resolutions

i've been doing some thinking, now that a new year is about to dawn.

i have never usually cared about new year's. to me, time has always been just that -- time. it's just there, whether you like it or not and, in the end, time is god. it marches on, whether we are cognizant of it or not, evermore bringing all of us who have been endowed some way, somehow, with the gift of life all the more closer to death.

not to be morbid. i'm just being realistic -- that's all! i swear!

i'm finally reaching an age where i can appreciate just how precious little time that all of us humans are given to be alive, even those of us who manage to live a long, fruitful lives and reach decrepit ages. as such, i can appreciate the symbolism behind the otherwise seeming arbitarariness that is new year's day more today, at age 27, then i could have even a couple of years ago at the age of 25.

that being said, i've been in the midst of reassessing my life and the occurrences this past year, which made 2007 simultaneously one of the most difficult and emotionally draining and yet one of the most hopeful years i've had in my life thus far.

i won't get all cheesy and re-cap every little detail that i loved and loathed about the year. that kind of stuff is hokey, ain't it?

instead, i'll talk about revelations.

one of the things that i had hoped for, when i started up this abbagirl persona here on blogger, was that i could make an attempt to honestly explore my feelings on certain personal matters that i felt that i could not express to anyone who knows me in real life. and to a great extent, it has helped me so much in that department.

but at the same time, being abbagirl has not been everything i thought it would be, either. in fact, i find that having this persona as well as my other "normal," "real-life" blogging persona on another blog-host site has only caused me to do that which i otherwise do in real life and often find to be a burden: maintain and juggle facades.

it is no one's fault but my own. i let myself get so caught up in trying to be so damned likeable. on a general basis, i consider it to be no big deal to be the one to make my personality malleable to those of others. if i have to be the one to bend a little to get along with others and be likeable, then so be it; i can do it.

i think i've talked about it on this blog before, how easy it is for me to get along well with others because i can put on any kind of social mask to match up with other people's personalities, no matter how diverse they are. and my genuine interest in humanity also helps me find those other commonalities i have with other people.

i had hoped that being abbagirl would help me get rid of all these social masks that i wear and let me show my true self in all its ugliness; having social masks, while a great asset a lot of time, can also be a burden, too. not being very savvy or skillful, i have only managed to make myself feel just as lost as i did before, if not more so.

so what i have found is that this mantle of abbagirl has come with a number of its own burdens. i will always be this abbagirl to a certain extent. at the same time, abbagirl is just not me as much as i had hoped she'd be.

don't worry -- abbagirl will still continue to exist. she will post comments on all her favorite blogs just like she usually does. she abba-solutely loves all the blogs that she's had the good fortune of finding out here on the web and will continue to read their witty, insightful, hilarious, and moving words each and every day.

but abbagirl as blogger will disappear into the night as unobtrusively as she appeared.

it was a hard decision to make, surprisingly. you'd think that since this is just a blog, i'd have no problem just up and deleting it when the time came. but no, this has actually been on my mind quite a bit the past couple of weeks. and there has always been something holding me back all those times when i considered hitting the "delete blog" button.

but this is a new year. and i want to make changes to how i live, how i think, how i act, and how i let the personalities and whims of others dictate the type of person i show myself to be.

that just needs to change. and it starts here and now.

however, i leave open the possibility that abbagirl is not outright dead. maybe she is more "me" than i give her credit for, and i only need to discover this for myself. who knows. i'm still on the journey of self-discovery that i never thought i'd be on when approaching the age of 30. so i may resurrect dear sweet abbagirl if or when the time is right. after all, it has already happened; she did fake her own death earlier this year only to make a sudden reappearance a few weeks later.

so why don't we just say that she is currently in at least a comatose state and leave it at that for now?

by that, i mean this kind of comatose state:

not this:

so no goodbyes!

just a boston song. for now.

Boston- Long Time (1976)

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happy new year, everyone! i love you all!

i need richard!

as much as that dear old man richard had begun to annoy me, in those last days of class leading up to christmas, i am finding that i need the old coot desperately.

i haven't studied all week!!

i need the discipline he provided. i need the structure! i need incentive to set time aside and to put earnest effort into studying.

without him, i'm floundering and aimless!

i started up my efforts at studying again yesterday. then got distracted because a friend called me and needed some help on something. and that ended that effort.

but i am trying again today. i've been at this coffee shop for about two hours now, trying to plow through a contracts outline.

for someone who hasn't studied much lately, i'm pretty sick of studying. i screwed myself over by waiting so long since graduating from law school to take the damned thing. the instructor of my bar review course, tim, pretty much said so. he said that the further removed you are from having graduated from law school, the crappier your chances are of passing. further, if you are taking the bar in february as opposed to july, your chances are even slimmer. and to make things even more disillusioning, he said that each time a repeat bar exam taker has to take the bar, his or her chances for passing grow more and more miniscule. to illustrate this point, the instructor held up his thumb and index finger only millimeters apart from each other.

he might as well have gone ahead and stabbed me in the gut 100 times.

so i'm keeping those words of warning close to my heart right now. i'm trying to get into the mindset that these are the kinds of words that should inspire me to defy the odds. i cannot fail again!

and yet i'm not feeling all that inspired. i just feel rather . . . down. among a whole host of other things.

it's really hard to precisely describe how i feel about the bar at this point because all the feelings are so conflicting. "down" is only one of the feelings.

i do feel a sense of determination. obviously, i do want to pass~

but i feel defeated already, like there's no point, no chance of success.

i feel like i'm not up to the task and just don't have the brain-power to surmount this shit.

i feel ashamed because i kinda skipped out of an extended-family gathering recently out of shame and fear of having to confess my failings to the family -- only to find out that my absence still caused them to talk about how i did not pass.

i feel irked because, having been out of work for as long as i have, everyone assumes that i am mooching money off my parents to get by -- which makes me mad! because that's not the case at all! sorry, but believe it or not, it's been all me so far. and i am actually quite proud of myself for learning how to curb what were otherwise really bad spending habits and learning to live frugally. financially, i am still doing quite well right now, thank you very much.

sure, i do give in to the urge to splurge when i need to -- i.e., my recent purchase of hanae mori perfume. but bottom line is that i take care of myself, just like i always do.

and i get the feeling that lots of people -- family, friends, and strangers -- are of the opinion that i'm only wasting my time by going back to school. it is not so much that i want to be a perpetual student so that i can avoid "facing up to reality" and "becoming an adult." screw the people who think that! for me, it's all about the pursuit of my livelihood. when i finally get myself situated into a career, i will be stuck for the next good twenty or thirty years of my life. it's therefore essential that, whatever i choose as my career, i will have no qualms about spending a good chunk of my life doing it and that i will always have passion for it.

screw these downers!!

so yeah, throw feelings of irritation into the mix as well.

but on top of all that, a part of me has nonetheless kinda bought into those criticisms. and i wonder what i'm doing wasting my time re-taking the bar and in applying to grad school.

yeah, i am starting to question the whole ph.d. thing, too. i am stacked knee-deep in student-loan debt that i don't think i'll ever be able to pay off during my lifetime. the idea that i'll be adding even more debt to my name makes me sweat cold bullets.

*big heaving sigh*

people don't know what it's like to be me!

it's gotten to the point where my face is seriously breaking out. i haven't had this kind of break-out since junior high! it's heinous!!

thankfully, i came across this post by sugarshock, which says that omega-3 has properties that are good for one's skin in addition to gads more other benefits. so i got myself some supplements the other day. i hope this solves the problem, and if it does, i will definitely start raving about it here on this blog.

seriously, i have no idea where this break-out comes from, other than pure stress. even though it is the holiday, i.e., goody-eating, season, my diet hasn't really changed. in fact, since i'm conscious of how much weight i tend to gain while in study-mode, i've actually been eating less. i still have my toasted bagel and cream cheese, plus coffee, for breakfast, and then rice or whatever for dinner. so i have really not been eating very much crap lately. . . . at least i don't think so . . . .

it's the damned stress!!! and i'm not surprised if i also have gads of white hair growing on my head! the last time i was at my stylist's, she had to pluck a good number of white strands out.

this law crap is making me grow old before my time -- and disgusting to boot!!

speaking of, it's time for me to go find some dinner now. my mom is making bun cha lua for dinner tonight, so i must rush over to her house. my tumbly is all rumbly now.

in the meantime, until bar review class starts up again, i'll be missing richard. i need him to help get motivated and thinking positively about the damned bar exam again.

richard! i'm so sorry i started getting annoyed by you. i need you! please save me!

what's your celebrity bmi?

Diet reviews and weight loss help. © DietsInReview.com

do yours!!

my bmi is 18.8%, and my celebirty bmi is apparently angelina jolie.

too bad i ain't as scrawny as she is!! i think i like food just a tad more than angie does.

today i . . .

• changed the colors of my blog again.
  
  i changed the background color to blue because i was thinking of the fleetwood mac song, "storms," during my drive home tonight. there is a line in the song that goes, "never have i been a blue, calm sea / i have always been a storm."
  
  for the first time in a long time, i felt like a blue, calm sea today.
  

• re-discovered how much i hate real property law after a four-hour session on the topic in bar review class that ran from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. without a break.
  

• marveled, as i drove home from bar review class, at a number of extravagant christmas light displays that were in front of a number of homes.

• put aside my cravings for chinese food or a guacamole bacon burger from red robin, instead eating a fried egg sandwich along with a stick of celery with peanut butter as my late dinner.
  
  so my eating habits are weird. so?!
  
  i tell ya, it didn't taste as good as this would've:
  

• let my best friend, whom i've known since the fifth grade, talk me into having lunch with him and a couple of our old high school classmates later this week, both of whom, although quite weird in high school, have tripled their weirdness in the almost-ten years since we graduated and whom i have not seen nor wanted to see nor even thought of seeing in all that time.
  
  ugh! you can bet i will be bloggin' 'bout that experience later this week. :-P
  

• miss someone a lot.

"storms" -- fleetwood mac

OMG! OMG! OMG!*

there is only one show on t.v. between now and the february bar exam that could take me away from my studies. in fact, i would, without reservation, miss class just to watch it.



8 episodes, starting january 31, 2008!!

* i've stolen this post's title from skinbeatergreg, who put up an "OMG!"-worthy post himself this afternoon.

bah humbug!

omg. the dude who likes using the ladies' restroom instead of getting his lazy ass on downstairs to the dude's restroom is at it again!

he is also a pain in the butt to me personally. he has a crush on me and likes to give me his unwanted attention.

i can do without! he's annoying! he is not even anywhere near hot, either.

bleh!

as long as his germified hands don't go anywhere near the delicious cookies that richard brought out for us, though, i'll be fine.

i am finding christmas to be an obnoxious time of year.

just going to the store to get school supplies or to get groceries ends up being time-consuming and an agonizing, patience-eroding time. sooo many people are out and about, and they are ill-tempered and rude. and when they are rude, then i get ill-tempered, too.

it doesn't help that i have to wait forEVer in line just to buy a sack of apples and a batch of bagels while everyone has gads and gads of stuff in their shopping carts so that they can do their holiday meals and stuff. at the post office, too, i have to wait forEVer in line to use the automated, self-serve machine just to mail a single grad school application envelope while, in front of me, there are gads of people who have to mail thirteen thousand christmas cards.

ugh! my ease of life is made all difficult because of christmas!

it seems to me that people are getting even crazier on the roads this time of year, too. i'm especially hatin' on suburban types who drive those big ol' dodge ram or chevy trucks. i also especially hate minivan drivers.

have i mentioned how much i hate suburbia? suburbia blows!

so i desperately cannot wait for the christmas season to be over and for life to get back to its usual pace. the only good thing to come out of the holiday seasons in my eyes is the fact that starbuck's offers, for a limited time, their gingerbread, eggnog, and peppermint flavored lattes.

oh, and all the holiday sales at all my favorite shops aren't bad, either.

but other than that, christmas is not my favorite time of the year!

it just blows my mind that for a holiday that is supposed to be imbued with a sense of selflessness, hope, and a whole host of warm touchy-feely sentiments, what it actually does is bring out the worst in people. what is christmas these days but a way for people to indulge in their sense of materialism and get all short-tempered when things don't go their way?

that's why i say "forget it!" i don't need to play that game.

the one part of christmas that i do have fun with is the gift-giving part.

the problem is that i probably can't give as much as i'd like to this year. . . .

for me, i don't give gifts merely to go through the motions. i do it because i like it. i think about the personality of the person i'd like to get a gift for, what happened to the person during the year, inside jokes that we may have between us. the way i see it, good gift-giving is like working through a puzzle with the ultimate goal being to surmise exactly what material good best befits the recipient's personality or mind-set or yen.

but the key is not to do it because you feel you have to but because you want to. there's no fun in going shopping and buying gifts for other people if your heart is really not into it.

the way i see it is this:

life is short. it is too short to be wasting precious effort on words and actions that have no meaning. so when you say something, mean it. when you do something, make your action purposeful. i don't want to die, whether tomorrow or in fifty years, and have wasted all that time doing things that were empty and meaningless.

it's a philosophy i try to apply in all things, including this christmas craziness.

but hey, maybe that's just me.

bar review still going strong

i slept too much this morning.

but i couldn't help it. i was having a wacky dream, the details of which i can't even remember at this point. in the dream, there were lots of people i know and lots of people i didn't know, and we were on some mission together because some other distrustful people had been messing with us. and so we were plotting together, a la mission: impossible, a retaliation.

it's one of those dreams where you hover in and out of consciousness and know you should get out of bed because it is starting to be late morning. but the dream keeps you interested and eager to see how the end plays out.

in the end, i missed out on the ending because my dog couldn't take it anymore and woke me up. she really had to go pee.

an update on bar review study: this week, we're doing mbe questions. one subject per day, and we have to have all our questions answered by the time we get to class, where we will then watch a video-tape of all the answers being reviewed -- kinda like pmbr. tonight's subject is con law and i am all set and ready to go, having sat down and done all the questions yesterday evening.

i got comments back on my timed multi-state essays yesterday. good lord. i got a lot of criticism. like, good god damn! and i don't mean that in a whiny way. i mean that in a good way. like, keep them coming!! i want to pass so bad. the more constructive feedback i can get, the better. i want it -- keep crackin' that whip and beating my ass!



i'm going to try to get away to the gym this afternoon before class starts. i didn't work out at all last week, what with trying to complete a few grad school apps and having to do all my homework for the bar review class. i'm at a place where i can finally breathe a bit more easily, though, and so a good gym session will be just the thing i need.

i was studying at starbuck's yesterday. there was a cute asian girl there studying criminal law. she is still a law student; she had her text book right there. at one point, she got up to take a smoke break outside. i looked after her a bit longingly but, at the same time, i tried to ignore her.

it's not that i crave a cigarette, per se . . . .

well, maybe i do. just a little.

but i also miss the reprieve that it always gave me and the psychological sense of comfort.

i miss it. i really do.

at the same time, i really don't want to smoke, either. i'm hoping that in quitting this time, i'm quitting for good.

well. unless i'm drinking with other smokers, i mean. then i can't guarantee anything.

i'm glad i stopped, though. it does make me feel like crap and makes it so much harder to breathe. i feel cleaner and healthier now. and all it took for me to quit was going on a complete smoking binge for 24 hours straight after finding out i failed the bar.

hmm. imagine that. :-P

and i think those years of smoking were starting to take a toll on my face. i feel like my face was beginning to lose its elasticity and that everything was starting to sag. i'm too young to lose my adorable asian babyface!

more essay-writing . . . .

i have just emerged from a well-needed hot shower. it's made me awfully warm and sleepy. but unfortunately, i can't turn in yet. the night is still pretty young, and i have gads of stuff to do before dawn. . . .

i'm kinda glad i lost my personal statement to the unpredictable glitches of technology this morning. that essay was kinda utter shit, and i managed to re-do it so much better. i'll be re-working it tonight and hopefully can get my three apps. into the two-day mail as of tomorrow morning so that they can arrive at their respective destinations by the 15th, this saturday.

as for bar review class tonight. . . .

ugh.

b-o-r-i-n-g!



it's kind of a double bind for me. i know i need all the help i can get in passing the bar and figuring out how to improve my score. and yet it's so painful to be there, because damn it, i know the law and how to write! and it is just so redundant to have these things pounded into my head again!

if you're a repeater, you know what i'm talking about. we know this shizz. we've already put in the time for three years learning all this stuff! arrgh!

it's just frustrating. i know i should be patient and just deal. but i can't help being frustrated, too.

richard told us a couple of times tonight, both at the start of yet another three-hour practice session and at the end, how proud of us he was. and he guffawed loudly when i told him that i was only there because i was afraid he would get pissed and yell at me the next time he saw me.

ha! no, he's too sweet to yell and get mad. but i am afraid of his displeasure. he'd get on any of our butts if we missed a class for any reason. i know i've said it before, but . . . he cares about our success.

seriously, i think he's so great because of how much he cares. :)

the practice session wasn't too tedious tonight, as compared with yesterday. this time, we had to write essays on evidence, real property, and wills.

what tonight taught me is that i'm pretty comfortable with wills questions. but i'm back to being pretty weak in regards to real property and evidence.

ugh!

on a whole other note: i was in sephora the other day. god, i love sephora! and it was so hard not getting everything i wanted. but i did have to get this one thing . . . . i happened to be browsing through the fragrances and got a whiff of this one by hanae mori. . . . and it was over for me. had to get it. i'm telling you -- smells fantastic! and this comes from someone who's really picky about fragrances; i'm not a fan of overpowering, nausea-inducing scents, and i feel that most fragrances out there are pretty heinous. but hanae mori is fantastic!

i know -- don't tell me i shouldn't have! i know i should be more careful about counting pennies! but seriously, if you've ever had the chance to smell this one, you'll know why i couldn't resist!

plus, dude! i just failed the bar exam! there might as well be a big ol' "L" tattooed on my forehead! if anything, i should be entitled to knowing that i at least smell amazing. :)

to the concerned reader

to the person who found my blog by typing in this phrase into google:

"does abba smoke now"

i'm not sure whether you are asking about me, personally -- as in abbagirl -- or if you were inquiring about the original members of that musical group abba.

since i don't think any member of abba smoked (bjorn was quite an avid runner, you know, and probably would've bitch-slapped the other members for smoking), then i think you must've been specifically wondering about my oral habits. thus, i can honestly tell you that the answer is "no." i haven't touched a cigarette for about four weeks now.

thanks for the concern.

morning gone awry

gah.

what a start to the day.

i've been cleaning dog puke all morning.

then i found i lost my most updated version of my personal statement.

on top of that, my friends keep asking me to go out with them, and i keep having to turn them down.

DUDE.

i can do without this chaos!

actually, everything would be bearable, including the lost personal statement (i was going to mail 'em all off this afternoon, too), if i didn't have to deal with the dog puke. my dog puked in four different spots, and i had to search high and low to make sure all the puddles of bile were accounted for.

and you know how it is when you have to clean puke; you feel your own throat start gagging. bleh! really, that's twice this week alone that i have dealt with puke on or near my person. i can do without!

damned dog.

so i have to hurry up with the personal statement, print it out thrice, make sure everything is properly in their envelopes, then go to the post office, and then to class. and hopefully, i can do it all by five-thirty. but it depends on how much i can re-do my personal statement by then . . . .

i hadn't saved my personal statement last night. when i went to bed, i left my lap-top on. and then this morning, i went to my lap-top, which had been snoozing; i woke it up; and all i got was a black screen.

dammit!! everything was gone!!

ugh! so kinda back to the drawing board again! i have to re-write it. not that it was the greatest essay every written -- but still! :-P

whatev. i just have to tell myself to take deep slow breaths and just roll with the punches. all i want is to get these apps outta my hair! it'd be nice to just have to concentrate on studying for a change without having to worry about all other extraneous deadlines.

and i'm getting annoyed with my friends. i feel like a broken record. no, i cannot hang out with you tonight. no, i cannot drink. no, i cannot spend even just one day snowboarding. i mean, thanks for the thought and all. but you know it's crunch-time, don't you? you know that i cannot get distracted for a single second, otherwise my whole study routine will be thrown all a-kimbo, right? and you do realize how important this exam is to me, don't you?

i know they miss me. i don't blame them. ;) but i still need to close myself off from the world! and when i explain it to them how important it is to give my undivided attention to the damned bar exam, they do understand. . . .

at least for a while . . . .

and then the whole cajoling starts up again about one or two weeks later. :-P

i'm tempted, though. goodness knows, i really could use a drink. maybe at least once or twice between now and the bar, i can let myself have a cocktail or two. . . .

abbagirl having oodles and oodles of energy

richard really loves us.

i mean, me.

okay, and maybe the other girl, too.

we were all chatting and joking before the practice exam, and richard was having such a great time laughing with us. at one point, he said he loves our enthusiasm; it was the kind of enthusiasm we should carry with us into the bar exam, he said. "and i don't want to see your energy fade these next few months!"

i said, "i'm enthused? me? pshaw -- if i am, it's all her fault!" and i pointed to the other girl, who laughed and protested, "what-ever, girl!"

but it is her energy that has made my energy-level rise. sure, i am not quite optimistic yet, but yeah, except for the boredom that occurs whenever i have to do these exams (:-P), whatever enthusiasm i have is due in no small part 'cause of her.

and richard is so cool. he asked us whether we liked the doughnuts he brought in over the weekend because, he said, there were some left over. "do you prefer muffins instead?" he asked concernedly. i hastened to assure him that i had eaten one of the maple-flavored doughnut he had brought in. that made him feel better. and then he promised he'd bring the other girl a blueberry muffin the next time we had a morning class.

he just cares!

and then at the end of our classes in the evenings, because his premises are located smack-dab in middle of downtown, which has a good share of freaky-deaks and hobos lurking around, and because we do tend to get out pretty late, he makes all of us wait for him while he locks up the whole building. we then all troop downstairs and outside together.

once outside, he asks just the girls, "where are you parked?" (he doesn't ask the dudes this). and then he stands there, right in front of his store, in the freezing cold, and watches both me and the other girl until we are safely in our cars and pull out into traffic before he starts his own slow walk to wherever he is parked.

what a great guy!

i could-a sworn i heard that richard is now in his 70s, but he could easily pass for ten years younger. he has a slight limp and does not seem able to get around very quickly. but he has such energy and enthusiasm himself. he is quite tall, and he holds his back straight, and although he has a distending belly, he is not fat. and when something strikes him as particularly funny, which happens quite a bit when the other girl and i start exchanging quips, he guffaws really loudly. i swear, his laugh is so contagious that, even if i don't think something is really funny, to hear his laugh makes me bust out into giggles, too.

i like him. :)

as you can imagine, i am starting to look like complete shit these days. it takes me less than ten minutes to get ready to go out of the house; obviously, i am not putting much care and concern into how i look. i've always been a fan of hoodies and often wished i could wear them to work whenever i wanted. now i have that chance to indulge. usually, i go for a long-sleeve hoodie of cotton-tee material, layer that with a vintage fitted rock tee or a fitted tee with some snarky saying on top, and then i overlay that with another sweatshirt hoodie. the layers do help to ward off the chill of the winter evenings, but i think i need to start wearing scarves, too -- 'cause i hate when the cold seeps down my neck! and then i just wear cords or jeans and chuck taylors. my hair -- let's not even go there. it's in a lazy messy half-ponytail, the kind where you just decide too much energy is required to pull the ponytail all the way through your hair-band thingy so you just leave it as is.

ultra . . . ultra . . . low maintenance.

and that's only when i leave the house, too.

as of this past weekend, i haven't been leaving the house at all, except for these bar review classes, really. if i do stay in, i stick with pajama bottoms, a tee or camisole, and a cardigan. i keep my tootsies warm in slippers.

anyhow, i was thinkin' recently that it might be great to have a christmas tree.

but know what? mine would be a christmas tree with a twist -- a viet twist! for the most part, i'd only decorate it with ornaments and lights of gold -- nothing but gold! -- but then in the middle, i'd have three big red stripes of red ornaments.

boo-yeah.

cultural hybridity rocks.

practice, practice, practice

takin' another practice exam.

3 questions.

time: 3 hours.

i'm half-heartedly going through the motions. i'm the only one typing answers out, so i think i have a good headstart on everyone.

hence, the fact that i am now unofficially takin' a break from the exam.

:-P

the first question was on crim pro. dude. i've forgotten all my crim pro!

like, something about the 5th amendment? and miranda? and, uh, fruit of the poisonous tree?

second question: trusts. there were a bunch of breaches to the duties of due care and loyalty. that one was better.

but i'm stuck on the third question: civ pro. it doesn't help that my mind has shut down from complete boredom already.

:-P

damned "quiz."

i can't help being bored by this. there's no sense of urgency for me! at least not now. which is why it makes it all too easy for me to not take this practice exam very seriously. it has been about 90 minutes since the start of the exam, and i have spent a good half of the time already just surfin' the net, thanks to this amazing gift of wi-fi. it's okay. i mean, i've already done the first two questions half-heartedly.

but still. i can't keep my attention on things.

and i think i'm bothering and distracting the older dude who sits behind me. he can clearly see my laptop screen and that i am more or less reading through my news feeder instead of concentrating on the exam.

(heh!)

well, there is some free bottomless coffee. i s'pose i'll get myself a cup and try to keep focused on this shit.

:-D

and we're supposed to be doing this all week?

:-P

just a quiz

bar review class was painful last night.

only four of us showed up. we were to do a practice run-through of three essay questions.

"it doesn't matter if you don't remember the black letter law at this point," said richard. "what matters is that you're getting your feet wet. it's best you start practicing our essay writing now so that we can see what it is you need to change or improve on. don't worry."

pretty much, the whole point appears to be to see how each of us are stickin' to the IRAC formula. and not necessarily how much we remember of the law.

which is fine by me.

so we spent three hours doing essay writing. and wouldn't you know -- i had brought my laptop. but forgot the power-cord. so i had to hand-write.

for someone so used to doing everything on computer and being able to cut and paste things, writing it all out was just absolutely horrible. i think i turned in some really shitty essays yesterday.

today, i'll remember my power-cord. we are doing three more essays today and for each day for the rest of the week, except friday, when we'll only have two.

this will be good for me. because when it comes to the essays, all i did before was just rotely try to remember the black-letter law. i didn't try to actually practice writing out answers until maybe the last month before the exam. i don't think i'm TOO terrible at structuring essay answers . . . .

but we'll see. we're to receive constructive criticism on EVERY essay exam we do. and our reviewer will cut to the chase and tell us what we're doing wrong.

'cause obviously i am doing SOMETHING wrong.

hoo, boy. this will be an intense two months.

richard is not the guy who teaches the bar review course. he just owns the premises.

he is so cool! i can't get over how genuine and affable he is. and he just cares about all of us. i can't imagine how many students have come in through the doors. but he makes all of us feel at home, he does not let us get our spirits down, and he always has such great words for us.

like, yesterday, before class started, only i and this other black girl were there. and we just started jawin'. i admitted to feeling down about the whole thing, and both of them were all, "what? don't be!" the black girl said laughingly, "i've always been told that you can never be a lawyer until you take the bar five times!" she's already taken it four times.

and richard said, "i'm in this business because i love lawyers. they are a real special breed of people." and he gave an example of a stellar attorney he knows who thinks so much like a lawyer that it astounds him. "whether you feel like it or not, you guys are attorneys. you have been taught to think like attorneys. now, you just have to write in the way the examiners want. don't psyche yourself out!ba you have to remember it's just a test."

the other girl chipped in: "it's just a quiz!"

i gave her an "are you fuckin' kidding me??" look. but her enthusiasm and light-heartedness got to me, so i started laughing.

it's just a fucking quiz. :)

i'm off to class now.

topsy-turvy

this is how i feel right now:

"topsy-tuvy" -- from disney's hunchback of notre dame

lots of stuff going on.

i am starting to get into full-on moody mood-swings. there are probably two people in the world that i care to deal with and can be civil with in person, period. everyone else can go to hell!!

but i am not so much short-tempered (well, okay, maybe just a little bitchy) as much as i'm a bit depressed and wondering what the hell i am even doing trying to take the damned bar exam again.

my bar review class, so far, is okay and yet not. i can't believe how much it costs, and after three days of classes, i have begun wondering whether i will be getting my money's worth.

but i shouldn't be so judgmental about it so early on. it is what you make of it, after all.

my mom knows i'm depressed about the situation i'm in. her attitude, though, is, "don't give up!" last night, she was pointing out examples of people who had to take the bar multiple times before passing. "pete wilson" -- she held up five fingers. "brown -- what's his name? the old mayor -- oh, jerry brown!" -- and she held up eight fingers. "so don't worry!" she said. "you don't give up! you take it until you get it!"

i love how she is my cheerleader and all. but somehow it was not enough to raise my spirits.

it will come and go, these downer moods of mine.

but things will get better after this week. i'm mostly stressed because of my graduate school applications. three are due in five days. last week, i was on the fast track to gettin' 'em done -- but the bar review classes threw me off, especially with saturday and sunday classes being all day. :-P

seriously, i think i am unconsciously masochistic. i always find myself biting off more than i can chew.

like, that two-year period of time when i was doing my j.d. AND my m.a. as a non-joint degree because each of the bastard program departments refused to let credits from one program count for the other? it was a fun, intellectually stimulating time -- but it burned me out so quickly, 'cause i'd be taking 15 units from the law school and then 6 units from the grad school, and it just kicked my ass.

bastards!

i do not recommend that for anybody! if you really wish to pursue a j.d./m.a., it's just best to find a school that offers the degrees jointly. you're less likely to end up killing yourself. and what peeved me is that my school offered joint j.d./m.b.a. and j.d./m.p.p. programs, and based on what people have told me, some of the classes you take at those other departments are meaningless, irrelevant classes anyway and have nothing to do with law. so it just pissed me off that some of the classes i took that clearly had roots in both literature and the law, like law and literature from the english department, would not count for the other's program requirements, despite all my pleading.

like, how is law and literature not related to the study of law? in that class, we ended up reading lots of early american abolitionist texts, thomas jefferson writings, and commentaries by oliver wendell holmes. and that's still not law?

and the english department was not immune from my irritation, either. at the law school, i once took a class on art and the law. we read a lot of theory about art, like by kant and others i can't think of at the moment but who are critical to literary critical theory, on what makes art "art" and all the laws, both here in the u.s. and abroad, that are in place to protect works of art and also artifacts. it was a really cool class. i beseeched the head of the english department to read through the syllabus and let the credits count towards my graduate requirement. did i sway him?

nope. all my pleas were in vain. grr!!

obviously, i have not let go of my annoyance at this, despite the passage of almost five years.

yeah. i guess i tend to harbor grudges.

(heh heh!)

in any case, i am almost done with 3 of my grad school apps. the remaining apps aren't due for at least another 15 to 30 days, and i am pretty much done with most of them anyway. so hopefully, i'll be able to kick all of this shit off my to-do list soon.

*deep, slow, forlorn sigh*

i sure could use a martini right about now.

more peeves

yesterday was my first night of bar review. the class went pretty late last night.

against my better resolve, i let myself get talked into a party last night. i left my house at around 11:30 p.m. and didn't come home until a quarter to 2. i got only five hours of sleep.

i know lots of people can get by on five hours of sleep just fine. but abbagirl cannot! abbagirl needs a good eight to ten in order to have a happy day!

it was a bad idea to go out. but i went 'cause i felt obligated. and i had an okay time -- if getting someone else's puke on your designer jeans is considered "okay." :-P ha! but that's not actually why i had a rather lackluster time. i just didn't really know anyone there.

but i did have this really delicious drink that tasted perfectly awesome. it's what led to my downfall and made me too tired to wanna stay up late and do my homework, which was supposed to involve spending 3 hours doing a practice MPT.

i've learned my lesson -- no more parties during bar review!! or at least no parties where you know you won't have a great time and the only thing you can do to have fun is drink one delicious cocktail after another.

;)

anyway, so yeah, that's why i ended up coming to class completely empty-handed today.

and i was tardy, too. i hate being tardy for anything! but finding parking was a complete pain in the rear and nearly impossible downtown. i gave myself a 40 minute cushion to find parking, too, but ended up using the entire cushion -- and then some. i wasn't the only one late, but class was held up until the other tardy dude and i arrived.

it was embarassing.

anyhow, i have to vent about something.

my older sister's b.f.f. really irritates me. i find her ultra-annoying.

the b.f.f. is chinese-american, married with three kids, and just a few years older than my sister. she and my sister have been b.f.f. for about a year now, having met at work. they hit it off instantaneously and are now inseparable. they spend quite a lot of time together at work, they carpool together, and they spend time together in the evenings, too.

i have hung out with the b.f.f. only a few times. the first time i met her, a number of months ago, it was for lunch at a noodle place. my sister had been keen on having us meet; she had told b.f.f. all about my charming ways, the b.f.f. was intrigued and said she wanted to meet me, and so eventually this lunch was set up.

in my eyes, the lunch was disappointing. for someone who allegedly professed to wanting to meet me, she didn't seem to want to acknowledge my presence. yes, she totally and completely ignored me and barely paid me a second glance. at first, i thought it was because of shyness; after all, i'm just a stranger. so while she and my sister conversed, i'd listen and then contribute to the conversation. but even then, no. nothing. jokes, smiles, witticisms? i did them all and still could not get accepted into their conversation. so lunch couldn't end quick enough for me.

like, whatev. i'm TRYING here, ya know? and the girl, although completely nice, was not being very helpful.

so i was, like, fine. i know the score. it's over before it's begun. buh-bye. have a nice life, and don't let the door smack your ass on the way out.

imagine my surprise when, during the succeeding months, my sister would try to get me to hang out with her crowd and say, "oh, b.f.f. really wants you to hang out and come to such-and-such a party!"

i'd try to hide my disbelief and just be all, "yeah, uh-huh. um, sure. oh! darn it, don't you know, i promised to go to this other thing already! er, maybe next time, all right?"

but still, over the past year or so, i haven't completely managed to avoid the b.f.f. over time, the b.f.f. has thawed, though, and has begun making more eye-contact and is not making as much of a concerted effort to exclude me from conversations or exchanges. but there's this gap that continues to be in place.

which is cool. to each his own, ya know? i can get along with her for my sister's sake.

but what annoys me most is that, when i'm hanging with her, she makes certain statements that convey to me that she thinks she knows my sister better than me.

it's happened a number of times, not just once. so i know i'm not imagining it. and it irks me. like, i'll be just chatting with her and say something teasing about my sister, and she'll just give this pause and say, ". . . i know."

it just flips me OUT, i tell you! i really wanna sock her in the nose. like, who is she to demonstrate to me that she knows my sister better than me?

and yet at the same time, i must acknowledge: there are now things that i really don't know about my sister and that she does know better than me.

i guess this is a major part of why i'm irked -- because it is true that she knows my sis better.i feel, in many ways, that the b.f.f. has taken my place in my sister's life.

so yeah, okay. maybe a little tiny bit of jealousy. :-P

at the same time, my 'tude to the b.f.f. is, "go ahead and take my sister! i don't care!" because my sister has gotten weird.

but then, the crux, again, is that she only has gotten weird because of the b.f.f.

there are a number of reasons why i think the b.f.f. and the b.f.f.'s crowd is weird. they are ghetto. i am not. few of them graduated from college, while i, of course, did. they speak in colloquial ghetto talk. i do not; i talk exactly as i blog -- lots of colloquialisms but definitely not ghetto.

i know. you'd think that, because we're all asian, we'd have an instant asian connection. ;)

but believe it or not, there is nonetheless a huge culture and class clash between me and them. i neither have nor desire a suped-up rice rocket. i listen to hip-hop, r & b, and rap only occasionally, but i don't make a habit of it.

i drive a plain ol' pathfinder, i listen to rock n' roll, i am super nerdy, and i'm totally a whitebread L7.

sorry. sad but true.

and my sister is so different when she's with them. with me, with family, she's quiet, moody, temperamental, aloof. it's hard to tell when it's a good time to even say hi to her. for my part, i've learned, over the years, that there are just some things i can count on her and some things i cannot. and that has been hard for me to accept because i'm the type of person who is all in. if i'm a part of your life, and i like you, then there are no ifs, ands, or buts. there is nothing i would not do for you. i take after my mom in this respect, and that is why we are fiercely loyal to one another; no one else in our lives has this characteristic or even understands it.

with her friends, she's loose, child-like. nothing like what i'm used to seeing her as. so it's kinda weird, ya know?

still, if b.f.f. really wants to be my friend as much as she is my sister's, then she needs to do a little bit more than what she already has. i'm really easy, ya know. i can overcome any obstacles between any person and me and be friends with anybody. but it'd help if i could at least work with an open mind and heart. and you'll see that you don't need to try to one-up me in order to earn my respect.

just be open. and then trust me to do all the rest. you will love me within five seconds flat. or less. guaranteed.

updates on stuff

good news:

temp services has come through for me. i've got two really-short-term gigs lined up this month.

bad news:

i'm being paid less than i was before at my last temping gig.

still, every little bit helps.

the temp services lady also wanted to see if she could slopt me into this longer-term temping gig. it'd be a part-time job that would require my presence five days a week. i told her i could do, at most, four days a week, monday thru thursday.

personally, i'd just like to hold friday open if only because i have a bar review class that night, and if need be, i'd like that whole day to be free in case i need to catch up on any studying or homework for that night.

yes, the class requires homework and holds you accountable if you don't do it -- which is great for my lazy ass!

anyhow, because i held out on the idea of working fridays, that job offer ended up getting revoked.

ah, well. i'm trying not to shed tears about it. :-P

seriously, though, the next time the temp services lady calls me about another job offer, i'm gonna say, don't bother -- i'm done temping.

don't get me wrong. i'm grateful for the two mini-jobs i've got. but seriously, for one, i'm getting paid about $ 13/hour and for the other, it's more like $ 15/hour. which is fine -- like, great! i genuinely am grateful. and they both last less than a day -- even better!

but the downer is that both gigs will require about 75 miles of driving, round-trip, and also that i'll be having to buy single-day parking passes.

not to sound like a whiny cheapskate, but seriously, half the money i'll be making on those days will go directly to paying for gas and parking alone! gas here topped off at about $ 3.44/gallon about a week or so ago and is back down to about $ 3.14. and i can't help but weigh pros and cons like that.

in any case, i accepted both jobs, but for sure, i'd rather not accept anymore temping gigs. the lady has already informed me that the chances are virtually zero of finding a temping job a little closer to where i live on the part-time basis i requested. :-P

it is probably pathetic of me to publicly relay my financial situation that i have at the moment. but you know what? i don't do it for me or for the sake of garnering pity. i do it because, on the off-chance that someone stumbles onto my blog in the same kind of situation, i can at least show them that they're not alone; there's at least one other person in the same situation.

and the only reason why i can talk about the difficulties of the bar exam and become-an-attorney rat race is because of the other blogs i've found on here by people who've been in the same situation, too. seriously, it's a weight off my back to know that i'm not the only poor soul suffering from the kind of mental anxiety that first law school, then the bar exam have given me.

but anyway, yeah, so i'll be quitting the temp shit soon, and that's okay -- i'd really would much rather be hanging out around the house instead any day. especially now, during winter. have i mentioned that i absolutely loathe cold weather? well, here in norcal, it's pretty brusque outside. not cold, as in the kind of cold i'm used to after having lived in the beehive state. but still brusque -- jacket required. couple that with the non-stop rain we've been having the past few days, interspersed with the occasional cold winds, and you have a really cold and miserable abbagirl who ends up much preferring to stay at home, bundled up in thick layers, sitting cross-legged on her chair at her lap-top, blogging away, while an electric heater soothingly emits warm rays in her general direction and her little chihuahua naps on her lap and keeps her thighs warm.



in other news:

older sister is irritating the hell out of me. birthday or not, birthday girls need to play nice and not be so self-absorbed and clueless at least one day outta the year!

how mean is she?

lemme illustrate. say you are having a bad day and are having a bit of a 'tude, and then along comes abbagirl. because you're having a bad day, you can't help but start snapping at abbagirl and cussing her brains out.

abbagirl would only look at you in aghast concern and have a look of wounded innocence in her eyes. her brows would furrow, and her expression would plaintively ask, why are you yelling at me?

but if you were having a bad day and happened to snap at abbagirl's sister, oh, holy fuck. you better run and hide, like, right NOW. the look of venom in her eyes alone would be enough to make your brain start frying, and you would be dead before you even hit the ground.

seriously.

and that's what happened to me today. i asked her a quick question, something totally random and harmless, and i literally got my head bitten off.

like, day-um!

*sigh* sisters.

and in yet other news:

i'm not a fan of old navy.

if i were a momma of an infant, i'd probably make sure to shop at old navy for my kiddie. old navy offers looks that are "in" while not being too over-priced. so if i were concerned about upchuck, poo, pee, and booger-splatters all over and ruining the kid's clothes, then old navy would prolly be the way to go.

but i hate old navy for a couple of other reasons.

first off, the clothes tend to be ultra boxy on me. i might as well be dressed in a ruck-sack. everything is big-boobed, wide-shouldered, and wide-hipped. i wish i were chestier. but at the end of the day, i'm not. so it doesn't make sense for me to shop at a place that just doesn't have my fit.

secondly, the reason why i hate old navy is mostly because of the clientele.

i can't stand old navy shoppers!

i went with my younger sister the other day at around 2 p.m. if you wanna meet ultra-crusty, middle-aged, overweight, hoity-toity, suburban mother/conventional house-wife, minivan driving types, go to your local old navy during typical business work hours, and you'll meet plenty of them leisurely shopping with their noses stuck in the air as they wait for the time to pick up their kids from school and their husbands are slaving away at some blue or white collar job somewheres.

i'm not dissing them because they are housewives or stay-at-home moms. to each his own.

i'm dissing them 'cause their rotten 'tudes.

it's not that, when i shop, i wanna be b.f.f. with everyone. just let me be, and let me browse.

what i don't want is some turd-face housewife waddling past me, giving me a dirty glance, then haughtily sticking her nose in the air while her back stiffens.

like, screw you! what have you got in life that's so special, at least compared to me, you wrinkly jerk-hole!

sure, you may be comfortable in your $ 300k house with an immaculately mowed front lawn and rug-rats biting your ankles while i mope around my house and buying my groceries on credit.

but you know what?

i ain't livin' off anyone's coattails. i don't depend on anyone for my livelihood. my life isn't slave to the demands and time-table of anyone else's schedules. who are you to think you're better than me!

screw you! punk-ass bitch!

not to rage like a lunatic and bitch about everything, though.

i'm just having a rough day, i think. too bad i can't go around tasering people.

"bad day" -- fuel

dirty thirty and other birthday thoughts

my older sister's birthday is coming up in a matter of days. she's a december baby, as are my mom and younger sister.

there aren't very many things the family celebrates. we do lunar new year celebrations, the mid-autumn moon festival, called tet trung thu for vietfolk (moon cake! yum!), and the anniversaries of ancestors' deaths. we sometimes partake in the spirit of christmas, i.e., the gift-giving part, but not consistently every year.

but for sure, we do do birthdays.

-- wait, no, i take that back. we don't for sure do birthdays. and i am only thinking of my own birthday earlier this year when absolutely nobody remembered or wished me a happy birthday except my best friend, who text-messaged me birthday wishes.

*sigh* the middle kid is always the forgotten one.

:(

;)

anyhow, i've already gotten birthday gifts for my mom and younger sister, even though their birthdays don't arrive until the latter half of december. they are quite easy to please, and with them, it's (mostly) the thought that matters.

but finding gifts for my older sister is always harder.

as i think about my older sister's birthday, i realize, "good gosh. she's turning thirty!"

and so i am caught in a perplexing dilemma: what do you get for the birthday of an older sister who has high-end designer taste and tends to like couture-ish gifts while you're on a budget?

damned if i know! she is really hard to please. but i s'pose i'll think of something. . . .

my older sister is prettier than me by far.

all while growing up, my mom would often tell people stories about how adorably cute her first child was. she would get attention even when she was just sitting in her stroller. "just like a china doll," my mom would say. "and when we went out, strangers would stop in their tracks just to say, 'oh, what a beautiful child!'"

there are no such stories about me. at least not that i know of.

:-P

;)

but that's okay. i guess i'd rather be considered more of "the brains" out of my sisters and me, and i generally am -- only 'cause i seem so nerdy. the older sister is "the beauty," and my younger sister is, as she always is, "the baby," a.k.a., "spoiled brat."

the three "b"s, i guess you could say.

:-D

my older sister, as beautiful as she is, is currently undergoing an "i'm-about-to-turn-fucking-thirty!" crisis.

she's been telling me these past few months that she really wants to get a tattoo before her thirtieth birthday.

a few years ago, i mentioned to her that i wanted to get a tattoo myself. she gave me this look of such utter contempt and loathing that i'd even want to permanently mar my body that i resolved that i would never mention such a yen to her again.

so imagine my surprise when she told me that she wanted to get a tattoo herself just a few months ago.

she's running with the wrong crowd. what can i say? her b.f.f. sports a really bad ankle tattoo, and the b.f.f.'s brother also has a couple of bad ones as well. the b.f.f. was interested in hooking me up with her brother earlier this year, which made me raise a quizzical brow. and when i actually had the opportunity to meet the brother, i was a bit disgusted. like, dude. even if i was straight, i would absolutely NOT hit that!

why was i talking about this? oh, yeah, his tattoos. the brother has one of those arm-band tattoos that wrap around his bicep. but with him, it's like, what bicep?

seriously, this message is for everyone who wants to sport an arm-band tat: one, it makes for a bad tattoo altogether, so don't do it! and two, if you're going to do it, at least have a nicely shaped bicep, not a shapeless, flabby-lookin' limb, all right? if you're unsure as to whether your biceps are adequate enough, then please solicit the advice of honest individuals who'll let you know whether to go for it. seriously, i don't say this to be nit-picky but because i care. i care about you being able to go out into public and not look like a frickin' tool.

anyhow, the only thing holding my sister back on the tattoo thing is that she just doesn't know what she wants to get. her ideas change by the month. still, if she wants to get one while she's still technically in her twenties, she only has a matter of days to decide!

there is a catch to this whole thing, though: while she'd love to get a tat, she asked whether i'd be up to get one with her.

i agreed.

i like tats. i like the idea of the body being a canvas and that you can express yourself and show your identity via how you dress, how you adorn yourself, and how you pierce yourself. and i've actually considered getting a number of tats myself.

as it stands, my body is currently unmarked and unscarred. and there are at least a couple of tats that i'd get to commemorate what's most important to me and have those things etched permanently into my skin.

at the same time, while i like tats, i also think the human body is so beautiful in its simplicity, without all these other extraneous decorations.

i dunno.

in a way, i hope my sister gets what she's set her mind on. why shouldn't people strive to attain whatever they want in life?

at the same time, i kinda hope she doesn't and that i won't have to keep my word on getting a tattoo with her ('cause you know i will keep my end of the bargain).

we'll see.

the sky is falling!

*gasp* there's another abbagirl on blogger!!

and i think she might even be cooler than me!

i'm experiencing a slight sense of cognitive dissonance. who knew there would be room in the world for two abbagirls?

darn it! what should i do? should i remain abbagirl, too, or is it time to create a new secret identity?