hasta luego

tomorrow is my last day at immigration court.  i'm pretty sad about that.  i have loved it there.

adoption

i have always wanted to adopt.  my interest in adoption is what led me to law school.  when i was in vienna on a study abroad, we had a family come in and tell us about their adoption process for one of our religion classes.  it was a sad, sad story full of unjust laws that worked against those children who would have benefitted so greatly from being adopted.  and so i thought to myself, "self, that is what we should do.  we should fix adoption laws."  that is what got me trotting down the long and winding path to the s.j. quinney school of law.

little did i know then that changing adoption laws would be out of the question, but that is neither here nor there.  the point is that i always have and always will think that adoption is wonderful and the life for me.  i can't think of anything better than opening my home to a child(ren) who have none.

if i could, i would adopt these little ones right now:

not that i know that they need to be adopted, but i would adopt them nonetheless.

i grew up being friends with kids from a family of thirteen, seven of which had been adopted.  one of them was adopted from the united states.  the other six have come from various places dotting china.  the adoptions didn't only make the lives of the adopted children, but of everyone in the family.  it brought another culture, language, and awareness to everyone.  it broadened the idea of family and love and relation beyond blood for so many, including myself.

i will do everything in my power to have that influence in my life.

summer driving

i never don't want to travel.  i usually look across some water for where i want to go.  but not this year. probably because i have NO money and even those dreams seem too expensive.  besides, the united states can be pretty cool.  look at everything that we have to offer.

so, i've been dreaming closer to home.  but not in the west.  i've been all over the west/southwest.  i will accept the northwest, but nothing lower than oregon and farther east than the washington/oregon/idaho border.  except for yosemite.  i will go to yosemite, but that is the only thing that i will look at in california.

that would be a great trip:

start in yosemite

drive up the oregon coast.  stop off in portland just to check it out a little bit.  end up in forks, washington.  because there is no way i am going to get that close and not check it out.

(lupe, is that you?)


or, i could check out that block of middle states past new mexico, colorado, wyoming, and montana.  you know, the dakotas, kansas, nebraska, oklahoma, indiana, illinois, ohio, iowa.  those sorts of states.  i drove through them once.  so, so many amber waves of grain.  i could drop in on the corn palace in iowa:

that entire facade is made out of corn.  i know.  i have seen it.  i think that the corn palace should have been built closer to the kansas underground salt museum, where i would also visit.  i wouldn't be opposed to stopping by mount rushmore while i'm in the area.  i would want to eat a big old slice of apple pie on someone's porch while the national anthem wafted in from some unknown somewhere.  and, in all seriousness, i would need to go to chicago.  i've never been.  a horrible oversight.

then i would round it all off by participating in a rebellious dance.

but i REALLY want to go here:

the. south.

i have been there a couple a times in my life.  and a couple is just not enough.  just look at the food they've got going on in this part of the country.  the first time i went there, the first thing that i saw was a car with spinners with 5 inch blades coming out of them.

those whirring lines in the middle of that spinner are not whirring lines.  they are whirring blades.  and as soon as i saw that, i knew that the south was a worthwhile place to be.  there are just too many things that i want to see to list, atlanta, the outer banks, plantations, anything and everything to do with gone with the wind, the great smokey mountains, maybe mardi gras...but may be not.  i could list forever.  i would want to come back changed, completely different saying things like, "y'all" and "might could" and "mmmmmmmhmmmmmmmm".  i would want to know how to cook chitlins, fish and grits, georgia peach pie, grandma's homemade baked biscuits, hush puppies, barbecue,  and deep fried anything.  i would want to get cornrows, but would be too embarrassed.  i would think i could rap, but really couldn't.  and then i would need to go to washington dc.  i haven't been there since i was 7, and that is just not cutting it.

i realize i've completely disregarded the great lakes states and new england.  as soon as they get cooler, i dream about going there too.  heh.

rhythm and blues

you can't study to rap.  but you can to r&b.  its soulful sound and optimism has mitigated the melancholy inherent in so much of law school, especially in finals season.  r&b is responsible for any triumph i may exercise over this semester's tests.

here are just a few of my favorites right now:

1) love you long time- jazmine sullivan

2) like the sea- alicia keys

- i also wish i looked exactly like her.  i tried to emulate that on sunday by doing a couple of braids loosely resembling cornrows and wearing huge earrings.  who knows if it was successful or not.

3) refill- elle varner

4) brown sugar- d'angelo

- too smooth to be healthy.

5) pass me over- anthony hamilton

- this is my favorite of all favorites.

thank you, r&b.

turns out

i like the socratic method.  it is terrifying, strikes fear into the strongest of hearts being called on in front of the class to be harassed into answering any and every twisted question or hypothetical that the professor can muster.  and, let me assure you, they can muster a lot.  you are expected to have an answer and and an argument on the spot because that is what lawyers do.  they think on the spot.  they have answers for everything.  they don't hesitate.  they don't show fear.  neither should we.  the point of law school is to torture students into being brave.  

it works.  the socratic method makes me work really hard learn the law because 1) i don't want to look like an idiot, and 2) i don't want to let my professor down.  when a professor cold-calls on me, it feels like they have entrusted me with the sacred task of teaching a concept.  i want to rise to the calling, to show them that their spontaneous and voluntary trust has been well placed.  

i don't feel this same symbiosis, teamwork, interdependence with teachers that don't call on me out of the blue, who give me fair and reasonable warning that they are planning on making an idiot out of me on a given day.  when i am given time to prepare, i don't prepare as well.  and i only prepare for when my preparation is necessary.  

apparently i like hard knocks.  does that make me self-destructive or gangster?  is there a difference?  jay-z probably knows.  

perfect brightness of hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

i love hope.  i haven't always.  i saw it as the lesser sister of faith.  faith is power.  faith is action.  faith moves mountains.  hope pales in comparison.  or so i thought.

hope is a lot sneakier than i originally gave her credit for.  hope has a dual identity.  it can be a wish, a desire for far off and possibly undeserved, unrealistic somethings.  it can be passive and dispassionate, as unassertive as "when you wish upon a star."  not that i dislike wishing on stars.  i love it.  but i never expect those wishes to fall into my lap.  i expect to work for the things that i want.  saying a wish is not enough.  having a hope is not enough.

but, hope can also be something much more powerful.  it is a principle of strength.  hope is that bright little light that gets you through, keeps you moving.  it is the calm that inspires faith, trust, belief, and confidence in the promise of possibility, and the might to hold on when the other, bigger virtues fail you.  this hope is not completely separate from the other.  it gets its sweetness from its wishfulness, from its ability to believe, even if just a little, in something better.

"Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, but sure and steadfast..." Hebrews 6:19

(thanks for the song, hannie.)

shower time

i have been known to sing in the shower.  and by sing i mean put on full concerts.  like, sold-out-show-in-the-vienna-opera-house style, holding nothing back, belting it out like that famous fat lady. 

today i sang for the first time in my new shower.  i've been showering silently since we moved in, hesitant to give my roommates tangeable evidence that i am a weirdo.  but today, i just couldn't help myself.  i mean, the shower is huge and echo-y, and after humming a few notes to test the acoustics, i was a gonner.  there was nothing for it but to sing. 

here is my typical shower playlist:

only the most emotional and melodious songs make the cut for shower-time-singing.  it is not the venue for hip-hop, and rap sounds ridiculous bouncing off the walls reminding me repeatedly that i am, in fact, not black.  no, the shower a place where emotions run free. 

my singing career started when i was 3 or 4.  i made up my own songs then, though.  my favorites were, "flowers grow and flowers die" and "you are precious, precious to me".  not only are those the titles of the songs, they are the lyrics as well, repeated to taste.  i later advanced to "somewhere out there" the reading rainbow theme.  it has exploded from there. 

it has recently come to my attention that i know next to no boyz II men.  i'm pretty embarrassed admitting that.  especially since they would make such an amazing addition to the playlist mentioned above.  starting the day off with this song and a nice shower just feels right.