my name is laura and i am 23 years old.

i'm a recent nyu graduate (may 2004). i majored in english. i'm very picky about grammar and spelling, but i don't care much about capitalization. as you can see.

i'm also a recent law school dropout. dropout is a strong word. technically, i'm a law school leave-of-absence-taker. but that doesn't have as nice of a sound. so. i spent fall of 2004 as a 1L at emory universtiy school of law in atlanta, georgia. i could tell you i hated it, but that doesn't even begin to cover why i left. being there made me realize that i really don't want to be a lawyer at all. much of the work was soul-suckingly, mind-numbingly dull, and the people reminded me of why i hated where i went to high school. the idea of wearing suits to the office every 10-hour workday, and sharing the hallways with those literal-minded, "work-hard-play-hard" mentalitied, not-a-creative-or-insightful-bone-in-their-bodies-having buffoons was enough to send me careening on various downward spirals that all lead to the same conclusion: i had to get out of there.

so i did!

now what, you ask? now what is what i asked, too. a college degree sure isn't as valuable as it used to be. but i'm going to try using mine anyway. as of january 10th, i'm living in new york again, with two of my best friends, lisa and mike. what do i do for a living? i don't know yet. i do know that i don't want the kind of career that defines a life. i just want a job to pay rent. i already have a career, sort of, that runs my life: writing.

another reason i left law school is that i felt i owed it to myself to try the writing thing before i resorted to plan b, which is what law school was for me. i decided i wanted to spend a few years really concentrating on my writing--quality and quantity--and seeing if i could make that a viable career. we'll see, i guess.

writing fiction & poetry and making websites are the only things that i both enjoy and do well.

here are some activities i like to do, but do mediocrely: sing, play guitar, paint, dye other people's hair.

here are some activities in which i excel, but loathe: arguing, speed reading, cleaning bathrooms.

really.