Wedding Wows

As I type, two of my friends are dancing away at their wedding reception. They met during that same fateful USAC election that brought Alex and I together. Today also marks the day that one of my friends at law school, who I met over the summer because she is also from California, got engaged to her boyfriend who was visiting this weekend.

It feels like today, I've been in constant disbelief because of both of these events. For different reasons of course. I have a few friends who are married but this is the first marriage where I have seen the whole relationship develop from the very beginning. And the disbelief from my newly engaged friend naturally is the shock from sudden news. I saw them this morning at a BBQ and I had no idea he was going to propose today; I'm sure she didn't have any idea.

I don't want anyone to think that this a bad disbelief. Not at all. I'm genuinely very happy for both of these couples and I'm sad I didn't have the time or money to make it out to the West Coast for the wedding. I think a lot of people mistaken shock for a bad thing when shock may stem from being in awe of something great. But wow, what a happy day.

And since I can't write anything in here without people being suspicious of myself, I'll just say that just because I'm happy for my friends doesn't mean anything like this is going to be happening to me any time soon. This actually puts me in the majority of America. A New York Times story just wrote about how the census shows that out of all American households, married couples are, for the first time, in a minority. By minority, they mean 49.7, but I thought it was funny how it was their front page news. And I'll leave this entry at that since I'm not one for divulging my love life online.

Political Odditities

Sometimes politics is ironic, sometimes it just doesn't make sense, and sometimes it's just funny...

-Missing out on hearing Bill Clinton speak because I'm in the nation's capitol.
I go to UCLA for four years and yes, I did get to see John Kerry speak more times than I could count, Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart; basically everyone who lost the presidency. Yet, as soon as move to the political mecca, President Bill Clinton comes to speak. What's evern weirder is that I had a dream on Tuesday night that I met Clinton at UCLA, and the next day I find out that he's coming. First my dreams are crazy, then they're psychic. I guess I can't complain too much, I was able to see Clinton 4 years ago dancing to California Love in Compton and then 2 years ago at the National Convention.

-Rooting for a Trojan over a Bruin.
In the Virginia Senate Race, Democratic candidate Jim Webb attended USC for a year before transferring to the Naval Academy. Incumbent George Allen attended UCLA for a year before transferring to UVA. Even though they're both only a 1/4 of these two So Cal schools, I think that rivalry is funny. Too bad the schools weren't switched, then I could cheer for the Bruin and the school colors would match up with their political parties.

-Seeing a billion commercials for people I can't even vote for.
I'm still registered in California, but even if I reregistered to my address, I still wouldn't be able to vote for anyone I see on TV. We commercials for candidates on both sides of these races: Virginia Senate Race, Maryland Senate Race, Maryland Gubernatorial Race, Maryland Congressional Races. I think they like taunting Washingtonians.

-Having the party trying to pass a Federal Marriage Amendment be afraid of looking homophobic.
Yes yes, I know that a lot of Republicans don't hate gay people, but when did their leaders ever worry about looking that way? Yet another reason why I can't stand Newt Gingrich is that he says that Republicans didn't come down harder on Foley earlier is because they didn't want to look homophobic. This is either a very dellusional thought, or it's just such a bad situation that he couldn't even come up with a decent excuse. For other excuses, see this funny clip montage.

-I move to the heart of politics, take a break from politics despite a lot of temptation, and the Democrats might win (knock on wood).
If the Democrats take control of the Congress in November, I might just make that political sabbatical a permanent retirement for the good of my party.

Proximate Cause

Yesterday in torts we discussed a case where a driver hits the bumper of another man in a car. The man that the driver hits had a history of severe mental illness. However, the minor injuries inflicted by the fender bender trigger the mental illness (we're not allowed to question the legitimacy of that part because of the expert testimony and that the driver did not object to this part) and the driver ends up paying big damages. Where do we draw the line of causation? The jury finds that the driver is responsible for retriggering the mental illness and awards the injured man a lot of money. Small fender bender, big damages: is it fair or just? A lot of people were skeptical. But when the professor changed the victim from a schizophrenic to a pregnant woman, everyone agreed that the driver should pay big damages if the fender bender induced a miscarriage.

I think the reason why a lot of us like our tort cases is because we have to use the same kind of reasoning that we have to use in every day life. Where do we draw the line? Even if something caused another thing, is the causation too remote? What excuses do we allow?

We all know that our upbringing greatly shapes who we are today. But how much do we allow people to contribute to their childhood and how much do we expect people to overcome those circumstances and obstacles? The obvious childhood hardships that we think of which effect adulthood are major traumas like divorce, abuse, family alcholism, etc. (Think Mark Foley who recently came out as a sexually abused, alcoholic.) But what about the smaller things. How much can we blame our behavior today on having overbearing parents, parents who worked too much, or even being an only child? How much of our past is a proximate cause of our actions today? Just like the law, that line is hard to draw in our everyday life.

Waiting for Godot & Getting Old

It's funny how you can sit in the dining room of your law school and be discussing contributory negligence one minute, and gossiping about who's dating who the next minute. And once again that feeling of jr. high'ness came back to me. Hanging around the lunch room in little established cliques. There's not as big of a range as there was in jr. high because all of us are nerds at heart (you kind of have to be to get into law school, and if you weren't, you will become one after studying 6 hours a day). But you can definitely see the different types of groups like you did in jr. high and high school.

In these moments, I ask myself when am I going to feel older (I had an entry about this just a few days ago), but then it dawned on me "this is it, I am a grown up." I think I keep expecting this miraculous transformation in my life but I'm realizing that I'm waiting for something that doesn't exist. Even bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, quinceaneras are just symbolic passages into adulthood. Though I never had one, I doubt anyone comes out saying "wow, I felt like a kid this morning but now I feel like an adult now!"

This whole growing up thing, it's as gradual change and I know that I'm different than I was in jr. high, high school, or even college. Just because you have jr. high flashbacks doesn't mean you haven't matured since then. Because maybe even if you change, some things don't, like gossiping in the lunchroom.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

I'm almost afraid to go to bed at night now because of what dreams I'll have. They aren't always bad or scary, but they've been extremley vivid and strange lately. As fun as they are, I need to figure out how to stop them because I wake up exhausted in the morning. I don't know what it is; I'm not more stressed than usual, I go to bed fairly early, I do all the usual things you're supposed to do to take care of yourself. I blame the change in the weather, it's messing with my mind.

Moreover, a lot of them involve people I go to school with so it's weird seeing them the next day. For example, I had a dream about how everyone couldn't stand this one girl in my class and the next day she sat next to me in two of my classes and I couldn't look at her because all I could think about were the things people were saying in my dream. I've had a dream where my dean's fellow was the drill sargent when I joined the Navy officer program at Guantanamo Bay (think "A Few Good Men), a dream where I competed against this other girl in my class Project Runway style for dresses for the law school prom (yes, there really is a formal in law school), and a dream where this other girl was the head of the Bruin Republicans (even though she's liberal).

I don't know if studying all day has made my imagination go into hyperdrive when I go to sleep but something lately has been triggering all these crazy dreams. I know there's all that dream analysis stuff. But instead of wondering what my dreams mean, I kind of wonder why we have dreams at all. I never realized until now what a strange phenomenon it is.

What are you?

At UCLA, almost everyone used to ask me what race I was. I'm not sure why there was such an obsession with trying to figure out, but it was almost always one of the first questions that people asked me, especially other Asian-Americans. At American, no one had asked me until a funny little exchange yesterday on the metro.

Vicki: Andrew calls our little section of the three of us sitting together "Chinatown."
Me: You know I'm not Chinese right?
Vicki: Wait, you're not?
Liam: Right, because you're Korean?
Me: *laughs*
Vicki: What are you?
Me: I'm Vietnamese!

Today, on a completely different topic than race...
Andrew (another Andrew, not the Chinese one): Don't you hate it when the cork gets stuck in the wine bottle?
Me: My dad can get corks that fell in the wine bottle with a pair of chopsticks.
Andrew: Can he catch flies with them too? (Karate kid reference, for those of you who live under a rock)
Vicki: Kristina's last name is actually Miyagi
Me: Geeze Vicki, I'm not Japanese either! I thought we straightened this out yesterday. (joking of course).
Vicki: I still can't believe you were Chinese all this time.
Alexia: Wait, what are you?
Andrew: Wow, I always thought Kristina was American.

I really don't mind if people ask me what ethnicity I am. I'm proud of my Vietnamese heritage and I thoroughly enjoy learning about other people's backgrounds, traditions, customs, etc. I would just rather have the discussion come naturally in discussion (strangely, like it did in these interchanges), rather than the very first question someone asks me (like what happened for 4 years at UCLA). Then, it just feels like I'm being classified immediately into a box and I feel like there's more to me than just one part of my identity.

As Andrew said, I'm an American, and I'm also Vietnamese, and I was born in Minnesota (yeah, that always throws people way off about their perception of Asians), and I'm a true Californian, and I'm a lot of other things.

There's No Escaping

Have you ever felt like everything around you seems to point to a common theme or just a general commonality? You know when tv shows have an episode title and all of the unrelated events of the show all revolve around that title in a nice little 30 minute to one hour package. (I always thought Ally McBeal, Sex & the City, and Grey's Anatomy did this the best.) So what keeps popping up everywhere around me?

1. Wedding Bells: Definitely not for me yet but it seems like everyone else. Last year one of summer rommates who had just graduated said that all her friends were getting married. That seemed like a foreign concept to me. Little did I know that one year later, I would feel exactly like her. It feels like every other day I'm finding out that my friends got engaged, I'm getting invited to a wedding, my friends at law school are flying out to bridal receptions or weddings, I'm seeing wedding pictures on facebook (soooo many wedding pictures), or my roommate is getting wedding invitations in the mail here. Even today's homily at church was about the sacrement of marriage.

2. California (and how weird everyone there is): ABC sports commentators characterized our football is explosive and our fans as colorful, Sex & the City portrayed as hippie dippy tofu-eating non-smoking want-to-be movie stars, the news says we're trying to steal away the cheese title from Wisconsin, and Law and Order summed it up by saying we're the land of fruits and nuts. Any reference to California in any of my classes usually has to do with how sue-happy we are because it is so easy to bring a lawsuit in the state or how Californians can't deal with adverse weather conditions and thus get into accidents (I wonder where they got that idea, see prior blogs).

3. Syracuse: For a school that I have only recently become attached to merely because of Alex, I see it everywhere now. I read cases occuring in the city of Syracuse. I can't walk down the street without seeing people in Syracuse caps, tshirts, or sweatpants. People's brothers, sisters, fiances went to Syracuse. I wonder if this school has always been so prominent or I'm just starting to notice.

4. The law: Ok, this one is no coincidence and sheerly of my own doing. I see the law everywhere and while watching Law and Order, they went in to this bit about widgets, contracts, and consideration. I shrieked.

These are a few of my favorite [rainy day] things...

-Curling up in my bed, wearing my sleepy sheepy flannel pjs and my supersoft chenille socks, and reading myself to sleep.
-My fuchsia umbrella that brightens up the dreary environment.
-Homemade roasted tri-color peppers bruscetta, yup roasted the peppers myself.
-Good old and new episodes of Law & Order.
-My Minnetonka moccasins.
-Finding clips of Spring Sing company on Youtube.
-Escaping the apartment for some fall/winter clothes shopping and finding two warm sweaters on sale.
-Lighting candles in the apartment.
-Watching college football (though sad because I don't get the UCLA game).
-Not feeling out of place wearing a scarf because everyone else is wearing a scarf too.
-Chocolate & caramel flavored hot chai tea in our colorful mugs.
-Oatmeal for breakfast.

I haven't seen the sun since Thursday. Yet contrary to what I thought, I'm just fine, no seasonal affective disorder. I remind myself that no matter where I was going to be for law school, I would be inside all the time anyway reading. I do have to admit that I was a little envious of the sunny California skies when I tuned into the Cal v. Oregon game but this East Coast weather is growing on me. Either that or I've come to appreciate enough little things to make me forget that I left weather paradise.

Fall has Fell

Yesterday when I was riding up to class in the elevator, one guy says to another guy, "Sandals in October, that's pretty bold." Wearing my beloved Rainbow flip flops, I kind of chuckled and thought to myself, "It's not that cold yet, and I'm used to wearing flip flops all year round." Little did I know that the next day, my version of winter would come. It rained all day long and was 50 degrees.

No blog telling the tale of a displaced Californian living in DC would be complete without the "wow, these are what seasons are," entry. Funny how something so normal to most of the country seems completely foreign to me. But one of the very reasons why I wanted to come to the east coast for law school was to experience seasons. And though DC doesn't have the most severe seasons, I've endured more rain in my 2 months here than I usually do in two years in California, maybe even five.

Even though the leaves change color in California, there never felt like a big shift in seaons like I'm starting to feel here. To celebrate the full arrival of fall, I had a splendid day in my cozy apartment by myself since my roommate is gone for the weekend. I snuggled up in a sweatshirt, kept my toes warm in my moccasins, and spent the day doing laundry, vacuuming, and cooking gourmet meals inspired by my Food Network watching. The smell of my warm vanillla candle wafted through the apartment and I listened to the sounds of rain pitter pattering outside.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the colder weather from the inside, I think tomorrow I might have to go shopping for more sweaters and some actual shoes. As the guy in the elevator said, wearing sandals this time of year is a pretty bold move.

Establishmentarian

SYLLABICATION: es·tab·lish·men·tar·i·an
1. of, pertaining to, or favoring a political or social establishment. (adjective)
2. a person who belongs to or favors a political or social establishment. (noun)

Alex and I always joked around that we should get tshirts with the word "establishmentarian" emblazoned across the front. One of the reasons why we got along so well is that we like being part of the establishment. While a lot of people our age like fighting the man, we like being the man (or in my case, than woman).

As my current roommate and I stood on the corner of the sidewalk this morning, refusing to jay walk, I realized that I've come across another person who likes the rules. She's someone else who went straight from UCLA to law school and we realized that we both got a lot of questions from our peers about this decision. "Don't you want to go have fun?" "Don't you want to travel?" "Why are you rushing into law school, you have the rest of your life to work?" Although we know our friends are just looking out for our interests, we laugh because out of all the types of personalities, ours aren't usually the kind to make rash, unthoughtful decisions.

Going to law school straight out of school, or even following established norms, is a personal decision. I actually like class and going to school. I like going to Europe with my parents instead of backpacking and staying in hostels. I prefer registering people to vote rather than staging protests. I like trying to institute change from the inside. I would rather shop in a department store than thrift store. I do go to that archaeic institution of the Catholic church weekly. I admit to listening to pop music over indie stuff. I wait for the little guy to start flashing before I start crossing the street. And while some people may consider my lifestyle boring, selling out to the man, conservative (ironic, isn't it?), or old-ladyish, it's me and it makes me happy.

Law School: Where A Kid Can Be A Kid

I always felt like by the time I got to law school, I would feel like more of an adult. Even after moving across the country by myself and taking care of myself in an apartment, I think the fact that I'm at school still makes me feel like a kid.

Today was especially one of those days, probably because everyone was so loopy from spending one too many hours hacking away at our memos. We giggled at everything our legal writing professor said today, even things that weren't really funny. We even played the nose game (you know the game where the last person who touches their finger to his nose is "it", see picture for further explanation) to determine who would have to get the books off the library shelf. Our dean's fellow gave us oreo cookies for finishing our memos and we asked if we could get gold stars for our library assignment.

It's funny that in law school I'm eating the turkey sandwiches with a side of carrot sticks and taking naps like I did in Kindergarten. I guess that I'm coming full circle in my schooling since this should be the last step (at least that I anticipate). Sometimes I really wonder if we're ready to be practicing law in just a few years. I may be legally an adult but there are some days where I really question that.

The Foley Fallout

As I was chained to my computer this weekend writing my memo, I spent a lot of time procrastinating by checking on the news (I justify my procrastination by saying that I want to be a well informed citizen). And what a crazy news weekend it was with the dramatic departure of Congressman Foley. I promise that even as a card-carrying member of the Democratic party who really wants to take back the Congress, I do not wish these kinds of things on the Republican Party. Mainly because I don't like people preying upon innocent minors. Of far less significance are the facts that I would rather win on issues and that I don't like people giving a bad name to politics.

I know that there are far less flashy, but much more significant issues going on in the world that I don't write about in here. I think the reasons why this Foley case is so appealing to the public and I are 1) You can't make this stufff up, and 2) It hits close to home.

Honestly, the craziest epsisode of Law and Order Special Victims Unit (dealing with child predators, etc), couldn't have dreamed this plot up. I felt like every hour, something new and even more detrimental came out. I felt like I followed this story piece by piece and it just got more insane over time. First came out the shady email and information that Foley was on the committee dealing with these issues...oh the irony. Then came out the downright inappropriate IMs. Then came the questions of who knew. Then came out that Foley checked himself into rehab. Then came out that he said he was molested as a child by his priest. No one would believe it if it didn't actually happen. It's the kind of tragedy that only Shakespeare came close to writing.

Then, I think that people are obsessed with this case because it hits close to home. These were just ordinary kids. Whether you're a parent, have a little brother, sister, or cousin, or just know a kid, you worry that these things could happen to someone you know. If someone who embezzled money lived next door to you, you wouldn't feel like it's the end of the world. However, no one wants to live next to someone like Mark Foley. It's the same reason why shows like "to catch a predator" are so popular. The same reason why a lot of people also very shook up by school shootings, even the foreign Amish ones.

Childhood Nostalgia

There's one thing that unites the vast majority of people from my generation. We loved our TV. It doesn't matter what race, religion, and socioeconomic background we came from, we all had our quality shows. I almost feel bad for kids nowadays because I see very few shows that measure up. Most of them were funny, clean, and even educational at times.

As my roommate and I were reminiscing late the other night about our favorite shows, I realized that we all watched a lot of tv. So since I couldn't go to bed that night and didn't want to read (and I love making lists), I wrote down my favorite, and not so favorite shows. I seriously wonder how I also did piano, soccer, softball, 4-H, sewing lessons, the minimal school we had, etc, etc while watching this all. Maybe this is how I became such a multi-tasker.

Loved: Growing Pains, Hey Dude, Full House, Clarissa Explains It All, Alex Mack, Saved by the Bell, Magic School Bus, Doug, Captain Planet, Home Improvement, Wonder Years, Doogie Howser, Where on Earth is Carmen San Diego, Ghostwriter, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Square One TV, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo

Liked: Cosby Show, Salute Your Shorts, Boy Meets World, GUTS, Who’s the Boss, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Double Dare, What Would You Do?, Family Matters, Hang Time, City Guys, Duck Tales, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Muppet Babies, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Chip 'n' Dales Rescue Rangers, Step by Step, Small Wonder, Charles in Charge

Hated: Pete & Pete, Ren & Stimpy, Are you Afraid of the Dark?, Alf, Eureka’s Castle, Dinosaurs, Sister Sister, Beetlejuice, Pee-Wee’s playhouse, Tales of the Crypt

Shows I never heard of that people always talk about: Fraggle Rock, Thundercats, Transformers, Adventures of the Little Koala

Law School 101

For all those kids who just took their LSATs, I offer congratulations and a preview of what you will learn your first year of law school:

Torts: All problems in the world come from trains and train stations.
In my six weeks of law school I have read the following cases: 2 cases involving people slipping on banana peels at train stations, 2 cases involving cars that were hit by trains, a kid who severed his leg on a train station turntable, a woman who burned her head on the heating pipe of a traincar bathroom, a woman who fell down the stairs of a unlit train station hallway, and a man who was walking on a footpath by a train, fell down and had his arm severed off.

Civil Procedure: Justice Brennan will always dissent.
If there is ever a dissenting opinion in a civpro case, 9/10 it will be written by Justice Brennan. And as cool as he is, you just won't care because you already got the holding of the case and dissenting opions just add up to more pages of reading.

Contracts: Read the fine print.
More likely than not, you've probably sold your soul away to 100 different companies by clicking "agree" on those pesky terms and agreements that no one reads. Now I wonder what was in the fine print agreement when I signed up to go to law school.

Legal Writing: If you get divorced, get custody of the children. Or, just don't get married.
My fictional client, Amy Carter, will agree with this. So will the guy at the bar last night who, upon finding out that I was a law student, started asking me legal questions about his child support payments and alimony. Simply put, the person who doesn't get custody of the children literally pays for it, a lot.
Sub lesson of legal writing: If you think you know how to write (or cite), you are wrong. And on that note, I'll end today's lessons because I'm off to do my 4th and final draft of my memo.

Breaking out of the Bubble

Reason #23498574 why I love going to law school in DC: There's a fun world to escape to after you've had your head buried in casebooks for a little too long.

As I boarded the metro last night to go see a movie in downtown, my eyes were big with excitement and awe. There was so much movement, so many people, so much life. I almost felt like I was a tourist from a little rural town coming to the city for the first time when the reality is that I've lived in metropolitan areas for the past 4+ years. But sometimes I forget that I actually live in a city when I'm stuck in my apartment or the law school building.

Even though I only went out for a few hours, it was so nice and so refreshing. A quick metro ride brought us to a theater in downtown where students only pay $8 (which, compared to LA movie theaters, is amazing). The chairs in the theater were probably the most comfortable chairs I've ever had at the movies. And of course, Little Miss Sunshine, is probably one of the best movies I've seen in a very very long time.

I'm not a movie snob who only watches indie or critically acclaimed movies, but I am picky. I only see a few movies in the theaters per year. Mostly because I have a short attention span and would hate to pay $10 to fall asleep in a movie. But Alex told me that this movie was really funny and that I would like it so I took up my friend's offer to go see it. I'm really glad that I did because I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in a movie. I literally was tearing up at the end from laughing.

My advice to others: Go see Little Miss Sunshine
My advcice to myself: Go out more, even if it's only for a few hours

Rekindling the Fire

Someone my first year of college called me a flaming liberal. While I think that was a bit of an exaggeration because my image of a flaming libera was someone who went goes out and leads protests (which I never did), I do remember the time when I got really riled up and impassioned about things.

Well that feeling all came back last night. After spending years politely smiling at friends who got really upset by things they read or saw in the news, I found myself once again, yelling at my tv. It was a Anti-Webb, Allen-Sponsored campaign attack ad that pretty much said that Webb was sexist. Now, I don't know too much about Webb but I do know about Allen and I just find it downright hypocritical. (I won't even start about how much disdain I have for Allen, it would require a whole entry). The ad was just so nasty that I feel like I got my first dose of what a Rovian ad must be like, and let me say I was repulsed. I don't care which side does it (I just happened to see a Republican one first), I hate them.

It was a strange feeling to feel politically alive again. Over the years, I felt like I lost a little bit of my idealism. Dare I say I got a little jaded from being in the thick of politics. I realized that the best candidates don't always win, money is almost everything in politics, and that so many decisions are made with re-election in mind. While being pragmatic is good (and I personally think a sign of growing up), perhaps I accepted a lot of things too easily. Probably the only way things move forward and improve is if someone is a big dreamer and doesn't merely accept the status quo. That person mixes idealism with pragmatism to get big things done.

Great Expectations

Everytime I come to a new school, I wonder if I have what it takes to shine and be top of the class. I've never been #1 in my class, but I'm usually up there and I always had my extracurrics to stand out. This week, it hit me that this might not be the case. Whether it was not placing in the top of our little class competition (silly I know) or getting back the draft of my memo with a lot of markups, this week just felt a little defeating. Not in a "I'm horribly upset" kind of way, but more in a "this just feels like a long week" kind of way.

But as I met with my legal writing professor (one of the people who marked up that memo), he told me that he really liked my writing style. I needed do a lot of rearranging, but I was off to a good start. He also said that there were a lot of comments on my paper because he almost expects a little more out of me because I do write well.

Although I was very flattered by these comments, one of the first thoughts that ran through my head was, "why can't he just hold me to the average standard?" But really, when have I ever wanted to be average. As someone, who I can't remember at the moment, once said "It's better to be challenged at a higher standard than be at the top of the mediocrity."

So while I'll still work my best to get good grades, I'm going to try to compare myself less to others. Our Dean pointed out that only 10% can be in the top 10%. So maybe I'll be in it, or maybe I won't. But either way, it is kind of cool to be at this level of education with so many other smart people.

Ode to the Older

There are a handful of people in my classes that graduated college when I graduated high school. There are even some people who graduated college when I graduated from elementary school. This isn't like undergrad where it seemed like 98% of the campus is 18-22. There's an age range and I must say that I've learned a lot from my "elders" (my collegues would probably cringe if they knew that I just called them my elder but I only mean it with the utmost respect).

The other day I was thinking about what lives of some of the older students at my school must be like. I feel exhausted simply after doing all my work. I couldn't even imagine what it must be like to do that school work, take care of the kids, attend to the spouse, do housework, work in a real job, and more. I totally take for granted the luxuries I have, like being able to leave closer to school because my parents are paying for my apartment. I don't have to spend extra time commuting because I have a strict budget that doesn't permit me to live in the District.

Right now, I only need to take care of myself (which at times, does feel like a handful). Being young and unmarried gives me a free pass to be pretty selfish right now. Naturally, I try not to go overboard with this and hope that I'm still a good roommate and a considerate person who talks to her family, boyfriend, and friends. But heck, one of the few perks of a long distance relationship is that I get a lot more me time. I just take care of what I need to do.

All in all, there's no perfect time to go to law school and it depends so much on the individual. But I think that something the advocates of "taking time off" don't mention is that the older you get, the more responsibilities you tend to assume. And while there are people who stellar examples of how to balance full adult/family responsibilities with law school, it still should be one of the many factors that you might want to integrate into your decision. Now that my decision is made, all I can say is that I have a profound respect for my classmates who are doing it and I'll make the best of youthfulness.

Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game

My contracts professor seems like a very nice woman. She's brilliant (not everyone gets to clerk for a Supreme Court Chief Justice), very passionate about the subject, very approachable, and is a role model for many women who want to balance having a family and being top in her field. The problem is, she just can't teach us 1L's contracts.

So I don't hate my professor, I just strongly dislike the class. I tried liking it, I really did, but here's an average day in our class.

Professor: Everyone! What is *insert complex, convulated question that has very little to do with the case at hand* Everyone!
Everyone: *blank stares*
Professor: Anyone?

We're not dumb, we can answer the questions in every other class. But in contracts, we come out of class far more confused than when we came in. People have tried making suggestions of how we could understand things better, but she still doesn't seem to get it. So as much as we all have tried, most of us have just tuned most of the talking out because it makes more sense that way.

It's also fun watching what everyone in class does instead. So far I have seen and indulged in a few of the following: online shopping, checking fantasy football scores, facebooking, checking/responding to email, 4 guys in one party poker room, sleeping, scouring Craigslist, reading the news, hitting one's head against one's book, and of course instant messaging (which is the one area that I vow not to go into).

At this point, there's nothing more I can really do besides vent here. 9 more weeks. I'm just making a promise to myself that I won't go into teaching, or any field for that fact, where people who I have to interact with don't think I'm doing a good job.

Human Nature

Yesterday Alex, David, and I walked to the National Zoo not far away from my apartment. Another great part about being in DC is that great attractions are right by you, and usually free. So we spent a few hours roaming around seeing the famous and oh so cute pandas, elephants, lions, hippos, and all your usual zoo fanfare. I will note that I did sit on a bench outside while David and Alex went into the reptile house because reptiles scare me like no other, and I had just as much fun watching little kids wander around...they're almost as fun to watch as the animals themselves.

As we stood around, watching pandas eating frozen rings of fruit and the seals lounging around on rocks, we all commented on "wow, I wish my life were that easy."

I think the reality of it is that if we really wanted to have that kind of life, there are probably ways to obtain it and most of us simply don't choose it. Yes, of course you might need to work to have some kind of income to live on, but if we truly wanted a life of simplicity, we could cut back on a lot of things. I got a dose of it this summer when I really had no obligations. I was like the panda, just playing around outside and sleeping. But I eventually got bored of it because it's just not how I was raised. For as long as I can remember, I was always active, always busy doing something whether it was piano lessons, softball, soccer, 4-H, sewing lessons, swimming lessons, the list goes on.

While I might long to live a carefree life or complain about the work, I really do know that deep down inside, that I'd rather be active and take the occasionally relaxation break than have it be the other way around. I wonder what people would say about the human species if we were exhibits in a zoo.