In the interests of keeping this blog relatively free of blackmail material I'm not quite sure if I should write about Thursday night, but I'm doing it anyways. This was the night of the Halloween party at the club with the open bar. Open bars are perilous. Lesson learned...now. The problem with the open bar is that there were always lines and because the drinks are free you might as well save time and get two. So every time I went to get a drink I got two drinks. If I had any foresight whatsoever I would have noticed this was going to be a problem. Good thing I had a couple of beers before I got to the bar, so my powers of foresight were diminished already. Long story short I had a good time hanging out with people, don't quite remember how I got home (there was a taxi that I ended up jetting from - don't quite remember the circumstances), and ended up with my own miniature version of "The Hangover" in my apartment the next morning. That is to say that there were some things that were just off. I woke up in a different shirt than the one I was wearing the night before, I had two full cups of water on my night table (why did I pour two?), and one of the plastic drawers I have in my closet was in the shower. I can't explain much of this. I woke up at 8 am, emailed my professor I was using one of our three free 'skips' for class, and went back to bed. I woke up again at noon, thought the clock was joking me, and somehow made it to my make up LRW class. The entire day my body could not get enough water to rehydrate itself no matter how much water I drank. It was ridiculous.
Last night I went to a networking happy hour with some lawyers who my friend knows from the FTC. (Note: I did not touch alcohol yesterday; the thought of it made me ill.) It was nice to see that there is something waiting in the future beyond law school, namely jobs that can be enjoyable. They all work for the government and love it. And they all hate big firms and say law school sucks. Good to get some encouragement from those who have come before. One woman who went to Harvard was especially vehement about law school sucking. It's nice to know that even the best and the brightest have the same issues as the rest of us little people.
When I was walking back from school the other day there was this guy waiting to cross the street right next to me. I couldn't help but notice he was wearing a "National Rifle Association: Member" leather coat. He was also holding an NRA bag. And had on an NRA hat. Gulp. What's the status of gun laws in the district? I wanted to ask the guy if he was packing heat. I also wanted to ask the guy if he was familiar with the clause in the Constitution that says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state." But you don't really want to mouth off to NRA members...
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Procrastination Face
It's been a pretty busy week. Between doing work and procrastinating that's filled up a lot of my time. Tonight my time will be filled up by an open bar for Halloween, sponsored by school. How could you say no to that? Tomorrow will hopefully be filled up by actually getting work done. What's that? Oh yeah, every day I don't write more on my memo is a day closer to it being due. Which means that soon I'll have to, you know, do it.
Yesterday I spent my time not doing work by doing improv with a group called Jesus Cat. I miss improv a lot. It was great to just be humorous for a couple of hours and not have to deal with the stresses of 'school' and 'homework' and 'the real world' and 'money,' etc. I'd much rather pretend to be the first dinosaur to walk on the moon than to read about some idiot who drove drunk and what kind of homicide he can be prosecuted for. Plus it's good to get away from current and future lawyers who, I've noticed, have an unnatural propensity for inducing stress. Hooray doing comedy! Hopefully there is more comedy to come.
My feelings on my Torts professor have to soften, I have no options. While today he dissed Oliver Wendell Holmes again, he did mention in class that his ten year old daughter is taking up fencing. That's a classic dilemma for me. I appealed to my better side and went up to him after class, told him that I fenced for a while and recommended a club in the area. He said he was thankful for the recommendation and that if he had any further questions about the sport he'd come to me. I told him no problem. So maybe he doesn't hate me? Life lesson: even stupid conservatives have feelings, and he loves his daughter...awww. I can get behind that. I think I may have actually convinced him into making his daughter fence though. He told me he watched her and she was really into it and aggressive. I told him that aggressiveness is the most desirable quality in female fencers because most of them just don't have it. He said something to the extent of "Well, I think we may have found the right sport for her." If she likes it then great, but I retain my mixed feelings about fencing. It had its good times and it was good for me, but it also had awful moments. I hope I didn't just inadvertently set this little girl onto a miserable life path. It's not likely, but hey it could happen. Maybe she ends up selling coke on the street to raise enough money to rewire her epee. You don't know, it could happen. Probably not though since her father is a lawyer and presumably has a decent amount of money. Oh yeah.
About 15 people in the entire school wore Halloween costumes today. I was not among them, though I was sitting there feeling pretty awkward for them. Best costume award goes to a guy and girl who dressed up as Kanye West and Taylor Swift, respectively. It was hard to get at first because I don't really know who Taylor Swift is and the guy being Kanye was white, but they had a picture with them which helped the understanding process a good deal.
My boss from the summer (the one that I hated) got fired this week, I was just informed. That's what you get for tip-splitting as a salaried employee. Not only is it illegal and immoral, but it also opens up the people you work for to a lot of lawsuits. Good call firing him. Also, he sucked, so that's another good reason.
Yesterday I spent my time not doing work by doing improv with a group called Jesus Cat. I miss improv a lot. It was great to just be humorous for a couple of hours and not have to deal with the stresses of 'school' and 'homework' and 'the real world' and 'money,' etc. I'd much rather pretend to be the first dinosaur to walk on the moon than to read about some idiot who drove drunk and what kind of homicide he can be prosecuted for. Plus it's good to get away from current and future lawyers who, I've noticed, have an unnatural propensity for inducing stress. Hooray doing comedy! Hopefully there is more comedy to come.
My feelings on my Torts professor have to soften, I have no options. While today he dissed Oliver Wendell Holmes again, he did mention in class that his ten year old daughter is taking up fencing. That's a classic dilemma for me. I appealed to my better side and went up to him after class, told him that I fenced for a while and recommended a club in the area. He said he was thankful for the recommendation and that if he had any further questions about the sport he'd come to me. I told him no problem. So maybe he doesn't hate me? Life lesson: even stupid conservatives have feelings, and he loves his daughter...awww. I can get behind that. I think I may have actually convinced him into making his daughter fence though. He told me he watched her and she was really into it and aggressive. I told him that aggressiveness is the most desirable quality in female fencers because most of them just don't have it. He said something to the extent of "Well, I think we may have found the right sport for her." If she likes it then great, but I retain my mixed feelings about fencing. It had its good times and it was good for me, but it also had awful moments. I hope I didn't just inadvertently set this little girl onto a miserable life path. It's not likely, but hey it could happen. Maybe she ends up selling coke on the street to raise enough money to rewire her epee. You don't know, it could happen. Probably not though since her father is a lawyer and presumably has a decent amount of money. Oh yeah.
About 15 people in the entire school wore Halloween costumes today. I was not among them, though I was sitting there feeling pretty awkward for them. Best costume award goes to a guy and girl who dressed up as Kanye West and Taylor Swift, respectively. It was hard to get at first because I don't really know who Taylor Swift is and the guy being Kanye was white, but they had a picture with them which helped the understanding process a good deal.
My boss from the summer (the one that I hated) got fired this week, I was just informed. That's what you get for tip-splitting as a salaried employee. Not only is it illegal and immoral, but it also opens up the people you work for to a lot of lawsuits. Good call firing him. Also, he sucked, so that's another good reason.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
It's not fair
On Sunday when I was coming back from Boston the person who gave me my ticket at the gate was awesome. I walked up to get my actual boarding pass - for some reason Southwest didn't feel like giving it to me when I checked in automatically - and there's this guy sitting there behind the desk with clearly fake boobs, wearing a blouse, skirt, and heels. The guy has a 5 o'clock shadow and isn't wearing makeup. The best part is that he has long hair dyed bright blue, saying "I don't give a crap what you think of me." It definitely takes some self-confidence to pull that all off. Go for it, man. If that's what you want to do and it doesn't inhibit you doing your job, rock those boobs and that unshaven face. My guess is this is a guy who has put up with a lot over the years.
I really had to buckle down today to get a substantial portion (think a third) of Memo 2 written today. It took 3-4 hours, but the first draft of that much of it is done. I just have to remember to send it into the Writing Center tomorrow to give them adequate time to look it over. I wouldn't want the reason I stayed at school from 10-7 today to go to waste. Wowza that was a lot of work. And I haven't even/am not doing tonight all my reading for tomorrow. Instead I hung out with Dan for an hour and tried to care about my homework. That wasn't very successful. If I get cold called in Torts tomorrow I might be pretty screwed. Here's hoping. But my professor probably doesn't like me anyways, so whatever. It's a tie though, since I'm not his biggest fan, ideologically speaking that is. Some time in our last week of class he declared that he doesn't care about fairness. This is in the context of a debate about whether strict liability or negligence should be the standard. If you don't understand that, don't worry. My professor went to Chicago, is conservative, and thus loves law and economics type stuff. What is important to him is that law makes society run efficiently (in a very monetary sense of the term). Basically the point of law is to save money for society (probably an unfair attribution, there are more nuances, but that's the crux of it). As such, some things are unfair, but he's ok with that because remember he doesn't care about fairness. So if someone acts completely non-negligently going about their daily business and some accident happens to his neighbor involving his property, he should have to pay no matter what (strict liability) as long as this is what is efficient for the court system. To illustrate his dedication to this efficiency idea he talked about how his kids fight. If both of his children get ice cream and one comes to him and says "She got more than me. That's not fair," his response is "Well, I don't care about fairness," and so his kids learn quickly not to use that argument. I don't care if he is joking or not, someone should call child services. Can you picture rebuking your children that way? You don't care if they are treated fairly? That is your flesh and blood, sir. I certainly hope you want them to be treated fairly and not just efficiently. I hope that if child services ever did take away his kids he would tell them "It's not fair!" and they would just laugh maniacally.
For a lunch break today I got to meet with an investigator for my friend's government security clearance. It wasn't too hard. Most of the questions were gimmes. For example "Has she ever been part of or associated with a group who desires to violently overthrow the government of the United States?" It wasn't too difficult to get the right answer on that one. Not the most discreet of investigators. He's nothing compared to Sherlock Holmes, whose magnificently clever tales I have been enjoying of late.
Not enough people use semicolons anymore; someone should do something about that. Haha, I'm hilarious.
I really had to buckle down today to get a substantial portion (think a third) of Memo 2 written today. It took 3-4 hours, but the first draft of that much of it is done. I just have to remember to send it into the Writing Center tomorrow to give them adequate time to look it over. I wouldn't want the reason I stayed at school from 10-7 today to go to waste. Wowza that was a lot of work. And I haven't even/am not doing tonight all my reading for tomorrow. Instead I hung out with Dan for an hour and tried to care about my homework. That wasn't very successful. If I get cold called in Torts tomorrow I might be pretty screwed. Here's hoping. But my professor probably doesn't like me anyways, so whatever. It's a tie though, since I'm not his biggest fan, ideologically speaking that is. Some time in our last week of class he declared that he doesn't care about fairness. This is in the context of a debate about whether strict liability or negligence should be the standard. If you don't understand that, don't worry. My professor went to Chicago, is conservative, and thus loves law and economics type stuff. What is important to him is that law makes society run efficiently (in a very monetary sense of the term). Basically the point of law is to save money for society (probably an unfair attribution, there are more nuances, but that's the crux of it). As such, some things are unfair, but he's ok with that because remember he doesn't care about fairness. So if someone acts completely non-negligently going about their daily business and some accident happens to his neighbor involving his property, he should have to pay no matter what (strict liability) as long as this is what is efficient for the court system. To illustrate his dedication to this efficiency idea he talked about how his kids fight. If both of his children get ice cream and one comes to him and says "She got more than me. That's not fair," his response is "Well, I don't care about fairness," and so his kids learn quickly not to use that argument. I don't care if he is joking or not, someone should call child services. Can you picture rebuking your children that way? You don't care if they are treated fairly? That is your flesh and blood, sir. I certainly hope you want them to be treated fairly and not just efficiently. I hope that if child services ever did take away his kids he would tell them "It's not fair!" and they would just laugh maniacally.
For a lunch break today I got to meet with an investigator for my friend's government security clearance. It wasn't too hard. Most of the questions were gimmes. For example "Has she ever been part of or associated with a group who desires to violently overthrow the government of the United States?" It wasn't too difficult to get the right answer on that one. Not the most discreet of investigators. He's nothing compared to Sherlock Holmes, whose magnificently clever tales I have been enjoying of late.
Not enough people use semicolons anymore; someone should do something about that. Haha, I'm hilarious.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Bull
So that wasn't the best trip to Boston that ever happened. But this is not the forum for talking about problems (that's livejournal). This is the forum for recounting hilarity and voicing pointless opinions. And in the past week there have certainly been opportunities for hilarity and opinions. Good thing.
The most notable ridiculous thing was going out for Erica's 21st birthday to a club in Boston. A bunch of people (Erica, Chris, Scott, Karishma, Dana, Dave, etc.) took the shuttle into Boston from Waltham. By the time we got off the shuttle everyone had to pee pretty badly. The boys were complaining a little louder than the girls about it, and the girls (mostly Erica) told us not to cry so much. You try having a prostate! I considered peeing in an ally and did not do so; in retrospect that was a poor decision. We walked from the shuttle stop to the T, took the T (everyone except Scott and I almost didn't make it off the T for lack of paying attention), and walked to the club. By this time there was no more being called a wussy for having to pee really badly. Everyone had to. We ran/wadled into Dunkin Donuts. They always have bathrooms! False. Employees only. Across the street, Starbucks has bathrooms! Employees only. Well that did it. We got to the club slightly before I exploded with urine. A couple of people didn't make it past the bouncer (for bad, yet legal reasons). I couldn't wait to see how the situation would resolve itself. I ran to the bathroom. (I'm sure you want to hear this) I would say it was one of the most rewarded pees of my life, but it wasn't. I think I had been holding it in for so long that it went past the point of being rewarding and reaching the stage where it was actually difficult. Gross. The worst part of the bathroom was by far the fact that this club employed a guy to hand out paper towels. So this guy's job is to stand there, watch me pee, offer me a paper towel (because it's usually really hard to get those for yourself), and hope for a tip. A tip for paper towel guy after I paid a cover at the door? I don't think so.
Now I don't like clubs very much in general. Anyplace where the music is too loud to have a conversation with someone, the drinks are expensive yet served in plastic cups, and the DJ combines Rihanna and AC/DC and everyone loves it is not particularly for me. Clubs just kinda scream date rape. But getting beyond my regular skepticism, the best part of this club was easily the mechanical bull. A vehicle for attention and embarassment. It was pretty clearly meant for girls; every guy who went on lasted about 4 seconds while girls lasted closer to 4 minutes. One girl had the right idea, she wore under armor shorts. Another girl had the wrong idea, she refused to let go of the bull even after her dress simultaneously rode up and came down. She actually asked the guy running the bull to stop it for a second so she could fix her dress, apparently thinking that the exact same thing wouldn't happen when the bull started up again. She was wrong. Mercifully she fell off. Not to be deterred she was dancing on one of the polls soon after (a classic case of high self-esteem).
I ended up re-living the glory days, in the way that I was up until 4 am that night/morning. I didn't know I still had that in me. At least I, unlike some other people, didn't wake up and start drinking again. Of course I did wake up pretty early comparitively and go with Chris to Dunkin Donuts and to reclaim Dana's car. I got to drive her car back to Erica's house. It was a BMW. No big deal. Easily the nicest car I have driven. It had all these newfangled features like 'power windows' and 'automatic locks.' What is all that mumbo jumbo? My car never had that. Half way through the drive in the BMW I got cut off by some guy pulling out of a parking space who immediately pulled into a different parking space 3 cars down. Right after that some guy turning left tried to cut me off. That's when I remembered I was driving a good car and am from Boston. I stepped on the gas and cut him off in his attempt to cut me off. Take that, jerkface. In retrospect it wasn't that exciting or novel a move. It was also a little reckless given that I was driving someone else's Beamer. But it's the one move that I pulled while driving a sweet car, so I felt pretty good about it. Big man on campus. Look out.
Shaked and I went to the craziest book store in Brighton. There is some ambiguity in how that sentence can be interpreted, so let me clear it up. The first interpretation of is that I went to the craziest book store in all of Brighten, or Brighton's craziest book store. The second is that I went to the craziest book store and it happened to be in Brighton. Both interpretations are valid, and I mean both. Why point out the ambiguity then, you may ask. Good question. This book store literally looks like someone's attic. It's cramped and full of used books and records. And there is absolutely no discernable order to how they are shelved. We found two copies of the same Hemingway book in completely separate places. Every book's spine seems to be breaking. If there aren't significant creases in the book it's not allowed in the shop. It was a lot of fun poking around to see if there were any golden finds in the stacks of useless aged books. I almost bought a copy of Voltaire, but changed my mind. Sometime when I have more time I'm going back there.
The most notable ridiculous thing was going out for Erica's 21st birthday to a club in Boston. A bunch of people (Erica, Chris, Scott, Karishma, Dana, Dave, etc.) took the shuttle into Boston from Waltham. By the time we got off the shuttle everyone had to pee pretty badly. The boys were complaining a little louder than the girls about it, and the girls (mostly Erica) told us not to cry so much. You try having a prostate! I considered peeing in an ally and did not do so; in retrospect that was a poor decision. We walked from the shuttle stop to the T, took the T (everyone except Scott and I almost didn't make it off the T for lack of paying attention), and walked to the club. By this time there was no more being called a wussy for having to pee really badly. Everyone had to. We ran/wadled into Dunkin Donuts. They always have bathrooms! False. Employees only. Across the street, Starbucks has bathrooms! Employees only. Well that did it. We got to the club slightly before I exploded with urine. A couple of people didn't make it past the bouncer (for bad, yet legal reasons). I couldn't wait to see how the situation would resolve itself. I ran to the bathroom. (I'm sure you want to hear this) I would say it was one of the most rewarded pees of my life, but it wasn't. I think I had been holding it in for so long that it went past the point of being rewarding and reaching the stage where it was actually difficult. Gross. The worst part of the bathroom was by far the fact that this club employed a guy to hand out paper towels. So this guy's job is to stand there, watch me pee, offer me a paper towel (because it's usually really hard to get those for yourself), and hope for a tip. A tip for paper towel guy after I paid a cover at the door? I don't think so.
Now I don't like clubs very much in general. Anyplace where the music is too loud to have a conversation with someone, the drinks are expensive yet served in plastic cups, and the DJ combines Rihanna and AC/DC and everyone loves it is not particularly for me. Clubs just kinda scream date rape. But getting beyond my regular skepticism, the best part of this club was easily the mechanical bull. A vehicle for attention and embarassment. It was pretty clearly meant for girls; every guy who went on lasted about 4 seconds while girls lasted closer to 4 minutes. One girl had the right idea, she wore under armor shorts. Another girl had the wrong idea, she refused to let go of the bull even after her dress simultaneously rode up and came down. She actually asked the guy running the bull to stop it for a second so she could fix her dress, apparently thinking that the exact same thing wouldn't happen when the bull started up again. She was wrong. Mercifully she fell off. Not to be deterred she was dancing on one of the polls soon after (a classic case of high self-esteem).
I ended up re-living the glory days, in the way that I was up until 4 am that night/morning. I didn't know I still had that in me. At least I, unlike some other people, didn't wake up and start drinking again. Of course I did wake up pretty early comparitively and go with Chris to Dunkin Donuts and to reclaim Dana's car. I got to drive her car back to Erica's house. It was a BMW. No big deal. Easily the nicest car I have driven. It had all these newfangled features like 'power windows' and 'automatic locks.' What is all that mumbo jumbo? My car never had that. Half way through the drive in the BMW I got cut off by some guy pulling out of a parking space who immediately pulled into a different parking space 3 cars down. Right after that some guy turning left tried to cut me off. That's when I remembered I was driving a good car and am from Boston. I stepped on the gas and cut him off in his attempt to cut me off. Take that, jerkface. In retrospect it wasn't that exciting or novel a move. It was also a little reckless given that I was driving someone else's Beamer. But it's the one move that I pulled while driving a sweet car, so I felt pretty good about it. Big man on campus. Look out.
Shaked and I went to the craziest book store in Brighton. There is some ambiguity in how that sentence can be interpreted, so let me clear it up. The first interpretation of is that I went to the craziest book store in all of Brighten, or Brighton's craziest book store. The second is that I went to the craziest book store and it happened to be in Brighton. Both interpretations are valid, and I mean both. Why point out the ambiguity then, you may ask. Good question. This book store literally looks like someone's attic. It's cramped and full of used books and records. And there is absolutely no discernable order to how they are shelved. We found two copies of the same Hemingway book in completely separate places. Every book's spine seems to be breaking. If there aren't significant creases in the book it's not allowed in the shop. It was a lot of fun poking around to see if there were any golden finds in the stacks of useless aged books. I almost bought a copy of Voltaire, but changed my mind. Sometime when I have more time I'm going back there.
Monday, October 19, 2009
No more...Mr. Nice Guy
I'm pretty sure there is no more studying I can do for this midterm that will be productive. I had a review session today; I went over a practice midterm with a few classmates; I reviewed all my notes again. Was any of that helpful? Probably. But not definitely. So no more. I'm worried that I'm not worried about the test. Is that worrisome? Who cares? Let's do this.
"Fly, you fools."
Ok, tomorrow I'm flying to Boston. Woohoo. Sometimes I love capitalism. Usually when there is a good deal of competition which is driving down prices (so not in reference to the current health insurance system in this country), like in the airline industry at least between Washington and Boston. Southwest, Jet Blue, and (God help us) Air Tran are all competing. Which makes my tickets cheaper! Air Tran is the crappiest airline I've ever had the displeasure of flying on, and as such I refuse to give them my patronage. Granted I flew on it when it was first getting started and was figuring its stuff out, but my flight attendants referred to themselves as "The J Team" because they were three women whose names all started with J. Fantastic. Give me my peanuts and shut up. (I was in no mood for their shenanigans at the time of that flight. Nakul knows.)
My biggest problem with watching postseason baseball or Sunday football is definitely the commercials. I have seen the same Viagra commercial three dozen times, and I'm still not anywhere nearer to using their product. That has a lot to do with my age, however. Also the Blackberry commercial that has "All You Need Is Love" in the background and has nothing to do with phones? It's driving me crazy. I now dislike that song, thanks Blackberry, I'll remember that favor when I consider purchasing your product.
We got our Memo 1 grades back today. I did fine I think, but that's not the point. The point is that Gunner is not a somehow brilliant, just socially retarded, kid. He's just a regular socially retarded kid, who is also plain bad at academics. The only reason I know is that Gunner told someone his grade and asked to see the other kid's paper because he felt the professor had "discriminated" against him in grading. Our papers were graded blindly and did not have our names on them. Yes, your memo was discriminated against in grading because it was bad. But apparently he can't keep his outrage to himself. He's gotta share it with everyone. Too bad no one cares. I almost feel bad for him. If he didn't speak in class for 3 days I would be willing to give a bit of sympathy. Deal, or no deal? Of course it is no surprise that he can't keep his grade to himself because he can't keep all of the dumb ideas he has in class to himself. Wow, vitriol much? Apparently.
"Fly, you fools."
Ok, tomorrow I'm flying to Boston. Woohoo. Sometimes I love capitalism. Usually when there is a good deal of competition which is driving down prices (so not in reference to the current health insurance system in this country), like in the airline industry at least between Washington and Boston. Southwest, Jet Blue, and (God help us) Air Tran are all competing. Which makes my tickets cheaper! Air Tran is the crappiest airline I've ever had the displeasure of flying on, and as such I refuse to give them my patronage. Granted I flew on it when it was first getting started and was figuring its stuff out, but my flight attendants referred to themselves as "The J Team" because they were three women whose names all started with J. Fantastic. Give me my peanuts and shut up. (I was in no mood for their shenanigans at the time of that flight. Nakul knows.)
My biggest problem with watching postseason baseball or Sunday football is definitely the commercials. I have seen the same Viagra commercial three dozen times, and I'm still not anywhere nearer to using their product. That has a lot to do with my age, however. Also the Blackberry commercial that has "All You Need Is Love" in the background and has nothing to do with phones? It's driving me crazy. I now dislike that song, thanks Blackberry, I'll remember that favor when I consider purchasing your product.
We got our Memo 1 grades back today. I did fine I think, but that's not the point. The point is that Gunner is not a somehow brilliant, just socially retarded, kid. He's just a regular socially retarded kid, who is also plain bad at academics. The only reason I know is that Gunner told someone his grade and asked to see the other kid's paper because he felt the professor had "discriminated" against him in grading. Our papers were graded blindly and did not have our names on them. Yes, your memo was discriminated against in grading because it was bad. But apparently he can't keep his outrage to himself. He's gotta share it with everyone. Too bad no one cares. I almost feel bad for him. If he didn't speak in class for 3 days I would be willing to give a bit of sympathy. Deal, or no deal? Of course it is no surprise that he can't keep his grade to himself because he can't keep all of the dumb ideas he has in class to himself. Wow, vitriol much? Apparently.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Umbrella
Being in a Yankee bar was incredibly uncomfortable during a baseball game. While I was not wearing any Red Sox paraphernalia I did not want to cede the moral high ground to Yankees fans by pretending I was one of them. So what did I do? Root for the Angels and commiserate with the two other Red Sox fans who were also there undercover.
Yesterday it was awful out. Cold, dark, and rainy all day. It was a study/laundry type of day. I think I ate three bowls of cereal, but now I'm out of milk so I don't know how that's going to work today. Dry cereal? But I did get a lot of studying done. Woot. I ventured out of my apartment in the evening to go hang out with Gavi. On the way down the escalator of the Metro I got stuck behind a woman with a huge umbrella, just standing there. The escalator is covered, there was no rain coming down, but she's just standing there like the queen of the escalator, completely oblivious that maybe her 5 ft. wide umbrella is in the way. This is a long escalator, and I didn't want to wait for her to realize that once you have a roof over your head you no longer require an umbrella, so I politely said excuse me. I got the dirtiest look, like I had just told her she was so fat thatI was going to roll her down the stairs. Whatever lady, be considerate.
This damn news story about the kid who wasn't in the balloon in Colorado is the dumbest thing ever. It is still getting coverage. Now the coverage is of the coverage. Who covered it too much? Who made this into a story? Whose fault is this? It was a dumb story; the kid was in the attic, let's get over it and move on to real news. At the end of the day it's a story about a kid who wasn't in a balloon. There are hundreds of millions of people in this country who are not in a balloon every day. La-di-da.
Yesterday it was awful out. Cold, dark, and rainy all day. It was a study/laundry type of day. I think I ate three bowls of cereal, but now I'm out of milk so I don't know how that's going to work today. Dry cereal? But I did get a lot of studying done. Woot. I ventured out of my apartment in the evening to go hang out with Gavi. On the way down the escalator of the Metro I got stuck behind a woman with a huge umbrella, just standing there. The escalator is covered, there was no rain coming down, but she's just standing there like the queen of the escalator, completely oblivious that maybe her 5 ft. wide umbrella is in the way. This is a long escalator, and I didn't want to wait for her to realize that once you have a roof over your head you no longer require an umbrella, so I politely said excuse me. I got the dirtiest look, like I had just told her she was so fat thatI was going to roll her down the stairs. Whatever lady, be considerate.
This damn news story about the kid who wasn't in the balloon in Colorado is the dumbest thing ever. It is still getting coverage. Now the coverage is of the coverage. Who covered it too much? Who made this into a story? Whose fault is this? It was a dumb story; the kid was in the attic, let's get over it and move on to real news. At the end of the day it's a story about a kid who wasn't in a balloon. There are hundreds of millions of people in this country who are not in a balloon every day. La-di-da.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Greater good
Both a lot, and very little has happened this week. I'm just ready to get this midterm over, and I'm thankful that it's Friday and I don't have class next week. Of course I have Memo 2 to beast, but all in due time. I also have baseball to watch, even if the Red Sox have sadly sucked sufficiently to be taken out of the postseason. Oh yeah, and Torts to study for. Meh, I'm not too worried.
What I am worried about is Gunner's conduct in class. One day I am going to lose it and just yell at him. His ability to get called on is downright uncanny. He gets to voice his (dumb) opinion usually a minimum of 3 times per class. And he always starts off with "Well as I take it," or "In my experience." No one cares what you have to say! And two thirds of the time what you say is exactly wrong. Often the professor is too nice to tell you that point blank, but I think they are losing their patience. Yesterday Gunner was particularly bad, which is what is inspiring this. In Torts, for whatever reason, he started saying a theory of liability seemed to be justified by "the greater good. Like Nietzsche and Nazi-fascist kind of thing." He continued for a minute or two talking about how Nietzsche valued the greater societal good while the five philosophy majors in my class had miniature seizures. Jared started audibly saying "No, no, no," and after a minute of my mouth hanging open I couldn't control myself and just said "That's not what Nietzsche says. At all." By the way, Nietzsche is a rabid individualist, who has no purposeful ideological ties to fascism and says nothing of the sort. After class Jared went up to him and asked Gunner what Nietzsche he had read. "Some things," was the response. It quickly became apparent that by "some things" he meant "nothing." And Jared politely told him he was full of crap. I had nothing nice to say, so I said nothing at all. But this is why people shouldn't repeat stupid things that they hear just to sound smart.
Speaking of things I don't understand, Matt shared a nice article about the large Hadron collidor (that physics thing in Switzerland?) which is crazy. It's in the NYTimes. Apparently there is a particle they are trying to create which two physicists believe is so unnatural that the particle is actually working against its own creation and will sabotage the project. The useful analogy they provide is a time traveler going back in time to kill his grandfather. What? Are you for serious? This is blowing my mind! Ask Matt about it, he'll have a better grasp. Physics is something I know nothing about, but wish I did. Not liking numbers or math makes it pretty rough to keep up though. However I did have a crazy conversation with Dan about the possibility of time travel. A philosophy major and an economics major talking about something neither of them have much of an idea about, it was pretty sweet. It makes me miss dorm room philosophy. And dorm room Matt explaining science to me so I have slightly more than zero grasp on science. I still don't understand entropy, and I'm becoming convinced I never will!
My boss from the summer who I hated may be in a bit of trouble (read: out of a job) quite soon. I will be following developments with a stupid grin on my face.
This afternoon I went to court to observe a criminal trial, on orders from my Crim Law professor. The judge has a button that creates white noise during side bar conversations so the jury can't hear. It's so cool! I want one! The defendant was charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana with the intent to distribute. He was caught with an eight ball (3.5 oz.) of coke, and half an ounce of pot. The defense is just trying to get them to drop the intent to distribute. Good luck with that. He was caught with the drugs in 32 separate baggies? Oh right, because that's how drugs are usually used and not sold. Good call. Highlight was when the defendant was on the stand and responded to a question that he has never smoked drugs with anyone else, always by himself. That's about as believable as Nicholas Cage's acting. Hi, my name is perjury. Ok, cool.
What I am worried about is Gunner's conduct in class. One day I am going to lose it and just yell at him. His ability to get called on is downright uncanny. He gets to voice his (dumb) opinion usually a minimum of 3 times per class. And he always starts off with "Well as I take it," or "In my experience." No one cares what you have to say! And two thirds of the time what you say is exactly wrong. Often the professor is too nice to tell you that point blank, but I think they are losing their patience. Yesterday Gunner was particularly bad, which is what is inspiring this. In Torts, for whatever reason, he started saying a theory of liability seemed to be justified by "the greater good. Like Nietzsche and Nazi-fascist kind of thing." He continued for a minute or two talking about how Nietzsche valued the greater societal good while the five philosophy majors in my class had miniature seizures. Jared started audibly saying "No, no, no," and after a minute of my mouth hanging open I couldn't control myself and just said "That's not what Nietzsche says. At all." By the way, Nietzsche is a rabid individualist, who has no purposeful ideological ties to fascism and says nothing of the sort. After class Jared went up to him and asked Gunner what Nietzsche he had read. "Some things," was the response. It quickly became apparent that by "some things" he meant "nothing." And Jared politely told him he was full of crap. I had nothing nice to say, so I said nothing at all. But this is why people shouldn't repeat stupid things that they hear just to sound smart.
Speaking of things I don't understand, Matt shared a nice article about the large Hadron collidor (that physics thing in Switzerland?) which is crazy. It's in the NYTimes. Apparently there is a particle they are trying to create which two physicists believe is so unnatural that the particle is actually working against its own creation and will sabotage the project. The useful analogy they provide is a time traveler going back in time to kill his grandfather. What? Are you for serious? This is blowing my mind! Ask Matt about it, he'll have a better grasp. Physics is something I know nothing about, but wish I did. Not liking numbers or math makes it pretty rough to keep up though. However I did have a crazy conversation with Dan about the possibility of time travel. A philosophy major and an economics major talking about something neither of them have much of an idea about, it was pretty sweet. It makes me miss dorm room philosophy. And dorm room Matt explaining science to me so I have slightly more than zero grasp on science. I still don't understand entropy, and I'm becoming convinced I never will!
My boss from the summer who I hated may be in a bit of trouble (read: out of a job) quite soon. I will be following developments with a stupid grin on my face.
This afternoon I went to court to observe a criminal trial, on orders from my Crim Law professor. The judge has a button that creates white noise during side bar conversations so the jury can't hear. It's so cool! I want one! The defendant was charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana with the intent to distribute. He was caught with an eight ball (3.5 oz.) of coke, and half an ounce of pot. The defense is just trying to get them to drop the intent to distribute. Good luck with that. He was caught with the drugs in 32 separate baggies? Oh right, because that's how drugs are usually used and not sold. Good call. Highlight was when the defendant was on the stand and responded to a question that he has never smoked drugs with anyone else, always by himself. That's about as believable as Nicholas Cage's acting. Hi, my name is perjury. Ok, cool.
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