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January 31st, 2010 Note: Best Week Ever (BWE) posts are a summary of the prior week.
This week had a surreal vacationy feel. It was like spring-break minus the nice weather.There was Trivia, yarking drag queens, dancing, and intense pool tournaments.
On Friday, I somehow found myself at a house party in the exurbs. There were about 8 people, but I only knew Jack. After an unsuccessful game of Categories, Jack’s friends separated into small groups and started bickering.
It was a chaotic scene that felt like an episode of The Real World because the partygoers kept interrupting their trash talk to give me back story as if I was one of the confessionals.
The hostess and her boyfriend fought mostly because he didn’t like her tone, which she couldn’t control because she was drunk. They were too crunk for Jesus to communicate properly, so there was a lot of running around to separate rooms, screaming, and dramatics.
One guy kept rattling on about his most recent trip to jail, and another girl spent a hour telling me an epic story about her evil Russian stepmother. The girl’s stepmother stories apparently enraged one of the partygoers who started mumbling dark threats and eventually went up to the girl and shouted, “NO ONE LIKES YOU! WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE? NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE! YOU’RE A BITCH!”
This happened as she stood near the hostess’s awkward apartment-mate, who spent most of the evening by himself playing shoot-em-up video games. The gamer and I exchanged a look like “oh snap, thank god we aren’t involved in this….”
Aside from my social activities and Real World cameos, I also worked on my days off from school.
Apparently this is what I look like when I get a securities regulation case at work:
I really like my job, but I hope that if they hire me after graduation that my coworkers won’t wear hot pink skinny pants. Amber was so shocked by the pepto bismol pants on Friday that she sent me an emergency text. It was glorious.
I spent most of my non-working time this weekend cleaning and doing homework. Today I went to Dunn Brothers to study for corporate tax, but I failed to notice that there were no open seats until after I ordered my coffee. So I chugged the coffee and went to the Purple Onion, which is closer to campus.
The cafes immediately surrounding campus aren’t busy at the beginning of the semester since the undergrads are still doing more drinking than reading. They complete the transition from bars to books about a week before finals, so there is room for me for majority of the semester.
The last major thing that happened this week was the end of the relationship.
The cattle call started once my “single” status hit people’s facebook streams – dozens1 of casual friends who barely kept in touch while I had a boyfriend are suddenly coming out of the woodwork and are desperate to “hang out.”
I am like the 10-year old girl who is suddenly popular because she is the first one in her class to use a training bra. I feel suspicious and harassed essentially for the reasons stated in this post.
Over the coming weeks I will weed out the true friends from the fair-weather suitors. We’ll see how that goes.
1 Literally, dozens. My inbox is full. You’d think Beyonce was on auction or something…
January 31st, 2010 Last night I went to the softball fundraiser at The Eagle. The drag queens were hilarious, but one was so drunk that she had to take emergency “powder room” breaks to vomit. We stay classy in Minneapolis…
Doesn’t Buffy look just like Suze Orman?
The boyfriend also broke things off last night.1 We talked by the bar as a drag queen darted behind us to throw up in the bathroom. The timing was great.
It was one of those moments where I felt like an actor in someone else’s movie. All that was missing was “Done with you” slowly fading in and the start of the credits.
Actually, if I was directing, Adele’s “Tired” would come on and I would perform it Bollywood style with a pack of yarking drag queens in the background. That would be awesome.
1 The breakup was amicable and unsurprising. My corporate and international tax books are currently battling as to which class gets to be my rebound.
January 30th, 2010 Driving behind this monstrosity felt like being cast in a Final Destination movie.
I don’t know what’s going on…
I used to have an afro in high school, but I relaxed it after being pulled over and harassed my police too many times. I sometimes wonder how police officers can find the time to harass afro-ed teenagers and fail to pull over trucks like this (or all those people driving around with their side mirrors dangling by a string…) I mean this stacking has to be some sort of violation right?
Maybe I’ll strap my law books to the top of my car and find out…
January 28th, 2010 I approached the law school information desk trying desperately not to be ”twitchy high-strung law student pestering about his grades”…but…
Me: “Hi, (twitches) I was here last week about my Conlaw II grade…and I was wondering (twitch) what the status on that was…”
Infodesk guy: “Hm. I thought those were in last week. Let me call Registrarman.”
Me (still twitching, and sweating): “Thank you.”
Five minutes later, Registrarman comes out.
Registrarman: “The Conlaw grades were in over a week ago. They should be up.”
Me: “But my grade isn’t up.”
Registrarman: “That’s odd. I posted all of the Conlaw I grades last week…”
Me: “Oh, nono, but I am in Conlaw II!”
Registrarman: “OH! That’s a different course!”
Me (twitch): “Yes. It is. Sorry, I don’t want to be a pest, but, (twitch) I have had all of my other grades for a while, and this the ONLY grade I’m waiting on and…so…um like US Americans and such as…”
Registrarman: “Let me go check that one.”
He disappears for 5 more minutes.
Registrarman: “Your professor has until February 1st to turn the Conlaw II grades in. She’s not late yet.”
Me (twitching, sweating, my deoderant breaking down…): “Oh…okay…thank you…”
I then scury off awkwardly, trying not to stumble as Registrarman cackles evilly. Womp.
January 27th, 2010 Today was our first and only moot court meeting of the semester. The attorney-instructor whisked through this semester’s requirements, circulated some sign-up sheets, and then asked if we had any questions.
Jill looked around, and then said,
Jill: “I have absolutely no idea what is going on.”
After a collective nervous laugh, the attorney-instructor re-explained how the course works:
- Moot court is a February-only class this semester.
- We have to revise our appellate brief and do three oral arguments, including an off-brief argument.
- The course is over on February 22nd.
Basically, we have an oral argument each week except for the week our brief is due. And we are on a curve, with 9 students with no objective way to evaluate our performance.
Although I had a major “wtf” moment while sitting in the class, the requirements don’t seem so awful now. Revising a moot court brief is not as terrible as writing it, and the oral arguments aren’t burdensome if I properly schedule the arguments.
The trick to moot court (and anything in law school really) is to do the work instead of procrastinating or bitching about it. We’ll see how I do.
January 27th, 2010 The attendance at Trivia was sparse last night. We still won with our three-person team since Randy happened to know 90% of the answers.
Last night was special because of our new Trivia host: Amy.
This is totally a “Paula was okay but Ellen is so much better” situation.
This is Jake, taking pictures on his phone:
He’s really good about taking pictures… posting them is another matter.
And this is Joel’s standard look. He calls it “pondering” but everyone else calls it “bored and unengaged.”
The real message is: “Bitch, my hat is fly. I cannot be bothered.”
Continue reading “Trivia, lean and mean” »
January 26th, 2010 Yesterday Joel and I went shopping for toilet seat covers.
Watching Joel ponder the choices was hilarious: white or off-white? Round or oval? Plastic or ceramic? The differences in the potty-seat covers were negligible, but Joel and the Home Depot attendant acted as if Joel was picking something to wear on the red carpet.
I did the same thing last year with Jamie, except for last year we shopped for toilets and this year I’m shopping for toilet seat covers. At this rate my next trip to home depot will be for a plunger or maybe even a toilet brush!! These are wild times people…
Joel and I ran several other errands including a trip past Punch Pizza. Joel had a $6-off coupon, but so did the 100 lined up on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
I kept driving because I refuse to wait outside in line for anything in freezing temperatures unless it involves getting my car out of an impound lot or free Beyonce tickets. And unless Beyonce was breaking it down in the Pizzeria, I didn’t miss much. Next time Punch!
January 26th, 2010 I am sitting in the e-commons1 between my international and corporate tax classes. I am halfway through the reading for my real estate seminar when this girl walks in and sits at my table.
She’s wearing a lime green Aéropostale jumpsuit with uggs, and is soaked (SOAKED!) in perfume. People around us look up. Some cough. I stifle a wretch.
My first impulse was to jump up and scream, “HARK! SHE’S TRYING TO KILL US ALL! MUSTARD GAS ATTACK! MUSTARD GAS ATTACK! BOO HAK-HAK-HAK!!” and then run out of the room with my arms flailing, …but that never goes well so I just sat there and tried to not vomit.
Later, as I walked to class, I realized that Rainbow Brite’s perfume was so strong that I now smelled like it. I was unamused.
Before I could get too hysterical about the involuntary perfuming, I ran into Sideshow Bob, the resident crazy-homeless person in the Westbank skyway. Bob sits around the skyway and heckles people or reads scripture. It is hard to focus on an involuntary perfuming when a toothless man is shouting the good-word in the hallway.
Sideshow Bob was still looming around the skyway’s convenience store when I returned later in the afternoon. But this time he found a chair and started chanting in Spanish. Si, si!
I think the key to school etiquette is not being distracting. I don’t want to be nasally assaulted by your cologne, harassed by your screaming of scripture, interrupted by your library phone calls, or bored by your in-class tangents. And this applies to the random homeless people, scantily clad undergrads, and yes, even law students.
1 The e-commons (essentials market commons) is a dimly lit cafeteria space in the westbank skyway. It is essentially a bunch of tables in a basement room where people study between classes.
January 25th, 2010 Minneapolis is one huge ice rink.
This morning I fell while walking the dogs down the hill. I fell on my hip and then crashed into the dogs like a human bowling ball. Yelping and shouting ensued. I then sat on the ground laughing like an idiot while the dogs looked at me like, “Why in the hell did you do that!?”
The skyway at school was soaked from people’s boots. I almost had a repeat of this morning’s fall and slipped 4 times in 40 seconds. I expect a tuition credit when I break my ankle.
January 24th, 2010 Spring semester started, I think?
It was a strange week. I worked through Monday, and school started on Tuesday.
This week I had family law, corporate tax, advanced estate planning, and a housing clinic. I dropped the clinic before the end of the first session because it sounded like a miserable time-suck. I did that “oh we’ll see how this works out” bit last semester and I’m over it. I know what I want in a class and will drop accordingly.1
Law school has definitely lost its new car smell; I am bored and annoyed. Does Jack have to raise his hand in every class? Where is my Conlaw II grade? And why is it okay for people to go barefoot in school? If you can’t roll into a McDonald’s barefoot then it shouldn’t be acceptable at a professional school – just saying…
I don’t exactly march around school shooting bitchy looks at people, but I am no longer the chipper, lingering 1L.
Things outside of school are vastly more interesting. The dogs keep me busy and amused at home when I’m not skipping off to work or being social. The “being social” bit this week included Trivia night at Innuendo, the Colbie Caillat/Uncle Kracker concert and the Loring Pasta bar with Joel, Avatar with Eric, and random bar-club hilarity that included black-eyes and boyish lesbian DJs.
So of course by Friday I was run-down and sick, popped enough cold and allergy medication to offend my liver, and woke up early enough on Saturday to start my 10-hour workday at 5:30am.
By Saturday night I felt better so I hosted a movie night at my place featuring Revolutionary Road, Humpday, State of Play, and red stripe.
Today I worked, went to Wal-Mart, did laundry, cooked for the week, and finally combated the hostile occupation of grime on my stove. I smell like vinegar and Lysol…which isn’t a terrible way to end the first week of spring semester.
1I added International Tax Law to replace the credits lost by the clinic. It’s at 8:30am on Mondays and Tuesdays, but it means that I have Thursday and Friday off from school. It isn’t truly a 4-day weekend because I am working, but I prefer to do my 20 hours over a 4-day work week than a 2 day weekend.
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