Graduation!

Well, I managed it. Somehow I have graduated from law school. I fully expected the Dean of Students to pull me away minutes from crossing the stage and tell me that I was a few credits short, or that I had flunked Income Tax. But it didn't happen.

The weekend started with a party at the law school Friday night. Paul and Sue came up for the party and of course Amzie's attendance was required.


And Saturday was the big day for the ceremony. Apparently my head looks incredibly small when I wear a graduation robe. The red cords mean they anticipate that I will graudate cum laude, which is the top 30%. They can only "anticipate" as opposed to saying for sure since my grades for this last semester aren't in yet. But I think I'll be ok.


My mom's best friend, and my friend, Judy came up for the ceremony too! I was so happy to have her there. She just brightens up the room when she walks in it and she always makes me feel good. Love her!


I didn't get many pictures with my friends, but luckily I got a picture with my wonderful friend Jen. She is brilliant and kind and it was such an honor to sit beside her in all my UCC classes and at the graduation.


After the ceremony my beautiful friend Danza invited us back to her house for a celebration. She made this adorable banner and those puff balls that look much cuter in person.


Here's Danza. She's pregnant and thus understandably excited about sitting down to eat the amazing food she prepared. That is her brother Justin beside her. He graduated from law school 3 or 4 years ago.


I just thought this picture was cool. It shows the spread after we made a serious dent in it. That's my friend Julie to the left. It was great to see her. She's pregnant too. I have given up drinking the water in Bloomington because it appears that pregnancy is an epidemic that may be in the water.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I'm having a party at Paul and Sue's house in Corydon this weekend to celebrate with more of my peeps. I didn't want them to have to drive up to Bloomington and go to a boring ceremony, so we're doing the party locally. More pictures to follow!

Scary time is here!

I haven't posted anything for a long time! I've been quite busy. For a while it was the Law & Drama Society Spring Play. Memorizing lines is a pain in the buttocks. And since then I've been catching up and getting ready for finals. Today is my last day of law school classes. I have a paper to finish and two finals to take, and then it will be finished.

The next thing will be the Bar Exam. Egads! This week some of my study materials showed up on my doorstep. Two gigantic books, and there are more to come. Here they are in all their glory...


And seeing them made me make this face...


Ok, really I'm not that scared. I am quite sure there will be unfun moments during bar prep, and certainly during the exam and while I'm waiting for results. But I've gotten pretty good at just spending my energy on the things I can control and not worrying about the results. So I plan to do the work and trust that the result I want (i.e. passing) will come. How healthy of me.

One very cool thing happened this week. I've been wondering how I could find someone that I love dealy but lost touch with. It suddently hit me that maybe she's on Facebook...and she is! So I found her! For all the nonsense associated with Facebook, I am not appreciative of it! This person is very special to me, so I'm quite excited. She sent me her phone number, and as soon as I have longer than 15 minutes spare time I'll be calling her to see how she is doing.

Otherwise, life has consisted of law school and bar exam related activities. Nothing too fun, other than the play, which was great.

Oh, well, I do have a song on a CD that a friend of mine made! This friend is a fellow law student and a talented musician and producer. Over the last 3 years he met a number of people with some amount of musical talent. People like myself went to his apartment, where he has a little studio set up, and recorded songs. He wrote the music on my track, and I wrote the lyrics. He played all the isntruments and I sang. Very cool experience. There are also several very cool tracks by other students, teachers, and staff members of the school.

Tonight is the Law School Bar Crawl. I, unlike my fellow students, will not be getting rip roaring drunk. I do, however, want to celebrate. So I've linked with some sober buddies and am looking forward to that. Silly pictures and post most likely will follow...

African Dance Class

Before Spring Break my African Dance class came to its end. Sort of. I took this class through Bloomington Parks and Recreation, and that has ended. But the instructor is continuing to teach the class elsewhere. So it hasn't really ended. But I have these pictures, taken by one of the Bloomington Parks employees, from our last class there.

Here are the drummers. They are AMAZING. The one on the far left works with Amzie. The guy in the middle, the black man with the hat on, is Dr. Djo Bi. He is from the Ivory Coast and he teaches the drum class that meets before the dance class. I can't even describe how amazing it is to watch and hear him play. His talent is astounding.


Here is another one of Dr. Djo Bi.


And here are the dancers! I'm in the left row, third one back in the green tank top. The instructor, Harmony, is the first one in the right row. There were several dancers that had taken African dance before, several who hadn't, and at least one professional dancer. So it was a nice mix of experience levels.


Here we are mid dance. I can't attest to why this picture is angled this way...


After the coreographed portion of the dance finished we form a circle and people can solo if they want. My friend Chloe took the class with me, so we did a duo. No picture of that, unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately...


This is the end. And these are our rear ends. I was a little concerned about the blood rushing to my head. I get quite red faced and sweaty by the end.


In short, I love African dance. I've always loved dancing, pretty much all types. But I also love the drums. The only common thread in the different music that I like is that they typically all have a strong beat. And like I said, Dr. Djo Bi and the other drummers are super talented. And hearing it all in person is awesome. There's a fantastic interaction between the drummers and the dancers - they are playing for you and you are dancing for them. So, this is a wonderful new thing in my life that I hope to continue forever!!!

Ode to Amzie

I'm feeling really proud of my husband, so I thought I'd share. This is a picture I took of him a random day when I thought he looked really cute.


It's funny, because I can't really explain why I fell in love with him. I just remember feeling amazed. We would talk into the early morning hours, but I have no idea what about. I liked the way he looked at me. I thought he was very mature because he had a hairy chest. And of course we had great chemistry. I was so relieved when I found him to be a wonderful kisser. My mother always said she didn't like the way my dad kissed. And I could never imagine kissing someone your whole life when you don't like the way they kiss!

We did hit bumps along the way, of course. There were times when I was so afraid that my mom was right, that he didn't love me. Mom wasn't wrong a lot, so it was horrible for a while having that fear looming. But at some point I realized that she didn't have all the information, so it would have been hard for her to really know the truth.

Amzie always considered himself a Christian, but he got more serious about it at some point when we were dating. And he never worried that I wasn't a Christian. He believed I'd come around. I have no idea why he believed that. It amazes me to no end how he had so much patience to just wait until I found things out in my own time. If I had become a Christian first, I no doubt would have badgered the crap out of him.

Amzie has never met a stranger. He got that from his momma. He can talk a blue streak. But what's cool is that he always finds out something that interests the person he's talking to, and because he knows a little about everything, he can carry on a conversation that interests them both.

Galatians 5:22-23 says that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." That's pretty much Amzie. Sometimes I catch myself being annoyed with him because he isn't getting up early to read his Bible, or whatever. But you know, he's way ahead of me on that fruit of the spirit thing...

He has lots of hobbies, that's another thing about the Amz. He loves car racing, freemasonry, guns, cooking, and - more recently - gardening and canning. Interesting combination no? And we're taking ballroom dancing now, so maybe we'll have to add that to the list. He also loves Tivo. But most of all, he loves God and he loves me and he loves his family.

So, I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

Points, points, points

Amzie and I are embracing the beauty of POINTS. We have joined Weight Watchers Online!

I am not trying to lose weight, for those of you out there furrowing your brows. I am mostly doing this to support my dearest husband. But I also like their system for maintenance purposes, since it is very close to how I've lost weight and (for the most part) kept it off. It encourages you to think about the day as a whole, and know that if you splurge and have pancakes for breakfast you're going to have to take it easy for the rest of the day.

But in addition to your daily "points," you also have a pool of weekly points. So if you know you have a birthday party coming up, you can have extra points on that day by borrowing from your weekly points. Or if you want dessert every night, like me, you can borrow a couple of extra points from that pool every day.

And you can earn points with exercise too. There is a calculator online to figure out how many points a given activity earns. At first glance Amzie thought 10 pushups got you an extra point. But it's really 10 minutes. I had to laugh.

Amzie seems to be liking the system too. Today he was going out to lunch with work people, and he was already thinking about what to order this morning. Turns out they were going to a pizza place, so he said he would get 1 piece of pizza and eat a salad. Smart boy, I tell ya.

A Book Report: The Five Love Languages

Have I read any good books lately, you ask? Why, yes. Yes I have. I just finished The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. The book was recommended to me by my good friend Jen who is getting married very soon.



I am happy to report that the book is quite helpful. The premise is that we all speak different love languages, and if your partner isn't "speaking your language" you do not feel loved. For example, one of the languages is Words of Affirmation. So if I have a partner that speaks critically to me often, and rarely encourages and praises me, I won't feel loved even if he is trying to love me by doing things for me and spending time with me. The book can help you figure out your own love language and your partner's.

Amzie and I are both quality time people, but as Dr. Chapman puts it, we have different dialects. Amzie just needs for me to spend time with him, and do things with him. I need that, but I also specifically need some really devoted attention and conversation - no TV, no magazine in the lap, etc.

All in all we do a pretty good job of making each other feel loved. But the book has some concrete advice about how to give your partner all your attention - essentially how to be a good listener and a good conversationalist. Amzie is great at telling stories and he's never met a stranger. But if I want to talk about something that's on my mind, something that I'm trying to figure out or something, he doesn't really get how important it is to be a good listener. And if he doesn't know the solution to my problem he just says "I dont' know" and the conversation is over. Sometimes I want him to just brainstorm with me or something. So we'll see if this book can help him learn some things in this regard. I know he loves me and wants me to feel loved, so I have faith that it will.

So, in closing, I would recommend this book. And it's not only for people in relationships - it can explain how to be a better daughter, a better sister, a better friend.

Barrister's Ball

This past Saturday Amzie and I attended the Barrister's Ball. The Black Law Student Association throws this wonderful event every year, but this was our first one. It was held at the Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union, and it was quite lovely. Everyone looked so nice, and the decorations were very pretty. We sat with some friends that we haven't gotten to see much of lately, and we met some new people too. Perfect!

Here is Mr. Cutie Pie and me. Yes, the purple dress made another appearance. I have a new haircut too, but you can't really tell much in this picture.

Left to right, we have my friend Chloe (with whom I am taking my African Dance class), me, and my friend Chris. These are two of the most fabulous women I've met in the law school. Both incredibly smart, kind, funny, and interesting.


This is my friend Mindy. She will be working in an Indianapolis firm as well, so I'm thrilled I'll get to see more of her after graduation. She is also a fantastic woman that I've met in law school.



Here I am with Raza and April. Raza, sporting his 'hawk, is from my same home town. We met each other on the first day of school, because we instinctively understood that the other was weird enough that we could probably be friends, and were surprised to find this fact out. April is awesome - so funny. She is in the law school play with me. She plays a very amusing ax murderer.