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!

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. :)

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.