mini golf

ummm...not sure why the pictures are sideways. i'm trying to add a new flair to the page.

last week with my dad and brothers here (as well as hutch) we went miniature golfing at camelot. hutch and i tied for first. we had a great time, although it did get super hot.

i was told i need to update my blog more often. i wish i was one of those people that updated it regularly because i love reading the blogs that are constantly changing...it brings joy to my days; so, assuming people read this, here's a bit of joy for today.

i ended my judge job a few weeks ago. it was a sad day as we said goodbye to the judge. we took a picture with him in front of the bench (i'm supposed to send it to him but i have yet to do it) and then took us for a tour of the underground jail. it was awe inspiring (in the sense that i hope i never make it to jail) and a bit scary. we went in to the hallway and the guard shut the door behind us (this was right after some inmates walked by)...all i could think about was a prison break and then i wouldnt make it on time for my plane.



speaking of planes, joel and i recently went to sacramento for a family reunion. my stepmom's parents were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. each of the families had their own color shirts (ours were Kelley green) and they said "hitched 50 years" with a picture of a man and a woman in a carriage. the children (meaning my stepmom and her siblings) prepared a song to the tune of "old grey bonnet with a blue ribbon on it" (dont worry if you have never heard of it...i hadnt, but after that weekend it was s.t.u.c.k. in my head).





my grandparents live in the outskirts of sacto so they have sheep and horses on their property. we were able to ride the horses and then the last day we had to heard the sheep and move three of them into another pasture...the mother sheep was so stupid that instead of running through the passage way we had created, she turned and ran straight into the fence, bounced back, fell on the ground, and then couldnt get up because she had stunned herself - so stupid!

now i'm getting ready to leave for london...i leave next monday on the 13th. i have a mix of anticipation and sadness. it will be a great semester and time to learn a lot about international law, but it will be hard to be away from joel for four months.

right now i'm watching wedding crashers and i didnt realize how funny it is. wouldnt it be funny if we had wedding crashers at our wedding...would they give a toast, cut the cake, and eat our amazing food?

joel's best friend, hutch (i didnt know his first name for the longest time), has been here for the last week. we've had a great time with him. today he and i went short shopping for joel while he was at school. its usually a tramatic experience for him (joel that is) so hutch and i thought we would jump start the trauma by buying the clothes for him. then all he had to do was come home, pull the shorts out of the bag, and put them on. i'd like to report - it was a complete success! out of five pairs of shorts he's only returning one pair...yes!

hey...check out our engagement slideshow.

http://jasminestarphotography.com/Slideshows/Amanda_Joel_Engagement/

engagement photos

this past tuesday joel and i took our engagement photos. we had an awesome time and postively love our photographer. she's amazingly creative, fun, genuine, and has a great sense of style.

we decided to go to the balboa fun zone - site of our first date. it was a great night. after the pictures we ate dinner at a great seafood restaurant. overall, it was a fantastic time.

to check out jasmine's blog (she blogged about our time at balboa and also posted some pics), go to: http://jasminestarblog.com/

hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

traffic court

i spent the day in traffic court. no, it wasnt because i had received a ticket. i was there as part of my internship at the court house. the most important lesson i learned today - dont go to traffic court!

from 9 till 11:30 the room was packed with people. people would see the judge, leave, then more would come in and fill their places. it was truly amazing. and, these people ran a tight trip.

there was absolutely no talking, whispering, phone activity, book reading, dozing, or having fun in this place. kent and eugene were scolded for talking when eugene asked kent in a whisper (and he as a quiet voice - he's asian for crying out loud) if we should introduce ourselves to the bailiff. kent replied that he thought they already knew who we were. sure enough, the bailiff came over and told them that he knew they were externs but thye still dont allow talking in the court room.

they also made the people take their hands out of their pockets, take their hands off the table, stand behind the table directly in front of the judge (and if the moved a few shuffle steps to the side to hand the bailiff anything, they were scolded).

i can imagine some of those people were also humiliated since they had to stand in front of everyone and admit their guilt to narcotic or alcohol use.

i told kent that this would be the first time i would get a ticket (because i had been so terrified about traffic court). well, i didnt get a ticket (yet!) but on the way home we saw three police cars on the 22 (i have yet to see one on our daily commute).

overall, it was a very informative session for us. a nice break from white collar crime in dept 12.

lingual frenectomy

this past friday i had my surgery. for most people, their frenum (the piece of tissue that holds your tongue down to the bottom of your mouth) is in the middle of their tongue. for me, my frenum was at the tip of my tongue. this is called being tongue-tied. most people have their frenum snipped when they are babies...my parents didnt. so, last friday i suffered in order to have a freed tongue. the surgery only took 45 minutes. i had a local anastetic so i was awake during the procedure. i could hear them snipping and sucking up the saliva and blood. even though my tongue was numb, i could still 'feel' when they snipped something (it didnt hurt but felt more like pressure). at the end of the surgery i was able to stick my tongue out! it was such a neat sensation.

later when the anastesia wore off, i was definitely in some pain. thank goodness they had prescribed vicatin and ibuprofin as well as amoxcycilin. i've been taking these quite frequently over the past few days. my tongue is still swollen and its painful to move it around. i also cant eat since this uses the tongue quite a bit. i've been on a soup diet but only the soups that are completely pureed - if there are chunks this tends to be too much for me to handle. i've also been enjoying a lot of ice cream (yes!).

i stayed at joel's these past few days so that he could take care of me. he was so wonderful! he would make me soup and get me water and pills. whatever i needed he took care of.

i've also sustained quite a bit of teasing. my language is far from articulate and the boys have felt the need to make fun of my speech. i definitely feel like i am mentally handicapped especially when i am drooling and am doped up. needless to say its been an interesting few days.

i'm still a bit sore and swollen and am not sure if i'll be able to work on tuesday. i hope this heals soon. also, i don't have much tongue movement and am supposed to be exercising it so that it doesnt heal back to how it was. if i want to be able to stick it out further or fold it back in my mouth i need to be doing that now. but it really hurts and its kind of hard because its swollen and i still have the stiches in. i'm just hoping that it will be worth it in the end.

my judge job

this summer i am working for judge di cesare in the westminister court house. i started last tuesday. it was a great week. he was in the middle of a trial so we (kent and eugene - 2 friends from school - are also interning with me) were able to observe a few days of it. this trial is nuts. its literally court room tv. everybody that works in the department has been telling us that its almost never like this. i cant say much about the trial (i am sworn to secrecy now that i am a court employee) but i can say that these lawyers know how to put on a good show.

on thursday, the judge had us do mostly research (he doesnt hear trials on thursday or friday). we didnt know this at the time, but he was having us research something that the court researchers had already researched. although, it was probably better that we didnt know that. we were so nervous that we wouldnt get the right answer in our research (since the judge wanted us to write up a recommendation for him we were terrified that we wouldnt find the right law and would give him a bad recommendation). at the court house we have to do all of our research out of the books. but at school, they have taught us how to research on the computer. so its been a bit rough on us trying to figure out the books.

i think this is going to be a wonderful summer and will definitely help sharpen my skills.

i'm engaged!

on wednesday morning (may 23rd), joel got up really early and went to the grocery store to buy roses and blueberries. he then made me oatmeal with blueberries, and english muffin and tea (several of my favorite breakfast items). i on the other hand did not wake up early. joel, a bit perturbed that i was not working well with the plan, repeatedly called the house phone to try and wake me up. when that didnt work he had his friend and his friend's sister call my cell phone to wake me up. that to was fruitless because i turned my phone off after the first call.

so around 10 i rolled out of bed (joel had been up since 7). i decided to take a shower and shave my legs before waking joel up. what we had been doing was whomever got up first would crawl into the other's bed to wake that person up. so, joel thought that i would crawl into his bed to wake him up - but i'm difficult and decided to shake things up on wednesday morning. about 45 minutes later (after waking up) i went into joel's room to wake him up. instead of crawling into bed i decided to jum on him. when i entered his room i noticed a mound under the covers. so i touched it and realized it was a pillow and not joel.

i turned around and noticed him peeking outbehind the door of the other room. i walked up to him and saw that he was full dressed (this puzzled me since joel usually is pretty slow in the morning and i didnt think he had woken up yet). i asked him if he was playing a trick on me. he threw his hands in the air and said 'do i have to do everything for you?' he then walked into his bedroom and lifted up the covers on his bed. there on the bed was a dozen red roses and my ring in its box. i was shocked. i asked him if he was proposing and he responded 'will you marry me?' to which i replied 'of course.' it was wonderful!

afterward he led me into the other room where my breakfast was waiting. i later found out that he had been up most of the night and had been laying on the floor of the third bedroom. he was peaking under the door so that he would know when i woke up. so cute! he was so nervous. he had been carrying the ring around with him the entire time we were in washington because he was waiting for the right moment.

washington

joel and i went to washington for about a week to visit with friends and family. we stayed at joel's parents house in tacoma. they have such a beautiful yard and i love staying there. i am starting to feel more and more like family each time i visit with them.

the first friday we were there, joel, daniel (his brother) and i met up with ben (a friend from pepperdine) at a great rib joint. we had a wonderful time and stuffed ourselves with excellent food. we then went back to joel's house and spent the night with his parents.

we spent the weekend with his parents. this was their main time to visit since wanda (joel's mom) still had to work. so we just hung out and went out to eat. on saturday we went bowling which was a blast. although, i found out rather quickly that joel hates bowling and wanda wasn't so fond of it either. but ben (joel's other brother), steve (his dad), and i all had a great time.

on sunday we went to church (which was wonderful) and then went home and had a great sunday meal with the family (steve, wanda, ben, daniel, rebecca - daniel's wife, joel and me). it was great to spend time with them. somewhere in there we watched the last king of scotland which was so wonderful.

on tuesday we visited with hope (my friend from biola) and her boyfriend nate. we went to a great mediterranean restaurant and then to our favorite bar, the monsoon room. while we were there, joel received a call from his best friend mark. turns out he had arrived back into tacoma from his trip to ohio and wanted to meet us at the bar. it was great to see mark again and i could tell joel was in seventh heaven. he really misses mark a lot and was so excited when he finally got back to tacoma.

mark, joel and i ended up going back to joel's house where we played games (which we do a lot of) and watched movies. i then went to bed but the boys stayed up talking and scheming. scheming for what you ask? for my engagement!

on wednesday joel asked me to marry him...i said 'of course.' i'll write more about this in a different post.

later that day, mark, joel and i drove to south colby and visited with my family. my uncle pat, aunt susan, and cousins jeff and jessica live in south colby washington. we had a great time visiting with them and had a wonderful dinner. later that evening, jeff, jessica, mark, joel, and i went to the cabin on harstine island. this is where my family has been going for the last 15 or so years. we have a cabin there and it always proves to be a great trip. usually when i go with jeff there tends to be more alcohol than beach trips or hikes. some of jeff's friends also joined us while we were there. mark used to be a bartender so he kept us plied with drinks the whole night (but they were more sophisticated than beer or rum and coke). joel and i went to bed earlier than the others (he was exhuasted from staying up the night before thinking about how he would propose).

the next day we drove back to tacoma. however, we had to make a detour and went by bellevue to return my ring for a smaller size. once that was finished joel was able to rest a bit easier.

on friday, our last day, joel's friend (and mark's cousin), beau, came over and played games with us. we then had dinner with steve and wanda at red robin and then went to the airport.

overall it was a wonderful trip. it was also great to spend so much time with joel since we don't see each other all that much during the school year.

limbo time

in between moving home from school and going to washington, i tried to complete some tasks. i had to buy some suits for my job this summer and while i was home i received a call that a professor at pepperdine wanted me to be his research assistant this summer! so i went back to pepperdine only three days after leaving. we met and i received my first assignment. it feels good to be making some money this summer.

i then did a lot of shopping. i bought a new suit, a beautiful dress and lots of shoes. it was nice to buy new things and get ready for the upcoming summer.

on thursday may 17 joel and i flew to washington!

i realize its been a long time since i have updated my blog so i will try and do that now. to keep it simple i'll put all the 'major' things in a separate post.

this one will be - "finishing finals."

the last week of finals went by quickly...which was great becuse at that point i could not wait for it to be over. i mostly studied by myself, but on thursday night (before our torts final) amy and i went to montana (a local bar and restaurant) and had great happy hour food and drinks. we also made up torts hypos using the people in the bar. we would choose a character (a waitress or restaurant patron) and then would make up a story based on what that person was doing in the bar at that time. we would then somehow weave a tort into the equation (this last semester was products liability and defamation) and then the other person would have to analyze the hypo. it was great fun and definitely helped us prepare.

after our last final for our first year, about 30 of us from section b went to a local restaurant on pch, the reel inn, and had fish and beer. it was so wonderful to visit with people and truly enjoy our time together as friends knowing that we were done with our first year of law school. it was such a wonderful way to finish the year.

amy and i then went to the massage place and had hour long massages - fantastic. we then went to holly's 80s party and danced and had a great old time.

saturday (may 12) i moved out of george page. it was great to finally be done with that place. i saw spiderman 3 with some friends and then drove home to the oc. i visited with joel a bit before moving back to orange. he was still in the throws of finals so i tried to give him as much space as he needed.

i realized that i've had this blog for 4 months and i have only posted 12 times. thats pathetic.

civil procedure and malibu seafood

i had my third exam today...civil procedure. this is basically the nuts and bolts of being a lawyer and how to bring a case to trial. i felt the exam was pretty easy (which generally isnt a good sign - either i overestimated it or everyone else did just as well which means the curve gets very tight). professor ogden isnt my favorite test writer because his tests tend to be easier which means that one wrong answer on the multiple choice is really detrimental versus contracts where the average number of wrong answers is 15 out of 30. oh well...its nice to have a good exam under my belt after the horrificness that was contracts last thursday.

after the exam amy, john, ben, aaron and i went to malibu seafood for the lunch. it was yummy. then amy, john and i went to the beach and met up with my roommate erika. it was such a gorgeous day! so warm and clear. the beach was fabulous (but the water is still a little too cold). we "studied" and then decided to go get something to drink at the coffee bean. we were there for awhile and then came home.

erika, jen and i went to la salsa for dinner and then watched some sienfeld. now we are all studying hard for our property exam on wednesday. three down two to go! i have only a few days left but it seems like forever. i am absolutely exhausted and am having to reach into the depths of my self-control and self-discipline to pull these last few days of studying out.

two down, three to go

i had my second exam today...contracts.

i neglected everything but crim pro up until tuesday at noon. then i had 1 1/2 days to learn and memorize contracts for today. i have to say this wasnt the wisest move on my part. last semester i rocked contracts, this semester it rocked me.

i am definitely the type that needs to sit with something for awhile and i didnt have that this semester (because of my own doing). yesterday i was in panic mode and almost got to the point where i couldn't think, breath or make decisions. i didnt know what to do because i had so much to learn and i kept it till the last moment. so today, i took teh test and can honestly say the multiple choice section was the hardest i've ever taken. nonetheless, it was an extremely fair test and its because of my own non-studying that i had such a hard time with it.

when i got back to my apartment after taking the test, i encountered two of my three roommates weeping about the contracts test they had just taken (they are all in section c and i am in section b...we have different professors but take the same subjects). apparently, my three roommates are not the only ones crying about section c's test. so i guess it could be worse. we could have had a completely unfair test like my roommates had (turns out their professor didnt write their test...section a's professor did. this is a big deal because each class covers different material, from different case books, in a different order, and will often use different terms to describe something. so the fact that another professor writes your test is horrible.)

now i must regroup and get back to the books for the next one...monday, civil procedure.

here's to hoping.

test time

tomorrow is my first exam (crim pro - criminal trial stuff...specifically 4th, 5th, and 6th amenment issues). a few days ago i went to the beach with my roommate and we got burned. she had a base tan from weeks of sunbathing and i had fresh white skin. at first we thought she was more fried than me, but as the days have unfolded my skin has turned progressively redder. although, i think thats also attributable to the mass amounts of lotion that i've slathered on my hot skin (and later i was told this is NOT a good idea because the oil locks in the heat). so, the past few days (three to be exact) have been miserable. hopefully by tomorrow i wont be in much pain and the test will go smoothly.

i feel good about tomorrow's test mainly because i've been exclusively studying for it the past four days. as for my other tests (next one is contracts on thursday) i'm not feeling so great. i havent put in any time on them (apart from making poster boards) so i'm starting to get a lot of anxiety. main question - how am i supposed to learn all this material in such a short time??? but, then i think that in 10 1/2 days i will be done with my first year of law school...i can hardly believe this. a whole year of law school?!? unbelievable. it will be nice to be done for a summer and have so much time to spend with joel. i miss him a lot...which brings up another issue - london. should be interesting being away for 4 months.

well, i'll update as the tests come and go. should be an exciting couple of weeks. i have a great study group - amy, john, ben, aaron, and me. we have a lot of fun together and study well together. today we went to lunch at john's garden and then later today we are going to take a full practice test for crim pro (without the multiple choice questions its a two-hour essay exam) and then we are going to talk about what we wrote. should be good and informative.

ciao for now.

i'm done!

with first year classes. what a relief!

now i just need to get through the next two weeks of finals. today amy and i "studied" together. our plan of attack is to make poster boards that have all the information we need to know for the test. so that's what we worked on today.

tomorrow i am going to start focusing on my first exam: criminal procedure. i have a feeling this one is going to be a beast - more than all the others. i'm anticipating all the material we learned this semester will interact with one another whereas in other classes its fairly compartmentalized which makes test taking easier. also, we have only had one semester of criminal procedure but we covered almost the entire text book (about 1000 pages). so, yeah...by tuesday i have to know 1000 pages worth of material and be able to combine it all and know when one event triggers another. oh well, cant win them all.

so tomorrow i'm going to start the track routine. last semester i discovered exercising while memorizing my outlines. i think it helps me retain the information better that way. so what i like to do is walk around the track here at school and recite the outline to myself. i did this last semester with my criminal law class. i'm sure some joggers thought i was crazy mumbling stuff about murder and rape and theft.

this semester i'm going to do the track thing for all my classes. actually, the track is not a bad place to be. its nestled in the center of the school and has an amazing ocean view with palm trees dotting the sides. sometimes i also see the deer prancing along the hills. i'm pretty lucky to be in such a gorgeous location (though i rarely get outside the law school walls....but when i do it sure is wonderful).

i'm hoping to also get a tan at the same time. i need to prep my ghostly white skin for the upcoming summer. joel and i are going to be spending a lot of time in the pool. can't wait!

well, i probably should get to bed so i can wake up at a decent time and start the studying process all over. pray i survive another finals session!

hi blog

well...its been awhile (i sometimes have an overwhelming urge to state the obvious). to you faithful readers who have not given up on me, here's a brief synopsis of life lately.

i made it through the moot court experience....barely. recently, the moot court team was accepting applications from first years. i walked in a 50 feet radius around that application. there is no way i would voluntarily put myself through that experience again. actually, it was a little fun...but not enough to make up for the tortuous parts.

i have a summer job! not sure if i posted about this yet, so if i did disregard this paragraph. this summer i will be externing for a california superior court judge in westminster. i met with the judge awhile ago and he's great! i cant wait to learn from him about this whole lawyering process. i will also be working with a couple of my classmates and will only be working tuesday through thursday. this means that i have a lot of time to relax, regroup and spend time with joel before going to london in the fall.

speaking of joel and the summer, we have some fun things planned. right after our semesters end we are flying to washington to spend time with family and friends. both of us have family there (his parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and granpa and my aunt and uncle and cousins) and we both have friends...just another reason why we are so compatible.

we are also planning weekly barbeques and pool parties at joel's and i think some 80s parties thrown in there. this should be an excellent summer...which is definitely needed after this year.

everyone kept telling me second semester would be easier than the first one but its turning out to be sooooo much harder. first, our professors think we actually get this stuff now so they assign a lot more reading (case in point - at the beginning of the year i had to read 7 pages in property...for today's assignment i had to read 23 pages). this may not sound like a lot, but trust me it is. second, i am exhausted. and third, i have to maintain a great gpa (this is actually harder than it may seem).

so all in all, i am stressed beyond belief. my face is breaking out (including a huge nasty zit on my back), my stomach is in constant knots and i am not sleeping any more. why you ask? well, finals are in two weeks and i am not even close to being ready. i'm praying something miraculous happens between now and may 1st (the first final).

i'll try to update this again but no promises....its hard to tear the nose out of the books.

valentine's day

joel and i celebrated the day of love on saturday (instead of wednesday). we had to be practical and admit that school rules our lives and that we could not afford the time during the week.

i really wanted to dress up because i had bought the secret weapon dress and really wanted to wear it (plus, i love when joel dresses up).



for christmas, my mom got gift certificates to maggianos. she gave them to us because she thought we would get more out of them.

neither joel nor myself are planners so when we went to the restaurant day of, they only had reservations for 9:30. no problem...we'll go to the movie first. unfortunately, i couldnt remember where the theater was and we didnt have our cell phones with us (i hate those things until i dont have it on my hip).

joel, being the sweetheart that he is, let me choose the movie (we went to a real theater...not the $2 theater in la mirada...although, it was still cheap because he had free passes). i wanted to see the queen but it wasnt playing so we say because i said so.

horrible movie! about 40 minutes into i turned to joel and could tell he was suffering...as was i. so we left and went back to the brea mall.

we decided to do a little shopping but too bad for us all the stores closed at 8pm.



but we still had fun walking around, taking pictures and talking. i also loved getting multitudes of compliments on my dress.



around 9 we went back to the restaurant. we had a fantastic meal! its really nice to feel unconstrained by money. for an appetizer we got mussels. for dinner, joel got beef medallions and i got chicken cacciatore with garlic mashed potatoes. for dessert, joel got espresso with ice cream and i got spumoni. we also had some wine. it was wonderful (and we had left overs the next day).



crying over spilled wine...



now i'm back to the grind of studying and outlining. although, tomorrow is the much talked about bluebook competition.

bluebook competition?

here's a little picture of what i like to call "law school."

next week i will be involved in a citation contest (officially i will be a citationaire). now, before you get too excited let me explain what this is all about. i'll start from the beginning.

last semester we had an ungraded quiz (actually most of our work is ungraded...i've never seen so many people work so HARD for ungraded work...pure madness) to see who would qualify to be in the citation contest. now, when i say citations i mean footnotes and things of that nature. if you thought the mla was bad, its nothing compared to the horror that is the "bluebook."



its 415 pages long and tells us lawyers the proper way to cite...everything. you name it, the bluebook has it. needless to say this is the bane of most law students existence. ok, so last semester we took this quiz and had 10 minutes to answer 20 bb (thats the cool way to refer to the bluebook) questions.

here's a sample (and this is an easy one to get you two acquainted).
Kelley v. Law School, 123 U.S. 45 (2006). (imagine that the first part is underlined, but not the comma...that would be a bb no-no).

i would then have to figure out what is wrong with that cite (for all those that didnt rush to their bluebooks to look it up, School should be Sch. are you starting to understand the hellish nature of this thing?)

so, i stupidly did well (actually, in a sick way the bb and i gel nicely. i didnt study for the test yet i was one of the top 4...my roommates and i joke that the bb and i have a special bond).

so now i have to be in this competition next week. 4 of us from each section (there are 4 sections) will be competing in the competition. i just reviewed the slides from 2 years ago and i'm in trouble. the competition is 15 rounds and we have like 30-45 seconds to answer the questions (generally the same idea as above...yet harder citations). as if thats not enough, our friends and loved ones are sitting in the audience mocking us as we sweat out the bluebook competition.

and as if things couldnt get any worse, the various sections are smack talking each other...saying things like "you guys are going down," or "we could cite circles around you guys." lame, i know. and, my professor has been announcing the competition for the past few months and everytime she does she puts up a power point slide with our names on it! so i am constantly reminded of this competition. ugh. cool people....please save me!

i'll be posting the results next wednesday after 5pm...in case you're interested.

pictures from saturday

holly, matt,and ben



kasey and grace



amy and david



jason, me and joel



joel and me