My mom and I were window-shopping at Neiman Marcus today. I overheard some ladies behind us casually speaking about how "like, totally crazy" those tsunami pictures were, and I suddenly became sick at myself looking around at the grossly overpriced clothes.

Here's a list of all the organizations collecting goods and money; there's bound to be one near you (click here)

Don't ask me how, but I just came across this picture album of my Governor Schwarzenegger's recent trip to Japan to attract trade with California.

As you look through these pictures, ask yourself these things:

1) Does Ah-nuld really consider Japan his second home?
2) Doesn't the picture of Arnold standing in front of his own image seem a tad dictator-ish?
3) Who told him it was okay to bring the Terminator motorcycle?
4) Isn't his staff sick and tired of making up puns (e.g., album title "Governor pumps up California in Japan?")

I will give credit to the designers of the dictator image. You've got NorCal represented by the Golden Gate bridge in the left eye, Central California represented by the fields in the right eye, and SoCal represented by Ah-nuld's big fat Hollywood head. So clever.

one down, so many more to go

First law school exam ever. Done.

I perfected my verbal vomit skills and performed to my expectations today. This property exam is the easiest out of the four I have this semester; she asked us what property interest "To A and his heirs" created, which is roughly the equivalent of asking us what "2 + 2" equals (yes, I did check the question five times to make sure I didn't miss a trick)

I felt fine all day yesterday and this morning. Something about seeing my classmates congregated on campus, though, gave me a mini-fit of anxiety. I repeated my uber-successful 3L mentor's mantra in my head ("You can't worry about what other people are doing...") and ran for cover in an empty classroom.

I'm afraid that I was guilty of increasing someone else's anxiety, though.

(For the record, I always study with pencils, but today for some reason ...)

I didn't have pencils, and my friend gave me a pencil -- without an eraser.

So I looked over at the girl next to me, and she had two pencils and one big eraser. I thought, "Odds are, this girl only brought two pencils with her and will probably think I'm a big loser/mooch/dumbass for forgetting my own." But I had to ask.

The look in her eyes was panic. "Um, yeah, well, I, uh, have only..."

To prevent a breakdown, I tried to broker a less burdensome deal, "Oh no, if those are your only pencils, don't worry. I've got one right here. I was just wondering if maybe, by any chance, I could take the eraser off the top of your pencil [girl: confusion] because I don't seem to have an eraser on mine [furrowed eyebrows] and you have that big eraser with you [wondering why this unprepared bitch is bothering her] but I don't want to inconvenience you [more confusion] so it's up to you."

At this point, I'm thinking "Crap! Why you gotta mess someone up like that, Claire?!"

So she hands me the pen with distinct hesitation, and I again suggest an idea that wouldn't deprive her of the benefits of two pencils. "Here," I said as I put the eraserless pencil in between us. "If you need more lead or something, you should absolutely take this."

*big smile from me*

No smile from her.

She thanks me and looks away, still in the same confused state as when I first saw her. I realized that this girl was panicked in general, and I felt BAD for being soooooo unhelpful. So I took the sheet we had to sign that certified that we "promise not to discuss the contents of this test with other students until grades come out," and I say, "Isn't that a bunch of bullshit?"

A little bit of a grin peeked through as she probably thought, "Hey! Stupid girl is funny!"

This past Sunday, my friend told me that to psyche people out, we should read the question (which usually consists of a page-long hypothetical) for 2 minutes and start typing furiously. Then, once our neighbors are sufficiently unnerved, we could go back and resume the test at a reasonable pace. I thought about all the people who bother me in my class and about how awesome that would be.

But I couldn't let the freaked-out girl sit there and fester this morning. Weird.

speed blogging

I'm becoming a prolific typist as the finals come near. I have spared myself five minutes to tell you why I do not like my property class. At first, I thought maybe because it was rooted in uninteresting medieval practices. Then I blamed the 8:30 start time, which forces me to trudge through a 1 1/2 hour commute.

But what I figured out today is that my professor values rote memorization more than thinking. I've asked her several questions about the reasoning behind some of our material, and I usually get an answer to the effect of "Because I told you so." That drives me nuts! You're supposed to teach me how to think like a lawyer, lady! If I wanted to practice pure verbal vomit, I could just go back to college.

Man, I'm not as fast as I thought.