until i find you

John Irving is a genius. A weird, twisted man, but a genius. Just finished his latest book, Until I Find You and loved it. Totally worth spending 5 hours of my day today on to finish it (I started it last week). All of Irving's books are so strange but so intricate. His characters are so bizarre but so real. And finishing the book makes you sad because feel like you just lost a friend. That last one, to me, is the sign of a really good book.

quick thought

So I'm sitting in the back row of my M&A class (as opposed to my normal seat) because I have to leave early and it is even HARDER to pay attention here than it is in my normal seat (which I didn't think was possible) because not only is it boring and all LLM-speak but from here I also can't hear it... Why did I come?

here we go again

After SUCH a nice break (more later), the general insanity of life resumed the moment I got to the airport yesterday morning. Weather caused my flight to be delayed an hour, the T took forever (as always) and I basically had to go straight to class. Since class got out yesterday, my life has been devoted to the Giving Tree event that I'm helping organize for HLCentral. It's a great community service project but really labor oriented. Aside from a zillion emails that have been exchanged in the last 24 hours (there were 10 on this alone waiting for me when I got back to Cambridge yesterday), I had to go shopping this morning for ornament making supplies (i.e. paper, glue, scissors, etc) and create labels with the names of the gifts to go on the back of each ornament. Still to do today: 2 classes, order pizza, pick up soda, get car and drive it (and supplies) to school, find parking, unload car, make 300 ornaments, and collapse. The actual event doesn't start until Thursday, and before then I have to make whatever ornaments we don't finish tonight and donation bins. I am so tired -- hard to believe I just got back from a vacation!

Ah, the vacation. Thanksgiving was wonderful. I got to spend lots of time with my family, which is always a good thing. I also got to see some friends who I hadn't seen in a long time. On Friday night, went out with my IHC lifeguard friends for Matt's birthday and to see Nate's band play, though we didn't end up staying long enough to watch them play... It was really nice, htough, just to see everyone and hang out.

Anyway, my intense multitasking of this morning has somehow gotten me to class an hour early (oops!) so I'm off to try to be productive once more...

thanksgiving part deux

The turkey is eaten, the leftovers are stored, the dishes are washed and I am in my pajamas about to go to sleep. Before I go to sleep, though, I just wanted to say again how thankful I am for my friends. I know how lonely life can be and I know how fortunate I am to have you in my life. So thank you.

Giving Thanks

Given that today is Thanksgiving, I thought that I'd make a list (albeit incomplete) of the things I'm thankful for:

I'm thankful...
To live in a safe place
To be able to come home and for it to really still be home
For my incredible family (even my brother!)
For my friends, especially as they accept me for who I am, despite my faults
For my (ever improving) health
To have the opportunity to go to Harvard Law (even though I tend to hate it)
That I have a job waiting for me in September
For this vacation from school -- the calm before the storm

Clearly there's more, but I have to go help with the final preparations, as our company will be arriving in 10 minutes. Happy Thanksgiving!

RENT!

Just got home from seeing Rent. WOW. While I might not agree with some of the artistic liberties (more later) taken by the movie directors/producers, overall the movie was FANTASTIC! Too bad most of the audience hadn't even been born yet by 1989 (the year the movie purported to take place, which I don't think is right -- I think it should be like 94, but maybe I'm wrong) and didn't grasp any of the significance. So here's my review. First qualms, followed by praise.
My qualms:
1) Why did they change the timing? What was wrong with having everything through La Vie Boheme happen in one day and the rest happen in another year? Why did they have to spread the beginning through an entire week?
2) I felt like they left out some critical storylines, like about Mark really finding himself and some of the Benny stuff.
3) I was saddened by some of the songs they dropped (and disturbed that when they dropped the songs they still said them word for word in dialouge which sounded awfully rhyme-y to me)
4) Roger's voice has really changed (matured, been groomed) since the play and I liked it better when it was rougher.
My Praises:
1) The cast was amazing. Beautiful voices, energy, everyone was REALLY in character.
2) The feeling was incredible.
3) They were really true to Adam Larson's memory and (as a whole) true to the play
4) I just loved it. I love Rent and the movie adaptation didn't disappoint. What more can I really say? It's always easier to criticize something you love than to praise it!

can't sleep

Can't sleep. Partly because I haven't been sleeping well lately (and if you know me, you know what a big deal this is as I'm something of a sleep addict). But also because I'm SO excited about tomorrow.
1) I GO HOME.
2) RENT COMES OUT.
Really, how much more exciting could the day get??

Harry Potter 4

Went to see the new Harry Potter movie tonight. It was really good but I'm not sure that it quite hit the bar that the last one set. I will say, however, that the portrayal of Voldemort is really good -- so creepy! And I won't say anything else about it because you should go see it.

After the movie I came home instead of going out with Jamie and his friends. They were celebrating someone's birthday. I didn't want to walk home from the T too late though (since it's a decently long walk from the station to my apartment) and plus I was really hungry and didn't want to spend more money (which I clearly would have done on both food and drink if I'd gone to the bar). So instead I came home and have been chatting online with Tyler, who I don't talk to nearly enough.

Totally separate subject:
I bought the new Liz Phair cd today. It's good. People say that she's sold out but I actually thought that this one sounds more like her old stuff than the last one. Anyway, I bought the cd to keep myself from buying shoes. I'm buying myself a pair of new shoes as a reward for a recent accomplishment There's this pair of boots I like that I almost bought on Zappos.com (best website ever, btw) but I decided to wait until I get home and can go to real shoe stores and look at real shoes. So I bought the cd instead. Rational?

have to admit it's getting better...

A little better all the time... Getting so much better all the time...

OK, enough singing. Point is, while I still hate Cambridge and I still hate law school, I hate them a whole lot less now that I have people to hate them with. It has made such a difference to have people to hang out with and commiserate with about life in general -- I'm not sure how I survived my first two years without this.

strange deja vu...

I spent the lunch hour today at a strange panel discussion on the intersection between education and juvenile justice (not strange because of the topic, but strange because the panelists were so disjointed and all over the place). Anyway, the combination of going to this panel and doing my homework for tomorrow's Child Advocacy Class Session (which is on Education Law, special education in particular) all of a sudden brought back a memory of writing my junior theme in high school. My topic, strangely enough, was special education and the pros and cons of mainstream education for special needs students. I have to tell you that until this morning I had no memory of writing a junior theme, much less my topic. So weird.

Now I have to go make myself look pretty for my yearbook picture. After all, when law students I don't know now are reminiscing 20 years from now, I want them to look at my picture and say: wow -- why didn't I know her -- she was hot!

a little bit country

OK, I'll admit it, I'm a secret country junkie... So i've been watching parts of the CMAs all night and I have a few thoughts/comments:

1) Bon Jovi -- so not country, yet they performed. Don't get it. Help me please.
2) Garth Brooks channeling Chris LaDeux. This makes me think of a girl who was in my sorority who was in love with Chris LaDeux even though he was way old and none of the rest of us knew who he was. This was before my country phase.
3) Garth 2. Watching Garth on that stage, performing, it is so clear that he will come out of retirement. And more than just for his new cd that's just being released at Walmart that's the Chris LaDeux tribute or whatever. He just looked so happy on stage. Yay because I want more Garth!
4) What's with the albums/songs that are over a year old being up for nomination and winning things? I only know this because it's been more than a year since I've last bought a country cd.

OK, I didn't watch the whole show because it's Gilmore Girls and House night but those are my thoughts based on what I did watch. Happy Tuesday!

the minutes last for hours

Some days, time just moves so slowly. Espcially days like today, where I have a few things to do, but they're all separated by hours of nothingness. Those hours of nothingness last forever. And as a result, it's 4:30 in the afternoon and I feel like it's 9:00 at night (of course, the fact that it's almost dark outside doesn't help this). And I still have a birthday party to go to at 7:30... don't know what I'll do for the next three hours but probably nothing productive.

On a wholly unrelated topic, I've been really surprised by the lack of publicity about the next Harry Potter movie, which opens this Friday. For the past 3, there have been media blitzes for weeks before the premiere yet this time nothing. It's so weird! Oh, and I found out that in order to make the movie fit in within 2 1/2 hours, they cut out a lot of plot lines, like Hermione's quest to save the House Elves, which is annoying. But they wanted to fit it all into one movie instead of separating it into 2. No clue how they'll fit the most recent book (#6) into one movie -- that will be one LONG movie, but for now I just look forward to seeing this one this weekend :)

literary musings

I just finished War and Peace. I must say, I loved it. And I'm really glad that I read it now, and not for school, because I think that I would have hated it if I had read it for school, having to really understand the significance of every sentence (and there are a lot of sentences in 1440 pages!). I enjoyed it it in large part because I was able to look at it holistic-ly (not sure if that's a word) and appreciate it as a whole, in context. Which makes me wonder if I would have enjoyed some of the books I read in high school English that I hated at the time, had I read them for pleasure. For example, A Tale of Two Cities and Moby Dick were two of the worst experiences reading-wise that I've ever had. Yet these are books that people really love. I wonder if I would hate them less if I re-read them now just for the pleasure of reading, without the pressure to understand and attach significance to every passage. I think I'll wait a little bit longer, let my hatred die down (or further repress all memories of the books) but ultimately I do want to re-read them.

only a law student

Only a law student could create and/or take a test this bad...

"Which rule of Federal Civil Procedure Are You?":

YOU ARE RULE 12(b)!

While you might be a defendant's best friend, you
aren't exactly polite to others. You have
seven separate grounds on which to dismiss a
plaintiff's case. You are a bit paranoid,
since if you fail to raise your 12(b)(2,3,4, or
7) in a motion or a pleading with one of the
other 12(b) defenses or a 12(e) motion, you
waive those objections for the rest of trial.
Some might say that 12(b) is the biggest bully
of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but
hey, somebody needs to keep the peace. You
might not be the most popular guy in the
office, but you're probably the most important.


Which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

idling

So I went to bed an hour ago but, alas, sleep is not to be had right now. For the second night in a row, a truck has decided to idle for hours right outside my apartment after I've gone to bed. Love living on a big street... Called the cops this time, we'll see if that helps. Really wanted to go to bed early tonight. I took a final today and was just looking forward to a good night's sleep. Oh well, guess not.

Some thoughts I've been having lately (in no particular order):
1. Would it really make your life better if your windshield wipers sensed rain and turned themselves on? I can't see it making any difference in my life...
2. What exactly is it that makes Friendster (and My Space, Facebook, and all the others) so addicting? Why do I feel like I should measure my self worth by how many friends I have? Is this ridiculous? Unfortunately, I think it's sort of normal...
3. Why on earth is Sudoku so addicting? Any insight here??

Maybe I'll have more thoughts later. Or maybe I'll sleep later. Either way, let me know what you think, especially if you've ever shared any of these thoughts.

an update

It feels like it's been so long since I've updated but really it's only been 4 days. Things have been so crazy since I've been back from vacation. MPRE last week, a party friday night, lots of work Saturday, hung out with Jamie and Melissa Sunday (her brother goes to school in Boston so she was in town visiting), then general craziness this week. Of course, part of this has to do with the fact that I have a final this week. At the beginning of the semester, I thought it sounded great to have a class that would only last 8 weeks because it was one less final I'd have to take during finals time. Now, however, I realize what poor reasoning that was because it's that much MORE work that I have to do now when I have other things going on. I'll be so glad when it's over. Frankly, I'll be so glad when all of this is over. I cannot wait to start working and living like a normal person on a normal schedule. Everyone tells me how much I'll miss school, and I'm sure that I will miss the vacations, but enough is enough. I'm ready to lead a structured life where what I'm doing actually matters. Everything I do now just seems so irrelevant... Oh well, soon enough I suppose.

need sleep

This has been THE longest week. Actually, it's gone really fast but there's been so much going on... Most of it has been prep for the MPRE (multistate professional responsibility exam -- it's a portion of the bar). Took the test today -- it sucked. It's supposed to be an ethics test but it doesn't actually test whether you're ethical but rather whether you've memorized the ABA model rules of "professional responsibility" which aren't actually law in any state. So dumb. I hope I passed but I really don't know that I did... If not, I'll be re-taking the exam in March...

Went out tonight. HLCentral party at Big Easy but it was only OK b/c the club was mostly college kids. However, since I didn't really have to spend much money (no cover, got free drinks through HLCentral) it was pretty cool. So glad to finally have a friend to go out with...

Still trying to catch up on sleep from the time changes I went through last weekend... definitely bedtime for me now.