Opossum

Gross.  No offense Mr. Opossum, but you give me the heeby-jeebies.  Such a weird animal, I guess its only fitting that it have a strange name.  I mean, who else has a name where it is optional to include the first letter in its name?  It can be either an opossum, or a possum.  Crazy.

Have you ever thought about all those words in the English language that have silent letters?  Like pneumonia.  Why is there a “p” there?  It does nothing for the word.  It’s not meant to be pronounced with the word, and yet it is there just hanging out.  The letter “g” is another offender.  Like in the words “gnaw” or “champagne” where the words would sound exactly the same if the ‘g’ were simply removed.  Or how about the word “myrrh”?  What a ridiculous jumble of letters!  It’s hardly a word, more like a noise.  Why is the ‘h’ tagged onto the end like that?  Seems utterly superfluous to me.  Then again, so does the word ‘superfluous’.

I posit a conspiracy:  these crazy words were placed into our language for one sole purpose.  To weed out the bad spellers in spelling bees.

Drawbridge

This is sort of a stream of consciousness post.  Get excited.

Drawbridges popped into my head.  This probably sounds a little hermit-esque, but sometimes I wish my dwelling came equipped with a drawbridge.  Not necessarily because there are throngs of people that need to be kept out, or because I need to be prepared for some sort of coup or invasion.  I think drawbridges need to come back in vogue, architects should consider automatically adding them to their design of any house.  Its very aesthetically pleasing, and whats more, its functional!  Talk about making it that much more difficult for your run of the mill armed robber.  I mean, having a drawbridge pretty much automatically requires there also be some sort of mote.  I probably lost you at the mote, but bear with me.

A mote doesn’t have to be a big deal.  Its not even something that would have to be filled with water.  If anything, you only need a small trench that can go directly beneath the area of the drawbridge.  That way, when closed, there is at least a big gaping hole between the entryway of your home and the immediately adjoining land.  Necessitating the use of the drawbridge.  Landscapers could have a field day with this.  It would create a whole new opportunity to incorporate plants that are notoriously thorny or that cause rashes in a vast majority of the population.  Or, going another route, sticking with simple shrubbery and making the ditch more aesthetically pleasing and less dangerous.  To each his own.  The point is that a 360 degree mote does not have to be part of the drawbridge plans.  Only a small trench that will usually be covered by the drawbridge when it is down.

Drawbridges have so many other benefits.  Not only is it prohibitive to intruders, it will save lots of money in the long run on those expensive electronic home security systems.  Talk about invasion of privacy, these security systems have just about all your personal information in their computers and they know before you do if someone has been in your home.  Creepy.  A drawbridge makes all of that unnecessary.  In addition to being prohibitive to intruders, it is welcoming to those with handicaps.  We’re talking an automatic handicap accessible ramp into your home people!  I know I like to be handicap-friendly where I can.

A person’s home is their castle.  Yet, most people’s homes are far from looking like castles.  Drawbridges will come to the rescue again and actually make that home that feels like a castle look like a castle.  Plus, everyone is always going on and on about how to incorporate more physical activity into their daily lives.  Drawbridges to the rescue!  Those things are heavy people!  Forget the shake-weight, and simply raise your drawbridge!

This was fun.

Running

Whenever someone asks me about the bar exam, more specifically what it was like to take and prepare for, the best metaphor I can think of is a marathon.  Taking the bar exam is like a mental marathon.  It requires you to expand your perception of what you believe your own brain can absorb and retain.  To me, it seemed like it definitely tested the theory that we only use 10% of our brains’ capacity.  Preparing for the test, in my mind, equated to the training a runner does for a marathon.  Gradually increasing your mileage over time, simulating the conditions of the event itself as much as possible without burning yourself out, and tricking your body into believing this is normal behavior.

So I’ve been thinking, I completed that mental marathon.  Regardless of the outcome, I pushed myself mentally to a point I had no idea I could get to.  I’m starting to believe that what I put myself through to get through the Bar Exam could have a greater applicability.  For instance, running.  Actual running.  The act of running has always been daunting to me, something I told myself a long time ago I would never be good at.  I resigned myself to a simple truth:  I would never be a runner.  I think I was wrong.

I’m not planning on running a marathon.  That is nowhere in my periphery, nor on my horizon.  Nor do I want it to be.

I am a consummate walker.  I’m really good at walking.  Seems like a weird thing to brag about I guess, but its true.  Where I’ve never believed myself capable of running, I’ve always allowed myself to walk.  I’ll walk 4 miles and not even realize how far I’ve come.  I get lost in thought when I’m walking.  Its an activity that I relish because it allows me to clear my mind, and to take in my surroundings.  Obviously, walking on a treadmill does not fit within my commitment to walking.  Treadmills ruin walking.  The outdoors are what walking is all about.  You see new places, wander a little further than you have before.  It is my primary method for introducing myself to the layout of a new geographical area.  Any time I move to a new city, its one of the first things I want to do.  Take a walk around and get my bearings.

So for a long time I have used walking in this way.  I am not abandoning walking, because I truly do still enjoy it immensely.  Instead, I’m expanding my perception of what my body can handle.  Slowly, I am coming to realize that the only reason I’ve never been a runner is in my head.  Eventually, it may very well turn out that my mental stumbling blocks are not the only reason, but for now I’m thinking it is all in my head.  Most things are.

Here’s the plan:  I am going to kick my own butt.  *Please take a moment to visualize, giggle, now focus 😉 *  I am going to push myself mentally, and physically.  I am going to apply the principles that I employed throughout the summer to my workout routine.  I am going to build up to a full on run.  I will still walk, but I am going to eventually do a complete run.  The kind where you walk for 5 minutes to warm up, and then just run for like 45 minutes, and then spend 5-10 minutes cooling down.  I actually believe I will get there.  I’ve pushed myself before, and I think I can do this.  That will make all the difference, the fact that for the first time I believe I can.