The Jester Hat

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

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.

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?
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*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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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!

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)

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. =^. .^=

The Physicists at Fed Ex

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!

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!

AAA AAA AAA AAA AAA!

I'm a great money-maker for the good folks at AAA. My car has 260,000 miles on it, and it just keeps going and going.

When some people are under stress, they binge on junk food or get snappy with people. I get absent-minded. I forget basic things like where my keys are, etc. Well, between school, work, and work, I've been under a bit of stress lately. As a result, I've been leaving my headlights on frequently. My car is old, so it doesn't turn them off for me. It just leaves them on until the battery dies.

My AAA plan allows for four emergency road assistance calls per year, and any calls above that number cost $65 each. Because of when I originally signed up, my year runs from April 30 to April 29. Behold the following list of times I've used AAA this year:

1) May 2008, Alameda, CA. Jumpstart dead battery caused by me leaving my lights on.
2) September 2008, Sunnyvale, CA. Jumpstart dead battery caused by me leaving my lights on.
3) December 2008, Milpitas, CA. Called AAA to go rescue my sister who had a flat tire on the side of the freeway at midnight. (She didn't have AAA.)
4) February 2009, Milpitas, CA. Jumpstart dead battery caused by me leaving my lights on.
5) March 2009, Mountain View, CA (1 week later). Jumpstart dead battery caused by me leaving my lights on. This is when I first found out about the $65 racket. I was running late to class, so I didn't have much of a choice.
6) March 2009, Mountain View, CA (2 weeks later). Guess what! The battery again. I was determined not to pay again, so I called my sister who had the week off, and I asked her to come and give me a jump start. (She owed me one after the flat tire at midnight...) She came up and we weren't able to jump start the car. (I have really wimpy jumper cables.) I resigned myself to having to cough up more money when she got the bright idea to call using her AAA card. (She signed up after the flat tire incident.) So, we did, and this one was free because it counted against her 4 calls for the year.
7) March 2009, Fremont, CA. (3 days later). My battery was dead again, but I didn't leave my lights on. I had just replaced the battery in between incidents 4 and 5, so I was surprised by this development. My roommate and I tried to get it jump started, but once again, thanks to my wimpy jumper cables, it didn't work. I called AAA, figuring that I would need to get towed to the auto shop. Somehow, the tow truck driver was able to jump start my car. I drove to the auto shop and crossed my fingers that it wouldn't be an expensive problem. It turns out that my battery terminals were bad, so they replaced them. It took 30 minutes and cost me $60. Not too bad, since I was expecting it to be the alternator or the starter.
8) April 21, 2009, Sunnyvale, CA. I've been extra careful about turning my lights off. I even bought a portable jump-starter to keep in my trunk. There's no way I'm going to be putting any more money in the hands of AAA for something as careless as leaving my lights on. So, as I was leaving work last night, I walked out to my car and started digging in my bag for my keys. I couldn't find them. Then I found them. They were sitting, in all their mocking glory, on the passenger seat of my locked car. I've already paid my renewal fee for my AAA membership, and I've already gotten my new membership card. It's sitting in my wallet. I figured, great, clean start, this one should be free. No...they still charged me because my new year doesn't start for another 9 days!

This morning, I put a spare car key in my wallet. That should cut down on problems of locking my keys in my car. So, now that I've prepared myself for dead batteries and locked keys, I figure I'm due for a flat tire. If it happens before next Friday, I'm going to either change it myself or hitchhike home. There's no way I'm paying AAA another dime!