I see Blue. He looks glorious!

Thanksgiving is upon us. That fills me with much joy which is shortly followed by heart stopping dread: Thanksgiving means finals are here. Kill me now.

As I have frequently whined, both here and to my dear Mother, this semester has been two inches over the line of "biting off more than you can chew." To be fair, it's my own fault. Also, it's been a good semester. I've learned a lot, or I think I have. Memory of the last four months comes and goes... In any event, it's almost over, and thank heavens for that. I'm still alive!!!! Success. :)

I only have two finals this year, which isn't too bad. I do have to do a trial notebook and write a reflection paper, but the paper shouldn't be too bad. The trial notebook . . . I'm sure it won't be too bad once I figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. You know, all in a days work. Speaking of which, I'm really enjoying my job which is always a plus. My internship is almost over, and I'm kind of sad about that. It's been a lot of fun interning at the court, and I learned a lot. All things considered, it's been a good semester.

But the next four weeks are going to be a little bit insanity-inducing. I don't envy the 1Ls though. At least I know what's coming. I feel like it's easier to face impending doom if you know how it will show it's ugly face, so in that regard, this year is infinitely better than last year. Seriously though, I'm just worried about finals because I'm always worried about finals. I did fairly well on my midterms and I didn't study at all for either one of those. So hopefully that means if I study for my finals, I'll do just as well. Midterms scores are supposed to be indicative of final scores, right?....

Anyway, I'm coming home for Thanksgiving this year. I really shouldn't because I'll just be studying the whole time, but I'm excited to see my family! It will be very difficult to concentrate on my work when all I want to do is hang with the fam, so I've come up with a plan. I fully intend on putting my nieces and nephews to work researching statutes and finishing my memos. By the time I leave, they'll all be lawyers, and all of my work will be done. Genius? I think so. They're parents can thank me later.

Anyway, in other news, the trial team got the problem for the competition. It's a negligence case, so that will be fun. I'm really excited about being on the team. I think it'll be a good experience, plus I'm a total law nerd and get very excited about participating in pretend litigation. Other than that, I haven't really had any adventures of late. It's been all work and school which has made Abby a very dull girl. So, while my nieces and nephews are slaving away on all of my work, I am going to get all of my playing in. It's gonna be a good week. See you on Tuesday!

Well, I'd like to help, but not as much as I'd like not to

I never thought I'd be grateful it was Monday, but today I am grateful it is Monday. It has been a ridiculously long weekend, but that's what I get for being on the moot court board.

This weekend was the ABA Negotiations Competition. It was held at Albany Law School this year, and Erin and I were the ones in charge of organizing and running the damn thing. Well, Erin was in charge. I just helped.

Anyway, hosting a competition involves all kinds of headaches. There's the obvious stuff: scheduling rooms, sending the information to the teams, finding a hotel for them to stay at (they make their own reservations, but we had to call the hotel and tell them we needed like 50 rooms or something. I don't remember the exact number, but it was a lot, so they gave us a discount. Or, they gave the teams a discount, rather. Anyway). We also had to find judges for the competition, which is one of the bigger pains in the ass. Not only did we have to find 35 attorneys/judges/arbitrators to come judge for us, but you inevitably have someone drop out at the last minute. We actually did pretty well. No one dropped out at the last minute, but two of our judges did fail to show up. We had enough to cover, though so all was well. And really, only two judge issues? Not too bad.

Anyway, so there was much involved in preparation. We've been getting ready all semester, but last week was particularly busy. We were at the school stuffing envelopes and getting team packets ready on Wednesday, and then we spent all night Friday getting all the last minute stuff done. Erin, and I (and a few of the Moot Court board members) got to the school at 7:15 Saturday morning to get everything set up. And then we were there until 8:30 that night. It was a long damn day. And I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to wear high heels. NEVER AGAIN! My back still hurts.

Sunday was our final round. We got there at 7:30 to get it all set up, and then we were done by 12:30. We got to watch the final round (I was actually the time keeper) which was kind of fun. Afterwards, Erin and I did the clean up and organized the massive amount of paperwork we had. I honestly feel like we should plant a small forest to make up for all the trees we killed for our competition... I actually got home at 4 PM yesterday, which wasn't bad at all. There was another competition going on which Erin and I were planning on staying and helping with, but Dana and Chris (Chair of the competition and Executive director of MC) were nice enough to let us go home. So we did.

Anyway, the competition went smoothly. We had a few issues, but they were solved quickly and mostly without incident. It was kind of fun to get to meet students from other schools. AND one of our teams actually won the competition!! Woot! Go Albany Law! That means they get to go to New Orleans in the Spring for the national competition. We were very proud. :)

Anyway, so it was a long weekend. I now know what it feels like to run a moot court competition and do not feel the desire to do it again. I still have to help with the other competitions, but that's not so bad. I'm glad our competition is over and done, and I'm very glad it's Monday.

My mama always told me someday I'd be good at something. Who'd a guessed that something'd be zombie-killing?

Happy belated Halloween!!

Last weekend I went to Miami. That's right: Miami.I think I'm gonna move there.

Anyway, I have friends that live down there and they invited me down for the weekend. It was so much fun! I way bad needed a vacation, and that was a perfect place to go. I had so much fun hanging out with my friends, and it was 80 degrees all weekend long.

Friday night was the big Halloween party. I dressed up as Cleopatra this year.What do you think? I thought I made a pretty good lil Queen of the Nile. Anyway, we went to Rita's house for a pregame (Rita's the one in the middle) and then headed to some place called Villa 221 for the party. There was dancing, laughing, and fun had by all. I got to see some of my other friends from Spain, and made a few new friends in the process. A successful evening, I would say. :)

I didn't get back to Kimmie's place until about 4 in the morning, so I slept until noon the next day, but when I did finally drag myself out of bed, Kimmie, Vinnie, and Alejandro showed me around town. We went to South Beach, which was awesome. I know it's ironic because I really hate (read 'am terrified of') the ocean, but I way love the beach. So long as sharks don't grow legs and learn to walk, I could totally be a beach bum. Anyway, it started raining, so we headed indoors. They showed me their school, which was fun to see. There was even a little montage of pictures from Spain. Then we headed back to Kimmie's. The rain was coming down pretty hard, and we soon lost power. We were all starving so we decided to drive around town until we found some place that still had power and ended up at Applebees where I had a Blondie, and life was good. :)

Anyway, it was a great weekend. I had so much fun hanging out with my friends; it was a much needed break. I'm glad I was able to go down! I told them all they needed to come visit me, but there was unanimous consent to wait until winter was over. Who wouldn't want to come visit NY in the winter?... :P