Hey! Wait! I've got a new complaint!

I like Thanksgiving. I like Christmas. I like the holiday season. More specifically, I enjoyed Thanksgiving this year, in Grand Rapids, very much. And I am well on my way to enjoying this holiday season. I have delighted in, among other things, a bit of snowfall, the cute & community-fostered decorations on the store-lined avenue of Greenpoint, and even listening to the Chipmunks' Christmas CD.

But then there's this crazy little thing called law school final exams, and it tends to get in the way. I think of all the complaints I have about law school (and that is certainly not a short list. It's just so - well - complaint-inducing! It does, after all, teach you how to officially complain in this world) I think that might be the most egregious thing it does. It totally cramps my holiday revelry style. By the time I wade through all that I have to do from mid-November to late-mid-December, I turn around and Christmas is already here, and where did my holi-daze go?

I mean, I haven't even had time to think since approximately the first week of November. The end of November saw the wedding of my lovely friends Liza and Chris, and I barely, breathlessly made it there. And that was something I was really excited about! While I was there, I got to just sit and think and decompress for a little while, and it really made me start thinking about how much I have to DO but how sometimes you just need to sit in the awesome Sturbridge Publick House with all the New Englandy autmnal decor and eat and drink and dance and look at your awesome happy friends who are awesome. Yup, we all have to do that sometimes.

Speaking of outrageous things about law school, hello, Stanford law students grading law firms on diversity? You all need to get over yourselves. And here's why: I have officially declared "diversity" a meaningless word. It has been bandied about in crap rhetoric and it has now gone to the dark side along with "ADD" and "family values" (the poster child for bandied about phrases that have lost their meaning).

And speaking of outrage, Sudan religious freak fringe? Get over yourselves, too.

Meanwhile, yesterday on my way to school I learned that certain Long Island Rail Road trains were delayed/cancelled because a train had "struck an unauthorized person on the tracks" on the Ronkonkoma line. While I waited for my train at Jamaica station, the announcements soon turned to "while LIRR and MTA police investigate a fatality." Sure enough, upon arriving at school and checking out the story online, it was an "apparent suicide" of a man who jumped onto the tracks in front of the train going approximately 80mph. Apart from the creepiness of it all, I found myself almost feeling protective of "my" Long Island Rail Road. Also I couldn't help joking with Brian later, while ruminating on how sad it is for Anna or anyone to hurl themselves in front of a train, that the suicide man got it all wrong about how to use the LIRR to escape from Long Island. (Sick and twisted, I know. We also know appreciate how much the LIRR rules. So there.)

Three more days of classes!

And guess what? We have lots of kitchen things for cooking now and we have been eating fantastic enchiladas. Try not to be jealous! It is so great to be settling in, and I even have my magnetic poetry up on the fridge, with which I wrote the following poem about said enchiladas, as Brian dished them up:

smell these
for soon they will turn magic al
time has answered
here you find me happy
and full