Trouble Sleeping I

In what may become a trend (hopefully not) I am finding it hard to sleep tonight. Now this could be due to the fact that
A) I slept from 3 to 6 this afternoon
or
B) In order to stay up to do all my readings for Constitutional Law, I drank two cups of French Vanilla Coffee from Dunking Donuts after 9pm.

I'm sure it has to do with one or the other of those. Either way though, that means for better or worst I am now up and fully alert even though my work is done. Which means that I have lots on my mind, and need some place to pour all of it so that I can get to sleep. This is that place, so the following post will be a scatter shot look into my mind tonight. I don't promise it will be tidy, short, or coherent.

1) First things first, I like lists. Actually I like order, which may be counter intuitive considering I don't necessarily I was like authority. Well maybe that is not true, I don't mind authority so much as I dislike unchecked authority or unwarranted authority. The point here being that my mind automatically sets up everything as a series of lists and boxes to be done or not done. I think that is why law school thus far has been a bit easier for me, before I knew what IRAC was my mind already viewed and rationalized the world in that way. IRAC being Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion. I analyze everything, and tend to be calculating, thus I prefer efficiency and order over disorder and randomness.

2) I really enjoy IMEEM, the internet music service. At this point I have something like 20 playlist for every state of mind I am possibly in. I don't know that I would pay for the service, maybe if there were someway for me to take it with my on the go, like on an mp3 player. Something about finding music that I like and organizing it into handy dandy list that I can play at my discretion appeals to me. Oh wait that goes back to 1 doest it?

3) I seem to be developing a reputation for being cool, calm, collected, and intuitively picking up the information from class. I don't know how true that statement is, modesty I think prevents me from agreeing entirely. I will say though, that when classmates ask me for clarification on material or my studying style my answers tend to be reassuring to them, and not too far off base when compared to what the Professor highlights and illustrates in class. I don't know this is a product of some intuitive grasp that I have of the subject matter, rather I think it has more to do with my personal disposition towards school. Again, after Pledging Sigma, I am hard pressed to think of a more extreme emotional, mental, and physical stressor that can totally readjust my persona. That is to say, after going through that, law school, while not a cake walk, ain't exactly a Marathon.

4) Speaking of marathons, I realize that I am really going to have to pace myself as I go through this. Not just on the class work side, but on the social and emotional aspects of law school. I cant go out every time someone wants too. I cant spend too much time talking to my new friends. I need to strike a balance between networking here and staying an active part of my home support network. I'm working on it, we will see how it goes.

5) On the topic of Family networks, it would appear that my entire immediate family is on Facebook now. While perusing my Grandfathers page (yes he's on and my friend) I noticed both my brother and mother had wrote on his wall recently. Now my younger brother is a sophomore in college, so that is expected, but my mother being on FB gave me something to think about. Apparently my father is on there somewhere as well hidden. My first reaction to this information, much like finding out my grandfather was on, was to try and shade and block certain aspects of my profile from them. I wasn't even sure what the etiquette on adding them would be. But as I think about it more, is it really such a bad thing? I mean I have had a general rule for awhile now that I don't put anything up on FB that I wouldn't want my mother to see, isn't this just the ultimate test of that rule? Besides I've known for a few years now that FB is not quite as secure as it once was, maybe my revulsion to family being on is simply me looking back on a time when it was just young college kids. When it was the "cool" thing to do. I think now though, maybe it isn't bad to have yet another way to keep in touch with and share things with my family. At the very least it wont hurt, and it is not as if I have anything to hide. I think eventually I will get around to adding my family. I wonder if my HS sister has a page, I'm sure she does.

6) I think this month I will give my landlord rent for the rest of the semester. It'll be just one less thing I have to think about over the next couple of months, and I wont have to worry about over spending my rent money. I know it is a little lazy of me, but really why add more stressors to an already stressful situation?

7) One of my mentors in college (Doc) warned and trained me to deal with the fact that as I moved up in my educational standards and in the business world, I should get used to seeing less and less faces that look like mine. I'm glad I was somewhat prepared, working in Senator Isakson's office really helped. But I cant feel a bit disarmed being a spec in a sea of difference. I feel as if my defenses, and my need to be prepared, is always heightened. Not to say this is a bad thing, but it is something I have noticed. I notice that I am an "other", I notice it in a way that I doubt that they notice they are "similar" to their classmates. There is a subtle psychological (double) edge that comes with that realization.

8) It is sometimes hard to deal with the thought that I will never hear a new Michael Jackson song again. He was, his music was, such a large part of my childhood, my life, my persona. That his music makes me happy is without question, but more then that, he was just a constant in my life without thinking about it. Like gravity, the precise mechanics might not be known or understood, but the effects are known and if you lost it, you would notice. I feel as if Gravity has lost a bit of its strength.

9) I am enjoying/not enjoying the solitude here. My life has become surprisingly simple, I am either in class or preparing for class or I'm at home. There is no in between, no work, no GF (per say) to have to contend with, no family connections, no real friends (as of yet). It's nice to have my time, to do the things that I want, when I want, with no responsibilities to anyone else with my time. But I am social, at least to some extent. I miss the constant company of my GF, or my LB's, or friends in Atlanta. I miss calling someone and saying its Wednesday we should do something to celebrate it being Wednesday. The fact that we could just be together and enjoy each others company. It could be serious, it could not be, but it was always just relaxing and entertaining. I hope that I find that since of comrade here with my peers. I would love to have people over just to kick it and watch a movie, or play cards, or talk about why time is a man-made concept that nature does not necessarily respect.

10) I don't really have a 10, but I got to 7 and felt as if I should go to a nice round 10. So a few more random thoughts in a list of random thoughts. I don't think it is really a great idea for Disney to buy Marvel Comics. I cant wait until Lupe Fiasco's album comes out in December. My birthday is really going to be a bust or be really good this year, there is no in between. I hope to have a puppy by the end of next summer, hopefully my land lord ok's that. There really is no substitute for good music and good conversation. Every man should have some code or rules that he lives his life by. If you give your word, you should really stick to it, otherwise you have no reason to complain that people don't trust you. We are one of three species on the planet that has sex for pleasure, either we got extremely lucky or nature knows something we don't, and that's why the other million some odd species don't.

I'm still not tired, but I do need to get in the bed. Maybe ill let my mind run some more there.
M.A.C.