Cupcakes and Torts

I didn't realize that the Dean has Georgetown Cupcakes out in the atrium of our main building every day of the first week of class.  Had I known, I would not have eaten breakfast.

First Civil Procedure class today- I like the professor very much and, though I think Civil Procedure would naturally be my least favorite subject of the four I'm taking, she makes it fun.

There is exactly an hour break on Tuesdays and Thursdays between Civil Procedure and Torts, and I find that to be a maddeningly useless amount of time to do anything reasonable, so I've decided just to make myself very nice lunches on Tuesday and Thursday.  Today I had a bacon egg and cheese sandwich (with a little bit of mustard for tangyness and a bit of hotsauce for kick).  It takes two pans and a toaster, so that's INCREDIBLY intense for what I consider to be cooking.

Torts is probably going to be my favorite class (I don't know, though, I haven't had Legal Research and Writing yet...).  It's a smaller group of about thirty students and our professor makes me feel like I go to Hogwarts for some reason.  She's the first of my professors to employ the true Socratic method, but she's very nice about it and the only thing she can't stand is nervousness or refusal to participate.  Not a problem, since torts are really fun and interesting on their own.

After Torts a fellow classmate introduced me to the cupcake truck that drives near campus sometimes.  I had another cupcake.  It was even better than the one from Georgetown Cupcakes, which is really saying something.

Then gym (which I couldn't use yesterday due to possible hurricane damage) and homework.  I have a deal with myself that I will work hard (well, my version of working hard) up until 7PM every day and then I can do whatever I want.  I'm finished with homework for tomorrow but I might work on stuff for Thursday anyway because David is down here for a job interview and I may get to spend some time with him.  Things like that always take precedence.

The Saw Spins Up

For the first day of class I was eased into law school about as gently as I believe one can be eased in- with one class taught by a professor who had been told by the dean to take it easy on us because some people didn't get their books on time due to the hurricane.  It wasn't bad.  In fact, for a two hour class it was surprisingly engaging.  We discussed the minutia of basic contract law and went through mounds of hypotheticals as to what could and could not be considered a binding contract.  

I offer you a million dollars if you'll get me a cup of coffee?  Probably not a contract.

I offer you fifty bucks to get me a cup of coffee?  A contract, even though I'm stupid to make it.

Bill Gates offers you a million dollars for a cup of coffee?  Possibly a contract.

Bill Gates offers you a million dollars to punch him as hard as you can?  Not a contract. 

etc...

Contracts are good fun.

We'll see about Torts and Civil Procedure tomorrow...

Since I finished my homework-that-isn't-homework-because-only-the-exam-counts, I was able to get a few guys together to play some Quiddler.  I lost, which might make it the first game I've lost since I got here.  Oh well, had to happen sometime.

Natural Disaster, 2d Restatement, §827

Well Irene was sort of anticlimactic here in DC.  It was very windy and very rainy, but it never felt like the good old hurricanes I remember from NC and VA.  It was tame enough that I could even run out to a hurricane party with Jake Reeder and some other WM ATO folk.  I know that it was actually terrible for my friends living near the VA coast and who may or may not have power right now, so I hope that everything is alright down there soon.

Looking out the window yesterday and seeing nothing but rain and wind, I was struck with a sudden urge to do homework.  I only had fifteen pages or so of reading for Monday, so I imagined it wouldn't take too long.

Three hours later I realized that law books are not the kind you can just "read" and be done with.  They're more like a verbal Sudoku puzzle with a grid of indeterminate size.  Cases are filled with tiny details which completely change the law applied, precedents used, and the outcome when compared with another case that, on the surface, looks exactly the same.  Judges, in their opinions, occasionally go off on tangents unrelated to the case which might throw you on a wild goose chase while missing or misreading the one sentence or phrase that actually matters.

I sort of enjoyed it.  Then again, I still haven't had a class yet and so I may be interpreting incorrectly.

Today I might go ahead and do my work for my Tuesday classes, since it seems like that's what everyone else is doing (the building is eerily quiet, but I know they're all here).

Officially Official

So I didn't realize  I wasn't really a law student until yesterday, when the president of the whole university told us that we were officially law students.  Good to know.  All of this happened after a day full of ACTUAL orientation events (how to brief a case, what to expect in class, how to use Lexis/Westlaw, who to call after you have a nervous breakdown, etc...) when they drove all 500 of us to the main campus in a massive logistical undertaking.

This is typical of the buildings on the main campus.  They are very old and have a castle/cathedral vibe.

This is the room wherein we had our opening ceremonies.  It's all pretty and majestic and stuff.

After the speech ("you are duly registered as candidates for the degree of Juris Doctor") they plied us with food and wine again, which I'm getting pretty used to and which they are really skilled at.  Since I was in Georgetown, I met up with Chris Lynch, who is living near there and has a job as an organist at one of the best churches (musically) in the country.  Before going out he let me into the sanctuary and played a few things on the organ which the organist at the National Cathedral called the "best in DC."  I can see how that would be true- it was an amazing sound.

This isn't a great picture, but Chris assures me that this is the staircase used in The Exorcist (that's him standing in front of it).  Or at least the poster for it.  I'm not sure.

We went out to a couple of bars and I was able to introduce Chris to a few new law school friends.  At the second bar there was a live band with just about the most impressive bass player I've ever seen.  An excellent day overall and a good start to what should be a very rainy weekend.

Right, LAW stuff, THAT'S What I'm Doing Here...

This morning I woke up early for a 9:30 lecture about being a prosecutor/public defender.  The professor was fantastic and spoke mostly about how the jobs were different (more fun?) than what is usually seen on TV.  It sort of boiled down to the idea that if you want something proven, you should get a prosecutor.  If you want something poked full of holes, hire a defender.  There are appropriate places and times for each.  He also showed us a clip of when he had two lines as an assistant prosecutor in a movie, because- why not.

After that I went to a lecture given by a professor who had spent twenty-some years of her career trying to free a woman who was wrongly convicted of a first degree murder charge.  It was a difficult story to hear, as she pointed out that the woman was given several chances to plead guilty in order to get out after three years, ten years, etc.... but always turned down the offer because she would rather be in jail than admit guilt (though there is a certain way that you can officially admit guilt but also maintain innocence- isn't law great?).  

Then it was time for my tour of the Harmon Shakespeare Center!  This was led by a professor who reminded us multiple times to remember that there were more things to life than law school and we shouldn't study too hard.  I like him.  On the way over it rained heavily and I got soaked, which I think might qualify as the first unpleasant experience I've had since I moved in, so I suppose I can deal with it.  The center itself was gorgeous (Jerusalem stone imported from Jerusalem, African Cherry Wood imported from Africa, worked in Canada, finished in China, and shipped back to America, etc...) and featured the most flexible stage design I've ever seen.  They can literally, with the flip of a switch, change the acoustics in the room from a .8 second echo to a 2 second echo or anywhere in between.  This is a very difficult thing to do normally, so I'm impressed.  The set for Julius Caesar also looks great- I think I'm going to try and go see it on Sunday, assuming I can make it there through the torrential rains.

There was ANOTHER lecture after the tour about personal ethics and responsibility as a lawyer.  We discussed a case in which a defendant, who was winning a case full of only circumstantial evidence, told his lawyer in confidence that he was actually guilty.  Seems like an easy thing to answer, but as it turns out it was not.  I was pleasantly surprised that most of the people who raised their hands to add something to the discussion actually had something to add to the discussion.  There were no students that I would refer to as "THAT guy."

But maybe I spoke too soon.

In the evening there was a Moot Court featuring some of the faculty (who have collectively argued over 60 cases in front of the actual Supreme Court) which dealt with a fourth amendment issue that will be going to the real court sometime this year.  It's about GPS devices being used to track cars without warrants and it's a legitimately difficult case with excellent arguments to be made on both sides.  My Civil Procedure professor took the anti-government side and deftly sidestepped all of toughest bits (would it be illegal if the tracking were for a short period of time?  How is this different from having extended visual surveillance?).  It was a very very cool evening and reminded me why I wanted to be here.  At the end of the program the students had the ability to ask questions of the "justices" and advocates.  Most of the questions were excellent.  And then we got to THAT guy.  I know for a fact that this was THAT guy because I could feel the entire audience slowly turning against him as he started to not ask a question and continued to not ask a question for about two paragraphs.  It's as though he thought he could come up with something that would make the panel of some of the greatest Supreme Court scholars in the country go "OH!  We didn't think of that!  You're totally right!"

They did not.

As a general rule, I believe that there is no such thing as a stupid question... but you DO have to ask a question when you get up to ask a question.  Otherwise you're just being that guy.

Played another game of 20 questions tonight, some more card games, and monopoly.  I initiated none of that.

Just Another Day at Camp

After a workout in the always-amazing gym this morning I met up with Megan Castle, who is going off to be a teacher in Connecticut tomorrow!  We had a great time even though she had some difficulties driving into the city (I have no regrets about not having a car here).

The main orienteering event of the day was "registration," which is a funny thing to call this event since, as 1Ls, we have all of our classes automatically assigned.  The time served as an excuse for all of the deans of various departments to introduce themselves and talk about what they can do for us.  The financial aid dean was unexpectedly hilarious with his remarks about the recent (bad for us) changes to grad student loans as a result of the recent debt deal.  As I have a (generally vague) plan to go into either public interest or government work, and as Georgetown has one of the best loan forgiveness plans around for those who go into such work, my ability to get riled up about it was diminished.

In the evening we had a welcome address from the dean of the law school, and it was excellent.  Afterwards they had free food set out for us, which was even more excellent.  I'm getting very used to this free food thing.  At the reception I found a BUNCH of Section 5 people (my section) and a lot of us went out to Kelly's, the nearby bar.  Once there we played more games (seriously- if there's one thing I've noticed it's that G-law students LOVE playing ANY kind of game.  Card games, board games, mental games, drinking games- they will find a game for any situation) and I got to know some of the people who will actually be in my classes (up to this point I hadn't really met any).  

There was more game-playing back on dorm once I returned (including a lively discussion about whether it was "duck-duck-goose" or "duck-duck-grey duck"... apparently some of my new friends come from states with weird terminology), and I'm going to go ahead and start calling it a "dorm" instead of an apartment building, because that's what it really is.  Also, I found some homework assignments on my e-mail.  That was new.  I guess I'll get to those on Sunday or so...  I only have one class on Monday so the pressure is really not on.

Tomorrow I get to hang out with the theater geeks as we get a backstage tour and free tickets to see Julius Caesar.  I've been looking forward to that for a while.

You Don't Have to Go Home But You Can't Stay Here

Today started off much as I imagined it would.  I woke up, went on a tour of the buildings on campus, made a sandwich with Ben's panini maker (which makes good sandwiches into GREAT sandwiches), bikeshared over to Tyler's to feed and hang out with Baxter the lonely cat, and got back to campus in time to go on a tour of the library.

This was the first time I had been in the library, and it was everything I expected it to be: enormous, beautiful, and intimidating.  After the tour I was walking with Parker, Jack, and Chelsea and we decided to go look at the mini-cafeteria which was supposedly on the ground floor (the library entrance was on the second floor so we hadn't seen the ground floor on our tour).  We descended the staircase and passed a group of 2L or 3L students doing some sort of work in a glass-enclosed room.  Then the walls and ground started to move and it felt as though a five-thousand pound person had just fallen down the staircase.  I suggested we exit the building and there was general agreement.  The 2L or 3L students who were doing some sort of work in the glass-enclosed room saw our panic and laughed at us, though I still can't figure out why.  It's as though earthquakes hit the library often and it's just something we were supposed to get used to as students.  Silly us.

So we walked out of the library and into a sea of people who had also been busy walking out of their respective buildings.  Then we were directed to move across the street, away from Georgetown's large buildings and directly underneath other, larger buildings that were not Georgetown's.  After standing there for about half an hour and trying (unsuccessfully) to make text messaging work, we got some surprisingly low-priced street food (sweet tea and a hot dog with chili for $3) and went to go sit in the middle of a park away from all the buildings.  This made more sense to us, in general.  It also got us away from the horde of people.

Once in the park we kept up with the status of the school via e-mail updates,  which mostly told us that we wouldn't be allowed to go into any campus building for any reason until further notice.  With that in mind, we started playing a game of 20-questions.  Some of the best and worst objects-of-the-game from the following three hours:

Barack Obama (six questions- fewest questions to an answer)
Moby Dick (twenty questions exactly)
A Scooter (first that took more than twenty questions)
A Treadmill (nineteen questions but most heated argument between guessers about the last few questions)
CJ from West Wing (more than twenty questions and a terrible realization at the end that we never asked "is this a FICTIONAL person")
Elmo (more than twenty questions due to complete inability to ask good questions after "is it a man-made object" was answered in the affirmative)

Around four we finally got the all-clear to head back into our building.  Parker had some reisling and I had some cards so we went to the eleventh floor outdoor seating area (which is a great, great place) to play various card-games.  Most of these games involved slapping the table violently, because, as one of the six players put it: "we do not play bridge."  I forced Parker and Jack to pose with their wine so that I could take a picture of them to show off the view from the 11th floor.

It's not a great picture I took, but it's a great view.

We had a hall meeting (first rule- no alcohol in public areas of the building including outside areas) and then the RFs (resident fellows) took us out in groups to Chinatown.  I ended up eating with Ben and some other guys at Busboys and Poets, where I had a delicious falafel.  Didn't feel like going out to a bar so Ben and Matt and I went back to our room and played a game of Settlers of Catan, which I won by a comfortable margin.  

More orientation/summer-camp fun for tomorrow.  Hopefully no more earthquakes.  I do hear that a hurricane is on its way, so we should have a nice rainy weekend at the very least. 

Narrator

Today summer camp continued in a spectacular fashion.  This morning they gave me a new free T-shirt because I was doing a service project, and I always love free T-shirts.  At noon we took shuttles to our projects.  Mine was with a group called Food and Friends and we had about fifteen people from my section go along.  Food and Friends makes and delivers meals to people living with terminal illness and who otherwise would not have daily access to well balanced meals.  We had multiple jobs, but most of them involved matching packages of food to place into certain boxes.  We were very efficient and I enjoyed getting to know more people in my section (section 5).  It felt good to feel like I was making some small positive impact for the day, too.

After we were finished we went back to campus for food and a debriefing, but the food wasn't there yet.  As we were sitting around one of the guys, who was not in the group playing Mafia last night, suggested that we could play Mafia.  I said "oh, we played that last night" so I got to narrate again as the most "experienced" player.  Law students REALLY like playing Mafia, as I have found out.  Later in the evening one of the people in my section introduced me to their friend as "the narrator named Mike."

After the debriefing I went to feed Tyler's cat since he's out of town, which means I got to use my bikeshare key again.  I love using my bikeshare key.  After that Ben and I decided to go to the baseball game for which Georgetown was offering $10 tickets.   A full-priced ticket would have only been $16, but hey, six bucks of savings.  I'm not a huge sports fan but I did want to continue hanging out with other students for as long as the non-academic times last.

And Ben and I got our picture with TJ!  It wasn't significant to Ben, but I felt the WM connection.

It was $1 hotdog night, so I got two hotdogs and washed them down with an $8 cup of beer because that made good economic sense to me at the time.  After we learned that if the Nats scored six or more runs we'd get free wings at a wing place in Arlington we decided to cheer for the Nats.  Things were looking great in the fourth inning after they scored three runs to add on to the one they scored earlier on, but they apparently were happy enough with just winning against Arizona and didn't feel the need to get us all our free wings by scoring two more runs.  It's okay, we weren't bitter.

After the game a group of us decided to walk back instead of metroing back because it was such a nice night.  It took about an hour but it was a really great walk through some beautiful parts of DC.  

Ben took this picture as we walked by.  I'm sure eventually being able to see this basically anywhere we go will get old, but it hasn't yet.

Another exhausting yet super-fun day that had absolutely nothing to do with the study of law.  What a great system!

Summer Camp is Awesome

So having an entire week of extremely loosely scheduled orientation really makes law school a lot more like summer camp than anything else.  I'm okay with this.  I'm sure they'll make us pay for our funtimes soon enough.

Last night, hanging out with Tyler for a while, I boarded a bus for an "evening monument tour" with the most fantastically politically incorrect busdriver/tourguide ever.  He had stories about every building we passed and didn't stop talking for an hour, which is okay because they were the kind of stories I can't really repeat and those kinds of stories are usually the best kinds.  We stopped off at Lincoln Memorial right after the sunset and everything about the view was spectacular.  Who am I kidding- everything about EVERYTHING has been spectacular so far.  I mean, I've been waiting impatiently for about six months to be here, and it doesn't disappoint.

The best thing about the first two days of orientation is that no one knows anyone else and so everyone walks around awkwardly looking for someone to talk to.  I've met a whole lot of people and I've actually memorized about twenty names so far (I count that as being able to remember their name on at least two separate occasions), which I think is pretty good.  The guy I sat next to on the bus, Louis (from Queens), and I ended up getting along well enough that we decided to team up in finding a party for the evening.  The group grew until we had about eight people, and there was a party for all the 1Ls on the roof of a nearby building so we ended up going to that.  There was a keg on a roof with a view of the whole DC skyline, so... no complaints.  Met a lot more 1Ls and ended up talking and drinking until about two.

Today I woke up and greeted the day with a run to the Washington Monument and back.  The entire circuit starting and ending at my dorm is about 3.3 miles, which is a perfect distance for me right now.  Afterwards I took a shuttle-bus to Potomac Yards, which is a gigantic shopping center outside of DC where Georgetown apparently takes us when we need to go shopping.  I bought a lot of groceries and used a Barnes and Noble gift card to buy Settlers of Catan, thinking that eventually I might find people to play it with me.  When I got back I learned that my roommate, Ben (who so far has all of the qualities of an awesome roommate), also loves playing Settlers.  Within three minutes we had accosted a few of our across the hall neighbors, Matt and Stephen, and played a couple of games.

Also today Pete came to visit (with the distinction of being the first WM person to visit me) and I got to show him our fitness center.  We warmed up on treadmills in front of the sheer glass enclosure, watching an epic lightning storm outside, and then had a great workout in which he showed me how to use all the equipment I've never used before. Afterwards we went for Indian food at Union Station.

After Pete left there was a "welcome luau party," which meant there was more food and cake and tiki torches, for the 1Ls living in this building.  Again I met a lot of cool people, though by this point a core group of people I really enjoy hanging out with began to emerge.  There was talk of playing more board games up in our room, but enough people were interested that we decided to move the event to the study lounge at the end of the hall and play Mafia.  Mafia is a game that revolves mostly around deception and argument, and so having fourteen aspiring lawyers in one room playing the game made it quite unforgettable.  I now know who I don't want to go up against one on one in a mock trial.  We played til 1AM before calling it a night, which we can do because our actual orientation is, as I mentioned, very loosely scheduled and I have nothing until noon.

I'm Here!

Once the computer is set up and the internet is on, I consider that being "moved in."

This is my room!  (Ween and Daddy Jim left about an hour ago and I've continued the setup process.)

 
So far everything has gone great and all the students helping with move-in have been very nice and helpful.  I went and got my ID card and so I think that's everything I'm supposed to do today.  There's a bus tour around 7:30 that I'll be at, but until then I think I'll just wander around and I believe I'm meeting up with Tyler sometime as well.

The only picture I brought (not much space) was my St. George Killing the Dragon by Uccello.  I also have the small dragon that Absi made for me last Christmas and a decorative rock that I was given by a friend in China.  I'm wearing my "Hoya Lawya" shirt because if there's one day that said shirt is super-appropriate, it's today.

Okay, just a quick post on move-in day to say I'm in and things are great.  Off to explore.

Escape Artist

I am known to possess the power to sleep through hurricanes.  It's odd, then, that over the past few days I've found it almost impossible to get to sleep due to some sort of bizarre excitement.  I say bizarre because it's similar to the feeling I had when trying to get to sleep on Christmas Eve when I was still in single digits, except this time Santa is going to give me gifts of 400-page-a-week readings on obscure legal doctrine.  And then in four months he's going to ask me five randomized questions about one of those pages during one of those weeks and my ability to expound on those will determine my entire future.  At least, that's how I hear it's going to go.

Today I said goodbye to my car.  All cars should have names, and mine was named Houdini.  Houdini the Escape. 

I started driving Houdini at the end of my senior year at Woodberry.  Our first trip together was all the way down to Florida, where I first conceptualized a real-life game of "battleship" involving bottle rockets and rowboats (which we did not play).  After that and a trip to the beach, Houdini helped me move myself in to William and Mary.  Being a stupid and silly 18 year old, I figured that I would be able to circumvent on-campus parking regulations by simply parking Houdini ten minutes off campus at a Food Lion.  This actually worked.  After about seven weeks (during which I only visited Houdini once or twice) I realized that I had been parked the entire time under the "no parking overnight- violators will be towed" sign.  Luckily Houdini is a master of disguise, so no one ever towed him. 

Over the years at WM I continued to ask Houdini to help me do the impossible... most of which involved never paying WM parking services.  One day I had parked Houdini in a restricted spot and when I came back I had a parking ticket.  This was to be expected- I knew I couldn't avoid them forever.  Then I looked at the ticket- it was somehow dated for the next day at 6PM.  The next day I walked into parking services at 3PM and said "apparently I'm going to do something wrong in about three hours," while handing them the ticket.  The woman who was keeping watch over William and Mary parking tickets for the day simply tore the ticket up.  Houdini had worked his magic again.

Houdini had a very sensitive accelerator, which allowed for quick escapes in tricky situations.  Houdini took me through the terrible streets of New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Orlando.  Driving through these cities always made me want to stop driving forever, but at least Houdini kept me safe.  At times Houdini was temporarily rebranded- much like any plane holding the President is Air Force One, Houdini became The Man-mobile (for men only), the M-mobile (for people with M names only), and Moving-Truck-One (self-explanatory).  He always remained Houdini the Escape at heart.

Now my sister has him and is driving him off to UNC-Asheville as I write this.  I took this picture as she left.  I have already told her she is not allowed to rename him.  With luck, he will continue to perform his tricks as admirably for her as he did for me. 

There Can Be Only One

Today was the Johnson family reunion.  Attendance has slowly declined over the years, but there is always a pretty sizeable crowd of people I mostly don't know and whose names I will never remember.  Every year (that I can remember) my grandmother suggests that we get nametags for the next year.  We never do.  It's probably because she only married into the family and so isn't one of the lucky few born with the Johnson name (which gives the requisite clout to enact sweeping changes like nametag reform).  Technically, the reunion will one day become the obligation of me and my heirs, as I am the only male Johnson in the most recent generation.  When I am in charge, there will be nametags.  They will help in situations like today when, for example, a relative I didn't know came up to Rachel and me and said that he hadn't recognized us and thought we were a young married couple.  I feel as though that's the kind of observation which, on realization of its inaccuracy, I would keep to myself.  You know, because it's awkward.

This evening, when I went out to dinner with my parents, two separate people commented that I looked much younger than I actually am.  That, while not exactly desired in my case, is a much better observation to make and share.

Most of the day was taken up with sorting through clothes and culling the herd of my weakest attire.  I now have a corner of the living room set up as a staging ground for my departure on the 19th.  The other corner of the room is Rachel's staging area.   One week from now I will be totally moved in and hopefully getting to know my fellow residents. 

It's an interesting thought- there are hundreds of people whose names I don't even know with whom I will be thrust into the crucible that is law school.  In the past- Woodberry, William and Mary- similar conditions have resulted in my finding the best friends I could imagine being lucky enough to have.  Before Woodberry I would have had no concept what it meant to know Beau or Tyler or Liza or a hundred other people.  Before William and Mary, how could I have even understood the impact that Kay or Absi or David or another hundred people would have on my life?  Who's going to do the equivalent of sitting on my lap before asking my name?  Who will I first meet in a kitchen late one night while making rice krispy treats?  Or while in a performance of some sort?  Who will I hate on the first day only to love by the last?  Who will take, with no hint of shame, my last slice of pizza?  Who will express unhappiness over a nickname?  Who will inordinately hate my bagpipes (though that probably applies to more of my friends than have directly told me)? 

Do I EXPECT to make wonderful friends in law school?  No, and I hadn't really even thought about it until recently.  Not only is it not something you can plan on, but I also can't fathom any missing personality type in the list of people I care about and want to hang out with.  And yet... statistically (and historically), I feel as though at the end of three years there will be at least one more person I can't imagine not having known forever.  It's a natural outcome of close quarters, shared experience, and time.  A pleasant unexpected consequence to this whole adventure.  I'm sure that there will be unpleasant unexpected consequences, so I'll happily take what I can.

I imagine that in a few years I will look back over this blog to jog my memory about my thought process going in to this ordeal and reflect on what a fool I was and I'll think: "What?!  There was a time I didn't know _____ ______?  I don't even remember what that would feel like." 

To all my friends who have helped shape the course of my life over the last ten years in particular: thanks for being irreplaceable, influential, and unique enough so as to render any thinking of my life before I knew you into a paradox. 

I'm a Model

I went shopping with my grandmother the other day because apparently many of my clothes are falling apart.  I have historically not liked shopping very much, but I've developed coping mechanisms like being agreeable and allowing others to make decisions for me.  Others who care about me and who don't share my fashion-ambivalence.  I'm all outfitted to look like a respectable law student now, and I even got some new shoes.  

 

 This is my casually-formal-all-purpose-walking shoe.

And my totally non-casual sneakers.

The next day (I really don't know if it was the next day- I've lost all conception of time) Mom and I went to go see a new art exhibit in nearby Graham.  It was something about "stepping into impressionism" but neither of us had any idea what that would entail.  As it turns out, the exhibit was a bunch of lifesized statues based on impressionist paintings.  Very cool concept.  Observe:

Poppy Field by Monet  (don't think this is the exact inspiration but close enough)

The same, but as a statue.

In the Conservatory by Manet

The same, but now you see that Manet cut me out of the painting.

It was pretty awesome.  Then we got a banana split because we were driving back and passed a "soda shop" which seemed suitably out of place and time to justify a stop.  It was excellent and we learned that it was the last banana split they had because they were out of bananas.   My natural good luck streak continues.

Now I've got one more quick roadtrip in Houdini the (Ford) Escape and a little bit of packing to do, and then I... uh... walk into a buzz saw.  Finally the title of the blog has purpose!

Holding Pattern

It's been a busy busy month of July, what with the moving and the wedding and the musical finishing and all, but now I'm safely back in North Carolina and I have... not all that much to do.  Oh, I still have some music to work on, but I no longer have any huge thing looming... except for moving up to DC in 17 days.  I suppose I'll just enjoy my relative downtime while I have it.

One thing I've been able to do is watch a lot of TV commercials, which I haven't done all year since I didn't have cable.  I try to use what I learned getting a degree in marketing to figure out why on earth some of the commercials are as bizarrely bad as they are, but I guess I'm just missing something.  A lot of the yogurt commercials, especially, seem to be pushing a really negative portrayal of women in general as ravenous dessert-eating fatties who can be easily tricked by dessert-flavored yogurt.  And this advertisement works.

I signed up the other day for my orientation activities- I like the way they've planned things out.  The day before "orientation" starts I'll be going with a small group from my section to volunteer at the Food and Friends organization in DC, which sounds like a great way to help out and start getting to know classmates.  During orientation itself there are several small tours led by faculty members... jogs around monuments, bike-rides, civil war tours, tours of detention centers, etc....  The tour I picked takes us on a backstage tour of the Harmon Center and gives us free awesome seats to a production of Julius Caesar.  Backstage tour and free tickets at one of the best Shakespeare theaters in the country?  Well, I GUESS that's alright.

Also I went to the dentist today and, while I had an excellent checkup, they did note that I had a lot of red wine stains on my teeth this time.  THANKS Brian and Kay.  All your fault.