Journey in Limbo

Post-LSAT life has been bittersweet and very unmotivated, to say the least. On the up side, I can now drink beer on weeknights without feeling guilty that I should be taking a PT instead. On the down side, the more I think about the test, the more I’m certain of the questions that I missed. This makes me sad on so many obvious levels. First, that was supposed to be the last time I took it. The. Last. Time. Second, it’s so late in the cycle that without an amazing score, or close to amazing, I’m pretty much out of the running for any T14 schools. Third and worst of all, there is a real likelihood that I need to wait until next year to 1) take the LSAT again, since I can’t take it again until June/Sept 2010, and 2) apply to schools, of course.

All of this means that I’ll need to find something to do for yet another year during my “in-between” time. AmeriCorps was supposed to be a one-year deal, and I intend to keep it that way. First of all, while I like teaching and learning about the education system, it’s not for me. I think it’s a great cause to teach under privileged kids, but if I’m going to do anything with education, I’d want to be on the policy front where I can make changes happen on a wider scale. Second of all, I can’t imagine having to live at home for another year. And I can imagine my mother wouldn’t be too happy about it either. While for the most part, living at home is not so bad, but sometimes we really get on each other’s nerves. And the more I learn about my mother as I get older, the more I realize how different we are. She is passive aggressive, I’m not. She nags and makes me feel bad about stupid little things around the house. and worst of all, she lets my brother get away with so much more. It’s really ridiculous, considering I’m the more accomplished of the two siblings. Mwahaha. Okay, but in all seriousness, it is a real problem. I’ve realized more and more that our family merely consists of people who happen to be related, but really we have nothing in common. It’s sad, but it’s true for a lot of families, so I’m not devastated. Just disappointed. The final thing that disappoints me the most is that I didn’t follow through on my two-year plan like I’d intended to, and for some reason along the way, I dropped the ball. Now here I am in December 2009, not sure what the hell or where the hell I’ll be in 2010. And I really have no one to blame but myself.  Cheers to that…

Every day I feel like I’m just living by the day. It didn’t used to always be this way. I used to have a such clear-cut plan on what I wanted to do and how I was going to get it done. Now I constantly feel like I’m playing catch up, whether it’s studying for the LSAT or preparing teaching materials for my students.  Everything in my life just feels like scattered pieces of something else. It’s really unnerving. I just want to fast forward to the day I can get my score and really figure out what.the.fuck. I’m supposed to do now.

Post Test Anxiety

Okay, so I took the LSAT — for the third time. Hence, it should be my last time. “Should” being the keyword here. I went into the test feeling pretty confident with myself, thinking that I could maybe even hit a peak. I was testing at around low to mid-160s the couple of weeks going into the test, but the only thing that was really holding me back was Logical Reasoning and Logic Games. One reason my logic games started to backslide was because I’d been spending so much time on logical reasoning, so I kicked the studying up a big notch for that the week before the test, to warm myself up again.  (Logic games used to be my best section.)  I’m hoping that I picked up enough points on Logic Games to make up for a spotty performance on logical reasoning. Reading Comprehension seemed pretty straight forward. The fact that I’d gotten enough sleep all week and had a PowerBar before and another during the test made me alert and focused throughout the test, which is why I walked out feeling pretty confident about the whole thing. I’m hoping for high-160s and if God smiles down on me, low-170s.

However, I know in my heart of hearts that that is just not possible. After discussing some of the material with other test-takers online (I know, illegal), I realized that maybe I hadn’t done as well on logical reasoning as I’d hoped, and I don’t remember enough about the rest of the test to gauge whether or not I missed a lot in the other sections. It is all up in the air right now, and it is fucking scaring me shitless. I just don’t even know what to think right now. I came out of the test feeling pretty good about myself because I felt like I’d gotten to the point where I knew all the tricks, twists, and turns that the test could take, and I’d mentally prepared myself for all of them. But now I’m thinking maybe I wasn’t thinking as clearly or was even as alert as I thought I had been during the test. Granted, last time my nerves got to me, but this time I felt like I was as calm as Buddha.

So, in a nutshell, I just don’t know what to think.  But I pray to God that it is a decent score (165+), so that even if I can’t apply to the T14 schools, I can at least shoot for the top-20 or 30.

I really, really, really don’t want to put off law school for another year. Honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t enroll in school next Fall. Kind of pathetic, I know, but I feel like time is moving, but I’m not moving with it. I just want to kick-start my career because right now it feels like a broken-down jalopy on the side of the road. Fuck.

Sucks at life.

Remember those existential crises I used to go through almost daily in college? Yeah, they’re back and in full force.  Why and how? Because I’m applying to law schools, which means I need to go back through my college history and relive some unpleasant moments and also realize some unpleasant realities. For one, I flipped out so bad during the September LSAT that I ended up canceling my score. That’s right, I’ll need to take it a third time in December. Am I ready? Probably not. I’m now leaning towards not applying for another year. I’m already so far behind on my applications. My personal statement is a joke. I’m still missing one recommendation, which brings me to my second point. As I still need another recommendation to complete most of my applications, I asked one of my previous History professors to write a recommendation. Albeit I took his class back in 2006, he still remembered me. But let’s just say that he didn’t remember me in the fondest terms. In any case, he basically admitted that his recommendation would be lackluster at best and that I should ask someone else.

Ouch, right?

Yeah, that left a sour-ass taste in my mouth. I wrote back politely and “apologized” for my shyness getting in the way of my overall performance (I got an A in that class).  In any case, I thought it was a dick thing for him to do, but at least he was honest about it.  He could’ve just written a shitty recommendation without ever letting me know, which would’ve been even more dickish. But honestly, when did not speaking up in class qualify as a bad student?? I sure as hell didn’t get that memo.

And of course, this whole ordeal brings me back to my “why am I so lacking?” state of mind in terms of college. That’s pretty much the single most often asked question throughout my college career — why am I so fucking lacking?? Why can’t I be as smart or vocal as my classmates? Why am I so intimidated by a bunch of ivy league douche bags? I know I’m smart, but I have no way of proving any of it. Not even the LSAT can help me prove this. I mean, let’s get serious. The fact that I’ve been trying to take this goddamn test for two years now is a testament to the fact that I am ridiculously lacking. Ridiculously.

Fuck. I suck at life.

girl flirting

I am a sucker for girls who exude confidence and authority.  Oh, and blondes.   Haha, I am such a sucker for blondes.  I work at a year-round school, and this past week had been intersession, meaning that the students had the week off, but had the option of coming to school for half days.  Our theme was pumpkins, so we’d been working with the physical aspects of pumpkins, writing poems about pumpkins, making pumpkin cookies, etc.  The intersession coordinator was a 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Beck, who is in her mid-30s, married, and has two kids.   She has blonde hair, is lean, beautiful eyes, and a great smile.  She was in charge of the activities and coordinating all the teachers and students for various events.  I saw her pretty regularly this week, whereas I usually see her in passing maybe once or twice a day.  I have to admit that when I first met her, I sort of just wrote her off as a state-school blonde who went into education.  But after working with her, I found her to be incredibly witty, confident, organized, and to the point.  All of a sudden I was attracted to her. I even flirted with her at one point! As a volunteer at the school, I never really have personally engaging conversations with the teachers and never really joke around with them, but when I spoke to her, I wanted to do all of these things.

One thing that’s always struck me about girls is that it is really, really hard to distinguish girl flirtation from girl friendliness. I don’t think guys have this problem, because for the most part, they don’t get that friendly or personal with each other. There’s always that “manly” component, where they don’t talk about emotions or get too emotionally attached to each other, which means they don’t really have intimate interactions the way girls do.  Girls hug, girls touch each other when they’re talking to one another, girl’s wink at one another, girls talk about personal topics without feeling fidgety about them, so on and so forth. It’s so hard to tell whether a girl is really flirting with you, or just being really friendly! Anyway, I could have sworn that I caught Mrs. Beck flirting back with me, but I know that that’s all in my head. The woman’s married, has two kids, and is involved with her own life.  Why the hell would she be flirting with a nobody young’in like me? Still, it’s fun to entertain the idea, and imagine her inviting me into her classroom for a hot make out session.  Haha. Seriously though, I was so turned on by her this week and I could not stop thinking about her and the way she would look without her clothes on.  She has the cutest little body and the most radiant smile. She’s beautiful, and her husband is a lucky man.

I’m a sucker for confident, beautiful blondes. And Indian girls, for that matter (Vicky).

Explore

Recently I’ve been having some very vivid lesbian dreams. As it should have become clear by now, I go through phases of intense attraction to women — the last being Vicky about two years ago.  Since I’ve started dating Brian, those impulses have surfaced less often and with less intensity. I’m still occasionally attracted to girls.  Though the time away from him has allowed these impulses to reappear without inhibition, which may be a good thing.   Since these dreams keep recurring, I haven’t been able to stop fantasizing about being with a woman. I’m not looking for a relationship, but I would love to find someone with whom I have great chemistry and am attracted to just to explore and experiment more where Vicky and I left off.

I haven’t talked to Vicky in almost a year, and I don’t plan to any time soon, especially since I no longer live in NYC.  However, I’ve been looking through our old chat logs and e-mails, and I can’t help but laugh and smile when I read through our conversations and relive the hilarious experiences we had during our last year of college. Those were really good times, and as usual, I walk away from the e-mails feeling regret and remorse for the way things ended. I wish I could talk to her still like any other friend, but I know that is impossible. And when I read the e-mails we exchanged after that night, all I can do is grimace sometimes because they were so awkward and so… hurtful. The way she hid herself away and denied everything and tried to pretend like nothing had happened — it was all just so hurtful and unnecessary.  I wish none of it had happened, but at the same time, I wish it hadn’t ended. I wanted to explore more, and I wanted to explore with a friend, someone I trusted. But it ended, and for what?  Nothing.

If I could have one more chance to experiment with someone with as much chemistry as Vicky and I had, it would be so fulfilling and it would help me tie up the emotional loose ends. I want that.

She said, “You’re a masochist for falling for me.”