The Calm Before The Storm

I had the week off last week so Krishelle, Uncle Will and I decided to head south and just drive until the weather became acceptable. Fully expecting the possibility of having to drive as far as Guatemala, I packed several weeks of clothes and some Cipro and we were off. Naturally, as is always the case with any trip we ever take, no real plans were made before entering the vehicle. And we didn't think we would need any kind of map, especially after deciding to go see the Grand Canyon, as we figured the largest hole on Earth should be pretty easy to find. Wrong.

But our general lack of any sense of direction drew us into a town called Seligman which I believe you can only find if you're not trying to find it. We met all four people that live there (rather, we were given the stink eye by three skeptical residents; the fourth gave us a key to our motel room at 1:00 in the morning at a place that hadn't had any guests since the Gold Rush). The next morning we drove around, back and forth, back and forth, until one woman eventually pointed the way to the Grand Canyon, which we looked at for exactly three minutes and twenty-two seconds before getting back in the car, turning until the little "S" appeared on the dash, and flooring it for the next six hours. Meet Tucson.

In Tucson we attempted to go two full days without moving. Mostly a success (I say "mostly" due to the implausibility of packing and using catheters).

Saturday we thought it would be a good idea to cross the border into Mexico in an attempt to witness the drug wars first hand. After experiencing a disappointing lack of action and one horrific burrito smothered in what seemed to be a mixture of runny mayo, sour cream, and some kind of egg puree that had been sitting out in the sun for way too many fiestas, we made our assent back into the mother land.

Reality hit on Monday morning when the professor I do research with called me and said in a panicked voice, "I need to own every minute you have this week." Apparently she wasn't kidding. 78 emails and three 18 hour work days later (I'm actually not exaggerating), we have seemed to produce a pretty decent presentation. Unfortunately I had a perfect storm of other extremely time consuming activities come to a head in the last three days--all contributing factors to the 18 hour days (thank heavens for 24 hour access to the law building. I think.).

So here we are.

I'm not always sure what all the sacrificing is supposed to achieve. I only know that if I stop working, the unproductivity will feel much less satisfying. Maybe that's just a result of an abnormal amount of energy. Maybe all this energy I seem to dig out of every corner is ironically taking me to an early grave. Or maybe it's just all going toward some bigger cause that on weeks like this I start to have a hard time remembering. Not really sure what I'm trying to articulate tonight. Just hoping that all the distractions don't cause any of us to stop savoring the stranger moments of our sometimes chaotic lives.

~It Just Gets Stranger

The Feeding Room

I attended a wonderful conference for the J. Reuben Clark Law Society for the last three days. This is where Mormon attorneys and law students gather in one place to hear 40 different people give the exact same rendition of the history of the founding of both the society and BYU Law School. In addition to the speeches, the society serves around the clock meals to the hundreds in attendance. As a part of this endeavor, one room in the center of the frighteningly gigantic institute building at the University of Utah campus was designated solely for the purpose of feeding. The tables spanning the length of the room were consistently piled high with mounds of food, replenished almost magically for three days. Naturally, I spent the vast majority of the conference in this room. So did my friend Sarah who started on the opposite end of the longest table from where I began my animal-like mastication yesterday afternoon, meeting 45 minutes later at the middle somewhere near the over-sized muffins. Because of our firm dedication to testing the limits of this mysterious room, I have decided to add another row onto my resume under the service section for my help at this years JRCLS conference. My contribution: "food". If asked during an interview what I specifically worked on in regards to the food, I'll just tell them it was mostly consumption and clean-up. Mark my words: in two weeks time, I will have a job.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Baked Potato Recall

Last week was sort of strange. That is, even without driving two hours north to view a jump-rope show put on by a bunch of kids in bright orange shirts, last week was strange.

This had a lot to do with my friend Corey who, out of the goodness of her heart, brought dozens of baked potatoes wrapped in tin-foil to school to hand out in what looked like an odd attempt to turn BYU Law into a soup kitchen (which may be fitting very soon if more of us don't start finding jobs). Her explanation: someone gave her over one hundred potatoes--so naturally she didn't know what else to do with them but bake for a full Sunday afternoon. Thinking these would be a nice Monday morning treat for one hundred of her closest friends, she piled them into grocery sacks and hauled them to school.

After several people reluctantly took the potatoes throughout the day (mostly out of awkward obligation) one girl briskly walked over and informed us that she had just found an article that explained that baked potatoes that have been wrapped in tin-foil and then cooled to room temperature have a frighteningly high probability of containing life-threatening Botulism. This was the first time in my life that I've ever heard an average consumer consider issuing a recall on baked potatoes.

Fortunately it seems I escaped unscathed--this is probably a result of being completely immune to absolutely every disease known to man (it's one of my New Year's resolutions). Either that or the gods don't have the heart to add face-paralyzing Botulism to my already severe cases of Tuberculosis, Ebola, Lohan (remember him?), Bacterial Meningitis, Tonsillitis, Pancreatitis, and the entire alphabet of the Hepatitisies. So it's either immunity or pity.

On a positive note: I have now gone seven weeks without taking either a sleeping pill or a Lortab. If I was in some kind of support group I would save that announcement for a really good time. Like when someone named Bob breaks down crying at one of our meetings because he made a level three Codeine shake the night before to wash down his last twelve Vicodin which makes Suzy scream out, "there's no hope for any of us! People can't change!" (I've clearly never been to any addict meeting of any kind--although I think I need to find one to help cure me of my incessant need of Mexican Food on a daily basis). But my hand is almost completely healed from the surgery and I'm finding natural ways to relax (in large part thanks to my flexibility class which is changing my life one day at a time).

Love you all.

~It Just Gets Stranger

DC Trial Advocacy

Just thought I would shoot out an update about this weekend's adventures. I travelled with a group of classmates out to Washington DC for a trial advocacy competition. This would be a series of rounds for a mock trial we have been preparing for for several weeks. It was a long four days but overall a really great experience. I had two goals for the trip: 1) win the competition and 2) make best friends with people from other schools (mostly I've just always wanted a pen-pal all of my life but I've never been able to make it work and this seemed like a good opportunity to find some candidates. In large part, I'm still struggling from a bad pen-pal experience when I was ten and this kid in Ireland that got assigned to me at school sent a picture of himself eating cheese and then never wrote me again although I faithfully tried to maintain contact for months. I can still feel the cold lonliness on those days when Ms. Painter would hand out the pen-pal letters to everyone in the class on the day they arrived, skipping me because I was the one that got stuck with the dead-beat assigned friend. Never again). Unfortunately I failed miserably at both of those goals.

We performed well in the competition in large part thanks to my partner, Mary Beth, who turned out to be absolutely fantastic at trial advocacy. But we did not win the competition and were eliminated after the second day. On the bright side, we had some extra opportunities to get out and see the city a bit. Other than getting lost every three minutes and making no less than four thousand U-turns, we were able to get around pretty well.

On Saturday we hit up several museums including the Holocaust museum which I had been wanting to see for a long time but never had time to get to last summer. It was amazing and really sad. Naturally I had an old lady in a wheelchair behind me the entire time saying after looking at every picture, "well they sure were good looking some of them were" in the worst hillbilly accent you've heard since Green Acres was cancelled.

In regards to my second goal, I did make friends with a few people from a school in New York who were staying in our hotel but our friendship was short-lived after they disappeared on the second day never to be seen again (right before I was going to start hinting at the pen-pal idea). C'est la vie.

We rolled in very late last night and looked like zombies for much of today. Below I have pictures stolen from Mary Beth.

Washington Monument.

Me in front of the Ukrainian Embassy.Ol' Whitey

Mike, Mary Beth, Nick, Me, Joseph (Capitol)


Mike, Mary Beth, Nick, Me, Joseph

Joseph and I on the metro.

Me driving around the most confusing streets of all time. This picture was probably taken both right before and right after a U-turn.

Mary Beth and I after our first round (we had been up for about 48 hours by this point and were only off the plane for a few hours). Mike and I. Mike came along to act as our witness for the trial. He did an amazing job. At one point we thought he was even going to be able to work in a few tears.

Mike and I sitting the SLC airport early in the morning after finding out our flight would be delayed as our plane blew up (or something) moments before we were supposed to take off.

~It Just Gets Stranger

World Record Speeds

Last week I had an appointment to go back to the hand surgeon to find out whether I'll ever be a hand model again. This appointment was to begin at 7:30AM. Naturally, I slept through the violent vibrations and honking of my phone's alarm until exactly 7:27. By 7:28 I had pulled on warm clothes and was making a mad-dash out the front door while screaming a few Mormon censored obscenities (wink wink). Unfortunately I had a text book that I needed to run to a friend before my appointment. At 7:29 I pulled up to the building she was in, ran in, threw the book at her and got back into my car (which was rolling backwards when I came back outside) and pulled away while my phone still said 7:29. Fortunately on my way to the clinic I hit only green, yellow, and recently yellow lights so I didn't have to stop (no worries--I checked the news that night and made sure there were no pedestrian hit-and-runs in Provo that day). Made it to the clinic and ran up the stairs and down the hall and to the receptionist. I pulled my phone out to check the time and I could not believe it. It was 7:32. I'm actually very serious. No exaggeration this time. I somehow made it to my appointment exactly five minutes after waking up in bed AND managed to run an errand on the way. I don't know how this happened and I don't know whether I'll ever be able to recreate it. But it turns out that when I'm in an absolute daze and a really big hurry, I can get a whole lot done in very little time. It is for this reason that I wish dazed-and-confused-Eli would teach a whole series of lessons to alert-and-ridiculously-distracted-daytime-Eli who spent 14 hours at school today but feels like he accomplished about 4 hours of work.

And by way of update: I seem to be getting healthy again despite the terrifying polluted air conditions that my apathetic friends don't seem to be taking nearly as seriously as they should. I've felt like Noah for much of this week, warning the world about the dangers of breathing air you can actually taste (and the taste is shockingly not that good. Sort of tastes like a running car that drove into Utah Lake).

Well I'm off to bed--big day tomorrow: we have our first full run-through of our trial advocacy case in front of a couple of federal court judges at a court in Salt Lake. This is for a competition in DC next week that I'll be going to if I don't die of black lung first. Fingers crossed.

~It Just Gets Stranger

2009

It's that time of year again when I really start thinking about what's happened in the last 12 months. How have I changed? What has made this year different? Was this year my best yet, as it always should be?

2009 was a hard year for me. Probably my hardest actually. Probably my most exciting too. Definitely my most life-changing. I can't believe how much I've been able to experience in such a short time. Some of it was really good. Some of it, not so good. But all of it is responsible for making me a different person than I was last December; all of it is responsible for making me a person that I like much more than I liked the person in my shoes last December.


In 2009 I left my bank job that I loved so much. I fell in love with school. I tried ten new flavors of vafly. I got a parasite. I made new life-long friends. I lost some friends that I thought were going to be life-long. I felt how hard it was to see people leave. I felt how great it was to see them unexpectedly come back. I went to a Russian banya. I learned about religious freedom. I competed in several gruelling legal competitions. I saw our nation's capital. I got swine flu. I broke my hand. Had some surgery too. I lost 18 pounds in six weeks. I finished a year and a half of law school. I applied to a thousand firms. I accepted zero jobs. I lost a great grandma. I learned how to party. I grew my hair. I started wearing ties more often. I learned how to parallel park. I visited 10,000 Russian Orthodox Church services. I bought an icon. I fainted twice. I saw my Ukrainian friends that I've missed for five years. I cried my eyes out at the train station when I had to say goodbye. I helped teach a contracts class. I started taking sleeping pills. I sort of started sleeping. I finally learned about the federal income tax system. I fell in love with Moscow. I got a tan and retained it for four whole weeks. I moved twice. I learned more about how strong my family is. I only ran two road races, but did better than expected in both. I was gifted a build-a-bear by a crazy person. I went through four phones. I learned a few new songs on the guitar. I forgot most of them. I bought a Wally Lamb book at an airport and didn't get past the third chapter. I got to know the US embassy in Moscow. I ate about forty gallons of borshch. I saw the Hermitage. I saw Lenin. I bought art from a guy underground in the middle of the night. I learned how to make cookie-fruit-salad. I lived at the law building. I got Adeno virus. I fell in love with Promethazine. I fell out of love with Lortab. I stopped caring about things that don't matter. I started the walk-America campaign and held to it for two straight months. I switched from only hating one political party to hating two political parties. I got only slightly closer to finishing Crime and Punishment. I visited an orphanage. I decorated for Halloween. I fought a couple of battles. I won them at a cost. I didn't regret it. I had dinner overlooking an ocean. I lost a flip-flop in the snow. I accidentally ran 13 miles with a friend. I emailed strangers thousands of miles away to beg them to let me come live with them. I slept on a communal train with my bag tied around my body. I drank out of a river. I got rescued by a Tajikistanian in a beat up Lada. I learned how to schedule three meetings at once, several times a day, without missing anything. I ate broccoli soup in the middle of the night in a new cafe. I gave a couch away. I had a sleepover with my six year old niece. We ate broccoli and ice cream. Vintage. I played spoons in a pool. I played what time is it Mr. Fox with some cute kids in their backyard. I ran in the mountains. I started eating chocolate a little bit. I took a wagon ride on Halloween. I was grossed out by a water park. I accidentally carried pepper spray onto a tiny plane. I became obsessed with a tv show about high school football. I almost ate a stuffed green pepper that looked like puke. I bought four dollar sunglasses and lost them in the ocean 24 hours later. I bought replacement sunglasses for five dollars that don't seem quite as good. I lost my voice because of pollution. I watched the movie "Taken" on the floor of an abandoned corner in a German airport. I learned how to Salsa dance. I edited a treatise. I took naps on the grass. I enjoyed life.

I'm not really sure what's going to happen in 2010. We never really know; and that unsurity for some reason seems to be much more obvious during this time of year, forging a tighter bond yet highlighting the difference between our future hopes and growing nostalgia for the past. I always find myself trying to balance my thoughts between that nostalgia and a focus on the future. It won't do much good to continue to obsess over things that came and went. But it would seem like a total waste to just ignore all the laughs and drama simply because their fifteen minutes are up. I guess as long as we figure out how to take the lessons from the past and use those as a part of the process of molding our future hopes, the nostalgia is justified and should even be encouraged. In any event, blogging world, I hope the lessons of 2009 help 2010 just get stranger for you all~

One Final Done: Tax Shmax

I can't believe how quickly it sprung up on me. Finals started on Monday and I finished my first on Thursday afternoon. I was supposed to take it on Wednesday with the rest of my class but thanks to November throwing a few extra surprises at me, particularly at my right hand, accommodations were made. I was scheduled to take the final on Thursday instead, all by myself with some extra time to make up for my recent handicap as well as having spent the last four weeks completely wasted on a concoction of medications that I'm quite positive I wasn't supposed to take together (I met a lot of people that probably don't really exist during the month of November). These additional accommodations were very appreciated although they did not come without drama unfortunately; another topic for another day.

The first final was Federal Income Tax Law (several of you just fell asleep). I was crammed into a conference room all by myself for six straight hours with nothing but my laptop, a bag of granola bars, an apple, vitamin water, and every piece of paper I could find that had any information about tax law on it. I spread out and went at it . . . and at it . . . and at it, until it started to feel like I was going into a different day. The most depressing point was when I started worrying about time and I looked up at the clock and saw that I still had a good four hours to finish. The good news is that my hand seemed to hold up pretty well; minimal pain and decent accuracy--one day I will be whole again.

I started physical therapy this week, or as I like to call it "therapy." I was really excited to go in and talk about my problems with someone while they massaged my hand. I would be lying if I said I didn't picture physical therapy to take place in a white robe, cucumbers in my eyes, laying back while someone asked me "and how does that make you feel" as I complained about all my trials. Sort of a mixture between a spa, psychologist, and church I guess. Unfortunately physical therapy was painful and not very social. Plus it was earlier in the morning than I cared for. Not to mention, it was bizarrely cold in there. Quite the disappointment. Not at all the moral boost I was hoping to send me into my tax final.

And now here we are. My study group and I spent the last couple of days crammed into a small study room frantically attempting to learn an entire semester's worth of Evidence for our final tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

This was the room I took my tax final in. You'll notice I had my stuff spread all down the table. I stood for most of the test, walking around so I could consult every source known to man before responding to any questions.

Here's a somewhat blurry X-ray of my hand. You can see the four screws going down my bone: the latest additions to my body.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Just Another Surgery

By way of update . . .

Just when you thought things couldn't get any better, a few days after my last post I went to a hand specialist (they actually exist) so he could assess the injury. I had already come to find during the few days since the break had occurred that losing your dominant hand functions creates an entirely new lifestyle. In ways that I never imagined life suddenly became difficult and/or humiliating while attempting various tasks. I was relieved to find that an informal support group had formed in the hand specialist waiting room where patients with wrapped hands talked about the trials they face and the support they need. One guy talked about how he can't play baseball with his son anymore. A lady said how embarrassed she was every time she had to sign a receipt with her left hand at a store. One girl spoke up timidly and told the group that she was hesitant to say anything at all because her break happened on her non-dominant hand, to which an older southern woman loudly replied, "Oh honey! We don't judge here! Infirmities come in all shapes and sizes!" Luckily I was called back before they started singing girls camp songs together.

Unluckily the doctor told me that if we didn't do surgery soon, my ring finger would be permanently stuck pointing to the side, which would be great for my circus job, but bad for everything else.

48 hours later I was going under the knife. They drilled four screws into my bone and wrapped it up tight. Tomorrow they'll remove the cast to look at it. Hopefully by then my hand won't look like the Hulk anymore.

9 days until finals . . . anyone got an extra hand I can borrow? (warning: I have been known to break them).

~It Just Gets Stranger

Friday the 13th

So I got Swine Flu last Wednesday. On Friday, in the middle of the night, I got up while violently shaking, and passed out cold on the floor. This woke up my roommate who woke up our other roommate for help. Roommate number three then passed out (for reasons that are still a mystery to us all). Thankfully Annette came over several hours later to sanitize the apartment, force-feed me, and take me to the doctor for the second time in 24 hours so he could tell me I broke my hand when I fainted. Apart from being freaked out about this news, I was very interested in convincing the doctor that I wasn't a drug seeker while still ensuring the maximum amount of drug prescriptions. Because I was successful in this, I haven't been sober in four days (including now).

Overall a pretty crappy weekend. And yes, I did just type all that with my left hand. Good thing finals aren't coming up. Oh wait . . .

~It Just Gets Stranger

Catching Up

Miss me?

I apologize for the hiatus. Life has been jetting like a runaway train lately and something had to give. Of course I chose blogging and health. I'll tell you I've been busy despite the declaration from a friend who recently expressed via Facebook (the social network that tears people apart) that, essentially, those who don't have a wife and kids don't have a right to complain about being busy, as though wife and kids were thrust upon him as a curse from the heavens, rendering family the only legitimate use of time. No, I have been busy. And just like all of my married AND non-married friends, I have chosen the things that have kept me busy.

School is going well. I recently competed in two big competitions at the school and made it to finals of both (brag brag brag). The first was a trial advocacy competition similar to the one I did last year. It went five long rounds over a two week period and ended in utter defeat when we went up against a couple of 3Ls. The next week or two (ending just last Friday) I was doing appellate moot court arguments for a thirty page brief we had to write and submit in early October. This was also five grueling rounds that, also, ended in defeat. Nonetheless, I was proud of how I did. Both competitions were draining and dramatic (like most aspects of my life) and a really cool experience. Friday's judges were terrifying and intimidating; each of the three were appellate court judges, one from the Colorado Supreme Court.

So now I'm trying to catch Swine Flu and get caught up in my actual classes. Yes, I said "trying to catch Swine Flu." As you are well aware, there is a great incentivizing phenomenon accompanying the latest H1N1 strain. Recently the school sent out an email informing us all that Swine Flu was in our midst and that if anyone shows any flu-like symptoms, they should stay home in bed for several days. Additionally, the email let us know that the school has our backs and if anyone gets Swine Flu, the administration will do all in their power to take care us (as though they're the mafia) by talking to our professors and making sure we have everything we need.

So, now, we are all faced with two options: Option one: stay healthy and run yourself into mental insanity, or Option Two: catch Swine Flu and stay in bed for several days while the administration "takes care of you."

I understand that we are all interested in preventing the spread of this thing but I'm not exactly sure why. If the school really wanted us to stay away from each other, thus effectively quashing this undesired epidemic, they would start threatening each of us by requiring anyone who gets the virus to take failing grades in all their classes. I guarantee that this kind of tactic would have killed this thing when employers and administrations started incentivizing the flu earlier this summer. If only I were in charge.

~It Just Gets Stranger