where'd i put my 'role of the prosecutor' cliff's notes?
I have a (very short, max 5 pages) paper due tomorrow.
The paper is supposed to discuss "the ideal prosecutor", based on my summer experiences and what we've discussed in class over the last four weeks.
Would've been nice if I had known that that would be the topic before I spent the three weeks before receiving the topic not paying attention. This is gonna be interesting...just like all those times I wrote papers in high school without ever reading the books about which I was supposed to be writing.
(The good news is that I always got A's on those papers. I never read Heart of Darkness or A Tale of Two Cities, but my papers on those books were excellent. Then again, I went to a public high school. In the south. Not exactly swimming in the deep end of the gene pool.)
Labels: classes, richmond
chasing ron mexico
Dangerous Mind will be in Richmond, Virginia until early next week.
On Monday, Michael Vick will be entering his guilty plea in the federal district court for the Eastern District of Virginia, also located in Richmond.
(thinks)
I may need some "Mallrats"-style blueprints to crash this party......Labels: football, richmond
old friends
J and I became friends on the first day of orientation - we were in the same group as each other, and she lived two floors above me. We had a blast freshman year...and then I committed the ultimate sin: I dated her ex-boyfriend. Basically, this guy came down to visit J after they had broken up, he and I became friends, and then we started dating over the summer. Well, the ex-boyfriend and I split up shortly into my fall semester sophomore year, and J and I had a falling out shortly after that. After several months of moping around, I decided to just give up on the group of friends we had collected and move on, just living my life as independently and as care-free...well, as I have ever since. A few weeks into the spring semester of our sophomore year, I was having lunch by myself in the dining hall when J came over to join me. It took some time, but we eventually made up and repaired our friendship. (The same could not be said for the rest of our group of friends, who continued to ostracize me.)J and I stayed friends for the next two years - we managed to plan some times to hang out while we were both studying abroad (once in Salzburg, the other in Edinburgh), we had weekly lunch dates, and we even spent most of graduation weekend celebrating together. A few weeks after graduation, we lost touch - the last I had heard was that she had moved in with the ex-boyfriend that nearly came between us (they had since gotten back together again). In the four years since college, J isn't the only person with whom I've lost contact. The last friend I was in contact with stopped speaking to me in early 2004, after a falling out at work in which she was convinced that I was trying to get her fired. (I wasn't.) The other day, though, I was puttering around on the interwebs when I glanced at the e-mail address that I really haven't used since college...and discovered that J had e-mailed me several hours earlier. Now I have a chance to reconnect with someone who played a rather large role in my life, and I'm pretty jazzed about that. Plus, it's always nice to know that, even though I spend the majority of my time alone, I'm not as completely alone as I think.I think I'm gonna chase that feeling for a while. Labels: richmond
yes, virginia, there is a hanging chad
As of 5:00 today, Senate hopeful Jim Webb holds a 7,215 vote margin over Virginia incumbent George Allen (a.k.a., the Giant Racist Douchebag). The only precincts that haven't finished reporting are in Isle of Wight county, which I *believe* is a fairly rural area outside of Newport News and Hampton. I'm sure we've all heard by now that Virginia law allows a state-funded recount when the margin of victory is less than half a percent - in this case, fewer than 11,817 votes. Since Senator G.R. Douchebag is likely to pick up a few more votes in Isle of Wight, I think it's safe to say that a recount is looming.That takes me back to the last time I voted in Virginia - I lived in Henrico County, just outside of Richmond, which is split about 50-50 Republican-Democrat (lots of poor folk and immigrants mixed with lots of rich bastards, essentially). There, instead of drawing lines to connect arrows or pressing buttons on a computer screen, we had a mechanism that allowed us to flip through a book-like ballot and select the candidate of our choice from the list using a special tool that allowed us to punch out a perforated circle next to the candidate's name.That's right. Punch card ballots. I haven't talked to anyone who actually voted in Virginia this year, so I don't know if they've actually spent taxpayer money on new voting equipment. Probably not, though, since the state's biggest priority in past years seems to be passing bills to add "Dead Confederate Soldier Day" to the calendar, or whatever they were calling it. (I wish I were kidding.)I remember that, in '04, I actually checked for hanging chads (as if it mattered, since Virginia was pretty firmly stuck up Bush's sphincter at the time). But I have to wonder if anyone else is as crazy and conspiracy theory-obsessed as I am to have checked their own ballots this year...and if something that silly will make the difference in yet another election. Labels: politics, richmond
you know, now that i think about it, that grass was a little greener back there
I've spent a lot of time not blogging recently, mostly because I have very little to say about my job. But part of my lack-of-posting is attributable to my daily wondering what in the world I was on when I decided to move to Madison. I've decided to post a little then-and-now, so that maybe the thoughts get out of my head once and for all and I can start sleeping again. Then: spending my entire week's vacation in Texas on the remote network so that my project doesn't fall behind while I'm gone.
Now: work gets left at the office when I walk out the door at 5:15.Then: going out with friends 3-4 nights a week to watch baseball - an event that was fun until the beer started flowing, the voices became louder, and fights broke out. (Yes, fights broke out among us several times a week, and we kept coming back for more.)Now: (crickets chirping) .....does spending 3-4 nights a week with Mulder and Scully count?Then: monthly trips to the mall with my best friend and my substitute mommy.Now: thrice-weekly trips to Target by myself.Then: showing up for work between 10 and 10:30 every morning.Now: .......well, that hasn't exactly changed. But now I don't have to sign onto the remote network at 8:30am to make people think I'm in the office answering e-mail when I'm really in the shower answering e-mail.Then: counting down the days until I got out of RichmondNow: counting down the days until I get out of MadisonGranted, there was a lot of stuff back there that I wasn't happy about (i.e., bar fights referenced above). And I'm still a little upset about the fact that I let The One I Let Get Away last summer get away (and did it again a month ago). But that's the way things are looking from where I'm sitting tonight. It's definitely shocking, though, to sit here and think that maybe things weren't as bad as I thought - and it's bad when I sit here and wonder if I shouldn't have taken the advice of those who told me not to run with my impulse to leave.Labels: madison, richmond
the south would rise again
...if it wasn't too busy reapplying it's makeup.
I have to go to Panera Bread every day to use the free Wi-Fi connection because my friends haven't gotten their internet installed yet. So needless to say, I'm seeing all sorts of people.
But today, I have to blog about this one woman. This one woman is old and kind of crusty, wearing a head-to-toe orange outfit, and is quite obviously pleased with her "rich" looking self. And I have spent the last five minutes (not exaggerating) watching her apply lipstick at the table (not including the time she spent touching up her foundation, etc). Not kidding. There was lip liner, then lip gloss, then one shade of lipstick, then a second shade of lipstick, then more lip gloss, and then a smug look in my direction.
My response? A smug look right back at her, because I can tell that she's got lipstick all over her teeth, and the nasty look she gave me when I sat down doesn't warrant any sort of politeness from me. And because I can't just walk over there and stab her in the jaw...metaphorically speaking, of course.Labels: richmond
please check your brain at the mason-dixon line
A few tidbits from the drive from New York to Elliot Yamin's my hometown of Richmond, Virginia...Me: Can I get a grande sugar-free hazelnut mocha light frappuccino?Barista: [thinks] Do you want that hot or cold?Me: (umm...isn't the definition of "frappuccino" a cold, tasty beverage?) I want the mocha light frappuccino with sugar-free hazelnut syrup.Barista: [grimaces] Eww. [punches order in] Me (thinking): (You're judging me? You work at a Starbucks at a roadside oasis along I-95 in Maryland, and you're passing judgment on me??? Furthermore, I don't pay over 4 bucks for your commentary on my choice of beverage. I am paying for coffee, which means that you give me coffee, we exchange pleasantries, and I go on my way. THAT IS HOW THIS WORKS!)...standing at the grocery store where I used to work, buying a candy bar...Employee: How are you doing?Me: Good. (pays self-checkout machine)Employee: You know, if you keep eating those, you're going to gain back all of the weight you lost.Me (thinking): (You haven't seen me for six months, and that's what you have to say to me? That buying a delicious candy treat will make me fat? It's ONE candy bar. So I haven't been to the gym in the week because I've been, oh, driving ACROSS THE COUNTRY. I'm not in here every day buying these Reese's Cups. You have no basis for this comment about me continuing to eat candy bars. And oh yeah - you are NOT my mother. So let me eat my treat in peace.)I had barely been in town twelve hours when I got recruited to play softball with my former firm's team tomorrow night. There may be t-shirts made celebrating my one-night-only appearance on the field. You know, kind of like Cher's farewell tour, except I'm not going to be making one-night-only appearances until I'm 80 and on my sixth nose.Labels: richmond, starbucks
the only reason to have a roommate
I'm currently skipping Crim class, and not for my usual "I overslept" or "I wanted to watch 'General Hospital instead" reasons. (Yes, I have been known to honestly use both of these excuses for afternoon classes.) No, I have to sit here at home and wait for the UPS guy to come drop off Bridesmaid's Dress #2: Electric Boogaloo. Apparently, they won't leave it at the door even if I leave instructions for them to do so, and I don't have anyone here to sign for it for me. And I need the dress, like, yesterday, so that I can be sure that the alterations are done before I leave for my East Coast Extravaganza in four weeks.The most shocking thing about this whole ordeal? I'm actually sitting here working on the final draft of the memo that's due tomorrow - and not putting it off until 8:30 tonight. Labels: crim pro, legal writing class is a joke, richmond
