Monogamy: It Does A Relationship Good

Call me old fashioned, but I think that keeping a relationship between just one person is a good thing. Though I will say my non-old fashion side doesn't care if it's a guy and a girl, two girls, or two guys. Whatever the combination, I just feel like the only way a relationship can work without hurt feelings is with two people in a committeed relationship.

I am not trying to be judgmental at all, and I'm not saying that you have to be in a committed realationship to be happy. Date lots of different people, hookup with random people, whatever. But if you're going to be in a relationship, why not just make it closed? This middle ground stuff never seems to work. I feel like I can be safe in guessing that 95% of the time the whole open relationship thing doesn't work in the long run. It seems like no matter what you say in your head, the heart gets jealous when one person in the open relationship starts dating someone else. I just feel like all of my friends' relationships problems stem from this problem and it's frustrating to watch over and over again.

Coming Full Circle

Almost exactly five years ago, I stared outside a bus window in awe as we drove down the most beautiful road lined with fall-colored trees and colonial style brick houses. Then we pulled up to American University's law school, headed up to the top floor, and sat through a mock class in the ceremonial moot-court room. The professor sat in the judges seat and various students were called down to the podium to debate a first amendment issue.

Who knew that I would end up at the law school I visited on a high school conference about law. That instead of a big charter bus, I would be taking a city bus down that exact same road and see the same cute houses and trees. That instead of sitting in a mock class, I would be sitting in the exact same room as a law student. That I would be at the plaintiffs table as one of my collegues was up at the podium arguing the case that I helped prepare. (FYI: our side won and it was great!)

Part of me knew that I would be at law school right out of college, but I didn't know that it would be at American. Funny how parts of your life can give you glimpses of your future and you don't even realize it.

An American University

Reason # 2348259 why I love going to school in DC: The national sampling of students.

As people started talking about the buying prep courses for the bar exam (way too early for my liking), people were all discussing what state they were planning on taking the bar exam for. Although most law schools have students that will practice in the state where the school is located, this is not true for DC schools.

I've met people from probably half the states in our country. From opposite sides of the country, inbetween and even outside the continguous states: Washington (the state) to Florida to Kansas to Alaska. Now that I think of it, I've even met people from Singapore and France.

Sometimes I wish we could just start off class with "show and tell" with people from each state. You know, just a time when people can describe what it's really like from a state and tell us if there's any truth to the perceptions people commonly have. I know people always ask me about the weather, ocean, movie stars, the OC, and having Arnold as our governor.

It's kind of like undergrad where you met people of diverse backgrounds, now we're just adding regional differences too. Because as much as NorCal people try to pick a rivalry with SoCal, we're not nearly as different as people from different parts of the country. I've had a lot of fun learning about igloos in Alaska and churhces in the bible-belt south. And I've learned that there's no place like home in California.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween's never been my favorite holiday. Sure my made us really cool costumes, but being the wuss that I am, I hated all the scary stuff.

Then I came to college and developed a great dislike for the holiday. Firstly, on Halloween so many college girls who feel the need to dress in...very provocative costumes. I know that dressing a certain way doesn't make someone a bad person, but I just don't like seeing that much of anyone. But even worse than that were many bad memories associated with the day, much like how bad relationships can make people hate Valentine's Day. My first year I had my first two midterms of my college career on Halloween. One of those was Prof. Thies' comparitive politics midterm, probably the hardest midterm I took in all four years. Second and third year also had more midterms. And then my fourth year, UCLA had a devasting loss to Arizona.

However, I think today has helped me make amends with Halloween. As I walked out to the bus stop, I noticed for the first time that the leaves were beautiful autumn colors. And it was my perfect weather: clear blue skies and a slight autumn breeze so you only need a light sweater. Living outside of a college town, I now also see little kids in adorable costumes and jack-o-laterns sitting on porches. And best of all, my favorite professor came to class dressed as a vampire (fake fangs and all) and gave us dark chocolate hershey kisses. Oh, and I do have my memo due tomorrow but it's already done.

I'm glad that I reconciled with Halloween, because I really love celebrating all holidays. I'll finish up with a picture that I promised my mom I would post up. Here's my roommate's and my Halloween costumes. She's a Ninja Turtle and I'm a DC light post.

A Memo is Worth A Million Words
(and so is a picture of the memo-writing)

Honestly, I tried to start about 5 different entries for today but I ended up deleting all of them. Nothing was really making sense because my brain feels like mush. Good mush because I'm pretty much done with the draft of my memo that I don't even need to turn into until Wednesday, but mush nonetheless. My ability to convey cohesive thoughts has all been used writing about kids, trespassing, and hot tubs.


Anyway, a lot of people wondered where I disappeared after I decided to block myself from using AIM for 5 days. This picture pretty much speaks for itself. As I labled it on Facebook: The Law offices of Kolavala & Doan. Complete with hundreds of pages of cases, coffee, and delirium.

Before I babble more nonesense, I think it's time for me to go to bed.

A DC Halloween

Sometimes when I'm wrapped up in writing memos and briefing cases, I forget that I live in probably the largest political hotbed in the world full of rampant politicos. Fortunately I have a roommate who will drag me out to a Halloween party full of politicos, if only for an hour so I can wake up early to continue working. Lo and behold, an apartment full of people with quirky political costumes that usually needed to be explained, but once they were, everyone got it and laughed. Some examples:

Description: Guy wrapped up in the tape of an audio cassette, with random quotes on his tshirt.
The Political Costume: The missing minutes of the Watergate Tapes.

Description: Guy in a suit, a girl with a sweater wrapped around her shoulders also wearing a Burberry headband, and a guy wearing a beret, tie dye, and carrying a poster.
The Political Costume: A World Trade Organization protester demonstrating infront of Republicans.

Description: Guy wearing a woman's tweed skirt suit, glasses, and boxing gloves.
The Political Costume: Janet Reno

Description: Guy wearing a cowboy hat with a conferate flag, big Stenson belt buckle, other cowboy things.
The Political Costume: President Bush

Description: Multiple guys wearing suits or little boy costumes.
The Political Costume: Foley-Bait

Honorable mention goes to some other non-political costumes that were very clever which included a girl who dressed up as Pluto, a girl with a black-eye and P's tapped onto her as the Black Eyed Peas, and my roommate who was a Ninja Turtle. As for me, I was a costume that only DC'ers would get. I dressed up all in gray and wore a campaign poster from the DC Mayor's race and held a flashlight up. Anyone who lives in DC knows how all the light poles are completely covered in these campaign posters right before the election. Yeah, it's only funny if you lived here and saw it but I got a lot of laughs for my last minute costume.

On the Doan Docket

I always was a huge fan of hands on learning, whether playing with chemicals in chemistry lab or doing Congressional simulations in my political science classes. So naturally I get excited when I get to play lawyer in law school. There are times when I complain about how much work it is, but it's a lot more fun and I think useful to apply all of these concepts into practice. Here are the things I'm working on this week:

-Writing a memo to a senior partner about whether or not our client is liable for the near hot tub drowning of a 10 year old boy who trespassed onto our client's property.

-Preparing oral arguments with 4 other people in my class to prove that the defendants should hand over two geological studies in a toxic water contaminiation case. 10 minutes of debate on each side infront of other students who play judges and clerks = a lot of fun.

-And of course a few weeks ago there was another memo about whether or not our client could suspend or modify her child support payments so that she could go to the Peace Corps in Guatemala.

I've heard people complain that they came to law school to learn about real people with real problems, not represent fictional clients (I know, future lawyers complaining? shocking!). As much as I agree that we should not forget the real problems that exist outside of our bubble of law school, I think that the clinics, panels, teach ins, and many other programs that our law school provide an avenue for that. However, our classes should be teaching us the fundamental concepts and theories. I'm not sure how we can actually effect "real people with real problems" in class. It's vital to get practice with hypotheticals before we could ever go out and save the world. Plus, it's kind of fun, at least as fun as writing +10 page research memos can be.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Yesterday all of us cheered when we opened up our email inboxes and saw an email with the topic, "Contracts Class Cancelled." I know I did my little happy dance from my apartment. Yet, that joy quickly subsided as soon as I actually opened the email, scrolled down, and read that my professor was in the hospital.

All of a sudden, I felt like Cory Matthew, the main character on "Boy Meets World." There was an episode where Cory wished that his teacher, Mr. Feeny, would get sick so his class wouldn't have to take their exams. He soons learns that Mr. Feeny is actually admitted into a hospital, and Cory feels really guilty. Life really does imitate art, or at least kid's tv programming.

Even though our class knows that we didn't create our professor's illness, I think we all feel really bad now for all those days when we sat there hoping that our professor wouldn't show up and we wouldn't have to sit through 2 hours of confusion.

If torts (different subject, I know) has really taught me anything, it's that accidents and other bad things can happen to anyone at anytime. And you should really be grateful of everyone around you, even your quirky contracts professor who often confuses you. I hope everything turns out alright and I'm sending a lot of positive thoughts her way.

Privatizing my Education

I can safely say that my family is a public education family. Both of my parents went to the University of Minnesota (along with all of my mom's 7 siblings), my brother goes to UC Berkeley, and I've had other family members attend other public schools like University of Wisconsin. So after attending 17 years of public education myself, I have to admit that a little part of my felt like I was selling out when I decided to attend a private school for law school.

I shortly convinced myself that I was being silly, as any future lawyer can justify anything in her head. I'm still a firm believer in the public education system, and spotted an externship at the counsel for the Department of Education that I might want to apply to down the road. But alas, the best option out of the schools I got into happened to be private.

Now that I'm here, I'm starting to notice differences. I've discussed this with Alex, who also went from UCLA to working with students at Syracuse and he's definitely noticed difference. I'm trying to decipher how many of the differences stem from the fact that I'm at a private school and how much of it is just law school in general. Smaller classes and free printing probably just come with the law school turf. But I'm guessing going to a private school lends itself to all the catered lunches, shuttles that run to the school, all the "free" stuff like book bags, mugs, and tshirts, and really annoying undergrads (not to stereotype all kids who go to American/private undergrads but after riding the shuttle with them, oh man).

Overall, I think my route worked for me (which of course easy to say in retrospect and because I don't know otherwise). Going to a big public school like UCLA definitely made me more resourceful and independent. I think it also made me appreciate the different types of perks that I get in law school. While some people are complaining that we don't have free coffee or that the complimentary printer is broken again, I don't come into a school with the expectation that I'll be getting either of those things handed to me.

I think in the end, the quality of education between the private and public shcool systems are comparable. There are a lot of state schools that rank very highly in the law school ranks. But the main differences come in the outside things and each system has strengths in different areas.

A Sneak Peak

Yesterday I received an instant message from a high school friend who I hadn't talked to in a while. He asked how law school was and I asked him about his life. Then he told me that someone was suing him for defamation, libel, and $40,000 in damages. AHA! That's where the instant message came from.

Though I can't say for certain, I really doubt there's any merit to this lawsuit. Nonetheless, I had to tell my friend that I wasn't allowed to give legal advice and that he should seek guidance elsewhere. I'm not sure where it's written down, but we are all explictly told that you're not allowed to practice law without a license (though accordingly to Legally Blonde, we can do it with supervision).

At this moment, I realized what the rest of my life might look like. The legal advice giver. "Can you review this contract for me?" "Hypothetically, if I did this, could I get in trouble?" "I can sue, right?" Hopefully I won't have to be anyone's 25 cent call from the county jail house.

I guess I should be happy that I've finally found a way to directly help people around me, even if it'll be a legal tip here or there. I've always been secretly jealous of people with technical and other practical skills. My friends and other people who somehow learned how to fix computers, invent working products, design websites, build things that didn't come out of an IKEA box, and other skills that were tangible. I mean, I always liked my major but I didn't feel like I could help people in my day to day life with my political science knowledge besides come election time when everyone asked me who to vote for or giving tours of the capitol.

So hopefully in a few years, I'll be the resident lawyer. Only one in either side of the family and one of the few amongst my friends so I'm sure I'll be getting many people coming out of the woodwork, like my friend yesterday, asking me for advice. I always liked being the go-to friend for advice, now I'm making a career out of it.

Highest Court in the Land

Reason #89219 why I love going to law school in Washington, DC: When you get sworn into the law fraternity, Phi Alpha Delta, you get a full on ceremony.

I don't know how they do it at other law schools, but nothing can beat being sworn into a law fraternity inside the halls of a Supreme Court by a Supreme Court Justice. Today hundreds of law students from the DC area (and even as far as Baltimore) came to the Supreme Court today in their suits. Even though I turned into a popsicle, standing outside the Supreme Court in some 40 degree weather in a skirt suit and waiting for 300 people to get through security, it was well worth it.

I've entered the grand marble hallways of the Supreme Court before, but this was my first as a law student. It means so much more now. As we were walking through the corridors, we pointed to the portraits of famous Justices, whose opinions we read every day. And the best part of all is seeing up close, another Justice whose opinion I just read yesterday.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg administered the PAD oath and all I must say is that she's awesome. Although my infamous book report from 3rd grade was about Justice O'Connor, Ginsburg is another female pioneer in the law field. It's so great to know that this really small and cute older woman goes head to head against much bigger male collegues. And even though the legal field is still dominated by men, as evidenced by the fact that she's outnumbered 8-1, I hope the Justice Ginsburg was happy to see that out of the hundreds of people she swore in today, probably over half were women. Who knows if one of the people I was standing around will be aruging infront of the Supreme Court one day or even sitting on that bench.

Prescription for Preventing the Panic Attack

It hit me. Week 10 and it hit me. Law school got really hard, really quickly (kind of like how it got really cold, really quickly). I started realizing everything I had to do and how little time I have to do it in and I almost had a panic attack. Another memo worth twice as much with half as much time to do it, double the amount of reading in almost all of my classes, the need to outline for impending finals, and no extra hours in the day.

Realizing that I didn't have time for a meltdown, I pretty much went into attack mode. Anyone who's been around me when I start to get sick knows how I go on the offensive: cups and cups of tea with ginger and other fluids, lots of sleep, no going out, etc. So I'm trying out the same type of offensive strategy for dealing with this insane amount of work infront of me.

So I made a plan of attack, a page in my notebook aptly titled "plan of attack," writing down what I need to do everyday and setting small goals so I don't feel so intimidated by my to-do list. I also took off all the quick links on my homepage that are distrctions for me. Facebook, gone. Craigslist, gone. ESPN.com, gone. AllRecipes, gone. Tetris, gone. I was debating whether or not to go on AIM hiatus but I realized that if I didn't talk to people and went into complete seclusion, I would go utterly insane. So I also tried to ensure that I do actually get some socialization/non-study time in on my calandar, but cut out things I was more ambivilent about. It was almost like a cleansing process, something I wish I had the motivation to do at times other than just crunch time.

Everyone likes having control in their life, but especially the control freaks like me. When I feel like the work is consuming me and controlling my life, it's a horrible feeling. Fortunately I think I'm starting to tip the balance of power back into my favor. I think this is something I've learned over the years (being a generally busy person) and probably good in the future for this line of work where people get easily overwhelmed by their work. I also went to church yesterday and prayed for some spiritual strength, so hopefully that will help too.

Socially Inept

I find myself acting stupidly around boys. Sometimes I get flustered when guys I don't know talk to me and I don't know how to respond. Not because I like them. It's actually quite the opposite problem. DC doesn't just happen to be our nation's capital, it is also allegedly one of the nation's singles capitals. Yet this factoid is completely wasted on me, as I am in a more than wonderful relationship.

So I am in an interesting position in my day to day life. It doesn't happen all that often, but occassionally when I'm riding the bus, out with my friends at a bar, or riding the elevator up to my class, a guy will strike up conversation with me. I've never been good at telling whether a person's just being nice or trying to hit on me so I don't know how to act accordingly. Basically I don't want to be the cold person if he's just trying to be nice and I don't want to be the cold person leading him on (I think this semi-irrational fear stems from an odd occurence when a guy in one of my classes at UCLA thought that we were in a relationship when I would just be nice and talk to him; traumatizing really).

Irrational fears aside, I do partly think that we have this societal distrust of people just talking to us, especially people of the opposite sex. Maybe our generation went a little overboard with the whole not talking to strangers thing to the point where we developed this subconscious notion that anyone who talks to us immediately wants something and/or is bad. I'll say hi or give the head nod to people in my apartment elevator but I sure know that I don't really acknowledge someone walking by me on the street.

And as an iPod owner myself, I just wonder how much worse this culture of isolation is going to get with white little earbuds always in our ears.

Winning & Losing

So I'm back from the UCLA alumni bar after watching UCLA's heartbreaking loss to Notre Dame. And as much as I love UCLA, I'm trying to shake it off. When you cheer so hard and are around people who are just as into it, it's sometimes hard to remember that this is just a game. Just like Project Runway is just a tv show. I may have not liked the outcome, but there's no reason to dwell on it. These forms of entertainment actually only effect a very small population but it's amazing to see how many people get caught up in the whirlwind.

But I guess there's something in our human nature that attracts us to this competition, whether it is through watching sports or reality tv. And though it I do enjoy the camraderie of watching sports game and cheering on my favorite team or a good Project Runway break on a Wednesday night, every once in a while I need to remind myself that there's more than watching people win or lose, and even in my life there's more to that.

I guess it really dawned on me as I was reading A Civil Action for my Civil Procedure class. A true life storyabout contanimated wells in a small Massachussets down and trying to find justice for the families who lost children to leukemia, it was the first time I got really upset about material I've read in law school. Sure, there have been cases where I didn't agree with the jury verdict. But in this book, the lawyers representing both the families and the corporations frustrated me to no end. Maybe it's because I knew the ending of the book already, but I just wanted to throw the book across the room as these lawyers were stubbornly debating a million dollars here and there. I just felt like screaming "this money means nothing to you or your companies! Think about the families who have nothing left, think about your employees who are mortgaging their houses for this case. Just settle on something!"

Maybe it's just the risk adverse part of my personality but it's just hard to read about people who are so enthralled with the game, the winning, and the losing when there are so many more important things out there. I guess that's why I easily get frustrated about politics. Candidates pouring in millions of dollars to ads attacking each other when that money could be so much better spent actually helping people. Or political leaders who are so set in their ways that their people are dying everyday because of decisions made at the top. Whether this drive to win is because of greed, pride, or even sticking to an ideology, sometimes you just have to ask is it worth it?

Out of Class Learning

On my list of the many reasons why I'm so glad that I came to DC for law school is that I feel like the city itself is just one giant classroom with just a wealth of information waiting for me to discover. Although today was my day off from classes, I feel like I learned just as much about the law as if I were sitting in torts or civil procedure. And while I might be absolutely exhausted and my feet hurt a lot, it was a really great and educational day. Here's what happened...

Department of Justice: The Law & Government Society for people getting their masters degree in government opened up 3 spots for law students to go to the Department of Justice this morning. Being the obsessive email checker that I am, I was lucky enough to snag one of those spots and got to go. We met Peter Keisler, the Assistant Attorney General (don't be surprised if you hear he's being nominated for the Supreme Court one day, his bio is crazy) and 5 other lawyers representing the other major divisions of the DOJ. So cool. Here are some of the interesting things I learned:

• There is an area that combines being a public servant, public policy, and the law. Even though I don't think I would want to work at the DOJ because I don't want to stay in DC forever, there are many similar types of jobs out there at different levels. It gives me hope of combining all my interests!
• All lawyers work long hours but if you find work that is really interesting for you (not just what your partner wants you to work on), the time goes by much more quickly.
• If you work for the government, you can still keep your job even if administrations change. A lot of people at the panel are pretty far up on the chain but they've served through multiple adminstrations. Nice to know it isn't that partisan.
• The DOJ does A LOT. Whether it's catching former war criminals, prosecuting election fraud, to suing polluters, being lawyer to the United States is not an easy job.
  
• Lawyers are really funny people (ok, I already knew this). All the different divisions were super competitive and telling how their sector is cooler than the others.

Women in Law Networking Tea: After grabbing lunch at Cosi (mmm, Cosi) with one of my classmates who also went to the DOJ, I went to the tea with students from all the law schools in the DC area (Georgetown, GW, Howard, UDC, George Mason, Maryland and of course American...yeah, a lot of law schools!) Although I never really went to a lot of Women's Group events during undergrad, I'm really glad I went. It was definitely very motivating and it was great to see so many female lawyers, judges, and professors come out and show their support. Among the highlights of the things I learned:

• Women shouldn't just be equal under the eyes of the law; women should be equal in the practice of law. -Dean of Catholic University Law Schoool. I guess going to a law school where women are actually the majority, it's hard to believe that women only make up a third of practicing lawyers and less than a quarter of the partners.
  
• Stop apologizing! The keynote speaker noticed that women always are apologetic no matter what they do instead of just being assertive and saying what they believe. I realized that this is so true. Only the girls in class say "Sorry, this is probably a stupid question" or "I'm not sure that I'm right but..." As much as women can complain about men looking down at them at the workplace, we are only contributing to the problem by sounding unsure of ourselves. A female judge says that she noticed this tendancy in women arguing before her too and it really makes a conscious and subconcious difference.
• Bring other women up with you. I guess a lot of women in the field of law have seen a lot of competition amongst women to be one of the few top spots instead of trying to help each other both get there.
  
• The legal field is a business where you are marketing your skills. Don't sell yourself short.
  

So yeah, my feet hurt, I'm tired, and I didn't get any work done, but it was a great DC day.

Budgeting my life

I used to be a major pushover when it came to going to things. Whether it was a meeting or going out with friends, I was easily guilted into attending things even if I didn't really want to go. Now I almost wonder if I am a heartless person because I feel little to no guilt about saying no to anything. I won't bail on someone if I make plans with them but I commit to far less things, sometimes at the risk of people thinking that I'm a social hermit (I swear, I'm not). I guess this all part of my plan to balance my life.

The nice part about law school though is that everyone around me seems to be at the same place and people don't really try to make me feel guilty about not going out to something. From what I've encountered, no one will make you give you a look (oh that look I got during so many of my undergrad days) if you say you need to stay in on a Thursday or Friday night to study because you need to catch up. Or even if you want to stay in to relax. Lots of people trade in working one weekend night to go out on another. I guess when you have this much work, everyone just learns to prioritize and budget out their time.

I feel pretty comfortable with how I've balanced my time so far, now I just have to work on doing the same with my finances, while buying enough winter clothes to keep me warm.

Making the Grade

Despite the air of confidence (bordering on arrogance) that a lot of law students have, there's defintely a few things that can put us easily in our place. One of those things would be grades. Although I haven't really encountered the really cut-throat anti-social students here who live and die by what percentage grade they get and will do anything to be in that top 10%, everyone obviously wants to do well. And everyone obviously wants to do well on their first assignment. It might not mean much come graduation time, but a lot of people are trying to assess how they are doing in this brand new type of academic environment.

So this week all the 1L's got back their scores from our big first writing assignment. You could definitely see that everyone was a little apprehensive and as we sat through class today, we were all staring at the clock. "Can't it just be 3:20pm already?!"

Got my grade back and I'm definitely pleased. I was debating on whether or not I wanted to write this at all because I don't like people going around announcing their scores, good or bad. But this is my blog and this is kind of a landmark in my law school career so I couldn't really omit it. And I'm just glad our first test has passed and we all have seemed to survive. Now back to studying.

Discrimination: An Equal Opportunity

Even though I probably go to one of the more liberal law schools in the country, sometimes I forget how even more liberal my undergrad was. And although I loved UCLA in all of its progressive glory, I think having such an overwhelming presence of one ideological viewpoint sometimes led to people's intolerance of other opinions. Though I am certainly not trying to change admissions or faculty hiring to get more conservatives, I sometimes wish the people who waved the banner of tolerance for minorities, gays, and women would extend that same tolerance to people of other beliefs.

Apparently since I've left UCLA, a big affirmative action debate has stirred up again. Although it's always been simmering, this Daily Bruin column, A Modest Proposal for an Immodest Proposition (forwarded to me, I don't check the Daily Bruin anymore, don't worry) lit the fuse to a huge bomb. Though a satirical piece about Asians and affirmative action, people apparently went crazy. Threats, facebook groups, and a lot of hate mail spewing with it's own inappropriate name calling. It's always sad, angering, and embarassing when you see people who say they want equality call a columnist (who is actually quite liberal, not a neocon like they all want to believe), who has different opinions, a "jew f*ggot."

Not long after I was forwarded this article, I also got an invitation to a "Take Affirmative Action Day" event. As I was just looking at the invitation, someone responded that they were not attending because they believe that affirmative action is fighting discrimination with discrimination. Fair enough, another opinion stated politely. Whether or not you believe in the merits of Affirmative Action, I think most people will see that some girls' response to that person's statement was just ridiculous. She said, "For one thing, reverse discrimination does not exist. In order to discriminate, you must have the power of the majority behind you. Just a little FYI."

And this very thinking is where the problem comes from. Just because you're a minority, from a ideology that champions itself as liberal and open minded, or have 80% of a liberal campus backing you up doesn't mean that you're a saint who speaks gospel truth and is immune from being hateful, discriminatory, or anything else negative. The definition of discrimination is: Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice. There's nothing in that definition that says you have to be in the majority. Discrimination and intolerance knows no bounds; it doesn't matter what side you're on or who you're saying it to, it is what it is.

FAQs

Since my blogging style is usually taking a small observation and exploring that topic in detail instead of chronically my day to day life, sometimes I forget that people read this blog to see what's going on with me instead of what I think about a topic du jour. For the most part, I don't write about my daily life because it's private and not particularly exciting (moreso the latter) but I thought I'd address some frequently asked questions as a way to update people on how I'm doing.

Question 1: Is law school hard?
Yes. And everyone studies A LOT; so if you're thinking about applying, know what you're getting yourself into. No one can get away with slacking. I will say that even though it's a lot of work, it's for the most part enjoyable and very interesting. And, in comparison to some things I did in undergrad, say anything political, I feel like law school is less draining. The intensity is more systematic, predictable, and less personal. So while it's hard, I actually feel less stressed than I probably did last year.

Question 2: How are you and Alex doing?
Great. I feel like so many people in law school are in long distance relationships, there's a support system. I don't know what else to say other than you take the circumstances that you're in and "make it work." (in the ever so wise advice of Project Runway's Tim Gunn)

Question 3: What type of law do you want to go into?
Who knows. Maybe something government-ish (but not politics). Maybe something non-profit. Definitely something with a public bent. Hopefully I'll get a better picture after exploring summer jobs, take electives, etc.

Things that I don't want are (this was a lot easier to figure out): no business law, no big law firm, no 90 hour weeks, no real estate, no family law, no international law, no patent law, no criminal law. I honestly don't find anything wrong with any of these fields or lifestyles, but they are not what I want for me. I'm trying to firmly establish that to myself so I don't easily fall into something I don't really want, because of the lures of paying off my debt more quickly or the prestige of some of these jobs.

Question 4: How's living in DC?
LOVE IT! Are we at all surprised? This week I might be getting a tour of the Department of Justice and then I'll be having tea with 300 lawyers, judges, and other women in the law field in DC.

Question 5: Do you think you'll come back to California?
Probably, for the following reasons: family, friends, warm weather, tailgating at the Rosebowl.

Question 6: Should I go to law school?
Well, there's really too many personal factors that you have to decide for yourself. I must say though, that I disagree with those many teachers who say don't go to law school unless you're sure you want to be a lawyer. It's hard to be 100% sure that you want to be a lawyer because there's no way to "test it out." Unlike the many extracurrics during undergraduate that give you a dose of what it's like for some professions, there's nothing that can show you what being a lawyer is really like, especially since there are so many diverse fields.

I'll just say that the two reasons why you shouldn't go are: 1) if you're just going to look for a husband/wife. Maybe it's just my section but it seems like everyone is married or in a long term relationship. 2) you aren't prepared to work. See question 1.

Question 7: Are the teachers really that mean?
Some schools do have professors who throw chalk at their students when they're wrong. Some schools have professors who pride themselves on making their students cry. It's true, they do exist. But none of my professors are like that, and from what I know, none of the professors at my school are like that. Thank goodness for Dean Grossman who is a human rights lawyer who defended detainees at Guantanamo. Some of my friends and I are even having lunch with one of my professors next week and some of the other professors came to our BBQ last weekend. So there are the good ones out there.

Question 8: Do you ever have fun?
Occassionally. I go out with friends, I watch football games with fellow Bruins at a bar, and my roommate and I keep each other entertained with silly activities. Our newest project is decorating a 6ft Christmas tree that we bought for $20. It's going to be our holiday tree that we decorate for every holiday.

Question 9: Have you really stayed away from all activities?
Well, I am now a paid member of Phi Alpha Delta, but I justify that it will directly help my networking circle and provide me with other lawyerly resources. Plus, our initiation is at the Supreme Court with Ruth Bader Ginsberg. I also went to an intro meeting of the Constitutional Society. But nothing else! Not even the Democratic club.

Question 10: Would you mind if I sent you things to your apartment?
Ok, this wasn't a real question, but I do like getting things in my mailbox. So if you're going on a trip, send me a postcard. Or if you're really bored, send me something random, I love surprises! And if postage is too much for you, emails work too. I'm horrible with keeping in touch with people but don't let me forget you.

Sunday Morning Solitude

A lot of people think I'm crazy for getting up every Sunday morning for 9am mass by myself. People have a lot of different reasons for attending church; for me, I can't think of a better way to start the week.

Growing up, I went to church for a sense of community. Our whole family would go every week and I got involved in a lot of the youth groups. Although I believe going to church will always make you feel like you belong to something bigger, I think my current weekly trips to church have taught me how to appreciate my own company.

On Sunday mornings I wake up at 8am and it sounds like the city is still asleep. I know that at least my roommate is. Church is a little over a mile away but I enjoy walking, even if it's freezing cold outside. Pop in my headphones and just enjoy the only time of the day and week when the streets aren't packed with cars and people. I have to walk through a beautiful residential area and I love seeing all of the seasonal decorations. When you live in a city and go to school with people mostly in their 20s, it's sometimes easy to forget that there are families around you.

That's also the nice thing about being at church itself. Being an avid people watcher, I love watching the little babies and kids try to stay entertained during mass. I like seeing little older couples interact with each other. I just see a whole little mix of people I would never see. Most of the time I try to pay attention to the homilies but sometimes my mind will drift and I will wonder what these people do in their day to day lives. After mass, I walk back home and I'm ready to start the week.

I guess when you're removed from other people or the things in your day to day life (like piles of reading), you just look at things differently. I know if I was walking with someone, I wouldn't notice everyone's yards or the bright blue sky as much. Even if I only do it for an hour and a half every week, I actually have realized that it's more revitalizing than getting another hour and a half of sleep. I'm crazy, I know.