"And the wisemen started tokin', and ye, the bud was kind. It was salvation they were smokin', and his forgiveness blew their mind".
My season in complete.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Hysterical
I'm glad Hulu posted this.
"And the wisemen started tokin', and ye, the bud was kind. It was salvation they were smokin', and his forgiveness blew their mind".
My season in complete.
"And the wisemen started tokin', and ye, the bud was kind. It was salvation they were smokin', and his forgiveness blew their mind".
My season in complete.
Feelin' Free To Be Fee Free
I recently discovered all the glory of LSAC Fee Waivers, and feel pretty inept for not picking up on these earlier. I mean, I knew about them, but figured it was a way for schools to game the USNews system. Anyway, I guess I don't care about that anymore, and after $36 I have three more schools applied to. Two reaches, one for location and scholarship purposes. And two Sam Adams Winter Lager's later, I emailed Tulane and Indiana-Bloomington asking for fee-waives and am a'waitin'.
Happy holidays to me.
Also, today was a great day at the mission. As many awesome people as I met, I felt compelled to send them off with a "hope I never see you again". Sadly, and if I'm back home around this time next fall, I feel like I will, and my heart will break all over again.
I can't explain how energizing it feels to be with people who desperately need anyone. Everything feels like it is in it's right place. And I don't mean someone just to help them or feed them, our government does that and is an example of how it can be done in a shitty manner sometimes, but just to talk to them. Put a hand on their shoulder. Say hello.
It's just that simple, but all too often just that hard.
Tomorrow is back to the mission early A.M., all the while with visions of more fee waivers dancing through my head.
Happy holidays to me.
Also, today was a great day at the mission. As many awesome people as I met, I felt compelled to send them off with a "hope I never see you again". Sadly, and if I'm back home around this time next fall, I feel like I will, and my heart will break all over again.
I can't explain how energizing it feels to be with people who desperately need anyone. Everything feels like it is in it's right place. And I don't mean someone just to help them or feed them, our government does that and is an example of how it can be done in a shitty manner sometimes, but just to talk to them. Put a hand on their shoulder. Say hello.
It's just that simple, but all too often just that hard.
Tomorrow is back to the mission early A.M., all the while with visions of more fee waivers dancing through my head.
Striken
Well, wasn't picked for jury duty. It's cool really, I wouldn't pick me either. I knew if I was asked if I had plans after graduation, and if I had to mention law school, I wouldn't serve. And not only were those the first two questions asked, but I was the first juror to answer. It probably didn't help that my answer on torts had five other jurors agree, two of which ended up serving. From my lay perspective, having a snot-nosed 22 year-old kid who puts thoughts into words that five older people would simply agree with (didn't exactly give an agreeable answer, unless everyone can put "accountability v. holistic, social good", "arbitrary" and "capricious" yet "necessary" behind certain general torts and feel ok with it.. I honestly considered saying "they're retorted", since I figured I had no hope of serving anyway) isn't someone I'd want to make a case before.
Plus I was on voir dire on a civil matter, something which my answer on torts showed I have a pretty strong opinion on. Unfortunately, it's not one I can get into now. 'Tis the season, after all, and I have some time to volunteer; it's the only gift I can give these days, and one that seems more and more necessary and valuable the older I get.
Plus I was on voir dire on a civil matter, something which my answer on torts showed I have a pretty strong opinion on. Unfortunately, it's not one I can get into now. 'Tis the season, after all, and I have some time to volunteer; it's the only gift I can give these days, and one that seems more and more necessary and valuable the older I get.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Pomp and Circumstance
This morning was graduation, and if you've never witnessed 800+ Bachelor's degree seeking students simultaneously awarded their four years of blood, sweat and caffeine, it's ah, definitely something else, and certainly unforgettable.
And Happy Hanukkah, Jewish readers.
And Happy Hanukkah, Jewish readers.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
A lighter note
I was able to enjoy some roadside BBQ the other day. Dry weather plus Florida Maple equals one delicious pulled pork sandwich.
Alternative Dispute Resolution
It's cooler outside this morning than it has been. Now, last post I mentioned how I think people who talk about the weather have nothing better to talk about, so they arbitrarily pick something everyone knows, at least in a tangible sense: temperature.
Since making that observation, I've changed my mind a bit.
In fact, when I look back over my posts, the majority of them mention weather, which means I'm either self-loathing, or just an idiot. I'll let the internet decide.
I found a study awhile back that list the top 100 angriest cities in America. Florida's five major metros are in the top 12 (Here's a copy of what I think I read). The U.S. National Library of Medicine has defined a type of depression as Seasonal Affective Disorder ( or, amusingly enough, S.A.D.). There are all kinds of characters throughout literature whose moods correlate with the weather- Dostoevsky's Underground Man is biting and intense yet stricken with ennui, like the winter's of St. Petersberg; the absurd, apt and aware Jewish anti-hero Yossarian spends his tours of duty stationed on the island of Pianosa, where the temperature never seems to rise above 75 F or below 60 F (clearly a great temperature for paranoia and scheming); look at any one of the Dickensian backdrops, probably by and large to his sensationalism.
I'm not saying that the authors were intentionally shaping their character's psychology around the weather. But if I took the time, I think it would be an interesting research paper, with plenty of rich examples due to the mimesis and distortion of the natural world in art. But, I digress.
I was reading through a selection of Thoreau works last week, and though I didn't have the weather in mind, thinking back on it, his time at Walden Pond was a climatic experience, among many other things. After all, when in thought, it is wise to "simplify, simplify", and what can be more simple than the weather?
Sparing this space of anything too personal, I was embracing the Lord Byron and Thoreau ethos last week.
I don't think it's ironic to harbor a sharp disdain for institutions while relentlessly pursuing a life as a functioning member of one (I'm sure I've mentioned my public defender aspirations here before), but there is a strange and caustic resonance with the territory; if there are so many times now that I want to leave this mess of systemically cruel establishments, what's going to happen to me when I start interning with/working as a PD?
I'm about to get very lofty, so let me come in for a landing for a sec. It is a cornerstone of our society to ascribe labels to ourselves. Gangster. Middle-class. Lawyer. Celebrity. My problem is that: the willful submission of vacuous labels that literally strip each and everyone of us of our humanity. But it doesn't just stop with superficial signifiers.
Take something as palpable and visceral as pain. Physician's are trained not to trust patients diagnosis and literally objectify their pain into levels of "stabbing" or "burning", things divorced from the actual feeling but more tangible than a naturally resistant feeling (Elaine Scarry writes a beautiful piece on the destruction of language through pain and the political consequences of it called "The Body in Pain"), advocate groups hyperboleize and exploit real human emotion to achieve their goals (for better and worse: Murdoch's FOX News and Amnesty Intl Freedom Writers are two cogent examples), the legal system, particularly personal injury lawyers, are burdened with extricating the pain of a client from a unique set of circumstances and representing their trauma by objectifying their feelings. I see children fighting with their parents, endlessly inquiring as to "what the fuck have I done" or "this hurts me". I see them destroying themselves with drugs and slowly robbing the sole arbiters of unconditional acceptance in their lives of any ability to love their child. It's selfish. It's disgusting.
But it's not always their fault. And as much as I want to feel hatred for it, I can't. I don't know where my bleeding heart comes from, but it is very brittle sometimes. It's just so disheartening that in a world so relentlessly burdened with an array of interesting conflicts (I'll remind you that I don't see conflict as a negative thing), that people can be so cruel to each other. In a world where we have the opportunity to say "enough", we all too often forgo that privilege and allow systems perpetuate poverty. And malice. And control. And deceit. And hate.
And I'm writing about all of this now, because last week, in the humid and stale air from where I live, I could feel the temperature dropping and a proportionate conflict of 'crispness in the air v. damp, lingering exhaustive air' in my head, in the form of 'positive optimism v. pervading systemic problems'. My weather forecast wasn't gloomy, it wasn't dismal. It was worse; it was insolent. It was contemptuous. I wanted to burn the whole thing down, and watch each ember glow and fade. At least that way, I wouldn't have to wonder "how" any more.
But I can't. It's where I keep coming back to. It's not who I am. Those feelings are part of me, but they don't define me. I can't feel ashamed or guilty for having them, but I can try to use them for something constructive; like Viktor Frankl says, "Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time." Feeling what I felt provides me with a "why" things are the way they are, and having that can help me confront each and every variant of this discursive reality, in the end, with a smile. Even if it may be one of contempt.
Hillel put it best when he said "if I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'?
If not now, when?"
If I don't relentlessly pursue fairness and justice on behalf of someone who has layers and layers of institutional control stacked against them, who will?
That's what I love about each and every one of our flawed institutions. In spite of their shortcomings, they do provide you a forum to fight the good fight, however difficult or impossible that may seem.
That kept me from disappearing into the vast recesses of this country after I graduate next week. Something had to, and given my impending graduation, it may as well have been a couple works of fiction enfolded by overarching theories of Foucault and Althusser to remind me that I just may have learned something over the past four years.
Since making that observation, I've changed my mind a bit.
In fact, when I look back over my posts, the majority of them mention weather, which means I'm either self-loathing, or just an idiot. I'll let the internet decide.
I found a study awhile back that list the top 100 angriest cities in America. Florida's five major metros are in the top 12 (Here's a copy of what I think I read). The U.S. National Library of Medicine has defined a type of depression as Seasonal Affective Disorder ( or, amusingly enough, S.A.D.). There are all kinds of characters throughout literature whose moods correlate with the weather- Dostoevsky's Underground Man is biting and intense yet stricken with ennui, like the winter's of St. Petersberg; the absurd, apt and aware Jewish anti-hero Yossarian spends his tours of duty stationed on the island of Pianosa, where the temperature never seems to rise above 75 F or below 60 F (clearly a great temperature for paranoia and scheming); look at any one of the Dickensian backdrops, probably by and large to his sensationalism.
I'm not saying that the authors were intentionally shaping their character's psychology around the weather. But if I took the time, I think it would be an interesting research paper, with plenty of rich examples due to the mimesis and distortion of the natural world in art. But, I digress.
I was reading through a selection of Thoreau works last week, and though I didn't have the weather in mind, thinking back on it, his time at Walden Pond was a climatic experience, among many other things. After all, when in thought, it is wise to "simplify, simplify", and what can be more simple than the weather?
Sparing this space of anything too personal, I was embracing the Lord Byron and Thoreau ethos last week.
I don't think it's ironic to harbor a sharp disdain for institutions while relentlessly pursuing a life as a functioning member of one (I'm sure I've mentioned my public defender aspirations here before), but there is a strange and caustic resonance with the territory; if there are so many times now that I want to leave this mess of systemically cruel establishments, what's going to happen to me when I start interning with/working as a PD?
I'm about to get very lofty, so let me come in for a landing for a sec. It is a cornerstone of our society to ascribe labels to ourselves. Gangster. Middle-class. Lawyer. Celebrity. My problem is that: the willful submission of vacuous labels that literally strip each and everyone of us of our humanity. But it doesn't just stop with superficial signifiers.
Take something as palpable and visceral as pain. Physician's are trained not to trust patients diagnosis and literally objectify their pain into levels of "stabbing" or "burning", things divorced from the actual feeling but more tangible than a naturally resistant feeling (Elaine Scarry writes a beautiful piece on the destruction of language through pain and the political consequences of it called "The Body in Pain"), advocate groups hyperboleize and exploit real human emotion to achieve their goals (for better and worse: Murdoch's FOX News and Amnesty Intl Freedom Writers are two cogent examples), the legal system, particularly personal injury lawyers, are burdened with extricating the pain of a client from a unique set of circumstances and representing their trauma by objectifying their feelings. I see children fighting with their parents, endlessly inquiring as to "what the fuck have I done" or "this hurts me". I see them destroying themselves with drugs and slowly robbing the sole arbiters of unconditional acceptance in their lives of any ability to love their child. It's selfish. It's disgusting.
But it's not always their fault. And as much as I want to feel hatred for it, I can't. I don't know where my bleeding heart comes from, but it is very brittle sometimes. It's just so disheartening that in a world so relentlessly burdened with an array of interesting conflicts (I'll remind you that I don't see conflict as a negative thing), that people can be so cruel to each other. In a world where we have the opportunity to say "enough", we all too often forgo that privilege and allow systems perpetuate poverty. And malice. And control. And deceit. And hate.
And I'm writing about all of this now, because last week, in the humid and stale air from where I live, I could feel the temperature dropping and a proportionate conflict of 'crispness in the air v. damp, lingering exhaustive air' in my head, in the form of 'positive optimism v. pervading systemic problems'. My weather forecast wasn't gloomy, it wasn't dismal. It was worse; it was insolent. It was contemptuous. I wanted to burn the whole thing down, and watch each ember glow and fade. At least that way, I wouldn't have to wonder "how" any more.
But I can't. It's where I keep coming back to. It's not who I am. Those feelings are part of me, but they don't define me. I can't feel ashamed or guilty for having them, but I can try to use them for something constructive; like Viktor Frankl says, "Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time." Feeling what I felt provides me with a "why" things are the way they are, and having that can help me confront each and every variant of this discursive reality, in the end, with a smile. Even if it may be one of contempt.
Hillel put it best when he said "if I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'?
If not now, when?"
If I don't relentlessly pursue fairness and justice on behalf of someone who has layers and layers of institutional control stacked against them, who will?
That's what I love about each and every one of our flawed institutions. In spite of their shortcomings, they do provide you a forum to fight the good fight, however difficult or impossible that may seem.
That kept me from disappearing into the vast recesses of this country after I graduate next week. Something had to, and given my impending graduation, it may as well have been a couple works of fiction enfolded by overarching theories of Foucault and Althusser to remind me that I just may have learned something over the past four years.
Monday, October 19, 2009
"It seems like years..."
Well, today was the day.
Hold on, has it really been over a month without any action? But there's a good reason for that. I've been emailing a friend from high school things I would normally post on here, and she's been emailing me back things that have kept me wrapped up in our communique instead of the blogosphere. She's a 1L and understandably busy, so in the mean time I'll be back here.
Alright, so the LSAT is over and done with. Although I was prepping around a 168, my actual score was a bit lower than that. LSAC hit me with a RC-LR*-LR-LR-LG (* was my experimental, and coincidentally a section I thought I owned) combo, so I was pretty fried when it came to the games, which I felt the least confident in, my RC and LR being my sure things. When I checked over my answers, I was shocked to see an all-time low (19/27) in the RC section. The rest of my sections were solid if not a little better than expected, especially the LG, but I was banking on at least a 23+ in the RC. I'll chalk it up to first section jitters but wow...
I'm not hugely confident in my GPA and LSAT combination for the schools I'm applying to, with the exception of 1, but I have all of my applications out, feel like my PS' are strong, and even managed to pull out a diversity statement for one application. And all that considered, I'm opting out of re-testing in December. I think at this point it comes down to ego. When all is said and done, and $300+ dollars later, my top choices are out for review. IAs it stands, I'm gunning for instate tuition, but I have a California school in my sights. I'll need a little fiscal inspiration to head out west given the state of the nation and the salary of a public defender. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be overworked and underpaid than fall victim to the industry of the legal system, working at a legal boutique.
It's funny, but since Sept. 26th and now again lately, I've realized I never get nervous before tests or crucial projects or anything, but afterward I can't help but feel this fleeting anticipation. I guess they call that being 'in the zone'.
The weather lately has been fantastic, the best all year. I was talking to my math TA about my LSAT and my predictions about where I was applying. It turns out he used to live in the county in California where my application will be headed in a couple of weeks, and informed me if I was a fan of the weather today, that part of the state is suited perfectly for me. I'm a fan of the cold, and if not cold, at least neutral.
I always accuse people who talk about the weather as having nothing else to talk about ( sorry meteorologists, I appreciate you, but it is what it is), and I just used a paragraph, and now a sentence doing just that on a forum that was intended to be great, exploratory content.
Which means I've decided since this blogs inception this summer, I'll be shifting focus. This isn't entirely unrelated to removing myself from social networking sites, either. I understand the need for communication- I'm loud and unabashed in person, and the same is on the internet; why change?
Gotta cut this short, sorry to any readers for the radio silence. Til next time
Hold on, has it really been over a month without any action? But there's a good reason for that. I've been emailing a friend from high school things I would normally post on here, and she's been emailing me back things that have kept me wrapped up in our communique instead of the blogosphere. She's a 1L and understandably busy, so in the mean time I'll be back here.
Alright, so the LSAT is over and done with. Although I was prepping around a 168, my actual score was a bit lower than that. LSAC hit me with a RC-LR*-LR-LR-LG (* was my experimental, and coincidentally a section I thought I owned) combo, so I was pretty fried when it came to the games, which I felt the least confident in, my RC and LR being my sure things. When I checked over my answers, I was shocked to see an all-time low (19/27) in the RC section. The rest of my sections were solid if not a little better than expected, especially the LG, but I was banking on at least a 23+ in the RC. I'll chalk it up to first section jitters but wow...
I'm not hugely confident in my GPA and LSAT combination for the schools I'm applying to, with the exception of 1, but I have all of my applications out, feel like my PS' are strong, and even managed to pull out a diversity statement for one application. And all that considered, I'm opting out of re-testing in December. I think at this point it comes down to ego. When all is said and done, and $300+ dollars later, my top choices are out for review. IAs it stands, I'm gunning for instate tuition, but I have a California school in my sights. I'll need a little fiscal inspiration to head out west given the state of the nation and the salary of a public defender. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be overworked and underpaid than fall victim to the industry of the legal system, working at a legal boutique.
It's funny, but since Sept. 26th and now again lately, I've realized I never get nervous before tests or crucial projects or anything, but afterward I can't help but feel this fleeting anticipation. I guess they call that being 'in the zone'.
The weather lately has been fantastic, the best all year. I was talking to my math TA about my LSAT and my predictions about where I was applying. It turns out he used to live in the county in California where my application will be headed in a couple of weeks, and informed me if I was a fan of the weather today, that part of the state is suited perfectly for me. I'm a fan of the cold, and if not cold, at least neutral.
I always accuse people who talk about the weather as having nothing else to talk about ( sorry meteorologists, I appreciate you, but it is what it is), and I just used a paragraph, and now a sentence doing just that on a forum that was intended to be great, exploratory content.
Which means I've decided since this blogs inception this summer, I'll be shifting focus. This isn't entirely unrelated to removing myself from social networking sites, either. I understand the need for communication- I'm loud and unabashed in person, and the same is on the internet; why change?
Gotta cut this short, sorry to any readers for the radio silence. Til next time
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