Sunday, December 27, 2009

Bet the ranch

I did not succeed at gathering all of my holiday gifts. Despite two days of going into stores and looking at merchandise I still couldn't find the perfect gift. A lot of that has to do with limited funding. If Bill Gates wanted to sponsor my holiday shopping then this could all go completely differently. A lot more holiday gifts would be for myself, and they would involve expensive cars and weekend getaways to Las Vegas in addition to the small knick-knacks and clothing that I've been ogling. The good news is that from my experiences the past few days, the economy seems to be picking up. There have been tons of people out shopping. Good for the U.S., bad for me (in the short run). Long lines, small children running into me, and an apparent Asian invasion (alliteration then rhyming - I win!) have made shopping less pleasurable than it might have been.

Rebecca's birthday is today, but facebook listed it as yesterday. Dozens of people wrote on her wall wishing her a happy birthday...yesterday. Whoops. Facebook has, sadly, replaced most of our knowledge regarding birthdays. There are maybe five to ten people whose birthday I am certain of without needing to consult facebook. Part of that is me being bad at remembering birthdays, but the far larger part of that is facebook governing my reality to a certain extent. And I am clearly not unique in this manner. Exhibit 1: Rebecca's wall yesterday on her non-birthday. In retrospect I wish I had posted the lyrics to "A Very Merry Unbirthday" (from Alice in Wonderland, the Disney version) on her wall as a warning to the perceptive on facebook. Or at least sung it to her mockingly yesterday. But alas, I did not. Instead I got tapas and sangria with her, Jessica, and Vanessa yesterday, which was pretty good also. And by pretty good I mean delicious and normally out of my price range. But I didn't even have to sell the ranch! I like that phrase. But I'm sort of glad I don't have a ranch because if I did I'm sure I would foolishly and needlessly put the deed on the table in the midst of some high stakes poker game which I stupidly sought out. Just to fit into a cliche. It would be awesome. Until my ranch was owned by the other guy from the saloon poker game and all I had to my name was a six shooter and a taste for revenge. Now I'm just mixing generic Western movie things together. But I like it that way.

This Nigerian guy tried to blow up an airplane. Thanks, jerk. Now there will be even more increased security. It's bad enough that I have to take my shoes off and tread through the metal detector barefoot every time I board a plane. I wonder what the next step is. But props to the other passengers and the crew who jumped on him. It's becoming quite perilous to pull some crap on an airplane. I'm glad everyone is on edge, ready to put you in a full nelson the minute they see you mixing suspicious liquids and powders. Or trying to light your shoes on fire, looking like an idiot.

Lady Gaga is very catchy. Make a note of that.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Dear Santa

Here it is: Christmas day. Despite having a chimney, I still received nothing from Santa. Why Santa? Oh, because I'm a heathen. I forgot. That's fine, you have little-to-nothing to do with Christianity anyways. We'll call it a draw. Christmas day basically means that I don't get presents, I don't have much to do, and I go out to dinner with my mom at a family friend's house. Eh, I'm fine with it. I'm more excited for tomorrow when everything that didn't get bought in the pre-Christmas present rush goes on sale. Yeah, tomorrow is my time to do gift shopping. There's no reason to abide by a strict December 25th deadline.

A couple of nights ago I went to see some comedy with Ron and Shaked. The highlight joke of the night was probably "Once I was the youngest baby in the world." And then later, "My son was the youngest baby in the world too. I think it runs in the family." That night was also absolutely freezing. Welcome back to Boston. I'm not complaining, I know it happens. But my feet were freezing the entire comedy show. It could have had something to do with the fact that we were in the attic of a Chinese food restaurant and it was about ten degrees outside. Yesterday was about 30; it was practically beach weather.

I think I need to buy long underwear or something. But the concept of it is so unappealing. Who wears it? I have no idea how prevalent it is. But I do have an idea that its weird, but warm. We may find ourselves at an impasse. Classic comfort vs. style problem.

I love driving, particularly after not having a car in DC. But I'm worried I've gone soft a little. Shaked commented to me that I've lost some edge to it. I'd like to blame it on me being tired (which I am and was), but I have a fear of losing my Bostonian driving abilities. It is something I pride myself on. I require that ability to sniff out weakness on the road, to exploit someone's momentary hesitation, to cut off a BMW because I know they are more afraid of damaging their car than I am of damaging mine. Man, I really want a car. Though preferably one that doesn't make crazy noises, take forever to heat up, and have no air conditioning this time, unlike my old car.

Dear Earth,
Can you please adjust your rotation so that the day includes daylight. If I could get to see more than 3 hours of natural light a day, that would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Sincerely,
My longitude and latitude

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Home again home again

I beat the snow out of DC by about 6 hours. They got dumped on apparently. Of course today Boston got some snow of its own. Not more than a foot though. Nothing us strong, accustomed New Englanders can't handle. DC-ers, however, are not as well prepared. I'm glad I didn't have to witness the mess that was our nation's capitol. In perfect conditions people have no clue how to drive there. It must have been a disaster of the utmost proportions.

Friday night I went to a holiday party courtesy of Shaked, where the most amusing part by far was a drunk girl's Sarah Palin impersonation. I then went out with Matt Francis and some other people who actually live in Boston full time. We went to this bar in Boston that was in fact three bars: an Irish bar, a bistro, and a speakeasy. It wasn't cool. My biggest problem was that the bar generally sucked. My second biggest problem was that the 'speakeasy' had a password to get in. They put the password on the internet, so you have to plan ahead or own a phone that gets internet access. That's not excluding too many people; it's not like that makes this an exclusive bar. Also the password was something dumb like "Jake and Elwood sent me." Wow, you have seen the movie "Blues Brothers." Yes, it's a good movie, but it is completely unrelated to this bar. The highlights of the night included not knowing the words to "Party in the USA" and the self-evident conclusion that Massachusetts is clearly superior to New Jersey.

Saturday night involved me, Nakul, and Brendan kicking it old school. And today, so far, has involved me shoveling and laying around. What I need is more sleep.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

YES

Contracts Final: Beasted.

Finals: Done.

Time: Beer-o-clock.

Mastercard: Priceless.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Scandinavia

Civil Procedure exam was today. Half essay question, half 35 multiple choice questions. With the essay I felt pretty good. With the multiple choice I felt like a defenseless Scandinavian village while the questions were Vikings. Before the test our Professor told us that the class average on his multiple choice was around 55% He gave us 10 practice multiple choice questions, with 4 answers each, to help prep for the exam. Everyone got at least 6 right, and all 10 were very do-able. So we all walked into the test thinking 55%, yeah right. Right before the test, my professor gave us a little pep talk of sorts in which he told us a story. When he was in his bar prep class the Criminal Procedure lecturer told the class that at some point on the bar they would find a multiple choice question that they had no idea what the answer was. At that point, the lecturer advised them, they should mark down an answer, pucker their lips, and say "Kiss my ass." My professor then told us that within fifteen minutes of beginning the multiple choice section during the actual bar exam someone in the back of the room blew a kiss and audibly said "Kiss my ass." My professor, after relating this story, imparted the "Kiss my ass" wisdom onto us. Around question 15 of 35 I had to restrain myself from following the example of the man sitting for the bar. The multiple choice questions on the exam had 5 (not 4) answers and were often next to impossible to pin down the right answer. I constantly found myself choosing between 2 and sometimes 3 answers which was the most likely. What a mess. While I certainly did not get 100%, I hope to have a chance at over 55% I didn't feel that badly about it. Plus the curve can always save me. The worst part was really comparing the actual questions to the practice ones, and to the (really easy) multiple choice questions from our Crim exam. Well at least that's over, though I can't just forget everything about civil procedure since it is one, important, and two, I have it again next semester (read: shoot me now). But no use worrying about it at the moment. One more exam to go. Contracts. I'm going to own you like I own a harpoon that was taken out of a bluefin tuna (really, I do).

I think I'm becoming lactose intolerant. And not in the same way I am Republican intolerant. Every time I eat a bowl of cereal my stomach winds up hurting. And I think it's more likely the milk than the Special K causing that. Shoot. It's not like I drink that much milk, but I do love my cereal. It's not bad enough that I can't put milk in my coffee or eat unhealthy amounts of cheese, but still this is a bad sign.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Tread Carefully

This morning I woke up motivated to work out. That motivation is unnatural and probably came from the amount of hors d'ourvs I ate the previous night at a holiday party. Everything was a puff pastry or melted cheese. Or both! I love baked brie. But it's not exactly like eating a salad. Melted cheese, why are you so good? So in the name of working off a few holiday calories, and because I hadn't gotten to work out for a couple of days before and likely will not tomorrow, I decided to go for a morning run. On the treadmill. In the basement of my building. It's not like I slogged three miles through the rain to the gym. But still, running in the morning, that's pretty good for a lazy guy. I'd say about 20% of the time I'm in the work out room someone else is in there. Maybe less frequently than that even. As luck would have it there was one woman in there on the bicycle. Fine, not a problem. I got on the treadmill and ran for a while. In the midst of my run I brushed the cord of my headphones. In slow motion I saw the cord ripple and begin to pull my iPod down. Still in slow-mo I reach to catch my iPod before it falls, but I'm not quite fast enough. Unfortunately, my mind was also going in slow-mo, and it didn't stop me from making a second grab at my iPod while completely forgetting that I was running on a damn treadmill. So my arms reach down, my feet stop running, and my body is hurled off the treadmill against the wall, still grasping for my iPod. I landed on my left elbow, which still hurts a little. The woman on the bicycle looked up to see me recovering on the floor. I quickly popped up and kept running, raising my iPod to show her what I had been going after. In the end I got my iPod back, but I left some dignity on the floor behind the treadmill.
I probably should have just stayed in bed.

That, unfortunately, was the most exciting part of my day. The rest of it was studying Civil Procedure and Contracts, and being cold. Also starting a scrabble game (on facebook) out with a seven letter word due to being handed two blanks in my opening hand. That was pretty sweet. Speaking of scrabble, Brendan played the word "pika" in a game. That's not a real word, I'm sorry. It's just not. You can tell me it's an animal in some obscure corner of the planet, but I'm not going for it. Anything from Pokemon is right out. Try putting "snorlax" out there as a seven letter word and I'll hit you.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Pizza Box

A couple of nights ago I was hungry. It was 11 already, so I didn't really want to do anything big. I pulled out a pan and was hunting through the fridge to see what I could make, when all of the sudden my roommate comes home holding a huge pizza box full of left over pizza. Score! Sometimes things just work out. Best timing ever. Today I had some pizza for dinner. And some soup. I just got a little hungry and went to forage for more pizza, when I discovered the box was empty. For the past seven hours I have been refrigerating an empty box. God knows it would go bad otherwise. I feel like a moron.

Criminal Law final went a lot better than expected. For everyone else too. Because we are graded on a curve this makes me nervous. Or nervioso, as they say en espanol. Good thing it wasn't a Spanish test. I would have failed that. That would suck if we all thought we were getting a Crim test, but they decided to replace it with a random subject from our past. Like biology. I'd fail that. I don't even remember what part of the 'factory' of the cell the mitochondria is. Or ribosomes. All I know is that my cells don't have cell walls. But prisoners' cells do. And there we are, back to criminal law.

Shaked made me remember just how much I hate Coldplay. They are awful. Thank God I don't live next to piano boy anymore. If you don't know, piano boy lived in the apartment next to ours last year, and I shared a wall with him. He apparently had a keyboard right against my wall which he used to play "Clocks" incessantly and at all times of day. I would be reading for my thesis and bam, I'd be listening to an awful rendition of Coldplay. I'd be watching television, and all of the sudden: Clocks. The worst was when I had not been sleeping AT ALL because of my thesis and I finally fell asleep, when all of the sudden the haunting melody of Coldplay came dancing through my wall. I literally punched a hole in the wall I was so angry. I have no regrets. I didn't even get charged for it for Res Life.

After the final I walked to the White House with a few people and saw the national Christmas tree. It was nice, actually. There are toy trains all around it, which spoke to the small child in me. There were also smaller trees all around for each state...and territory. Yup, Guam has a Christmas tree too. What an inclusive holiday. There was even a Santa house with elves outside. My assumption is that the elves are just White House interns who picked the short straw.

Happy Hanukkah! Hooray for minor holidays that have been commercialized and adapted to compete with other religions! But still, the miracle of light, that's a cool thing too. For reals.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Felonious Escape

It was another long study day. But a very rewarding one. I went into it having a shaky notion of the material on my exam, and I end the day having at least a decent grasp on the material. A noticeable improvement. I may yet get out of this class with a decent grade. The problem with Crim is there are so many damn rules to remember which vary between common law and the Model Penal Code (sounds funny, i know), and they vary jurisdictionally, and there are tons of minority approaches for the rules. Basically for each rule I want to know, there are at least two ways to do it, both of which I have to know. Huge pain. Also, the only crimes we really seemed to cover were larceny, burglary, rape, and homicide. I guess conspiracy, solicitation, and attempt also. But that's a pretty limited range of crimes, isn't it. Like if you get arrested for drug possession, I can't help you; I've got nothing. I thought this was supposed to be practical training here. Most helpful would be learning about drunk in public charges, for all you lushes. Also, for a while there I was working to get some guy out of jail who didn't commit the crime he's in there for. If I could learn something that might help in that regard, that could be good too. It's only his life on the line here, no big deal. And, to say the least, my old boss ain't getting the job done by herself. She needs all the help she can get (on this and in her life generally). That means me, Shaked, and Schutzer have to get ourselves some book-learning 'bout this. (Citation for the phrase "book-learning" goes to Mr. Ryan Fanning, as per his request.)

The nice thing about finals, particularly today, is that we are kind of all in it together (read: all completely screwed). It is completely different in law school than it was in college. Exhibit 1: I spent a crapload of time studying today. Exhibit 2: I'm not terribly confident about my grasp on it. Exhibit C: I am graded against my classmates rather than on my own merits. I don't mind the hard work, but it's Exhibit C that really gets me. I wish we could just be graded based on how we do, but alas it is not to be. So I've just gotta be better than other people. It can happen. Step up. "Step Up 2: The Streets." Brush some dirt off my shoulder. This will be resolved whenever I get my grades back, probably in February. Great. Lots of anticipa...........tion.

I wish more happened to me today, but really I spent the day moving from study group to study group, absorbing knowledge and losing my sanity. At least everyone is losing their sanity as well. Law school jokes are seeming funny. Like the irony involved if someone got hit on the head with a Torts casebook. NOT FUNNY. I know, I know. I'm done.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

BAMF of the day

BAMF of the day award goes to the NHL player who got hit by an SUV today, and then played his hockey game tonight. I think he wins.

The weather needs to figure it out. In the past like three days it's gone from 60's to snowing to sunny to hail/rain. I'm ok with the cold. I'm ok with the snow. But I want some consistency here. I'm actually more than ok with the snow. I was really happy when it snowed. Too bad it didn't stick to anything really and there certainly was not enough for some nice snowman building. But that's probably for the best because I don't have hot cocoa to come home to anyways. Also because building a snowman in no way helps me study for Torts, which is incredibly necessary.

Yup, first exam tomorrow. Let's do it. Nothing else is too exciting. I've mostly been studying. But I can spot a tort like nobody's business. I know that I've been studying too much when in one of my practice tests someone dies and I think it's a funny joke to try to find a cause of action for falsely imprisoning this guy...in Hell. Hahaha. The problem is, that isn't funny; I'm just losing my mind.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Half Day

I just got home from 12 hours at school. Most of it doing work even. Holy hell! Don't be too proud, I slacked before this, so I'm doing a little catch up. I still have to finish my Civ Pro outline, and, you know, do most of my Contracts one. And I still don't remember half of Criminal Law despite having outlined it, so I should probably do something about that too. Torts review session tomorrow morning. Woo woo!

Birthday was fun, though fairly low key. Nakul gets the furthest traveled award for coming from Baltimore, which was quite nice of him. I had a delicious dinner with a bunch of people which included good cheesecake and INCREDIBLE lamb. People at my own birthday dinner told me to shut up about how good the lamb was, that's how good it was. Ended up at the Big Hunt meeting Lindsay's boyfriend who may or may not be a secret agent. The jury is still out on that. But stories I've heard are weird. Also the fact that when Nakul met him and said "Oh, so you're the secret agent," he didn't say "No?" or "What the hell are you talking about?" I know it doesn't sound like much, but there are other things. Or maybe I just want to meet a secret agent and I'm only hoping here. This is for sure: he's not James Bond (because he's not British), and he's not Jason Bourne (because he's not Matt Damon).

I spent at least half an hour yesterday learning how to do cool emoticons on gchat. What a productive use of my time. But thanks to Jonah and Shaked, I am now an expert. Check it out sometime and I'll make a pile of poop emoticon for you. No joke. It's awesome. Like the best thing on the internet. Way to go Google!

Jason said Aaron Sorkin makes him want to do whatever Sorkin is writing about. Aaron Sorkin makes me want to just be a writer. How is he so talented at that? For serious, he's the man (potentially minus the drug addiction, nothing against drug addicts, there are a lot of cool ones, I just don't think it's for me). As pointed out last night, Aaron Sorkin is badass enough that he had Sting as a guest star and just used him in the background.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Sweaty Elevator Ride

I briefly got stuck on the elevator in my building today. I was coming up from the basement where I had been working out (the basement contains a small gym, I wasn't just running around the basement for kicks), and I got on the elevator with a man and a woman. We all pressed the button for our respective floors and the elevator started moving. Then it stopped moving. We all looked around. I paused my iPod. Then I realized this was going to be really bad if we were stuck. I'm dripping sweat, stuck in an enclosed space with two strangers who are not catching me at my best, smell-wise. The man tried hitting all the buttons again in panic. The woman looked like she was going to cry. Eventually she asked "What floor are we on?" The light panel indicated the first floor. So the man hit the Open Door button, and luckily the door opened. We all decided to take the stairs, but some other woman immediately walked onto the elevator we just abandoned. Good luck with that! We tried warning her, but to no avail. I don't think she spoke English. We did the best we could. So we were only 'trapped' in the elevator for about a minute total, but it could have been awful. I could have made sweat buddies/enemies.

Today was the last day of classes. Hooray! Now only 4 finals between me and break. Codename: a crapton of work. It's the kind of thing where it's hard to motivate yourself to get started because you know that the first few hours are going to make so little difference that it'll be like you didn't even put that time in. Well, at least I've sort of broken through that phase. All of my outlines are started. None are finished. First exam is in 6 days. Pressure? A little. But I'm trying really hard not to have more pressure than necessary. There's a right and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way was kindly demonstrated by a classmate of mine who asked me how far along I was in outlining, for comparison purposes of course. There is not an answer I could have given that wouldn't have stressed her out. Why even ask the question? Let's at least try to relax a little. The best part of today: no more Torts class again. Ever. No more Crim Law either. That's not as satisfying, but I'll take it for now. I am a little worried about my knowledge of Torts, however. We didn't get through everything we were supposed to. We rushed through proximate cause in about 15 minutes. Proximate cause is a pretty big deal, if you were wondering.

Why are players in the NBA allowed to travel so blatently? It's not as impressive to do a lay up if you took three and a half steps to prepare with the ball in your hands. I learned in gym class that wasn't allowed!

Last night I ate at a fancy-ish Chinese restaurant. Everything was cooked exactly the same way as a regular Chinese restaurant, full of delicous crap that will take years off your life. But what made this one so much better was that they actually used good quality meat. My General Gao's chicken looked like chicken when I bit into it. There was actual white meat. It was a novel concept. Or maybe that means there is something wrong with most Chinese restaurants.