It was a great day today. A little cold, a little rainy, bright red and yellow leaves falling everywhere. I walked home in between classes kicking them up on the sidewalk. It was fantastic.

It turned less than fantastic as the day went on, and by the time I was done with school at 6:00, it was like a monsoon, and me without an umbrella.

The other thing that was less than fantastic was the fact that the wind was strong enough to make my neighbor's ginko tree drop all its fruit. It's the only house in between me and the school, so I have to walk under the ginko tree every day. Up until today, I've been able to successfully dodge the few random berries (?), but now, they absolutely cover the sidewalk.

I don't know if you've ever had any experience with ginko fruit. Yes, it's the same thing that goes into your ginko biloba. And let me tell you something. It has to be the most foul-smelling fruit that God put on this otherwise lovely planet.

It absolutely reeks. Until I came to law school, I never even knew there was such a thing as a ginko tree. So I would walk back and forth to school, gleefully stepping on these things, and wonder where this stench I seemed to carry around with me came from.

No worries, though. I'll just walk in the street until they're dead or gone.

Update on Wednesday... they're in the street too, so now I actually cross the street to walk about twenty yards, then cross back to go into the school.

I did my trial last night (that would be Monday), the intra-school competition for a spot on one of our school's trial teams. It went really well, I think. Our main advocacy professor was our judge, and there was another professor just sitting in; I think he was there to get familiar with the case, because he has to be a judge for it later on in the week. Anyway, I ran into that prof at school today, and he told me I did a nice job, so that was kind of a nice warm fuzzy.

After the trial was over, the advocacy prof didn't critique us, but just asked if we had any questions about how it went, so the four of us (two lawyers on each side) chatted for about twenty minutes. It was actually kind of funny, because we took a break before closing arguments and the judge left the room, whereupon us four students started falling all over ourselves to make sure the opposite team wasn't mad. "I'm really sorry I had to make that objection," "I hope I didn't throw you off too much," "Your witness isn't mad about my cross examination, is she?"

Somehow I don't think real trials work this way. But wouldn't that be funny? If as soon as the jury was sent out to deliberate, all the lawyers apologized to each other for whatever they had done during the trial?

What's scary is, I would do that. I really would. I'm going to have to work very hard at resisting the temptation to apologize for making my case.

Anyway, now we wait. Last night was the first night of the competition, it goes on through this week and next, and then the following week I have to make a closing argument for the side I didn't represent in the full trial. Then the scores are tallied, and we shall see.

Keep your fingers crossed. I really want this.

I went to my Accounting class this morning (Tuesday), which is noteworthy only because I tend to go about every other week.

It's a one-credit class, and the grade doesn't count towards your GPA, you just get the one hour of credit. I had heard that if you went to class, you needn't bother reading, and if you read, you needn't bother with class. The guy who teaches the class basically confirmed that this morning. He said that if we read the first six chapters of our book all the way through maybe once, that that would be enough to pass the final with flying colors. The thing is open book, for crying out loud, and the stuff we've been learning I learned last year in Law and Accounting anyway.

I'll probably continue the every other week thing. I just have to remember to go on the last day, because that's when the final is.

Okay, now it's Wednesday night... For those of you interested in such things, I have lost 6.5 pounds in the two weeks I've been doing this low-carb Oprah thing. It's been remarkably easy. My cravings are gone, I don't feel hungry, and I can eat whatever I want at dinner (tonight, for instance, I feasted on Chalupas, which are the best things to come out of Taco Bell in forever), provided it's reasonably balanced between protein, veggies, and carbs. (In my opinion, the Chalupa does that perfectly. So do fajitas, which is what I had last night.)

My only problem has really been breakfast. I'm not sick of eggs and bacon, I'm just sick of cooking eggs and bacon. Four days a week I have to be at school at 8, and I'm just not Mary Sunshiny enough to get up and deal with making that kind of breakfast. The Hellers say it's okay to skip it if you're truly not hungry and truly feel all right. So most of the time that's okay, but dammit, sometimes I am hungry in the mornings.

So I reached out and got some wonderful suggestions from my fellow carb addict and inspiration, Vanessa, who recently has lost about 80 pounds on an Atkins-type program. Hey, who says you can't have buffalo wings for breakfast?

All this Rocky Horrorness on VH-1 has led me to one very profound decision: I will dance the Time Warp at my wedding. Are you with me?