WASHINGTON AP – She likes to eat pig intestines and watch “Law & Order.” She felt like an alien in the Ivy League. She reads fictional courtroom dramas and hands down imaginary rulings on the lawyers’ objections therein.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s self-portrait, revealed in scores of speeches and writings released Thursday, portrays a “daughter of the Bronx” who rose from a lower middle-class background to the academic and legal elite – but felt panicked on the cusp of each step up.