Bluebonnets

I tell you what - I do indeed miss my Texas Bluebonnets!!

This week has been a bit busy for me. Friday Chris and I had our interview with the Mentor Week Co-Chairs so that we could be mentor group leaders for the 1Ls in the fall. We don't find out till the end of this week. I had kind of a long weekend after that: We all had lunch with Judd's mom who came in from Virginia.

After Contracts that day - my last class - I slept till 7:00, did homework till 8:30 - then sat around talking with Jay till like 1:30 in the morning. Saturday I went to look at the house I'm hoping to move into on June first. Sunday of course, was Easter Sunday. Jay went to the late service with me and he enjoyed it :)

Sunday evening Jay, Judd, Dan, Mona, and I ate at Coogies AND WE SAW BRITTANY SPEARS. My Malibu experience is complete.

My Mystery Man helped me prep for my Moot Court tryout from 9:00 that evening till 12:30 am.

I tried out Monday morning...and now we wait!!

In the meantime...I JUST WANT SOME BLUEBONNETS!!!

or daisies...

Moot Team :-)

COULD I BE ANY COOLER??

From: sol-info@law.pepperdine.edu
Subject: Interschool Appellate Advocacy Competition Team Selection
Date: April 10, 2006 4:48:06 PM PDT
To: Community@law.pepperdine.edu
Reply-To: katrina.olson@pepperdine.edu

We would like thank the 92 students (20% of the 1L and 2L classes) who applied for the Pepperdine Interschool Moot Court Competition Team.

The following students have been selected, based on the writing samples submitted, to advance to the next step of the process, the oral tryouts:

Elizabeth Alvarez
Dan Bane
Hailey Benton
Brad Benham
Kyle Cox
Ari Friedman
Sally Goodfellow
Gunnar Gundersen
Wendi Gundersen
Melissa Higashi
K. Jake Hoffenagle
Jennifer Holliday-Bowden
Ted Holmquist
Mary Huebert
Erik Johnson
Joseph Le
Daniel Lengeman
Jean Loh
Audrey Maness
Jeffrey McDonald
Royi Moas
Jackson Moll
Justin Parkey
Andrea Prohaska
Natalie Rainforth
Emily Riley
Brian Roach
Mary Skouras
Rebecca Shult
Lauren Skophammer
Joshua Snead
Jamin Soderstrom
Kari Sowers
Emily Wallerstein
Eric Willis
Dina Yadegarian

Because of Passover and Easter, the orals tryouts will be held Monday and Tuesday, April 17 and 18. The students listed are invited to sign-up for a time slot with Patty Hayes in Room 206 (the Alumni Office next to the Deans' Suite) starting Wednesday morning.

Please do not be discouraged if you were not selected this time around. It is a highly competitive process here at Pepperdine Law School. We encourage you to participate in the Arabian Appellate Advocacy Competition in the Fall and submit an application in the Fall for the Spring 2007 Team.

Nancy McGinnis
Nancy L.N. McGinnis
Associate Dean
Advancement, Alumni and Public Affairs
310.506.6454

VICTORY

I feel as if I never left.

WELL ladies and gentlemen - today was the 1st Year Moot. Let me just say that with my timer in hand, the same timer that has been with me since round one in Mercedes High School in the Fall of 1997, I felt right at home. I cannot TELL you how many rounds that timer has been through. Policy, LD, extemp, whatever man - you name it I've been there w/ that timer. Jay cut the speaker lines and today, on March 25, 2006, that timer went to it's first Appellate Advocacy Round.

I have been working hard on this for two weeks, and this morning I was ready. I knocked it out of the park. :-) After the round was over, my judges said I was the best performance they had seen out of a first year EVER!! Then, later that afternoon, I went off brief on the WRONG issue and STILL was told I was the best in the room and MUST be on the Moot Traveling team.

I am too exhuasted to finish this. But now this is ALL over I will be well rested and can write more this week :-).

XPANDOS Revisited

I wish I could pen something of value this evening, but there really isn't much to say. I have noticed as the weeks have become seemingly shorter and shorter thatI am being drawn ever closer to the end of my first year of law school. It is Friday night, and although this past week was Spring Break, I don't really have much to report in the name of "fun" or "adventures".

A week ago today on last Friday, when school let out for Spring Break, our section had a Cigar Smoking Party. It was great fun - watching our profs smoke cigars with their kids. I didnt smoke a cigar though. Rather, I had a Sees Candies Chocolate Cigar which was provided for those of us with asthma or any other tendency that spurns us to avoid inhaling carcinogens.

Later that evening, I headed over to Kate's in Santa Monica where a bunch of us played Play Station Karoke and most everyone else had shots. Then, we all got into three cars and headed out to Club Cabana in Hollywood. This little troop of adventurers included Kate, Deborah, Lisa, Pam, Chevon, Jamie, Diana, Scott, Elina, Baggio, and myself. Once there, we met up with Dave, Dbor, Andy, S, Christy, and Osborne. It was pretty much a Section C take-over. It was so much fun. We stayed out at Cabana until almost 2, and then went to Mel's Dinner for some food. After that, we all went home and crashed.

Since then I haven't really done much but work on this dumb Appellate Brief. They assign each first year either Appellant or Appellee in teams of two as per an appeal to the 9th Circuit. This assignment is basically our final in LRW II. The catch? They give it to you OVER SPRING BREAK so you can't go home or do anything fun. Sucks. I mean, I suppose it's better than having it during school, but still. Sigh. My Jonathan is my partner and we will in fact be TROUNCING everyone. That's all that NEEDS to be said about that, although it will not stop me from saying more. I must say, our brief is slammin'. What's more, a small portion of the grade is based on our performance in the 1st year Mock Appellate Advocacy on the brief on Saturday. It has come to my attention that there are those in my LRW Section who purposefully sought out another team to oppose so they would not have to risk opposing Jonathan and I in a luck-of-the-draw match. Jonathan and I had hoped to go up against Jay and his partner, Chris, but Chris wouldn't have it as he is scared of me. I am bemused. :-)

Jonathan and I have worked really hard on this brief and I think it's really good. But, we managed to have some fun during the week. We've had Marmalade's like 5 times, and yesterday had lunch at my favorite Mexcian Restaurant & Cantina. I just finished working up the MOI for oral args and would like everyone to know that I have indeed made XPANDOS for the occassion. So, for those of you who thought I would outgrow XPANDOS when I left my debate career behind in undergrad - THINK AGAIN. I AM THE DEBATE QUEEN AND IT IS ALL ABOUT COLOR-CODED XPANDOS.

Clearly, I need a nap.


[but maybe not since Saxer says that people who use "clearly" have not done their research..."

Home

I wish I were home. It's spring break and I can't go home. I just; I have this dumb paper - an appellate brief - worth 65% of my grade in LRW and they give it to us OVER spring break. So, I can't go home. It's 7:07 now and I'm waiting for My Mystery Man to come and fix something for me. He's late - he's NEVER late, and he never forgets, so I wonder where he is??? Oh well. I have to leave soon to go Kate's house for a night on the town. If he doesn't show up soon, I'll miss him entirely and shan't see him till at least the end of the week.


Sigh. All I ever really loved I left at home...except that one thing that is with me wherever I go.


Michael Buble - Home Lyrics
Another summer day
Is come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home
Mmmmmmmm

Maybe surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh I miss you, you know

And I've been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
"I'm fine baby, how are you?"
Well I would send them but I know that it's just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

Another aerorplane
Another sunny place
I'm lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I've got to go home

Let me go home
I'm just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I'm living someone else's life
It's like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
But this was not your dream
But you always believe in me

Another winter day has come
And gone away
And even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

And I'm surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel alone
Oh, let go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home
I've had my run
Baby, I'm done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all right
I'll be home tonight
I'm coming back home

I Feel So Lazy

I feel so lazy because I never post. I haven't blogged in a while, this is true. But I'm so flippin' busy...

Friday evening Dan, Jay & I had supper at the cantina just north of here on the PCH. It is such good Mexican food...REAL Mexican food. I had carnitas. After supper was all said and done, we headed back to school. I don't really know what Dan did this weekend but Jay and I went to our "casas". I went to Tio Mike's and Tia Nancy's. Jay went home.

I have my own room at Tio Mike's and Tia Nancy's. It is soooo pretty: it has yellow walls and this gorgeous wooden bed frame from Mexico with a Sun and a field of lillies and sunflowers carved and painted on the head-board. The curtains have three dimensional flowers on it and the whole room is just simply gorgeous.

I had a wonderful time with la familia. On Saturday we went to Tia's brother and sister in law's house with all her family. You know you are Mexican when extended family includes the family of your aunts and uncles by marriage...I love it. There can never be too much family. I also got to watch Sleeping Beauty and Mulan this weekend - I have a strange obsession with Disney movies.

I bought my own Martinelli's Apple Juice this weekend...no longer shall I depend on Jay for my apple juice fix. In addition, I was able to procure those that come in the original glass jars. I gave Jay half: they don't make them in the glass jars anymore so WICKED is all I have to say.

Last night I tutored Gina in Spanish. I guess I forgot to mention that huh? Gina is the daughter of Lorraine G., Dean Saxer's assistant. I have started tutoring her in Spanish. It's a double bonus for me because now I don't have to spend extra time to do my own Spanish grammar everyday now, plus I get paid ($40.00 an hour...nice).

Jay showed his movie this weekend at La Sierra's homecoming: he said it went over really well. I'm really really proud of him. He has done such a good job doing all that stuff even while we are in school. He worked so hard on that movie and I'm glad it went over so well for him.

This week will be a busy week for us. Tomorrow is Project Uganda for IJM. We also have a midterm on Wednesday, and one on Friday. In addition, we have the ABA conference this weekend. Plus, we have a midterm next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Sigh.

I am exhausted but I do this for Justice.

Victims of child sex trafficking don't want to hear how tired I am. They want to see me at their front door with that arrest warrant and the sense of safety only justice can provide them.

Rough

My Mystery Man and I had a bit of a tiff today: and I don't really want to talk about it, mostly because I am not ACTUALLY sure what it was about. It reminded me of a fight I once had with Jeremy. We fought for like 2 hours. When it was over, it was all traced back to a comment someone had made about Strawberry Jam...

This wasn't quite about Strawberry Jam, but it was started with something equally dumb: Jr. High Kids doing Hello Dolly. LONG STORY...so DON'T ask. Suffice to say I can't believe the people in the apratment didn't hear us.

I am home now: I came home about an hour ago. But it's all ok now...sometimes things take more work than you thought to make them work...but as my Mochi says: "Nothing will work if you don't".

When two different worlds co-operate at a distance, or occupy the same space with a large buffer zone in between them, negative energy and conflict are minimal. But as the two spheres of existence collide, and try to exist very close together in tandum things become more difficult.

That's not to say it cannot be done.