Life in Moo Town
Halloween Party
Spent the morning and afternoon alternating between doing school work, watching horror movies, and eating. By late afternoon I gave up on switching off and just started doing all three together. I was very torn between going out and partying or staying in and getting some things checked off my to-do list. On the one hand, I really don't tend to have much fun at bars and clubs, on the other hand, whenever I don't go everyone else has a blast and I feel like I missed out. I figure not having fun in the short term is better than being miserable in the long term over the lack of fun that might have been. I went to my next door neighbors' place first for some preclubbing partying. I didn't rally have a costume so I just threw on a hawaian shirt and some jeans (Id gone to the gym about 45 minutes before and was just getting out of the shower). Shared a cab down to the party in midtown. Cover was $10, not outrageous but still lame. Inside, lots of spotlights, strobe lights, mist machines, etc...totally blinding and deafening for the first 5-10 minutes. Did a lot of dancing and went home with some friends on the subway at 2AM. Stopped by Koronets on the way back for a slice. Late night munchies. The whole experience was ok, but nothing spectacular. This lifestyle just isnt my idea of a good time. Oh well. When in Rome...
Courtroom Catastrophe and New York Blues
I got up at the heinously early hour of 7AM this morning to get all dressed up and lawyerly. Then I took two subways for an hour up to the bronx to go to family court. I was supposed to be assisting battered women in obtaining temporary orders of protection against their abusers. I studied the New York laws surrounding harrassment, assault, child custody, and a dozen other related matters for hours so as to do the best job possible. I got off the subway at Yankee Stadium and had little trouble finding the courthouse; some policemen I ran into pointed it out for me. Once in side I had a bit of a tougher time finding the right floor and waiting room that I was supposed to be in, but I got there on time. There were 5 other law students, mostly from New York Law School and Brooklyn Law and we chatted while waiting for the supervisor to show up. 30 minutes passed. The supervisor was late. We looked all over for him but he wasn't in the building. We chatted some more. Then made phone calls to the Courtroom Advocacy Project headquarters. No help there. Lots of cell phone calling. Another hour passed. Finally someone informed us that the supervisor had just called in sick and there was no replacement so we couldn't help out with any cases. How lame. Wasted 6 law students' days. *sigh* I took the train home and reheated some leftovers for lunch. Then did some school work. Then went to Ramath Orah for shabbat services and ran into a bunch of law school people, they invited me over for dinner and since I had nowhere else to go I was happy to accept. Danny gets the honorable mench award for the week. Went home and started the laundry. Shabbos or no, a guy needs clean underwear in the morning...
The Blues
Within a 1000 mile radius I don't think I have a single family member or friend who I knew more than 4 months ago. This is not to say that I don't have friends here, of course I do, but they don't share a common background or history with me and it's hard to make new really close friends at this stage of my life. I miss having people to sit and shmooze with that really know me and understand me. I'm also in an awkward age bracket. I'm one of the younger law students; most of the 1L class took a few years off between undergrad and law school, but I'm also old compared with the undergrads so it is weird to hang out with them too to an extent. I don't really feel many people relate to my situation. Since I'm so social and outgoing most of the time I think there are very few people here that realize the depths of my depression. It's probably good that I hide it. No use being the guy with the party pooper reputation. Still, it's really hard to keep doing the routine when deep down I'm miserable. Just have to keep that door locked for now. Healthy? No. Hampering my success? Probably. Necessary anyway? I'm afraid so...
Lunar Eclipse
Didn't have contracts today so I should have had lots of free time. Didn't really happen though. I went to a koleinu meeting at lunch. Hoorah for free kosher pizza. The group isnt very organized though, the leadership doesn't seem to have its act together. Dissappointing. I'm not going to take over though, I have enough on my plate, I can't save every org I'd like to. I worked on my memo outline in the afternoon and made a stir fry for dinner. Took a break at 9 to go to hillel and study some talmud and eat ice cream. Then back to work. Saw the lunar eclipse taking place on my way home. Pretty neat. Even neater that I could see something other than the sick reddish haze of the evening NY sky.
Apology to the World
Yeah, I think I owe everybody an apology for my attack on free speech yesterday. I'm just having a rough time lately. It's not that I'm a fascist or anything. This Palestinian guy just really crossed the line, accusing me of a trumped up vandalism charge to take the heat off of himself for some innappropriate emails and events he was responsible for. Deep down my inner optimistic idealist is trying to get out, but every time he breathes fresh air in the light of day, someone takes advantage of me or screws me over and I become bitter and disillusioned with the world. I've lost so much hope. Not much left really. World in tatters. My world at least. I work so hard for so many causes that seem worthy and yet inside I don't believe it is doing any good. *sigh* I'm just not sure what to do about it. Violence can't be the answer. Maybe litigation will be; it's the next best thing I suppose. Can't trust the government, the courts, fellow citizens, where else is there to turn?
On a seperate note, busy day today. I got called on in torts and the prof seemed harsher than usual. Maybe he's pissed that I'm late every day. I got my absentee ballot in the mail which was exciting, I filled in the Kerry oval right away. Take that Bush! You're one step closer to having your sorry ass shipped back to Texas! Then we can all take down our bumperstickers...you know the one: "somewhere in texas there is a village missing its idiot". Let's make that village complete again. Sorry, I'll try to chill out a bit. Went to a book signing with the American Constitutional Society. That took up the whole afternoon really. Lots of wine and cheese. Few people showed up though. It was on civil rights. I shot off my mouth to some fellow liberals about how free speech isn't working. They appeared horrified. It gave me pause to consider that I may have been too harsh yesterday. I had a submissions meeting for the Journal of Gender and Law after that. Took us an hour to reject all the articles. Oh well. Sucks to be the authors I guess. Time to hit the books...
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Spread Them
So I think I'm overdue for a rant and now is as good a time as any. Free speech is not working. The professed goal of free speech is multifold but a primary objective is getting at the truth. The problem is that when all the lovely philosophers and founding fathers came to this conclusion, they were living in a world without our modern mass media and the evils that accompany it. Nowadays it just isn't politically correct to call a spade a spade. When Bush and his cronies do something reprehensible the media tries to come up with some blemish on Kerry to report at the same time for balance. Same thing in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Palestinian terrorists blow up a schoolbus full of children but Israel accidentally shot a civilian when fighting house to house with militants. Two unrelated incidents and of completely incomparable magnitude. Yet when reported together they seem to take on a moral equivalence. Bush clearly lied and took us to war based on misinformation but Kerry misquoted the cost at $200 billion instead of $120 billion. Why does the media try to equate the two? I think there are a lot of reasons for the quandarry we are in today. One is that the individuals who own all the media sources in the country are consolidating and they have an agenda to push that isn't particularly in the interests of the public good or bringing out truth and accurate information. A second is that American's would much rather sit on their couches drinking beer and watching sports than actually know what is going on in the world in the sort of depth required to make informed decisions. This gets reflected in the news due to supply/demand and chasing ratings. Stories are superficial, often irrelevant to the important issues of our day, and skewed towards sports/culture/celebrity and away from legitimate sociopolitical concerns. A third reason and perhaps the one that angers me the most is a class of people who intentionally deny the truth and spread lies for the purpose of furthering their own nefarious goals. Giving such people a public forum and a voice for their agenda is not conducive to bringing the general population to any sort of grasp of the truth. The prime example I would cite is the phenomenon of anti-Israel groups on college campuses. The average student doesn't care too much about what is happening on the other side of the world and is definitely not interested in doing thorough research to find out. Anti-Israel propaganda machines can churn out more volume than can be intelligently refuted and the result is that the general population becomes prejudiced by the slanted materials. The best Israel activists can do is to launch a similar propaganda campaign with the result being the complete obscuration of the truth and a public sense of equivlence between the two causes. This is a tradgedy for those who value truth for its own sake, as there is no way to have any sort of reasonable fact driven dialogue that reaches the public ears when flashy attack ads are so easy to disburse widely with no checks or balances for veracity. I propose that individuals and organizations that deal in known lies and distortions be held accountable for their actions and if it can be proved they knowingly lied, there should be either civil or criminal penalties imposed, or both. This would be similar to current laws regarding slander and liable but it would apply to any form of speech with the end of misinforming the public. Democracy is based on an informed and empowered citizenry that can vote based on clear facts tempered by personal conviction and perspective. When truth is shrouded by lies, it is impossible for true democracy to survive.
100th Entry!
Who would have ever thought I would actually keep blogging this long? It's been just short of a year now, (first blog entry was Nov 24, 2003) and so much has changed. I can't say I'm happy with a lot of the changes, but I hope all was for the best. I want to say thank you to all my friends and loyal readers both in NY and in Ca, and everywhere else you have scattered around the globe to. I miss you all tons! Now here's an account of the last week of my life that I know you've all been waiting for...
10/22
Went to contracts at 1:30. We were in a different room because normally we don't have Friday class. I got called on but pretended I wasn't there because the prof's seating chart was useless. I feel kind of guilty but I really wasn't prepared. After class I went to the Public Interest Center to find out why I didn't get HRIP funding and to see what I could do about it. Got some useful advice. I hung out with the neighbors a bit and called up Kaplan yet again to try to get my paycheck sent. It's been months. I have so many grounds for a breach of contracts suit. Ate some week old leftover pasta and then went to Hillel Yavneh services. Rather depressing evening. I'm going to go to a dessert event now to cheer up.
10/21
Very exciting day. I woke up at 7 (sooo early) to go to breakfast with the dean and a securities lawyer from the class of '76. Breakfast was nothing special, but the speaker was exhilarating. She actually made securities seem interesting. Changed my outlook on the law somewhat. Had a pizza lunch with the Domestic Violence Project people. No new information there really. After class I met with the ad hoc senate web committee and the student services and IT department people. Got some things on the table for the rest of the quarter and hopefully some good will come from it. From there went to a contracts TA session. Always useful. Then I went to a panel on supreme court clerkships. Then a TA meeting for Civ Pro, always useless. Then I went to a celebration in honor of the 50th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was there speaking, as was the chief justice of the supreme court of South Africa, Arthur Chaskalson. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger was there, he argued for affirmative action in a famous case. Professor Greenberg was there too, he argued Brown before the supreme court back in the day. The dean and lots of other important people were in attendance too. I got a chance to shake Ginsberg's hand and talk to her briefly and it made my year. I talked to Arthur Chaskalson too. The benefits of being at Columbia, getting to hobnob with giants. There was a wine and cheese reception after and then I went home to grab some dinner and play some poker with the guys downstairs. I lost 15 bucks 'cause I should have quit while I was ahead. Oh well.
10/20
Went to a lunch on student needs regarding classes on African Law. I think the food was catered by Masawa coincidentally. I used a fork instead of my hands this time though. After class I had training on Westlaw, the other major legal search engine. I got candy and other goodies but it wasn't terribly interesting. For dinner I had a meeting with an ACLU lawyer who graduated Columbia a few years back. She talked about the work the ACLU does protecting criminals rights and to be honest it wasn't that interesting. The food wasn't very good either. Sandwiches from some grocery store. Very dry. Blech. Spent the night reading 80 pages of contracts to catch up to where I'm supposed to be.
10/19
At lunch I met with the Qanun board and a bunch of students they pissed off by sending out anti-Israel email. Not surprisingly, Qanun was less than receptive to our arguments and concerns. I'll keep working on it though. At 5 I went to a lecture by Jeffrey Sachs on global warming and the world's energy situation. It was an interesting talk and there was better than average pizza afterwards. After that I went to the other side of campus for a JD/LLM mixer but only stayed about 15 minutes because I had to run to a panel on corporate deal making. The hors d'vors were ok but the talk was boring. I left early, but was still late to my articles meeting for JGL at 8. That meeting lasted about an hour and I made some more progress on my Spanish cite checking. Spent the night reading more law, 100 pages of torts to catch up. I also found out I was denied HRIP funding but my friend across the hall who I told to apply got it. Very bitter.
10/18
Skipped contracts to finish up my memo. Still wasn't very happy with the end result but I'll do better next time. At lunch I bounced between a senate meeting and a lecture from a visiting UCLA Law professor on slippery slope arguments. I was already familiar with the topic from philosophy but the professor did throw in some interesting models I hadn't seen before. Went back to Burlington and Filene's in the afternoon with a friend to take a second stab at finding warm clothes. I got a trenchcoat, a full length wool coat, some dress shirts, undershirts, shoe polish, and a new belt (I somehow shredded my last one). I've decided to return the wool coat because it doesn't look that good on me. Maybe I'll exchange it for a suit, I'll need a few soon. By the time we got back it was about dinner time and we both felt like procrastinating so we went to Masawa for Ethiopian food. Kind of a fun restaurant, you have to eat with your hands. Afterwards we said goodbye and I went home to do my reading and work on Civil Procedures homework with my neighbor.
10/17
Went on a tour of the lower East side with Koach. We went through a bunch of old synagogues and saw the tenements and neighborhoods that were traditionally Jewish back in the day. Jewish presence is dissappearing there as the entire area is being swallowed by China town. I ate one of the most awesome pickles I'd ever tasted in a pickle shop and I tried some olives too. I forget the name of the place...apparently it's pretty famous. The Pickle Barrel maybe. They had lots of big barrels of pickled things. And at least half a dozen different kinds of pickles. For lunch we went to Noah's Ark, a kosher meat restaurant that claims to have the best kosher hamburgers in the world. I had a pastrami burger since it sounded interesting and it turned out to be a hamburger with pastrami on it almost resembling a bacon burger. I felt a little weird about that, but it was a kosher restaurant so I ate it and it really was pretty amazing. Big portions too. Must have been 1/2 a lb of meat. On the way back to Morningside Heights I decided to get some warm clothes because the weather is getting rather chilly here. A few other Koach people from warm states joined me. We went to Filene's Basement and Burlington Coat Factory for discount deals. Sadly the latter was closed by the time we got there. I didn't end up getting anything but I picked out some things to come back for later. Stayed up ridiculously late trying to finish my legal memo rewrite and my other school work.
Lexis-Nexus Training and Shabbat x2
Woke up this morning and scrambled to get to Lexis-Nexus training on time. It's a legal search program that we have to learn how to use. It's vastly superior to using books and the library. That went fine, hung out with some friends in the afternoon then called Kaplan to demand my paycheck. They gave me the run around yet again. I'm really starting to hate them. Why is it that nobaody ever pays me for my work? I think I'll be a contracts lawyer and sue for breaches like this. Payback is sweet. Anyway, I went to Koach services at Kraft and had dinner at the apartment of some undergrads I met at my first shabbat. They are a lot of fun and we had a good time. Then I went to hang out with the CLS gang in Lenfest and shmoozed a while. I walked one of the girls home and she thought it was very unusual. Terrible how old fashioned manners are so dead. Oh well. Walked myself home next. Round trip of and hour and a half. Good exercise.
Noche de Cultura
Today started off less than well. My computer wouldn't work properly this morning. Plus I hadn't done any of my reading. Missed all my lunch appointments because I couldn't access my outlook calendar. Also because I was having a friend try to fix my computer. Finally reinstalled windows and it fixed the problem. Everything isn't 100% yet though. More fixing tomorrow. Met with the senate treasurer for a while to discuss some insider politics and went to a panel on clerking. Not very useful. I got a phone call in the middle and walked out. LALSA put on a "Noche de Cultura" at 7. Basically an excuse for free mexican food, sangria and salsa dancing. Fun times. I was supposd to go to a hillel grad student bar night at the west end afterwards, but since the last one sucked I accepted an offer from some friends to go scotch tasting in midtown (one of my friends had an unused guest pass to the event for me). We took the subway down to 59th but walked in the wrong direction from there. Saw Trump Tower as a cosequence. By the time we got to the right place the event was started, the doors were closed, and people weren't allowed in. I got on the VIP list for the next event though. We took a cab back up to harlem and went to a bar there where SIPA and the Urban Planning school were having an event. I impressed my southern friends apparently with my ability to speak with members of the opposite sex but I didn't have much fun (I was with 2 guys from SC and a girl from Kansas). They left for bar review on the upper west side and I walked home. I've had enough partying for today. Watched the Daily Show and Colin Quin with the guys across the hall. So tired. Gonna crash soon.
Dean's Cocktail Party and Position on Welfare
Went to lunch with the Science and Technology Law Club. Pan Asian food. Not my favorite. Welcome relief from constant pizza though. I heard some very interesting professors (including one who wants to do away with property rights) and did some advantageous networking. Tried to get the Kaplan people to pay me in the afternoon. They aren't returning my calls. Sooner or later I'll make them rue the day....The Dean's cocktail was at 6 PM. I took a short nap beforehand instead of going to the gym. Not sleeping is pretty exhausting. Had some drinks and hors d'vors and socialized with lots of random people. Tried convincing a Catholic there are no souls and that we live in a materialistic universe. He walked away looking very confused when I finished. I hope I didn't break him :-P After 2 hours of that I went downtown with some friends from South Carolina to watch the presidential debate at the trial lawyers association. More free food and booze. Kerry won hands down. Schmoozed with law students from Cardozo and Case Western. They were awed by our Columbianess. I don't understand that. Whatever. Long subway ride back home. Stopped at Koronets for some jumbo slice action. Wasn't hungry but gave in to the peer pressure. Haven't done any reading today. Very bad.
Wellfare
No one in America should ever go hungry or suffer from exposure to the elements. Rewarding families for having more children by allocating funds based on family size is a mistake. A public works program putting the homeless and or unemployed to work on community projects such as road construction, park beautification, and environmental cleanup would help solve some of these issues.
Big Meetings and Thoughts on Gun Control
ACS Lunch Meeting
A Harvard Law professor came to discuss the republican dominance in the federal judiciary. It's really frightening. Most Americans don't know or care what is happening in the courts. We have judges being appointed that prosecuted people for registering black voters in the South. We have judges who say women should be subserviant to men. We have judges who are open racists and say things like the only problem they have with the KKK is that some of its members smoke pot. Not only is this a threat to progressive America, it's a threat to moderates. The liberal judges are so outnumbered that they have no ability to change the law in a positive direction, the best they can do is try to prevent it from being changed any more for the worst. William Rehnquist was considered to be on the far right when he was appointed to the Supreme Court. Now he is considered a moderate. It isn't that he has changed, it's that the Court has moved so far to the right that he's in the center now. Thank you justices Thomas and Scalia. The infestation of right wing idealogues in the federal circuit on up to the Supreme Court poses a serious threat to civil rights litigation, which has nearly ground to a halt, and previous landmark dicisions like Roe v Wade protecting abortion rights are threatened and may be overturned in the next few years. Sadly there is no good solution to this problem. Due to redistricting and gerrymandering there are only a handful of close house races now. Even if the Democrats retake the white house, the house and senate are pretty much a lost cause. Without majorities in the house and senate, Republicans can easily block liberal and moderate appointees, and remember that federal judges are appointed for life so the hundreds of appointees from the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II years will be around for a while. Our country's judiciary is in a dismal state.
JGL Meeting
Still working on cite checking this article on injustice towards women in the Dominican Republic. We reviewed four articles tonight and accepted one on something or other. Hard to get excited about these meetings right now. Too much work.
Senate Budget Meeting
The senate budget meeting started at 9 and let out at midnight. Not as bad as I expected. We got the budget passed satisfactorily and I gave my pitch for a 1L message board. The parlementarian will work with me on it and I've been appointed the ad hoc web committee chairman but no one volunteered to help. I'll have to recruit from the general student body.
My Stance on Guns
Americans should be able to own guns. They should also be strictly liable for damages caused by those guns both criminally and civilly and should have to keep them registered with authorities. Strict laws regulating when and where guns may be used and how they must be locked up and secured when not in use are necessary. Mandatory gun insurance would be a good idea along the same lines as car insurance in case there should be an accident. Some types of weapons should be banned for the sake of general safety. Bombs should be included in this list. Most likely so should sniper rifles and assault weapons.
Racial Narratives and LGBT Dinner
Late to torts this morning as usual. Got free krispee kreme donuts from the LGBT group between classes. Nice of them, I don't usually get breakfast :-) Went to a Qanun meeting at lunch to regulate (and get free pizza). It was on the mess America has made of Iraq and how evil the neo conservatives are so to a large extent I agreed with them. However they had to throw in a bunch of slander about Israel, which the speaker even admitted was a seperate issue and not related so they managed to piss me off. Had a conversation with an Algerian woman after the lunch who shared my sentiments and managed to be late to contracts on account of the delay. After class I set up a meeting with some of the Qanun board to discuss an amicable reslution to the tensions on campus. We'll see how that goes. Turned in my HRIP application in the afternoon and went to hear Valerie Smith, African-American Studies and Professor of Literature at Princeton University, speak about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and the civil rights movement. Jack Greenberg was there too, he is a Columbia professor and he argued Brown vs Board of Education 50 years ago. Sadly the talk was pretty boring. You win some, you lose some. There were some tasty things afterwards at the reception including brie (we have wine and brie all over the place, it's great) so I got a snack out of the deal. Then it was time for dinner with the LGBT group in honor of coming out day. And free indian food. I tried this mango yogurt drink. Interesting. Now it's time to start homework and maybe go to the gym later, but just to sum up, I got free breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner today. Hoorah for law student perks :-P
New York Botanical Gardens
Instead of starting off the day doing work like a good student I ditched my desk and drove up to the New York Botanical Gardens in the bronx with two friends from Hillel. It was really weird to be in a car after taking the subway for so long and it was shocking how much faster the car got us places :-P The garden was pretty and the weather was nice. I'm a big Coleus fan and they had dozens of species all growing side by side. Very cool. There was also a special exibit on Momijigari, the Japanese Autumn Garden. Lots of species of Japanese Maple, some bonzais, lily pads, blood grass, etc...Very peaceful. The coolest part had to be the falconry demonstration. The bird guy had a really beautiful owl too. Anyway he did demos with a hawk and then with a falcon and it was pretty cool to watch them attack fake animals in a mock hunting simulation. I came home to a tongue lashing from the Law School Student Body President who accused me of vandalizing Qanun flyers. I denied the allegation since I didn't do it, though I did witness the "vandalism". A student crossed out the word "wall" on one flyer and wrote "fence". The flyers were all taken down within the hour anyway because the event they were advertising was over. The whole thing was pretty dumb. This is what I get for standing up for Israel I suppose. Anti-Semetism sucks. After ironing out that mess I worked on my HRIP application to get funding to go abroad on a human rights internship this summer. I also did my reading for all my classes for a change. Very productive.
In response to the comment posted yesterday on my abortion entry: The question of whether or not abortion is murder is not a scientific one. Murder is a moral crime and as such science has very little to do with who or what can be murdered and who or what merely is killed. When one pricks their finger, lots of blood cells escape from the body and die. We don't consider them murdered. When we have an appendix removed, the appendix is not murdered though the tissue dies. Murder is the killing of another person. What is defined as a person is not so much a matter of science as personal conviction. Many people view a fetus as part of the mother's body. It is not self sufficient and if removed it dies. It is not a rational being and has no experiences in the usual use of the term. Whether or not it has a soul is a theological question and not up to science (though my personal stance is obviously that it doesn't have a soul). Religions have varying positions on whether or not fetuses have souls. Judaism holds they do not until they are born and take their first breath. People can act on their religious beliefs and have abortions or not as they choose, but I maintain they do not have the right to restrict the rights of others based on their own religious views. Personhood and murder are not scientific questions. They are moral questions. Furthermore I know many moral scientists, doctors, and developmental biologists who are pro-choice and (obviously) opposed to murder. If science declared that abortion was murder they would be contradicting themselves. I don't believe that they see their views as inconsistent and neither do I.
Abortion Thoughts
I did work today with breaks to watch some college football and go to the gym. Essentially there was nothing worth telling you about my day today. Instead of blathering about homework, I will instead use this space to present my personal position on a serious issue of the upcoming election (needless to say I side with the democrats).
Abortion:
A woman should have the right to choose. This is a deeply personal decision that the government ought not to interfere in. Furthermore, when abortion was banned, it did not prevent the practice, it merely put women’s lives in jeopardy as they would seek abortions from unlicensed amateurs with no medical equipment. It is fine for people to have their own personal religious beliefs condemning abortion as murder but they cannot use religious doctrine as grounds for restricting the constitutional rights of others. That is the very reason we have separation of church and state.
A Week's Worth of Blog
Apologies go out to my loyal readers who were deprived of prompt blog updates this week. I really have no excuse in particular so I'll try to just summarize the weeks highlights and do a better job updatig in the future.
Monday:
Had lunch with the bioethics club and discussed possible events for the year.
Also caught the end of a PILF brownbag lunch on working for public interest law firms.
Had a civil procedures assignment due and managed to submit it via email to save paper.
Went to a dinner at the Kraft sukkah at 8PM for Jewish grad students only to discover that half the attendees were law students. Very disappointing. I need to find some science people to hang out with.
Tuesday:
I had a very nice lunch break. First free pizza and a speaker on intellectual property from Brooklyn law school (he was lame by the way). Then a free massage outside lenfest cafe (once every week there are free massages). Then free ice cream in the law school sukkah and some lulav shaking with the chabad rabbi. In the evening there was an awesome panel of professors who went over the landmark supreme court cases and gave an analysis of what was decided and what the impact will be on the law. Very interesting and refreshing since it came from a liberal perspective. I grabbed some wine and cheese on my way out since the panel ended just as my articles meeting for JGL began. I picked up my sources at the social sciences library at the School for International and Public Affairs and also at the main university library and was somewhat dismayed to discover they were all in Spanish. The article I'm working on is about injustice against women in the Dominican Republic. I'm going to have to cite check in Spanish which will be extremely challenging but hopefully educational as well.
Wednesday:
For lunch I went to a Quanun meeting (the middle eastern students) since they were hosting a panel discussing the illegality of the "torture Israelis inflict on Palestinians." I actually had to miss a class to go but I felt I had a greater responsibility to go to the Quanun event. Those of you who know me can probably figure out I wasn't just going to let them slide since they sent out an email about their event to the whole school. I received lots of complaints about the email from other students and I lodged complaints with the administration and brought the matter before the student senate. The actual meeting wasn't anywhere near as bad as the email made it seem, nowhere close to the offensiveness of SJP back in Davis. I'd rate it as mildly upsetting and mostly just lacking in academic worth. That saga continues so more on it later. I went to a senate BBQ afterwards very briefly and managed to be late to contracts. Oh well. Not very good class attendance for the day. I chatted with some friends after class and consequetly missed an ACS meeting. I did manage to go to a slideshow on Alaska in the evening though. I went with very low expectations (slideshows usually suck) but the event was actually pretty amazing. The speaker was an incredible scholar and just all around erson and his photos were breathtakingly beautiful. I learned a lot about the political situation with oil drilling in Alaska and the environmental situation.
Thursday:
We had a senate meeting at lunch and I was all ready to bring up the 1L message board, the need for a new microwave in the cafe, and the inappropriate language of the Quanun email. We got to none of it. The parliamentary procedure of the meeting was terrible. Most of the senators have no familiarity with Robert's Rules of Order. We considered 2.5 clubs funding requests and ran out of time. The meeting took an hour and a half. Totally inefficient. Went to a contracts TA meeting and picked up my materials for the leal methods exam. In the evening I went to the simchat torah party at Barnard and danced all over campus with the torahs until 2AM. Fun times. Much better than studying for leal methods.
Friday:
Got up late. Threw together an outline and some briefs. Went to the computer lab to print them out. Tons of other 1Ls were doing the same thing. Took a gamble and went looking for a bank half an hour before the exam. I needed quarters for laundry. I walked 6 blocks, found one, waited in line, got quarters, and made it back to the law school just in time. The legal methods exam took me the better part of 4 hours. First time taking an exam on a computer. It wasn't that exciting. Got home, did the dishes my roomies allowed to pile up in the sink to have room to make ramen. Ran out of time for ramen by the time I finished doing dishes. Threw on some nice clothes and went to Kesher at Hillel for shabbat. There wasn't even a minyan. Maybe 8 of us. Then Kesher gave us free dinner, ordered from some veggie chinese place. It was only ok. Watched the debate in the piano lounge of the Columbia student center. Kerry whupped on Bush. It was rather satisfying. Now I'm doing laundry. What a week.
Further Weekend Happenings
Yesterday afternoon I sat through a meeting on getting funding for whatever exciting work I decide to do this summer. The meeting was far less than exciting however. I have a bajillion applications and papers to fill out. *sigh* Such is life. Beaurocracy at its best. I meant to go to Hillel for services but I went to the gym and got back to late. The gym did me good though and God will get over it. I did a lot of crunches on a workout ball to remind myself I still have abs. It was refreshing. I made it to Hillel as the service let out and I stuck around for kiddush. Then I waited around in the sukkah for some friends who were 20 minutes late. When they finally showed up we had some dinner (very tasty) and chilled a bit. I had to leave at 9 to get to a grad mier on the lower east side at a club called BLVD on Spring St. and Bowery. It was open bar there from 9-10 but it took me over an hour on 3 subways to get there so I missed that. The event was supposed to be a party for students at NYU and Columbia med, Albert Einstein med, NYU and Columbia law, and assorted other prestigious grad programs. It ended up sucking royally. A bottle of beer was 6 bucks so I stuck to tap water. The cover was already $10 just to get into the stupid place. The people there all seemed to be older and ranged from being lame to complete jerks. Lots of pushing and shoving and no saying excuse me. None of my friends ended up going because it was so far from Columbia so I didn't really know anyone there. Totally crappy event. Stayed an hour to justify my cover charge and then left. Two hours on the subway for one hour of "fun". Hardly worthwhile. I did a ton of text messaging on the subway and went to hang out with a friend in Lenfest on my way home. Returned to my apt at 2AM and IMed and made phone calls until 4. Today I went to a dairy lunch in the sukkah with a few friends and played taboo afterwards with undergrads. Very nerdy but what the hell. Then I went to Butler library to pick up the last book I needed for my cite checking. Did some studying in the law library, made pasta for dinner and studied some more. Go me.
Chinese Moon Festival
My internet has been unreliable lately and it's obstructing my blogging. I'm now in the library where my wireless works to record the details of my life for you. Be excited. Wednesday I had a meeting with my civil procedures TA during lunch. It was as useless as it was mandatory. I also had my required library tour which ran 30 minutes overtime, causing me to miss an appointment with the reference librarian. She had other plans and took off, I missed her by 3 minutes. Big oops. Went to a friend's place for dinner and studying. I brought over a pizza. Not much studying happened so we went to some other people's apartment to watch law and order. They make it into a drinking game. It's somewhat amusing. Thursday I got called on in Civil Procedures and managed to muddle my way through without excessive embarassment. I went to a lunch and lecture with the UN Assistant Secretary General for Public Affairs to hear a pitch on how the UN should be restructured. It wasn't very good. I was supposed to hang out with a friend in the afternoon but she was tired and cancelled so I made up my meeting with the reference librarian instead. After that I made a pitch to the senate budget committee to try to get funds to buy a server and web space for a 1L message board that I've had a committee working on. We have a beta version running and hope to have the whole thing totally functional next week. The treasurer seemed persuaded by my arguments and I'm pretty sure I'll get funding. My next project will be to form a web committee to revamp the senate website which is 2 years out of date. I may also see if I can start a bidding war between local pizzerias for our business to see if we can save some cash on all the lunches that are put on. After the budget meeting I went to an Asian Law Practice info meeting/autumn moon festival party. Basically it was an excuse to eat a lot of chinese food and discuss biotech with some friends. I got myself somewhat put together after the dinner and went down to Times Square for bar review and to watch the presidential debate. The bar was so noisy I really couldn't hear anything but I didn't care too much. My mind is made up anyway so it won't affect my vote. Did the social thing for a few hours with law students from Fordham, Brooklyn, NYU, and other surrounding schools and took the subway home at 1:30AM. The nearest 2 stops were closed so I had to walk 20 blocks along central park, which was somewhat sketchy but I made it ok. Still not much of a bar fan...
