Category Archives: 2L Spring Summaries

BWE 11: So not slacking

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Oh, I am a terrible hypocrite!

I encourage the 1Ls to blog, especially when they are busy. “The busy times are when it is most important to blog!” I say. “You’ll thank yourself for writing!”

So of course I don’t condescend to blog when I get busy. Do as I say, not as I do right? I feel like a governor…

Luckily the free-for-all that is “discussion time” in my family law class is the perfect time to blog! I am so not slacking at this…

So, what happened last week?

Well, the most exciting thing about last week was the heat! I think it got to 80 degrees one day, but maybe I’m exaggerating… maybe it was 90 degrees, or 100…

Regardless, it was warm, and the grass came out:

The undergrads now lounge-about outside, and the scandalous daisy dukes have arrived. Hopefully this also means an end to the leggings epidemic that hit campus this winter! (Leggings are still not pants by the way…)

The great thaw is also exciting because Minnesotan drivers don’t do well with melting snow:
Car crash
Car crash
I’ve seen more car wrecks in the past few weeks than during the worst snowfall. Although this may have something to do with the amount of cars hidden in snow-filled ditches…I think the situation will improve now that the roads are dry and ice-free, but I’m probably wrong.

Other than the car wrecks and heat, last week was also the week of the work-out. I made to the gym about 4 times and constantly walked the dogs around the lakes.

My apartment building has also resumed its craziness. There are constantly drunks lounging in the stairway, people passed out in the hallway, mystery smells, and one of my neighbors must have given up walking her dog because there are little nuggets of joy waiting for me on the back stairs most mornings. Delicious.

And I would be remiss for not mentioning the boyfriend, but it’s hard to describe a new relationship without a fatty serving of cheese, so, let’s just say he’s so smoking hot that sometimes he looks like his pants caught fire:
Pants on fire
That’s from Pechmans recreational fire…and no, Judd didn’t actually catch fire… I think…

So…my family law class has graduated to a new level of ridiculous. Some of my classmates think it is appropriate to tell a 100-person room of their peers the intimate details of their parents’ “loveless marriage” and the resulting emotional issues they now face.

I blame this overshare on the professor, who solicited it. The looks of disgust are hilarious…but this does not make it easy to focus on blogging.

Damn it class! You’re getting in the way of my writing time! Ugh. Luckily this disaster is ending for today, and I will keep with my blogging duties from now on…and provide more coherent “best week ever” posts…at least more coherent than this…possibly, maybe…

BWE 10: My week in pictures

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What a busy, hilarious week. There is too much to write about, so I am settling for pictures and captions. This is choppy, but appropriate given the state of things…

This week featured a massive iced-tea spill at the office. Amber is cackling as I run to fetch napkins:
Thomson Reuters
That day I took the long route to work from Judd’s house just to see the Cathedral of Saint Paul:
St. Paul Cathedral
I spent the rest of Saturday at work so today I held myself hostage on campus until I finished my homework. I have never done so much tax law reading in my life. I started my epic study-day at the purple onion cafe:
Purple Onion Cafe
I was so thrilled that “homeless guy who reads aloud to himself” didn’t bother me this time! I was good about avoiding eye contact and glaring at my tax book…

I also decided that if I donate to the law school I will require that my donation be used to give the law school an entrance like this:
U Minnesota
Swank! The other side of campus gets all of nice buildings…

I take the dogs on walks around the nice-side of campus all the time. And no, I haven’t been successful yet in getting Judd to take the Rottweiler:
Juddson
…maybe I should throw in some fava beans and a nice chianti…

One of the places I visited on the nice-side of campus was the Walter Library. Behold:
Walter Library
Sigh. The undergrads have all the nice facilities… I have never taken a picture of the law school library because you’d scream.

One of my undergraduate bosses told me that I should have attended graduation because it would have given me a sense of closure. Today I realized he was right. My 1L year felt like a continuation of college in some ways, but today I looked at the undergrads and thought, “Who are these awkward, smelly people and how the hell was I ever one of them?”

I think a semester in a frat house and some boomkats was warranted after three years as a resident assistant at the University of Miami, but now I live alone in a nice (albeit ghettotastic) apartment building and I have a reliable car, a job, an adoring (and not yet freaked out) boyfriend, and two dogs, including this one:

Rottweiler
After I almost hawked her to a classmate at the Lake of the Isles, Gertrude said “Oh, wait, this is supposed to be a run? I’ll give you a run fool!” And she wore me out. I think it was part ‘earning her keep’ and partially revenge for me trying to pass her off on someone else.

But seriously, does anyone want a Rottweiler or a bullmastiff? They are making me batty…
Dennis Jansen

Spring break

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Spring break was exhausting.

The week was strewn with awkward middle-of-the-day appointments and my entire salary went to the vet.

I come home from work on Saturday night to find my apartment covered in scat and blood.

Apparently stress caused the Rottweiler to have a bacterial imbalance, and erm, yeah. Blood. Everywhere. It was disgusting.

I was on the phone with Madre Jansen while scrubbing the blood from the floor:

Me: “Ugh.”
Madre Jansen: “What’s wrong grasshopper?”
Me: “I’m scrubbing blood from the floor. The Rottweiler is having issues again. I’m going to vet.”
Madre Jansen: “This is getting expensive. Maybe you should give the dog back to the humane society.”
Me: “Ugh. We’ll see. I still want to make her into a handbag.”
Madre Jansen: “Maybe she’s on her period and – excuse my language – just a sloppy bitch.”

I laughed so hard that I almost dropped my phone in the blood.
Mom cursing = hilarity every time.

It was my third vet trip within a week. Harley did a good impression of my face when I saw the bill:
Ordway Theater

After wasting my entire salary at the vet, Judd and I went to a birthday party for one of his lesbian friends. The party had about 10 girls, cake, beer, an old dog, and the obligatory cat.

Today is Judd’s birthday. We had brunch at Lush, which is one of my favorite bars despite the sperm lamps:

Lush Minneapolis
We couldn’t resist attacking Judd with silly string outside, and I stole his credit card to pay my vet bill:
Lush Minneapolis
Lush Minneapolis
Aside from work, the vet, and the birthdays, we also got some theater time in with the lovely Jay and Josh.

We saw August: Osage County at St. Paul’s Ordway Theater.

I know this is odd, but I fell in love with the Ordway’s lamps. Behold:
Bullmastiff
The play was four hours long but felt like a hilarious, extended Jerry Springer episode.

The last major thing that happened this week was that I quit my clerkship in Anoka.
anoka
Anoka is 40 miles away from my job in Eagan. I am working in Eagan full time during the summer and a daily 80-mile round-trip commute is unrealistic.

My time at the public defender’s was a worthwhile experience, but this is supposed to be “the semester that I get my shit together.”

“Getting things together” hasn’t happened yet because I spend Thursdays and Fridays running around the metro with my 80-mile commute, work all of Saturday, and by Sunday I am so exhausted that I can barely finish the reading for my compressed 3-day school week.

I did the overloaded-schedule-thing last semester. I need to spend this semester preparing for my career as a barista-bartender-novelist-fitness trainer, and I now have time to do that…after I finish my tax law reading of course.