Not Enough Sleep...

All I wanted to do after my exams was SLEEP. But life had other plans...

I was feeling worn-out at the end of my big day, but I couldn´t go to sleep. Too much adrenaline still in my body! So I went to bed way past midnight only to get up early the next day. I needed to go and register for unemployment. But it was okay, really. I didn´t feel too tired - yet. In the afternoon, a good friend of mine visited and we went to the park. We took a boat ride, watched some of the creatures that are living in the little zoo there, and finally got some rest at the chinese tea pavillion.
Next day, I wanted to sleep in. But I was up at eight a.m.! Because I could not fall back asleep, I got up and didn´t know what to do with myself. I didn´t feel so good, either. My IBS was back and I had bad tummy cramps. Also, I was feeling pretty tired, so I schlepped myself to the couch and watched tv until noon. When my boyfriend came back home from his course, we prettied ourselves up a bit and went to a house warming party. Friends of us have recently moved to a cute little village in the midst of the palatian vineyards. We enjoyed the party very much and filled our tummies with delicious food and new vine!
On sunday I was up early AGAIN! By now I was feeling tired to the bones. But it was such beautiful weather outside. As I was sitting in the living room, the windows wide open so I could smell the autumn air and better hear the churchbells of the nearby church chiming, I decided to wake up my sweety and go outside. We went to Weinheim by tram and had some lunch in the beautiful town center. Then went for a long walk through the woods and the vineyards, overlooking the rhine plain. On our way back in the tram, I could hardly keep my eyes open...

Some yummy grapes along our way

But yesterday I had to get up early, as I had an appointment with a man from the employment agency at eight in the morning! The perspectives for getting a job in any law-related field in Germany are pretty bad right now. I know a lot of people who are now looking for a job for over year and still haven´t found one. So it wasn´t a very uplifting talk I had with the agent. When at home again, after some grocery shopping, I decided to roll up my sleeves and scrub down the bathroom. I always get this urge to get everything cleaned up, when there is something new up my way and I´m still blocked and can´t start. Also, it seems to be a good way to beat the blues... So by the evening I was feeling way better! My boyfriend and I had decided that we would go out for dinner to celebrate my exams. And that we did! It was a really nice and relaxed evening with great carribean food and argentinian wine! I was feeling pretty drunk when we where on our way back *LOL*! So I slept very well tonight ;-))
...but...I WOKE UP AT EIGHT A.M. AGAIN!!! This time, because there was some kind of big nasty banging noise! Hey, I just want to sleep in ONCE!!! Oh, well. So I got up and went to the bathroom and decided to go back to bed afterwards and doze off...but then the hammering started...sooo I resigned. Maybe, I´ll just go for a nap today...

Legally Blonde...

That´s happy, exhausted me yesterday, returning home from a long day, before I ripped off my clothes and finally slipped into something more comfortable, more "me". And guess what I watched on tv yesterday evening? Legally Blonde!!! What a coincidence :-))) Ha, ha, ha...

Yay! I MADE IT!!! I passed!

I think the gods were on my side today! You cannot imagine how nervous I was today. I have never ever in my life felt this nervous in my life. Yet my head was totally clear! My intestines rebelled, I was feeling sick in my stomach, I was freezing like hell, I couldn´t breath right...and felt like I was near fainting when we arrived after an hours drive at the court where my exams took place. But I didn´t exactly panic. It was just my body. And there was nothing I could do about it. So I just tried to accept it and talk to myself in a reassuring way. I just wanted to get it over with.
I was lucky. I got to do my presentation first, which spared me the horrible waiting time. The presentation was about a subject that I knew very well. The minute I saw what it was about, I knew I could do it. So, I was going to show them! Ha! Suddenly, all my confidence came back. And I was frigheningly calm, hee, hee. I didn´t have my usual problems with timing...it went sooo well! I was finished preparing my presentation five minutes before my time was up! And I knew that it was good. So I went in there and showed them (four examiners - one for each subject). I was sooo relaxed, so concentrated. I don´t understand these stress reactions. Funny, ha? I was still very nervous about the next four subjects. Because we were only two candidates and each of us was questioned for about ten minutes per subject, the whole examinations were over by about 1 pm. Luck was on my side. The other candidate was asked all the questions that I could never have answered. And he very often did not understand what one of the examiners wanted to hear from him (their questions were not very precise). The examiner I was most afraid of asked his questions last. And what a jerk! He asked stuff he isn´t permitted to ask, a lot of questions that had nothing to do with law at all! He didn´t give us time to look things up (which we are allowed to do, as we don´t have case law). Oh, well. It doesn´t matter anymore. Who cares! I got it over with! Plus, I even moved up one grade (mostly due to the good presentation, which counts double)!
Thanks to all of you, who have so dearly supported me! It helped me tremendously in keeping my sanity these last days! I wish I could go and party with you!!! Wouldn´t that be fun? Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! And now I´ll start my new life!!! Yoohooh!

One day to go...

I´m still very, very nervous. Maybe, I´m still trying to stuff too much studying into my days... Yesterday, for most of the day, I felt way better though. Despite the fact that I didn´t get much sleep. The last two nights I woke up very, very early and lay awake for what seemed like hours, having thoughts racing through my brain of what the examiners might ask me and I wouldn´t know... I tried to calm myself down and it worked better yesterday than it did today.
After reading the records of past examinations by my examiners, I fear one of the examiners most. He is totally unpredictable and sometimes asks only things that are actually not part of what the examination regulations intend him to ask, and are usually questions only in the first state exams. Sometimes he asked only questions on the history of constitutional law, which I did know when I started studying at university, but have long forgotten. Because I did not know the names of my examiners until about a week ago, I had no chance of preparing for a case like this. There is no way I could review this stuff. From what I heard he is an old man who likes to brag with his own vast knowledge... He is from a generation of judges who studied in times where they had to learn about half of what we have to do today and had a lot more time for it. I wonder if he really was as good in his times as he likes to project these days. Today, you can only become a judge in Germany if you have outstanding grades. In his time, everyone who passed the second state exam could become a judge... Of course these thoughts won´t really help me. Except maybe with not letting him intimidate me too much.
Oh, well. I wish it was already over.

Three days to go...

...and I´m a nervous wreck. I´m really doing my best to revise and not overdo it. But I have never been this afraid of any testing situation before.
I think it has to do with this being my last chance and because I´m scared of not finding a job if I fail at these exams. Or maybe it´s more like being scared of being labeled as a looser. Yes. I´m scared that people will look down on me or worse yet, turn away from me, if I screw up. Even though I know that for me this exam is not really sooo important, in the face of what other people might think of me, my own opinions don´t seem to matter at all. Even all other plans of mine feel like a fraud. I feel like "I have to pass this exam or else I´m worthless sh.t". It´s like my world´s going to crash if I´m not able to make it.
And I know that that cannot be true. I know I would survive. I know that it would not be easy, but that I´ll get over it eventually. So why am I still so scared?
I grew up surrounded by a large family of people (of course there were some exceptions) who only accepted and respected people for the great things they did, the respectable jobs they held, the kind of family they came from, how well people conformed... Everyone who didn´t have anything to brag about was more or less overlooked. I never seemed to fit in or be good enough in their eyes. Which has been especially tough, because family was preached to be the highest value in my life. So I always felt obliged to at least try to fit in and be accepted. But it was hopeless.
All my life I tried to give my all to becoming someone I am not. And although I have gotten over most of this these last years, I always fall back into this kind of thinking when I am under stress or in a situation where other people have to judge me. Even this blog thing triggered these fears at first.
It´s still really tough for me to stand up to myself, telling me that I have the right to not be like people expect me to be . That I have the right even to have these stupid fears.
Still, I wonder why these fears have not been this strong at all, when I waited for the results of my written exams. I think, it might have something to do with other people´s expectations, too. Before, no one expected me to have passed the written exams. But now, everybody is telling me that noone ever failed at the oral exams. That they won´t let people screw up at these... So what , if this is not true for me? What if I do fail at something that everybody tells me is doable? I´m really not all that well prepared.

Studio Friday: Creative Nap

As I´m pretty much forced to take a break from my creative doings...this is where I take my creative nap these days. It´s my bed sofa in the living room. Now that my boyfriend is gone all day (he is taking preparation classes for his tax consulting exams), I can sit here without disturbing him (he has his desk in the living room). I can´t sit at a desk all the time, because it gives me bad back aches.

It´s getting serious...

I just got the letter with the date for my oral exams. It´s the 22nd of september! Only 12 days! Now, I´m really, really nervous! Scared, to tell the truth. I know that the chances of passing this hurdle are way higher than those of failing, but still! Although I did study a little bit over the summer, I still got the feeling that I hardly know anything of importance. I keep forgetting so much. And it will be far more embarassing to not know the answers in an oral exam. The written exams were at least anonymous...Oh, please wish me luck!

Ssshh!

I´m working on a secret project! I can´t tell you more about it now... Other than that, I´m not a very entertaining person these days. I spend most of the time in a grumpy mood, sitting on my bed and trying to stuff my head with boring details of German law... Blah ! So forgive me, if I´m not posting too much these days. It will all be over in october! Then I will reveal my secret project to you all, too (if I can wait that long, hee, hee)! So stay tuned!

Studio Friday: Favorite Tool

Sorry for the bad picture... these are some of my favorite tools. I´ll start in the lower left corner and work myself clockwise around the picture. So, first of all there are my colored pencils (Polychromos from Faber-Castell) and some Pencils my grandfather used to draw with, although seemingly not too often (as far as I know, he preferred drawing with felt tipped pens). The Polychromos are so great! I love their relative softness, as it´s easier to blend colors than with normal colored pencils. In the top of the wooden box are my favorite Faber-Castell Pencils, a Faber-Castell drop-lead pencil for sketching (my favorite sketching tool!), Staedtler Pigment liners (because I can go over them with water colors), some Pitt Artist Pens that I don´t use often enough, also from Faber-Castell (no! I´m not getting paid by them!), and a Fountain Pen. At the top, there are my favorite inks from Winsor and Newton, some Schmincke masking fluid, a tin box with my putty erasor, my favorite palette and my Winsor and Newton field box. The latter I bought a few years back, when I was visiting my aunt´s family in London. I had never seen something like that box before, so I scratched up all my money to buy it! Below, are my Jaxell pastels. I would never have tried drawing with pastels, had it not been for my drawing teacher at the local evening academy. She is convinced that it is a good idea to start drawing with pastels, as you will get great results much faster than by drawing with pencils. And she always says that you need to experience success while learning to draw, because otherwise you´ll be discouraged and give up too soon. I think she´s quite right about this! Still, I don´t like to use the pastels when drawing at home, because of all the colorful dust it produces! In the middle you can see my paintbrushes. They are all by Da Vinci. I originally used the acrylic ones for painting with water colors, but now I only use them for my acrylic paintings. For water colors I now use mostly sable paint brushes, which I collected over the last few month, as I find they are quite expensive. But it´s worth buying a few, if you are really into painting with watercolors!