don't you know by now {you can't turn back}

Facebook wants me to friend my best friend from high school.

You would not think this would be a hard decision.

It's just been so long and so much shit has happened (not between us, but individually) and the fact that we're not close anymore hurts so much, and it just feels like being friends on Facebook is such a worthless thing (especially because I know she won't really use it) that I don't want to even bother. I mean, if it's causing me this much grief just from a recommendation on the sidebar, what's it going to be like if I have to see what her life is like now, without me? I was supposed to be like her, happy and doing brilliantly at a top-tier school and with a bright future ahead, and . . . I'm not any of those things.

Our relationship was sort of bad for me at times, because rather than want to compete against her, I'd pull back in classes we shared so I didn't have to deal with the pressure. And I pretty much only had her, while she had some other friends, so I was much more dependent and sort of jealous a lot (but this is usually the case). But at the same time, she made me want to do better. Her opinion of me mattered like no other peer has ever mattered to me before, and I wanted her to be proud of me.

My memories of high school consist of mock trial, orchestra, my ~issues, and Katie. All of them fit into one of those categories. The problem is that senior year, most of them fit into category three, so when I went off to college, I was really distant from everybody. And then I started gaining weight and that was just sort of a symbol of how everything else was falling apart, and I didn't want anyone to see me. I didn't want to talk to her (or anyone else) because I was afraid they'd want to hang out, and I'd have to make up an excuse because I wanted their memories of me to be how I was near graduation: together, decent grades, a job, and skinny. Which means I hardly want anyone to see me now, when I've pretty much hit rock bottom on all of those things.

Also, there may or may not have been sort of an unrequited love thing going on. I didn't really realize it until years after we'd last seen each other, but I think I spent way too much time angsting over this girl for us to just have been friends, at least on my side of it. I mean, I wasn't sexually attracted to her, but it's definitely the most intense relationship I've ever had. I remember at one point discussing how I'd been planning on us moving in together during college and after, and talking about what we should name our dogs, and she was like "well, I always sort of assumed I'd get married after college" and I didn't speak to her the rest of the day because I was heartbroken. I mean, hello, giant flashing YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH HER sign right there. But, I mean, it wasn't love as most people would define it, I guess? It was just friendship that was . . . stronger. The if-you-are-blind-and-don't-see-the-subtext Xena/Gabrielle sort of relationship, you know? We actually compared ourselves to House and Wilson more than a few times -- I like diagnostics and puzzles and have the more blatant issues, she's better with people and everyone likes her and she was interested at one point in oncology. To be super melodramatic, I felt like she was the other half of my One Great True Pairing, the really forever BFFs, and now I've lost that, and . . . I mean, I feel like there's only one person in the world for you like that, and when that ends, what kind of hope do you have from there?

Idk. I'm not over her yet, apparently.

Despite not having eaten yet today, I'm going to go to bed now, I think. This is too much and now I'm super angsty and I want her to be my friend again but I just don't see how it could ever work out the way I want it to (I'm kind of an all or nothing kind of gal when it comes to my heart). I know that I would still die for her in an instant, and I don't want to have to think about the fact that she probably wouldn't do the same. THIS IS WHY WE DON'T NORMALLY DO THIS SOCIAL ATTACHMENT THING, SELF. YOU JUST SIT YOUR LITTLE SCHIZOID PERSONALITY OVER IN THE CORNER AND KNIT, IT'S BETTER THAT WAY.

In mock trial now. OMG, I hate this girl. She comes in and is all I IZ DOMINANT AND A KICK ASS MOCK TRIALER and she's not. She had the nerve last week to say something about us electing a captain, and I was all O HELLS NO, I have been trying to get this team off the ground since fucking September, and even after you joined you missed some 4 meetings because your schedule is "too hectic", so you don't even get to think about that.

It's pretty funny, when we do objections when going through this. If she called it, she keeps fighting it right until she knows she's going to lose, and then goes "Oh, let's just move on," once she realizes I've got her. And tried to do the entire plaintiff case first, not just the case in chief--she was trying to cross one of the defense witnesses before they'd been directed. That or she thought that the witness selection order carried over to witness calling order, even though I'd clarified that already last week and she evidently wasn't listening. She keeps telling the other lawyer to make these bullshit objections every three seconds if the witnesses answer is more than two words on direct or it's what she thinks is a leading question, which fails because she doesn't know what a leading question is, she keeps using the wrong justification for objections and just jumbling about and reiterating the "pursuant to Midlands Rule of Evidence (some random number that's wrong)" bit and not citing an actual rule, and she's overall just. . . not my guys from high school. Basically, her theory of working things is starkly different from mine; I'll just go ahead and say here that we have either beaten her team in HS or beaten someone who beat them, so I'm fairly certain that I've got at least a bit of an idea what I'm fucking talking about. I would take such pleasure in kicking her witness's ass in cross and objecting the fuck out of her direct if this was high school and she was on the other team.

Anger. Seriously. At least I can accept when somebody else points out a good objection. And don't try to point out bullshit ones when I don't know the justification for them or cheat my way out of being deemed wrong. That's the biggest thing. If she was trying to sneak in and steal control because she's. . . idk, an actual lawyer, that's different. Perfect example of a little bit of knowledge being a horrible, horrible thing.

That's this weekend. My witness, who I'd thought would be pretty good when we were going through some questions, looks like she's just going to memorize the script she wrote. Yet again, I need our witnesses back. Fucking dream team, we were. I'm really hoping she polishes it up and goes completely off script, because just like every time a script is written, she's really canned.

<-- That was all Monday. The witness who was supposed to meet me didn't actually show up--I think we may have mistakenly agreed on different days to meet, because according to the only-semi-annoying lawyer (so called because he tends to listen/ask the *less experienced* bitchface rather than me about some things, but that's semi-understandable because he actually knows her. Plus, his boyfriend walked by and kissed him once while we were meeting, and I had to restrain myself from "awww"ing) that like I her, she couldn't find me on the day.

Now it's Wednesday. My life sucks. More MT and Judith making my time of it a bitch. First, why today in particular sucked so hard. Starting at 7:40 or so I was in class until 5:50 (not even extracurricular lab, but lab-lab that took way too long because we had to keep redoing stuff because our results kept being shit), then back to plug in my laptop and putter around looking for the library Torchwood dvd I'd misplaced; never even got to take off my shoes before down to dinner and then the gym and then straight back up to my room to grab my mock trial binder for a no-notice MT meeting. It's almost 11 and I've been in my room a grand total of one hour since waking up.

I want to kill her. I really do.  She's now got Sahara (the president of the frat who DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO GO) being the president, but at least it's not her, because I would have straight up vetoed that.  But it's supposed to be me.

I've got this reoccurring dream/worry/fantasy that she's going to give the closing argument once (out of 4 trials) and suck, and I'm just going to have to be "No.  You're not doing it anymore.  I'm taking over, role limits be damned."

It's going to be a while before I can do these three pages of reflection stuff for Hero and Quest (summary of the weeks' readings, which I only ever did the first 1/6th of the entire book, summary of the class discussion, which is hard as I'm an idiot and never put dates on my notes, and a reflection bit; doesn't seem hard, and yet is so much more difficult than the bazillion-page microiology practice test I should be doing instead because you've got to make it sound good) because otherwise it'd be WARWARWARDIEDIEDIE HE'S (Henry Flemming from Red Badge of Courage) FAIL FOR RUNNING BECAUSE THEY NEED TO ALL BE DED KTHXBAI. 

I'm letting her make me loathe going to MT because it's something I'm frankly really fucking good at and she's taking it away from me.  She took my closing already, which I was fine with at first if it meant I'd just have more time to coach the other lawyer and witnesses who'd never done anything before, but she knows them all through the frat, so they all went "Oh, she's got debate experience and her little podunk town school did MT, so let's talk to she who DOESN'T FUCKING KNOW WHAT A LEADING QUESTION IS OR THAT PLAINTIFF CAN'T CROSS THE DEFENSE WITNESSES BEFORE THEY HAVE TESTIFIED." (Seriously? That second part? I don't think you need to have any experience with law save having seen two episodes of Law and Order to know that the lawyer on the other side asks their questions right after the lawyer whose witness it is asks theirs. Supposedly she just got confused between the order for pre-trial witness selection and calling the witnesses in the actual case, but you know what that tells me? She didn't really read the rules, and yet she's constantly trying to point them out to other people.) Oh, and the kicker. As this is pretty much the entire basis of the case. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A BITCH TO SOMEONE TO SHOW ACTUAL MALICE. RECKLESS DISREGARD WORKS TOO AND IS THE EASIER TO PROVE. W. T. F.

Yeah.  I'm not an overly roll-over-and-take-it person in general, especially in an area that I've got some standing in, but I tried so fucking hard not to just go in and write everything for everybody because I knew that since it was so late that I was finally getting people to stick that we didn't have time to be good, and I'd rather people learned for next year than sucked a little less this year. So when she came in to the picture a few weeks ago (versus me, who's the reason this team exists as I've been working on getting it up and going since September through probably 3 whole teams worth of people committing and then dropping out), I was already being too laid back with the team (whoever I could drum up and keep in for more than a week, with people refusing to commit or change their schedules, as I've bitched about before). Most of it's probably that they all know her. Idk. I've gotten this massive complex, now. She wants me to put this stupid-arsed "haste makes waste" into my opening and I can't do it. I won't, frankly, because sure, a theme works well, but one as stupid and singsongy as that isn't memorable as anything but stupid and singsongy, plus the defense can wipe it out with a couple of easy comments regarding the responsibility to the people to get news out on TV asap after it happens (backed up by the expert witness).

Gah. And I don't have anything memorized yet, and I've got those Hero and Quest journals to do tonight which are going to take a long time like always, and I've got two tests to make up when I get back--the microbiology one I could technically take on Friday as we're not leaving until 9 and it's my 8 o'clock, but I'd do a halfassed job on prepping for both mt and the test, and I can't afford to fuck this test up as I've got an 85% in there after that lab one I had to take after missing the follow up on the three labs before due to carfail (because idk when that'll ever get written--car died 2 hours out of STL, 1 hour from school, just on the side of the highway in nowheresville on Tuesday. Got it towed to a place [that I think was the only one within god knows how many miles], turns out it was a fatal dying, bleakone had to come pick me up because the car's trash; missed everything that Tuesday which happens to be two of the three classes where attendance counts the most). Add the stress of Judith (aka bitchface) and how much I hate losing like I know we will and even worse, having to sit there and have other people screwing up and not being able to object on their behalf or rephrase their answers or something (see MT state semifinals and finals 2007 where I swear I took years off of my life restraining myself from shouting out the response to the objection from the witness bench while my team made a couple of stupid and critical mistakes). And having to fucking open for the plaintiff (never fun, as that's the absolute first thing to happen in the trial) and then direct the first plaintiff witness (the first actual exam to happen in the trial, which is dangerous because you can't get the feel for the judge or the other team's objection strategy before you have to just go--I'm well aware that the person with that job tends to get the lowest scores for that reason, which makes everything worse because it feels like everyone else will think that that's some kind of affirmation that Judith's better than I am if she scores higher when I know she's not). I'm breaking out like nobody's business (as per usual in preparation for the ONE DAY A YEAR I actually put on makeup and dress up and stuff) and having mini panic attacks about compounded stress and the prospect of driving 1.5hrs in a car packed with three four? other people (I don't know what I'm going to do there. I need to be either knocked out with megadoses of Dramamine or allergy medicine or something, which would not give me enough time to recover, or be able to completely zone out and meditate the fuck out of that car--for all seriousness, I'm freaking out just thinking about the prospect--both of which would prevent the rehearsing we should be using the time for.)

GAH. An hour later and I've been just writing this and catching up on the news and such and not doing the homework. Fucking fail. Midnight and I've got hours left of work to do. I need to learn to make these things as short and easy as they're supposed to be. I'm fairly sure I'm overthinking.

I'm also fairly sure I'm close to the border of incoherent from fatigue (not tiredness, really; though that's there to a not-pleasant extent as I woke up some ninetybazillion times during the night last night, it's mostly just exhaustion from the bitch of a day this has been) as seen by the worse my typing is getting. Though point of interest, Chelsea (primary cohab) was listening as she was going to sleep a bit ago to me rock out this keyboard and she asked how fast I type "because sometimes I listen and you're going at it like a ninja", and I guessed like 40wpm or something because that seemed like a number I'd seen before, but evidently if I'd seen that number before and not just pulled it out of the top of my head, it was from maybe 6th grade when I had to take typing class because I took some random online test just now and pulled an 80-95wpm range. That should afford me some kickass job somewhere paying lots of money until I get my MD and make tons more money, I think.

O. M. F. G.

Marburg hemorrhagic fever, imported case, UNITED STATES

LOL at how they retrospectively diagnosed it, though.

Atm, I'm in the first floor of the biomedical sciences building while my gel runs upstairs because I've got a shitload of work and no time to do it. I've been getting maybe 4 hours of sleep each of the last three days, which doesn't make me happy as with my 8 and 9 am classes, I was trying to be in bed by midnight. Yeah, that worked until I got, idk, actual homework.

And now I'm swamped, between the lab and mock trial right now. The former is new and weird. Though this is only my third day working in there, so it's understandable, and I am really getting the hang of things because I know what I'm doing, just not where everything is, LOL; keeping the notebook is the hard bit--I'm not sure how much/what to write out. As there's a large continuum of detailedness in procedure, especially since it's all written out for me already as standards and I only really have to mark down changes I make (different buffers, annealing temperatures for the PCR, etc.) And I'll definitely have enough to actually write it up when I'm done, but I'm not sure how much the supervisor wants in terms of that kiddish bullshit regarding actually enumerating every item you ever even think about touching in the materials section, etc.

MT is. . . interesting. We're just prepping every witness just in case, which is what I'd been advocating forever, but now we have enough people to do it. I'm pretty much pissed at most of the people, though, as they just jumped in on Sunday so they could get to go with us to Columbia for the competition. And worried, as I've never heard any of them do anything mock trial-y. And one of them not even talk, really. I'm worried about him the most, as he's not even in Phi Alpha Delta (the pre-law fraternity that's sponsoring the MT team) and. . . doesn't really strike me as intelligent. I mean, at all. But as a result of this last-minute thing, we don't have an overall case strategy, nobody's working with each other to coordinate examinations (because sometimes you've got to make sure somebody says something earlier so you can get in what you want later), etc. So we're pretty much going to get our asses kicked, which I severely dislike. Because I'm good at this mock trial stuff, but I'm having to spend all my time just trying to get everybody (or even some of everybody) in the same room at the same time. We had both of the other lawyers and one of my two definitely-going-to-be-used witnesses not show up to the meeting on Sunday, so I can only hope that they didn't just quit on me or something. I don't understand why people here think they don't have to make any kind of comittment--it's only since the president of PAD intervened for me and started browbeating people that anybody would show up, since I've got no incentive/disincentive to enforce to ensure attendance. But seriously? Nobody seems to get that you've got to make the meeting times fit, you can't just say "oh, I've got work, can't show"--it's called asking off, seeing as how MT'll be over in a few weeks, it's not like it's going to be forever.

And I've got my microbiology test tomorrow that I'm going to fail since I still can't get the book (they're out at the bookstore; they offered to order me one, but I'll be damned if I'm paying the new price much less also the "having to ship it in" fee that I've heard they tack on)

And a psychology test that I'm going to spend all of 5 minutes looking over stuff for because I'm fairly certain I can take this class's final right now and pull at least a 97% but still adds to the stress

And chemistry lab (and thus in-lab quiz and writeup) tomorrow.

And journal entries due for Hero and Quest reflecting over material I haven't actually read all of. These being that which I was up until 1 and then from 3:30-6ish doing two weeks worth of last night (and it actually did take me that long, because of both the ADD from hell that's decided to be a bitch this semester simply because my doctor moved to Wisconsin so I've got no way of getting my meds for it reupped again), but it turns out that even though we didn't have class at all the third week, we've still got to do one.

And to add insult to injury, I was all excited about lunch today because it was some French theme and one of the counters was going to be fruit and cheese dessert. Which I thought might mean decent fruit (berries and such instead of the standard apple/orange/pear/banana/grapefruit rotating selection they've got of fresh, and nasty mushy sugary frozen/canned other fruits). With no interest in dinner (chicken strips and mashed potatoes/macaroni and cheese in both dining halls, blech--since they're for some reason killer popular, that's all it would have been at all the counters and in both places on the same day, which just seems stupid to me), that was going to be it for me for the day, but no. That dining place has a power outage.

And the chairs that I'm in in the computer lab have the most worthless backs in the history of chairs. Which would be okay if you just didn't use them, like stools; painful but doable. But no. The seat is slanted backwards so as to tip you back towards the back, which then leans so far back that I'd probably fall asleep if I stayed that way for more than a few seconds.


On a less-whiny (okay, still whiny, but different topic) note, House last night. How long after all the hoopla was that last scene supposed to have taken place? They didn't establish any kind of time passage, I think, which is fail. Because really? Not so much with the sexing after all that medical shit goes down. (Plus, erm, not really a fan of the 14.)

Whoa. New arrangement for the CSI: NY theme. Ehh. I prefer the original; it's closer to the real song.

(I can't believe I don't already have a CSI tag. Odd.)

And the next day.

I'm half watching an SVU (7.09 "Rockabye") right now when I wrote this while waiting for ER to come one, and Donnelly was about to try a case and Casey was talking her out of it for political reasons, and Liz says "Playing politics with the law. You're heading down a slippery slope, Casey." LOL, foreshadowing.

And the next day. Seriously, fail posting.

Last night was terrific success in not sleeping. It was inching on 1am and I was bedding down when Jason X (with both Lexa Doig and Lisa Ryder from Andromeda) came on. I hate movies like that, but for the sake of those two, I'd always looked at the copy of it on the shelf at the library but never actually checked it out (because I hate horror movies). It was the most ridiculous thing ever (though admittedly, I was only paying 1/2 attention as I figured out how to window my computer!TV screen and my Sims 2 screen and get them both going at once, which makes me very happy)--beyond the unbelievable plot and hackslashkilling where people lose arms by falling machetes and just walk around, etc., because I know Lisa Ryder as Beka Valentine, it was really hard to be anything but really annoyed at the chirpy robot chick. But after that, Rat Race came on, which I also watched. And then it's like 5:45am. So I ended up not going to Genetics (even though I was up, I just didn't feel like it), but that's no big loss as we talk about nothing of interest in that class. I'll have to get the review sheet for the next test at some point, as he said he'd hand that out today, but that's it.

AND I GOT THE MOCK TRIAL CASE. Have yet to read it, but I got my hands on a copy (we're still waiting for the money to go through to register our team for an official login, so this is wicked).

Bowled again today. This is prolly the 4th week in a row, and I think I'm definitely improving. Decided to start keeping track of our scores, so table o'recordage to follow in separate post.

And I might be going to the Denver game on Sunday. It was a bigger might be ("can get tickets, but how to get there without making Dad go three hours out of the way to pick me up"), and then a no (as it's 3 hours from him to Kansas City, and three hours from me to KC, but 6 hours from him to me to KC because fail!triangle is formed, and he's got to work Monday morning), and now it's a "Dad's coming down tomorrow, so it depends on my getting a ticket in time" maybe. Excitement.

Edit: tickets are bought and paid for. And decent seats. The two of us for less than $100, and we're in the 20th row in the lower level. 25 yard line, which isn't preferable (I wanted the $70 ticket in the first row close to the 50, but there was only one), but still win. (And since they switch sides at the half, it'll be good for half the game. Though it depends on how the game goes which half is good.)

Stargate Atlantis is screwing with my head. Robert Picardo and Jewel Staite just had a scene together talking about the gate, and my brain went "ONOES, too many sci-fi shows blending!"

Oh, and forgot to mention. Picked up ER season 5 from the library today, so yay for that. The beginning of 5 is one of the few sections of episodes I've never seen (or not seen in so long that I've completely forgotten), so this is win. Plus, no cohabs this weekend, so it's medical drama funtiems.

Might take another L.S.A.T. tomorrow morning depending on whether I feel like missing brunch or not (and whether I wake up). Food times on weekends suck here--it's 10:30-1:30 and then 5-7, which is crazy restrictive especially when you consider that it's even more packed than usual for whatever reason.

Re: Spring Break. I knitted some eggs. And flowers, but the eggs are cooler looking. I stuffed them and everything (except for one of them, which I've yet to get around to sewing up and stuffing). I read a bunch of fic, which I hadn't really been doing much of lately, so that was nice. Mock trial'ed the entire last weekend of it, which was fun but hell.

Re: Mock Trial. Like it says above, Friday/Saturday/Sunday were all that. And as usual, were filled by very little sleep, as you're not home until late on Friday, you've got to cram for the side switching that night and get up early Saturday morning to go back down there and argue the other way. Ditto Saturday night to Sunday. Add to that my weird sleeping schedule (so I was in court when I would normally be asleep) and I calculated it all out and I had something like 260fl oz of Diet Dr. Pepper over Saturday and Sunday (most on Saturday) just to keep me awake, LOL.

We only took 4th this year, which pissed me off more than a little because a) it was only by the judge's ballot (who didn't like one of our lawyers pretty obviously) and one point on one of the jury ballots that we didn't get to move on, and b) the reason we lost the trial that kicked us out was because we'd lost to that team once before this year and we got scared. Twas a snooty rich school that has won state something like 5 out of the last 8 years now, but I don't think that they're actually that much better than we are (they're scripted as hell, so you knock them off script and they're gone).

But I got screwed by a bad call (so says my team’s lawyer coach, who, with several other lawyers, wrote the case) by the judge on an unfair extrapolation, which meant I had to spend most of my cross time fighting the witness on that and had to cut myself way short on the other stuff I wanted to get to so I wouldn't leave our last crosser with only 3.5 minutes for an entire examination (like happened earlier in the series of trials)--which didn't hurt my score because I handled it well, but in the course of the overall trial, it made it harder for them to find for us at the end because it ended up helping the other side's case; as much as they say that it's all about the points and who would actually win the trial doesn't matter, you can't divorce presentation from outcome completely. Idk. I felt that I did decently and my scores reflected that (though they weren't nearly the best I'd ever gotten), though the u.e. thing rattled me pretty badly at the time—you sit down thinking “Oh shit, I just blew that,” because it didn’t come out as strongly case-wise for my side as it should have, but the fighting is where most of the points do come from. And fighting I can do.

Still. Moar things that went wrong on Sunday. We had one lawyer screw up the side switching (or something) during that final trial, and end up crossing one witness with what were essentially the direct examination questions for our side's counter witness, and I had to fight my witness a few times when she got again, methinks nervous, and wasn't following where I was trying to go/tried to fight me like I was her crosser. which were the two big things that I can pick out as what I felt hit us the hardest. Plus, two major points for my closing didn’t come out in trial for various reasons, which means I had to rework the thing to try and make it sound like we’d presented a strong enough case to win if it were a real trial (which we didn’t, due to the fact that it’s a weaker side to begin with and we missed those two points). But I think a lot of my closing points came from being able to do that, however, because the opposing closer very obviously didn’t for her side and was talking all kinds of smack that very severely skewed both the stuff that the witnesses actually said and stuff that they didn’t actually ever say. It was nuts, though; I don’t think I’ve ever heard such skewage from a closer before. She was like “And you heard them say this” and I was all “Ummbutwhat? I’m pretty sure not.”

Saturday’s either first or second trial, they all run together in my head, first trial was unbelievably fun, though, because. . . erm, the other team wasn’t any good. Well, sufficiently good that it wasn’t boring and we got a chance to use some of our objection responses and stuff, but their witnesses weren’t great at fighting on cross, which is always my favorite part anyway, and thus I was able to sort of kill my witness to, erm, death. I wanted video of that one—we never seem to get anybody to video tape ours for whatever reason, which is sad. I always think of it afterwards (only on the good trials—on the bad ones, you want all tapes/cameras/recording devices as far away as possible, LOL) and it never gets done. And the other teams, when they tape it, never manage to get the tape to us like the MT rules say they have to if we ask (I’m looking at one team here in particular that’s done it to us two years in a row, thanks). I had my mp3 player sneakyrecording all or most of the trials over the weekend, though, so I’m going to go back through and listen to them at some point and perhaps pull out bits of things to put up for fun.

We recast throughout the competition again, though, as on Friday night we were freaking out because our opener wasn't there yet when the trial was supposed to start and we had divvied up her parts to just try to do them without real preparation. It's not like we couldn't have, as evidenced by the fact that we’ve had to do that several times over the course of this season, more or less including Sunday, but it's crazy nervewracking to have to try to examine a witness you've never worked with before; even though you know what you need to get out there, it's easy for a witness and a lawyer to trample on each other's toes accidentally if they're not at least a bit familiar with each other's style. She showed up that night maybe 2 minutes before the judge walked in, but there seemed to have been family issues on the way there that nobody ever got the details of that both were the cause of her lateness and had her shaken up enough that she did really poorly, so we ended up absorbing her roles anyway for the next time we went that direction (which was Sunday's, thus also partially explaining the semi-suckage that trial).

But yes. I got a 10 on my closing on the Sunday trial, and that’s what I’m going to stick with. As a team, we didn’t do as well as we could have, but as an individual (especially considering I had to fight the twisted unfair extrapolation thing) I kinda rocked the weekend. I won’t play modest (lol, like you saw any humility in this entire post); I’m good at this shit, so it really feels sucky that this was most likely the last time I’m going to be able to do it.

I had a whole story on here from Friday and it didn't post. This is sad. Suffice it to say, I was pissed because I waited outside for the bus in 2F degree weather for 20 minutes before finally going back into the house after Mum called for us and found out that it had broken down and would be 10-20 more before it got there. And then it came in only 5, which didn't give me sufficient time to warm up. Plus, upon getting on said bus, it decided to honk loudly at all the stops at 7 in the bloody AM to get the people who, like me, had given up on waiting in this below-freezing weather. I hoped somebody called the police. I mean, I know it's not the driver's fault that the bus broke down, but how stupid do you have to be to honk at houses as you pass through a highly-uptight residential neighborhood when many people are still trying to sleep?

Dad and Tyler fixed the faucet in the bathroom last night, as something had died and it spurted water out where it connected with the basin every time you turned the water on more than a trickle. They turned the water off, put a new one on, and that was that. It's one of those with only one knob, though, and you've got to move the handle to one side or the other for hot or cold. Those are odd to me because I think this is the first we've ever had. Plus, it's uber sensitive, so you've only got to raise it a tiny bit for full-out waterage.

But yes. You thought it was over. Woke up and went to leave for Mock Trial, and there's water all down the street. I look closer--water main break. Right in front of the house. I lolol'd at how it happened right after they messed with the water for the house, though there's almost no way that could have caused it; the pipes prolly just froze. Anyway. Street buckled, the whole bit.

This is 9am or so, I leave, get to school, we go over scores from R1 of mock trial, I end up getting parts traded so I'm now a lawyer both rounds (like I mentioned before, bad in that I have to prepare lots more stuff, good in that I don't get antsy and pissed off at the lawyers when they're screwing up and I'm on the witness bench), I come back around noon and there's nothing happening. Still water spurting out. Dad called them only a bit after I noticed it, but since the spurtage couldn't be measured in feet (the watergeyserofdoom was only maybe 4 inches bubbling up), they didn't bother to show up until quite a bit later. I still parked way down the street so they could get there.

They did show up, finally, and fixed it. Eventually. But they brought the backhoe out and dug a huge hole in our yard to do so, which is now not a pretty sight. I was afraid they'd have to go way up in the yard and mess with Mum's garden, because then she'd be uberpissed, but it stayed right below it. And they had hoses and pumps and somehow managed to make it actually geyser up quite spectacularly, and it was quite loud for most of the afternoon. I had to make a phone call to the insurance company of the guy who hit my car two weeks ago or whenever that was (it's been all but resolved: I've got to call her back and tell her if I--read: my dad--want to use one of their listed/affiliated repair shops or take their estimated money and pay for it myself wherever I choose, and then have such done, and it'll be totally over), and I kept having to repeat things. Not cool.

Seriously, though, this hole? Hufuckingmungous. I took a picture; I'll have to find the camera cord to upload it. It's from out the window, so you can't quite see how deep it is, but you can see the guy leaning over it and talking. He's talking because there's a man in the hole, but his head's about 2.5 feet below the ground, so you can't see him at all. That makes this an 8.5ish feet deep hole. And decently wide, too. Large, I say.

Twas fixed when we got back from church, though the hole's just been dumped full of dirt and is lumpy and gross. They say they'll come back and fix it up, but in 8-10 weeks because the dirt's got to settle or whatever.

And then I went to the gym, went by Big Lots to see if they had any more of the 100-calorie Wheat Thin packs that I stupidly only grabbed one of that afternoon when I went there with Dad (unfortunately, no), stopped by the farmer's market because I really wanted some pears (but they're so unripe that I won't be able to have them for a few days, sadly), came home from the gym and had a really good, really big salad for dinner. And that's my story.

I'm feeling better about this mock trial thing. I think I'm going to more or less just wing it up there. Jot down my points and the couple of federal rule exceptions that I'm anticipating needing for objection responses and just go.

I'm afraid of getting too argumentative during cross, though. Because I'm on defense, and the plaintiff (he whom I'm crossing) really needs the hardest smackdown for obvious reasons, but he's the first witness to be called (theoretically--the other team can switch it up if they want, but nobody ever does). Such smackdown would be better reserved for the last plaintiff witness for a strong lead into the defense case. Plus, erm, he's too easy to hit and hit hard, and I could easily draw a badgering objection if I'm not careful. Ahh, conundrums. I say screw it and go Alex Cabot on his ass.

I am far too tired to still have done none of my homework for the day.

I spent today running around, like I mentioned yesterday, to 70 bazillion places. More than I intended, actually, as some bitch cut me off and forced me onto the highway on the way to my dad's school, which meant I had to go two exits past nowhere in order to turn around due to construction. And I had to stop by and make up a test for medical terminology. Final was this evening, though, after being rescheduled from this morning (which I had forgotten about last night, and was why I missed the first two hours of school today--okay, first one. The second was just me being a horrible horrible person and not wanting to go yet--until I found out that it got changed due to it being in a weird time in the first place or the ice or something), which means it's over now. Ahh, ridiculously easy class where I got to read fanfiction whilst keeping one ear open as the teacher talked about things that I mostly already knew. I shall miss thee.

I think next semester I'm going to take physics over the internets (coming in on 4 or 5 Saturdays for labs and tests), but the one that's online is marked "consider not taking this online if you didn't get at least a C in algebra". As in, you can still take it, but do the regular class instead of the distance one. The "engineering physics" class is labeled calculus-level, which probably means that that's what I should take (minus the engineering part--I think it just denotes that it's higher level, but idk), but I think it's only offered during the day, so I can't. I'm a little wary about the first class, "college physics", though, because it specifically says all over that there are no make-up labs, and that essentially, if you miss one of the Saturdays, you're going to have a damn hard time passing the class. Plus, there's this Saturday medical program that I'm applying for that I have to look up the dates for to see if they conflict (and, like the physics, that thing says that you won't be accepted if you have to miss any of the dates), and that's minimum two mock trial meetings I'm going to have to miss. Edit: Or maybe not on the latter, as I forgot we just changed our meeting times to earlier in the morning. I'd have to skip out a tad early, but methinks it wouldn't be a problem.

Plus, the book is goddamned expensive. IH college in that regard.

Re: Mock Trial. I'm half witnessing again. I'm both happy and not with that. Happy because it's pretty fun when you get a good crosser on your back to, putting it delicately, kick the living snot out of them, but not because it was so damn hard for me last year to have to sit there on the witness bench as my team missed and flubbed objections that I knew the response to. I get. . . idk. I'm like the kid who doesn't like to share the ball because they're afraid the other kids will make them lose, and now that I've made that connection I feel horrible, but it's somehow different (and yet not) because it's an intellectual pursuit? I don't know. I'm a bad person, hell, I've poached objections from people before because I knew that they didn't know what they were doing (though semi-legitimately, because it was a rules-debate and I was both more or less captain and more affected by the decision than the person whose examination it was raised during) but I'm really good at mock trial and speaking extemporaneously and such, and though that doesn't mean anything and normally I'm content to sit and maybe slip a note to a fellow lawyer if there's something they're missing, but it hurts me when it's simply because they don't know the rules. LOL, control issues.

And I've been meaning to fix my Criminal Minds icon. I didn't realize that the border was left transparent and not white, and though it looks fine on my journal because of the white background, on others' it does not.

Plus, I need suggestions for Christmas gifts. Both for myself and for my friends (particularly Katie, my plans for which fell through and now must be started from scratch).

( Mini 4-sentence cut for prolly TMI about acne. )

And to conclude this lovely 20 minute extension of my several hour procrastination, alkdhgfiouqwjenadflkj KEYBOARD HATE. Start working better, sir. (Points to keyboardmash. Notice how there are no 's's in that? THIS IS MY DILEMMA.)

Random: I just found Maggie Doyle/Doris Pickman ER fanfiction. My reaction went something like this: "Holy fuck!" *sits up* "No way!" *excited arm thrashing* *elbow cracks* "Ow."

Anyway. Don't you love that excitement when something like that happens? Doris is this random paramedic who's been on ER since season one in every couple of episodes and is snarky and fun and one of my favorite characters on the show for some bizarre reason, and Maggie was the gun-toting, vegetarian, lesbian doctor whom Carter kept hitting on (played by Jorja Fox). And nobody really knows/pays attention to the former and the latter was only on for a bit before leaving for West Wing, thus I've never found fic for the two of them. Not that I was particularly looking for fic with the two of them, but still. Doris fic.

About an hour before I've got to go start getting ready for mock trial. Gah. Still, nothing like femslash to keep a girl's mind off of having to waste a Friday evening (and having to return early Saturday morning) in a courthouse.

Whoever invented daylight savings time should diediedie. I just started actually getting into some kind of a rhythm where I actually went to sleep at night (though I was still waking up 20 times a night, at least I was going to sleep at a quite early but reasonable hour) and wasn't grotesquely tired in the morning. Well, that's gone.

Not only did I have to get up an hour earlier today (same on Sunday, but it wasn't as bad as I only was up at 7:45ish, meaning it felt like 6:45, which is a bit after when I normally wake up for school), but I had gone to bed only about an hour before that. Miserable. Plus, I didn't have my glasses because I couldn't find them in the morning, so it was impossible to pay attention (I notice that because I can't focus on the teacher or the board or whatever, my ears stop working also), meaning I was even more about to fall asleep. Had to take a bio test this afternoon, probably bombed that as we ended the unit almost a week ago and I hadn't looked at anything since. Definitely did bomb the first half of the chem test, which I know as we graded it in class. I was making stupid mistakes on things I knew the answers to, which was sad for me and indicative of the effect that the bad sleep has on my body.

So. Theatre class hell week is this one and the next. Paper was due Monday, oral presentations (20 minutes, gah!) for how to directorially bring this Beckett play to life on stage are next Monday, portfolio things are due sometime this week or the beginning of next, plus she gave us a new play and wants that read by the beginning of next week. Still not talking to the teacher, anyway, after the whole losing my paper and lying about it and then giving me no credit when I tried to give her another copy thing.

Mock trial. Still have to talk about that at some point, because I want to, and I've got two trials to complain about. Had a meeting Monday, but I couldn't go due to said bio test. Evidently, both my witness for my prosecution direct examination and my lawyer (from regionals, not my original lawyer) when I'm a witness can't go to state.

Did I mention that? We're going to the state competition. Which is cool. But I'm sort of tired of the case by now. It would be much more enjoyable if I didn't hate the case, but by now, I pretty much just want it to be over. Anyway.

State starts the Friday of spring break, right before we come back. People are out of town. And as such can't go. So if I have to train a new witness and a new lawyer (as I had to do once already for the latter), these weeks and the actual trials (we're going to get killed, we know it, as we've practiced maybe eleven times, counting practice trials, total and the kinds of teams we're up against meet every day all year working on these things) are going to be not enjoyable at all. I know we're going to get kicked out right away, I'm totally realistic about that, but I don't want to lose simply because we're doing the third recasting this season.

Yes. So. I have chemistry to learn for this test, math to learn because I totally was caught off guard by both the fact that we had a quiz Monday and everything on said quiz, and a whole lot of english to do--it's a quadruple assignment for this novel: read all 150 pages of the bitch (okay, it's shortish, but annoying), annotate the play (not an unreasonable directive, but I have the feeling that she's the type that wants something written for every sentence, which is), do a journal entry for it analyzing the style and themes and stuff (which she undoubtedly expects to be an exhaustive analysis of the thing), and fill out a worksheet that's essentially just another journal entry. And she expects the two hours of class to be sufficient for all of this work. Moron. I'm not even going to finish reading it, there's no chance. I'm barely forcing my way through the sparknotes right now. Going to finish that (meaning the sparknotes, I'm not messing with anything else) and then go to bed, as yet again, it somehow ended up being almost 4 in the morning without me realizing it.