Vienna to Zurich 

email shenanigans

today, I used my friend Scott's computer to check my email, and forgot to sign off. He promptly used my account to send the following email to my roomate:

My sweet and wonderful roommate J:

I cannot contain my feelings for you any longer. I think about you
all the time. I often stand over you while you are sleeping and let
my mind wander to beautiful and unnatural places. Sometimes I wish
with all of my heart that you would wake up and take me into your bed
with you. But then I realize that if you woke up, you would see me
drooling on your blanket with a crazed look in my eyes and you would
probably kick me out. Alas, I cannot live this lie any longer. My
cockles are bursting with lust and begging for your sensual touch. I
will not rest until I can fulfill my ultimate fantasy of licking pesto
sauce from between your 2nd and 3rd toes on your left foot. I can
only dream that when I return to our nest tonight, you will be waiting
for me with basil, garlic, and olive oil in one hand and a blender in
the other.

I love you, J!!!

Yours ALWAYS
K

the face of justice

I learned from a professor yesterday that the tomato, though technically a fruit, is legally designated as a vegetable. Yes, folks, a court of law took it upon themselves to decide whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. The case has not been overruled, so it is, I presume, still good law:

Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert.
Nix v. Hedden 149 U.S. 304, *307, 13 S.Ct. 881, **882 (U.S.1893)

What does this say about our justice system?

near the van gogh museum, amsterdam, holland, 2002 

patong, phuket, krabi, thailand 

on on on on on

that's how i've been feeling lately. like i'm always on.

on stage, on edge, whatever you call it.

it's just the stress, i know, but it really takes a toll. i have insomnia again, and at night i lay awake in bed thinking of the list of things i need to do the next day, even though i had just written them all down to keep myself from having to think about them.

hopefully after tomorrow's presentation everything will return to some semblance of normalcy.

one really, really bad thing about my going to hong kong for the summer is that i will be missing some of the most important days in the lives of my friends and family. i'm going to miss my sister's high school graduation and i feel horrible about it. i'm also going to miss a good friend's wedding. all this missing important milestones in loved one's lives has really caused me to think hard about pursuing a career in international law. glamorous, yes, but i am not sure i am ready to exchange the milestones that i will inevitably miss out on, for a career that i love.

i'm working on a fraud case where i have absolutely no idea how to help my client even though i know she is clearly right--there's just not enough evidence for her case, and she has some credibility issues that make it very unlikely she will win. makes me feel kind of helpless.

Birthday dinner at Harney Sushi, San Diego 

officially old

i had such a great time at my birthday dinner!

one of the hardest things about "growing up" for me was realizing that the house i grew up is was no longer my home. and with the disappearance of a physical place to come home to, something inside me shrank--i always felt out of place, always in a state of transition, like my apartment, or even my own skin--is something i inhabit only temporarily.

i still feel that way (i think--or at least i hope--it's a side effect of being in your twenties), but i felt it even more after i moved to san diego, because i was no longer surrounded by the friends and family i've known all my life.

there's a saying that you can judge who a person is by looking at their friends. and looking around the table at my birthday dinner, i really hope it's true, because i was completely amazed at the quality of the people surrounding me.

every one of them extraordinary.

it felt so good to have so many people i love in the same room, all sharing sake and beer and sushi, and having a great time. i guess i hadn't realized how many friends i had made, and how much all of them mean to me.

it was the first night that i realized that when i leave san diego, i'm really going to miss this place and all the wonderful people i've met here.

Vienna 

24 hours and counting....

until i turn a quarter century old.

halfway to 50.

BBQ

The food service industry is NOT my calling in life. That, at least, is a lesson I've learned today.

I just planned and executed a fundraiser BBQ for 100 people.

Menu:
Baked chicken marinated in garlic, onion, ginger, soy sauce, limes and wine
Korean BBQ Beef
Sausage, mushroom, bell pepper and onion Kebabs
Rice and Salad


I made all the food myself. ALL OF IT. I had help assembling and grilling, but the gruesome parts were left to me. I think I cooked my weight in food.

Ever sink your arm up to the elbow in a vat of raw chicken? It's a feeling that stays with you--not to mention the lingering raw meat stench--for days.

Lovely. Just lovely.

I usually salivate at the thought bbq kebabs, chicken and Korean beef. But I've spent so much time in such close proximity with all of these things the past few days that I don't think I'll be eating anything any of it for awhile.

Wrestling with 30 pounds of raw meat, scurrying around all over the damned city to buy supplies and ingredients, I started to become a little disgruntled.

It's all for a good cause, of course. But goddamn, it was a LOT of work.

I have a newfound respect for restauranteurs.

a few doses of reality

as i was leaving work today, a man called out: hey, you're a law clerk, aren't you? Yes, I said.

He introduced himself, gave me his card, and told me he was compelled to impart to me some words of wisdom about the realities of the practice of law. When he was done, about 10 minutes later, I was pretty traumatized. Let's just say he didn't have a positive outlook on things. I hope I end up one of the lucky ones, who actually find a job and am able to make my staggering loan payments.

There is a couple in the apartment building next to mine, whose balcony I can see from my bedroom window. I rarely see them, but I can hear them. They get into the worst arguments--the ones where the woman is yelling so loud her voice becomes barely intelligible, like a scream and a sob combined. Like the anguished cry of an animal. Sometimes she screams "Stop," and I cringe, hoping it isn't because he's hitting her.

People can be so--inhuman when they get angry. The things I've said to people I love when I'm angry, especially my family, I am too ashamed to even write in my journal (the paper and ink one). It's sad that we only say these things to people that we know (or assume) will not leave. It's true that we are most hurtful to the ones who love us the most.

My boyfriend has taught me a lot. In the three years we've dated, he has never even once raised his voice at me. As a result, I have never gotten to that primal-scream, yelling-hurtful-things-I-don't-mean state with him.

sherry once told me that her sister told her love is like a dance that you have to learn, clumsily perhaps at first, that requires you to lead at times and yield at times, and that can't be performed without both people operating in sync. i think i'm beginning to learn what that means.

Central station, Hong Kong MTR (the subway) 

today

the hand of the almighty reached down to pull my happy-ass, butterfly-admiring, sunshine-soaking self back to reality, and i realized that i am about to be crushed by the weight of unfinished assignments and finals panic. i have a 30-minute presentation tuesday on a 30-50 page paper (that i have not started writing yet) discussing the environmental effects of china's WTO accession, a topic on which i possess little to no knowledge. then i will crawl into a corner and cry, because i also know nothing about 1) criminal procedure, 2) federal income taxation, and 3) international commercial arbitration, which are my other 3 classes that i will fail.
and there are dead butterflies everywhere.

yesterday

Stella, one of my oldest friends, came down to SD and we went to Pacific Beach. Hung out, walked in the sand, met up with 2 other people who also went to our high school, ate yummy pizza, and watched Sin City.

The movie was really violent, but it was filmed so artistically that I didn't mind. It really does look like a comic book brought to life. I just wish I were more familiar with the comic, so I could better appreciate the nuances of the film I knew i missed. Elijah Wood was SO creepy, ewwwwwww....

Stella is moving to Hawaii in two weeks--something that I have always dreamt of doing--just picking up and leaving.

What would it feel like to know you have before you an open book, and nowhere to return to?

Spain and the USA united in Vienna for the 2005 nipple pinching championships.