Viva la Revolution and Hockey?

I watched the second episode of Jamie Oliver's food revolution.  I did not learn anything quite as informative as I did last time but it is still a wonderful show.  I am unsure what the LA school system is trying to hide but they are certainly putting everything they have into keeping Jamie out.  My favorite part of the episode relates to Jamie trying to take over a fast food joint.  The owner says that Jamie wont be able to sell his burgers.  So Jamie creates some awesome sounding recipes and prepares them for people on the street.  The best part, he doesn't charge anyone.  He lets them pay what they thinks the burgers are worth.  It's brilliant.  He then starts selling them at the restaurant.  And people loved them! Cause let me tell you, people are not willing to give up their convenience but if convenience and health could be combined, most people would be willing to do it.  That is what Jamie is trying to do.  I am behind him all the way.  I love this show! I feel like I have said that already, but seriously, it is amazing.  Watch it on hulu.  It's worth the time.

Let's go FLYERS! Let's go FLYERS! Let's GO!

Yeahhhhhh.  Apparently I watch hockey now.  The Italian is obsessed with all sports things related to Philadelphia.  This creates some pretty serious conflict between us when we are in football season.  I bleed blue and he is an Eagles fan.  But I had no interest in hockey.  I did not, and truthfully don't now, really care about it.  The Flyers were playing Monday and I wanted to play pool at a local restaurant.  I had to get the Italian to come, so I volunteered to wear a Flyers' jersey if he came.  They won.  So now my superstitious friend wants me to keep wearing my jersey during game time, because it is the playoffs. So apparently I watch hockey now.  Oh well.  The Flyers will win the Stanley Cup and my friend will be super duper happy! Yay!

I am sure he is annoyed with me.  I don't understand anything about hockey or the rules.  So the entire game I am constantly like, what is that? why did that happen? wait, that's not allowed, right?!  But he is patient, which is nice.  And because I have some experience with other sports, it doesn't take me long to figure out the rules.  But hockey looks complicated to me.  I don't know, maybe it is because of all the physicality of it.  I get lost in the beatings.  Haha.

So, life is good right now.  I have to write a paper and read a book.  And then I am officially done with law school.  Or school at all for that matter! WOOT WOOT!  Then I have to do some housekeeping stuff and it is all about hanging out with my friends and making as many memories as we can before we disperse.  I don't want to leave them, but I am excited about the next step in my life.  Speaking of which, I applied to the NY bar yesterday! Come August of this year I will be a real, live lawyer.  Scary, I know! :)

Law School

Is ending! I am both excited and depressed about this fact.  My last "class" occurred Monday.  It is a strange feeling.  I am excited about being done with my obligations for purposes of this phase of my life but I am not excited about saying goodbye.  At least I get to take my best friend with my to New York!! That is exciting.

This weekend I hung out with my bestie and Ms. BH.  We went to Ms. Rowe's and got pie.  Now, that may not sound like that is something that awesome to you but it is AWESOME.  This pie has been rated as one of the top ten pies in the NATION.  And my oh my was it GOOD.  This is a picture:

Nom nom nom nom noooooooooom.

Then we rented a movie and bought two bottles of wine.  We watched Up in the Air.

SUCH a good movie.  It also got me thinking.  There is a portion of this movie where Ryan (George Clooney) gives this speech about "What's in Your Backpack?"  He asks a question that was asked last week in Church.  Although he asks it differently, the jist of the situation is: if your house caught on fire (or your backpack) what would you try and save?

I hope this didn't take you too long.  Cause you actually only have a split second.  For me, it's my roommate, my puppies, and if I have time, a flag given to me by my assistant principal.  It is from the Spanish Indian war and is framed in a frame made from the floor boards of John Marshall's home.  It is literally irreplaceable.  Everything else in my house could burn.  It would suck, and starting over would be terrible, but as long as all the people were okay, then it would be fine.  As my dad always said, people are people and are irreplaceable, things are things and you can always get new things.  Don't cry over things that can't cry over you.

Don't get me wrong.  I love my things.  I really really do.  But I love my people more.  I know that I can get through anything.  And the horrible truth is that as a human being, I can get through absolutely anything COMPLETELY alone.  Humans have strong survival instincts. It's what we do.  We can lose everything, including all the people who know and love, and survive.  We create new relationships and we become close to new people.  I know I can survive anything.  I also know that my life would not be as complete as it is if the people in it were not here.  I can survive without a single material thing, as long as I have these people surrounding me.  I can be anything as long as these people believe in me.  And that is what I kept thinking during the movie - when Ryan speaks about how your relationships are the heaviest thing you carry with you in your life, I realized he is right.  But not in the way that he thinks he is. Relationships can be both the heaviest thing you carry and the easiest.  If they are good, they are sturdy.  Sturdy and solid.  Sometimes they need you and sometimes you need them.  They support you and help you grow.  I love all my relationships, both past and present.

I went to trivia last night.  We WON! Pray for Mojo FTW! We won both the deserts and the gift certificate.  It was awesome! :)  If you are in the area, you should go, cause it is amazing!

Trivia and TV

Trivia night was awesome! It was at a place in a nearby town called Mockingbird.  So much fun.  We are totally going again next week.  Mr. B won us free desert with his answer to the "shot" question.  We had tiramisu and a napoleon.  They were delicious.  I also got to eat a burger for the first time in a while because the restaurant we were at had a policy of using local and organic farmers.  Delicious!! :) (Although, after learning what I have, which you will learn too if you keep reading, I am beginning to question my decision on that burger.  But it was really really delicious and given their policies I feel safer eating burger there than I do somewhere else).

Now I am going to talk about this awesome show I learned about, purely on accident, tonight: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

I had never seen Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution before.  As a result of tonight's episode I will never, EVER eat ground beef bought from anywhere other than a butcher who I watch make it.  Here are the basics:

When beef manufacturers make meat, there is certain meat that is technically not fit for human consumption.  This meat is around the organs of the cow and can be contaminated with things like e. coli.  In order to make it fit for human consumption manufacturers "wash" the meat with ammonia.  YES, you read that right, they wash the meat with ammonia.  Then, the USDA allows these meat manufacturers to put up to 15%, FIFTEEN PERCENT, in the ground beef that they sell.  OMG. That is one of the most disgusting things I have ever learned about food.  To make it even worse, they do not have to tell you whether they participate in this practice, or what percentage of the meat is this "pink sludge".  SOO odds are every package of ground beef you buy is 15% ammonia washed meat.  Gross.

The other thing I learned from Jamie Oliver, who has a convert in me, was that the amount of sugar in flavored milk consumed by children in the Los Angeles area in a week is enough to fill a school bus and then some! No wonder obesity is such a huge problem in this country.

This is a picture of what I am describing.  Can you believe that part of the reason justifying giving children flavored milk is that when flavored milk is taken out of school, their milk consumption decreases.  Well no duh.  When you offer a child something sugary and sweet they are going to take it over something else.  It doesn't matter what the other option is.  Teach children to eat healthy, to want milk, and they will drink it.  This is not an issue with the child, it is an issue with the parents.  People are unaware of what is in their food; they are unaware of what they are feeding their children.  They are either not educating themselves, oblivious, apathetic, or potentially to busy to notice.  But people need to know what they are eating.  They need to know where their food comes from.  They need to know what they are giving to their children.  And more importantly they need to know what is being given to their children by people other than them.

Alrighty, I am climbing off my high horse now.  :)

Trivia

Word up?

Anyways, I am going to go to a Trivia night with some of my friends in a nearby town tonight.  I am excited about it.  It is going to be *most* of my good friends and it should be fun.  I will update you tomorrow.

I started working out again today.  I am hoping to succeed in losing five pounds within the next four weeks for graduation.  I don't see why I can't do it, as long as I remain dedicated to working out and eating right.  I will keep you updated on that as well.

P.S. For those of you who know me, you know that I am adverse to politics but can I just say THANK GOODNESS Glen Beck is leaving Fox "News"! I am so very happy about that.

Forgotten

This morning my clinic went to the Augusta County Correctional Facility.  My fearless leader did not tell us that we needed IDs and apparently I am the only person who does not carry their driver's license with them everywhere they go.  So I got to sit outside in the minivan (because my fearless leader drives a minivan) and read a magazine pointed at defense attorneys.  When I finished that, I played angry birds on my friend's phone.  It was beautiful outside and I was actually very happy to sit in the sun and read.  I was not personally violated by the female officer to ensure that I was not trying to smuggle something into my illicit jailed lover.  So overall it was a pretty good morning.  The articles were actually significantly more interesting than I expected.

The first article I read was about gun shot trajectory and how the science behind it saved someone's life.  It was a fascinating article about a man who was attacked by a member of the Bandidos biker gang.  Apparently these guys are some pretty bad dudes.  The defendant shot him to defend himself.  The prosecutor, who was afraid of the biker gang (again, pretty bad dudes), charged him with involuntary manslaughter.  The defendant's sister-in-law, the dead gang member's girlfriend, testified that her boyfriend struck the defendant and then start to walk away.  The defendant pulled his gun, shot the boyfriend, paused, and then shot him again.  The defendant, and the evidence, told a very different story.

The defendant's story, and the one supported by the evidence, was that the Bandido gang member attacked the defendant and as he was be attacked, he pulled his gun and shot the gang member twice, firing three shots.  The second shot was immediately fatal.  It was fascinating to learn that the prosecution, even presented with this evidence, and knowing that none of their evidence disproved the defendant's claim, or even really proved their claim, still prosecuted him.  Thankfully the jury did the right thing and acquitted the defendant.

The second article I read was about a woman who was falsely accused of molesting her students, who were children.  I did not like the tone of the article, because it called the children "little accusers" and basically made them and their parents out to be dirty, lying people out to get this woman.  It is possible that the parents were, but the children cannot be blamed for their parents.  The article was good, and I got the thought process behind it, but I thought it was poorly written.

I also read a few book reviews.  One of them sounds fascinating and I am contemplating buying it to read it.  It is $14 and part of me is hesitant because I don't want it to be bad.  I may buy it because it could help with my paper for clinic.  I will let you know more later, depending on what I decide.

After reading almost the entire magazine I played Angry Birds Rio on my friend's phone.  It is pretty awesome.  So awesome, in fact, that I came home and got it on my own phone!

As a weird, non-related, side note - yesterday in church our guest pastor (who is also my host family "granddad") said that the other guest pastor (yes we had two yesterday) was from Florida - "or as we like to call it, God's waiting room."  So I wanted to share that with everyone, but mostly *E and The Italian.  We should totally all buy that house and move to FL together.  It could be spring break 2011 FOREVER! :)

Cleanse

So on Monday I started the Raw Food Cleanse.  It is basically you can only eat raw fruits and vegetables.  You make smoothies, and the green ones are so disgusting, and eat raw fruits and vegetables.  I was planning on doing it for a week but I had to stop yesterday. 

Embarrassing story:
My clinic went to the Roanoke Department of Forensic Science as a "field trip."  We are walking around the lab, getting a tour, learning lots of new stuff, and I start to feel terrible.  Wave after wave of cold and then hot.  Then I realize what is happening, I am about to pass out.  I pull my friend to the side and I tell her that I am getting ready to pass out and that if I start going down I need her to catch me.  She has some string cheese which she hands me.  I had to make a decision - eat the string cheese and hopefully don't pass out, or don't eat it and absolutely pass out.  So I ate it.  I ate it sitting down in the hallway in front of the tour guide and my entire clinic.  They all kept looking at me and it made me a bit uncomfortable.  It was embarrassing knowing that I am about to pass out in front of everyone.  It helped a teeny bit but not a lot.  So when we went out to lunch, given that I didn't have enough to eat with me, I had to eat lunch.  So I quit the cleanse.

That makes me sad. I really wanted to do a cleanse.  But now I have to get serious about working out and eating healthy.  I weigh about what I weighed before spring break but I would like to lose a bit more weight.  I am going to start working out this week and then get back into my regiment on Monday.

Onto other news - I am graduating exactly a month from today! Yay! Then its onto spending time with my friends, family vacation, bar studying and apartment hunting.  Woot woot! Life is good.

Cleanse - Day 1

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.  That is all I have to say about this stupid smoothie I have been drinking.  It is celery, spinach, apple, and cucumber.  It's nasty.

I will give more details about my cleanse later. Get excited.

Softball and Friends

This weekend is the softball tournament at UVA.  For the first time in my three years of law school, I have signed up to play.  We showed up last night, two girls short, and had to forfeit.  Luckily there was a nice group of people from Boston who played a pick-up game with us.  It was so much fun. 

My friend from W&M, a fantastic girl I met in self-defense class, *M is playing in the tournament this weekend as well.  We met up last night and she played the pick-up game with us.  Then we went to dinner and tried to go out to drinks but failed.  We are going to hang out tonight, and hopefully be successful in drinks.

Anyways, I have some homework to do, and some food to cook, and then I am going to be headed out to the games. :)