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.
