A video is worth a thousand words

This clip by Maria Bamford reflects so many of my fears about moving back to the small town of my youth. I should say that the anxiety is probably mostly unfounded. We don't even have Target in Canada!

Talis(wo)man(s)

I'm not exactly one of those people with a multitude of lucky trolls at a bingo game, but at times like these (uhm, 14 days until my major paper is due, quickly followed by two exams and another paper!) I start to draw strength from things that remind me of those dear to me. I have two lucky objets du jour: a necklace that Ilush gave me when she visited from Israel two years ago (she's a PhD, so I draw strength from her academic staying power and her absolute wit about the academic life) and a scarf that Merlot knit for my last birthday which she only recently finished (symbolizing both: someone loves me enough to knit me a scarf and the old adage "better late than never"). I love these women. Even from afar (Israel and the West-friggin-End), they carry me on.

First Snow

I was out for a walk to get air and buy exam supplies when it started to snow! First time it's happened to me this year. Turns out I had to buy a hat while I was getting notepads, post-it flags, a file organizer (I seem to have a lot of research materials these days) and some magnets (I don't know what it is about them, but I can't resist)--lest my ears freeze off on the way home. This marks the beginning of exams and intensive period of research. I have several interesting projects I'm working on, plus a couple of exams that I need to take care of.

I remember the uncertainty last year of the first set of 1L exams. How little we seemed to know back then! Life is overwhelming for different reasons this semester, but this is probably as trying as it's going to get ever.

At least I started off this season of marathon studying in fine fashion with dinner at TF&C's. Everyone needs homemade tourtière, friends and good conversation for a couple hours before the mental onslaught and exhaustion of exam season.

That time of year

There's something that starts to happen about this time every semester. I start buying food that has expiry dates after my exams. When I go to the grocery store I'm going to have to start asking for paper bags so that I have something to hyperventilate into when I talk stock of how near I am to the end of the semester (and what feels like imminent doom, though I may be overstating that a little bit).

Everything is better with flannel jammies

The best time I ever had reading Civil Procedure was this morning at 7am when TBB padded quite sleepily down the stairs, crawled up and fell back to dreams on my lap. He was giggling in his sleep and carrying on a nonsensical conversation with me from the beyond.

And he was wearing flannel Spidey PJs.

Those were the best Civ Pro readings ever.