A crazily structured childhood leads to a far too rigid adulthood

I'm trying to find a new home for my cat, Otter, and a friend at work asked me about her name. So I explained that, growing up, my sister and I invented guidelines for naming our pets (our parents were very pro-pet, and we had a ton growing up). Cats were named after other animals (Jack-Rabbit, Sparrow, Monkey, Otter), dogs are named after Old Testament Prophets (Malachi, Obediah, Amos), birds are given fairy tale names (Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel), reptiles are given red-neck names (Buddy, Leroy, Rodeo, Bubba), and small caged mammals are named after foods (I had a Guinea pig names S'mores). These rules have pretty much stuck, through adulthood.

Well, at 8 in the morning, my friend at work was flabbergasted that kids would go through the trouble of making up rules for naming their pets. I started asking around, and it turns out that it is a fairly unheard of practice. And, being sleep-deprived and over-caffeinated, and way too stressed out to have any perspective at all, I have to ask myself, "Am I living my life with too much structure, unwilling to bend the rules, even the ones that I place on myself?" When I was a kid, it never occurred to me to break the rules. I've never done drugs, and the only law I break is the speed limit. I try to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good friend, a good student, and a good person. But I also suffer from stress migraines when I don't live up to the level of excellence others have come to expect from me, because that the expectation that I've had for myself for such a long time. And when I call in sick, debilitated by said migraines, I feel betrayed that my body won't let me do what I know I should be doing.

Maybe I'm just too tired to attempt such a deep self-analysis... I need coffee.

I can't watch movies anymore...

It's the day before Easter, and one of the network channels is airing The Ten Commandments like they do every year. And for the first time in a while, I decided to sit down and watch it. And you know what? I started to think that Moses made the wrong decision...

If Moses had decided not to explore the life of the slave, and to remain in the palace, he would probably have become pharoah, and from the throne of Egypt, he would have been able to do far more for the Hebrews than from amongst their ranks... As pharoah, he would have been able to free them, provide reparations, spread the wealth, etc...

But that would have been efforts of an Egyptian Pharoah, bestowing grace on Hebrew slaves. It would not have been the work of God... Without Moses' "Let My People Go" campaign, we would not have had the 10 plagues, or the 10 comandments. The Hebrews would have been in power in Egypt, and kingdom of Israel would have never come into being... David and Solomon would not have come, and from David's line came Jesus Christ. So, while in the short run, Moses' decision to stand with his family seems futile, in the short run, it laid the way for the forgiveness of all our sins.

So, really, law school has screwed up the way I watch movies, because the human rights advocate me always thinks of the fastest way to solve the problem... The fastest way to ease the suffering of the poor and forgotten... And since I'm not God, I don't have the power of all-knowing wisdom and I don't have the blueprints to the meaning of life.

The 'conflicted' Wig

Wills and Estates

Just in case you all wanted to know what it's like for me in class...