Happy Halloween!

As I've said before, you know you're in law school when you can only think about dressing up like cases or anything else law-related. In undergrad, you dress up as "Slutty [fill in the blank]." Sadly some of my classmates still did the same, but I wanted to break out of that old, tired mold. In my case (rimshot), I had an excuse because our section Halloween party was case/law school-themed. I took some time and came up with this:


Yes, I dressed as one of the major cases from Civil Procedure, International Shoe. Now, don't judge me because that's a Converse which is an American label. At least I properly labeled myself!



How did I do it? Well...last weekend I spent some time putting together small scale models of a shoe with regular paper. The small scale models were pretty tough and I was discouraged from even attempting this project. Luckily I changed my mind. My backup costume was to go as "CambridgeCuti33" based upon our open memo assignment (which was about child pornography which is a whole other story), but I decided to give this one a go.

People asked if I had a pattern or anything. No, I didn't. I just put my own Converse on the table and started sketching it out with a regular old ruler, a pencil, and some creativity. Instead of painting each piece (which would have been a nightmare), I spray painted (and now my apartment has spray paint all over the outside walkway). The entire shoe is made out of posterboard. I layered posterboard pieces as there are layers on a regular Converse, used black Magic Marker to line the shoe as there are lines on a regular Converse. I spiral cut an old undershirt of The Outdoorsman's to make one long shoelace and then threaded that through and tied it around my neck to hold the thing up. I held it together with tape, staples, and rubber cement. All in all, with spray painting and assembling, the costume took roughly 4 hours to make (not counting the time it took to make the small models last weekend).

The funniest part is that people thought I'm naturally crafty. HAH! The same person who always says "I have good ideas, but I'd rather pay someone to put them together for me!" Hilarity.

I went with pink because it's my signature color (I'm the only one I've seen at my school with a pink laptop, to put it in perspective) and really, people wouldn't expect anything different. I had planned to put passport stamps on the shoe or wear a beret or something, but decided at the last minute that I'd invested enough time and money into my costume and scrapped it.



Me with the International Shoe salesmen. We're a hot team!

As for our section's Halloween costume competition, I came in third place. What do y'all think of those who finished ahead of me?


First Place: The Bluebook



as



Second Place: Our property professor



as

How Much Will You Pay Me?

So, it's been another eventful few weeks here at the Ivory Tower. I've gotten a couple of grades back. They all put me in the mushy middle of law school life. About two years ago, the school decided to move away from grades (A, B, C, F) to cut down on competition. Now we have Honors, Pass, Low Pass, and Fail. Hmmm, looks suspiciously like ABCF, no? In any event, I'm in the pass range...along with 55% of the rest of my class. You see, about 37% get honors, 55% get a pass, and the remainder generally get a low pass (8%) except for those who are so egregious as to merit a fail (which should really be an Epic Fail on the transcript since it's damn near impossible to get and you really have to try hard to fall that low).

In any event, I had an experience today in Civil Procedure that inspired me to write. The Guy With Two First Names (TGWTFN) is an uber-gunner. I mean, possibly even worse than the woman who inspired my last blog post. He's a chronic hand raiser and, even worse, will raise his hand a minute or less before we're supposed to be out of class. He's also That Guy who takes shit wayyyy too seriously. Just one example is when he told a teammate on our section's flag football team that he was going to "bury him in a shallow grave." Yet another example with flag football is when he told my friend/teammate that he was going to "rip out his ACL." He's the type of guy that I imagine going Michael Rapaport from "Higher Learning." (please Google/IMDB this if you don't know what I'm talking about).

Today in Civ Pro TGWTFN asked another one of his RIDICULOUS hypotheticals and the professor responded with a question and said, "You can either answer this or pass to Ms. Femme." The guy looked at me and, without a hint of humor (per his humorless personality generally) said, "How much are you going to pay me?"

1. As if I'm intimidated by the professor's question?
2. As if you'd pass up a chance to answer the question, attempt to show off, and be irritating to everyone?

I didn't say a word. I just gave him a staredown for no less than 10 seconds. I was really disgusted with his attitude. Apparently I need to work on my facial expressions -- I must have given him a look that would melt his face because he eventually said, "I'll answer it" and took it himself.

It's a good thing there aren't many people here like him, but he truly does suck the life out of a classroom in a hurry.

Rain...feel it on my fingertips, hear it on my windowpane

I miss the California sun. I'm already cold here and it's only mid-October. It's been roughly 45 degrees each day for the last several days. Oh, and it's going to rain here all weekend, give us a couple of days of sun early next week, and then rain again all weekend. We also have the potential for snow here this weekend. I'm in trouble, friends.

Two things are keeping me going for now.

1. I got a sweet pair of rain boots from LL Bean



2. Law school tunnels



This sweet set-up allows me to stay warm and dry once I'm on campus because it goes everywhere I need to be. I can go from class to the library to the student union for lunch (and everywhere in between) with nary a drop of water to hit my head. The multicolored Punky Brewster lockers are just a bonus!

Luckily I'm done dealing with this



::fist pumps::

In The City That Never Sleeps

My slavedriving law school decided to give us poor 1Ls an extended break over the Columbus Day holiday so instead of just getting Monday off, we got Monday and Tuesday. Columbus sure did fuck over my people in Puerto Rico, but hey, giving me an extra day off school is one way to make it up to me. I also found out that a friend was having a party in New York for his birthday and, well, we have our first memo due on Wednesday so it was a perfect time to escape the hellish Cambridge bubble and go to New York City. I managed to talk my law school bff TrojanGirl into going with me so I wouldn't be alone and awkward in the city.

Now, TrojanGirl and I were already doing big things...a sectionmate of ours said we could stay with her since she was going home to NYC during the break. Then she told me on Thursday she wasn't going after all, but we could still stay at her family's apartment since she didn't want to flake last minute. And her parents wouldn't be there.


As soon as I opened the front door and saw the foyer, I knew we were in for it.


The living room. Trust me, this pic doesn't do it justice at all.


The library. Yes, I said library.


Did I mention that her family's apartment is on Central Park West? Being in that apartment was like a combination of Home Alone and Home Alone 2.


TrojanGirl and I got changed and then we traveled to the Village to hang out with my NYU friends: Pinky, Opus Dei, and Pike. NOTE: I won't be putting very many pics in here because if you care, they're all on Facebook anyway!


Here we are hanging out at Pinch. Please excuse my shirt that is apparently made out of gauze or something. I might as well have gone shirtless. L to R: Opus Dei, Violet, Pinky, Pike, TrojanGirl.


Pike and I decide to take a picture together.



When I saw this, I was like "Dude, TRY to be normal for the next picture!" and he agreed. This is what came next:


Thanks, Pike! It's less normal than the last. It's like he decided to go Blue Steel, and then Magnum on me.


Saturday: TrojanGirl and I spent the early afternoon working on our memos at the kitchen table with a view overlooking Central Park. That definitely didn't suck too much. That night was Sinatra's birthday party at Slate so we got dolled up and headed over.


Who says law school girls aren't pretty?!



This chick was doing the most. Her outfit looked like a bathing suit and she was wearing C3PO glasses. Don't get me wrong; her legs were AMAZING! But that outfit was really something else!





Opus Dei and Pinky decide to have some fun with a belt that we randomly found laying in the middle of the dance floor. How bizarre. As a friend said, "That's how David Carradine got into trouble."






Me with the gorgeous birthday boy Sinatra.



We left the club around 3:15am and headed back for the subway...but first, we stopped for a kebab. Within a minute of standing at the cart, the kebab man propositioned TrojanGirl -- offered her $100 to have sex with him. Straight up, no lie. But at least we got $2 off our kebabs. Not to be outdone, the guy in the taco truck next door called me over to flirt with me...which was (obviously) quickly nipped in the bud. In all my trips to NYC, it seems to be a standing theme that the guys there are just extra bold and say whatever the hell they want. We made a pact that what happened in NYC stays in NYC...except of course for my faithful readers!

Open Letter

Dear "Yellow,"

Yes, we're in law school. I know that you probably worked very hard to get here in undergrad. Undoubtedly you constantly visited office hours and built rapport with your professors because you seem like the suck up type. Now that you're in the big leagues (so to speak), you have to take ALL of your required classes with 79 of the same people on a daily basis. So, it shouldn't surprise you when I say to PUT YOUR FUCKING HAND DOWN. IMMEDIATELY. I shouldn't hear a stupid question come out of your nasally-voiced mouth EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. in EVERY. SINGLE. CLASS.

I have to let you know though...when you speak out in class, you do provide me with endless entertainment. When we were talking about jurisdiction in Civil Procedure and the professor said that you can't remove a case from state court to federal court when it's "in your own backyard" and you raised your hand just to ask "What do you mean by 'backyard?'" I laughed endlessly. I'm sure you heard me. What, did you think the professor was referring to the grassy space between your picket fences?!

Another funny moment was on Monday when our Crim Law TA was talking about the assignment the professor gave and giving some clarification...you raised your hand to ask "So, if I already turned in the assignment, do I have to do it all over again?" Was that a real question? I really have to know. Because otherwise, you looked like a big, flapping wet douchebag because it just seemed like you were saying "LOOK AT ME; I DID MY WORK!!!!!!" Totes obnox. Again, laughter for days, but it seems like this time the rest of our section has caught on. The audible laughter you hear is not people laughing with you, but laughing at you. I thought you should know.

Besitos,
Violet

PS: When there's torrential rain outside, don't wear a fucking short dress and tall rain boots. You look like an asshole.