Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Yes, MERRY CHRISTMAS. I will not be PC and say happy holidays. Now, onto more important matters.

The group of guys from middle school and high school (which I personally call "The BigMac" crew) are back together. We are a group of six guys (and an interchangeable seventh guy) that have been friends since at least middle school. Good times. 

We went to the only bar in town on Christmas Eve and it was fairly busy. In fact, we ended up meeting a few alums from our high school there too. Very strange since I haven't seen any of those folks since, well, since high school graduation. I guess that one bar in town is the place to go to meet people. 

The funniest (at least for me) part about going to a bar on Christmas Eve is to talk to random folks. My BigMac group was approached by an obviously drunk guy and he started a conversation with us. Well, it was more like a conversation with me and five other guys who felt slightly awkward. Anyways, this guy tells me that he is being shipped out to Iraq on Christmas day, that not only is he being shipped out, but shipped out to Baghdad. According to him, Baghdad is 100x worse than Compton. We talked about a couple of other things like girls, him nearly getting into a fight at the bar, politics, etc. I wished him a safe return in 15 months right before closing time and he stumbled away. Bless the happy drunks.

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I've been really working out the past few months and it feels great. It started out as an outlet for my frustrations (see nearly every post with the tag "Missteps in Life") but has evolved into something I need to do or else it would feel like a wasted day for me. I would work out for three or four days a week, about two hours each time. I'm not one to toot my own horn but wow, I am seeing some awesome results!

Oh and btw, my exercise routine isn't meant for me to get "big." No, not at all. My routine is meant for me to be really cut. Lots of clean angles. I just need to work a bit on my abs =)

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I got an iphone. Yes, after thinking I didn't need it when it came out, I have an iphone now, about nine months after it came out. In fact, I still probably don't need it but I figure to use the iphone to access gmail, use the maps, calendar, weather, ipod, and sms functions in that order. 

Also, since the iphone is connected to the internet, I can conceivably update this journal from my iphone. In fact, I think I'll try this out later today when me and the BigMac crew go grab some breakfast.

I have nothing to do and it feels good

1.5 years done. Only 1.5 more years to go. However, I can guarantee you that 5 years from now I will look back and wish I were in law school rather than slogging through yet another day of work. College, whether that be at the undergraduate or graduate level has been both fun and enlightening. Here's to another wild 1.5 years! 

(Untitled)

It's easy to be cruel when you've been hurt. It's becoming harder and harder to keep that in mind. The further I am pushed away the more I am hurt. It's as if time has stood still while my mind's eye focuses on the vast, piercing emptiness that developed inside myself. 

I came to law school with a few goals in mind, one of which was to create a few lasting, real friendships. I've failed. 

Backup support

While studying in the library for yet another final exam, a 1L came up to me last night to thank me for my Spring 2007 criminal law outline. To thank me for my outline?!?! What? Yup. How did he know who to thank? Well, my outline had my name on it and he took the liberty of looking up my picture in the law school's version of a yearbook. Apparently my outline is the most sought after and used outline for this 1L's criminal law class. The 1Ls go and add some stuff, change some other stuff and then take my name off of the outline and put their own name on the outline. Ha! 

It is rewarding to know that I helped make life a little less complicated for someone - let alone a group of people. I hope that everyone in that crim class can make it through the test they are working on right now. Godspeed! 

An open letter

This letter was written for someone and a few portions have been edited for privacy purposes. The edits do not take away from the message one bit. For posterity's sake, I am posting the letter on here. 

The letter was created on Tuesday, November 27th at 12:57 AM and last edited on Thursday, November 29th at 4:01 PM before I decided to send it off to its final destination. 

To .....,

Are we still friends? We have not spoken to one another in months. Ever since that easy day in August, it has not been the same between the two of us. I wanted to show you a picture I found, a picture I thought would be amusing to you. I never got the chance to do that. I smiled at you in the hallway and you walked past me without but a glance. When I talked to you at (PLACE), it was as if I was talking to a person who did not want anything to do with me. I was very hurt after that day but I rationalized all of it. At first, I thought it was nothing, that you were busy. But as time moved along, I began to wonder what had really happened. Is she ok? What’s going on in her mind? Did I say something wrong? Did I do something wrong? The distance between us now is so great that I often wonder how it got to be this way.

The litmus test as to whether I could figure out if you were still a friend was my birthday. I realized that my birthday was posted on facebook. I was going to take it off, not wanting all that attention (but a part of me did). However, I decided to leave it on there, hoping you would notice, and more importantly, wishing me a happy birthday. It would be a sign to me that our relationship still had a pulse. (DATE) came. I waited. As (DATE) drew nearer to its end, I became anxious. ‘Did she notice? Of course she did, she had to! If she did notice, then why didn’t she post anything?’ Then (DATE) became (DATE). ‘Does she still care?’ Does she still care? Does she feel even an ounce of how I feel about her? Does she still care?  

It was bittersweet that some of the people that I hardly even can call acquaintances wished me a happy birthday but for someone whom I had opened myself up to, trusted, and cared about; it was as if I did not exist. If that easy day in August was the most uplifting day for me in law school, my birthday was the most depressing day for me in law school. I’ve only felt that low once in my life before and that night was one of the darkest nights in a long time.

Why do you treat me so differently than everyone else? Even when we were “friends” you would treat me differently than other people. You smile and talk to other people but when I want to talk to you, it’s only a few words spoken between the both of us before you need to go somewhere else. Sometimes your eyes feel as if they are trying to read my every thought and sometimes your eyes give away how you feel. I may be wrong, but I’ve seen…I’ve seen something in your eyes that I have not seen between you and anyone else. It’s a very dark, cold feeling – your eyes.

In fact, you treat strangers better than you treat me. You seemingly want to have a conversation with strangers but when it’s with me, other than when it seemed like you needed my company, I was nothing more than a nuisance. It hurts to see that you can be so open and friendly with everyone else but I on the other hand get pushed out of your life entirely.

I’ve often felt stupid for how I’ve felt. Why should I care so much about how you are, whether you have too much work to do, or if you’ve had a happy day? I can say with near certainty that I don’t even exist in your world any longer so why should I feel this way towards you? I laugh with a twinge of sadness when I think back to when you openly tried to hide from me at the cocktail after the “(EVENT)” conference.

You said something a few months back about “sending [me] the wrong message.” I still don’t understand what you mean by that. What does it mean? Is just treating me like you treat 99.9% of all other people somehow sending me the wrong message? Heck, I’m at a point where I would grasp hold of an opportunity for you to even acknowledge my existence, let alone have you treat me on par with a stranger (or even your journal readers). I just don’t understand how being friends, laughing, and sharing in each others’ lives is somehow “sending the wrong message.” A friend somewhere told me that perhaps you don’t see me at the same “level” that I see you. If that’s the case, then I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for all the drama, arguments, bad times, mixed messages, but most of all, I’m sorry for seeing in you…something that probably was never there.

This dark place that I’ve been in has come and gone on several occasions. I specifically remember when I tried to “reconnect” with you once. I asked how you were and your response was short, if not curt. If anything, in this letter, I want to hear from you your thoughts. I’m tired of my own sneaking suspicions of how you see me. Can this relationship be saved? I don’t know. My heart says ‘yes’ but my mind says ‘no’. Am I nervous about what you will say? Not really. I’m sad, depressed, tired, but not nervous. I’ve spent too much time in this dark place to know nervousness. I just want this feeling to end. 

It’s interesting that I had a lot more to say in a much different manner but when I absolutely had to turn thoughts into words, I couldn’t. For some reason, I feel as if I’m missing something when writing this to you. I hope you don’t just click delete after reading this letter. I’ve tried to capture how I’ve felt through these months in these few words and in fact, portions of this letter have come from near moments where I truly felt like you hated me. Honestly, I would rather not write to you at this time; I do not want to burden you because it seems as if you are both happy and have a lot of things on your mind however after some thought, it’s better that I write to you now rather than let how I feel dwell through finals. Forgive my selfishness.

Sincerely,

.....