12. I'm slightly afraid of getting killed while walking from school to my car after dark, so I always call someone while I walk.

I blame this fear on the mass emails sent to all the students about once a week informing us of an assault that has happened on or near campus. I have to be strategic about who I call. It's usually someone in CA because it's too late to call anyone in MN. My mom is usually the lucky winner because she's most likely to actually answer the phone. If I do call someone and they don't answer, I'll leave a really long message (Mel, hope you appreciated that tonight :) ), so that it at least looks like I'm talking to someone while I walk to my car.

I don't really know what good talking to someone in CA is going to do if I get attacked. But I figure the bad guy doesn't know I'm not talking to someone in MN, or across the street, or even the police, so it's got to be some sort of a deterrent. Also, I find at least a little bit of comfort in the fact that if I'm attacked at least one person will know and it won't be days (or even weeks) until someone realizes I've gone missing and informs my family.

Ooops!

I skipped 6...and no one even noticed, which makes me think no one is reading this...c'mon people. :) Anyway.....

6. I loved high school.

I feel like high school gets a bad rap. School was relatively easy and I spent most of my time socializing. I had awesome friends (and still have many of them) and we spent most of our weekends hanging out unsupervised in Em's pool house or driving around Yucaipa doing stupid things (touching stop signs, off roading, playing a variation of tag with cars, going to midget villiages, parking outside haunted mansions and thinking about goin in... wow we were dumb). We even had a secret "gang." I spent most afternoons and many mornings in a pool beating up on people/being beat up on by Kelly (or climbed on by her...Carp: "Kelly, what are you doing?" Kelly: "I'm a sloth."). I was still one of the popular kids at church. Sure, there was drama, but I was rarely the center of it and compared to life now, that stuff seems relatively unimportant. I don't want to be one of those people who can't let go of high school, but I have no problem admitting that I enjoyed those 4 years.

My Ideal Saturday

After a heinously stressful week I was extremely blessed by a fabulous weekend. I went to La Madeleine, one of my favorite DC area cafes, conveniently located just blocks away from my hotel. Though I don't intend to give a full commentary on the food, I will say that I reluctantly passed up a chocolate almond croissant because I was craving something savory. While I very much enjoyed my Florentine Quiche and thought that it provided a great balance to my latte, I still bought a croissant as I left so I could enjoy it later (which I did!).

This brings me to my second favorite part of my morning (note: coffee and food = first favorite part), my trashy chick-lit book. It's the sort of book that as a law student I probably shouldn't be reading (The Economist or The Bluebook would be more appropriate leisure reading). I'm fairly certain - make that definitely certain - that reading this sort of book kills brain cells, but none the less it goes well with a cup of coffee and occasional breaks for people watching.

I think my "like" (I'm not ready to call it love) for this sort of book started with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and to be honest I try to keep this indulgence at a minimum. However, after finishing both books I brought with me I had no other choice but to buy another book. The book Something Borrowed, and the books that follow it in the series, came highly recommended by a great friend. Basically, I've decided that I'm totally justified in reading these books because they are about a 30 year old lawyer who hates her job in a big firm and with OCI right around the corner this book is keeping my competitive spirit in check. Be forewarned, essentially the plot of the book is the protagonist justifying her affair with her BFF's fiancé. The book is lacking in sound morals, but is entertaining and throws around legal jargon (which makes me feel smart).

While my morning of drinking coffee and reading chick-lit was not the end of my fabulous Saturday, it reminded me how much I love simple mornings with nothing to do.