NaNoWriMo

For years, I have wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo.  30 days and nights of literary abandon?  Sign me up!  Except, oh, wait, I have this paper due, and there's a midterm coming up, and a thousand other excuses, most of which were related to school.  Well, this year, no more excuses!  I am doing it.  I will be writing a 50,000-word novel in the month of November.

During October, I have been brainstorming what to write.  I've had many ideas for novels over the years--what English major isn't a cloak-and-dagger aspiring author?--but I wanted to make sure that I loved my idea enough to carry me through my first NaNoWriMo without stalling out halfway through November.  Last week, I was starting to get concerned, because I still hadn't developed the right premise, when I decided to fall back on the age-old adage: write about what you know.  And, that's how my idea for The Resident Alien came to be.  Here's the synopsis:

In a dystopian future plagued by war, environmental disasters, and the breakdown of international human rights law, the people of Earth have largely abandoned religion, and actively persecute the few who remain faithful.  Eleanora, a Roman Catholic, bands with other religious refugees of all faiths to seek asylum on the planet of Nomos, where logic and lawfulness reign supreme.  Facing onerous interplanetary immigration laws and policies, Eleanora is taken aback by the xenophobia and second class status that human refugees experience as “resident aliens” of Nomos.

Befriending a refugee nun, Sister Ramona, who has become the face of the refugees’ struggle for acceptance by Nomosian society, Eleanora uses her experience as a journalist to spread the word about the plight of the refugees.  When some Nomosians begin to express sympathy for the refugees, and even convert to Catholicism, the government of Nomos cracks down on the liberties afforded to the resident aliens.  Eleanora, Sister Ramona, and a few key Nomosian allies fight for religious freedom, exposing the uncomfortable truth that Nomos has many of the same flaws as Earth.

It will be a lot of fun to explore this idea.  I think I have a decent shot of completing this novel, because I love science fiction, I'm interested in religious issues (especially ecumenism), and my background is in international and refugee law issues.  Creating an intergalactic framework for refugee law will be particularly enjoyable, because it will afford me an outlet to critique our current system by analogy.

Is anyone else thinking of doing NaNoWriMo?  If so, add me as a writing buddy; my username is grammarsavvy.  If not, do you have any other absurd goals for November?  I challenge you to take on a project you've wanted to do for a while this month!  Remember, in the words of Leonard Bernstein:

"To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not enough time."

Internal Deadlines

In the three years since graduating from Cal, I have watched many--indeed, most--of my close friends struggle with un(der)employment.  I felt very fortunate to be riding out (at least part of) the recession sheltered in the safe retreat of law school.  This year, as my graduation from Georgetown approached with no job offer in sight, I struggled with feelings of doubt, fear, and disappointment.  Doubt about whether I had chosen the right career path.  Fear of never breaking into my chosen field.  Disappointment in myself, as someone who has derived a great deal of her self-worth from past successes.

Then, in May, my studies for the bar exam began.  I reset my internal deadline for finding a job to September, one month after the bar exam, and the deadline for my Plan B: accepting a post-JD stipend from Georgetown to do three months of volunteer work with a non-profit organization.  No job materialized; indeed, not even an interview.

I accepted a volunteer position with the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, which I began in September.  It is a wonderful place to volunteer, and I am glad to have this opportunity to expand my knowledge of refugee law.  I have done research on marital rape in Chad, domestic violence in Slovakia, and repressive social mores in Afghanistan.  I drafted a record summary for an amicus brief that is in the works. I am currently writing a practice advisory on the one-year bar to asylum.  This is the type of work that I want to be doing, in the perfect location (San Francisco), and yet, I lack satisfaction.

I feel the pressure of my revised internal deadline for finding work: the end of November.  This is when my stipend runs out (unless, as has been hinted to as a possibility, Georgetown finds some more funding). This is also when I will learn whether I passed the bar exam.  Right now, one of the only things keeping me from completely beating myself up about my unemployment is that I know that non-profit organizations do not have the resources in this economy to hire people who do not have their law licenses.  Once I pass the bar, that excuse will be gone.  Or, even worse, perhaps I will not pass the bar, and will have to begin my studies--and the hellish waiting process--all over again.  Either way, November is going to be a rocky month for my legal moxie.

Today, I stumbled across this feature in New York Magazine: The Kids Are Actually Sort of Alright: My screwed, coddled, self-absorbed, mocked, surprisingly resilient generation.  The article explores the psyche of twenty-somethings who are facing un(der)employment in the recession, forced to settle for menial work, move back in with their parents, and reassess why we all worked so hard in high school and beyond.  A lot of the article resonated with me.  It served as a good reminder of the folly of resting my self-worth upon my career.  There is so much more to me than my job (or lack thereof).

Since moving home in May, I have been hesitant to put down any roots in the South Bay, not knowing if or when I might be pulled away to the Peninsula, San Francisco, or the East Bay at the drop of a hat for an employment opportunity.  I have felt particularly lost not integrating into a new religious community, after such meaningful experiences at Cal and Georgetown.  I talked with my mom about it, and realized that I was wasting valuable time by not embracing a group in the interim, if only for a few months.  To that end, I joined up with a few South Bay Newman alumnae, and we've started a Catholic women's book club.  We've met twice so far, discussing chapters from The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. Then, at Mass on Sunday at St. Justin in Santa Clara, I found out that their young adult group (ages 18-40) is having a meet and greet next week to welcome newcomers.  It's amazing how God can open the eyes of my heart to community when I least expect it.

I don't want to waste any more time.  For the past five months, I have felt as though my life would be on pause until I found full-time, paid employment as a licensed attorney.  I have been operating on this assumption that no one will see my value as a human being until I have a legitimate response to the seemingly innocuous ice breaker, "So, what do you do for a living?"  There is no need to feel ashamed of my unemployment, so long as I am doing and living.  My internalization of my job search as a deadline, that at some point the acceptability of my unemployment will expire, is an unproductive, self-defeatist attitude.  My life does not begin when I get my first job.  I've been doing things for a living for 25 years, and counting.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Last month, I discovered Pinterest.  It is a fantastic diversion.  I love to browse all of the recipes, craft ideas, apartment decorating, colors, adorableness...  The emphasis on the visual makes my eyes happy.  Incidentally, you can follow me here.

Lately, there has been an impressive array of October-related pins on Pinterest.  Autumn is my favorite season, and I grew up in a household that celebrated Halloween with as much gusto as Christmas, so I am very enthusiastic about October, with its pumpkins, cats, owls, and witches.  Pumpkin, in particular, brings me much joy.  So, when I ran across a pin for pumpkin spice cupcakes, I knew it had to happen.

The biggest challenge about this recipe?  Finding canned pumpkin!  Apparently, there is some sort of pumpkin crisis afoot.  I scoured Safeway for a good twenty minutes before asking a manager, who told me that Safeway has been out of canned pumpkin for two months because it is stockpiling it for Thanksgiving.  I had a hard time keeping a straight face as he told me this with an acute sense of conspiratorial urgency.  Leaving Safeway, I thought to myself, there is no way that Trader Joe's has a corporate contingency plan that involves the stockpiling of canned pumpkin in the event of a crisis.  Sure, enough, I was able to find plenty of organic pumpkin at Trader Joe's.  Panic setting in at the thought of TJ's stock running low, I found myself compulsively buying three cans.

The other reason I wanted to make cupcakes was to use my lovely Halloween cupcakes wrappers with owls and ravens, which I found at Michael's:

The recipe is simple enough.  After extensive research, I chose my favorite recipes from two different blogs for the cupcakes and the frosting, and they paired quite nicely.

Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week

I'm officially in love with 30 Rock.

Don't get me wrong, I had always liked 30 Rock, but I had never loved it.  I think my problem has been that I didn't start watching it when it first came on the air, so I never really understood the inside jokes and subtle character play.  Every time I caught an episode, I thought it was amusing and fast-paced, but it wasn't something I felt driven to watch weekly.

However, after I read Tina Fey's biography, Bossypants, I learned a lot about what the show meant to her, and what she was trying to accomplish, and I knew I needed to give it another chance.  Bossypants was a fantastic read.  Tina Fey's writing was not only comical, but also insightful, both to her own experiences as a woman in a male-dominated career, and in terms of self-deprecating awareness of her own shortcomings.  I appreciated how down-to-earth she was, and how important her work is to her, but not to the detriment of some pursuit of work-life balance.  As Tina observes after describing a weekend jam-packed with her first time playing Sarah Palin on SNL, shooting an episode of 30 Rock with Oprah Winfrey, and her daughter's third birthday party:

"By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your f***ing life."

So, after I finished the book a couple of weeks ago, I logged onto Netflix, and was thrilled to discover that 30 Rock is available for internet streaming.  Score!  With Conan, Jon, and Stephen all on hiatus for much of the month, I definitely had a smart comedy television void to fill.  I just finished the first season, and am loving it.  There are so many inside jokes that I simply did not understand because I hadn't seen it from the beginning.  This is a show that has character progression, and needs to be seen chronologically in order to fully appreciate what is going on.  Also, how fantastic is Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy?!  Now, I have to pace myself through seasons two through five, because season six doesn't start until early 2012 due to Tina Fey's pregnancy.

Health Kick

Despite the somewhat misleading fact that my last post was about cookies, the reality is that I have been on a post-bar health kick.  Being back in the suburbs means that I don't have a multi-mile walk built into my daily schedule anymore, and studying for the bar exam didn't exactly lend itself to exercising and eating right.  However, the bar exam is over, and I have lots of free time, so a health kick is underway!

While I wouldn't consider myself to be on a "diet" (see above re: cookies), I will say that I am trying to make healthier choices.  When I was at Cal, some of my PE classes (yoga, step aerobics) required us to keep a log of our eating habits, to make us more aware of our choices.  I found the practice to be a very helpful form of accountability.  Before eating, I found myself thinking, "Do I really want to have to write down that I ate that many cookies?"  As a result, I would make better choices while keeping the log, and felt better about how I was caring for myself.

There is a great iPhone app called Lose It! that is a sophisticated tool for keeping track of your food and exercising habits.  I like it because it has a built-in library of thousands of foods (including brand names), so you can just look up a food, add it to your log, and then have a ton of information recorded about your nutrient intake!  Plus, the app has a great user interface.  I especially enjoy the cute little icons next to the different types of food and exercise.  You can also set up a free account and use their website, and create goals.  I highly recommend it if you're looking for an easy way to have a bit of accountability to make healthier choices.

I have been trying a ton of new recipes, mostly from the Cooking Light Complete Cookbook that I bought a few weeks ago (courtesy of the Borders bankruptcy, so sad).  Salads, tomato-basil soup, glazed carrots, garlic red potatoes...  It has been fun to learn some new recipes, as well as how to change recipes to make them healthier, while still flavorful.  Next up on my to-do list: panko oven fried chicken and eggplant parmesan lasagna!

One of the biggest exercise challenges is that, now that I am done with school and am not living in a fancy apartment complex, I no longer have access to a nice gym.  I confess, I didn't use the gyms to which I had access in DC in VA nearly as much as I should have; nonetheless, the ability to exercise regularly seems even more daunting without access to cardio equipment, a weight training circuit, and yoga classes.  I could spring for a gym membership somewhere, but I don't think it would be financially wise given my employment status.  Plus, I don't have a car, so getting to a gym would be inconvenient--and, knowing my weak proclivity for gym usage, it has to be convenient for there to be any chance that I'll use it.

Instead of the gym, I've decided to make my bicycle my main source of exercise.  I've always loved bike riding, and my favorite types of exercise are those disguised as fun.  Plus, there are a ton of bike lanes and paths in the South Bay, so I won't get bored.

The exercise aspect of my health kick has been off to a rocky start the past couple of weeks, because I fell off of my bike only a few days after tuning it up, which led to a terrible infection in two big scrapes on the top of my left foot, and a third scrape on my left knee.  It felt a bit ridiculous that I fell off of my bike for the first time in perhaps 15 years, and immediately got an infection.  My skateboarding brother always has some sort of open sore festering on his body, and he has never gotten an infection!  So not fair.  The infection required a week's worth of oral antibiotics, as well as an ointment applied three times daily.  It took six days for a real scab to start forming.  And, the antibiotics made me extremely sensitive to sunlight, so I ended up breaking out into delightful sunburn hives for a couple of days.  Not exactly conducive to exercise.

Thankfully, I am now fully scabbed over, and the hives are fading, so I can resume exercising as a complement to healthy food choices.  I started off with a five-mile ride through my neighborhood to gauge my level of endurance, and didn't find it very taxing, so I think I'll up the ante a bit.  My goal is to be able to ride from my house to Baylands Park, which is about 16 miles round trip, and follows a great designated bike path separated from auto traffic most of the way.

Sugar & Spice Owl Cookies

I have a bookmarks folder for recipes that I want to try.  Since last March, I have been hoping for the right occasion to make Sugar & Spice Owl Cookies (which I learned about via My Owl Barn).  Well, when I learned about the potluck to wish farewell to Amanda J., who is a smartypants starting an MPH program at Boston University this fall, I knew this was my chance!

I followed the directions in the recipe link precisely, and they came out wonderfully.  So, I won't rehash the directions here.  However, I did want to post some photographs from the process...

How Now Brown Cow

For years, I've been avoiding yogurt.  I just didn't like the way it tasted, its texture, its smell...  There was no redeeming quality to sustain me through an entire serving.  I was jealous of all of my friends who ate yogurt like it was an amazing treat--why couldn't I be like them?  What was I missing?!

Well, all of that changed last week, when I discovered that my problem was buying the wrong yogurt.  Whenever I had given yogurt a chance in the past, I bought Yoplait, or the grocery store brand.  Last week, however, I found myself in a Sprouts, looking to purchase some vanilla yogurt for a chunky strawberry topper recipe.  Incidentally, Sprouts has a fantastic selection of bulk foods, including over a dozen types of granola.  I recommend their strawberry vanilla hemp granola.

I wanted a container of yogurt with a lid, because the recipe only calls for four tablespoons, and I knew I would be making the recipe repeatedly.  So, I grabbed some Brown Cow nonfat vanilla yogurt, and hoped for the best.

It is delicious!  I licked the spoon after I measured what I needed in my recipe, and I was very pleasantly surprised.  It's different than the other yogurts I have tasted.  The texture is less goopy, and more soupy, which I find far more palatable.  The taste actually brings to mind vanilla, albeit with a tangy finish.  And, when paired with granola and fruit, it provides just the right amount of creaminess and substance to create a great breakfast.

I'm somewhat finicky when it comes to food.  There are a lot of foods on my "ew, gross" list.  It's situations like this that make me glad that I give those foods a second chance.

Do you like yogurt?  What brand, and how do you like to eat it?