Hillbilly Hide-a-Way

If I started naming "laws" I could probably keep talking for thirty seconds before I ran out. Forty-five seconds if I spoke real slow. Nonetheless, I am now officially a "law clerk" (waiting for bar results to become "attorney") with three cases and a blog post as my responsibilities. And it's not this blog post - it's about real things like the CFTC. All after one day of real, honest to goodness work. Last week's orientation was fine and uneventful. Today all the action got started. And I'm pretttttty excited to dive in.

Not only was it my first day of work, our new office opened its doors today, making it a sort of Day One for everyone. This was to my advantage; everyone else was walking around inquisitively as well. The new office is nice. It looks like a cross between an Ikea catalog and an Apple store. Everything is white and wood. The best feature: my desk can mechanically be raised into a standing desk, or lowered to my comfort. It even has saved settings! Blew my mind!
The downside: for all the technology, my office has a mouse pad, but no mouse. It also has no keyboard, docking station, or monitor. All I had today was a tiny little laptop. And a mechanical desk. The irony.

 I spent the last few days of my stay-cation visiting Erica in North Carolina. It was mostly ranting about menial things (pretty much the best pastime ever) and eating bar-b-cue (the second best pastime ever). Lots of bar-b-cue (bbq?). I mean...LOTS. We went to this place in the middle of nowhere (read: the middle of nowhere) called Hillbilly Hide-a-way for a family-style dinner. It was quite simply phenomenal. To give you an idea, it included fried chicken, fried fish, green beans in butter, cinnamon apples, corn bread, mashed potatoes, gravy, bacon, and more. The next morning I ate a pulled pork sandwich for breakfast. I literally could not eat for the next two days. I think I had...a granola bar and some Diet Coke.  Look at this plate (and note the basket of "whipped spread." As I said at the time, "Oh look, they took butter and made it less healthy").

Seeing Erica was, of course nice. We had a little rage time. Released the fury. For me, that started in the car when I was stuck in an hour and a half-long traffic jam. I tried to leave a calm voicemail saying I'd be late, but I ended up yelling about it. Road rage like whoa.
On Friday morning, Erica was at class and I wanted Starbucks. So I used my handy dandy smartphone to track one down. Turned out my search for caffeine took me to "downtown" Winston Salem. I walked around both blocks of it. It was a slow-paced, quaint place with a surprising about of cultural diversity. And three bars, one of which is apparently the local favorite. I was jealous; nice beer cost about $4. The good life.

Exhausted. Time to sleep.

Seasonal Decor

I thought it would be an 'adult' thing to do to purchase seasonal candy and put it in a bowl in my living room. House guests and residents alike can thereby enjoy a small amount of candy, thoughtfully placed near them. But here's the problem: I bought candy corn. A lot of candy corn. And candy corn is strangely addictive. Something about that sugary chemical taste you just can't get enough of. As a result, I keep snacking on candy corn like it's my job. Yesterday I had a self-proclaimed "Day without Candy Corn." And it was difficult! Tonight I've only been home for about two hours, and I've already had...half a bag? Maybe more, but who can say. Let's round down. And it's making my stomach hurt. Every time! My thoughtful, seasonal, adult gesture turned into a monster.

I blame CVS for making bags of candy corn 99 cents.

Today at work I was invited to a meeting. But I was never told the time or location of the meeting, so I went to lunch. When I returned, I found a note on my chair telling me the room number the meeting was in. So I went downstairs and looked around, but none of the rooms had that number on it. A lot of rooms, however, were not numbered at all it seemed. I found a room with a meeting, but I wasn't sure if it was my meeting so I skipped it.
Benefits: attending an informative meeting; making attorneys happy
Detriments: vast potential for embarrassment if that was the wrong meeting.
Choose your own adventure. If you walk in, with confidence go to page 19. If touch the door knob and the slink away silently, go to page 32. I went back upstairs and skipped the meeting. I did not slink!

Hell's Kitchen: a healthy addiction. Much healthier than heroin.

At lunch with about 8 paralegals, there was an argument about the best fast food burritos. It was mostly Chipotle vs. California Tortilla vs. Qdoba. I think Qdoba is disqualified automatically for having a stupid name. But the argument is ultimately futile. All bow down before Anna's Taqueria. It is known.

Can't Start A Fire Without a Spark

Yesterday, I was unable to board two buses because they were too full. Or rather, the driver did not encourage people to move to the back and squish a bit (read: to be considerate of others), so people were not permitted to board. While annoying, this episode had its own humorous point which probably made up for the inconvenience. There were maybe seven other people who were not allowed to get onto the buses, including an elderly Hispanic woman. This woman was so outraged at the first bus driver that she hurled a few four letter words and one five letter word beginning with a "b." It is not every day you get to see a respectable looking older woman proficiently cursing in an accent. But that was my day yesterday.

Note is due Monday. I also have to write my fourth and final paper for Law of Democracy sometime soon, likely this week. With meetings and regular work, that adds up to a pretty decent amount to do. Law of Democracy is a thoroughly scary class. My professor is an intimidating intellect. He has argued 13 cases before the Supreme Court, knows a few justices personally, and has incredible litigation experience. He dissects statutes and opinions like no one I have seen. This did not help my grade on my most recent paper for his class, where he found approximately twelve issues that I had not spotted. Today, I went to his office hours briefly to ask him essentially how he does it. It was phrased better than that, but it still was probably a silly question. He reminded me (not very reassuringly) that he has lots of experience at this and has been doing it a lot longer. More helpfully, he told me that I was not just missing obvious stuff, but this is a difficult area of law and quite a difficult course. Right, he did say that in the beginning of the semester, and I either did not listen or forgot. So I feel a little bit better about my performance, and a little motivated to do better. But mostly, I want to some day be a baller like that. Oh, did I mention that his name has surfaced in discussions of Supreme Court nominees?

Today was a Bruce Springsteen day.

I hope tomorrow is Rex Manning day.

I have a friend who became an aunt on Monday. She showed me pictures on her iPhone. Like...fifteen pictures. Of a one-day-old. There were only so many times I could repeat, "Aww, adorable. So cute," before I began sounding super disingenuous. I mean, it's a fine looking one-day-old. Cute for something that looks like a wrinkly ball of skin and hair.

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.

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.)

Pasta Cave

Today I played a minimal amount of Hearts at work. That was due to getting an assignment. Insert lively trumpet blast here. I'm not sure what it says that I am happy to be getting work to do. Anyways, my assignment was basically "Does this exist? I need to know by Wednesday." After nearly a full day of research, the short answer I've come up with is "no." The long answer is "no, I'm pretty sure it doesn't...there are moderately related things, but not really." I have to commit that to paper tomorrow. Maybe tighten it up and insert citations.
The problem with this assignment (again) is that I am searching for something that doesn't exist. My goal is either to find it, or to confirm that it does not actually exist. I am pretty sure that it doesn't exist, but I can't be certain. It's an unsettling feeling - like having mice/squirrels in your wall (the exterminator thinks it was chipmunks, which I'm alright with. I just can't bring myself to be afraid of a chipmunk. If it wants to be in my wall, let it), only if the other side finds something then we are a little screwed and I feel like a fool.

There is office politics at work! And I remain blissfully unaffected, while the other intern is kind of stuck in the middle of it, receiving work from both two feuding sides and being forced to prioritize. I get to sit there and watch the gladiatorial contest play out.

Annie Hall.

I am looking for summer drinks that are not beer, gin and tonic, or dark and stormy. Suggestions? Whiskey on the rocks just doesn't cut it when it's 90 out.

I don't understand people who think it is alright to stop and have a conversation right in front of the entrance to the escalator, or that the bottom of the stairway is a good place to relax and sit down. Be a tad more aware!

Ron pointed out today that it was illegal to brandish a gun in traffic. But I don't see a problem with merely displaying a sign saying "I have a gun. Don't honk or yell at me." As a law student, my professional opinion is that it's fine. It's a free country, right? In retrospect I should have just written that as the answer to every exam question.

Speaking of Ron, this is the second workday that we have unintentionally coordinated outfits. Hope that stops happening, because we look weird riding the elevator out of the parking garage together.
Also speaking of Ron, he wants a BMW to eat pasta in. A pasta cave, as I dubbed it. Why, Ron? Why do you want a pasta cave?

Quarter to twelve and we just gettin' in

Thanks to refereeing a fencing tournament this weekend, I actually had to get up earlier during the weekend than I do the week. As a result, sleep has been difficult to come by, which is not aided by my body's refusal to turn off every night. Someone suggested tea or milk to help. I suggest whiskey.

Friday at work my "mentor" aka, the person in charge of the other intern and me, did not have any work for me to do in the morning. His instructions were "Go mess around on espn.com. I'll see what I can come up with." After four hours I finally got some work - organizing a spreadsheet in a different way and adding two sentences to a cover letter. Those took about 5 minutes each, and there wasn't a really good way to stretch them out. Then I got to look over a brief. Please discount the pun but that assignment was brief as well. Hope this week is more promising. Otherwise I'm starting to get angry as the computer cheats more and more at Hearts.

My friend who works at Ferragamo was trying to get me to buy shoes. While I am certain of their quality, on sale and with his 40% discount I still do not have $400 to spend on shoes, thank you.

While I do not desire to speak of the actual game, Thursday night I went out to a bar in Fenway for Game 7 Celtics/Lakers. Packard, fresh from a year in China, was present, as were a number of people I haven't seen in a while. Halfway through the game someone we knew started working the downstairs bar, so drinks were pretty easy to come by.
...I am not sure I have ever seen so many angry Bostonians in one place at around midnight that night. No one was happy. Thinking ahead, I parked my car about half a mile away from Fenway so I wouldn't get caught in a police barricade. I did walk by a few squads of riot police, tear gas ready, but I had no trouble getting home. Unfortunately there was no riot to disperse, and the precautions of the Boston PD were for naught.

There are some people who are perfectly nice who I just do not care for. People who are nice, and despite being kind of boring seem like they have more to themselves. What are you hiding? A ruthless, back-stabbing true personality? The fact that you are secretly (or not so secretly) a moron? Or are you actually just really boring? Unanswered questions.

I have to start writing cover letters this week. Self-promotion on paper addressed to "To Whom It May Concern" isn't my favorite thing. Maybe I'll just use blog entries and hope that they don't actually read cover letters.

Alejandro.

Memo

What is it about Sunday morning that just makes you want to read the news? Well I'm awake, I spent the past few nights enjoying myself, and I have the impending doom of the workweek looming over me; guess I should know what is going on in the world. I feel very much like my parents sitting around drinking coffee and reading the New York Times. Only my NYT is delivered every morning in the form of a laptop computer screen. And I am nowhere near good enough to do the crossword puzzle, which really loses a little of its zing when it is 1) online, and 2) Google is a tab away should I reach a plateau of frustration.

My first 40-hour workweek (I think ever) was last week. It was not too bad. I do not really enjoy waking up early and having to focus before 11, but besides that it isn't terrible. What else would I be doing most of that time? Sleeping or sitting around mostly. Might as well do something productive, gain some experience, and get used to being around lawyers for prolonged periods of time.
So far I have learned that I do not enjoy walking behind wide, slow people in narrow corridors, that sports talk is a great way to be friendly (Beat LA), and that I know a lot less than all the attorneys.
Knowing a lot less plus not having any legal writing experience besides my stupid LRW class (which I didn't exactly ace anyways) made writing my first assigned memo a little daunting. Whereas for class it takes a week or two to write a memo, for work it took a day. That's a bit of an acceleration. The memo was essentially on whether there is any precedent for an argument the other side of a case is making. My answer turned out to be "no" (I hope that's correct because I could have totally messed that up!), which made research even more difficult. Searching for something that doesn't exist is a conundrum, and I certainly didn't scour the entire earth to make sure I was correct. I did, however, do a lot of research and end up pretty confident in my conclusion. But it is like asking whether there are any people in the world with blue skin. I assume not based on my knowledge and research (Blanca from Street Fighter aside), but I wouldn't actually know unless I checked every single person, which would be impractical to say the least. Anyway, I wrote the memo and sent it in at 4:57 on Friday. I was intimidated and had to proofread it a lot, and now I am spending the entire weekend wondering whether it was sufficiently good to merit my being hired for this position, or whether it was absolute garbage and I do not even deserve the desk and uncomfortable chair I was assigned.

Last night I played Trivial Pursuit and came across a question that was punctuated incorrectly. Something along the lines of: Who said in his presidential campaing, "It's the economy stupid"?
Where is that question mark going, Trivial Pursuit? You have to figure that out, get a better editor.

If I could cook like Anthony Bourdain that would be just fine with me.

I narrowly escaped seeing a friend of mine from high school ,whom I have not seen in five years, belly dance at a restaurant. That had a high potential for awkwardness.

You would think that Ginger Ale should get red-heads drunk.

Icing...Really?

So first off, icing - a new sort of drinking game involving Smirnoff Ice whereby if someone is handed a Smirnoff Ice they have to get down on one knee and chug it. The only way to block being iced is by carrying your own Ice. These rules apply anywhere, anytime. What is going on here? If you need references, I will refer you to http://brosicingbros.com/ and also the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/business/media/09adco.html?scp=1&sq=icing&st=cse
What exactly is wrong with people? I'm fine drinking games like beirut and kings I suppose, but forcing someone to chug a disgusting, sugary Smirnoff Ice in inappropriate places crosses a line. I mean, it's hilarious looking at pictures of people who are silly enough to participate, but if someone "iced" me I would probably laugh in their face. They went and bought Smirnoff Ice. I bet you felt like a real man picking out that pomegranate fusion flavored one.

Work is alright. I've spent a lot of time reading about subjects in which I have less than no previous experience or knowledge. I finally got my first couple of assignments this afternoon. At 4. Needless to say they will be picked up tomorrow. Everyone seems nice...the internet there is monitored, so I guess everyone has to be nice. Except this one woman who I have already been warned to disregard if she gives me tasks. Apparently the office "unanimously thinks" she sucks. Good note: do not become friends with her.
One of the secretaries is the loudest woman on the planet...unintentionally. She shuffles her feet when she walks and her breathing is as loud as Darth Vader's. Every time she walks by my door I think she is having a seizure and I check to make sure she's alright. This inadvertent reaction makes me unfortunately monitor how often she goes to the bathroom, to get water, etc. and let me tell you, it does not seem like she spends a lot of time at her desk. I want to buy her an inhaler.
9-5 will take some getting used to. Especially when it is for no pay.

Is there a throne on Mt. Olympus vacant for Stephen Strasburg? Or do we have to build a new one before his arrival?