NYU Excursion

Oddly I went to crim this morning. Odd because I woke up late, around 9:15. I didn't think I would go. I didn't want to go. But the bathroom was occupied and I couldn't take a shower anyway so I figured I might as well throw some clothes on and get cleaned up after class. Perhaps I was also prompted by the recollection of how much money I'm paying for the stupid class. In any case, I showed up (wearing Tevas in spite of the freezing weather) and proceeded to waste the hour playing online poker. Went home after class and took my shower. Much better. I'm never awake until bathe. Shaved and put on a suit in anticipation of afternoon interviews. Went to Simpson Thatcher for lunch on the East side. There were about 20 of us. The firm sent Lincoln Towncars to pick us up, which was nice. It's a pain to get to the East side by subway and all. The food was ok, no better or worse than previous lunches. The building was pretty nice, but to a large extent, an office is an office. Big place though. 700 attorneys. Add support staff and there were probably more people in the one building than in my undergraduate graduating class. The attorney's talked about themselves as usual, pretty boring but it's the price of lunch. I had an interview scheduled at 3:06 at NYU so I skipped out of the firm when they tried to start a tour at 2:45 and went across the street to Grand Central Station. It looked like a cool place but I had no time to enjoy it. Caught the 6 line to the West Village and speed walked to NYU Law School. Bumped into a fellow Clumbian on the way who saved me precious minutes by pointing me to the right building for registration. It was 3:03. Luckily my interview was in the same building as registration. Arrived 2 minutes early. Incredible. The interview was with the New York City Campaign Finance Board. They oversee election fundraising and try to keep an even playing field. I think the interview went ok. The guy talked too much and didn't ask enough questions but I got him straightened out a bit towards the end. Not a very exciting sounding job anyway. Ran into more Columbians and cruised over to the law school for drop in interviews. I talked with representatives from the Brennan Center for Justice and the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The latter seemed interesting. The former did not. Grabbed some baked goods from the symposium and went for a walk in Washington Square Park with a friend. Kicked around for a while taking in the village and then headed to the Bronfman Center on E. 10th. It's NYU's Hillel house. Met a professor from Berkeley in the lobby who asked me to go look at a painting she did on the 2nd floor. Even gave me her contact info to tell her what I thought. Guess I'll send her a note tomorrow. Also met the Koach co-chair and talked with her and some Kesher board members until services started. Also some girl named Dawn from Fordham. Turns out they don't have Hillel there, I didn't realize it was a religious school (can't remember if it was Lutheran or Jesuit). Met tons more people as they flowed in and then went to the 2nd floor for conservative services. Pretty normal, nice prayer books with big text. My eyes are so tired by that point in the day that it's nice to have big text. Went to dinner at one of the dorms with a mix of Jewish students, seemed like a lot of orthodox, but some of everything. Accidentally ended up at a table full of freshman. Not wonderful, so I left after a quick and fairly low quality dinner (Columbia gets better food) and went back to the Bronfman center to hang out with the more Reform crowd. There was a busload of students from Muhlenberg, a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, as well as the NYU folk. They seemed nice but must be crazy to drive 6 hours round trip for a 3 hour dinner. Still, cool to make more contacts at another locale. Had dessert and listened to the NYU Jewish acapella group. Sadly, I must admit they blew Pizmon out of the water. Amazing voices. Hung out until about 11:30 when the Koach co-chair did me a favor and walked me back to the subway. Long ride homw. The trains all stop at every stop at that time of night and they get packed with people going home from parties. Lots of drunkeness. It was a good day overall though. Met lots of new people. Saw new places. Made new contacts. Now if only I could get my moot court brief done this weekend would be pretty sweet. More on that tomorrow.  ¶ 11:21 PM