Infinite Idiocy!

This has got to be a joke. A major cosmic joke that everyone is in on, even my brain, but not me (the thinking, logical, hasty, idiot me). As you may have heard, I've spent the last week glued to this stupid computer, combing through treaties about Competition Commissions, scrutinizing watchmakers and criticizing Italian Law 55/2010 until my eyes are crossed, my cat doesn't recognize me and my ankles doubled in size from water retention. Just kidding about the last one. Wanted to see if you were paying attention.

My research has revealed many a thing about the culture of Switzerland, the controversy behind Swatch Group's investigation for abuse of power, and other tidbits that would not come in handy unless I made it onto Jeopardy. It would not even come in handy on Jeopardy because it's not factual. It could be classified as cultural persuasions. And after all this, after about 50 hours of work (46 of which were spent writing and drafting), only NOW do I realize that I reached my conclusion. I have a statement. I know what I want to say about it. All this other stuff? That doesn't count because it's too fluffy. It's the People Magazine version of global warming, the Reader's Digest synopsis of The Brothers Karamazov, the paint-by-numbers rendition of Wheeler's Mother. It's IP Paper Lite. Completely lacking in legal analysis with hackneyed conclusions of cultural persuasions. It is poo.

BUT

15 mins ago, my brain finally digested. It let me in on the cosmic joke. I'm not actually nearly done with the paper. I haven't even started it! Here, on my lily-white legal pad, I have an outline that I can work with. This outline has structure, statements of law, substance and takes up half the page. Why did it take me so long to figure this out? I have mental constipation, inability to retain mental nutrients, unable to process the information I read. This explains why I have Performance Test anxiety. How can I spit out an analysis of cases and facts within 3 hours? It takes me twice that time just to realize which end of the pencil to use.

In my defense, trade magazine articles do not read like legal briefs and it was difficult to wrap my mind around a concept written in French for the European market, then translated into English (poorly). It is a very bad idea to rely on articles for conclusions of law. Insanity is certain. Idiocy is guaranteed.

Stab the fuel line using a steady hand.

I sit here, at the cross roads of the day. It's 5pm. I've been working on my paper for the greater part of the day and have written a lot. I think I will finish it tonight. No, with more determination: I WILL finish this paper tonight. Currently, my brain is still firm, I do not have a pounding, searing, blinding headache, and my vocabulary still works. You know that part of your brain that connects your thoughts to your words? After too strenuous a work day, that connection is shattered. What happens is I see something interesting/amusing and want to comment on it. But instead of these witty ditties, my brain is so mushy that I end up saying "oh, what a ." Fill in the blank with white noise. Fill in the thing with a boiing sound effect.

Back to cross roads: should I melt more chocolate since the sun is still out and the weather is still warm to paint onto the remaining shortbread cookies? Or should I POWER ON THROUGH and finish the paper? This reminds me, I am going to start polling because the Magic 8-Ball can be unreliably snarky when I want a serious answer. I have a few topics picked out.

Alright, I put the chocolate on the pilot light in my kitchen to warm. Additionally, I bravely fixed the other pilot light which had been very very small and kept blowing out. How, you say? Well, it involved a very technical toothpick and an ignorant stabbing motion to clear the blocked fuel line. If only NASA knew of these talents, I could be a rocket scientist.

Tonight I am gearing up for my last final, ever. It's a multiple choice exam which means no computer! Yay! But it does mean a million and a half flash cards and very sore hands. It feels like it was just last semester when I wrote so many flashcards during finals that I caused irreparable harm to my wrists, for which the remedy at law was inadequate. Ha. See that? I snuck in a reference to Remedies, the topic of my last exam. I think studying for the Bar exam will mean even more flashcards. So many flashcards. I tried doing electronic flash cards. There's an app for that. A stupid, buggy, no-frills, idiotic app. There are several apps, all claiming to be as good as the pulp variety. And I tried them all in turn. But the material doesn't stick. Somehow, the danger of getting a paper cut every time the flashcards are handled makes the words more poignant.

I know that my final is on May 7, 2011. Don't know which day of the week. Last semester, I did the opposite where I thought I knew the day of the week, but not the date. And it turns out I was wrong. Ha. I was one day ahead. On that day, I think it was a Tuesday, I was all worked up to take the final. But then some stupid delay on BART caused the train to be late, and I'd already missed the earlier train (the train that would get me there on time). I was frantically trying to call the school as BART calmly announced that due to a massive flood or a derailed train or a person on the tracks, there would be delays. When I got to school, 15 minutes after my exam was suppose to start, I couldn't find the room. Panicking, hyperventilating and sweating like pork roast, I burst into the Dean's office and babbled about how I couldn't find the room. She was sympathetic and joined in the frenzied attempt to contact the exam coordinator. That's when I was informed that it was the following day. Ooops. Had I read my emails more closely, I would have discovered the crucial piece of information, namely the DATE of the exam. Idiot. Idiot. Grr. Grr. After talking to my work supervisor, this had happened to a friend of hers in college, except he ended up missing the exam, the last exam, the exam that he needed to pass in order to graduate a few weeks later.

Blue hands are the devil's playground

How did I manage to get blue ink everywhere? I started off the day by sitting at my blasted computer with the determination of a Tiger, four notebooks at my side, water bottle, travel thermal mug, and an innocent-looking blue ink pen. On my head was my trademark pale pink fleece hat with the small fleece pom-pom to hold my scraggly, shaggy hair off my face. I'm prone to leave the cap off of pens because the combined weight of pen + cap is just a little too weighty for my fragile, lotus blossom wrists. But I recognize this danger and usually, I will avoid the loose pen who wanders around without any direction or motivation, as though it were a high school student with no after school commitments. Not today. Today was the day where my hat and the pen got together for some quality time to suck the ink out of the pen in sufficient quantities to give me continuous hours of fun. I had fun when I put my hat back on. I had fun when my hand touched that particular saturated portion of the hat. The hat had fun with my face. Fun was had all around. Upon discovery, I washed and scrubbed like Lady Macbeth, howling at the anguish and guilt of that damned spot on my lovely hat. It has sentimental value.

I bet you really want to know how my paper went. You are prolly thinking: "How does Italy's Law 55/2010 compare with Switzerland's Swiss Made Ordinance which has been around since 1971 and appears to effectively protect the mark (counterfeiting aside)." I would have to say, Silly rabbit, that's still much too broad of a topic to write about! So I spent a lot of time boiling the parameters of the issue down to something that can be discussed without a white board, some gum, a box of paperclips, a rubber band, 3 lengths of string and a banana. I've finally come up with "Swiss IP law regarding watches is enforceable because Switzerland has a crazy pro-competition philosophy and the language of the ordinance incorporates standards of quality and manufacturing compliance." Or something. I can't seem to introduce that nugget of competitive philosophy anywhere. But it must be done. I get the creeping sensation that as soon as I rework that sentence to say what I want it to say, it's going to be a marathon typing session into the night. The candle flickering in the window with the crazy witchy cackling? That would be me. All this previous brainstorming for NAUGHT.

At least I made shortbread today. I have this terrible habit of looking through some recipes, combining all the ones that sound good, then substituting with ingredients that I have around. In the end, it's this Frankenstein recipe cobbled together of all delicious parts, excised of complication, waiting to explode into a crumbly pile of confusion. That is an accurate description of my current state of mind. Perplexed. But the shortbread tastes good so far and it's suppose to store for a month without going bad. Tomorrow I'm going to jazz it up by dipping it in dark chocolate. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, I LOVE THE MIXER. I have never seen butter and sugar creamed together so well, so fluffy, so pale. I wanted to spend the rest of the day mixing stuff so I could make appropriate noises of appreciation when it was done.

Meet my mixer, Edwin.

He's licorice. At least he claims to be. Edwin is my mixer. A real, heavy duty mixer with all the attachments. He has Flour Power 14! I didn't have time to do anything with him yesterday. Then the pressure of "very first mixer batter" petrified me. Blaming the cheap egg-beater was first in my line of defense for why the cake fell, why the brownies taste bitter, why the cake was salty. What if all these hours of whining about a lack of a mixer and blaming my equipment turned out to be displaced realizations of inadequacy? To put it simply, my cakes fell because I slammed the oven door (twice), the brownies were bitter because there IS such a thing as too much baking powder, and the cake was salty because Korean salt is so much more potent (but I didn't know better). Without something to blame, I would have to own up to destroying a bag of flour because I couldn't follow directions. Swell.

Luckily, my dear mother graciously went first. She is making pan-fried pork-napa-cabbage-chive buns. It has a thicker, doughier exterior than dumplings and a nice grilled taste from the cast iron pot. I wonder how much better crepes would taste if I made them on the cast iron skillet?

Today was a monumental day for Cosmomorphic Cookies. After sorting out a bank account at Union Bank, I was able to link the "Buy Now"/Donation button with something that can take money, and launch the Kickstarter project! My project is started! The clock is ticking! This it! Then I promptly got so excited that I spent 8 hours writing my IP paper, thus turning my brain to mush. It's not "writing itself" as easily as I would like. Netflix is an infinite mind suck, instant brain liquifryer, intelligence lowering, entertainment MASTERMIND. If we gave free television, and lots of it, to the world, people would not engage in conflict longer than the commercials. Has someone done a study linking hours spent in front of the television and the number of international violent aggressions by the country?

I'm off to make small post-its with conversation starters such as "Vertical Integration in Quartz movement-era Swiss Watchmaking," and "IP Law with built-in Quality Control." Work, brain, process something! Earn your keep. If I don't finish this IP paper, I don't have to worry about the Bar because I won't graduate!

Glutton-free

The whole weekend: a bust. Saturday was spent whoring away at school taking an exam. Sunday was spent adopting a mixer and running around lost in the South Bay. Monday was the reunion/memorial for my grandmother. And now here we are: Monday evening. Pollen count feels high because I get a tickle in the back of my throat, I'm wicked thirsty and my eyes are itchy. I think the pollen is worse in SF where there's that stupid tree outside Rob's place. This tree is a type of monocot and when it flowers, it sprouts fluffy yellow pollen-laden fuzzy-balls. It looks like a heckle of baby chicks are growing all over it. Every time the wind blows, I get a face full of this stuff.

Now it's too late to make a concerted effort for the paper. But I am determined! I will write an outline/draft tonight and tomorrow I will finish it! I must. The sense of dread, impending doom, and imminent failure rankles around in the back of my mind, collecting the dust to its growing mass, casting a shadow the size of self-doubt. Without addressing this dreaded monster that grows more fearsome when I refuse to look it straight in the face, I can never clear away my to-do list. It's the lump that trips up my best laid plans for a smooth finals study period. It's the leak on the bottom of my canoe. It grasps more ammunition with every bout of procrastination, the sound it makes thunders like grinding chains.

On a happier note, I made a gluten-free cake for the first time today. It was from a box. By Betty Crocker. But it tasted pretty darn good! You couldn't even tell that it's gluten free. Perhaps it's because it's not GLUTTON free. Plenty of sugar and starch in the bag, just not from wheat. I think I'll start developing a line of gluten-free baked goods. The ingredients on the box are simple enough: rice flour, potato startch, levening, soy flour, sugar, and tapioca flour (not in that order). My cousin will taste-test since she's so generous to take one for the team. Chocolate is apparently really good for masking the "flavor" of gluten-free. I dunno. I'll have to try it out. To find some gluten-free recipes....Do you think Martha has a few?

Do not leave unattended

That's me. Do not leave unattended. My mother gave me a heating element for single serving beverages. It's not something one sees in America because it's a thick metal rod bent into a curved spoon shape through which high current runs in order to heat up the water, while suspended on the edge of a ceramic/heat-proof mug. It's the heating element of a water boiler, without the safety plastic jug. Completely exposed. I have only ONCE picked it up by the metal part, the hot part, while it was plugged in. Today, in a stroke of brilliance, I set it up in my travel mug with the pink plastic bedazzle trim as I always do, then WENT TO TAKE A SHOWER. This heating element is fast. By the time I got out and heard the eager, furious bubbling, half the water had come out. I could not tell whether it came out from the top, or if I managed to breach the vacuum seal on the bottom, causing an irreparable leak. Idiot. Surely I am the reason that warning labels on blow dryers and irons always come with drawings, examples of what not to do, with giant Xs. I've often thought that I resembled the idiot child dropping the toaster in the bathtub.

My Intellectual Property paper is coming along. As in, I've finished the research for it, now I have to shake my head around and come to some sort of conclusion that I can back up with facts. Some novel conclusion. I cannot brashly state Country Y's IP laws do not work because they are lazy, organized-crime-lords, while Country S's IP laws work because they will kill your family if you break the law. No. That is not logical, even if it is mostly true.

Tomorrow, I will put on my second best suit (that is now too big) and deliver a closing argument, prosecuting Little Red Riding Hood for prostitution. Or should I defend her against a prostitution charge? Maybe prosecuting Little Red for prostitution, and the Big Bad Wolf for pimping. Pandering, I believe it's called. Big Bad Wolf as Hollywood Madame, Heidi Fleiss. What devious contortions my mind is coming up with, for the final act!

IRAC machine!

(to the tune of "Spiderman")
IRAC machine,
IRAC machine,
I'm a crazy IRAC machine,
I'll write the rule, cite the facts,
IRAC attack!
....
and then I run out of steam.

It was one of those days: every surface I touched felt sticky and dirty. Both on BART and at the Registrar's office (they really need to clean that half-door sill, filthy!) I kept encountering surfaces that had been touched by many many people. After a very successful acupuncture session, I could handle feeling dirty, for now.

Very exciting news today. My project has finally been accepted by Kickstarter.com. As soon as I can (i.e. after the PLW exam and my draft for Gallagher), I'll setup the fund-raising page. For now, there's a nifty little "Donate" button on the right hand side. If I've set up the PayPal correctly, and that's a big "if," the button actually links to something!

What project, you say. Well. It's really simple. Step 1. I bake cookie-bars. Step 2. You eat cookie-bars. Step 3. money is exchanged somewhere so that I can continue to bake. Not quite enterprising, but more capitalistic than Ghandi. For the volume that I'm anticipating to bake during bar review, I'm going to need new equipment. I need a mixer. I need a mixer badly. Part of the fund-raising is to get enough money to buy this mixer. The other parts are purely butter. For once, I'd like to buy some really HIGH quality butter. Stuff that is imported. Squeezed out of cows that speak a different language. I'm currently using a very moist, fragrant sugar. And good flour. And oats. I've got devious plans with some rolled barley that I recently bought. It's going to be more fiber than you've seen all law school, baby.

It's 10:30 pm and I've got my Untitled #3 in the oven. It's the same as Untitled #2. Quick. Dirty. Handmixer made funny noises again. Cat wanted attention. Cat wanted lots of attention. She finally settled on my sweater in protest over how aloof I was acting. She wasn't hungry or anything. Just wanted me to know that she's alive, and that she'll knock all my stuff onto the floor, because she CAN.

Today was a very forward-moving day. I'm taking care of stuff to get bar-fit: acupuncture, cookie-project, cat-attention. Last Remedies class, ever, where Zamperini gave great advice: don't freak out, and answer the call of the question. My acupuncture practitioner told me to eat more red meat. As if I need an excuse to eat more lamb and beef. But to cut back on the yogurt because it causes phlegm of the brain. At least in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Who knew? The last thing I need is a phlegm-y brain. But I love my yogurt so much. I only recently got into the yogurt thing, after hating it all my life due to an incident where my mother fed me and entire container of fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt without stirring it. Tragic, really.

Tomorrow: more IP drafting. Switzerland is such a crazy, crazy place. They believe more in competitive markets than indentured servitude, and will force dominant companies in certain sectors to sell components at cost to competitors. And to repair said components for the LIFE of the COMPONENT. Sounds like a violation of the 13th Amendment to me. Swiss Made. Not just chocolate.

fingers cross for low pollen count

Did I mention that I almost didn't wake up this morning because of an allergy hangover? I almost didn't wake up at all. My head felt like a cast-iron skillet had inverted my face. My eyes could see out the back of my head. My nose was working just fine. Where does this allergy thing come from? And why do I always suffer it differently? I'm not astute or attentive enough to figure out which season/pollen/weather-pattern produces what allergy. But sometimes, it feels like I died in my sleep and waking up is as tough as reanimating a cow.

I hope tomorrow (and tonight) brings with it favorable weather (i.e. low pollen count, low spores, low stuff-in-the-air). I have an acupuncture appointment in the morning. This time it's a new practitioner, new to me. I still get weebie-geebies from the thought of needles but it's done wonders for anxiety and tension. As you can see, I'm fitting up for the bar. Push-up! Crunches! Acupuncture Needles!

There is over half a batch of cookie-bars left. I was going to bring some to my old office on Thursday. And I owe Anthony one. I should prolly bring one to my prof because she loves baked goods. I wonder if she's still on that no-dessert-for-lent-even-though-she's-not-Catholic thing. Oh, and one for Melissa. And her crazy noise machine.

See this is so much better than tweeting. Rather than be limited to 100-some characters, I get to spill out all of my swarming head-thoughts in sudden spurts. The way things work up here (points to head), no point in limiting the madness. Crunches! Lunges! Moxibustion!

Whirl, whirl, spin, spin

It's the Tuesday of my Last Week of Class, EVER. While I try to be relevant, occasionally, I pause and wonder, "what am I doing here?" Not here, this world and existence, but here, this blog and 10+ weeks before the bar exam. Its limbo. I am neither a student, nor am I employed, nor am I unemployed. After the bar, I will be unemployed. But we'll tackle that fish when it comes. Right now, I have a singular purpose: to study for and pass the bar. What I lack and what I hope to find a morsel at a time, is sanity. Something to get me through to the next day. It's possible that when a great amount of pressure is applied to a small but plucky human being, something great comes out of it. I can only try.

To the cookies!

Yesterday, I made my first batch of cookie-bars. I set up the prep station in the gazebo or sun room or whatever you want to call it in the back yard. There is electricity there. And if I make a slight mess with the egg beater, it's ok! The garden is a hop away, and all the sugar will help the compost do its thing. As I gazed upon my setup, I was instantly calmed. I had my ingredients. I knew my instructions. There was only a slight threat of rain, and no other time pressure. Then I realized I'd forgotten to bring out the flour. S'ok. I can handle that. I get some bread flour. That's what I have. I convince myself, that's what I WANT.

I'm trying to cream the sugar and butter together with my hand held egg beater. It's no Kitchenaid. It really shouldn't be touching anything other than eggs because the motor will burn out. But I'm about to add eggs to this creaming, so....some leap of logic later, I'm convinced that creaming things is within the capabilities of this hand held egg beater. I really should get a Kitchenaid mixer. I've been lusting after this Professional 600 series and dutifully stalking craigslist for one that is within my price range. All steel gears. Reminds me of motorcycle engines (except those are cast in aluminium) and motorcycle gear boxes.

A few seconds into the creaming, I push the round twirly things deep into the butter. And it grinds with an angry sound similar to a hard drive crashing. I know that sound. It's the sound of DOOM. I stop the beater, put the bowl on my lap to try to warm up the butter. Mind you, the butter has been coming to room temperature for 12 hours. I live in a dark, frigid place next to my heart and ice water runs through my veins so butter is not exactly going to melt in my lap.

I slice up the block of chocolate for the cookie bar. Much better quality chocolate, with an interesting texture after it's added to the dough. I am not fond of chocolate chips because they take up too much space in the cookie and they are unreliable in consistency. Ideally, the cookie-bar will have chocolate and cookie evenly. Tastes like a chocolate chip cookie, has the texture of a brownie. No, not a brownie because those are too sweet, and some are still doughy in the center.

The good news is that I was successful with this batch! In a 7" x 7" tray, each batch produces about 15 servings. I'm trying to calculate the cost of each batch but I'm really bad at figuring out this practical stuff. How do restaurants know to charge $25 for a plate of roast pork? Where is this magic calculator and may I have a twirl on it?

The logistics of this baking expedition send me back to the corner, to twirl and think things over. It is like throwing a handful of flour into a air conditioner. Why am I doing this?

Do-Overs are for everyone

Not just small children.

I've finally been able to read a substantial portion of a certain online writing that I thought would be inspirational, but instead gave me heartburn. I have since thrown away the fluffy concept behind Cosmomorphic Cookies and returned to the dirty, filthy, sugar-coated roots.

It started about 7 months ago. I was broke. And I was craving something really sweet. I was reading an article about the levels of integration of food within society. Apparently, when Wal-Mart starts selling it, it's become mainstream. The food in question: salted caramels. Not just salt in the paper cylinder. Salt from Brittany. Raked by old men with wooden raker-things. Their touch, as gentle as combing a child's hair, in order to preserve the crystalline structure of the salt that floated on the surface.

The caramels I knew were from a bin at the grocery store. Gross, mass-produced, grainy, and lacking that delicate fleur-de-sel. Obviously not the right type. And without money to do a comprehensive taste testing, I was going to have to make it myself if I was going to eat it at all. One sleepless night, I snuck out of bed and melted some sugar in a heavy bottomed pot. I put in a pat of butter and some sugar. Then I stirred it for about 20 minutes. That was my first rookie mistake. I think I tried to salvage that grainy glaze but it eventually found itself in the compost pile. Did I mention I made this first attempt at caramels without wearing my thick, coke-bottle-yet-chic faux-tortoise shell glasses?

After poking around online for recipes on how to make the perfect chewy, non-violent caramels, I had amassed an arsenal of photographs, tips, and recipes. I picked the recipe with the most appetizing photos. From there, I read and re-read the recipe. It was like going to war. Or performing a musical theater number. I practiced resisting the urge to stir. When I got my trusty cooking thermometer, there was nothing to stop me now!

Batch #1: cook sugar, golden syrup, and water over medium flame until the temperate reaches the first magical number (it's higher than you think). Pour in the scalded cream with half a stick of butter melted in, all at once. It will bubble like a cauldron. Wait for it to cook to the second magic number. Pour out. Let cool. It will be the most beautiful, golden, creamy, chewy thing you have ever seen. Friends came over and ate hand over fist, tearing pieces off of strips I had cut off the main slab. The secret? Salt. Korean Salt. Korean Bamboo smoked salt? It was the only salt I had.

Batches 2-6 came out also beautifully. The caramels are more toothsome if they are deeper/thicker. Then, I coated them with dark chocolate and sprinkled more salt on top. Except, the salt topping was fancy pyramid shaped volcanic salt from cypress. It was pretty. I gave these bonbons away at the office, to friends, mailed them to England. If I'm every grown up enough to go to a potluck dinner social, this will be my dish.

Thus, back to basics. Back to the glorious magic of food science. Watching the sugar turn from active granules into a slick, smooth, creamy, buttery, pliable cube of heaven gave me the same sense of wonderment as seeing snow for the first time. I was enthralled by the magic powers of the oven. My friends and co-workers looked forward to my weekly adventures. I had a cupcake thing going on for a few months. Then a carpal tunnel syndrome setback where I couldn't do anything. But now. Now, I'm back with a vengeance.

I'm going to bake, gosh darn it! Because it's cheaper than roasting crown rack of lamb, and usually involves chocolate.

Just a stumble

If these next few months are about the journey, at the end of which I hope to be in perfect symbiosis with the environment, it explains why everything is not going well right now. The day was filled with relative self-loathing. My tooth has a gaping hole in it, and the fear of pain inhibits me from eating casually. I tried to abstain from food today. It lasted about 3 hours. I cautiously ate lunch as I worked on an intellectual property paper and counted down the days until graduation.

Around 3pm I met with a friend who did not have dental woes. We walked up to Telegraph Ave where it was Cal Day. Yay. Except for the absurdly dressed youth. With loosely woven cotton smocks. And all the parents. My friend was hungry (and so was I!) so she got a crepes. We sat in the Asian Ghetto while I watched her eat, mouthful after Nutella-and-Banana filled mouthful. The eateries in the Asian Ghetto like to use pictures to get the point across about how tasty and generous the food is. Every glass surface had photos of food. And here I was, sitting in the middle of it, in the middle of young metabolisms stuffing their faces with boba, pasta, gyros, noodles, and donuts. With a hole in my tooth. Typical. I witnessed a donut being torn apart by a ravenous parent. I watched meat being shaved off the spit. I saw a blond girl twirl pasta around her fork. I salivated. Single handedly, I was recreating Pavlov's dog experiment. It's a wonder I didn't drown.

Tomorrow, I will create a cookie bar using only the power of my mind. And a stick of butter, some sugar, some flour and some eggs. Based on the anguish I experienced today, I'm tempted to call the cookie bar “Irony” but that would involve making it look nasty and taste delicious or vice versa. I have a stick of butter softening up, just waiting for my swift touch. There will be a camera involved. And photos. This will be the montage sequence. Cue the lights!

Cosmomorphic: beginings

Hello World. It's me. Christina. I am 1 week away from the last day of law school ever. 1 month 2 days away from Law school graduation. 3 months 12 days away from the California Bar Exam. I am about to enter a dark period of study that requires isolation, intense pressure and unending urges to procrastinate. This period of study is something that haunts every law student from day one. It's the period before the most important test of our lives. With the current pass rate so low, it's discouraging and horrifying. It's easy to get worked up and overwhelmed by the stress. I am a high stress person. I run on anxiety. But I can't run on fumes for 10 weeks.

That's where this blog comes in. And the things that go in to making the blog.

I need something to keep me focused. Something that I can turn to when the soul longs to run away. That something turns out to be baking. Whether it's sweet, chewy cookie-bars or savory cheesy bread, making pastries takes me out of the dark place. And after the baking is done, I get to eat it! Between you and me, I think the baking is more fun.

At the end of the 10 week bar prep, I will have a diary of foods inspired by the demons. I will write recipes, experiment with extracts, whip eggs senseless and create cookies. One bite of these cookies puts the eater back in their safe place. Close your eyes, inhale deeply of the heady aroma, and take a bite of reward. Go on, you deserve it. You've been studying for the past 14 hours.

These recipes will have all the bangs and whistles but none of the fuss. No fleur-de-sel from the lower Cyprus hills. This is not a time for elaborate cupcakes, doubled in size from icing. This is an attempt to solidify happy memories, and create new memories. My theory is that if someone practices a random act of kindness for a law student, it's less likely that student will become a heartless, soul sucking vampire. Cosmomorphism: being in perfect symbiosis with the environment.

Unfortunately for me, I yanked a filling out of a molar this afternoon. While eating a cookie! What horrifying irony. Is that the proper use of "irony"? Looks like current plans to eat will be delayed until I find a dentist who can put me out of my misery. I really dislike dentists. Maybe more so than the average person.