Youthful Indiscretions...they catch up

I grew up with a fair amount of physical pain and suffering, and knowledge that my body is fragile and perishable.  So, when “adults” talked about how “kids these days” think they’re invincible or that they’re immortal, I sided with the “adults.”  I knew that I was weak and that I may succumb to ill health or any other physical vulnerabilities.  I had developed TMJ early on, probably starting with the major head injury brought upon myself at age 7, and lived with migraines, locked jaws and other incredible pain.  I knew I shouldn't rest the weight of my head on my chin in my hands...it would exacerbate the problems.  I knew I could break.
I scoffed at the silly indiscretions of my youthful peers, those who engaged in risky behaviors, putting their physical and emotional and mental health on the line.  I knew that acting without forethought would only hurt them in the long run and they’ll regret not making better choices and taking better care of themselves.  I thought I was being responsible and had sufficient perspective, and was lauded for making relatively wise choices as a young person. 

That was then.  Now, nearly two months into my 32^nd year of life, I realize that I too have had some youthful indiscretions, as cautious as I had been, though the level of caution taken fluctuated and lessened with increasing age.  Either way, I’m guilty of not eating regular meals, of partaking in some alcoholic beverages, partaking in “risky” activities (sky diving, ATV/four-wheeling in a desert without a helmet or safety gear, etc), eating food that’s probably past its prime and/or was prepared in an unsanitary environment, and the list goes on…oh, especially not sleeping.  I used to hold on to the thought, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” and wished for a sweet moment of death so that I may sleep.  All were unhealthy and silly indiscretions of a mind clouded by youthful optimism. 

I now have screwed with my body enough that I get low-blood sugar headaches if I forget to eat regularly, I have scoliosis, chronic post-tibular tendonitis and bursitis that flares up once in a while.  I am non-athletic and a cloudy mind from the lack of a regular sleep schedule.  I chose a career that robs me of rest and peace of mind, which I find to be emotionally draining and physically exhausting.  I can no longer look at young people and scoff at their indiscretions, because, even though I thought I knew and appreciated my mortality and my physical fragility, I knew far less and appreciated far less than I thought I had.  I now know that I am intricately connected to my family and my social groups, I cannot healthfully function in a vacuum, as I once thought myself capable of doing should the need arise.  I am even more fragile and subject to the physical and mental challenges of this world.  I realize youth is, indeed, fleeting.

Wow I feel old.

[On the disappointments of the job front: It looks like I won't be able to go on the family vacation to Jeju Island that was planned and plane tickets purchased over 4 months ago.  I will spend another traditional family vacation alone and depressed.  And now they're wavering on the home leave the partner had suggested I take in October after the hearing.  There's no winning here, there's no life, there's no consideration of your humanity or need for rest, there's no upholding of their words.  It's all functions of their changing whims.]

April showers...blah blah blah...spring flowers

April showers are supposed to be indicative of the coming of spring and the life that seems to spring up all around, usually.  In Seoul, it means that the toxins in the atmosphere get carried down to the earth and your head, potentially causing hair loss/hair folicle damage/baldness.  I don't know if any of it's true, but the Koreans really are afraid of the rain making them bald, which, I must add, was NOT something I was warned about as a 4 yr old when I lived here before.  You know what?  Their paranoia is getting to me.  I already noticed that I have a bit of hair loss at the top of my head, which may not be noticeable to most since I was like a lion with a full mane of slippery (fine?) hair.  I attribute my hair loss to stress but I am starting to fear the environmental factors too...what if the rumors are true?  Another foreigner of Korean descent warned me, better safe than go bald at 40.

So I feel like in Korea, instead of every cloud having a silver lining, it's the other way around.  Each silver lining has a large, grey cloud of toxic rain looming behind it.  Such a weird thought.

6TH ANNIVERSARY, Residual Swelling
I also noticed that today might be the 6th anniversary of my orthognathic surgery (Lefort 1 and BSSO).  Despite the pain, and the octogenarian diet I kept up with for a year, if I had to go back 8 yrs, I'd make the same decision to go through with the painstaking process.  I had teeth removed and braces put in to arrange my remaining teeth just so for about 2 yrs before I went under the bone saw.  Then I sat in the ICU looking like an angry blowfish and half dead and suctioning globs of blood from my mouth/throat and continuously jabbing my morphine pump.
I still get swelling on the lower left side of my face/jaw daily, but at least I can take a bit of a sandwich and actually cut the food into bite-sized pieces.  Actually, if I get adequate rest, live a balanced life, and kinda deal with the normal amounts of stress, then the swelling doesn't happen as much or goes away completely.
It's just that I made a...um...ill-conceived? romanticized? stupid?...decision to go to law school, take the bar, and be a lawyer.  When I was a prosecutor things weren't that terrible; I mean, I wanted to win the trials and keep the streets a little safer, dole out punishment for crimes, etc.  Then I made a really dumb, overly-ambitious decision to take a job abroad, in a large firm with big egos and lots of annoying, constant stress and inhumane work hours.  And it appears I am permanently swollen on the lower left side of my face.  Most ppl don't notice it much w/out careful examination, just that things aren't 100% symmetrical.  I used to think it had something to do with which side I slept on, but I now think it's fully just the lack of sleep, overdose of stress and a poorly scheduled life.

One of my best friends from law school married an orthognathic surgeon (resident, still), and he told me that I had my operation in the nick of time, essentially.  You see, I had lost feeling in the lower left quadrant of my maxillo-facial system after the operation, and about 6 months later, the feeling started to slowly return, at first like just a numbness, but now I think I have regenerated nerves.  I might have just gotten used to it and learned how to cope and pretend I have full feeling, who knows.  I just touched the left side of my chin and the right side of my chin and they def. feel different, so maybe I've been fantastic at fooling myself.  But then again, some mornings/days, I am numb in that swollen side and the feeling returns or I get used to it as the day progresses.
Anyhow, my friend's new husband (not that she had an old husband and traded him in or anything, it's the only husband she's had, as far as I know) told me that once nerve damage happens during maxillofacial surgery after the age of 25, the nerves generally don't grow back.  But since I had mine before I turned 25, I had nerve regeneration.  So, if you're considering having a doctor chop up your jaw and realign your bite, do it btwn the ages of 18-25.  Just plan your life accordingly, knowing that it might be, say, 4 years after locating a great surgeon, or being referred to one and having your initial consultation before your actual surgery.

MY TIMELINE
I think I met w/ my surgeon for the first time my junior year in college (b/c I refused to get braces in college!), and he removed my wisdom teeth the November after I graduated from undergrad, removed my premolars a few months after that and made me wait until the bone healed fully before sending me off to the orthodontist.  The orthodontist slapped on my metal grills in April the year after I graduated from undergrad...and my teeth did a very slow waltz into their assigned spots for a year and a half, during which time crowding in my lower bite was relieved, and I guess my upper teeth were lined up to eventually match my lower teeth.
I was finally cleared for surgery in the fall of 2007, scheduled for the operation in November of 2007, and insurance played the passive-aggressive biatch game on me.  Then more rescheduling, lots of tears and consultations about possibly doing the operation at the county hospital instead of at the university/teaching hospital where my surgeon was the head of the department, and visits to the head honcho in charge of insurance at my job, some threatening calls to the insurance company to move to a different insurance provider (thanks to the head honcho lady's compassion for my state) ensued.  On top of that, letters from my doctor indicating how this is a necessary procedure to elevate my quality of life to the basic level (ability to eat in public, chew my food instead of swallowing bits and letting my innards deal with under-masticated food, thus increasing stress to my internal organs and reducing nutrient consumption, the pain of the debilitating migraines and tension headaches caused by this misalignment, the progression of damage to my temporomandibular joint, etc,) were sent, and I cried and felt like I wasted the past 3 years of my life preparing for this and it wouldn't happen b/c I couldn't afford it out of pocket, and paid the higher cost of PPO plan for nothing, etc.
Then finally, I was approved for insurance coverage and scheduled into the operating room, did all my blood work, got an in-depth physical to make sure I would survive the surgery, signed all the release forms, then they needed the operating room for something more emergent, like a heart transplant or some other life-saving surgery, so I got rescheduled.  The 30 days passed after my check up and blood work, I got rescheduled and had to get another physical and more blood work to verify that I am still healthy enough to likely survive the operation.
Then it happened.  I was told a few days before the surgery that it'll take btwn 7 and 8 hours, my doctor had practiced a couple times on the plaster casts they took of my teeth/jaws.  The morning of the surgery, I was told they're not doing the genioplasty anymore b/c they didn't think it was absolutely necessary to remedy the migraines/tension headaches caused by stress on the facial muscles, so the surgery would be 6 hours.  I woke up 10 hours later, at around 4 pm or 5 pm in the afternoon, and looked at the clock in the operating room and decided I lost my ability to add/subtract/count, b/c no matter how much counting I did, it had been more than 6 hours since I was conscious that morning (assuming I hadn't been under for over 24 hours).  Then I passed out again.  When I came to, apparently about 40 minutes later, I was wheeled to my ICU bed...and was so proud of myself for remembering the word "nauseous."  I felt like throwing up and it's very, very bad to throw up when your whole head and upper torso is swollen from the trauma of bone-breaking surgery...thankfully, I was so swollen they couldn't wire my jaw shut like they had planned.  So I uttered the only word I could manage, "nauseous," and the orderlies told me they'll get the nurse to get me something for the nausea as soon as I got to my ICU bed.
At the ICU, it was bad.  They hooked me up to a morphine pump which I needed to deal w/ the pain as the anesthesia wore off, I was immobile.  My jaw, my head and upper torso was so swollen I couldn't physically shut my jaw for a month.  It was awful.  I had a morphine pump in my left hand that reset every 10 minutes and delivered 1 mg of morphine per pump...I pumped it endlessly b/c I couldn't figure out if 10 minutes had passed and I was in so much pain.  I had a suction wand in my right hand to suction the blood clumps out of my mouth/throat so I don't choke on my own blood.  My right hip hurt for some reason.  I had a catheter.  I found both my inner forearms bruised a dark blue...had an artery line in the left wrist that hurt.  I had monitors taped to my chest and the heart monitor clipped to my left index finger.  The heart monitor hurt and pinched so I unclipped it...and a nurse came running over to scold me about keeping it on.  I guess they thought I had flat-lined. They didn't let me even have a sip of water.  I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything in case they needed to reoperate on me.
Turned out that I wasn't insane and stupid when I woke up, my surgery was 10 hours, not 6 hours as planned.  My surgeon explained to me the next day that when they had finished, I was bleeding so profusely from one side that he made the decision in the operating room to reoperate immediately instead of waking me up, and observing me to see if the bleeding would stop.  I was so grateful he did that.  So it took longer than anticipated.  He never told me which side they needed to open back up to take care of the bleeding, but I suspect it's the lower left.  And that's why I lost feeling/had nerve damage there, why I needed to have the plate removed from there a year after the operation and the residual swelling 6 years later.
And if I could go back 10 yrs to decide whether I'd go through it all, I'd make the same decision, knowing the pain, the heartache and the expense of it all.  Totally worth it to be able to eat my food like a human being.

Now...this moving to Korea to work in a large law firm in the Korean corporate culture...if I knew a year ago, I'm sure I'd have made a different decision.

doubting my sanity

..I'm not in a good place.  Today, I had the blood drain from my head, from my arms and down my legs and soak away out of my body, leaving me shaking with shock and feeling betrayed.  Betrayed by this machine called the computer, that I trust to keep all of my documents, my work product, the things that happen to define in an undeniably significant portion who I am a member of society.
I thought I had lost a document I've been working on for the past week, a draft of a submission due next Friday, mere 8 days from now.  I couldn't find it anywhere.  I had distinct memories of when I had worked on it, last night...no, I mean early this morning, before I switched gears to draft a document that needs to be turned in tomorrow.  I felt insane, like I had fallen completely off my rocker and rolled a mile away before I realized that I wasn't right in my head.  I had distinct memories of changing the title of the document from "...OUTLINE..." to "...draft."  I even remembered working on it before I attended a call with an expert on the other side of the planet, at 11:30 pm, and then coming back to it after the call.  If it weren't for the tale-tell signs that the call occurred and I hadn't imagined or dreamed it all, in the form of my hand-written notes during the call, I would have just accepted it as fact that I hadn't actually done any work but somehow imagined about 10 hours worth of drafting work, and perhaps another 10 hours of client meetings and 10 hours of reviewing documents in 3 different languages (1 which I'm fluent in, 1 which I can read with some difficulty and 1 which I have no clue how to decipher).  Thank God for hand-written notes, visible evidence to keep me grounded...even as my head floats away into the clouds of self doubt and utter confusion.

So, why did I react so viscerally, shaking, crying and confused and lost and exasperated and devastated by the loss of a document that wasn't even close to completion and even further from perfection?  B/c I'm not in a good place.  I lost my cool, my hold on reality, the assurance that I am not imagining things, in reaction to something that happens every once in a while to everyone who relies on technology.  Why?  Perhaps b/c I'm weak-minded; b/c I'm actually teetering on the edge of sanity and I am vaguely aware of my instability; b/c I haven't eaten a meal all day for fear of upsetting my sensitive stomach; b/c I've been consuming more caffeinated liquids than water or any other fluids in the past weeks; maybe b/c I haven't had a single day away from work in the past few weeks; b/c I haven't been feeling well but was "too busy" to actually rest, diagnose what's wrong or recover; b/c I haven't been able to sleep from stress, nervousness, physical discomforts; perhaps b/c I haven't exercised or moved or stretched my body for months; or b/c my "bosses" keep increasing in ranks and numbers, pushing down piles and mountains of insurmountable work but no one seems to want to do the grunt work.
Or maybe all those are just excuses for a disorganized, uncontrolled, directionless life.  Do I have work-life balance?  Don't even know what that means anymore.  I feel like any other job would be a paid vacation to me at this point.

But the bottom line is that something is not well.  I'm not being fed and nurtured as a whole human being, and the imbalance is breaking my poor body and threatening my addling mind.  The author of Ecclesiastes, the famed King Solomon of ancient Israel, notes that it's "meaningless!  meaningless!"  that it's all a "chasing after the wind."  That imagery holds a crazy person whose last few screws have twisted out of their grooves and have long ago fallen out as the person endeavored to catch the wind.  Is that person me?  Why am I here?  What am I doing?  What keeps me here and what am I supposed to learn from this phase of my life?  That life, indeed, is meaningless?  That everything I do is a chasing after the winds?  Wisdom is meaningless, fame is meaningless, prestige is meaningless, the acceptance and approval of others is meaningless, a great work product is meaningless?  Perhaps, maybe so...I just don't know.  But I know one thing.  "all is not well...something is rotten in the state of Denmark."  (Hamlet, Act I, Scenes 2 and 4)

Not interested in dating. TYVM.

What part of "I don't want to date" don't they understand?  Sheesh.  WTF? 
I heard my aunt talking to my mom this morning in the living room as I was getting ready for work, and she was saying how she wants to set me up with one of her friends' sons.  I'm not interested.  I don't care how rich the family is, it's not what I want to do.  In fact, that guy my friend introduced me to, who's been in Korea an even shorter time than me, seems to be thinking that this is some sort of a set-up intro, not the "friends of mine, you're both Korean-Americans who are new to Seoul, meet up and rant about your frustrations" intro that I thought my college friend meant.  I'm kinda weirded out.  I don't want to be rude, or to rebuff a friendship, but I really am not interested in dating.  Sorry.  Not in Korea, this is not permanent and I'm not looking to settle down. 
Back to my aunt.  She brought my mom a couple things to take back to the US, she's my dad's younger sister, immediately below him in age-order, and I believe the same age as my mom.  The store she owns is across the street from where my brother and I live, and she parks in our building.  My mom was asking her where a good dentist is, and where to find a few things my mom is looking for.  But she just had to start talking about me and my cousins that she's interested in setting up and marrying off.  WHY? 
Here's why I really don't want to go along with this.  My aunt's a little peeved that one of my male cousins rejected such a set-up by the parents/parents' friends and connections (called "suhn" or 선 in Korean), on the account that the girl was a little chubby.  My aunt attended that same girl's wedding this past April and she was so upset that my male cousin rejected the girl after 1 meeting on account of her being a little chubby, because apparently the family is a great family that controls the fruits and vegetables that are distributed to all the markets around Korea, are great Christians and give generously to charitable causes (indicating good hearts), and the girl lost all her extra weight and was gorgeous on her wedding day.  To be perfectly honest, I think my cousin should have given the girl a chance, met up with her a few more times, b/c to say he's not interested in her just b/c she was a little chubby at the time is very shallow of him.  I'm kinda disappointed in him about that point, especially since her family seemed like such great people, not even counting the wealth b/c money is just money.  My counsin is engaged to another girl now, and they're to marry in January or February of next year.  She's nice enough, but she seems a little oblivious to the workings of the world, but her mom kinda stuck her nose in where she shouldn't have with my aunt, and now my aunt isn't happy with the way things turned out.  I DON'T WANT SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPENING TO ME!
So, I want them to understand that I'm not interested in dating, and especially not interested in being set up.  Frankly, my aunt will have another belly ache and complain some more a year or so later when that guy she set me up with marries some other girl and she thinks I've lost out on a great husband material.  I actually don't think she even knows the guy in person, she knows his parents.  So better not to even start.  But now my mom wants me to just go meet him once, and to say no after that meeting, so my aunt doesn't go on about how I won't even listen to her and see this son of her friends.  Nope.  Sorry.  I didn't come to Korea to be set up or to date around.  I'm just not interested.  I will pull out all my hair and act insane if they force me to go on these ridiculous set-ups by grown ups.  F.that.

Shitty things, shockingly unethical

I knew that the "great people" we applaud and award prizes and awards and recognition to all stand on the shoulders of those who have come before them, either in public or behind the scenes.  It's inevitable, eventually someone will get the recognition that they may not fully deserve.  But it's shocking to the sense of ethics and justice to witness people take complete and full recognition for the works of others (especially for someone who listed "justice" as a passion in her high school senior graduation survey, among other things, that was quoted by the guidance counsellor's speach).

Plagarism is the worst evil in academics and, as someone who is a member of a very "academic" and "intellectual" profession such as law, I see plagarism to be the most offensive and cowardly act of anyone who has gone through the rigors of a formal legal education.  One example of plagarism that one of my undergraduate professors have relayed to me is when a daughter and a current student submitted a paper that her mother had written.  This act would have gone unnoticed except that the paper was submitted to the very same professor who read it the first time it was submitted.  Yes, crazy idea, but it's happened in real life and that was described to me as plagarism.  Both the mother and daughter were shamed, the dauther for plagarising, and the mother for permitting it and being a poor example to her daughter.
Now, you say that would never happen, right?  Think again.  It's happened.  To me this very week.  And it's demoralizing and I have lost respect for the partners I work for.  Yes.  I said it.  If they happen upon this post and decide to fire me for defaming them, then 1) I have not named them so it'll be their guilt that turns them in, and 2) it's not defamation if it's true.  Check the defition, assholes.

The legal profession, however different from the American legal education (here, I should correct myself and say the United State of America's Juris Doctorate program of study), is highly collaborative.  Yes, there are solo lawyers and solo practicioners, but even they help each other out and cover for each other in court.  I've seen it happen.  But in a larger firm structure, to make sure there is no mistake uncaught, there are several pairs of eyes and several sets of brains all working on court filings and cases and deals.  It's a wonder why JD students are prevented from collaboration in our first year legal writing memos and briefs, but that's a different discussion for a different day.  So yes, there is plagarism to a degree in that the same stock motions and complaints and requests for arbitration and whatnot gets recycled with the new facts and perhaps the new case law (if someone does the additional research).  That's firm property and part of the collaborative effort.  Okay, fine.  I've even drafted simple legal documents and power of attorneys using great examples of those that saved their work to the document management system, when I was a paralegal and was widely praised for my abilities to merge several great examples into one that is appropriate for our purposes.

That doesn't mean that anyone is off the hook for giving credit where it's due.  Yes, the whole world jokes (only half jokingly) that lawyers are a dishonest, scumbag bunch.  But I take the 2 oaths to be an ethical officer of the courts of Illinois and Georgia quite seriously.  When I was a prosecutor and took that oath, I reminded myself of it as I made decisions on cases and even looked up the Brady case to make sure what I was doing wasn't violating someone else's rights.  Ethics matter to me, and call me naive, but it should matter to everyone.  If it didn't, why the charades?  Everyone pretends to be ethical and upstanding and only those who play that facade well get to be respected.

Sharing of ideas, formats of court filings and boilerplate contract provisions, etc is undeniably distinct from a collection of information and research written for publication.  The reason why professors at research universities are pressured to publish is because it is a way of showing that they are trustworthy sources of academic theories and they have done the work.  It's a way of showing the work, to put it in math class terms.  So it shows the world and the school administrators that the professor is good enough to teach the students that enroll at the school, and that the professor is deserving of the tenure track position, the office space and the honor they are receiving.  BUT, if those ideas are all stolen, aka, plagarized, then it's all a sham, no?  That professor is not only undeserving of the honor, the tenured position, the salary and the right to teach young minds as a member of that institution, but also is a thief and undesrving of respect from the academic community and their students and society in general. 
In simpler words, you not only lose the recognition you unjustly and unethically held, but you also are debased even lower than if you had never had that recognition, because of your despicable actions.

So recap, we've established that 1) Plagarism is lowly, dispicable and unethical, 2) one form of plagarism is ursurping credit unfairly, 3) ethics is important, and 4) members of the legal community should be upstanding and ethical or at least those qualities are seen as a necessary component to gain respect.
With those 4 things in mind, consider what has happened.  Two associates work tirelessly to complete the very difficult task of researching, gathering, digesting and regurgitating an area of legal practice that is still mostly unexplored.  Essentially, to become experts on the topic for a moment and give fresh insight in the form of an article to be published by a publication that covers such topics across the world.  Not easy, but the two associates give up their weekends with their families, to rest up from the week before and recharge their batteries and juggled their practice and participation in the religion of their choice, working into the wee hours of the night.  Then two partners, one of whom put literally zero work or effort into the completed publication, and the other who gave suggestions and demanded extra research on unmentioned points, take full credit, as the only authors.
Now, they may think that the associates are paid a handsome salary.  True, but compared to the hours spent on work the hourly or per diem rate is fairly low, and not even the relevant point here.  If the partners believe that a simple payment of a salary is fair compesation for usurping credit from the proper parties, then that is the very definition of plagarism.

Recall that anecdote (true story, actually) I mentioned in the second paragraph, supra.  The mother gave her daughter a paper she wrote for college and the duo were caught in the act of plagarism.  Now, if instead of the mother giving it to her daughter, what if the mother paid someone to write the paper for her daughter?  Or, to remove the mother entirely from this scenario, what if the daughter paid a "smart nerd" who she found on line, to write that paper for her.  Is the daughter in any of these variations less guilty of plagarism?  No.  Plagarism is taking what you did not write and pretending that it your original work.  That is plagarism of the whole. 
The more common forms of plagarism is when a student intentionally or unintentionally copies an idea, a theory or a sentence from another source, published or unpublished, and fails to cite the proper source, and thus fails to give credit where it's due.  I have a very, very intelligent friend who made this mistake, and it was an honest mistake.  She missed a cite in a final paper in college.  She went before the school ethics board and was suspended for a semester.  She had dreams of going to medical school that she had to give up.  She spent the next seven years in limbo, not able to attend medical school, working as research assistant at various medical school programs and for doctors, until she rebuilt her history and her credibility.  An honest mistake that led to unintentional plagarism had such far-reaching negative impact on a young, well-meaning scholar.  I can honestly say that she is one of the most billiant minds I have ever met in my life and it pained me to move on with my life as I saw her struggle, all for a simple mistake and a cold-hearted, stickler professor.  Another professor we both knew and admired even went to her ethics board hearing to speak on her behalf, to testify that my friend is an upstanding student who she knew well to be honest and ethical.  Thankfully, my friend's hard work paid off and she is now a medical student and despite the delay I see an amazing, passionate surgeon emerging in a few years.  I am incredibly proud of her and very happy that she didn't let that misstep trip her up for life, and I admire the fighting spirit in her.

Those are the consequences of plagarism, even when it's unintended and as simple as a typo.  Now go back to the work of the two associates and the theft of recognition by two partners, who may justify it with the fact that the associates are paid a salary.  How is that different from the daughter paying someone else to write a paper on her behalf.  Plagarism of the whole.
I daresay that intentional, blatant plagarism of the whole is far worse than the unintended mistake of a sleep-deprived college student during finals season.  And the punishment should be proprotional to the severity of the bad act, here the unethical act.  My friend suffered a seven year delay in starting her dream and her career.  What do the partners deserve?  I'm not asking what I know they'll get, but what do they deserve?  It's not about how important this article is, how big or small of an impact it will have, but I'm talking about the principle and the ease with which they plagarized, and probably have done before. 
It disgusts me to know it happens.  It makes me sick that it's happened to me, and I have lost all respect for these two partners and it will make it difficult for me to put out the best work possible.  A demoralized spirit is difficult to revive and no amount of financial compensation (bribery) will be able to make up for it.  These people suck and I hope their fraud is discovered soon.

The longer I'm here, the more I experience this place, the less I like it.  My fondness for the rare hardworking and honorable people I find here grows yet my general feeling towards this work place is that it's hostile and teeming with greed, insecurities and cowards.  The sad part is that those cowards and insecure assholes are the ones in charge and I see no positive future here.
A veritable den of vipers, where sooner or later, you'll be bitten.

Friday/Saturday Midnight...

Still at the office on a Friday night...now Saturday morning.  Eating the other half of my $35 meal...Squid Ink Risotto from Grove Lounge.  It's cold now.  And it's a little on the fishy side, but I figure the Koreans probably like it this way.

Korean women (maybe men too, but haven't been in their bathroom) brush their teeth after lunch every day, and keep a toothbrush at the office.  Actually, I was puzzled at first when I saw tubes of toothpaste at the bathroom sinks, and I thought someone must have left it there.  But I think it's actually provided by the company or the building and there are multiple tubes of the same toothpaste at both sink areas on either side of the women's room.  I see many of the secretaries keep their toothbrush in a cup in the cabinet under the bathroom sink.  I don't brush my teeth after lunch.  I feel like an uncivilized monster, only brushing my teeth twice a day, as recommended by the ADA.

Then, I wonder what Korean women (and possibly men) do after they go out to dinner?  Do they carry a toothbrush around?

Longest 2 Months of my Life

It's been the longest two months of my life.  Three if you count June.

I had other strange Korean things list, but I'll do that later.  It's 3:15 am here in Seoul, fyi.  I'm still at work, fyi.  And I wish with all my might that I was back in the US, whatever job I'd have at this point.  Probably the same ADA position in Savannah, trying to get back to Atl, maybe weaseling my way into a Solicitor General's Office in the Atl metro area.

I signed a 24 month contract, and I've completed 2 of those 24 months.  But I feel like it should be more than that.  I am so tired.  I am so lonely and often heartbroken.  And as he inches away, the chasm in my heart grows.  I kept telling myself that I need to wait it out, give it a fair chance, but I keep wondering, still, if I've made a prudent choice.  Did I allow myself to be wooed by the siren call of a biglaw job, the title of an "international" lawyer?  Perhaps.  Is 2 months long enough, fair enough for me to judge the situation?  Or need I wait a few more months before I make up my mind?

I've accepted long ago that I'll never have a true home on this earth.  Since then, more recently, I've longed for a home of a different kind, something, someone, to anchor me to a location, to give me a reason to stay instead of flitting away to the next destination.  I'm just so tired, and I think if my heart had a home, it won't be so bad that my body doesn't have a home.

the importance of...Credit History

So, I just received a call from a credit card company affiliated with one of the banks in Korea I have an account with.  Actually, the only account that I have any money in, b/c my monthly salary is deposited into that account.  They have agreed to issue a credit card to me.  After long last, after dealing with Hyundai Card, who gave me a box of chocolates stamped w/ their logo and a pen in a box, took photocopies of my passport, one of my bar licenses, and 2 copies of the proof of employment my firm issued, oh and front and back copies of my foreigner registration ID card, then rejected my application via phone call, and to date have not replied to my request to return these sensitive documents or affirm that they've destroyed it all by shredding.  I'm kinda scared of what that "card sales man" is going to do w/ my ID info.  He could be printing fake copies of my passport and selling them to excon-mongols for all I know.

But for now, I am happy that the Korean banking community has accepted me, with however low of a credit limit they will limit me to.  As long as it'll handle one month of subway, taxi and lunch expenses for me it'll do for now.  I was tempted to just get a Chase Sapphire card and go for the choice of NOT having to pay any foreign currency exchange fees (but I am a greedy one and I like to have my cash back rewards and free currency exchange fees, which they're not offering).  Anyways, I am a recognizable human consumer in Korea now.  I will drink my $5 small black coffee and eat my odd renditions of plain white bread and pork belly with pride, and pay for my own cab rides with glee...once my credit card arrives to my office in a week or so.

In strange/exciting news, an atty I met at a DC airport coming back from a wondrous, rainy yet exuberant spring break in Rome w/ Donna three years ago, is going to be the new director of the US Patent Office (and under secretary of commerce for intellectual property).  I must motivate myself to work hard, become a recognizable tour-de-force in whatever I do...I guess for now that's Int'l Arb.
And then there are days when I just want to curl up w/ a cup of tea and my soft doggie and grin at the world and their rat race, as I excuse myself from the senselessness of it all.  It's all made up, this striving, striving, striving.  I haven't met one person who can define the Pursuit of Happiness or what Success is empirically.  So in the end we're all participating in the pursuit of the most delicious food, the pursuit of the most money that can be made, the pursuit of the biggest/smallest/prettiest/loudest car/stereo equipment/dog/cat/novelty item, the pursuit of recognition from other insecure mortals, and on and on.
I waxed a little philosophical just there...but then, the way the rich and the large corporations waste money just for looks while just a few feet away the socially invisible creatures count the meager pennies in their pockets and hope their kids won't go hungry that night, or that they could afford a sufficient winter coat in time for winter.  I'm guilty of it too.  I'm too lazy to take the subway b/c I get lost on it in the mornings so I take a cab, which also allows me to leave home a little later so I can put off admitting that I too need to get to work, and work for my keep.

Well, I hope to be comforted by the humanity I still have and the integrity I salvage at the end of my corporate life, however long that may extend.  I hope never to take comfort in the money in the bank b/c in the end it's just money and even money is a made up concept, only meaningful to us humans, a black box in our cyborg connections, just like that credit card that's being issued to my name.

Grief, and Perspective

I cried in my office, again.  This time, b/c I just happened to check fb on my phone.
Someone I knew, and played with as a child, passed away.  She was found collapsed in her apartment last Monday by her coworkers, who came to check on her when she didn't show up to work.  I don't understand what was the medical problem, but she was in a coma, medically induced and there were difficulties getting her body temperatures to normalize.  It was too low, then got a fever, and things were looking to level out and her family was looking to get her some intensive treatment as soon as she woke up from the coma, after she was weaned off the sedatives.  It just so sudden.

Her mother, Mrs. G, was the home ec teacher at the K-12 school I attended 6th thru 12th grade.  I am 2 years older than her, and was actually better friends with her twin sister when we were preteens.  Here's the fact that worsens this tragedy and loss.  Her twin sister passed away less than a year ago, after just over 10 years of suffering and living in a wheel chair with brain damage.
I remember where I was and what my reaction was when I first heard of N, the 1st twin's condition.  I was at my desk in my sophomore year dorm room in Few Quad, HH 020 was the room number.  I remember feeling the blood drained from my head and down my neck and seemed to just drain down and away.  I was speechless and still for a full 30 minutes, during which time I had started crying and my roommate noticed the silent tears.  And after a while I willed myself to move and talk and told her what I just found out.  N had gone into the hospital for some benign abscess in her head, and it was drained and she was discharged, no problem.  Then her condition got bad and she was rushed to the ER, and they medically induced a coma, a coma from which she didn't recover.  The period of time during which her brain had insufficient oxygen supplied was too long and she suffered permanent brain damage.  N survived, and became responsive and we all had so much hope for her to heal.  She had a special wheel chair, Mrs. G found some cutting-edge treatments that had something to do with increasing oxygen supplies for periods of time as a therapy to revive brain cells and she got physical therapy.  It didn't do her very much good.  While her sisters went to college, got jobs and moved out, N lived in the wheel chair for 10 years.  My heart broke for the family, but things seemed okay.  N left this earth to regain her full, beautiful and complete function in heaven, late summer/early fall 2012.
Then R, N's twin, suddenly collapsed, and I honestly believed that she would be fine, and I thought it was just a small medical hiccup, nothing severe, scary or that it would lead to her following N away from our world.  But now Mrs. G and the family has lost both twins within a year of each other, and I am grieved.

If anyone reads this, please keep the family in your prayers.  They are not financially wealthy people and caring for N and then R, the medical bills are an unimaginable burden for them.  What's funny is that R passed away about 4 hours ago, and earlier today, I recounted in my head the story of someone dying in their office at this firm, someone who had a very unhealthy lifestyle, did little to mitigate the extreme stress, smoked and drank heavily, and literally spent most nights at the office instead of resting and rejuvenating the tired body.  I can't believe it.
It brings perspective to me, as I remember getting angry over the people in the subway not watching where they are going, eyes glued to their smart phones.  Wondering if I'm being paid comparably as a little snot-head atty in a large firm.  My worries are so insignificant and non-existent when it's put next to the pain and tragedy that my friends are suffering.  It humbles me that they are faithful and live their lives honestly in spite of their unfair share of pain at this time.  Please pray for them.

Hitting Low after Low

This Blows.

I'll start with the one thing I'm glad for.  No one is at work yet.  It's close to 11 am, and only the secretaries are here.  In fact, my own secretary isn't  at her desk.  Not that I need her to be there right now.

I'm crying in my office.  I miss Ben.  I miss Cody.  I miss my support system, my life, my friends and parents.  I miss knowing what the heck is going on around me.  I miss feeling like I have a reason to get out of bed other than making it to work on time.  I am silently wiping away my make up, before it's even noon.  I wish I was home, in bed.  Not b/c I think I can sleep, but b/c I'd rather be in the one place in this whole country where I know I am entitled to being alone.  That and the bathroom, but I have more of an exclusive right to my own bed than the bathroom, and it's more comfortable.

I thought I'd be better adjusted to Korea by the end of 2 months.  I've been here 6 full weeks.  I still have ZERO friends.  Everyone around me has their own lives and friends and have places to be and people to see, things to do.  I, on the other hand, feel lonely all day while my friends back on the western hemisphere sleep, and have to sleep when they are awake and active. 

Who knew I was a social being?  What happened to the 30% introvert?  I thought I was always okay being left alone, but maybe that is only when I feel like I have access to a social life at my fingertips.  When it's not accessible or available, I miss what I don't always like tapping into?

I'm realizing that I would MUCH, MUCH, MUCH rather be poor and have friends than be rich with no friends.  Patrizia Reggiani had it wrong.  I'd rather be laughing on a bicycle than cry in a rolls royce.  I'd rather be poor financially but rich in family and friends.  I don't understand the world's desire for money.  I like being comfortable and having nice things, having the extras on those rainy days; but I would never trade fresh air, loving family and friends, connections with my fellow humans and God for any amount of money, comfort, luxury. 

Mother Theresa, who, of all the human beings that tread his earth that I knew of, got it, seemed to know the true meaning of life.  She did it right, in the way that God saw fit for her.  And this quote from her has been inspring to me, comforting even when tears don't give me release or when I can't find purpose in my daily wanderings.
"People are often unreasonable and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you.  Be honest anyways.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.  Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway."

And that's where I'll leave off for now.  I am consoled, at least momentarily, though still homesick in my original homeland.  I don't know where my true home is.  This is the land of my origin, yet it is so strange and I am a stranger in it. 
The reason can't be solely because I am an American now.  That is a title and parts of America is lonely to me.  Finding home, this is my journey strewn with smiles and tears...let's hope I find it soon.

Update:  I walked by a dr's office and they let me weigh myself.  I'm underweight according to their height/weight machine.  This is KOREA, where EVERY WOMAN wants to be nothing more than a toothpick, and most women under 40 are skinny.  Why is this underweight issue plaguing me for the past 2 years?!  I just want to be at a slim, fit, healthy weight for the next 25 years. 
When my mom lost a ton of weight when we first moved from Kenya to the Chicago area, her health took a nose dive and it took her years to recover.  At one point, the doctors said her white blood cell count was at a level where she could be diagnosed with lukemia, without having any bone cancer.  I do NOT want this.  I don't care about being model-skinny.  I got over the "ideal body" long ago when I realized I won't be growing much taller, and both my parents are naturally slim people so I wasn't too worried about getting into obesity land without trying very hard to be unhealthy. 
I now weigh less than what my driver's license says.  How often is that the case with women in the modernized world obsessed with looking like starved models?

Foreign and Alone

I'm in Seoul, Korea.  No, there is no war.  We are not being bombed by the communist cousins up north.  Yet I'm miserable.  Today is my 30th birthday and I am hit with the realization that I chose wrong.  I had the choice of staying at my low-paying South-Georgia coastal government job with the state prosecuting office and barely eking out my existence (and keeping my fingers crossed that the 10-year public service loan forgiveness program would still be real law when I reach my 10th year of gov't service), OR to move to Seoul to take a job doing international dispute resolution w/ a top private firm that will pay me a salary that will enable me to actually pay off my law school loans in much less than 10 years.  I chose the "adventurous" option, the one that everyone raved, and I agreed, was the "opportunity of a lifetime," the one that my family and friends found to be glamorous and glitzy and lucrative and prestigious.  I took the bait and now I'm in Seoul.  And I may have made the wrong choice.
You see, I left behind a boy, no, a man.  I haven't spoke of him on this blog yet b/c the last time I wrote an entry here was before I had met him.  He stuck w/ me even after I moved to Savannah for 10 months, and while it was getting weary on us both, we still cared for each other.  Or at least I cared for him still and he said he still cared for me.  When my friend Donna and I talked about this new job offer initially, she mentioned that maybe if I feel that this is a viable relationship I could be happy in long-term, then it's worth giving up the job.  She later recanted this opinion and said that the job is going to be great for me.  No doubt, in the way of money and prestige and socially, the job is going to be the ticket to "a better life," as my mom would say.  Even he said he couldn't let me turn this job down.  But you see, my heart is breaking and my head hurts and I feel like I've made the wrong choice.  And I'm suffering alone, in silence b/c no one will understand.
I have always gone for the opportunity in the past, the thing that will get me to a better place in life to allow me to make choices.  Towards independence, towards more education, more job opportunities and more financial stability.  This is my life.  While my spirit is whispy like the wind and my personality childlike like a giggle ricocheting across a backyard pond and filled with awe and touched by the little moments of life as if I haven't been jaded enough, the decision making in my life has always been for the higher ground, logical and predictable.  And it's been a fight to preserve my whimsical nature in me, and I've fought at the cost of things like law school grades and more monetary compensation.  But this time, it hurts and I can't help but think that this logical choice is closing the door to everything good I see in my friends' lives.  Something softer and lighter and profound, family and love and affection and a repose from the battle ground that is my present career choice.
My mom finally told me he's too young for me and that he'll eventually leave me even if I ask him to stay.  But even so, I wish that we could have had the time to allow what we had to take a natural course, be it lasting or terminal.  You see, I've whispered countless prayers to God asking if I could keep him, please.  He told me he loved me a mere month and a half into our courtship, something I wasn't ready for at the time.  Yet I knew he was a good man, mature beyond his years and more mature than guys a decade his senior that I have dealt with, and I kept growing fonder of him until I believe I came to match his feelings for me.  He was the closest thing to a gentleman to me, and now there is a rift of 2 years time, maybe more, to be overcome.  Every male friend and acquaintance I have had in the past 11 months have told me it's doomed and I hope they are wrong.  I hope they are all wrong, but to have a deeper assurance that they are wrong and I am right, I should have chosen to stay closer to my beau.  And thus my heart breaks and I cry alone on my 30th birthday without even my puppy friend Cody to comfort me, friendless and alone in this city that is to bring me "a better life" and closer to that non-descript "success."

Day After Valentine's Bake-A-Thon

Sleep under the stars tonight. (x2)

A gentle touch speaks volumes. (x2)

Share a secret. (x4)

Celebrate family and friends.

Share a sunset.

Do something spontaneous.

Watch the sun come up. (x2)

Make someone melt today. (x2)

Chocolate. Always your Valentine. (x2)

Remember your first crush. (x3)

Linger over chocolate longer.

Listen with your heart. (x3)

Trust with your heart, not your head.

Be your own Valentine. (x2)

Be a little mysterious. (x2)

This is what I unwrapped and read tonight. I read every single one as I unwrapped it. I was supposed to finish studying GA Remedies/Equity/Non-Monetary Damages. Instead, I made Rolo Cake Cookies, then made a variation batch with Dove chocolates. I waited a full month to make the rolo-center cookies but when I went to the drug store tonight, Rolos didn't qualify as Valentine's candy this year. I personally find Rolos super romantic and don't understand why they weren't packaged in pink and/or red bags.

Discrimination against caramel centers, I say.

So I also bought a bag of Dove dark chocolate with cherry swirl and Dove dark chocolates. I made a variation of the Rolo Chocolate Cake Cookies. I bought a box of white cake mix and made cookies w/ Dove centers...and Rolos. I told my study buddies I'll bring cookies. I think I'll give it to another study buddy...or just someone that I occasionally sit at adjacent tables with while we individually study for the GA bar.

28th Valentine's Day w/out a date. I think I'm getting used to it, despite some personal angst leading up to the day of. The actual day isn't nearly as painful as I imagine it to be. I really should get used to this. I wasn't too into it until a couple years ago when I broke up w/ a boyfriend 10 days (or maybe a week?) before Valentine's Day. Not that I spent every other Valentine's before that one being wined and dined by a boy/man pining over me.

Anyways, despite the candy I really wanted not being on the post-Valentine's day sale, I purchased it and baked cookies for my friends. I baked 6 dozen very decadent cookies...and experimented with the shapes too. Next time, I'm just sticking with the circle/ball shapes.

Happy Day After Valentine's. Or, Happy DAV for short.

Adventures in Puppyland Tidbit: I think Cody had a bit of diarrhea today. Was it the carrot I left him? Was it bits of the shoe insert he ate? He left the shoe alone...just tore up a shoe insert. Bad Dog.

Sorry for leaving you home alone for 13 hours, buddy. I gotta at least pretend to try to pass the GA bar.

Speaking of the bar...I've taken 2 weeks off from my unpaid apprenticeship. At the apprenticeship, there is an IT contractor girl who I like and who is very thoughtful. She has told me almost daily for the past month that I look tired. And my answer always is that I am tired. I need a refresher. I need a job that pays, I need a vacation. I'd also like someone who cares about me for once.

Kate Middleton, a commoner and the daughter of a merchant,

caught the eye of a prince (in a see-through dress) and married him. I'm not hoping for a prince, but I think I do deserve an equal

partner (who will serenade me, is willing to dance with me, and maybe massage my back and do the dishes). And I don't think I should have to wear a see-through dress for that, the cookies should be enough.

It's been a while...I've got a teeth update.

YUP, got a teeth update. B/c, you see, this whole blog thing started as a way for me to express myself while my jaws were recovering from a 10-hour operation during which my head swelled up to twice its normal size (no, I wasn't just a fat-head back then. be nice.) and my neck looked like ppl w/ L-shaped fists punched mirror-images into my throat and everything inside my mouth was so puffy I couldn't swallow or close my lips. I bled for weeks after the surgery and would wake up in the middle of the night to painfully hack up globs of coagulated blood that collected at the back of my mouth/throat.

Needless to say, I couldn't say anything, I had stitches all around the inside of my mouth where my gums met my inner lips/cheek/flesh. I'm very well recovered now, nearly 4 years after that horrendous surgery. But, you know what? I'd do it all over again if I was presented with the choice again.

B/c now, I can bite into a sandwich in public w/out fearing the contents to be dragged out of the slices of bread, dangling like seaweed out of my sea-monster mouth. And, I can bite into a sandwich in private and I know half the insides won't be slapping on my chin. And, I can bite as self-defense if I need to. :) so many useful things I can do w/ this new BITE!

As for the migraines, mostly gone! Probably all muscle-tension triggered migraines are gone the few migraines I now have aren't nearly as drastic and painful and nauseating as they used to be, and even better, they're not a regular visitor. Just on occasional one, usually when I don't eat for a long time and my blood sugar gets low (a new development that came w/ age a couple years ago).

BUT, I didn't wear my shiny new Essix retainers and now, a front tooth shifted. So, I had to get a new retainer made to push that tooth back in its place. Sad. I need to wear it 24 hours a day for 3 months...but already I'm failing. I happen to eat at work, and then b/c I can't rinse out my mouth very well, or carry a toothbrush, I don't put it back in and I forget about it until bed time. le sigh.

So, I have a new retainer. I will post pictures with it on, but just not today. I need to go print my resume, get my stuff together for an interview (at which, I'm told by an insider, they won't be hiring anyone) but I got an interview, I signed up for a time slot and it would reflect poorly on me for my budding new career as an attorney/officer of justice to not show up just b/c I found out they're not hiring. But secretly, I hope they decide to hire me anyways. And, b/c I have to register w/ the GA Consortium of Law Schools folks 40 mins before my actual interview, I have to leave home by the awesome hour of 7:40 am. I know this probably doesn't sound too bad to most ppl who've been in the working world, but I am not a morning person and deliberately find housing close to where I have to show up to in the mornings. One day moving every time I get a new place to be, or in search of a place with an even shorter commute will not be possible (aka, one hypothetical day in which I'm married or have kids or own my dewelling place. I don't know which of these circumstances are the most unbelievable to me at this present moment.)

The new retainer cost me $150, and that's b/c my orthodontist took pity on my insurance-less state and basically charged me the lab fees. I think after I get that one tooth straightened out, I'll go back to him to get a bite-guard-splint thing made for my teeth-grinding problem. I still grind my teeth, apparently. I guess the stress from my life didn't all go away w/ the surgery. More about the woes of wearing a retainer aggressively pushing a tooth back into place to be discussed later.

In other news, I called a dentist's office and they said teeth cleaning, and an initial exam and basic x-rays are $95. Not too shabby...possibly even affordable after I scrape the bottom of my bank account to hand over to the GA Office of Bar Admissions (it's costing me more than $1000 more, that's a whole $1K, than IL did). But I'm going to call one other dentist, one that a friend recommended, to see what her prices are like. I do need a cleaning. I haven't had dental insurance since 2008, and it's been that long since I've had a cleaning. I'm overdue. It might be why I have sensitive teeth these days. I hope after the cleaning, the sensitivity will go away (????). Sounds like wishful thinking, but maybe not too out of the realm of possible realities.

Adventures in Puppyland bit: Cody is a cutie. But he loves his dog food way too much...he bit my toe/foot this morning. I'm trying to transition him out of puppy food into adult dog food and the pet store I went to didn't have the adult version of the Wellness Small Dogs Just for Puppy super5mix in the 15 lb bags. Apparently they can order the large bag, but it comes ins 12 lb bags, instead of the standard 15 lbs. So, they gave me several different sample bags of dog foods of comparable quality and price range.

Tried the Pure Vita grain free Salmon Formula a couple meals (w/ some of the old puppy mix I've been feeding him) and he's gotten some wetter stools. Not sludgy or liquidy in any way, just wetter, stickier and thus more difficult to clean up (I like his poop to just roll off the newspaper into the toilet, no shaking or shoving w/ toilet paper). It was also lighter in color. I checked the ingredients of the puppy kibbles I've been mixing and they have turkey, chicken, salmon, some other species-named fish, lamb and other stuff, so salmon isn't completely new to his diet.

I think I'm going to table Pure Vita for now, and buy some more of the Wellness just for puppy stuff (to mix into more Merrick Whole Earth Farms stuff and the remaining Royal Canin stuff...which I was told and read was not as "premium" or awesome as they say they are). I think I'll use his old mix for a bit long, to transition him into adult dog food. And, I am going to not even try the Pure Vita grain free Bison Entree sample and move on to the Taste of the Wild samples...hopefully they will agree w/ Cody's digestive tracts a little more.

Save the Date Everyone!!! Cody's 1st Birthday is Feb. 5th. If the weather's nice and the yard is dry, I am thinking of inviting his other doggy friends and their humans over for a romp in the yard and doggy birthday cake. And some of my aged glugg and/or Christmas wine for the humans/adults. Otherwise, I would have to make it an indoor event and invite less creatures into my teeny, tiny, very humble abode w/ no real seating. And then have a larger clean-up job after the guests leave.

Here's like the P.P.S. part. Remember how when we were in middle school, there was a list of P.S.'s and P.P.S.'s and P.P.P.S.'s? It's like that but I promise to stop after this. I've started studying for the GA bar examination (hopefully IL Sup. Ct. and the IARDC will get off their butts and mail in my letters of good standing so I can definitely take the 1-day attorney's examination). I bought the books and lecture notes off of a former classmate who took (and passed) the GA bar in July, instead of paying for an entire new bar course, b/c I just coulnd't afford it and figured I may not have time to do all the lectures anyways.

Here's the schedule I've come up with for the next 6 weeks:

week 1: Property and Con Law

week 2: Crim Law, Crim Pro, Agency/Partnership and Corporations and MPT

week 3: Contracts, Damages/Equitable Remedies

week 4: Torts, Evidence and Family

week 5: Wills, Trusts, Fed. Civ Pro, and GA Civ Pro

week 6: Comm. Paper, Sec. Trans., Prof. Resp. and MPT(?)

WISH ME LUCK!!!

Adventures in Puppyland: Everybody loves me, I'll still go eat some WORMS!!!

Yes, you read it right. Worms. Intestinal worms. The tapey-type, from what I could tell from checking poop and comparing pictures from my internet research.

Two weeks ago, I found a few fleas on the doggy and f.r.e.a.k.e.d. o.u.t. at the self-dog-wash at the groomer's. Apparently this summer was the worst for fleas in GA. Cr-zazy. But the flea meds finally arrived, courtesy of UPS, and only about 3 days after the normal-bath-turned-flea-bath for traumatized Cody.

He survived that trauma, thankfully, but he has encountered some other....shall I say, "issues."

I don't know where he got these things, but I'm really glad I didn't give him the dewormer I got for him when he was neutered in August (yup, snip snip for a snappy little yapper). He started scooting his butt on the floor, mostly in the late evenings, about 2 days ago. It was gross, I lysol-wiped every surface I caught him doing that on. I also made him stop. He'd sit still for a while and just continue, whining just slightly as he wiped his anus on my floor. If alarms won't get me up out of bed, the sight of a dog scooting his butt mere feet away from my bed will.

Thursday night at around 2:44 am (yes, I checked what time it was), I caught him scooting his butt on the floor...I think I must have fallen into a light sleep and woke up b/c of the movement/noise. I would normally admonish the pup for being awake and go back to sleep...but this made me jump out of bed, take doggy to the bathroom and get a wet wipe and wipe his butt. In the process, I found a small, teeny oblong piece of what seemed to me like a short segment of an absurdly thin vermicelli noodle, but it was slightly pink in color. Something between white and pink w/ a twinge of beige...but just barely.

Well, this got me concerned. After I lysol'ed the floor, and made sure his butt was wiped clean, I dug out the dewormer meds and we both went to bed. The next morning, I decided to check his poop out...and I found about 1/3 inch long piece of that same vermicelli noodle...and I administered the dewormer.

Administration of medications: The dewormer was dosed for his weight, and in 2 separate syringes (sans hypodermic needles). One dose was to be given, then the 2nd dose to be given 3 weeks later. So I uncapped 1 syringe and had trouble making the plunger work...so I applied more pressure than I should have and it sprayed across 2 feet of expanse. Luckily, Cody seems to love drugs and he started to lick it up. I actually helped him get every drop, then administered the rest directly into his mouth. I then filled the syringe w/ water...shook it around, and mixed the medicinal fluid w/ his food...and he LOVED IT. muahahahahahahaha!!!!

I then crated him, left him w/ a kong stuffed w/ a snack and went to work. At work, appetizingly, I read up on different types of worms that can infect dogs, their life cycles and the chance of them infecting me. Thankfully, I'll know when I'm infected, b/c I'll break out in rashes or lose my eyesight. I hope I find out before I become permanently disabled, so I can take a shot of some deworming something or other. But for now, I'm safe. And Cody hasn't scooted tonight.

I hope he is worm-free, but I will follow up in 3 weeks. Oh, I put that into my cell phone calendar while I was at work...right after lunch. :)

And on TUESDAY, he gets grooommmmeedd!!! I talked to the groomer over the phone this morning and offered to bring his muzzle. And you know what? The groomer has one w/ his name on it. Well, he said he will be careful and understands that Cody's a pom, so he'll naturally have a pom-attitude, or POMITUDE. I just made that up right now. And it's the same groomer that saw me freak out when I found 7 fleas on Cody, so he's met the doggydoodoo. I will be sure to update you all w/ pictures of a fluffed and brushed and bathed Cody!!

Adventures in Puppyland: September 2011/Devil Dog version?

I really wanted to write about poop. It's a big deal. Somehow, I feel no shame or inappropriateness when talking about puppy poop patterns, consistencies and frequency. Preferred locations of puppy pooping can be an entire blog in and of itself.

However, I must talk about devil dog today.
My puppy is a devil dog. This is in more than one way.

1. The bestest way that my puppy is a devil dog is that he is a BLUE DEVIL Dog. He may not know what that is, but he is one. Just like we all know he's a Pomeranian, but he doesn't know the difference between his own breed and a chihuahua, which I have a personal dislike for...don't ask me why. Actually, I think I might have been traumatized by the creepy rat-look of chihuahuas and especially that one talking "Mexican" chihuahua that represented Taco Bell. The combination of Taco Bell, a creepy accent, the rat that they tell me is actually a dog and the fact that it talked...in Spanish, no less....I think it's understandably why I would've been forever scarred.

But creepy talking dogs and the yappy, insecure breed aside, I want to talk about devil dog. He is a Blue Devil Dog, and I am seeking a Duke blue rain coat in size x-small for the little one. I anticipate that his devilishness will need walks even when it's raining outside, b/c he's just a little devil.
Case in point: We had a 30+ min walk this evening, but he is currently growling and running around the teeny apt-hobbit-hole I live in w/ one of those long toys in his mouth. He's squeaked the squeaker so much that it broke...it just makes a plastic blup-blop sound when he bites down on that part, and rattles a bit when he shakes it like a small animal he just hunted. He does occasionally drop it by my foot and looks up, wondering why I'm not chasing him or is not interested in his toy. I blame it on my inability to get out of bed early enough to walk him and get to work early enough to make it there before the trial re-started. I tried tossing a toy around this morning as I got ready, and spent 10 mins making him do tricks for each bite/handful of breakfast.

2. My puppy is actually a devil in disguise. I really just wanted to talk about poop, but I must report his devilishness. He destroys stuff w/out care of the cost of replacement or repair. He is ruthless.
He decided that digging through my bag was a good idea, again. He had stopped for a bit, and I thought he was done digging through my bag and stealing from it. But last night, he tried to steal some paper to rip up...and I made him "drop it," much to his chagrin. Too bad, I'm the human that feeds you, you're the dog that must learn to obey. Sorry, life is unfair.
But no more than 30 mins after I got home and let him out of his crate, he decided to fish out a pen and chew on it....and gave himself a new beauty mark. I lured the pen away from him and threw it out before we both were inked.

But b/c chewing on a pen is not enough trouble for "devil day," he chewed up my ipad charger...like the wire part. He's never chewed up an electrical cord so I figured he wasn't interested. NOPE. I was wrong. He found the ipad charger that I am sure I hid from view, and chewed it to the itty bitty metal wires that are twisted together to conduct electricity into my ipad from the wall socket. But I saw that he had unplugged the usb end of the cord from the wall-socket part. So I scolded him and he seemed to feel bad enough to leave the room when I told him "out!"
But then, after we walked for over 30 mins and exhausted an already exhausted me, I found him quiet, out of view. I know that that means...he is in my room, either snuggled in the forbidden bed or eating something that he stole from my little stash of knick-knacks and make up and stuff by climbing on my bed and nosing around. And surely, he was...he found the ipad charger again, this time, he dragged it down to the rug, and had pulled the cord part out of the plug part, and not only that, but managed to dislodge the 2-prong plug part from the small, white boxy part that might serve as a mini-adaptor or whatever. You know how Apple products are w/ their interchangeable plugs/extension cords.
Genius? or pure devil? I can't tell...I had to spend some time creating a negative association for him to that set. I held it out to him, and every time he went to bite on it, I flicked his nose (not hard, b/c I seem to be unable to do anything w/ force w/ my fingers). Eventually, he decided it wasn't worth it and sat behind me.

I felt it was too classic to let it slide, so I took a picture of devil dog next to the ipad charger he just destroyed, sporting the beauty mark he gave himself by chewing up a pen. I shall post eventually, as soon as my phone e-mails the picture to my e-mail...it can take up to a day or so.

Oh no! I lied. Here it is...I titled this image, "Inked and Wired: Cody after getting himself a new beauty spot and supplementing his diet with much-needed plastic and metal"
3. The most devilish aspect of this all is that he pretends to be all innocent w/ his cute looks.
"Oh, I'm just a puppy, what can I do? WHAAAAT? You think I did it? Silly human, little me can't destroy things...too little."
Yeah, right, devil dog. Your cuteness is just a guise and I see right through it. You are dangerous stuff. Stop eating the corners of every cardboard box in my apartment. I need to move again in 6 months.
I can feel you chewing on the lever on my chair, the chair my landlord "gave"/lent to me. Stop pretending you didn't do it. I see your bite marks. Don't pretend I did it, b/c it's at your face-level, not mine.

4. He took to barking at every new sound. The radio I listen to b/c I don't own a TV cannot be heard in peace b/c he doesn't like the voices of the people being interviewed. Good thing I am armed w/ the spray bottle. I will shoot you, devil dog!!! I have a full bottle!!!!!! grrrr....

I can go on, but I really must shower and go to bed so I can get to bed, wake up early enough to walk devil dog (to wear him down and temper him a bit) and get to the ID making place by 8:30 am. B/c I am eager to get a county ID so I can use the employee entrance and not stand in line w/ jurors (I make no eye-contact w/ them, just in case they tell on me), crusty old private-practice attorneys and the general public. B/c I'm not paid, and the only thing I have going for me is the false impression of importance.

(Coming Up: Poop!!, bug-hunting and maybe more devil antics. PLEASE forward me any retailer that sells a Blue Devil doggy raincoat for small dogs one step above the tea-cups.)

Adventures in Puppyland: Another bite victim

The balls are coming off. No more hesitation. That's it.

We've got a new bite victim: my brother. He wouldn't believe that this dog was bipolar and could turn on you if you bothered him while he was w/ his select few "possession" and "aggression" triggering toys. I warned him several times about that bone I kept out of reach of the dog. I warned him that the dog is getting nervous about him constantly touching him and his bone. I warned him that w/ that growl the dog is getting angry. I and the dog warned him when the dog snarled. I told him to not bother him or just take it away.

And, the 6.5 lb pup bit him...hard. Harder than the pup has ever bitten anyone, yet. Definitely drew blood, more blood than the scratches suffered by my dad or me. I had been mistaken about my mom being bitten by him, but he's definitely tried. Good thing he was tied up whenever he got mad at my mom. But he's bitten me 4 times, my dad once and now my brother.

We looked at the wound and saw that the pup may have bitten more than once...possibly twice. My dad thought he was going to bite both me and my brother. We were laying on our stomachs on my bed, shoulders and heads hanging off the edge, me holding the insanity-inducing bone he was chewing and my brother pulling on his back paw or petting his head. My dad had stepped in to talk with us. This happened really fast, I tried to twap his nose w/ my finger to stop/distract/punish him and he almost got my finger too. I couldn't grab him by the scruff of his neck, but I yelled really loud in his face and snatched his bone away. But in all this chaos, my brother was bitten twice, and was left w/ a large scratch-wound that bleed for a long time, bleed through the bandaid. The dog is lightening-fast when he snaps/lunges/bites.

We warned my brother about the dog's speed too. He learned that our warnings were all true, the hard way.

I should have grabbed him by the back of his neck and threw him into the bathroom for a time out. He instead got thrown into his crate and was yelled at by my mom. She was angry at the dog for biting her son. She wacked the bottle of peroxide against the top of the crate and threw his kong at the crate while yelling at him. I made her stop but not b/c I thought he didn't deserve it...but more so b/c her anger might exacerbate his aggression issues. That dog is a pain in the butt.

Bottom line: I looked up low-cost neutering places in Chicago and Atlanta. I'm going to do it. I can't afford the vets around my town ($350 to $400+), but I need to have his balls chopped.

My dad and I had the same idea: I thought of tightly wrapping a rubber band around his balls and cutting off circulation until they fall off over the course of a week or so; My dad said back in the day they used to hold the dog down and wrap fishing line or strong thread tightly around the balls and that it'll fall off eventually.

Whichever way we do it, I really hope high-running hormones are 99% of his aggression issues. I can deal w/ all of his bad habits if he wouldn't snarl and bite people. It's just too stressful living w/ a biting puppy, he drew lots of blood today and I can't have him doing this anymore.

Oh, and he scooted his butt on the floor this evening and after his walk I got up close and personal w/ the pup's anal sacs...expressed them like an expert on the 3rd try. Didn't get it all over the place this time. No professional puppy bath needed this time.

Adventures in Puppyland (early August 2011 edition)

Last night (Aug. 6), I filled the pup's kong toy w/ kibble, sealed it with some puppy "stuffin" and secured it w/ a couple treats (I did this like 2 days ago so the stuffin paste had dried). He seemed to have trouble eating this new way to serve dinner and I offered to help. He bit me instead. And I instituted a social isolation on him to show him who's boss...but found it to be extremely difficult to feed him w/out giving him any commands. He is so accustomed to sitting and waiting for me to give him is "okay" before he approaches his food bowl that it was impossible...also, what happened today totally broke the isolation and make it impossible.

Today (Aug. 7), my mom found that he may have stepped on some poop he concealed on the dark stone tiles of our entry way, that my dad probably stepped on on his way out to Lowe's or Home Depot to find some mosquito repellent for the yard. My mom was dressed like a bee keeper when I went down to see the mess the dog made. She had on grey sweat pants, a light blue rain jacket w/ a towel covering most of her face with the hood pulled over the towel on her head. And the puppy was dangling from her arms, wanting to get down but not sure what he could do. I got her the rubber gloves she wanted to use to pull out the waist-high thistle plants that have taken over her vegetable garden.

Dressed like a bee keeper w/ make-shift protective gear against the mosquitos, she took the puppy dangling from her hands out to the backyard while she pulled weeds and I cleaned up. Fine, this is "my dog" so I guess his poop is my domain. It's not like I don't do this a minimum of twice a day. (If anyone reads this, and knows how to get a dog on a pooping schedule, I'd like to know. He does NOT keep to a schedule no matter how regular I keep his meal times and bed time.) B/c the entire entry way reeked of dog poop, I sported some rubber gloves, pried the dried and smeared dog poop pieces from the stone, wrapped them inside the glove and spill large puddles of the dog pee cleaner w/ enzymes and bacteria-killing stuff I got from the pet store (a half-gallon jug). I then got a new glove and a few paper towels to sop up the dog poop and dirt. I ended up doing this twice and wiping the bottoms of the shoes present...just in case any of them had poop on them. This was really exciting as I inched around the foyer/entry way wiping up dog poop and dirt and leaves shoes tracked in...that my dog was probably eating on his free time.

As I was finishing this epic clean-up effort, I hear the most shrill, pain-induced cries that is undoubtedly coming from him. I run outside in my pajama bottoms and run towards the sounds, and trace the blood-curdling shrieks to under our neighbor's deck. I have no idea how he got under there as the deck was sealed all the way around w/ brick flower beds and wooden boards making up a small step down into their yard. All I knew was that my puppy was trapped under the boards and he was dying. I finally found exactly where under the deck he was and my mom and I discovered the tiny space between the dirt and the board, behind some large evergreen shrub that he probably crawled under. Then, we stopped hearing his cries. We were sure he was bitten by some nefarious animal and has now passed out or died. I start frantically tapping on the boards and trying to revive him, then I heard him move and then he barks.

Relief.

So now that I know he is still alive, I feel the duty to work to get him out...I mean, that obligation felt stronger when I heard him than during the few minutes during which my mom and I stared at each other as two panicked women, thinking he has died. I was half relieved that the occasionally mean, biting and trouble-making pup had died and half fearful (and fully shocked) that he has died so quickly. I considered leaving him there, but then I considered the neighbors smelling his rotting carcass in a few days and thought it wasn't nice...that I should at least burry him in my own backyard. But then, he made noise to let us know he was living, and that's when I started to think of ways to get him out.

My mom still had those elbow-length rubber gloves on so I instructed her to push the shrub aside as I try to stick my fingers into the crevice and lure the dog out. It didn't work. I ran to my house and brought his treat baggie. I sprinkled treats at the entrance. Nothing. I tapped around until he barked again and dropped a few treats into the cracks where he was. I'd like to think he found them and got a few free treats out of this. My mom instructed me to throw more treats in front of the hole, yelling at me that I need to have more down there for him to smell it. We tried everything.

We were convinced he was bitten or injured or something. I yelled at my mom to go get a flash light. She ran home and got one. By then, the towel protecting her face from mosquitoes had been thrown on the deck and we were both being attacked by the world's meanest mosquitos. I wondered what the heck was my neighbors doing while we were making so much commotion in their backyard, pushing aside their yard furniture and their shrubs. She brought the flash light, I shined it in the cracks until I found the dog...and confirmed that it is indeed our dog and we can't give up and go look for our dog. I was partially hoping that it was someone else's dog in there so I could stop doing all that. B/c then I'd have the excuse of having to go look for my own lost dog. Right?

Well, I flashed the light into the hole to see if he'd come near it. I mean, there were at least 2 handfuls of treats in there! There was a light to show him the way in the dark, dark under deck! He did not come. By then, my mom and I were convinced he was trapped under there for sure. Maybe there were some supports for the deck that cuts off the direct route from where he is to the hole. Maybe he followed some squirrel or other small animal in there to catch it but he got lost in the maze and he is stuck in the small 3-ft area that we know he's under. I asked my mom if we had a hatchet...she said no. I was ready to bust that deck wide open to get my dog out. We decided we needed to remove at least 1 board to get to him and lift him out. I ran home and got my dad's tool box that he has all sorts of small things in, and I try to unscrew a screw of the shortest board we determined was closest to the crying pup. The screw would not budge...of course not, b/c they were drilled in w/ an electrical drill.

(**Aside: the saddest part of all this wasn't that my 6 month old rambunctious, trouble maker puppy was stuck under the deck and dying from a poisonous snake bite or had his eyse gouged out by a super-ninja squirrel. the real sad part was that while doing all this, I thought about trespasser laws and how this would, at least arguably, qualify as an "emergency" so my neighbor can't sue me for trespass...but that he is probably entitled to the cost of repairs to his deck after I tear it apart w/ my bear hands. yes, it was the bar exam and torts information coming at me during this time of extreme distress.**)

Continuing w/ the events of this afternoon...I finally run to my neighbor's house to 1) see if they have the tools necessary to remove a board, and 2) see why they haven't come out to yell at us or at least ask what the heck we were doing on their deck, tapping around w/ a mega-flashlight and screwdrivers poised to unscrew his deck w/ my sheer, brute strength. I ring their front door bell, I ring their side/back door bell. My neighbors weren't home, naturally. I run back to where my mom is, and her face was covered in bites, as were my elbows and her neck and our backs...those skeeters bit me through my shirt...wth.

We hear door slamming, so I run back to the side door and ring the bell, and this time, I open the storm door and rap loudly on the glass part of the door. Nothing...I run over to the front and my dad's car was in our driveway. I run over, tell him briefly that the dog is trapped under the neighbor's deck and tell him to come. He is able to unscrew 1 screw by hand using some tool I never thought to look at, then said we need a drill. By now storm clouds have, appeared and the sky thunders dramatically...Really? Is this for real? My dad tells me that we should go inside and leave the dying dog there. I run to the neighbor's house on the other side and ring the side door bell furiously. I finally hear the woman yelling at me but I can't hear what she is saying, but her husband isn't home, obvi.

My mom instructs me to run across the street to another neighbor's house and I ring their doorbell until the wife, her son and their crazy, yappy miniature pinscher who tries to eat me through the glass storm door, appears. B/c of the dog, I can neither communicate what the heck I'm doing nor hear what they are saying. Finally the son carries the dog further into the house and I explain to the woman (in her nightie, it appeared) why I was so frantically requesting their assistance. She tells me her husband isn't home and she doesn't know where the tools are, and to wait until her husband got home. I explain, again, that my puppy is TRAPPED under a DECK and that he is crying like he is injured badly. I ask her if her son would know. She calls him over and takes the dog. I ask him to please find his dad's tools. He asks me what's wrong and I explain to him what is going on and how my dog is crying like something is eating him alive. He finally relents and takes me to their garage, where there were all sorts of crazy tools in there. I mean, they could build a house w/ all the stuff in there. He tried calling his dad then opened a few tool boxes and pulled out an electric saw. I asked him if it would be possible to saw through the board w/out cutting up my dog, and explained that while that should be plan B, I wondered if he had a drill so we could try to remove the screws first. He then found the drill (he knew exactly where that was) and followed me over to where my parents were working on the dog.

And you wouldn't believe this...just as I appear w/ the neighbor with his electric drill, we see my dad pulling the dog out from under the deck. I thanked the neighbor profusely as I checked the dog for bites, ready to hop into a car and get him to a vet asap. And the damned puppy is FINE. He is, for sure muddy and smelly, but UNSCATHED.

Apparently, my dad of the longer arms, stuck his arm into that hole (scratching his arm up in the process) as my mom pushed back the shrubs, and when the dog came close, grabbed a paw and pulled. My dad was so mad. He said he could feel the dog's nose but the stupid dog wouldn't come closer or walk out towards the light. Idiot. 'Fraidy cat. Crying like an animal was eating his hind leg while he was still alive and kicking. Making us all think he was severely injured when he didn't have a drop of blood on him.

I gave him a bath immediately. By the time he was half dry, the 2nd neighbor whose door I banged on, w/ the wife home alone had come to see if he could help. The wife was apparently very ill w/ sever arthritis (I knew she was sick, but not sure w/ what) and took her some time to come to the door. But after speaking with my mom, had called her husband who was out of town and he rushed over to help. Their dog had died a few months ago...the dog who used to come over to our yard to poop/pee/steal food...and they were sympathetic. How nice of him...he said we could have called 911.

Of all the things that ran through my head, including tort laws and privileges to trespass to land, calling emergency did not enter my head. I thought 911 was for humans only. But our neighbor explained that there is an animal rescue place in Evanston, close to where we live, and that he had called 911 once when an animal got trapped in his house somewhere. They came and trapped it and took it away. That is why we pay taxes...and I never thought of calling for help. Instead, I ran around the neighborhood knocking on doors and asking for tools to bust open a neighbor's deck to rescue a dog that was uninjured and just being stupid.

He still smells funky by his head...like dead fish. Like the mud under the deck had some especially yucky, decomposing things and it rubbed into my dog's head as he squeezed into the hole and out of it.

And thus concludes today's episode of Adventures in Puppyland.

It's like 3 days before the bar, more like 2 b/c it's past midnight and I should be in bed working on getting up at 5 am.

I don't know what the dress code for the IL bar is, but I heard a few years ago they confiscated flip-flops. I wouldn't mind taking the bar sans shoes, but then again, I would prefer to have something covering my little piggies b/c they tend to get cold in air conditioning. I was planning on wearing sweats and like a tank top w/ a long-sleeved shirt and a jacket, b/c I get cold in air-conditioning.

If anyone has a pill that contains like a temporary log of all the topics tested on the IL bar, please forward to me....and tell me how long it lasts and when it kicks in so I take it at the right time.

Oh, and adventures in puppy land took me to giving my puppy a butt-bath at 4:30 am one morning/night after I decided to quit learning bar stuff. He had stolen a croissant from my parents and managed to consume 1/3 of the gigantic ball of butter and flour. He did not get puppy dinner, but had a slightly wet movement in the wee hours that made him uncomfortable and stinky...and gave me a dot of wet poop on my arm when I picked him up. Is this like motherhood?

open letter to retailers and other e-marketers

Dear Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Gilt, Shoebuy, Ticketmaster, Ebay, AA/Delta/United/airline mileages/clubs, Sephora, Lush, Habitat for Humanity, MyHabit, Akira, whoever you think you are who keeps on sending me promotional e-mails,

I'd like to inform you that you are just plain annoying right now. Please STOP.

1. you are normally pretty annoying on an average day/era, but I have the capacity to tolerate you, and occasionally indulge myself in wasting time looking at your e-mail at things I cannot afford.

2. right now really is not the time to be trying to lure me with vacations I can't take, things I can't purchase, new products I have ZERO interest in. You see, I'm sitting here trying to cram my flimsy hoax of a brain with all this lofty legal shizzazzz, and dealing w/ the other stresses of living a life and dealing w/ generational passage and other more profound facts of life. Life, Death, prospects of marriage, or lack thereof, etc. Your e-mails are doubly annoying, actually make that triple or quadruple. You don't need my approval for just raising the exponent on that annoyance factor. I authorize you, expressly, for that specific thing.

It's difficult trying to keep abreast of the relevant news, and your cluttering of my e-mail box so that I have to sort through, delete en masse, and finally discover messages to me from my bar examiners or from the bar prep folks are just too much for me to handle right now. Also, there is the danger that I might be deleting some very important e-mails from the two named parties that I am interested in receiving news from these days.

Because I've said my piece, nicely and politely and b/c I don't have time to banter about the nuances and the fringe-bits of these topics, I will sign off.

I do wish you'd all just ram your self-marketing heads into a concrete wall and call it a day b/c even after this period of anxiety and intrinsic and extrinsic torment ends, I would rather not see you on a daily basis.

Good bye, perhaps forever?