Three weeks this time...wow. Just wanted to let you know that I am alive, and still reading your blogs. I have google feeds for several and take a peek at the main blog page whenever I have the chance. So although I may seem absent, I'm still keeping tabs on you!
Let's see...the baby shower I hosted was fabulous. I think most everyone had a nice time, particularly the soon-to-be parents, and they received so many nice gifts. I baked four dozen vegan cupcakes (root beer float flavor and lemon flavor) but didn't take ONE photo of them! They were a big hit, even after SO told everyone that they were vegan. (For whatever reason, that tends to freak people out.) I am incredibly excited about this baby's arrival. Since they are keeping the gender a secret, it will be fun to see what it is!
I have a job interview tomorrow. My main goal is more money and less boring work at this point. I purchased an LSAT study guide last week...still on the fence about actually taking the test and actually going to law school, but it's a start. I need a life plan, a career plan, something I can really feel involved in that will bring in some decent money. Right now, I'm just floating through life, and I hate that feeling. Fern, I've been thinking a lot about what you asked in my previous post, and my biggest gripe is the monotony of my current job. Every day is the same and far too simple. Some of my coworkers drive me nuts, but that's inevitable. I should be getting paid more in general, as well.
If I do go to law school, it will preferably be full time, so it would be nice to have a job for a year that brought in more money than my current job. Anyone with insights on law careers and law school, bring them on! I'm most interested in environmental law, international law, and public policy.
I cut out my daily Topamax pills and am waiting for my headaches to subside. At the moment, I'm pretty sure it's just medication withdrawal. I hope I'm right, or I may need to finally give in and visit a neurologist. I just don't want to be eternally medicated, and cutting out dairy and eggs has really helped with the headaches. I hadn't had a migraine since March, up until last Saturday, when I quite taking the Topamax.
My five-year anniversary with SO is tomorrow. Five years! It certainly doesn't seem that long. I guess that is a good sign, eh? We have no plans to celebrate, but we bought ourselves a Wii...romantic, I know. 
It's seriously fun, though.
I've been posting Project 365 photos to my
If you think vegan food is boring, bland, or uninteresting, think again.
Bean enchiladas with vegan "cheese" sauce, tofutti sour cream, and salsa:
Seitan tacos (one of my favorite recipes):
Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chiffon mousse frosting - these are to die for:
and, not food-related - beautiful daisies in my yard:
June 27th, 2007 at 06:40 pm 1182969608
June 27th, 2007 at 07:04 pm 1182971094
I removed the Visual DNA.
June 27th, 2007 at 08:03 pm 1182974616
As it happens, my current job of 3 years is much as you said, monotonous and kind of boring; i've lost interest in it and when i came here i took a huge pay cut to boot. But i'm probably at a different stage in my life, being much older than you. I've pretty much decided to stay as long as they will have me; altho the job doesn't move mountains for me, i'm making ends meet, it's strictly 9 to 5 and i have no commute (walk to work) and lots of free time back in my life. (My goal now is oriented toward the day when i don't have to work at all, and this job, while the pay is modest, will help me get to that goal.
When i was in my 20s, my take on career was totally different, and i was much more ambitious to take on progressively bigger and more challenging jobs and i even moved out of state to take good jobs when i found them.
After working as a news reporter, and feeling lilke you that i was in a bit of a dead-end, I took the LSATs and enrolled in law school at Suffolk Univ. in Boston. I was used to acing undergraduate school, so law school, with its totally different mode of learning, was really a struggle for m. They don't give you a textbook and say, this is the law here and this is another law, they give you case law to read and it's up to you to figure out what the rule of law is in each. It takes some getting used to, but at least at Suffolk, early on in the school year you all break up into small study groups of 3-6 people and you tend to study together. Unfortunately, i got in with a group of women who didn't take studying seriously and just wasted time. Week after week went by, and i really didn't feel i was learning anything with them, and that worried me. So i dropped out of that study group, but by this time in the semester, all the other groups were more or less established and i was unable to find another group, so i studied on my own, but as i said, it was a struggle, and it wasn't until i was studying for finals that a lightbulb or 2 went off in my head.
I did all right that first year, grade-wise, but my heart was never in it, so i dropped out after that first year. I made just 2 friends that year; one was a woman who was engaged, lived nearby and never had an interest in activities outside of class, while the other was a guy who had seriously considered becoming a priest! Not the type you'd picture in law school.
I was living in the basement of a woman in Revere Beach. The house looked out at the chain link fence surrounding the greyhound racetrack. I took the room becus she made it dirt cheap for me to live there and it was on the blue line and a 20-minute train ride to school. But the woman and various others who rented from her or came and went, were truly dysfunctional, and i really felt it was not good for my psyche to remain there. I was very depressed.
Suffolk is a really big school, a commuter campus in the city, and i had come from a small suburban town and a very small women's college, so i had trouble adjusting.
My interest also was environmental law. I would suggest University of Vermont if you want to pursue that.
I was never really sure i wanted to actually practice law or at least i wasn't sure how i could earn a living in law outside of trial law. (I don't have the temperament for that.) I had an academic interest, but that wasn't really enough to see me through.
I came away from it with lots of student loans to pay and not much else to show for it. I had it on my resume for a while, that i finished a year in good standing, but invariable it raised more questions from employers and proved awkward, so i took it off the resume.
So all in all i would say my law school experience was something of a negative one, but of course that's just one person's experience. Perhaps it will help clarify your thoughts on the subject in one way or another.
One more thing: I can't honestly say i can picture you practicing law. Well, maybe, and i'm sure you're intelligent enough, that's not what I'm saying. But what comes out is that you're very, very creative. Your pix here, for example, look like professionally done food photos.It's too bad you couldn't pursue something that would provide an outlet for your considerable creative talent.
June 27th, 2007 at 08:59 pm 1182977950
I would prefer to do something creative, but I have trouble envisioning making a living from it. I also feel like the results from my creative pursuits are mediocre compared to the talents that others have. But thanks for the compliment.
It's kind of how I feel when people compliment my cooking...how hard is it to follow a recipe? Not that hard. I certainly didn't come up with the recipe - now that is talent.
I definitely do not want to do courtroom stuff. Trials do not interest me. I like the research and writing aspects of law. I don't want to walk away from it with tons of student loans and a lackluster job; that's what has prevented me from going to graduate school all this time. That, and my obvious inability to choose a career path.
Clearly, I have a lot to think about.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:56 pm 1182988569
June 28th, 2007 at 04:16 am 1183004172