Late night study habits always end in snooping through the forums ✌️ I love reading through these positive (read: Non-LSAT) discussions, and decided recently I feel like getting more 7Sage active because why not?

My name is Kelly and I was born and raised in Houston, TX by my two wonderful, NASA-nerd parents (my mom was a leading accountant in the contracting department until she retired early and decided to get her doctorate in Theology and my dad was the developer and head of the Virtual Reality lab and its training programs - will literally never not brag about them). I played golf in high school and loved/hated it. I wish I played more than I get to now, but I don’t miss competing!

I originally attended the University of Alabama for undergrad (RMFT always). After some issues with personal health and bouncing around majors, I am finally a [super] senior graduating this August with a BS in Sociology plus a minor in Spanish. My plan is to take the LSAT for the first (and hopefully Last) time this June and start studying PI Law in 2019.

I met my other half, Josh, at an Alabama-Texas A&M game while visiting one of my best friends who went to A&M. You know those stupid silly decorative signs that say “Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite”? Yeah, I definitely can’t say ours is beautiful, but it is 100% my favorite. We both grew up in the exact same area in Houston, but I went to a local private school and he went to one of the public schools. We had tons of mutual friends all throughout childhood and high school, including the best friend I was visiting at A&M for the football game, but we had never met until one night in College Station, ‘pre-gaming’ for our rival game, while I was being set up with a different guy by my friend. Needless to say the ‘blind date’ was not my type and I was hardcore distracted by this Aggie from almost literally down the street back home. And it was magical- especially when a few weeks later he dropped me straight into the ever-fabulous friend zone B) But I’m persistent af, so we’ll be celebrating our third wedding anniversary this coming October.

Currently, we live in Orlando, FL with our two fur-monsters- Ladybird the Australian Shepherd and Penelope the Miniature Goldendoodle. My hobbies include spending way too much time in theme parks and taking obnoxious roller coaster photos. I work in Guest Research at Walt Disney World, so majority of my park going also involves working- but I still love it! It always makes me chuckle a little when I see @ ‘s name because I work with a Divine and she’s... quite a character:

https://goo.gl/images/rEHsPh

TL;DR: I’m from Texas. I work at Disney World. My favorite movie is and always will be Secondhand Lions.

Sounds cliché, maybe, but I was always one of those kids who could talk their way into or out of anything (for example, let’s just say way more effort went into ‘arguing’ my way into a 3.8 high school gpa than went into any actual school work... I was a walking nightmare. Bless my parents&teachers). At the risk of sounding like a total brat, I really was used to getting my way or the highway in most circumstances. In the circumstances I couldn’t, I worked exceptionally hard at finding out how to in the future.

There has always seemed to be a lot of uncontrollable, call it ‘fateful’ if you will, pain and suffering concerning mental health in my family. My older brother is mentally disabled by a genetic disease that caused benign tumors to form in various organs- especially his brain- prior to birth. The mental, emotional, and social impairments that accompanied these tumors have always presented a great challenge for my family. While I was in high school, my mom experienced a completely random, inexplicable episode in the hallway of my school that resulted in a traumatic brain injury and a long-while‘ s stay in the ICU. Just 2 months after her accident, my mom’s closest friend, my ‘aunt’ by association, experienced a relapse in her long-survived battle with brain cancer, and passed away within a month of discovery. To finish all of it off, my older sister and I both faced exceedingly difficult battles with major clinical depression and general anxiety disorder that threw pretty massive wrenches in our relationship and family life.

After that pathetic dump of fate in my life, and realizing there was nothing I could do, no way to ‘talk my way out’ of having any of it be true or exist in the first place, I ambitiously decided I needed to go to medical school and figure out how to physically remove the problems myself. I won’t go into the mediocre-at-best details, but that obviously did not work out in my favor. I dropped out of school, took time off to get married, worked tirelessly to stabilize my health, and figured out what I did actually want to do with my life. It took legally changing my name to finally get that spark of inspiration I needed. It was a bizarre moment, but one I will never forget.

I was sitting in an abysmal Social Security office, quietly observing an older, mentally disabled man discuss his debt to the government for receiving emergency medical care outside of his approved Medicaid coverage. I watched helplessly as every word uttered from the clerk’s mouth slipped completely out of his handicapable understanding. It was when he pulled his tattered wallet from a torn grocery bag at his side and asked the clerk how much more cash he would need after the $6 he had in order to finish paying the $2000+ he owed that I completely lost it. I’m generally not a very emotional person, but here I was, in the middle of a crowded social security office, clutching my marriage license and name-change forms, weeping uncontrollably over what this poor man was enduring. My imagination ran rampant thinking about the same thing happening to my brother or any of our family friends- or anyone at all, really. It was right then I realized that while I may not be able to remove my perceived problems, I can and I will ‘talk my way’ or anyone else’s way into earning the help, care, and respect they deserve.

Much like @ Caint personal story, I can’t sit idly by while injustices are happening around me. One day, I have to be a major player- politically, legally, personally, whatever- in fixing the problems that can be fixed. Start praying (to whomever you please) now for my Law profs and future colleagues. ;)

P.S.- Sorry for the novel. I haven’t really shared that story with anyone besides my husband. I have been struggling lately with my motivation for continuing studying for June, and this presented a great outlet for me to remind myself why the heck I’m taking this crazy @$$ test in the first place. Thanks for starting this thread! It’s so encouraging reading about the motivations and similar interests of others. This community is so inspiring!

I could definitely use the accountability! This is such a good idea!