this weekend.

So, this past weekend was my one of my brother's birthdays. My mom wanted to get a Great American Cookie for my brother. He goes to college away from home. We called the Great American Cookie Company near my brother and asked if they delivered. They said no. My little brother then said "we should go up there and deliver it ourselves." And that's exactly what we did.

We left around 9:30pm on Friday night. My brother's college is a 6 hour drive from here. Friday night we drove 4 hours and then crashed at a hotel. A crappy hotel but it was a bed and we were tired so it didn't much matter. We woke up Saturday and called the birthday boy to tell him we wanted to take him out to lunch. He was surprised and appreciative. We went to lunch and then took him to his work. We picked up the Great American Cookie and took it to the birthday boy at work. He was surprised again and appreciated it. He worked for a few hours while my brother and I took my dog to the dog park. Nora was not at all friendly. We used to go to dog parks and she would automatically play and run around and make the other dogs chase her cause she's super fast. She'd jump in the water and get absolutely filthy. She loved it. But not this time. She was scratching and standing up on my legs for me to pick her up. A little Boston terrier tried to come play with her and she lunged at him growling. He ran away and sat down and put his front paws over his eyes. It was the cutest thing. I had to go over and apologize to him just because I felt bad. We stayed at the park for a while hoping that Nora would come around. She didn't. She just wasn't in the mood. I think she was still not happy about the fact that she'd spent hours stuck in the car and she doesn't like road trips.

We ran some other errands and then decided to take Nora to a friend's house and go to the movies. As we were headed to the friend's house, the birthday boy called and told us he was out of work early so we headed to pick him up. Hung out with some of his friends that night and then went and crashed at a friend of the family's house.

The nest day we visited a friend of mine from college who lived in a city on the way home. It was good to see him. Good to see any friends seeing as I've been living at home near no friends for a while now. We all wen to lunch and then walked around a high class mall. I saw a Charles David store and a Kate Spade store which is not normal fare for the city I live in now. Beautiful shoes and beautiful bags. Too bad saving up for law school doesn't allow for such expenditures.

Overall, it was a good visit. Good to see my brother for his birthday and getting out of town for a bit. We got back around 8:30 pm on Sunday night. Chatted about our trip and went to bed. My body was so sore from the driving.

Good times though. It's nice to be near by to family to be able to do such things.

the tally.

So, the fun has begun. This week has been quite a week. I've found out about three different schools this week. I got one acceptance, one rejection and one waitlist. This week is not over yet so there may be more fun to be had.

Now the total tally is one acceptance, two rejections and one waitlist.

All that I needed was one acceptance to be able to go to law school. I can prove myself my first year and maybe transfer if needed.

Either way, I could not be more psyched about getting into law school.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of you who supported me in my decision. I really appreciate the encouraging words that motivated me to complete each of those applications and be able to take the blows through each rejection letter.

I appreciate you all very much.

Stoked

I just got an acceptance letter to a law school that I really wanted to get into. Stoked. So stoked about that.

I open the envelope today totally prepared to get another rejection letter and the first line reads:

"It is my distinct pleasure to offer your admission to [super awesome school] for fall 2008 as a Full Time student."

Fuck yeah. That's literally all I could say. Fuck yeah. I was so psyched. I broke into tears. Called some family and friends and could not contain my tears. So happy to know that somewhere saw my potential in my applications. I hated applying to schools because my LSAT scores were NOT fantastic and I just felt that after not being in school for a few years, a law school may not look to well upon that. But apparently, I know nothing. They accepted me and I'm stoked. I can't say it enough. It was the best feeling. Now I just need to figure out where else I get accepted and see where to go from there. I think I won't hear from the 7 other schools I applied to until May.

Either way, today was great. Law school here I come. (I can't believe I'm going back to school!)

Wooooooohoooooooo!

bah... decisions.

I am feeling ridiculously torn right now. I have some time left before I have to start school in the fall. I also have some time before I will even know where that will be. And now, I don't have a job as of the end of March.

Really, this leaves me with lots of options. I've always wanted to live in New York. Spending a little more than the summer there would be an awesome time. Plus I have lots of friends in the city. I've also thought about living on the West Coast for a while just to be around my friends who live out there. And, now, supposedly there may or may not be a job (the same job that I have now and just do remotely) waiting for me back where I just moved from. I don't know how I feel about moving back for that job. It doesn't make as much money as I potentially could. It has crossed my mind to just move back, take the job and then find something different and tell the old job to shove it. (After all, they are being very difficult about this whole process anywho. I was PISSED about it all last week but I'm over that now.)

Still, really, I just have one goal.

To live cheaply, as cheaply as possible, and make good money and save up to go back to school in the fall.

That's the goal. There are lots of other things that would be great to go along with that like not living with my parents, living with someone to cheapen the cost of rent, having someone I love nearby (this is the more than friends insinuation), having friends nearby, enjoying my time before school and saving LOTS of money (yeah, I know I already said that).

NYC offers a lot. But just with the cost of living, it may or may not (most likely will) defeat the main goal---to save cash for school. Ugh. And I don't have a job up there yet.

The place that I just moved from is still attractive--after all, I miss it now. But there's the cost of moving. The fact that I don't LOVE my job. (But I will HAVE a job.) And most of my close friends there moved away last year.

And I could also stay here. The rent's cheap--parents don't make me pay anything yet. But living here leaves me unemployed and looking for a job where I will probably not make over $25,000 a year. That's IF I can even get a job here. I'm over qualified for a lot of jobs and under qualified for others--teaching at the local university, for example. There's no real IT shops here. I could do one of many minimum wage jobs. But that's not bringing in the cash that I'll need for the first year of school.

So here I am, absolutely torn with no idea on what to do. Decisions. Ugh.

happy b-day, Nora.

It's a day late but yesterday was Nora's birthday, March 5th. She's now 2 years old. She still thinks she's the coolest and biggest dog around. Tiny body with a huge personality. I love her. She makes my days brighter.

This picture is a few months old but she hasn't changed much. With the exception of the fact that I did her last grooming so she's a little more uneven then in this picture. Not that anyone notices besides me. And no, she doesn't normally have a bow in her hair. This picture is right after a grooming. They put the bow in and she (or I) promptly take it out within a day or so. Although, I must admit, the bow is kinda adorable.

So happy birthday, Nora. We've officially made it through a year with no surgery. (Some of my past readers may remember my distress over her knee surgery when she was 8 months old) Knock on wood. Let's look forward to many years of no surgeries and maybe another little furry friend soon enough. Working at an animal shelter is not doing me any good in keeping me from getting another dog.

No birthday party this year. Nora doesn't have any puppy friends here. Maybe next year. Wherever we are then.

Happy Birthday, Nora!

conundrum.

I was driving today and thinking. And I realized something about myself. One of my faults is that I let things get to me more than I should. I realized today that part of the reason (or at least my justification, even if it's invalid) is that I care too much. I care about people who are important to me a lot. I have a problem with people who intentionally hurt or treat badly people who I care about.

For example, I went to high school with this girl that I see every once and a while. She was a girl who was a total bitch to a good friend of mine. My good friend had gone through all kinds of hell in high school but this other broad took it upon herself to just make things worse. This other broad loved to talk about how she was better looking than my friend and point out the issues in her life. She was not supportive of my friend and my friend was so used to the abuse and starved for friends, she just took it. I never appreciated the way that the other broad treated my friend. I'd point it out to her and yet her behavior didn't change. Now, I see her and can only imagine that she's still that same shallow girl and I don't have any desire to speak with her.

The unfortunate part of this whole thing is that it's trickled into various places in my life. An ex of mine had an ex who didn't treat him very well and based on the fact that I loved him-- I never liked her. So I ask myself a couple of questions. Am I restricting myself by being overly loyal? Am I using too much energy even thinking about this and letting these people affect me so? I probably am using too much energy. I probably should just not care and be indifferent. But being indifferent would not be true to who I am. I have convictions. I have excessively strong emotions. I don't want to play nice with the ex's ex after all that she put him through. And yet, people don't understand this. People don't understand that it all stems from the (apparently excessive) sense of loyalty and pure love and respect for my friends and those that I hold dear to me. I can't just sit by and be okay with the maltreatment or the lies or the hurt inflicted.

But alas, this is my conundrum. My own incomprehensible struggle. But like always, I'll figure out what's next and move on.

sometimes.

Sometimes I think I might just be figuring it out. I might be realizing what's next and be on my way towards it. Then I get thrown a curve ball and start to second guess myself.

I guess the only way to know is to do it but I wonder what I'm sacrificing in the pursuit. I guess it's all about taking that chance. Figuring it out. I just hope that I make the right decision and not something that I'll regret soon afterwards.

Ugh. I hate making big decisions. I wish someone would just come tap me on the shoulder and tell me what I should do and erase my doubts.

the shelter. day one.

Today I worked from the shelter. I spent half of my day working on my laptop and answering phones. I was the greeter and got to help people out and answer the questions that they had. We had a couple of adoptions today. A cute boston terrier got a home today. It's nice to see these previously unwanted animals get homes.

I had one interesting (and sad) story today. A guy called and explained that there was a stray cat in his neighborhood and he'd started to feed it a while back and it stuck around. Well, they discovered later that the cat was pregnant. He said that he saw her last night walking around the neighborhood with a kitten hanging part way out of her vagina. He called the 24 hour vet in town and the vet walked him through out to get the kitten out using baby oil and stuff. He successfully got the kitten out but the vet said that there's no telling how long the kitten had been hanging out of the cat. And that the other kittens may not have been able to be born because the one was stuck. The vet said that it was was possible that the other kittens were stillborn inside the cat. The vet quoted the man $450 for C-section. The man didn't want to pay that much for a stray cat. So he called our shelter. The city shelter would just put the cat down while we were a no kill shelter that might be able to get help for the cat. I passed the call on to our medical staff. I have
no idea what she told the man but it was an interesting story nonetheless.

There was also a couple that came in with a pretty blue heeler today. They had to give him up because he chased their horses and would try to bite them. Sweet, sweet dog. He just didn't work on the ranch.

Overall, it was a good day. Damn good day even. It was nice to get out of the house and get to interact with people as opposed to being alone all day. I think I might start working at the shelter 4 hours a day. They have the internet there and I can still get my work done. It might just be the perfect situation.

the shelter.

I went to the animal shelter again today. We had a volunteer orientation this morning for a couple of hours. The shelter is just starting to get an actual volunteer program running. Since they are relatively new to the area, they just had a handful of volunteers who came in and helped sporadically. Now, there's been some serious advertising going on and there are quite a few more volunteers signing up. A bunch of them are children so they are basically there to play with and interact with the animals. It was an interesting orientation. I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know. It was nice to see volunteers that seemed to be eager to be there. I left after orientation to visit with my sister and her girlfriend.

We had a hilarious conversation. We talked about my sister's job at a call center. I put in my two cents about call centers. In my own job, I'd trained people at call centers to use a new software system. It was a hell of an experience. And, to top it off, the call center that I worked in was in Mississippi. Apparently, there's quite a few similarities between call centers no matter what state they are in. My sister somehow does well at the call center. I, on the other hand, would get fired the first day I worked there. I can just see it now... some broad yelling and cursing at me to fix her account or whatever and my response would be "No, fuck you." *Click.* Or some dude telling me that he wants to speak to a supervisor. I'd be like "Sure." Put him on hold and practice my Indian accent before I pick up the phone again, "Yes? Oh. Thank you, come again." *Click.* Yeah, I can deal with people in person but over the phone people can be such assholes. They can hide behind the fact that I can't see them. My facial expressions tend to give away my thoughts. So, in person I can "inadvertently" give off the vibe that I don't give a damn what their complaint is but if they expect to get my help, they'll calm the fuck down. Anyway, my sister left and I returned to the shelter to put in some volunteer time.

When I got back to the shelter, I talked to the director and explained that I had experience fostering and that the shelter was completely different for me. I just wanted to help in whatever capacity that they had the most need. She told me that they were getting a lot more stay-at-moms and teenagers that were coming in to help walk the dogs and do things like that. She said that she needed help with reception. So, that's where I'm going to come in now. I will start by answering phones and then completing adoptions. Handling paperwork and educating the public. It should be quite interesting. Really, it's not exactly what I want to be doing. I like to work with animals but at the same time the goal is the same. I want to find matches for dogs and their people. The goal is to reduce the amount of pets dying in pounds and increase public awareness. Mutts (and the random "purebreds") need love too. I sat there for a few hours chatting with the staff learning bits about how the business is run. I did some organizing of files. Nothing too exciting. I am supposed to go in and work for a few hours on Monday and Tuesday. Since I work remotely, work doesn't care where I am physically located. So I'll work and answer phones and greet customers.

Nora is also going to start going to nursing homes and hanging out with the old people. These nursing homes just require good behavior and since Nora is not certified she can participate. It'll be nice to bring some smiles to the faces of some that are sometimes so neglected.

But ultimately, I think this will be good for me. It'll be nice to help and hopefully feel like I am making a difference for to these furry friends and their potential new families.