Merry Christmas

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!

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...

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving

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

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

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

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.)

Two Lawyers Walk Into a Bar...

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

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...

A Day in the Life of HR

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.

I Made It Through the Week

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.)

Tales of a Cat Door

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.

Where have all the croissants gone?

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

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.

Responsible Consumer Behavior

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.

Bible Names for Girls

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.

Brain Fog

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...

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.

Around Town

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

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.

Chatty Batty and the Salem Witches

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.

My Nerd Diagnosis

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

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.

Avian Serenade

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

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!

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.

Twisted Word Interpretations - Landlord Edition

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.

Bits of Randomness

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!

Is It Time to Replace My Car?

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

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!

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

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:

Space Invaders

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

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

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.

Space

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

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.

Ironic Spam (Updated)

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.].