Week One

Well, it's that time again.  Real classes haven't started yet, but Georgetown has a program called "Week One" during which we spend a week analyzing a complicated international law problem as a group.  Ours has to do with the contract surrounding the construction of a dam in Laos.  My group is playing the role of the American company that ordered barges from a French company in order to help with the construction.  The French company was burning tires in order to keep their costs down, and the outlawing of that practice in China sent their costs skyrocketing and as a result they are trying to rescind the contract on the basis of impracticability/impossibility.  Fun stuff!

As another part of the week we're doing teambuilding exercises.  The first one asks us to imagine that we were in a helicopter crash somewhere in the remote snowy wilderness and were able to salvage twelve items.  We are to rank the items in order of survival importance, then rank them again as a team, and then compare our rankings to the rankings of survival experts.  With any luck, years of watching Man vs. Wild will help me out here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself- before I got home (where I received a heartwarming reception from Ben/Davia/Jeff/Emily/Margaret/etc... (a surprise-attack on my way to the elevator was involved)) I went up to Boston to visit Beau!

As an added bonus, David also lives in Boston (he's studying at another law school up there- not a great one, but, you know, pretty good.  Forget the exact name.  Starts with an H.  Anyway...) and was getting out of class just as I arrived on the T (I am now excellent at navigating large cities).  We set up camp at a bar and then met with Beau and Jen once he got out of work.  We went out to dinner with them and Beau's roommate Ben (I have really got to stop meeting people named Ben-it's starting to confuse me, even) and had a great time.  As would be expected, my former roommates got along swimmingly.  It's as though they had something in common.

We all went back to Beau's apartment so that he could test out his new Margaritaville machine.  I must say, it seems to have been an excellent investment because it made some pretty great margaritas.  While there, someone (it may have been Jen) pointed out (with no prompting from me) that David looked like Vince Vaughn.  Someone pulled up a picture for comparison, and we took a picture.

It's not super close, but it's closer than it should be.

The next day Beau and I woke up at 4:30AM (three hours of sleep yay) to hop on a bus and go to Stowe in Vermont.  I had never gone skiing in Vermont, and so I was expecting some variation of the east coast skiing I was used to: the kind where it takes about one minute to get all the way down the mountain and twenty for the chairlift to take you back up.  I was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case.  The mountain was huge, had a gondola lift, and had really excellent snow.  The last time Beau and I went skiing together, we were both either sixteen or seventeen (I forget which) and Beau decided to try snowboarding for the first time (I did too, but after three days I gave up on life. Not just snowboarding, but life.  Never before and never since has an activity so utterly sapped me of my will to go on.). 

But Beau was pretty good at it so he kept doing it.

This picture was supposed to have a mountain in the background.

We made the most of our time on the slopes between 9 and 4PM, breaking only for lunch.  On our last run I pulled out my camera and filmed a bit, because I can and I do dumb things like hold expensive technology while heading down a steep slope.  Because, you know, nothing bad could ever happen there.

Well, it didn't this time, at least.  

Come for the views, stay for my scintillating commentary about fog and cameras.  

At four we returned our equipment and had time for a drink at the lodge.  There was a very decent band playing.

Then we drove back to Boston where I pretended for Beau that I was interested in watching football because the Saints were playing.  (Actually it was a good game, so I did sort of grudgingly enjoy it.)  A most excellent weekend!  Special thanks to Beau for planning it all!

Winter Law School Summer Camp

Okay, so I've been having too much fun in this pre-second-semester week.  I'm sure I'll pay for it starting on Monday.

I've been learning lines (the Guildenstern "Unicorn" speech is one of my monologues ever), finalizing applications for summer internships (fingers crossed), checking out what I need to start thinking about doing for next semester (more books?!), and doing other useful things (cleaning my room is useful, right?).

But mostly I've been singing songs in G12 with Emily Goo, going to museums to see the dinosaurs and the squid/alien from Independence Day (and yesterday I wasn't the first person to make that comparison so it's not just me), trying to go ice-skating (but going to another museum because the rink was closed), hanging out with Margaret and her brother and Mike W, playing racquetball with Stephanie R, having sushi with Pete, having quiche with Tyler and Bitsy, and taking a trip to Boston to see Beau (well, I'm doing that tomorrow, but it belongs on the list).

Emily brought an entire suitcase full of musical songbooks for our epic and silly singalong day.

This compares very favorably with the Law School Summer Camp over the summer, with the added bonus that now I know the people I'm hanging out with a lot better.  Looking forward to getting back from Boston on Sunday and seeing Jeff, Davia, roommate Ben, other Ben, and the rest who are returning over the weekend.  

Happy New Year!

David and I spent the entirety of the first day of 2012 at an Italian restaurant having lunch and then dinner.  We didn't plan it, we just lacked the motivation to leave after lunch was over and were having such a good discussion that eventually it was just dinnertime.  And then I slept for twelve hours.  We had a full weekend.

On Friday I did some musical singalong with Emily Goo in G12 (I'm probably actually going to do exactly the same after I finish writing this post).  Afterwards we met up with Trevor and Amy Reno to get some food.  At some point while eating someone provoked some sort of staring contest and ended up not blinking for a timed ten minutes, which is nice to know that I can do if I ever need to be a Hannibal Lecter impersonator when I grow up.  After dinner I met up with David and we headed out to Adams Morgan to meet up with Adam Cohen and a bevy of other William and Mary folk.  The bar they were at put liquor in ketchup bottles and handed you a shot glass into which you were to squeeze the spirits.  Great idea!  After that bar we got a little hungry so we stepped into jumbo slice.  The only picture I currently have from this weekend is David with his jumbo slice pizza.

You can see why I felt compelled to take a picture.  No false advertising at Jumbo Slice...

Then we went with the group to the club next door, where I got to explain, as is tradition, that I am perfectly happy just standing and listening to the music and have no urgent need to dance- ever.  Eventually they believed me and I had a very nice evening.  David and I ended the night around 4AM on the roof of Gewirz taking in a wonderful view of the Capitol, which we suspect might cost quite a bit to keep lit up 365 nights a year.

When we awoke the next... afternoon (it was morning to us) I got a text from Margaret telling us that we were going to come to a Georgetown basketball game with her and her friend.  So that's what we did.  We won.  Yay.  I was very invested in the outcome of the game, obviously.  She then made us VERY fancy coffee (putting Starbucks to shame and putting her in the running with  Jeff for "classiest person I know") while planning for her own New Years Eve party later that evening.  David and I took our leave and walked towards the Georgetown area.

We had New Years Eve dinner with the Brian (who forgot to bring Shockball even though it was in his care- it's almost like he did it on purpose.... but then, who wouldn't want to play Shockball?), Kay, Kacey, Megan, Josh, Neena, etc... at a great Indian place.  This one had no inappropriate Bollywood videos playing (which I forgot to mention was a distinguishing feature of the Indian restaurant in my last post).  After the restaurant we went to Kacey's hotel room for cookie cake (it is her birthday in a few days and cookie cake is a good idea EVERY day) and then headed out to our NYE club in Georgetown.  It was the same place we went last year and hopefully some pictures from the club will pop up on Kayface's blog or on facebook and I will move them over to their rightful place on this blog.  

Sometime after midnight we headed back to the hotel and David and I took a cab over to the Eastern Market area (we really covered DC over the weekend) to meet up with Cohen and friends along with a newly arrived Jake Reeder.  We had more fun times playing a game called Boom which I first played while hanging out with the same group during the hurricane (Irene).  Then David and I walked home on the empty streets of DC around 5AM, completing an excellent and exhausting New Year weekend filled with friends, old and new, from Woodberry, William and Mary, Georgetown, and DC in general.  Couldn't imagine a better start to 2012.  

Dear Employers. Please Hire Me

Well, I'm back in DC and I just finished finalizing twelve cover letters for summer internship applications.  As I was researching the organizations and writing the letters, I realized how legitimately excited I was about each of the places I chose to apply.  This was nice.  I hope to get an interview with... maybe one or two of them.  That might be asking a lot.

Last night I got to see Absi and Kayface and Brian for dinner, which was lovely.  Kay and Brian got me season one of the BBC series Sherlock and have assured me that I will love it (which, since they know me reasonably well, is probably true).  David is coming over tonight to start one of our traditional multi-day pizza and video-game fests, and I am very excited about that.

Ghost of Christmas Past

Merry Christmas everyone!  We had a great (if unseasonably warm) one in Burlington.  Last night Rachel and I made a vegetarian Moroccan tagine as Christmas Eve dinner.  It was a great success. 

 

She did not shove her hands in the hot skillet.  I'm so proud of her.

Today I received many wonderful gifts, including a bottle of Glenlivet (my first holiday liquor gift- I feel like such an adult), a framed photo montage of Curtains, tickets to The Book of Mormon, a donut-maker, and a photobook full of pictures from my childhood that I have never seen up until today.  Most of them are... extremely embarrassing.  In lieu of an actual post, I will just scan in a few of my favorites.

The Mike in this picture WISHES someone would mistake him for Harry Potter.

 I am Batman. (Read that in the Christian Bale Batman voice.)

 Rachel remains normal looking in almost all these pictures.

 

But not everyone is so lucky.  At least I know from whence I got my general nerdiness.  

Thanks, Aunt Deb.  Uncle Bob- I have lots more of these.

 I did not scan in the many, many pictures of naked-infant-Mike. You're welcome.

We Were Students Once, and Young

My brief trip to Williamsburg was delightful, as always.  Absi and Zan picked me up at the train station and we went out to our traditional Mexican place, La Tolteca.  The owner still recognized us, I think!  Meimei and Absi's mom joined us and we had an excellent time.

The next day we went into Colonial Williamsburg to eat at the Cheese Shop, as is tradition, and then walked around.  Some of the shops had hilarious holiday setups.  One included an angry polar bear.

 

Absi and Meimei were scared.

 

I really don't know why we thought the polar bear was such a great picture backdrop, but it's really the only place we took pictures all day.

That evening Absi told me that I wanted to watch Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas.  Well, how could I say no to something that I was told I wanted to watch?  It turned out to be a very sweet Disney movie and vastly exceeded my extremely low expectations.  

Today I took the train back to Burlington, where I went out to Thai with Mom and Rachel.  Back at home Rachel decided to make some sort of chex-based dessert.  It involved melting chocolate chips in the microwave and then pouring the melted chocolate onto the chex.  I'm not sure that Rachel realized that molten chocolate fresh out of the microwave is... sort of hot... because she just shoved her hands right in the bowl in order to mix the chex and chocolate and ended up burning her hands and screaming.  It was hilarious.  In my infinite compassion I pulled out my phone and took pictures.

One day I think Rachel will forgive me for putting this online.  One day.

(No sisters were harmed in the making of this post.  She's fine.)

On Really Good Things

Hugo is a really good movie.  I highly recommend it.  I got the chance to go see it while celebrating Chris L's birthday on Monday.  The birthday party also involved fish and chips (the BEST fish and chips), chocolate cake, and champagne, so obviously it was great.  The night before I finally made it to an Evensong service at Chris's church and I got to hear him play the organ.  Absolutely gorgeous.  I realized about halfway through the service, though, that this was the first Anglican service I had been to and that I had no idea what everyone was doing.  I figured things out through context.  Guy is swinging an incense ball at your head?  Bow.  Then he'll bow back and swing the incense ball at your head again.  Then you nod at him once more.  I heard this was originally used in temples to mask the smell of animal sacrifice.  At the sound of the bell, everyone kneels.  Why a bell?  No idea.  Didn't get the historical reasoning behind this.  Maybe an angel gets his wings.  Anyway, the real takeaway is that my friend Chris is ridiculously talented at playing the organ and is also a year older. 

Last night I went to hang out with the remnants of GULC and David Husband, who is on break and who I convinced to come into town and sleep on my air mattress.  I often stay up late.  When I don't have a given schedule my body reverts to owl mode and and I find myself up at 3AM and sleeping until noon.  I can't explain why.  That said, it is very rare that I ever stay up past 5AM.  I did so last night though.  Why?  I'm going to go ahead and blame David Husband and the remnants of GULC.  I think the last time I legitimately stayed up until five I was also with David.  And it was in college.  We may be getting too old for this. 

Right now I'm on a train heading for Williamsburg.  The plan is to meet up with Absi and Zanzibar and Meimei and have a colonially good time.  Then on Friday- home for Christmas!  Safe travels to everyone who is traveling over the next few weeks- I know there will be a lot of it.