Setting the bar

I'm rereading old posts (you know, from a few days ago) and recognizing that my writing skills are, well, a bit rusty. I console myself with the knowledge that I'm the only person who reads my blog and so don't have a responsibility to perform for anybody at all.

It's just that I referred to the U.S. Bill of Rights as 'those amazing amendments' (insert frown emoticon here).

Where are the fancy words; the complex sentences; the zeugmas and dancing bears? I blame Facebook and Twitter. I've read too much Harry Potter! Blame television (omg I love NCIS). Perhaps I grow old! At any rate it's clear that I've developed a mental potbelly. Oh, the shame.

I'm as undergraduate-institution-educated as the next guy and I owe my reader more than this. I hereby vow to expand my vocabulary--to stretch words and my typing fingers. *Immediately stumbles.* How have I become so clumsy? I hereby begin the search for my brain.

Brb; updating status message.

Running toward law school

I've been using the early mornings before starting work to contemplate law school and lawyership. Also the exploitation of parantheses.

Most days (lately, anyway) I paint (oils, on canvas) for at least an hour while listening to the BBC (this is 3 am in my time zone). Then I go for a run in the dark (4.15 am. ish.) The act of making art wakes up my intellect (the cup of coffee I drink while painting doesn't hurt) and a good run clarifies my thoughts. I'm trying to memorize some Latin phrases (Lex loci, nihil dicit, habeas corpus, et cetera) and trying to really understand basic concepts like due process and tort law (also habeas corpus).

I'm still working on 'due process.' I'll keep you updated.

Those amazing amendments

Today I'm going to start learning the Bill of Rights (United States Constitution). It seems like a reasonable way to prepare for law school. Law school conceptualized with me in a lecture hall scares the crap out of me. Action assuages anxiety.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

That's the first Amendment, and it's so...well just LOOK at it...

Terrified in Boston

So I'm starting law school in the fall and I'm a human vat of doubts. I'm absolutely terrified that I made the wrong choice in choosing law (Really? Law?). I could fail at this and, at age 31, fall hard on my ass in a city that doesn't favor failure.

This is the domain of Harvard and MIT, the capital of Massachusetts and the Revolution. Paul Revere's home and body lie here and a studio apartment on the outskirts costs a thousand dollars. No, there is no room for failure here. Yet I've signed Suffolk Law School's letter of intent. I'm leaving a decent job and I've paid the security deposit on a studio in Brighton (on the green line; just outside Boston proper). I'm 86% convinced that this is the wrong decision but that extra 14 nags at me. What if this works?