The Science of Love

I've heard this before, but there was an interesting video that gave a brief synposis on the science behind "love", so I thought I'd share. As I understand it, scientists have been able to classify three different types of chemical reactions / brain activity which they associate with three different types of desire: sexual desire, "romantic love", and "attachment."

I find this to be a very appealing explanation because it makes so much sense. I've wondered from time to time about it myself - I can remember what it was like to have all the symptoms of a "crush" . . . feeling like my heart literally skipped a beat when my crush came around, and being all intensely aware of his physical nearness, and to fixate on him, etc. But in a long term relationship all of that slowly goes away. In it's place there is something at least equally wonderful, which is a certain sense of security and safeness and a great deal of comfort in being physically close to someone. But it's weird, because that security, safeness, and comfort are the exact opposite sensations to what I would get when I was "crushing" on somebody.

And let's face it, sometimes the "crushing" part and all the flirting that went with it was a lot of fun!! But I always wondered why did all those symptoms of a crush go away.

It turns out that the two scenarios I am describing relate to what some scientists are referencing as "romantic love" which is really just a series of chemical reactions bound to wear out in 18 months or so (that figure I'm remembering from somewhere else) while attachment is the more long lasting, love-of-a-lifetime bond. And though the video is not explicit on this, it would seem to suggest that attachment is less about those automatic chemical reactions firing in your brain (like "romantic love" in their terminology) and more about something more akin to the mental reasoning parts of our brain. (Let's not get into the whole everything-is-a-chemical-reaction debate here, my lingo is not sophisticated enough on this point to be as precise as I'd like so don't catch me on it! :-) )

Anyway, all that is in many ways sort of a "well duh" finding for people who've gotten a good grounding on what it takes to make a marraige last a lifetime, because w/o the science behind it, I think the conclusions about the first infatuation versus life long love are already well-established (though not well followed.) But it's kind of cool to see science parralleling it.

Besides, maybe this is an explanation for all those Hollywood romances falling to the wayside - once they pass that "romantic love" stage they just throw in the towl!

This is where I wish I was. Sort of.

But I am really excited about my Chinese; I've been meeting very regularly with my Taiwanese friend who is helping me practice. It is still frustrating that I have good Chinese days and bad days, but I have bitten the bullet and signed up for a Chinese class for next semester. At least, I think I added it. I'm a little fuzzy on how the just the facts works, since we don't use it for law school courses, and consequently I haven't messed with it in several years.

Anyway, despite all indications that my life is heading in a different direction, I just can't give this part up yet. I'm taking a course on Chinese Business Transactions that's all about international businesses in China, and it really gets me excited. A young partner at one of the upstate firms I interviewed with was selling me this pipe dream that they were getting ready to add a small international business practice group to their Ithaca office, and they were really interested in my international background. Note, however, that they didn't give me an offer.

But if that happened, and I got a spot with them, I would happily settle in to stay in this area my entire life. Between Rob's great job - he just got a promotion, he loves the people he works with, and this has been his dream job since childhood - and what would be my dream job, and doing it out of the big city in the small vibrant town of Ithaca . . . it would be a package impossible to resist, despite the distance from my family.

But, note that I did describe it as a "pipe dream." I'm skeptical. But wouldn't it be nice?

Over the summer maybe I'll dig out some old textbooks and use them a little more in prep for the Chinese class.

Coming Up For Air

I went to Helen Newman today intending to go make fitness love to the elliptical, and as usual on my way up to the second floor poked my head in the gymnasium just to see if the basketball courts happened to be open. Since it's still spring break, I got lucky. So I checked out a woman's basketball and spent the next hour shooting around. I forget, in the months that pass in between times, how much I enjoy the sport. And today I was thinking about how much I enjoy dribbling. Too bad you can't score points that way. It's much more fun than shooting - though I like that too.

I probably didn't have time to go work out today, but I've concluded that I never have time, and that it's never going to get better - at least not while in I'm law school. So I might as well go. The new iPod has been an extra inspiration to go to the gym; it's the only time I use it, because when I'm walking too and from campus I like to hear the sounds of the world around me, and the bus ride is too short to justify it. I'm determined to be back to my senior year of highschool weight by the time the wedding comes around - which is currently about seven stubborn pounds away. Now Junior year of highschool, when I was still playing basketball . . . that would be cool, but probably a bit unrealistic.

Ah the wedding. We're less than six months away. Eeeks!! Rob and I were discussing that we really should get back to planning things again. We got all the major pieces - except flowers - in place and then kind of ground to a halt. I realized that mostly I don't care about the flowers. This makes it difficult to take time away from the gazillion other things I have to do to pick out what I want. Actually though I think the causal analysis is the other direction - I think I don't care about the flowers because in the big scheme of things, other things in my life are infinitely more important at the moment. The wedding is important, whether or not we have flowers is not. For instance, this dang LII Supreme Court bulletin on the EPA v. Defenders of Wildlife which I'm writing on my own (usually we're in teams but they overloaded cases this time around). And the many various duties that go along w/ the moot court competition in the coming weeks. And then guess what, we're three weeks away from finals - and despite being fairly studious this spring break, I'm still waaaay behind.

I'm stressing. I shouldn't do that. The bottle in WalMart said that there's this hormone that gets triggered when you are stressed which increases belly fat. It promised that if you took this pill when you were stressed, you would have pleasant mood uplifts and that (combined w/ diet and exercise) you would lose weight.

I decided mood-altering drugs from Walmart's shelves seemed like a bad idea. I think I'll stick to my iPod inspiration.

My Yellow Polka Dot Bikini is Blue

And it's not a bikini, it's a kick ass cocktail dress.

Okay, so you know the song I'm referencing I'll assume. And you might recall this Danon yogurt commercial where this woman has a yellow polka dot bikini hanging in her room. And as the seasons turn outside her window, she keeps walking in looking at it while eating yogurt. And at the end she heads for the beach in her bikini - the point being that she lost weight eating yogurt instead of ice cream. The bikini was there as her inspiration through the winter to keep losing weight.

Incidentally, much of what I said wasn't actually made explicit in the commercial - they did a good job of playing to the collective feminine knowledge!

But anyway, today I went shoe shopping around Moberly, and one of the places I went to was Stage. I browsed through their clothes section, and found this dark turquoise blue cocktail dress for 80% off. I tried it on and it actually fit, technically, although I need to lose the tummy pouch to really get away with wearing it in public. But since it was only $12, I decided this was my new inspiration dress. I bought it and it's hanging in plain view to remind me of my 10-15 pound goal. It already stopped me from having ice cream today. :-)

I had a couple other good finds - two pairs of slacks for work over the summer for $13 a piece (another steal) and a few pairs of shoes at less of a steal, including a pair of Sketchers. My knees have really been acting up of late, so I decided I really have to start wearing better quality shoes. Sort of. I'm still adjusting to it. I bought the Sketchers at Stage, but then I also bought cheap Payless shoes . . . but I bought lots of insoles for them!!

If they had Law, I think I would have scored 100%. But this will do.

You scored as English. You should be an English major! Your passion lies in writing and expressing yourself creatively, and you hate it when you are inhibited from doing so. Pursue that interest of yours! English 100% Linguistics 92% Journalism 92% Mathematics 83% Psychology 83% Anthropology 75% Philosophy 75% Engineering 67% Sociology 58% Art 58% Theater 50% Dance 33% Chemistry 17% Biology 0% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

I continue to follow good decisions with bad ones - especially in the sleep area. For instance, after 14-hour nonstop productivity day, I should have just gone to bed, but instead I stayed up another hour and a half to watch the first part of the CMA awards - including Faith Hill's poor reaction to Carrie Underwood winning female vocalist of the year. (Cheers to Jason for first pointing Ms. Underwood out to me way back when she was still one of several American Idol constestants left . . . ). Faith has tried to pull it off as a joke, but that's a little hard to believe.

Not that I totally blame her. The CMA awards are a little strange . . . Carrie Underwood, like Gretchan Wilson before her, won both the horizon award for newcomers and top female vocalist of the year. It seems odd to give the same award to both. And Faith, despite being a powerhouse of country music (albeit one that's becoming marginalized a bit by her pop style), has only won the award once. That's unusual, considering the CMA likes to give out awards to the same performer in the same category for a few years in a row. The extreme example is Brooks & Dunn, who've won top vocal duo 14 times in the last 15 years.

Which is another pet peeve of mine - Brooks & Dunn are great, but there's other good talent that should be rejected. My pet peeve isn't really w/ Brooks & Dunn though so much as it is with the fact that Big & Rich haven't been recognized EVER for ANY CMA award. They're still fairly new - only two CD's out (though a third one must be in the works) but they got beaten in the Horizon award, and now they don't really qualify for it, and the CMA doesn't seem to have any intention of giving the award to anybody besides Brooks & Dunn. Heck if I know why.

It was an all together disappointing results tally for me, I think. I would have like to see Sugarland get the Horizon Award - especially if Carrie Underwood got female vocalist. Carrie's outsold them and gotten more media and radio air time, but Sugarland has made some big splashes this year too - and they are fantastic singers as well as Carrie.

All in all though it appears to be a good year for Country music. There's a lot of recognition going on that country has got a remarkable portion of damn good song writers, as acknolwedged by such varied sources as John Bon Jovi and the Washington Post:

http://www.cmt.com/news/articles/1526126/20060314/bon_jovi.jhtml?headlines=true
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110601050.html

Returning from the dead on the Day of the Dead.

My first new blog post in approaching two month . . . yeesh! Every week I keep saying "okay, within a couple weeks it will all calm down" and it keeps not calming down. But after next week I will have finished both my hearings for the clinic, in which case I will basically be done with that class for the semester. Yaye! I've enjoyed working in the Legal Aid Clinic - it's been a great learning experience, and a real change of pace. But I was in the clinic until 4am this morning working on the memorandum of law for the first hearing.

But I finally understand how you all did it! I never managed such a feat in undergrad - I pooped out by 2am, woke up at 6am, and then finished it. But of late the whole "getting out of bed" has not been easy - though I'm doing it, consistently getting up between 7:30am and 8am every day even when I don't have class until 10am or later. So I knew if I slept it just wasn't getting finished. And the strangest thing happened too . . . I wasn't tired! I mean clearly I was since I zonked the second I got home, but for some reason I just didn't feel all that fatigued last night. It was really really weird.

Of course today I am zoned out. I got about six hours of sleep, which is quite respectiable except when you've put in a full day's work between 8pm and 4am.

On the bright side, the wedding date is set! Which serves incidentally as the announcement that I'm engaged, since I didn't actually post that on this board, but most everyone knows anyway, so I figured it wasn't that big a deal. But just in the past few days the reception hall and priest came into line; Fr. Dan from the Cornell Catholic Community agreed to preside and we found a great reception spot - Wagner Winery. We've had Sage Chapel reserved for awhile now; the date is Sept. 22nd. All we need is the photographer and all the major pieces will be in place.

Of course I still haven't decided on my bridesmaids yet . . . gotta do that pretty soon . . . but it's been totally eclipsed by the job search decision, which is fairly stressful. I've had five job offers, and 2-3 of them are still contenders at this point . . . and I've got 2 others that still haven't gotten back to me. *sigh* We shall see, we shall see.

"The MidWest, where they believe in God, country, and breakfast."

That actually was Rob's quote making fun of me. I was once again reminded today just how ridiculously well he knows me. Here's the list of unconscious (on my part) cues that he's pegged so far:

the intellectual sigh - when I'm thinking something kind of complicated / deep etc

the authoritative thigh slap - when I've got something not so good to say but am not saying it, or alternatively, in its less hostile form, the "I have nothing to add to the conversation" signal

breathing in that way - the uh-oh we're about to have one of those conversation signals


These are just the ones he's called me on so far - and each time I've been rather startled at just how accurate his perception of the thoughts in my head were! It makes me feel a little guilty that I can't read him nearly so well.

How to really make the feminist foremothers shudder

So apparently lots of little 5-7 year old girls think they are too fat. And this is a UK article, not an American article, so there's none of that "McDonald culture" to explain!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/03/08/do0801.xml

The little girls are mimicing their mothers not only in their high heels but also in their obsessions and insecurities, apparently, which is a sad state of affairs. But it just reinforces an opinion that has slowly but surely been settling in over the years for me, that we women are really our own worst enemy. Generally I tend to believe that, when dealing w/ characteristics of large groups of people as a group, nurture plays more of a role than nature. So I have wondered from time to time if this whole "women are timid, less confrontational, less likely to be asservtive, yadda yadda" would fade away over time as younger embolded generations of women grow up. I have found it an annoying but unavoidable fact that there do seem to be more women who are timid and self-conscious than there are guys who are that way. Not as bad in the USA as in, say, China, but all the same, any discrepancy at all is a bit annoying. This article just goes to show that we ourselves are making it worse.

If I ever have daughters I will particularly encourage them to play sports, because I think in addition to all the benefits it has for both sexes (discipline, social skills, health, independence) it has particularly good benefits for girls, because it forces them to be a little more assertive, which carries over into the rest of life. It also takes a traditionally male area of life and allows women to have a little claim on it - to feel like there is no area of our common lives that a man can boldly venture and a girl shouldn't.

I was going to throw in the whole "Marilyn Monroe was a size 12" thing in here, but thought I should check up on it first. It appears that at her heaviest, she was indeed a modern size 12 . . . but I'm not sure how persuasive that is in saying we've gotten higher standards as a culture, since her lightest was 30 pounds lighter.

But that's not really the point.

Just what you want at the end of a 13 hour flight . . .

is a delay to add to what was already a three hour layover. A friend described the Chicago O'Hare airport as the place where perfectly healthy itineraries go to die. That's proving to be an annoyingly accurate description! On the other hand, at least this concourse has wireless access for a not to shabby rate. It's a good thing too, since there are very few other things to keep me occupied here. Strangely enough the best airport I've ever been through is Pittsburg - weird, since it's not such a fantastic city by all accounts. But it has a whole mall within the concourses, so it's never difficult for a girl to wile away her layovers there. :-)

But alas, I am in Chicago not Pittsburg, and so I must find other ways to amuse myself. I will be very glad to get home to Ithaca, though that's not for another week and a half. I'm a little tired of traveling. While I'm in China I take things fairly well in stride; I enjoy being there if for no other reason than because I get to speak Chinese. It's really amazing - it's like a switch turned on in my brain. I expected that I would start remembering words that I used to know, but I didn't expect that I would start remembering Chinese characters again. I had all but forgotten everything I knew about reading and writing Chinese, but within about a week and a half of being in the country I was finding that suddenly even that started coming back.

Oh well. All the shops would be closed in Pittsburg now anyway. Maybe I'll watch the Princess Diaries II again. It's one of those really bad, but horribly addicting movies that I fall victim to. I think though I probably only have a couple more viewings of it left before I'm thoroughly finished with it.

You know what I'll really miss about China though? The me-sized chairs. I could actually sit all the way back in the seat and have my feet planted firmly on the ground. I never mind being short when I'm standing - only when I sit down, because my feet don't touch the ground, which is rather uncomfortable and not terribly healthy for the knee joints, since all the weight of my lower legs hangs from where the knees hook over the chair. Ah, to have chairs imported from China! Such is my dream!! :-)

A Guide for V-Day, or something

Okay, as most of my readers (*as she thinks, gee that makes it sound like I have readers*) are guys this blog will probably be unappreciated, but per a GAIM conversation tonight, I'm feeling inspired to defend and disparage the realm of the romantic comedy. All romantic comedies are not created equal - i.e. they are not all crap.

Level 1: Classic
When Harry Met Sally
This one is in a league all of it's own . . . Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in probably the only modern romantic comedy that can claim to be a modern classic.

NOTE: If Pretty Woman could be called a romantic comedy, then it would rank in this category as it too is a modern classic, but I'm not sure it quite qualifies. It's one of those rare movies that manages to just be a romance - not a romantic comedy, not a dramatic romance (a la When A Man Loves a Woman, the Notebook, etc) - just a romance.

Level 2: Well-Done
Sweet Home Alabama, You've Got Mail, and While You Were Sleeping.
These movies manage to be original (or well, at least if you forgive YGM for being a remake . . .but if you take The Shop Around the Corner and YGM's premise together was original compared to the genre of rom. Com. as a whole), funny, and believable both in their portraits of people and the evolution of the romance.


Level 3: Strangely Addictive though not so Good.
The Prince and Me, She's All That, Bridget Jones' Diary

Level 4: Unmemorable:
IQ

Level 5: Painful
Never Been Kissed, most Hugh Grant movies, My Best Friend's Wedding, Bridget Jones Diary II

Level 6: A Scourge Upon the Earth
Serving Sara
(quite possibly the single worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life).

"Fifty longnecks for my new friends"
~Big & Rich, "Kick My A$$"

On Monday driving up to Vestal, I heard on the radio that a big name country group, Big & Rich, were giving a totally free, completely improptu concert at this music hall in Binghamton. So on a 1/2 hour's notice, Rob and I hopped into the car and headed down there. He was not only perfectly amiable about it, although he'd had a 13 hour day at that point, but he actually seemed to enjoy himself, which is unusual since spontaneous attendance at a loud country rock concert for which one has to wait in line for an hour is not normally his cup of tea.
I was incredibly excited. Big & Rich really shook up country music when they broke into the bigtime with Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy - the one song I really regretted not hearing! I'm sure they played it eventually; they were playing until 2am in the morning apparently. We left after about an hour. I could have stayed longer, but Rob had a morning meeting, and he'd been so amiable that I thought it would be selfish of me to stay any longer.

The music was awesome though, and we were 20 feet from the stage. Rob got some great pictures - well, great for the fact that they were shot in very poor lighting with moving subjects - and I just had a great blast. I think the impromptu nature of it put the whole crowd in a great mood - free music, an unexpected variation to our boring humdrum lives . . . and on top of that, Big & Rich announced up front that they were picking up the bar tab for the whole crowd!

I commented to Rob that this wasn't the type of thing we would have done together 2 years ago, implying that he would have been less amiable and willing to enjoy himself even then.He denied it at first, and then replied, 'No, you're right, 2 years ago you wouldn't have told me that you really wanted to go, and then when we didn't you would have complained about it.' I laughed and had to agree he was probably right on that point.

I guess we've both learned a few things!

It's Not Why You Think

The eDiets subject line in my junk email box got me: Thinner or Smarter - Shocking survey results. In my present state of wishful thinking, I was hoping to read the survey and discover that smart women often have more trouble managing their weight because they are so busy doing smart-women things like studying for my property exam. (The slender bodies of most of my female classmates make this wishful thinking particularly wishful, but whatever.) Silly me, it was yet another survey pointing out that a majority of women, when asked, say they would rather be slimmer than have a higher IQ.

The article was of course bemoaning how this reflects our society's value on women's looks above their brains, yadda yadda. I don't have a particular beef w/ the idea that society values women's looks more than brains - it's open to some debate but all the same I don't feel compelled to vehemently contest it. But silly people! That's not why women answered the survey that way!!!

It's because we women are clearly the more intelligent species already. We've already got the brains we want, now its time to get the bodies we want!!

And if I didn't have to dig back into Easements and Covenants I would be inspired to go to the gym.

Six days and counting until I'm done with my 1L year . . .

Confessions of Sci-Fi Traitor: The Romance of Revolution

Hmm, here's a lesson that I shouldn't whine. The day after my last post was Slope Day, which despite the gorgeous weather I resolutely spent inside studying for Crim Law. The day ended well, though, when by chance El and I happened to both be lacking dinner plans, and so Rob and I went up to her place to have a BBQ w/ her and Darren. It was a lot of fun, although it was 10pm before the burgers were fully thawed, cooked, and servable. Luckily there were some munchies, otherwise I might have been unable to be in such a good mood . . . we all know how I get when I'm HUNGRY. :-D And because it wouldn't be slope day w/o alcohol (or so they say) I finally broke open that bottle of wine that's been sitting on my table untouched since my pre-Barristers Ball party. It's called the 7 Deadly Zins, and we all enjoyed it quite a lot. And one bottle between 6 people (two of El's friends came) doesn't lead to much intoxication - just gets everybody a little relaxed.

Perhaps though the wine went to my head more than I thought. Somehow at the end of the night Star Trek came up, and Darren was laughing about El's decided opinions on Star Wars v. Star Trek, and she was spouting her long-held opinion that one cannot be a true Star Trek fan and really like Star Wars all that well - you either have to like one or the other better, and Star Trek is clearly superior. After protesting that the two were completely different animals and it was possible to like them equally, I made my confession: if I had to choose, I'd say I like Star Wars better. (Discounting the prequels, obviously.)

Really it shouldn't be surprising. First of all, Star Wars has a much better assortment of short characters - R2D2, Yoda, and Wicket - than does Star Trek. Ah Wicket, my favorite ever! And Yoda, next in line . . . And then second of all, it's a story about revolution, about the underdogs fighting on the side of right against evil, battling on the basis of their convictions, brave adventurers risking everything - I mean COME ON, that's my favorite type of storyline ever! It's why I loved to populate my childhood with warrior princesses instead of Disney princess (although I liked the Disney ones well enough, too. But Jasmine was more my style - she was the most rebellious of them all.) And despite my disagreement w/ many of the morals of the 60s hippies, I've always been fascinated w/ the war protests and rebellion of that era; I was thrilled when 60s-retro came back into style. (It still influences today's trends - peasant skirts and the like - although we aren't in the full-scale throwback that lasted for like one year.) And while Tom goes for the King Arthur story, I've always been much more intrigued by the story of Robin Hood (which I think of not as much in terms of its "give to the poor" message as its "rebel against the evil Sheriff / prince").

And after all, what's my all time favorite musical? Les Miserables, the story of the French Revolution. "Do you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry mean, it is the music of a a people who will not be slaves again" - oooh, I get excited just thinking about it. :-D And I never really cared for Cosette (the leading love interest) all that much truth be told - she was a bit of a wuss I think. Eponine was much more my style, out there being all saucy in the bars and fighting alongside the men at the barricades . . . after all, my chosen name in French class for all 4 years of highschool was "Eponine."

I mean, I wrote my freaking thesis on Chinese social uprisings.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for revolutions.
(At least the ones that really are on the side of right.)

Jane Austen Rocks My World

Ah . . . contracts is done. I'm glad of course in that I am one final closer to the end of the year, but Contracts was one of my favorite classes and one of the ones I best understood, so my feeling is nothing like what I'll feel when I finish Civ Pro. Ugg I hate that class - and this semester it is my last final!

In the meantime I have been engaging in escapism to get away from my finals studying whenever possible. A few weeks ago I rented the Kiera Knightly Pride and Prejudice, and I've been on a Jane Austin kick ever since. It's really difficult to get ahold of the movies though! The 6-hour miniseries version of P&P is constantly on back request, and even to get a copy of the movie Persuasion I had to put in a hold request. So for the week that I've had the movie I've been watching it every time I want a little - or long- break from studying.

And last night I indulged in catching up on Alias and Lost. This morning as I woke up I reflected that it's a sad change from the days when I used to have friends that distracted me. I sort of make the excuse that it's because I never have very much time at once to devote to hanging out; I miss the days when I used to be able to randomly and unannounced drop by Westbourne after finishing intramurals on Jessup fields and just hang out w/ the W guys for an hour or whatever I had. But the whole "not enough time" thing doesn't really work when you consider that I only got about an hour of work done yesterday, the whole day - between the gym, and the library, and catching up with some of my law school friends at Aladdin's yesterday, and watching movies. Then it comes down to the fact that my study breaks are too random and I don't have the type of friends that I can just spontaneously interrupt. I think that's as much a reflection on the types of friendships as it is the people in them. For instance, El and I can never seem to quite make a connection - she called the other night and I was engrossed in finals studying and she didn't leave a message; I called her yesterday and didn't manage to talk with her.

And of course, I could have caught up with Renea and Jeremy down at Benchwarmers - they long ago gave me a standing invitation to join their group of friends that get together every Thursday evening to hang out. I took them up on it once, before the first week of classes this semester. That's another set of friends that between lack of effort and incompatible schedules Rob and I just never seem to catch up with. I had originally thought about going last night, but the rest of the day had been so unproductive that I felt guilty and wanted to stay home - but I sort of defeated the purpose by staying home and not doing work.

So all in all, I can hardly say I'm "friendless", but still I'll be glad when finals are over and I can have no excuse to prevent me from really making more effort to be social. I seem to have fallen into a "Jason-sophomore-year" slump ;-) only this time there's no me to come pester me and say "get out and do something!" Not that I was terribly successful anyway back then so I suppose there's no reason to suspect I would be successful pestering me. ;-)

Okay, so this attempt seems to have worked. This is a rather amusing music video.




Let's see what happens.

We're number 2!!!!

The number 2 result when you google "law" that is. I have recently been accepted onto LII - Legal Info Institute, and I'm thrilled. Kudos to Brian (computer Brian, not law school Brian) for first introducing me to the web site. Each year they take ~25 new associate editors to write up summaries and explanations of Supreme Court cases on the web. The guy in charge of it did an excellent job pitching it to us. He pointed out that in our legal careers it will be very helpful to be able to explain to clients in plain english just what is going on in the case, and he emphasized how much readership it gets - waaaay more than the print journals (Cornell Law Review, Cornell International law Journal, and Cornell Journal of law and Public Policy). And we get paid for it. It suits me philosophically to be trying to connect this world of legalese with the real world impact these cases have on people. And it suits me to be on the more tech-savvy, more "with it" journal that's geared to people other than lawyers, since if law school is any indication the legal field is disgustingly incestuous. And it suits me to not be on Law Review, which by all accounts gives you no practical skills (except things like "team work" and "performing under pressure" with which I have ample experience thank you) but does give you a fair amount of prestige, which the legal field takes ridiculously seriously.

I'm not dissing on the law in general. There are lots of lawyers out there who aren't like that - I've met and talked with some of them. Cornell Law, however, feeds the corporations / uber-large law firms, and in that world, things like prestige take on importance far beyond what could possibly be justified.

The profs are great, I'm getting a great education, and I even like my fellow law students as people to hang out with and dish gossip with and commiserate with. But the sort of "institutional outlook" of the school bugs me. However, there are a fair number of fellow Cornell Law students who also think such things are a bunch of hog-wash, and it's nice to know

I don't know why I'm getting on a soap box about how much I don't want to be on Law Review - its extremely competitive to be on it anyway so I probably would never have been given an offer. But I still can't definitively say "No, I will not do the writing competition to try to get onto Law Review" because I have this nagging voice saying "you should at least try - it might be good for your career." But oh how I do NOT want to do it!! I'm very happy to have landed on LII - that's where I wanted to be. So those who care about prestige may have their Law Review seats with no jealous looks from me!

But now it's bed time.

"You're thinking about something. I can tell by the way you're breathing."

The scary thing is, Rob was right when he said that - I was thinking about something. And by "something" Rob and I both meant not the broad "there is any thought in your brain" but a kind of "something" that usually makes boyfriends go "uh-oh . . . it's going to be one of those conversations." Only this time I hadn't had any plans to speak up, or for that matter any urge to speak. We were curled up on the couch and as I was in that hazy not really sleeping land, I was beginning to think about summer jobs. Its so ridiculously freaking _______ that he could tell just by the way I was breathing!

But it made me laugh, and it made me reflect on just how well he really does know me. Although, in fairness, he's aided by the fact that I am notoriously transparent. But still - it wasn't even the look on my face or the tone of my voice . . . it was my breathing!!

I haven't had a good game of Nerts in a long time . . .

Rainy days bring out my nostalgia. Card games used to be the Luth family pasttime; every get together inevitably turned into a card fest. The children loved to play Nerts, a fast-paced free for all variation on Solitaire that gets the blood racing like no other card game invented. The adults always went for the more sedate Hand and Foot, which was more conducive to chatting. Like Nerts, it also had the added benefit of being best played by many people - 8 people (4 teams) is the ideal number I think. In a family as large as ours it's important to have games that include lots of people. It's an interminably long game that requires two decks of card per person plus one more. It says something about our family that we never seemed to have difficulty finding 17 decks of cards - in fact, we always made a mental note of packing a couple decks to contribute to the pot, or to use in Nerts.

I was thinking about my nephews and 6months in the womb niece Eva too, and pondering that since my own child rearing days are probably a fair ways off still I can at least try to be the "cool" aunt that always comes out to play. I suppose the little ones were on my mind because of Andrea's shower over spring break - the mother of little Eva, whose name isn't official until the birth certificate. And then I was wondering how old they would have to be before I can teach them Nerts. I decided probably about 6. They have to know how to count first, but that's about the only requirement. I know my "little" cousins Charlie and Travis (now highschoolers) started playing with us older cousins when they were very young - probably 5 or 6. They always had to have a partner of course, at that age.

If I had more time I think it would be worth it to try to be a Big Sister or do some sort of reading program or something; I'm not sure what. I haven't thought about the Children's Museum that often of late, but I realize with every time I see my sisters' progeny just how much of an impact it made on me. My cousin Melanie, who's around my age, spent most of Andrea's baby shower playing with the kids in the yard. I envied her a bit, but it's good to be an adult sometimes too. Still, as the event was winding down I got in a good twenty minutes or so amusing Noah by helping him bounce on Kate's big exercise ball. I had been playing with him before the shower as well - we arrived a little early to help set up, but since that day was my only chance to see him over break I took the opportunity to play. Kate commented "You're so good with Noah. I'm just not good with children." Which isn't true - or at least, she's very good with Alex her son, which is all that is really important anyway. But it was a nice vote of confidence.

And somehow, believe it or not, I think being around little children calms me. They are innocent and really quite easy to please, when it comes down to it, and with all the intense complicated people around me (myself being such a person too) it's just such a relief to be around little people who are so simple.

I felt the same way when I visited with my Grandma Sander, who's almost 91 now and still of sound mind and only a little hard of hearing. I went in to visit her once with Mom, and we talked about quilting again, which is a growing connection I have with her. And then I spent one morning taking her to prayer service and on errands. She was so ecstatically grateful to have someone to take her on errands. She uses the OATS bus quite a bit to get around town when she needs to, but for some reason it really pleased her that I offered to take her around - she seemed to think it was infinitely easier, which I suppose it was.

There are a lot of complicated things in my life right now. So when I come upon that rare interaction with someone that is so simple, in which I can be so certain what the right course of action is, when I can please just by doing what is natural and easy and uncomplicated, it's precious indeed.

I have always felt most sure of myself when I am being a friend, and in many ways law school has made me quite a bad friend. (Law school just being the most recent excuse, actually.) And by "being a friend" I mean something more than the passive state of friendly relations with someone - I mean doing some act of friendship for another person. Sometimes it's for strangers, like stopping last night outside the Johnson at 10:30pm to give a jump to 2 slightly shady guys in their pick-up. Not the least risky move, granted, but I don't like jumping to conclusions, and the only strike against them was that their car was old and they were wearing clothes of people who've been outside doing a dirty job all day. All that says is they work hard for their living. Or acts of friendship for closer acquaintances. I was reflecting that in all the complicated, sometimes tenuous friendships I've created here with invariably intense people (when compared w/ the general population as opposed to each other) the only thing I feel unequivocally good about is being able to offer unconditional friendship to one particular someone who runs the risk of societal condemnation. I didn't do it on purpose to pat myself on the back - in fact I think I've been marveling a little at my own internal reactions and how they aren't what I expected.

The child, the old woman, the stranger, the outcast . . . (Well okay "outcast" is stretching the truth to breaking point) . . . they all have something in common. Those moments are few and far between when I can be a friend to such ones, but each such moment renews me.

What do you know, a talent show where people actually have talent . . .

Last night was Cabaret, the Law School's annual fundraiser for the public interest grants they award to students seeking, obviously, public interest work. A silent auction was going on in one room for donations from students and the community (I donated 3 roundtrips for running errands, which Rob valiantly but belatedly went to bid on in order to prevent me from actually having to give someone those 3 roundtrips . . . they had already taken the sheet away.) In the main room they were mixing a live auction for donations from professors (dinner w/ the prof, golf w/ the prof, flower arrangements, and so on) with performances by law students. I was quite impressed. There were some excellent dancers, (such as a traditional dance from XinJiang province in China and an Irish step dance) some rather funny musical acts (a hilarious music and dance rendition of a poem a written about a famous Contracts case, a Gilbert and Sullivan rip-off about what it's like to be a 1L - in the tradition of We Didn't Go to Harvard but law school specific), and some quality musical acts (such as Andy on the dulcimer and three guitarists doing a couple pop rock songs). I'm used to the junior high talent shows where the "talent" of the performers is somewhat debatable. This was good!

We had a nice dinner beforehand at ZaZa's too. It's an Italian place down on Cascadilla and 13, and I'm rather proud of myself for picking it because it turned out to be a great venue. Although I actually can't be too proud. Rob heard about it from a coworker and suggested it as a possibility for our Valentine's Day dinner, but we went to Boatyard instead. But we were planning on going to dinner with Kiernan, Duncan, and Desi, and Desi wanted some place better than Applebees, and Kiernan and I wanted someplace cheaper than the Heights. ZaZa's fit the bill perfectly. It had cloth pillars and cloth on the ceiling - an unusual and quite nice atmosphere. It reminded me of something off of Trading Spaces but much classier.

It was a nice dinner, and really nice for Rob to get to meet my friends in a little bit better setting than the semi-formal. He doesn't like occassions where the circumstances dictate that you have to kind of work hard to keep up a conversation - like places where loud music is playing! But it was a nice dinner, and we had no awkward pauses or dull moments at all, as far as I was concerned. Duncan was a "new guy" too, as we had never met Kiernan's new . . . . friend . . . before. He was very interesting and amiable, and all in all it was a nice evening.

Rob and I left Cabaret pretty early - 9:30pm. It went on for hours and then there were after parties, so people didn't get home until 4 and 5 am apparently. I'm vaguely disappointed that I didn't stick it out, but not terribly. I mean you know me the party animal!! You know though I would drink a hell of a lot more if I didn't have to pay for the alcohol. Thus the only time I've been truly drunk was at Brandy and Josh's wedding reception - incidentally that was also one of the few times I've been out drinking and not had to drive home, thus another reason why it's the only time I've really been completely inebriated instead of just having one or two and calling it quits. A law school friend of mine recently tried to tell me that drunk driving wasn't that big a deal and that it's the fault of the local government for not having a good local transportation system. (Talking about Connecticut, not Ithaca.) My suggestion that perhaps then people should just not get that drunk didn't go over so well. ;-)

Anyway, the down side of Cabaret being such a party night was that we only had 5 people at our basketball game today, 3 guys and 2 gals. And the only reason the other female was there was because I called her and offered to drive her to the game if she would come. So w/o subs we played a not so great game, and we lost. It was a tougher team anyway than we've been playing, too - we really could have used the subs. Ah well. C'est la vie.

And now time to return to Contracts.