Cadys!

Madrid was probably the first time I ever had a pastor that was "my pastor." His wife was my mentor as well one of my closest friends, and their children are two of the only ones that make me think it is possible that I may wish to have kids one day.

It was hard to leave the little Cadys: the cozy Friday nights reading Raggamuffin Gospel, the Tuesday nights of sushi and wine with Heather, the tiny munchkins I loved so much.

But this summer, the Cadys are coming to the US! They will be in Chicago with my friends Kristen and Dan, and my other little Madrid friends Paul and Kelly will be driving up for the 4th of July. And I just bought my ticket yesterday to join them:)!

A vacation is always nice, but I can't wait for this trip because my soul needs to hug these people. My habitat changes every few years, along with my goals and beliefs and hairstyle. But the Cadys are home to me.

one of these things is not like the others

2009 promises to be a very good year. Even though I often still miss all of you in Madrid, I feel settled in San Diego.
My grades finally came back from last semester, and they were better than I possibly could have anticipated.
There are several things in my life that have changed for the better, and I'm trying to add new good things to replace the less healthy ones that I deleted.

For example, I surf kind of.

Well, I just started. I took a lesson. It took me an hour to be able to stand up the first time. But regardless, it was fun even when I was riding in on my tummy. I even bought a wetsuit to throw my hat over the fence. (Side note: My Californian friends recently informed me that "throw your hat over the fence" is not a well known idiom here. It means I invested, therefore forcing myself to commit to an activity I wanted to participate in.)

Even though gliding in on my tummy was fun, during my first hour of getting wiped out, I was getting a little discouraged. After falling on my head while trying to stand for about the sixth time, it took more emotional energy than physical to go back in against the waves.

My cute bouncy blond teacher was observing me thoughtfully, waiting to advise me when I finally made it back in. She said, "stop looking back at me."
I was a little surprised, so I responded, "I'm not."
And she said, "Mary, we were making eye contact."
Since she was the professional, I didn't want to argue. So I said words that are never easy for me to say: "What should I change?"

"Stop thinking you're gonna get wiped out. I know you fell five times before, but this time you really had it. But you decided it was going to be exactly the same this time, so you anticipated the fall, braced yourself, tensed up, and looked back at me. And then you proved yourself right. Falling five times doesn't mean you're going to do it forever. So stop it!"

I couldn't have said it better myself; I felt like she must somehow know what the last year has been like for me.
So, I took a deep breath. I stopped worrying about flipping over and my board slamming into my skull. I looked out at the gorgeous sunny January beach and the post-card perfect palm trees, fought like hell not to look back, and tried again.
And for just a couple seconds, I stood.

The Whale's Vagina

I love San Diego, and I am never leaving.

After a long and trying Christmas break, I was so pleased to come back to California. Actually, as the plane touched down, I couldn't help but think, "it's so good to be home."

As a fried-chicken and sweet tea hating Democrat with no particular urge to get married or procreate in the next five years, I find I don't fit in the South as well as I once did.

I missed the sun and the beach and the wine bar on 9th Avenue. I missed my friends and my Stepper and my teeny tiny studio full of Ikea furniture and Target dishes.

And, I forgot how cold the rest of the world is!

Anyway, it's nice to be back in San Diego, and this is where I plan to be indefinitely.
Come visit.

el fin

It's funny how all of the 1Ls at Cal Western were so excited about the end of the semester and keep saying, "it's over" when we only have a 2 week break.


But in a way, I think the worst of it is over. Even though we'll have 5 more exam seasons, the first one (with the horror and shock and blindness) is done and will never revisit us in its exact form. And although red Starbucks cups will forever haunt me with the spector of Yeager's Criminal Law class, we can leave it all behind.


It is strange -- but nice -- to feel such a total disconnect from all things related to law school or California.

I spent my first full day to myself... being very greedy with time to myself. I sat in the dark in sweats with a cup of tea and watched Desperate Housewives online for hours. It was surreal not to feel guilty while relaxing.


After a fun journey home (yes, I still love the journey -- see Ithaca:)) it's nice to be here. I just had coffee with one of my best friends in the world, and it felt so good to hug her I could just cry. We were bunkmates in Guatemala, roommates my senior year of undergrad, and travel buddies to Oporto, Portugal; Granada, Spain; and Athens, Greece during her various trips to see me in Madrid. Few people know me better. This explains her fantastic Christmas gift. This framed print:

Now I'm at my parents' house, sitting next to the fireplace, waiting for the arrival of my good friend Bridget from Lynchburg, so we can go shopping for her wedding dress and my bridesmaid dress. And even though Virginia is a colder greyer state than I seem to remember, I feel warm and fuzzy, and shockingly Southern.

:)

I have spent the last month and a half being nervous about exams and hearing everyone else talk about being nervous about exams.
I have studied a lot. And I am not a studier.

After I finished my Property I exam on Saturday morning, I re-did the multiple choice a few times to double check myself. I don't think I've ever double checked my own work so much on anything I've ever done in my life. Including all the papers I turned in during my English literature B.A.

But now, I've come to a decision: it's going to be fine.
If I have tried my absolute hardest and put in this much effort, and I still fail... well, then this is not the field for me. If I can't pass my first semester of law school with this much investment, then I don't want to do it anymore anyway.

And in case that happens to be true, I have come up with a long list of detailed contingency plans, all of which sound more exciting than sitting on the quiet 4th floor of the classroom building between the pool tables and Foosball tables and vending machines trying to uncrack the code that is the mind of my crazy Criminal Law professor.

So this has become a win-win situation.
(not including the mountain of debt that I will incur through either decision)

mean people

It is one week until the first exam, and the air is changing.
Ever since we've all come back from Thanksgiving break, people have been on edge.
I had a particularly fantastic Thanksgiving break, so I came back cheery and wanting to chat about it.
This is apparently not the appropriate thing to do during exam countdown.

Appropriate Things to Do seem to include:
rolling your eyes a lot
asking inane questions in class
typing furiously, loudly, so that no one can hear themselves think
enumerating which of your classmates you think will fail (for the sake of the curve)
glaring and snapping at people who giggle in the library

I'm not a huge fan of any of those activities, so instead I have indulged in:
eating chili cheese fries from Fudruckers
catching up on facebook stalking
drawing sketches to go along with my Property hypotheticals
studying studying studying

I guess everyone has a different way of dealing with stress.
I can't wait until this crazy batch of exams is over so that everyone will start being normal again.

immature

They say the need for instant gratification is the clearest sign of immaturity.
I miss immaturity a lot.
I know that I'm still immature in a lot of ways, but I miss the parts of it that have gone away.

I study a lot now. I've never been a studier before. I have studied more in the last two weeks than I did in my entire undergraduate career (and, before I hear any snide comments, I did just fine in undergrad -- thanks:)).

I talked to a friend from Madrid today on Gchat while I was in my CrimLaw class. I was bemoaning the state of my life and telling him how much I miss Madrid and envy his lifestyle. He politely pointed out that he doesn't feel that Madrid is really preparing him to be a lawyer very well, so the discrepancy is appropriate.
I realize that this may seem like an obvious statement to all of you, but it was a mini lightning bolt to me.
I guess it's time to accept that of course this part of my life is not nearly as fun as the last.
Because in Madrid -- be still my heart -- the incentive was the pleasure I felt every single day. And now, the incentive is the pleasure I'll feel at the end of this three-year stint.

So, while carefree nights no longer run rampant through my weeks, I choose to believe that the delayed gratification will make me feel happy in a grown-up way.

Vamos a ver.

W.

I don't watch movies because I have a short attention span. I talk or sleep during movies and take intermissions. plural. But W sounded funny, so I went.

It wasn't funny. I was misinformed.

It was heavy. And it was sad. And it was dramatic.

I remember when Passion of the Christ came out, and everyone rushed to see it. It was horrific and stunning, and the theater was silent afterward. It may seem a sacrilegious comparison, but the response in the theater this past Friday was similar.

I am not saying it wasn't a good movie. If you like heavy, sad, dramatic movies during your free time, then this may be the movie for you. But enough of my life at the moment is heavy, sad, and dramatic, so I found it overbearing and too close to home.

So my advice is merely this: don't go to see W if you wish to be entertained or amused. Go to the beach instead. That is what I did today, and it went a lot further toward my unwind.

I <3 Powell

even rain

I've always hated all forms of precipitation.
Partially because my hair curls in the rain and Asians look funny with curly hair.
Partially because it soaks the bottom of my jeans.
Partially because I hate being cold more than anything in the world.

The lack of rain, inter alia, was a factor in my move to San Diego.
So I've been surprised how much I have missed it.

I guess that's a tried and true cliche about humans -- we always appreciate things more when we don't have them.
This is true even of things I already loved -- Like Alaina and Jd, like the little Cady family, like cafe con leche and Thursday nights in Madrid and cheesecake from Texas Roadhouse. My desire for the presence of these things in my life has escalated recently.
But it's also true of things I never knew I'd love -- like my crappy undergrad apartment and public transportation. and rain.

I got rained on Saturday night while my friend Lara and I were at Oktoberfest interrogating a Korean girl about fan death. And I can't remember the last time I was so excited about the weather.
Don't get me wrong -- I love sunny San Diego and the constant beachy weather. But at that moment, I had never been so excited to splash around in my soaking wet jeans and pull my curly hair out of my eyes while I pulled my sweater closer to break the chill.

So even though I love to complain, even though there are a million things I'd like to change about life in California thus far, even though nothing has ever turned out the way I've planned, I think I need to take a deep breath and learn to appreciate the rain.

Love your life. Because whatever you have, wherever you are, it'll never be like this again. And one day, you're gonna miss it.