Welcome to my life, new friend!

I'm not going to do this too often but what happened to me yesterday deserves that I talk about someone other than myself. It's not that I'm so conceited that the only person I will talk about is myself; it's that I don't have anyone's permission to refer to them and I am not trying to step on any toes. Anyway! I was hanging out by the pool yesterday with a friend from school. There were a couple other people there that I did not know, but there were so few of us that we were all talking to each other. One of the dudes there heard my accent and asked where I was from. After telling him I was from Trinidad and 20 minutes of questions from him, (in which he carefull masked his accent) he revealed that he too was from Trinidad!! He went to Baylor undergrad and just finished grad school. Crazy right?! Also, one of his friends from Trinidad was supposed to come visit him yesterday but his plans fell thru. Turns out I met his friend 5 years ago before I started college. He was interning for my dad and we met for lunch to talk about the SATs and schools I should apply to. I thought Trinidad was small but apparently Texas is even smaller! Well needless to say, I just made a new friend. Yay me!

Another fun cooking story!

So I've been trying new things with recipes. By trying new things, I mean I have tried not to cook the same thing over and over. When I first started cooking this summer, I ate pasta daily with chicken pan seared and pasta sauce. I was really good at that. 15 minutes and done. But I got bored quickly. I remembered that before leaving for law school, I purchased a cookbook packed full or recipes from Trinidad and Tobago as well as some of the other Caribbean nations. I dusted it off (it was at the bottom of my shelf for the past 10 months) and opened it up excited for my cooking adventure!

First task: Stewed chicken. Recipe books have these wonderful proportions for if you are cooking for 4 or if you are using 2 pounds of meat etc. Seeing that I live alone, I am usually cooking for 1 (maybe with 2 or 3 servings so I can carry it with me to school the next day). The problem with that is reducing the requisite amount and weights to suit my requirements. To begin with, I am a law student; math is hardly my strong point. Dividing by 2 is about the extent of my expertise. Well you tell me, if the recipe calls for 2 pounds of chicken, how do you reduce it for 2 chicken breasts?! I didn't even know how much 2 chicken breasts weigh. Anyway, I was unphased by this. I looked at this as an adventure, so excited to see how my chicken would come out. Well that excitement was short lived. At first my chicken was too sweet (what did I expect after mistakenly putting an entire pot spoon of sugar in the pot?!) Then to cut the sweet, I added the spice Hot Shot. I shook that about 12 times over the pot b/c I could not see it coming out of the container. Needless to say, just b/c I could not see it, does not mean it was not coming out! My super sweet chicken became too spicy. To cut the spice, I added Teriyaki Sauce. I was pulling at straws here, I am not an experienced chef, but I figured with good common sense and help from my mom, I would be ok. FALSE. It was sweet, spicy, salty chicken. It tasted nothing like my mother's stew chicken but I sucked it up and ate every bite.

Stew Chicken take 2: So this time, I got all the proportions down. I was soooo excited. A typical Trini side for stew chicken is macaroni pie. I organized to borrow my friend's casserole dish (why would I own a casserole dish?!) and did everything right with my pie. It was beautiful but there is a story for that one too...stay tuned. Anyway, my second go at stew chicken was going well. It tasted good, I had all the right ingredients, etc. So I decided that it needed to cook for a little longer. I'd say 5 minutes passed but I am not 100% sure. All I know is the next time I looked at my chicken it, all the water in the pot had dried out, the bottom of the pot was black, the chicken was all burned. I was devastated! I was not even hungry anymore. I'd started cooking at like 5...it was now 7:30 and I was over it!

Macaroni Pie: This one is the best. The pie was great so I am not even going to take time talking about the process. The entire ordeal can be summed up in a very short story. As I was putting the casserole dish in the oven, I heard a sizzle. By the time I caught what was going on, I had burned a few layers of skin from my arm off. It is currently swollen and b/c I am a klutz, whatever skin remained around the perimeter has been removed thru inadvertence on my own part. Yesterday, as I was putting my back pack on, the shoulder strap took of a bit. Later that night, I sat on my arm (what?!) and took off the rest. It's red and puffy and it's going to heel into a really gross looking scar, but the pie was the best thing I made all night.

For years my mother has been encouraging me to learn how to cook. After this entire ordeal, she finally agreed with the assertion I have been making my entire life: I am going to have to make a lot of money as an attorney to hire someone to cook for me b/c it is not worth the incidental damages I suffer as a result of my attempts!

Haiku Friday

I'm new to the blogging world, so I love reading what others do to keep their blogs interesting. I came across this idea on one of my professor's blogs: Haiku Friday. Will I write a haiku every Friday? Probably not b/c coming up with a topic is borderline impossible. However, I'm def. going to write one today :-)

Constitutional Law:

Whistles with each S
We are his daily from 2
3:30 come soon!

So this is kinda random, but that's how I am so deal with it. Today (earlier this morning to be exact) I realized that in my present state, I am incapable of fending off an attacker. Don't be alarmed, I was not attacked this morning...at least not for real. I had a dream that I was walking at night and I entered a dark alley. After I was too far in to turn back, I noticed another person in the alley as well, and he noticed me. Anyway, I have had discussions with people before about why I have no need for a gun so I decided to attempt the various tactics I said I would use. Thru this experience I realized a few things:
1. It's very hard to yell if a. you don't have a voice and b. there is no one around to hear.
2. If someone is trying to attack you, it is unlikely that he will have a rational conversation with you. Yes, I tried to reason with my attacker. I told him that I would give him everything I had. I also told him that I would not tell anyone about this little exchange. I said there was no need to do to me what I was sure he planned. None of these worked.
3. Pepper spray would be an awesome keychain adornment. However, after thinking this, I got really nervous that either I would not have my keys readily at hand, and if I did, what if I started getting paranoid after this encounter (yeah in my dream I thought that this would scar me forever) and spray anyone who startled me. I thought it might be too dangerous for someone in my vulnerable position to carry pepper spray.
4. It's probably better not to walk late at night, by myself into dark alleys. It actually made me chuckle a little that this was one of the last things i came up with. You would think that was the obvious!
5. There are a few possessions that I am not willing to give up. During the encounter, I thought about trying to run away. What kept me from doing so, other than my belief that it probably would not work? My unwillingness to lose my laptop and my iPhone. I was actually horrified that I could not muster the good common to just throw that stuff and run. Also, for a second I thought about trowing my phone at him. That thought only lasted a second b/c I could not think about parting with it. Crazy...I know!
6. I am the master of my dreams! I don't have to lay there and watch as awful things happen to me MY dream! So yeah, I woke up.

I was absolutely terrified throughout this entire ordeal. Now I'm still kinda nervous about what would happen if something like that really happened to me. For now, I am going to rest assured that I am not going to get into that situation. No...still not getting a gun.

Oh I'm sorry...did I hurt your feelings?

It's kinda funny how sometimes, if something good happens to you, that means that either something bad happened to someone else, or in most cases, everyone did not get that good thing happen to them. In the latter case, it means that you have 2 options: be happy because something good happened to a friend or sulk that the same did not happen to you. Why is it that in most cases we choose the latter? Why does a friend's celebration of something awesome happening to them equate to them hurting your feelings because you did not achieve such success? Being in law school has introduced me to some of the most interesting people I have ever met. I love the competitiveness but it would be nice to have people genuinely happy sometimes. If your congratulations are overshadowed by the fact that you wish you had what I had, please don't congratulate me. Seriously. The craziest part though, is it is not the underachievers who sulk about good things happening to others. It's the people who are freaking set. They have good grades and for the most part, they get what's going on in law school. Yet any success achieved by anyone else, not including them is likely to devastate them. Here's my advice: Grow up. Learn to deal with the fact that sometimes, good things are going to happen to other people, not including you. Recognize that if someone is happy and celebrating his or her success, it is probably not to taunt you. Actually, i guarantee that that person is not even thinking about you. And no, that does not make them self-centered. You are the self-centered one for thinking that everything revolves around you. Ok...I'm done with this rant. Please don't assume that it is targeted at anyone specific. I promise it is not. It's just that after 10 months of law school, I've noticed some things over and over and I decided to write about it. Also, I have not posted anything new on my blog in a while so I figured why not write about this.
I'm out.

Absent minded much?

Today was one of those days where pretty much everything I could forget to do, I forgot to do. Maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but here's why I say that. I went to Walmart today because my electric bill was $120 last month! I bought a fan b/c I blamed that exorbitant bill on the fact that I left my a/c running when I go to class (even though I would set it to 78 degrees). Anyway, I went to buy a fan. I purchased the fan and a few other things. The cashier had to yell after me because I walked out without my bags, quite content with my fan purchase. Then I got home and was doing hw. I fell asleep after reading maybe 5 pages. After waking up at 10:30 pm, I checked my text messages only to see that I missed my 6 pm student government meeting. I then checked my email and noticed that I received a facebook message from someone I didn't know. She identified herself as a Walmart employee writing to inform me that she found my wallet in one of the carts in the parking lot. Yeah. After I took my things out of the cart, I walked about 15 meters to place my cart carefully in the cart thingy (no idea what that's called) and I left my wallet for anyone interested to take! Needless to say, I rushed back to Walmart and collected my wallet, thanked the manager profusely and came back to my apt. The entire time, I was wondering why I was so preoccupied, causing me to forget so many things to today. Anyway, I'm awake, it's 2 am so I figure I'm going to be awake for a bit longer, why not make something to eat. I boil water, checking periodically to see when the water boiled. I placed the pasta in the water, checking periodically to see when the pasta was cooked. After I drained the pasta, I placed the cover of my pot on the burner (yeah...you see where this is going). I put pasta sauce in with some cheese. My late night snack was delish! So I'm sitting in my room and I notice that I can smell something in the kitchen. Instantly realizing what I did, I rush out to turn the stove off! The plastic lid handle had completely melted. To makes matters worse, before I could think to stop myself, I placed the lid in the sink and turned the water on. Guess what happened? Yup...it shattered. In the sink. On the side with the waste disposal. So now I have to clean up pieces of glass from the disposal before I forget and turn the thing on. Funny thing is, I was not even planning to write any of this down but upon almost burning my apt to the ground and it now being filled with smoke (I have no idea why the smoke detector did not go off and wake my roommate that I have seen once since she moved in last week). I'm pretty sure my lungs are filling with toxic smoke as I write! I guess that's what I get for eating dinner at 2 am.

My first post...hope you're excited!

I recently realized that several of my friends had blogs and I got to thinking...what about everyone else is so awesome that people actually want to read about it? After posting this question on facebook, I was told that as talkative as I was, I need to blog. I was also told that I didn't actually have to a have an interesting life, I just needed to seem like my life was interesting. Taking this advice to heart, here I go.
I'm spending the summer in Waco taking a full course load while also working at the DA's office and doing research with a professor. Anyone that knows me understands that I do stupid thing like this all the time. I get myself in over my head and busy beyond comprehension. Recognizing this about myself, I also plan to babysit to make some extra money and the person that I am babysitting for also wants me to lifeguard. I also decided that I am going to work out more often (3 days a week) and cook for myself daily! The last one is completely new to me because I am pretty sure it is safe to say that I have never purchased groceries before now. Yup, I am good and recognizing my flaws and doing absolutely nothing about it.
This week should not be too busy; one of my professors is out of town so I only have two classes all week. Regular people would take this opportunity to get ahead, I'm using it to catch up! Unlike most other legal interns, I don't write memos, I get to draft appellate briefs and edit my bosses brief. On top of that, I have a 3 inch stack of cases and statistics from my research professor. I have not touched it in weeks...yesterday I got an email asking for a progress report (hopefully she does not read my blog).
I'll end this post by saying that for the smart readers of my blog, you would have instantly caught the fact that the entire post I've been talking about how busy I always am, yet I have the free time to start a blog. It took me until the end of my post to realize that. Oh well...I'll try to keep this going, keeping the world (or at least interested parties) up-to-date on my super awesome Waco life!