a whole lot of things thrown together

I know that this is an old and oft-asked question, but WHY ARE WE FORCED TO USE THE HORRIBLE, QUASI-FUNCTIONAL DISASTER THAT IS MICROSOFT WORD? Why, why, why must it continually attempt to BADLY, WRONGLY guess what bullets and numbers I want to use? Why must it change PREVIOUS bullets and numbers when I try to make a NEW list? Why must it refuse to allow me to delete the aforementioned BAD, WRONG guesses it has made? How did Microsoft make it to the top of the software heap, anyway?

Why must I overuse ALLCAPS in order to express my frustration? A strategic, carefully placed ALLCAPS is helpful for expressing oneself. Too much of it just gets annoying. Like abbreviations do. I use π and Δ for plaintiff and defendant when I take notes in the legal world, but I refuse most other abbreviations. Even L and T for landlord and tenant starts to annoy me. ROTFLMFHDLKSJSDF? I will have none of that. Write it out, people. I do not maximize my text or instant messaging space very well. I cannot bring myself to use “u” or “tnx.” I don’t mind when other people do, but I cannot physically bring myself to type out those letters. (I do, however, find “g’night” to be much more fun on instant messaging than “good night.” It’s kind of like “G’day, mate!” but of my very own invention.)

You didn’t need to know all of that. Your life was probably not made better by knowing of my annoyance with abbreviations in modern communication.

(Lack of segue)

Three and a half years ago, when I started law school, I developed a lot of back pain. It really started to alarm me, to the point where I went to the doctor to make sure it wasn’t my kidneys or something, and the doctor poked around and said, “Nope, it’s your back muscles. Would you like some muscle relaxants?” and I said, “No, thanks. As long as it’s not causing permanent problems, I’ll just deal.” (Then I went back to the law school and spoke to a friend who shall remain nameless, who said, “Why didn’t you take the muscle relaxants? You could have given them to me! And why don’t doctors ask me if I want muscle relaxants when I go in with back pain?” To which I can only say that the doctors must be pretty good at ferreting out the people who want the drugs, and only offer them to the people who won’t want them, or who will only use them when they absolutely have to use them, rather than for recreational purposes.)

There is a point to this.

It turns out that studying is bad for you! The back pain is back! I somehow managed to avoid it through my second and third years of law school, which should tell you one thing: I wasn’t studying much those years. (In my defense, studying during the second and third years of law school is very different than the first year and what I’m doing now – 2 and 3L years involve far fewer very large books that must be laid flat on tables and hunched over. Also far fewer needs for typing up outlines.)

So my back hurts again, and I went to the drugstore and bought a heating pad yesterday, because what could be nicer at the end of the day than a nice warm heating pad on the back pain? I finished my studying et al. yesterday and got ready for bed and plugged in the heating pad, prepared for some pain relief, only to find, well, that the heating pad didn’t work. Serious, serious frustration. Fortunately, I exchanged it for a new one today, which will hopefully be soothing my back in just a few hours. Two of them in a row can’t be defective, can they? I really hope not.