#32: hot girls retake tests
some thoughts on failure, an online shopping success, and the yummiest ice cream in the world
hi hi hi sisters ♡ hope you all have had a great week! its sunny and humid and warm in new york today and i’m honestly sweating a little more than I would like to rn
I survived my endoscopy last tuesday; I probably have gastritis, but they did a biopsy to check out other stuff I might have. soooo, tbd on that. beyond that I worked multiple hours this week on a paper I had due yesterday, big sense of relief! lets get into it shall we?
a couple of weeks ago I wrote about wanting some black sambas, but I didn’t want to drop $100 on a new pair of tennis shoes, so I searched on FB marketplace but people were selling them for $90 used and I wasn’t about to do that either. I then realized that through my capital one shopping extension (its very similar to honey, where when you are going to check out it gives you discount codes that might help you save a few bucks, BUT it also teams up with different companies and you can activate general cash back options from shopping at these stores) I was able to use my cash back i’ve accumulated to get a $60 adidas gift card and use that towards my sambas purchase. so I only had to pay $40 out of pocket for them, and that was a nice feeling, AND I really like them, a double nice feeling!
honestly HIGHLY recommend downloading the extension. here is a link to downloading it, if you use this link you get $40 cash back and I do too (so its a win-win). it doesn’t cost you anything, you don’t have to have a capital one account, AND you can save money and get free money, literally the only annoying thing is that when you are checking out it has a pop up, but with an opportunity to get a discount code…
movies: bjørn and I started rushmore like two weekends ago but I got too sleepy one night, so I finished it on monday of last week. its bjørn’s favorite wes anderson movie, and honestly I really liked it, I don’t think its talked about enough. I watched uptown girls by myself after I got my endoscopy and oh my goodness, I hadn’t seen the film in over a decade probably and as an adult, the movie is so much more emotional and beautiful and relatable! EVERYONE GO WATCH IT NOW. for our book-to-movie club, we watched water for elephants, robert pattinson is so hot it in and I thought that it was a good book adaptation. lastly, I saw the new movie challengers staring zendaya, and holy cow, hot hot hot, *fans myself* it was GOOD. and it needs to be seen in theaters.
podcasts: okay LOTS of podcast episodes this week! this first one is an interview with lizzy mcalpine on the zach sang show from last year, it gives good context to her most recent interview she did with zach sang again this year about the release of her new album. when I first heard that she didn’t really like her last album, Five Seconds Flat, it made me really sad because that album is one of my all time favorite albums, but with context it makes a lot of sense. and not that she didn’t like the album, but it didn’t feel quite like her, which I think is very important.
I appreciated this news update on the encampments on college campuses across the country because they took the time to interview students on these campuses rather than just talk about them without being there.
lastly, I have two episodes talking about ttpd,1 this first one is truly just gushing over taylor and her work, and that is always enjoyable to hear people LOVE art. this second one is a little more critical, still majorly fans of hers, but I really appreciated what they said, specifically this little snippet:
“And she says, genius is the name we give our love when we don't want to argue about it, when we want our opinion to become fact, when we want to push our obsession onto the next guy, when we don't want to hold our heroes accountable. And I think there's some truth here. Like it's her art, right? She gets to tell the tales she wants. But also as people who partake of that art, who infuse it into our lives, who consume it, quote unquote, we also get to continue the conversation. Like I go back to that propaganda quote on Faith adjacent all the time. I don't hate America. I just demand it keep its promises. And I think that absolutely applies here. To critique Taylor is not to hate her. It's to engage with her work. And that's what the conversation between artist and patron is. Even though most artists don't want that or have complicated feelings about it. Because also Taylor's art is not just her music. She's made the public performance of her life part of her art. What she shows us of her life is part of her product.”
music: iron and wine came out with a new album called light verse. despite flightless bird, american mouth being probably my favorite song of all time, i’ve never really listened to iron and wine, but this album is so lovely and makes me want to lay in a field of grass in the sun.
in my mind: I read this eye opening article from the gothamist about how each new yorker could be easier to homelessness than we think
in my stomach: if you live in new york city, or plan on coming anytime soon, i am URGING you to go to morgensterns ice cream and get their raspberry dark chocolate ice cream. i’m not kidding when I say this might be my absolute favorite ice cream. it is velvety- so smooth like pudding, and i’m not typically a chocolate ice cream fan, but with the balance of the raspberry it is actual perfection. and BONUS, I just looked, and if you don’t live in new york, you can order a 4 or 6 pack of ice cream and get it shipped to you, I know what i’ll be doing when I no longer live in the city
well guys, I didnt pass the MPRE. and want to hear something annoying? I actually did pass in 29 states with the score I got. I got an 84 but in California I needed an 86 (New York is an 85). the test is out of 60 questions and the scaled score goes up to 150, so I quite literally didnt pass - for california - by probably just one question. its honestly kinda laughable. like ONE question, are you freaking kidding me?!?!? I was this close 🤏🏻 and didnt get there, but its okay.2 it honestly makes me feel a lot better knowing that I passed in literally more than half the country and that I didn’t fail by a wide margin; its completely dumb that there isnt a national passing score, but don’t get me started on legal exams and the logic behind them…
but you know what? its okay. i’m okay. I didnt even cry when I saw my score. I literally laughed and just was like “okay i’ll just take it again” because HOT 👏🏻 GIRLS 👏🏻 RETAKE 👏🏻 TESTS 👏🏻 not because they are dumb, but because they arent afraid to fail (or pass in most of the country…) and try again. and I really dont want anyone to feel bad for me. I have always struggled with standardized tests. I took the ACT three times in high school and I took the LSAT twice (is two times the real charm?) the difference with those tests is that there wasnt a certain passing score I was reaching for, i was just trying to do better than the time before. i’ve incredibly open about my academic struggles since I started my first year at BYU and that has continued on into law school. in high school I did not work hard and I ended up with A’s and B’s with little to no effort in my honors and AP classes. my first year at SUU I also had the same outcome, it wasnt until BYU that I realized I didnt know how to truly study and i’ve been trying to catch up ever since. by the time my time at byu was coming to an end I was getting A’s but along the way I failed MANY tests. there are too many to count honestly. i almost retook stats, i got a D+ in physiology, and i left the testing center crying talking to my sister on the phone about a test i had just failed, but i still graduated with the same piece of paper from byu just like everyone else AND i still got into law school. since being here I have gotten a mix of A’s, B’s, C’s and even a D (constitutional law was rough for me…) but i’m still chugging along. my overall gpa is just over a 3.0 and even if it wasnt, most employers dont ask about gpas. I think its silly to be so secretive about scores and grades. LIFE MOVES ON.
now when it comes time to the bar exam, I will
probablycry if I don’t pass, but that one will be much more time consuming than the mpre. but it will still be okay. because there is always another chance to take it again.
i’m not afraid to fail. im annoyed because I have to pay another $160 just to raise my score by one question… low key wish there was an option to pay $50 and take just 10 questions to see if I can get an extra point or two haha. but failing isnt discouraging to me. at least not right now. maybe I feel this way because its the end of the semester and i’m just kinda burnt out as a whole so this doesnt feel like a big deal when I still have two finals and a paper to do in the next couple of weeks.
but take it from me, a girl who fails, and will probably continue to fail at different aspects of life. it will be okay. life will continue forward. and for the most part you can retake the test, make it up to the boss, or try again with a relationship; it all works out.
tiktok: jennifer gardner is SO real for reacting this way while on the phone with julie andrews
pinterest: now contemplating adding ribbon laces to my sambas; channeling this; the most perfect use of space
instagram: love this masculine look on anne hathaway; i’ll take my food bejeweled please; my ovaries exploded; I prefer dogs, but I would get this; kiki is supreme, shared by my friend Kerry ♡
thanks for sticking around through this long one! after I got the news of my mpre score, I just want to sit down and write about it. so thank you for taking the time to listen to my thoughts and help me process different aspect of life! it really does mean a lot to me that you are all here.
I hope you have a fabulous week, go eat some ice cream and enjoy the sun if you can
taylor as a person is bugging, but as an artist I still love her. her vocals are beyond and she sounds so mature and her writing really is unparalleled to other contemporary singers today. the way that swifties wrote an open letter to get her to stop dating matty healy I think is an example as to why the swifties are fucking nuts and why no one can bring criticism to the table. I think also with literally students being arrested and putting their education and careers on the line and they don’t have money to fall back onto (I know some do) but like taylor swift isn’t doing jack shit and it’s incredibly frustrating. I don’t know a man in media (like the president is a man and obvi has more actual control than taylor but he also uses taylor for his campaign) that has as big as a pull as taylor swift to the public. if noah kahan and harry styles came out with a documentary cough cough miss americana that said that they want to work hard as an activist to make change and “who cares what people think”, then I would also be out being publicly mad at them. but like artists and celebs are calling for a ceasefire and doing stuff when she isnt…
and its always interesting sharing our thoughts on the internet, because no matter what you are saying you are going to have people agree and disagree with you. and when you make comments on something that is bigger than life itself, you have to be prepared for people to reallyyyy disagree with you (not that anyone said anything like mean to be). reminds me of a tiktok from hayley rawle when she talks about wanting to be part of the conversation and its okay to have an opinion about a culture phenomenon. BUT its interesting that i’ve gotten more responses when I talked about taylor swift than when I post about palestine. I think it somewhat shows the priorities of our world and how its easier to engage in dialogue of pop culture than world politics.
take a shot for every time I use the word okay in this section and you’ll be hammered