Chipped Polish & Wornout Jeans

It's raining and cold and just plain unpleasant outside. By raining I mean it is absolutely pouring outside. It is not a good thing when I have to walk from the parking lot to the law school tomorrow. I am on the couch in my apartment, with SVU on television, my laptop in my lap, a glass of sweet tea, and my textbooks. I'm looking pretty rough in my hoodie and yoga pants with my hair pulled back and my glasses. But that's ok because Nic is comfortable while she works. With approximately two weeks left before finals I am now working to finish up my outlines. I will spend my Thanksgiving break studying and eating with my family. After December 10th I will be done with classes for the semester, and I will probably spend my winter break in the Boro since it's not really a long break. Hopefully there will be time to go to Ice and the movies and stuff with Jake like we did last year. I've also promised to try to make it to church with him when I can. I'm definitely looking forward to the break from the exhaustion that is law school. Don't get me wrong, I love law school, but it is tiring. Between outlining and reading in preparation for classes, it's sometimes hard for me to get a moment to just rest, especially when I need it most. I wasn't kidding when I talked about scraping bottom on my energy stores while working on the memo. The coming weeks of winter break are going to be a welcome relief.

The blog has been lacking in real content because nothing has been happening in my world that is really worth blogging about. That is the price of being a full time student, living far away from everyone, and having no time to do much. The most excitement I've had recently has been a quick breakfast with Jacob and the mock trial tournament I judged last weekend. Don't get me wrong, breakfast dates with the love of my life are great, and we are planning to have more of them. And I really love mock trial and judging was fun, so was seeing all my friends in the Boro, including my old captain. There are pictures but I look all gross and so I will not be stealing them from Rachel. I think that the next post may be a post about what its like to judge mock trial instead of participating.

I know that I will be too busy to blog tomorrow since I'm having a girl's day out with Mama during the day and then I'm going to be at MTSU judging mock trial tomorrow night. However, I really wanted to do this post because it is really important to me and I'm trying to make this blog worth what visits it gets. Tomorrow is To Write Love on Her Arms day, and if you don't know what that is click this link right here: TWLOHA. It's a movement about self love and the prevention of self injury and suicide; it's about fighting addiction and depression and  And it's personal for me for a reason I will get to in a moment. So tomorrow on the inside of my left wrist in small black letters you will find the word love; I'd do it a little bigger but there is a need for me to look at least semi-professional and presentable at the tournament.

I said that for me TWLOHA is personal. That's because when I was a sophomore in college, which seems so long ago, I lost a good friend to suicide; it's something that I will never really forget. That phone call from a friend who was like a brother, hearing his voice shake as he tried to tell me the news, the tears I could hear over the phone, they are as clear to me as that night I got the midnight message. I can still feel the shock, the pain, the confusion, and the loss like it happened yesterday. The scream in my head was that this was some sick joke, that it could never happen to one of us. We were invincible, all powerful, untouchable, blessed. Our diverse group had seen enough damage, emotional baggage, and hurt. But in the end that stuff just seemed so petty and minor. Who gave a damn about break ups, hang ups, and stupid fights? He was dead, and we couldn't bring him back. We'd broken the one thing we'd promised as people began graduating and moving. To always be there; to never let anything happen to us. I can still remember the funeral, the tears running down my cheeks, the sudden realization of my own mortality, the way the wind cut through my sweater as I stood beside my friends watching the casket lower into the ground, and the way we all tried not to fall to pieces. It was not the first time that I knew someone who had committed suicide, but it was the first time it was so close to me. I remember thinking: "God, why did You let this happen? Why take him from us? Why didn't You stop him? Why didn't You give us some kind of sign that he needed us?" And I remember blaming myself for not noticing, for letting our little group of friends fall apart just because we were no longer having lunch all together and meeting up as often, for being too wrapped up in the drama and insanity of my own life. I remember wondering most of all: Why he felt there was no other answer, why he thought that it was the only way, why he hadn't come to me or to any one of our group? Did he think we didn't care, that we wouldn't drop everything to save him, that we wouldn't listen, that we could not do anything? He was supposed to be the sane one, and he had been our rock when we needed him. He'd talked us through so many hard times. He'd kept us together. I remember feeling as though we'd failed him, though I knew that we hadn't really. We'd loved him, and we hadn't known he was in trouble. I still wonder what life would be like had we known something and been able to save him. Would our little group have stayed together instead of scattering to the winds? I don't know, but I do know that I will always miss him and always wish that something had saved him. I remember him because he was my friend, because he was my brother, and because I loved him like a brother.

So I write love on my arm for Nathan, who saw no other option, for the friends we've all lost, and the one's we will try to save. I write love on my arm and whisper a prayer for those who need help. I ask God to send an angel to those people who are lost and searching for an answer. I write love on my arm because my life matters and so does everyone else's. I write love on my arm because we are all in this together and because you never know when you will turn the corner and find someone in need. I write love on my arm in memory of those who have gone and those who are saved. I write love on my arm for everyone out there.

I am scraping the bottom of my energy reserves at the moment, which is probably why I am wearing a hoodie that is three times or more too big and my hair is all curly and held back in a jaw clip and I barely have enough make up on to cover up my face. Needless to say, I'm tired, and the reason for my drained body is the same as the reason there hasn't been a post since Tuesday. That gorram memo. I finished all 3000 words of it, finally, this morning at about 10 AM or so. I have been dragging about for the last week, struggling to keep caught up and finish the memo, and having a minor panic attack due to the fact that I have to send my laptop, the nice new one I bought in September, out for repairs because according to the tech folks, it's having a hardware issue that must be repaired by the HP people. Too bad for Nic there are no HP Authorized Service Providers anywhere near her; so it has to be shipped to HP for a repair that could take two weeks to get it back instead of going into a repair place and having it repaired in a day or two. This is not a good time to be having technology issues. I take finals is three weeks, counting this one, and I plan to take them on my laptop because I type faster than I can write and it's hard for me to write for long periods of time because my right wrist is so messed up. I woke up this morning to find my living room filled with case law. I'm not kidding, there are stapled copies of the various cases I was writing my memo with, which is the signal that the apartment must be cleaned before I leave for the weekend. I don't have enough energy today to post a decent entry, so I promise that tomorrow I will write again.

Good news: Today's weather was actually nice enough that since I don't have class until 2:25PM and only have one textbook (Contracts) to carry along with my bag and purse I could walk to the law school. I love being able to walk to class.

It's the first week of November, the weather here in the North is still refusing to pick a temperature, and my life is filled to the brim with things to keep me busy. I've got the Open Memo (foul creature that it is) due next Monday, which means that I have to show up early enough to turn the thing in even though my first class of the day will not be until one in the afternoon. I guess I will spend that morning in the library working on the outlines for Torts and CivPro (Also known as the land of Mordor) since those are my classes for the day. Both outlines are in bad need of an update. Speaking of outlines, I need to have all my outlines updated before next weekend, especially since I'm going to be in the Boro to judge mock trial rounds for the MTSU tournament. Nerdy though it is, I'm excited about that. Finals are in about four weeks, and it scares the crap out of me. Law School finals are not like undergrad finals. Undergrad finals are just the last chunk of your grade when you are a college student. Law School finals are your only grades when you are a law student. So I want my outlines updated and ready for typing ASAP, especially that CivPro outline. CivPro is really the only class I am having trouble in, and I can't stand it. I get so frustrated because I can go into the classroom, having read all the material and think I have an understanding of what I should know, but then the professor speaks and I am lost. I am actually terrified of that exam. Torts, I understand; Property, I get the basics and will just have to review the different rules thoroughly. Contracts, I'm not having much difficulty in despite the strange way the class tends to go.

I think I need to come up with some better responses to the question "So how is law school?" Seriously, mostly what I say is that it’s different; it keeps me busy, and it’s interesting, all of which are fairly lame answers to the question really. I love law school minus CivPro and BLS, and I love that I am learning a lot. I wish I could share some of the hilarious jokes that crop up, but they are just not as funny to people who aren't in law school or aren't going to be in law school soon. I laugh when someone says “Torts makes me want to commit assault and battery" But I'm sure people outside here will just look at me funny when I say it. Law school does make you see the world differently. Daddy (I'm Southern, so yes, I call my father Daddy) was talking about a friend he knew who was considering a law suit. After hearing the facts I spouted off promissory estoppel and why it fit. It's good that I know that, since it's important for the final, but it's strange that I can do that now. I see the legal issues in all sorts of things. I do, however, wish that people wouldn't say I'm in graduate school. Law School is not Grad School; Grad School is for wimps.

I need a new camera. (Whoa, random subject change) I've had my current one for several years, and it has been a good one. But it is beginning to show it's age and the wear and tear of thousands of pictures is starting to get to it I think. My little Samsung has seen better days, though it did serve well all summer what with the 60+ pictures I took at the zoo. It's scratched from all the times little cousins have excitedly tapped it's screen when shown pictures of themselves; it's scuffed up from all the different places it's been scooted, stashed, tucked away, and hidden. The pictures are not as clear and pretty sometimes, which saddens me, and it is often a little weak. It's gotten harder on batteries lately, and so I have to turn it off and charge them more often. I tried to take pictures of my earrings to put in the shop, and very few of them turned out well, which was a disappointment. I wound up having to let Nanny take pictures with her camera. I think that if I don't get one as a gift before then, I will save up my jewelry money and buy myself a new one. For now I will just make do, since I want to take pictures at the tournament next weekend.

Thinking of jewelry, I made five new designs for earrings last weekend; I was really happy with three of them in particular. I left them with Mama to take to work to sell, and I forgot to take pictures of them for the shop. I'm slightly disappointed because they were really awesome designs, and I wanted to see if they would sell better online than what I have now. I guess I will just have to make a few more and photograph them if Mama sells the ones she has before I get home next weekend. I've got some great ideas for necklace/earring sets that I want to try, and I've found tons of new beads for jewelry. But first I need to sell most if not all of the pieces I've made so far. I'm thinking my sales will increase when it gets closer to Christmas. (Fingers are crossed)

In August of 2008, I was dating the ex and playing havok in an unhealthy way trying to manage a relationship that was spiraling southward. It was not an easy month, and it didn't help that it was the first month of my last year in undergrad. I was working my way to becoming a college graduate and the nerves got to me. So did the prospect of law school applications. It was that same month that Jake walked into my life. Oddly enough, he was in all my classes that semester except my English ones. He was even in mock trial, which is my domain and always will be. We talked, a lot, and despite the fact that I am usually less than approachable and friendly when it comes to new people, we became really good friends. We had a lot in common, and not just our accents. Sure enough, Jacob became one of my closer friends, and I discovered that it was a lot easier than I thought it would be to talk to him. What I didn't discover was that he wanted to be more than friends.

In September of 2008, the week after I turned 21 to be exact, I was betrayed. The ex had cheated, or maybe he'd just not gotten around to telling me that our three year relationship that was supposed to eventually become a marraige was actually over. Either way, Nic was single, but she was not really available. I did a lot of crying, and I did a lot of asking God for help, and I did a lot of hating the male species. I was sullen and unpleasant. People noticed that I wasn't exactly myself, but I clung to my misery and pretty much wallowed. It was not an attractive period for me. Jacob was there for me, and he listened as I held out hope for something to change and whined and dragged him along as I walked down memory lane. Knowing now that he wanted more than friendship, Jake's listening to me and being there for me is almost noble. I know that it could not be easy to listen to someone you want to date go on and on about the guy that broke her heart.

In October of 2008 Nic got her groove back. I have always been a flirt, and the unpleasantness had sort of diminished that in me. But then I somehow managed to revive, and I also became less dense. Perhaps it was that brick wall I started building around my broken heart, but it took me until October to pick up on the fact Jacob liked me. I flirted, mainly because it's what I do, and I started to think that maybe, as crazy as it seemed at the time, I was developing an attraction to him.  It took until close to the end of the month for him to ask me out. But he did, and I said yes, despite me reservations. We started simple, just dinner, and it was fun. We talked a lot, and we still do. Thus began Jake and Nic, and it has been a fun adventure that kept going.

By May of 2009 we'd been on too many dates to count, and we'd become closer than I thought I'd get to anyone again. I started to wonder if there could be more to my feelings than the whole "I find this guy attractive and spending time with him is nice..." And guess what! There was. I was falling for him, even though I was digging in my heels and resisting because I am damaged goods. Turns out though, Jacob is pretty awesome with the super glue/glue gun/duct tape(because if you can't fix it with duct tape or a bandaid, well then you should probably just give up), and he managed to repair my broken shattered heart. And as I was getting ready to head into the house after the mock trial awards banquet, he said those three little words. "I love you", and I found out that I could say them too and mean them with all my heart. Apparently, its now noticeable that we are in love, which is cool, and Jake and I are planning our future.

That brings us to today, October 29, 2009. It's been a year, and it's been a great one. Here's looking forward to many more years of love and happiness and craziness in this adventure we call life.