i, too, can make decisions...

i'm not doing moot court. this is settled. i'm frustrated and disappointed, but my reasons are legitimate and i can still do the competition next year.

here's why it ain't gonna happen this fall:
1. i haven't given myself enough time to get through all the materials and write a brief that i can be proud of. this is really the biggest reason. i'm not happy about it, but it's not like i've been sitting around doing nothing, either. this has been a busy semester so far and i don't want to half-ass my way through just so i can get everything done. there will be moments in my life when that will have to be the case, but not now. not if i can help it.
2. i'm really excited about the paper i'm working on for my seminar. that should and needs to be the priority.
3. administratively, the moot court competition has been a nightmare so far. there are almost daily e-mails from members of the board making changes, adding cases, amending instructions; the set of materials was put on a lexis nexis webcourse site, where not all of the links work to the proper materials, and the whole layout is disorganized. you folks who know me understand that i need clear direction or i just fall apart. i'm way too much of a scatterbrain these days to feel like i've got control over everything. not to say that i'm blaming the moot court board's ineptness for my withdrawal from the competition, but it doesn't do much to establish faith and trust in the process.

and, in a really disappointing aside, on the lexis nexis webcourse site, my colleagues/classmates have anonymously posted ridiculously juvenile and unprofessional comments on the discussion pages, asking about substance and procedure, criticizing the moot court board, criticizing others' comments, basically whining and bitching like a bunch of babies. this pretty much turns me off to the whole ordeal. yuck.

alas, all in all, i do feel some relief at having decided not to do this. i've also decided never to take six classes in a semester again. it's just too much headache.

in other news, i officially took down the garden today. the weather's getting cooler and the plants have been looking really rough. so no more tomato, pepper, pumpkin, and sunflower plants for me. here's what the harvest looked like: 3 (very small) tomatoes (this is totally my fault--i didn't give the individual plants enough space), 15 peppers, and a handful of sunflower seeds. not bad for my first summer. not bad at all.

p.s. a certain kitten is currently sleeping in my lap. and purring. awww...