Keep on rockin in the winter wonderland

News flash! New England got pummeled by snow. We got about a foot here that I had the special privilege of shoveling. Its reasons like this that New Englanders are unfailingly self-important - our righteous snow removal. It was kind of fun watching the Great Blizzard of '10, but it got far less enjoyable when I realized that I wasn't going outside at all yesterday. I even did a bit of work on my note as a result of my cabin fever. Nothing like being forced into productivity. That's perhaps how I imagine ritalin feels.

If there is one thing I hate, it is "Eat, Pray, Love." So maybe I've never actually read the book or seen the movie, but I am 100% certain that I hate it.

I talked with a friend of mine who has an M.F.A. in poetry. She was reminiscing about how difficult grad school was and how they all had to open up to each other and share their feelings. They were treated as such individuals. I could not think of a more contrasting graduate school experience to law school. Feelings? What are those? No one cares how this makes you feel, they want to know whether proper 553 notice and comment rulemaking procedures were followed. Write a poem about that. Then burn it because it will be the second worst poem ever (after Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," yes it is a poem as well as the title of her book).

My iTunes has chosen to spread the message that I should "Keep on rockin' in the free world." Since this is my blog, I thought I would share that inspirational message in these dark and troubled times.

There is a new heating system in my mother's house. When the heat goes on the pipes make a noise that sounds like a TIE Fighter. It is super distracting.

Panic! In the Parking Lot

Last night I had a dream. I was not judged by the color of my skin, but rather by the quality of my Administrative Law final examination. And I was not judged well, let me tell you. That's a true fake story.

Last night I saw "The Blue Flower" at the A.R.T. The only reaction to it I have for sure is the most pretentious one I can think of. It was very Brechtian. Aside from that, I feel like I missed the message. Why was I there? What did I learn? It was an enjoyable experience, but I feel somehow empty. It was a musical, and I am not the biggest musical connoisseur, but the music was actually good. I was fine with the musical aspect because they did not try to have a regular story which was interrupted perpetually by song and dance numbers. I hate musicals where they want it to be realistic, but then everyone breaks into a choreographed dance number. Then they go back to normal as if not everyone walking down main street eerily happened to know the words to the same song and sang it in three part harmony. That is unbelievable so do not try to make me believe the underlying story. Musicals like The Blue Flower (or Rocky Horror Picture Show!) don't even try to approach realism. They are not pushing some two-bit love story where emotion is expressed through the arts of song and dance and all of the characters act like this is completely normal. If you are going to have a show with music, make it absurd in some way. Because the musical genre is itself absurd. If you embrace the absurdity, then I am a lot more likely to be contented as an audience member because there isn't this disconnect between the purported reality and the music. Curse you "The Music Man." End tirade.

HP tech support could have been more helpful. Like, the first time I called they could have helped me fix my problem in a much simpler way (which they did the second time I called). Though I must compliment the first person I spoke to on his English. The second person doesn't get a compliment on her English because she had a southern accent and was not clearly based in India.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon running errands with my mom. This involved going to one mall and two supermarkets. List of places designed to piss me off on the days leading up to a major holiday: mall and supermarkets. There were so many morons to contend with it was simply incredible. From the parking lot to the line for the cashiers, people were being unintelligible, unaware imbeciles. Ma'am, I understand that you are searching for the perfect pomegranate, but you are literally holding up twelve people trying to get by you. Sir, do you not see the two "Do Not Enter" signs that you are driving past at the moment? It was a huge mess. Towards the end of the day my mother remarked that I seemed angry. I told her I was always angry. For some reason she didn't believe me.

I seem to have shipped up to Boston

Here I am, back in Boston for the "holidays." I woke up early this morning to catch a MARC commuter train to Baltimore. And from Baltimore I was to drive up with Nakul. Well my karma from waking up on time did not translate into good train schedule luck. The 7:30 train was delayed indefinitely and the 8:30 was outright canceled. I managed to get on an Amtrak and get to Baltimore, which was magical in itself because I had not yet had any coffee. While on the train, I almost kicked the guy in front of me who was listening to a playlist from his phone without any earphones plugged in. In fairness, I probably would have equally vindictive thoughts even if I had coffee, but it made my attitude was quite pronounced this morning. Nakul and I ended up making great time from Baltimore (6 hours) while avoiding most traffic and bad weather.

Since I last updated I've done a whole lot of nothing. Unless you count being at the bar as something. Then I've done a lot of something. For some reason all of my classmates were quite anxious to go drinking after finishing finals. Well who was I to say no? The post-finals party was pretty epic. I will remember it for my relative sobriety compared to everyone else's complete lack of let's say self-control. The word for it is mess. Hilarious mess that I can laugh about even if no one else will remember. Some drunk 1L kept buying everyone drinks, me included. Another drunk 1L bought everyone shots. As I was leaving, my drunk friend tried to buy me a shot which I politely declined. The problem was that he didn't just buy one shot for me, nor two shorts for us to have together. Rather, he bought five shots because he seemed to think that was a rational choice at that point of the night. He spent the next ten minutes trying to pawn some off because it was almost 2 am and (surprise surprise) most people were in no shape for ripping whiskey shots.

4 am is not a good time of day to be awake for. Next time I think its a good idea to play beer dice after closing down a bar, I need to think again.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have not slept well in a good long while. Between regular sleeping issues, a month of finals studying where I have problems shutting down my brain, bar nights, and early mornings, it has been a long haul. I am looking forward to at least three good nights of sleep this vacation. That's my goal. And if my cats wake me up, I will give them the crappy cat food for the entire time I am here, so help me. (Good threat, right?) Three nights - think I can do it? I am honestly not sure if I can. It's a wonder they don't make game shows out of these situations.

The big 1/2

It might be 1:45 am. It might be an inopportune time to update a blog. It might be silly, but I am halfway through with law school.

"Whoa, we're halfway there. Whoa, livin' on a prayer."

Thank you, thank you.

My corporations final was ridiculous. We read about 85 cases this semester. We were asked (closed book) factual details about some of them. We were also asked about things that my professor discussed for fewer than 10 minutes in class. This was out of 25 multiple choice questions, plus three "short answer" questions.
Speaking of the short answers, you would be surprised how quickly you reach 400 words. And my professor said that the word limit would be an upper limit that "no one would reach." My answers were, 397, 398, 398 words respectively. Thanks professor.

Glen Beck is the worst. Not even 'fair and balanced,' just the worst.

THe most improtent factor...

After a desperate dash to "learn" administrative law, I put it all on the line this afternoon. It was time for the final. And wow, did it not go beautifully. I was prepared for it to be difficult, but somehow not in the exhausting way that was the result.
The practice exam I took was designed to be done in 3 hours and 15 minutes. It has 2 pages of facts to read and 7 questions to answer. The actual exam today was a strict 3 hour time limit. It had 5 pages of facts and 7 questions to answer. Some questions had multiple parts. When I looked up from question 3 and saw that I was already an hour into the exam I knew I had to hurry it up. There was no longer time for complete explanations, addressing possible counter-arguments, or even correct spelling. The further I got into the exam, the more time-pressured things became, and the less coherent it all was. In one instance, the third element (of a 3-part test) that I analyzed I realized was actually the best argument for me so I wrote, "This is actually the most useful and most important factor, so they should emphasize this" and moved on. I had no time for anything else. (I hope my professor enjoys spelling errors and errors in capitalization, such as beginning a sentence "THe most improtent factor...")
I made it onto the final question with about 6 minutes to go and promptly brain dumped onto the page. I didn't get the entire way through my answer; I had to stop typing when time was called. That was the first final that has ever happened to me on. The first final I have ever just written constantly for three hours. It was exhausting. There were a few times during the exam where I thought "Maybe I'll come back to this at the end to make the argument better." I am so glad I decided against doing that - I never would have made it back.
I left the exam with a jaw muscle strained from clenching it too much. No joke. It took me about 30 minutes to wipe that "What the heck just happened??!?!!" feeling. I think this was common to everyone. Two of my friends left questions entirely blank. Smart kids too, not morons or burned out 3Ls taking the class pass/fail. At least I answered all the questions!

After the afternoon final everyone I talked to was unhappy with their exam. Including people who were not taking the same final as me. People in Family Law, National Security Law, and International Law all exchanged sob stories with me. It was a rough day for exam-takers. One of my friends realized she was 500 words over the word limit for her exam and spent copious time removing them. That sucks. You did too much work, now do more work to undo all the hard work you put in!

Why is the office holiday party such a large thing in pop culture? That's such a random activity to give so much attention to (see Die Hard 1). I've never even been to an office holiday party, nor had an office with a holiday party I had the option of attending! But I imagine they are booze-soaked affairs where co-workers will act scandalously and someone will put his job in jeopardy by speaking honestly to the boss after one too many vodka sodas.

I am moderately perturbed at how quickly people comment on facebook posts. I'm not a huge commenter myself, but the rapid comments make me feel like something posted two hours ago is stale and no longer merits my input. They say life is slower in the South, perhaps facebook should take a cue from the South and sloooooow down. Or maybe I'm just becoming an old geezer. I don't even fully understand Twitter! Really!

Sweat Dreams

This has been the weekend of study, spent in quiet contemplation while bent of an Administrative law casebook. The plus side is that I feel like I have a workable framework for understanding Admin. That's a vast improvement over, let's say, Friday afternoon. And pretty convenient timing considering that my final is tomorrow afternoon. If I had not started to understand the class then I would be in really rough shape. I'm counting on the fact that the rest of my class has less of a working knowledge of Admin than I do, since my understanding is far from complete. It doesn't even help that my casebook is convoluted and poorly organized. It is even worse that the book contradicts itself about a particular rule. This is especially embarrassing because my professor co-authored the casebook. I have an urge to tell him "Pages 293 and 305 directly contradict each other; please tell me which is correct." (Note: those pages really do contradict each other! I'm not even throwing random numbers out there!!!) But it's too late to contact him and I don't want to look like a big jerk.

I had a dream the night after my Con Law test in which I correctly identified issues I had missed during the actual exam. Oops! I've definitely woken up feeling better about myself before. Oh well, nothing to be done. The unfortunate spirit of law school dictates that my response must be "Well I bet everyone else missed them too, and more."

Apparently I have free HBO this month. Woo! Thanks RCN. First good thing you've ever done for me.

My pretty, dimly lit, knotted fantasy

I would say the most exciting thing that happened today was receiving a $1 off coupon at ABP. I know, you can hardly contain your excitement. That's half a croissant! Besides that all I really did was learn Con Law in more depth. I think I've got it down pretty well, but I have another day to sure it up just in case. I could tell you all about neutral laws that incidentally burden speech! But that might not be so exciting for you.

Kanye's new album is downright addictive. But he says some ridiculous things. The most notable one (or the one that is currently on my mind) involves having sex with Egyptian mummies and a sarcophagus. I get the feeling that Kanye West went to the history museum that morning and saw a cool exhibit on ancient Egypt and was like "How can I fit this into my rap on this song I'm recording? Well I can't make a song about mummies - that would be weird next to all the other tracks which have no historical significance whatsoever. And it might be hard to how cool I am into a song about ancient Egypt since I wasn't even there. Let's see here..." But somehow Kanye did manage to put his new-found word into a rap, sarcophagus.

I won't lie, spell check needed to correct sarcophagus the first time I typed it. But now I've got it down. Sarcophagus. Sarcophagus. Rhymes with esophagus, right Kanye??

I guess this is not the best place to address it, but I am becoming concerned with the federal deficit as well. Let's think of ways to deal with the deficit, Mr. President and leaders of Congress. What's that you say: keep income tax cuts in place, add payroll tax cuts, throw in a low estate tax rate, and spend more on unemployment? So you want to have the government take in less money while spending more money and this is supposed to...reduce the deficit? Why yes that makes perfect sense, let's just do some calculations here. Does anyone have a calculator I can borrow? Anyone in Congress have a calculator? No one in Congress does, what a surprise. Alright, I'll just ballpark it. Oh, you mean that basic arithmetic functions do not support this plan as a way of reducing the deficit? Crazy! Someone should alert people to this fact.
If you want to reduce the deficit then do it. If you want to cut taxes because that's what you believe is best for the economy then do it. But do not attempt to sell me something while you are defying basic arithmetic.
End political rant of the week. DC affects me I guess.

Stupid person of the day: my friend who took the U.S. Foreign Relations Law exam with me last night. Today she told me that she didn't know what the word "tenable" meant on the exam so she assumed it meant "impossible." She may be in for a surprise.

Exam 1: Done. Next stop: Exam 2.

First exam of this finals period: completed. Foreign Relations Law. It was a good deal harder than I anticipated. The second question (of two) was the type where you see it on a practice exam and say "maybe I'll skip this one..." only it was actually my final so I couldn't skip it. That harsh reality set in and I ended up with a somewhat creative answer to one of the parts which will either get lots of points or get me laughed at and zero points. So here's hoping. As often is the case, the redeeming factor is that everyone else had that "What the hell just happened?" look on their face as well. So if it was hard for everyone, we'll all do fine. Except the people who don't, as mandated by the curve. Daunting? Perhaps.
The other upside to this is that my confusing study session had little to no impact on the exam. I spent the afternoon with a classmate who did nothing but confuse my understanding of some of the material. I spent the early evening trying to forget the afternoon. What a productive use of my time. That's what I get for study group-ing in this class.

I wish there were other things going on at the moment. But the next thing is Con Law on the horizon (Friday). Anything else? Legolas, what do your elf eyes see? Orcs? No, just more exams. Damn. Nerd.

Facebook emails invade my inbox day!

Do me a favor, listen to the Jay-Z song "December 4th" for me today. It is December 4th after all. Jay-Z's birthday. And someone else's birthday. Who could that be? Conveniently located during study period before finals, a length of time often noted for having law students retreat into the library to freak out. But not I. I remain defiantly and cautiously optimistic; optimistic enough to go out for the evening.

I experienced a Hannukah miracle this morning. I went down to the work out room to lift and run. When I turned on my iPod at the beginning of my workout I noticed that I only had a little bit of battery life left. I'm talking that tiny sliver of red which indicates imminent shut down. But the battery miraculously stayed alive throughout my entire workout. A Hannukah miracle occurred on the treadmill.

This Gun's for Hire

Maybe I'm just 26 years behind, but "Dancing in the Dark" is a great song. It's not like I had never heard it before today; I just had never listened. I had also never seen the music video, which accidentally launched Courtney Cox's career. So if you like Friends, you have Bruce Springsteen to thank. And if you hate Friends, then you have no soul and you have yourself to blame. (I'm not a great Friends enthusiast, but I recognize the goodness of the show.)

Perhaps to make up for yesterday no one got cold called in Corporations today. The more likely explanation for zero cold calls is that it was a review session and my professor miraculously went through the entire course in an hour and fifteen minutes. He spoke very fast. There was no time for interruptions. No time.

I started out the day feeling good about working. I got some work done at home. Then I walked into school and I could just feel the stress withering people around me. It was palpable. People were frantically typing away at their computers, asking questions, and flipping pages. Me? I remained surprisingly calm. To ward of the infective stress I sat with my friend Carl and commented on how manly he was as he ate a fried chicken leg using nothing but his hands and teeth (knives, forks, napkins, and plates are for lesser men than Carl). I will also add that I am so happy not to be a 1L.

"Can You Repeat the Question? Sorry, I have to pass"

Except for one review class tomorrow, today was the last day of classes. Hallelujah. There is nothing more to learn about administrative law; only things to re-learn that I forgot when I blacked out during class. To solemnify the occasion of the last day, the most ridiculous Corporations class ever commenced. My professor cold calls a lot every day. But today a pattern developed: he would call on someone, they would pass, he would call on someone else, they would ask him to repeat the question and then pass, and finally my professor would ask for volunteers. This pattern became uncanny. I thought maybe the class was pulling a fast one that I was not in on. I got called on today and thankfully answered the question correctly. Now, I understand passing in that class; it has around 150 people in it and you don't want to fumble around for the answer and waste everyone's time. But a total of 27 people opted to pass today - my friend counted. That's excluding the 10 or so people who asked him to repeat the question and then answered (usually incorrectly). Apparently next to no one did the reading or could be bothered to listen. It was not a mass conspiracy, it was just absurd.

TSA checked my friend's hair as she was going through security. Her hair was in a bun and apparently it needed a good squeeze to ensure safety.

I think it's time we update coal. You now get a solar panel in your stocking if you have been naughty.

Good day, sir. I said good day!

Curse you, Southwest

No more Mondays this semester. Phew. Last long day is done. You hear me? Done. One of my professors is an ex-State Department official. My mother asked me whether there was any discussion of Wikileaks publishing classified diplomatic cables. No, of course not because it won't be on the final and it could potentially be interesting. There is no place in school for such things. One day back is all it took to regain that cynicism apparently.

Not cool, Wikileaks. Not cool at all.

At the moment Southwest is my enemy. Last night my flight was delayed two hours. In addition to getting back to my apartment later than I'd like, public transportation back to DC shuts down pretty early on Sunday nights which meant that there was a distinct possibility that getting home would have been a real problem. Luckily Reza and Enoch drove me back from the airport, so I am in their debt. My initial reaction to the two hour delay was anger (go figure), but Ronya happened to be in the same terminal at the same time. So we commenced one of my favorite activities: drinking at the airport. Maybe it is the intoxicating smell of jet fuel or the profound calm that comes from watching so many tense people mulling about, but beer at the airport is just about the best thing ever.

How is it that Kanye West can be both so good and so dumb at the same time?

Today at lunch there was a conversation which occurs occasionally, the one where a New Yorker trumpets the accomplishments of his or her city and declares every other place to be irrelevant. For once another New Yorker combated this notion. Apparently he is aware that just because you can get a delicious bagel at 4am does not negate the fact that a homeless man has peed on everything in the city at one point.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So here I am in beautiful, desolate New Paltz for Thanksgiving with the family. As with last year, this was "the family's" decision. I'm along for the ride at this resort-y thing. I've already seen Alan Alda here. He was trying not to crash his car into mine as we passed each other on a particularly narrow stretch of road. That is not a euphemism for anything, by the way, I really saw Alan Alda - from MASH, West Wing...uhhh he played Jack's father on 30 Rock last season. Also, his iTunes library shows up on the shared list. (Now I am entering into stalking territory, but how could I not be curious?) It contains lots of classical music, the audiobook of his book, and voice notes from his iPhone. Happily, I cannot access his voice notes so I am left to imagine what they sound like: "Alan Alda, this is Alan Alda. Please remember to buy a quart of milk at Stop & Shop tomorrow. Thank you, Alan Alda."

My cousin told me a fantastic story. Her friend goes to Brown along with Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies. Emma Watson was in a big lecture class. One day she got called on by the professor and answered a question correctly. Someone in the back of the room souted out "Ten points for Gryffindor!"
That was clearly planned out. The kid thought he was so clever; and he was right because that's hilarious.

Why does this blog post seem like it could be in Us Weekly? I think that's all the celebrity gossip I've got.

Dear North Korea, could you please NOT do that anymore? Kthanksbye. 143.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I am thankful for your friendship. And here on this blog, for your readership. I am also thankful for goat cheese and pumpkin pie, though not together.

Incoherence, Begin

Oh man my head hurts. Where's the advil at? That's my bad, hasn't happened in a while. Posting something also hasn't happened in a while, so I'm doing that...as you can clearly see. Alright, where to begin? Apparently being hungover makes me narrate just about everything I'm thinking, and makes me think just about as fast as I can type, which is pretty fast if I do say so myself. I am an excellent typo. Whoops, I meant typist (insert laugh here).

Monday was an important day. While sitting in Administrative Law, I made the conscious decision not to beat myself to death with the casebook to escape the misery of learning about retroactive application of informal rulemaking. Just reading that sentence you can clearly see why this was a conscious decision. Also, I spent an hour of my Foreign Relations Law class unsuccessfully trying to download the new Girl Talk album. Apparently it was way too much for the school internet to handle, but when I got home it downloaded just fine. I have never been happier to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to go to this school. But the album is good. I am a huge fan of mixing Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecelia" with "Get Low" by Lil' John. Never were there more disparate songs put together. Except maybe in other Girl Talk songs.

Honey is an under-appreciated sweetener.

Thursday I exercised three times. I ran, played catch with Reza, and played basketball with Jason. The latter two were unforeseen offers to do fun things, so I rolled with them. But my body was clearly not ready for that level of physical activity. My back and shoulder have been reprimanding me for the last two days. I often think poorly of professional athletes who are too tired to do things, like pitch again within a few days. But for real, I am in no position to talk. Granted, I am not a professional athlete so it is not my job to do these athletic activities. But basketball, for example, requires lots of movement. And I am terrible at it.
Here's a thing I do not like: being the shortest person in a pickup basketball game. I am not that short, I'm average. But apparently basketball attracts tall people. Who woulda thought? I also did not play basketball growing up, so I don't have the same basic skill that someone who played in high school does. Being bad at pickup basketball made me really defensive about my choice of sport; I wanted to say to people "Yeah well if you find some swords we can see what is what." I really do not ever have the same chance to demonstrate my fencing prowess in a pickup game. There's no pickup fencing at the YMCA last time I checked.

I got a flu vaccine. Now I cannot fly.

Alright, time to attempt to work. This will not end well today.

Adams Morgan sucks

Last night I declined a Four Loko and did not cave when peer pressure was applied. I have read multiple news pieces about how destructive a drink it is and how people should be very careful using it, so I think rises below the level of prudent to drink it. Thus I had no problem recalling my Dare training from 5th grade and just saying no. I had a sip of someone else's - it was absolutely disgusting. It tasted like an alcoholic, foul melted Icee that you would get at AMC Theaters. How you could be excited to drink that is beyond me. It also didn't help the case of Four Loko that a few of the girls who were drinking it kept talking about how they had heard it made people poop their pants so they kept making poop accident jokes. Let's all sign up for this beverage.
After playing flip cup at the bar (classiest bar ever!) for free (a redeeming quality to the evening), Damien and I went to McDonald's in Adams Morgan. It was around 11 PM and a police officer walked into the store. Apparently he had a shift there, and this was a necessary use of his time. Really, it was. First he had to wake up a homeless woman who had been sleeping at a table and ask her to leave as long as she wasn't buying anything. Damien was initially appalled by her presence, but had a change of heart and gave her $5 so she could keep buying food and stay in the McDonalds. (Damien absolutely wins good samaritan of the night; he later on stopped a robbery/assault happening on his street and gave chase to the robber. Damien's street is maybe not a haven of tranquility.) Then 5 minutes after the cop took up his post at McDonalds, at 11 pm might I remind you, he had to break up a fight between two groups of kids who walked in and started talking trash to each other. Within a minute of the altercation beginning there were six police officers in McDonalds. So there is a police action going one while I am sitting there eating my McDouble. That is about the last store I want to return to the next time I need french fries. I hope the rest of that officer's shift went easier, but somehow I doubt that it did. And that's why Adams Morgan sucks on weekends.

Another thing that sucks is when men have to pay a cover but ladies get in for free. I do not appreciate that, and I do not appreciate the demeanor with which women enter such establishments while the men in the group are stopped by a bouncer to shell out money. Oh, this was also in Adams Morgan. Did I mention that Adams Morgan sucks? Remember equal rights-the key word there is equal.
Of course I later surmised the reason that ladies were free. The upstairs was a lesbian club. There was so much flannel!

A brief note to myself: next time don't eat that empanada. You'll regret it almost immediately.

Friday night I saw Gavi's brother do standup. I had not been to a comedy show in a long time, so it was quite refreshing. Gavi's brother was very good and there were a few more comedians who had quality sets. Of course there was one guy who I could not stand. Right from his first joke I knew it was going to be bad. He had a voice like an annoying Gilbert Gottfried and relied on profanity as bigotry as crutches. "I'm generally a progressive guy, but I'm starting to hate gay people..." is not a good way to begin a joke. If that's your intro, that joke had better be fantastic. It was not; I was unhappy.

Administrative Law Is A Huge Waste of Time

This has been easily the most interesting week in Con Law so far. Admittedly that is a pretty low bar, like being the most delicious corn muffin. We have been talking about free speech. Monday we discussed profanity and you could tell my professor was looking forward to teaching the class. He dropped about 40 F-bombs during class, along with a bunch of other curse words that were entirely unnecessary but he just had to get off his chest. Tuesday we talked about libelous speech and he read the magazine Us Weekly to the class, including a description of a country star who has 3 pet raccoons (prompting the kid next to me to mutter "hick"...he wasn't the only one). Today we were talking about obscenity and my professor said "The court says that obscenity is worthless speech. Nickelback is worthless speech, why can't we ban that?" Thank you! That's what I've been campaigning for a while. Why not throw Five for Fighting in there too while we're at it.

Does anyone else want to spray out all of the Pam just to see how much olive oil is in it?

My brief visit to Boston was a good way to break the regular weekly cycle. I finally purchased an object of longstanding desire: a fleece-lined hoodie which became affordable thanks to student discounts on top of other discounts. Shaked couldn't get one because she isn't built like a linebacker and they didn't have smalls. I also ate myself into a Guatemalan food and candy coma with Ron and Shaked before seeing Robert Downey Jr. punch a small child in the stomach (in a movie, not in person - that would have been a much better story). I (with Shaked) prohibited Ethan from bringing a large stuffed unicorn out on a Friday night, pet my cats, and debated my mother about the utility of teachers unions. Overall, what I'd expect from a much-needed visit.

There is a New York Times story about the Onion news stories about Joe Biden. That's meta. Also, hilarious that they generated that much attention. The best part is that the Times tried to get an interview with Biden for their article. It was laughingly denied.

I'm Brian Fellows.

Too Tired, if this is incoherent I apologize

Apparently I have no time to update. I've been busy procrastinating. In fact, I just read an article in the New Yorker about procrastination in order to procrastinate doing work. How's that for meta? Then it just made me feel really bad about myself - it still didn't really motivate me to do the work that I should be doing.

BDP and Emma came in last Friday for the Rally to Restore Sanity, which was a smashing success to the tune of 200,000+ people. The signs were pretty great. For some reason my personal favorite was a counter to "The Rent Is too Damn High" which said "The Rent Is Proportional to Supply and Demand." But there were tons of great ones. The rally itself was amusing and fun. I have never been in a crowd that large before. The general tenor of the crowd was very civil, perhaps surprisingly so. There was no pushing and shoving, only cooperation and humor. It was all quite...sane. The performances themselves were varied, I'm sad that Kid Rock only did some crappy song that no one's ever heard before instead of doing that crappy song that everyone's heard. The Roots were great, Ozzy Osbourne was there (!!), and Stewart and Colbert were good times. There's probably more to that, but it's all too much to write down now. The only downside is that I got a sunburn on half of my face. I was standing in the sun for like 5 hours, I am fair-skinned, and I did not anticipate a need for sunblock (it being October 30th and all, not July 30th).

Halloween night ended well - with Ben Sandler at Ben's Chili Bowl (note: Ben's Chili Bowl is in no way associated with Ben Sandler, they both just happen to be named Ben. Sandler is in no way that I am aware of responsible for the ownership of Ben's Chili Bowl). That came after a really weird house party that I am still unclear as to why I was in attendance. I'm going to blame Alena because she's an easy target, not having a blog of her own to respond with and likely not even reading this one. Sucka.

While I'm mentioning people, I should say that the night before the rally I had the pleasure of seeing Caitlin and Molly. They are like Sister Sister with a few large differences...like they are not twins and do not have a television show. Other than that no differences come to mind (I am colorblind!). Sorry, I am really tired. I just wanted to update so it doesn't go a week with no news and my loyal readers (ha! what a joke) are not concerned that I have been picked up and shipped to Gitmo.

No political commentary about the election presently - I am too angry. Except to say that the state of Kentucky has elected a man who believes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be unconstitutional. Let's all reflect on that.

And Another Thing

It got to 78 degrees here and was so humid that the rain storm didn't do anything to make the air feel better. The humidity has kept me awake for three straight nights - it doesn't help that the heat is turned on in my building. It is late October, what is going on here?? This place is not civilized. My New England sensibilities are offended.

Tales From Real Law School:

I spent 3 hours tonight trying to figure out the correct way to cite 3 similar statutes. In the end, I just resigned myself to the fact that there is no rule in the guide that is exactly on point and threw in my best guess. To recap: 3 hours, 3 citations, no correct answer. Tales from real law school.

I met a 1L tonight. She said she loved law school. She asked me and another 2L how we felt about it. We looked at each other and laughed in her face. "Wait until exams," said the 2L next to me. "I just cannot picture having fun learning about subject matter jurisdiction," I added, incredulously. The 1L cocked her head quizzically to the side to tell me that she had no idea what subject matter jurisdiction was. Exactly. That's why you love law school. I encouraged her to keep enjoying it for now, then reassured her that I thought she was crazy.

Underlining. More Underlining.

My blogging has been severely injured by my actually getting down to business and doing work. Doing work makes much of my life consist of staring at some nonsense in a book and underlining things that seem important so that I may promptly forget them. I got frustrated enough with this process the other day that I actually yelled at my Admin casebook. Just me sitting at my desk with no one around shouting "Oh come on! No one cares!"

The only "interesting part" of "doing work" has been cite checking and substantiating sources for an article at the behest of my journal. The process basically requires me to look through the author's sources, check that she didn't just make up her facts, and then correct her citations. It's busy work (but necessary so we don't get slammed for academic integrity issues) and I am beginning to think that this author never actually went to law school based on how badly she managed to screw up the citation style. But that's really not my big qualm. Someone else was responsible for "source collection" - gathering together copies of the sources the author used. I have been assigned 18 citations to check, consisting of 16 sources. 5 of the sources I am supposed to be looking at were collected incorrectly. 5 of 16. Almost one third. Like, they are just blatantly not the source in the citation. Security Resolution 827 was cited; Resolution 857 was collected and given to me. Guys, 2s and 5s look kind of similar, but come on we are in 18th grade. Another mistake was printing out the wrong statute. Just clearly not the correct one - different number, different name, different everything. This was unhelpful to say the least and it requires me to look like a whiny moron when I have to relate the information to my editor. Whoever collected these sources must be joking. I don't have time for this. No time!

Why does ice cream make you thirsty?

I was relating a story about petting a dog on Saturday night after I left a bar. In the middle of talking about the dog I realized that this occurred around 2 am. Why was this lady out walking her dog at 2 am? And why was I still awake with my night not nearly over? Because we all make poor decisions is why. I don't know exactly what her bad decision was, but mine was playing beer dice.

I Recommend the youtube video "So you want to go to law school"

My goodness, how is it Wednesday already? I have been trying to buckle down, go into 'hermit mode' and get work done this week. Somehow I just feel like I'm treading water. It could be worse, I could be slipping. It helps that Con Law is the slowest thing ever. If we moved more slowly in that class, time would move backwards. And Admin is becoming as dry as a saltine. I wish I could report people saying stupid things in these classes, but really no one talks; no one even pays much attention. It is embarrassing how many computer screens are on gchat or the Wikipedia page for Sega.

I am still not sure what I am going to be for Halloween. Who really cares? I don't want to spend lots of money on an "awesome" costume. You can really only use it once (maybe reuse it on Purim if you are one of the chosen people). The only good reason to have a costume is so that other people won't harass you for not dressing up. I think I've mostly used up my cop-out costumes (like throwing on my old Starbucks apron), so unless I think of another one, I might be forced to branch out into the world of 'real' costumes. There's an earn of corn costume at Target, think that will go over well?

The bluebook is quite possibly the most frustrating book ever. More frustrating than "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." In case you don't go to law school or are not inexplicably well versed in legal writing, the bluebook is a style guide to legal citations. Just the description should give you an idea of how poor it is. I am spending a lot of time with this masterpiece of a book. Thanks journal.

Law Ego, big time

I have heard tell of people who work in biglaw being pretentious jerks, but I never saw it until last night. I was at the bar for a friend's birthday. A woman who apparently knows one of my friends started talking to me:
Her: You are all law students, right?
Me: Yeah. How did you know that?
Her: I just know.
Me: How? Did you overhear a conversation?
Her: I'm omnipotent.
Me: I think you mean omniscient.
[I'd like to pause here and note that this interaction began with her vocabulary gaffe. I will add that I was actually polite about this entire conversation, for once.]
Her: So what kind of law do you want to do?
Me: It looks like energy law.
Her: Oh, I work for the number three energy lawyer in the country.
Me: Oh, that's cool.
Her: Yeah, you want to be on my good side.
Me: Ummm, ok...?
Her: Yeah, I work at Steptoe and Johnson for the number three energy lawyer in the country. He's my boss. [Then she said the names of some lawyers I've never heard of which I do not remember.]
Me: Oh, nice. That's really cool.
Her: Yeah, you want to be my friend.
Me: I'm sorry, I'm really not trying to suck up to you...I don't need...like I already have a job, so it's all good. And your firm already rejected me, haha.
Her: What's your GPA?
Me: What? Why? I'm not...I don't...
Her: What is it??
Me: [Tells her, perhaps stupidly.]
Her: Oh we probably wouldn't take you. We are all 4.0. Haha.
Me: Ok, well...???
Then she walked away and started talking about me angrily to her friend. I really have no idea why. No lie, I was very polite to her this entire time. That might be hard to believe, but take m word for it. I was very conscious of her bad attitude in the face of my pleasantries.
Besides her blatant insecurity and need to prove how important she was, I have questions about this interaction. Is she a lawyer, or is she a paralegal or secretary? I'm not sure how often lawyers refer to their "boss." I feel like they would talk about a partner they work with or their managing partner. Also, she had this massive superiority complex, but the entire thing started out with correcting her vocabulary. Finally, Steptoe is a good firm, but it isn't #1 in the country or anything. Her arrogance was simply stunning.
I asked my friend about this woman, and apparently she runs a health blog. That is ironic. How to put this lightly...her ego matches her physique. She went on to sexually harass Jeff (who was in town and it was fantastic to see). It got to the point where Jeff, a very laid back individual who does not mind female attention, had to tell her not to touch him. If I ever act as arrogantly as this woman, just kill me.

When I eat apple sauce I feel like I am five. But it is delicious.

Tonight I went to a Washington Capitols game. It was my first professional hockey game since I was about seven, but that one previous game made me a grizzled veteran compared with the other people I went with. Despite all my live hockey experience, I still had to resort to discussing "Mighty Ducks" with my friends. I did have the good sense to do that in a hushed voice so that the enthusiastic hockey fans (also read: screaming white people in hockey jerseys) would not know of my relative ignorance of the sport. The game was fun, for an inside sporting event, and I got to see Ovechkin score a goal so there was my money's worth. I was amazed at the high percentage of people who had hockey jerseys on. Those things are expensive and...it's hockey. But apparently people are passionate about the Capitols. Remember that time there was a hockey strike and no one I knew cared?

I've been hungry a lot recently, and I have no idea why. Maybe I am not getting enough of something. If I knew anything about nutrition then maybe that might help me be more descriptive. Protein maybe? That's a thing that makes you not so hungry I believe. Then again, so is pizza. My desert island food might be pizza.
Making food has become somewhat of an onerous task. You have to think about what you want, make it, eat it, and clean up. Sometimes I think it's just easier to walk to Subway. Then I remember I do not like Subway very much and it is far more expensive than just making basically the same sandwich with grocery store ingredients. Maybe the answer to some of this problem is purchasing paper plates so I don't have to wash my dishes? Wow, how lazy can I get?? Not to mention environmentally unfriendly. I think a better answer is to find new, interesting, and delicious things to cook. And to find my motivation. I think it is with Waldo.

News flash: 7:45 remains too early to pay attention in class.

Stupid person of the day: Me, for accidentally holding the door for the girl I don't like. Stupid manners getting in the way of vindictiveness. I dislike her for somewhat legitimate reasons though: she stole one of my screening interviews during OCI, she is inconsiderate when I have to walk past her seat in a narrow row of chairs, and she is ugly. All that and I still was accidentally nice to her.

Conan's TBS Commercials Are Good

Between postseason baseball and regularly scheduled football, there has been a lot of sports watching. As a result I get to be a male stereotype. In the past few days I have: drank beer, played pool, sat on the couch all day watching football, ate pizza and wings, mocked losing teams, mocked fans of losing teams, been mocked for being a fan of a losing team - just to name a few things. I am almost thankful that Monday is coming around to drag me back in the direction of responsibility. Being a stereotypical male is exhausting and somewhat mind numbing. I'm glad I am not Heteronormative Man (the superhero, clearly).

When you think of beer pong, you think of classiness, right? I know I do. I played the classiest game of beer pong against Damien. We listened to Frank Sinatra, that's really all it took. It was really not appropriate for the mood. Coors Light and "Strangers In The Night" do not mix.

On Friday, one Ms. Elana Sandler was visiting DC and stopped in to have lunch with me. Much like the FBI, she may well be monitoring this, so I should watch what I say (it is, after all, a readily available internet blog...and I am terrible at watching what I say). Elana chastised me for not being angrier. She was apparently expecting a fit of rage at some idiotic, relatively minor incident from school. I was sorry to disappoint, but school is either less irksome this year or I just pay less attention. For Elana, I will pay more attention in class to make sure that people are not saying moronic things that I am just missing. Heightened sensitivity. Heightened scrutiny. Ahhhh law school, it still plagues me.

Today I learned: beer die, a new game.
I really want to learn how to be good at chess. Patience is probably a first step, but a difficult one.

I think many people, especially in law school, forget that they are not just their resume. I certainly almost forgot it for a moment there. Just a thought.

At the bar last night a girl asked Reza if he was allowed to be at the bar legally because he looked so young. There were four of us sitting there and Reza was actually the oldest. He was slightly offended, but did not retaliate. That's because he's nice; I might have asked her if she was allowed to be in the bar or whether she was breaking curfew at her retirement home.

If you have not seen it, I recommend looking up Betty White guest starring on "Community," particularly discussing Inception and singing "Africa" by Toto. Best thing ever.

No 4am Wake Up Call For Me

I wanted to wake up insanely early to go to the Supreme Court tomorrow to see the oral arguments in Snyder v. Phelps, the case where a church group goes around protesting at the funerals of servicemen because they believe that people are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan because of America's tolerance of homosexuals and got sued. It pits the First Amendment against the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Very interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I am aware that around 50 people are already camped outside of the Court, waiting to get in at 9:30 tomorrow morning. First, that is very intense of them, and they are in for a night of rain, cement, and misery. Second, that means that even if I chose to join their slumber party this minute, I still would not get into the Court tomorrow morning. And you thought the wait time at Six Flags was bad! I am contemplating getting up tomorrow to go see the protesters outside of the Court, but that is unimportant enough that my desire for slumber will likely triumph.

It is official. I have a job. Huge sigh of relief. How ever will I fill my mandatory stress level now? What about worrying about other people? Done. I am now sending out positive energy. Or, as much positive energy as I am capable of mustering. Which might not be a lot compared to other people. Sorry. I really am trying...

I was talking about it, but it does occur to me, does Gogurt still exist? Was there a sufficient market for easily portable pouches of yogurt that it survives to this day?

Each day I find myself waking up with progressively less motivation to do inane work. I don't want to read a 7 page case which will be boiled down into a one sentence rule for the final. I don't want to listen to a 45-minute lecture about originalism in constitutional law that we already heard most of last week. And I don't want to write an explanation of how a note topic centered around Iran is not centered around the US. Thank you, law school, for the hours of fun.

Rememberance of Standardized Tests Past

Remember remember the fourth of October...ok, so it's not Guy Fawkes day. But it is the second anniversary of taking the dreaded LSAT. That terrible test which plagued my senior year of college. I used to do my homework to procrastinate from doing my thesis, and do my thesis to procrastinate from studying for the LSAT. Ah, the memories. Practicing logic games for hours, cursing the similarities between two seemingly-correct answers, and listening to Ron whistle the Indiana Jones theme song in the middle of my practice test until I couldn't stand it anymore. In apparent honor of this anniversary, two people have contacted me today asking about law school and the admissions process. I did the best I could to give them an honest perspective, and, of course, had to warn them to take anything I say with a grain of salt. There are people with a worse attitude about law school than me, but they are difficult to find.

Watching football, it occurs to me that I kind of want to feel an NFL hit. Just to know if I could take it or not. I mean, I certainly could not survive multiple NFL hits. I would be a terrible NFL player (for one thing I am nowhere near large enough, for another I don't take ridiculous risks like driving with a blood alcohol volume twice the legal limit or bring a loaded gun in my sweatpants to the club). Taking even one hit I'd probably end up with a concussion and three broken ribs, but maybe that's the price of curiosity.

Telephone tag is a whole lot less fun than real tag.

Can I Sleep Now?

I don't have anything heinously unhealthy to eat in the apartment? Whatever shall I do? Will I venture out to CVS to buy Pretzel M&Ms? Or will I let me apathy take over and continue to sit here? Probably apathy, considering I am blogging rather than working at the moment.

I think it's going to be a good week. When was the last time I said that? No time in recent memory. Clearly, I must have lost enough sleep to become delusional and optimistic. Considering I just clicked the internet explorer icon instead of the iTunes icon on my computer, this is entirely possible.

Many people in bars do not appreciate glib remarks. Perhaps I should remember this when they have a few bigger friends and all I have is a drunk friend dancing like Michael Jackson.

In the grand scheme of things, how much dirtier is "Play" by David Banner than "Happiness is a Warm Gun" by the Beatles? Come on, they are practically the same song.

I am pretty sure I will be the proprietor of a sleeping bag hotel on the weekend of the Rally To Restore Sanity. It has the potential to be epic. You should come.

So long 2010 Red Sox. Let's make some moves and try this again.

New Toothbrush Day

It's new toothbrush day. That day when you are at CVS and finally remember that thing that has been gnawing at the back of your mind for a few weeks. That day when you get that nice crisp brush and remember why new toothbrushes are important. To accompany my new toothbrush I even purchased new toothpaste. Not a new kind, just a new tube. This is probably more important than the new brush; this morning I managed to squeeze out the last drop of toothpaste. Believe me, there were tense moments when I though I would not be able to get anything, that the well was dry. Luckily I avoided a terrible fate: having to sneakily use my roommate's sub-par toothpaste.

I think I found a new note topic! And it's not preempted! But I am trying not to jinx it. Two things. First, I don't know why, but I am increasingly superstitious and worried about jinxing things by discussing them. Maybe I need to go outside, run around the building, throw salt over my should and spit, or whatever it is. Second, Jinx was the name of the cat in the "Freddy the Pig" book series, which I enjoyed thoroughly as a child (as maybe continue to enjoy).

My Corporations professor went on a lengthy tangent about how he does not understand the "Poke" feature of facebook. Among his comments were, "I've never been poked," and "I always want to poke someone, but I never do. I just hover my cursor around it." He is a silly man. Speaking of professors, I ran into my old Property professor, who invited me to attend oral arguments with her class at the Supreme Court on Wednesday at 5 in the morning. She was so enthusiastic she gave me copies of the briefs and appellate court opinion to look over if I want. I am currently weighing how cool it would be to see a First Amendment oral argument at the Supreme Court against my desire for sleep. My current thinking: you only live once! I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Relief

I really have been meaning to update more frequently, but sometimes there just are not enough hours in the day. Though too many hours at night. Last night I dreamed that I was asleep when two people broke into my apartment through the balcony. It turned out they were lawyers and I talked and ate with them rather than reacting as if they were normal burglars. Then I woke up in a panic. Why? I don't know. But I hate burglars. It's a semi-irrational fear of mine, next to snakes and sharks. At least Indiana Jones has my back regarding the snakes.

The largest stress of this year so far in law school is mercifully behind me. I am overjoyed and relieved. A huge weight has been lifted. I wish everyone else the best of luck. Now all I have to do is choose a note topic. I've discovered that some other jerks did what I wanted to do first. Way to go, people who preempted me. And I met with a professor who pretty much shot down my two other ideas. So that was a fun little meeting where I am pretty sure I came off as hugely cynical and anti-human rights. I'd call that a success and look forward to my grade at the end of the semester.

Yesterday during my Con Law class there was a sorority event going on outside in the quad. Apparently the event was "Yell for Two Hours," and was conveniently timed to coincide with my professor's lecture about Lawrence v. Texas, a case about homosexual sodomy and more generally gay rights. In the midst of the lecture and after a particularly loud cheer from the sororities outside, my professor responded by saying "That's right, go sodomy!" Now that's how you enliven a class.

Yesterday I saw a man biking home from work in a suit, with a bow tie undone hanging around his collar. I don't know why, but I thought it was hilarious. Maybe it's because I then pictured Tucker Carlson on a racing bike. I bet he wears a bow tie at all times: cooking, swimming, and moonwalking.

Come on Fhqwhgads. Everybody to the limit.

Tonight I went to the Nationals/Phillies game. The Nationals lost, don't worry. It was the last home game of the season, and the foresight that I will miss baseball greatly in the off season spurred my decision. Also, they really want people to come to the ballpark. They were doing half price student tickets, they gave out free ski hats to the first 20,000 people, they had a fireworks show, and they handed out lots of other paraphernalia from the field which I did not get thrown to me because I am not a seven year old child. It was nice; Nationals Park is a fun place. But my real takeaway from the game was this: Philadelphia fans are awful. They are merciless in the face of pathetic opposition. They are boisterous, inappropriately drunk in a bad way, and bordering on cold-hearted. When you are winning by 6 runs in the bottom of the ninth and the home town fans are applauding a local player who had a great year and might not be back next year (Adam Dunn), it really is not necessary to boo the home town fans. That's just poor sportsmanship. And the $3 cap I bought outside the stadium has bad craftsmanship - shockingly.

I like Stevie Wonder a lot, but some of his songs surprise me with how bad they are.

This Was Not the Comedy We Intended to do When the Week Began

I think I have a note topic picked out. I want to title the note in a glib manner which I am certain will get me yelled at by my notes editor. I want to call it "Here's A Bad Idea: Humanitarian Intervention after Natural Disasters." Maybe I'll even write it in a way that doesn't make people want to gouge their eyes out rather than read it all.

I had a networking meeting with a big-shot lawyer today. He was very nice to me, but he told me something unbelievable. Immediately after law school he worked as an associate at a prominent Chicago firm for two years. He left the firm to go work as legislative counsel to a senator and got a pay increase. The Senate paid him more than the private firm, but, as he said, "Private firms took care of that in a hurry."

That's all I will say about the stressful black hole that is the job search. However, I will say that Justice Scalia, despite being a brilliant legal mind, is kind of homophobic. In a dissent from the Court opinion striking down an anti-homosexual sodomy law he wrote:
"Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct."
Despite his use of the word opprobrium, which I admittedly had to look up (it means the disgrace or the reproach incurred by conduct considered outrageously shameful...and some law clerk must have been pretty smug when he suggested it), and despite my cherry picking of a quotation, that's pretty ridiculous. While it comes in the context of a legal argument, that legal argument is essentially that many people dislike homosexuals and want to discriminate against them, and that we should let them through state legislatures because their rights are not historically fundamental in our society. Anyone want to remind Justice Scalia about the treatment of African-Americans in this country in the nineteenth century? Or want to discuss Equal Protection? (Justice O'Connor did!)

Can I give my old laptop a viking funeral on the Potomac?

How important is exercise really? What if I ate pecan sandies instead of running?

As per my suggestion related to a case we read in Corporations, I now believe that the Pope should turn the Catholic Church into a gigantic Chuck E Cheese. Think about the size of the ball pits that would produce!

There are some athletes where all I want to do is damage their personal property to get back at them for messing up so badly.

What Kind of Week It Has Been

Wow, I feel like I've been very busy. The aphorism about law school is "First year they scare you to death; second year they work you to death; third year they bore you to death." While I would hesitate to categorize my first year as being scared to death (it was more of a death by cynicism), the second year is adhering to the cliche so far. For example, I had a meeting this evening at 7, and I have class tomorrow at 7:45. Yes, 7:45 in the morning. I get 12 hours and 45 minutes to do law school-related things which do not require my physical presence at school. And to sleep (what a joke). And to update my blog, clearly the best way to use my time!

The thing about 7:45 am class is that it is kind of like getting thrown into a pool. Getting up and getting to class really sucks at first, but after a little while you adjust. And you shouldn't eat for 30 minutes beforehand. It does give me motivation to be productive all morning since I'll already be awake.
It just occurs to me that there was a book I was supposed to purchase and read for this class. Apparently that slipped my mind, whoops. So did paying my cable bill. Think RCN will notice?

Overheard in DC: "I still think it's weird when I am referred to as a woman" - said by a female in her mid-20's whose physical appearance suggested a sex-change, but likely actually talking about growing up and having that conversation about being a 'real adult.'

The new gunner in Con Law is keeping at it. Yesterday he asked a question that was clearly designed to make the professor aware that he had studied the history of British common law. Today he asked a question that was clearly designed to make the professor aware that he had read another constitutional law case that was not discussed in our class. He seems to be a "look-how-smart-I-am" gunner. Oh, the things that you know, gunner. Oh, the eyes you do not see rolling behind you every time you speak. You might know about Loving v. Virginia, but you do not know about social cues.

Did that actually just happen? moment

For some reason discussing abortion in any context brings out the absolute worst in people. Today in Con Law it brought out the worst in gunners. We were discussing Roe v. Wade. (At the beginning of class I turned around and desperately asked the girl behind me what the case was about. Thankfully, she understood my sarcasm.) After discussing the legal reasoning behind the case and talking about how it fits into substantive due process jurisprudence, my professor opened up the floor a bit and started asking questions. Cue the crazies. First, one kid pontificated on the personal politics of the nine Supreme Court justices. We all know and no one wants to hear it. Shut up. Then, in response to a hypothetical designed to tease out our thoughts about the inherent conflict between the right to life and the right to autonomy, a classmate of mine offered a counter-hypothetical: "What if they ground up the babies into a powder and fed it to the mothers which would enhance their lives for 18 years." That's when I sat up straight in my chair and looked around with my mouth hanging open to see who else realized that this was the craziest thing ever. It was a "Did that just actually happen???" moment. Even if I explained the full context here it wouldn't make a difference. That's just a ridiculous thing to say. It almost makes me miss Racist-Civ-Pro kid.

This evening I had an Alternative Dispute Resolution Board meeting. It was a waste of an hour of my life. This comes a whole day after being asked about ADR Board at an interview and candidly expressing my feeling that it was a wholly arbitrary (and capricious) and largely useless membership. I was selected from a client counseling competition - how do you assign objective measure to how good a client counselor someone is? I guess there is a way...but the people who were judging certainly were no more trained than I. In retrospect I am not sure this was the best thing to say during an interview...maybe it's this kind of thing which prevents me from getting a job. Hope not! I still remain desperate and perhaps rethinking law school.

I keep getting distracted by nearby conversations during Boggle and losing to Reza. That's right, I blame the nearby conversations.

Wisher

Shaked and, to a lesser extent, Missy and Braver came to visit this weekend. We did a lot of things around the city. Friday's dinner became somewhat of a fiasco right away, so you knew it would be a good weekend. A bunch of us had dinner at an Asian restaurant. While placing her order, Shaked asked for her dish without rice. The waiter instructed her to give her rice to her friend, to which she responded that he should just not bring her any rice. Well, as it turned out he brought a bowl of rice and put it in front of her. I was sitting across from her and, having been informed of the exchange, took her rice. As the bowl was still in my hand, the waiter whisked by and scooped it up from out of my hand. What?! Is this a joke? How rude can you be? It was a prickly situation, and the end of dinner consisted of the waiter standing immediately next to the table indiscreetly attempting to get us out of there as quickly as possible. Remember, gratuity was included! But that isn't supposed to mean that the service is atrocious. At least the food was good and Shaked and I did not get into a physical altercation with this gentleman. We proceeded to a hot chocolate shop where the machine which makes their hot chocolate was broken. Shaked was disappointed. Everyone else got milkshakes. The evening ended watching Disney's Hercules at Rachel's with Jason and Missy. We wanted to play Werewolves, but couldn't garner enough interest.

Sidenote: Missy claimed that I have an hourglass-shaped body. I would like to dispute that claim here and now. I have nothing approaching an hourglass shape, and I'm not sure what exactly it says about Missy that she thinks otherwise. Rachel and Shaked agree with me! Missy is, as always, an odd one.

The next morning we reconvened for brunch and Shaked fulfilled her desire for hot chocolate. Also, Rachel fulfilled her desire to get Diet Coke spilled on her head by making sudden movements as the waiter brought Missy more soda. After the spill on Rachel's head, Missy selflessly said "Don't worry, my dress is fine." We went to VegFest where I made disparaging remarks about PETA and vegetarians. Par for the course. Shaked and I then proceeded to Georgetown and, on a whim, rented a kayak. Because this was not a planned nautical adventure, we were both wearing jeans which were immediately drenched in water from the Potomac. After kayaking (it was my first time!), we walked back through Georgetown to Trader Joes and did some quality wet-jean food shopping. I will also note that in one of my less-proud moments I may or may not have hit Shaked on the head with a kayak paddle. Not hard, but still. Karma caught up with me, however, and gave me a sunburn.

Later that evening, after we visited the National Portrait Gallery, Shaked and I met up with Gavi and Jason at Damien's party. We were just dropping by for a few minutes, but in that limited amount of time I managed to make a girl hate me. Admittedly, I was being snobby, but she was being stubborn. And she was ugly. It was about burglaries - how bad can I really feel? Alright, it was my fault. Mea culpa; I was wrong, and I instigated. But still...I don't care. Then we went to U Street to meet up with Alena and her friends and I nearly fell asleep on the walk home.

On Sunday, Shaked and I went to Eastern Market, saw Jackson Pollack (actually he was named Jackson Collins, I believe, but we both heard incorrectly at first), lots of amusing posters (the CIA recruiting women: "We are looking for a few good women"), and a creepy looking women telling fortunes. On the way back we went past the Capitol and ran into the 9/12 Tea Party rally. Wow, that was interesting. I don't think we successfully blended in among the crowd. Shaked took to counting non-white people. She pointed out a grand total of two. There were tens of thousands of people there. It was an interesting, amusing, scary experience. Shaked decided it was time to leave when we saw a man holding a sign saying something to the effect of "We won't burn the Koran when they won't burn the American flag," and I wholeheartedly agreed to leave. I kept wanting to talk to the people there to ask them what their conception of a proper government was. Do they have ideas to create jobs? Why do they feel that Congress' taxes are unfair? I half wanted to engage in a legitimate political dialogue with them, but there were too many of them and I was definitely a little scared. No visible guns though! Or racist or sexist signs, so I cannot legitimize those rumors. Oh tea baggers, you silly gooses (geese, would really be correct). I love that half the movement is just dressing up in American flag paraphernalia.

The rest of Sunday included meeting Rachel at the zoo where I had no shame in being afraid of snakes, doing minimal amounts of actual "work," and meeting up with lots of people for dinner. At dinner Jason and I had an accidental date - sharing a pizza and a carafe of wine. Gavi loved it. Monday brought classes (thumbs down) and Shaked's departure (thumbs much further down). It was great to see the visiting Shaked, Missy, and Braver. Now I have to face the harsh reality of school for which I have not done any work for three days. Oops. It was worth it though. Now if only I could find a job, a note topic, and some motivation...

King Henry V, 3:1

Returning to law school reminds me of Shakespeare a bit:
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead."
I am beginning to be reminded of the grinding, stressful aspects of school. I guess it really is not that bad, but it certainly is no romp in the park.

Today in Corporations my professor got a student who had previously volunteered to eat bovril on a cinnamon-raisin bagel. Bovril is a British beef extract, more popular in the nineteenth century. Sounds delicious. He then proceeded to grill another student about the 1975 Baltimore Orioles and discuss the propensity of sailors towards drinking. Overall, I'd give today's class a 9.5.

Tomorrow morning I have class at 7:45 am for journal. The theme will be "RISE AND SHINE ISN'T LIFE GREAT IN THE MORNING AND DON'T YOU LOVE BEING ALIVE AT THIS TIME OF DAY??" Speaking of which, I should go to sleep.

Welcome to your college frat party

Last night I hung out with Damien and some of his friends. Among them was a girl named Courtney (I think). She was a medical school student from Tampa and seemed nice enough. Somewhere in the middle of dinner she started talking politics and about how bad Obama has been. "Why," I asked her, "has Obama been so bad? He sure isn't perfect, but he passed financial reform, health care reform..." That's when the lights and buzzers went off, I said the magic words. She started tearing into health care reform, talking about how insurance companies are increasing their premiums and hospitals will cherry-pick patients. Honestly, I do not have the requisite knowledge to debate her on this, and I do not know the finer points of health care reform. I do, however, know that insurance companies and hospitals acting against patient interests is nothing new nor is it the fault of the Obama administration. I also know that when she told me "Every doctor in Florida thinks it is terrible," she is probably incorrect. Doctors cannot agree whether its a virus or food poisoning, so it would be miraculous to get every doctor in the very populous state of Florida to agree on a political opinion. Alright, she doesn't like health care reform. We'll see if it works or not, I guess.
Then she got worse.
This girl said she does not understand why anyone votes on social issues ("I mean, I love gay people, but it just isn't that important"). When pushed a bit on it, she responded that politicians don't make decisions on social issues, it's all the judicial system. "What about that Civil Rights Act? That was legislative. And DOMA?" I asked her. She had no response. I wonder why she did not have a proper retort? Could it be that she is entirely incorrect, does not know history, and has no idea about how American government works? Yes, many decisions on "social issues" come from the courts (Prop 8 ruling, just to think of one off the front page). But legislators and even executives have a huge impact and are constitutionally empowered to act on the issues. Also, to say that social issues do not matter sounds pretty flimsy coming from a privileged, white, Christian medical school student.
Another bright spot of the conversation was her statement, "I don't understand why so many Jews vote Democrat. It isn't in their interest." When asked to clarify she advanced the position that Jews are well-off to rich. It would be wholly unnecessary to dismantle her statements premise by premise. They are ignorant, incorrect, and borderline offensive, to be generous. In the midst of this discussion (which, by the way, included four or five people, not only Courtney and me), Damien's friend Sam tried to mention that many Jews have altruistic instincts because Jews have themselves been the victims of poor circumstances on a few occasions. Courtney's eyes glazed over and she simply could not understand the idea that someone could not always act in their own economic interest.
Other topics of conversation which betrayed her ignorance included why rebuilding is necessary and we can't just up and leave Afghanistan at the drop of a hat, why President Obama did not create the federal deficit, and why we live in a welfare state (because there are...welfare programs?). A lot went on in a short period of time. I laughed; I cried; I stopped talking and let other people handle it.

Then we went to a party thrown by some law school people. A house-warming party of sorts. It did get very warm in the house, perhaps due to the heat given off by the 200 or so people inside. It was every frat party I ever went to in college, but 80s-themed despite not playing 80s music. Not my favorite. Maybe 80s music would have helped. The big difference between this and a frat party was that when the cops came I was not worried in the slightest. We had 200 law students there, surely someone would be able to talk the police into leaving us alone. As it turns out, that was my friend Pat, who did so in a belly shirt and green spandex shorts.

Everybody's Free (To Forget to Wear Sunscreen)

Yesterday was pretty fantastic. I spent the majority of the day at Jen and Anthony's rooftop pool. I got yelled at for trying to read for Corporations and write a cover letter. All told, I think I was there hanging out with various people, swimming, and throwing around a football (which ultimately took a 12 story fall into the parking lot and was never heard from again) for about six hours. I guess this is that "relaxing" stuff that people talk about. Being white and responsible, I sprayed my torso and arms with sunscreen. SPF 30, baby. I did not anticipate being in the sun for as long as I was and thus forgot all about my legs and feet. So now I have a nice little sunburn on my knees and the tops of my feet. Wearing socks is slightly painful these days (just like watching the Sox - hey-yo). Now, back to work. Actually, some back to work is fun, like reading Griswold v. Connecticut. Maybe Shaked will be the only one who agrees with me, but I enjoy reading that case.

Notwithstanding Griswold, there are still tolls from school. Currently, I have to think of a note topic (a note is basically a piece of scholarly writing akin to a thesis, though shorter than a full-fledged thesis). I wonder if my journal will accept a tragicomedy in two acts about the American embargo against trade with Cuba. I doubt it, so I am forced to find alternatives. Any ideas for fun topics related to international law?

Four day weekend!

Firsts

There have been a good amount of firsts going around. Today was the first time I've ever had to shower because I smelled like lamb. Oh, and yesterday was the first day of classes. They were fine...I'm sure they will be further discussed. Nothing too stunning yet - the highlight so far is Clarence Thomas speaking so reckless, as usual. His views are still radical and impractical. But the lamb I roasted was delicious. I've been looking forward to it for a little bit now. Alena ate it with me, and she was quite patient as I figured out just how long it needed to stay in the oven. Want something gross looking? It's lamb drippings. Also, delicious for future gravies or sauces.

Being back at school is a little stressful. Everyone talking about jobs, internships, journal, homework, and skeet shooting. Alright, one of those discussions really added no law school pressure. But the others make me want to not talk with my classmates. If I pretend to be deaf do I get one of those ASL interpreters who can stand next to the professor every class period? That's a heinous abuse and waste of resources, but I kind of want to know. Would you get that?? Whenever I see someone signing along next to a speaker I inevitably look at them despite not understanding sign language. No matter how compelling the speaker, I am drawn to watching. It is entirely unclear why. I don't think I'll keep looking at French subtitles of a film in English.

It's almost college football season: the time of year where I can't watch ESPN anymore on Saturdays because I just don't care that much about any of it.

Law School v. 2.0

Tomorrow is the first day of classes. Holy crap I am so much more prepared for it this time than I was last year. Last year I didn't know anything. I was getting thrown into the deep end with no lifeguard. This time I am swan-diving into the pool, only I mess up the dive a little bit and end up hurting my shoulders and dignity. I am actually excited to learn in my classes (Con Law II, Administrative Law, Corporations, and US Foreign Relations Law), but I am not excited about journal nor the job search. Those are my big downers. Like a New Year's resolution I am sure this won't last, but I really am going to try to maintain a decent work schedule along the 9 to 5 lines. My alarm is set for 8 am, and I am prepared to be cranky but productive in the morning.

The swamp that is DC is still hot. I do not enjoy breaking a sweat walking around outside after the sun has gone down. I feel like ever since I got here I have just been showering constantly. One in the morning, one after I work out, and then a third because I unintentionally got really sweaty just from walking around. Not cool (hot and sweaty, in fact).

This weekend was Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, so a lot of attendees/tourists were in town. It was pretty easy to pick them out. They were mostly overweight, white, and dumpy-looking. The rally's standard uniform was a tucked-in t-shirt that either had a rally logo on it or just an American Flag - just to show how much they loved America. I was honestly a little scared by these people. I kept wanting to stop and make conversation, just to see how it went. I'm not saying they are bad, ignorant, or bigoted people - I am just interested in how you could be so moved by Glenn Beck that you forfeit your weekend and spend money to come to a three hour rally in the heat on the National Mall. I don't get it. I live here and I couldn't be bothered to attend (granted I 1) had a meeting and 2) disagree with just about everything this rally stands for). I want to know what the motivation is. I think the only way I'd cross state lines to go to a rally is if someone really awesome were there...someone like Tina Fey. Yeah, I'd go see her. Throw in Alec Baldwin and I'm there.
Also, conservatives wake up really early! The rally started at 10 am, that means tens of thousands of people got up, navigated a strange public transportation system, and got settled all by 10 in the morning. There is no way I could manage that.

Bewilderment

Whooooooo six personalized "thank you" emails! Pounded those out before the close of business. I am literally certain that they are full of grammatical problems if not plain spelling errors. As a result, I am going to imagine they are idyllic and not look in my "Sent Messages" folder.

"Hi, my name is nervousness and I am here to keep you awake last night."
"Well thanks nervousness, I didn't really feel like sleeping anyways. Let's play Boggle."
-Conversation that occurred two nights ago, pre-interview day, in my head.

A lot of the time when I am dealing with tense situations I invent ridiculous ways to approach them. For example, I created an elaborate plan to deal with my interview involving bringing Justin Timberlake (Shaked wisely recommended that I leave Justin in the reception area). It didn't necessarily help me de-stress, but it did make me want an entourage - not like that show "Entourage" but more like with Justin Timerlake who can narrate things in song form. Ask RKG, I tried inventing songs for him to sing in the background to help during my interview.

Now that I am done being slightly bewildered...

A dog is man's best friend, but diamonds are a girls best friend. Those are two quite different things. Has anyone ever explored this before? Discuss.

Here's a thing I still don't care about - youtube videos of people doing stupid crap.

A Middle East peace strategy maybe we should try: asking politely. Then sulking in the corner when our good-will is rebuffed until someone notices and gives concessions just to make us feel better. Then we all play four square and make the "double-taps" rule, and end up spiking the ball through someone's square who has been uncooperative.

Law of Large Numbers

Stephen Strasburg strained a flexor tendon in his pitching arm; I strained my patience for writing cover letters. I am (sort of) attempting to go with Shaked's idea and let the law of large numbers work its magic. That is to say, if I apply to enough places one of them is bound to want me, right?? To glance at my resume and say "He is the one!" It's a rough job market out there, that's the one thought that keeps getting drilled into us. So while I do not take rejection as an ego blow, I can only hope that my persistence pays off. I do get bored of the endless cover letters, however (Exhibit A: this blog entry).
Of course, there are still some places I would actually prefer to work, and I am not at the stage of being completely un-picky just yet. Though that could change sometime soon.

Last night I was half-watching "Inglorious Bastards" at a pregame at Damien's house. It started out as a few guys watching, some of whom had never seen it before (myself included). More people came, and I was still trying to keep an eye on the movie. It was difficult for me because I didn't bring my glasses and I do not have best eye sight in the world, meanwhile there are a lot of subtitles. I remarked on this and a girl's response was "There aren't many subtitles in this movie." "Well, the last half an hour has been entirely subtitled because they are all speaking German, and they are subtitles on the screen right now...so, I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you," was my polite response.

There are a lot of things I just never learned about, like matting in picture frames. When was I supposed to learn about that?

Damien busted out matzah last night and gave me a piece to eat. That was probably the first time I have ever eaten matzah in August. What a random thing to have lying around the kitchen.

The Walk Home From U Street

Last night's walk home had a definite high point and a definite low point. Not often you get twenty minute walks with such moments.
The low point: watching two enormous rats playing rat tag in the middle of the sidewalk without any regard to the fact that people were walking there. Rats, you are supposed to be afraid of humans.
The high point: walking next to the Dupont fountain and seeing a number of people with balloon artist created hats in a bunch of ridiculous colors and sizes. Then hearing one cop say to the other "If I weren't on duty I'd love one of those."

I met with my (former) Civ Pro professor today. It was 1/4 "How was your summer?"; 1/4 good advice; 1/4 talking baseball; and 1/4 listening to him eviscerate big law firms and tell me how awful they are to work at. I'd say that was a productive meeting. I hope he's a good reference for the big law firms that call! (Read: IF anyone shows enough interest in me to bother calling references. Fingers crossed? Knock on wood? Mighty Mighty Bostones in fifth grade?)

I managed to assemble a bookcase somewhat incorrectly today. That was quite the accomplishment, considering that I have had said bookcase in my possession for literally a year at this point. Finally assembled. Great success.

Where Have I Been?

Whoa, I totally have been falling down on the job of blogging this month. I apologize for that gentle reader (Miss Manners, anyone? Wow my childhood was weird). I have been running around organizing my move, moving, finishing moving details, and beginning law school stuff version 2L. But now I am back in DC, with a relatively organized apartment which was luckily not wrecked by my sublet. My mother was quite nice to drive me down. We made good time to New Jersey: 3.5 hours from Boston to get over the GW Bridge. Avoided New York traffic so it should have been a piece of cake from there, right? Wrong. I spent the next 6 hours in traffic between the armpit and the ant (New Jersey and Delaware) before finally getting to DC. I had to restrain my road rage a little bit because my mom was in the car, but I definitely *ahem* "had words for" this lady in a Chevy who cut me off coming out of a rest stop into a traffic jam, nearly running me into another car. Sorry mom!

So now I am back, immersed in the fall recruiting process (FRP) - a preposterous exercise where we search for jobs for next summer despite the fact that it is still August of this summer. Apparently most of 1L was to get us to this point so we could get a job for 2L summer. I am currently going through some on-campus interviews (OCI), which is akin to what I imagine speed dating to be like. People who have 'screening interviews' wait around a hotel for their pre-scheduled appointments with different law firms. We get 20 minutes per interview, and who knows what they are looking for in these things? I think they have been going well so far, I have demonstrated that I can be personable and articulate, and that I am not intensely socially awkward (which is more of an accomplishment than you might think). But interviewers have around 20 interviews a day - how do you stand out there except in a bad way? I sometimes contemplate doing ridiculous things like asking if I can order room service or just taking off my pants, but then I remember the rule of wedding crashing - do not draw attention to yourself in a negative way. That's right, "Wedding Crashers" is the only reason that I don't do ridiculous things. Thanks Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson!

I will update more soon, and with more frequency. But, predictably, I have more stuff to do. Crime never sleeps.

The Look

Indian food is not always a good idea, though it is usually a delicious one. This afternoon Shaked and I got Indian buffet, for old time's sake, and I haven't been really able to eat properly for the rest of the day. Mis-take. Even though when I was there I thought that I hadn't eaten myself into oblivion. I wasn't quite at that point where I was considering cutting open my stomach to relieve the pressure. Nonetheless, my stomach hasn't felt right for the past 10 or so hours. Hopefully it will rally and tomorrow will be a day of greater intestinal fortitude. It is times like this when salad has never sounded so appealing.

Salad: if not for dressing, it would be so unappealing. Good salad dressing is an investment. I don't mind spending the extra dollar for the good stuff. In the end it will lead to me eating far more salad than if I have some crap I don't like.

I think in preparation for moving back to DC I am going to hit up the New Hampshire state liquor store. Cheap prices and no tax? Yes please!

Last Friday I got into an altercation with a vaguely German sounding man driving an Audi SUV. He stopped at a stop sign for about fifteen seconds before I had to cross that street. I was nervous that maybe he stopped to fiddle with something in his glove compartment or something and he would start going without seeing me. Rather than walk in front of his car, I walked behind it - no big deal, right? But he rolled down his window and started yelling at me. He, apparently, was quite upset that I disrespected him so by walking behind his car. I was just under the impression that I was commuting and listening to my iPod. So he started yelling and I was shocked. I was confused at first and just trying to explain myself, but after he dropped two F-Bombs at me, I got into it with him. My Boston-ness took over, so of course I started cursing right back at him. This went on for about a minute, when we got to the real highlight of the "conversation":
Man: (in a German-esque accent) You gave me The Look; no one gives me The Look!!
Me: What????? What the hell are you talking about????
I capitalized "The Look" because I can only assume it is a proper noun. I have absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but with his accent and propensity for anger it was quite amusing. After he finally drove away, I continued my walk home. At first I was a little shocked that this had just occurred, then I started laughing. Then I checked over my shoulder to make sure he didn't turn around and follow me, because I have a feeling that he really would not have appreciated me laughing the rest of the way home. Luckily, he was not there, so I did.

I am thinking about (and have been for a long time) getting a new phone. Currently, every time I charge my phone I literally have to hold the charger in place with duct tape and rubber bands, so it might be time for a new one. But they don't make any good regular phones anymore (or ones that I like at least), so I am thinking about getting a smart phone. The question becomes Blackberry or iPhone...or Android? I just don't know what to do here. Advice? And consent? Maybe I should just go back to those Nokia block phones that were only black and white and you could drop down the Grand Canyon and they would still work just fine.

Thursday night when I was on the way to drop off Eva in Cambridge, I was called upon to help Shaked change a tire on her car. Three of the lug nuts came off without excessive amounts of struggle, but the fourth was a trickster. Shaked and I each pulled the car trying to loosen the nut. A Ford Focus. With the emergency brake on. What?? After a good fifteen minutes spent on this lug nut, Shaked calls her father. "Jump on it," he tells her. "I did." "Jump on it like you mean it." So Shaked jumps on it again and miraculously the nut comes off. Who would have thought that would be the best, and most useful, advice?

No Money, Mo' Problems

Today was the first day I can remember where I spent literally no money. I didn't have time during the work day to take my usual break to Dunkin Donuts in the morning. Or the afternoon. I didn't go out for dinner. I didn't buy something crazy online, or see a movie, or go out for a drink. Nothing. I need to start having more days like this. Or surrender all my worldly possessions and head out on my own into nature, Siddhartha-style. That sounds terrible, though I wouldn't have to worry about spending money. These days Siddhartha would be mistaken for just some other crazy homeless guy. And you know what, I'm not sure that the people mistaking him would be entirely incorrect.

There was a story on abovethelaw.com about all the summer associates at Akin Gump (a big law firm, for those of you who are lucky enough not to have just gone through OCI or just don't know) icing a bunch of full-time associates (actual lawyers). If you don't know what icing is yet, you might be better off. Though it is a wholly amusing idea. But summer associates getting ballsy enough to ice people who hold future job opportunities in their hands? That takes true bro-ish courage. My pre-ripped American Eagle baseball cap is off to them. Apparently all the summers called a meeting with the associates under the cover of saying they were unhappy with the way work was going. The summers all had matching "Ice Storm" (or something) t-shirts and iced all the associates. Coming up next: none of these summers get offers.

I know that this is a bit condescending, but as (if) you read this (which you are clearly under no obligation to do, in fact I'm not sure I recommend) please remember that I did not actually do anything, even though I would have liked to. The woman running trivia last night pronounced some things in ways which...were incorrect (read: pissed me off, made me consider correcting her to her face, and certainly prompted me to have small fits of rage in my seat). I'll try to type what she said phonetically. First, in answering a question about houses at Hogwarts, she pronounced two of the houses Sly-therin (as in sly, like a fox), and Gry-findor (again, with the 'y' sound rather than sounding like an 'i'). Come on, Harry Potter references have permeated the culture pretty deeply. I don't think it is unheard of to be able to pronounce those names correctly.
Then she asked the question: "The Cure's first hit song, 'Killing an Arab' is based on what novella by Albert Camus" - pronounced "Cam-Us." Wowza. That's pretty atrocious. And I haven't even read "The Stranger." To reiterate, I understand that it is condescending to want to correct her. But she has to learn some time! Arggggg. So bad. It's not nice of me, I know. But I want to help her learn!
Anyways, none of this is as bad as "subsequently." Or sub-see-quently, depending on who you are talking to.

I spent a good 3 hours today searching for an attorney to ask him a question about whether we were proceeding with a case or not. A question which he asked me to ask him earlier in the day. Then poof, he disappeared for the entire afternoon. Frustration. Or magic attorney, you decide.

Back to Reality

The Epic Chili Spill occurred Saturday night at Nakul's. We were watching tv for a while, waiting for the chili Nak made to be perfectly ready. Eventually we got hungry enough to venture into the chili. I was super exciting because I had been contemplating eating for the past hour or so. Nakul finally gave the go-ahead, and we put the chili into bowls. Nakul offered me cheese, and I took a slice out. I noticed it had some mold on it, so I threw it out and took another slice. Also mold. Trash. Another slice had minimal mold. I spent a good minute cutting off the mold until the slice of cheese was sufficiently clear for eating purposes. I crumbled it up and put it on my chili, and I was finally ready to take my chili off to the table to eat it when...the combination of the cheese on my fingers and the heat of the bowl resulted in some slippage. And chili went everywhere. I mean everywhere. It went under the table, on the chair, on the table, on the counter, on my clothes, everywhere. I, apparently, let out a string of profanity and dejectedly cleaned up the chili to the best of my ability. I am not feeling so optimistic about getting the chili out of the chair cushion. And I am only hoping that it comes out of my jeans. But this chili spill was epic. It messed up the floor, burnt my arm, and destroyed my dreams all at once.

Road soda - funny name for a not a particularly good idea.

Mostly at Ron's behest, I watched the first two episodes of Man Men this weekend. Maybe it was in honor of the 4th season's premier tonight. In which Don Draper murders twelve men. Just kidding; I have no idea what happens. But Dumbledore dies. Anyways, I'm not sold on it yet. I know a lot of people are all about it, but so far it just doesn't seem like the kind of show to be all about. I'll give it a few more episodes to give it a fair shot. One thing I can't help but think as I watch the show is that I am really glad that prop cigarettes were invented, otherwise the entire cast would have advanced lung cancer.

Very few people know the band "The Band" at least by name. Then people think I'm an idiot. "Do you know the band?" "Which band?" "The band." Not the most helpful.

Work tomorrow should be fun. I get to edit and submit for review my 17 page section of a brief. It's been pretty fun to write, actually. I'm super stoked to get it cut down to 3-5 pages (at least I wouldn't be surprised). In layman's terms all it says is "Stop screwing people. You don't get to make money from doing that. Just stop." Advocacy at its finest.

The movie "Cyrus" was pretty good. Contrary to what some people believe (Erica), it has nothing to do with Miley Cyrus, nor Billy Ray Cyrus. It's a comedy/drama. It is a pretty simple movie, with only 5 characters. It was a nice change from the rest of the summer blockbusters that are going out right now. I mean, it's probably not "Grown Ups" but what is? (Note: I have not seen Grown Ups, though I wouldn't be surprised if it were actually more amusing than it should be. If anyone has more information, please contact me. A reward will be posted.)

Overheard at 1:30 in the afternoon

I don't have time for a full post, but easily the most amusing thing that happened to me today was this:

At 1:30 pm I was walking to CVS to get a Diet Coke on my lunch break, like ya do. It's Government Center. Everyone is wearing a tie. Immediately after I cross the street I see two guys who look like dirty (/dirtier) hipsters. As I walk by them one of them asks the guy (wearing a tie) next to me, "Hey man, do you know anywhere around here that sells 40's?" "What? No!" responds the guy, more than a little shocked. Dirty guys, it's 1:30 in the afternoon and you are in one of the nicest parts of Boston. Why are you looking for 40's? Reexamine your priorities, maybe get off of whatever drugs you are on.

And now back to having NO TIME.