A fun little legal fact about West Virginia. My contracts professor, who is also my adviser, told my class as story about one of his advisees. The guy came in asking for advice on how to deal with the stress of his first year.
"My wife is cheating on me," the student said, "I have pictures to prove it."
The contract professor declined the student's offer to see the picture, who then showed them to him anyway, and then the professor directed the student to a marriage counselor. A few weeks went by and the professor didn't notice the student in class anymore, he found the reason was that the student shot his wife's lover. Anyone want to guess how much time he got? Thanks to West Virginia statute, two years. When he got out this student contacted my professor again asking him for advice on how to get back into law school. The professor declined to help. What a world I have entered, hahar.

Hey, just thought I'd let you all know that I interviewed this morning for a Habitat Restoration Tech position in beautiful Everett, WA with a group called the Stilly-Snohomish Fisheries Enhancement Task Force. The interview went extremely well, at least that was my impression, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. My resume was one of eight selected for an interview out of who knows how many. I only have to beat out seven more qualified applicants...so if you're prayin folk...well, I'd appreciate the positive vibes. The job is an Americorps/Washington Conservation Corps opportunity starting October 3, 2005. I want it bad. It would be a great way to network and get some field experience before pursuing a B.S. Anyway, I'm supposed to know soon and will keep you posted.
Thanks for the northwestserviceacademy link, Emily. I think I ran across it on the ecoemploy site a few weeks ago. If I don't land the Stilly-Snohomish position, I'll be sure to give it a good looking over. Good luck with your job hunting.
Hope you feel better, Christina. Drink lots of tea and what not. Let me know when you plan on visiting... h/314.821.1388, c/309.337.1851

I am too tired to finish this now so this is a lame pseudo-entry.

I just got out of a meeting with Dean Breitborde and Schulz. I officialy have my postbac fellowship and it looks like all the work will fit well into my plans for the year. it is basically helping out mary armon and the commitee with coming up with ideas. Apparently I have to talk to a group of freshmen durring orientation week about how to start out if you are interested in science.

We are still unpacking the house!
167 south west street
Galesburg IL 61401

or my box has changed to K-657 KNoxcollege blah blah blah.

OPHONEO 309-335-2695

come visit write or call. we have free minutes after 9pm everyday and on weekends so phoning then would be better if you plan on phoning. the house is sweet.

adam and I are in one room, Chris and mitch are in another room and then we have the third room upstairs for the computers for watching movies. there is no TV!!!!!!!!! weeeeeeeeeeee. I have a horrible cough and have lost my voice. perfect when i am trying to sub right? le sigh.

ben I will come visit sometime. I want to not be sick first. we drove through st. louis on the way here from Seattle. four days was too short a time to drive that far. we made it.

bye for now.

Hey, gang. I am in my first week of law school and so far, it isn't that bad. I'm doing no more than I did as my usual paranoid workaholic self did in college. The profs are smart and some are funny. I have this one guy named Cady for Torts, that's personal injury law to you lay people, and he is an old curmuddgeon. He called on a guy seven times trying to get the right answer, finally he got the guy to repeat the answer over and over again. It was a question concerning the developement of liability from English common law to our good ol' U.S. of A law. The unfortunate student, Mr. Doddson, was supposed to say "NO FAULT!" Apparently, the ye old English thought a person could be found liable for directly hurting someone else even if they committed the act through no fault of their own, hence the phrase "NO FAULT!" Yeesh, and they say Florida is a bad place to get sued! Speeking of places, Emily, my address is 503 Windwood Place, Morgantown, WV, 26505. Other profs are more approachable than King Cong Cady. I will have a lot of work ahead of me, but if I keep at it I think I'll be okay. Take care of yourselves my friends and have a nice day.

hey Ben...
here's something lovely that i've come across in my lookings-up:
www.northwestserviceacademy.org
check out the Adams thing... and everything else. I'm waiting to hear about winter positions :)

New address:
709 W. Nevada St.
Urbana, IL
61801

New email addresses:
pmcavoy@knoxalumni.org
pmcavoy2@uiuc.edu (yeah, apparently there's another Peter McAvoy at U of I. If i ever run into that bastard, i'm gonna give him a piece of my mind.)

New phone number: none. still.

I've been here one week. Holy shit it's been an adventure. There has been very little staring-at-the-celing-type-stuff a la Zach and Rachel. It's been more about massive lists of things to do that take far longer than they should. For example, i just got a mattress yesterday. I saw free mattresses and box springs in a parking lot behind one of those huge-ass scary "campus properties management" apartments. So i biked home quickly to find that Betsy (my roomate Michael's [Adam's cousin] car) was not there. I had Betsy most of the week while Mike was in Seattle/road tripping, but of course when i happen upon free mattresses, that's when my beloved roommate decides to show up, take his car and leave. Undaunted, i locked up Carly (my new [used] shiny red Schwinn complete with large rear grocery rack), tossed a mattress on my head, walked six blocks home, walked six blocks back, tossed the box spring on my head, walked six blocks home, walked back to get Carly, and rode home. I repeated this sequence this morning in order to score a full-sized mattress for guests... especially when the Hoot-Hoots (and Christina) come to Chambana for all the hot gigs i'm gonna hook them up with. Yeah.

What else... Didn't get email access on campus until this morning. Crazy-ass big-university beauracratic nonsense is making my every move more complicated than it should be. Didn't get the gas line [old stove and oven] hooked up until yesterday, so i was eating out every night. Good, but expensive. Still don't have a phone of any sort.

Our apartment is super cool. Hardwood floors, unpainted trim, brick fireplace (working condition yet unknown) 2 blocks from a funky hippy cafe with live local musicians. Only about 2 blocks from campus. With the bike, i'll probably not have to spend any more time getting to class than at Knox. Also this: Urbana Illinois is the second most heavily forested city in America, (next to Boston) and this is especially true in our neighborhood, which also comes complete with brick streets, many gardens, and very few lawns. Within easy biking distance is the entire twin cities of Champaign-Urbana, which are actually more like 3 cities: Champaign, Urbana, and "campustown." More awesome resturaunts than i can count, tons of live music, (sometimes in the streets) and my favorite, the Common Ground Food co-op, a member-owned hippy grocery store in the basement of a church. I joined today, and will probably end up working there a few hours a week for a store discount.

Oh man. So much more to tell about. But this is so long already. Summary: i love my department (faculty and students), i don't like U of I very much, i love Chambana, i am extremely busy, but extremely lonely as well. Oh, and i will, like Zach, be teaching a class every Friday. And another class on some other undisclosed day.

Hopefully i won't get too busy to keep up with this thing after classes start on Wednesday. Breathe, breathe, calm blue oceans... Peace to you all.

P.S. i still don't have a shower curtain... baths can be nice.

It seems that all parties are starting to spread and explore the world. Recently I've found it to be a rather lonely place. I think feeling lonely and isolated is a rather common feeling at this point in life, especially after having such close connections in college. My apartment is small but sufficient. I don't have any furniture so I eat on the floor but it's not all bad. The last week has been rather boring. I have spent a large amount of time staring at the ceiling while drifting in and out of sleep. I've also spent a great deal of time working out. There is a nice gym at my apartment complex that I plan on taking advantage of. Rachel I too have had nothing to do and no one to meet thus far and I am more than ready for my first day of classes tomorrow. I already have 3 meeting scheduled between 10:50am and 3:00pm not to mention my first research stats course. One of the meetings is about the research methods lab I will be teaching every Friday for about an hour and a half. Standing in front of a class for an hour and a half is definitely going to take some getting used to. I kinda feel like I'm jumping into the deep end. However, I am planning on taking some of the peanutbutter chocolate chip cookies Crystal sent me to win them over. I also have a meeting about being a research assistant. It looks like I'll be jumping right into a project this coming week. My TAing and RAing should keep me plenty busy and I'm looking forward to interacting with people and working.

Oh yeah. My phone number is 719-591-8968, but it won't be hooked up until Wednesday. My address is 3806 Half Turn Road apt#178 Colorado Springs, CO 80917.

I miss all of you more than you can know. I hope our paths meet sooner rather than later.

Lins, I'm glad you made it through training. How was the drive btw? You'll have to tell me all about it. Write or call and give me the skinny on the program, that's an order, and good luck finding an apartment. Perhaps a trip out West to see my cousin in Denver is in order, then I could just mosey on over to Utah ;) Yikes, I'd almost need a week off work for that kind of roadtrip.
Last week I helped move my brother back to Mizzou for his junior year. I really miss college.
Single able-bodied flirty young girls (I sound sketchy), unexplored bars and coffee houses, shiny new textbooks, freshly sharpened pencils, posters hung by sticky tabs with care, and ooh mini-refrigerators, how you tempt me. I will return for grad school, oh yes, I will return.
Rachel, I'm with you, snorkeling is quite awkward at times, especially when the water is shallow and you're trying to avoid the sharp protruding coral or potential snapping turtles in the merkiness below. I too usually prefer forests, lakes, and trails to snorkeling, although I might think twice about straying off the trail in bear country after seeing Grizzly Man. And to think I once made camp in a Yukon Territory blueberry patch. Have any of you seen the documentary on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguennard? I'm all about documentaries this summer. They were killed, eaten as a matter of fact, in 2003 while living among grizzlies in Alaska. It's quite a film. He [Treadwell] lived a passionate life, but his Disneyfied view of nature ultimately cost him and his girlfriend. At least the director had the decency to spare us the audio from the horrifying end.
Treadwell believed that the universe and nature are in harmony, but you know, when you look out at the stars, they're just a mess. I've spent enough time in wilderness areas to grow above my Bambi sentimentality. I entertain notions of harmony, but I also believe there's chaos out there and hostility out there and murder out there. You gotta respect dem bars.
Good to hear that you and your sister are getting by at the farm Emily. Americorps looks like my best option as well before grad school but finding the right program is tricky. I'll definitely write you, and anyone else for that matter who provides me with an address. I do not read minds.
Pax.

I must be the quintessential midwestern girl. I drove by a state reserve a few days ago, and when I got home I looked up what kind of place it is. I got all excited by the trails through the forest of pines that are native to just this area. I thought it would be fun to go there. Matt, on the other hand, thought it would be fun to go check out a beach. ... Oh yeah, we live by the ocean. So today we went and snorkeled in La Jolla Cove (a very popular cove about five minutes from our apartment). Let's just say that I put on a nice display of "Oh god I'm not used to this and I'm not comfortable with my swimming abilities and ick there is stuff growing in here that is wrapping around my legs and freaking me out and not being able to see the ground makes me claustrophobic and a bit freaked out ...". Right. I'm not a total ninny, but I'm definitely not a natural snorkeler. I loved it in Hawaii once I got used to it, but this is a slightly different environment that I wasn't so fond of. But man, give me forests and lakes and trails any day. haha. I'm so making us do that next weekend.

Did I mention that we had fresh avocados with dinner last night? There are some definite perks to living here. :D Also, I walked past someone this afternoon who commented on how hot it was today ... It was maaaaybe 80 degrees. hehe. As for musical ventures, Dar Williams is playing here in a couple months, but I sadly probably won't see her, as the concert isn't on a weekend. sucks. But at least I've been practicing guitar, so I'm getting better myself. (probably not particularly nice to listen to, but I tend to practice during the day when not many people are around our building.)