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.