Christmas was a pretty low key event this year.  Donut came down on the 13th.  We went up to the mountains to see Cheryl on Christmas Eve Eve, then down to Longbeach on Christmas Eve for Midnight Mass.  On Christmas Day, we did the family rounds with both sets of grandparents, then it was back home to North Hollywood.   I’ve played a lot of WOW over break - Donut and Chris helped me power level my 62 up to 70, and I earned the Merrymaker achievment.

I got my grades back for fall.  I passed all my classes, but didn’t earn any of the Foundation points my school requires.  I’m retaking one class this term for no credit, but for that point, bringing my spring class total up to 4.  Then, when all goes well, I will take two more classes over the summer, and be done at the end of July.  But I will still walk for graduation at the end of May.  Which brings me to my New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Graduate from law school!
2. Earn the Loremaster achievement for Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdore before Cataclysm comes out
3. Run more and eat better
4. Learn to play guitar.  No, for real this time.
5. If I happen to find myself with copious amounts of free time - boxing lessons.  I don’t want to fight a person, I just want to have access to a bag I can beat on during midterms and finals.

And I’d just like to finish the year by saying I’m blessed to have so many really excellent people in my life.  Everybody stay safe tonight, and may you all find some happiness in 2010.

I have an awesome idea for a new Legend of Zelda Game, and, being a giant nerd (and because this is much more fun to think about than finals), I’m going to share.  Set during Ocarina of Time, you play Zelda (as both Princess and Shiek) and you go into dungeons and plant all of the dungeon items for Link to find later.  Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but with magic and time travel.

I know, I know, the game ended with Ganon defeated and a young Link and Zelda safe.  But say just a short time after the game, while Link is out of town in Majora’s Mask,  one of the sages realizes that surviving agents of Ganon are screwing around in the timeline, attempting to change the outcome.  The sages need a hero; with Link away, they approach the royal family bodyguard, Impa. She agrees to help, but is then struck down by Ganon’s forces.   With her last breaths (or, okay, from her sick bed if Nintendo doesn’t want to kill off the old girl), Impa tells Zelda of her quest, and sends her to the Sheikah for training.  Zelda learns how to fight and then, disguised as Sheik, sets off through time to save the world.

Zelda’s story would be woven in and around the fabric of Ocarina.  Dungeon bosses would be Gannon’s agents, as they are trying to stop you from planting the items (obviously, different bosses then those Link fights later).  You can use the dungeon item you are carrying, but you must eventually leave it behind and continue on with just Sheik’s unique weapons.  At certain points, you would talk to Link and aid him in his quest; for example, you need to teach him the teleport songs.  However, YOU would have to learn the songs first.  You could travel back in Hyrule’s history to talk to the person who first wrote it, or the sages could send you on a quest to fin an ancient scroll or some such.   Occasionally, you would have to put in appearances as Princess Zelda, so no one suspects you are out on this dangerous temporal journey.   The final boss could be either Ganon, trying to reach out from beyond the beating Link gave him, or a powerful Lieutenant who stayed in the shadows in the previous game  And the game ends with the Ocarina timeline intact.

So that’s the idea.  I know Ocarina of Time is a well that has been repeatedly tapped, but I think this would be a fun romp through game lore, and the chance to have a Zelda game in which the title character is Zelda.

Right.

Birthday - Was fun!  I am 30, and still in school; this is a little aggravating at times.  But I am married to a wonderful man, and have awesome friends, and they will rally to play laser tag at my request.   My life is pretty awesome.

Thanksgiving - We hosted!  Lots of family.  Happily, Cheryl cooked - it was delicious.  We are still working our way through leftovers.

School - Finals.  They start today.  Four tests, and the last one on the 14th.  [Insert string of curses here].

Christmas and New Years - We’re staying in Los Angeles for the holidays.  We hope to be able to see the Ducks at the Rose Bowl, and we might go see Abney Park at the Edison; these depend on Thursday’s Civil War game, and how broke we are after Christmas.  My wishlist is current, for those who are interested in that sort of thing.

Happy December, all!

Today, I participated in Nike’s second Human Race 10K.  I finished with a time of 1:02:58 - a solid 10 minute per mile average.  Take that, 30th birthday!

That’s Friday, by the way.  I’ve decided to start marking my birthdays by doing something I’ve never done before.  So this year, we’re going to play lasertag!

Summer has ended, and I didn’t post once. Why? I was up to my eyeballs in law.

I spent my summer working for WSU’s legal clinic. “What is a legal clinic,” as at least one of you has asked? A legal clinic provides free legal services, generally for people in the surrounding area who cannot afford to pay triple-digit per hour attorney fees for simple legal problems. Our school runs a family law clinic, because the schedule moves really fast, and provides multiple opportunities for students to appear in court and do legal things. I had four “appearances,” though I only talked to a judge twice. I had five clients for the summer, working on issues like dissolution of marriage, guardianship (determining legal and physical custody of a child), and conservatorship (basically, a guardianship for adults who cannot take care of themselves). I learned a lot, though several of my clients cemented my desire to never practice family law.

And now, my last year of school begins. This is going to be my busiest year academically, and I need to do everything right to graduate on time. My favorite class so far was the one I thought I would hate the most - State and Local Government. I was ill disposed toward the class because I thought I would have to write a law-review style paper in order to satisfy my writing requirement. Turns out, not so. The subject is all about extremely local law - like water districts, and planning commissions, and such. It is the legal equivalent of a city planning course. It appeals to the political scientist in me, and makes me smile at it’s mid-level bureaucratic antics.

As you may have noticed, if you’ve been tracking my running on my Nike widget, I haven’t been running near as much as I hoped. I build up a good routine for a few weeks, and then my leg will start to hurt. Well, I went and had my gait evaluated at a running store today (which means I ran on a treadmill with a camera pointed at my legs, so the nice lady could watch which way my ankles flopped when I took a stride) and got some new shoes and insoles. Tomorrow, to the park!

It was about this time last year that I decided not only was I going to start running, I was going to stay motivated to exercise by entering a 10K.  That plan worked out great.  There was some equipment difficulty on race day, but the 10K goal got me away from the computer and kept me exercising for three solid months.  After that, I became very busy with school, and pretty much quit; I was really motivated to exercise about one week a month, and not at all the rest of the time.

So I’ve decided I need a new goal - something long term - to keep me motivated.  I’m going to run 1000 miles in a year.  That works out to about 20 a week, which is completely doable.  I’m going to start a little slow, but as I get into better shape, I can make up the miles with longer or more frequent runs.   Slow but steady progress is the purpose of this exercise, as is being motivated to keep exercising after school stress starts up again.  I’m not going to constantly blog about it like I did last summer - instead, you can track my progress with the Nike+ widget thingy embedded in the upper left corner of this page, or the identical widget on my facebook wall.  Just keep an eye on the runner named _avid_.

The back closet had been bothering me for months. I felt dread everytime I needed to open the door. So rather then do anything fun, Chris and I spent Memorial Day Weekend doing some spring cleaning.

• First, we took everything out of the closet.

• Next, we gave a lot of stuff away.

• Then we organized the rest.

• And finally, we cleaned the rest of the house.

• I was very happy when we were done.

Well, now that I’m officially signed up for summer, I’ll let you all know about my plans. I’m working at my school’s legal clinic from June through half of August. Supervised by one of the professors at school, I will be representing real clients, filing official paperwork, and making actual court appearances. The area is family law, which is not what I want to practice; the trade off is that this is genuine lawyering work experience that I can put on a resume after I leave school.

My plan was also to take community property, but due to the economy’s wonderful affect on the availability of academic aid at my school, I’m trying to take out at as small a loan as possible for the summer. Community property has been lumped back in with my regular core classes for the coming fall term.

As for the rest of spring term, I’m two weeks out from finals.   I’m 60% finished heavily-tabbing and annotating the books I can use openly during my Business Associations final, 70% comfortable with the material for Evidence, and 80% behind the 8-ball in Constitutional Law because I’m so far behind in my case briefs.  Not great, but, all told, that’s still better then usual for this point in the term.  I’m trying to start running again (three days this week so far), and will attempt to channel my stress through that activity, as opposed to eating and freaking-out (my usual finals weeks hobbies).

Hope everyone is doing well.

Chicken burritos are pretty much the default dinner for Chris and I.  Using beer is one variation - I like it because it gives the chicken a little more flavor.

Cook time: 20 minutes (about 5 prep, and 15 to cook)

Ingredients:

• 1 raw, boneless, skinless, chicken breast per person
• 1/4 cup bell pepper (I prefer diced, but we usually keep it as two large pieces that are easy for me to find, and for Chris to avoid)
• 1/4 tomato (per person - I like tomato and Chris does not)
• As much grated cheese as you feel like eating - we use Tillamook Sharp Cheddar.
• 1 can of beans - we go back and forth between re-fried and black
• 1 bottle or can of beer - dealer’s choice on brand!  My parents cook with Fosters, I’ve used Fat Tire often, and tonight I used Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse because that’s all we’ve got in the house.
• 1 tortilla shell per person - we use the 10″ Mission flour tortillas, but obviously corn works just as well
• 1 dash of Lemon Pepper spice
• Optional condiments for those who like living on the cutting edge of flavor: sour cream, guacamole, salsa, or all of the above

Directions:

• Get a frying pan
• Dice the chicken breast.  Break the bell pepper and tomato down to your desired cut.
• Put the chicken bits in the pan, turn the stove to medium-high heat, and push that chicken around like you’re going to brown it.
• After the chicken’s surface starts to turn a little bit white from the heat, open up that beer.  Take a swig for yourself!  Mmm.  Now pour just enough beer in the pan to cover the bottom in a thin layer.  Yes, this means your chicken is now soaked.
• Keep moving the the chicken around the pan until the beer cooks off.
• Just before all of the beer cooks off, and before the chicken is browned, add the bell pepper and the dash of lemon pepper.  Keep cooking until the chicken is browned.
• While the chicken is cooking,  open the can of beans.  Plop them in a microwave-safe dish.  Microwave on high for two minutes, stir, and see if you think they’re warm enough. If they’re not, cook ‘em longer.
• After the beans are done, put the tortilla shells on a microwave safe plate.  Cook them in the microwave for about 30 seconds on high.  This makes them soft, and less likely to crack when you wrap your food.
• When the chicken is thoroughly browned, and the bell peppers are a bit warm, turn the stove off.
• Put 1 warm tortilla shell on a plate.  Apply a large spoon full of beans to the tortilla shell as a base coat.  Add meat, cheese, and bell peppers, and tomatoes (if you’re having them.  And you should).  If you’re heading for flavor country, add your optional condiments.
• Fold the edges of the tortilla shell around the food it contains in a manner that will safely hold all the goodness within.
• Dinner complete!

Outcome:

Mmm…burritos.

Challenge: For the next two weeks, whenever you cook a full meal, post the recipe to your blog so the rest of us can try it out for ourselves. If you make the same meal twice during the challenge period, you don’t have to post the recipe again.

Why? Basically I realized that because of my school schedule, I was eating out a lot, or paying for a lot of snacks. It was unhealthy and expensive. I’m trying to cook more, so I’ll have leftovers to take to school instead. And hey, it is fun to try new food.

I’ll even get the ball rolling. Tonight’s experiment (which I got from a crockpot cooking blog):

CrockPot Chicken Makhani (Indian Butter Chicken)

The Ingredients.
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs (can be frozen solid at start - mine were thawed)
1 onion, sliced
6 garlic cloves, chopped
4 T butter (I used 4T Smart Balance “butter” spread)
15 cardamom pods (sewn together!)
2 tsp curry
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 can coconut milk (can be replaced with light coconut milk)
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
2 T lemon juice
1 cup plain yogurt (I used fat free)

The Directions.
Use a 5 quart or larger crockpot. Carefully sew together the cardamom pods using a needle and thread. You can put them in a little cheese cloth bundle, instead, if you have that in the house. Put chicken in crockpot, and add onion, garlic, and all of the dry spices. Plop in the butter and tomato paste. Add lemon juice and coconut milk. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or high for 4. The chicken should shred easily with 2 forks when fully cooked.

Stir in plain yogurt 15 minutes before serving. Discard cardamom pods. Salt to taste, serve with white or brown basmati rice. You can tweak the amount of garam masala and curry to your own taste—it’s fine to add more at the end of cooking.

Outcome:

This turned out awesome!  The apartment smelled like an Indian resturant all day.  The sauce was mildly spicy, but I think the  yogurt made it a little sweet as well.  The chicken seemed a little dry to me, but still delicious.   I highly recommend this dish if you like Indian food.