We're back up and running.

Okay, so what happened... I went to an attorney seminar where they were talking about the dangers of blogging.  Usually, the attorney -- thinking his blog is private -- tells all sorts of stuff about himself that later on gets him in trouble with a malpractice suit or a disciplinary action.  Hearing this, and hearing someone in my community chide me about my feelings about my son's lack of payis the day after the upsherin, I froze the blog.

So I'm in a "what the hell" mood, so after a few e-mails from readers and an indulgence into my ego of having people enjoy what I write, I decided to put the blog back up.

I feel a bit like a failure, and yet a bit like the protector of my family.  Just days after getting admitted in New York, passing the character and fitness interview, winning and being cleared of the whole ethics / unauthorized practice of law charge that I was accused of, and being literally days away from getting my law practice started, I received a phone call from a recruiter I have been hounding for months to help me find a temporary document review position.  I couldn't turn down the offer.  The pay isn't that great, and all it will do is pay our bills and buy us months of time until the financial bad times have subsided, but what it essentially did is take me out of the solo practice business for the time being.

I'm really hurting about this because I've been gearing up to getting going for months now, and just as I was about to hit the ground running, I took the safe road to ensure that I am providing for my family and paying for our children's education.  Now with our daughter old enough to go to school, our yeshiva tuition bills just doubled which for me is a shocker because even with the scholarships, tuition for our kids is almost as much as a mortgage payment would be.

The project is hell too.  No internet, no phones, everything is locked down.  The fellow reviewers call this place the sweat shop, because the air conditioning often breaks down, we are shoulder-to-shoulder in front of our terminals, and there are no free drinks (sodas, etc.) or anything given to us.  No overtime, no dinners, no taxi cabs, etc.  On top of this, the subject matter is B-O-R-I-N-G.  I feel like wood chopper who was told that he would be paid nicely for standing in an empty room with his axe and makes the motions of chopping all day long... but with no wood.  I learned some time ago from my Rabbi that a person needs to have a purpose, and making purposeless movements all day long can drive a person crazy, even if he's well paid for it.

Anyway, the hours are limited, but we're allowed to come in early and leave early, as long as we put in the minimum 40 hours each week. So what I've been doing is coming in at 6:30am and leaving at 3:30pm (we have to take an unpaid one hour break each day), and at 3:30pm, I've been jumping on a subway and flying over to a local law library where I've been doing research on the areas of law I want to practice once I get started.

The way things look, this may be a longterm project, but I expect that I'll know when the right time is to leave and start my practice.  After I have everything set up with regard to researching the areas of law I want to practice and buying the essential law office equipment, I'll seek out clients that I can service in the afternoons and evenings, and as soon as I have enough of a client base, I'll transition over to the solo law practice.  It's a good thing I'm a patent attorney; with this area of law I'll be able to work evenings.

This is difficult on my family, but my wife appreciates the efforts I'm putting in.  I expect that it won't be for long.  She's already endured the NY bar exam study and the months of unemployment, so this is a positive change for her.  I've also told her that she can spend as much as she wants for a maid, as long as it's within reason and as long as she understands that there is only a certain amount coming in and going out, and if we want to add expenses, they have to come from somewhere.  Something's gotta give.  So she found a few corners she can cut, and for around a week, she hired a nanny to watch our kids while she took a job at a local hospital.  However, the work wasn't what she wanted and the hours took her away from the kids for too long, so she resumed the position of being CEO of our household.  I'm the CFO.  At least now she's doing it because she wants to and not because she has too.

I support her in her endeavor in trying to find outside work, but when we learned that she was doing it because she wanted the paycheck and the experience, and not to get a break from watching the kids, I told her that she was free to decide whether to work and how much to work.  As much as I was sad to have her paycheck disappear as soon as her first week's paycheck came in (it was a nice one), I was happy that it was her that made the decision to choose family over money because now I think she's come to the realization that it's not such a bad thing to live on less and to have a more meaningful relationship with our kids.  I was also happy that it was her that made the decision so that she can own it.  On my end, I was a bit saddened that the money went away, and along with the money went the freedom to work on and grow the practice.  And, on went the shackles of the J.O.B. (just over broke) document review JOB.  Now I'm forced to work as much as I can because the yoke of paying our bills and keeping us afloat is back on my weary shoulders.  But I am happy my wife is happy about being home with the kids as her profession, because my dogmatic religious training says that the wife should be home and the husband should be out working.  Of course my wife can and probably should get a part time job for her own sanity.  Many women do.

BY THE WAY, where I get this dogmatic belief:  The story happened one day two years ago when I was in the presence of a very well respected Rabbi, someone who was very close to the Lubavicher Rebbe.  Him and I had a close but awkward relationship because he wanted me to be the best I can be, and he saw my weaknesses and tried to help me overcome them but I kept stumbling and this caused him pain in his heart, and in turn, in mine.  I looked up to him as a father figure, and I trusted what he said because based on his actions and the way he lived his life, he was (and IS) a truly good man who I miss whenever I think of him.  The day this occurred, I was talking to him about my wife who wanted to accept a job.  He was saddened by this because he felt that with two children [at the time, now three] at home under three-years-old, a woman should spend all her energies benefiting the family and the home.  A career woman doesn't make for an easy chassidic home, he said in some words.  He didn't tell me this directly, but from his attempts to elicit ways for her to stay at home and NOT to take a full-time job, I got his message loud and clear.  He also meant only good by this statement.

THE RESULT AND THE "WHAT DO I DO NOW?" FEELINGS.

Okay, so I went to shul and cried to Hashem.  I asked him why I can't get a normal job, and why I can't have a normal relationship with my wife, and why can't we think along the same lines, etc.  I finished davening, packed my stuff, and was heading home.  Before I left my wife said she'd look up plans about taking a trip either to NJ or Connecticut because there are a bunch of things to do there that my mom would enjoy doing.

As I walked out, one of the rabbis stopped me and reminded me about the whole wrapping-our-son-in-a-tallis-and-taking-him-to-cheder thing.  I planned on attending minyan in the morning at 8am to discuss this with them, but after the whole fight with my wife, I forgot about this and showed up to shul after minyan ended and I pretty much davened alone.  I'm glad that I was flagged down and reminded about this by the Rabbi before I left.  He told me that Lubavichers don't lick the honey off of an Aleph-Bais, but instead, they use a laminated enlarged version of the first page of the Tanya.  "Cute," I thought.  They allowed me to borrow one to take home so that I'll have one with me when I bring my son to cheder the following day.

I came home feeling pretty good about myself and ready to spend the day with my wife, mom, and kids.  When I got home, nothing was done, nobody was ready to leave.  My wife was in her pissy mood, and when I asked her if she looked up places to stay or things to do, she said she didn't because she was taking care of our kids.  I brushed off the insinuation that me being at minyan left her alone with the kids and thus I wasn't doing my part of the parenting.  I put the laminated Tanya page on the bookshelf in full view hoping that my wife would notice it and be appreciative that I took care of this because a few days beforehand, she accused me of not knowing what I was doing with regard to the upsherin.  I wanted to let her know that I was on top of it all, just as I *WAS* on top of everything that had to be done the day before, even though she accused me of ignorance about that topic as well.

I half hoped that my wife would have taken the initiative to take my son to fix his haircut as we spoke about this morning before the fight broke out, but apparently she had no intention of doing so.  I joined her in the privacy of our own room and asked her if she had any response to anything I said earlier that day, because I didn't feel like driving to Connecticut if we didn't resolve our bad feelings from earlier that day.  She said that there was nothing to say and that she flatly disagreed with pretty much everything I said and that she thought I was a moron and that I didn't know what I was talking about.  She understood that everything I said was a criticism of her, and that I just went on and on about how I was upset about the haircut.

TO SAY THE LEAST, I WAS FLOORED. 

At this point, I didn't know what to do.  Obviously I wasn't going to go on a day trip if my wife and I didn't resolve such an important argument as we had this morning.  When I told her this, she said, "I have absolutely no interest in going around with you or showing your mom a good time.  Don't think that you're doing ANYTHING for me by taking me us out today."  I was so saddened at hearing this because I was so sure she wanted to go do everything we planned, and *I* WAS THE KIND ONE THAT I WAS TAKING OFF FROM MY LAW OFFICE FORMATION EFFORTS TO SPEND TIME WITH THE FAMILY, AND I WAS ACTUALLY A BIT UPSET DURING DAVENING THAT MY WIFE DIDN'T CONSIDER THE IMPORTANCE OF ME WORKING TODAY AND INSTEAD ONLY WAS INTERESTED IN HER TRIP TO CONNECTICUT.

So now I just spent the past two hours shut in our bedroom with the laptop battery about to run out.  I feel sad, and I feel alone.  My wife is not interested in my feelings, and she is not interested in hearing anything I have to say about the upbringing of our family.  She has completely ignored me since I came back, and I'm about to burst into tears because I don't know what to do.  Do I pull her aside and have my mom watch the kids while I make nice to her?  Do I talk to my mom and get words of wisdom and advice on what to do? Do I call my rabbi who will only tell me that I'm right, but that I have to give in to keep shalom bayis?

I feel like the whole situation is helpless, and that I don't have anywhere to turn.  I really feel that this has been a breakdown of communication, and that we really need to see a marriage counselor.  I feel so violated and hurt.  I have never been more floored by today at her uncaring and cavalier attitude towards our marriage or our relationship.  I've always given her the benefit of the doubt, but there is no excuse here, no way to explain her way out of this one.  She simply doesn't care. :(  What do I do?

THE HEATED ARGUMENT THE MORNING AFTERWARDS

Okay, I'm taking a deep breathe and pushing myself to finish this blog entry.  Really what I want to do is call my Rabbi / mashpia / adviser and cry to find out what to do to rectify this situation.

In short, after clearly explaining to her that she cut off the payos and even though it's not that big of a deal, we need to give our son a proper haircut so that he fit into the community as a Jewish boy rather than one of the Israeli kids who's parents don't respect halacha.  She agreed that the haircut was inappropriate, but admitted that the cuteness of our son wearing that haircut was growing on her, and hence the haircut was growing on her.  I told her to keep her head straight and not get seduced by our son's cuteness, and that the funky haircut was growing on me too since we both love our son so much.

Then after a few hints that maybe she should hear me out about my feelings about the haircut and the upsherin and my experiences, she allowed me to speak.  I told her how wonderful the event was.  Then all hell broke out when I told her about her father and how much it bothered me that he cut a lock off the peyos after I told him not to.  She denied this vehemently and defended her father over my statement, and then tried to shut me up when I was telling her about how I felt as a father when she took our son to the barber and cut off his payos after me making such a big deal about it the whole day before.

In short, my mom got involved which was the fuel that was poured on our flaming conversation and the whole conversation erupted into a shouting match.  My wife walked out and I finished giving my mom my opinion about the whole thing.  I then decided to take a shower and cool off.

In the shower, I clarified my thoughts that I wasn't upset at the peyos nor was I upset about the haircut in general.  I was upset that I felt that my voice wasn't being heard and that I felt shut out with regard to how to run my OWN family and I felt that I had a right to have a say in what goes on, particularly with regard to how my son looks when he goes to shul or school.  I also clarified that I was feeling that my own feelings weren't being attended to, and instead of calling my wife heartless and spewing words of hatred towards my wife, I softly told her how I was feeling and that I felt that I wasn't being listened to and that I was hurting because I felt that my wife wasn't prioritizing my needs and that she was ignoring things I was saying as unimportant and this has been hurting me lately.  I did this in the privacy of our own room so as not to allow it to elevate again with my mom involved.  In short, I softly bared my soul to my wife and made myself completely vulnerable so that we can have shalom bayis even though what I really wanted to do was rip her head off.

I left to go to minyan, and I expected that everything would be better when I returned.  My mom intervened again as I was leaving and she fanned the flames fighting my wife's side as I was leaving.  I felt that this was inappropriate, especially since I just made myself look better to my wife by sharing my feelings of vulnerability and here my mom again made me look like a monster by comparing me to her husband.

Last part of the story in the last post...

THE HAIRCUT AFTER THE UPSHERIN

Okay, part two.  The haircut.

I didn't think much about the haircut after the upsherin.  I knew what needed to be done -- a regular haircut and leave the payis and let us determine how long or short to make them.  My wife asked me if I wanted to go, because I didn't want to leave my dad alone with either my mom (they're divorced and it wouldn't be tznius) or to leave my dad alone with my wife (for some reason I had it in my head that it would have been a yichud issue, although at this point I can't remember what my reasoning was -- I was feeling ill and tired at this point, so with hindsight, there likely was no yichud issue, but I thought there would be).  All this being said, I thought my mom would enjoy the experience and I trusted my wife that she knew what to do.

Oops.  First of all, I was slightly upset that I knew that my wife wouldn't tolerate the local religious guy to give our son his haircut.  So I was fine with her taking our son to Supercuts as I often do with reservation (I don't feel good about it when I go).  However, apparently she didn't know what to do because she let the barber COMPLETELY cut off our son's payis.  Plus, he gave our son a goyishe haircut.

Now this is horrible to say, but in our community there are the frum guys, and there are the non-frum guys.  Usually the non-frum guys are the Israelis who don't respect halacha and do whatever they want.  They make up their own rules and don't follow Lubavich minhagim (or any minhagim for that matter) and so I see what haircut they and the other non-religious parents give their kids.  That's the haircut my wife gave our son.

When I saw this, I was horrified, but I didn't say anything [until this morning.]  I'm getting tired at this point, and I'm really now upset at myself for going into all this detail and I don't think I have the energy to write the final blog post which is the WHOLE REASON I wrote everything up until now.

In short, when I told my wife that I was upset that she didn't consult with me before cutting off the peyos, she insisted that she kept the sideburns which are peyos.  When I exclaimed to her that they weren't, and when I told her she gave our son a goyishe haircut, she refused to hear me out.  This really hurt me because I was already hurt from her not listening to my input on so many issues until now.  In short, to spite me, she will not fix his hair and is keeping the goyishe haircut just to spite me.

THE UPSHERIN EVENT

First, the upsherin.  Yesterday was my son's birthday and hence his upsherin.  Mazal tov to everyone involved, including me, my wife, and our son.  My wife worked very hard planning the whole thing.  She made a big party, served a bunch of food, rented a hall, etc.  All of this in my estimation was much bigger and gaudier than it had to be.  I had in mind just clearing out the couch and the table in our apartment and having people come and go here like a revolving-door party.  I thought the whole idea of a "big" event thing was a dumb idea since we are terribly unemployed and in a really bad financial position, and thus I thought throwing a big party now was a waste of money.  However, I went along with it nonetheless because it was important to my wife because she had in her mind that it was important to my son who I don't know whether he would have remembered either way where he had is party or its size.  I suppose I'm a minimalist in many ways, and I carry that mentality to many areas of my life.  Simpler and cleaner is always better.  More fancy usually means more cluttered and thus no longer so comfy.  Either way, my wife is usually more realistic about things and so she usually pumps them up in size to what is appropriate. 



So the party was a hit; everybody had a great time.  The rabbis of the community showed up, and I'm sure my son had a great time.  What would have been just an average event if I did it ended up being a large community event, and it looks to me as if a lot of people had a great time.  I smiled a lot, waved, and said hello to a lot of people, and I was proud of my son.


One thing in particular that upset me was that I kept speaking to everyone who was cutting the hair to cut the back, the front, etc. but not to cut off the payis.  Obviously Lubavichers don't keep the payis, but I wanted it to be my wife and my choice how long or short to cut them.  Everyone agreed with me and cut around the payis except my wife's father who completely ignored what I said, disagreed with me, and took a large snip of my son's payis RIGHT AFTER I TOLD HIM NOT TO.  Wow was I upset, but I shrugged it off and said to myself that maybe he didn't understand me or maybe he didn't comprehend the importance of what I was saying.  Maybe he didn't even hear me because he wasn't listening because he was so happy for us on our joyous occasion.

Then it came time for the party to be over.  Nobody was leaving, and there was a big mess on the tables because nobody was cleaning up.  So I took a few garbage bags and started cleaning off the tables.  It was innocuous.  Nobody minded.  My wife's dad and my dad both noticed that I started cleaning up and so at first without my knowing, they started breaking down tables.  I didn't think much about it because they were not kicking anyone out and I knew my wife would freak if she thought that we were kicking people out because she has a firm belief that guests should leave on their own and not be escorted out and I respect her opinion.  After a while when I noticed people started leaving and congregating by the exit doors (with the exception of a few groups who were still sitting and chatting), I also started breaking down tables and moving the chairs against the wall.  After everything was over and the tables were broken down my wife came over to me inflamed why I was kicking out our guests, but I told her that I had nothing to do with that and it was her own father that started breaking down the tables.  She backed off.

The whole day I was feeling ill from a stomach virus that I got from going over one of my wife's friend's houses a few days beforehand.  For the past few days, I've been vomiting and I've been dizzy and nauseous, but I pulled myself together to help my wife out in any way she needed to set up for this event.  After the event ended (we only rented the hall for a specific few hours and we noted those hours in our invitations), however, nobody was leaving and a few of my wife's college buddies started to show up.  My wife's parents were also ignoring the time limits of our stay there, and they were wasting time playing around.  My daughter was being pushed around on a skateboard, and my son was running around with his grandfather.  Obviously since nobody was going anywhere and I was feeling sick as hell (I was dripping wet from sweat), I spoke to my mom and she told me that she didn't feel as if there was anything wrong with me excusing myself and going home.  That's what I did.  I spoke to my wife, and she agreed that I should go home and get some rest since the event [even though it was over] wasn't ending any time soon.

Instead of going to bed and resting when I got home, I spent some time cleaning up the house and getting it back in order because it was a wreck by the time we left for the event.   Feeling faint, I whipped up a vegetable shake in the blender to get some nutrients into me, thinking that maybe it will clear up my head and give me some energy to make it through the day.  My wife walked in at this point, she saw me and snarled, and then commented that "if I was well enough to be making smoothies, then I should have stayed behind and not left her alone at the event."  I explained to her that I really wasn't feeling well, and that in addition to her dad and mom helping out, I also left my dad and brother behind to help out as well (as they did because within the hour they were all here at the house.)  Fair enough.

Then it came time to cut the hair.... [next blog post].

I feel at a loss for words; I feel alone.  I can't complain to you about my wife because then I'm the bad guy, and I can't talk to anyone around me because I've surrounded myself with her family and her friends.  I can't go to marital counseling because every time I've suggested it she throws the money issue in my face and then finds reasons why the person I picked is too close to the community and she doesn't want to be embarrassed having a community member know our business.  I'll discuss this in the coming posts.

Just complainin' about a bad day with the Misses.

In my experience it's usually a bad idea to write blog entries when you're in a bad (sad) mood.  So here we go.

I passed the New York bar exam.  Woohoo.  Now I get to start my own practice.  I won't limit it to intellectual property / patent law, although that will certainly be part of it.  I'll make it a "bread and butter" practice, doing anything that pays the bills.  I'm listening to generalist courses right now on how to run a practice from the point of view of family law, employment, etc.  Should be fun.

On another note, I had a rather upsetting conversation with my wife today.  I told her that if she wants me to have my office here in the apartment and if she wants me to forgo renting office space, she needs to understand that I'm at work even when I'm not sitting at the computer in our small closet.  I need to be at work at 8am and not 10:30am or 11am as has been the case these past two weeks.  I can't be taking our son to school or babysitting a screaming toddler who needs attention while she goes shopping as if she only has a newborn.  If I am going to do this (start a practice), then I need to do it wholeheartedly.  That means that she needs to treat me as if I'm working even when I take a break or walk around the house.  Much of being productive happens when you're not typing away at the computer, or making phone calls.  It's the downtime that allows for so much uptime, I told her.  She coldly looked at me and said, "okay, if you're at work, then I'm getting a maid."  I told her to do whatever she wants to do, so I suppose we're getting a maid now.  Wouldn't it be nice if I had the income to make that possible?  So far it's zilch.

On top of that, we've been having disagreements all night.  It seems that everything I say irks her and that's not fair because I don't want to be shut up every time I want to have a conversation with her.  She treats me nastily and I don't know how to react -- do I react with sadness? anger? do I stand up and leave?  For most of the evening, I shook off the anger she was throwing at me.  When I asked her why she was acting so angry (she was looking at job postings all night), she retorted with some witty angry comment.  If I was a bit less tired, I would have been hurt, but instead, I stood up and walked into my office (yes, I'm sitting on the floor of our walk-in closet in our two-bedroom apartment.)  I think it all started this afternoon when I was reminding her that whatever we pay into day care, she needs to match in income by the end of the year, or else we lose all of the income tax deduction, as we did this year.  We lost out on hundreds of dollars because my wife didn't work.  I wasn't criticizing her, but nevertheless she still blew a fuse.

She started accusing me of judging her and criticizing her when that was the furthest thing from my mind, just as she accused me earlier in the day of judging our Shabbos guests when I was just trying to have a discussion as to what brought them to be in the situation they were in at this moment.  I wasn't judging them just as I wasn't judging my wife, but she took it that way even though I flatly told her where I was coming from.  No, I was wrong according to her.  I was judging her.  Whatever.  Making $6,000 in a year is not such a big deal anyway, especially for someone of her caliber with her degree.  It would be like a check mark on a to-do list.  Really I wasn't even asking her to get a job - I was just talking with her about what was on my mind and the fact that we missed that deduction was on my mind -- it was a random thought. 

Anyway, this was one of many attempted conversations.  Another was me asking her to cover her hair when we are together.  I don't know, but there's something wrong about a religious woman walking around the house with uncovered mezuzahs and her hair being uncovered.  I was particularly annoyed because I've spoken to her about it just earlier in the day and somehow she was defying me by not wearing anything, as if that really made my day or not.  I just felt that to maintain the level of piety that we have in the house, it is inappropriate for her to be walking around without a head covering, just as it would be inappropriate for me to be walking around without pants in my tidy whiteys, topless, or without a yarmulke or tzitzis.

Anyway, it's not the end of the world that we're not getting along tonight.  So she's having a bad day, that's it.  Life doesn't end when she has a bad day and takes it out on everyone around her.  I just wish she confided in me more and was more expressive of her emotions or her needs.

This evening while job searching, she asked me whether I thought she should be looking for just any job in her profession or a job that was in her particular specialty field.  I told her that if looking, she should be looking for any job.  Really I had no idea what she was looking for, but she gets things into her head and comes up with conclusions without talking to me about them.  I know we started speaking about whether she should get a job while I start a law practice and the consensus was that it was a good idea (probably), but I am torn as to whether she should work or not.  I wish she'd do what she's supposed to do and be a stay-at-home mother rather than looking for work.  But she doesn't trust me that I can make everything work out.  She doesn't have faith that I'll succeed.  Otherwise why would she be looking for a job?

Lastly, I've been sad these past few days because just about everyone I know forgot my birthday.  My wife made me and my son a cake (for a shared birthday), and her parents got us a juicer after we told them we didn't want one (we have a vita-mix which juices just fine), but other than that, she really treated me like dirt all day long.  I got no affection, no love, and no thoughtful gestures.  A few weeks back my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday.  I told her, "just love me and be nice to me."  That was too much for her.

Hashem handed us a financial life preserver and a death warning.

First of all, everybody, thank you for your blessings, your comments, and your good wishes.  I started moderating the comments (and I have received them all via e-mail, but I have been unable time-wise to login and approve them).  Sorry for not posting them online sooner.

Interestingly enough, with the exception of those of you who know my true identity, I am happy to say that I have been logging into blogger via JonDo which I paid for a 1-year subscription (it wasn't expensive) anonymously so that the evil Google empire (obviously I'm kidding somewhat) doesn't link my IP address on the Frumpter account to the Google address I use with my real identity. 

Anyway, regarding the last post, all job opportunities and document review projects slipped through our fingers.  It was a horrifying feeling relying for so long on the coming of projects which never came.  So we slipped closer and closer to breaking point -- we've never dug so low into our reserves to the point that we literally had only a few hundred dollars left in the bank account and then kazaam!

We literally were days before hitting bottom before Hashem kicked in to everyone's surprise.  After the project in 12/2009 (right before NY bar review), we lost unemployment because the unemployment office claimed that I quit the project when I said it ended.  I appealed the decision and continued filing for unemployment all the way until 3/2010, even though not one penny was paid to us.  To our surprise, last week we won the hearing and this morning, unemployment paid us all the backpay since 12/2009 to the tune of $7,000!  On top of that, I e-filed taxes last week, and to my surprise, we didn't owe taxes, but were getting a refund of $1,000 federal and almost $800 from the state.  Putting this all together, this is exactly what we needed to pay off our credit card bills and keep us running for another few months.

On a sad note, I had a physical from the doctor and the blood-work showed some anomalies which made the doctor come to the conclusion that I'm running head first into having a stroke or a heart attack imminently unless I make some drastic life changes TODAY.  So I started going to the gym almost daily and I bought a Vita-Mix blender and an EasyGreen Mikrofarm automatic sprouting machine.  We're going to start growing and eating superfoods and vegetables, and we're moving to a RAW diet.  I was 205 lbs. in 2005 when I spent the summer in China, and now I'm 251 almost five years later (and after almost four years of marriage).  It can't be that hard to get back down so my lab work returns to normal.

So in sum, Hashem handed us a financial life preserver and a death warning if I don't get into shape.  I'm still unemployed and am looking for work.  I'm not receiving unemployment anymore (it has run out), but because of my recent work a few months back, I'm eligible for employment in the state I worked (which is around $200 less per week) which I applied for and am waiting for now as we speak.  My rent has increased as of May an ADDITIONAL $200/month and we have just a few months of survival money left.  I got some health food equipment and am making changes in my lifestyle with regard to diet and exercise.  I am waiting the results from the February NY Bar Exam and I have to pass character & fitness before I'm admitted so I can't practice any law until I've cleared those hurdles.  I am still determined to start my own patent practice, but it'll be difficult giving up the security of unemployment, but as of now I'm not receiving any and if I do, it's much less than I received in my previous state.

In other words, we're still alive, still kicking, still making it financially.  Our home (metaphorically) is still in order, and my wife and I B"H still have shalom bayis in the home.  We spend a lot of time with the 3 kids, and I'm asking Hashem every day for a job and strength so that I can keep a daily and weekly seder and learning schedule.  I haven't written the Lubavicher Rebbe yet about the health condition; I'll get to that as soon as I can.

Almost hitting bottom financially. Almost no reserves left.

Okay, so how do I feel... two document review project opportunities in one week and both fall through.

I was in touch with a recruiter who has been telling me for around two months that he expects a document review project to begin that I would be wonderful for, but that the temp position would pay moderately well and it would last for months. I was totally game for this, and I was looking forward to this, because they were specifically looking for an IP attorney with my experience.

Just last week, I received a phone call from another recruiter that another document review position opened up midtown Manhattan, and that it wasn't my area, but they asked for me specifically since I've worked with that law firm before. So I was all excited. She said they were interested in me, and that the position starts Monday. I told her that I couldn't start until Wednesday because Monday and Tuesday were a Jewish holiday (last days of Pesach). She called me a few hours later and told me the deal was off; they filled the position with attorneys who can start on Monday.

At this point my wife asked, "What was the meaning of this?" "I can't figure out why Hashem would give something like this to us, and then so quickly take it away!" My answer was easy -- Hashem was testing us to see whether we would cave in and whether we would work on yom tov. It was an easy test for us. The answer was simply no. I waited for the other opening that I was hearing about.

Now I always check my e-mail, but last night for some reason after the chag I didn't. We sat down and watched Survivor on our laptops. This morning, same deal. I opened the e-mail, but I was interrupted and I didn't end up checking my e-mails. I got annoyed at my wife (who at the time was still asleep) for leaving her laptop out on the couch for the zillionth time and having our daughter sit there and pick off each of the keys from the keyboard until I recognized the sound from the other room [click, click, crack... click, click, crack] -- I ran out, and stopped her from removing whatever keys were left. I took the laptop, and flung it on my wife's bed along with the keys that were broken off and I said, "I told you a million times not to leave the laptop out for the kids to break it. This is the third laptop that has had its keyboard broken because you left it out.  This is unacceptable." I was pissed.

Around 10:30am, I was having coffee and my wife noticed that the recruiter left a voicemail this morning at 8:30am telling me that the document review position I have been waiting for this past month or so was finally here, and they need two people right away. The recruiter also mentioned that he left a voicemail on my other phone number and that he left two e-mails. I couldn't believe I didn't see them until now! I glanced at my e-mail which was already open and there were his two e-mails. I couldn't believe it.

I thought to myself, "OH NO! I'VE BLOWN THE BERACHAS THAT WERE COMING OUR WAY!" I quickly called him back, left a message, and sent a reply that I'm still very interested in the project and that I am available. I then immediately davened with talis and tefillin with full kavanah, I said tehillim, and in my heart I apologized for my sins that morning and I asked for forgiveness. I got an e-mail back as soon as I was finished that he's excited that I'm interested, and he'll check with the law firm just to make sure they were still looking for someone (even though he thought I had the position in the bag, as did I). I said tehillim, and when my wife asked my why I wasn't nervous, I said, "because I did everything I am supposed to do. Now it's up to G-d."

We went shopping at BJ's (a store akin to Price Costco) to restock the kitchen and we bought food. When we arrived home, I ran to the e-mail, and I saw that there was an e-mail from the recruiter.  When shopping earlier that day, and again while opening up the e-mail, I kept thinking about how nice it would be to put a down payment on the minivan my wife has been talking about for months now (right now the three car seats for our three kids are shoulder-to-shoulder in our back seat), now that income would be finally coming in.  I could pay our bills, buy food, pay full tuition at our son's yeshiva instead of the discount rate paupers such as we currently get, and we could allocate just enough to cover payments for a van so that my wife can get around with the kids.  I opened the e-mail and started reading.  Expecting the e-mail to contain a starting date, instructions, and an address to show up to, it said, "they already filled the position. Sorry."

Now I'm sulking, and I'm wondering what I did wrong. Are my sins so grave that they're enough to remove any blessings that were to have come my way? What have I done to cause the berachas to have disappeared, and what can I do to reverse this? My family and I are so close to running out of money (we've been living on our backup cash for almost a year now which barely has a month left of reserves and then there is NOTHING saved after this.) How can Hashem let us go so close to going broke? What is his plan for us? What will happen? I am so scared, because in my mind this project has been my backup for months now, and now it is gone. All I can do at this point is scrape together some kind of temporary something and hope something comes through or we're on the street.

Feeling Static.

I've been experiencing a lot of static lately.  I've been having a difficult time because life has put me in a position where I am unable to move and I am bound and unable to break free of this. 

First of all, professionally, I am unable to move.  I am not licensed in New York, and thus I cannot practice law here until I am admitted.  So I can't get a job except for document review, and so far I seem to not be able to get on any projects since I left my last one.  I am a patent attorney and so I can potentially try to develop a business and take clients in this area of practice, but my hands are tied because I cannot accept unemployment if I start up my own business.  The problem is that I am not on unemployment, but I am not off of it either.

I stopped receiving unemployment benefits after my last project ended in a way that it is uncertain to the unemployment office whether I am still eligible.  So they're holding hearings with my former employers, having me submit documents, etc. and going through the whole appeals process having me prove that I am eligible for unemployment.  The problem during all this is that 1) they are not paying anything, but I keep filing for unemployment as they have instructed me to, 2) we are running out of savings, and I mean that we have never been this low EVER, and 3) I am unable to start a business because I'll lose the unemployment eligibility that I'm fighting so hard to recover.

On another note, I'm hurting to the point of crying because of the things I think my wife thinks about me.  I feel that she feels that I am a loser for being unemployed, and when I am working on the computer (whether I am paying bills, filing for unemployment, doing law research for the current lawsuits I am involved in, or answering e-mails), she thinks I am playing and she treats what I'm doing as if it is meaningless.  What she doesn't realize is that we wouldn't have a car, internet, electricity running, healthcare, school loans handled, or taxes filed and paid if it weren't for me taking care of all of this.  I pay all the bills and handle all the finances in the house, and I handle all errands that need to be run in the family.  I take care of all the problems.  I call people and resolve any disputes that happen.  I handle the legal aspects of our life, our contracts and agreements, our banking.  I interact with the insurance company to make sure we have health insurance and that our COBRA is paid and in order, and I make sure all claims are tracked and resolved properly.  Her sole responsibility is to take care of the kids, cook food, take the kids to their appointments, and keep the house in order.  I see it as my side of the responsibility, and her side.  The problem is that I feel that she sees my side as non-existent, and she sees her side as if she's saving the universe.

On top of that, I cross over onto her side very frequently if not regularly to wash dishes, do laundry, watch the kids, play with the kids, change diapers if needed, endlessly insert pacifiers and hold crying children, and I wake up in the middle of the night and too early in the morning more times than I would like to.  She appreciates all this when it happens, but then after time passes, or the ONE TIME I tell her NO to helping her with something, she forgets everything I do and accuses me of being an unemployed loser.

*YOU CAN SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH BECAUSE IT DETAILS MY DAY*
Today (well, combining today and yesterday's events), I woke up and took care of the kids while she slept.  She got the kids ready and made lunches while I watched the news online drinking coffee, and then I took our oldest to school.  On the way to school, I picked something up from the store and I remembered that we hired a maid for the day so I went to the bank to withdraw enough money to pay the maid.  I dropped off my son at school, and came home.  On my way home, I checked the mail in the mail room and came home.  My wife was cleaning the home, and I canceled a membership that was costing us money.  I confirmed that our daughter was properly added to our insurance plan with my ex-employer, and I made multiple calls to the hospital to take care of the insurance portion of the multi-thousand-dollar bill.  I then started making phone calls to specialists to make an appointment for an injury that has been bothering me for a few weeks now and has since become bothersome.  I sat down and answered a few e-mails and checked our bank balances and made sure that everything was scheduled.  I downloaded tax forms for a bank I forgot about on my tax return, and I added to my list of things to do.  My wife was frantic because we don't have food in the house, but instead of buying some like she said she would, she decided to continue in her Pesach cleaning chores.  She took a rag to the bookshelf (not sure why since there were bigger things to take care of) and didn't shop like she said she would.  I continued taking care of things on my end until she asked me to help her with the beds.  I lifted each of our beds while she added skirts to them (because not having skirts was bothering her).  Then it came time to pick up our son.  My wife then tried to get out of it by telling me that I better pick him up or else I'll have to change our child's poo diaper.  I reluctantly agreed, and on my way out, she sent me on an errand to the Judaica bookstore to buy books for Passover.  I remembered that I told her I'd pick up a few more bedikas chometz kits and so I picked up those as well. 

This afternoon, my wife was supposed to take our son to the doctor for a hearing ear test -- something the school wanted us to look into.  She asked me to go instead of her so that she can clean, but I didn't want to.  I told her that I feel that she is bullying me around and that I haven't even had a chance to shower yet.  She then made some kind of comment that I could have showered earlier while I was wasting time on the computer (I actually wasn't), but had I known she wanted me to take him, I would have showered beforehand, and I would have been happy to.  However, I felt that the way she approached it was sneaky and I don't like her changing plans on me last minute because things ALWAYS go wrong when she pulls something like this on me.  (Perfect example: this Sunday, we were attending a family event.  In the middle of the event, she needed to feed our newborn daughter so she took her back to the car; I watched the kids which after about five seconds became a disaster because our daughter decided that she wanted to go swimming in a lake and my son started eating messy cake and it was hard dealing with two squirming kids.  She disappeared for almost an hour and when she returned, instead of throwing a temper tantrum like I really wanted to, I sucked it all in, smiled, and continued our day.  I did let her know that I thought it was excessive for her to ditch me with the kids in the park for almost an hour, but I kept the conversation calm.)  In short, when she changes plans on me, I ALWAYS get screwed.

Returning to today, she asked me to take our son to the doctor.  I was happy to but I didn't like her timing or the way she asked me, and I was in the middle of another task which I didn't want to drop at the moment.  I told her I needed a minute and I told her that I was reluctant to start changing plans around.  She's had this on the schedule for weeks now, and she's the one that interacts with the school teachers about our son.  Plus, I thought that since she deals with the doctors and taking kids to the appointments (I often tag along), that's her territory and I wouldn't know what to answer the doctors if they asked things of me.  This is her area.  She then threw a temper tantrum and stormed out before giving us a chance to discuss it. 

Now I'm all upset and hurt from her actions.  So many feelings of inadequacy and hurt are bubbling up inside of me and I'm feeling myself shut down from the anger of feeling that it is not fair that she disregards everything I do the one time I don't do something the way she wants me to.

So I'm no longer in the mood of being upset.  It's been nearly an hour that I've been sulking and have been writing this post, and I've decided to pick myself up and move on.  While I would normally delete a post like this, I'm going to keep it, post it, and I'll probably delete it later the next time I feel bad about trashing my wife on my blog, something I resolved not to do; so read this while it's fresh because I'll probably take it down later.  I'm going to pick up and continue my day as if we weren't fighting.  Bottom line, she's right that I should have said yes to taking our son to the doctor, but she's wrong in how she approached it.  I'm going to hit "publish" on this article, and I'm going to continue working on things that I said that I would do.  I'll try not to think of my hurt feelings and how I feel she steps on me and manipulates me.

Purim Seudah

I had an interesting time at the Purim seudah. It was nice to be among friends. It was interesting looking across the table at people I respected, but I wasn't so sure they know yet who I am. One thing I learned the last place we lived was to be authentic in our yiddishkeit. Don't try to be something you're not. And don't try not to be something you are.

I am Lubavich, no question about it. I am frum, no question about it. However, I do have quirks that would make some people doubt my authenticity if I put on a persona or a show pretending to be something I am not.

I make no secret of my shyness. I make no excuse for hiding from people for sometimes weeks at a time. It's just one of those quirky things about me. Yiddishkeit is at the center of my being. My relationship with G-d is one of the most turbulent relationships I have. We fight quite often, that's just the way it is. As a result, I withdraw from the community only temporarily until I can muster the strength to step back in, apologize for my absence, and stay engaged for as long as I can. Inevitably, I always get overwhelmed and I withdraw again. People wonder where I go, what I do. Really, I'm just hiding out and busying myself with being a father, a husband, and a spouse. I don't fry out -- I do everything I would do if I were engaged with the community -- I just do it alone.

That being said, I was thinking to myself that the guys around me are truly good guys, and I appreciate that Hashem has brought me to a place where I can develop a trust for those in my community. I also thought to myself that there is nothing that stops me from breaking past my limitations and changing who I am. Today I might be the shy one in the room, tomorrow I could be on the table dancing and singing. Only I can dictate who I am at any moment. I thought that thought was quite profound.

My reflection on how I did on the bar, and what to do now.

I'm very relieved to be back at home with my two children and our newborn. Just a week or so ago it seemed so difficult to have everything under control because one was crying or climbing on the table while the other one needed to be changed. Now my wife and I have adopted the "zone defense" strategy. If the new baby is asleep, we assist each other with the two (or one takes care of them and the other takes care of chores or housework, etc. I don't mind the housework; I just do as much as I can (which is certainly helpful) and I leave the hard parts for my wife.) *evil grin*. I'm only half kidding.

In my estimation the bar was a success. I explained to my wife last night that I believe that when I left on Sunday or Monday to the hotel (rather than the Thursday of the week before as planned), that I was [in my own estimation] around 53% ready for the exam (assuming that I needed to be at least 65% ready to pass the exam on this scale). Spending those days at the hotel cramming non-stop and being able to study on my own schedule of when I had energy and relaxing when I didn't, I believe I was able to walk into the exam about 70% prepared.

The first time I took the bar in Colorado, I remember reviewing the bar materials before the exam, and it went like this. I asked myself, "do I know this?" and if I did, I just reviewed it quickly. If it was a topic I wasn't prepared for and it would take a while to learn it, I'd just pass it over and hope I didn't get tested on it. In all sincerity, the day before the exam is not the time to be learning new concepts. If I didn't get it by now, I simply wasn't going to learn it and I'd move on.

So again, the first time around when reviewing my materials when I first took the bar and passed, it went something like this, "know this, know this, I know that, I know that... oops, not sure about that... okay, know this, know this, know this..." This was how I went through my materials the day before the exam.

This time around, it went something like this. "Don't know this, um, understand this but can't remember the elements, know this, know this, don't know this, don't know this, don't know this, oh! I remember this! Okay, know this, didn't know this, etc." In other words, I was not nearly as prepared as I was the first time around.

All this being said, I truly believe that the hotel brought me from a place where I likely would have failed to a place where I can confidently believe that I passed. So now in a few months, I'll be a New York attorney.

Now the question is what to do until then... I suppose I'll take a few needed days to rest and to give my wife the needed brake that she needs. I'll be helpful around the house and will help get our systems in order. I will relax a bit and spend some good time with my kids and will establish for myself a daily routine that has been seriously lacking these past few months that will include things such as minyanim (prayer), shiurim (learning sessions), and working out at the gym.

I'm guessing after the few days of doing this will have passed, I'll start looking for a document review position and will send out resumes for jobs to fill the time gap until I get admitted. The goal is simply to survive and to tie up loose ends. I have a few lawsuits to take care of, to defend against, and to file against those who have done things which I've been meaning to sue over these past few months. A few examples include suing my past landlord for still not returning our security deposit now after 10 months, suing General Motors for not giving the $500 rebate they promised me when I bought our car two years ago (the statute of limitations possibly passed on this one), and defending against the most heinous accusation for which every time today when I stomped my feet and booed when Haman's name was mentioned I could think of nobody else except for the person that filed the false complaint against me.

When I was reading the story of Haman, I couldn't think except to picture the person who did this to us, and I tried many times to distract myself from my feelings of hurt, worry, and betrayal over this slimy piece of garbage. I hope Hashem builds a symbolic tree and holds him up on high making him think he's prevailed so that when the truth comes out about what he did, he will share Haman's fate. Y'machshimo on both of their names.

Naming our newborn child.

With the quickly approaching deadline in choosing a name for our newborn daughter and with Shabbos coming right around the corner where the baby-naming ceremony was to happen, my wife and I still didn't have a name. Thinking about it, I decided to give in to the name my wife wanted, and I told her that I would be very happy with naming our daughter the name she suggested. As soon as I did that, she told me that she wanted to name our daughter the Yiddish name I suggested because the person I wanted to name her after was my grandmother who I was very close with, but the person she wanted to name her after were names of people up the family tree she never met.

So I went to the baby naming ceremony this morning over the Sabbath and I named our daughter. I'd tell who what we named her, but it would be a fake name anyway, so why bother. ;) The funny thing is that even though I'm not one to give both an English name and a Hebrew name (I think parents should just give one name not to confuse the children with mixed identities) her Hebrew name and English name are identical. But this evening when I looked up how to properly spell the name (because there were so many possible spellings), I realized the name was not a name of its own, but was a contraction of a name COMPLETELY AND UNEXPECTEDLY DIFFERENT than what we named her.

It's like my name here is Zoe. But pretend, in real life I call myself "Zan." Did you know that is short for the name Alexander? I didn't know that until I looked it up. Still don't know what Zoe is a contraction for. I do know it's a girls name too, but hey, that's life. So now we have a name.

Conflicts in naming our daughter.

Just some ranting about naming our daughter. I'm a bit pissed because I just had a fight with my mom over what my wife and I are deciding to name our daughter. We actually haven't decided on a name, and it is a bit of a tough one this one because I named the first one (boy), she named the second one (girl), and now this third child is a girl, and I feel that my preference should be a preference over her preference because it's my turn. Truthfully, I think EVERY CHILD should come from Nevuah (prophecy), but this time around, neither of us are getting anything... maybe our spiritual antennas are broken. ...and the baby naming would have to be tomorrow in shul, so time is coming upon us.

Personally, I think this "my turn, your turn" thing is silly, but I read it in a Jewish customs book as the halacha when parents are not in agreement what to name the child. Honestly, after the fight I just had with my mom, I want to just give in and name her what my wife wants to name her just to spite my mom.

The fight with my mom revolves around her guilt feelings and negativity about her mother. Her mother was a great woman, and was an amazing grandmother. I was VERY close with her in her life, and I'm sure she's a guiding light for me now in my death. My mom on the other hand has a different story. My grandmother was a very modest woman, and as such, she was very afraid of the Ayin Hara (the evil eye) and thus she never spoke well of my mom in public. This damaged her in many ways, filling her with lots of guilt for many years to come, even after her death. Oh, and she was great at the Jewish guilt thing with my mom; it never really affected me because I'm just a SOB so I never really cared when someone gave me a guilt trip.

Anyway, I was persuading my wife lovingly for the past few months to consider my grandfather's name, and it finally succeeded and that was what we were going to call this one, but then whoops! It was a girl! Honestly I don't think I have an argument here because she was going to go along with me, and now I lost my chance because we got the gender wrong.

That didn't stop me from asking my wife to consider my grandmother's name, a Yiddish name. Now if you know Israelis, they HATE Yiddish names. It's just not authentic to them, and having such a strong Jewish identity being tied to the State of Israel, Israelis hate those with Yiddish descent because they feel inferior to them. Me? I'm American. I come from a Yiddish speaking heritage, but it hasn't been in our family for three generations -- I brought it back when I became religious and it's become a part of us since.

The problem is that my wife is very Sabra. I mean VERY Israeli - like with a dark-olive-skinned Israeli mentality on a lot of things. That's great and all, but we're an American Lubavich family, not an Israeli one (custom goes according to the father, and I've set the custom a certain way long before I even met my wife - a weak argument, yes, but custom is custom.) I don't think I have a drop of Israeli blood in me, and I'm not so excited about the culture either way. I feel that our family should represent who we are and who we represent ourselves to be. We are not an Israeli family; we never were, we never will be. Anyway, all this being said, I think she should respect my wishes and I should respect hers and so probably both names should be out and we should come up with something together.

Last, but not least, I suppose my greatest consideration in bending towards my wife's wishes is that firstly, it is not fair to push on her a name she doesn't like, even though she should make an effort to become amicable towards it because she's my wife and she owes a duty to me to do so, but second of all, I feel that my wife has had a very difficult past few months with me, or so it seems from the way she describes things. As such, with all the extraneous factors, I feel that I owe her for her sacrifices with regard to her time in spending every moment with the kids, the diaper changing (as she reminds me about almost daily), the being absent due to all the frustrations we've had these past few years, firstly in working over an hour away from the home in our previous state leaving her stranded with our son, and secondly, after now moving to New York, where I haven't stranded her one bit and she's been closer to her friends and her family than she has ever been, but where I have been absent either emotionally, or physically by being on some crazy document review position or another, or studying for the bar exam which has essentially left her as a single mom for months now and she's tired of it.

I'm completely negating my own feelings here and my own needs which have not been met as a husband, such as being appreciated and having my work acknowledged, and having her understand that times have been very tough and in spite of being laid off and fired from my job many months ago, I have provided for her and for our family QUITE WELL given the circumstances as they have presented themselves for us. For me, I feel that this move to New York has been one heartbreak after another, and I've been more stressed than I ever was. I have changed career paths more times in one year than most people do in a lifetime. I have gone full force into becoming an engineer to augment my patent attorney license; I have gone full force into being a patent litigation attorney until I was cheated by the guy I was working for; I spent months in a document review job where most of the time, I left the house before my kids woke up, took the subways for over an hour, and then I got home exhausted and literally tormented from the terrible people working with me. Then came the whole cramming for the NY Bar Exam thing which has taken me away from my family for months. I feel that each of these has been a huge sacrifice that should be appreciated every day.

However, all this being said, I ignore all this and I'm likely going to side with my wife if we cannot come up with a name, and so we'll end up having our girl with some name that would make an American cringe, and I'll make myself love it.

My new world view: ROLLING WITH THINGS AS THEY COME MY WAY.

I suppose I should wait a day or so before posting more, but the birth of this new baby has given me a new view of the world. I've worked so hard to fight against all the adversity up until now, but I think I'm going to adopt the "roll with it" mentality where anything goes, and anything that comes my way is within my power to deal with, and if not, no big deal.

Prior to today, I was of the worldview of "we've made XYZ decisions in the direction we want to go in life, and I will get very upset at any force that diverts us from this decided-upon direction."

What this means is that I no longer know for sure that I'll pass the New York bar exam. I studied profusely, but limited to my capabilities due to my surroundings, my responsibilities as a father and as a husband, and my environment. After the Barbri classes in the city ended, I set out a modest plan of the minimum I would need to accomplish to walk into the bar exam prepared. Then when that minimum didn't happen, I made the SEVEN DAY PLAN of essentials (a sort of triage of what I wanted to cover at a minimum due to my limited time constraints) which turned into a FIVE DAY PLAN. Then when I realized that Friday was a half day of studying because of Shabbos, and Shabbos itself was one of the five days, I realized that the plan was really a THREE DAY CRASH COURSE PLAN giving me a minimum competency in the areas in which I needed to cover at a triage-type of bare minimum.

Then last night, our baby girl was born and I was UNABLE TO STUDY AT ALL TODAY, killing 1/3 of my three-day plan. To add to that I need to watch the kids all day tomorrow and run errands such as driving probably an hour to see my wife and to pick up flowers and so on, so my half day of tomorrow is pretty much shot. The hotel canceled my reservation because I didn't check in today, so I no longer have a hotel near the bar exam as I did prior to today, and that hotel does not allow check-ins on Sunday because nobody is there that day -- one of the funky things about those extended-stay hotels that allow you to book a room on a weekly basis rather than a nightly one. So first thing Sunday morning, I'll go online and see if anything is available, and if I can't find anything, I'll drive down and will find a room by eyeballing what is available. It no longer makes sense to pay for a week when there's a new baby and I'd only be able to use the room SUNDAY-WEDNESDAY, four of the seven days I would have paid for. This is just G-d pointing me in the right direction.

In sum, I have SUNDAY to study, and MONDAY to review. Not sure what I can do with that time, but this is what it is. I'll try to do some issue spotting for fun over Shabbos, but I doubt I'll have the chance with our new baby holding my attending and our wonderful two other children who will be needing my love now more than ever.

THUS, I HAVE DECIDED TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE and to roll with whatever comes my way. I will do my best, but I cannot guarantee results other than me promising to do my best with whatever time I have available. Similarly with everything else. I'll roll with it all. No promises that if someone throws punches I won't fire back with a few of my own. ;)

As I was writing the previous blog, my wife delivered a beautiful baby... GIRL!

I called the hotel and left a message asking them if I could postpone my reservation so that I can check in on Sunday rather than today. That way I can spend Shabbos with my newly augmented family.

-ZS

In delivery room now with wife having our baby (yes, the bris if its a boy will be on DAY 3 of the NY bar exam.)

We are literally days away from the bar exam, and I'm sitting in the hospital waiting room down the hall from the delivery room where my wife is sharing our third baby with the world. She's giving birth now as we speak.

Until now (and even up to and including last night), I was really worried that she might have a boy, and being Jewish, that would mean that his circumcision (being on the 8th day) would fall out on the day of my NY BAR EXAM. This has been a joke between us. "Don't have a baby on the Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday before the bar exam, or else I might have to miss it because of the bris." Of course, this has only been a joke until last night, when at 3am, I heard her talking to her doctor on the phone.

I half thought to myself that if I went back to sleep that she wouldn't want to wake me and she'd go back to sleep too and she'd have the baby another day. Haha no dice. We went to the hospital at 4am this morning because she was having regular contractions. Now, almost 10 hours later (it's been a long, but calm labor), she's doing the final pushing. Why am I not in the delivery room with her? Because we're in Niddah, silly! Chassidic Jewish men don't watch the births of their children. (This is probably why we have so many of them - we don't have the image of the crowning burned into our brains and so when our wives heal, we see them in the same way we've always seen them -- just like the day we were married.)

Anyway, so if it's a boy (and we both think it will be a boy), the bris will fall out on DAY 3 of my bar exam. If that is the case, I will have to have the bris NEXT THURSDAY before DAY 3 of my bar exam. I don't know how this can work out because I would have to stay up the night before saying tehillim, and we would have to have it early early in the morning (or perhaps the evening beforehand? is that even done? I have to call my rav) and then I would have to drive as fast as I can to the bar exam around an hour away from our house. Next Thursday is also TAANAS ESTHER, a FAST DAY (to add to the interesting details of the day).

With all this, I can't deny that this was all G-d's plan. It was his plan for us to move to Crown Heights. It was his plan for me to have the bad experiences I did these past few months. It was his plan for me to be sued causing me weeks of trembling nervousness on top of having to study for the bar exam, and lastly, (if it's a boy), it'll have been his plan to have the bris next Thursday on Taanis Esther and Day 3 of my bar exam. I'm rolling with all this. I don't know what will come of it, or how it will turn out, but I'm calm now that it's no longer in my hands.

...I wonder if this means that I'll have to withdraw from the bar exam altogether. I wonder why everything has happened exactly as it has. Oh well, this is our life. Baruch Hashem!

One question I have for the ladies and happily married men out there -- I was supposed to check into a hotel this afternoon (Thursday afternoon) and stay there until the end of my bar exam next Thursday. Now that the baby will have been born, I'm no longer leaving a pregnant wife, but a wife with two children and a new baby. The plan so far has been that we're all moving into her parent's house 10 minutes away from our apartment for the next few days so that they can help her with the new baby. What I'm wondering however is whether I should cancel the hotel or postpone checking in (regardless of whether I'd lose money) until, say, after Shabbos, or until Sunday or Monday. The bar is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. What do you think? What kind of man would I be if tonight I drove off to the hotel to study? Truthfully, I really NEED to study, and I completely lost today's study day because I've been at the hospital all day. I fear that I won't pass without going. ...but if it's a boy, I might not be able to take the bar anyway if I can't arrange for the bris to work out.

Please share your thoughts.

-Zoe



...gotta run. The nurses have called me back into the room. Delivery is complete!

I want to be a government agent.

Today was a hugely productive day. I made a makeshift desk in between my wife's bed and my bed using a wooden insert that we leave out of the dining room table because it makes the room too small. I studied all day without pause, and by the time nightfall arrived, I was happy with my accomplishment.

I do not know whether I will pass the bar, but I will do everything in my power to better my chances without losing my sense of humanity. I might be a post-graduate law student, but I'm still a human being.

This evening I watched the pilot episode from season one of Alias. I've been thinking about it for some time now, and so I decided to go online to see if anyone has it available to watch. I was so excited throughout the first episode that after it was over, I noticed four burn marks across the base of my thumb from the heatsync on my laptop which has a tendency to overheat. It's not painful and it will probably fade in time, but it combined with the show gave me a powerful feeling that I don't have to be ordinary. There are people who do exciting things, and I wouldn't mind being the type of person who kept secrets. I already do, so what would be the big change if I did it for a career? My whole life is one big secret.

The hardest thing to come to grips about is that I am (and I emphasize am) a nobody. I have few friends, and even they are spread around the world living different lives than I am. My life is that of a religious reject with a law degree who doesn't like his surroundings and who doesn't connect with the people around him. I'm an actor standing in the role of my life, and for the benefit of those around me, I am happy to be in the lives of those who have dedicated their lives to being part of my family. I love my wife. I would be empty without her. I care deeply for her, and I think about her all the time. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be nice to have some action in my life.

The fact that the highlight of my life as it is now is showing up in a room with a bunch of men who read words off of a page and sway back and forth in prayer kills me. I cannot believe THIS is my goal in life - to be one of them. Spiritually, I need more. I read some time ago that from a Jewish perspective, meditation is for someone who needs meditation. A healthy functioning person shouldn't feel the need for meditation. You know what, however? I feel the need to meditate.

On another level, I'm bored with the opportunities as they have presented themselves to me, and I'm bored even with the goals and dreams I have set for myself because I feel they are so limited and mindless. I want to be an attorney, woo hoo, great goal. I accomplished it long ago. I want to work in a law firm... WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT?

I want danger. I want risk. I want skills that I use on a daily basis. I want to be like a sharp scalpel in my practice. I want what I do to matter. I want out from all these laws and rules in life. I want to speak with people in foreign countries in foreign languages about something important and secret. I want to live an adventurous life. I want to gather information, identify issues, make inferences, take action like a government agency such as NSA does. I want to know who or what Echelon is. I want to understand what Einstein 2 is, and I want to be one of the people who directs projects and missions. There's something that separates a regular ignorant on the street and someone in the know. I want to be in the know.

Complaining about bar-study conditions.

I wanted to take a moment to write about my feelings about my studying for the bar and about things that are going on.

Firstly, I have been going to Starbucks to study; I'm here now taking a 5-minute break (really a 10 minute one) before resuming my studies. I am freaking out that we are getting so DANGEROUSLY CLOSE to the bar exam, and that there are SO MANY TOPICS THAT I KNOW I DO NOT KNOW! The last time I studied for a bar exam, I was still single and I had full mobility and er, sovereignty to move and study when and where I wanted to. Now, I'm limited by my family constraints which really KILL my ability to effectively study.

First of all, I can't study in the morning until after 9am when I drop my kids off to school (or my wife more frequently does) because even if I woke up in the morning, the kids wake up before I do and I can get NOTHING done when they're around. Secondly, now that I'm here at Starbucks, I've gotten a good 2.5 hours of studying done, but in half an hour, I'll need to pack up and leave because my wife needs the car to pick up our son.

I really have violated my own rules and guidelines that I set for myself to study for the bar. First of all, I promised myself that I would go to morning Barbri classes. After class, I would have lunch, and then study for around 5 hours and be home in time for dinner. This NEVER EVEN ONCE happened.

After my morning class, I ALWAYS CAME HOME so that my wife can have the car. Then when I was home at 12pm, I never got even a chance to study until 4:30pm. How? Well, I got home at 12pm, spoke to my wife a bit, printed some documents, ate some lunch, and then it was 2:30pm when my wife picked up our son. It wasn't until 4:30pm that I could get out of the house at the earliest, and even then, most of the time I stayed home trying to study at home (usually unsuccessfully causing a fight between me and my wife in the process). I studied the best I could and come seven or eight o'clock when the kids were finally asleep, I never studied even once.

More common was this schedule. I woke up in the morning, waited until 8:30a until my wife dropped our son off at school. Then when she returned at 9am, I went to Starbucks until 1pm getting three hours of work done (and wasting another hour trying to get the computer to work, or to pack up and unpack the computer and everything every time I needed to take a bathroom break (which was quite frequent because coffee goes right through me)). Then at 1:30pm I arrived home and didn't get out of the house until 4pm because I had to pack dinner, take a shower, help a bit with the kids, etc. 4:30pm I would actually end up in the car, and 5pm I would arrive at the Starbucks, but only with an hour before my 6pm Barbri class (most of the time I would go at night). I would stand on line, buy coffee, drive to class, park, and head in. I would usually sit down around 5:30pm and 30 minutes is not enough to do anything, so I would review my notes or browse the web until class started. After class, I'd come home at 9:30pm-9:45pm every day, and my brain would be fried. I'd try to review my notes, but shortly afterwords, I'd sit down and watch an episode of 24 or Lost or something with my wife and the night would be over.

I really feel there was not enough time to study for this exam. I set out so many tasks which I felt were BASIC FUNDAMENTAL NEEDED ACTIVITIES to simply PASS (not to excel), including 1) GETTING MY NOTES IN ORDER, 2) REVIEWING MY NOTES, 3) DOING THE ASSIGNED PRACTICE QUESTIONS, 4) DOING ESSAYS, and I almost never got past item 2 (until two weeks ago when I said "to hell with the notes; I'm doing practice questions and essays!" -- well, to date, I've done many questions but not in all topics and I still have so much to do, and I HAVEN'T EVEN APPROACHED THE ESSAYS OR THE MPT. I also have two classes to make up which I'll have to do online. Luckily, they're not main classes. I also have a number of classes where the notes are only half completed, and family law, where I haven't even begun.

I'm feeling so helpless, and I wish I could check into a hotel and get away for more than a few days before the exam. This coming Thursday, I'm checking into a hotel, but thinking about it, maybe I can arrange to get away as early as Sunday. The problem is that my wife is about to give birth any day, so this is a HIGHLY STRESSFUL TIME and I don't know what to do, whether to stay, whether to go, what to do, etc. I wish things were easier. I wish I weren't in New York where it takes me forever to get from my apartment to anywhere I can study. I lose so much time taking the train or driving around; I wish I had a desk in my home and a door I can close so that I don't have to lose 30 minutes at a time every time I have to run to the restroom.

Estranged also from myself.

Negativity drains me like someone shooting me with a Taser gun. I also hate complaining all day long because I am a trooper and a fighter, but you poor souls who have the curse of reading my blog get to hear all the "poor me" wah wah comments and postings. Sometimes I feel that if I could step out of my body I would turn around and slap myself for all my sad thoughts. There must be something so deeply wrong with me going way back to my childhood or not that has me so darn bent on seeing the world as evil and hopeless.

Tonight after my Barbri class ended early, I wanted to take some time and watch this week's episode of the Bachelor. I really wanted to see Jake with the families because I think seeing a woman with her family is a real indicator as to the quality person you have. This surprises me because I really like my wife's parents, and if my wife and I ended up like them, I wouldn't be sad in the least bit. However, let's just leave it that I ask G-d every day that I have the chance to find out what it would be like to make it to their age and still be married.

Let's switch back to the Bachelor for a moment. Everybody there is so infatuated with everyone, and I don't think any of them are in love with the other. I think they are in love with themselves, and how the other person makes them feel. Today when I saw Ali come to Jake and say, "I can't choose between you or my job," I knew it was over because IF IT WAS EVEN A QUESTION then the relationship is OVER. Now she's the whiny bitch drama queen who needs to just pretend she never met Jake because she's stupid for letting the "other love of her life -- her job" get in between the "love" (yeah, right) between her and Jake. For this reason alone I don't think she was ready to get married, and between us, I think this job thing was just used as an excuse to bow out of the show without getting kicked off of the show. People like us who have negativity oozing out never fool those around us for long; it always seeps out and destroys everyone around us if we're not careful.

Now back to my wife. I really wanted to watch this last episode of the Bachelor, and I knew my wife wasn't expecting me back from my Barbri class for another two hours, but tonight we had the MPT class and we ended with almost two hours to spare. I had internet access and headphones where I was, and even if they kicked me out, the Starbucks down the street had internet access and a couch and I totally could have disappeared for two hours and nobody would have known. However, I wanted to be kind to my wife who was home with the kids, and even if they were likely already asleep, I still couldn't chance the fact that she might be having a hard time and it would be just my luck if the day I decide to pull something like sneaking away to watch a show on Hulu is the one day she needs me (and my phone was dead so she couldn't reach me), so I went home.

Every night when I've come home, my wife was watching a show online using the slow computer (the one that barely functions because I took hers when mine went into the shop almost two weeks ago). I thought that I would watch the show (I already saw the first half while eating lunch, so I didn't think it was a big deal) so I asked her if she could continue watching her show for half an hour and then I'll give her the good laptop computer (this one is pitifully slow too, but at least it works like it should) but she refused and insisted that we trade and she get the good computer. Still in good cheer, I gave her the good computer thinking that she would ask me to join her on whatever she was watching.

Instead, she turned on Facebook and started playing Farmville, a game I DESPISE because I think it's the biggest brain-drain in the universe and it's a waste of time. Plus, she could have done that with my old slow computer. She didn't need mine (well, hers, but mine until after the bar) to play Farmville. I immediately got really upset and probably because I was highly caffeinated (I had around 5 strong coffees the hours beforehand because I spent most of the day at Starbucks studying), my blood boiled and I could have spit fire again. Instead, I grabbed a huge bag of pistachio nuts and munched away at it while watching Brian Williams on MSNBC (I don't know why I feel compelled to watch this news every night -- I am always disappointed by the lack of content) with the frame skipping making the video not watchable but I didn't care. It was either that or lose my temper.

I felt that I was kind for coming home. I felt that I was kind for offering my wife my computer. i felt betrayed that when I gave, she took, leaving me in the dirt. What did I expect? If you give, you expect the person you give to to take. I don't know why I was so angry that she didn't let me watch the Bachelor, and I don't know why I fumed over her choosing to go on Facebook rather than do something together with me after I just went through so much conflict to NOT watch the show before I came home. In my good graces (which means my warped mind) I even considered spending time with her until she went to sleep an hour or so later and then I would watch my show. But she hogged the computer I gave her and I felt she was selfish.

Instead of popping or breathing fire, I put my headphones on, went into our bedroom and listened to a Holosync Awakening Prologue session. I don't know that this does anything for me, but I've been playing a game with myself trying to see if I can get through it without falling asleep. Tonight I was so upset and angry that I stayed awake throughout the whole session. In hindsight, I did have a mind-altering experience in that I stayed awake, but in a meditative state which is an accomplishment for me, but I couldn't get over being so angry.

What frustrated me the most is that it was over something so small, tiny, and stupid. I visualized 100 times my wife climbing into my bed and giving me a hug being oblivious to the anger I had for her this night and me telling her in a nasty voice to go to hell. I went back and forth in my mind during the Holosync session whether to just drop the anger and the fight because it was over something so stupid, and I reasoned with myself that it wasn't worth the hurt to our relationship to get all worked up over something like this.

I awoke from the Holosync session (well, it ended and I lied there on the bed for a few moments feeling that my wife was still awake and was looking at me), folded up the earphones, and walked out of the room without looking back. I softly closed the door behind me and I wondered, "did she know I was so angry tonight? Did I hurt her tonight? Have I done damage to our relationship?" I visualized my daughter older coming up to me and asking, "Daddy, why did you leave us?" I couldn't imagine being a divorced father with just visitation rights and in my short hiatus into my mind, I abandoned my children thinking that a clean break would be better for them than a father that was not able to be a father to them. I cried inside my mind over my divorce and over the loss of my children. I then wanted to go back into the bedroom and kiss my wife, but I was still angry at her and I heard her snoring so I didn't want to wake her.

All in all, I really hope I don't damage my marriage or my relationship with all this emotion and anger, and I really pray that this difficult time pass and that we get a chance to be a family and that my wife and I get a chance to open up to each other (since I feel as if we've been estranged for some time), and all this extra pressure of having charges filed against me, having to defend myself against the NY Character & Fitness Board, and losing all of our unemployment and having absolutely no money come in -- well, I wish it would all go away and that I can be a successful attorney with a happy wife and a healthy home.

PS - To my new father friend also taking the bar exam (Matt), you shouldn't be spending your time reading this blog. It'll kill your time, it'll poison your mind, and it'll distract you from doing what you really should be doing instead of reading this... you should be either studying for the bar exam or doing kind acts for your wife and your children, not reading my warped misogynist thoughts.

Fuming, but really nobody's fault except my own for trying to study in my apartment with my wife and the kids screaming.

[I wrote this a few days ago but am only posting this now.] About five minutes ago, I was so angry that I could spit fire. Today is my first "crunch" day in studying for the bar. I loaded up my schedule to the brim giving myself tasks to do from 7am until 11pm -- things Barbri say I need to complete to be prepared for the bar. Since I'm one that believes in following the system to get predicted results, I almost passed out trying to keep up with the things I assigned to myself. I concluded that I couldn't finish everything, but I'll do my best and circle the tasks I didn't get to. As I get more efficient in the coming days, I'll pick up what I couldn't do today.

So my wife took the kids out to her parents all day -- this was wonderful in that she was making time for me to study and to stick to my new schedule. A few minutes before 7am, she kicked me out of bed and reminded me that I needed to get going and I did. From then until around 6:30pm, I was going full force. Then at 6:30pm, she came home and I was in the middle of my recorded lecture online.

Barbri has this funky thing that you're only allowed to listen to six make-up videos, and if you lose a connection or shut your window and listen to the same one again, that counts as if you've listened to another video, even though it's the same video your counter was already dinged for. I was listening on my broken laptop which can't be unplugged to move into another room or else it goes into hibernation mode and I lose my internet connection (and I get dinged again when I start the video back up). My wife knew I was scheduled tonight to listen to a makeup class video from 6pm - 9pm and I was under the impression that she would put the kids to bed at her parents house and watch the superbowl with them since they're all into that kind of stuff. Nope. 6:30pm she came home, and I was 1 hour into the video (I started early because I wanted to end early). I had to keep the video on pause (and I actually lost the connection costing me an extra makeup class ding) and I didn't get to return to the video until after 8:30pm when the kids finally fell asleep.

I was fuming mad, so mad that my face made angry grimaces and I couldn't control my fuming. I was so angry that my blood boiled, so much so that I am sure that I knocked at least a few months off of my life from the bodily damage I caused through the burning flames of my anger. I want to use a stronger word for flames, but I can't think of any -- plumes, flumes, fumes, whatever. Substitute it for flames in that last sentence and you'll get an idea of how angry I was. I am sure I even popped a few blood vessels in my face from being angry.

I won't go into how ironic it is that I'm able to hold back my anger even though at one point my right hand started shaking and I made a fist and let out a large breath of air that could have burned a hole in the wall eight feet across from me.

All in all, this is just one of the many experiences I had where my wife worked hard to accommodate my studying needs, but fell short which screwed me over because I lost some piece of studying that would have gotten done if she didn't interrupt me by coming home early or by some other distraction BUT WAIT! I don't fault her for this because she HAS been trying really hard to help me have time to study, and there are certain things that are simply out of her control. If she's at her parents and its getting late and the kids are screaming, she HAS TO COME HOME and if I'm there, tough luck on me.

The advice I give to other fathers taking the bar is... get as far away from your home as possible. When you are physically in your home, be 100% present, be at home, and don't think about or do any studying for the bar. If you need to study, pack up and leave for however many hours you need to study. It's not your wife's fault if you can't focus at home because she has no control over the kids, and if she's helping you out by watching them many hours a day to help you study, then she may physically not be able to go all the way to meet your study expectations.

The week before the bar, I'll be going alone to one of those cheapo hotels that have a bed, a desk, and internet access, and I'll be staying there until after the exam. It's a tough prospect to separate myself from my wife for that long, but really, I need the separation to focus and learn as much as I need to. Since my exam is at the Javits Center, I found a place right outside the city that is able to accommodate my needs.

James Ray, the Secret, and a waste of your time reading this.

Okay, how I'm doing personally. BTW, I think it sucks that Blogger took away my ability to post pictures in my blogs. Now there is just text which can lead to a visually unstimulating blog page. But who cares. My readership these days is near zero anyway.

I've been Zoe Strickman now online for almost 5 years now. I was wondering what would happen if from time to time I decided to take Zoe out for a ride in reality and start creating a character on the street with that name. You know, open a few accounts under that name, start doing business with this name, write a few books, etc. Of course, I would do this legally and I wouldn't break any laws, but then again, BYE BYE ANONYMITY. BTW, I wonder whether my wife would enjoy going on a date with Zoe rather than me. ;) Maybe I can form him into a character that is different from me -- dressing different, speaking differently, acting differently, etc. Wouldn't that be fun to sometime be Zoe and sometimes be me?

Okay, down to business... my personal life. I've been reading about how James Ray (apparently the author of the Secret and some wealth book I have in my bookshelf unread) was arrested for a few deaths and hospitalizations that occurred at his seminar. I have no opinion of him except that he's a self-help self-proclaimed guru, and he's no Anthony Robbins (who I still have a deep affection for, even though I haven't seen him in almost ten years now). There was a time that I wanted to be Tony. I acted like him, I thought like him, and I emulated him. Well, everything except his wrecked marriage and bubbly personality. Sorry, I'm too cynical for that. I wanted to BE him, and I have no doubt or regrets that I could have. Although, I have no confidence in myself and no believe that I would have succeeded, because in my eyes, I never succeed at anything. I do a lot, and I accomplish so much, but I never succeed at anything. Somewhere along the line I always hit some wall which stops me from reaping the benefits from what I sowed. That's an argument I have against G-d, and I can't believe he'd tell me, "well, if you davened and put tefilin on every day like I told you too and you guarded your thoughts you would have everything you set out to accomplish." BOLLUCKS. I did the religious thing with full devotion and with careful attention to detail and I still kept hitting the wall. I fought my yetzer hara and my evil inclinations. I prayed every day, put on tefillin, learned Torah and circled myself with truly religious people. But I never succeeded, and in truth, I broke my promise to G-d so I have nobody to blame except for myself.

I'm not going to defend myself. I still keep taharas hamishpacha, I still daven although certainly not regularly, I say every beracha and after beracha, I learn Torah each week (although not regularly), I keep kosher, Shabbat, and halacha (except the do not steal part). Maybe from a spiritual perspective I kill and murder too. I'm angry all the time and I'm sick in the head because it's a piece of cake for my imagination to feel as real as reality, but that's all between me and G-d. Nobody is ever harmed by me, I watch my tongue and my actions, I think kind thoughts, and that is the end of my explanation.

As for the bar, I'm a nervous wreck. So many topics to learn, so much to do, but not enough time to do it all. I could throw blame at my family for this, but really if I point a finger it should be at myself for not having the discipline to do more than I already have. Anyone who sees me, however, will think this is preposterous because I'm always studying. I could always be better, be more efficient, waste less time, and devote my energies more than I have. Then I'd be superhuman.

From a psychological perspective, I am daunted by the world I am sure I created around me. I feel as if my failures are from my own actions and are consequences of my habitual thoughts and if I changed my thoughts, my reality would change as well. I cannot and would never want to think away the people in my life (except the son-of-a-bitch who will get what is coming to him one day) because I feel as if my wife and children are my biggest accomplishments, and I should hope that I am my wife's biggest accomplishment. There is so much both right and wrong and I see my own responsibility for each negative and positive. I could have (and still can) make my life so much different; I could move our life in such a different direction than the horrible apparent poverty that we live in. It's just such an oxymoron that when I am working, I'm making close to 6 figures, and when I'm not, I'm making zero. My income last year was close to $60K which is very surprising considering that I was unemployed 6 months out of last year and am still unemployed to date (although now we're no longer receiving ANY income, not even unemployment, and we're digging into every penny saved just to pay the basic bills) and yet with ALL THIS, I have child number three due in just a few weeks.

My head is swirling in the fact that if things aren't tough as they are, we'll have one more set of diapers to always be buying; one more mouth to feed; one more beating heart to share our unending and limitless love with. I feel lucky that my wife and I are a team. Our family couldn't make it without her, or at the very least, I would have needed many many months ago to become someone very different from who I have become leading towards today.

Alright, I feel as if I have let you down because I don't think this post is very telling, insightful, or meaningful. I've probably repeated myself yet again to your boredom. I am sorry for letting you down.