It’s here, you guys. The first installment of answered questions from last week’s “Ask Matthew” post. I tried to get him to do a vlog, but we’re not quite there yet. I will continue to nag attempt to convince him to do one for some of the rest of the questions!
This was a very interesting exercise, and I loved reading his answers! FYI, some of the law school answers are pretty lengthy, but of course you don’t have to read those unless you’re interested. Also FYI, I inserted a few comments in red here and there. :) And now, over to Matthew!
Emergency Preparedness
Q: Let’s say zombies DO take over the world, and let’s say one of the zombies confronts you with your emergency preparedness bag and says he will spare your life (and Jenni’s), but you are only allowed to bring ONE item from your bag: which will it be and why?!
A: Please, you don’t think I haven’t prepared for this exact situation do you? This would never happen; I have more than one emergency bag placed in strategic locations. Corporations call it redundancy and spend millions trying to get rid of it; I call it survival insurance.
Q: Please give us a true 1st person testimony of your so called view on the Zombie Apocalypse that Jenni has told us about.
A: I didn’t actually think zombies were going to take over the world until I saw “I am Legend” and was like “oh shit…that could actually happen!” With all the cloning and gene testing crap that we don’t even know about, I definitely think one of those lab experiments gone wrong could escape and try to populate the world through cross breeding.
In reality, it’s just good to have stuff on hand. We live in the most powerful country in the world and our own government couldn’t (or just didn’t) make it to the victims of Katrina for 3 days. If you remember, some people were forced to loot from grocery stores, broke into people’s homes, and at a time when one would hope the community would come together, hysteria set in and women were raped, a few people were murdered, and people went without food and water for almost a week. That will not happen at my house…you try to break in or touch my wife, you’re gonna get a bullet in your ass (awww… that’s sweet?).
Q: We are pretty stocked up in our emergency/disaster preparedness kit… but what, in your opinion, is the most important item to have on hand?
A: There isn’t one specific item…it’s like saying what kid you love the most (maybe some of you can say that, I don’t know). If I could choose only two things it would be food and water to last at least 7 days. Get this: the average American household has less than a 2 day supply of food and water on hand. If you have nothing right now, you should at least buy a 72 hour preparedness kit and supplement it with extra canned food and water to get you to last a week. Also, add something that can give you something to do. Boredom is one of the greatest things overlooked in an emergency. For example, I put a pack of playing cards and a card game pamphlet in every one of my bags.
Love/Relationship/Jenni
Q: How do we find a find a romantic guy like you who will propose so quickly?
A: Russia. Definitely Russia. Mail order husband is the next wave; I suggest investing in it.
I think sometimes it just works out that way. I wasn’t planning on proposing so soon, it just happened to work out that way and felt right when I was doing it.
Q: When I read your love story, it said that your parents talked about you and Jenni meeting. I assume they talked to you about it too, so I’d love to know, what was it that they used to say to you about Jenni?
A: My Mom told me about Jenni for two years before I met her. My Mom would always say that she just knew I would fall in love with her. She would always talk about how beautiful she was, how gorgeous her eyes were, how she could tell that Jenni carried herself well, was educated, and the perfect girl for me (aww, shucks…).
Q: When did you know know Jenni was “the one?”
A: It didn’t take a full second for me to fall in love with her…the first time I saw her I knew she would be my wife (he has stuck to this story since the beginning).
Q: What are Jenni’s quirks? (for example, I tend to have OCD when cooking/cleaning, I sing sentences, like to snuggle my feet under his butt because I hate socks…)
A: Jenni thinks she’s the animal whisperer and can actually speak dog. (not thinks… KNOWS.) She’s constantly talking for Gracie and Cooper…notice I said “for” and not “to.” What’s crazy is that if you spend enough time with Jenni, you’ll find yourself actually having “conversations” with our dogs. Jenni will talk in her dog voice and a few minutes will go by before you realize that you’re not actually talking to a dog. It’s now transferring to other dogs; dogs we see when driving around, at the store, or wherever…..it’s getting bad, I think I need to stage an intervention.
Q: What are Jenni’s best and worst domestic attributes?
A: This is dangerous territory.
I’m like a wolf that use to hunt for my food, but has been brought indoors and forgot how to feed myself. So, if I want to avoid cereal and Top Ramen every night for dinner, I must be very cautious. So, she can’t bake to save her life…seriously…it’s bad. I don’t know how or why, but she’s got serious issues with yeast. She does a great job decorating and has made our house feel like a home; she’s done a beautiful job. If it were up to me, we’d have animal heads in every room, including the bathrooms. So I guess it’s good she has an eye for design and decorating.
Law School
Q: What type of law do you like best so far and why? Can you please say environmental so I can compare you to Marshall on How I Met Your Mother?!
A: I love that show! No, not environmental law. I definitely care about our environment, but also think people take it way too far. I say drill away and put American families back to work. Law is hard to explain unless you’re studying it too. You quickly learn that just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right and just because it’s legal doesn’t make it fair. The law is all about preventing an injustice of one party and sometimes creates an injustice for someone else by trying to prevent the original one.
Q: Is law school as hard/easier/harder than you expected?
A: Way harder…like brutally harder. I met with quite a few recently graduated attorneys who unanimously said that it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I kind of shrugged it off because I know what it means to go to work. I built my life insurance practice from scratch, put in consistent 80 hour weeks, and became the youngest associate partner of my firm. It’s harder than I thought because law school is unlike any other academic environment I had been exposed to. For one, everyone is smart…everyone. Just being accepted into law school is no easy feat. Law school is nothing like undergraduate courses. In undergrad you can just memorize class notes, regurgitate them onto the exam, and get a good grade; you do that in law school you’ll fail out. The amount of material covered is almost insurmountable….I have a much better understanding of why post office people go crazy because right when you’re caught up, you have just as much to get through the day after (sounds EXACTLY like my email inbox). You have about 3 hours of class prep for each hour of class; that comes out to roughly 54 hours of case work in addition to the 18 hours of actual in class time. The other thing that I didn’t expect was how much we would cover in a single semester. Law students will cover an entire 700 page case book in a single semester and have an 80 page outline to memorize before going into a final exam. Oh yeah, the other thing that surprised me is that there isn’t a single graded assignment and no midterms; you get one shot to make your grade and that’s the 4 hour final.
Q: How long, roughly, did you study for the LSAT test? Any tips?
A: I can’t remember how much time, but it was pretty extensive. The LSAT itself is about as indicative of your law school success as that ferret thing that predicts how long winter will last (it’s a groundhog, babe). I took an LSAT prep course in October and took the December LSAT (if you’re in Austin email my wife and I’ll give you the name of the best LSAT instructor in the state). I studied about 6 hours a day M-F and must have taken 35 practice exams. I had to do well because my undergraduate performance wasn’t that great. I wish I had done better, but it was good enough to make up for my comparatively low GPA. Law schools are inundated with applications because the economy sucks and everyone is going back to school. They’re being very selective, so if you’re thinking of going to law school, take the LSAT seriously. Tips? Take a prep course, learn logic games like your life depended on it, and don’t go to public places or eat out the week before the exam to prevent getting sick. The biggest thing to prepare for is your stamina; take enough practice exams from start to finish to get used to how long and demanding the exam really is. A lot of people will short change themselves by taking half of a practice exam and then reach burnout on the actual exam way before they’re done.
Q: What type of law are you interested in studying?
A: Securities, insurance, and financial services law.
Miscellaneous
Q: I’ve seen you like hunting. How did you get started? Is it like a family tradition? Has this caused trouble in your relationships with people who might be against it?
A: I grew up hunting. I think people just do things that their parents do. If my dad was into football, I’d probably be into football. I could care less about football. Sports are boring to me unless I’m playing them. Hunting can sometimes be a sensitive subject with people who are against it. I ask them why and they usually respond with some uneducated statement like “I could never hurt an innocent creature” and I take a quick look at them and see their leather purse, leather belt, leather shoes, ask them if they eat meat, etc. and they quickly realize how many animal products they are using. I will often then reply that I think it’s more ethical and humane to be the one doing it versus letting some else do it for you. What most people don’t realize is that the hunting industry is necessary to keep animal populations in healthy control and adds billions of dollars or revenue and hundreds of thousands of jobs to our economy. (I’m definitely still not a fan of hunting for sport, but it came with the package (i.e. my husband) so I have learned to accept it to an extent. The animals we have in our home are beautiful and I have actually grown fond of them.)
Q: When are you guys gonna make some babies?!
A: Ummmmm…..not so much. Jenni really wants kids, and I’m torn on it. I don’t want to deprive her of it, but I am so far from being ready that it hasn’t even reached my radar yet. I always say if they can pop out at 4 years old, potty trained, talking, and can help pay the mortgage then I’ll consider it (I think in order to have a child any time soon, it’s going to have to be an “accident”).
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THANKS MATTHEW!!! Hopefully I can get him back to answer the rest of your questions. :) Happy Monday!
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