Fall Favorites

Living in DC, I finally get real seasons. With a dramatic drop from 90 degree weather to the 60s this week, I remember the many reasons why fall is my favorite season:

• Pumpkin flavored anything. (Right: Half of the Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Graham-Pecan Crust with Pumpkinseed Brittle that we got at the Taste of Georgetown today)
  
• Sweaters, jeans, and boot/flip-flop attire
• Football season, even if it is a major distraction every Saturday and UCLA loses to bad teams
  
• Orange and Brown (but not together) which have seemed to permeate my wardrobe
  
• Squashes, especially butternut, and other fall produce
• The crisp air, especially in the morning
  
• Using the crockpot to make chili, stews, and soups
• Leaves changing color (below is a picture from my balcony last year)
  
• Watching kids jump into big piles of leaves
  

California Here I Come (Again)

Back to California in a week or two for a call-back interview. I am incredibly excited, but nervous as well. As much as I would love to jet-set back and forth across the country on red-eyes for more interviews, all I really want to do is seal the deal on this opportunity. Good thing I reserved my lucky interview shirt for this occasion.

Relatedly, this would make my third trip home since August. I came home in August before school started just for fun, returned in September for interviews, coming again in October for interviews, will have my parents visit me in early November for their business trip, fly home in November for Thanksgiving, and go back home again for winter break in December.

Seeing my parents at least once a month? I guess being ~3,000 miles (DC to CA) sometimes feels the same as being 30 miles away (UCLA to home). Just a tad more expensive.

Participation

For some reason, the reading in almost all of my classes practically doubled this week. I finally felt like I had to be a student after coasting through the first month and a half. It was a good thing I buckled down though, because I was called on in two of my classes. Then I volunteered to speak in my other two classes. A clean sweep of participation; this was a big step for me.

Last year I hardly spoke in any of my classes. I would participate in my small writing class and when our section was split in half, but I rarely talked in any of my big 90-person classes. I didn't need to. None of my professors did the "pure" socratic method. Unlike my roommate, I some professors who admitted that they were scared of speaking when they were in law school, and in turn, would not impose that anxiety on their own students.

Knowing my stuff when the professors asked questions was an exhilarating feeling, and I know I should participate more because it keeps me engaged in the class. I guess I just have to get over my fear of being wrong and more significantly, fear of slowing down the class. I am easily annoyed by the people who love the sound of their own voice in class and make us fall behind. I guess there is a middle ground between never talking and being "that guy."

A Different World

Today, during my break between class and meetings, I moseyed down the street to the main campus to get my annual health check up. As I was walking through the main campus, I felt like I was in a different world. People were laying on the lawn reading, taking naps, and just chatting with friends. People were sitting in benches reading books for leisure. People were walking like they were not rushing to go somewhere. People were tabling out on the sidewalks. Oh undergrad.

Even though my law school is one of the happier law schools, it isn't this happy. People are sitting around and talking, but you can tell that they are squeezing it in before heading back to the books. We do not sit in the sun, we are pale from being caved up in the library. Which all reminds me why I did not go to law school at UCLA (beside the fact that they didn't accept me): I would hate undergrads.

Since UCLA's law school is on the main campus (whereas at AU, we are seperated) I would hate people tabling on bruinwalk, playing frisbee infront of Royce, doing the crossword on Kerckhoff patio, and having time to go tailgate at the Rosebowl. As a law student, I know I would resent them because I would be jealous of my former life; and that is not the way I want to remember UCLA.

Getting some distance from undergraduate life, both by leaving UCLA and going to a school where the law school is not on main campus, was definitely a good call.

Note: This is not meant to indicate that I hate law school, I actually really like it and had a lot of fun today even though I was on campus from 9am-11pm.

Bump in the Night

I am still somewhat disconcerted with an event that occurred not last night, but the night before. On Sunday night I went to bed with all my lights off. I know, because when Alex called me to say goodnight, I had to look for my phone in the dark. Yet, when I woke up, the light all the way across the room was on. You can only turn on said light by turning a very small nob on the top of it.

Unless I have light gnomes turning on fixtures during the middle of the night, I must have walked across the room in the middle of the night, turned the light on for whatever reason, and walked back to bed. I guess this bothers me because, unlike my brother, I have never been a sleepwalker. Megan told me that I would sometimes wake up, have a short little conversation with her while half asleep and then go back to bed. However, I have never done any physical movement at night that I could not recall in the morning, or at least this is what I thought.

I am the person who likes to be in full control of her motions, hence why I do not drink much (in addition to being the person who does not like to turn red). I am also the person who hates forgetting things. This is a combination of both. But alas, there is really nothing I can do, so I will try not to lose sleep over this.

Student Governance

My experience in student government seems analogous to my first year of law school: long hours, a lot of stress, intense bonding with the people you spend so many hours with, and a learning experience about yourself, others, and the world in general. In short, both are experiences that were great and you are glad that you did them, but that you would not want to do again.

This week the law school has been abuzz with student government relations. There is a proposal for a study abroad program in Israel, a counter resolution against the program saying it violates the school's non-discrimination policy because Israel discriminates, a mass email by the President, accusations of accusations, diatribes on the student senate virtual message board, people screaming anti-semitism, censure motions against the President, etc, etc.

This brings back the not-so-fond memories of student government. During my time, the Muslim Student Association brought in a speaker that the Jewish Student Union said was a holocaust denier. There was a resolution. Immediately after my term, someone proposed a resolution condemning Israel for invading Lebanon. Another resolution, which was debated for 5+ hours in a tiny room with 100+ people waving Lebanon, Israeli, and Palestinian flags. Oh non-binding resolutions; how much grief you caused.

I know that these issues are important, but I am not personally as invested, nor do I know as much as I want, to really engage in these "dialogues" (I use the term lightly since people talk more than they listen). Moreover, I usually am ambivalent to these kind of issues because they usually have devolved so much that the discussion is no longer about issues that a student government should be working on.

Do not get me wrong, I think student government has the opportunity to do really great work and I really respect the people who invest so much time into doing so. However, there are times like this when I am so glad that I am not part of it anymore.

Parental Advisory

When my friend was taking a run around the law school this week, a woman pushing a stoller and walking her dog said to my friend, "Run, run while you still can." Wow.

Although I gawk at the babies at church, take care of the 1Ls like my kids, and am known to many as Momma Doan, I do not caution signs about parenting. I am in no rush to join the many girls from my high school who are married and have facebook pictures with their kids. Nothing wrong with it, but I am just not ready for that stage of my life.

I think my major epiphany was when I was at the beach in Delaware last summer. As I was relaxing on the beach, a mom with 3 little kids came onto the beach. The kids were running around, screaming, and throwing sand at each other, while the mom was carrying lounge chairs, an umbrella, and tons of kid toys. You could tell that all she wanted to do was sit down, but she had to threaten the kids with going home if they did not behave. That was the moment when I realized when I did not want to have kids for a long time.

Football Logic

Losses are never fun, but there are always a few things that make the situation better:

• Going to Ben's Chili Bowl before the game
• Still being undefeated and #1 in the Pac-10
• Having a productive studying weekend
• Watching Florida, the team we hate 2nd most, lose to LSU
• Key Lime Pie
• Knowing that the C on the UCLA endzone is painted a different color to stand for 100 national championships
  
• Watching USC lose to Stanford

UCLA beat Stanford
Stanford beat U$C
Therefore, UCLA is better than U$C