My Life is Hard

I really shouldn't be taking the time to blog given that school is blowing up in my face. My life can best be described by the video clip below (at least, roughly the first thirty seconds). When I was younger I'd watch this and scoff thinking school couldn't possibly be that hard. I still maintain that high school is weak shit, but sadly, I feel a bit like Jessie these days.

Just Workin' on My Fitness

One of the things that many of my classmates have complained about is that in law school, like undergrad, they are starting to put on weight. Maybe it speaks to how sedentary the lifestyle is in LA's car culture, but I haven't had that issue. If anything, I lost a little from always walking around. Even still, I wanted to make a return to the gym. We canceled our gym membership back in LA when money was tight and I was looking forward to going back during the school year when it was "free" (and by "free" I mean, I paid $45 large for it).

Before the semester started, I made a sweet little Excel chart for my week -- on Mondays and Tuesdays when class started at 10, I'd go to the gym in the morning. On Wednesdays, I'd go after my last class. On Thursday and Friday, I'd go between classes. It was a good plan, too...until I stepped foot on campus, got into my first week of classes, and realized I'd underestimated how much time I'd need to read. I kept promising myself that once I got a handle on the reading, I'd go to the gym...next week. Then it was the week after. Then a month passed and I still hadn't gone. Then I started to psych myself out and feel intimidated -- after all, it was halfway through the semester and I was probably the only person who had never set foot in the gym. I would do some pilates at home, but then I realized that I missed doing a cardio routine.

I finally decided this week to nip it in the bud. I texted two of my school friends and told them we had an appointment at the gym after Property class. Incidentally, two was smart because one forgot her gym clothes and by the time she'd go home to get them and come back, we'd be long done. I roped another friend into going today too so there were three of us powerful women in a line on the elliptical. The elliptical is fucking intimidating. I always feel like a clumsy dork when I use it but I think I was a pretty good poseur today. I did a good half hour on the machine (stupid time limits) and felt very refreshed. And, of course, I'm proud of myself because my goal was to go today and I did it. It only gets better from here!

Dinner with Turkey Lurkey

Monday night marked the last meeting of the Sports Business and Law reading group I had this semester taught by my Crim prof Dersh and co-taught by the CEO and co-owner of the Red Sox, Larry Lucchino. As our final meeting, we got together to have dinner at Dersh's (who, I was quite delighted to find out, was the voice of Turkey Lurkey in a fairytale show. Totally clutch discovery by someone in my section.

The dinner was delightful -- catered by the apparently go-to Chinese restaurant, Chang Sho. Delish desserts followed. I didn't take pictures of that though because the home itself was quite a conversation piece. His home was exactly how I picture Dershowitz's mind running -- eclectic, different, fast paced, brightly colored, etc.

One of the first things you see when you walk in the house



And just a sample of one wall. The entire living room, foyer, and other hallways were EXACTLY like this with historical artifacts and art all mixed up in there



One of my classmates pulled the yawn + stretch here (note, you can see my polka dot coat on the couch)



At the end, he took us on a tour of his home. After walking through his bedroom (awwwwwwwwwwwwwkward), we got to see his private office with tons of memorabilia. This was one of my favorite things



Yes, that's a dartboard with his face on it. Even funnier, it was completely full of holes.

It was a delightful dinner and good time all around. I'm consistently impressed by the hospitality of our professors here.

Isn't It Lovely?

Sometimes I forget how beautiful it is here. I spend so much of my time trapped at the law school or in the library or inside my apartment that I start to get sick of the same sights and really don't find many beautiful things to look at (except a select hottie in my section). Today I got to get out of the square just to briefly run an errand and in driving alongside the river, I was reminded how beautiful it is here.

Excuse my pictures. They were taken via iPhone when I was driving. I know the one in particular is quite egregious, but I liked the colors of the fall foliage!

Happy Two-Monthiversary!

Today (well, yesterday, but who's counting?) is my second monthiversary of being in law school. It's funny because some of the people that I met just that short time ago already seem like close friends. Perhaps it's the fact that we're in the trenches together every day taking grenades from our professors?

Do I like law school? Well, according to Weemo, I loooooooooooooooooooooove law school because I dressed up like a case for Halloween! But to be honest, I enjoy the process. I like school. There are certainly many things I dislike about school or classmates, but on the whole, the process is rather enjoyable.

Would I recommend for someone to go to law school? It really depends on the person. I've wanted to be a lawyer for 20 years now, so I think that was enough time to think about it. I certainly wouldn't recommend this process for someone who isn't sure what they want to do with their life or is doing this as a "fall back" career. It's too life-consuming to be just a fall back.

I miss my friends back on the West Coast like, whoa! It's crazy because this experience tends to overwhelm your life and take it over to where there's nothing you don't do that's not somehow school related. The people you hang out with? People from school. The people you see daily? People from school. The social events you attend? School functions or parties thrown by classmates.

The best things in my life currently:


The absolute CUTEST!




One hour every week that I know I won't be working on law school-related stuff. My life stops and my drooling over Ed Westwick begins!



Since small bottles of Grey Goose are $50 (FIFTY EFFING DOLLARS!!!!), this is the next best thing.




I bought these adorable boots recently from Target. Only $25 and they're the perfect mix of pink and preppy!

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.