Heatwave

It got hot. Like 90 degrees with humidity hot. It makes me lethargic, as do Saturday classes. So we'll just stick with bullet points. Here is what is helping me beat the heat (and those BarBri blues).

Likes:

• Friday Fun Food Day: This week was pizza from Vace, a little Italian deli with some of the best pizza in the city. Plump salty olives with homemade italian sausage, so good. My roommate and I invited over our sig-O's for a little pizza party. Vace Pizza + salad + garlic bread = double date for less than $20.
  
• Lunch al Fresco: Had lunch with one of my UCLA bffs Greg outside. After being stuck in a basement classroom for bar classes, it is nice to see sunlight- even though it was sweltering.
  
• Capitol Steps: Part of GW's orientation includes a performance by Capitol Steps, a singing political satire group. Since Alex works for GW, he gets to go free. It was hilarious. You can check out their songs on their webpage. They even got in a "Don't Cry for me, I'm in Argentina" song for Governor Marc Sanford.
  
• Fro-yo: Haven't had it in a few weeks but man, I would kill for some green tea fro-yo with mochi and strawberries right now. So hot.
  

Dislikes

• Property, Property, Property: And in particular mortgages, land sales, deeds, etc.
  
• Lady at Starbucks: The one day I want to treat myself to an iced coffee before my Saturday class, of course I get stuck behind the woman ordering coffee for over 20 people.
• Metro: Ever since the accident, the metros have been even slower and less frequently even though the number of tourists have gone up. What's even worse? Getting suck in the stinky Farragut North station because it's so hot and not ventilated.
  

RIP MJ, Farrah, Ed

It seems like every day that I come out of my bar review class, I hear about another sad story that occurred during the four hours when I was away from my laptop. Today, of course, it was about Michael Jackson dying.

I won't pretend to be one of those people who grew up on Michael Jackson (we were more of an ABBA household) and was a die-hard fan. But I appreciate his music and the influence he has had on so many other artists. You knew how popular his songs were when people could overlook his peculiar person life, and people all over the world those songs. They brought people together- whether it was hearing Thriller at a bar with friends, dancing to the Jackson 5 at a wedding, or having your roommate play one of his songs before your 1L finals to pump you both up.

And I certainly won't be like those people who roll their eyes at news like this or point to "bigger" things going on. If people are sad or shocked at Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, or Ed McMahon's deaths today, they have every right to their feelings. And just because they have a status message about it does not mean they do not care about other things. Yes, some people can be a little melodramatic or bandwagon, but every time something happens to a "pop icon" I think it evokes emotion to something bigger than that person-like memories. I never grew up watching Charlie's Angels but I will always remember posing like them in so many pictures with my friends in high school.

Cheaters Never Prosper?

Today, my friend's facebook status contained a provision from the South Carolina Code of Laws:

SECTION 16-15-60. Adultery or fornication: "Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment..."

This was of course, in response to the bizarre news of South Carolina Governor's disappearance and affair. (Helen S.: I share your pain about unfaithful politicians. I guess infidelity is one thing that is bipartisan)

Although only half of the states still have adultery laws, could you imagine if those states actually chose to prosecute adulterers? We could cover budget deficits and solve economic woes through the cheaters' fines! Unfortunately, adultery is not a crime in California but you can sign this petition to make it one.

Seriously though. Doesn't it seem like there is more infidelity everywhere? I do not know if I read more news, the news has become obsessed with it, or there is more cheating going on, but it seems like an epidemic. From politicians to parents in the towns where we grew up to our own friends. It is just all very sad, especially when there are kids involved. Jon and Kate + 8 used to our Monday night fixture but my roommate and I have not wanted to watch it at all this season.

If we're going to talk about sanctity of marriage, can we start here?

Think Like a Bar Taker

To call studying for the bar a dehumanizing process would be a little melodramatic. However, there are times when you feel like you are a legal issue-spotting machine instead of a human.

While all of us felt grief about yesterday's metro train accident, many of my friends and I also felt disgusted with ourselves that we started reading the details about the tragedy like a tort law hypothetical. And why am I thinking about the level of homicide and the insanity defenses for the Holocaust Museum shooter? Or trying to figure out how they calculated the damages for the families of the Air France victims? Why does reading the Real Housewives of New Jersey Danielle's give you a review of all of criminal law? And why am I thinking about all of the property issues in Jon and Kate +8's divorce? (btw, reading about them filing for divorce gives me so many flashbacks to all the divorces I've done over the past year, but more on that in another post) And of course there were a host of property legal issues in the story about the eviction notices to Spike, a former Top Chef contestant.

In law school, they tell you to think like a lawyer. But I think (or hope) that even lawyers can separate their work and seeing legal issues from being a regular person. Even if you're a zealous advocate, there's empathy for your client and others. The bar on the other hand- you just see every set of facts as a hypothetical where you must identify and analyze all issues and even non-issues. You run off little checklists of elements for each issue and use stock language like having "a depraved heart" and being the "natural and proximate cause." And your mind leads you to the legal conclusions that would be correct on the test, even if that is probably not would happen in real life.

Studying for the bar is certainly not the worst thing in the world. Even if I issue spot when reading the news, it still does give me perspective. Nonetheless, I will glad when it is all over so I feel a little more normal.

Manic Monday

When we left class today at 5:30pm, I remarked to my roommate how peaceful the city felt on the warm summer afternoon. There was not the usual hustle and bustle. "Did everyone just decide to stay home from work?"

Little did I know that half an hour beforehand, there was a deadly metro crash, ultimately killing six people.

We had no idea anything was wrong until we got to the metro and the board with the ETAs was completely blank. I knew something was strange, but it was not until we reached the turnstiles and saw bright yellow signs saying "massive metro delays" did I realize that something was amiss. Metro delays are not uncommon, especially during the summer. But I had never seen these signs before.

So my roommate and I headed back up to wait for the bus. Then I received a text message from my dad saying that there was a train crash. On our bus ride home, which was packed, we found out more and more details from people checking their blackberries and receiving calls from friends and family. Crash on the red line (the line I take home). Fatalities. Fort Totten. Train derailed. Reports of 1+ hours metro delays with people packed in sweaty cars. As we saw ambulances head east, we knew they were on their way to the site.

The whole experience is still kind of surreal. Six hours ago, everything seemed normal. The metro, and the red line in particular, was just my way to get to barbri classes everyday. Now it is the headlines nationwide.

I know people or people who know people who could have been on that train, who just missed it by 30 seconds, who were on the train behind the incident, or who saw the train in the collision go by on the other side of the track. While the metro is no more dangerous than any other form of transportation (the last commuter death was in 1982), it still can be unnerving, especially when it is something so connected to so many of us. The metro is the way that everyone gets around- locals, tourists, rich and poor. If there is one connection, literally and figuratively, between so many of us in DC, it is the metro.

Let us hope that they figure out what went wrong and never let it happen again. My prayers go out to the families of those who died and for the recovery of all those injured.

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press

Happy Father's Day

Thanks Dad for imparting us with a sense of work ethic, love of good food, appreciation of current events, culinary skills, desire to explore the world, an engineer's mind (even if I did not become one), and so much more.