re: baseball

i'm scared to even mention it. the red sox have the best record in baseball, and the yankees are in last place in the East. i'd prefer to just whistle and twiddle my thumbs and pretend this is the normal course of things. but i can't whistle, and i don't really twiddle my thumbs.

but things really are clicking on all cylinders. we have two legit bullpen aces, a rotation where even Tavarez is doing ok, and the offense is the offense. Youks has been destroying the ball, in the midst of a 9-game multi-hit game streak. i saw on sportscenter that Boston is something like 18-5 against teams above .500, so it's not like we're eating the poor here.

so, yeah. I guess it is easier to write about your favorite team when they're struggling, because i'm pretty much speechless. everything's meeting or exceeding expectations, and i don't want to turn L&L into a smug-fest.

watching Timmy has been great. having seen him play in the nba for almost a decade now, i've picked up on a distinct pattern. the "best player in the nba" conversation goes sans-Duncan for much of the regular reason, then the playoffs happen. at that point, every talking head has to admit that the Spurs can pretty much beat any mvp-of-the-moment, with Timmy leading the way every game. he puts it in another gear in the post-season too, upping those 20-10's to 30-15's with assists and blocks to boot. God i love it.

keep it real.

two things i hate

1. losing championship games, especially to Carolina.

2. bunting for outs, especially when it ends the inning, especially it ends the game, especially when that game is the championship game.

needless to say, when Wake bunted to end the ACC Championship game to Carolina, I had a lot of hate in me.

cheers.

blame the dial up

telephone cords seem to find the "new post" pages of blogger to be especially weighty. i'm not sure why, but that's part of the reason i frequent here so little. the other part is, well, i haven't got much to say. i've been putting the brain on auto-pilot, although come tomorrow i'll have to put it back in gear. my transfer apps need to be all in order to be sent out the moment my grades are in, since there might only be a small window before i pack my bags for London. i may end up sending them from across the pond if my prof's are delayed in calculating how awesome i did (right).

i did have a lovely birthday, i should mention that. Brian and Bear drove down to Mooresville, and i was lucky enough to run into old pal Amanda a few days prior. the four of us hit the night scene and got completely wasted. meaning, we had dinner, went bowling and played scrabble on friday, then saw spidey 3 on saturday.

also - i'm mysteriously loosing weight. last monday, i checked in at 223 pounds. by friday, i was down to 217. i haven't weighed that (relative) little in over four years. i went to the gym everyday in between, but i do that all the time. as soon as i figure what i'm doing, i'll sell it to you for $24.99.

gam zeh ya'avor

it's hard to explain what it's like to take four law school exams in ten days, each 100% of the grade for their respective classes. you're tempted to feel the past few months hardly even mattered, and that this week-and-a-half is what decides your fate. you know its not true, you learned too much along the way for that to really be possible. but it's tempting. and then the headaches come, the back of your mind suddenly screaming that it's too much for one man to handle. you just have to breathe, remind yourself you've done it before and you'll do it again. it just sucks. and ultimately, i hate to say, that's what's it like to be a 1L. it pretty much just sucks.

i could hardly do anything -anything- without thinking "shouldn't i be studying?" i hate thinking that. it's not so much that i'm against studying and working hard - ok, maybe it is - but not being able to relax or enjoy myself in any conceivable way without feeling guilty about it; that's the killer. sometimes it got to the point where i instinctively thought "shouldn't i be studying?" while i was actually studying.

the only way i can conquer it is to truly enjoy studying. and i don't mean the end-of-the-day satisfaction of patting yourself on the back. i mean actually depriving in-the-moment pleasure. you know, to the point where you say "hey i've got an hour to kill, let's start the new chapter in property law!" that kind of thing. and some people can do it; and God bless'em for it. i can't do it easily - but i can on occasion. which is why i'm there in the first place.

but 1L is over. i'm home for a month before leaving for england for a 10-day vacation and then taking classes at the university of london for about about a month.

i think 2L and 3L will be better. i'll either be essentially home at elon, fairly close to home at mercer, or in an apartment outside of wilmington. either way, i'll be free of my biggest source of frustration - that damn dorm. the trash in the sink, the bathroom windows with a giant "FU**" written in soap, the unflushed toilets, the squealing refrigerator, the inexplicably loud buzzing sound from one of the lights outside my window. i couldn't even take a walk at night (my stress relief of choice) without widener's security giving me odd looks or stopping to talk to me because someone complained of "a guy walking around wearing a black hood."

having just that one, small room as the only place to call my own within a 500-mile radius took a psychological toll on me i wasn't expecting. i guess you could say it wasn't so much the stress, but the inability to relieve it - not having a sanctuary to run to. no quiet, empty place to walk to, no friend across the hall, no short drive home. i probably sound like i've spent the past year wallowing in misery, but that's not true. more like just going through the stressful motions of being a 1L, when it's sometimes hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. but i knew it was there.

i knew that this too shall pass.

*slightly* busy

the worst part about law school is the exams, and i'm in the thick of them right now. don't expect much out of this blog until at least may 12th, when i get home.