wiiiiii

law skoolz: where to go?

dear web journal,

studying for the LSAT (and spanish, but that's another story) is back to full force. and because it is a year or so away, i've got to start thinking about where i'll be attending law school.

i've got one small advantage being a minority, which is also coupled with fairly good grades and some nice letters of recommendation. the results of the LSAT will play a really big part in where i can fall on the map, though. but here is the list of schools i am interested in:

-stanford
-uc berkeley
-duke
-ucla
-usc
-vanderbilt
-ut austin
-washington university, st. louis
-university of minnesota, twin cities
-university of illinois, urbana-champaign
-uc davis
-uc hastings
-university of new mexico
-university of oregon
-university of san diego
-university of arkansas

naturally, i am not applying to ALL of those. i hope to get some application fees waived, but not all of them will be so generous. and let's face it, at an average of $50 a pop, that's a lot of money when you add it all up.

but i would like some help considering the list above. karl needs to live where they're still developing and/or have city planning positions and that naturally plays into my choice of school. my personal requirements are: to go to a fairly good school with an immigration law program. as i write this, i really miss california and i would love the chance to go back. but that goes back and forth.

so, do you know anything about any of these schools? do you have a suggestion that's off this list that i should consider? help!

(oh yeah, and because i obviously needed a distraction, we bought a wii this weekend)

love/lust: pretty things

dear web journal,

at the risk of sounding like a completely vapid shop machine (or maybe it isn't a risk, because it is already firmly established!), i want these very pretty items. but with ticket prices far outside of my reach, it isn't likely. maybe, just maybe, a husband of mine might stumble onto this entry and think christmas (or 'look honey, i bought you this amazing coat just because!'). anyway, please let me share these items of love/lust:

a: jcrew's bella jacket, wool and ultra feminine. i'm fond of the "heather coral" shade.
b: button-up ankle boots, from anthropologie. i've never owned a pair of shoes at a price so far above 100 bucks. but they're so perfectly my taste, even if so imperfectly outside my budget.
c: gold dust earrings, by rachel sudlow. all of her items are so simple and clean looking. one more reason that etsy is so awesome.
d: insepreable rings, by anthropologie. i am not big on wearing jewelry and most of what i do wear is barely noticeable. but rings, i love them big and cocktail-like. and strangely, i don't even normally like the color of gold, but this one is so pretty and romantic.

my little dead dick

dear web journal,
i wanted to share this, from viceland and perhaps not quite safe for work:

My Little Dead Dick is the visual diary of photographers Madi Ju of China and Patrick Tsai (aka Pat Pat) of the USA. They got together on July 17, 2006, when they both traveled to Macau in order to meet face-to-face after a month of intense internet correspondence. After nine days, they went back to their own countries, quit their jobs, settled their accounts, and said good-bye to their friends and loved ones to pursue their dreams of a life spent together taking photos. This issue is coming out like right on their one-year anniversary, so we asked them for photos from their first nine days together to commemorate it. That’s what you can see here in these photos. True love in bloom. It makes us feel not so cold and sad for a little while.

built to spill

i turned a guy at work onto built to spill this week and it went and made me get nostalgic all day: just finishing high school, hanging with mike talking and thinking about music in a way i never had before.

anyway, this guy (clip above) likes bts even more than i do.

break out the stereotypical pink shit!!

IT'S A GIRL!

i am going to be the best aunt, ever. pinky swear.

later, i gotta find some cute baby clothes.



**photo courtesy ann wood

southern (summer) comfort

dear web journal,

this is the third installment of my fav things, but specifically those things i love most in summer. have i complained enough about how much this stifling summer is kicking my butt? well, whatever i’ve said hasn’t been a fair enough representation. bugs have been eating me alive; the heat has ruined whatever workout regimen i had; and karl and i are getting a lot of unwanted conflict-resolution practice lately. i promise myself right here and now that i’m not going to let that continue.

but materialistically, i found a few things throughout the summer that help make this hot, sticky season less painful.

item 1: world wildlife fund (wwf) tee, sometimes i get in the habit of only purchasing work attire (or those that can double as both work and casual), which is efficient but also kind of boring. this comfortable item also includes a small donation of the proceeds to the wwf. also, i love tees, especially those don't say stupid stuff on them.
item 2: i hadn’t bought a new pair of tennis shoes in more than a year and my last pair of asics were starting to tear in places, so i started looking for a new pair of casual shoes. i didn’t want to get another pair of asics, but i saw these; they’re really comfortable; and they keep to my promise to wear more color.
item 3: i love a good ballet flat and thought these keds were a good, easy match for me. i got them on a really great sale through the keds website, which made me even happier. unfortunately, they don’t carry them anymore, but their recent sale has quite a few cute ballerina flat styles.
item 4: another tee. certainly colorful and comfortable. see, i don’t have to always look like a character from beetlejuice. sometimes i can look like another ‘80s nightmare altogether.
item 5, 6, and 7: shorts! for quite a few years, i’ve avoided wearing shorts because i had this thing where i hated how big my legs look. well, it’s too hot for that and i’ve since come to terms with the fact that muscular legs are far hotter than my other alternative which more resembles a curdled cheese product. anywayz, i really only like wearing levis and i pretty much never wear any other brand of jeans, because levis are flattering on me and they never cost a small fortune. all pairs can be found here.
item 8: i just really like this lip gloss. it works exceptionally well and it reminds me of the chapsticks that sati and jessi would bring me back from germany.
item 9: my step-sister finally turned me onto the mineral makeup craze, i think. it is light, wears well through sweat, and looks more natural than caking on some layer of paste-like foundation.
item 10: i’m back to reading a bunch and it helps actually looking for items i might actually be interested in. so, during an amazon.com search, i found a collection of short stories and poetry (which also appears in a magazine subscription form) called tin house: summer reading. tin house often features works written by some of my favorite authors like sherman alexie, dorothy allison, pablo neruda, charles simic, seamus heaney, etc.
item 11: nintendo ds. i don’t need to say much. nintendo systems are almost always great and the ds lite is no exception.

my little eskimo

dear web journal,

since finishing up my antonia (which was really good, btw), i keep thinking back on a particular passage of the novel:

`So was my mother's father,' murmured Lena, `but that's all the good it does us! My father's father was smart, too, but he was wild. He married a Lapp. I guess that's what's the matter with me; they say Lapp blood will out.'

`A real Lapp, Lena?' I exclaimed. `The kind that wear skins?'

`I don't know if she wore skins, but she was a Lapps all right, and his folks felt dreadful about it. He was sent up North on some government job he had, and fell in with her. He would marry her.'

`But I thought Lapland women were fat and ugly, and had squint eyes, like Chinese?' I objected.

`I don't know, maybe. There must be something mighty taking about the Lapp girls, though; mother says the Norwegians up North are always afraid their boys will run after them.'

sometimes when my husband describes me, he does so with an emphasis on my native american heritage. and to be fair, if i am anything, i am mostly native american, as it comes from both sides of my family. paternally and maternally, though, i come from generations of mixed race marriages, of which i am very proud. there’s something to be said about two people meeting, falling in love, and publicly declaring their affection, despite longstanding taboo of racially heterogenous unions. and karl, a full blooded scandinavian, has something for girls with darker complexions. lucky me. not only do i get him, i also get to be part of that history.

this is also why i really enjoyed a family reunion story recently told by a co-worker of mine. her family, ethnically german/scotts-irish, can trace their early history to the pacific northwest, including alaska. like characters in my antonia, two of her uncles, living and working in northern alaska married yupik women. one of these uncles calls his wife, “my little eskimo.” there is something so tender about that, i fear saying anything more about it.

**painting, in-jun 1, courtesy of nicholas kashian