Boston

I really don't have time for this right now but if I let time keep passing without posting something, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.

My moot court partner Jenna and I just returned from a competition in Boston that we have been preparing for since December. It was an incredible experience and we prepared well. We don't have our final scores yet but we ended up in the top eight teams (out of about 40). Other than competing for a few long days in front of some aggressive liberal judges, we ate every piece of sea-food known to man and said the same six phrases in horrible Bostonian accents on cue every two minutes for four days (of course laughing every time like it was the first).

While I was in Boston my baby sister ejected a child from her body (her first). The labor was long and really hard but she came through like a champ resulting in a darn cute little baby girl. Said sister has been in a lot of pain with kidney stones and gall stones for several months. Additionally, she started having contractions about four years before she even knew she was pregnant so she had had it by the time the baby finally came. Now that that's all settled, I'm trying to talk her into passing all of her various stones so she can make a necklace out of them. She hasn't agreed to that yet. By the way, special shout out to her super human abilities: apart from dealing with everything I just mentioned, she took and passed her boards mere days before the baby finally came in order to be a certified registered nurse (a test that I understand isn't easy). Now that we know she has it in her to successfully deal with so many terrible things at once, we're going to start expecting a lot more from her.

In other news, I finally got my job situation figured out. After resorting to house hunting options in Hawaii and checking for the best deals on flights to Eastern Europe where I planned to go work my way through the summer doing odd jobs for strangers, a pretty cool opportunity with the Attorney General appellate office in Salt Lake fell upon me. It was a rough four days in which I had to make a decision but I accepted it and I'm really looking forward to the work. I had hoped to go somewhere exotic, mostly to work on my "get a full body massage in every country of the world" goal, but I'm very grateful to have a good job and a future full of some interesting experiences.

Now I'm frantically trying to cram thousands of pages of knowledge into my head before finals start in less than two weeks. (How is it time again already???). At least this time I have TWO hands to combat the beast.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Insomnia

I've had sleeping problems for several years. Surprisingly law school has seemed to make it worse. Fortunately I have found that if I block out every bit of light, sound, and memories, and choose a night when I'm already really tired and don't have anything going on the next day, I can get myself to fall asleep sometime near the witching hour. Unfortunately, those stars rarely seem to align. Thank heavens for sleeping medicine. I think.

I recently started trying new things to deal with my Insomnia, which has been great for my "get to the end of 'Crime and Punishment' by 2025" goal. In fact, three nights ago I pulled the book out at 2:00AM and read four whole pages. I'm now a little over half-way done. Who knew when I picked up that little piece of heaven five years ago that I would ever make it this far. (By the way, for those of you who were wondering, I'm on the part where Raskolnikolinolifof is talking to Raskolnofitofikofinonof about his friend Sonya Rolinoloninof and her friend Rockstockitockitof and their relation to Rimolinolitof; it's getting pretty juicy).

Back to the drugs: I've gotten my hands on several kinds of medications, herbs, and various other therapeutic witch-doctor remedies that my drug-loving-family-members and hippie-save-the-planet friends could convince me to take and the only thing that seems to have an affect on me is Ambien. Oh blessed Ambien. Last month I took one and woke up the next morning only to find I had inadvertently done my taxes (good think I'm not a huge audit risk as I only made 12 cents last year). Last week after taking an Ambien, I ate half a bag of ginger-snap pees while doing Yoga stretches and telling my roommates that their faces were fuzzy. While that experience wasn't quite as productive as filing my taxes was, it did make for a few good stories (which is what my family lives for).

Mostly I'm writing this post as an desperate plea for help. Is there anyone out there who has overcome Insomnia through means other than drugs that can share their wisdom with me? I would prefer to never take a sleeping pill again but I've got to get my sleep as I'm starting to really age (I look well over 21 now).

~It Just Gets Stranger