Visiting Family

Over the weekend, Chris and I visited my cousin James who lives in Del Mar. Although he may or may not have introduced Chris to a new vice, we will ignore that part and focus on the lovely beach walk to dinner that evening:

On Monday night we stayed on the Camp Pendleton Base with my cousin Sara, her Marine Sargeant husband Ed, and their sweet two-month-old baby Elayna. Within an hour of arriving at their house I had the baby in my lap and Chris had asked if he could shoot Ed's guns. I suppose Chris and I had different priorities during this leg of our trip.

On Tuesday we drove to Los Angeles. Not only did we pick-up Chris's brother Jesse and his wife Vanessa at the airport, but we also went to dinner with Chris's Tia Flor and cousins Madalyn, Carlos, and Sylvia. It was a nice way to end a long day of sitting in traffic.

Zoo and Balboa Park

Went to the San Diego Zoo today. I especially enjoyed the hippos who were sleeping with their giant faces smushed against the viewing glass.

I also enjoyed watching one exhibit of very small monkeys who were eating the stuffing out of a small stuffed animal. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if they were supposed to have a stuffed animal or if the synthetic stuffing was all that healthy....but it was sure entertaining to watch.

The polar bears and the panda bears were a bit of let down. I know that zoo animals should be allowed to nap, but I sure wish they wouldn't choose to do so on the day that I pay $32 to see them. Chris suggested that we throw a coca-cola into the polar bear pool so that the bears would jump into the water to get it. Obviously we did not act on this suggestion, but I think that if tiny monkeys can handle a little stuffing, large polar bears could handle a little soda. Anyhoo, the polar bear below was the most cooperative one we saw.

About half way through the day I started paying attention to the vast variety of strollers that people at the zoo were pushing around. I came to the conclusion that picking out a stroller must be like buying a car and like cars, I prefer compact models.

After leaving the zoo, Chris and I wandered around Balboa Park. It was absolutely lovely. We ended up buying dinner and eating on one of the many lawns. Althouh pictures cannot capture the beauty of the park, here are a couple of pictures I took.

We're in San Diego!

Chris and I left Lubbock yesterday at 7:45 p.m. The excitement of the start of vacation clearly won-out over thinking about the 1,000 mile drive ahead of us.


We drove through the night and at approximately 7:53 Texas time, or 5:53 California Time, we made it to California.


In fact, we made it just in time for a lovely sunrise.


In between Lubbock and California, we passed through Roswell, New Mexico. Due to the late hour, nothing much was out...EXCEPT FOR THE OCCASIONAL ALIEN!

This morning we drove through a stretch of highway teeming with little yellow butterflies. This would have been pretty if the butterflies had been fluttering around next to the highway. Instead, the butterflies were flying around on the highway. For over a mile I grimaced as an unending stream of butterfly guts were spread across the front of our car, sometimes two or three at a time. After a while, butterfly wings littered the pavement and blew around in the windstreams created by passing cars, making the scene that much worse.

After fourteen hours in the car, we checked into our hotel around noon. In the process we learned that the hotel will comp the internet bill if a random sick child vomits on your feet in the hotel lobby. While it was a pretty disgusting lesson, it has enabled me to post this blog. And on the upside, we were not the customer who later wondered by, slipped on the mess, and soaked her dress and legs. Noticing that everyone was staring at her in disbeleif, the customer asked,"Oh, is the floor wet?" After an akward silence during which the hotel staff failed to respond, I decided it was time to get out of there. I did not want to be the one to explain that she was sitting in vomit.

It's vacation time!

Tomorrow Chris and I will leave Lubbock and head to California for 24 days. The plan is to drive straight through to San Diego, make our way up the coast to the Oregon border, and then travel south via the interior national and state parks.

In all honesty, this is more than just a vacation. It is a celebration: law school and the bar exam, IDP and ARE. For two years Chris and I have been meticulously calculating and saving Chris' vacation time so that this celebration could happen. And if Chris I still love each other after 24 days in a compact car and a suitcase, then nothing can come between us.

Yep, this trip is ambitious, awesome, and promises loads of amusing stories and blog-worthy pictures.

Meet Gilso and George...and then say "tchau!"

This summer Gina, a friend who is currently studying music at Texas Tech and is from Brazil, brought her Brother Gilso and his friend George all the way from Belem, Brazil to Lubbock, Texas. We taught them English words like "barge." They taught us that cashew nuts grow like a stem on an edible fruit.

Gilso and George used their exotic origins to gain access to the Bruno house, a privately owned architectural wonder just outside Lubbock. Here we are on one of the house balconies overlooking Ransom Canyon. Oooooo!

But like most other good things, Gilso and George's visit came to an end. Awwww :(

Thankfully they didn't take Gina with them.

Bye-Bye Bar, Bye-Bye BarBri

Last week I took the Texas Bar Exam. As expected, it was a humbling beast of an exam. For those who are curious about what exactly the bar exam consists of, here is the schedule as it appeared on my admission ticket:

On the first two days of the exam, the exam proctors were really strict about collecting all exam materials before we left, but on the third day they told us to take the exam booklets with us as a "souvenir." Huh? I already have plenty of mental souvenirs I can't seem to get rid of; I do not need physical evidence that will pop-up unexpectedly and frighten me. In fact, I finished the last day feeling pretty confident. I do not want to review the exam only to realize my errors, thereby destroying my ignorant state of bliss. Despite all of this, for days I could not bring myself to throw away these stupid exam books. Thus, I convinced myself that taking a picture would make it okay to throw them away. Since I have a picture, why not add it to this otherwise boring post.

And since I'm posting random pictures, I might as well add this rather artistic photo of all the earplugs I found while cleaning out my study materials. I promise I only have two ears....

What the bar exam really consists of is weeks upon weeks of studying a ton of material and then taking the exam only to realize that 1) your nerves really get in the way, 2) there is some stuff you didn't study at all but should have, and 3) making up a rule of law is unexpectedly easy when under pressure. I also learned a lot of life lessons about property: Don't sell the same piece of land more than once, don't forget to record your deed, don't keep loose wild animals on your land, etc.

During the week leading up to the bar exam, I had a minor panic moment that resulted in frantic packing of books and food and moving my study location to the library. I blame it on consumer law essays. Luckily, I didn't cry. Everyone seemed to have a crying story: "I ran out of shampoo in the shower and I started crying," or "I locked myself out of my study room and started crying." I don't have a crying story, but I do have this picture from the break room on the third floor of the law library to which I contributed the flames:

At first someone drew a picture a rainbow and wrote "heaven" on they days directly after hell, but then some pessimistic soul bashed that dream by erasing the rainbow and reminding everyone of the waiting game, referring to the fact that we must wait until Nov. 5 for the exam results. I chose to focus on "675: Do it." That's the minimum passing score.

The day after the exam, I happily returned my study books to BarBrti, the company from whom I took a preparation course. The fate of my books was the back of a pick-up truck with everyone else's books:

What a fitting ending. All that knowledge and all those books seemed so important before the exam, but now....hmmm. What's a contract again?

Kim Takes a Study Break With Ghostland

A couple weeks before the bar exam, Chris and I went to see Ghostland Observatory in concert with some of his co-workers. Aside from the ridiculous two hour line and even more ridiculous two hour wait once inside the venue, it was an awesome night out. Check out the crazy lasers!

It was a sweaty mess at the front of the stage. I chose to enjoy the show from a less sticky location. But those at the front had fun playing with the lasers.

Below is a picture of the drummer/DJ for Ghostland. He always wears a cape when he performs. The awkward placement of his hand, however, was just pure camera luck...

Good music + good people + insane lasers = an excellent study break.

World Cup or Scrapbooking?

A few weeks ago I needed a break from studying. I was hungry, so I ran to a nearby sandwich shop. I picked this particular sandwich shop because a portion of the dining room, which is separated by glass walls, has a TV that is always set to ESPN and I wanted to watch that day's World Cup soccer match. Instead, I ended up sitting at the table right outside the TV room staring through the glass wall at the TV, along with the rest of the patrons. Why? Because a group of eight ladies had reserved the TV room for their monthly scrapbook meeting. They had paper, scissors, and stamps on every single table in that room. As the soccer match heated up above them, they clapped for cards covered in glitter. As we tried to determine the dispute over a goal without the benefit of audio, they huddled around some paper samples. A group of young guys next to me joked about the hotties hogging the room...it was a joke because they were not hot. Needless to say, this joke was the highlight of an otherwise disappointing study break.

Photos Courtesy of Ryan Dixon Photography

My friend Ryan Dixon graciously agreed to take some graduation photos for me. He did an awesome job!

Now without that puffy hat and robe...

And although I may act silly at times...

...I'm also an attorney (almost).

Thanks Ryan!

Remembering How Much I've Forgotten

My bar review course began this week. Two days in and I'm already setting fantastic precedents for the next ten weeks.

The first few days of the course consist of problem sets, or mini tests, in various areas of the law, an exercise that was surely designed to show me how much I once knew but have since forgotten. Even the problem set on property law was a personal failure, despite the fact that I tutored this subject during my second year of law school. My solace? During the review lectures discussing the problems in detail, the lecturers sometimes identify a question as being "tough," "tricky," or the "meat and potatoes." These questions are almost always among the few that I get correct, and I am choosing to believe that this was the result of more than just sheer luck. I'm willing to mislead myself if it means subduing the panic attacks.

On top of realizing that I've forgotten at over 50% of what I learned over the last three years, I was late to class today. That wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't only the second day of class. In my defense, I was running early this morning until my car wouldn't start. The culprit was a dead battery and luckily it was an easy fix. Calm as I was this morning, I could only imagine the very different reaction that such a snafu would evoke if this happened during the actual bar exam: Rather than calmly asking my land lady for a jump start, I would be demanding that she drop everything and immediately drive me to the testing site. Hopefully, for my land lady's sake, I've fulfilled my car trouble quota for the next few months.

Cars

The theme for today is cars. First, Chris had the AC in his Miata repaired. While the Miata was at the shop, I had the windshield replaced in my car. After picking up the Miata, Chris took the RX-7 for spin. He drove less than two blocks before we towed his car home. Now I go to bed with two cars in improved condition and one in worse condition. In sum, not so bad.

Law School is Over!

I began looking forward to graduation the day after spring break ended. During the last few weeks of school, I painfully forced myself to go through the motions. I wrote papers. I drafted documents. I completed assignments. I studied for exams. And then it was here: Graduation weekend.

On friday afternoon my parents and grandparents arrived with the chihuahua. A few hours later my two brothers, Dennis and Casey, arrived in the white Grand Marquis with Mimi sitting in the backseat. Casey hooked his WII up to the TV in their hotel suite. My grandpa called it the weed as he learned how to play WII golf that evening.

Friday night Jesse and Vanessa, my newly-wed brother-in-law and his wife, arrived at our apartment with Vivian, my sister-in-law. I did not know that Vivian was coming with Jesse and Vanessa or else I wouldn't have given our air mattress and sleeping bag to Casey. As a result, Vivian was relegated to layers of blankets piled on top of an extra-long chair cushion.

Saturday morning we prettied ourselves up for church. As the men were selfishly hogging the bathroom, the ladies were left to this less-than-ideal arrangement for doing our make-up:

On our way to church we stopped at the hotel to collect the rest of our party, whereupon a humorous conversation about the name of the pastor at our church ensued (Sven Frantzen, Van Swanson, Vins Ransom?). Although Dennis had stepped out of the shower moments before we arrived, even he was ready to go.

Once at church, Chris disappeared and then reappeared with his parents. The in-laws had arrived, also in a white Grand Marquis, and our graduation entourage was finally complete.

Saturday lunch took place in the community room of our apartment building. It was a completely natural combination of haystacks, enchiladas, and pie.

The meal arrangement required many trips between our apartment on the third floor and the community room on the first floor. With so money people going in and out of the apartment, it was only a matter of time before the chihuahua snuck out. Dennis found her contently walking the halls of our "no pets allowed" building. Fortunately, we have yet to receive any reprimands from our land lady.

The actual hooding ceremony was at six on Saturday evening. With so many people in town for this very event, I found it ironic that I drove to and from the ceremony by myself.

Before I left the apartment, I donned my size three robe and realized that size three means "for three people." Once I arrived at the arena where the ceremony would take place I was surrounded by classmates equally confused about our strange attire. Note how we are all wearing our hats and hoods differently:

(Thanks to Harvey's brother for getting the double T in the background!)

After confusing instructions on how to properly fold our hoods, we marched out into the arena. I am choosing to omit details on the small mistake I made during this procession, other than noting that a small mistake may have occurred. Here is a picture from the actual ceremony. Bet you can't find me (and maybe I can't find myself either...):

After an hour of listening to last names beginning with the letters A through R being called, it was finally my turn to ascend the stage. In law school, any attorney licensed to practice in the state can be your hooding attorney. I was honored to have Prof. Beyer, the professor I work for, be my hooding attorney. After my name was called, I walked on stage and Prof. Beyer placed my hood over my head and around my neck.

And just so you know that law school professors at Texas Tech are not all business all the time, here is a picture of Prof. Beyer and I from Easter:

After the ceremony ended, I found my family wandering the halls of the arena. I successfully corralled everyone together for a group shot:

From Left to Right:

Row one: Vanessa, Jesse, Rudy (Chris's Dad) Mimi, Chris

Row two: Zombie Lulu (Chris's mom), myself, my mom, Grandma, Grandpa

Row Three: Vivian

Row four: Casey, Dennis, my dad.

After the hooding ceremony, we headed back to the apartment. All of our furniture had been moved to the bedroom and the living room had been transformed into a pleasant party room. Again, I found it a bit ironic that I was the first person to arrive, but eventually everyone else showed up.

(If Vivian looks pre-occupied in the last picture, it's because she can't remember where she parked her train).

We feasted on pizza, wings, ice cream, and cake.

We modeled my goofy hat.

And then it was over. Graduation weekend came and went. It was a lovely weekend that makes tomorrow even harder. Tomorrow marks the beginning of more lectures, more reading, and more studying. But it also marks the day that I start looking forward to my post-bar-exam vacation.

California here I come...

Panhandle Beauty

I was in grade school the first time I went to Palo Duro Canyon. My visit lasted no more than one hour - it was the middle of winter, everything was dead, and we were in the midst of a snowstorm (It was also during this trip that I made my first and last visit to Wienerschnitzel, thoroughly grossed out by the idea of a chili-and-sauerkraut-hotdog at 10 a.m.).

A few weeks ago I returned to Palo Duro Canyon. This time, the canyon was green and gorgeous (and there were no early morning chili and sauerkraut hotdogs). Below are pictures from a stunning hike on the Lighthouse Trail.

Recent Events, In no Particular Order

Because I haven't blogged in quite some time, I am providing a point-by-point replay of the more interesting happenings from the last month:

1. I bought Chris a stunt kite for Valentines day. The spring winds made possible our first successful kite launching. I spent half the time "reminding" Chris to stay away from power lines. In defense of my incesscent "reminders," you should know that I have a substantial fear of electrocution, which is substantiated by this prior post.


2. I forgot that I was supposed to tell the children's story at church until it was time to tell the children's story at church. I remember sitting in the pew, thinking it odd that no adult was up front with the kiddos, who by this time were patiently waiting for their story. As soon as that thought entered my head, the music director whispered in my ear, "Kim, you're telling the story." Within the next 30 seconds, the following events occurred: 1) I turned 15 shades of red; 2) I jumped out of the pew and raced up front, causing a low chuckle throughout the sanctuary; 3) I thought to myself "What am I going to say;" 4) I picked up the microhone and said, "Well, apparently I'm telling the children's story today," at which point all eyes were on me like a bad car accident; and 5) I came up with a story that sounded like I had planned it. It was quite impressive, although the glory goes to God and not to me.


3. I met my new neighbor. He told me his name, but it just sounded like a bunch of vowels awkwardly thrown together. I told him that I was going to have a hard time remembering his name. He told me to call him by his nickname. As far as I could tell, his nickname is Ffssh. Luckily, Ffssh is never in the hallways when I am.

4. I learned why my first grade teacher was always trying to teach me the correct way to hold a pencil when writing. She was worried that someday I would go to lawschool, have a professor too old to admister exams via computer, and be forced to complete a three hour, hand-written exam. Furthermore, she knew that this exam would be comprised of questions so vague and broad that I really needed 6 hours to complete it and therefore, I would have to write faster than I type. I bet my first grade teacher did not know, however, that I would not be allowed to use lined paper to complete this exam, instead forced to throw down sloppy words in sloping lines on 14 sheets of regular copy paper. Mrs. Gilliam, please know that I now apologize for being so stubborn. My hand was shaking and one of my fingers was blue after it was all said and done.

5. I entered my final weeks of law school and apparently, I decided to go out with a bang! While my friends are taking it easy as they study for one or two exams, I am spending long days and nights at the library studying for FOUR final exams. Blech. That was really bad planning on my part.

6. Following up on number five, I discovered that planning a three week vacation and/or graudation party is WAY more fun than studying.

7. I took my Spanish proficiency to a new level. I made up a word, and that word has become part of the Sias lingo. I can't wait until my children learn this word and then use it when talking to Abuelita Sias. Abuelita Sias will smile and give her normal soft laugh, as if she approves, all the while thinking, "Oye, la Gringa habla Espanol como un burro."

8. I received my bar exam preparation books in the mail. The small but dense box contains 8 books with exciting titles like Multistate Performance Test Workbook and Texas Lecture Handouts. A couple of the boooks are thicker than a ream of paper. Wow - this summer is going to be so much fun!