Close the Distance

Run
Like it's time that's chasing us
Like you will never find enough
Like you forgot the words "give up"
And live to close the distance
               -Go Radio
                                        (I highly encourage people to listen to this song)

Happy New Year!!!

With Friends at lunch after the Contracts final :]
We had a free milkshake and decided to share it between the six of us.

Greetings from the other side of finals! And Break! And ya know, 2013!

Anyway, this time, I do apologize for the delay. I had planned on posting during break, while I was in California, but posting on my iPad is a bit cumbersome. So I decided I'd just wait until I got back. :] To avoid this becoming a novel, I'm going to skip Thanksgiving and finals. I'll post some pictures, but that's it. :]

I've spent the last few weeks in sunny California. It was lovely. I spent the first half in Northridge, visiting my friends, my boyfriend and his family. However, I didn't get to see everyone I wanted, so I was fairly disappointed when I had to leave for Sacramento. The trade-off with leaving, though, was that I got to spend time with my folks! I hadn't seen them since they left Virginia back in July. I was certainly happy to see them again. Christmas with the usual crowd was fantastic. Good food, great times, crackers, and did I mention how good the food was?

New Year's Ladies....and my dad.

We spent New Years with our lovely neighbors and friends from the area. I was crazy excited because Kris joined my family for New Years! :D He stayed with us until the 2nd, when I returned to Virginia. It was quite sad leaving. It'll be several months before I see my folks again, and almost exactly two months until I'll see Kris again. :[

All that sad stuff being said though, I'm actually glad to be back. If I sit around too long I get restless. I used to hate that about my undergrad, the winter break was waaaay too long. This went by fast and I wish I could stay with my friends longer, for sure, but I am ready to go back to school. I wanna get this done so I can get this done. I didn't do very well last semester and to get to where I need to be, I need a semester GPA higher than I've ever had in my life. So I better get on that. Haha. The plan was to get a part-time job and a car this semester, but I'm gunna have to wait on that until I can pull my grades up.

New Year's Men....My dad can't just smile for a picture. 

I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions. I've only made one that lasted throughout the year and for several years after. A few years ago, I stopped drinking soda. For the most part, I still don't drink soda. Just after law school started, I started drinking Mountain Dew and Cherry Coke for the caffeine and that was the gateway to drinking other sodas. But now my caffeine intake is being limited, so I think I've run out of excuses. Now that I think about it, no more soda sounds like a good plan.

Thaaat was actually a tangent.

So I'm not making New Year's Resolutions this year. I just happen to have a list of things that need to change and that necessity happens to be coming about around New Year's. It's really just a change in priorities: God, Health, School, Japanese, School, People. (Yeah, I put school on there twice on purpose). So I have goals to meet:

1. I have to get a 3.5 this semester (coming from last semester....that's going to be crazy difficult for me)
2. I've got to start taking better care of myself (eating well, exercise....if this isn't the biggest stereotype of new year's resolution, I don't know what is...so you have no reason to believe me when I say that it isn't)
3. I want to take and pass the JLPT N2 this year (This is actually relevant to my life again...I just don't feel like explaining why at the moment)
4. Regain sanity. (Half joking on this one. Haha)

I think this is my favorite picture of us...
Granted, we only have like 10.

And there you go. Goals. I was talking to Kris about how to proceed and how to actually change these things rather than just talking about them. Being the wonderful, supporting boyfriend that he is, he's decided to join me in some of them. He's going to work harder, I'm going to work harder and the idea is to encourage each other while we do it. It's harder to make excuses when someone so close is there with you...even from the opposite side of the country.

To be honest, at some point last semester, I forgot that I chose to be here and that's a large reason why I didn't do well. It seems like a silly thing to forget but I did and fell into a slump. I started feeling sorry for myself that I left everyone I loved back home. I was homesick. I felt unqualified and incapable. I wanted to go home and just quit. A couple years ago, I gave up. School didn't matter, people didn't matter and I spent far too much time laying on the couch or in bed feeling sorry for myself. My roommate's mentor said something very simple to me that I haven't forgotten: Finish what you started. Law school was not my first choice in life paths. Yet, I still tried to be here. I worked hard to get here. I desperately had wanted to get in. And here I am. That work paid off. Then, I got caught up in complaining about the subjects, the workload or the fact that I was lonely. So much so that I didn't want to be here anymore. But I don't want to be someone who doesn't follow through. 

I'm going to finish what I started.