Everyday Narcissism

Surfacing for air

2012-02-08T12:17:00.000-08:00

I'm still alive over here! I've been a bit busy with work, bar exam study, teaching, and general life. I'll be a bit absent for the next 3 weeks, but once the bar is over, I'll be back.

I crossed paths with one of my co-workers in the hall today. Our encounter went like this:

Co-worker: Hi. How are you today?
Me: Fine. You?
Co-worker: Great.

It was a pretty superficial conversation. In all honesty, I'm not doing fine. I'm tired, grouchy, and I have a headache from the lack of sleep. But I also know that "how are you?" isn't really a question. It's a greeting.

I wonder why that is. Was it always this way? Or was there a time when people asked and actually wanted to know the answer?

Resolved

2012-01-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012, everyone! Only 355 days until the end of the world (or the end of the Mayan calendar, take your pick).

Last year, I made an ambitious list of resolutions, but I only managed to keep one of them. (Graduate from law school.) My graduation day was on May 21, 2011, which you may remember was supposed to be the end of the world as well. I guess, in true procrastination form, I wait until just the last minute to get anything important done! (What I figure is somebody should just predict every day as the end of the world. Then eventually they'll be right.)

So, here's my list of resolutions for 2012:

Gain admission to the bar of at least one U.S. jurisdiction (preferrably California).
Publish at least one law review article.
Complete the Couch to 5K program.
Make at least one food storage meal per week and blog about it.

This looks pretty doable.

The Night Before Christmas

2011-12-24T22:03:00.000-08:00

Every Christmas Eve, we have a family tradition of ordering pizza for dinner and then lighting a fire in the fireplace, reading the Christmas story, and singing Christmas carols until we're hoarse.

This year, the city of San Jose banned the burning of wood fires, so we had to make due with candles. As my dad was reading the Christmas story, he started to trip over the words. (We were reading from the King James version, so the language, while beautiful, is a bit archaic.) There was a portion of the story where the baby Jesus was referred to as the "fruit of the womb". Well, my dad messed up and said "Fruit of the Loom". So we had to pause as we erupted in laughter. We then decided that the swadling clothes were Fruit of the Loom brand.

At least nobody accidentally called francincense "Frankenstein" this year.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Card 2011

2011-12-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

I didn't get a chance to send out Christmas cards this year, and I didn't find any e-cards that I liked. So, I designed my own.

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,
Trudy (and Ebony and Tuffguy)

Still Here!

2011-12-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

It's been busy lately, but I'm still here. In case I don't get back in the next few weeks, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Office Zeitgeist

2011-10-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

As part of my position at work, I'm responsible for keeping my finger on the pulse of the office. I keep an eye on morale and try to address problems before they get out of hand. Ever since someone brought in a box of magnetic poetry for the break room fridge, this job has become easier.

This morning as I was toasting my bagel, I stopped to read some of the sentences people had created with the words. Here's what my co-workers are thinking today:

My best cubicle strategy is a non work lunch.
We want to retire and how.
Market crash caused my career plans to change.
Embrace overseas office.

Here, Kitty, Kitty

2011-10-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

I've been a cat person since I was a child. When I was two, I convinced my parents to take in a stray cat that was begging for food at our door. He was an all black cat, and being a two year old, I named him Blackie. I loved that cat. Sadly, we couldn't take him with us when we moved to California when I was six.

Throughout the rest of my childhood, my parents wouldn't let me have pets. (Except for goldfish, but you can't pet a fish.) When I moved into my own apartment, stray cats started showing up. Naturally, I fed them. One of the strays was a gray tabby cat. I named him Herbert. I fed him for several months before he ran off.

Then a beautiful black cat showed up at my door. I chased her off because she was friendly and well-fed, so I assumed that she was someone's cat and didn't need the food for the strays. She kept coming back like it was some sort of game. I asked around and nobody claimed her, so I named her Ebony and took her in. When I took her to the vet for her shots, I found that she had already been spayed, so she used to be someone's cat. But in the four years I've had her, nobody has come looking for her.

Ebony doesn't like other cats very much, which is sad because I wanted to get another one so she wouldn't be home alone all day. Well, the universe granted me my wish last week.

My neighbor had an orange cat named Tuffguy. Really sweet cat who lounged around outdoors and was friendly to everyone in the complex. Recently, my neighbor had to move, and her new place doesn't allow pets. So Tuffguy needed a home. I introduced him to Ebony and they instantly hated each other. I tried again the next day with the same result. So I told my neighbor, apologetically, that I couldn't take Tuffguy.

She said ok and asked some of the neighbors to feed him. She moved and he stayed as an outdoor cat. He looked really sad and mopey for the first week after my neighbor moved. Then she came back for a visit, and the apartment manager threatened to take Tuffguy to the pound. (She didn't have a problem with him being an outdoor cat for the past year and a half, so I don't know what her deal is now.) So, I decided that I would take Tuffguy in and Ebony would just have to deal with it.

The first few days were a bit rough, but they've settled into a routine where they politely ignore one another. Tuffguy cracks me up, though. He's the funniest cat.

He's enormous, but skinny. He weighs probably 15 pounds (I'll know for sure when I take him to the vet next week), but when I pet him I can feel his ribs. He's also clumsy. The poor guy falls off of furniture and then looks stunned when he lands on the floor. And I've nicknamed him Destructo-cat because he's always knocking stuff over. Last night he knocked over a knick-knack and batted it around like a cat toy.

He started out not really liking me that much, but the other night, he serenaded me at 1 am because he wanted to play. As soon as I can teach him the difference between night and day, I think this new arrangement is going to work out.

The only drawback is that Ebony used to sleep in her pet bed. Now she has decided to sleep on top of me.

Sine of the times (or off on a tangent)

2011-08-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, everyone thought I was going to be an engineer (like my father, and his father...). I was good at math and science. I even liked science. However, I didn't like math. The only thing I ever got detention for in school was a repeated failure to do my algebra homework. I simply didn't see the point. It seemed like a waste of my time to do 50 problems on the same topic when 5 would suffice.

When I was in 11th grade, calculus and French were the same period. I had already satisfied the graduation requirement of two years of math and two years of a foreign language. So, whichever class I took would be an elective. I wanted to take French. My dad wanted me to take calculus. I told him that I was going to be a lawyer, so I would never need to do any more math. He won, and I had to take calculus. (I ended up taking French at the local community college that summer, so all wasn't totally lost.)

I struggled in calculus. It was the first time that math was hard for me. This took my dislike for math and intensified it. By the time I finished, I was sure I never wanted anything more to do with math. Fortunately, I passed the AP test, so I didn't have to take any math in college.

I studied political science and philosophy. Although I didn't have to take any math, I had to take statistics and economics. While knowledge of calculus wasn't essential in those classes, it sped up my homework because I could take mathematical shortcuts that other people couldn't. Once I graduated, I was secure in the knowledge that I was totally done with math.

I took some time off from school, and then I went to law school. The only math I had to do there was arithmetic. I'm now done with law school. Instead of being a lawyer, I've decided that I want to be a professor. I had a job lined up that fell through.

Most people with graduate degrees have a chance to get some college level classroom teaching experience while in school. Unfortunately, that's not a part of the law school curriculum. So, in order to be competitive, I need to get some time in the classroom.

One of my professors told me about the Prison University Project, which is an organization that recruits volunteers to teach college classes so that the inmates at San Quentin can receive their degrees. I signed up to teach English or comparative religion, but they ended up having plenty of volunteers for those classes this semester. However, they have a desperate need for people to teach math.

Since the rest of the volunteers are liberal arts folks whose allergy to numbers is even greater than mine, I ended up getting myself into teaching pre-algebra. I start next week.

So, the philosopher with a law degree who got detention for not doing algebra homework and hasn't taken a math class in 12 years is now teaching math to college students. Go figure.

Back to School

2011-08-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

Sort of.

I had a part-time (leading to full-time in a few semesters) non tenure track teaching position at an undergraduate university for the fall lined up. My plan was to stay there a few years to get some experience and then go on the market for a tenure track position at a law school. Unfortunately, the job fell through.

So, my plans have been accelerated. I hadn't planned on going on the market this year, but through a series of improbable events, about which I may blog later, things have fallen into place for me to go on the market. I'll be going to a conference in Phoenix next month designed for aspiring law professors, and I'm hoping I get some useful advice there.

I'm not the typical law prof candidate. The typical candidate went to Yale (I went to Santa Clara) graduated at the top of the class (I was somewhere other than the top), and was on law review (I was on a law journal, but not the law review). Additionally, the typical candidate is a few years out of school (I just graduated) and clerked for a federal appellate judge (I couldn't even manage to land an interview with a district court judge, despite sending out hundreds of applications). So, I have an uphill battle here.

But, there is one aspect of the process over which I have some control. The typical candidate also has a record of publication of law review articles. I can't out-Yale the competition, I can't out-GPA them, and I can't out-clerk them, but I can out-write them. This is where the back to school aspect comes in.

I have trouble getting work done at home. So, I'm going to spend my free time hanging out in Heafey (SCU's law library) taking advantage of the fact that alumni who haven't passed the bar yet get free access. (Come November, when bar results are released, I'll have to start paying. Hope springs eternal.) So, go to work all day, go to school all evening. Just like I never graduated. Except that I'll have to shepardize my cases using the books since I don't have Lexis or Westlaw.

It's way better than going back to school, though. I don't have to pay tuition, and I get to spend my time writing about things I find interesting instead of sitting in classes about subjects that I'll never need to know about again now that I've taken the bar exam. Seriously, if I need a will, I won't do it myself. I'll do the prudent thing and go get a lawyer.

So, if you're one of the people I left behind when I graduated, stop by and say hi. Apparently Heafey is like the Hotel California.

Bar Exam Diaries - Day 3

2011-07-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm done! Here's hoping that I don't have to repeat this ordeal in February.

My alarm went off at 6:00 because I had planned on doing my hair and wearing makeup for the confidence boost. (I had gone to the other days with no makeup and braided hair.) I was so tired that I reset my alarm for 6:30. I got up at 6:35 and showered and dressed. I managed to do my hair, but I didn't bother with the makeup. It's not like I'm trying to impress anyone there anyway.

I didn't eat any breakfast at home because I wasn't hungry yet. I turned on my computer to check my e-mail, and my cat decided she wanted to curl up on my lap and purr lovingly. I let her do that for a few minutes and then I had to leave. I drove to the BART station and got on the train. I brought a book today, so I buried my nose in it, in the international symbol for "please don't talk to me right now". Fortunately, everyone near me on the train was familiar with that symbol.

When I arrived, I went to the coffee shop and grabbed a pastry. I finished it as I arrived at the convention center, and I arrived just as the doors to the exam room were opening. I headed in and got my computer all set up. The cheerful proctor checked me in and gave me a brief pep talk about how I was almost there. Then he said that he didn't want to see me back in six months.

The exam started and I began my essays. I was a little less confident on today's essays. I finished with about 45 minutes to spare, so I headed over to Starbucks to grab some lunch and read my book. As I walked over there, I reasoned that if I failed the exam, it would be because of my second essay of this morning. I totally didn't know the rule, so I made up something plausible and went with it.

A little while later, I left Starbucks and headed back toward the convention center. As I was leaving, I ran into some friends who were just arriving, so I stayed with them and sipped my caramel apple cider while they ate lunch. We debriefed the exam, and it turns out I got the second essay (with the rule I made up) correct. That made me feel a zillion times better.

After lunch, we headed back to the convention center and went our separate ways. I sat down and began reading my book again. I saw people around me studying, and I wondered if it was actually doing them any good. We headed back into the exam room and the mood was palpably lighter. We could all feel that the end was in sight.

The afternoon session began. I totally kicked butt on the last performance test. It was like knowledge was flowing through me and out my fingers onto the computer screen. I finished a few seconds before time was called. (This was rare for me. The only other time I've taken all of the time allotted was on my criminal procedure final in law school.)

When the exam ended, the room broke out into spontaneous applause. I high-fived the people sitting next to me. The room felt like a huge millstone had just been lifted. I gathered my belongings and walked outside. As people were pouring out of the convention center, there was a guy from the pub across the street handing out coupons for a free beer. I don't drink, so I declined the offer, but I appreciated the gesture. (It was a pretty brilliant marketing strategy, I have to admit.)

I headed to the coffee shop and uploaded my exam files. Then I got on BART and headed home. It was an uneventful trip. When I got home, Jen and I went out to dinner at Fuddruckers because I had been craving a garden burger all week.

I'm starting to feel the effects of the adrenaline wearing off. I'm so tired, but I'm exhilarated, too. I'm glad it's all over. Now there's the 3 1/2 month wait for the results. I feel pretty confident that I passed. I hope I'm right.

Bar Exam Diaries - Day 2

2011-07-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

I'm now 2/3 of the way through the bar exam. The worst of it is over. Today was the multistate bar exam, which is the multiple choice section. I'm pretty good at essay exams, but multiple choice is my weakness, so today was the challenging day for me.

I woke up at 6:30, showered, dressed, and decided on breakfast. All I could stomach was a thing of yogurt, so I ate it and then drove to the BART station. I got on the train and headed on my way. Nobody felt chatty today, which is good, because I didn't really feel chatty, either. I got smart today and brought my ipod. I spent the train ride playing Angry Birds. When I arrived, I was hungry, so I stopped at a coffee shop and bought a pastry.

I ran into a few friends and we debriefed yesterday's exam. My impressions matched theirs, which was comforting. Then we headed in and took our seats. I brought pillows today, which helped. I could reach the table. The proctor came over and checked my ID. He was entirely too cheerful for the situation, but I appreciated it.

The exam started, and after about 30 minutes my hand started to cramp up. I reminded myself that after today, I would never have to take another fill in the bubble test as long as I live. The questions were hard. There were questions I didn't know the answer to and made blind guesses. There were questions where the right answer was not one of the choices, and questions where more than one choice was right. I kept getting distracted.

Finally I was able to focus, and I finished with about 45 minutes to spare. I went to Starbucks to get some lunch and surf the web. I returned to the convention center and chatted with some people. Then it was time for the afternoon session. The afternoon session went like the morning session except that it was even harder to focus. I felt like throwing a temper tantrum, two year old style, but I refrained. The person sitting next to me had the squeakiest pencil, and every time she would underline something, it sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Naturally, she underlined practically every word in the exam.

I finished with about an hour to spare. The proctor collected my materials and wished me well. I headed home. I arrived home around 5 and Jen ordered pizza. (What are sisters for, after all?)

I'm hoping I did better than I thought. I'm going to have to make up some points tomorrow on the essays. I had better pass because I don't want to go through this again!

Bar Exam Diaries - Day 1

2011-07-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

Last night, I got all of my stuff together because I didn't want to have to deal with it in the morning. I read over the list of stuff permitted in the exam room, and I laughed because one of the things listed was "two pillows without pillowcases". What? Do they think we have time for a nap or something? Anyway, I went to bed, and my alarm went off at 6:00 AM.

I got up feeling pretty refreshed, since I get up at 6 for work every morning anyway. I showered, dressed, then went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I had peanut butter toast for breakfast because I wanted something with protein, but I couldn't have any dairy because today was my last morning on an antibiotic where I can't eat dairy products within 3 hours. Sigh.

After breakfast, I drove to the BART station, bought my ticket, and got on the train. There was only one empty seat left, so I sat in it. The guy next to me was feeling chatty. We had a conversation that went like this:
Chatty dude: So, are you going to work or school?
Me: Bar exam.
Chatty: Oh, cool. I guess that's a little bit of both.
Me: Yeah, I guess so.
Chatty (looking at me): So, if you don't mind my asking, how old are you?
Me: 29.
Chatty: Really? You look like you're 16.
Me: I get that a lot.
Chatty: So, what kind of law do you want to practice?
Me: Criminal.
Chatty: I have some experience with criminal lawyers.

Chatty BART Dude proceeded to tell me all about how he has 4 DUIs, which is why he's taking BART, and he got sent to prison for violating his probation, but that now he has quit drinking, and he's friends with his probation officer. I was seriously wondering why he was telling me all this, but I smiled and nodded politely. Honestly, it reminded me of when I was a missionary. People were always telling me stuff like this. I guess preachers and lawyers have something in common - a giant neon sign above their heads saying "confess here".

The rest of the trip was uneventful and I got off the train and walked across the street to the convention center. It was about 8:00 by this point. I walked in and saw a few of my friends, so we chatted for a bit. Then we got into the exam room. When I got into the exam room, I realized why pillows are permitted. I was too short to reach the table from the folding chairs, so I had to kneel on the chair in order to take the test. I'm bringing a pillow tomorrow so that I'll have a little extra height.

The morning session of the exam went really well. The questions were easier than the ones I had practiced with, and I found them to be easier than my law school exams, too. I finished with 45 minutes to spare, so I went and grabbed some lunch. I decided to go to the restaurant upstairs from the exam. It was a bit overpriced, but the food was edible. The vegetarian selection was limited, so I had a quesadilla. Then I went outside to take a walk.

As I got halfway around the block, I realized that taking a walk around downtown Oakland probably wasn't the best idea. There were some iffy looking people there, so I quickened my pace. I got back inside just as the rest of the examinees were leaving. I found a couch to sit on and dozed for the rest of the lunch break. I don't think I actually fell asleep, though.

The afternoon session started, and I was regretting the quesadilla because it upset my stomach. The afternoon question was a performance test, which is a fake fact pattern and a fake library of statutes and cases, where I had to draft a memo regarding all of that. It was on an area of law I had never studied and I never expected to see on the test. I had all the info in front of me, but it was still a little unnerving.

I finished with about 30 minutes to spare, so I re-checked my answer and then daydreamed until the exam was over. Once we were all dismissed, I went across the street to the coffee shop so that I could get on the internet and upload my answers. Then I got on BART and had an uneventful trip home.

So far, I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing. One day down, two to go!

Soylent Green Tea

2011-07-07T07:54:00.000-07:00

Something funny (in a gallows humor sort of way) happened at work yesterday. One of my many responsibilities is stocking the break room so that the engineers are well-fed and appropriately caffeinated. A few weeks ago, at the request of our CFO, we switched brands of tea. The new brand of tea we use coincidentally has the same name as an employee who was asked to resign last month.

I was in the kitchen re-stocking the tea, and one of the engineers made a comment about the name of the tea brand. He joked that the timing was suspicious and that he was a little hesitant to drink it, wondering what was in it. We had a little laugh about it before returning to our respective cubicles.

(And for the record, the tea in question contains tea leaves and other plant-based spices. No former employees were harmed in the creation of the beverage. HR people may be evil, but we're not that evil.)

Two Lawyers Walk into a Bar...

2011-06-14T14:56:00.001-07:00

I'm drowning in work and bar exam studying. I panicked this morning when I realized that:

There are 13 subjects on the bar exam.
The bar exam is in 6 weeks!

I have so much information I need to cram into my brain between now and then.

I'm not too worried about the essay portions, but the multiple choice concerns me. Bar exam multiple choice questions are evil. Here's an example:

Oxnard owned Goldacre, a tract of land, in fee simple. At a time when Goldacre was in the adverse possession of Amos, Eric obtained the oral permission of Oxnard to use a portion of Goldacre as a road or driveway to reach adjoining land, Twin Pines, which Eric owned in fee simple. Thereafter, during all times relevant to this problem, Eric used this road across Goldacre regularly for ingress and egress between Twin Pines and a public highway.
Amos quit possession of Goldacre before acquiring title by adverse possession. Without any further communication between Oxnard and Eric, Eric continued to use the road for a total period, from the time he first began to use it, sufficient to acquire an easement by prescription. Oxnard then blocked the road and refused to permit its continued use. Eric brought suit to determine his right to continue use of the road. Eric should
(A) win, because his use was adverse to Amos and once adverse it continued adverse until some affirmative showing of a change.
(B) win, because Eric made no attempt to renew permission after Amos quit possession of Goldacre.
(C) lose, because his use was with permission.
(D) lose, because there is no evidence that he continued adverse use for the required period after Amos quit possession.

There are 200 of these on the exam! Eep!

(Oh, and in case you were curious, the answer is C.)

Whew!

2011-05-15T16:57:00.001-07:00

I turned in my last paper for law school last night. I think I'll have to surrender my procrastinator card; I submitted my paper 23 hours before the deadline. That's the earliest I've ever finished an assignment.

So, what this means, in clear and concise language, is:

I'm done with law school!!!

Graduation is on Saturday, and then I get to start studying for the bar exam.

The reality of it all hasn't sunk in yet. I'll have a more substantial post when it has.

Take Back the Night

2011-04-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be serious for a moment today.

On Tuesday, I participated in a Take Back the Night march. Take Back the Night is a march that occurs on college campuses and in communities throughout the world as a demonstration against sexual assault and other forms of violence against women. From the official Take Back the Night site:

A woman walks alone down a dark, deserted street. With every shadow she sees, and every sound she hears, her pounding heart flutters and skips a beat. She hurries her pace as she sees her destination become closer. She is almost there. She reaches the front door, goes inside, collects herself, and moves on forgetting, at least for tonight, the gripping fear that momentarily enveloped her life. This scene could have occurred anywhere last night, last year, or even 100 years ago. Historically, women faced the anxiety of walking alone at night and that is why Take Back the Night began.

I'm sure I speak for nearly all women when I say that I can relate to that feeling of anxiety while walking alone after dark. I used to work nights in unsavory areas of town, and although nothing ever happened to me, there was always the gripping fear of "what if".

The event began with a rally. A student who was majoring in music wrote and performed a song. I don't remember all of it, but the refrain stuck with me. "It is our right. We will take back the night."

Then a professor addressed us. He asked us to reflect on why we were there that evening. He indicated that many of the people present had likely been victims of sexual assault. (Statistically, one out of four women will be a victim of some form of sexual assault at some point in her life.) As I internalized that reality, I began to feel like I did not belong at the event because I was not one of the victims.

After the speech, we began a candlelight march around campus and through the streets of Santa Clara. I was still reflecting on the professor's remarks. Then I had a realization that I did belong there.

I have made certain promises to God about how I will relate to my fellow humans.

[A]nd now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;
Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in...
Mosiah 18:8-9

I was there to mourn with those who mourned and comfort those who stood in need of comfort. I was there to stand in solidarity with my sisters as we declared that we would not be intimidated. I was there on behalf of all women to take back the night.

Ode to Mineral Makeup

2011-04-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

I've been so swamped with school and work that I haven't had time to blog. But today, I've decided to write an ode to mineral makeup. (Waxing poetic about makeup is really out of character for me, but whatever.)

I switched to mineral makeup about 4 months ago because of concerns about the additives in conventional makeup. My endocrine system is extremely sensitive these days, so I have to reduce my exposure to a laundry list of synthetic chemicals. Mineral makeup is all natural, so I decided to give it a try.

I love it! My rosacea has cleared up. Plus the makeup feels like it isn't even there. It stays on all day and looks natural. It also provides sun protection. My skin glows!

Jen thinks I'm a crazy hippie for using it (but then, she thinks I'm a crazy hippie anyway).

It's messy to put on, and it takes longer in the morning. (10-15 minutes instead of 5 minutes for conventional makeup) It's so worth it, though!

Update

2011-03-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

I've been swamped with school. (What else is new?) I just realized it's been over a month since I've blogged, so here goes:

In the past month, my paper on religious exercise in prison has been downloaded 19 times and has made the top 10 for the religion and culture e-journal.

I'm currently working on a paper about the TSA's security screening procedures and a paper about the development of religiously based legal systems. Oh, and I'm in the process of moving to a new apartment. And I'm working.

I'm beginning to think that instead of being a human resources professional who writes, I'm a writer who works in human resources. Too bad writers don't make any money.

I'm getting better about that whole procrastination thing, but I'm not getting any better results. This semester, I got so swamped with everything that I'm doing the same last-minute scramble that I've always done. Only this time it was out of necessity instead of laziness.

My Paper is on SSRN!

2011-02-12T16:09:00.000-08:00

Wow, I've been pretty neglectful of blogging lately. I've gotten swamped with work and school. I have some great news, though.

Remember that paper I've been moaning and complaining about? Well, I've posted it on SSRN! SSRN is the Social Science Research Network, an online repository of scholarly writing on a variety of subjects.

Now I just have to wait for the Supreme Court to rule so that I can re-write one section and then I can submit it to law reviews for publication. I'm way excited!

If you want to read my article, Religious Exercise in Prison - A Guide for Prison Officials, you can get it here.

Awesome News!

2011-01-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

My Supervised Analytical Writing Requirement was signed off on today! (That's the law school version of "I just successfully defended my thesis!") What a relief. I didn't even have to do a re-write. I suppose that's because I had to do three drafts. My professor is probably sick of RLUIPA and never wants to hear about it again.

(Honestly, I'm sick of RLUIPA and never want to hear about it again...)

First Week of School

2011-01-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

I survived my first week of the semester! Last semester was really rough, but I think this one is going to be great! I'm filling up entirely on electives and I only have to be in class 2 days per week. This is great because I'm working full-time, too.

I have a pretty good crop of professors. Two of them are re-runs, and I specifically chose them because they're great. I got to hear the familiar cynical comments about legal academia and stories about Mono County!

The third one seems really laid back and cool. He started out the first day of class by telling us that he got bad grades in school and still turned out ok. (He even got rejected from SCU law school twice and is now a prof here! Awesome!) Then he gave us a funny pep talk reminding us that we'll all eventually pass the bar and get a job and that we shouldn't give up. He's totally the opposite of the doom and gloom that most professors preach. (The whole, if you're not in the top 10% of the class, your life is ruined and you'll never get a job garbage.)

I'm also doing independent study to get credit for writing an article on the TSA, and I'm getting credit for being an editor on the high tech law journal.

Adoption

2011-01-03T19:13:00.000-08:00

In my prior post, I had planned on using a brief excerpt of my story as a lead-in to something else. I kept writing and writing, though. Obviously I had something I needed to get off of my chest.

My thoughts on various methods of family formation and the peace I've made with each of them were meant to provide a background to what I have to say here. My friend Paul and his wife Amy are looking to adopt a baby. They have a hard road ahead of them, with the uncertainty and the waiting. They've created a site showcasing themselves and explaining their decision to adopt. You can visit it here.

I've known Paul since we were twelve years old. We were in the same Sunday School class at church. He's a great guy, and he'll make a great father. I don't know Amy, but I'm sure she's just as awesome as Paul.

Best wishes to the two of you as you seek to expand your family!

Families

2011-01-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a turn toward the serious for this one. I'm blogging about a rather sensitive issue, so as you comment, please keep that in mind.

Families come in all shapes and sizes. For many people, family is the greatest source of joy. When forming a family of one's own is difficult, it can be heartbreaking.

I've had a lifetime to consider this issue. Many of my cousins joined the family through adoption. One joined as an infant, but the rest of them joined as older children.

I have also done academic work on the subject of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). As an undergraduate, I wrote on the bioethical issues surrounding in-vitro fertilization. In law school, I have written on the legal issues surrounding gestational surrogacy.

Ever since I was a teenager, I've had a premonition that I would not give birth to my children. I saw people around me struggling to conceive, so at first, I assumed that I would fall prey to the ever-mounting infertility rates as well. As I reached my mid-twenties, I saw a new crop of friends marrying each year. I was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. So, I revised my original assumption. Perhaps there's nothing wrong with my uterus; I would just not marry in time to take advantage of my fertility.

I decided around the time that I was 25 that I was going to have children whether or not I have a husband. I decided that if I had no marriage prospects by the time I was 30, I would adopt a child from the foster care system and be the best mother ever. Now that 30 is just a short while away, I've revised that number to 35. My original plan was to be done with law school at 25, so parenting at 30 wouldn't be a problem. Life happened, and I won't finish law school until I'm 29. I decided that it would not be responsible to embark on single parenthood with six figures of student loan debt. Besides, I might still have a chance at marriage. People are marrying later these days, but I know once I become a parent, my chances to marry are greatly reduced.

When I was writing on IVF as an undergrad, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't per se unethical, but that with so many children needing homes, I would prefer to adopt if placed in that situation. When I started writing on gestational surrogacy, I had serious ethical concerns. Through the process of my research and writing, I resolved those concerns. Once again, I don't feel it's per se unethical, though there are certainly some unethical practices in some corners of the fertility industry.

All this is a lengthy way of getting back to my teenage premonition. It turns out that both of my interpretations may have been wrong. Over the summer, I was diagnosed with non-Addison's hypoadrenia. Right now, my hormones are completely out of whack. One area that's relevant to the discussion at hand is that I don't make enough progesterone. Basically, the upshot of that is that unless my progesterone level gets raised, I won't be able to sustain a pregnancy. I'll have no trouble getting pregnant if I try, but I won't be able to stay pregnant.

As a teenager, the thought of adopting sounded like a perfectly fine way of becoming a parent. Pregnancy sounded really scary, and I wasn't concerned with things like passing my genes on. Well, as I've gotten older and started to feel my own mortality a bit more, a part of me really wants to leave something of myself behind. I know I could love an adopted child just as much as a genetically related one, but I would feel a loss in not passing on my genes.

ART has advanced greatly since I started studying the subject ten years ago. Now it is possible to freeze eggs and fertilize them at a later time. I've decided that once I finish law school, I'm going to freeze my eggs. This will provide an insurance policy. That way, if I marry later in life, I'll still have some good eggs to use if my hormones fix themselves. The age of the uterus doesn't matter; it's the age of the eggs. So, if I want to, I can use my 29-year-old eggs to have kids when I'm 40. If my hormones don't work themselves out, I'll still have those eggs to either use with a surrogate or donate to an infertile couple. This way, I don't have to make any irreversible decisions now when I don't have all the facts.

I'm still considering adopting as well. I'm so grateful that I live in a time where there are so many options for family formation. Who knows, maybe I'll even meet my soulmate within the next year or so, get my progesterone where it needs to be, and have kids the old-fashioned way!

Some people say that using ART is "playing God" and something that mere mortals shouldn't engage in. I believe, however, that ART is a gift from God to assist His children in family formation. It's not the right path for everyone. I don't even know yet if it's the right path for me, but it is a blessing to some. There are people I know and love who wouldn't be here without it.

Happy New Year! (and a new blog)

2011-01-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone! It's that time of the year when we make resolutions that last for a few weeks.

Well, this year, I'm going to make resolutions that stick.

The first one is that I'm going to get back into working out. Law school has really put a damper on that. I'm going to do the couch to 5k program, since running is free and I don't have to set aside time to go to a class. I need to lose 10 lbs, and hopefully running will be the way to do that.
My second resolution is to finish law school, pass the bar exam, and get a job in the law field.
My third resolution is to figure out what to do with my food storage. That's where my new blog comes in. I'm going to eat primarily from my food storage this year and blog my adventures. (Don't worry, I'll still blog my randomness here.) My new blog is called Food Storage for the Rest of Us. Go on, check it out, you know you want to. ;-)

Here's to a great 2011!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

I'm going to break from my tradition of funny blog posts to pause for a Christmas message.

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Matthew 1:23

This is the miracle of Christmas - that God is with us, that He came to dwell on Earth as one of us to bear our pains and sorrows and save us from sin and death. God has many names. One of my favorites is Prince of Peace.

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6, emphasis added

At this time, when war ravages parts of the earth, and when inner turmoil ravages the hearts of many, it's nice to pause and remember that the Prince of Peace was born in a humble stable in Bethlehem. It was heralded by angels but unnoticed by all except for a few shepherds and wise men.

On this Christmas Eve, as we pause to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, I join with the angelic choir proclaiming the aspirational message of peace on earth and good will toward humankind.

Merry Christmas!

It's an Article!

2010-12-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

Going along with the awkward childbirth analogy relating to my supervised analytical writing requirement (which is more or less analogous to a thesis), I have an announcement to make.

At 5:30 this morning, Pacific Standard Time, I gave birth to a healthy and beautiful seminar paper. Labor was lengthy and protracted. There were complications and it was touch and go for a while, but thanks to supportive classmates and a talented and patient paper midwife, both author and paper are doing fine. Its name is Religious Exercise in Prison - A Guide for Prison Officials. It was 5,500 words long and weighed 4 ounces. After the Christening (in a month or so), there will be a virtual reception on SSRN where anyone who is interested can meet the lovely paper.

I have high hopes that this paper will sometime in the next few months grow up into a fine, upstanding law review article. This paper joins its sibling Hagar's Sisters: Gestational Surrogacy in the 21st Century, which will be entered into a writing competition next month and which I also hope will grow into an article. Look for this paper to be in attendance at next month's SSRN reception as well.

I would also like to announce that I'm expecting another paper in the near future. Its name will be I'm (Not) Leaving on a Jet Plane - The TSA's Unconstitutional Screening Procedures. I'm excited for my growing family of ideas. Pretty soon I'll have such a full portfolio that I'll have to move out of my little student apartment and take up residence in the ivory tower!

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Ok, this blog post is proof that I didn't get enough sleep last night. But, here you go, my silliness at its finest. I'm so tired that everything is funny. I'm way too old to be pulling all-nighters! Oh, to be 19 again...

Reprint: Pondering Pronouns

2010-12-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

I don't have any new material right now, so I'm going to borrow a page from television and do a rerun. Except, I'm going to do even better - I have some new stuff to add.

Last year, I wrote a post entitled Pondering Pronouns about the use of gender-neutral third person singular pronouns in English. Today, I read an interesting post at the Volokh Conspiracy on gender-neutral plural nouns in Spanish.

My old post on pronouns is reprinted below.

I've been thinking about pronouns a lot lately. They're great. I'll illustrate why using the parable of the Cherry Pop-Tart. (For some reason, I'm not quite sure why, Jen and I jokingly never use pronouns to refer to Cherry Pop-Tarts.)

Jen has a box of Cherry Pop-Tarts in the pantry. Jen loves Cherry Pop-Tarts. She thinks Cherry Pop-Tarts are quite delicious. Cherry Pop-Tarts are one of her favorite sweet treats. I think Cherry Pop-Tarts are alright, but Cherry Pop-Tarts are not high on my list of things I want to eat. Cherry Pop-Tarts are too sweet. However, I love the edges of Cherry Pop-Tarts. The edges are the best part of Cherry Pop-Tarts.

Sounds pretty awkward, doesn't it? Pronouns shorten our prose and add variety.

I've been having pronoun trouble in my academic writing, though. English lacks a good gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. This can cause all sorts of problems when writing sentences without a gender-specific actor. It comes up in legal writing all the time. For example, if I'm writing about criminal law, I might want to state the rule of lenity. I would write: The rule of lenity states that if a criminal statute is ambiguous, the ambiguity should be resolved in favor of the defendant. So far, there are no pronoun problems. However, I might want to expand on that. I could continue by saying: Courts have declared that the rule of lenity does not always result in a not-guilty verdict. If a defendant violated even the lenient interpretation, he can be convicted. Here's where we get into problems. [1]

Some people advocate using the masculine pronoun in a gender-neutral or gender-indeterminate situation. I find this problematic because it reinforces gender stereotypes. [2] In this context, using the masculine pronoun reinforces societal beliefs about the increased criminality of men. [3] Another related option is to use the feminine pronoun as the neutral pronoun. This is a nicely subversive way to get around the issue, but in my opinion, it's merely substituting one problem for another. Reversing the genders doesn't fix it.

Some people advocate the use of the singular "they". An example would be: If Dr. Jones calls, tell them I'm not here. It seems to be catching on widely. [4] It has the advantage that it was in use back in the 1500's, so it's not unprecedented. I'll admit to sometimes using the singular "they" in my speech, but it still looks wrong to me in writing. (It sounds awkward to me in speech, too, but whatever. It's better than the alternative.) One big drawback of the singular "they" is that it can be ambiguous at times, sort of like the problem we have with the second-person pronoun "you" functioning as both a singular and a plural. [5]

Another option is to make use of our existing third-person pronouns, namely "one" and "it". These work only in limited situations. It is generally considered rude to use "it" to refer to people, so that doesn't work too well. (We end up substituting one rudeness for another.) "One" has its uses, but it can sound awkward and pretentious in some situations. I tend to use it anyway when it's not too bad, but it still is an incomplete solution. Our rule of lenity explanation would have to be re-worded like this: Courts have declared that the rule of lenity does not always result in a not-guilty verdict. One can be convicted for violating even the lenient interpretation. In this particular sentence, it's not so bad, but it can get strange-sounding rather quickly. Take, for example, One must always remember to wash one's laundry. That ends up sounding one step away from Cherry Pop-Tart land.

Another option for academic writing is to alternate pronouns. For example, in my criminal law hornbook, the author used male pronouns in odd-numbered chapters and female pronouns in even-numbered chapters. This is an acceptable option given the state of the language today, but I would still like for the language to evolve to give us a true neutral pronoun.

There is also the tried and true "he or she", and the related solution "s/he". I tend to favor this as a good intermediate step, and this is my most common written usage. Even so, when I'm running up against a word limit, several sentences containing two extra words each can add up quickly. The rule of lenity sentences would read like this: Courts have declared that the rule of lenity does not always result in a not-guilty verdict. If a defendant violated even the lenient interpretation, he or she [or s/he] can be convicted.

There have been some creative attempts to come up with neutral pronouns, but they haven't caught on outside of some academic circles. There are at least two competing sets. There is the Spivak pronoun, named for the mathematician Michael Spivak, who popularized the set. The Spivak pronoun set is used by dropping the "th" from the third-person plural. The pronouns would be e (for she/he), em (in place of him/her), eir (his/her), eirs (his/hers), eirself (himself/herself). The Spivak pronouns have the advantage of being derived from the declension of the already familiar "they". The other set is "ze". This set is popular with some feminist academics. The declension is as follows: ze, hir, hir, hirs, hirself. (An alternate declension is: ze, zir, zir, zirs, zirself.)

I'm slightly partial to the Spivak set because I think it would be easier for the average person (who doesn't blog about grammar for fun) to learn to incorporate into daily usage. However, I'll take whatever new pronoun catches on.

At least it won't be an issue for the current article I'm writing. I'm working on a paper on transnational gestational surrogacy contracts. All of the genders are self-evident, so there's no need for neutral pronouns. One nice thing about writing a paper all about pregnancy is that the surrogates and egg donors need the pronoun "she", and the sperm donors need the pronoun "he". Problem solved.

Oh, and no charge for the introduction to the rule of lenity. Now you'll have something to impress people with at cocktail parties.

Update: I'm obviously not the only person thinking about this topic. David E. Sorkin of The John Marshall School of Law published an article entitled "Sex Ed for Legal Writers", discussing the importance of using gender-neutral terms and pronouns. He recommended pretty much the same stuff I did, though he was less impressed with creating new pronouns. The article is available on SSRN. Hat tip to the Legal Writing Prof Blog.
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[1] There would be no problem if I happened to be referring to a defendant who was known to be male. However, in this context, since I'm discussing general rules, there is no specific defendant, of either gender, in mind.
[2] I'm referring to the typical situation where when someone mentions a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc. without referring to the sex of the individual, that people tend to automatically assume that the person is male. Using the masculine pronoun as a neutral pronoun reinforces this belief.
[3] While I realize that statistics do show that more men than women are criminal defendants, it is still a sexist generalization to assume that criminality is a male phenomenon instead of a human phenomenon.
[4] Even the Chicago Manual of Style doesn't entirely disapprove. (It doesn't entirely approve, either.)
[5] I'm also in search of a second-person plural pronoun, but I'm more concerned with third-person at this point. I think the Romance languages are ahead of English in that regard. Somehow the Southern US "y'all" and the Western US "you guys" lack the certain je ne sais quoi encompassed by the French "vous".

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving

2010-11-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

I didn't get a chance to do a Thanksgiving post this year. So, since ingratitude is a sin, I figured I should rectify that by posting something now. Better late than never. (I'm really trying on that whole procrastination thing.)

I spent my Thanksgiving weekend writing about the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. (RLUIPA for short.) It sounds like a strange juxtaposition of ideas, and honestly, it is. (I won't bore you with the details of why land use and institutionalized persons ended up in the same statute.) Anyway, lots of ink has been spilled about the land use portion of the law. Not too many people have dealt with the institutionalized persons section. Since I have to make a unique contribution to human knowledge (pesky requirements for getting a doctorate and all that), I'm writing about the institutionalized persons section of RLUIPA. As a result, I've been reading about all the stuff that goes on in prison.

So, I'm grateful that somebody taught me to read so that I could read these cases. (I don't remember learning to read, so I'm assuming my parents were the ones who taught me. By the time I was in school, I already knew.)
I'm grateful that my professor didn't yell at me when I turned in a really lousy draft. I'm grateful to the other professor who (according to the rumor mill) convinced my professor to chill out a bit.
I'm grateful that I'm not in prison. It's really a nasty place there. I'm also grateful that I can practice my religion without having to sue for it.
I'll really be grateful when this paper is done. The scary thought is that when I'm finished, I'll probably be one of the leading authorities on the institutionalized persons section of RLUIPA. I'm not sure if I'm ready to be the leading authority on anything. (Well, I'm the leading authority on how to use the HR database at work, but that's much less complicated than federal law. All I have to do is check the code every now and then to make sure the HTML gremlins haven't misplaced a tag. It's amazing how often that happens.)

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and that you're having a wonderful Advent season!

An Ode to My Scarf

2010-11-23T12:22:00.000-08:00

My scarf is the most versatile item of clothing in my wardrobe. It's awesome! It's striped in various shades of blue, my favorite color. Elisabeth got it for me when she was studying in London. I've used it for various purposes:

1. To keep my neck warm.
This is the typical use of a scarf. I can tie it in so many different ways depending on my mood and on how cold it is.
2. To keep my shoulders warm.
It's big enough to be used as a shawl. This is helpful especially at church, where the chapel has two temperatures: Cold and colder.
3. To keep my head warm.
When I've taken trips to Utah in the winter, I've wrapped my scarf around my ears to keep the chill out.
4. To protect from sunburn.
I burst into flames when exposed to direct sunlight. (Don't worry; I'm not a vampire - just a redhead.) I can wear my scarf over my head to keep the sun off of me to protect from sunburn. It works especially well at high school graduations.
5. To show respect to other cultures.
I've traveled abroad, and in some of the places I've been, I've visited holy sites that require women to cover their hair. My scarf is a nice portable way to do that.
6. Emergency change of clothes.
I've even used my scarf as a skirt. I used to work nights doing in-home health care. When I worked the Saturday night shift, I would get off on Sunday mornings just in time to go home and change for church. One day, my relief person was late. I was able to use my scarf as a skirt so that I didn't have to go home to change. I was still on time to church.

I wonder if there are other creative uses I haven't thought of yet. (Today my scarf is keeping my neck warm.)

Random Thoughts, Again

2010-11-20T21:50:00.000-08:00

Getting there is half the fun.
I'm going to a conference in Dallas in February. I'm not willing to fly, given the new TSA screening procedures. (Seriously, if I'm going to be touched like that, I at least deserve dinner and flowers first!) So, I get to take a Greyhound bus instead. It'll take a day and a half each way. That's the drawback of living out west where the states are huge, I suppose. Back east, you can drive for a few hours and be three or four states away. Here, you can drive all day and still be in the same state. Small price to pay to keep my dignity, though.

Micromanagers.
There's a special place in the afterlife for micromanagers, and I don't mean heaven. Seriously, if you give me a deadline of 11:59 pm, don't e-mail me at 9 pm demanding an explanation as to why I haven't finished yet. I'll get to it. I'm busy. You may be living off of scholarships and have a spouse who takes care of your household, thus leaving you free to focus all of your energy on school. I, on the other hand, have to earn a living, maintain a household, and do school. All by myself. And I have a heavier class load than you do. So seriously, back off. All your e-mail did was make me want to passive-aggressively wait until midnight to upload my work even though I finished at 10. However, I took the high road and uploaded at 10 anyway.

Twitter.
I finally signed up for Twitter. I'm the queen of brevity, but it's really hard to say anything in 140 characters or less. Especially because I insist on not abusing the English language to do so.

The End of Procrastination

2010-11-15T10:56:00.000-08:00

I'm a chronic procrastinator. It's probably my biggest character flaw. (Well, that, and I'm a scatterbrain and prone to arrogance, but one problem at a time.) It's something I've struggled with for as long as I can remember. I have so many varied interests that I enjoy studying, but I'll put off what I have to do until the last minute. This is most pronounced in my writing. I can churn out a blog post in nothing flat, but when I have a deadline for school, I can't seem to get my creative juices flowing until the last minute.

Many of my professors have spotted the big problem in my writing: I don't show my work enough. There are holes in my papers because I neglect to fill them in. When it comes time to put the words on paper, I skip over stuff because I'm up against a deadline and don't have time to do the subject justice.

I've been trying to figure out why I procrastinate. I genuinely enjoy what I do. I love studying the law and I want to be a law professor. I'm going to have to write articles on a regular basis, and I can't keep leaving things to the last minute. It hit me this morning while driving into work after pulling an all-nighter to get my latest draft done. My draft was pure garbage, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that if only I had had more time, it would have been better. By procrastinating, I absolve myself of the responsibility of producing bad work.

More than anything else, I fear failure. I always have. If I had truly given it my best and it was bad, that would have been devastating to me. But, I sabotage myself by my procrastination. Since it wasn't my best effort (since time didn't permit my best effort), I don't have to face the possibility that my best isn't good enough.

I can't keep doing this. Procrastination is making me miserable and keeping me from living up to my potential. But I don't know how to stop. It's such an ingrained habit - it has become a coping mechanism.

I'm sure procrastination is a common problem, so I'm throwing it out to the wisdom of the crowd. If any of you have made progress in overcoming procrastination, how did you do it?

Procrastination stops today! (Not tomorrow, which is what I would have said before this epiphany.)

On Identity

2010-10-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

Names matter. Our name is how we identify ourselves to those around us. Sometimes our names change to reflect a new identity at a new stage of life. Billy may decide upon adulthood to become William. When Jane Doe marries John Smith, she may decide to call herself Jane Smith or Jane Doe-Smith.

All that is perfectly fine. I support anyone's right to freely call oneself by any non-fraudulent name. However, I have one simple request. If you're going to friend me on Facebook and you now have a different name than you had when I knew you, please tell me what your old name was so that I know who just tried to add me. It's embarrassing to get a friend request from Jane Smith, having no idea who she is, only to find out she's my old high school acquaintance Jane Doe.

I promise I'll do the same for you. (Well, honestly, it's a moot point for me, since I'm never planning on changing my name, but if for some reason I do, I'll remember to tell you that the friend request from "Her Supreme Royal Highness, Ruler of the World" is from the person you used to know as Trudy Rushforth.)

Two Lawyers Walk Into a Bar...

2010-10-25T15:57:00.000-07:00

The bar has been wreaking havoc on my life this week. (The association for lawyers, not the local adult beverage establishment.)

Saturday night, I had my first bar exam dream. Well, the dream wasn't really about the exam itself. It was about the aftermath. I had a dream that I failed the exam. I was one point short of a passing score. At least I didn't dream that I forgot about the test or that I couldn't remember what a contract was.

I started working on my moral character application today. In addition to listing every job I've had and every place I've lived since I was 18 years old, I have to submit the names of five 'responsible and reputable individuals' who know me well and who can vouch for my good moral character. At least one of them must be a member of the State Bar of California. I'm sure there's a lawyer joke in there somewhere.

The moral character application has to be submitted online. I created an online account with the bar back in 2005 when I started law school. (All law students are required to.) Well, since it was 5 years ago, I have since forgotten my password. I clicked on the 'forgot password' button, hoping that it would e-mail me my password. Nope. It showed my security question and asked for an answer. Circa 2005, I was paranoid about security questions, so I would always just type gibberish to make it impossible for hackers to retrieve my password. Unfortunately, it's now also impossible for me to retrieve my password. I tried typing in random letters hoping that I would be able to recreate the exact string of gibberish I did 5 years ago, but no such luck. The website said to contact customer service, but there was no contact number for customer service. I hope I have enough receptionist good karma left over so that I can get to the customer service department tomorrow. (Somehow, I think trying to hack into my account would put a damper on the whole moral character thing, so I'm at the mercy of customer service.)

Fun.

Short Thoughts

2010-10-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

It's been crazy lately. I've been working like a maniac and I've been busy with school. However, there's always time for a break to share some tidbits of my life.

Medical Marvel:
I'm a medical marvel. I got the results of my most recent adrenal test back. Even though I'm feeling better, my lab results are still off. Two areas of concern even got worse. Oh, well. At least I can get out of bed and function in society. Here's hoping that my December results end up being better.

Appliance Rebellion:
My apartment came without a dishwasher. When I was apartment hunting, I honestly didn't even notice the lack of a dishwasher. It's probably because I was in such a hurry to get out of the bad situation I was in that I was more concerned with just having a place to live. Well, the lack of a dishwasher started to get on my nerves, and I found a portable one on craigslist that hooks up to the kitchen sink. Earlier this week, it broke. Now I have to handwash my dishes again. Sigh.

Awkward Analogy of the Day:
I'm working with one of my professors on my supervised analytical writing requirement (i.e. thesis). I went to his office to talk to him about my progress, and I told him that I had put off coming because I didn't have as much work done as I would have liked. He told me that I should feel free to come when I'm stuck so that I can talk it out. Then he said that I would basically be giving birth to this article and that he was acting as the midwife. I really would have preferred something other than a childbirth analogy. But, there you have it. I think given the amount of stuff I have to say on my topic, it might end up being twins...

The Dating Game

2010-09-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

It's been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Well, when it comes to dating, I'm clearly crazy!

I tend to attract the wrong kind of man. They fall into three categories of wrong for me:
1. The cave dweller - These are the guys with strict antiquated notions of gender roles. They seem to think that if only they could help me see the light, I would give up my radical ideas like women should vote and own property. Gasp! I have no idea why men like this would be drawn to a feminist. I'm baffled.
2. The basement dweller - These are the guys who are 30 and live in their parents' basement playing video games all day. They usually dropped out of college in their early 20's, proclaiming it a waste of time. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why these guys wanted someone like me. Then Jen clued me in. I'm stable with a large earning power. They're not into me; they're into my paycheck.
3. The closet dweller - These men tend to be the kindest, funniest, classiest men around. They're enlightened and supportive, and they're great conversationalists. They tend to be cultured and well-educated. In short, they're everything I could want in a man. Unfortunately, I'm everything they could want in a man. (Well, except for the fact that I'm a woman.) At least I've made some great friends this way.

So, obviously, I've been doing something wrong. I've tried church singles' activities. I tend to find mostly basement dwellers there, with the occasional cave or closet dweller. I've tried online dating. I ended up with mostly cave dwellers there. I've even allowed people to set me up on blind dates. Those were disasters. Just because I belong to the same religious organization as a potential date doesn't mean we're compatible. We need more than that in common.

Then it hit me. The men I'm looking for won't be at a club or a church dance or a speed dating activity. They'll be at a museum benefit or a jazz bistro poetry reading or a lecture sponsored by a local university. They'll be serving dinner at the soup kitchen, singing in the community choir, or perusing dusty tomes at the library.

So, I have a new plan. I'm going to go and live my life. I'll do the things I love like making music, pursuing my intellect, and serving the community. I'm going to think outside the dating box. I'm going to embrace the proverb: In order to find something, stop looking.

A Day in the Life of HR

2010-08-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

I read zillions of resumes every day. Ones that make it past me go to the hiring manager for further review. Most of the time, each application is pretty similar to the one before. Every now and then, though, there's one that stands out. Today I had an application that stood out in a bad way.

All employment applications come through our company website. There's a form to fill out with a bunch of questions with yes/no radio buttons. For example: Have you ever applied to work for [company] before? Do you have a top-secret security clearance? etc. One of the questions is "Do you authorize [company] to verify your prior education and employment?" There are also a few fields that allow for text answers. One of those is "Please list your last five years of employment. Complete even if attaching a resume."

Well, today's applicant ticked me off from the very first line. (Hiring tip: Don't annoy the person reading your resume.) In response to the prior employment question, this person said, "See resume." That's annoying but fairly common. I kept reading. Anyway, the applicant did not authorize us to verify prior employment and education. That throws up a huge red flag for me. I kept reading anyway. (Usually I wouldn't.) At the end of the application is an open field where the applicant can input a cover letter or any other relevant information. (This is separate from the resume field.)

Most applicants leave the cover letter field blank. I'm cool with that because, honestly, I'm hiring engineers. I don't care about their cover letters. I never read them, and the hiring managers never see them. (My apologies to anyone who spends hours making perfect cover letters, but it's the honest truth. Other industries may be different.)

There was something in the cover letter field, and by this point, I was extremely curious to see what it said. Well, the applicant wrote, "You need larger fields if you expect serious responses to your questions. You ask for too much personal information and your questions are inappropriate." Yes, how dare I ask what degree you have, how much work experience you have, and whether or not you've applied previously?

The hiring manager never saw the resume.

To Emily on Your First Day of College

2010-08-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

I've known Emily since she was one day old. I babysat her, changed her diapers, and watched her grow up. She's like a little sister to me. So, here's my letter to Emily on her first day of college.

Dear Emily,

You're embarking on an exciting journey into adulthood. Every journey needs a roadmap written by someone who has gone before. So, here's a roadmap on your path.

1. Work hard.
The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. College, and life in general, requires a lot of work. It won't always be fun or enjoyable, but it needs to get done.

2. Take care of yourself.
I'm going to share with you the parable of the airplane oxygen mask. In the safety lecture given at the start of every airplane flight, the flight attendants give this important instruction: If you're traveling with a child or someone else who needs help putting on an oxygen mask, put your mask on first before assisting the person near you.
This may sound selfish, but it's not. It's an essential safety consideration. If you put the mask on your traveling companion first, you may pass out before finishing. Then you're both in trouble. If you put your own mask on first, then you will be able to help others.
Taking care of yourself comes in many forms. You need to take care of yourself physically. Eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep. You need to take care of yourself emotionally. Cultivate good friendships and take time to have fun. Take care of yourself spiritually. This is more than just going to church. That's a start, but it isn't enough. Cultivate and maintain a personal relationship with God. This relationship can sustain you when everyone around you makes you want to scream.

3. Be safe.

Most people are good. However, there are people out there who will try to take advantage of your kind heart and trusting nature. Don't let them. Spammers from Nigeria and/or Scotland don't really want to give you money to transfer funds from abroad. Random websites won't really give you a free iPad. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That e-mailed file attachment might contain a computer virus.

All of the above deal with your financial or informational safety. It's also important to safeguard your physical safety. Statistically, one in four women will be a victim of sexual assault, and usually the victim knows her assailant. Be careful, and trust your instincts. If you get a creepy or a bad feeling from a guy, stay away. Women are socialized to be "nice", but you have no obligation to put yourself in harm's way. You can say no to anyone at any time. It's your body. You can say no at any level of interaction. You can say no if you've said yes before. At some point in the future if you marry, you can even say no to your husband (and, conversely, he can say no to you). Your body is yours. If you are victimized, you are not guilty of any sin. The sin lies solely in the perpetrator. Never let anyone tell you otherwise, and never let anyone make you feel like "damaged goods" as a result.

4. Get help when you need it.
You can't do everything yourself, and that's okay. If you have problems, get help. There's nothing wrong with that. If you're struggling in school, visit the tutoring center. (Most universities have one.) If you need someone to talk to, campus ministry or the health center can provide confidential counseling. If you have medical problems, find a doctor. If you have legal problems, find a legal professional.

5. Be yourself.

Many people are going to try and tell you what you should do with your life and what you should be. While it's good to get feedback, in the end, it's your life and you're the one who has to live it. Be yourself. Nobody can be a better Emily than you.

You can do and be anything you want. You are not constrained by your race, religion, gender, age, marital status, or any other related characteristic. You have a mission or missions in life that God has prepared specifically for you. When He calls you, answer the call and tell the naysayers to take a flying leap, regardless of who those naysayers are. You are entitled to personal revelation in all aspects of your life. This includes when/if/whom to marry, when/if/how/how many children to have, what kind of career to have and how long to have it, etc.

6. A word about boys/men:

First, they're not the same thing, and it has little to do with chronological age. You're on the cusp between being a girl and being a woman. I won't presume to determine which one you are right now, but I will impart this important piece of advice. As long as you're still a girl, don't date men. Once you become a woman, don't date boys.

No boy or man is worth bad grades. Dating and relationships are great, but it's important to keep a balance. Don't sell your educational birthright for a mess of pottage and a movie.

There may come a time when you're in a serious relationship. If a guy says he receives revelation that you're supposed to marry him, don't just take his word for it. Make your own decision and get your own revelation. Marriage should be about love and free choice, not about feeling pressured or manipulated into it, and the Holy Spirit is not a weapon.

7. Life isn't a race.
Some people will make more money than you, and some will make less. Some people will graduate sooner or later than you. Some people will marry earlier and some will marry later. That's fine. You do not need to measure your life against anyone else's timetable. Don't judge those around you, and don't allow yourself to be judged.

8. Have fun.
College is a time you'll never have again. You get many of the freedoms of adulthood, but you're insulated from some of the responsibilities. Bills, jobs, mortgages, etc. are not yet a part of the equation. See the world if you have the chance.

I've said some things that may sound harsh or scary. I'm not doing it to scare you, but to empower you to better deal with a world that can be harsh or scary, even in places where you don't expect it. I hope you have a wonderful time. I loved the time I spent in school. The years of my early adulthood were a period of immense growth. There were growing pains, but it was one of the best times of my life.

Don't be a stranger. I'm just a Facebook post away!

love,
Trudy

An Open Letter to My Neighbors in Apartment 420

2010-08-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. and/or Ms. Reefer,

I've never met you, but I live across the hall. In fact, if we ever were to leave our respective apartments at the same time, we would probably crash into one another, seeing as our front doors are probably three feet apart.

Over the past little while I've smelled that distinctive pungent odor emanating from your apartment. You know the one. At first I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and I figured that Pepe le Pew had gotten loose on our floor. After all, I have a black cat, and I know he's quite fond of dark-haired felines.

Alas, I came to realize that was not the case. It would appear that you have a personal relationship with Cannabis sativa. As I walked down the hall this afternoon, I was once again confronted with the evidence emanating from your abode. Perhaps you're trying to cover up the malodorous funk of curry seasoning and incense that hangs over the hallway.

Could I interest you in some Febreeze instead? After all, Febreeze is lawful, much cheaper, and its aroma doesn't cling to your clothing when you're finished using it. Oh, and secondhand Febreeze doesn't give me a headache.

You could even make it a social event. I'm sure getting together with a few friends to spray air freshener in the hallway can be a bonding and relaxing experience. If you ever decide to go that route, just knock on my door.

The first bottle is free.

Sincerely,
Your Non-smoking Neighbor

I Made It Through the Week

2010-08-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

What a week! It was the semi-annual worldwide meeting at work. Basically, that means everyone in the company is required to come to Sunnyvale for a week of meetings. We're a small company, but it's still a ton of work. I put in a lot of overtime, and it was crazy busy. It was busier than usual because this meeting had a lot of Boeing people, too, to celebrate the acquisition. I'm wiped out.

It drives me crazy when people treat me like their personal secretary. I work in human resources, and I'm second only to the vice president. My job involves recruiting employees and keeping morale up so that they stick around. Every now and then I have to help fire people, too. (I hate that part of the job.) Don't assume that just because I'm female, my job involves making your coffee, calling your cabs, and stamping your mail! Granted, I'm a nice person, and you're visiting a strange country, so I understand that you need help. But seriously, just ask nicely. Don't order me around and treat me as if I'm at your beck and call. Don't do it to the receptionist, either. Yes, it is her job, but seriously, a little please and thank you goes a long way.

I get the weekend off before going back to school. Unfortunately, instead of spending my time with my toes dangling in the pool while sipping (non-alcoholic) fruity umbrella drinks, I have to clean my apartment and do my homework. By Tuesday, I have to read 400 pages. It's going to be one of those semesters.

In other news, I'm fed up with AT&T. Last month my internet was down for a week because my modem went bad after only a few months. Since it was a leased modem, they sent a technician out to repair it. They didn't give me the option of just mailing me a new one. I'm quite capable of fixing my own internet connection if I have the proper equipment. Anyway, they charged me $55 for the privilege. I was already pretty upset at their outrageous prices and abysmal customer service, but this was the last straw. I'm switching to Comcast. For the same absurd price I was paying for my internet, I get internet and cable television. I don't care about the television, but Jen will be happy. Hopefully their customer service is better. Oh, and I get to own my modem this time. (They wanted me to lease one for $5 per month, but I bought a cheap one off of amazon.com for $15. It'll pay for itself in 3 months.)

Legal Analysis of Perry v Schwarzenegger

2010-08-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

Update: 8/9/10: I've thought better of jumping into the fray here. I did my own legal analysis, but I'm not going to blog it. Another blogger articulates perfectly the reasons why. Nobody is really interested in measured dispassionate commentary on the subject.

However, I'll at least offer my predictions (without commenting on the merits of the case) as to what will happen next. The case will go to the Ninth Circuit, where it will be decided on by a three judge panel. It could go either way at the Ninth Circuit, depending on which judges end up on the panel. (They're randomly assigned.)

After the panel renders a decision, the losing party will likely file a petition for rehearing en banc. If granted, an eleven judge panel will hear the case. Then the losing party will file a petition for certiorari, which is a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. If four justices want to hear the case, then the court will take it.

Chances are fairly good that the court will take the case. Assuming that the current composition of the court doesn't change, I predict that the decision will be 5-4 with Justice Kennedy casting the deciding vote. He will likely vote to uphold the law, given some of his prior writings, but he may vote to strike it down. It could really go either way.

I've left the text of my original post unaltered below. I'm turning comments on, but I'm enabling moderation. I'll be in a big meeting at work all day tomorrow, so I won't have time to look at comments until tomorrow night. As such, there will be a delay in comments showing up. It's nothing personal.
---------

I usually try to avoid controversy on this blog. However, I want to be a law professor, and commenting on major legal issues of the day is something that law professors do as part of the job. This will give me practice.

The opinion is 138 pages long. I have read the entire thing (which is, in my opinion, a prerequisite to having a discussion on the topic), but I have not had time to finish writing my analysis. I have a busy rest of the week, so my goal is to get the analysis up by the end of the weekend. I'm posting this placeholder because now that I've let you all know to expect the post, I'll actually get it done.

I'm closing comments for now, since there's nothing to comment on. When I put up my analysis, I'll open comments, but I will turn on comment moderation. I usually don't like to moderate comments, but given the divisive nature of the topic, and given the vitrol that both sides have been spewing in the blogosphere, it's an action I have to take.

Here are the rules for commenting: If you want to criticize my legal analysis, feel free to do so. As long as it's done respectfully and without profanity, your comment will be posted. However, if you want to vilify the plaintiffs or the defendants, or the proponents or opponents of the law at issue, your comment will not see the light of day. I will be an equal opportunity deleter.

Tales of a Cat Door

2010-08-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

I like sleeping with my door shut. (It's a necessity with roommates, since everybody goes to bed and gets up at different times.) When I got Ebony, I quickly realized that I needed a new sleeping solution. The first few days after I got her, she would wake me up in the middle of the night wanting to go out into the living room at 3 am.

I decided that I needed to install a cat door in my bedroom door so that she could come and go as she pleased without bothering me. Since I lived in an apartment, I couldn't cut a hole in the door. I looked on craigslist and found someone who was selling old doors. (She was remodeling her house and getting new doors.) One of the doors was the right size for me, so I bought it. I hauled it home in my little Toyota. I have no idea how I made it fit. The door never closed properly, so I had to use gate latches to keep it shut, but it allowed Ebony to move in and out freely. When I moved from one apartment to the next, I took the door with me.

It still didn't fit properly in the next place, but I used it anyway. (The dreaded apartment about which I've blogged previously.) When I moved back in March, I tossed the door out because I no longer needed it and it was in pretty bad shape anyway. I moved to my own roommate-free apartment, so I decided I would just leave my door open and let Ebony have free reign of the place. Then Jen moved in, so I needed a door again.

I measured the door and bought one that was supposedly the same size at Home Depot. My dad came over to help me install the cat door and then put the door up. Well, the door was about 3/8" too wide. My dad and I are both really good at computers, but we're pretty hopeless with home improvement tasks. (One time it took us four hours to put together a bunk bed because we put it together in every incorrect manner possible and had to redo it three times.)

I put up a message on Facebook asking for help, and one of my friends volunteered her father. My dad got in touch with her dad, and it turns out that the problem was bigger than we thought. He ended up having to get a new door from a lumber company, and they cut the cat door hole and everything. The door was installed last night.

Ebony loves her new cat door, and I love that she can walk in and out as she pleases. I'm totally getting some duct tape to darken the clear cat flap, though. Light from the living room was shining in last night.

Where have all the croissants gone?

2010-07-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

I managed to get out the door a few minutes early this morning. I have to be at work at 7:30 AM, so I usually end up eating breakfast at my desk while reading my e-mails for the morning. (The upside of working for a company with offices all around the world is that work never has to stop. The downside is that when I get in in the morning, I need to read all the e-mails that piled up overnight while the work didn't stop.)

Traffic was really light (what a difference 10 minutes can make), so I got to work at 7:05. I really wanted an Odwalla smoothie (Strawberry C Monster - it's one of the only ones without mango, and it tastes delicious) and an almond croissant. I know - total sugar frenzy, but it was my craving. Since I've worked really hard on the acquisition, I figured I would treat myself. So, I went to the grocery store up the road. I picked up the juice and then went to the bakery for the croissant. There were no croissants of any flavor. Plenty of donuts and bagels and Danishes, but no croissants. I bought my juice and put it in my car.

The grocery store is in a small shopping center. Also in that shopping center is a donut shop, a bagel shop, and a Starbucks. I walked into the donut shop, but they only had donuts. I walked into the bagel shop, but they only had bagels. I walked across the parking lot to Starbucks, figuring that they must have a croissant. Nope.

I almost bought a donut instead, until I remembered that I don't like donuts. It was roughly 7:15 by now. There's a little cafe right by work, so as a last ditch effort, I stopped in there. I don't like going to that cafe because the guy who works there is a bit unpleasant. I half expect him to say "No soup for you!" when someone orders their food. Anyway, he didn't have croissants, either.

I headed to work in defeat. Did the French do something to tick off the city of Sunnyvale, causing the entire town to boycott the decadent breakfast pastry? All I wanted was a croissant, and I struck out five times! It's a good thing I keep a box of raisin bran in my desk. That ended up being my breakfast today.

Top Ten Reasons Why Waterstone Is Better Than Pathfinder Village

2010-07-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

My landlord has some silly interpretations of lease provisions, and my rent is a bit on the pricey side. However, life is good here at Waterstone. It's a zillion times better than it was in Pathfinder Village. (I have some other colorful names for Pathfinder, but this is a family blog.)

As I was listening to my upstairs neighbors step on every creaky floorboard last night, I began to get annoyed. Then I realized that if my biggest annoyance is creaky floorboards, I've got a pretty good deal. I decided to count my blessings. So, here are the top ten reasons why Waterstone is better than Pathfinder.

10. Sufficient parking - At Waterstone, each apartment gets one parking space included with the rent. Additional parking spots can be rented for a modest fee. There is plenty of parking for guests or people too cheap to rent an extra spot. At Pathfinder, parking was a constant nightmare. There were times when the nearest parking space I could find was a 10 minute walk from my apartment.

9. Parking is enforced - At Pathfinder, there was one parking spot per apartment, regardless of the size of the apartment or the number of occupants. On several occasions, someone (not a roommate or other person with permission) was parked in the reserved spot. I called security and they refused to do anything about it. At Waterstone, I've had people park in my spot on a few occasions, and the management immediately tags the car with those bright orange violation stickers threatening to tow the car if it isn't promptly removed. The offending car is always gone within an hour. (Whether by the owner's own volition or by towing, I'm not sure, but either way, I get my spot back.)

8. Safety - My car got broken into multiple times at Pathfinder, despite my being compulsive about locking it and removing all valuables. Last week, I was an airhead and forgot to lock my car door overnight. When I got to my car in the morning, it was still there, untouched, with all of my belongings completely undisturbed. Score for Waterstone. At Pathfinder, the cops showed up at least once a week. At Waterstone, the one time the cops showed up, it was so newsworthy that the manager sent a notice to all the residents explaining the reason for the visit and reassuring us that this is a safe community.

7. Everything is up to code - In Pathfinder, I couldn't run multiple appliances at the same time. The microwave and iron would trip the circuit if used together. Same with the television and the vacuum cleaner, or the hairdryer with just about anything. The heater never worked, so I had to use space heaters, which tripped the circuit when anything else was used. The place constantly grew mold no matter what I did. At Waterstone, I have central heat, central air, and functioning electrical outlets. I can simultaneously run my television, washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, and microwave with no problems!

6. Walk-in closet - I have a huge walk-in closet. I love it! It's almost big enough to be another bedroom.

5. Well-behaved children - At Pathfinder, roving bands of unsupervised children and teenagers plagued the place. They would curse at top volume, play basketball until all hours of the night, throw eggs at residents' doors, harass the stray cats, and generally make nuisances of themselves. At Waterstone, the children are polite, well-behaved, quiet, and supervised. They are completely inoffensive. One time, I was struggling with two large boxes in my hands, and a little girl about 4 years old opened the building door for me and pressed the elevator call button! (I made sure to tell her mother what a polite child she had.)

4. Elevator - The elevator at Pathfinder didn't stop on the second floor (thank goodness I lived on the third), was always really iffy, and managed to get stuck on multiple occasions. I was trapped in there three separate times. That's saying something, given that I took the elevator probably once a month, tops. The elevator at Waterstone works just fine. It's slow, but it's reliable. (I still take the stairs, though.)

3. Quiet - Pathfinder was always noisy. Between the marauding bands of urchins, the constant fiesta music, the constant rap, the police sirens, and the construction noise, I don't think I experienced a moment's peace in the 4 years I lived there. It's silent here at Waterstone. Aside from splashing in the pool or my upstairs neighbors' footsteps, I don't hear any noise. I love it!

2. Competent management - Pathfinder could never keep a manager for more than 6 months. They lost my lease file on several occasions, and they didn't add roommates to the lease even when they said that they had. (That created a nightmare when everything went south right before I had to move out.) It took them a week to fix a problem caused by an electrical fire that left us without power in half of the apartment. The employees were rude and disorganized, and they failed on several occasions to comply with notice requirements for entry. The management at Waterstone is competent, polite, and helpful. The only time I had to put in a service request, it was taken care of within a few hours.

And, the number one reason why Waterstone is better than Pathfinder:

No bedbugs!!! - Bedbugs are the scourge of humanity. They're insidious little pests that can infest even the cleanest environments. I never had bedbugs, but they were allegedly found in neighboring apartments, and my roommates spotted them on occasion as well. I detailed the arduous process of getting rid of bedbugs here. In addition to Pathfinder having bedbugs, the management wouldn't always tell us when the bugspray people were coming. The pest control people would show up at 8 am on a Monday morning (after I was at work, so I never talked to them), demand entry, and get upset when we weren't ready for them because we didn't know they were coming. Hello, we're not clairvoyant! (At one point, this happened 4 weeks in a row. I even went and asked the office on a Sunday afternoon if they were coming on Monday, and they wouldn't tell me.) Anyway, Waterstone has been spared this Monday-stealing scourge.

Responsible Consumer Behavior

2010-07-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

We all need to buy things. Nobody can be entirely self-sufficient. That's okay, though. One basic tenet of economic theory is that specialization leads to the creation of wealth, due to economies of scale. Instead of everyone making their own widgets and sprockets, we're better off having widget makers and sprocket makers. Trade is born.

However, we also have an obligation to buy responsibly. People of goodwill can have disagreements about what it means to buy responsibly. For example, let's say there's a company called BigCorp. BigCorp sells low-priced goods. Some people object because BigCorp drives smaller stores out of business. Other people hail BigCorp as the savior of the community for creating jobs and giving the poor a place where they can afford to shop. Empirical data supports both of the arguments about BigCorp.

Choices involve trade-offs. Very little is black and white; most things are varying shades of gray. Like most things in life, responsible consumer choices need to be subject to a cost-benefit analysis. That analysis will come out differently for different people because each person's costs and benefits will be different. (Costs do not need to be entirely personal. If a person finds a corporation's behavior to be unethical, supporting that corporation may impose an intolerably high cost.)

So, I've come down to my own little dilemma on how to fuel my car. For years, I've purchased my gasoline from Arco. I've done this for two reasons. The first is that it's inexpensive gas and I'm a cheapskate. The second is that Arco is one of the few gas companies (and the only one in the Bay Area) that does not import oil from the Middle East. I'm not too keen on giving my money to people who wish me harm, and plenty of people and governments in the Middle East are unfriendly to America. Unfortunately, Arco is owned by BP. So, now my choices are to finance people who want to do me harm, or finance a company responsible for an enormous environmental disaster that gets bigger by the day.

The benefit is the same to me with either choice. I get to travel to the places I need to go. (Unfortunately, riding my bike or walking won't work for most of my destinations.) I'm not sure which cost is higher.

I've toyed with the idea of biodiesel. I've read about the chemistry involved in its production, and it's no more difficult than soapmaking. However, living in a tiny apartment, I don't have the space to make my own biodiesel. That would leave purchasing it, and commercially purchased biodiesel is considerably more expensive than either gasoline or petrodiesel. Plus, I would have to get a diesel car, which is an added expense. There's also the straight vegetable oil route, which would eliminate the need for processing space. However, it would require a diesel car with some engine modifications, and it's not as high-quality of a fuel. (Most people use waste oil, so it's good for recycling, bad for the car.) There's also the option of a plug-in electric vehicle, but I've rejected that one because the range and speed aren't up to par yet. (They only get 150 or so miles on a charge and can only go 55 mph. Going that slowly on a CA freeway is suicide.)

So, it looks like I'm stuck with a bunch of bad options, and I just have to find the least bad one. I suppose I can liken it to the situation I'm faced with health-wise right now. My adrenals are out of whack, and one of the things I need to do is eliminate my exposure to certain chemicals, most notably fluoride. Since the water supply is fluoridated, that's impossible. So, I do what I can. I drink and cook with purified water, and I brush with fluoride-free toothpaste. There will still be fluoride in foods and beverages prepared by others, but I can reduce my exposure. Same thing with the automotive fuel problem. I can't eliminate my use of gasoline, but I can find ways to mitigate the problem.

Bible Names for Girls

2010-07-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about what I want to name my future (as yet unconceived, don't get any ideas...) children. I've always favored Bible names. I think it's because I have such an uncommon name and it's unpronounceable to many of my neighbors. (Note to future parents: If you contemplate living in an area with a large population of native Spanish speakers, don't give your kids a German name.)

This affinity for Bible names will work quite well if I have sons. There are plenty of great male names. Since history was written by men and tends to ignore the female contribution to society, there are fewer names I could give my daughters. Here's a sprinkling of names I've considered and my thoughts on them.

*Deborah - Deborah is my Bible hero. She's a judge, a prophetess, and a military leader. She also has a husband and children. This rocking awesome woman truly has it all! I want to grow up and be like her. I probably won't use this name for my daughters, though, since my mom is named Debra. It might be confusing for a kid to think she was sort of named after Grandma, but spelled differently. (I prefer the Biblical spelling.)

*Leah - Leah is a pretty name, and I've always felt kind of bad for her.

*Rachel, Mary, Sarah - All nice names, but they're a bit too common for my tastes. I know about a zillion people with these names.

*Miriam - Miriam is cool. Her quick thinking ensured that Moses grew up in a safe environment, and she's another example of a prophetess. Plus, the name is really pretty and is common enough not to get a kid made fun of but not so common that she'll have to be "Miriam R." to distinguish herself from all the other Miriams at school.

*Some abstract concepts or virtues mentioned in the Bible have been used as female names. Faith, Hope, Charity, Grace, etc. I could see naming a kid Faith or Grace, but I don't know.

*There's also the possibility of feminizing male Bible names. This would give options such as Stephanie, Philippa, Joan, Dana, etc. Stephanie is the only one of those I could see myself going with. (Although I don't know what it would do to a kid's psyche to be named after the first Christian martyr...) I still see Dana as a male name, I'm not a big fan of Joan, and Philippa sounds like somebody's great aunt.

*There are some awesome Bible women with names I would never inflict on my children.
-Vashti - She's a great example of standing for her convictions and demanding to be treated with the respect that all people are due. However, the name is a bit too uncommon. Having an uncommon name myself, I'm sensitive to these things.
-Huldah - Another prophetess, complete with declarations of "Thus saith the Lord." She's pretty cool, but I just know kids would make fun of anyone with that name these days.
-Hagar - I became sympathetic toward her when I wrote a law review article (that I'll get around to publishing someday) that used her story as a jumping off point to a discussion of surrogacy contracts. She got a raw deal. Sarah treated her terribly. Naming a kid Hagar would also fail the playground test. Plus, it conjures up images of the comic strip "Hagar the Horrible." Kids would have a field day.
-Junia - She's the only female apostle mentioned in the Bible. That in and of itself may be a reason to name a kid after her. However, I don't want to saddle a kid with the responsibility of educating the world about the lost tradition of female apostles. Maybe I'll use it as a middle name.

So, who knows...Maybe someday I'll be introducing little Leah Junia or Miriam Vashti to the world. Or I'll marry some guy who promised his grandmother Millicent that he would name his daughter after her. (shudder)

Brain Fog

2010-06-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

The problem with keeping two blogs under two different names is that sometimes I forget which blog I'm signed into when I write a post. So, if you happened to see a blog post that didn't make much sense, it was meant for the other blog. I've since taken it down from here. I blame the login gremlins or the html goblins. Take your pick.

Some cheese with my whine...

2010-06-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

I usually try to keep this blog fairly upbeat. However, today, I’m going to complain. I hear a little bit of complaining can be healthy, and goodness knows I could use a little bit of healthiness right now.

I’m exhausted! Not just the usual stayed up too late tired or the need a vacation tired. The bone-numbingly drained feeling that can only be described as feeling like something has been leeching the life force out of me for months and is reaching the bottom of the barrel.

It’s a physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. At first, I brushed it off as stress, since my life has been in a fairly constant state of high stress for the past five years. Law school, losing law school, losing my job, working two jobs, going back to law school, going to law school while working two jobs, having roommate drama, moving, etc.

However, my stress level has been fairly low lately. I'm working part-time, I'm settled into my apartment, I'm doing well in school, and everything is going right for a change. Even with all of that, my exhaustion has been getting worse. The huge wake-up call was last month during finals. I had a paper due in my seminar. I had been thinking about the paper all semester, and I had been doing research. When the time came to put it all together, I hit massive writer’s block. I wasn’t too worried at first, since the pressure of a looming deadline always gets my creative juices flowing. However, no matter how hard I tried, I was too tired to think about it, and I couldn’t make myself do it. Intellectually, I knew I needed to care, I wanted to care, and a part of me really did care, but I couldn’t make it happen. I felt like there was a fog hovering over my brain. I managed to write something, but it was terrible. The only thing that saved my grade in that class was my class participation.

I like my job, but when I get up for work in the morning, it’s a struggle to get out of bed. I always feel like I haven’t gotten enough sleep, even though I’ve gotten 6 or 7 hours. I walk through my days with bags under my eyes, constantly yawning. Even on the weekends, when I sleep in and get 9 or 10 hours, I’m still tired.

I started trying to figure out what was wrong with me. It wasn’t the flu, it wasn’t a cold, and it wasn’t anything else obvious like that. Someone suggested that it might be depression, but I found that unlikely because I’m happy. I’m not depressed – just really really really tired!

Anyway, I was so desperate for a solution that I figured I would look into it just in case. For reasons too lengthy to go into in this post, I’m concerned about the effects of antidepressants, so I got a comprehensive book that discussed and evaluated natural treatments for depression. It talked about herbs, meditation, therapy, etc.

As I was reading the book, there was a chapter that talked about the endocrine system. The author said that hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) mimics the symptoms of depression, and people with thyroid problems are often misdiagnosed as being depressed. I kept reading and discovered that the main symptom of hypothyroidism is extreme fatigue. I have many of the other symptoms, too. (Cold all the time, hair thinning, difficulty concentrating, hypoglycemia, premature graying of the hair, pale skin, brittle fingernails, sore throat, inexplicable nausea, and ten mysterious pounds that moved in and refuse to leave.) Additionally, my mom was diagnosed with hypothyroidism last year.

I don’t have health insurance, so I had to get creative. I did a ton of research so that I’m armed with knowledge. I now know more than I ever thought I would need to know about my thyroid. For example, I found out that fluoride is used in Europe as a medicine to treat people with overactive thyroids, since it decreases thyroid function. Well, I’ve been drinking tap water for most of my life (which has fluoride added to it), and as a kid, my dentist prescribed fluoride pills for tooth health. Oops.

So, I’m now trying to find a non-fluoridated drinking water source. I’m going to have to go to one of those water stores that does reverse osmosis filtration, because a Brita filter won’t take fluoride out. (I’m not too worried about the lack of fluoridated drinking water harming my teeth, since I brush with a fluoride toothpaste.) I went to a water store yesterday, but all of the plastic bottles they sell are polycarbonate, which can leech the endocrine disruptor bisphenol-A. The store’s owner said if I wanted to, I could order glass bottles for $35. I’m looking for a cheaper source for glass bottles. I’m thinking 3 gallon bottles because 5 gallons of water combined with the glass would probably be too heavy for me to lift.

I found a laboratory that does mail-order testing, so I ordered a test kit to check my thyroid levels. I got the kit a few weeks ago, but I had to wait until yesterday to take the test because I had to take it on a specific day in my cycle so that progesterone wouldn’t throw off the results. The samples are on their way to the lab to be tested, and I should find out the results in a few weeks. If the results are abnormal, I’ll go see a doctor.

I’m torn on what I want the results to be. On the one hand, if the test comes back positive for hypothyroidism, I’ll know what’s wrong and be able to fix it. On the other hand, it will mean that I’ll have to take a pill every day for the rest of my life. If the test comes back negative, then I’ll be back at square one, exhausted with no idea why.

My research has indicated that many people are estimated to have subclinical hypothyroidism, which is basically a mild case that won’t show up on test results and doesn’t require drug treatment. I suppose the best case would be if I have that, and I can control it by making lifestyle changes such as eliminating fluoridated water and taking supplements. (L-tyrosine, an amino acid, and B-12, a vitamin, are necessary to the production of thyroid hormones, and vegetarians are commonly deficient. Maybe I just need to change my vitamins and be more faithful about remembering to take them.)

Or maybe I just need a vacation!

Six Lessons I Learned from Dad

2010-06-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

As I noted in a prior blog post, I was unable to find an appropriate card for my dad for Father’s Day. Instead, I’m writing him a tribute, similar to the one I wrote for my mom last month. My dad was born in Palo Alto, California. He lived all over the place, but he mostly grew up in Montana and Utah. He met my mom in college, and they got married. I was born shortly thereafter, when my dad was only 21 years old. That’s lesson 1 that I learned from Dad. Forget everyone else’s timetable. Do things on your timetable.

Dad always took me seriously. I was an inquisitive child. I always wanted to know how things worked, why things were the way they were, and how they could be improved. Instead of telling me to stop asking questions, he took the time to help me find the answers. When I was four, he taught me how to play chess because I wanted to learn, and when I was nine, he taught me algebra because I was curious. Lesson 2 - Questions deserve answers, not evasiveness.

I showed early aptitude in math and science, and many of my teachers and extended family members were pressuring me into engineering. Dad told me I could be anything I wanted to be, and I believed him. By the time I was in high school, I had decided that my interests were in the social sciences, and that I wanted to be a lawyer. I had already completed the graduation requirements for math, but I hadn’t taken calculus. I told Dad that I didn’t want to take it because it was pointless. I didn’t need it to graduate, I would never need it in real life, and I don’t like math. He made me take it anyway. I grudgingly took the class, resolute in my belief that it was a waste of my time. Fast forward several years to when I needed to do some complex budgetary calculations regarding my student loans - there were two ways I could solve my problem. I could either spend hours doing algebra on the problem, or I could spend ten minutes using calculus. I ate my words and ended up actually using calculus in real life. Lesson 3 - Knowledge is never pointless.

Dad always did the vacuuming and dusting, and he was always the one to take out the trash. I thought all dads did housework, and it wasn’t until I was much older that I discovered that he was unique. He’s a pretty good cook, too. When I was a kid, on Saturdays, he would make grilled cheese sandwiches and cream of mushroom soup. It was a meal I looked forward to. Lesson 4 - There’s no such thing as men’s work and women’s work. There’s just work, and we all need to pitch in to get it done.

When I was old enough to get my learner’s permit, Dad was the one who taught me how to drive. In addition to learning the rules of the road and the safe operation of a motor vehicle, I learned how to change a tire, jump-start a dead battery, check the fluid levels, change a fuse, and change the light bulbs for headlights and tail lights. I have AAA now, so if my car dies, I can call a tow truck, but it’s empowering to know that if I needed to, I could fix it myself. Lesson 5 - It’s important to know how to solve your own problems.

Whenever a spider found its way into the house, Dad would gently take it outside and set it free. He had a special cup he kept under the kitchen sink for this purpose. He referred to spiders as friends, and he taught me not to hurt them. Lesson 6 - All life is precious.

So, there you have it - six lessons I learned from my dad:
1. Forget everyone else’s timetable. Do things on your own timetable.
2. Questions deserve answers, not evasiveness.
3. Knowledge is never pointless.
4. There’s no such thing as men’s work and women’s work. There’s just work, and we all need to pitch in to get it done.
5. It’s important to know how to solve your own problems.
6. All life is precious.

Thanks, Dad! Happy Father’s Day.

The Sexism of Father's Day Cards

2010-06-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit of a procrastinator, so I didn't go shopping for my dad's Father's Day card until today on my lunch break. What I found at the store was, frankly, appalling.

I've often lamented that Father's Day gets short shrift. When compared with Mother's Day, it's almost treated like an afterthought. Moms get breakfast in bed, pampering, effusive praise in eloquent poetry, flowers, and elaborate gifts. Dads get ugly ties. This disparity is shown in the greeting card selection. For Mother's Day, there are scores of cards that extol the love and sacrifices mothers the world over give. When I went to pick out a card for my dad today, I saw scores of cards that painted men as lazy, crude, unemotional beer-swilling louts. Sure, the cards were intended to be humorous, but I found the stereotyping to be offensive.

It's easy to see how stereotyping like this can be harmful to men. It can be painful to be told that you're somehow less-than based upon an immutable characteristic that forms a significant part of your identity. Plus, people tend to live down to the expectations others set for them. However, this stereotyping is also harmful to women.

Take the different treatment of the two holidays. By making Mother's Day a bigger deal than Father's Day, our culture is sending a subtle signal that parenting is a female duty, but not a male one. It reminds me of so many men who refer to caring for their children while their female partner is away as "babysitting". Dude, if it's your own kid, it's not called babysitting. It's called being a parent! Men who are involved in their children's lives are praised as doing something extraordinary, whereas women are simply seen as doing what is obligatory.

This Father's Day, I'm grateful that my dad is not the man described in the cards. But, then again, most men aren't that man. For the sake of our husbands and fathers and brothers and sons, let's stamp out the notion that men are morally inferior. Let's also stamp out that notion for the sake of our wives and mothers and sisters and daughters. Sexism against anyone hurts everyone.

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Post Script: I had originally included more detail regarding how the belief in men's moral inferiority harms women outside the parenting context, but since this is a Father's Day post, I decided to confine it to parenting. For more information on the subject, you can check out Hugo Schwyzer's blog under the heading "Myth of Male Weakness". Hugo is a history and women's studies professor at Pasadena City College and a prominent Christian feminist blogger. I don't agree with his stance on abortion, but he's one of my favorite bloggers to read. The story of how he turned his life around is pretty amazing.

Around Town

2010-06-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

I meant to blog this one last week, but I was busy. Last Monday, on my lunch break, I drove to the library to check out a book. The library is about a 10 minute drive from work, and when I got downtown, I saw a police van.

It was one of those fifteen passenger vans with the back windows made of car body material instead of glass. Along with the standard police painting, it had the words "School Services" painted on the back. I had a mental image of the van driving up and down Castro Street rounding up truants. It reminded me of the scene in the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp where the dog catcher rode around town picking up strays.

When I was a kid, I didn't believe that truant officers existed. I thought they were boogeymen that parents made up to scare their kids into going to school. Whenever I was sick and tried to convince my mom to let me stay home, if she thought I was faking it, she would say that the truant officer would come. Sometimes she said the truant officer would arrest me, and sometimes she said the truant officer would arrest her. I never believed her. (I still think she was exaggerating. They have bigger things to worry about than one kid who allegedly fakes being sick for one day.)

How Not to Job Hunt

2010-06-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

I review zillions of job applications. I’ve seen good ones, mediocre ones, and bad ones. However, there’s one recently that took the cake. If any of you are looking for jobs, please don’t do this. It’s the fastest way to remove yourself from consideration.

All of our job applications go through the company website. Once a candidate applies, an automated e-mail is generated informing the candidate that we will contact him/her if we wish to conduct an interview and wishing him/her good luck in the job search. This e-mail is sent from a generic address.

It used to be that the generic address was a dummy address that could send outgoing mail but couldn’t receive incoming mail. Then the IT guy decided to make it real. Now mail sent to that address goes to my inbox, the receptionist’s inbox, and my boss’s inbox. My boss is the VP of HR, I’m the main HR contact person, and the receptionist helps out the HR department with administrative support.

A few weeks ago, we opened up a new position, and we started getting applications for it almost immediately. This one guy applied, and the standard generic thanks for applying e-mail went out. A few minutes later, he replied to the generic e-mail. He said that if we weren’t considering him for the position, to please remove his information from our database.

I ignored the e-mail because we are required to keep every resume and application we receive as a condition of our federal contracts. We have to prove that our hiring isn’t racially discriminatory, so we have to keep the resumes to demonstrate that we hired the most qualified candidate for the job. (It’s a Silicon Valley software startup. It’s not surprising that our workforce is roughly 60% Asian. So is our applicant pool.)

The hiring manager said that he wanted to talk to this candidate. The receptionist was getting ready to schedule things when the candidate sent another response to the generic e-mail. I have reproduced it verbatim: “CAN YOU CONFIRM THAT ALL MY PERSONAL INFORMATION HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM YOUR SYSTEM?” Yes, it was indeed in all caps.

Needless to say, we showed this e-mail to the hiring manager. The guy ended up not getting an interview.

Chatty Batty and the Salem Witches

2010-05-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

That sounds like it ought to be the name of a band or something. Instead, it’s the description of Thursday evening.

There’s a small community theatre* near my apartment. It’s called Broadway West, and it’s upstairs from a charming little coffee shop. Right now, they’re doing The Crucible, and I wanted to see it. Jen and I decided to make an evening of it, so we ordered takeout from the local Chinese restaurant and ate it at my apartment. Then we went to the show.

The show started at 8 and the box office was supposed to open at 7:30. We arrived around 7:30 and waited. An old lady walked over. She had the standard old lady hair (a silver helmet of curls extending at least two inches out from her head in all directions), and she was wearing a loud floral blouse and a pin-on button with her name on it. I assumed that she was an employee of the theatre company.

She struck up a conversation, and right away, she seemed a bit off. She was pleasant and friendly, but she kept talking and talking and talking. She wasn’t an employee, just a season ticket holder. She said she liked to wear her nametag in public so everyone would know her name. Anyway, she mentioned she was in the local Rotary club.

I happen to know a rather prominent member of the local Rotary club, so I asked her if she knew him. She said that she did, and she asked me how I knew him. I said that I knew him from church. Then she asked me if I knew another family in the area. I said that I didn’t. She said, “They’re a pretty large family.”

I made some polite nod, hoping I could extricate myself from this conversation. Then she said, “Do you have a large family?” I said that I didn’t. Then she got the most confused look on her face and she said, “But aren’t you Mormon?” I said yes, and then she said, “Don’t Mormons have large families?” I replied that some do and some don’t. By now, I really wanted to end this conversation. (I take enough flak at church for the size of my family. I don’t need it from batty old ladies I just met.) Jen looked like she was about to shoot daggers from her eyeballs.

Well, Chatty Batty wouldn’t stop. She proceeded to tell a story about one of her cousins who was drunk at her wedding. Then I think she told a few other stories, but I wasn’t really paying proper attention. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the box office opened and Jen and I picked up our tickets.

The usher showed us to our seats and we settled in. The theatre is pretty small. There were about 12 rows, and each row had about 15 seats. (I didn’t count, though.) The stage was really close to the first row. Jen and I were in the third row near the center. Chatty Batty walked in and found her seat. It was one seat over from Jen!

Chatty Batty set her stuff down and spotted another victim on the other side of the theatre. She ran off at the mouth for 10 minutes. Then she returned to her seat. The person next to Jen is an actor in the company but wasn’t in The Crucible. Anyway, Chatty Batty started talking to her and talked her ear off until the show started.

The show was pretty good. There wasn’t much space backstage, so the actors were out in the audience when they weren’t on stage. The director said at the beginning of the show that we should consider ourselves to be the townspeople of Salem. So, there you have it, I took a quick trip to Massachusetts this week!

Intermission was pretty uneventful, and I didn’t see Chatty Batty after the play. They’re doing You Can’t Take it With You in the summer, and I may go see that.
______
* Yes, I know that’s the British spelling. I use “theatre” when I’m talking about live performances and “theater” when I’m talking about going to the movies. It’s one of my eccentricities. I also prefer the British rule for the placement of commas in relation to quotation marks. That one is less about aesthetics and more about accuracy in quoted source material, though. I do, however, eschew the excessive use of the letter “u”.

An eBay Warning

2010-05-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this as a public service announcement to anyone who sells stuff on eBay. Don’t do business with the eBay member with the screen name fzhu2008. He will cause you untold difficulties. Well, not untold, I suppose, seeing as I’m going to spend the rest of this blog post telling you…

It all started last Friday when I listed my iLiad for sale. (An iLiad is a top of the line e-book reader.) It sold within an hour of listing it, so I was excited. Payment was prompt, and fzhu2008 sent me an e-mail demanding that I include the charger. Not asking, demanding. (His grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation were atrocious as well, but I wouldn’t have let that annoy me too much if he had been polite.) Never mind that I had stated clearly in the posting that the charger was included. For some reason, he felt the need to be rude about it.

I noted his address, and saw that he lived near my work. I e-mailed him to see if he wanted to meet at a local coffee shop to get the iLiad, in order to save on shipping. He declined, which was ok. However, he was once again rude and demanding. He insisted that I ship parcel post with a tracking number. The listing said that I would ship priority mail. (For some strange reason, priority mail was cheaper than parcel post in this situation.) He was not willing to pay extra to cover the parcel post. He also did not pay for insurance.

I shipped it priority mail, which is faster, cheaper, comes with free tracking, and was what we agreed upon in the listing. (By bidding, an eBay customer is agreeing to the terms of the listing, so he agreed to priority mail.) It arrived on Tuesday at noon. I have proof from the post office.

Wednesday around 5pm, I got an e-mail from him in all caps. He claimed that he had just received the package. (The one the post office had delivered 30 hours previously.) He was upset that I didn’t send it the way he preferred, and he claimed that the screen was cracked. He said that he would send me a picture later in the day.

Around 11pm, he sent me a picture of an iLiad with a cracked screen, but I have no way of knowing if it was my iLiad. He informed me that he would be returning it. He didn’t ask for return instructions. He rudely informed me. (My listing said no returns, so he doesn’t get to inform me.) If he had been a polite customer from the start and had asked if he could return it, I probably would have immediately said yes. But, since he was so rude, I responded that I would need to look into the situation and that I would contact him within two business days with options.

I gave the two day delay for two reasons. The first was that I needed time to check the photo metadata to see if it squared with his story. The second was that I was going to contact iRex, the company that makes the iLiad, to see how much it would cost to fix it. I was planning on offering a partial refund in exchange for the damage.

However, it was not to be. Instead of trying to work the situation out like a mature adult, he ran and opened a dispute with eBay! So, now he’s bringing down the force of a large corporation against me because he can’t bear to wait two days while I conduct a small investigation consisting of getting one price quote and looking at one file’s metadata. Oh, and get this, he’s an eBay employee.

Once this is over, I’m going to have a little chat with eBay’s HR department, one HR professional to another, about how they need to retrain their employees in how they deal with the public. (If one of my people pulled a stunt like this while representing the company, you can bet I would give them a very stern talking-to.)

Note: If you ever have a bidder you want to block, you can go to the site map at the bottom of the eBay home page. Then click on the Buyer/Bidder management link. Then click the link that says Add an eBay user to my Blocked Bidder/Buyer List. Then add the user name.

My Nerd Diagnosis

2010-05-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Only 44%? See, that's 56% normal!

You Are 44% Nerdy

You may be a bit surprised with this score, but you are more of a closet nerd than an actual nerd.

Stop denying your inner nerd! You're truly dorkier than you think.

How Nerdy Are You?

The Write Stuff

2010-05-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

All throughout school, I believed myself to be a bad writer. No teacher ever explicitly said those words to me, but that was definitely the substance of their feedback. I think that's a big part of why I initially rejected the idea of becoming a professor. (The idea first occurred to me when I was 19. I distinctly remember the moment I thought of and rejected it. I was walking across the main road on campus. I had just gotten out of class in Bannan Hall, and I was walking toward the Arts & Sciences Building.) I knew of the "publish or perish" mentality, and I figured I would be one of the ones to perish.

I finished college, went on a mission, and then returned home to begin law school. I was really clueless about what the whole process entailed. (The only lawyer in my family is a great uncle I've never met.) I had this vision of lawyers going to court and delivering eloquent arguments. I figured it was like getting paid to be in the debate club, and I loved the debate club when I was in high school. Imagine my surprise when I found out that lawyers spend most of their days writing, and most lawyers never see the inside of a courtroom unless they have jury duty.

One of the first classes I had to take was legal writing and research. I figured that this would be an opportunity to make up for my written deficiencies. Well, it probably would have been if I had a professor who cared about teaching. Then I had to take appellate advocacy class. That class was an even bigger disappointment. The professor tore my writing apart but never gave me any hint on how to make it better.

Around the time law school blew up in my face, I joined a fiction writing community because I needed a creative outlet. It was amazing. For the first time in my life, people were praising my writing. It felt great, but my little self-critical voice told me it didn't really count because writing short stories isn't the same as writing legal briefs.

Now I've gotten over that. I started law school again two years ago, and I've decided I want to be a professor after all. As a result, writing is going to be one of my most important job skills. It wasn't until recently that I realized that I can actually write. There are bumper stickers around that say "If you can read this, thank a teacher." Well, since I can write this, I have a few teachers to thank.

Usually when I talk about my professors, I give them funny little pseudonyms because I want to share anecdotes without revealing their identities. However, teaching can be a thankless job, and there are three professors who deserve to be publicly praised for their work. The three professors who helped me develop "the write stuff" are: Stephen Smith, Michelle Oberman, and Rachel Smith.

Stephen Smith was one of my professors my first year back in law school. One day, he gave me some feedback on a piece of writing I had turned into him. I went to his office hours to discuss the feedback and get some clarification. I started the conversation saying something along the lines of, "I know I'm not a very good writer..." He interrupted me at this point and told me that I was a great writer. This came as a total shock to me. All of my prior teachers had criticized my writing, and finally I had a professor who said my writing was great. He gave me some feedback on how to improve, and I tried to incorporate that feedback. I was never quite able to grasp exactly what he was trying to say, much to our mutual frustration, but I definitely credit him with giving me the confidence to keep trying.

Michelle Oberman taught a seminar I took last fall. I've asked several professors for advice on how to become a professor, and she was the first person who didn't try to talk me out of it or tell me that I didn't have the credentials. She was the first person to take me seriously as a budding scholar. We have rather different political persuasions, but we were able to discuss controversial topics with mutual respect. I had to write a paper for her class, and her feedback was extremely valuable. The paper turned out great, and I plan on publishing it.

Rachel Smith taught a class I took this semester. I was less than thrilled about having to take this class, since it was yet another legal writing class and goodness knows I've been there, done that by this point in time. (Not counting seminars, this was my 5th legal writing class.) I sat in the back row in the corner and didn't say much. (This is atypical for me. I usually sit front and center and can't keep my mouth shut.) Well, between class and several office hours discussions, the lightbulb finally turned on. I figured out the problem nearly every teacher for the past 20 years has had with my writing. Apparently my brain processes information quite differently from most people, and I was presenting my ideas in a way that makes sense to me. I just needed to find out what makes sense to everyone else and write it that way. It still feels unnatural to me, but at least I know the problem and the solution.

I hope that someday when I'm a professor, I'll be able to help students who don't believe in themselves to discover their gifts and how to use them.

Six Lessons I Learned from Mom

2010-05-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

In honor of Mother's Day, I'm writing this tribute to my mom. My mom was born in New Hampshire and was given the name Debra Lynn Carey. She lived in Vermont and Nebraska before moving to Utah to go to college. While in Utah, she met my dad. They got together because of their mutual interest in Star Trek. That's lesson 1 that I learned from Mom. Even nerds can get the guy. (Lesson 1b, which I guess I learned from both of my parents, is that if two people are meant to be together, they'll find each other, even if one of them was born in New Hampshire and the other one was born in California and they have to go to Utah of all places to meet.)

Mom's studies were interrupted by life, but I could always tell how much she valued education. When I was a kid, I would always hear her say that as soon as Jen was in kindergarten, she was going to go back to college and finish her degree. Her health became such that that wasn't an option, but she didn't let that stop her from learning. Mom always had a book in her hand wherever we went. Whenever she had a few spare minutes, she would always be reading. She loves educational television, and she's a fountain of historical trivia. (One day I would like to set up a game of Trivial Pursuit and pit her against my uncle with a PhD in history. No other players and no help from the outside. I bet it would be a close match.) Lesson 2 - Education is about more than just school.

Even though most of Mom's education was self-taught, she was insistent that I go to college. As a kid, it was always "when you go to college" not "if you go to college". I was probably 9 or 10 before I found out that college wasn't required in the same manner that K-12 is. I still remember the day I came home and shared that new bit of knowledge. I told her that I had just found out that college was optional. Her reply was, "Not for you." Lesson 3 - Even though education is about more than just school, school is still very important.

Mom was always there for me as a kid, but not in a smothery helicopter parent way. She had her own life, her own interests, and her own hobbies. She had an identity that was separate from her children. If I needed her, she was right there, but I was expected to do the work to try to solve my own problems. This helped me develop the coping skills to deal with real life. Lesson 4 - I'm important, but the world doesn't revolve around me.

Mom is the queen of modular furniture. I used to joke as a kid that she must be a space alien from the planet Ikea, because she can put furniture together in nothing flat. She doesn't even end up with extra pieces! When I first started law school, I discovered that I needed more space in my bedroom, so I got the idea to get a loft bed. (A loft bed is basically a bunk bed with no bottom bunk. The sleeping area is up high, and the space below is open for a desk or storage.) I obtained the lumber, the hardware, and the instructions. Mom stained the wood and put it all together. How cool is that? My mom built me a bed from real wood. I don't know many people who can do that. Lesson 5 - Some skills are rare, but they're still useful.

Mom is great at cooking. She has assembled a cookbook that is extremely popular. People are always asking her for it. Her dishes are eagerly anticipated at church potlucks and family gatherings. She likes cooking so much that she took some classes at the local cooking school. She made sure that I learned how to cook, too. I don't particularly enjoy cooking, but I'm grateful that I know how to do it. I'm not some gourmet chef or anything, but people say I'm good at it. Lesson 6 - If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well.

So, there you have it - six lessons I learned from my mom.
1. Even nerds can get the guy, and if it's meant to be, it will happen, even if it has to happen in a counter-intuitive manner.
2. Education is about more than just school.
3. School is very important.
4. I'm important, but the world doesn't revolve around me.
5. Some skills are rare, but they're still useful.
6. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well.

Thanks, Mom! Happy Mother's Day.

Avian Serenade

2010-04-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

Every morning this week, I've been awoken by the sound of birds. Doesn't that sound like a nice, soothing, all-natural way to start the day? I would have guessed that, too. Unfortunately, the birds are angry pigeons.

The noise sounds like a cross between a growl and a lawn mower, and it's always accompanied by a lot of flapping of the wings. I've only seen two of them (both male), but I suspect there are more, given the amount of noise they make.

These birds are huge! They perch on my balcony railing right outside my bedroom window and make their ruckus. Naturally, this makes Ebony agitated, so she starts meowing and pacing on my window sill. Yesterday, I decided that I would try to scare the birds away by letting Ebony onto the balcony.

Ebony walked out onto the balcony like she owned the place. (She probably does own the place. She's so kind to let me live inside the apartment in exchange for food and toys.) She walked over to the pigeons and they didn't leave. They expanded their wings, flapped them, cooed threateningly, and chased my cat back into the apartment! I walked outside and chased them away. (I guess a human is scarier than a cat.)

This morning, they were back at it, waking me up at 6:30 AM. It wasn't so bad today, since I had to get up for work, but I'm going to be really annoyed if they wake me up early tomorrow. I wonder if a scarecrow will keep them away.

I suppose it could be worse, though. At least I'm not waking up to an apian serenade.

Changes

2010-04-22T10:00:00.001-07:00

When I started this blog, I intended for it to be a lighthearted place where I could share my quirky and humorous observations of life. I promised that it would be about nothing serious at all. I keep a serious blog under a pseudonym, but lately both blogs have been experiencing mission creep. Everyday Narcissism has had a few serious posts of late, and my other blog has had a few lighthearted posts. Since both blogs have a different set of readers, I'm not going to close either one. Instead, I'm just going to embrace the evolution of my blogging life. While this blog will still be mostly lighthearted, I'm going to start posting more of my inner thoughts here.

You've already been subjected to my musings with such posts as:
Song Lyrics
Why I Hate the F-Word
Pondering Pronouns
What's in a Name?
A Public Service Announcement

I'm always interested in reader feedback. What do you want to read? Serious, lighthearted, or some combination of the two?

Homemade Yogurt!

2010-04-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

It's true! It's possible to make homemade yogurt. It's ridiculously easy, too. The only ingredients are milk, and a little bit of yogurt to use as a starter. I made mine from nonfat milk and nonfat yogurt, but you can use any type. I've even seen vegan recipes from soy milk (with soy yogurt as the starter).

Super Easy Homemade Yogurt:
2 quarts milk
1/2 cup plain yogurt (Make sure it has live active cultures, otherwise it won't work. I used Trader Joe's nonfat organic Greek-style yogurt.)

1. Put the milk in a crock pot on low for 2 1/2 hours.
2. Turn off the crock pot, but leave the lid on, and let sit for 3 hours.
3. Add the yogurt to the milk and stir until it's all mixed in.
4. Put the lid back on and wrap the crock pot in a bath towel to insulate it. (Don't turn the crock pot on. If you do, you'll kill the Lactobacillus acidophilus, and it won't turn into yogurt.)
5. Let it sit for 8 hours.
6. Once it has turned into yogurt, refrigerate it and use within 7-10 days. You can use some of this batch as the starter for the next batch.

I haven't tasted it yet, since it wasn't ready until 6:00 this morning, and I didn't want to eat warm yogurt for breakfast. I stuck it in the fridge, and I'll try it when I get home tonight. It smelled right, though. I'm not sure if the batch can be doubled or cut in half, since I haven't tried it. I think next time I'll cut it in half and see what happens. 2 quarts is a lot of yogurt for one person. I'm also going to try mixing it with various fruits to see what tastes good.

I love how much money I saved. 2 quarts of plain yogurt would have cost $5.98 at the store. I spent $1.39 on a 5 oz container of plain yogurt. (It can be gotten more cheaply, but I wanted to use organic yogurt.) I used powdered milk that one of my old roommates gave me, so the milk was free. Total cost: $1.39. Savings: $4.59. (Even if I had to buy milk, it's only $1.49 for a half gallon, so I would still be saving $3.10.) The savings increase on the second batch because I don't have to buy the yogurt again. Since I still have some powdered milk left, my next batch of yogurt will be free! Plus, now I know exactly what's going into my breakfast.

Song Lyrics

2010-04-15T16:45:00.000-07:00

Don’t you just hate it when you’re listening to a really great-sounding, catchy song that you like, and then suddenly you listen to the lyrics a little bit more closely, and you realize that this great song is actually offensive? I had that experience last week.

I was listening to the song “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. It’s a catchy little tune from the early ‘80’s about a guy who finds himself having feelings for his friend’s girlfriend. I’m sure we all can relate to the experience of falling for someone who is unavailable. It seems to be a universal part of the human condition, and the song really resonated with me for that reason.

There’s no violence or swearing in the song, so its offensiveness is not immediately apparent. (The only sex in the song is implied, and that’s not what I find offensive here.) The part that I find offensive is that the woman in the song is objectified. She is never given a name. Throughout the song, she is only referred to through her relationship to men. She is always Jessie’s girl, never her own person.

The song starts out:

Jessie is a friend, yeah, I know he's been a good friend of mine
But lately something's changed that ain't hard to define
Jessie's got himself a girl and I want to make her mine.

The woman in the song isn’t viewed as a person. She’s viewed as a thing for the men around her to possess. Additionally, she’s referred to with the infantilizing term ‘girl’, as opposed to what she presumably is, a grown woman. (If she really is a girl, we have even more problems.)

It gets keeps going.

You know, I wish that I had Jessie's girl
I wish that I had Jessie's girl
Where can I find a woman like that?

Here, we see more of the possession issue, with the use of the verb ‘to have’. Also, the use of the pronoun ‘that’ is problematic. Pronouns such as ‘that’, ‘which’, etc. are used for things. Pronouns such as ‘her’, ‘him’, ‘who’, etc. are the appropriate words for people.

Now that I’ve thought about this, I’m not going to be able to enjoy the song anymore. It’s so annoying. I’ve tried to come up with an alternative interpretation, but nothing works. Sometimes alternative interpretations can serve to rescue a song.

I was able to do that with another song that at first struck me as problematic. There’s a song called “Everybody Else Does” by The Morning Line (an indie group in the Bay Area). I’m acquainted with the author of the song, and I know him to be completely non-sexist. He’s one of the biggest supporters of my ambitions, in fact.

Anyway, the song is about how every relationship the singer gets into ends with him getting dumped. (I can relate to that, too. I’m the queen of being dumped.) The singer thinks that his new love is going to dump him, too, since everybody else does.

A line in the middle of the song goes like this:

And if you think you might
Stay my satellite,
Then we may rewrite what
Everybody else does.

When I first heard this, I was caught off guard. I worked in an astronomy lab in college, so satellites and I are rather well acquainted. The first characteristic of a satellite that came to my mind was subordination. Communications satellites orbit the earth and exist only to serve the earth. This jarred me because, like I said, I know the author to be non-sexist.

I started thinking of possible alternative interpretations. Then I remembered another characteristic of satellites: fidelity. The moon is the earth’s natural satellite. It is always with the earth. It doesn’t go running off after other planets. The moon and the earth are a pair. In light of the rest of the song, the fidelity interpretation of satellites makes more sense, and it gets rid of that nasty little sexist subtext.

What songs have been wrecked for you by closer listening? What songs have been redeemed by a closer analysis?

Twisted Word Interpretations - Landlord Edition

2010-04-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

When I started law school five years ago, I thought I knew what words meant. After all, I used to read the dictionary as a kid. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that perfectly normal words like "reasonable", "person", "willful", "knowing", "reckless", etc. also have legal meanings that are only tangentially related to their common meanings.

I've gotten used to words not meaning what they seem to mean. However, yesterday I ran across the most ridiculous interpretation of a phrase I've ever seen, courtesy of my landlord. My landlord likes to make silly little rules. One of them involves exercising tight control over the balconies. As I mentioned previously, my balcony had no privacy, so I put up a tiki fence to correct that problem. It was up for a week and a half with no complaints.

Last night, when I got home, there was a form letter taped to my door from the landlord. The letter said that I was in violation of such and such section of my lease, governing balcony contents. There was a checklist of potential violations. The list included:
Hanging laundry out to dry
Boxes
Dead plants
Holiday lights
Bicycles

The box next to holiday lights was checked, and then there was a handwritten note next to the line item informing me that my tiki fence was the offending item. Now, I'm no stranger to creative argument, but seriously, under what reasonable interpretation does this qualify as "holiday lights"?

I went to the office this morning to find out if there was a way I could get my balcony privacy without upsetting the management. The conversation went like this:

Me: Hi, I have a question. I got this note yesterday saying that you think my tiki fence is holiday lights--
Leasing agent (interrupting me): You can't have a tiki fence.
Me (slightly testy, but keeping my cool): Why not?
Manager (cutting off whatever the leasing agent was about to say): It's not allowed.
Me: What can I put up that will give me privacy without upsetting you?
Manager: The balconies have to be uniform. (pause) Some residents put up clear netting because they let their kids out on the balcony and they don't want them to fall through.
Me: So, what can I put up for privacy?
Manager: Clear netting.
Me: I understand that I can put up clear netting for safety. What about privacy?
Manager: You can put up clear netting.
Me (getting really annoyed by this point): So, what you're saying is that I can't have privacy on my balcony?
Manager: Yes. That's what I'm saying.

At this point, I mumbled some falsely polite "thank you very much" while storming out of the office. After I calmed down, I remembered that plants are allowed. I went back to the office and asked if they had any unwritten rules about plants. I was assured that I can have as many of whatever kinds of plants I want as long as they're not attached to the railing, and as long as they don't drip onto my neighbor's balcony.

I went to the local craft store, and they were having a clearance sale on fake ficus trees. I bought a whole bunch and now I have a forest fence. It's not as good as the tiki fence, but it at least sort of shields my balcony from the prying eyes of my neighbors.

Does anyone need tiki fencing? I have about 32 feet of it that I don't have any use for anymore.

Why I Hate the F-word

2010-04-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should start out with the disclaimer that I don’t swear. I’ve been known to use the occasional “hell”, but I don’t really consider it a swear word, and I use it more as an adjective or noun, not as an interjection. I find swearing to be impolite and unnecessary. (With such a vast variety of words available, why pick the vulgar ones to express your point?) However, there is one swear word that I hate above all others. I think that the F-word is the most offensive word in the English language.

There are several candidates for that dishonor, but here’s why I think the F-word deserves that title. The F-word has two meanings: to express rage, and to refer to sex. If it only had one of those meanings, I wouldn’t object so much. We need words for rage, and we need words for sex. My objection is when the same word is used for both.

Sex is supposed to be a beautiful expression of deep love and commitment. The Bible describes it as two individuals becoming one flesh, reminding us of the total and intimate union that can take place as a result. It is the power by which new life springs forth. It is, at its core, a constructive force. Rage, on the other hand, is a destructive force. It can cause division, hatred, and death.

For millennia, sex has been misused as a tool of domination. Rape is rarely about lust - it’s about power. In our society, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men have been or will be victims of sexual assault. In other societies, the number is undoubtedly higher.

When a person who is angry at another and shouts “F--- you!”, it is clear that the meaning is rage. However, lurking below the surface, based on the nature of the vocabulary choice, is a sexual threat. By conflating in our speech sex and rage, we’re unconsciously perpetuating a culture of rape. Use rage words for rage, use sex words for sex, but please, don’t make them synonyms!

Bits of Randomness

2010-04-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged. I'll regale you with tales of randomness from the past few weeks.

Update on the move:
I'm all moved into my new apartment. I love my new place; it's so quiet and peaceful, and I can do my own thing. I haven't finished unpacking all of my boxes, but I'm getting there. I don't have a dishwasher, which is mildly annoying, but I do have heat, which is an improvement. Ebony is a bit scared of the furnace, but she's getting used to it. My balcony is huge! I could totally do a reenactment of the famous scene from Romeo and Juliet. (Assuming that Shakespeare contemplated tiki fencing...) Speaking of tiki fencing - my balcony had no privacy when I moved in. From ground level, people could see right onto my balcony and if the blinds were open, they could see into my apartment. I went to Home Depot and bought two rolls of tiki fencing and a canister of zip ties. Now I have a 6-foot high fence. I just need a few torches to complete the look!

Mistaken identity:
I'm no stranger to having my name written incorrectly. For some reason, people have trouble spelling Rushforth. I've seen Rushmore, Rushworth, Rushford, Rushfort, Rush-Forth, Bushforth, etc. Well, today, I received another incorrectly addressed package. My real, live, honest-to-goodness legal first name is Trudy. It isn't short for anything. (It seems to be something of a family tradition. My great grandmother is named Jennie, I have a cousin Larry, a cousin Jennie, an aunt Kim, a cousin Danny, and best of all, my dad's uncle, whose first name is simply the letter K. He goes by his middle name.) When I got the package today, it was addressed to Gertrude Rushforth. Erm...whatever. I don't know where they got that from, seeing as I filled out the information with my correct name. At least the package still got to me. I hope dear old Gertrude (whoever she may be) didn't order the same item I did and have it shipped to my work. If she did, she'll be wondering what happened to her stuff!

Apartment Wars

2010-03-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

While trying to make things better, I inadvertently turned the apartment cold war into World War III. Well, that's not true, exactly. My roommate turned it into World War III. I just got verbally nuked in the process. What follows is an incredibly long explanation of why my life isn't going so great right now.

First, a list of the players in the drama: (Per my usual policy, I've created clever pseudonyms for some people.)
Jen - My sister. (Not a pseudonym.)
Roomie - The roommate. She's in her mid-40's.
Kidlet - My roommate's 14 year-old daughter.
Crabgrass - My roommate's husband. Supposedly they're separated, and supposedly he lives in another city with his parents. Supposedly he's not supposed to stick around. (That's a lot of supposedlys.)

I have a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment. Jen has the master bedroom with her own bathroom. Roomie and Kidlet share a room, and I have the other room, and the three of us share a bathroom.

In my prior apartment, Roomie and Kidlet shared a room, and I shared a bathroom with them. One day, Crabgrass was stranded, and Roomie asked if he could spend the night. I said ok, since it was 10 pm and it was the middle of winter. Well, if you give a mouse a cookie... It turned out that he practically moved in. The guy is a lazy, shiftless, unemployed, unemployable, manipulative alcoholic. He's a user.

One day, Crabgrass got ahold of a spare key and broke into the apartment. I happened to be home that day. I have no idea how many other times he did it. I talked with Roomie, and she agreed that he would no longer be welcome to spend the night. For a while he left and stayed gone.

The lease was up in the old apartment, so we moved to the new one. Against my better judgment, I allowed Roomie and Kidlet to move in, with the express provisions that Crabgrass would not spend the night, and would not be in the apartment unaccompanied. Things were ok for a while.

A few weeks ago, Crabgrass came down, and he's been here for 2 1/2 weeks. (He left for 2 days in the middle, but otherwise, he's been there all the time.) Roomie doesn't have a job either. Crabgrass hangs out until about 11 pm, then he goes and sleeps in Roomie's car, and then he comes up around 6 am to use the shower and hang out again.

This makes me totally uncomfortable because the guy is a total creep. Jen isn't cool with the idea, either. We feel like the only ok place to be is in our rooms, so we either avoid the apartment altogether or stay in our rooms. We decided that we should raise the issue with Roomie to see if there was an amicable way to resolve the issue. Today I brought up the subject.

I asked her how much longer he was going to stay, since he had been here for two weeks. She rolled her eyes at me and started yelling that he had nowhere else to go. I reminded her of the lease provision (set by the management) that guests were only allowed for 14 days out of the month. She couldn't wrap her brain around that and kept yelling at me that he was her guest, and that he was a part of Kidlet's life. Then she asked me why I didn't want him around.

I told her that it was because he makes me uncomfortable and because he broke into the apartment. She yelled at me that he doesn't have a key anymore, and she said that it hurts his feelings that Jen and I stay in our room when he's around. (Oh, whoop-de-do. The creep gets hurt when people treat him like a creep.) Then she said that I would never be able to get a boyfriend or a husband if I couldn't handle having a man around the house. I told her that that comment was completely out of line.

The conversation was terminated, and Jen and I went to my room to figure out how to handle this new development. (Jen was in the front room observing but not participating in this conversation.) We decided that we would move out and find new roommates for Roomie. While we were in my room, Crabgrass came out of Roomie's room, and Roomie informed him of the conversation.

She completely misrepresented what I had said. She told him that I had issued an ultimatum, said I was afraid of him, and had said that talking about it was inappropriate. He went back into Roomie's room, and I came out and tried to repair the situation. I told her that her comment about not being able to find a boyfriend was extremely hurtful to me. Instead of doing the decent thing and apologizing, she defended her remark.

I told her that I didn't want this argument to damage our friendship, and I said that Jen and I were willing to move out and find new roommates for her. She said she couldn't afford the deposit. (I was the one who put the deposit down.) I told her that I was willing to walk away from the deposit and leave it. She still was unable to wrap her brain around the possibilities. She said that she would move out.

I told her that I didn't want her to feel like she was being evicted. She said she didn't. Then she laid a total guilt trip on me. She said in her best long-suffering voice, "I had hoped that we could stay here until Kidlet graduated in June, but we'll just move somewhere else." I said fine, and I offered to help. Then she gave me a withering glare and stormed off.

I decided to get out of dodge, so I went to my parents' house and sobbed. Now I'm not quite sure what's going to be awaiting me when I get home from school.

Is It Time to Replace My Car?

2010-03-08T14:19:00.000-08:00

I love my car. Liandra has character. (Yes, I name inanimate objects. For example, the toaster is named José.) She also is 20 years old and has 275,000 miles. She needs a new suspension system, the driver's side window is permanently jammed in the up position, the headlights short out every six months, there's a massive oil leak, and the heater/air conditioner only works on the high setting. But, she has four wheels and an engine, and she gets me where I need to go.

I've had my eye on a Toyota Yaris for a long time. They're cute little cars, and Toyotas run forever. (See above about Liandra. She's a 1990 Camry.) I was listening to the radio this morning, and Toyota has some really great deals right now. For people with good credit, they're offering a 60 month interest-free car loan on the purchase of a new car, and they're throwing in 2 years of free oil changes and tire rotations for people who already own a Toyota. Now, I'm a used car person, but this is a tempting offer. I ran the numbers, and it actually makes sense in my budget. (Getting a new car on these terms is about as cheap as a nice used car and only a little more expensive than keeping Liandra.)

Obviously, this is the kind of decision that's worth thinking about carefully. I'm not one to make impulsive decisions, so I'm definitely not going to do anything until the weekend. (Part of me would like to just go carless, but since I commute for both work and school, and my work isn't in a place that's well served by public transit, I need a car.)

New Blog Layout

2010-03-03T19:39:00.000-08:00

I've changed my blog layout a bit, and I'm wondering what my readers (if I even have any) think of the new look.

Header: I decided that I wanted a custom header, so I made one. (The flower is a narcissus. It seemed like an appropriate mascot.) How does it look on your browser? (If it looks funny, please let me know which browser you use.)

Blog Width: I widened the blog from 660 pixels to 780 pixels. I would actually like to make it a bit wider, but I wasn't sure what screen resolution most people use. How's the width? (Could I safely go wider, or should I leave it?)

Colors: What do you think of the color scheme?

Other: Any other comments? Your feedback is helpful!

Fun with HTML!

2010-03-01T10:57:00.000-08:00

I've seen other blogs where lengthy posts start out with the first few paragraphs, followed by a link to read more. Since I'm long-winded, I wanted to do that here on my blog, but I didn't know how to do it. I found out this morning! For all of you who use Blogger, I'll let you in on a little secret. When you're composing a post, click on the "Edit Html" [sic] tab. Where you want to put the break, insert the code . It will put a break there!

Edit: Sorry about the funny look. I had to convert the tag to an image file because otherwise the software kept wanting to change it into HTML.

The Gender Genie

2010-02-28T18:09:00.000-08:00

There's a website, called The Gender Genie, that claims to be able to tell whether the author of a piece of prose is male or female. I decided to run Everyday Narcissism through the genie to test its accuracy. I figured that the notion of determining an author's sex or gender based on a computer program was suspect, so my assumption was that it would be right about half the time. (Which is what it would get by random chance.)

Everyday Narcissism has 72 blog posts. I excluded my list and quiz posts when I ran the genie. That leaves me with 61 posts to analyze. 24 of them came up as female, and 37 of them came up as male. This means that the genie was only correct 39% of the time. The genie actually did worse than random chance.

There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to which posts came up as female and which posts came up as male. Jen posited that the computer was just guessing based on stereotypes, but that didn't seem to fit because the two posts I wrote about laundry came up as male, and the post I wrote about how much I hate shopping came up as female.

The funniest error was in the analysis of An Open Letter to the California Highway Patrol. In that post, I specifically stated that I'm a woman. The gender genie's result: male. At least the one where I talked about being vaccinated for cervical cancer came up female!

My results, in case you were wondering:

Female	Male The Gender Genie
Reevaluating First Impressions	Space Invaders
War against IRAC	Installation Wizard
The Stupid Agency	Legal Textbook Review
Bill of Rights	SCU Campus Food Review
Still Alive	Ironic Spam
Frugal Living	Business Writing Help
Some Things Just Bug Me	Pondering Pronouns
How to Motivate	Words You Don't Hear Every Day
I Had It Coming	NaNoWriMo
Short Thoughts	What's In a Name
A Public Service Announcement	The Jester Hat
A New Addition to the World	To PhD or not to PhD
AAA AAA AAA AAA!	My Love/Hate Relationship with Citation
The Extended Pain of Finals	Feline Alarm Clock
Un-Shopping	Short Thoughts, Volume 2
Au Revoir to My Long Hair	Nerdy Goodness
How the Cat Stole Christmas	The First Week of School
Karaoke	Freedom!
Out of Gas	I'm Still Alive Over Here (More or Less)
How to Make Your Own Charcoal	The Physicists at FedEx
Funny T-Shirts	Washing Machine Update
The Ten Commandments of Roommates	Dreams that Come True
My Other Job Involves Time Travel	Washing Machine Agitation
Welcome to Everyday Narcissism	Goodbye, Sunglasses
	Feeling Overwhelmed
	The Trials of Fake Post Offices
	Happy New Year!
	Grand Plans for Christmas Break
	Happy Thanksgiving
	Cleaning Disk Drives
	It's a Hardware Problem
	Law School Humor
	I Think I'm Going to Paint My Car
	An Open Letter to the California Highway Patrol
	Word of the Day
	Musical Instruments

Space Invaders

2010-02-17T12:28:00.000-08:00

Not hostile extraterrestrials bent on conquest, but people who have no respect for personal space...

I dislike it when people invade my personal space. Unless the person in question is someone I know well and like, I prefer that people stay a handshake distance away. It's been my understanding that in western American culture, approximately 1 cubit (I love the Biblical reference there. A cubit is about 18 inches, or the distance from elbow to hand, i.e. handshake distance.) is the socially acceptable bubble of personal space for strangers and casual or professional acquaintances, BART during rush hour notwithstanding. I've heard that in Japan, it's even farther, more like bowing distance, but I've never been there, so I don't know for sure.

It's especially uncomfortable when professors become space invaders. Yesterday evening, I was sitting in the lounge studying. I was on a large couch-like piece of furniture. There were a few other people in the lounge on the other side of the room. Suddenly, I noticed that someone practically appeared right next to me. I looked up, and it was one of my professors. (We'll call him Professor Space-Invader.) He sat down on the couch right next to me (like, probably an inch away) and struck up a conversation. I made small talk, but I was really uncomfortable. Finally, he wrapped up the conversation and headed off. Then I relaxed.

Professor Space-Invader is from Alabama. I have another professor who is a bit of a space invader, too (though he doesn't really make me uncomfortable), and he's from New England. Both of them have lived in California for many years, though. Is there an eastern/western divide in how much personal space is socially acceptable? (I lived in North Carolina and Virginia for a year and a half, and I never noticed personal space being smaller out there.)

Installation Wizard

2010-02-15T17:18:00.000-08:00

I probably should have been an engineer, like my father, and his father, and...well, you get the idea. For some reason, computers make sense to me. This can be both a blessing and a liability.

My roommate's computer has needed a fresh re-install of the operating system ever since she got the computer two years ago. (It used to belong to her aunt or someone, and it's an old computer, but hey, it was free.) She didn't want to do it because it's disruptive, so she decided to just make do.

This morning, she said that her antivirus software said she had a virus. I went to take a look at it. Her update license expired in 2007, so it hasn't been updating since then. The computer had 26 unique viruses. I figured I would just download and install AVG, since it's free and it would solve the immediate problem. For some reason, the antivirus software that was already installed wouldn't uninstall, so I couldn't install AVG.

I decided to look around a bit to see what was going on. The registry was completely corrupted, and whoever had originally installed the operating system formatted the disk incorrectly. I was honestly surprised that it had lasted this long. I retrieved the files and then asked if it was ok for me to reinstall the OS. (I explained that it was the only way to properly fix the computer.) She said ok.

So, I've spent my entire holiday reinstalling Windows. It's a good thing I actually enjoy this sort of stuff. I'm going to set everything to be automated so that the Windows components and the antivirus software update themselves. Hopefully there won't be any more problems.

Update: One of my friends sent me this link to a comic on the subject.

Legal Textbook Review

2010-02-07T15:59:00.000-08:00

A friend asked me for advice on legal writing textbooks so I figured that I would write about a variety of law textbooks. I've had my fair share, so my thoughts are below.

First-Year Courses:

Contracts
My first time in law school, I used Fuller and Eisenberg's casebook. I found it to be a clear and logical textbook. It was easy to follow.
My second time around, I used Summers and Hillman. I wasn't too impressed with this casebook. It seemed to jump around and muddy the waters needlessly.

Torts
Both times, I used Prosser, Wade, and Schwartz. This is the textbook for torts, and it's excellent.

Legal Writing and Research
No discussion of legal writing and research can be complete without mentioning The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. This is the bread and butter of the legal writing curriculum, and it's essential, even if it's annoying. I used it both times around.
My first time around, the text was Plain English for Lawyers by Richard Wydick. It's a decent style guide, but it's really thin on the important stuff, like the actual process or elements involved in writing a legal memorandum or brief.
My second time around, the text was Legal Research and Writing by Murray and DeSanctis. It's one of the most useful textbooks I've had in law school. It's light on the theory and heavy on the practice. There are detailed examples of every type of writing a lawyer needs to know how to do. I highly recommend this book.

Property
The first time around, I used Singer's casebook, along with a workbook entitled A Student’s Guide to Estates in Land and Future Interests by Laurence and Minzner. The casebook was terrible. It was filled with a lot of social policy and not a lot of actual law. The workbook was excellent, though. It made estates in land actually comprehensible.
The second time around, I used Kurtz and Hovenkamp's casebook. It was pretty good. It was clear and well-edited.

Criminal Law
Both times around, I used Dressler's casebook. It's excellent.

Civil Procedure
Both times around, I used Friedenthal, Miller, Sexton, and Hershkoff. It's a good, clear casebook.

Upper Division Courses:

Constitutional Law
The first time around and the first semester of the second time around, I used Chemerinsky's casebook. It's a great casebook. The cases are clear and well-edited, and everything is presented in a logical format.
The second semester of the second time around, I used Sullivan and Gunther. It was an ok book, but it wasn't as clear as Chemerinsky, and it wasn't as well-edited.

Criminal Procedure
The first time around, I used Allen, Hoffman, Livingston, and Stuntz. It's a good casebook, but nothing to write home about.
The second time around (which is this semester), I'm using Chemerinsky and Levinson. The casebook is clear and logical, but the cases are sometimes over-edited. This can make some cases confusing because background facts are omitted.
I've also heard good things about Kamisar, LaFave, Israel, King, and Kerr, though I've never used the casebook. (I used the hornbook back when it was just LaFave, Israel, and King, and I was pleased.)

Appellate Advocacy
The first time around, the textbook was A Practical Guide to Appellate Advocacy by Mary Beth Beazley. The title delivers. It's a great book with some great examples and advice.
The second time around, there was no textbook. This wasn't too problematic for me because the class was a re-run and the professor was excellent, but on the whole, I think that a course as important as appellate advocacy could really use a textbook.

Business Organizations
I didn't take business organizations the first time around. I'm currently taking it this semester, and the textbook is Klein, Ramseyer and Bainbridge. No complaints so far.

Copyrights
This one is an elective, and I didn't take it the first time around. The second time around, I used Joyce, Leaffer, Jaszi, and Ochoa. It was a good casebook, clearly and logically organized, with good editing. I was a bit nervous using a textbook written by the professor teaching the course, since I had had problems with that as an undergrad, but it worked out fine. If I teach copyrights, this is probably the textbook I'll use.

Advanced Torts
I took this one as an elective the first time around. I used Kutner's casebook. It was clear, logical, and well-edited. I have no plans to take the class the second time around.

Other Useful Books:
The following books don't fit with any particular class, but they're useful nonetheless.

Black's Law Dictionary - If you've ever sat down and while reading a case wondered about the definition of "fraud in the factum", then this is the book for you. Learning the law is also an exercise in learning a new language, and this is the best "English to lawyer" translation guide out there.
Academic Legal Writing by Eugene Volokh - This book teaches you how to do the kind of legal writing they don't teach in a typical legal writing class. If you need to know how to write a seminar paper or a law review article, this book is invaluable. Professor Volokh will take you step by step from forming the idea all the way to publication. (I haven't quite published yet, but I followed the advice and have a paper that got me an A in my seminar. I'm going to try for publication in the next few months.)
I Can Has Cheezburger? by Professor Happycat - This book has absolutely nothing to do with the law, but it's funny. Sometimes it's useful to just take a break and laugh for a few minutes. If grammatically incorrect cat photos don't make you smile, then substitute your favorite funny book.

Space

2010-02-01T08:17:00.000-08:00

Not outer space, unfortunately, though that would make a great topic for a blog post. (Hmmm...Note to self.)

For the last six or so months, I've been sharing a room with my sister. She was ready to move out of our parents' house, and she wanted to save money, so she moved in with me. I was cool with the idea of cutting my rent in half, so I went along with it. We have a bunk bed, so there's still sufficient floor space in there, but it's cramped to have to share. Plus, I go to bed around 10 and get up around 6. Jen goes to bed around midnight and gets up whenever strikes her fancy, though she complains that 8 is early. (I would find sleeping until 8 to be a rare luxury.)

The apartment has been cramped because it was inhabited by 5 people, 2 dogs, and a cat. (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1050 sq. ft.) However, one of my roommates moved out on Saturday, along with her dog. Now there are only 4 people, 1 dog, and 1 cat in the apartment. I moved into the vacated room, and it's so nice!

It's a smaller room, and I don't have all of my stuff in there yet. (I have a big deadline on Tuesday night, so that takes precedence.) My bed frame isn't scheduled to arrive until tomorrow, so my mattress is on the floor in the mean time. Last night was a dream. I shut my door and everyone left me alone. (Well, except for the cat, but I don't mind her. She's pretty quiet.) I got to hit the snooze button without feeling guilty. I got up at 5:15 AM without anyone throwing stuff at me for disturbing slumber.

I'm so done with the sharing a room thing! I can share a bathroom with no problem, but the only time I'm ever going to share a bedroom again in my life is when I'm married. (Even then, I'll make sure I have an office or something so I have a place I can get away from people and have my own space.) Don't get me wrong, I'm not a misanthrope. I genuinely like people. I also like being able to get away from people sometimes so that I can recharge.

SCU Campus Food Review

2010-01-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think I spend more time at school than I do at home. Of course, I need to eat. There are plenty of places on campus to satisfy that need. Some do it better than others. More after the break.

Food and Beverages:

Market Square: This is the main cafeteria. For lunch and dinner, the food is decent, but it’s ridiculously overpriced. (One can easily drop $10 on dinner.) Breakfast is great, though. The cafeteria opens at 7:00 am. The undergrads are allergic to such early hours, so it’s a nice quiet place to eat and study first thing in the morning. (The undergrad library doesn’t open until 7:30, and the law library doesn’t open until 8.) The food for breakfast is tasty and inexpensive. I can get a meal that keeps me full until early to mid afternoon for about $4. My only complaint is that the cashier is really grumpy. She’s rude to people who hand her their student ID cards in any manner except for the specific way she likes it. (The guy in front of me this morning had his ID card on a lanyard on his keychain. She gave him a lecture.) She dislikes it when anyone uses the non-resident dining account on the ID card. (There are three possible accounts on each ID card. Resident dining, non-resident dining, and flex. Flex works like a debit card.) And, heaven forbid if someone wants to pay with cash or credit card. I got an earful once when I forgot my student ID card and had to use my Mastercard. (She was even more annoyed than she usually is when I use the non-resident dining plan on my student ID card.) I don’t know what her deal is. Maybe I should complain to her supervisor.

Mission Bakery: This is the coffee shop in Benson. The selection isn’t that great, and the prices are absurd. (I once spent $7 for a sandwich and a bottle of water, and it wasn’t even a very good sandwich.) The frozen yogurt is good, though, as is the hot cocoa. It’s the only place on campus open when the undergrads aren’t in session. This is helpful because the law school is on a different schedule, and the first six weeks of the fall semester are before the undergrads start up.

Sunstream Cafe: This is the cafe in the lobby of the undergrad library. It’s open late, which is nice. There’s not a lot of selection, but the hot cocoa is the best I’ve ever found.

Cadence Cyber Cafe: This is the cafe in the lobby of Lucas Hall, the business school. The fruit lemonade is amazing, and the sandwiches are good, too. The prices are reasonable. (I can get a sandwich for about $3.50 or a breakfast burrito for about $2.75.)

Cellar Market: This is the convenience store in the basement of Benson. It’s a nice place for snacks, and there are some grocery-type items as well. I don’t go there often, but if I have a craving for vegan miso ramen, this is the place to get it.

Bannan Hall Vending Machines: Not a great place to get a meal, but in a pinch, the vending machines work for emergency sustenance. There’s a healthy machine and a junk food machine, in addition to a coffee/hot cocoa machine, a soda machine, and a juice/water machine. (And a change machine, too, since the machines don’t take dollar bills.)

Bannan Hall Microwaves: There are two microwaves in the lounge in Bannan hall. This is the best place for food. I can bring meals from home and heat them up, or I can heat up purchases from the Cellar Market. I usually bring leftovers and heat them up. This has the advantage of being cheap, and also the advantage of being conveniently located near all of my classes.

Lunchtime Meetings/Lectures, and Bake Sales: No discussion of food on campus would be complete without mentioning these two sources of food. The lunchtime meetings for clubs, or the lectures sponsored by the career services department often include food in order to induce people to attend. Pizza and Quizno’s are the two most common varieties. Leftovers are put in the Bannan Lounge for the vultures to pick over. Bake Sales happen on average once a week. They’re raising money for any number of worthy causes. While it’s not the cheapest way to get baked goods, it has the advantage of that warm-fuzzy feeling that comes with doing something charitable.

Water:

That wonderful liquid composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen deserves its own section. It’s essential to life. Also, it has no calories, and nothing beats a tall glass of cold water on a hot day.

Cafes and Cellar Market: Bottled water can be purchased at any of these locations. It varies in temperature and price, but it’s usually between $1.50 and $2. This can add up rather quickly, but it works in a pinch.

Bannan Vending Machines: The water is cold here, but it also has the drawback of costing money. Water is only $1.25, so it’s a better deal than the alternatives.

Market Square: There are water coolers here, but they’re usually empty. If you’re really nice to the cashiers, you’ll be able to fill up for free with water from the soda machine. It’s cold, filtered, and tastes great. I have an aluminum reusable water bottle with a carabiner to hook to the outside of my bag. The only drawback is that it’s a bit inconvenient to get to during the day.

Bannan Hall: On the third floor of Bannan, there’s a water bottle filling attachment on one of the drinking fountains. The water is a bit cloudy and tastes kind of weird, but it’s free and it works for the most part. Since my classes are in Bannan, this used to be my preferred option.

Lucas Hall: I just discovered that there is a water bottle filling attachment on the drinking fountain in Lucas Hall as well. I like to study in the lounge there anyway, since it’s quiet and the chairs are comfortable. I filled my water bottle today, and the water is clear, filtered, cold, and delicious. I’ve found my new favorite watering hole.

Undergraduate Library: There’s a drinking fountain attachment in the undergraduate library, next to the cafe, but I haven’t tried it, so I can’t vouch for the water quality. (I’m skeptical, though. It’s right outside the restroom, and there are signs in the restroom advertising that they’re supplied with reclaimed water.)

Ironic Spam (Updated)

2010-01-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

My blog has finally arrived - I've been comment spammed. There's some amusing irony, though. The post that got the spam was "My Love/Hate Relationship With Citation". The post was all about academic honesty, proper citation format, and my complete lack of toleration for plagiarism.

The comment (which I have since deleted) said:

Thanks a lot for a bunch of good tips. I look forward to reading more on the topic in the future. Keep up the good work! This blog is going to be great resource. Love reading it.

It linked to one of those term-paper farms where you can buy essays to turn in! I guess the spammers just look for keywords or something. It's obvious this guy* didn't read the post, or he would have realized that I was speaking out against his services.

The upshot for you is that I've turned on word verification for comments. I apologize; I know it's annoying to have to type the word to prove you're not a spam-bot. It won't deter human beings from spamming my blog, but it will cut down on computerized spam. It was either that, or turn on comment moderation. Moderation is extra work for everyone, and it impedes discussion, so I'm not going to do that unless I get a real spam problem.

Update (1/5/09): My spammer is back. This time he spammed my "Business Writing Help!" post with the same comment. I'm going to turn on comment moderation for posts older than 10 days. That should stop hit-and-run spam attacks without unduly impeding free and open discussion.

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*I'm pretty sure he's a guy, since the comment was signed "james" [sic.].

The Stupid Agency (hereinafter known as TSA)

2009-12-27T18:25:00.000-08:00

I traveled out of town this weekend to spend Christmas with my family. (Merry slightly belated Christmas. Mine was great. How was yours?) I had no trouble getting there. One thing I will say about the Oakland airport - they know how to do inoffensive, efficient security. I headed to the airport after work on Wednesday night, and I got to Salt Lake City a few hours later. The most adventure came when I was packed like sardines on BART.

Of course, on Christmas day, a would-be terrorist decided to try to blow up an airplane. (Fortunately, he failed.) Predictably, this means extra inconveniences for law-abiding citizens. First, as a result of the new security measures, I could only have one carry-on instead of the standard carry on and personal item. This meant that I had to jam the contents of my purse into my laptop bag.

Since TSA won't actually tell us what the new security regulations are, I didn't quite know what to do do prepare. I got to the Salt Lake airport about 90 minutes prior to my flight. (Since I don't check luggage, I usually get there 45 minutes before.) I went to security and got in line. I was pleased that the line was moving quickly, and I figured maybe the blogosphere overreacted.

When I got to the place where I had to take off my shoes and unpack my carefully packed luggage to prove that I brush with Crest, use Dove face wash, and wear Cover Girl Creamy Natural Fragrance Free makeup, I saw something strange. (Yes, I realize that walking around the airport in purple polka-dotted socks while carrying my shoes is already strange, but I digress...) The metal detector was gone, replaced by some space-age looking contraption. It turns out that it's one of those fancy machines that can see through your clothes.

I had heard about those machines and the controversy that their invention generated, but I didn't know that they were being rolled out in airports yet. I thought they were still theoretical. Anyway, I had to stand in this clear plastic tube with my hands in the air while being stared at by two stern TSA agents - one male and one female. Then I was instructed to step to the side. I stood there for a few minutes while the female agent was talking on her walkie-talkie. (I couldn't hear what she was saying, and her back was to me, so I couldn't read her lips.)

Apparently, the naked scanner picked up something baffling. The agent asked me if I had something in my pocket. I assured her that I did not. She said that she would have to pat me down. So, in addition to being subjected to a technological strip-search, I had to have a stranger touch me in a rather invasive manner. The offending object? An article of religious clothing.

Once I got out of there, I went to the x-ray conveyor belt to pick up my carry-on luggage. I was faced with another TSA agent who pointed to my laptop and asked me if it was mine. I said that it was. He asked me if he could search it. Fortunately, I was able to keep my wits about me, and I refrained from mouthing off to him. (It took a lot of self-control, let me tell you.) I smiled politely and asked him if he intended to turn it on. His demeanor suddenly changed; he became more polite and conciliatory. I could tell that he wasn't used to people standing up to him. He said that he did not intend to turn it on, only swab it. As I was formulating my response, he invited me to watch as he did it. I said that I would. (There's no way I'm letting my laptop out of my sight. I've heard too many stories.) He swabbed it, and then he sent me on my way.

I collected my belongings, re-packed my bag, re-shod myself, and walked to my gate. When I got there, I found that my flight was delayed. I sat down and started thinking about my little experience. It was violating. First, technology looked through my clothing. Second, I felt singled out because of my religion. (I can only imagine what people who wear visible religious garments must go through on a regular basis.) Third, the only thing that saved my laptop from being removed from my sight was my willingness to question authority.

Do I feel safer as a result? Not really. I can think of several ways to cause havoc on an airplane. Every one of the ways I can come up with is something I learned in seventh grade science, and I could get everything necessary through even the enhanced security. So, if someone who has no nefarious intentions and no formal bad-guy training could figure it out, I'm sure that people who want to blow up airplanes can still do so.

The Bill of Rights as It Relates to Cake

2009-12-17T18:43:00.000-08:00

This little bit of weirdness grew out of a silly Facebook conversation. In honor of the birthday (yes, I know technically it's an anniversary, not a birthday, but work with me here) of the Bill of Rights, I was asked if there would be cake. I responded with how that piece of cake relates to the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Here's a more detailed version.*

First Amendment:
Congress can't make you say grace before eating your cake, but it also can't prohibit you from doing so. If you want to tell people about your cake, you may do so. This includes, but is not limited to: speaking about it, writing about it, doing interpretive dance about it, making statues, photos or other artistic representations of it, or burning it. If you don't have cake, or you are displeased with your cake, you may protest about it.

Second Amendment:
If you wish to defend your cake using arms, you may do so.

Third Amendment:
In times of peace, you do not have to feed your cake to soldiers. In times of war, you only have to in the manner prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment:
Your cake is free from unreasonable search and seizure.

Fifth Amendment:
If you are accused of stealing cake, or committing some other crime in relation to the cake, you can't be prosecuted unless you've been indicted by a grand jury, and you can't be forced to testify against yourself. If you have been acquitted, you can't be prosecuted again for the same crime. You can't be deprived of your cake without due process of law, and the government can't take your cake for public use without paying you for it.

Sixth Amendment:
You have a right to a lawyer if you're accused of stealing cake. [editor's note: There's other stuff in the Sixth Amendment, but it doesn't relate to cake.]

Seventh Amendment:
If you have one of those fancy bakery cakes that's worth more than $20, you have a right to a jury trial if you sue someone regarding the cake.

Eighth Amendment:
You can't be excessively fined in relation to your cake.

Ninth Amendment:
The prior eight amendments are not an exclusive list of your rights relating to your cake. You may have more, but we're not really sure how to figure out what they are.

Tenth Amendment:
If the federal government doesn't have the power to regulate your cake, and the state government hasn't been prohibited from regulating your cake, then the state government may regulate your cake.

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*Even this doesn't capture the full nuances of constitutional law. Proceed at your own risk. When in doubt, remember that the French solution for cake is available and noncontroversial. Marie Antoinette will let you eat it. (No word on whether you can have it, too. Law review commentary on the subject is welcome.)

Still Alive Over Here

2009-12-13T18:00:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy few weeks. I had finals, and I'm back working full-time until school starts up again in January. On my "vacation", I have to finish up my seminar paper and prepare my note for the high-tech law journal. (The two overlap significantly, so it's more like writing 1 1/2 papers, not two.) Then I need to get the paper ready for publication so I can start sending it to law reviews in February. My goal is to publish one paper per semester for the rest of law school so that when I graduate, I can be ready to go on the teaching market with four articles published. That will put me significantly ahead of the competition in publications, which should make up for not having gone to Yale.

Business Writing Help!

2009-12-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure anyone who has read my blog knows, I love to write. I mostly enjoy academic writing, such as essays and journal articles, but I've dabbled in blogging and journalism, and I've even tried my hand at creative writing. (NaNoWriMo fell victim to real life this year, though. Better luck next time.) Business writing is an area where I'm weak, however.

I got my start in the working world in 2000, when the dot-com bubble was at its bubbliest. I was a green 18-year old with no college education and no experience. They don't teach business writing in high school. [1] There was a huge labor shortage at the time, so qualifications for getting a job were: 1) Do you have a pulse? 2) Do you have a social security number?. Seeing as I was in possession of both of those qualifications, I got hired by a temp agency.

There's no training at most temp agencies, so I just got thrown into the world of business. I was expected to sink or swim. Fortunately, I learned to swim pretty quickly. Then college happened, then my mission happened, and then law school happened. During college, I worked as a teaching assistant, so I didn't have to worry about office skills. In law school, I worked in the library, where I shelved books and helped students with legal research.

Then The Great and Dreadful Interruption of Life (TM) happened. I suddenly found myself with half a law degree, no job, no money, and no marketable skills. I called up a different temp agency (that I had used over summers in law school when I wasn't shelving books) and I got placed in the rotation again. Business was slow, so I took a part-time job doing home health care on the weekends to pay the bills. (This health care job, which I intended to take for a few months to get back on my feet ended up becoming a full-time job that lasted for 3 years.) Once again, no need for business writing.

I went to paralegal school, but because of my 3 semesters of law school (which included a rather worthless legal writing and research class, as I've mentioned before), my writing class was waived. I graduated with honors, giving me a nice shiny marketable degree, but because of the economy, there wasn't really a market for paralegals at the time.

Back in February, I landed a position through my temp agency that was supposed to last for 3 months, covering the front desk. Once the 3 months was up, I was promoted to HR, where I still am today. (I got hired as a permanent employee in August.) So, I have a ton of work experience, I managed to go back to law school after TGaDIoL, but I still feel like my skills are deficient in a few key areas. (I had a much better legal writing class this time around, but I know business writing is different from legal writing, and I'm not even that good at non-academic legal writing anyway. Just ask my professor...)

My roommate recently graduated with a certificate in administrative assisting. I didn't even know that there were schools for that. She learned all sorts of useful stuff like how to write a memo. Anyway, so now I'm juggling law school (at the end of this semester, I will have completed 3 years, which is as much as most lawyers, but I digress) and working in HR, where I have no experience. I'm sort of learning as I go.

My boss asked me today to write a specific type of memo, and I'll admit that I had to google it to get an example. I'm a good writer, but there's so much in the business world that I don't know because I've spent most of my adult life in school, and I've spent much of my working life working for universities. This is a sort of long-winded way of getting to the point, but does anyone have any suggestions for a good business writing textbook or style guide? I want to have a good reference and a way to teach myself all the stuff that I probably should have picked up along the way over the past 10 years. [2]

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[1] There may have been business writing courses available, but if there were, I never heard about them. I was tracked into high-end math and science classes because the guidance counselors, teachers, and many of my family members figured I would go on to become an engineer. Imagine everyone's surprise when I decided to study political science and philosophy in college and then go to law school. Of course, I do work for a software company, and I'm studying intellectual property law, so I'm sort of the most engineer-like legal person around.
[2] I don't need help with grammar, etc. Mainly, I need help with tone and formatting. Everything I write sounds like it was written by a lawyer, albeit a lawyer who refuses to use the words "heretofore" or "whereas". (But who apparently has no objection to the use of "albeit".)

Frugal Living Tips for the Rest of Us

2009-11-25T16:14:00.000-08:00

Websites with frugal living tips abound on the internet. However, they're not typically useful to someone in my situation. The tips are generally geared toward a married couple (consisting of one wage-earner and one at-home individual) with several kids. This family lives in a house with a yard suitable for growing a vegetable garden. I'm single, I juggle work and school, and I live in an apartment where the only dirt available is whatever the dog tracks in.

Nonetheless, I'm known as the queen of frugality. I manage to have monthly living expenses of slightly under $500. (Given that I live in Silicon Valley, one of the most expensive areas of the entire country, this is nothing short of a miracle.) Here's what I've learned along the way. (I'm sure I've missed stuff; this is just what I remember right now. After a while, frugality just becomes an automatic way of life.)

Frugal Living Tips for People Who Don't Have Time, Space, or Inclination to Raise Chickens for Their Eggs*:

1. Get a roommate (or two, or three, though I don't really recommend four): This is, by far, the biggest piece of frugal living advice. A two bedroom apartment costs only slightly more than a one bedroom, and a three bedroom is only slightly more than a two bedroom. I have a three bedroom apartment, and there are five of us living there. My rent is next to nothing. (However, my personal space and peace and quiet are next to nothing as well. You win some, you lose some.)

2. Cook your own food: This is a huge one, too. It costs so much less to cook than to eat out. Of course, there's so little time in the day for cooking. The crock-pot and the freezer are your friend. I make large batches and freeze leftovers. This way, I get to have variety, and I can cook a lot when I have time. Then I have homemade TV dinners for those nights when I just don't have it in me to cook.

3. Don't let food go to waste: Eat your leftovers. Don't buy more produce than you can eat before it spoils. (Perhaps you can share it with your roommates.) My mom made me drink milk with my dinner every day when I was a kid. So, one of the first things I did when I became an adult was to stop drinking milk, since I was so sick of it. I don't have any objection to it; I cook with it, and I put it on my cereal when I have it. I don't recall the last time I drank a glass of milk. Since milk spoils so easily, I almost never buy it. I cook with powdered milk (you can't taste the difference), and when I eat cereal, I use almond milk. (Some people use soy or rice milk, but I like the flavor of almond better.) Both have long shelf-lives. I get the joy of using milk without the spoilage.

4. Buy used: This goes for the obvious, like cars, (my car is 20 years old and I don't have a car payment), but also for the less obvious. All of my dishes and most of my other housewares came from the thrift store. People give away some nice stuff, so you don't have to suffer with green and orange paisley. I also get a lot of clothes from thrift stores, too. For electronics, I use craigslist and eBay.

5. Buy in bulk: There are plenty of things that are cheaper in bulk. Toilet paper, for example. It never spoils, so, as long as you have the space for it, go for it. I like to shop at Smart & Final. It's like Costco, but there's no membership fee. I can get 24 rolls of TP for $12 or so. I also by cat food and litter in bulk. (I keep the cat food in an airtight container so it stays fresh.)

6. Save money on your laundry: As some of you may know, laundry is something of a hobby of mine. Here are a few money-saving tips.

Hang some of your laundry to dry. The wind and sun are free, and clothes last longer. (I still use my dryer for heavy stuff, but my delicates and lightweight items go on the drying rack.)
Only run full loads. The fewer loads you run, the less water and electricity you'll use. If you don't have enough stuff for a full load, combine with your roommates.
Use dryer balls. They're these neat plastic balls that kind of look like blue blowfish. They sell for about $9, and I use them instead of dryer sheets. They last for a long time. (I think my first set broke after a year.) They cut the static and make the clothes soft and fluffy without the noxious dryer sheet smell or price.
Make your own laundry detergent. Recipes can be found here. (I use a variation of recipe #2, but if you prefer powdered, I've had success with recipe #4.) I can make 5 gallons of liquid detergent for about $1.50, in 15 minutes. That much store-bought detergent would cost at least $30.

7. Reuse: Recycling is good for the environment, but it's also good for your wallet. Take your lunch to work in reusable containers. Use cloth napkins instead of paper ones. Clean with rags instead of paper towels.

8. Know what to splurge on: For some things, the apparently frugal solution really isn't. We all have our things that we need to spend more on. Mine is toothpaste. Because I inherited the teeth of my British forebears, I need to practice extra-good dental care to keep my pearly-whites in good health. I buy high-end toothpaste to ensure that. (I do, however, buy it in bulk and on sale.) Nice toothpaste is cheaper than a root canal! For other people, it may be some form of hypo-allergenic cleanser, or low-sugar food product. Whatever it is, don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish.

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*Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. This blog post does not constitute legal advice, financial advice, medical advice, or any other kind of vice. Results not typical. Talk to your doctor if you experience any dreadful side effects like Lyme Disease or triskaidekaphobia.

Pondering Pronouns - Updated

2009-11-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about pronouns a lot lately. They're great. I'll illustrate why using the parable of the Cherry Pop-Tart. (For some reason, I'm not quite sure why, Jen and I jokingly never use pronouns to refer to Cherry Pop-Tarts.)

Jen has a box of Cherry Pop-Tarts in the pantry. Jen loves Cherry Pop-Tarts. She thinks Cherry Pop-Tarts are quite delicious. Cherry Pop-Tarts are one of her favorite sweet treats. I think Cherry Pop-Tarts are alright, but Cherry Pop-Tarts are not high on my list of things I want to eat. Cherry Pop-Tarts are too sweet. However, I love the edges of Cherry Pop-Tarts. The edges are the best part of Cherry Pop-Tarts.

Words You Don't Hear Every Day

2009-11-10T18:13:00.001-08:00

Words are kind of funny if you stop to think about it. Some words are common in everyday use. Some words are uncommon and are only heard in a few places. I've been thinking about that lately.

Supernal is one of those words. I've only heard it at church, and even then, only rarely. It seems to be one of those words that is confined to a specific context. I hear its synonyms, such as ethereal, divine, or heavenly in other places, but I'm sure people would give me a funny look if I described the school cafeteria's tofu chocolate mousse as supernal. [1]

Another word that seems confined to certain circumstances is salacious. I primarily hear this word in class discussions. (I have heard it elsewhere, but only rarely. More common are its synonyms - risque, racy, etc. However, even less common is its synonym, lascivious. I've only ever seen that one in the Bible.) I recall its use at least twice this semester, in different classes, by different professors. The first time was in my appellate advocacy class when we were discussing statutory interpretation. We were reading a case that the professor handed out. [2] As he passed it out, he said that it was a bit salacious, but it was nonetheless a good case to illustrate the point he was trying to make. [3] The second occurrence was today in my constitutional law class. We were discussing the constitutionality of restrictions on commercial speech. Some divorce lawyers in Chicago placed a prominent billboard advertising their services. The billboard had some racy pictures on it, and the professor was trying to spark discussion by asking us if it mattered that the advertisement was salacious.

What words do you hear in certain contexts but not in others?

____
1. It's really tasty, though. Not quite supernal, but certainly heavenly.
2. See People v. Gibbons, 215 Cal. App. 3d 1204 (1989).
3. The point he was trying to make is that statutes aren't self-interpreting, and that even a seemingly simple word like "communication" is subject to people arguing about it.

Blogthings Day!

2009-11-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

I have writer's block, so I can't come up with a good post right now. I'm going to treat you all to Blogthings. I love quizzes. Today I learned what length hair I should have.

You Should Have Super Long Hair

You are free spirited and carefree. You are a total wild child, and no one is going to tame you!

Your hair tells people that you're an individual who doesn't care what other people think. You and your hair break all the rules.

You are a mysterious type who has many secrets. You prefer to keep to yourself.

There's a lot hiding behind that hair. Very few people truly understand what you are all about.

What Length Hair Should You Have?

I used to have super long hair until I chopped it off last year. It's grown to the middle of my back now. I don't think I'll grow it all the way back to my waist, but I'll probably grow it out another few inches.

I also found out what color my hair should be.

Your Hair Should Be Red

You are a passionate person... both in love and in life.

You have many causes that are important to you. You can be very intense.

You are very fiery. You speak up, and you don't mince words.

You also have a very flamboyant personality. You love to show off.

You are both eccentric and expressive. You like to share your unique point of view.

You can become quite impassioned. So impassioned that you can seem a little overbearing.

What Color Hair Should You Have?

Blogthings: Our Quizzes Weren't Written By Bored 12 Year Olds

Depending on how much sun I've gotten, my hair varies between strawberry blonde and auburn, so it fits.

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

It's November again, and that means it's time for NaNoWriMo! (National Novel Writing Month) Every year, budding authors get together and harness the power of positive peer pressure (look, I can alliterate!) to encourage one another to write. It's like having a jogging buddy. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month.

I've been meaning to do it for a few years, but I never have time. I realized that I'll never find the time; I have to make the time, so I'm going to give it a go this year. I'm guessing that most of my novel will come between November 24 and 30. (Two reasons: 1- I'm a procrastinator. 2- My seminar paper is due on November 23.)

I have the embarrassingly low word count of 211 right now. (I should be around 6,600 to be on track.) I have a setting and a story outline; I just haven't had time to sit down and write it yet. You can follow my progress here. I don't have a title yet, so if anyone has any suggestions after reading the synopsis, feel free to let me know.

If any of you reading this are fellow participants, please add me as a writing buddy. (It's not too late to join if anyone wants to get started!)

Some Things Just Bug Me!...

2009-11-02T14:20:00.000-08:00

...Like bugs, for example.

Well, not just bugs, but everything that goes along with bugs. If I had been Noah, I would have conveniently forgotten to take the insects on the ark. Sure, I probably would have been the recipient of some divine smiting, but I would be willing to take one for Team Humanity.

My apartment complex has a bug problem. I have a cat, so my room is blessedly bug-free. (Cheapest pest control ever. All I have to do is feed her, play with her, and change her litter. In return, she de-stresses me and eats bugs.) Anyway, due to the bug problem, the apartment management has decided to spray pesticide. It goes like this:

On Thursday night, a note is taped to the door of the apartment. It usually gets posted sometime between 8 and 10 pm. The note informs us that the pest control people are coming to spray sometime between the hours of 9 and 5 on Monday. Then there's a list of preparations that need to be made. We have to vacate the apartment for the duration of treatment and 4 hours following. That part isn't too bad. The annoying part is that we have to bag all of our clothing and linens, seal up all of our food, and move all of our furniture at least 24 inches away from the wall. We also have to remove our bedding and take our mattresses off of our bedframe and lean them up against the wall.

This whole preparation process took several hours the first time, but I've gotten it down to a science, and I can prepare in about an hour. Since I have a cat, I have to kennel her for the day. I can't exactly take Ebony with me to work and school.

This morning was pest control day again. I got up bright and early at 5:30 in the morning to prepare. (Jen wisely decided to spend the night at our parents' house, so she avoided the worst of it. I get the last laugh, though, since she gets to put it all back together.) I got Ebony into her crate and headed to the kennel.

I arrived at the kennel at 7:00, when they open. I began the check-in procedure, and the guy at the front desk said that I needed to show proof of Ebony's vaccinations. I had come prepared, and I produced the report I had gotten from the vet on Friday. However, the codes in the kennel's computer system were some sort of cryptic abbreviation, and the receptionist didn't know which abbreviation went to which shot on the list. (The list from the vet had the proper names of the shots.) He asked a few of his co-workers and none of them knew either. He tried to call my vet, but the vet doesn't open until 8. He said that he couldn't take Ebony until he talked to the vet. I suggested he google the abbreviations to see what he came up with, and he looked at me like it was the stupidest idea he had ever heard and said he couldn't do that.

I collected my cat, my vet report, and my irritation and left, informing him that I would be taking my business elsewhere, since the service was so poor. (I had had problems the last time, too.) So, word to the wise, if you're looking for a place to kennel your pets, don't go to PetSmart.

Anyway, I got home at 7:30 am (I had to be in class at 9:15, so time is ticking at this point.) I fired up my laptop and started searching for kennel options. After all, I know how to use Google! I found a local vet that offered kenneling services, so I dropped Ebony off and headed to class. Traffic was kind to me, so I wasn't late.

Naturally, the kennel closes at 6:00 pm, and I don't get home until 9:30 pm. So, I e-mailed Jen with the info on where to get my cat, and she agreed to pick her up on her way home. Jen just texted me to let me know she retrieved Ebony safe and sound, but that her collar is missing. I'm going to have to track it down, because I don't want to have to pay the city of Fremont for a new license.

And, of course, when I get home tonight, I'm going to have to wash all the kitchen utensils that I forgot to put away. That's like 3 loads of dishes. I so don't have time for this!

Edit: Thankfully, Jen found the collar right after I published this. One less thing to worry about.

What's in a Name?

2009-10-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

Many cultures believe that names have power. To know the name of a thing is to know something about its essence. My given name, Trudy, is old German for "spear maiden". I love this name because it reminds me that I can be simultaneously strong and feminine - I don't have to choose one or the other.

As people, our names connect us to our families by identifying us as members of a particular group or clan. I was named after both my mother and my father. When I came into this world, I was given the name Trudy Lynn Rushforth. Rushforth is my father's surname, and Lynn is my mother's middle name.

I have always claimed and honored the name given to me by my father. I decided as a teenager that when I marry, I will not change my name. It is my name and it is a part of me. [1] I'm ashamed to admit, however, that I have been less willing to embrace the name given to me by my mother. In my early twenties, I even went so far as to completely eliminate my middle name.

Over the past several months, this decision has weighed on my mind. I realized that by removing the part of my name that came from my mother, while tenaciously clinging to the part of my name that came from my father, I was offending the principles of gender equality which I profess to believe in. I was doing to my mother what has been done to women throughout history - I erased her.

No more. I am re-claiming my name. Allow me to introduce you to the new and improved Trudy Lynn Rushforth. [2]

____________
Footnotes:
[1] If it really becomes a sticking point with my future husband, I would be willing to hyphenate as a compromise.
[2] For professional purposes, I'm still going to use the name Trudy Rushforth. My name is already on the longish side, and full names are rarely used among women my age.

The Jester Hat

2009-10-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

I should totally invest in a court jester hat. It would go with all of the juggling I've been doing lately.

I survived oral arguments for my advocacy class. (I did better than survive, actually. I rocked!) I have an outline for my high tech journal note due this weekend, and I have a draft of one section of my seminar paper due on Monday. (I'm using the same paper for the note and my seminar, so it's not as bad as it sounds.) Then I have my revised brief for advocacy due next week. This is all in addition to my regular reading for my other classes, and, of course, my job.

Plus, I have to figure out what I'm going to do this summer. On the one hand, my employer has invited me to work full-time this summer. It's quite tempting, since it's a sure bet, and the pay is pretty decent. On the other hand, I should probably get some legal experience, like at a firm or something. (Of course, I don't want to be a lawyer, so firm life isn't that attractive to me.) I'm considering getting a judicial externship, but those aren't paid.

I get to register for classes this afternoon. Here's hoping I get the classes I need!

How to Motivate

2009-10-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

I can't stand it when people try to use guilt trips on me. It feels so manipulative. However, appropriate motivation works wonders. Here's a good example of how to appeal to people's sense of responsibility without resorting to a guilt trip:

In one of my classes, we have been assigned to watch an oral argument before an appellate court. People asked the professor what kind of documentation he wanted to prove that we did it. He said that he didn't need any documentation. He talked about how he is a big believer in the honor system and that as lawyers, we need to be scrupulously ethical in all of our dealings. He told us that we were on our honor to complete the assignment and that he will not be checking to see if we did. He reminded us that this meant that there would be no penalty for failure to watch an argument, but that we have an obligation to fulfill the assignment because we said that we would.

Now, I can be a bit of a slacker at times. I'm notorious for doing the bare minimum to get by when it comes to homework. If it's not graded, I'm not likely to want to take the time to do it, since I have so many graded things to do. However, after a speech like that, there's no way I'm going to skip the oral argument. I'm not going to violate the trust my professor has placed in me.

To PhD, or not to PhD. That is the question.

2009-09-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

With the exception of a year and a half for my mission and a year and a half to work between my first time in law school and when I went to paralegal school prior to my second time in law school, I've spent my whole life in school in one form or another. In 19 1/2 months, I'll finally have a JD. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I plan on becoming a law professor. Technically, a JD is sufficient for that goal*, but with the tight market, a PhD or LLM would give me a leg-up on the process. When I heard the recommendation of getting an LLM, I wanted to cry. The thought of spending another 1-2 years in law school was totally unappealing.

I just found out that UC Berkeley has a PhD program in jurisprudence and social policy. It's an interdisciplinary program (law, economics, political science, philosophy, and criminal justice) designed to prepare people to teach law. (The program doesn't require a JD, but I'm sure that by having one, I'll have a leg-up in that department.) It's tempting, but I'm just not sure I could justify another 5 years in school.

Before going back to law school, I considered getting a PhD in philosophy, but I decided that the timing was wrong. I do want to get one eventually, perhaps when I'm retired, wealthy, and full of spare time. I'm still broke, swamped, and getting to an age where I should start being a productive member of society.

Anyway, I have it narrowed down to the following options:
1. Go for the PhD. Start in the fall of 2010 and switch back into part-time law school at SCU. (Completion: JD - December 2011, PhD - May 2015)
2. Go for the PhD, but wait until law school is finished. (Completion: JD - May 2011, PhD - May 2016)
3. Finish law school and cross my fingers for one of those coveted tenure-track teaching positions. (Completion: JD - May 2011)
4. Are you crazy?! Finish law school and get a normal job as a lawyer for a few years before even thinking about going back to school. (Completion: JD - May 2011, PhD - maybe in the future??)
5. Who cares about tenure, anyway? Finish law school and go be an underpaid second-class citizen of the legal academy (aka legal writing and research professor). (Completion: JD - May 2011)

Thoughts?
---
*In theory, one only needs a JD to teach law, but in practice, one needs a JD from an elite law school (Yale, Harvard, or Stanford, in that order), a prestigious judicial clerkship, and a position as an editor on the law review. Obviously, I don't have the elite law school, so I need to land the clerkship, the editorial position on law review (I'm already an associate on the high tech journal, so that's at least in the cards), and I need to publish like mad and hope someone is willing to take a chance on me.

My Love/Hate Relationship With Citation

2009-09-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

In academic writing, citation is essential. [1] It helps the reader find the sources on which the author relied to make the conclusions asserted. It gives credit where credit is due to thinkers who came before. It keeps everyone honest.

However, the minutiae of the various citation systems can be annoying. They're all different, and each teacher has his/her personal preference as to which one to use. Does it really matter whether the period following "Id." is italicized? (For that matter, does it really make a difference as to whether it's "Id." or "Ibid."?) Will I be better able to find the source? I never was a big fan of rigid forms of citation, but I became especially opposed when I started law school. My first experience in law school was remarkably negative. (It was not at SCU, where I'm quite happy now.)

I had quite possibly the worst legal writing and research teacher in existence. [2] He was a grumpy adjunct who was probably 80 years old and he hated teaching. He thought the class was a waste of time, and as a result, he didn't put much effort into it. I learned next to nothing in his class. [3] He worshiped the Bluebook. [4] He would be picky about the stupidest details, and we would get marked down for little things. Forgetting to italicize was treated as seriously as misstating a proposition of law. Additionally, the class was graded on a strict curve, and the grades began with the first assignment when nobody had ever seen the Bluebook before. If someone didn't immediately grasp the nuances of this 416 page behemoth, there went the grade for the whole semester.

(I should add at this juncture that my legal writing and research teacher at SCU is excellent. He's among the top three professors I've had in my entire college education.) [5]

I'm in the process of applying to become an adjunct at one or more of the local community colleges. I hope to teach either English or Philosophy, but I could see myself teaching Political Science as well. In any of these subjects, I plan to assign term papers. I'm not going to be uptight about citation. Here's a proposed syllabus section. What do you think?

Academic Integrity:

It is a serious violation of academic integrity to pass the work of others off as your own. This is called plagiarism. If you are caught plagiarizing, you will fail the course and be reported to the dean.

It is, however, appropriate and expected that you build upon the work of others. You must cite all sources that you use. The purpose of citation is to ensure that prior thinkers and researchers are given credit for their work. There are many citation formats in existence, and they all promote the same principles. The purpose of a unified citation system is to make it easier for the reader to locate and verify your sources.

For the purposes of this class, you must cite your sources in accordance with a generally accepted citation format. Examples include, but are not limited to:

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
Chicago Manual of Style
Associated Press Stylebook
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation
ALWD Citation Manual

You will receive full credit for citations as long as I can locate and verify your sources.

------
Footnotes:
[1] If this were a law review article, there would be a footnote after nearly every sentence, either citing to something, or making a parenthetical comment such as this one. Since this is a blog post, I'll spare you the extensive footnotes. (Five isn't extensive, is it?)
[2] I have not done an extensive study of the quality of legal writing and research teachers, but I have personally had three, and I know friends who, altogether, have had upwards to ten different teachers. This particular teacher in question is the worst. (I'm aware that the plural of anecdote is not data, but I'm also aware that hyperbole is an accepted literary device.)
[3] I should add at this point that I did learn how to do legal research using actual real, live books. This is the only thing I learned in the class, and it's something for which I'm grateful.
[4] The Bluebook is the short name for The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. It's the most common citation manual for the legal profession.
[5] The other two are professors I took classes from as an undergraduate: one in philosophy (who caused me to switch to studying philosophy), and one in economics.

Feline Alarm Clock

2009-09-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a long week. On Monday, both of the other admins were out of the office. I only work afternoons on Monday because I have class in the morning. When I got into work at noon, the place was in a state of utter chaos. I had to spend all afternoon taking care of little administrative details. I didn't even get to my desk until 2 pm, and I spent an hour answering e-mails.

I have a cite-checking assignment due tomorrow for one of the law journals I work on, and I've been struggling to get the motivation to get started. I meant to do it on Monday night after my night class, but I was too tired. (I got out of class at 8:45.) Then I meant to do it yesterday after class. (I got out of class at 4.) However, I forgot my student ID card, so I couldn't get into the library. I went home and tripped over furniture because my roommate used the carpet cleaner in her room (to clean up after the now-gone litter of kittens), so all her stuff was in the front room. I didn't get any work done and I went to bed around 11.

Just as I turned out my light and shut my eyes, I remembered that I had to set my alarm clock. I thought I had set it and then I drifted off to sleep. At 6:15 this morning, I woke up to my cat meowing and nudging me. I sleepily looked over at my clock and realized that I had forgotten to set my alarm. Thank goodness she was looking out for me. I was only 5 minutes late to work.

Ebony staring out the window.

Ebony sitting on the fence.

I Had It Coming...

2009-09-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to have their preferred place to sit in the classroom. I'm a second-row person. That way, I'm close enough to the action to be involved, but not so close to the professor that I feel exposed. Of course, nobody wants to sit in the first row, so the second row pretty much becomes the de facto front row.

I'm also one of those people who is in love with the sound of her own voice. (I hear that's a necessary qualification for my chosen career of law professor.) I can't help it. When I have something relevant to say, I say it. Also, due to some strange statistical anomaly, my class is almost entirely composed of people with dark brown hair. There are two or three people with blond hair, and my hair is somewhere on that strange fringe between strawberry blond and auburn. So, we have the perfect storm here - a talkative redhead in the front row.

I hadn't done my reading for Constitutional Law yesterday. (It's not a huge deal. It's a subject I'm already well-versed in from prior educational opportunities.) The professor (we'll call him professor A) is a big fan of the Socratic method of teaching. He will cold-call students and grill them, often playing devil's advocate in order to find the weaknesses in a student's argument. He will also take volunteers when he asks a question, and he is much easier on the volunteers than he is on the people he cold-calls.

I volunteered early on in class yesterday and I made some vague 9th Amendment argument. (All arguments about the 9th Amendment are vague. Nobody is really sure what it means. My scholastic goal is to figure it out and write the definitive book or article on the subject.) Professor A said I had effectively brought up both the strengths and weaknesses of my argument and then he moved on. I relaxed for the rest of the class.

Right after Constitutional Law, I had Appellate Advocacy. (Constitutional Law is held in a big lecture hall with about 80 students. Appellate Advocacy is held in a seminar room with about 18 students.) I walked into the classroom and sat down in the second row, like always. As usual, nobody sat in the first row. One of my classmates came in and sat next to me. She's also in my Constitutional Law class, so we began discussing our thoughts on Professor A's teaching style. My Appellate Advocacy professor (Professor B) was standing near the front of the classroom (class hadn't started yet) pretending not to listen to this conversation. I mentioned my secret to getting out of being cold-called, which is to volunteer early and often. (Professor B doesn't cold-call.)

Class began. I tend to talk way too much in that class because nobody else talks and I feel bad for Professor B. (I have a good working relationship with him, since I had him for another class last year, and he's helping me out with my career goals.) I've been in the situation where I've been teaching a class and nobody participates, and I always appreciate having someone to chime in when there's an awkward silence. My goal for the day, however, was to go through the entire class period without making any comments, since I fear that I'm annoying to my fellow classmates.

My goal lasted for about three minutes. I couldn't help it. We were going over the quiz that was administered last week about our research for the semester. We were supposed to find cases about a circuit split for a specific federal statute. Professor B asked the class how we found the cases. The answer he was expecting was that we ran a search in Lexis or Westlaw. (They're online legal databases. The companies let law students use them for free, but they're really expensive for lawyers. The idea is to get people hooked on them in school so they'll pay after school.) Nobody said anything, so I raised my hand.

I got called on, and I said, "You're probably not going to like how I found the circuit split." I proceeded to describe how, in 45 seconds, I typed the citation to the statute, and the words "circuit split" into Google and found the Split Circuit blog. The blog had a post about the exact issue we were supposed to be researching, and a list of all the cases involved in the circuit split. Professor B got the most priceless look on his face. It was a cross between surprised, impressed, and annoyed. Then he composed himself and said that if I had been doing this research for an employer, I would have been commended on my frugality and efficiency. Then he said that the Split Circuit blog was where professors often looked when getting ideas for writing these types of case files. (I'm guessing the blog post I found was the exact blog post that inspired him to write the problem in the first place.)

I was feeling pretty good about myself at this point. I figured I was off the hook for the rest of class. After discussing the quiz, we moved on to discussing techniques for writing sections of a legal brief. After a short lecture, we were instructed to write three versions of the issue statement for our case file. The first one was supposed to be too abstract, the second one was supposed to be too specific, and the third one was supposed to be just right.

About ten minutes later, we reconvened. Professor B read his version of the too abstract statement, and I was pleased that mine was almost identical to his. (Although looking back on it, I'm not sure I should be proud of the ability to write bad legal prose.) He then asked for volunteers to share their "just right" statements. Nobody volunteered. He looked around the room at us and said, "Don't make me call on people." I leaned back, confident that I wouldn't get called on, since I talk every day in class.

Well, I got called on, and I was asked to read my statement to the entire class. I totally had it coming, though. After my little pronouncement before class that I volunteer to avoid getting cold-called when I'm unprepared, and after announcing that it's extremely effective, the universe (or, more likely, Professor B) was trying to teach me a lesson.

I'm just hoping my secret won't get around to my other professors. My goal is to be completely prepared for every class, because I could totally see myself getting cold-called with alarming frequency next week.

Short Thoughts - Volume 2

2009-09-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

I've been swamped with school, so I haven't had much time to blog lately. Here are some brief funny things that have happened lately.

In the Library:
On Saturday afternoon, I had to complete a cite-checking assignment for one of the law journals I'm on. (Basically, I had to take a footnote range for an article, look up all the sources the author used, and make sure they're accurate.) I was sitting on the couch in the library in between rows of books. On my right was the Federal Reporter, a collection of cases from the courts of appeals. On my left was the Federal Supplement, a collection of cases from federal district courts. As my mind wandered, I decided that Federal Supplement sounds like it ought to be some sort of government vitamin pill.

In Constitutional Law:
Yesterday in my constitutional law class, we were discussing the appropriate level of judicial scrutiny under the 14th Amendment for affirmative action legislation. (It's strict scrutiny, in case anyone is wondering.) The professor asked a provocative question. (I don't remember the exact question, but he was using it to spark discussion.) He then turned to one of my classmates and said, "[student's name], you look like you're ready to litigate something." He then proceeded to grill this poor soul for the next five minutes. I'll remember never to have a litigious expression on my face after hearing a provocative question.

Nerdy Goodness

2009-08-27T18:43:00.000-07:00

If I believed in reincarnation (which I don't), I would probably say that I had been either a philosopher or an English teacher in a past life. I get excited about commas, I think Eats, Shoots & Leaves is the funniest book ever (even though there are punctuation errors in it), and I have a shirt that says "Bad grammar makes me [sic]!" I write for fun, and I love philosophy. I could talk about Kant or Aristotle all day.

Unfortunately, in law school, I don't get a chance to read and absorb philosophy very often. However, I did run across some interesting articles this week that I enjoyed immensely. (I don't recall how I found them. Sometimes interesting stuff just finds me as I randomly google things.)

The first one is not philosophical, but it's still a thought-provoking article. It's called Cite Unseen: How Neutral Citation and America's Law Schools Can Cure Our Strange Devotion to Bibliographical Orthodoxy and the Constriction of Open and Equal Access to the Law. It's a bit lengthy, but it's well worth the read. The main point is that championing a neutral citation format for caselaw (i.e. one that doesn't depend on the pagination in West's case reporters) would lead to better access to the law.

The second one brings two of my favorite subjects together: writing and philosophy. It's called The Poetry of Persuasion: Early Literary Theory and Its Advice to Legal Writers. The introduction is a little dull, and I almost stopped reading at that point. I'm glad I didn't, however. (The introduction can easily be skimmed or skipped in order to get to the good stuff.) The rest of the article analyzes what various thinkers (most notably Longinus and Aristotle) have to say about persuasive writing, and what it means for the legal writers of today. I found it helpful, and I'm going to integrate some of the ideas into my writing.

The First Week of School

2009-08-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

After a completely insufficient vacation, I'm back at school. I'm really looking forward to this semester, though. I'm only working 20 hours per week, and I'm taking 5 classes. It's going to be a long few months, but it's going to be great! I feel like I'm really getting toward my goals. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Short Thoughts

2009-08-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

Life can get random, so here's a collection of random thoughts/events for the week.

Popcorn Popping (but not on the apricot tree):
What was the inventor of popcorn ceilings thinking? Seriously, they're annoying. On Tuesday, I had to get something from the top of my closet. As I stood on the stepstool to reach for my bag, I bumped the ceiling, knocking little bits onto my head. I stepped down (bag in hand) and brushed the bits out of my hair. I turned to my sister, who was sitting nearby, and I said, "Do I have any of the ceiling in my hair?" Naturally, she burst out laughing, informing me that was the funniest thing she had heard all week.

Job Seeking Advice:
Over the past four weeks since I started working in HR, I have probably reviewed close to 500 resumes. Here's some advice. First, please get a proofreader. I'm not likely to give your resume a closer look if you misspell words like "experience" or "relevant". Second, read the job posting carefully before applying. If you live in Los Angeles and are adamant about not relocating, don't apply for a position in Bangalore. Third, submitting your resume once is sufficient. Submitting it four times in a two hour period will not make me give it extra consideration. It will just annoy me, hurting your chances.

Advice for Corporate Recruiters:
If you want your clients to get hired, don't be annoying. Nothing has changed in the last 10 minutes. I didn't have feedback 10 minutes ago on the interview that ended 15 minutes ago, and I don't have feedback now. When I do, I'll let you know. If you keep bugging me, I'll stop answering the phone when you call. Caller ID is a great boon to productivity. Oh, and cc'ing my boss on every e-mail you send me will not only annoy me, it will annoy her as well. Once you've ticked off the VP of HR, you don't have a chance. Her word is law when it comes to hiring.

Seen on the Way Into Work:
I was driving into work this morning across Highway 237. (For those of you who aren't local, it's the highway that runs between Milpitas and Mountain View.) I glanced off to the right, somewhere around San Jose, and I saw a herd of goats grazing on the grass. I'm totally serious. In the tenth largest city in the US, there was a herd of goats grazing along the highway, right in front of an office park.

The Cat Lady:
I feel like I'm living in an animal shelter. My roommate has been feeding the stray cats, and one of the cats had kittens. So, now there's a box of seven kittens in my apartment. This is in addition to the mother cat, who comes and goes, my cat, and my roommates' chihuahuas. That's a grand total of two cats, seven kittens, and two dogs. If anyone wants a kitten, we'll have several we're looking for homes for in two or three more weeks. Once the kittens and the mama cat are gone, we can go back to normal. (1 cat, 2 dogs)

Freedom!

2009-07-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

I finally did it! I submitted my resignation letter (with "great regret", of course) for my weekend job. I'll lose my dental insurance, but it's a small price to pay for getting my weekends back. Just two more weekends and then I'm free!

I only intended to have this job for 4-6 months to tide myself over while I found myself. That was 3 years ago. I have found myself in the interim, and it isn't there.

I'm going back to school full-time in the fall, and I'll be working part-time at my other job (HR at a software company). I've found that I enjoy working in HR, which is a surprise to me. I thought I would dislike it.

I have a pretty good class schedule lined up. I'm taking Copyright Law, Constitutional Law II, Health Law Seminar (this will satisfy my thesis requirement), Appellate Advocacy, and Civil Procedure. I'm also on the Computer and High Tech Law Journal and the Journal of International Law. Things are looking up. Hooray for the end of the crazy insane juggling act.

I'm still alive over here! (More or less)

2009-07-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

I survived summer school. That may not sound like that much of an accomplishment, but when you consider that I was taking 6 units (technically a full-time load for summer school), working a 40 hour per week job, and working a 34 hour per week job, it's a bit more.

Typical weekday day:
6:15 am - Alarm clock goes off. Hit snooze button
6:20 am - Alarm clock goes off again. Hit snooze button again.
6:25 am - Get out of bed, get ready for work.
7:00 am - Leave for work.
7:30 am - Work.
4:00 pm - Leave work, head for school.
4:20 pm - Arrive at school, spend the next little bit preparing for class, etc.
6:00 pm - Class.
9:30 pm - Get home from school. Do laundry, household chores, etc.
11:00 pm - Go to bed.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Typical Weekend:
8:45 pm Friday - Leave for work.
10:00 pm Friday - Arrive at work. Crash on the couch while being on-call for the night shift.
8:00 am Saturday - Revel in the joy that is my only day to sleep in (presuming that there were no emergencies overnight).
All Day Saturday - Just call me "Mercenary Soccer Mom". Shuttle my clients to their Special Olympics practices, grocery store, bank, and various other errands and community activities.
10:00 pm Saturday - Clients are in bed. Try to do homework, but usually end up crashing on the couch while being on-call for the night shift.
7:00 am Sunday - Get up, take a shower.
8:00 am Sunday - Go home.
9:30 am Sunday - Church.
1:00 pm Sunday - Get home from church, see about this whole "Day of Rest" thing.

Now that summer school is over, I get my weekday evenings off. It's going to be great! I'll get to do my laundry before 10:00 pm, and I'll get to spend some quality time with my cat. =^. .^=

A Public Service Announcement

2009-05-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

First off, I apologize for neglecting my blog. I was swamped with finals and work. Now that finals are over, I’m only swamped with work, leaving me with plenty of time to write. Second, I know I said in the intro that this blog wasn’t going to be about anything serious. Well, every now and then, serious stuff needs saying. Your regularly scheduled levity will return next week.

Yesterday at work, I was having a conversation with two of my co-workers about vaccines. One of my co-workers, a middle-aged woman, was talking about how her kids had gotten the chicken pox vaccine, but still got chicken pox. She said that if she had it to do over again, she wouldn’t have gotten them vaccinated. (We’re only talking chicken pox here. I don’t want to start the MMR vaccine war on this blog. There are plenty of other places to take that debate.) My other co-worker, a middle-aged man, said that his kids were too young for the shot and that he hadn’t decided what to do yet. I mentioned that I got the chicken pox before the vaccine was developed.

The conversation turned to flu shots. None of us get the flu shot. I didn’t delve into their reasons, but my reason is that I have adverse reactions to nearly every shot I get, and I’m not worried enough about the flu to risk the reaction. (I may change my mind this year in light of swine flu, but I haven’t made that decision yet.) I made an off-hand comment that the only optional vaccine I chose to get was the cervical cancer vaccine.

My female co-worker asked me a little about the shot. She said that she had heard of it, but that she hadn’t gotten it. I told her that it was currently only approved for girls and women ages 9-26, and that I got the series of shots shortly before my 27th birthday. My male co-worker was still listening to the conversation, and he piped up addressing my female co-worker saying that since she was married, she had nothing to worry about.

[Background: Most cases of cervical cancer are caused by strains of the human papiloma virus (HPV) which are venereal. This is not to be confused with other strains of HPV which cause warts on the hands and feet and are transmitted by casual contact.]

The conversation ended there because the CEO walked by and we all had to get back to work. The rest of the day, the conversation bugged me because now the guy in the next cube over probably thinks I’m promiscuous. (To his credit, he did say that if he had a daughter, he would probably want her to get vaccinated, albeit reluctantly.)

I have made a solemn commitment to God that I will abstain from premarital sex. I fully intend to keep that commitment, even though it’s not always easy. That said, there are still several non-promiscuous reasons to be vaccinated.

Reason 1: I plan on marrying someone who shares my religious views. However, most of the men I date are in their 30’s. There’s a pretty good chance that even if I do marry someone who shares my faith, I may not be his first partner.
Reason 2: There’s always the possibility that I’ll marry someone who ends up having an affair. Even if I’m completely faithful, that’s no guarantee that I’ll be the recipient of fidelity.
Reason 3: Even if I’m faithful and the man I marry is faithful, there’s still one dismal statistic left. One in four American women will be a victim of sexual assault.

So, there you have it. It’s not a happy thought, but there are at least three good reasons why even non-promiscuous women should consider getting the cervical cancer vaccine.

[Although the vaccine is most effective if it’s received before you become sexually active, even if you get it after you become sexually active, it will still protect you from any strains of the virus that you are not infected with.]

The Physicists at Fed Ex

2009-05-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

Albert Einstein taught us that matter and energy are the same thing. E=mc^2 and all of that. Well, it seems that the good folks at Fed Ex have taken it to heart.

I was preparing a shipment of marketing materials to go to our India office. In order to get shipments through customs, I have to fill out a declaration form detailing exactly what is in the package. There's a box for the description of what it is, i.e. "Widgets" or something like that. Then there's a box to type in the quantity. Then there's a drop-down menu to select the unit. It has normal choices such as "dozen", "pieces", "cubic inches", etc.

As I scrolled down, I saw some that made me laugh. "Kilowatt-hours" and "British Thermal Units" were options I could pick. Yes, I'm going to mail 47 BTUs to India. Naturally, it will fit nicely in my cardboard box.

A New Addition to the World!

2009-04-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I'm capable of writing a post that isn't about me! :-)

Elisabeth, who is practically like a sister, just successfully defended her thesis and gave birth to her first child, a baby boy! (That makes me an almost-aunt, I suppose.)

Pictures can be found here!