Beauty Sleep

Wow, slept from 8:00 last night to 11:00 this morning. How many hours is that? I must have been really, really underslept.

Time to get to work!

Fun In Bed

The thunderstorm this afternoon reminded me of the lightening storm in War of the Worlds.

Boyfriend and I are shopping for a king-sized bed to replace our current queen-sized bed, which was big enough when he got it as a bachelor but not nearly big enough for the both of us. (Heh.) So this afternoon after work we went to this Sleepy's and tried on different beds. Very eye-opening!

Our favorite one is this brand that I have never heard of, called "Nature's Rest". It was as comfortable as a cloud. However, it was NOT cheap. 4K for a mattress?!? Wow...

Cleaned up the apartment this evening, because parents are coming tomorrow with their friends to pick up my Camry.

Sorry about the mundane-ness of this post. This is where my life is these days -- nothing too exciting. No wild sexual escapades. However, if you are interested in that sort of stuff, (reading about wild sexual escapades, I mean), here is a blog, recommended by the NYT, no less. Here's another one recently featured on JD2B, from a fellow law student from Tulane.

Yum

If you haven't done so already, you NEED to try the green tea frappacino from Starbucks. I've had 3 in the past 4 days. Definitey addicted.

Goodbye

I am selling my car - my little silvery blue 1996 Toyota Camry. I'll miss it, since it was my first car. I'm glad that I didn't sell it to a dealer. The buyer is this couple who are close friends of my parents. They live in Georgia and they are coming on Thursday to pick up the car and to drive it back to Georgia.

Bye-bye, car! I know your new owners will treat you well.

:(

My friend's computer got stolen today. Some strangers have her emails, photos, and personal writings for the past few years. Since she didn't have a lot of the data backed up, those files may be forever lost.

It must feel as devastating as living through a death of someone close. The thief stole not just her computer but her memories. The loss is enormous and hard to comprehend.

Hope you're doing okay, G!

And the rest of you, remember to BACK UP YOUR FILES!

Mr. Right!

I have to say, it's been kind of fun watching democrats trying to come up with some flaws with John Roberts in the past week, who really does seem like a pretty nice guy.

Readers of this blog may have noticed that I rarely write about current events. I figure that if you truly want to read cogent, insightful, brilliant analysis on current events you would be reading some other blog. And if you are here, then you want to learn about my fascinating life!

But this doesn't mean that I don't read other people's blogs about current events. Veiled Conceit, a blog that I always enjoy, (since it shares my own passion for reading NYT's wedding announcements) has an amusing piece dissecting the NYT wedding announcement of John Roberts and his wife, Jane, several years ago.

Weekend

Was at home today -- the first time I have been at home in nearly a month! Nice to have an ENTIRE day off with no work-related stuff to do.

Had a very nice day with Boyfriend. Slept 'til nearly 10, then at his suggestion went to see War of the Worlds, which I had wanted to see for a while.

********[SPOILERS ahead! Don't read the next 3 paragraphs if you don't want to know the ending of this movie!]*********

It was a very powerful, affecting movie. The big screen made the upsetting parts more upsetting and gruesome. Some parts were so claustrophobic I thought about leaving the theater to stand outside for a while.

The ending, though, was a typical Spielberg, Hollywood, happy, heart-warming, relieved ending. But I really didn't mind, because if it were otherwise I would have felt sad or depressed the whole day.

-- As I get older, my ability to withstand depressing movies has really decreased. My ideal movies are now movies like "Mr. and Mrs Smith" and "The Bourne Supremacy", both of which I enjoyed thoroughly, and NOT movies like "Il Postino" (Once my favorite film!) or "Schindler's List" (Never brought myself to see that one, actually.)

********[ENDS SPOILER]*********

Spent the rest of today at home, mostly reading about contract law. Fired off 3 of my leftover fireworks in the evening, and had very pleasant glasses of red wine and nice pre-cooked dinner from Whole Foods (which we bought yesterday in C-town) with Boyfriend.

Sad sad sad

Also, finished the newest Harry Potter book yesterday. Literally couldn't put it down and just read straight through for 8 hours.

This is definitely the best books of all the Harry Potter books, but the ending was pretty upsetting. In fact, it made me depressed for the entire night and even today.

(sniff)

Future Domicile

In C-town now, having interviewed all day. Really liked this woman who was a former publicist for Fox and Miramax, and enjoyed hearing about the crazy things she had to do to promote movies, like running down the street in a wedding gown with 50 other women, or picking out the red jelly beans for a certain celeb who shall remain unnamed.

Well, anyway. Boyfriend and I will go to the housing office tomorrow and sign the lease for our new apartment. Today we went to look at the apartment from the outside. It's a nice house about 5 minutes of walking from the law school, just 3-4 blocks away.

You really can't beat the location. This will make it so much easier for me in the winter. This alone makes it much more attractive than all the other apartments we have seen so far.

Tomorrow, we get the keys!

News Flash!!!

I have just signed the lease for a new apartment in C-town!

University-affiliated housing; close to law school; 1-BR with a livingroom/kitchen; first floor of a house; all utilities included; rent: very, very reasonable; lease through June 30, 2006; garden around the house, etc.

The amenities are probably not that great, but it seems easy to break the lease (people seem to do it all the time) and this takes enormous stress off the mind of Boyfriend and me.

Onwards with the Apartments!

Yesterday was such a long day that even after a 2-hour nap and a 9-hour slumber, today I was zombified for the entire day.

Saw several gorgeous apartments, some very close to the law school. Once you go up the 2K range, all the apartments come with hardwood floors, gardens, and various amenities. Strangely though, even the 3-bedroom ones sometimes only come with 1 bathroom, and the bathrooms are usually very small.

One absolutely stunning apartment we saw was about seven minutes of walking away, which both Boyfriend and I suspect belong to law school profs on sabbatical. It has beautiful, shiny wood floors, 2 stories AND a completely finished basement with laundary, 9-10 rooms, a lovely, modern, stainless steel kitchen with granite countertops, 3 bathrooms, large windows that fill the rooms with light, and lovely landscaped yards.

Sadly, for that particular one, the rent was abotu 50% higher than even our highest budget, so there was no way we could justify taking it. But it was interesting to see what kind of housing is available for the cost.

All these apartment hunting was very helpful. Boyfriend and I have finetuned what we want to a degree where it is now possible to delegate the apartment hunting project to someone other than ourselves, so they can do most of the work. Today we gave the project to M, this rising senior at my alma mater (whom my colleague D considers "very hot") that Boyfriend hired for the summer as his handyman and assistant.

Will be in C-town again this Friday and Saturday. Hopefully will make even more progress in recruting and apartment-hunting.

My days are now tiring but productive, so my mood has been stable and even upbeat. Boyfriend and I are communicating much better these days and our conversations are usually immediately helfpul. So, even though we haven't had a proper weekend for a while, it's been pretty fun.

Half-Blood Prince!

Beloved Harry Potter came back! Guess who has been waiting and counting down the date, and guess who ran out and bought a brand-new, hard-cover copy, in spite of the fact that she had 5 interviews and 3 apartment viewings and 2 rental agent appointments, and began reading it already!

Has been a long day, from 7:30 AM to... now, past midnight. But it's been productive and therefore I'm pretty happy. Boyfriend and I have finally narrowed down the type of apartments that we are looking for, so this will make the search easier. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that the rent will be less than 2K per month, and probably more like around $2,500.

But the entire city is really so pleasant -- there are many different neighborhoods that I would love to live in or just to hang out in. Kind of looking forward to it...

Guess Where I Am

At yet another hotel, ready to do more interviews and apartment viewings.

The neighborhood we are in this time is not as good as the last few times. Lots of strange loiterers around. A little sorry that we booked this hotel (for its price), especially since we are doing interviews here. Well, we'll see.

Freudian

I have had this dream several times in the past few weeks.

The dream had different versions, and most of them didn't really have a plot. But it was the mood that was very similar, and so I count them as essentially the same dream.

In my dream, I was always a law school student, feeling a lot of stress and not doing very well. In one of the versions, I knew I had to go to class but didn't know where to go. In another version, I had to take an exam that day and didn't feel prepared at all. In another version, I didn't do any of my readings or brief any of my cases. In nearly all versions, I was walking around in the campus and trying to figure out what to do while being very very stressed.

While all this was happening, there would be a man who sometimes accompanied me as I frantically ran around, and sometimes would meet me halfway through my dream.

In my dream, I understood that this man was my boyfriend. Not Boyfriend in real life, but my boyfriend in my dream. The man was not always the same person. In most of the versions, he was a stranger that I had never met before -- tall, slim, good looking, Caucasian, etc. In one of the version, he was actually a good friend of mine in real life.

Anyway, the dream was always anxiety-ridden with respect to this man. Most of my anxiety came from feeling that something was vaguely wrong about this relationship, that I didn't love this person nor did I feel secure with him. In my dream, I always felt a profound sense of emptiness, and I would frantically try to remember why. WHY was I not happy with this person? WHY didn't I feel like I belonged with him? WHY didn't I feel secure when he's around?

In my dream, I would struggle to think this through. I would try to trace how I came to be with this person, and try to think through my past relationships like E and H and J, feeling certain, as I went through each one, that I didn't feel any more secure with them than with this current person in my dream.

What's weird is that in my dream, even though I could recall all my exes perfectly, I could never remember Boyfriend. So as much as I struggled, it just never felt right.

There would be a strong sense of despair as I realized that this man was the person I would end up with, because I was already 26 and couldn't afford to break up yet again and start anew with someone... (Yes, this was literally my thought in my dream) Then I would feel very sad, like I had nothing to look forward to in my life anymore, that this was the person I would be stuck with, someone I didn't really care about and couldn't count on. That I knew this was not quite right but couldn't figure out (or remember) who I was supposed to be with.

At this point, I usually woke up, in cold sweat, and remembered with huge relief that in real life I'm with Boyfriend, and then everything felt right again.

So, what does this mean?

Clearly, this is an anxiety dream. Partly about law school, and partly about my relationship with Boyfriend.

But beyond that, what exactly does it say about my relationship with him? Why can't I never remember him in my dream? What do I feel anxious about? Who are all these other people? And what about this good friend? In real life, I am quite fond of him, but in my dream, I felt terror and despair at the prospect of spending the rest of my life with him.

In Other News

Going up to C-Town again this Friday. Same old same old. Interviewing. Looking at apartments. Walking / driving around. A soul-searching, exhausting conversation with Boyfriend. Or two.

This apartment thing has been so time-consuming and draining for the both of us. It tires me out just to think about it. I've been so stressed lately.

Well, at least I'm not in West Virginia, where two of my co-workers are flying into tomorrow. Just got message from them that the flight they were originally going to take was cancelled, so they are arriving 2 hours later than planned. Let's hope this will be the only mishap for the trip.

Do NOT Watch This Version

Watching this hilariously bad, low budget version of "War of the Worlds", made sometime in the late 90's. I rent it from Netflix by mistake, thinking I was getting the much older black and white version.

The visual effects and the acting are so bad and so funny that it almost made this movie worth it. I am about 30 minutes in and just can't stop laughing.

Even funnier are the special features, which includes "deleted scenes" and "special effects". At first, Boyfriend and I were incredulous that there were scenes that are even worse than the ones that they decided to include in the movie. But alas, there were. And the special effects in the movie were so, so, so bad that I almost HAD to see how they did it. It was every bit as low-budget as it looks on the film.

Anyway, want to see the newest, Spielberg-Cruise version sometime this weekend. However bad it is, can't possibly be worse than this one. Heh.

Random Things

Had prawns in garlic sauce two days in a row. Yum.

I'm back home now, still sans apartment, but with some leads and much more knowledge about the city that I'll call home for the next few years. Boyfriend and I spent a lot of time driving around and exploring different neighborhoods, and I am finally beginning to experience some excitement about moving to a new place. C-Town is very pleasant, vibrant, and filled with stores that I like. Unfortunately, the next 3 years will probably not involve too much money OR time to take advantage of this...

Began meditating for the first time recently. First wanted to do this at the suggestion of my friend A, who is very knowledgeable about these things. It's HARD! Much harder than I thought. It takes such an effort for me to try to empty my mind and focus. It's hard for me to even know whether I'm thinking or not, because so many of my thoughts are not really in conscious form. There are simply so many layers of thoughts... when you peel back one thought, another is immediately revealed.

I tried to do this for about 10 minutes or so and just have no idea whether I was even doing things correctly.

In other news ... I'm thinking of getting a new laptop for law school (since the one I'm currently using belongs to the company), and I'm thinking of sticking with the Apple Powerbooks. If anyone has other suggestions of their own pet laptops, feel free to let me know. Since I'm a weakling, weight is important to me, and I know that IBM has somthing that's only 3 lbs or so. Boyfriend has one, and I've tried it, but it looks so flimsy, and I absolutely hated the mouse-button-thingy (not even sure what to call it).

C-Town Reprised

C-town is warming up to me. Weather became better today – nice and sunny in the afternoon with a brief but intense thunderstorm. In between the interviews Boyfriend and I walked around a bit, and then after the interviews were done, in the evenings, we drove around in C-town and beyond. Saw some interesting neighborhoods in nearby B—, S---, and B---, and discovered this beautiful waterfront town Q---, about 12 miles away from C-town.

Exhausted at various points of the day, but always managed to pull myself back to life. Interviewees were on a whole younger and higher caliber than the crop yesterday. Had a few interesting conversations. A black woman this morning was forceful and very attractive. Her style and way of speaking reminded me a little of Will Smith’s wife Jada in the Matrix. Probably would make a really good facilitator. A lanky, tall, and very beat-poet-ish young Jewish writer gave me a collection of short stories by him. He would be very hip on some campuses.

Trying to figure out this apartment thing with Boyfriend, but it’s hard.

C-Town

Interviewed all day today, from 9 to 5. Most of the people are older, much older than me. And it felt a little strange sitting from them and asking about their work history, their experiences, etc. Some of the interviewees have teaching experience, and it’s a little bit like interviewing my own high school teachers. How strange.

Played Civilization in between interviews, while waiting for people to show up.

Switched hotel tonight because hotel we stayed at last night had some Internet problem. Moved into this absolutely gorgeous hotel just one block away. The entire room is opulently decorated in red and gold. The lobby has all these decadent little couches with animal print pillows.

Ate next to nothing today and just drank cups and cups of coffee. Went out tonight for dinner and had very yummy and very authentic Chinese food.

Tomorrow, another very full day coming up…

A note on the weather. I don’t think C-Town likes me. Last time when I was here it was scalding hot. This weekend it’s freezing cold, and pouring. WTF?

Busy Busy Busy

So busy I can hardly believe it.

To prepare for my trip tomorrow, I worked nonstop today and only now got a moment to breathe. Exhausted, but tomorrow will be another insane day.

So far, I have 15 interviews scheduled for my trip to, um, C-town. The entire day of Friday will be used for interviewing – from 9 to 7, one every hour. There are another 4 on Saturday. Then, I have to meet with one of the interviewees from last time when I was in town and go over some stuff with her before we formally hire her as a part-time facilitator for us. This includes training her a little bit and going over some employment details – fun fun fun.

Then, coffee with yet another employee-hopeful whom I didn’t get to meet last time I was up north.

Then, perhaps I’m being a bit too ambitious, but I am planning to look for some apartments also and to put flyers up around the various campus around C-town.

Yes, the next few days are going to be looooong days.

Old Friend

Saw my friend GQ today. He took me out to lunch and we talked about law school, his job in Big Law, his desire to return to China, and what our mutual friends are currently doing. It was pretty fun.

On the 15th it will be the first event that I don't have to go by myself! Two staff members are going instead of me. Yay!

Pre-Fourth of July

Bought $50 worth of fireworks yesterday, and already "used" some in our backyard. It was so much FUN! Memories of Chinese New Year...

In New Jersey now -- back tomorrow night. Bringing two staff members to train.

got a call from my friend GQ, who is the only person I know who enjoyed law school, and who is now working for a famous New York law firm. He's going to be in New Haven on Tuesday and wants to take me out for dinner. :D Perhaps he can give me some pointers of how to be happy AND successful in law school.

Negotiations and Love Songs

I'm traveling for work tomorrow to NJ, and then going to visit my law school again at the end of next week, interviewing some more people, look at more apartments and sublets, and look at office spaces, etc. Basically the last weekend reprised.

Hopefully the weather is going to not be as hot as last week.

Summit talk with Boyfriend continues, which is draining and got me very depressed last night.

I'm thinking about how tenuous bonds are, including friendship and romantic relationships. So much of the time whether or not a relationship continues depends on the will alone, in which I have not much faith.

I'm also thinking how much of relationships is about negotiations -- negotiating your individual space, your individual sense of control, your shared goals. Sometimes it is not a zero-sum game; sometimes it is.

I remember reading Thomas Mann's "Tonio Kruger" when I was a teenager (and in love for the first time). A line stuck with me. It roughly says: "In love the one who cares more is the weaker" (I'm sure I totally botched that line up completely -- perhaps one day I will look it up in the original German.)

But it's true. In a romantic relationship, when so much is negotiated -- whose movie preference should prevail; what should we have for dinner; what friends should we have in common; where to go for vacation; whose career is more important. The one who has the weaker hand is the one who cares more.

Is this a cynical view of romantic relationships? I don't think so. As long as you are negotiating sincerely, with the intent of achieving some result that would be good for both of you. In this sense, ALL human relationships are based on negotiations and a sometimes precarious balance of individual needs and shared goals.

And individual people will have different limits on how much they are willing to give up, or give in.

A line from Paul Simon that I keep thinking about these days:

"Negotiations and love songs
Are often mistaken for one and the same"

Yikes...

Two Supreme Court justices for Bush?!?

This will incapacitate the Senate for the next, um, 5 years or so.