Habits
A professor said in class today that it takes about 20-30 days of doing something for it to be habitual behavior... I'm not sure if that's a scientific determination or if that's a legal determination or if that's just bullshit... but in any case, I clearly am not a habitual blogger - or a habitual anything-elser either... maybe if I keep saying I should do it often enough, I will...

Hobbies
So many people I know who have cable have pledged their alleigance to the food network... now I understand why... everybody likes to eat and we all prefer good food to bad food... well everything looks better on tv, and food is no exception... and when the helpful chefs on the tv helpfully explain the few steps they need to whip up a nice appetizer, dinner or dessert in 30 minutes or less, you just can't help but be motivated to go out and do it yourself... so I'm in a big cooking frame of mind... again... it's not like this is new... and I usually pick up a recipie or an idea or something every time I get like this... but sadly, it never lasts... oh, and not having a car to run to the store for those critical missing ingredients doesn't help... (assuming I get to the point where I'm actually ready to make the stuff! note also that I can't say exactly what 'stuff' I'm making... *sigh* )

Headaches
I think I understand why a lot of bands, singers and the like go through phases, get away from what makes them successful and so forth... I'm supposed to have a bunch of mixed music ready to give someone tomorrow for a party saturday night... hopefully, it won't take me too long to get that done... it's clearly something I enjoy, but every time I do it, I feel like I making the same mixes with the same songs and the same ideas... I like the way other people do things... most of the time...
I like the way I do things... the first time... then I get tired of them...
and now I'm feeling like I've done this before... and there's a lot of music to be mixed... maybe 18 hours worth? (3 different styles, 6 hours of each...) needless to say, I'm just going to throw some shit together at the end... if nothing else, it'll certainly be different from what I usually do...

Hangups
writing... it's so important... how often do we write? lawyers write all the time, and I'm well on my way to being a lawyer... beyond that, I'm writing this here blog... I'm writing for JURIST... I write emails about the pirates... I write happy little notes in greeting cards... writing is everywhere, and it's a fantastic way to communicate... but I spend soooooooo much time doing it! I guess it's an issue of getting the thoughts out of my head and onto paper... but maybe it's just figuring out what's in my head... I dunno... but most of the time, I don't have much to say, and that makes me think that there's just not much in my head to figure out...
sadly, when I do figure it out, I don't like my writing style... at least not usually...

Hockey Teams
drafted another fantasy hockey team tonight... drafting is sooo fun! if I could draft something every day, I would... I'd draft the cheerios I eat for breakfast... and I'd love it... naturally, my team rocks and I'm well on my way to another championship... that's what I say after most drafts and... well... I've been right in the most important baseball and football leagues I've been in the past year... so there!

Where I've been
man, every day I think to myself, "hmmm... I'd really like to post a blog entry... but I kinda want to now... I'll just catch up tomorrow..." but then tomorrow never comes... fortunately, I've already eaten today (one VERY large meal - mostly exquisite meat at the green forest churascarria), I was out most of the afternoon and evening, I read about half of my important monday assignment and I've even spent some time procrastinating... it's been a full day! only now I can't sleep... so here I am!

About Sleep
so as I waited to pick a friend up at the airport today, I was reading scientific american... this clearly demonstrates my nerdiness, else I would have been reading... well... anything besides scientific american... anyhow, I came across an article about sleep and why it is important... scientists now seem to think that the processes of being awake basically break your cells, and only while you sleep are they able to repair themselves... metabolism has something to do with this, as animals with high metabolic rates generally require more sleep than ones with low metabolic rates... I didn't read through the whole article, but I wonder if that applies to subcategories of types of animals (like humans) as well... if so, I can blame frequently being tired on my high metabolic rate, as opposed to posting blog entries at 4 AM... maybe it also explains why old folks tend to be earlier risers, as their metabolism has slowed... maybe I should have just read the article to find these answers....

Format Change
in case you've noticed (and I know you haven't, since nobody actually reads this blog... yet... I've made the move to a pseudo headline-based blogging system... it's not a terribly novel idea, but I've basically copied/stolen it from the Mixtape Marathon blog... the girl running that is a law school student... somewhere... I check in there occasionally to see what she's up to... always entertaining stuff... she's got good taste in music and seems to be a bit of a baseball fan... which earns her a gold star in my book... of course, why I'm at all interested in the day-to-day observations/opinions of some random person is curious, but perhaps fodder for a later blog entry that simply asks questions, postulates possibilities, and generally accomplishes nothing... (much like today's rambling about sleep...)

well... I didn't get around to starting the immigration blog today... there just weren't enough hours... it was an unusually hectic monday... I just didn't get it done... and that's a real shame too, because there was actually a good story to report - a story my immigration law professor hadn't heard about... damn...

but that's not what I want to talk about today - no siree... I want to talk about mindsets... specifically, bad expectations... it seems to me that when people approach situations execting them to suck, they invariably suck... now there are exceptions, but I think that when people make up their minds in advance about whatever it is they're approaching, they tend to look for signs to validate their preconceptions... coming at something with a negative attitude, therefore, seems only more likely to assure yourself that you'll be unsatisfied with whatever it is you're coming to...

that doesn't mean that having a positive attitude will always mean that things turn up roses... you can expect to like something or be successful all you want and still have a bad experience... but I think that slight change in attitude can make a huge difference in your chances to be successful... and yes, I am thinking specifically of a few incidents where people have approached things looking for failure and then finding it, if only because that's what they were looking for...

this also sorta explains why I think the power of suggestion works... let's say you don't really have an opinion about something... a girl, a job, plans for the weekend... whatever... someone else says "hey, you oughtta try this (girl/job/plan/etc.)"... well... you don't think it's a bad idea... you see a few reasons why you might want to go along with that, and all the sudden, you've seen the bright side of the road and you're hooked! power of suggestion shouldn't be underestimated... it's crazy stuff...

now if only I could get a reasonably priced nintendo on ebay... *sigh*

OK, so I start publishing my immigration law blog on JURIST tomorrow... the more I think about it, the more questions I have... aside from the content I'll be publishing - which I'm not entirely sure about - I'm a little unsure about the ramifications of publishing the latest in immigration law news... at first, it seemed like a stellar idea... getting published on a daily basis... that's a great thing to have on a resume...

but immigration law seems like a relatively narrow topic, and if I was nervous about getting pigeonholed into intellectual property if I would have finished the IP certificate program, that's at least as true for publishing the immigration law beat... of course, sooner or later, I'll probably want to pick a direction and go with it... so here I go... after all, getting into an immigration law practice doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world... and I will need to get a job pretty soon...

the only potential catch with that idea is that I'm not sure how prevalent the immigration practice is in pittsburgh... I know of at least three firms that at least have an immigration branch to their practice, but I'd think that there would be more immigration opportunities elsewhere... and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the prospect of leaving pittsburgh right now...

a lot of the places I thought about moving to four years ago would be potential destinations for an immigration lawyer: san francisco; austin; new york; gainesville, florida... and most of these places, plus maybe some others like washington, seattle, san diego or chicago have some appeal to them... and I probably won't stay in pittsburgh forever... but I'm not sure I'm ready to leave just yet...

is it ever not a "modern era"?

baseball is such a wonderful game... no other sport can match the prolonged drama that baseball has... and that's particularly true in the postseason... every inning... every baserunner... every pitch means so much... the games are played with an intensity that you just don't see in the regular season... pitchers are on quick hooks, one run means so much more, and managers pull out all the stops... you're not playing for the long haul, you're playing for that series... for that game...

this year, we've been treated to some incredible games... now it seems as if there are incredible games every year - and in each postseason there have been one or two games that really stand out as being very good... but so far this year, there have been four out-and-out classics, complete with lead changes, one-of-a-kind plays and extra innings... thanks go to the giants and marlins (games three and four) and athletics and red sox (games one and three)... and only one series (giants-marlins) is over... the cubs and braves tomorrow square off in the deciding game five... while their series has been good, it has paled in comparison to the other two... and the yankees and twins... well... I haven't really seen much of that one... but game one was pretty good... oh well... masterpieces abound... if we're lucky, the rest of the postseason will be just as good... if so, this year could be up there with 1986 in the pantheon of best postseasons ever...