R.I.P. J.D.

J.D. Salinger died today. "Catcher in the Rye" is my favorite book, as cliche as that might be. Though I might not want to be friends with him, I love Holden Caulfield. The book's themes of youth and alienation really spoke to me when I first read it (seventh grade, I believe), as well as in subsequent readings. I also love "Nine Stories," particularly "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "For Esme With Love and Squalor." Salinger was a master wordsmith, and had a great intuition for human nature. By and large, he was not a sappy or obvious writer. I still have absolutely no idea what to make of "Bananafish." But I like that. It means you can take many things away from it. His writing is multifaceted, full of new things to notice and identify with. Also, it is weird that I mentioned that I love J.D. Salinger in my post last night. I'll chalk that up to being plain creepy. One thing's for sure. Salinger wasn't a phony. (Obvious joke.)

That was sad. Also, Howard Zinn died. Somehow "People's History" didn't have the same emotional appeal. The characters weren't as full. Still, it was a good book, and he was an influential man.

Who is the third going to be?

I watched the finals of a really prestigious moot court competition at school today. It was about free exercise and religious school being converted into charter schools. Interesting stuff actually. But the competition was judged by...real judges. Big time ones too. Two judges from the Ninth Circuit and one from the Second. They weren't messing around. If I were one of the competitors I might have had a nervous breakdown on stage or lost all bowel control. Things would have been bad. But everyone kept their composure and did a good job. Apparently a few years ago the panel was then-Judge Sotomayor, Judge Calabresi, and Justice Scalia. I would have just dropped dead, were I competing. Good thing I'm not! Suckers! No pressure on me. If that isn't motivation not to compete in moot court, I don't know what is. That's just stress I don't need at this juncture in my life. I don't need a premature heart attack. Though there is a large amount of prestige associated with it too. Hrmmm. I like it when people know how awesome I am. (Thus this blog, to some extent.) Conundrum.

He Shall, From Time to Time, Eat Cookies?

State of the Union was tonight. It left me with mixed feelings. I definitely do not support everything that President Obama said. He threw a lot of bones to conservatives on jobs, the economy, taxes, nuclear energy, and offshore drilling. At the same time he talked about clean energy, green jobs, education, health care reform, and, incredibly, Don't Ask Don't Tell. Some of those things might now play so well with most conservatives. He also probably offended a few professions (bankers and lobbyists come to mind...also terrorists). He additionally reminded Congress that they have to do some governing once in a while. Democrats, you still have 59 seats. There is no excuse for not legislating, even if you have to make politically risky decisions once in a while. Republicans, you can't just be obstructionists and score cheap political points; that's not why you were elected to Congress. I like that stuff. Also, if there's one thing in contemporary politics you can count on it is the Obama speech writing staff. They are fantastic. And Vice-President Biden being goofy on camera. I thought at one point he was going to lose it laughing in the background.

There are not enough hours in the day. Between eating, sleeping, procrastinating, watching the State of the Union, working, going to class, procrastinating, playing facebook scrabble, and eating more, I just don't have time to do everything. But apparently I have time to update my blog. Curious.

I was in a talk today (about the client counseling competition I'm doing this weekend) and everyone around me was coughing every 2 seconds. It drove me absolutely nuts. I was trying to pay attention to some guy in a suit talking about something (you can tell that it really got through to me), and all I can focus on is the germs everyone is spreading and, more importantly, the disruption everyone is causing. I mean, I know yawning is contagious, but coughing? Seriously guys, you can control it. Lock it up. And I seriously doubt that 15 people in a room of 30 have colds or illnesses that truly necessitate that degree of coughing.

Next week for LRW we have 5 minute oral arguments. They are ungraded. I am seriously considering doing my oral argument in a JFK accent. First, it would be amusing to me. Second, it could be amusing to others. Third, it would probably piss of my professor. And fourth (actually what gave me the idea), the accent is a lot slower, giving me a lot more time to think before I speak. "Your honor, ask not what my client can do for you, ask instead what you can do for my client. You can grant her motion to suppress evidence, to begin with..." Better than trying to do it in a Russian accent!

A very merry unbirthday to you. Except you, Caitlin. You don't get an unbirthday today.

I sent in another application today! To Attorney General Martha Coakley. She's probably in a really good mood these days and totally wants to hire me as an intern for the summer. At least that's what I'm hoping. Someone suggested I go work for Scott Brown this summer since he doesn't have interns yet. I think I laughed in their face. The little 'R' next to his name is a likely problem for me. As are many of his views. Here's one that I have a problem with: making women pay for their own rape kits. Not cool, man.

Sorry about the bottom of this one

Today brought more people complaining about how they have to use their brains in Con Law. I am not impressed. Though I am impressed with the inventiveness of Congress to use the Interstate Commerce Clause to justify enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, if not extremely persuaded by their argument. Seems like a 14th Amendment issue. But that only applies to states, not private businesses. Oh, right. There's a possibility that the Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional. Uh oh. Alright, I'm not actually that concerned. I don't think it's going anywhere. It's not like the Supreme Court has made any huge decisions recently that have been exactly wrong. Oh wait.

Speaking of the Citizens United decision, it was pointed out to me today that foreign businesses and even foreign government can now fund elections. That just doesn't seem like a) a good idea, or b) covered by the First Amendment.

I spent 11 hours at school today, and it's not finals. That's a bad sign. Luckily I got a lot done. But not enough. Still have a lot of my motion brief for LRW. Still have to send out applications until I get a job. Still have to solve the Middle East Conflict. One of those things was actually beyond the scope of what I need to do. No hints as to which one.

I am applying for a job with the New York Mets (in the legal department, though the way their team is shaping up they might have an opening for me in right field). That would be a baller job for the summer. "What did you do over the summer?" "I sat around a judge's chambers and was his whipping boy for 40 hours a week. But I improved my writing skills! How about you?" "Oh, just kicked it around Citi Field with the New York Mets." Writing skills vs. baseball. Baseball clearly wins every time. Though judging by this blog, maybe I could stand to improve my writing skills...damn my inarticulateness-ism-ed-ing-more suffixes.

As long as I'm being nerdy, I don't mind sharing that I am reading a book about important American Cold War era diplomats, and Dean Acheson is the man! Wow. That actually couldn't be nerdier. Unless I wrote a fantasy piece about Dean Acheson applying his experiences in the State Department to negotiate a secret treaty between Mordor and Gondor so that together they could rule Middle Earth. No. I'm totally done. Wow. That was too far. I'm actually tempted to delete this paragraph. But I'm not doing it because I love stream of conscious writing. It has something to do with my love of J.D. Salinger. It's complicated. Don't ask. Don't judge me. aaaaaaand scene.

Biggest Flaw

On a job interview (which I wish I had), I hate the question "What is your biggest flaw?" So far the best answer I've been able to come up with is, "My biggest flaw is that I'm not good at identifying flaws in myself." I wonder how an interviewer would react to that. Probably not well. Unless they were awesome, had a sense of humor, and realized that they asked me a dumb question. Really, what are they hoping to get out of that question? Are they looking for humility? I have no idea.

G-Day, the day where we storm the beaches of Normandy and receive our grades, went over pretty well. Of course I still am missing 2 of my 5 grades. My Criminal Law professor I can sort of understand. He had two sections of students, so over 150 total. That could take a while. My Torts professor, however, (yes, the infamous Torts professor) is still losing points in my book for once again demonstrating just how much he doesn't care about his students. Torts was my small section. It was a class of 35. It was also the exam we took first, so he had that much extra time. Dude, you get paid to be a professor and to grade our exams. Just do it. Get it over with. Give us our grades back so when we send in transcripts to potential employers we don't have to explain why we don't have all of our grades back. I have to do that. I'm holding out a couple more days on printing out my transcript, on the off-chance that we actually get the grade. Until the bitter end!

I got cold-called today in Civil Procedure. And Friday in Contracts. And Wednesday in Constitutional Law. So within 4 days of classes I got cold-called in 3 of 4 possible classes. Conspiracy? Luck? Anti-luck? Who knows. But I don't have to read carefully in any of those classes for a while! That's not to say that I won't read carefully. Just saying I could slack off if I were so inclined.

Lots of people are complaining about Con Law. **Begin whining here** There aren't clear rules for the professor to just tell them. It seems so argumentative and subjective. The Constitution isn't clear. Some of the cases are old and not written in contemporary English. My stomach hurts. John Marshall is a poopface. **End whining here**
Their biggest gripe is basically that they have to think about the issues for themselves and can't simply memorize a list or rules. How terrible. I love it! This is why I went to law school. I get to think about both sides, form an opinion, and find reasons to back it up (and yell at everyone who disagrees because they are clearly wrong). It's fantastic. So much better when there isn't a rule which is the end-all answer. Come up with your own argument and think things through. Don't strain yourself by working too hard, griping classmates.

Fun Fact

Also, yesterday I was listening to the Clash, and I realized something. The song "Paper Planes" by MIA samples (heavily) the song "Straight to Hell" by The Clash on their album Combat Rock. The first 20 seconds. Listen to it. For serious. Wikipedia apparently knew about this. But I didn't. I discovered it for myself. Fun fact.

1 Company, 1 Vote

Thank you, Supreme Court, for ruling McCain-Feingold unconstitutional. I know that corporate sponsored candidates are exactly what our founding fathers had in mind when they were drafting the ol' First Amendment. After all the text does protect freedom to buy elections. Wait, what's that? It just says freedom of speech? And money isn't speech? Get outta here. My money talks to me all the time. It says things like "Bet on the Texans to win the Superbowl," and "Eat twelve pounds of fertilizer." Stupid crap like that. So why would I want to listen to it? But money isn't the same thing as speech. Money is a medium through which we can purchase commodities and services. Like elections. Sweet. That's how we can further disenfranchise the people who are already at the bottom of society. Because what we really need is our leaders to be looking out for corporate interests, rather than protecting those who have the fewest protections and the most need.
Me: The First Amendment does NOT protect the political speech for corporations.
Other: But we treat corporations as legal entities. They have other legal rights.
Me: But, unlike real people, they can't vote.
Other: Oh. Right. So they don't have the same vested interest in freedom of political speech?
Me: Exactly.
Other: So their political speech doesn't seem like it needs to be protected in the same way.
Me: Right.
Other: Because all they have to speak about is their interests. And allowing them to 'speak' is more like business promotion and profit maximization than political speech.
Me: Now you are catching on. If only the Supreme Court would.

Next on the Supreme Court docket: a reconsideration of Dred Scott. (Legit, a commentator called this the worst decision since Dred Scott.)

Also, Massachusetts, my native land, my love, the bedrock of liberalism in this country. ARE YOU SMOKING CRACK?!?!?! Did you not see the "R" next to Scott Brown's name on the ballot? Words (at least non-profane words) cannot express my shock, dismay, and anger. Then again, Coakley ran a beyond awful campaign. She acted like she didn't want to be a Senator. Way to take a month off of campaigning. You don't get to do that when you are running for a seat in the United States Senate. This isn't an election for class president where you have the best hair. Whatever. It's fine. It really is a referendum on the current state of politics. Once again the Democrats have shown no backbone. And the Republicans have acted as obstructionists and won. Dems, time to play by the same rules. Throw some elbows. Get down and dirty. Maybe even get some legislation passed. It wouldn't kill you to do a little governing as long as you are in power. That does double for President Obama. I love the guy. I love the party. But this is floundering is ridiculous. Democrats look like...well...flounders. The fish. And not the one that a hot mermaid chills with.
Why are 60 Democrats equal to 51 Republicans? It's just not right.
My prescription for the Democrats is simple.
1) Transparency - you can't have 7 different copies of the same bill floating around that are each 2000 pages. Of course everyone is going to be suspicious of that. I pay attention to politics and I don't even know much of what is in the Senate and House health care bills. Keep it simple. "Here's how many more people are covered, here's what it does for existing health care plans, here's how much it costs. It's good. You'll love it." Keep it simple, keep it transparent.
2) Jobs - everyone wants one and there ain't enough to go around. Even if you don't have a good answer, at least try to have one. That's what people want you to talk about. You need people to win elections. Winning elections is important to your survival. Talk about jobs.

I'm full of anger. Other things too, like worrying about getting a job for the summer. But mostly anger. And internal organs.

Writing writing on my bike

I woke up this morning with a sore throat which has gradually receded over the course of the day. But it was a good enough excuse for me not to work out today. Hm. I'm becoming slightly concerned about my own laziness. Well, I did a lot of schoolwork, writing about 6 pages of my memo. So all that is due tomorrow, which is all that's important. I also applied to two jobs. That seems like a lot for a day where I didn't get out of bed until noon.

Thursday I went to Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant, with Jason, Rachel, and Josh. It was restaurant week, so we got a 4 course meal for "cheap." Courses went cheese, salad, meat, chocolate. It was good, but not my favorite. I mean, I wouldn't go there regularly. All the food was high quality, there were tons of options, and it tasted good (particularly the fillet mignon). But I had to work so damn hard for it. I cook every day for myself. I don't want to go out and pay a crapton of money to cook for myself too. I could just go to the grocery store, buy pretty much the same stuff, and then cook it in a slightly less-efficient pot of boiling whatever I'm dipping it in. Or I could buy a fondue pot and act like I'm so cool and retro, then never use it because I clearly would prefer other food to fondue. No disrespect to the restaurant. It's an experience I'm glad to have, and it was delicious. But, paradoxically, I don't want to do it again really.

After Melting Pot I went to bar review. The highlight was clearly this girl in my class doing the dance to "Single Ladies." She was spot on. I mean, she was no Beyonce. Not even a little close. But still, that's impressive. And no one is Beyonce.

This weekend Eva came to visit, which was awfully nice of her. Granted, her sister also lives here, so I can accuse her of mixed motives, but that's just fine. Friday night we went out with some fun people to Sign of the Whale. It's a nice bar close by, that I've actually never been to. So that was a good experience. In addition to the regular top 40 crap that everywhere plays they played a good deal of 80's music. You could say it shook me all night long. Until 3 am when I got jumbo slice with Carissa. Always a good choice. $4 for basically a quarter of a pizza. How could you not at 3 am? There's no downside. Also, at Sign of the Whale, it was a bartender's last night and she clearly did not care about anything. She gave away free drinks to her friends (not just any free drinks, Patron and Johnnie Walker), and charged arbitrarily low prices ($10 for two shots and a beer, you've got a deal!). Not to mention, she was actually incredible at being a bartender - I watched her make the fastest Long Island Iced Tea ever. I was impressed.

Saturday I went out to a party in Virginia. Really? Virginia? Didn't the secede? That's gross. Actually it wasn't bad. It was pretty fun. It's Beirut, not beer pong, though. Most people are confused, I've noticed. There's more to Saturday than that, I'm sure, but I can't think of it at the moment.

Shove it, Milton Friedman

Last Thursday was my last Property class before today. It ended with libertarian kid (the one who essentially advocated racism last semester in Civ Pro) arguing that there should be no rules against excluding people from private property, mostly businesses, because the rationality of the market would create incentives not to discriminate, so rules against discrimination are unnecessary. Well today we picked up right where we left off. He reiterated that argument. Another kid, I believe supported it. Then Gunner also chimed in with some measure of support, though it was sort of difficult to pick out his position from the rest of the inane, self-important comments he made. But I was done listening to this crap about the rationality of the market.

So I raised my hand, and got called on. Basically: "This type of Milton Friedman-esk argument that the rationality of the market will work everything out is just empirically false. Historically it doesn't work. Look at the picture on page 125. [It's a picture of a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in the 1960's.] And it doesn't work today. Also, the argument that was made that it is irrational for a business to discriminate because they lose so many consumers can be wrong. A business that discriminates can also be more popular than one that doesn't because it will attract other people who believe in that type of discrimination, further incentivizing discrimination."
My professor responded, "Well, what about the argument that we just haven't given the market enough time to adjust?"
To which I immediately said, "Sure, let's give it another hundred years."
Moving on.

Someone behind me whispered "Good job." And later on a lot of other people shared their approval, many liked my last little crack to the professor. Good, lots of other people aren't dumb libertarians.
Sorry for the overt politics, but I think it's a fairly obvious point. Just look at history. Also, discrimination is a largely irrational thing. The proposed fix is the rationality of the market. But you can't fix something that is irrational through rationality. You can throw all the logic you want at them, but their view isn't based on logic, so logic probably won't change it.

Avalanche

For some reason classes don't seem to be overloading us with work. I'm skeptical. I think that some point mid semester we are going to be buried with an avalanche of reading. We will all die from either hypothermia or starvation. Or be eaten by wolves. There are wolves in avalanche-prone regions, right? I'm just kind of assuming here. We have only done one reading in Civil Procedure so far. Yesterday we spent class talking about how law firms bill. Apparently they charge premium prices for photocopies. But I don't care. Thursday we will be watching a movie on depositions. I still don't care. And I almost fell asleep in Con Law today while drinking a Diet Coke and being interested in the material. That's a bad sign. I think I need more sleep, and it's only the second week of the semester. Off to a good start.

I found my dream internship for the summer: working for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Too bad the chances of me landing the job are quite bad. But that doesn't stop me from applying. If I don't apply my chances of getting it are 0%; if I do, then my chances are better. By at least .1%.

Yesterday I worked out with Ryan. Ryan is ex-Army. It gets worse. We met up with this guy in my section, Joe, at the gym. Joe is a competitive body builder who, rumor has it, has 17" biceps. They are both jacked. I, however, haven't really worked out in a few weeks and I certainly haven't lifted in a while. So lifting with them for an hour and a half was quite the task. My arms wanted to fall off at the end. "How many more sets, Ryan?........Are you kidding me?" That was a common refrain. Surprisingly I don't feel too sore today. Hopefully I'll go back with them soon. And I'll get huge. Then I'll paint my skin green. I'm already angry. My master plan is to audition for the lead role in the next Incredible Hulk movie. Wow, what a bad ambition. I'll stop talking.

So much meat. For serious.

Last night I headed up to Baltimore for Nakul's birthday. It was my first time being in Baltimore and to appropriately prepare for the occasion I emptied my wallet of all non-essential items and brought only things I would be alright with if they got stolen. Turns out that wasn't necessary - I didn't even get mugged. But really, from what I hear about Baltimore, you are just playing the odds. Actually, Baltimore was a nice city from what I saw of it. It had some lovely architecture. It also had a place for bail bonds. That was a little disturbing. But Nakul's apartment is quite nice, and he enjoyed rubbing it in my face that he pays far less for far more.

His parents took us out to this Brazilian restaurant that serves...well...meat. They give you a little thing that looks like a coaster, one side is green and the other is red. When you want meat you flip it to green. When you no longer want meat you flip it to red. After grabbing a little bit at the extensive salad bar (they had incredible sun dried tomatoes, if you were wondering) I flipped to green. And immediately roving waiters holding large sticks with various types of meat on them descended on the table. They offer different types of meat and different cuts. So good. Sirloin, fillet, fillet wrapped in bacon, lamb, lamb chops, pork chops, chicken wrapped in bacon, to name the ones that I remember eating. And multiple servings of many of them. Everything was good, the fillet and the sirloin were nothing short of incredible. **Bad pun alert** To find meat that delicious is rare. All in all I ate two plates of salad and a whopping six plates of meat. I am absolutely certain that I gained weight from that one meal. I also clogged some arteries and raised my blood pressure. And 22 hours later my stomach has still not forgiven me. "Why did you put so much into me?" It wants to know. "Because the meat was so delicious, stomach. And because I don't eat things that good...ever. So stop complaining and start digesting." But seriously, eating today has been an issue. I'm still recovering and putting down the revolt that my stomach is attempting. Also, working out today hurt really badly. You ever get the meat sweats? While I was actually sweating because of the running it felt kind of like the meat sweats. Gross. I haven't had that much meat since eating at a BBQ restaurant named Bullocks in Durham, NC after the Duke Invitational.

After stuffing ourselves, we had the courage to go out to a bar. Nakul got bought a number of drinks. He ended up having what appeared to be a fantastic night. I ended up arguing about Zionism with one of his friends, who I then befriended, while drinking National Bohemian: the classiest beer of them all. And this morning I have an inexplicable and invisible bruise on my left arm. Is it a bruise if it's invisible? I don't know. But something hurts.

And the first week of law school contained 3 cancelled classes, with only one make up class. That's just fine with me. Property looks interesting, which is good because I feel like that class has a huge potential for sucking. Thursday in Property, with about four minutes left in class, the kid who last semester in Civil Procedure basically advocated racism said something really dumb about the inherent rationality of the free market which, for some reason, included the sentence "If God wanted, he could have made the moon black." I couldn't tell you exactly what his point was, but it was something Milton Friedman-esk about how we shouldn't interfere with any decisions that the market makes because the market will always do what is best for itself (untrue, in fact at the time we were discussing a case where a company made the economically irrational decision to exclude a patron at random - just to prove that it could). Ok, he said something dumb. That kind of thing happens all the time. But after class two separate people came separately came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed watching my face while this kid was speaking. Apparently my expression was full of obvious rage and disbelief at the inane crap that I was hearing and they were amused by this. The funny part is that I wasn't even consciously making any face. I certainly was thinking about how wrong he was, but I didn't try to outwardly manifest anything. I suppose I am very expressive, particularly around morons. (Almost typed "mormons" there by accident. Whoops.) I should probably make sure I don't do that in important situations. But for now, I'm glad to be of some entertainment value.

A letter to cover letters

Dear Cover Letters,

I have a great deal of experience applying for jobs. I have applied for dozens of jobs throughout my life, including three today. I have no problem with the idea job applications. I enjoy formatting my resume, reading about the exciting opportunities to which I may soon have access, and even sorting through endless lists of jobs. Finding references and creating a writing sample may not be the most glamorous activities, but I accept them as relevant and necessary. Employers understandably want to know that I am not some hooligan frivolously applying for a position and that I know how to adequately construct a sentence. These requirements must weed out some applicants.

What I do not appreciate or understand is an employer's demand for a cover letter. Each letter be tailored to the particular job for which I am applying, emphasizing the skills enumerated in the job description or describing my relevant job experience. Honestly, I have little to no relevant job experience, most likely. But I am not unique in this regard. Most people do not. That is why they do not have that position yet. If they had the exact qualifications the employer was looking for, then chances are that they would not be currently applying for that job.

Additionally, it is absolutely impossible to write a cover letter well. Good writing and cover letters do not mix ever. Cover letters are dedicated to being self-important, which automatically starts them out at a disadvantage. They use active verbs, which end up sounding too strong and sometimes to stretching the truth or outright lying. And just about every sentence starts with "I am" or "I did," which ends up reading like a forth grader's homework assignment about what they did over the weekend. What purpose cover letters serve is somewhat beyond me. I am clearly interested in this job, that is why I am applying. I am providing a writing sample, reference list, and resume, which will give you about as much information as you could want when deciding to hire me or not. Plus, employers will likely glance at my cover letter for a grand total of twelve seconds after I spent thirty-five minutes agonizing over verb tense. This is a waste of my time. No one will ever know if my verb tense is completely consistent because no one will ever read my cover letter that thoroughly. As long as it does not throw up any red flags, what is the point of painstaking precision? I have no good answer. The only conclusion is that the concept of cover letters should be abolished.

Sincerely,

Me

Semester: Take 2

Today was the first day of classes of the second semester. I'm actually excited for Constitutional Law. The professor is a visiting faculty member from Duke. He has a Ph.D. in Theology and a southern accent. A number of my classmates said he was difficult to understand. I think they are being elitists and need to open themselves up to respecting different types of people. When pressed their complaint was actually that he speaks too softly. I have no adequate retort. Maybe listen harder? Grow bigger ears? The professor also insists that we not use computers during class. It's going to be hard to gchat without a computer. I'm actually a fan of this policy. It's going to force me to pay attention to a subject that I'm interested in. As weird as it sounds, there was actually a chance I wouldn't do that. The perils of law school.

Another peril of law school will be going to my LRW class tomorrow (now formally called "Introduction to Advocacy," which makes it sound like I don't know how to advocate a position - if you know me, then you know this is not true. I am an excellent advocate of anger, refer to the following). The peril in going to the class mostly entails sitting quietly, feigning interest rather than throwing the projector through the white board and attempting to incite violent overthrow of my professor's tyrannical rule. Seriously, he sucks. The class is the one thing in his life he has control over; he certainly doesn't have control over his work or personal life what with being a fifth year associate. It's all he has man. Please, take out the fact that you are at the whim of your managing partner 24 hours a day on a class of first year law students, that would be great.

There are a ton of things that happened over break. Too many to recount all of them. But Mostly I saw a ton of people, which was really nice. I'm not sure if there was any day that I only hung out with one person. And even with that I still did not get to see everyone I wanted to see, or see some people (if not everyone) as much as I would have liked.

New Years Eve was spent in Boston. Me, Jonah, Jessie, Caitlin, Molly, and Eli got a hotel room. Other people, including BDP (yay) and Nelson (boo...big time) came by. I have no idea how everyone got there. The hotel was in the South End, where, despite being from Boston, I have spent barely any time. Plus driving on New Years Eve isn't exactly the greatest idea. We slightly trashed the hotel room. Molly spilled something gross on the closet door, Jonah almost jammed the window, someone almost broke the bathtub, etc. The next morning there was a good deal to clean up - mostly taken care of by me and Caitlin. After pregaming at the hotel, we went to a club nearby. (Sidenote: I hate clubs. They are sketchy, expensive, and loud. Any place that date rape seems prevalent I just can't get behind. The club was clearly the girls idea. Something along the lines of needing to dance. I've never said "I just need to dance" in my life.) The club was close, and we were all a little warm on the inside, so we wisely did not bring our coats on the way to the club. It was late December (and then early January) in Boston, so it was clearly freezing. The five minute walk included getting slightly lost, so that was bad enough. Then we picked up our pre-ordered tickets from the bouncer and were told to wait on line to get in. Wait on line?? We have tickets! So did everyone else in line, it turned out. We were probably on line for a solid seven minutes, but that was seven minutes of awfulness. Why didn't we bring our coats again? Oh right, because we are idiots. By the time we got to the front of the line I had never been happier to get into a club. Of course that faded quickly when I had to save Jessie from sketchy guys three times in the first five minutes. What do you expect? Clubs suck.

Another highlight of break involved getting Matt Brown drunk. If I had a super power, it would be the power of peer pressure. And I certainly used it on Saturday night against Matt Brown. The best part was that it was planned out with Keara and Matt Francis beforehand, and then executed perfectly. In fairness, I am not the one who brought out the bottle of tequila. The fact that it was tequila was just an added bonus. But techniques such as bringing a lime and salt for easy use worked perfectly. I hope Matt Brown had a good time. We did sing songs for him! (Matt Brown, you don't have to put on the red light.) And we got some choice quotes. ("There are only so many nights in a day.") Leah laughed until she cried when Matt Brown fell off a chair. Whoopsies. We also spent a lot of time singing that Miley Cyrus song...again. But now, after hearing it enough times, I sort of know the words. That's a little embarrassing, but not more than her (or, to be more accurate, whoever wrote the song for her) attempt to rhyme "crazy" with "famous" or the line "the butterflies fly away." I've mentioned how dumb that line is to a lot of people and just about every girl has responded, "You know, like the butterflies in her stomach." Yes, I know. But it doesn't make that a better lyric.