All About Me

Hello to anyone and everyone. I hope that this blog represents my interests, my life. To start, I should probably introduce myself.

I'm currently a 2L at the University of Virginia. This summer, I'm on my way to Minneapolis for an internship with the Battered Women's Legal Advocacy Project. Hopefully, this internship will open doors in DC, where I hope to move after graduation to lobby on behalf of women's issues.

Outside of law school, which eats up a ton of time, my life revolves around my friends and my cats. Yes, I am that crazy cat lady. I embrace the identity.

My friends are all great. I have 4 sets of them. My MN friends, my adult friends, my DC friends, and my UVA friends. I often joke that I'm the sane one of the bunch. To some extent, that's true. I know what I want out of my life, and I'm on track to get to it. I'm also not the relationship type, at least not yet. I'm happy being single, and I'm not out looking for someone to complete that life. I'm already complete, though having someone to celebrate that completeness isn't a bad thing. A lot of my friends are currently working through some issues. Life issues, love issues, future issues. I like being the person they turn to when they need advice or support. Helping others is a big part of my identity. I love being needed. I love being useful, but, mostly, I love being reliable.

Another important thing about me is that I never get tired of learning, but I prefer teaching myself. Because of this, I tend to learn rather slowly and in fits. I spent a lot of my time when I was younger fighting being too "girly." Now, having lost so many women in my life--my mom, my grandmother, my great-aunt, I'm wishing that I had learned more from them. I don't really know how to cook, but I'm learning. I have memories of what my mom used to do: pouring ginger-ale over ham and stuffing it with cloves before baking, but those memories are limited. I also tracked down my grandmother's (and mother's) spice cake recipe. I make it pretty well, if I do say so myself.

I also periodically try crafty things like knitting (I'm terrible. It takes me forever to do a single scarf row), and every once in awhile I walk by a sewing machine in a store and consider getting it. My mom was one of 7 children, and she had to learn to make her own clothing. I like new clothing, but I just can't afford it on a public interest law salary considering the immense amount of debt I'm accumulating here at UVA. Basically, I'll be lucky to escape school with less than $200,000 worth of education debt. Coincidently, student loans can't be bankrupted.

That's another one of my interests, personal finances. I love saving money, having money, managing money. I'm pretty good with it. I keep careful tabs on my credit cards, update my budget spreadsheet once a month, and try to keep a close watch on my spending. I've never missed a credit card payment, and my credit rating is fantastic. If I was going to give advice to anyone just starting out, I would tell them to watch their credit like a hawk. Having a great credit score just makes life so much easier, particularly when you're young. I don't have to worry about not getting approval for a student loan, or being reject for a credit card. I know that when I'm ready to buy a house or a car (which I bought last June!), I'll be given a prime interest rate. Actually, I don't pay any interest on my car loan. 0% APR for the life of the loan. That interest rate allowed me to upgrade to a bigger, better, more fuel efficient car than I otherwise could have. (My precious prius!)

Oddly enough, even though I like saving money, I LOVE shopping. It's hereditary. My mom used to drag my brother and I out of bed early in the morning so we could drive to one of her many favorite malls, be there when it opened, and not leave until after the doors locked at closing. Shopping is therapy for me, and like spice cake, it's a way to remember my mom. Luckily, I've learned to shop for the joy of shopping, not the joy of spending. It's not unusual for me to go out for a day or a weekend and come back without any packages. Actually, those are usually the best trips.

So, baking, sewing, and shopping, I'm hardly living up to my non-girly ideal. It's ok though, I've learned that I don't have to be a tough girl all the time. I do have some less prissy hobbies to balance myself out. I love sports movies (my movie collection comes in 4 parts: gifts from other people, feminist flicks, sports movies, and chick flicks), which is odd because I'm not much of a sports fan. I'll happily kick a soccer ball around, but anything else I find rather dull, and I can't get into watching sports on TV. I am moderately outdoorsy though. I love hiking and spent a good portion of previous summers exploring different trails near my house. I also like computer games (particularly RPG games) and wii boxing.

My family life can be full of drama, though it seems to have calmed down a bit. I've acquired a semi-psychotic stepmother relatively recently (about a year and a half ago). We'll just call her Lady T. She was my high school English teacher, and I liked her much better when she wasn't "family." The basic problem is that she's rather insecure, and, unfortunately, she find me threatening since my dad is very open about the fact that I'm his "best friend." She just doesn't understand that a man can have 2 women in his life, particularly when one is his adult daughter.

Dad and Lady T recently moved to Vegas. I'm flying out there for Christmas. Being from MN, I can't imagine a warm Christmas, but I guess I'll have to get over that. It'll be my first trip to the new house since they've moved (indeed, my first trip to Vegas ever), so I'm hoping that she'll have settled down a bit now that she has her own territory (she moved into Dad's house back in MN, so she felt like she was living in "another woman's" home. It didn't help that my dad either refused, or, more likely, wasn't asked to take down the wedding picture of him and my mother.)

I'll certainly let everyone know how Christmas turns out this year, if it was anything like last year, there will be plenty to write about.

Other than that, I hope to share stories about my life, school, past, and future. Undoubtedly, there will also be the periodic fantastic shoe find posted, the political rant, or a pat on the back for fixing some crazy thing in my apartment without help. Sadly, for now I have to sign off. Finals are coming up and I can only procrastinate for so long before I have to get to outlining.

Hopefully this was a good beginning!