Clara Nina

this is clara:

the facts say she's my cousin.  the truth says she's my sister.  about a month ago, clara was hit by a frontrunner train.  the details of this accident are not important or the focus of this post.  clara is. 

she's been in the hospital since she was in the accident.  she moved out of the ICU on wednesday meaning that i got to go and visit her for the first time tonight.  she wasn't fully awake, but she was there.

clara is my childhood hero.  we shared a room at jacob lake for the summers during my formative years.  she's six years older than me and i thought (and think) that she was the coolest person to ever walk the earth.  if she cut her hair, i cut mine.  if she grew it out, so did i.  she had brown eyes, so i hated my blue.  she was 6 feet tall, that was my goal.  she had elastics for her braces, i strung them through my teeth.  she taught me about the finer things in life:

1)  scottish boys and their accents,
2)  lake powell,
3)  how to achieve the perfect tan,
4)  cinema,
5)  music,
6)  how to flirt,
7)  tasteful dance moves,
8)  the art of the mixtape,
9)  late night conversationing, and
10) basketball.

she also taught me the importance of being kind and generous, of making people feel included and important.  she taught me the power and strength of being sweet and gracious.  she showed me how to fight and how to strive for those things that are good and worthy.  she is funny, happy, and pure. she brings light along wherever she goes.  she's not afraid to get in and work and she won't stop until the job's finished.  she gives warmth to everyone she meets and is somehow unaware of the effect she always has.  she provided the best example i could have ever asked for.  she is the older sister i didn't have, but didn't need because she is there. 

clara has not changed a bit.  she is still strong, fighting, and beautiful.  she is still the woman that i want to be when i grow up, moreso now than ever.  with the Lord, our prayers, and her will, this will be overcome and added to her benefit.  and she continues to add to our benefit, just as she always has.

things i love

i'm currently sitting in a civil procedure review.  civil procedure is my favorite class.  it is also the most boring and the most difficult.  but it is my favorite nonetheless because of my professor, Lincoln Davies.  as its title states, civil procedure is a procedural class.  i had no idea that there was legal procedure before i set foot in davie's class.  but of course it makes sense.  justice couldn't proceed willy nilly and actually be served.  and so our lovely court system has created one billion rules that lawyers must follow at every conceivable point of a lawsuit in order to get said suit into and out of a trial.  and let me tell you, these rules are detailed.  and poorly written.  confusing, boring, and obscure.  you never see sam waterston or matlock whip out their book of federal rules of civil procedure (or, in their case, criminal procedure, but potato potato) and win a case based on some lame provision in some lame rule because everyone's eyes would glaze over and the tv show would bomb.  but, let me assure you, this does happen in real life.

anyway, what i'm trying to say is that civil procedure is not the most scintillating of all topics.  but it is my favorite because i had a really exceptional teacher.  he is someone who puts his whole heart and soul into teaching, teaching well, and teaching memorably.  having just been a teacher myself, that was the first thing i noticed about lincoln.  and he has never, ever dropped that ball.  he's stayed interesting and interested the semester through making the subject favorable because of himself and nothing else.

which leads to a greater truth: good people make life (the good or the bad) good.  people are the best (and possibly the worst, but that is not what we are focusing on) things in the world.  they are daily what i am most grateful for, the things that i simply could not live with out and hurt the most when they are lost.  they are what make life special and memorable, by in large.  and that is why i came to law school.  because, through the law, i can work with people.

i met with a councilor yesterday so that she could check out my legal resume and a legal cover letter that i wrote and make sure they are up to snuff.  one of the suggestions she had on my resume is that i really should include those things that i am most interested in because, along with everything else impressive and important that i am supposed to have done, they set me apart.  they make me into a person to the person who will be interviewing me.  and for some reason, that brought me such hope and comfort.  i can bring those things that have claim on my heart to help me find work in a similar situation.

that relates back to the whole "i love people" rant that i went on earlier in this post because i am interested in every one of my interests (basically) because of the people that they are connected to.  law school has been the most difficult for me not because of the subjects or time that it requires or the new ways that it makes me think, but because i feel like i have lost my people due to a change in location, situation, and a lack of time. and then yesterday, talking about writing a resume, i finally saw the light at the end of the law school: it actually can bring me closer to the things that i love and the people that have made them lovable.  there are so many things that i want in this life.  and law school really can help me get there.

here are a few more things that i love:

1) horse camp!!

2) this. movie. looks.  awesome.

                  a) partially due to this girl's style.  i seriously want ALL of this.

         
3) please listen to the translation so that you know exactly how hilarious this song is.  but know the dance is not for the faint of heart.

4) davies rapping about jml/rmjml (judgment as a matter of law/renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law)

it's backwards because bert made a t-shirt out of it and wore it on the last day of class.

i met the perfect man when i was four

two words: Gilbert. Blythe.

i grew up loving this flawless specimen of maledom, watched him grow from a dashing young scamp into a heart-melting, tear-jerking,  quintessential man.  let's walk through his perfection, shall we?

1) he's tall, dark, and handsome.
2) he's foreign.
3) he's got an accent.
4) he's really good at apologizing.
5) he's devoted.
6) he's smart.
7) he's ambitious, i.e., he knows what he wants (you/anne) and he is going to do whatever it takes to get it (you/anne), even if that means waiting for like 10 years.
8) he's a doctor.
9) his last name means happy/cheerful.
10) he's got great fashion sense.
11) moments 8:07-10:39 of this clip.

and really, what more do you need?  now, don't get me wrong.  i love mr. darcy (the REAL mr. darcy), dimitri, and jim halpert as much as the next girl, but there is something about gil and his undying love for a melodramatic diva with red hair.  because as you watch him love annoying anne for 6 hours, you just know that if there was some way to bridge the barrier between you and avonlea, you would blow his mind.

i guess what i'm trying to say here is, gilbert, i would give you diamond sunbursts and marble halls because the only one for me is you.