Moving on to August

In my effort to catch up photographically, I have arrived at the month of August.  Nevermind that it's basically October.

Back in August, I took a trip to Charleston and went on a helicopter tour of the city with Katie.  It was so cool – I’ve never been in a helicopter before and it was an amazing way to see my favorite city!

 

Then, we went to a plantation in Monks Corner, the name escapes me at the moment, and we got to canoe on a swamp – very cool!  We saw a real life wild alligator (he was little!)

Then, we hit up a super fancy fine-dining restaurant in downtown Charleston.  It was some of the most delicious food I’ve ever had and it was a beautiful evening in Charleston :)

 

Also, in August I got to go to a Tom Petty concert with some friends :)  He’s my favorite!

And then there was food!  In addition to what I ate in Charleston, I cooked Spicy Lemon Basil Shrimp Couscous.  I ate some amazing sushi and saki.  Yum!

 

And that’s my August!  Stay tuned for September :)

Back in the USA

Here are some pictures from the month of July after I got back in the US!


Kat and Matt came down for 4th of July and rented a house on Tybee with their friends. Dad and I went to hang out! It was great fun and a beautiful home!


I was in line at Chic-Fil-A for breakfast one morning and was behind this car. The license plate reads "PD2ARGU." Bet it was an attorney!

Claire and Owie got a kitty named Alvin. I want a kitty!

Got this flat tire merging onto 285 from I-20 driving to work one day. Changed it in about 15 minutes. I'm so good at changing tires!


I bought myself this dress as a reward for my 31 pound weight-loss! I wore it yesterday - it's so cute!

Some older pictures

I've finally uploaded some of my old pictures, starting way back in June, so I'm going to take a few posts over the next few weeks to update and post some of my favorites. I'm starting with my day in Switzerland (P.S. don't know why the text is underlined and for some reason, I can't make it go away!) I was in Switzerland the day they won their first World Cup game of the year against a team (I've already forgot who but I want to say either Spain or Germany) they weren't supposed to beat. They never crowd the street or go crazy, according to the guy who owned the hostel I stayed at, but this was such a big win, it was pandemonium! And my hostel was in the heart of it all - such an amazing location and a great time!!


While out exploring downtown Zurich, I found a super expensive, super fancy restaurant called, guess what, ORSINI!!! Here's proof!



That's it for now - most of my Zurich pictures are more of the same up top - lots of random crazy crowd pictures. Fun times!

The AC gods giveth, and the AC gods taketh away!

The AC broke. Again. This time after only three days, and two of those days I wasn't even home. So it's hot. Again. We're sleeping with the windows open. Again. And the landlord is dragging his feet to fix it. Again. I really wish I could understand how "first thing in the morning" means Friday afternoon around 4:30pm. Because that's what he said last week: "first thing in the morning." But it didn't get fixed last week until Friday afternoon. And he told us yesterday that they'd fix it that day. But then they didn't. So he said, "first thing in the morning." I'm going to egg the address we send our rent checks to. It's the only appropriate adult response.

After spending the weekend with a bunch of sick loved-ones and not getting much sleep because of the oppressive heat all week, I'm afraid I'm fight sickness, too. I'm pumping Vitamin C, water, and trying to get a workout in each day. So far it seems to keep it from fully blooming into sick and keeps everything lurking ominously as I had into my vacation weekend.

My weekends actually start Thursday night. Sure, I have law review stuff to do over weekends, but I don't have to actually get up and go places for work/class/etc. However, this week, I've come across a dilemma. Are you familiar with Groupon? If not, it's this awesome site that constantly has really cheap deals for the Atlanta area. For example, they may have where you can buy a $100 gift card to a fancy restaurant for only $20. Well, last week, they had a deal for half off Braves tickets for the Mets game tomorrow night. "No brainer," thinks I, sitting in my living room. So I purchased two and got excited for a fun little evening. However, silly me, didn't notice that this Thursday night is the FIRST EVER GEORGIA STATE FOOTBALL GAME. Pretty much every single person I know is going to the State game. Not only do I not have someone to go with me to the Braves game, I'd much rather go hang out with all my friends at the historic first game. So if you know anyone willing to buy the tickets, let me know - I'm taking best offer and cutting my losses!

I promise, at some point, I will upload the last of my Europe pictures and all the pictures from the good ole US of A since returning from Europe so that my posts get slightly more interesting. On a different note, I lead my first mediation yesterday and got a settlement! Go me!

Not Ready for Another Week

Weekends are too short and I'm so not ready for this week! I spent most of last night getting myself organized just so that I know everything I need to do...

I have a short little presentation due in Advanced Legal Research on the LexisOne website, but it shouldn't take me too long to throw it together. At the externship this week, we have to start mediating ourselves while the trained mediators observe. I'm a little nervous about it but not as much as I was a few weeks ago. Now that I'm there and see it, it's not so scary. I still don't like it that much, but at least it doesn't terrify me at night anymore.

This past weekend, Mom came up and we spent the weekend at Davids. We did some shopping, hung out with baby Jude, ate a lot of Mexican food, and watched one really bad Keanu Reeves movie. Man, he is a terrible actor.

Sunday, Schelly and I cleaned out the fridge at our house - which ranks up there as one of the most disgusting things ever. But it now looks like we as a house actually eat rather healthily. It's full of fresh fruits and veggies from the grocery store visit last night. We also played racquetball last night. We play best of three games, and for the second time, I beat him in two straight. We've played 6 times now, and I've won 4 times.

Mondays are my longest day. Now that I've dropped Copyrights, I have a little break in the middle of the day to get some things done, so that's promising. I've got 23 things on my to-do list for today (two of them have multiple sub parts so it's more), and so far I've done 3 items and one sub-part. Let's hope I can get this done!!!! When will today be over??

I Feel Bad

I feel so bad that I've neglected my poor little blog for so long! I kept saying that when I get my pictures uploaded, I would have a new post, but I don't know when that's going to happen - so you get a nice little text blog.

So far this semester has been kicking my bootay! I'm crazy busy and it's only half way through the second week. I decided to drop one of my classes and opt for a 1-hour independent research to replace it. My indendent research is going to be what I'm writing my law review note on - The Tri-State Water Wars!!! Yay! I get 3 birds: to go back to my old love of water rights, potentially get published, and get to put law review on my resume all with one big, giant stone of a paper! (On a side note, my official Water Rights blog is back up and running to help my along my way.) My other classes include Wills Trusts and Estates, Advance Legal Research, and Corporations. I dropped Copyrights.

In addition to my classes and independent study, I'm externing this semester at the Fulton County Superior Court. I'm now officially registered as a Mediator for the state of Georgia (so if anyone needs a mediator, let me know - I'm cheap!!!) My externship focuses exclusively on Landlord-Tenant mediation, so I'm learning a lot of property law really quickly in addition to the mediation process. I'm not in love with it, but it's great to get real world experience instead of sitting in the classroom the whole time. Plus, I'm making some great connections with attorneys up at the courthouse 10 hours each week.

And in addition to the classes and externship, I have 4 on campus jobs this semester: library graduate research assistant, Prof. Lanier's graduate research assistant, Lexis Student Associate and Web Course Specialist, and Kaplan PMBR Student Rep. Trying to squeeze in all the necessary training and hours and etc. etc. has been super hectic (thus dropping Copyrights), but hopefully I can manage it all.

After two months and my newly learned Landlord-Tenant Law, we've finally think we've scared our landlord into attempting to fix our AC. They sent a guy out for the third time yesterday and it just made it hotter. (It was about 85 degrees when we went to bed.) Afterward, we got an email from the landlord who said they were going to replace the unit with a bigger unit by the end of the week. So we had to send an email back saying NO - the AC guy said it was the ducts that were leaking under the house which is why about half the vents don't have any air coming in them at all. If you replace the unit with one bigger, it's just going to leak more air out through the ducts under the house and not get any air inside and we'll still be stuck with a huge electric bill. We'll see what they say to that. Don't worry, this is all documented if we have to do something drastic!!

It's four, so I'm off to one of my other jobs - PMBR. Hope to post again soon!

America for Me

"America for Me!"
By Henry Van Dyke
1852 -1833

[Read by Congressman Jeff Flake (R-AZ) to the Republican Precinct Committeemen of Maricopa County upon his return from a trip abroad and given to me by Daniel J. Mazza.]

'Tis fine to see the Old World and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues and kings
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom, beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.

I like the German fur-woods in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
But, oh, to take your hat, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland, where Nature has her sway!

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack!
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free--
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plow the rolling sea,
To the blessed land of Room Enough, beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.