Work

I started my job last week and so far I like it. I don't particularly like sitting in front of a computer all day, but I got to go to a deposition last Thursday, and at least the subject matter of the things I'm doing in front of the computer is semi-interesting.

I do need to find something for me to do right around 3. I've gotten into a bad habit of getting up trying to find something to do to take me away from the computer for a while, and all I can come up with is going to pop popcorn, which is not a good idea. If you have any ideas at all, PLEASE let me know!

I also realized that in order to work out I'm going to have to wake up early in the morning and go running. Last week I didn't run AT ALL because when I got back from work I was so mentally exhausted I didn't want to do anything except lay on the couch. So today I woke up at 6 and went running in order to get to work at 8. Luckily work is LITERALLY down the street, so I don't have to wake up ridiculously early. Now I just need to tweak my timing to make sure I'm on time every day. I also need to take colder showers because after I got to work I was still sweating like crazy, which is not a professional, or attractive, look.

And for those of you wondering, yes I am at work, but no I'm not doing anything wrong. None of the partners are here yet, and I finished up the big project Mrs. Stockham had assigned me, so I have nothing to do until they get here!

I love you all!

Long Overdue

Wow, I knew I hadn't posted in a long time, I didn't realize it had been almost 4 months! I'm not even sure what to talk about since it's been so long. I guess the easiest way to go about this is to just hit the highlights.

Teeth
This is probably the biggest thing that's going on in my life right now. I didn't think law school was stressing me out that much, but I was oh so wrong. I have had quite an adventure these past few months with my teeth. Since January I have had 3 crowns and 2 root canals, managing to use up all of my dental insurance for the whole calendar year! Apparently I clench my teeth at night so tight that I crack my teeth. My dentist has never seen anything like it and said he wouldn't believe it was possible unless he had seen me do it.

Right now I think I'm almost all the way better, but I am going to give the dentist a call fairly soon for two last teeth that are giving me some trouble. I'm not too concerned about the one on the left side, I think that can be fixed with a crown, but I am concerned about the one on the right. It's a tooth that has had a root canal already and the fact that it still hurts means that the crack might have gone all the way to the root of the tooth and they would have to pull the tooth and give me an implant. That is definitely not something I want.

Unfortunately because of all the work on my teeth I have missed quite a few of my classes, but fortunately I didn't miss more than my allotted amount of misses so I won't have a grade deduction. I have been on pain killers for a while, and am finally back to a functioning state. I have a new bite guard that I wear at night that goes on a few of my front teeth and keeps my back teeth completely apart like some other bite guards. It's not terribly comfortable, but if it will keep me from cracking more teeth I'm all for it.

Caruther's Fellow
I got selected to be a Caruther's Fellow for next year. They're pretty much TA's for the writing class that 1Ls are required to take. I get two credit hours for it and I just help 1Ls write papers and do some stuff at orientation I think. It's a fairly big deal, but to be honest I'm not really sure what all it entails.

End of the Semester
Tomorrow I have my last two classes as a first year law student! I can't believe it's gone by so fast. I'm not officially a 2L until I pass all my finals, but I'll be done with all my 1L classes tomorrow!

Classes Next Year
I signed up for classes for next year and I'm kind of excited about a few of them. I have NO classes on Friday which is super exciting. Here's my class list, the ones with a * next to them are ones that are required to graduate

Constitutional Law*
Wills, Trusts, and Estates*
Caruther's Fellow
Basic Skills in Trial Advocacy
Environmental Law
Human Subject Research

I'm excited about Basic and Human Subject Research, and I don't know how I feel about the others. My Con law class is really small, which is really odd because there are only 3 professors that teach that class and all the 2Ls are required to take it. I know I signed up for the most difficult professor, but I did that for a few reasons. 1, I've heard that even though he's difficult he really knows his stuff and you will actually learn a lot of the material; 2, he doesn't have a class on Friday or a paper; and 3, even though he is the hardest professor, almost everyone else that is high ranking in the class signed up for the other professors so I'm more likely to do well in this class because there's less competition.

Exercising
I've started exercising a lot recently and I really like it. I feel SO much better and I've lost 9 lbs since Easter. The thing I'm most excited about is the color run. I was telling Bekah that if I were ever to do a 5K it would be the color run, and a few days later I got an email saying the color run was coming to Birmingham. So I'm training to run a 5K and it is TOUGH! I had been doing "couch to 5K" on the elliptical and thought I was in good shape until I started doing C25K on the trail. I thought I was going to die! Running is so much more intense than the elliptical!

But I'm really enjoying exercising and actually dislike days when I don't exercise. I NEVER thought I would be that kind of person!

Kiyoshi
Kiyoshi is doing pretty well. We're still waiting to hear back from UAB about med school. He just got a job at Starbucks and seems to like it well enough- even though he doesn't like coffee. He likes all of his co-workers and likes that he is good at his job, but he's definitely ready for something more intellectually challenging and in a field he's actually interested in. His Aunt Debbie died last Monday after a difficult struggle and her memorial service was yesterday. It was a really nice memorial, and I think everyone has come to terms with Debbie's passing now.

Whenever Kiyoshi isn't working and I don't have to study we've started either taking Lulu on a walk on the trail I run on or going to the Botanical Gardens and walking around. The gardens is probably our favorite place in Birmingham, and it's wonderful to be able to spend time with each other outside in nature just talking and not worrying about anything else. He's such a great guy- I'm really lucky to have him.

Work
I start my job at Stockham, Carroll, and Smith on May 21. I don't know what I'm going to be doing, but as long as it's a break from classes I am happy to do it! I also got my job at Highlands back, so I'm singing in the choir there again and that's a nice little buffer in my bank account.

I hope everyone is doing well, and I love you all!

Success!

I have a job! I interviewed with Mrs. Connie Stockham from Stockham, Carroll, and Smith on Friday. About half an hour after I left the interview I got a call saying I could work for them for the full summer. I'm SO excited and SO lucky to have a job this summer!

Job Hunting

Well, second semester is off and running. We got our ranks back, and I am VERY proud of myself- I'm 16/148 which is in the 11%. Yay me!

Grace and I signed up for the Williams Trial Competition, and we get to pick up our problems tomorrow at 3.

Job searches have begun. The way on campus interviews (OCIs) work at Cumberland is a little confusing. You upload everything (resume, cover letters, unofficial transcript, writing sample) to a website called Simplicity. Then you "bid" on certain employers. This is pretty much just requesting an interview with them. Once you've bid on an employer then you wait to hear back as to whether or not they want to interview you. There are I think 6 different interview weeks, and the first one starts relatively soon. I've bid on 10 employers for this round, and I think I get to find out who wants an interview with me on the 31st. Some of these jobs pay $1,100 a week- which is AWESOME for a summer associate since most places would take you on as an intern and have you work for free.

I have an interview tomorrow with Connie Stockham that I'm very excited about. I met her through Dr. Pence and the Ethics Bowl and one of her practice areas is actually Bioethics, so it would be wonderful if I could get a job with her and her firm.

While having all these potential interviews is wonderful, it's also a hassle for one main reason- suits. I have up to 10 interviews coming up and I have 2 suits. Just 2. That means I have to go shopping for suits, and guess who doesn't want to do that!? Me!

Kiyoshi had his interview with a volunteer company today that he said went pretty well and he'll hear back from them by Wednesday I believe. He's also turned in applications for a few other jobs that hopefully he'll get interviews for.

Tonight I'm going to a dinner hosted by one of the firms coming for OCIs that was only sent out to a select number of students. Initially I thought it went out to all the 1Ls and was thinking about not going, but once I realized it was only for some of us, I was REALLY glad I decided to RSVP (I had decided I needed to start networking in Birmingham).

In other news, it's raining inside the apartment. There's a leak at my bedroom window and at our big bay window in the common area. It's not very fun. The contractors finally came by today to look at it, but unfortunately it also decided to rain torrentially today. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.

Now I need to go get ready for this dinner! I love you all!

Favorite Winter Recipes

None of these recipes really have to just be for the winter, but since that's when I made them, that's what I'm calling them! I'm sorry I don't have any pictures, but when you make these yourself you'll be able to see them in person!

Three Bean Chili

Ingredients
Ground beef/chuck/turkey (whatever you want really)
1 Green Bell Pepper
1 Yellow Onion
2 Cloves Minced Garlic
2 Tomatos
15 oz can Black beans (drained)
15 oz can Kidney beans (drained)
15 oz can Navy beans (drained)
15 oz can Tomato Sauce
Chili Powder Mix
2 TBSP Chili Powder
1 TBSP Ground Cumin
2 tsp Cornstarch
2 tsp Kosher Salt
1.5 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Ground Coriander
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Dash of Cinnamon

Directions
In a small pan cook the onions and ground beef over medium high heat until the meat is no longer pink. Transfer the meat and onions either into a dutch oven or a crock pot. Add all the other ingredients, and stir together. If it's in the crock pot, cook it on high for as long as you want. In the dutch oven cook it over Medium- Medium High heat for at least 35 minutes.

Make sure you taste the chili before you serve it! You might want to add more salt, chili powder, or cayenne pepper. If the chili is too spicy you can add a little sugar or sour cream to cut the spice.


Butterbeer

Ingredients
Butterscotch Rum
Cream Soda
1 small tub Marshmallow Fluff
1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream

Directions
For the drink combine 1 part butterscotch rum with 3 parts cream soda (or you can add more or less of the rum to your taste)

For the topping, mix the tub of Marshmallow fluff with the whipping cream and 1 TBSP of butterscotch rum until it can hold a peak. Take a spoon and drop it on top of the drink. So yummy!

Christmas Tree Bugels
I can't claim these as my own, my Aunt Debbie taught me how to make these, but they are one of my absolute FAVORITE Christmas Snacks!

Ingredients
Bugels
Chocolate Chips
White Chocolate Chips
Creamy Peanut Butter
Green/Red/Gold/White Sprinkles
Milk (optional)

Directions
Go through your Bugels and pick out the ones with the most open centers (the ones you would put on your fingers as a kid and pretend you had witch fingers). Fill a piping bag or a Ziplock FREEZER bag (regular ones will burst) with your peanut butter. Pipe the peanut butter into the Bugels.

Put the Chocolate chips in a microwave safe container and microwave at 30 second intervals stirring between each until you get the chocolate all the way melted.

Melting white chocolate is more difficult and you're supposed to use a double boiler if you have one. If not, there's a way to cheat, but it's still not easy. Put the white chocolate chips in a microwave safe container and add a TINY bit of milk. Heat it at 30 second intervals until it melts adding a TINY bit of milk as needed. If you're using a double boiler or a ghetto home-made one (a pot filled with water under another pot), you don't have to add the milk unless you're just getting really impatient.

Dip your peanut butter filled Bugels into the chocolate covering all sides (you can leave the bottom uncovered if you want) and set on a wax paper covered cookie sheet. While the chocolate is still melted, dust the Bugels with the sprinkles of your choice, and let dry*.

*If you cheated and used milk to melt your white chocolate, you should put those in the freezer ASAP so that the Bugels stay crunchy.

Red Velvet Cream Cheese Swirl Cupcakes
Ok, neither the cupcake or the frosting recipe is mine, I found them both on Pinterest, but it was my idea to combine them, and they were SO good!!

Cupcake
Click here for the website I got the recipe from.
Filling:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 ½ tablespoons lightly beaten egg (break egg, mix with fork, measure)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Batter:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 teaspoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 plus 1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon red food coloring
3/4 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons sour cream
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 8 (I needed 9) muffin cups with paper liners.

Prepare filling first. With a mixing spoon, beat together softened cream cheese and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and stir until smooth. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, thoroughly stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.

In a second mixing bowl, stir together oil, sugar, vinegar, egg, red food coloring, vanilla and sour cream. Mix very well, then add the flour mixture and stir just until blended.

Measure out approximately 1/3 cup red mixture and set aside. Divide remaining red mixture among the 8 muffin cups – each cup should be a little over 1/3 of the way full. Spoon cream cheese mixture over red mixture, dividing evenly between all cups. Drop small spoonfuls of reserved red batter on top of cream cheese mixture, making a bulls-eye pattern.

Bake for 20-23 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. Carefully remove lift muffins from cups.

Best served slightly chilled. – Makes 8-9

Icing Ingredients
Original Icing recipe here.
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. heavy cream

Icing Directions
Combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Blend in the vanilla extract. Beat in the confectioners’ sugar until incorporated and smooth, 1-2 minutes. Add the heavy cream to the bowl and beat on medium-low speed just until incorporated, then increase the speed to medium-high and whip for 4 minutes until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Snickerdoodle Cookies

Ingredients
3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. all purpose flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 TBSP nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
LOTS of Cinnamon Sugar Mix

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy and light in color. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.

Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Using a standard-sized cookie scoop or tablespoon, drop dough into bowl with cinnamon-sugar mix and coat the cookie dough ball.

Set cinnamon-sugar coated dough onto a lined/greased cookie sheet

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges. (The tops will not brown, but do NOT cook longer than ten minutes.)

Buffalo Chicken Crescent Roll Ring
I can't take credit for this either, I found this on Pinterest, but it's super yummy! Click here for the recipe website. The only thing I did differently was leave out the celery.

Ingredients
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 packet ranch powder mix
Diced celery to taste
Buffalo wing sauce to taste
Diced/shredded chicken, cooked (2-3 chicken breasts worth, or 1-2 cans of canned chicken)
2 packages crescent rolls
Ranch dressing for dipping (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. On a cooking sheet, spread the unrolled crescent rolls out leaving a small circle in the middle. Mix chicken and buffalo sauce to taste and add in celery. In separate bowl, mix cream cheese and 1/2 ranch packet together. Microwaving cream cheese for about 30 seconds makes mixing easier. Mix all ingredients together.

Place spoonfuls of mixture on crescent rolls and fold rolls over to form a ring shape and cook for about 15 minutes or until crescent rolls are nicely browned. Serve with ranch dressing and extra hot sauce for dipping.

I hope you enjoy these!!

First Week Back

I'm finished with our first week back to school. It was tough, not subject matter-wise, but motivationally. Just to give you an idea, I pushed the snooze button on the SECOND DAY of classes. Usually it takes me at least until the second MONTH before I hit snooze.

This semester I still have Walthall for Contracts, Royal for Civ Pro, and Baggett for LLR so those classes were the same. The only two new classes I have are Evidence with Goodwin (who is the new associate dean), and Property with Greene.

Walthall's first day of class was like any other day of class. There was no "cushion" day to get used to anything because we've already had him for a full semester, so we dove right in to express and implied warranties. Bleh. I love Walthall, but I can't say Contracts is my favorite class. We also got our exams back with comments on them which was helpful. I made SURE on this exam to go through EVERY possible issue that could come up in a Contract because I didn't in the last test and didn't do so well because of that. Well, just my luck, he decides that for the final he doesn't want us to do that and leaves me a comment (at least twice) on my exam saying

"This obviously isn't the issue. Don't waste your time or mine." (The second time the "or mine" was underlined)

Ouch. I knew the offer hadn't terminated, I knew that really wasn't the issue, and I wrote MAYBE two sentences about it in my answer JUST to make sure he couldn't say anything about me not addressing whether or not the offer had terminated. Well, that obviously backfired, but hopefully he didn't take OFF points for including too much information and I just got a rather unfriendly comment. And I get it, he has about 50 exams to grade JUST from our class, not to mention all the other exams he has from his other classes, and the tests are anonymous, but that's still not a fun comment to get on an exam.

We got an email sometime last week telling us that Royal is moving to Atlanta at the end of the semester because her husband got a teaching job at the medical school there. They're both SUPER intelligent people, and she's a very sweet woman, it will be sad to see her leave. Her class was pretty much the same as last semester. The only thing is that for the first few readings there was nothing in my supplement to supplement our book so I had to rely on just me. I think I did ok, and I'm determined to try to participate in class more this semester so I can get more credit for participation.

I think I like Goodwin (I'm not really sure, we've only had two classes with him), but I'm not sure how I feel about evidence. I've also heard that he wrote the big treatise on Evidence and that last year during his final two people had breakdowns in the middle of it. Talk about intimidation. It's the only class we have that we DON'T brief cases in, instead we do problems. That just means that our book doesn't have cases in it that we have to get up an recite, instead it has a lot of different problems concerning the rules of evidence that we have to answer in class. It doesn't seem so bad, but when you're the first person called on to answer one of these ridiculous hypotheticals that would never happen in real life, it's pretty miserable. So, not only was this class new and weird to us because it's formatted COMPLETELY differently from the rest of our classes, but I get called on to answer the first question. To be honest, I didn't read the rule as well as I probably should have, but he was also REALLY critical of EVERYTHING I said.

I know, I know, he's supposed to be, that's his job- but it would've been helpful if he had explained the rules to us before he asked me to. Anyway, I felt like a complete idiot when he told me that I was going to argue AGAINST HIM as to why my testimonial evidence should be allowed. Like I said, I could've read the rules better, but I'm still convinced that if I had known them inside and out he still would've made me feel like an idiot. At one point I made an argument (that actually turned out be correct) and his response was, "So?" It wasn't fun, and after class there were a lot of people talking about how much they were dreading getting called on in that class. But at least I got it out of the way early.

I can tell I'm really not going to care one way or the other about the subject of Property, but I like Professor Greene. He likes to tell stories and doesn't really ask for anyone to brief cases, he really just talks a whole lot, which is fine with me. I did make the mistake of raising my hand to a rhetorical question and now he's singled me out a few times. He was talking about having a "constructive Monday" which in the world of Cumberland means you have Monday classes on whatever day they decide to call a "constructive Monday" instead of whatever classes you were supposed to have. Why they don't just say "Monday classes this day", I don't know. Constructive Monday sounds really stupid and confusing to me. Anyway, so this is what happened:

Greene: "Do we have any Philosophy majors here..."

I raise my hand

Greene: "... that can explain what that means."

Well shoot, he wasn't actually asking for Philosophy majors, he was making a joke. But since I jumped the gun and raised my hand in the middle of the statement he looks at me and asks me if I know. I say I have no idea and he says, something to the extent that he's a PHL major too and has no idea. Then he makes a joke that only I get ("I can tell you how many angles can dance on the head of a pin, but not what a constructive Monday is") and refers to me as his PHL major for the rest of the week. Go me.

I promised I would post my favorite winter break recipes, so I'm going to do that next! I love you!

Grades!

Whew! Grades are FINALLY posted and I am VERY relieved and actually pretty proud of myself :-) So I'll let you know my grades and explain how I feel about them.

Torts: A-
I don't know how I pulled this off, but I'm EXTREMELY happy about it, especially since we pretty much had to teach ourselves everything. Not to mention when that 46 page long test landed in front of me I felt like this:

and this


Contracts: B
Not too happy, but definitely not upset about it either. I think the biggest thing that kept me from getting at least an A- was I missed an issue on our second mid-term and ended up not doing so well on that test. All in all though, I'm happy with this grade.

Civil Procedure: B
Very happy with this grade. Civ Pro was like a different language for me at the beginning of the year, and when we had about a month left of class I finally found a supplement that worked for me. Re-learning or learning everything for the first time in that short amount of time was tough, so I'm very happy with my B.

Criminal Law: A-
How can you be upset with an A? Plus I've heard Cochran is a super tough grader, so getting an A- is pretty awesome.

LLR: A-
I'm especially proud of this grade because our LLR professor is known as "B+ Baggett" and I managed to get an A-! Whoo go me!


Now I'm just waiting to get the email that says our class ranks are ready. Classes start back on Monday the 9th and I'm actually a little excited to get back now. Now I know I need to kick it up a notch in Civ Pro and Contracts which shouldn't really be a problem.

Today we got an email about the Williams Trial Competition which is only for 1Ls. Grace and I are hoping to be able to participate, but there's only 32 slots, so if we don't get our name down we'll be out of luck. It sounds like fun and a good way to reinforce everything we've learned so far.

I am also planning on doing a post for my favorite holiday recipes, which are actually just my favorite recipes that I've made over the holiday, but that will take more time and I want to post pictures so I'm going to do that one later!

I love you!