSE she's buying!  Nuts! 

...Oh, and that was the day of my interview at MidAmerican.  It went well.  I got to take a tour of the power plant.  Everyone was great.  I'm still not sure how it would be working in a cube for a power company, but I know I would learn a lot.  I am hopeful about my other interview with the AG's office, but it's been a week and a half and I haven't heard anything from them, so I don't want to get my hopes up.  Right now I shouldn't be worrying about that, anyway.

I should be worrying about the bar.

And I am.  Trust me.  This has been my first week of BarBri -- technically it's still "preview" week.  And today was my first full-length, timed practice exam.  And it was NOT pretty.  I did much better on all of the smaller subject tests.  Okay, well I did well on Evidence and Con-law...passable on torts and crim law...but property and contracts need major help.  Ugh.  I'm worried.  Luckily, it's still early.  I haven't been working my butt off yet, but this is my last "light" week until after the big test.  I need to get serious.

Oh, wait, and one more thing about  bar class:  it's a bunch of kids who all went to NU law together, which is awkward enough, but to make it even better, yesterday I was totally "that guy:"  When I left the room during the video, my phone went off.  Ringer was on, the whole class got to enjoy my classy ringtone while I was gone...and I came bumbling back into class, not even realizing it until the person called back and my phone went off AGAIN.  Yeah.  I hate myself. 

Alright, well I think I'm gonna go do "Chalean Extreme."  And make an Italian Soda.

Well, my computer is sort of working, so time for an update!  The last week and a half has been out of control nuts.  My family all arrived.  I won an award for Outstanding Student Clinician.  I ate my last Margarita's sunburst salad.  I met my parents' friends.  Um, I'm just NOT going to talk about that at all.  They were "helpful" with the move.  And that's it.

Graduation was nice.  Very hectic and kind of anticlimactic.  We all got fancied up in our gowns and tams, we took our photos, we got our hoods.  I was totally frozen when they called my name..."Lydia Fiedler, Juris Doctor *cum laude*, Master of Environmental Law and Policy *magna cum laude*.  Woot!  And I checked and my degrees were in the little folder, TG!  The speeches were lame, but it was still a nice ceremony.  Once it was over, we all just wandered our seperate ways and I'll probably never see most of those people again.  How strange and surreal.  There was a post-graduation reception at the school and I celebrated 3 years and $150,000 by eating my weight in champagne, crudite, vegan sushi, and mango sorbet.  It was a feast.  Then we went to Firestones with Allison's family for dinner.  It was nice to see them all one last time in a celebratory fashion.

The next day was all business.  After an early morning breakfast at Eaton's (my last chance at the apple spice pancakes!) we packed, loaded, cleaned, I cried like a baby...but we were too busy leaving for it to really sink in.  On the way out of Vermont, we got our fill of cheese, syrup, beer...If I think about it too hard, I still get sad.

The drive home was uneventful, thankfully. The cats were mostly good, aside from Chloe scratching on a chair (WTF?) and Milo yowling in the middle of the night.  They were totally peaceful in the car.  And on the second day I rode mostly with my dad.  I think I did a great job keeping my head on straight when he wanted to talk about how agriculture improves nature, and how men should be the head of every relationship, and climate change isn't real, and how the bible is the only source of truth and that science is bad.  But when he started saying Scalia was the best supreme court justice, I just had to tell him we couldn't talk about it.  Isn't that funny?  Well, if I learned one thing in law school, it's that there is no use trying to convince people who staunchly oppose you...you just have to let them know you what you think and why and help them realize that you understand where they're coming from, too.  Oh, and I learned that Scalia is a d-bag.

Anyway, it went well.  I am no longer "intense" and "argumentative."  I am now "passionate."  Sweet.

So we got home a week ago: last tuesday night.  My parents, Luke, Lanette, Ryan, and Josh's friend Denise helped us move all our stuff in that night, and we celebrated with budlight lime.  Since then, it's basically been non-stop unpacking.  In between we've made time to: get fancy pants cable with DVR and in-demand hooked up, go to the gym across the street, go to wal-mart a billion times, go to Matazlan and "wolverine" with Nick and Mary on their way back to Berkely, go to VI with Kristen and her friend Rob on their way back to Seattle, go to D'leons and the zoo with Jen, go to buzzard billy's and  "star trek" with my parents, go to the golden corral with Josh's parents, go to "terminator" with Rob and Lanette...Wow, it's been a busy week!!!

And today I had my interview with the AG's office.  I think it went well, but we'll see.  I'm not going to hold my breath even though I would really, really like the job.  My next interview is Thursday at MidAmerican Energy in Council Bluffs.  And a week from today I begin BarBri.  I plan to vegetate a lot between now and then.  Today after my interview was the first time I really got to sit down and just relax without thinking about the next 10 things I had to do.  In my future I see:  buying cat food (not exciting), lots of netflix, reading book-club books, going to wicked with Josh on Sunday, kitty cuddlin's, meeting up with old friends, a housewarming party on Friday...oh, and sleep.  I can't wait for that!!

So I just discovered that I can post to LJ, I just can't read mine or anyone else's posts.

So I'm gonna make a post because it's my last week in Vermont and I want to record all the randomness for posterity.

Mostly I've just been packing.  I'm probably not even half done.  I have a lot of boxes full, but I get distracted.  And it's hard because I'm still going to be living here for a few days.  I hesitate to pack a lot of stuff because I don't know if I might need it again.  I don't want to have to dig through all the boxes to find whatever it is and the have to re-pack.   Plus, dodging all the full boxes is making our place pretty unlivable.  I stack the boxes in front of the pantry, but then have to move them if I want to eat, so I put them on the love seat, but then I have to move them to sit, so they end up piled in front of the TV and then I have to move them again if I want to watch TV.  It's kind fo annoying.

Plus, packing isn't my only priority.  It probably should be, but there are still a lot of things that I am trying to do for the last (or first) time.  I went to my last pilates class taught by Kristen.  I will miss her.  I went for a couple of walks into town, I took a detour up to the neighborhood behind the gas station, just since I have never seen it...and it was really cute.  And I walked through the cemetary across from our place, since I'd never done that, either.  It's interesting to look at the cemetaries here, because they go back so far.  Some headstones are from just a few years ago, others date back to the 1700s...some are so worn they can't be read, others are broken in half.

I also finally got around to going to Manchester, VT to go shopping with Allison.  I bought a bunch of cute stuff that I can't really justify, but it's not every day you get to shopping at nice outlets.  Hey, and I didn't buy the $200 betsey johnson dress or the $160 purple escada jeans.  Even though they were really cute.

I've also watched about 100 movies.  I tell myself I'll pack as I watch, but that's not really how it works.  Mary and Ryan came over after we went to Marg's (probably the last time together) the other night and we watched American Gangster.  I've also watched Bounce, Fried Green Tomatoes, the Kite Runner, 10,000 BC, the Jane Austen Book Club, One Last Thing (I think that's what it's called...).  I should probably take a break, but it's so nice just to relax.

And yesterday I finally went to "the wall" to use the free climbing passes I won.  Jen went with me and we belayed for each other.  And she didn't drop me!!  It wasn't too embarassing, but man my arms are NOT used to working like that.  Afterwards, we went to Peking Tokyo for the last time and I had my last seaweed salad roll.  Yum. 

Um, and the other night there was this crazy storm with huge hail.  That was the night we went to marg's and on the way there was a tree down across the road and on top of a power line.  It kept getting dark and stormy and would dump a bunch of rain and then clear up two minutes later.  We even saw a huge, bright double rainbow...where you could see both ends.  No pot of gold, though.  I think VT was just trying to prove that it can hang with the serious weather.  Good try, Vermont.

Let's see.  Today I am going to go swimming with Allison pretty soon.  Probably my last time for that.  Then we're going to get ready and go to the dinner dance.  I kind of don't care about the dinner dance at all.  I am too stressed about packing and moving and everything to even look forward to a night out socializing.  I'm sure it will be fun, though.  And I already paid the $45, so it's not like I'm going to stay home!

Tomorrow I'm going to go to the gym for probably the last time, then I'm going to pick up Mom at the airport so she can help me finish packing and getting my weird random life together.  That'll be weird/nice/stressful.  I think we're going to have dinner at SoRo's because I have a gift certificate and I want to have one last garlic knot.  But I also need to finish cleaning out the fridge.  I thought I would have no trouble eating all this food, but I still have a huge bag of carrots, a bunch of frozen veggie burgers and dogs, a whole package of gimme lean, a block of tofu, some shiritaki noodles...and goodness knows I'm not going to throw it away!  I just have to stuff myself the next few days!

I'm totally in the downhill slide.  After my mom comes, then shortly we start having all these mandatory graduation events.  By the end of the week the rest of the family (and the two random strangers) will be here, and by this time next week, I'll probably be more than halfway home...ugh.  I feel nauseous.