Law School Begins

August 19, 2011
I wake up super early to get into the city because orientation is at the courts in Chinatown. Surprisingly, I’m able to get there in an hourish from my house taking the bus and 7 train and then subway downtown. The court we walk into has an interesting felony case, but the stuff is way dry and I basically fall asleep. I then basically fall asleep when they give us horrible speeches. One from the dean and one from a District Judge. On the other hand, one of the deans gives a honest, funny, and inspiring speech. She’s quite awesome and I really enjoyed it.
We get out by 3:15 and I immediately go to a Starbucks to change into sneakers and jeans that I brought. Yeah, I brought a change of clothes because I really did not want to be walking around in slacks and shoes.
I head over to the MET and get a quick walk around. For some reason, my legs start giving up on me and I can’t cover as much as I wanted and end up trying to find anywhere I can sit.
Bolanos comes into the city because I wanted to make plans for the night. We get some Porchetta for dinner and then it suddenly starts pouring like crazy. After a bit, we go to International because it’s close and we don’t really need to walk around in the rain. We hang there for a bit and then go to Keybar, a place I’ve been meaning to go to for a while. It turns out to be a pretty sweet bar with a Happy Hour until 10PM. We give up on the night and take a 11:19 back. Scott is home and able to pick us up from the train station. We go to Bolanos’ basement with a few beers and Spamps and Miah come. We listen to some music, shout about bullshit, I call Bolanos out for being a bigot, etc. etc.

August 20, 2011
At night, I go to Forest Hills to meet up with the Asian crew for an apartment party. We start off with Cranium, which my team obviously wins at. Then a few more people show up and we start some beer pong/flip cup game. The both are combined into one and enforces a lot more drinking and allows for loads of people to play. It’s 5 girls against 5 guys and I think we end up winning. I end up leaving by 4-5:00 and getting home by 6-7:00.

August 27, 2011
I sit around during the day, not really worried about the hurricane that’s supposed to come. I nerd it up by watching MLG for Starcraft 2 and GGsLive for the Magic Grand Prix. Both are streamed online and show the tournaments that are occurring this weekend.
I write a card for Tracy because her birthday is today. I run to H Mart and collect the ingredients for a German dinner because I have a bag of spaetzle to use. After more nerding with some No Reservations and Luther, I head to make dinner. I do a mighty good job making jaegerschnitzel (pork schnitzel with mushroom cream sauce). I make it with cheese spaetzle. I have it with a Hofbrau, making it a legit dinner.
I should’ve jumped on top of doing stuff with people because the storm is a joke so far. Just a bit of rain, nothing much, but we don’t end up doing that and it’s a waste of a night, but whatever, I still have this six pack, so I guess that’s where the night is going.
Ela ends up being on Skype at around 12:00, which means 6AM for her. I’m confused as to why, but it turns out she was out. Boy, I never get back from my night at that time.

September 2, 2011
Class so far hasn’t been too bad. The day to day reading adds up so I have to stay ahead, but I’m pretty studious about that, especially when I haven’t had Internet since Monday. For some reason, the Internet decided go out after the hurricane and all that business.
I should start worrying about the bigger picture stuff though. That’s what the exam will be on. The day to day individual cases and reading aren’t too hard to take in, but figuring out where they all fit into the course and being able to combine all those concepts into writing is where I need to be. It’s still super early, but the stuff isn’t too challenging too far so I feel like keeping busy.
Ela’s been preparing to move and stuff because she starts her move to school next week, across the country to the south. I’ve been keeping up with her, especially this one day we both had nothing to do. I decided to sit in the library because it would be super boring at home. This is like the time I was in my NYC apartment and the Internet didn’t get installed for a week so I had to just stay in the NYU library like 12 hours a day. Ela got to see the inside of that library and I guess the CUNY one now.
At night, it’s Erdem’s birthday so we go to Arepas Café, which turned out a lot worse than last time. The chicken one was like chicken salad. The meats were dry. There crispy arepa shell and sauces held it up though. I actually really like the ham and cheese one, despite it sounding boring.
After that, we meet Tom, Scott, and CNF at beer garden. CNF’s back! He’s been doing well and such.
Story time: Bolanos and I walk by the club that we went to once in the area that turned out to be super super lame. You could’ve find more guys at a club despite the fact that they were giving free entrance and booze to girls and they were also charging guys a cover.
We made fun of two guys that tried to get into the club with their hats, despite a no hats policy. One guy stuffed his hat into his pants and was found out by the bouncer. It was hilarious and ridiculous to see that. I can barely walk because I’m constantly holding my stomach and stopping to catch my breath from laughing so hard. I’m just trying to envision seeing two grown ass men in an alley trying to stuff hats down their pants and that image is enough to get me going.
Story time: I tell the fellas about this women, she’s in the 30s, that goes to my school and how she curses because she used to be a construction worker. After class, with 5-6 of us in the room, she’s talking with someone (not even a good friend) and somehow the conversation turns into talking about a fuck buddy she has. We’re pretty much strangers to her and she’s really revealing a hella lot. She mentions how he’s useless and only good for sex or what not. Jeez, she’s sharing a shit ton.
Bolanos tells me about this guy at his school that did this to him directly. There was some situation that this guy got into maybe about a girl in his house and he was asking Bolanos for his advice. This isn’t common conversation like weather. This is a stranger talking about banging a girl and why is he sharing this with Bolanos.
I’m laughing right now thinking about it, but I suggested that Bolanos tell a very similar story, with set up and everything. He would talk about how he was upstate and at a stable. And then the story slowly creeps into how Bolanos was trying to have sex with a horse. The guy’s response would’ve been priceless. I would pay so much to see that occur.
Either way, I’m a class or two ahead in my readings and work, so I should be pretty free this weekend. I’m excited for my time off and I should get off my ass and figure something to do.

September 3, 2011
I wake up by 12:00 because I haven’t been sleeping well for the past few days for some reason. It’s good to get a good recharge so I’m super set for today. After a nasty breakfast because I have nothing to eat in the house. It’s my lunch that I didn’t end up bringing to class a few days ago, a container of plain chicken breast, black beans, and frozen mixed vegetables with a bit of salsa. It’s dry, it’s bland, and super boring, but healthy as hell I guess.
After that, Ela is getting ready for a big night out. She’s hanging with people over on Skype while I’m just getting some writing done. Donezo, now it’s time to plan my weekend. Get it done.

September 12, 2011
My friend Lizzie that I met in Paris is in town. She’s Australian and lives in London and here for fashion week. I meet her and her Austrlian friend in the city and bring them down to Katz’s for some late dinner at around 10:00. Afterwards, we go to the tattoo shop on St. Marks where they met a tattoo guy because they’re looking for weed. They end up buying some spice, which I’ve never heard about. We sit around Bull McCabe’s for a bit and I eventually leave because there’s class tomorrow. It’s an interesting situation because there’s two pierced up tattoo guys, a Mexican dude, and a weird skinny guy.

September 13, 2011
I go into the city again to grab some dinner with Lizzie and Emily. We go to Nice Green Bo for some soup dumplings, which I’ve been planning to go to for a while now. Afterwards, I go to their hotel near Radio City and they smoke some salvia. I try a little bit, but it doesn’t really hit me. They then have some spice, which I have and it ends up working like weed. I sit there for a while and they end up passing out real hard so I let myself out and go home.
When I get home, I find out that it’s a chemical based substance that is supposed to mimic weed. If I wasn’t told what it was, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

September 14, 2011
I planned on sitting in today, but they called me again to have some dinner. I grab dinner with them at Kenka and then we sit around at Fat Cat because Lizzie isn’t 21 yet and the city sucks for anyone under 21. We then take a drive around the city for a bit and then I drop them off at where they’re staying.

September 15, 2011
I’m supposed to drop off Lizzie at the airport today because I’m too nice. However, from campus to SoHo, the BQE is backed up so bad that it takes an hour. Lizzie doesn’t have a phone on her and she’s waiting for me. Her brother calls me from London and asks what my situation is. I then find out that she needs to go to Newark, which there’s no way I can bring her to. I end up getting to the apartment and finding out that she caught a cab or something to Newark, so hopefully she caught her flight.
Emily is still in the city for a few days so I meet up with her for dinner at L’Asso.

September 17, 2011
I end up msging Lizzie on FB to make sure that she’s okay. Her brother seemed appreciative, However, she never gets back to me nor thanks me for the effort of going all the way into the city and that bizznast. Yo, screw that shit.

September 19, 2011
I need a new keychain :(

Note to girls: I will take gifts as a sign of 100% romantic interest so please be advised before you think about being nice.
I had to write about this because it was too funny. Not in a bad way, just Kenny showing in a few words who Kenny is. This is a status update he had on FB.
So understandable, he needs a keychain. Posting it up on FB shows a bit of an invitation for people to get him something, especially if it’s something small like a keychain. Then bam, he has to backhand ask for help because if a girl gets him something, boom, he’s going to fall for your ass. “You wanna be nice to me? Oh yeah? I’m fall in love with you bitch and I’m going to smother you with all the love I got. You willing to take that on?! Huh? Punkass!”
I’m sure it’s all a joke or something, but it’s just so playfully abrasive. I enjoy the wit.

September 21, 2011
I’m sitting in a dicking around mandatory seminar that they forced us into. It’s about “ managing time and “stress.” I personally am offended by this. Yes, really offended. It’s fucking patronzing. I’m a grownass mothershitting man. They’re trying to tell us that we’re going to eventually be lawyers. Then treat us like real fucking adults. This is so ridiculous that I have to be babied around by the idea that I should have a calendar. That I need to do simple stuff like shower. That I should understand I shouldn’t be on Facebook all the time. That I need to set deadlines for my outlines, midterms, and finales. That law school is “soooo hard.”
No asshole, it’s doable. You have to man up (or adult up if you want to be gender neutral), sit down, stop procrastinating, and do the work. Just do the work. It’s not superhuman stuff. Don’t make it seem like some titanic task like we’re part of the Manhattan Project. Give it to us real, we’re adults, and we can do this.
There’s a list of things that take up our time, our classes, extracurricular activities, readings, outlining, even personal life, eating, hygiene, and exercise. Everything in our whole lives that could be occupied by time. The missing thing? This: Professional Development Time. This time I’m in this thing is real damn time. It’s taking away from my reading and work that I will end up having to do later.
I hear people after class talk about it and I’m glad to hear some people have similar responses. Someone in front of me is outraged by it and does not need to hear them teaching us we need to us a computer and stupid simple stuff. It’s important that people can show their individualism and understand when they are being patronized. This seminar is the definition of something that completely undermines law school and the goal of the lawyering profession, but more importantly, personal dignity.